Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

Sulla was preparing to read a letter from Pompey in Africa when the steward Chrysogonus came to him looking flustered. "What is it? I'm busy, I want to read this!" "Domine, a lady wishes to see you." "Tell her to buzz off." "Domine, I cannot!" That took Sulla's mind off the letter; he lowered it and stared at Chrysogonus in astonishment. "I didn't think there was anyone alive could defeat you," he said, beginning to be amused. "You're shaking, Chrysogonus. Did she bite you?" "No, domine," said the steward, who had absolutely no sense of humor. "However, I thought she might kill me." "Oh! I think I have to see this lady. Did she give you a name? Is she mortal?" "She said, Aurelia." Sulla extended his hand and watched it. "No, I'm not in a pother yet!" "Shall I bring her in?" . "No. Tell her I don't want to see her ever again," Sulla said, but did not pick up Pompey's letter; his interest in it had waned. "Domine, she refuses to go until she's seen you!" "Then have the servants carry her out." "I tried, domine. They wouldn't lay a finger on her." "Yes, that would be right!" Sulla huffed, closed his eyes. "All right, Chrysogonus, send her in." And when Aurelia marched in he said, "Sit down." She sat, the glaring winter light bathing her without mercy, once more showing Sulla's wreckage how powerless perfect bones could render time. In his general's quarters at Teanum the light had been so bad he hadn't really seen her properly, so now he looked his fill. Too thin, and that ought to have made her less beautiful; instead it made her more, and the rosy flush which used to suffuse her lips and cheeks had faded away to leave her skin marmoreal. The hair had not greyed, nor had she yielded to a wish to bring back her youth by softening the style in which she wore it; it was still scraped back from her face into an uncompromising bun on the nape of her neck. And the eyes were so lovely, set in thick black lashes beneath feathered black brows. They gazed at him sternly. "Come about your boy, I suppose," he said, leaning back in his chair. "I have." "Then speak! I'm listening." "Was it because he looks so like your son?" Shaken, he could not continue to meet her gaze, stared at Pompey's letter until the pain of that barb had dissipated. "It was a shock when I first set eyes on him, but no." His eyes came back to hers, cold and goatish. "I liked your son, Lucius Cornelius." "And this is no way to get what you want, Aurelia. My boy died a long time ago. I've learned to live with it, even when people like you try to make capital out of it." "So you do know what I want." "Certainly." He tipped the chair back, not easy with the backward curving legs of a sturdy Roman designed version. "You want me to spare your son. Even though mine was not spared." "You can hardly blame me or my son for that!" "I can blame anyone I like for anything I like! I am the Dictator!" he shouted, beads of foam at the corners of his lips. "Rubbish, Sulla! You don't believe that any more than I do! I am here to ask you to spare my son, who does not deserve to die any more than he deserved to be made flamen Dialis.'' "I agree, he's not the right type for the job. But he's got it. You must have wanted it for him." "I did not want him to be flamen Dialis, any more than my husband did. We were told. By Marius himself, in between his atrocities," Aurelia said, lifting her lip just enough to indicate her disgust. "It was also Marius who told Cinna to give my son his daughter. The last thing Cinna wanted was to see Cinnilla made flaminica Dialis!" Sulla changed the subject. "You've given up wearing those lovely colors you used to like," he said. "That bone thing you have on doesn't even begin to do you justice." "Oh, rubbish again!" she snapped. "I am not here to please your discriminating eye, I'm here to plead for my son!" "It would please me very much to spare your son. He knows what he has to do. Divorce Cinna's brat." "He won't divorce her." "Why not?" shouted Sulla, leaping to his feet. "Why not?" A little color crept into her cheeks, reddened her lips. "Because, you fool, you showed him that she's his way out of a job he loathes with all his being! Divorce her, and remain the flamen Dialis for the rest of his life? He'd rather be dead!" Sulla gaped. "What?" "You're a fool, Sulla! A fool! He'll never divorce her!" "Don't you criticize me!" "I'll say what I like to you, you evil old relic!" A peculiar silence fell, and Sulla's rage trickled away as fast as Aurelia's gathered. He had turned to the window, but now he turned back to stare at her with something more on his mind than anger or the ordeal she had become. "Let's start again," he said. "Tell me why Marius made your son the flamen Dialis if none of you wanted it." "It has to do with the prophecy," she said. "Yes, I know about that. Consul seven times, Third Founder of Rome he used to tell everyone." "But not all of it. There was a second part he told to no one until his mind was failing. Then he told Young Marius, who told Julia, who told me." Sulla sat down again, frowning. "Go on," he said curtly. "The second part of the prophecy concerned my son. Caesar. Old Martha foretold that he would be the greatest Roman of all time. And Gaius Marius believed her about that too. He saddled Caesar with the flaminate Dialis to prevent his going to war and enjoying a political career." Aurelia sat down, white faced. "Because a man who cannot go to war and cannot seek the consulship can never shine," said Sulla, nodding. He whistled. "Clever Marius! Brilliant! Make your rival the flamen Dialis and you've won. I didn't think the old beast was so subtle." "Oh, he was subtle!" "An interesting story," Sulla said then, and picked up Pompey's letter. "You can go, I've heard you out." "Spare my son!" "Not unless he divorces Cinna's daughter." "He will never do that." "Then there is no more to be said. Go away, Aurelia." One more try. One more try for Caesar. "I wept for you once. You loved that. Now I find myself wanting to weep for you again. But you wouldn't love these tears. They would be to mourn the passing of a great man. For now I see a man who has diminished inside himself so much that he's reduced to preying upon children. Cinna's daughter is twelve years old. My son is eighteen. Children! Yet Cinna's widow strolls brazenly through Rome because she's someone else's wife, and that someone else belongs to you. Cinna's son is left penniless, with no alternative than to leave his country. Another child. While Cinna's widow thrives. Not a child." She sneered at him, made a derisory sound. "Annia is a redhead, of course. Is that some of her hair on your naked old pate?'' After which sally she swung on her heel and walked out. Chrysogonus came bustling in. "I want someone found," said Sulla, looking his nastiest. "Found, Chrysogonus, not proscribed and not killed." Dying to know what had transpired between his master and that extraordinary woman they had a past together, nothing was surer! the steward heaved an inward sigh; he would never know. So he said very smoothly, A private transaction, is it?" "That's as good a way of putting it as any! Yes, a private transaction. Two talents reward for the fellow who locates one Gaius Julius Caesar, the flamen Dialis. Who is to be brought to me with not so much as one hair of his head disturbed! Make sure they all know, Chrysogonus. No man kills the flamen Dialis. I just want him here. Understand?'' "Of course, domine." But the steward made no move to go. Instead he coughed delicately. Sulla's eyes had drifted back to Pompey's letter, but he lifted his head at this. "Yes?" "I have prepared the outline you wanted, domine, at the time I first asked you if I might be appointed the bureaucrat in charge of administering the proscriptions. I have also found a deputy steward for you to interview, in the event that you should agree to allow me to administer the proscriptions." The smile was not nice. You really believe you can cope with two jobs, do you? If I give you a deputy steward." "It is best if I do both jobs, domine, truly. Read my outline. It will show you conclusively that I do understand the nature of this particular administrative task. Why put some Treasury professional in the job when he'd prove too timid to seek clarification of his problems from you personally, and would be too mired in Treasury methods to take advantage of the more commercial aspects of the job?'' "I'll think about it and let you know," said Sulla, picking up Pompey's hapless letter yet again. Impassively he watched the steward bow his way out of the room, then grinned sourly. Abominable creature! Toad! Yet that, he reflected, was what administration of the proscriptions required someone absolutely abominable. But trustworthy. If the administrator were Chrysogonus, Sulla could be sure that disastrous liberties would not take place. No doubt Chrysogonus would make a fat profit for himself somewhere, but no one was in a better position than Chrysogonus to know that it would go very ill with him if he made his profit in any way which would reflect personally on Sulla. The business end of the proscriptions had to be conducted in a positive cloud of respectability sale of properties, disposal of cash assets, jewelry, furniture, works of art, stocks and shares. It was impossible for Sulla to administrate all of this himself, so someone would have to do it. Chrysogonus was right. Better him than a Treasury bureaucrat! Put one of those fellows on the job and nothing would ever get done. The work had to proceed expeditiously. But no one could be given the opportunity to say that Sulla himself had profited at the State's expense. Though Chrysogonus was a freedman now, that made him no less Sulla's creature; and Chrysogonus knew his master would have no qualms about killing him if he erred. Satisfied that he had solved the chief dilemma of the proscriptions, Sulla returned to pore over Pompey's letter.