Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

Caesar found his army shortly after the sun had risen on the following day, and went ashore to find Thermus or Lucullus, whoever was in command. Lucullus, as it turned out. Thermus was still in Pergamum. They met below the spot where Lucullus was supervising the construction of a wall and ditch across the narrow, hilly spit of land on which stood the city of Mitylene. It was Caesar of course who was curious; Lucullus was just testy, told no more than that a strange tribune wanted to see him, and deeming all unknown junior officers pure nuisances. His reputation in Rome had grown over the years since he had been Sulla's faithful quaestor, the only legate who had agreed to the march on Rome that first time, when Sulla had been consul. And he had remained Sulla's man ever since, so much so that Sulla had entrusted him with commissions not usually given to men who had not been praetor; he had waged war against King Mithridates and he had stayed in Asia Province after Sulla went home, holding it for Sulla while the governor, Murena, had busied himself conducting an unauthorized war against Mithridates in the land of Cappadocia. Caesar saw a slim, fit looking man of slightly more than average height, a man who walked a little stiffly not, it seemed, because there was anything wrong with his bones, but rather because the stiffness was in his mind. Not a handsome man but definitely an interesting looking one he had a long, pale face surmounted by a thatch of wiry, waving hair of that indeterminate color called mouse brown. When he came close enough to see his eyes, Caesar discovered they were a clear, light, frigid grey. The commander's brows were knitted into a frown. "Yes?" "I am Gaius Julius Caesar, junior military tribune." "Sent from the governor, I presume?" "Yes." "So? Why did you have to ask for. me? I'm busy." "I have your fleet, Lucius Licinius." "My fleet?" "The one the governor told me to obtain from Bithynia." The cold regard became fixed. "Ye gods!" Caesar stood waiting. "Well, that is good news! I didn't realize Thermus had sent two tribunes to Bithynia," said Lucullus. "When did he send you? In April?" "As far as I know, I'm the only one he sent." "Caesar Caesar ... You can't be the one he sent at the end of Quinctilis, surely!" "Yes, I am." And you have a fleet already? "Yes." "Then you'll have to go back, tribune. King Nicomedes has palmed you off with rubbish." This fleet contains no rubbish. I have forty ships I have personally inspected for seaworthiness two sixteeners, eight quinqueremes, ten triremes, and twenty converted merchantmen the King said would be better for a winter blockade than light undecked war galleys," said Caesar, hugging his delight inside himself so secretly not a scrap of it showed. "Ye gods!" Lucullus now inspected this junior military tribune as minutely as he would a freak in a sideshow at the circus. A faint turn began to work at tugging the left corner of his mouth upward, and the eyes melted a little. "How did you manage that?" "I'm a persuasive talker." "I'd like to know what you said! Nicomedes is as tight as a miser's clutch on his last sestertius." "Don't worry, Lucius Licinius, I have his bill." Call me Lucullus, there are at least six Lucius Liciniuses here." The general turned to walk toward the seashore. "I'll bet you have the bill! What is he charging us for sixteeners?" "Only the food and wages of their crews." "Ye gods! Where is this magical fleet?" "About a mile upshore toward the Hellespont, riding at anchor. I thought it would be better to come ahead myself and ask you whether you want it moored here, or whether you'd rather it went straight on to blockade the Mitylene harbors." Some of the stiffness had gone from Lucullus's gait. "I think we'll put it straight to work, tribune." He rubbed his hands together. "What a shock for Mitylene! Its men thought they'd have all winter to bring in extra provisions." When the two men reached the lighter and Lucullus stepped nimbly on board, Caesar hung back. "Well, tribune? Aren't you coming?" "If you wish. I'm a little new to military etiquette, so I don't want to make any mistakes," said Caesar frankly. "Get in, man, get in!" It was not until the twenty oarsmen, ten to a side, had turned the open boat into the north and commenced the long, easy strokes which ate up distance that Lucullus spoke again. "New to military etiquette? You're well past seventeen, tribune, are you not? You didn't say you were a contubernalis.'' Stifling a sigh (he could see that he would be tired of explaining long before explanations were no longer necessary), Caesar said in matter of fact tones, I am nineteen, but this is my first campaign. Until June I was the flamen Dialis.'' But Lucullus never wanted lavish details; he was too busy and too intelligent. So he nodded, taking for granted all the things most men wanted elaborated. Caesar ... Was your aunt Sulla's first wife?" "Yes." "So he favors you." "At the moment." "Well answered! I am his loyalest follower, tribune, and I say that as a warning I owe to you, considering your relationship to him. I do not permit anyone to criticize him." "You'll hear no criticisms from me, Lucullus." "Good." A silence fell, broken only by the uniform grunt of twenty oarsmen dipping simultaneously into the water. Then Lucullus spoke again, with some amusement. "I would still like to know how you prised such a mighty fleet out of King Nicomedes." And that secret delight suddenly popped to the surface in a manner Caesar had not yet learned to discipline; he said something indiscreet to someone he didn't know. "Suffice it to say that the governor annoyed me. He refused to believe that I could produce forty ships, half of them decked, by the Kalends of November. I was injured in my pride, and undertook to produce them. And I have produced them! The governor's lack of faith in my ability to live up to my word demanded it." This answer irritated Lucullus intensely; he loathed having cocksure men in his army at any level, and he found the statement detestably arrogant. He therefore set out to put this cocksure child in his place. "I know that painted old trollop Nicomedes extremely well," he said in a freezing voice. "Of course you are very pretty, and he is very notorious. Did he fancy you?'' But, as he had no intention of permitting Caesar to reply, he went on immediately. "Yes, of course he fancied you! Oh, well done for you, Caesar! It isn't every Roman who has the nobility of purpose to put Rome ahead of his chastity. I think we'll have to call you the face that launched forty ships. Or should that be arse?" The anger flared up in Caesar so quickly that he had to drive his nails into his palms to keep his arms by his sides; in all his life he had never had to fight so hard to keep his head. But keep it he did. At a price he was never to forget. His eyes turned to Lucullus, wide and staring. And Lucullus, who had seen eyes like that many times before, lost his color. Had there been anywhere to go he would have stepped back out of reach; instead he held his ground. But not without an effort. "I had my first woman," said Caesar in a flat voice, "at about the time I had my fourteenth birthday. I cannot count the number I have had since. This means I know women very well. And what you have just accused me of, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, is the kind of trickery only women need employ. Women, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, have no other weapon in their arsenal than to use their cunni to get what they want or what some man wants them to get for him. The day I need to resort to sexual trickery to achieve my ends, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, is the day that I will put my sword through my belly. You have a proud name. But compared to mine it is less than the dust. You have impugned my dignitas. I will not rest until I have extirpated that stain. How I obtained your fleet is not your affair. Or Thermus's! You may rest assured, however, that it was obtained honorably and without my needing to bed the King or the Queen, for that matter. The sex of the one being exploited is of little moment. I do not reach my goals by such methods. I reach them by using my intelligence a gift which, it seems to me, few men own. I should therefore go far. Further, probably, than you." Having finished, Caesar turned his back and looked at the receding siegeworks which were making a ruin of the outskirts of Mitylene. And Lucullus, winded, could only be thankful that the verbal exchange had taken place in Latin; otherwise the oarsmen would have spread its gist far and wide. Oh, thank you, Sulla! What a hornet you have sent to enliven our placid little investment! He will be more trouble than a thousand Mitylenes. The rest of the trip was accomplished in a stony silence, Caesar withdrawn into himself and Lucullus cudgeling his brains to think of a way by which he could retrieve his position without sacrificing his good opinion of himself for it was absolutely inconceivable that he, the commanding officer of this war, could lower himself to apologize to a junior military tribune. And, as a satisfactory solution continued to elude him, at the end of the short journey he scaled the ladder up onto the deck of the nearest sixteener having to pretend Caesar didn't exist. When he was standing firmly on the deck he held his right hand, palm outward, to halt Caesar's progress up the ladder. "Don't bother, tribune," he said coldly. "Return to my camp and find your quarters. I don't want to see you." "Am I at liberty to find my servants and horses?" "Of course."