Fortune's Favorites (61 page)

It was Marcus Valerius Messala Rufus who arrived in Rome to find a marriage in the making. His sister-of whom he was very fond-had, as he knew from her tear-stained letters, been summarily divorced by her husband. Though she continued to vow that she loved him with every breath she took, the divorce made it plain that he did not love her at all. Why, no one understood. Valeria Messala was beautiful, intelligent, well educated and not boring in any way; she didn't gossip, she wasn't spendthrift, nor did she ogle other men.

One of the city's wealthiest plutocrats died late in June, and his two sons put on splendid funeral games to his memory in the Forum Romanum. Twenty pairs of gladiators clad in ornamental silver were to fight; not one after the other, as was customary, but in two conflicts of ten pairs each-a Thracian pitted against a Gaul. These were styles, not nationalities-the only two styles practiced at that time-and the soldiers of the sawdust had been hired from the best gladiatorial school in Capua. Pining for a little diversion, Sulla was eager to go, so the brothers mourning their dead father were careful to install a comfortable enclosure in the middle of the front row facing north wherein the Dictator could dispose himself without being crushed up against people on either side.

Nothing in the mos maiorum prevented women from attending, nor from sitting among the men; funeral games were held to be a kind of circus, rather than a theatrical performance. And her cousin Marcus Valerius Messala Niger, fresh from his triumph of having engaged Cicero to defend Roscius of Ameria, thought that it might cheer poor divorced Valeria Messala up if he took her to see the gladiators fight.

Sulla was already ensconced in his place of honor when the cousins arrived, and the seating was almost filled; the first ten pairs of men were already in the sawdust-cushioned ring, going through their exercises and flexing their muscles as they waited for the bereaved brothers to decide the games should start with the prayers and the sacrifice carefully chosen to please the dead man. But at such affairs it was very useful to have highborn friends, and especially to have an aunt who was both an ex-Vestal and the daughter of Metellus Balearicus. Sitting with her brother, Metellus Nepos, his wife, Licinia, and their cousin Metellus Pius the Piglet (who was consul that year, and hugely important), the ex-Vestal Caecilia Metella Balearica had saved two seats which no one quite had the courage to usurp.

In order to reach them, Messala Niger and Valeria Messala had to work their way past those already sitting in the second row, and therefore directly behind the Dictator. He was, everyone noted, looking rested and well, perhaps because Cicero's tact and skill had enabled him to quash a great deal of lingering feeling about the proscriptions-and eliminate a problem-by throwing Chrysogonus off the Tarpeian Rock. All of the Forum was thronged, the ordinary people perched on every roof and flight of steps, and those with clout in the wooden bleachers surrounding the ring, a roped-off square some forty feet along a side.

It wouldn't have been Rome had not the latecomers been subjected to considerable abuse for pushing their way past those already comfortably seated; though Messala Niger didn't care a hoot, poor Valeria found herself muttering a series of apologies as she pressed on. Then she had to pass directly behind Rome's Dictator; terrified that she might bump him, she fixed her eyes on the back of his head and his shoulders. He was wearing his silly wig, of course, and a purple-bordered toga praetexta, his twenty-four lictors crouched on the ground forward of the front row. And as she passed Valeria noticed a fat and fleecy sausage of purple wool adhering to the white folds of toga across Sulla's left shoulder; without stopping to think, she picked it off.

He never showed a vestige of fear in a crowd, always seemed above that, oblivious to danger. But when he felt the light touch Sulla flinched, leaped out of his chair and turned around so quickly that Valeria stepped back onto someone's toes. The last ember of terror still dying out of his eyes, he took in the sight of a badly frightened woman, red-haired and blue-eyed and youthfully beautiful.

“I beg your pardon, Lucius Cornelius,” she managed to say, wet her lips, sought for some explanation for her conduct. Trying to be light, she held out the sausage of purple fluff and said, “See? It was on your shoulder. I thought if I picked it off, I might also pick off some of your luck.” Her eyes filled with quick tears, resolutely blinked away, and her lovely mouth shook. “I need some luck!”

Smiling at her without opening his lips, he took her outstretched hand in his and gently folded her fingers around the innocent cause of so much fear. “Keep it, lady, and may it bring you that luck,” he said, and turned away to sit down again.

But all through the gladiatorial games he kept twisting around to look at where Valeria sat with Messala Niger, Metellus Pius and the rest of that party; and she, very conscious of his searching scrutiny, would smile at him nervously, then blush and look away.

“Who is she?” he asked the Piglet as the crowd, well pleased with the magnificent display, was slowly dispersing.

Of course the whole party had noticed (along with a lot of other people), so Metellus Pius did not dissimulate. “Valeria Messala,” he said. “Cousin of Niger and sister of Rufus, who is at the moment returning from the siege of Mitylene.”

“Ah!” said Sulla, nodding. “As wellborn as she is truly beautiful. Recently divorced, isn't she?”

“Most unexpectedly, and for no reason. She's very cut up about it, as a matter of fact.”

“Barren?” asked the man who had divorced one wife for that.

The Piglet's lip curled contemptuously. “I doubt it, Lucius Cornelius. More likely lack of use.”

“Hmm!” Sulla paused to think, then said briskly, “She must come to dinner tomorrow. Ask Niger and Metellus Nepos too-and yourself, of course. But not the other women.”

So it was that when the junior military tribune Marcus Valerius Messala Rufus arrived in Rome he found himself summoned to an audience with the Dictator, who didn't mince matters. He was in love with Rufus's sister, he said, and wished to marry her.

“What could I say?'' asked Rufus of his cousin Niger.

“I hope you said, delighted,” said Niger dryly.

“I said, delighted.”

“Good!”

“But how does poor Valeria feel? He's so old and ugly! I wasn't even given a chance to ask her, Niger!”

“She'll be happy enough, Rufus. I know he's nothing much to look at, but he's the unofficial King of Rome-and he's as rich as Croesus! If it doesn't do anything else for her, it will be balm to the wound of her undeserved divorce,” said Niger strongly. “Not to mention how advantageous the marriage will be for us! I believe he's arranging for me to be a pontifex, and you an augur. Just hold your tongue and be thankful.”

Rufus took his cousin's sound advice, having ascertained that his sister genuinely thought Sulla attractive and desirable, and did want the marriage.

Invited to the wedding, Pompey found a moment to have some private speech with the Dictator.

“Half your luck,” said that young man gloomily.

“Yes, you haven't had too much luck with wives, have you?” asked Sulla, who was enjoying his wedding feast immensely, and feeling kindly disposed toward most of his world.

“Valeria is a very nice woman,” Pompey vouchsafed.

Sulla's eyes danced. “Left out, Pompeius?”

“By Jupiter, yes!”

“Rome is absolutely stuffed with beautiful noblewomen. Why not pick one out and ask her tata for her hand?”

“I'm no good at that sort of warfare.”

“Rubbish! You're young-rich--handsome-and famous,” said Sulla, who liked to tick things off. “Ask, Magnus! Just ask! It would be a fussy father who turned you down.”

“I'm no good at that sort of warfare,” Pompey repeated.

The eyes which had been dancing now surveyed the young man shrewdly; Sulla knew perfectly well why Pompey wouldn't ask. He was too afraid of being told that his birth wasn't good enough for this or that patrician young lady. His ambition wanted the best and his opinion of himself insisted he have the best, but that niggling doubt as to whether a Pompeius from Picenum would be considered good enough held him back time after time. In short, Pompey wanted someone's tata to ask him. And nobody's tata had.

A thought popped into Sulla's mind, of the sort which had led him to dower Rome with a stammering Pontifex Maximus.

“Do you mind a widow?” he asked, eyes dancing again.

“Not unless she's as old as the Republic.”

“I believe she's about twenty-five.”

“That's acceptable. The same age as me.”

“She's dowerless.”

“Her birth concerns me a lot more than her fortune.” "Her birth,” said Sulla happily, “is absolutely splendid on both sides. Plebeian, but magnificent!”

“Who?” demanded Pompey, leaning forward. “Who?” Sulla rolled off the couch and stood looking at him a little tipsily. “Wait until I've had my nuptial holiday, Magnus. Then come back and ask me again.”

For Gaius Julius Caesar his return had been a kind of triumph he thought perhaps the real thing later on might never equal. He was not only free, but vindicated. He had won a major crown.

Sulla had sent for him at once, and Caesar had found the Dictator genial; the interview took place just before his wedding-which all of Rome was talking about, but not officially. Thus Caesar, bidden seat himself, did not mention it.

“Well, boy, you've outdone yourself.”

What did one say? No more candor after Lucullus! "I hope not, Lucius Cornelius. I did my best, but I can do better.”

“I don't doubt it, it's written all over you.” Sulla directed a rather sly glance at him. “I hear that you succeeded in assembling a fleet of unparalleled excellence in Bithynia.”

Caesar couldn't help it; he flushed. “I did as I was told. Exactly,” he said, teeth shut.

“Smarting about it, eh?”

“The accusation that I prostituted myself to obtain that fleet is unjustified.”

“Let me tell you something, Caesar,” said the Dictator, whose lined and sagging face seemed softer and younger than it had when Caesar had last seen him over a year ago. “We have both been the victims of Gaius Marius, but you at least are fully freed of him at-what age? Twenty?”

“Just,” said Caesar.

“I had to suffer him until I was over fifty years old, so think yourself lucky. And, if it's any consolation, I don't give a rush who a man sleeps with if he serves Rome well.”

“No, it is no consolation!” snapped Caesar. “Not for Rome-not for you-not for Gaius Marius!-would I sell my honor.”

“Not even for Rome, eh?”

“Rome ought not to ask it of me if Rome is who and what I believe her to be.”

“Yes, that's a good answer,” said Sulla, nodding. “A pity it doesn't always work out that way. Rome-as you will find out-can be as big a whore as anyone else. You've not had an easy life, though it hasn't been as hard as mine. But you're like me, Caesar. I can see it! So can your mother. The slur is present. And you will have to live with it. The more famous you become, the more eminent your dignitas, the more they'll say it. Just as they say I murdered women to get into the Senate. The difference between us is not in nature, but in ambition. I just wanted to be consul and then consular, and perhaps censor. My due. The rest was foisted on me, mostly by Gaius Marius.”

“I want no more than those things,” said Caesar, surprised.

“You mistake my meaning. I am not talking about actual offices, but about ambition. You, Caesar, want to be perfect. Nothing must happen to you that makes you less than perfect. It isn't the unfairness of the slur concerns you-what rankles is that it detracts from your perfection. Perfect honor, perfect career, perfect record, perfect reputation. In suo anno all the way and in every way. And because you require perfection of yourself, you will require perfection from all around you- and when they prove imperfect, you'll cast them aside. Perfection consumes you as much as gaining my birthright did me.”

“I do not regard myself as perfect!”

“I didn't say that. Listen to me! I said you want to be perfect. Scrupulous to the highest mathematical power. It won't change. You won't change. But when you have to you will do whatever you have to do. And every time you fall short of perfection, you'll loathe it-and yourself.” Sulla held up a piece of paper. “Here is a decree which I will post on the rostra tomorrow. You have won the Civic Crown. According to my laws that entitles you to a seat in the Senate, a special place at the theater and in the circus, and a standing ovation on every occasion when you appear wearing your Civic Crown. You will be required to wear it in the Senate, at the theater and in the circus. The next meeting of the Senate is half a month away. I will expect to see you in the Curia Hostilia.”

And the interview was over. But when Caesar reached home he found one more accolade from Sulla. A very fine and leggy young chestnut stallion with a note clipped to its mane that said: “There is no need to ride a mule any longer, Caesar. You have my full permission to ride this beast. He is, however, not quite perfect. Look at his feet.”

When Caesar looked, he burst out laughing. Instead of neat uncloven hooves, the stallion's feet were each divided into two toes, a little like a cow's.

Lucius Decumius shivered. “You better have him cut!” he said, not seeing any joke. “Don't want no more like him around!”

“On the contrary,” said Caesar, wiping his eyes. “I can't ride him much, he can't be shod. But young Toes here is going to carry me into every battle I fight! And when he isn't doing that, he'll be covering my mares at Bovillae. Lucius Decumius, he's luck! I must always have a Toes. Then I'll never lose a battle.”

His mother saw the changes in him instantly, and wondered why he sorrowed. Everything had gone so well for him! He had come back with the corona civica and had been glowingly mentioned in dispatches. He had even been able to inform her that the drain on his purse had not been as drastic as she had feared; King Nicomedes had given him gold, and his share of the spoils of Mitylene had been the greater because of his Civic Crown.