“Who is it?”
“I would have given you his name, dominus, if I knew it,” said the steward stiffly. “The caller preferred to charge me with a message for you. ‘Scylax sends greetings.’ “
Sulla’s face cleared like a breath from the surface of a polished mirror; a delighted smile dawned. One of the old gang! One of the mimes, the comedians, the actors he used to know! Oh, terrific! This nincompoop steward Julilla had bought wouldn’t know, of course he wouldn’t know. Clitumna’s slaves weren’t good enough for Julilla. “Well, bring him in!”
He would have known who it was anywhere, anytime.
And yet—how much he had changed! From boy into man.
“Metrobius,” Sulla said, getting to his feet, his eyes flicking to the door automatically to make sure it was shut. It was. The windows were not shut, but they didn’t matter, for there was an ironclad rule in Sulla’s house: that no one was ever to stand where they could see into Sulla’s study through the colonnade windows.
He must be twenty-two now, thought Sulla. Quite tall for a Greek. The long mane of black curls had been barbered neatly into a manly cap, and where the skin of his cheeks and chin had once been milky-smooth, now it displayed the blue shadow of a heavy beard kept closely shaven. He still had a profile like a Praxiteles Apollo, and something of the same epicene repose, a Nicias painted marble so true to life it might step down from its plinth and begin to walk, yet remained still folded away within itself, keeping the secret of its mystery, its wellsprings.
The marmoreal control of perfect beauty held perfectly broke then; Metrobius looked at Sulla with perfect love, and smilingly extended his arms.
The tears stood forth in Sulla’s eyes; his mouth shook. As he came around it, the corner of his desk struck his hip, but Sulla didn’t notice. He just walked into Metrobius’s arms and let them close about him, and put his chin on Metrobius’s shoulder, and his arms about Metrobius’s back. And felt as if he had come home at last. So the kiss when it happened was exquisite, the understanding heart grown up, the act of faith made without cognizance, without pain of any kind.
“My boy, my beautiful boy!” said Sulla, and wept in simple gratitude that some things did not change.
*
Outside Sulla’s open study windows Julilla stood and watched her husband walk into the lovely young man’s arms, watched them kiss, heard the words of love which passed between them, watched as they moved together to the couch and sank upon it, and began the initial intimacies of a relationship so old and so satisfying to them both that this was merely a homecoming. No one needed to tell her that here was the real reason for her husband’s neglect, and for her own drinking, and for her revenge in neglecting her children. Her husband’s children.
Before they could loosen each other’s clothing Julilla turned away, and walked with head held high and eyes tearless into the bedroom she shared with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Her husband. Beyond it was a smaller cubicle they used as a clothes repository, more cluttered now that Sulla was home again, for his dress-parade armor was suspended from a T-shaped frame, its helmet on a special stand, and his sword with its ivory eagle’s head handle hung upon the wall complete with scabbard and baldric.
Getting the sword down was easy; getting it free from its sheath and belt was more difficult. But she managed at last, and drew in her breath sharply when the blade sheared her hand open to the bone, so well honed was it. She experienced a twinge of surprise that she could actually feel physical pain at this moment, then dismissed both surprise and pain as irrelevant. Without hesitation she picked up the sword by its ivory eagle, turned it in upon herself, and walked into the wall.
It was badly done. She fell in a sprawling tangle of blood and draperies with the sword buried in her belly, her heart beating, beating, beating, the rasp of her own breathing heavy in her ears like someone stealing up behind her to take life or virtue. Neither virtue nor life did she own anymore, so what could it matter? She felt the dreadful agony of it then, and the warmth of her own blood on her skin as it quit her. But she was a Julius Caesar; she would not cry out for help, or regret this decision for what little time she had remaining. Not a thought of her two little children crossed her mind; all she could think of was her own foolishness, that for many years she had loved a man who loved men.
Sufficient reason to die. She wouldn’t live to be laughed at, jeered at, made a mockery of by all those lucky lucky women out there who were married to men who loved women. As the blood flowed away carrying life along with it, her burning mind began to cool, and slow, and petrify. Oh, how wonderful, to stop loving him at last! No more torment, no more anguish, no more humiliation, no more wine. She had asked him to show her how to stop loving him, and he had shown her. So kind to her he had finally been, her darling Sulla. Her last lucid moments of thought were about her children; at least in them, something of herself she would leave behind. So she waded into the sweet shallows of the ocean Death wishing her children long life, and much happiness.
*
Sulla returned to his desk and sat down. “There’s wine; pour me some,” he said to Metrobius.
How like the boy the man was, once animation stole into his face! Easier then to remember that once the boy had offered to give up every luxury for the chance to live in penury with his darling Sulla.
Smiling softly, Metrobius brought the wine and sat down in the client’s chair. “I know what you’re going to say, Lucius Cornelius. We can’t make a habit of this.”
“Yes. Among other things.” Sulla sipped his wine, then looked at Metrobius sternly. “It isn’t possible, dearest lad. Just sometimes, when the need or the pain or whatever it is becomes too much to bear. I’m the width of a whisker away from everything I want, which means I can’t have you too. If this were Greece, yes. But it isn’t. It’s Rome. If I were the First Man in Rome, yes. But I’m not. Gaius Marius is.”
Metrobius pulled a face. “I understand.”
“Are you still in the theater?”
“Of course. Acting’s all I know. Besides, Scylax was a good teacher, give him his due. So I don’t lack parts, and I don’t rest very often.” He cleared his throat and looked a little self-conscious. “The only change is, I’ve become serious.”
“Serious?”
“That’s right. It turned out, you see, that I didn’t have the true comedic touch. I was all right when I was a child star, but once I grew out of the Cupid’s wings and the mirthful imps, I discovered my real talent lay in tragedy, not comedy. So now I play Aeschylus and Accius instead of Aristophanes and Plautus. I don’t repine.”
Sulla shrugged. “Oh well, at least that means I’ll be able to go to the theater without betraying myself because you’re there playing the hapless ingenue. Are you a citizen?”
“No, alas.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Sighing, Sulla put his goblet down and folded his hands together like a banker. “Let us meet by all means—but not too often—and never again here. I have a rather mad wife whom I can’t trust.”
“It would be wonderful if we could meet occasionally.”
“Do you have a reasonably private place of your own, or are you still living with Scylax?”
Metrobius looked surprised. “I thought you knew! But of course, how could you, when it’s years since you’ve lived in Rome? Scylax died six months ago. And he left me everything he owned, including his apartment.”
“Then that’s where we’ll meet.” Sulla got up. “Come, I’ll show you out myself. And I’ll enroll you as my client, so that if you should ever need to come here, you’ll have a valid reason for doing so. I’ll send a note to your place before I call round.”
A kiss looked out of the beautiful dark eyes when they parted at the outside door, but nothing was said, and nothing done to indicate to either the hovering steward or the door porter that the amazingly good-looking young man was anything more than a new client from the old days.
“Give my love to everyone, Metrobius.�
��
“I daresay you won’t be in Rome for the theatrical games?”
“Afraid not,” said Sulla, smiling casually. “Germans.”
And so they parted, just as Marcia came down the street shepherding the children and their nanny. Sulla waited for her and acted as porter himself.
“Marcia, come into my study, please.”
Eyes wary, she sidled into the room ahead of him and went to the couch, where, Sulla saw with horror, there was a wet patch glaring at him like a beacon.
“In the chair, if you don’t mind,” he said.
She sat down, glowering at him with her chin up and her mouth set hard.
“Mother-in-law, I’m well aware that you don’t like me, and I have no intention of trying to woo you,” Sulla began, making sure he appeared at his ease, unworried. “I didn’t ask you to come and live here because I liked you, either. My concern was for my children. It still is. And I mustthank you with all my heart for your good offices there. You’ve done a wonderful job in caring for them. They’re little Romans again.”
She thawed a little. “I’m glad you think so.”
“In consequence, the children are no longer my main worry. Julilla is. I heard your altercation with her this morning.”
“The whole world heard it!” snapped Marcia.
“Yes, that’s true... “ He sighed heavily. “After you took the children out, she had an altercation with me which the whole world also heard—or at least heard her half of it. I wondered if you had any idea what we can do.”
“Unfortunately not enough people know she drinks to divorce her on those grounds, which are really your only grounds,” said Marcia, knowing full well she had concealed it. “I think you just have to be patient. Her drinking is increasing, I won’t be able to hide it for much longer. The moment it’s general knowledge, you can put her away without condemnation,” said Julilla’s mother.
“What if that stage should arrive while I’m away?”
“I’m her mother; I can put her away. If it happens in your absence, I’ll send her to your villa at Circei. Then when you return, you can divorce her and shut her up elsewhere. In time she’ll drink herself to death.” Marcia got up, anxious to be gone, and giving no hint as to the degree of pain she felt. “I do not like you, Lucius Cornelius,” she said, “but I do not blame you for Julilla’s plight.”
“Do you like any of your in-laws?” he asked.
She snorted. “Only Aurelia.”
He walked out into the atrium with her. “I wonder where Julilla is?” he asked, suddenly realizing that he had neither heard nor seen her since the arrival of Metrobius. A frisson of alarm skimmed up his spine.
“Lying in wait for one or the other of us, I imagine,” she said. ‘ ‘Once she starts the day with a quarrel, she usually continues to quarrel until she becomes so drunk she passes out.”
Sulla’s distaste pulled his lips down. “I haven’t seen her since she ran out of my study. An old friend called to see me not a moment later, and I was just letting him out when you came back with the children.”
“She’s not normally so backward,” said Marcia, and looked at the steward. “Have you seen your mistress?” she asked.
“The last I did see of her, she was going into her sleeping cubicle,” he said. “Shall I ask her maid?” ,
“No, don’t bother.” Marcia glanced sideways at Sulla. “I think we ought to see her together right now, Lucius Cornelius. Maybe if we tell her what will happen unless she pulls herself out of her pigsty, she might see reason.”
And so they found Julilla, twisted and still. Her fine woolen draperies had acted like a blotter and soaked up much of the blood, so that she was clad in wet, rusting scarlet, a Nereid out of some volcano.
Marcia clutched at Sulla’s arm, staggering; he put the arm about her and held her upright.
But Quintus Marcius Rex’s daughter made the effort and brought herself under iron control. “This is one solution I did not expect,” she said levelly.
“Nor I,” said Sulla, used to slaughter.
“What did you say to her?”
Sulla shook his head. “Nothing to provoke this, as far as I can remember—we can probably find out from the servants; they heard her half of it at least.”
“No, I do not think it advisable to ask them,” Marcia said, and turned suddenly within Sulla’s arm, seeking shelter against his body. “In many ways, Lucius Cornelius, this is the best solution of all. I’d rather the children suffered the shock of her death than the slow disillusionment of her drinking. They’re young enough to forget now. But any later, and they’d remember.” She laid her cheek against Sulla’s chest. “Yes, it’s by far the best way.” A tear oozed beneath her closed eyelid.
“Come, I’ll take you to your room,” he said, guiding her out of the blood-drenched cubicle. “I never even thought of my sword, fool that I am!”
“Why should you?”
“Hindsight,” said Sulla, who knew exactly why Julilla had found his sword and used it; she had looked through his study windows at his reunion with Metrobius. Marcia was right. This was the best way by far. And he hadn’t had to do it.
6
The magic hadn’t failed; when the consular elections were held just after the new tribunes of the plebs entered office on the tenth day of December, Gaius Marius was returned as the senior consul. For no one could disbelieve the testimony of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, nor Saturninus’s contention that there was still only one man capable of beating the Germans. The old German-mania rushed back into Rome like the Tiber in full spate, and once again Sicily faded from first place in the list of crises which never, never seemed to grow any less in number.
“For as fast as we eliminate one, a new one pops up out of nowhere,” said Marcus Aemilius Scaurus to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle.
“Including Sicily,” said Lucullus’s brother-in-law with venom in his voice. “How could Gaius Marius lend his support to that pipinna Ahenobarbus when he insisted Lucius Lucullus must be replaced as governor of Sicily? By Servilius the Augur, of all people! He’s nothing but a New Man skulking in the guise of an old name!”
“He was tweaking your tail, Quintus Caecilius,’’ Scaurus said. “Gaius Marius doesn’t give a counterfeit coin who governs Sicily, not now that the Germans are definitely coming. If you wanted Lucius Lucullus to remain there, you would have done better to have kept quiet; then Gaius Marius wouldn’t have remembered that you and Lucius Lucullus matter to each other.’’
“The senatorial rolls need a stern eye to look them over,” said Numidicus. “I shall stand for censor!”
“Good thinking! Who with?”
“My cousin Caprarius.”
“Oh, more good thinking, by Venus! He’ll do exactly as you tell him.”
“It’s time we weeded the Senate out, not to mention the knights. I shall be a stringent censor, Marcus Aemilius, have no fear!” said Numidicus. “Saturninus is going, and so is Glaucia. They’re dangerous men.”
“Oh, don’t!” cried Scaurus, flinching. “If I hadn’t falsely accused him of peculation in grain, he might have turned into a different kind of politician. I can never rid myself of guilt about Lucius Appuleius.”
Numidicus raised his brows. “My dear Marcus Aemilius, you are in strong need of a tonic! What if anything caused that wolfshead Saturninus to act the way he does is immaterial. All that matters at this present moment is that he is what he is. And he has to go.” He blew through his nostrils angrily. “We are not finished as a force in this city yet,” he said. “And at least this coming year Gaius Marius is saddled with a real man as his colleague, instead of those straw men Fimbria and Orestes. We’ll make sure Quintus Lutatius is put into the field with an army, and every tiny success Quintus Lutatius has with his army, we’ll trumpet through Rome like triumphs.”
For the electorate had also voted in Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar as consul, junior to Marius admittedly, but, “A thorn in my side,”
said Marius.
“Your young brother’s in as a praetor,” said Sulla.
“And going to Further Spain, nicely out of the way.”
They caught up with Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, who had parted company with Numidicus at the bottom of the Senate steps.
“I must thank you personally for your industry and enterprise in the matter of the grain supply,” said Marius civilly.
“As long as there’s wheat to be bought somewhere in the world, Gaius Marius, it’s not a very difficult job,” said Scaurus, also civilly. “What worries me is the day when there’s no wheat to be had anywhere.”
“Not likely at the moment, surely! Sicily will be back to normal next harvest, I imagine.”
Scaurus struck immediately. “Provided, that is, we don’t lose everything we’ve gained once that prating fool Servilius Augur takes office as governor!” he said tartly.
“The war in Sicily is over,” said Marius.
“You’d better hope so, consul. I’m not so sure.”
“And where have you been getting the wheat these past two years?” Sulla asked hastily, to avert an open disagreement.
“Asia Province,” said Scaurus, willing enough to be sidetracked, for he genuinely did love being curator annonae, the custodian of the grain supply.
“But surely they don’t grow much surplus?” prompted Sulla.
“Hardly a modius, as a matter of fact,” said Scaurus smugly. “No, we can thank King Mithridates of Pontus. He’s very young, but he’s mighty enterprising. Having conquered all of the northern parts of the Euxine Sea and gained control of the grainlands of the Tanais, the Borysthenes, the Hypanis, and the Danastris, he’s making a very nice additional income for Pontus by shipping this Cimmerian surplus down to Asia Province, and selling it to us. What’s more, I’m going to follow my instincts, and buy again in Asia Province next year. Young Marcus Livius Drusus is going as quaestor to Asia, and I’ve commissioned him to act for me in the matter.’’
Marius grunted. “No doubt he’ll visit his father-in-law, Quintus Servilius Caepio, in Smyrna while he’s there?”
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