Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

Since there were two months to while away, Caesar planned to journey to Pessinus, Byzantium, and Troy. Unfortunately the King insisted upon accompanying him to Byzantium, and upon a sea journey, so Caesar never did get to either Pessinus or Troy; what ought to have been a matter of two or three days in a ship turned into almost a month. The royal progress was tediously slow and formal as the King called into every tiny fishing village and allowed its inhabitants to see him in all his glory though, in deference to Caesar, without his maquillage. Always Greek in nature and population, Byzantium had existed for six hundred years upon the tip of a hilly peninsula on the Thracian side of the Bosporus, and had a harbor on the horn shaped northern reach as well as one on the southern, more open side. Its walls were heavily fortified and very high, its wealth manifest in the size and beauty of its buildings, private as well as public. The Thracian Bosporus was more beautiful than the Hellespont and more majestic, thought Caesar, having sailed through the Hellespont. That King Nicomedes was the city's suzerain became obvious from the moment the royal barge was docked; every man of importance came flocking to greet him. However, it did not escape Caesar that he himself got a few dark looks, or that there were some present who did not like to see the King of Bithynia on such good terms with a Roman. Which led to another dilemma. Until now Caesar's public associations with King Nicomedes had all been inside Bithynia, where the people knew their ruler so well that they loved his whole person, and understood him. It was not like that in Byzantium, where it soon became obvious that everyone assumed Caesar was the King of Bithynia's boyfriend. It would have been easy to refute the assumption a few words here and there about silly old fools who made silly old fools of themselves, and what a nuisance it was to be obliged to dicker for a fleet with a silly old fool. The trouble was, Caesar couldn't bring himself to do that; he had grown to love Nicomedes in every way except the one way Byzantium assumed he did, and he couldn't hurt the poor old man in that one place he himself was hurting most his pride. But there were cogent reasons why he ought to make the true situation clear, first and foremost because his own future was involved. He knew where he was going all the way to the top. Bad enough to attempt that hard climb hiding a part of his nature which was real; but worse by far to attempt it knowing that the inference was quite unjustified. If the King had been younger he might have decided upon a direct appeal, for though Nicomedes condemned the Roman intolerance of homosexuality as un Hellenic, barbarian even, he would out of his naturally warm and affectionate nature have striven to dispel the illusion. But at his advanced age, Caesar couldn't be sure that the hurt this request would produce would not also be too severe. In short, life, Caesar was discovering after that enclosed and sheltered adolescence he had been forced to endure, could hand a man conundrums to which there were no adequate answers. Byzantine resentment of Romans was due, of course, to the occupation of the city by Fimbria and Flaccus four years earlier, when they appointed by the government of Cinna had decided to head for Asia and a war with Mithridates rather than for Greece and a war with Sulla. It made little difference to the Byzantines that Fimbria had murdered Flaccus, and Sulla had put paid to Fimbria; the fact remained that their city had suffered. And here was their suzerain fawning all over another Roman. Thus, having arrived at what decisions he could, Caesar set out to make his own individual impression on the Byzantines, intending to salvage what pride he could. His intelligence and education were a great help, but he was not so sure about that element of his nature that his mother so deplored his charm. It did win over the leading citizens of the city and it did much to mollify their feelings after the singular boorishness and brutishness of Flaccus and Fimbria, but he was forced in the end to conclude that it probably strengthened their impressions of his sexual leanings male men weren't supposed to be charming. So Caesar embarked upon a frontal attack. The first phase of this consisted in crudely rebuffing all the overtures made to him by men, and the second phase in finding out the name of Byzantium's most famous courtesan, then making love to her until she cried enough. "He's as big as a donkey and as randy as a goat," she said to all her friends and regular lovers, looking exhausted. Then she smiled and sighed, and stretched her arms voluptuously. "Oh, but he's wonderful! I haven't had a boy like him in years!" And that did the trick. Without hurting King Nicomedes, whose devotion to the Roman youth was now seen for what it was. A hopeless passion. Back to Nicomedia, to Queen Oradaltis, to Sulla the dog, to that crazy palace with its surplus of pages and its squabbling, intriguing staff. "I'm sorry to have to go," he said to the King and Queen at their last dinner together. "Not as sorry as we are to see you go," said Queen Oradaltis gruffly, and stirred the dog with her foot. Will you come back after Mitylene is subdued?'' asked the King. "We would so much like that." "I'll be back. You have my word on it," said Caesar. "Good!" Nicomedes looked satisfied. "Now, please enlighten me about a Latin puzzle I have never found the answer to: why is cunnus masculine gender, and mentula feminine gender?'' Caesar blinked. "I don't know!" "There must surely be a reason." "Quite honestly, I've never thought about it. But now that you've drawn it to my attention, it is peculiar, isn't it?" "Cunnus should be cunna it's the female genitalia, after all. And mentula should be mentulus it's a man's penis, after all. Below so much masculine bluster, how hopelessly confused you Romans are! Your women are men, and your men, women." And the King sat back, beaming. "You didn't choose the politest words for our private parts," said Caesar gravely. "Cunnus and mentula are obscenities." He kept his face straight as he went on. "The answer is obvious, I would have thought. The gender of the equipment indicates the sex it is intended to mate with the penis is meant to find a female home, and a vagina is meant to welcome a male home." "Rubbish!" said the King, lips quivering. "Sophistry!" said the Queen, shoulders shaking. "What do you have to say about it, Sulla?" asked Nicomedes of the dog, with which he was getting on much better since the advent of Caesar or perhaps it was that Oradaltis didn't use the dog to tease the old man so remorselessly these days. Caesar burst out laughing. When I get home, I will most certainly ask him!" The palace was utterly empty after Caesar left; its two aged denizens crept around bewildered, and even the dog mourned. "He is the son we never had," said Nicomedes. "No!" said Oradaltis strongly. "He is the son we could never have had. Never." "Because of my family's predisposition?" "Of course not! Because we aren't Romans. He is Roman." "Perhaps it would be better to say, he is himself." Do you think he will come back, Nicomedes?'' A question which seemed to cheer the King up. He said very firmly, "Yes, I believe he will."

When Caesar arrived in Abydus on the Ides of October, he found the promised fleet riding at anchor two massive Pontic sixteeners, eight quinqueremes, ten triremes, and twenty well built but not particularly warlike galleys. "Since you wish to blockade rather than pursue at sea," said part of the King's letter to Caesar, "I have given you as your minor vessels broad beamed, decked, converted merchantmen rather than the twenty undecked war galleys you asked for. If you wish to keep the men of Mitylene from having access to their harbor during the winter, you will need sturdier vessels than lightweight galleys, which have to be drawn up on shore the moment a storm threatens. The converted merchantmen will ride out all but gales so terrible no one will be on the sea. The two Pontic sixteeners I thought might come in handy, if for no other reason than they look so fearsome and daunting. They will break any harbor chain known, so will be useful when you attack. Also, the harbor master at Sinope was willing to throw them in for nothing beyond food and wages for their crews (five hundred men apiece), as he says the King of Pontus can find absolutely no work for them to do at the moment. I enclose the bill on a separate sheet." The distance from Abydus on the Hellespont to the Anatolian shore of the island of Lesbos just to the north of Mitylene was about a hundred miles, which, said the chief pilot when Caesar applied to him for the information, would take between five and ten days if the weather held and every ship was genuinely seaworthy. "Then we'd better make sure they all are," said Caesar. Not used to working for an admiral (for such, Caesar supposed, was his status until he reached Lesbos) who insisted that his ships be gone over thoroughly before the expedition started, the chief pilot assembled Abydus's three shipwrights and inspected each vessel closely, with Caesar hanging over their shoulders badgering them with ceaseless questions. Do you get seasick?'' asked the chief pilot hopefully. "Not as far as I know," said Caesar, eyes twinkling. Ten days before the Kalends of November the fleet of forty ships sailed out into the Hellespont, where the current which always flowed from the Euxine into the Aegean bore them at a steady rate toward the southern mouth of the strait at the Mastusia promontory on the Thracian side, and the estuary of the Scamander River on the Asian side. Not far down the Scamander lay Troy fabled Ilium, from the burning ruins of which his ancestor Aeneas had fled before Agamemnon could capture him. A pity that he hadn't had a chance to visit this awesome site, Caesar thought, then shrugged; there would be other chances. The weather held, with the result that the fleet still keeping well together arrived off the northern tip of Lesbos six days early. Since it was no part of Caesar's plan to get to his destination on any other day than the Kalends of November, he consulted the chief pilot again and put the fleet snugly into harbor within the curling palm of the Cydonian peninsula, where it could not be seen from Lesbos. The enemy on Lesbos did not concern him: he wanted to surprise the besieging Roman army. And cock a snook at Thermus. "You have phenomenal luck," said the chief pilot when the fleet put out again the day before the Kalends of November. "In what way?" "I've never seen better sailing conditions for this time of the year and they'll hold for several days yet." "Then at nightfall we'll put in to whatever sheltering bay we can find on Lesbos. At dawn tomorrow I'll take a fast lighter to find the army," said Caesar. "There's no point in bringing the whole fleet down until I find out whereabouts the commander wants to base it."