Marcus Lamponius was the paramount chieftain from Lucania, and had been a formidable enemy to Rome during the Italian War. Now into his fifties, he was still warlike, still thirsted to let Roman blood flow. They never change, these non—Roman Italians, she thought; destroying Rome means more to them than life or prosperity or peace. More even than children.
The one among the three Bastia had never met before was a Campanian like herself, the chief citizen of Capua. His name was Tiberius Gutta, and he was fat, brutish, egotistical, as fanatically dedicated to shedding Roman blood as the others.
She absented herself from the triclinium as soon as her husband gave her permission to retire, burning with an anger she had most carefully concealed. It wasn’t fair! Things were just beginning to run so smoothly that the Italian War might not have happened, when here it was, starting all over again. She had wanted to cry out that nothing would change, that Rome would grind their faces and their fortunes into the dust yet again; but self-control had kept her tongue still. Even if they had been brought to believe her, patriotism and pride would dictate that they go ahead anyway.
The anger ate at her, refused to die away. Up and down the marble floor of her sitting room she paced, wanting to strike out at them, those stupid, pigheaded men. Especially her own husband, leader of his nation, the one to whom all other Samnites looked for guidance. And what .sort of guidance was he giving them? War against Rome. Ruination. Did he care that when he fell, everyone attached to him would also fall? Of course he did not! He was all a man, with all a man’s idiocies of nationalism and revenge. All a man, yet only half a man. And the half of him left was no use to her, no use for procreating or recreating.
She stopped, feeling the heat at the core of her all this anger had caused to boil up. Her lips were bitten, she could taste a little bead of blood. On fire. On fire.
There was a slave…. One of those Greeks from Samothrace with hair so black it shone blue in the light, brows which met across the bridge of his nose in unashamed luxuriance, and eyes the color of a mountain lake … Skin so fine it begged to be kissed … Bastia clapped her hands.
When the steward came, she looked at him with her chin up and her bitten lips as plump and red as strawberries. “Are the gentlemen in the dining room content?”
“Yes, domina.”
“Good. Continue to look after them, please. And send Hippolytus to me here. I’ve thought of something he can do for me,” she said.
The steward’s face remained expressionless; as his master Mutilus did not care to live in Teanum Sidicinum, whereas his mistress Bastia did, his mistress Bastia mattered more to him. She must be kept happy. He bowed. “I will send Hippolytus to you at once, domina,” he said, and did many obeisances as he extricated himself carefully from her room.
In the triclinium Bastia had been forgotten the moment she departed for her own quarters.
“Carbo assures me that he has Sulla tied down at Clusium,” Mutilus said to his legates.
“Do you believe that?” asked Lamponius.
Mutilus frowned. “I have no reason to think otherwise, but I can’t be absolutely sure, of course. Do you have any reason to think otherwise?”
“No, except that Carbo’s a Roman.”
“Hear, hear!” cried Pontius Telesinus.
“Fortunes change,” said Tiberius Gutta of Capua, face shining from the grease of a capon roasted with chestnut stuffing and a skin—crisping glaze of oil. “For the moment, we fight on Carbo’s side. After Sulla is defeated, we can turn on Carbo and every other Roman and rend them.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Mutilus, smiling.
“We should move on Praeneste at once,” said Lamponius.
“Tomorrow, in fact,” said Telesinus quickly.
But Mutilus shook his head emphatically. “No. We rest the men here for five more days. They’ve had a hard march, and they still have to cover the length of the Via Latina. When they get to Ofella’s siegeworks, they must be fresh.”
These things decided—and given the prospect of relative leisure for the next five days—the dinner party broke up far earlier than Mutilus’s steward had anticipated. Busy among the kitchen servants, he saw nothing, heard nothing. And was not there when the master of the house ordered his massive German attendant to carry him to the mistress’s room.
She was kneeling naked upon the pillows of her couch, legs spread wide apart, and between her glistening thighs a blue—black head of hair was buried; the compact and muscular body which belonged to the head was stretched across the couch in an abandonment so complete it looked as if it belonged to a sleeping cat. In no other place than where the head was buried did the two bodies touch; Bastia’s arms were extended behind her, their hands kneading the pillows, and his arms lolled alongside the rest of him.
The door had opened quietly; the German slave stood with his master in his hold like a bride being carried across the threshold of her new home, and waited for his next instructions with all the dumb endurance of such fellows, far from home, almost devoid of Latin or Greek, permanently transfixed with the pain of loss, unable to express that pain.
The eyes of husband and wife met. In hers there flashed a shout of triumph, of jubilation; in his an amazement without the dulling anodyne of shock. Of its own volition his gaze fell to rest upon her glorious breasts, the sleekness of her belly, and was blurred by a sudden rush of tears.
The young Greek’s utter absorption in what he was doing now caught a change, a tension in the woman having nothing to do with him; he began to lift his head. Like two striking snakes her hands locked in the blue—black hair, pressed the head down and held it there.
“Don’t stop!’’ she cried.
Unable to look away, Mutilus watched the blood—gorged tissue in her nipples begin to swell them to bursting; her hips were moving, the head riding upon them. And then, beneath her husband’s eyes, Bastia screeched and moaned the power of her massive orgasm. It seemed to Mutilus to last an eternity.
Done, she released the head and slapped the young Greek, who rolled over and lay faceup; his terror was so profound that he seemed not to breathe.
“You can’t do anything with that,” said Bastia, pointing to the slave’s diminishing erection, “but there’s nothing wrong with your tongue, Mutilus.”
“You’re right, there isn’t,” he said, every last tear dried. “It can still taste and feel. But it isn’t interested in carrion.”
The German got him out of the room, carried him to his own sleeping cubicle, and deposited him with care upon his bed. Then after he had completed his various duties he left Gaius Papius Mutilus alone. No comment, no sympathy, no acknowledgment. And that, reflected Mutilus as he turned his face into his pillow, was a greater mercy than all else. Still in his mind’s eye the image of his wife’s body burned, the breasts with their nipples popping out, and that head—that head! That head … Below his waist nothing stirred, could never stir again. But the rest of him knew torments and dreams, and longed for every aspect of love. Every aspect!
“I am not dead,” he said into the pillow, and felt the tears come. “I am not dead! But oh, by all the gods, I wish I were!”
*
At the end of June, Sulla left Clusium. With him he took his own five legions and three of Scipio’s; he left Pompey in command, a decision which hadn’t impressed his other legates at all. But, since Sulla was Sulla and no one actively argued with him, Pompey it was.
“Clean this lot up,” he said to Pompey. “They outnumber you, but they’re demoralized. However, when they discover that I’m gone for good, they’ll offer battle. Watch Damasippus, he is the most competent among them. Crassus will cope with Marcus Censorinus, and Torquatus ought to manage against Carrinas.”
“What about Carbo?’’ asked Pompey.
“Carbo is a cipher. He lets his legates do his generaling. But don’t fiddle, Pompeius! I have other work for you.”
No surprise then that Sulla took the more senior of his legates w
ith him; neither Vatia nor the elder Dolabella could have stomached the humiliation of having to ask a twenty-three-year-old for orders. His departure came on the heels of news about the Samnites, and made Sulla’s need to reach the general area around Praeneste urgent; dispositions would have to be finished before the Samnite host drew too near.
Having scouted the whole region on that side of Rome with extreme thoroughness, Sulla knew exactly what he intended to do. The Via Praenestina and the Via Labicana were now unnegotiable thanks to Ofella’s wall and ditch, but the Via Latina and the Via Appia were still open, still connected Rome and the north with Campania and the south. If the war was to be won, it was vital that all military access between Rome and the south belong to Sulla; Etruria was exhausted, but Samnium and Lucania had scarcely been tapped of manpower or food resources.
The countryside between Rome and Campania was not easy. On the coast it deteriorated into the Pomptine Marshes, through which from Campania the Via Appia traveled a mosquito—ridden straight line until near Rome it ran up against the flank of the Alban Hills. These were not hills at all, but quite formidable mountains based upon the outpourings of an old volcano which had cut up and elevated the original alluvial Latin plain. The Alban Mount itself, center of that ancient subterranean disturbance, reared between the Via Appia and the other, more inland road, the Via Latina. South of the Alban Hills another high ridge continued to separate the Via Appia from the Via Latina, thus preventing interconnection between these two major arteries all the way from Campania to a point very near Rome. For military travel the more inland Via Latina was always preferred over the Via Appia; men got sick when they marched the Via Appia.
It was therefore preferable that Sulla station himself on the Via Latina—but at a place where he could, if necessary, transfer his forces rapidly across to the Via Appia. Both roads traversed the outer flanks of the Alban Hills, but the Via Latina did so through a defile which chopped a gap in the eastern escarpment of the ridge and allowed the road to travel onward to Rome in the flatter space between this high ground and the Alban Mount itself. At the point where the defile opened out toward the Alban Mount, a small road curved westward round this central peak, and joined the Via Appia quite close to the sacred lake of Nemi and its temple precinct.
Here in the defile Sulla sat himself down and proceeded to build immense fortified walls of tufa blocks at each end of the gorge, enclosing the side road which led to Lake Nemi and the Via Appia within his battlements. He now occupied the only place on the Via Latina at which all progress could be stopped from both directions. And, his fortifications completed within a very short time, he posted a series of watches on the Via Appia to make sure no enemy tried to outflank him by this route, from Rome as well as from Campania. All his provisions were brought along the side road from the Via Appia.
*
By the time the Samnite/Lucanian/Capuan host reached the site of Sacriportus, everyone was calling this army “the Samnites” despite its composite nature (enhanced because remnants’ of the legions scattered by Pompey and Crassus had tacked themselves on to such a strong, well-led force). At Sacriportus the host chose the Via Labicana, only to discover that Ofella had by now contained himself within a second line of fortifications, and could not be dislodged. Shining from its heights with a myriad colors, Praeneste might as well have been as far away as the Garden of the Hesperides. After riding along every inch of Ofella’s walls, Pontius Telesinus, Marcus Lamponius and Tiberius Gutta could discern no weakness, and a cross—country march by seventy thousand men with nowhere positive to go was impossible. A war council resulted in a change of strategy; the only way to draw Ofella off was to attack Rome herself. So to Rome on the Via Latina the Samnite army would go.
Back they marched to Sacriportus, and turned onto the Via Latina in the direction of Rome. Only to find Sulla sitting behind his enormous ramparts in complete control of the road. To storm his position seemed far easier than storming Ofella’s walls, so the Samnite host attacked. When they failed, they tried again. And again. Only to hear Sulla laughing at them as loudly as had Ofella.
Then came news at once cheering and depressing; those left at Clusium had sallied out and engaged Pompey. That they had gone down in utter defeat was depressing, yet seemed not to matter when compared to the message that the survivors, some twenty thousand strong, were marching south under Censorinus, Carrinas and Brutus Damasippus. Carbo himself had vanished, but the fight, swore Brutus Damasippus in his letter to Pontius Telesinus, would go on. If Sulla’s position were stormed from both sides at once at the exact same moment, he would crumble. Had to crumble!
“Rubbish, of course,” said Sulla to Pompey, whom he had summoned to his defile for a conference as soon as he had been notified of Pompey’s victory at Clusium. “They can pile Pelion on top of Ossa if they so choose, but they won’t dislodge me. This place was made for defense! Impregnable and unassailable.”
“If you’re so confident, what need can you have for me?” the young man asked, his pride at being summoned evaporating.
The campaign at Clusium had been short, grim, decisive; many of the enemy had died, many were taken prisoner, and those who got away were chiefly distinguished for the quality of the men who led their retreat; there had been no senior legates in the ranks of those who surrendered, a great disappointment. The defection of Carbo himself had not been known to Pompey until after the battle was over, when the story of his nocturnal flight was told with tears and bitterness to Pompey’s men by tribunes, centurions and soldiers alike. A great betrayal.
Hard on the heels of this had come Sulla’s summons, which Pompey had received with huge delight. His instructions were to bring six legions and two thousand horse with him; that Varro would tag along, he took for granted, whereas Crassus and Torquatus were to remain at Clusium. But what need had Sulla for more troops in a camp already bursting at the seams? Indeed, Pompey’s army had been directed into a camp on the shores of Lake Nemi and therefore adjacent to the Via Appia!
“Oh, I don’t need you here,” said Sulla, leaning his arms on the parapet of an observation tower atop his walls and peering vainly in the direction of Rome; his vision had deteriorated badly since that illness in Greece, though he disliked owning up to it. “I’m getting closer, Pompeius! Closer and closer.”
Not normally bashful, Pompey found himself unable to ask the question he burned to ask: what did Sulla intend when the war was over? How could he retain his authority, how could he possibly protect himself from future reprisals? He couldn’t keep his army with him forever, but the moment he disbanded it he would be at the mercy of anyone with the strength and the clout to call him to account. And that might be someone who at the present moment called himself a loyal follower, Sulla’s man to the death. Who knew what men like Vatia and the elder Dolabella really thought? Both of them were of consular age, even if circumstances had conspired to prevent their becoming consul. How could Sulla insulate himself? A great man’s enemies were like the Hydra—no matter how many heads he succeeded in cutting off, there were always more busily growing, and always sporting bigger and better teeth.
“If you don’t need me here, Sulla, where do you need me?” Pompey asked, bewildered.
“It is the beginning of Sextilis,” said Sulla, and turned to lead the way down the many stairs.
Nothing more was said until they emerged at the bottom into the controlled chaos beneath the walls, where men busied themselves in carrying loads of rocks, oil for burning and throwing down upon the hapless heads of those trying to scale ladders, missiles for the onagers and catapults already bristling atop the walls, stocks of spears and arrows and shields.
“It is the beginning of Sextilis?’’ Pompey prompted once they were out of the activity and had begun to stroll down the side road toward Lake Nemi.
“So it is!” said Sulla in tones of surprise, and fell about laughing at the look on Pompey’s face.
Obviously he was expected to laugh too; Pompey laughed t
oo. “Yes, it is,” he said, and added, “the beginning of Sextilis.”
Controlling himself with an effort, Sulla decided he had had his fun. Best put the young would—be Alexander out of his misery by telling him.
“I have a special command for you, Pompeius,” he said curtly. “The rest will have to know about it—but not yet. I want you well away before the storm of protest breaks—for break, it will! You see, what I want you to do is something I ought not to ask of any man who has not been at the very least a praetor.”
Excitement growing, Pompey stopped walking, put his hand on Sulla’s arm and turned him so that his face was fully visible; bright blue eyes stared into white—blue eyes. They were now standing in a rather pretty dell to one side of the unsealed road, and the noise of so much industry to front and back was muted by great flowering banks of summer brambles, roses and blackberries.
“Then why have you chosen me, Lucius Cornelius?” Pompey asked, tones wondering. “You have many legates who fit that description—Vatia, Appius Claudius, Dolabella—even men like Mamercus and Crassus would seem more appropriate! So why me?”
“Don’t die from curiosity, Pompeius, I will tell you! But first, I must tell you exactly what it is I want you to do.”
“I am listening,” said Pompey with a great show of calm.
“I told you to bring six legions and two thousand cavalry. That’s a respectable army. You are going to take it at once to Sicily, and secure the coming harvest for me. It’s Sextilis, the harvest will begin very soon. And sitting for the most part in Puteoli harbor is the grain fleet. Hundreds upon hundreds of empty vessels. Ready—made transports, Pompeius! Tomorrow you will take the Via Appia and march for Puteoli before the grain fleet can sail. You will bear my mandate and have sufficient money to pay for the hiring of the ships, and you will have a propraetorian imperium. Post your cavalry to Ostia, there’s a smaller fleet there. I’ve already sent out messengers to ports like Tarracina and Antium, and told all the little shipowners to gather in Puteoli if they want to be paid for what would under normal circumstances be an empty voyage out. You’ll have more than enough ships, I guarantee you.”
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