Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

The rest of the new arrivals were also well, including as they did Sulla's grown daughter, Cornelia Sulla, and her two children by her dead first husband. The little girl Pompeia was now eight years old and completely absorbed in her beauty, of which she was very aware. At six years of age the little boy Quintus Pompeius Rufus bade fair to living up to his last name, for he was red of hair, red of skin, red of eye, red of temper. "And," asked Sulla of his steward, Chrysogonus, whose task it had been to look after the family, "how is my guest who cannot cross the pomerium into Rome?" A little thinner than of yore (it could not have been an easy job to shepherd so many people of different and distinct natures, reflected Sulla), the steward rolled his expressive dark eyes toward the ceiling and shrugged. I am afraid, Lucius Cornelius, that he will not agree to remain outside the pomerium unless you visit him in person and explain exactly why. I tried! Indeed I tried! But he deems me an underling, beneath contempt or credibility." That was typical of Ptolemy Alexander, thought Sulla as he trudged out of the city to the inn on the Via Appia near the first milestone where Chrysogonus had lodged the haughty and hypersensitive prince of Egypt, who, though he had been in Sulla's custody for three years, was only now beginning to be a burden. Claiming to be a refugee from the court of Pontus, he had turned up in Pergamum begging Sulla to grant him asylum; Sulla had been fascinated. For he was none other than Ptolemy Alexander the Younger, only legitimate son of the Pharaoh who had died trying to regain his throne in the same year as Mithridates had captured the son, living on Cos with his two bastard first cousins. All three princes of Egypt had been sent to Pontus, and Egypt had fallen firmly into the grasp of the dead Pharaoh's elder brother, Ptolemy Soter nicknamed Lathyrus (it meant Chickpea), who resumed the title of Pharaoh. From the moment he set eyes on Ptolemy Alexander the Younger, Sulla had understood why Egypt had preferred to be ruled by old Lathyrus the Chickpea. Ptolemy Alexander the Younger was womanish to the extreme of dressing like a reincarnation of Isis in floating draperies knotted and twisted in the fashion of the Hellenized goddess of Egypt, with a golden crown upon his wig of golden curls, and an elaborate painting of his face. He minced, he ogled, he simpered, he lisped, he fluttered; and yet, thought Sulla shrewdly, beneath all that effeminate facade lay something steely. He had told Sulla a tale of three hideous years spent as a prisoner at the court of one who was the most militant of heterosexuals; Mithridates, who genuinely believed womanish men could be "cured," had subjected young Ptolemy Alexander to an endless series of humiliations and degradations designed to disenchant the poor fellow of his chosen proclivities. It had not worked. Thrown into bed with Pontine courtesans and even common whores, Ptolemy Alexander had been able to do no more than hang his head over the edge of the bed and vomit; forced to don armor and go on route marches with a hundred sneering soldiers, he had wept and collapsed; beaten with fists and then with lashes, he had only betrayed the fact that he found such treatment highly stimulating; set on a tribunal in the marketplace of Amisus in all his finery and paint, and there subjected to rains of rotten fruit, eggs, vegetables and even stones, he had dumbly endured without contrition. His chance had come when Mithridates began to reel under Sulla's competent conduct of the war with Rome, and the court disintegrated. Young Ptolemy Alexander had escaped. "My two bastard cousins preferred to remain in Amisus, of course," he lisped to Sulla. "The atmosphere of that abominable court has suited them beautifully! They both went into marriage eagerly to daughters of Mithridates by his part Parthian, part Seleucid wife, Antiochis. Well, they can keep Pontus and all of the King's daughters! I hate the place!" "And what do you want of me?" Sulla had asked. "Asylum. Shelter within Rome when you return there. And, when Lathyrus Chickpea dies, the Egyptian throne. He has a daughter, Berenice, who is reigning with him as his Queen. But he cannot marry her, of course he could only marry an aunt, a cousin, or a sister, and he has none of any available. In the natural way of things Queen Berenice will survive her father. The Egyptian throne is matrilineal, which means the king becomes the king through marriage to the queen or to the eldest born princess of the line. I am the only legitimate Ptolemy left. The Alexandrians who have the sole say in the matter since the Macedonian Ptolemies established their capital there rather than in Memphis will want me to succeed Lathyrus Chickpea, and will consent to my marrying Queen Berenice. So when Lathyrus Chickpea dies I want you to send me to Alexandria to claim the throne with Rome's blessing." For some moments Sulla considered this, eyeing Ptolemy Alexander in amusement. Then he said, You may marry the Queen, but will you be able to get children by her?" "Probably not," said the prince with composure. "Then is there any point to the business?" Sulla smirked at his own pun. Ptolemy Alexander apparently did not see the point. "I want to be Pharaoh of Egypt, Lucius Cornelius," he said solemnly. "The throne is rightfully mine. What happens to it after my death is immaterial." "So who else is there in line for the throne?" Only my two bastard cousins. Who are now the minions of Mithridates and Tigranes. I was able to escape when a messenger came from Mithridates that all three of us were to be sent south to Tigranes, who is extending his kingdom in Syria. The purpose of this removal, I gather, was to keep us from Roman custody if Pontus should fall." "Your bastard cousins may not be in Amisus, then." "They were when I left. Beyond that I do not know." Sulla had put his pen down and stared with cold goat's eyes at the sullen, bedizened person before him. "Very well, Prince Alexander, I will grant you asylum. When I return to Rome you may accompany me. As to your eventual assumption of the Double Crown of Egypt best perhaps to discuss that when the time comes." But the time had not yet come when Sulla trudged out to the inn at the first milestone on the Via Appia, and he could now foresee certain difficulties anent Ptolemy Alexander the Younger. There was a scheme in the back of his mind, of course; had it not occurred to him on the occasion of his first meeting with Ptolemy Alexander he would simply have sent the young man to his uncle Lathyrus Chickpea in Alexandria, and washed his hands of the whole affair. But the scheme had occurred to him, and now he could only hope that he lived long enough to see it bear fruit; Lathyrus Chickpea was much older than he was, yet apparently still enjoyed the best of health. Alexandria had a salubrious climate, so they said. "However, Prince Alexander," he said when he had been shown into the inn's best parlor, "I cannot house you at Rome's expense for however many years it will take your uncle to die. Even in a place like this." Outrage flared in the dark eyes; Ptolemy Alexander drew himself up like a striking snake. "A place like this? I'd rather be back in Amisus than remain in a place like this!" "In Athens," said Sulla coldly, "you were housed royally at the expense of the Athenians, purely due to your uncle's gifts to that city after I was obliged to sack a part of it and did some little damage. Well, that was the prerogative of Athens. You cost me nothing. Here you're likely to cost me a fortune Rome cannot spare. So I'm offering you two choices. You may take ship at Rome's expense for Alexandria, and make your peace with your uncle Lathyrus Chickpea. Or you may negotiate a loan with one of this city's bankers, hire a house and servants on the Pincian or some other acceptable place outside the pomerium, and remain until your uncle dies." It was difficult to tell if Ptolemy Alexander lost color, so heavy was his maquillage, but Sulla rather fancied that he did; certainly the fight went out of him. "I can't go to Alexandria, my uncle would have me killed!" "Then negotiate a loan." "All right, I will! Only tell me how!" "I'll send Chrysogonus to tell how. He knows everything." Sulla had not sat down, but he moved now to the door. "By the way, Prince Alexander, under no circumstances can you cross the sacred boundary of Rome into the city." "I shall die of boredom!" Came the famous sneer. "I doubt that, when it's known you have money and a nice house. Water always finds its level. Alexandria is a long way from Rome, and I must assume that you will be its lawful king the moment Lathyrus Chickpea dies. Which neither you nor I can know until word reaches Rome. Therefore, as Rome will tolerate no ruling sovereign within her boundary, you must stay outside it. I mean that. Flout me, and you won't need to go to Alexandria to meet a premature death." Ptolemy Alexander burst into tears. "You're a horrible, hateful person!" Off went Sulla down the road to the Capena Gate, giving voice to an occasional neigh of laughter. What a horrible, hateful person Ptolemy Alexander was! But how very useful he might prove to be if only Lathyrus Chickpea had the grace and good sense to die while Sulla was still the Dictator! And he gave a little skip of pleasure at the thought of what he was going to do when he heard that the throne of Egypt was vacant. Oblivious to the fact that his laughter and his skip and that crabbed gait had become portents of terror to every man and woman who chanced to see him, whose mind was in fabled Alexandria.