Colleen McCullough - 2. The Grass Crown

Thus when Sulla quit the city he left in a mood of quiet confidence; Aesernia would continue to withstand its siege. He marched through Italian territory in the open, trusting to his luck, that magical bond he had with the goddess Fortune, for he had no idea of the whereabouts of every Samnite or Picentine army. And his luck held, even when he marched past towns like Venafrum, where he actively encouraged his soldiers to shout and gesture insults up at the watchers on the walls. When his troops strolled through the gates of Capua they were singing, and the whole of Capua turned out to cheer. Lucius Caesar, Sulla was informed, had marched to Acerrae the moment Mutilus pulled some of his troops out to follow what had seemed like a major deployment against the siege of Aesernia; but as luck would have it Mutilus himself had remained at Acerrae. Leaving Catulus Caesar to ensure that his men enjoyed a well-earned rest, Sulla straddled a mule and trotted off to locate his general. He found him in an ill humor, and bereft of the Numidian cavalry Sextus Caesar had transported across the seas. "Do you know what Mutilus did?" demanded Lucius Caesar the moment he set eyes upon Sulla. "No," said Sulla, leaning casually against a pillar made of captured enemy spears and resigning himself to a litany of complaints. "When Venusia capitulated and the Venusini joined Italia, the Picentine Gaius Vidacilius found an enemy hostage living in Venusia I'd completely forgotten he was there, and so I suppose had everyone else. Oxyntas, one of the sons of King Jugurtha of Numidia. So Vidacilius sent the Numidian here to Acerrae. When I attacked, I used my Numidian cavalry as an advance guard. And do you know what Mutilus did? He put a purple robe and a diadem on Oxyntas, and paraded him! The next thing I knew, there were my two thousand horse-troopers on their knees to an enemy of Rome!" Lucius Caesar's hands clawed at the air. "To think what it cost to bring them all this way! A futile exercise, futile!" "What did you do?" "I rounded them up, force-marched them to Puteoli, and sent them home to Numidia. Let their king deal with them!" Sulla straightened. "That was good thinking, Lucius Julius," he said sincerely, turning to stroke the column of captured spears. "Come now, obviously you haven't suffered a military disaster, despite the appearance of Oxyntas! You've won a battle here." Natural pessimism began to thaw, though Lucius Caesar could not quite summon up a smile. "Yes, I won a battle for what it's worth. Mutilus attacked three days ago, I presume after he got word of your successful penetration through the besiegers at Aesernia. I tricked him by leading my forces out the back gate of my camp, and we killed six thousand Samnites." "And Mutilus?" "Withdrew immediately. For the moment, Capua is safe." "Excellent, Lucius Julius!" "I wish I thought so," said Lucius Caesar dolefully. Suppressing a sigh, Sulla asked, "What else has happened?" "Publius Crassus has lost his oldest boy before Grumentum, and was shut up inside the town for a long while. But the Lucanians are as fickle as they are lacking in discipline, luckily for Publius Crassus and his middle boy. Lamponius drew his men off to somewhere else, and Publius and Lucius Crassus got out." The commander-in-chief heaved an enormous sigh. "Those fools in Rome wanted me to drop everything and appear in Rome for no better reason than to supervise the choosing of a consul suffectus to replace Lupus until the elections. I told them where to go, and recommended that they rely upon their urban praetor there's nothing in Rome Cinna can't deal with." He sighed yet again, sniffed, bethought himself of something else. "Gaius Coelius in Italian Gaul has dispatched a beautiful little army under Publius Sulpicius to assist Pompey Strabo in getting his conceited Picentine arse out of Firmum Picenum. I wish Publius Sulpicius good luck in dealing with that cross-eyed semi-barbarian! I must say, however, Lucius Cornelius, that you and Gaius Marius were right about young Quintus Sertorius. At the moment he's governing Italian Gaul completely on his own, and doing better than Gaius Coelius. Coelius has gone off to Gaul-across-the-Alps in a hurry." "What's going on there?" “The Salluvii have gone on a headhunting spree.'' Lucius Caesar grimaced. “What hope have we ever got of civilizing these people when several hundred years of exposure to Greeks and Romans haven't even made an impression? The moment they thought we weren't looking, back came the old barbarian habits. Headhunting! I sent Gaius Coelius a personal message instructing him to be utterly merciless. We can't afford a major uprising in Gaul-across-the-Alps." "So young Quintus Sertorius is holding the fort in Italian Gaul," said Sulla. An extraordinary expression of mingled weariness, impatience, and bitterness settled on his face. "Well, what else could one expect? The Grass Crown before he was thirty." "Jealous?" asked Lucius Caesar slyly. Sulla twisted. "No, I'm not jealous! Good luck to him, and may he prosper! I like that young man. I've known him since he was a cadet with Marius in Africa." Lucius Caesar made an inarticulate noise and slumped back into his gloom. "Has anything else happened?" prompted Sulla. "Sextus Julius Caesar took his half of the troops he brought back from overseas and headed up the Via Appia to Rome, where I gather he intends to spend the winter." Lucius Caesar did not care very much for his cousin. "He's sick, as usual. Luckily he's got his brother Gaius with him between them they make one decent man." "Ah! So my friend Aurelia will have a husband for a little while," said Sulla, smiling tenderly. "You know, Lucius Cornelius, you're odd! What on earth does that matter?" "It matters not at all. But you are right nonetheless, Lucius Julius. I am odd!" Lucius Caesar saw something in Sulla's face that made him decide to change the subject. "You and I are off again very soon." "Are we? Upon what deed? To where?" "Your move on Aesernia convinced me that Aesernia is the key to this whole theater of war. Mutilus is heading there himself, having lost here or so your intelligence system tells me. I think we must head there too. It mustn't fall." "Oh, Lucius Julius!" cried Sulla in despair. "Aesernia is no more than a spiritual thorn in the Italian paw! While ever it holds out, the Italians must doubt their ability to win this war. But beyond that, Aesernia has no importance! Besides which, it is very well provisioned, and it has a very capable and determined commandant in Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Let it sit there thumbing its nose at the besiegers and don't worry about it! The only route available if Mutilus has withdrawn into the interior is the Melfa Gorge. Why risk our precious soldiers in that trap?" Lucius Caesar reddened. "You got through!" "Yes, I did. I tricked them. It can't work a second time." "I will get through," said Lucius Caesar stiffly. "How many legions?" "All we have. Eight." "Oh, Lucius Julius, forget this scheme!" Sulla pleaded. "It would be smarter and wiser to concentrate upon driving the Samnites out of western Campania for good! With eight legions working as one unit, we can take all the ports off Mutilus, reinforce Acerrae, and take Nola. Nola to the Italians is more important than Aesernia is to us!" The general's lips thinned in displeasure. "I am in the command tent, Lucius Cornelius, not you! And I say, Aesernia." Sulla shrugged, gave up. "As you say, of course."

Seven days later Lucius Julius Caesar and Lucius Cornelius Sulla moved out toward Teanum Sidicinum with eight legions, the entire force available in the southern theater. Every atom of superstition Sulla had in him was screaming in alarm, but he had no choice save to do as he was told. Lucius Caesar was the general. More's the pity, thought Sulla as he walked at the head of his two legions the same he had taken to Aesernia and surveyed the great column ahead of him snaking up and down the low hills. Lucius Caesar had placed Sulla at the tail of the march, far enough away from himself to ensure that Sulla could not share his bivouacs or his conversations. Metellus Pius the Piglet was now elevated to share Lucius Caesar's bivouacs and conversations, a promotion which had not pleased him in the least. He wanted to stay with Sulla. At Aquinum the general sent for Sulla, and threw him a letter rather contemptuously. How have the mighty fallen! thought Sulla, remembering how in Rome at the beginning of all this, it had been he to whom Lucius Caesar had turned for advice, it had been he who became Lucius Caesar's "expert." Now Lucius Caesar regarded himself as the expert. "Read that," said Lucius Caesar curtly. "It's just come in from Gaius Marius." Courtesy normally prompted the man who had received a letter to read it out to those with whom he shared it later on; aware of this, Sulla smiled wryly to himself and laboriously worked his way through Marius's communication.