Fortune's Favorites (85 page)

The following year I will eject Sertorius from inland Nearer Spain and drive him south and west into the lands of the Lusitani. In the third year, Quintus Caecilius, we will combine our two armies and crush him on the Tagus.

When Metellus Pius received this communication midway through January he retired to his study in the house he occupied in the town of Hispalis, there to peruse it in private. He didn't laugh; its contents were too serious. But smile sourly he did, unaware that Sulla had once got a letter not unlike this one, full of airy information about a country Sulla knew far better than Pompey did. Ye gods, the young butcher was sure of himself! And so patronizing!

Three years had now gone by since Metellus Pius and his eight legions had arrived in Further Spain, three years which had seen Sertorius outgeneral and outthink him. No one had a more profound respect for Quintus Sertorius and his legate Lucius Hirtuleius than did Metellus Pius the Piglet. And no one knew better than he how hard it would be-even for a Pompey-to beat Sertorius and Hirtuleius. As far as he was concerned, the tragedy lay in the fact that Rome had not given him long enough. According to Aesop slow but steady won the race, and Metellus Pius was the embodiment of slow but steady. He had licked his wounds and reorganized his forces to absorb the loss of one legion, then skulked in his province without provoking Sertorius. Very deliberately. For while he waited and assembled the intelligence reports detailing Sertorius's movements, he thought. He did not believe it impossible to beat Sertorius; rather, he believed Sertorius could not be beaten by orthodox military methods. And, he had become convinced, the answer lay at least partly in establishing a more cunning and devious intelligence network-the kind of intelligence network which would make it impossible for Sertorius to anticipate his troop movements. On the surface, a tall order, as the natives were the key to intelligence for both himself and Sertorius. But not an insuperable task! Metellus Pius was working out a way.

Now Pompey had entered upon the Spanish stage, empowered by the Senate (or rather, by Philippus) with an equal imperium, and quite sure his own talents far outshone Sertorius, Hirtuleius and Metellus Pius combined. Well, time would teach Pompey what Metellus Pius knew full well Pompey was not at the moment willing to hear; time and a few defeats. Oh, there could be no doubt that the young man was as brave as a lion-but the Piglet had known Sertorius since his eighteenth year, and knew that Sertorius too was as brave as a lion. What was more important by far, he was Gaius Marius's military heir; he understood the art of war as few in the history of Rome ever had. However, Metellus Pius had begun to sniff out Sertorius's weakness, and was almost sure it lay in his ideas about himself. Could those royal and magical ideas be undermined, Sertorius might unravel.

But Sertorius would not unravel, Metellus Pius decided, because a Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus opposed him on a battlefield.

His son came in, having knocked and been bidden to enter; Metellus Pius was a stickler for the correct etiquette. Known to everyone as Metellus Scipio (though in private his father addressed him as Quintus), the son's full name was majestic: Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Cornelianus Scipio Nasica. Now nineteen years old, he had traveled out the year before to join his father's staff as a contubernalis, very pleased that-as his own father had done before him-he could serve his military training under his father. The paternal bond was not a close blood tie, for Metellus Pius had adopted the eldest son of his wife Licinia's sister, married to Scipio Nasica. Why the elder Licinia was fertile enough to have produced many children and the younger Licinia barren, the Piglet did not know. These things happened, and when they did a man either divorced his barren wife or-if he loved her, as the Piglet did his Licinia-adopted.

On the whole the Piglet was pleased at the result of this adoption, though he might perhaps have wished that the boy was ever so slightly more intelligent and considerably less naturally arrogant. But the latter could be expected; Scipio Nasica was arrogant. Tall and well built, Metellus Scipio owned a certain haughtiness of expression which had to serve as a substitute for good looks, of which he had none. His eyes were blue-grey and his hair quite light, so he didn't look at all like his adoptive father. And if some of his contemporaries (like young Cato) had been heard to say that Metellus Scipio always walked around as if he had a bad smell under his nose, it was generally agreed that he did have something to turn up his nose about. Since his tenth birthday he had been contracted in betrothal to the daughter of Mamercus and his first wife, a Claudia Pulchra, and though the two young people did a great deal of squabbling, Metellus Scipio was genuinely very attached to Aemilia Lepida, as she was to him.

“A letter from Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in Emporiae,” said Metellus Pius to his son, waving it in the air but showing no inclination to allow his son to read it.

The superior expression on Metellus Scipio's face increased; he sniffed contemptuously. “It is an outrage, Father,” he said.

“In one way yes, Quintus my son. However, the contents of his letter have cheered me up considerably. Our brilliant young military prodigy obviously deems Sertorius a military dunce-no equal for himself!”

“Oh, I see.” Metellus Scipio sat down. “Pompeius thinks he'll wrap Sertorius up in one short campaign, eh?”

“No, no, my son! Three campaigns,” said the Piglet gently.

Sertorius had spent the winter in his new capital of Osca together with his most valued legate, Lucius Hirtuleius, another extremely capable legate, Gaius Herennius, and the relative newcomer, Marcus Perperna Veiento.

When Perperna had first arrived things had not gone well, for Perperna had automatically assumed that his gift of twenty thousand infantry and fifteen hundred cavalry would remain in his own personal command.

But, “I cannot allow that,” had Sertorius said.

Perperna had reacted with outrage. “They are my men, Quintus Sertorius! It is my prerogative to say what happens to them and how they should be used! And I say they still belong to me!”

“Why are you trying to emulate Caepio the Consul before the battle of Arausio?” asked Sertorius. “Don't even think of it, Veiento! In Spain there is only one commander-in-chief and one consul-me!”

This had not ended the matter. Perperna maintained to all and sundry that Sertorius did not have the right to refuse him an equal status or take his army off him.

Then Sertorius had aired it before his senate. “Marcus Perperna Veiento wishes to make war against the Roman presence in Spain as a separate entity and with a rank equal to mine,” he said. “He will not take orders from me or follow my strategies. I ask you, Conscript Fathers, to inform this man that he must subordinate himself to me or leave Spain.”

Sertorius's senate was happy so to inform Perperna, but still Perperna had refused to accept defeat. Sure that right and custom were on his side, he appealed to his army in assembly. And was told by his men in no uncertain terms that Sertorius was in the right of it. They would serve Quintus Sertorius, not Perperna.

So Perperna had finally subsided. It had seemed to everyone (including Sertorius) that he gave in with good grace and held no grudges. But underneath his placid exterior Perperna smouldered still, keeping the coals of his outrage from dying out. As far as he was concerned, in Roman terms he ranked exactly with Quintus Sertorius: both of them had been praetors, neither consul.

Unaware that Perperna still boiled, Sertorius proceeded that winter Pompey had arrived in Spain to draw up his plans for the coming year's campaign.

“I don't know Pompeius at all,” said the commander-in-chief without undue concern. “However, after looking at his career, I don't think he'll be hard to beat. Had I deemed Carbo capable of winning against Sulla, I would have remained in Italy. He had some good men in Carrinas, Censorinus and Brutus Damasippus, but by the time he himself deserted- which is really when we might have seen what Pompeius was made of-he left an utterly demoralized command and soldiery behind. Even if one goes back to Pompeius's earliest battles it becomes obvious that he has never faced a truly able general or an army with an indestructable spirit.”

“All that will change!” said Hirtuleius, grinning.

“It certainly will. What do they call him? Kid Butcher? Well, I don't think I'll glorify him to that extent-I'll just call him a kid. He's cocksure and conscienceless, and he has no respect for Roman institutions. If he did, he wouldn't be here with an imperium equal to the old woman's in Further Spain. He manipulated the Senate into giving him this command when he has absolutely no right to it, no matter what special clauses Sulla might have incorporated into his laws. So it's up to me to show him his proper place. Which is not nearly as high as he thinks.”

“What will he do, any idea?” asked Herennius.

“Oh, the logical thing,” said Sertorius cheerfully. “He'll march down the east coast to take it off us.”

“What about the old woman?'' asked Perperna, who had adopted Sertorius's name for Metellus Pius with glee.

“Well, he hasn't exactly shone so far, has he? Just in case Pompeius's advent has emboldened him, however, we'll pin him down in his province. I'll mass the Lusitani on his western borders. That will oblige him to leave the Baetis and take up residence on the Anas, an extra hundred miles on the march from the coast of Nearer Spain if he's tempted to aid Pompeius. I don't think he will be tempted, mind you. The old woman is unadventurous and cautious. And why would he strain at the bit to help a kid who has managed to prise identical imperium out of the Senate? The old woman is a stickler, Perperna. He'll do his duty to Rome no matter who has been given identical imperium. But he won't do one iota more. With the Lusitani swarming on the far side of the Anas, he'll see his first duty as containing them.”

The meeting broke up and Sertorius went to feed his white fawn. This creature, magical enough by virtue of its rare color, had assumed enormous importance in the eyes of his native Spanish followers, who regarded it as evidence of Sertorius's divinely bestowed magical powers. He had not lost his knack with wild animals over the years, and by the time he arrived in Spain the second time he was well aware of the profound effect his ability to snap his fingers and call up wild creatures to him had on the native peoples. The white fawn, apparently motherless, had come to him two years ago out of the mountains in central Spain, tiny and demure; dazzled by its beauty, he had gone down on his knees to it without pausing to think what he was doing, only concerned to put his arms around it and comfort it. But his Spaniards had murmured in awe and looked at him quite differently from that day forward. For the white fawn, they were convinced, was no one less than a personification of their chief goddess, Diana, who was showing Sertorius her special favor and raising him above all other men. And he had known who the white fawn was! For he had gone down on his knees in humble worship.

The white fawn had been with him ever since, followed him about like a dog. No other man or woman would it permit to go near it; only Sertorius. And-more magical still!-it had never grown, remained a dainty ruby-eyed mite which frisked and cavorted around Sertorius begging to be hugged and kissed, and slept on a sheepskin at the side of his bed. Even when he campaigned it was with him. During battles he tied it to a post in some safe place, for if he left it free it would always try to reach him in the fray, and he could not afford the risk of its dying; did it die, his Spaniards would deem him deserted by the goddess.

In truth he had begun to think himself that the white fawn was a sign of divine blessing, and believed in it more and more; he called it, of course, Diana, and referred to himself when he spoke to it as Daddy.

“Daddy's here, Diana!” he called.

And Diana came to him eagerly, asking to be kissed. He knelt down to its level and put his arms about its shivering form, put his lips to the soft sleekness of its head, one hand pulling on its ear in rhythmic caresses it loved. He always excluded it from his house when he conferred with his legates, and it would mope, sure it had in some inexplicable way offended Daddy. The frenzy of guilt and contrition with which it greeted him afterward had to be dealt with in extra hugs and many murmured words of love; only then would it eat. Perhaps understandably, he thought more of Diana than he did of his German wife and his half-German son-there was nothing god-given about them. Only his mother did he love more than he did Diana, and her he had not seen in seven years.

The white fawn nosing contentedly at its rich dried grasses (for winter in Osca meant snow and ice, not grazing), Sertorius sat down on a boulder outside his back door and tried to insert himself inside Pompey's mind. A kid! Did Rome truly believe that a kid from Picenum could defeat him! By the time he rose he had concluded that Rome and the Senate had been tricked by the shell game Philippus performed so well. For of course Sertorius maintained contact with certain people inside Rome-and they were neither humble nor obscure. Beneath Sulla's blanket many malcontents moved invisibly, and some of them had made it their business to keep Sertorius informed. Since the appointment of Pompey the tenor of these communications had changed a little; a few important men were beginning to hint that if Quintus Sertorius could defeat the new champion of the Senate, Rome might be glad to welcome him home as the Dictator.

But he had thought of something else too, and privately summoned Lucius Hirtuleius to see him.

“We'll make absolutely sure the old woman stays in Further Spain,” he said to Hirtuleius, “for it may be that the Lusitani won't be discouragement enough. I want you and your brother to take the Spanish army to Laminium in the spring and station yourselves there. Then if the old woman does decide to try to help the kid, you'll contain him. Whether he attempts to break out of his province via the headwaters of the Anas or the Baetis, you'll be in his way.”

The Spanish army was just that, forty thousand Lusitanian and Celtiberian tribesmen whom Sertorius and Hirtuleius had painfully but successfully trained to fight like Roman legions. Sertorius had other Spanish forces which he had retained in their native guise, superb at ambush and guerrilla warfare; but he had known from the beginning that if he was to beat Rome in Spain, he must also have properly trained Roman legions at his disposal. Many men of Roman or Italian nationality had drifted to enlist under him since Carbo's final defeat, but not enough. Thus had Sertorius generated his Spanish army.