The Grass Crown (109 page)

The senior magistrate was waiting for him in a lane outside the forum, a lane which backed onto the meeting hall and the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; if the job was to be done without incurring a riot it would have to be done at once, and without the knowledge of the crowd in the forum.

“Ah, Burgundus, just the man I need!” said the duumvir (whose colleague, a less forceful man, had mysteriously disappeared). “In the cella below our capitol is a prisoner.” He turned away and threw the rest over his shoulder in a casual, unconcerned manner. “You will strangle him. He’s a traitor under sentence of death.”

The German stood quite still, then lifted his hands and looked at their vastness in wonder; never before had he been called upon to kill a man. Kill a man with those hands. It would be as easy for him as for any other man to wring a chicken’s neck. Of course he had to do as he was told, that went without saying; but suddenly the sense of comfortable well-being he had enjoyed in Minturnae blew away in a lonely wind. He was to become the town executioner as well as being made to do everything else unpalatable. Filled with horror, his usually placid blue eyes took in the back of the capitol, the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Where the prisoner he had been told to strangle was located. A very important prisoner, it seemed. One of the Italian leaders in the war?

Burgundus drew in a deep breath, then plodded toward the far side of the temple’s podium, where the door to the little labyrinth beneath was located. To enter, he had not only to dip his head, but to bend almost double. He found himself inside a narrow stone hall, off which several doors opened on either side; at its far end an iron grille covered a slit made to let in light. In this gloomy place were kept the town’s records and archives, local laws and statutes, the treasury, and, behind the first door to the left, the rare man or woman the duumviri had ordered detained until whatever troubled them had passed and they could be released.

Made of oak three fingers thick, this door was an even smaller one than the entranceway; Burgundus pulled back the bolt, crouched, and squeezed himself into the cell. Like the hall the room was illuminated by a barred opening, this one high up on the back wall of the temple base, where noises emanating from within were least liable to be heard from the forum. It gave barely enough light to see, especially because the eyes of Burgundus were not yet accustomed to the dimness.

Straightening as much as possible, the German giant distinguished a greyish-black lump, vaguely man-shaped; whoever it was rose to his feet and faced his executioner.

“What do you want?” the prisoner demanded loudly, his voice full of authority.

“I have been told to strangle you,” said Burgundus simply.

“You’re a German!” said the prisoner sharply. “Which tribe? Come on, answer me, you great gawk!”

This last was uttered even more sharply, for Burgundus was now beginning to see more clearly, and what had caused him to hesitate over his reply was the sight of a pair of fierce fiery eyes.

“I am from the Cimbri, domine.”

The large and naked man with the terrible eyes seemed visibly to swell. “What? A slave—and one whom I conquered into the bargain!—presumes to kill Gaius Marius!

Burgundus flinched and whimpered, threw his arms up to cover his head, cowered away.

“Get out!” thundered Gaius Marius. “I’ll not meet my death in any mean dungeon at the hands of any German!”

Wailing, Burgundus fled, leaving cell door and outer door ajar, and erupted into the open space of the forum.

“No, no!” he cried to those in the square, tears falling down his face in rivers. “I cannot kill Gaius Marius! I cannot kill Gaius Marius! I cannot kill Gaius Marius!”

Aulus Belaeus came striding across from the opposite side of the forum, took the giant’s writhing hands gently. “It’s all right, Burgundus, that won’t be asked of you. Stop crying now, there’s the good boy! Enough!”

“I can’t kill Gaius Marius!” Burgundus said again, wiping his runny nose on his arm because Belaeus still held his hands. “And I can’t let anyone else kill Gaius Marius either!”

“No one is going to kill Gaius Marius,” said Belaeus firmly. “It’s all a misunderstanding. Now calm yourself, and make yourself useful. Go across to Marcus Furius and take the wine and the robe he’s holding. Offer Gaius Marius both. Then you may take Gaius Marius to my house and wait there with him.”

Like a child the giant quietened, beamed upon Aulus Belaeus, and lolloped off to do as he was told.

Belaeus turned to face the crowd, gathering again; his eyes were fixed upon the duumviri, both rushing from the meeting hall, and his stance was aggressive.

“Well, citizens of Minturnae, are you going to allow our lovely town to inherit the detestable task of killing Gaius Marius?”

“Aulus Belaeus, we have to do this!” said the senior magistrate, arriving breathless. “It is Great Treason!”

“I don’t care if it’s every crime on the statutes!” said Aulus Belaeus. “Minturnae cannot execute Gaius Marius!”

The crowd was yelling its heartfelt support for Aulus Belaeus, so the magistrates convened a meeting then and there to discuss the matter. The result was a foregone conclusion; Gaius Marius was to go free. Minturnae could not possibly make itself responsible for the death of a man who had been consul of Rome six times and saved Italy from the Germans.

“So,” said Aulus Belaeus contentedly to Gaius Marius a little later, “I am pleased to be able to tell you that I will put you back on my ship with the best wishes of all Minturnae, including our silly hidebound magistrates. And this time your ship will sail without your being dragged back to shore, I promise you.”

Bathed and fed, Marius was feeling much better. “I have received much kindness since I fled Rome, Aulus Belaeus, but none so great as the kindness Minturnae has shown me. I shall never forget this place.” He turned to give the hovering Burgundus the best smile his poor paralyzed face could produce. “Nor will I forget that I was spared by a German. Thank you.”

Belaeus rose to his feet. “I’d like to permit my house the honor of having you stay, Gaius Marius, but I won’t rest easy until I see your ship sailing out of the bay. Let me escort you to the docks immediately. You can sleep on board.”

When they came out of the street door to Belaeus’s house, most of Minturnae was waiting to walk with them to the harbor; a cheer went up for Gaius Marius, who stood acknowledging it with regal dignity. Then everyone proceeded to the shore with lighter hearts and more importance than in years. On the jetty Marius embraced Aulus Belaeus publicly.

“Your money is still on board,” said Belaeus, tears in his eyes. “I have sent extra clothing out for you—and a much better brand of wine than my captain normally drinks! I am also sending the slave Burgundus with you, since you have no attendants. The town is afraid to keep him in case the troopers come back and some local fool talks. He doesn’t deserve to die, so I bought him for your use.”

“I accept Burgundus with pleasure, Aulus Belaeus, but on no account worry about those fellows. I know who hired them—a man with no authority and no clout, trying to win a reputation for himself. At first I suspected Lucius Sulla, and that would have been far more serious. But if the consul has troopers out looking for me, they haven’t reached Minturnae yet. That lot were commissioned by a glory-seeking privatus.” The breath hissed between Marius’s teeth. “He’ll keep, Sextus Lucilius!”

“My ship is yours until you can come home again,” said Belaeus, smiling. “The captain knows. Luckily his cargo is Falernian, so it will only improve until he can unload it. We wish you well.”

“And I wish you well, Aulus Belaeus. I will never forget you,” said Gaius Marius.

And finally the day of excitement was over; the men and women of Minturnae stood on the docks and waved until the ship dropped below the horizon, then trooped home feeling as if they had won a great war. Aulus Belaeus walked home last of all, smiling to himself in the dying light; he had conceived a wonderful idea. He would find the greatest painter of murals in all the peninsula and instruct him to trace the story of Gaius Marius in Minturnae through a series of magnificent pictures. They would adorn the new temple of Marica in its lovely grove of trees. After all, she was the sea-goddess who gave birth to Latinus—whose daughter Lavinia married Aeneas and produced Iulus—so she had a special significance for Gaius Marius, married to a Julia. Marica was also the patroness of the town. No greater deed had Minturnae done than to decline to kill Gaius Marius; and in the years to come, all of Italy would know of it because of the frescoes in the temple of Marica.

•        •        •

From that time onward Gaius Marius was never in danger, though long and wearisome were his travels. In Aenaria nineteen of the fugitives were reunited, and waited then in vain for Publius Sulpicius. After eight days they decided sorrowfully that he would never come, and sailed without him. From Aenaria they braved the open waters of the Tuscan Sea and saw no land until they came to the northwestern cape of Sicily, where they put in at the fishing port of Erycina.

There in Sicily Marius had hoped to remain, not wanting to venture any further from Italy than he needed; though his physical health was remarkably good considering all that had befallen him, even he himself was aware that all was not well inside his mind. He forgot things, and sometimes every word said to him sounded like the bar-bars of Scythians or Sarmatians; he smelled unidentifiable yet repellent odors, and endured fishing-nets coming down across his eyes to mar his vision, or would grow unbearably hot, or wonder where he was; his temper frayed, he imagined slights and insults.

“Whatever it is inside of us that makes us think, be it in our chests as some say, or in our heads as Hippocrates says—and I believe it must be inside our heads because I think with my eyes and ears and nose, so why should they be as far away from the source of thought as they are from heart or liver?” he rambled one day to his son while they waited in Erycina to hear from the governor. His voice trailed away, he knitted his huge brows in a fierce frown, pulled at them constantly. “Let me start again…. Something is chewing my mind away a little bit at a time, Young Marius. I know whole books still, and when I force myself to it, I can think straight—I can conduct meetings, I can do anything I ever could in the past. But not always. And it’s changing in ways I don’t understand. At times I’m not even conscious of the changes… . You must allow me these vaguenesses and crotchets. I have to conserve my mental strength because one day soon I will be consul for the seventh time. Martha said I would be, and she was never wrong. Never wrong… I told you that, didn’t I?”

Young Marius swallowed, forced the lump in his throat away. “Yes, Father, you did. Many times.”

“Did I ever tell you she prophesied something else?”

The grey eyes came round to rest upon the father’s battered and twisted face, very high in its color these days. Young Marius sighed softly, wondering whether Marius’s mind was rambling again, or if this was still a lucid period. “No, Father.”

“Well, she did. She said I wasn’t going to be the greatest man Rome would ever produce. Do you know who she said would be the very greatest Roman of them all?”

“No, Father. But I’d like to know.” Not even a ray of hope stole into Young Marius’s heart; he knew it would not be he. The son of a Great Man is all too aware of his own deficiencies.

“She said it would be Young Caesar.”

“Edepol!”

Marius wriggled, giggled, suddenly chillingly eldritch. “Oh, don’t worry, my son! He won’t be! I refuse to let anyone be greater than I am! that’s why I’m going to nail Young Caesar’s star to the bottom of the deepest sea.”

His son got to his feet. “You’re tired, Father. I’ve noticed that these moods and difficulties you have are much worse when you’re tired. Come and sleep.”

The governor of Sicily was Gaius Marius’s client Gaius Norbanus, who was in Messana dealing with an attempted invasion of Sicily by Marcus Lamponius and a force of rebel Lucanians and Bruttians. Sent as quickly as possible down the Via Valeria to Messana, Marius’s messenger came back with the governor’s answer in thirteen days.

Though I am acutely aware of my cliental obligations to you, Gaius Marius, I am also governor propraetore of a Roman province, and I am honor bound to observe my duty to Rome ahead of my duty to my patron. Your letter arrived after I had received an official directive from the Senate notifying me that I can offer you and the other fugitives no kind of succor. I am actually instructed to hunt you down and kill you if possible. That of course I cannot do; what I can do is to order your ship to leave Sicilian waters.

Privately I wish you well, and hope that somewhere you find shelter and safety, though I doubt you will find it in any Roman territory. I should tell you that Publius Sulpicius was apprehended in Laurentum. His head adorns the rostra in Rome. A vile deed. But you will understand my position better when I tell you that the head of Sulpicius was fixed to the rostra by none other than Lucius Cornelius Sulla himself. No, not an order. He did the deed personally.

“Poor Sulpicius!” said Marius, blinking away easy tears. Then he squared his shoulders and said, “Very well, on we go! We’ll see how we are received in the African province.”

But there too they were permitted no entry; the governor Publius Sextilius had also received orders, and could do no more for the fugitives than to advise them to go somewhere else before duty prompted him to hunt them down and kill them.

On they went to Rusicade, the port serving Cirta, capital of Numidia. King Hiempsal now ruled Numidia; the son of Gauda, he was a better man by far. When the King got Marius’s letter he was at his court in Cirta, not far from Rusicade. Impaled on the horns of the biggest dilemma his tenure of the kingdom had yet given him, he dithered for some time—Gaius Marius had put his father on the throne, yet Gaius Marius might also be the man who put the son off it. For Lucius Cornelius Sulla also had some claim to pre-eminence in Numidia.

After some days of cogitation, he moved himself and part of his court to Icosium, far west of Roman presence, and bade Gaius Marius and his colleagues sail to join him there. The King allowed them to move ashore, placing several comfortable villas at their disposal. He also entertained them frequently in his own house, large enough to be called a small palace, though not nearly as commodious as his establishment in Cirta. As a consequence of this restricted space, the King left some of his wives and all of his concubines behind, taking with him to Icosium only his queen, Sophonisba, and two minor wives, Salammbo and Anno. An educated individual in the best traditions of Hellenistic monarchs, he kept no sort of oriental state, but rather allowed his guests to mingle freely among all the members of his household—sons, daughters, wives. Which unfortunately led to complications.