The Tribune's curse s-7 Page 4

  “Stay until you depart for the East. My house is yours,” Milo said, magnanimously. He clapped his hands, and the consul’s place was immediately loaded with sweetmeats and iced wine. If Milo was being more than correct in receiving a consul, Fausta was not. She looked on with a coolness bordering contempt.

  For my own part, I was shocked. This was the first close look I’d had of Crassus since returning to Rome, and the deterioration since I had last beheld him was marked. His color was high, but only in the cheeks and nose, and that only from the wine. Otherwise, his complexion was gray and deeply lined. His white hair was falling out in patches, and the cords of his neck stood out beneath his chin wattles like lyre strings. The neck itself was scrawny, and upon it his head wobbled like a ball floating upon agitated water.

  “Won’t be long now,” Crassus said. “My legions will drive King Orodes of Parthea and his cowardly, savage horsemen to ground, and we’ll bag the lot! Takes more than arrows to frighten Roman soldiers, eh?”

  “Of course, you have our heartiest wishes for a swift victory, Consul,” Milo said warmly, managing to keep his smile intact. Most of us shouted traditional congratulations. Even I managed a weak cheer.

  Crassus contrived a lopsided, fatuous smile, as if he’d already won. “I’ll bring Orodes home in golden chains and give Rome such a triumph as will make everyone forget Pompey and Lucullus and all the rest!” He raised his cup, slopping wine over his beringed hand. “Death to the Parthians!”

  We returned the toast as if we meant it, covering our embarrassment with a lot of old battle slogans. Crassus seemed satisfied with this and nodded away as a slave dried off his hand.

  “Jupiter protect us!” I whispered. “Is this really what we are going to send to command an army?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Messius in a voice as low. “At least, he will if he ever leaves the City.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve heard that a number of influential men have sworn to prevent him from going to join his army when he steps down from office. They say they’ll restrain him by force if need be.”

  “I won’t say it’s a bad idea,” I told him, “but I don’t see how they can do that lawfully.”

  “People who fear a catastrophe don’t worry much about fine points of law. They may whip up the Plebeian Assembly to stop him by mob action.”

  He was speaking of the tribunes, of course. They were the ones who had the greatest influence with that body, and of all the year’s officials, Gallus and Ateius were the most venomously opposed to the Parthian war. This could mean blood on the streets again.

  “What about that other one who got the law passed giving Crassus the command? Was it Trebonius?” I asked.

  Messius nodded. “He was the only one among the tribunes who was really for the war, but with Crassus’s money and Pompey’s prestige behind him, one was enough. He managed to line up all the other tribunes except the two who’re in the Forum every day. All the rest are a pack of timeservers who’ve spent the year dawdling over the minutiae of Caesar’s agrarian laws and the doings of the land commissioners.” He was referring to one of the burning issues of the day: a series of proposed reforms that were unendingly controversial at the time but are incredibly boring even to think about now.

  Crassus chatted with Milo, and the rest of us returned to our small talk. When the dinner was concluded, we strolled about the renovated house, socializing and gossiping. I soon found fat old Lisas by the salt pool, talking with a sturdy-looking young man of soldierly bearing. The genial old pervert greeted me with a welcoming smile.

  “Decius Caecilius, my old friend! I’ve just spent the most enjoyable evening speaking with your lovely and most noble wife. Have you met young Caius Cassius?”

  “I don’t believe so.” I took the young man’s hand. His direct blue eyes were set in a blocky face of hard planes, burned dark by exposure. He had the thick neck common to wrestlers and to those who train seriously for warfare, developed by wearing a helmet every day from boyhood on.

  “The martial young gentleman accompanies Crassus to Parthia,” Lisas said. “I have been telling him what I know of the place and the people.”

  “The honorable ambassador warns me not to underestimate the Parthians,” Cassius said. “He says that they are more warlike than we imagine and treacherous in their dealings.” He spoke with an earnestness rare in Romans of his generation. It went well with his soldierly bearing.

  “For a people recently settled down from a nomadic existence, they are sophisticated,” Lisas said. “They are cunning in the art of horseback archery, and one should always beware their invitations to parley.”

  “I don’t expect that they’ll have any cause to parley except when they surrender,” Cassius said. “The bow hasn’t been made that can send a shaft through a Roman shield, and they can ride around all they like. Sooner or later, they’ll have to come to close quarters to decide the issue, and that’s when we’ll finish them.”

  “This is what we all hope,” Lisas said, none too confidently.

  “What will be your capacity?” I asked Cassius.

  “Military tribune. I was sponsored by Lucullus and confirmed by the Senate.”

  Military tribune in those days was a most ambiguous position, a sort of trying-out stage for a young man embarking upon a public career. He might spend the campaign running errands at headquarters. But if he proved promising and capable, he could be granted an important command. All was at the discretion of the general.

  “You have my heartiest wishes for a successful and glorious campaign,” I said, with some sincerity. It wasn’t his fault that he was to be commanded by one of the men I most despised.

  “I thank you. And now, if you will give me leave, I must go pay my respects to the consul.” He departed, and as he went, I felt cheered to know that we still produced dutiful young men. Because of his later notoriety Cassius’s part in the Parthian war came into question, but as far as I was concerned, any officer who brought himself and his men out of that fiasco alive had my admiration, and I never really lost respect for him.

  “An excellent young nobleman,” Lisas said. “One could wish that he had a worthier commander.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re against the Parthian war, too,” I said, snagging a full cup from a passing tray.

  He shrugged his fat shoulders, and his slaves stood by, alert lest he should topple. “Elimination of Parthia would mean one less threat to Egypt. Were the Roman forces to be commanded by General Pompey, or Gabinius, or even Caesar, busy as that gentleman is, I would have no objection.”

  “Surely you don’t object because Crassus is in his dotage?” I said. Ptolemy Auletes remained in power through Roman support, but I suspected that a slightly weaker Rome would be to his liking.

  “You are unaware, perhaps, of the consul’s activities when my sovereign master, the most glorious King Ptolemy, was here in Rome almost from the time you departed until last year?”

  I had some vague memory of letters mentioning something at the time, but I had been so diverted by terror for my own life that scandals in the capital interested me very little. “I’m afraid not. Will you tell me?”

  “Gladly. When King Ptolemy came almost three years ago to petition the Senate for the restoration of his throne, that august body was at first more than sympathetic in hearing his suit.”

  “Support for the House of Ptolemy has been a cornerstone of Roman policy for generations,” I said, pouring on the oil.

  “And our esteem for Rome acknowledges few boundaries. Alas, Marcus Licinius Crassus proved to be less than wholehearted in his enthusiasm. Before the Senate, he questioned whether, with so many other military projects already undertaken, Rome should shoulder the burden of a campaign to replace Ptolemy upon the throne.”

  “The question was reasonable,” I said. “We are stretched rather thin, militarily speaking.”

  “With this I am in full concurrence,” he said smoothly. “Howe
ver, I fear that Crassus resorted to unscrupulous means to reinforce his argument.”

  “Unscrupulous?” Roman politicians of the day were accustomed to employ means to gain their ends that would have shocked Greeks. And that was when they were dealing with their fellow Romans. When foreigners were concerned, few limits were observed.

  “In his capacity as augur and pontifex, he demanded that the Sibylline Books be consulted.”

  This was a droll development even to my jaded sensibilities. “He consulted the old books? That’s only done in national emergencies, or when the gods seem to be dangerously displeased with us-lightning striking a great temple or something like that. I never heard of them being consulted on a foreign-policy decision.”

  “Just so. Yet he did exactly that. He claimed to have discovered a passage warning against giving aid to the king of Egypt.”

  “A moment,” I said, holding up a forestalling hand. “You say he claimed to have discovered it? I am not an expert on sacerdotal matters, but it is my impression that the keeping and interpretation of the books are entrusted to a college of fifteen priests, the quinquidecemviri.”

  “And so they are.” He looked morosely down into the depths of his cup. “It seems that Crassus has means to get what he wants.” A polite way of saying that he bribed the priests.

  “Oh, well,” I said, “Ptolemy is firmly back on the throne again, thanks to Gabinius.”

  “An excellent man. But now Rome is going to have an army in the East commanded by a man who is no friend of the royal house of Egypt.” Meaning that, should Crassus have to call upon Ptolemy for aid, it would be very slow in coming. It was a diplomatic nugget of potential value, and it meant that Lisas was cultivating me in what I hoped was a friendly fashion. I thanked him and went to look for Milo.

  I was not as shocked as I should have been. I never regarded the Sibylline Books with any great awe except for their antiquity. They were a foreign import dating from the days of the kings, in extremely antiquated language and couched in the customary obscure double-talk employed by sibyls and seers everywhere. On top of that, the original books had burned in a temple fire many years before, and they had been pieced together by consulting sibyls all over the world, and I had some doubts as to their similarity to the originals. The priesthood was not among the most prestigious.

  I was skeptical of the value of sibyls and oracles generally, although most people believed in them implicitly. If you have something to say, why speak in riddles? Still, it was uncommonly brazen effrontery to falsify a sibylline consultation. But who was more brazen than Crassus? Even as I thought these things, the man himself appeared before me.

  “Decius Caecilius! Allow me to be first to congratulate you on your election!” He grasped my hand and clapped me warmly on the shoulder, a sure sign that he wanted something from me. I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

  “You are being a bit precipitate, but thank you anyway.”

  “Nonsense. We both know you’re going to win, Metellus that you are, eh?” He grinned, a ghastly sight that exposed teeth as long as my fingers.

  “Ah, so rumor has it.” I had always disliked and feared Crassus, but this senile attempt at geniality was doubly unsettling. The Senate was full of dotty old men, but we didn’t entrust the fate of legions to them.

  “Exactly, exactly. Not a cheap office, aedile. Games, upkeep of the streets, walls, and gates-they’re in shocking disrepair, you know. Next year is going to be a bad one on the aediles. Several of them have already come to me to help them with the burden.”

  “And I am sure that you received them with your famed generosity.” He was as well-known for miserliness as for wealth, and he never turned a sestertius loose without expecting a fat return. Naturally, the irony sailed right past him.

  “As always, as always, my boy. And I could do as much for you.”

  This was getting to be the theme of the day. The prospect was not made less tempting through repetition. I longed to grasp at it, but the repulsion Crassus always inspired in me made me draw back.

  “But then you would expect my support in the Senate for your war, Marcus Licinius.”

  He nodded. “Naturally.”

  “But I oppose it. At least the Gauls and the Germans gave Caesar some slight excuse to make war on them. The Parthians have done nothing.”

  He looked honestly puzzled. “What of that? They’re rich.” Always a good-enough reason for Crassus and his like.

  “Call me old-fashioned, Consul, but I think Rome was a better state when we only made war to protect ourselves and our allies, and to honor treaty obligations. We’ve filled the City with other people’s wealth and ruined our farmers with a flood of cheap, foreign slaves. I would like to see an end to this.”

  He leered hideously. “You are living in the past, Decius. I am far older than you, and I remember no such Rome. My own grandfather did not serve such a Rome. The wars with Carthage taught us that the biggest wolf with the sharpest teeth rules the pack. If we cease warring long enough for a single generation to grow up in peace, our teeth will grow dull and a younger, fiercer wolf will eat us.” His voice steadied, and his eyes cleared, and, for a moment, I saw the young Marcus Licinius Crassus who had clawed his way to the top of the Roman heap during the City’s bloodiest and most savage period, the civil wars of Marius and Sulla.

  “The subjugation of Gaul will provide us with insurrections to put down for many years to come,” I said. “Caesar is even talking about an expedition to Britannia.”

  “Caesar is still young enough to be thinking about such things. There is still one war to be fought in the East, and I intend to win it and come back to Rome and celebrate my triumph. Other members of your family have not been so delicate in their feelings for foreign kings. I strongly suggest that you consult with the greater men among them before making any unwise decisions. Good evening to you, Metellus!” He snapped out this last in a vicious whisper; then he whirled and stalked off.

  I maintained my insouciant pose, but I was all but trembling in my toga. Yes, we still wore togas to dinner parties back then. It was Caesar who introduced the far more comfortable synthesis as acceptable evening wear, and that was only after his stay at Cleopatra’s court. Milo found me standing like that, and he wasn’t fooled. He knew me far better than anyone else, except, perhaps, Julia.

  “You look like a man with a viper crawling under his tunic. What did the old man say to you?”

  I told him succinctly. I had few secrets from Milo, and we cooperated on most political matters.

  “Personally,” he said, “I don’t know why you don’t take him up on it. It really costs you nothing, and he’s sure to die before he makes it back home, no matter how the war goes. His deterioration these last two years has been shocking.”

  “Clodius said almost the same thing to me earlier today.”

  “Even that little weasel is capable of wisdom from time to time.”

  “I’d rather not be known as another of Crassus’s toadies, even if some of the other Caecilians have given in.” My family, although still powerful in the Assemblies, had produced no men of great distinction recently. Metellus Pius was dead and his war against Sertorius all but forgotten. The conquest of Crete by Metellus Creticus really hadn’t amounted to much. The Big Three understood that only recent glory counted for anything.

  “It’s a chancy time just now,” he admitted. “It’s hard to know exactly how to maneuver and how to vote. I find it all truly enjoyable, but a few years from now things are going to get vicious. Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus will all be heading for Rome and trying for the Dictatorship.”

  “They wouldn’t dare!” I protested, with no great conviction.

  He smiled indulgently. “Marius dared. Sulla dared. They’ll dare. It’s the main reason I support Cicero so strongly. He’s a strict constitutionalist. If Caesar becomes Dictator, he’ll get rid of me and make Clodius his Master of Horse.” This ancient title meant the Dictator’s number-two man and enf
orcer.

  “And if it’s Crassus or Pompey?”

  “Then it’s exile or execution for Clodius and me both. As long as they’re engaged in foreign lands, they need men like us to control the City for them. With the Dictatorship they have it all, and they don’t need us.”

  “You’re talking about the death of the Republic,” I said, shivering.

  “It’s been dying for a long time, Decius. Now come along. Cast off this gloom. Let’s go talk to my men. Twenty of my best have agreed to fight in your funeral munera for Metellus Celer at a minimum charge, as a favor to me.”

  This cheered me, and I tried to shake off my mood of foreboding. Milo had some great retired champions working for him, men who were accustomed to getting huge fees to come out of retirement to fight in special Games. I grabbed another cup as we walked back toward his meeting hall.

  “You drank too much again,” Julia informed me as we crawled into our detestably expensive litter.

  “Do you think I don’t know that, my dear? It’s been an unsettling evening.”

  “You thought so? I had a wonderful time. Fausta has given me so many ideas.”

  “I feared that,” I said, pinching the bridge of my long, Metellan nose.

  “And Lisas is such an amusing dinner companion. You really must get us an invitation to the next reception at the Egyptian Embassy. I hear it is the most astonishing place.”

  “Such an invitation will be forthcoming. Lisas is now cultivating me, even though an aedile has nothing to do with foreign affairs.”

  “He knows you’re on your way up,” she said, patting my knee complacently. “So what soured your evening?”

  “A little interview with our esteemed consul.” I described our ominous conversation.

  “That loathsome creature!”

  “Oh, I don’t know, someday I’ll be old and decrepit, too, if the gods grant me a long life.”

  “That is not what I mean, and you know it!” she said, swatting me with her fan. “I knew him when I was a little girl, and he was still only middle-aged and relatively handsome. He was loathsome even then, the money-grubbing miser!”