Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar

by Colleen McCullough

  Sulla’s temper tantrums were terrible, endless hours of screaming and ranting during which he had to be restrained from doing harm to all who strayed across his path, from the children he used as playthings for his friends to the old women who did most of the laundering and cleaning up; as he kept a company of his Sullani always by him, those who did restrain him understood full well that they imperiled themselves.

  “He cannot be allowed to kill people!” cried Metrobius.

  “Oh, I wish he’d reconcile himself to what’s happening!” said Valeria, weeping.

  “You’re not well yourself, lady.”

  An imprudent thing to say in a kind voice; out tumbled the story of the pregnancy, and Metrobius too remembered.

  “Who knows?’’ he laughed, delighted, “I might still produce a child! The chance is one in four.”

  “Five.”

  “Four, Valeria. The child cannot be Sulla’s.”

  “He’ll kill me!”

  “Take each day as it comes and say nothing to Sulla,” the actor said firmly. “The future is impenetrable.”

  Shortly after this Sulla developed a pain in the region of his liver that gave him no peace. Up and down the long expanse of the atrium he shuffled day and night, unable to sit, unable to lie, unable to rest. His sole comfort was the white marble bath near his room, in which he would float until the whole cycle began again with the pacing, pacing, pacing, up and down the atrium. He whinged and whimpered, would get himself to the wall and have to be dissuaded from beating his head against it, so great was his torment.

  “The silly fellow who empties his chamber pot started to spread a story that Lucius Cornelius is being eaten up by worms,” said Tuccius the doctor to Metrobius and Valeria, his face a study in contempt. “Honestly, the ignorance of most people about the way bodies work and what constitutes a disease almost drives me to the wineskin! Until this pain began, Lucius Cornelius availed himself of the latrine. But now he’s forced to use a chamber pot, and its contents are busy with worms. Do you think I can convince the servants that worms are natural, that everyone has them, that they live inside our bowels in a lifelong companionship? No!”

  “The worms don’t eat?” whispered Valeria, chalk—white.

  “Only what we have already eaten,” said Tuccius. “No doubt the next time I visit Rome, I’ll hear the story there too. Servants are the most efficient gossips in the world.”

  “I think you’ve relieved my mind,” said Metrobius.

  “I do not intend to, only to disabuse you of servants’ tales should you hear them. The reality is serious enough. His urine,” Lucius Tuccius went on, “tastes sweeter than honey, and his skin smells of ripe apples.”

  Metrobius grimaced. “You actually tasted his urine?”

  “I did, but only after I performed an old trick that was shown to me by a wisewoman when I was a child. I put some of his urine in a dish outside, and every kind of insect swarmed to drink it. Lucius Cornelius is pissing concentrated honey.”

  “And losing weight almost visibly,” said Metrobius.

  Valeria gasped, gagged. “Is he dying?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Lucius Tuccius. “Besides the honey—I do not know what that means save that it is mortal—his liver is diseased. Too much wine.”

  The dark eyes glistened with tears; Metrobius winked them away. His lip quivered, he sighed. “It is to be expected.”

  “What will we do?” asked the wife.

  “Just see it out, lady.” Together they watched Lucius Tuccius patter away to deal with the patient. Then Metrobius said sad words in a voice which held no trace of sadness. “So many years I have loved him. Once a very long time ago I begged him to keep me with him, even though it would have meant I exchanged a comfortable life for a hard one. He declined.”

  “He loved you too much,” said Valeria sentimentally.

  “No! He was in love with the idea of his patrician birth. He knew where he was going, and where he was going mattered more than I did by far.” He turned to look down into her face, brows up. “Haven’t you yet realized that love always means different things to different people, and that love given is not always returned in like measure? I have never blamed him. How could I when I am not inside his skin? And at the last, having sent me away so many times, he acknowledged me before his colleagues. ‘My boy!’ I would endure it all again to hear him say those words to men like Vatia and Lepidus.”

  “He won’t see my child.”

  “I doubt he’ll see you increase, lady.”

  The dreadful bout of pain passed away, to be succeeded by a fresh crotchet. This was the financial plight of the city of Puteoli. Not very far from Misenum, Puteoli was dominated by the family Granius, who for generations had been its bankers and shipping magnates, and who considered themselves its owners. Unaware of the magnitude of Sulla’s excesses—let alone his many illnesses—one of the city officials came begging an audience. His complaint, the message he gave the steward said, was that a Quintus Granius owed the town treasury a vast sum of money but refused to pay it, and could Sulla help?

  No worse name than Granius could have sounded in Sulla’s ears, unless it were Gaius Marius. And indeed there were close ties of blood and marriage between the Marii and Gratidii and Tullii of Arpinum and the Granii of Puteoli; Gaius Marius’s first wife had been a Grania. For this reason several Granii had found themselves proscribed, and those Granii who were not proscribed kept very still in case Sulla remembered their existence. Among the lucky escapees was this Quintus Granius. Who now found himself taken into custody by a troop of Sullani, and haled before Sulla in his villa at Misenum.

  “I do not owe these sums,” said Quintus Granius sturdily, his whole stance proclaiming that he would not be budged.

  Seated on a curule chair, Sulla in toga praetexta and full Roman majesty glared. “You will do as the magistrates of Puteoli direct! You will pay!” he said.

  “No I will not pay! Let Puteoli prosecute me in a court of law and test their case as it must be tested,” said Quintus Granius.

  “Pay, Granius!”

  “No!”

  That uncertain temper, shredded as easily these days as a dandelion airball, disintegrated. Sulla came to his feet shaking with rage, both hands bunched into fists. “Pay, Granius, or I will have you strangled here and now!”

  “You may have been Dictator of Rome,” said Quintus Granius contemptuously, “but these days you have no more authority to order me to do anything than I have to order you! Go back to your carousing and leave Puteoli to sort out its own messes!”

  Sulla’s mouth opened to scream the command that Granius be strangled, but no sound came out; a wave of faintness and horrible nausea assailed him, he reeled a little. Righting himself cost him dear, but he managed it, and his eyes turned to the captain of the waiting Sullani. “Strangle this fellow!” he whispered.

  Before the captain could move, Sulla’s mouth opened again. A great gout of blood came flying out of it to land in far—flung splatters many feet from where Sulla stood making a cacophony of ghastly noises, the last of the blood dripping down his snowy folded front. Then the next wave took hold of him, he retched hideously and puked another dark red fountain, sinking slowly to his knees as men ran in all directions crying out in horror—all directions, that is, save toward Sulla, whom they were convinced was being eaten up by worms.

  Within moments Lucius Tuccius was there, and Metrobius, and a white—faced Valeria. Sulla lay in terrible straits still vomiting blood while his lover held his head and his wife crouched in a fever of trembling, not knowing what to do. A barked command from Tuccius and servants brought armloads of towels, eyes distended as they took in the condition of the room and the worse condition of their master, choking and retching, trying to speak, both hands fastened like a vise upon Metrobius’s blood—covered arm.

  Forgotten, Quintus Granius stayed no longer. While the Sullani huddled terrified and their captain tried to get some spirit into them, the banke
r from Puteoli walked out of the room, out of the house, down the path to where his horse still stood. He mounted, turned its head, and rode away.

  Much time went by before Sulla ceased his awful activity, before he could be lifted from the floor and carried, a surprisingly light weight, away from the blood—ruined room in the arms of Metrobius. The Sullani fled too, leaving the shaken servants to make order out of a dreadful chaos.

  The worst of it, Sulla found—for he was quite conscious and aware of what was happening—was that the blood kept trying to choke him; it welled up his gullet constantly, even when he was not retching. Appalling! Terrifying! In a frenzy of fear and helplessness he clung to Metrobius as to a chunk of cork in the midst of the sea, his eyes staring up into that dark beloved face with desperate intensity and so much anguished appeal, all he had left to communicate with while the tide of blood kept on rising out of him. On the periphery of his vision he could see Valeria’s white frightened skin in which the blue of her eyes was so vivid it was startling, and the set features of his doctor.

  Is this dying? he asked himself, and knew that it was. But I don’t want to die this way! Not spewing and airless, soiled and incapable of disciplining my unruly body to get the business over and done with in admirable control and a decent meed of Roman dignity. I was the uncrowned King of Rome. I was crowned with the grass of Nola. I was the greatest man between the Rivers of Ocean and Indus. Let my dying be worthy of all these things! Let it not be a nightmare of blood, speechlessness, fear!

  He thought of Julilla, who had died alone in a welter of blood. And of Nicopolis, who had died with less blood but more agony. And of Clitumna, who had died with broken neck and broken bones. Metellus Numidicus, scarlet in the face and choking—I did not know how awful that is! Dalmatica, crying out his name in Juno Sospita. His son, the light of his life, Julilla’s boy who had meant more to him than anyone else ever, ever, ever… He too had died an airless death.

  I am afraid. So afraid! I never thought I would be. It is inevitable, it cannot be avoided, it is over soon enough, and I will never see or hear or feel or think again. I will be no one. Nothing. There is no pain in that fate. It is the fate of a dreamless ignorance. It is eternal sleep. I, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who was the uncrowned King of Rome yet crowned with the grass of Nola, will cease to be except in the minds of men. For that is the only immortality, to be remembered in the world of the living. I had almost finished my memoirs. Only one more little book left to write. More than enough for future historians to judge me. And more than enough to kill Gaius Marius for all of time. He did not live to write his memoirs. I did. So I will win. I have won! And of all my victories, victory over Gaius Marius means the most to me.

  For perhaps an hour the bleeding continued remorselessly, made Sulla suffer horribly; but then it went away, and he could rest more easily. Consciousness clung, he was able to look upon Metrobius and Valeria and Lucius Tuccius with a clarity of vision he had not enjoyed in many moons, as if at the last this greatest of senses was given back to him to mirror his own going in the faces he knew best. He managed to speak.

  “My will. Send for Lucullus, he must read it after I am dead. He is my executor and the guardian of my children.”

  “I have already sent for him, Lucius Cornelius,” said the Greek actor softly.

  “Have I given you enough, Metrobius?”

  “Always, Lucius Cornelius.”

  “I do not know what love is. Aurelia used to say that I knew it but did not perceive my knowledge. I am not so sure. I dreamed the other night of Julilla and our son. He came to me and begged me to join his mother. I should have known then. I didn’t. I just wept. Him, I did love. More than I loved myself. Oh, how I have missed him!”

  “That is about to be healed, dear Lucius Cornelius.”

  “One reason to look forward to death, then.”

  “Is there anything you want?”

  “Only peace. A sense of… Fulfillment.”

  “You are fulfilled.”

  “My body.”

  “Your body, Lucius Cornelius?”

  “The Cornelians are inhumed. But not me, Metrobius. It is in my will, but you must assure Lucullus I mean it. If my body is laid in a tomb, some speck of Gaius Marius’s ashes might come and rest upon it. I threw them away. I ought not to have done that. Who knows where they lurk, waiting to defile me? They went floating down the Anio, I saw them smother the eddies like powdered cobwebs. But a wind came, and the unwetted bits on top flew away. So I cannot be sure. I must be burned. You will tell Lucullus that I meant it, that I must be burned and my ashes gathered beneath a tight canopy to shut out the air, and then sealed with wax inside a jar where Gaius Marius cannot get at them. I will be the only Cornelian to be burned.”

  “It will be done, I promise.”

  “Burn me, Metrobius! Make Lucullus burn me!”

  “I will, Lucius Cornelius. I will.”

  “I wish I knew what love was!”

  “But you do, of course you do! Love made you deny your nature and give yourself to Rome.”

  “Is that love? It cannot be. Dry as dust. Dry as my ashes. The only Cornelian to be burned, not buried.”

  The engorged, ruptured blood vessels at the bottom of his gullet had not done with bleeding; a fresh spate of vomiting gore assailed Sulla soon after, and lasted for many hours with little let. He was sinking, having lost over half his life—force, and the lucid intervals within his mind dwindled. Over and over when he was able he begged Metrobius to make sure no atom of Gaius Marius could ever touch his own remains, and then would ask what love was, and why he didn’t know it.

  Lucullus arrived in time to see him die, though no speech had Sulla left, nor even any awareness. The strange bleached eyes with the outer ring of darkness and the black, black pupils had quite lost their usual menace, just looked washed out and overcome with weariness. His breathing had become too shallow to detect by all save a mirror held to his lips, and the white skin could look no whiter because of loss of blood than it normally did. But the mulberry—colored scar tissue blazed, the hairless scalp had lost tension and was wrinkled like a wind—buffeted sea, and the mouth lay sagging against the bones of jaw and chin. Then a change came over the eyes; the pupils began to expand, to blot out the irises and join up the outer edges of darkness. Sulla’s light went out, the watchers saw it go, and stared in disbelief at the sheen of gold spread across his wide—open eyes.

  Lucius Tuccius leaned over and pushed down the lids and Metrobius put the coins upon them to keep them closed, while Lucullus slid the single denarius inside Sulla’s mouth to pay for Charon’s boat ride.

  “He died hard,” said Lucullus, rigidly controlled.

  Metrobius wept. “Everything came hard to Lucius Cornelius. To have died easily would not have been fitting.”

  “I will escort his body to Rome for a State funeral.”

  “He would want that. As long as he is cremated.”

  “He will be cremated.”

  Numbed with grief, Metrobius crept away after that to find Valeria, who had not proven strong enough to wait for the end.

  “It is all over,” he said.

  “I did love him,” she said, small—voiced. “I know all Rome thought I married him for convenience, to see him dower my family with honors. But he was a great man and he was very good to me. I loved him, Metrobius! I did truly love him!”

  “I believe you,” Metrobius said, sat down near her and took her hand, began to stroke it absently.

  “What will you do now?” she asked.

  Roused from his reverie, he looked down at her hand, fine and white and long—fingered. Not unlike Sulla’s hand. Well, they were both patrician Romans. He said, “I will go away.”

  “After the funeral?”

  “No, I can’t attend that. Can you imagine Lucullus’s face if I turned up among the chief mourners?”

  “But Lucullus knows what you meant to Lucius Cornelius! He knows! No one better!”

 
“This will be a State funeral, Valeria. Nothing can be allowed to diminish its dignity, least of all a Greek actor with a well-used arse.” That came out sounding bitter; then Metrobius shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t think Lucius Cornelius would like me there. As for Lucullus, he’s a great aristocrat. What went on here in Misenum permitted him to indulge some of his own less admirable impulses. He likes to deflower children.” The dark face looked suddenly sick. “At least Sulla’s vices were the usual ones! He condoned it in Lucullus, but he didn’t do it himself.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Cyrenaica. The golden backwater of the world.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. After Lucullus has started Sulla on his last journey and the house is quiet.”

  “How do you get to Cyrenaica?”

  “From Puteoli. It’s spring. There will be ships going to Africa, to Hadrumetum. From there I’ll hire my own transport.”

  “Can you afford to?”

  “Oh, yes. Sulla could leave me nothing in his will, but he gave me more than enough in life. He was odd, you know. A miser except to those he loved. That’s the saddest thing of all, that even at the end he doubted his capacity to love.” He lifted his gaze from her hand to her face, his eyes shadowing as certain thoughts began to swim in the mind they reflected. “And you, Valeria? What about you?”

  “I must go back to Rome. After the funeral I will return to my brother’s house.”

  “That,” said Metrobius, “may not be a good idea. I have a better one.”

  The drowned blue eyes were innocent of guile; she looked at him in genuine bewilderment. “What?”

  “Come to Cyrenaica with me. Have your child and call me its father. Whichever one of us quickened you—Lucullus, Sorex, Roscius or I—makes no difference to me. It has occurred to me that Lucullus was one of the four of us and he knows as well as I do that Sulla could not have been your child’s father. I think Rome spells disaster for you, Valeria. Lucullus will denounce you. It is a way of discrediting you. Don’t forget that alone among Lucullus’s equals in birth, you can indict him for practices his colleagues would condemn.”