Fortune's Favorites (48 page)

“Good news!” he said jovially.

To which they gave him no reply.

“I have a new husband for you, Aemilia.”

Shocked, she looked up and at him with tear-reddened, dull eyes. “Who?” she asked faintly.

“Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.”

“Oh, Sulla, really!” snapped Dalmatica. “I refuse to believe you mean it! Marry Scaurus's daughter to that Picentine oaf? My daughter, of Caecilius Metellus blood? I will not consent!”

“You have no say in the matter.”

“Then I wish Scaurus were alive! He'd have plenty to say!”

Sulla laughed. “Yes, he would, wouldn't he? Not that it would make any difference in the end. I need to tie Magnus to me with a stronger bond than gratitude-he doesn't have a grateful bone in his body. And you, stepdaughter, are the only female of the family available at the moment.”

The grey shade in Dalmatica's skin deepened. “Please don't do this, Lucius Cornelius! Please!”

“I'm carrying Glabrio's baby,” whispered Aemilia Scaura. “Surely Pompeius wouldn't want me?”

“Who, Magnus? Magnus wouldn't care if you'd had sixteen husbands and had sixteen children in your nursery,” said Sulla. “He knows a bargain when he sees one, and you're a bargain for him at any price. I give you twenty days to heal your face, then you'll marry him. After the child is born, I'll send it to Glabrio.”

The weeping broke out afresh. “Please, Lucius Cornelius, don't do that to me! Let me keep my baby!”

“You can have more with Magnus. Now stop behaving like a schoolgirl and face facts!” Sulla's gaze went to Dalmatica. “That goes for you as well, wife.”

He walked out, leaving Dalmatica to do what she could to comfort her daughter.

Two days later, Pompey informed him by letter that he had divorced his wife, and would like a firm wedding date.

“I plan to be out of town until the Nones of Sextilis,” said Sulla in his answer, “so I think two days after the Nones of Sextilis seems propitious. You may present yourself in my house at that time, not before.”

Hercules Invictus was the god of the triumphing imperator and held sway over the Forum Boarium, in which lay the various meat markets, and which formed the large open space in front of the starting-post end of the Circus Maximus. There he had his Great Altar, his temple, and there too his statue, naked save on the day a general held his victory parade, when it was dressed in triumphal robes. Other temples to other aspects of Hercules also dotted the area, for he was the patron god of olives, of merchant plutocrats, and of commercial voyages personally placed under his protection.

On the feast day of Hercules Invictus, announced Sulla in a citywide proclamation, he would dedicate one tenth of his private fortune to the god, as thanks for the god's favor in all his martial endeavors. A huge stir of anticipatory pleasure went through the populace, as Hercules Invictus had no temple funds, so could not keep the moneys donated to him; they were spent in his and the triumphing general's name on providing a public feast for all free men in Rome. On the day before the Ides of Sextilis-this being the god's feast day-five thousand tables of food would be laid out, each table catering for more than a hundred hungry citizens (which was not to say that there were half a million free males in Rome- what it did say was that the donor of the feast understood that it was hard to exclude spry grannies, determined wives and cheeky children). A list of the location of these five thousand tables was appended to the proclamation; a formidable exercise in logistics, such an occasion was very carefully planned and executed so that the participants by and large remained in their own districts, did not clog the streets or overflow into rival regions and thereby cause fights, public disturbances, crime waves and riots.

The event set in train, Sulla left for his villa at Misenum with his wife, his daughter, his children, his grandchildren, his stepdaughter, and Mamercus. Dalmatica had avoided him ever since the dissolution of Aemilia Scaura's marriage to Glabrio, but when he did see her in passing, he had noticed that she looked ill. A holiday beside the sea was clearly called for. This entourage was augmented by the consul Decula, who drafted all Sulla's laws for him, and by the ubiquitous Chrysogonus.

It was therefore some days after they had settled into seaside living before he found the leisure to spend a little time with his wife, still tending to avoid him.

“There's no point in holding things like Aemilia against me,” he said in reasonable but unapologetic tones. “I will always do what I have to do. You should know that by now, Dalmatica.”

They were sitting in a secluded corner of the loggia overlooking the water, cooled by a gentle zephyr wind and shaded by a judiciously planted row of cypresses. Though the light was not harsh, it revealed that several days of healthier air had not served to improve Dalmatica's ailment, whatever it might be; she looked drawn and grey, much older than her thirty-seven years.

“I do know it,” she said in answer to this overture of peace, but not with equanimity. “I wish I could accept it! But when my own children are involved, it's different.”

“Glabrio had to go,” he said, “and there was only one way to do that-sever him from my family. Aemilia is young.

She will get over the blow. Pompeius is not such a bad fellow.”

“He is beneath her.”

“I agree. Nonetheless, I need to bind him to me. Marriage between him and Aemilia also drives home to Glabrio that he dare not continue to speak out against me, when I have the power to give Scaurus's daughter to the likes of a Pompeius from Picenum.” He frowned. “Leave it be, Dalmatica! You don't have the strength to withstand me.”

“I know that,” she said, low-voiced.

“You're not well, and I'm beginning to think it has nothing to do with Aemilia,” he said, more kindly. “What is it?”

“I think-I think ...”

“Tell me!”

“I'm going to have another child.”

“Jupiter!” He gaped, recovered, looked grim.

“I agree it isn't what either of us wants at this time,” she said wearily. “I fear I am a little old.”

“And I am far too old.” He shrugged, looked happier. “Oh well, it's an accomplished thing, and we're equally to blame. I take it you don't want to abort the process?”

“I delayed too long, Lucius Cornelius. It wouldn't be safe for me at five months. I didn't notice, I really didn't.”

“Have you seen a doctor or a midwife?”

“Not yet.”

He got up. “I'll send Lucius Tuccius to you now.”

She flinched. “Oh, Sulla, please don't! He's an ex-army surgeon, he knows nothing about women!”

“He's better than all your wretched Greeks!”

“For doctoring men, I agree. But I would much rather see a lady doctor from Neapolis or Puteoli.”

Sulla abandoned the struggle. “See whomever you like,” he said curtly, and left the loggia.

Several lady physicians and midwives came to see her; each agreed she was run down, then said that as time went on and the baby in her womb settled, she would feel better.

And so on the Nones of Sextilis the slaves packed up the villa and the cavalcade set off for Rome, Sulla riding ahead because he was too impatient to dawdle at the snail's pace the women's litters made inevitable. In consequence he reached the city two days ahead of the rest of his party, and plunged into the last-moment details concerning his coming feast.

“Every baker in Rome has been engaged to make the bread and the cakes, and the special shipments of flour are already delivered,” said Chrysogonus smugly; he had arrived in the city even earlier than Sulla.

“And the fish will be fresh? The weather is scorching.”

“All taken care of, Lucius Cornelius, I do assure you. I have had a section of the river above the Trigarium fenced off with nets, and the fish are already swimming there against the day. A thousand fish-slaves will commence to gut and cook on the morning of the feast.”

“The meats?”

“Will be freshly roasted and sweet, the guild of caterers has promised. Sucking pigs, chickens, sausages, baby lambs. I have had a message from Italian Gaul that the early apples and pears will arrive on time-five hundred wagons escorted by two squadrons of cavalry are proceeding down the Via Flaminia at this moment. The strawberries from Alba Fucentia are being picked now and packed in ice from the Mons Fiscellus. They will reach Rome the night before the feast-also under military escort.”

“A pity people are such thieves when it comes to food,” said the Dictator, who had been poor enough and hungry enough in his youth to understand, for all he pretended otherwise.

“If it were bread or porridge, Lucius Cornelius, there would be no need to worry,” soothed Chrysogonus. “They mostly steal what has a novel taste, or a season.”

“Are you sure we have enough wine?”

“There will be wine and food left over, domine.”

“None of the wine's vinegary, I hope!”

“It is uniformly excellent. Those vendors who might have been tempted to throw in a few air-contaminated amphorae know well who the buyer is.” Chrysogonus smiled reminiscently. “I told every one of them that if we found a single amphora of vinegar, the lot of them would be crucified, Roman citizens or no.”

“I want no hitches, Chrysogonus. No hitches!”

But the hitch when it came bore no connection (or so it seemed) to the public feast; it involved Dalmatica, who arrived attended by every wisewoman Cornelia Sulla could find as they passed through the towns on the Via Appia.

“She's bleeding,” said Sulla's daughter to her father.

The relief on his face was naked. “She'll lose the thing?” he asked eagerly.

“We think she may.”

“Far better that she does.”

“I agree it won't be a tragedy if she loses the baby,” said Cornelia Sulla, who didn't waste her emotions on anger or indignation; she knew her father too well. “The real worry is Dalmatica herself, tata.”

“What do you mean?”

“She may die.”

Something darkly appalled showed in his eyes, just what his daughter couldn't tell; but he made a movement of distress, shook his head violently. “He is a harbinger of death!” he cried, then, “It is always the highest price! But I don't care, I don't care!” The look of amazement on Cornelia Sulla's face brought him back to his senses, he snorted. “She's a strong woman, she won't die!”

“I hope not.”

Sulla got to his feet. “She wouldn't consent to see him before, but she will now. Whether she wants to or not.”

“Who?”

“Lucius Tuccius.”

When the ex-army surgeon arrived in Sulla's study some hours later, he looked grave. And Sulla, who had waited out those hours alone, had passed from horror at what always seemed to happen after he saw Metrobius, through guilt, to resignation. As long as he didn't have to see Dalmatica; for he didn't think he could face her.

“You don't bear good tidings, Tuccius.”

“No, Lucius Cornelius.”

“What exactly is wrong?'' Sulla asked, pulling at his lip.

“There seems to be a general impression that the lady Dalmatica is pregnant, and that is certainly what she thinks,” said Lucius Tuccius, “but I doubt the existence of a child.”

The crimson patches of scar tissue on Sulla's face stood out more starkly than usual. “Then what does exist?”

The women speak of haemorrhage, but the loss of blood is too slow for that,” said the little doctor, frowning. “There is some blood, but mixed with a foul-smelling substance I would call pus were she a wounded soldier. I diagnose some kind of internal suppuration, but with your permission, Lucius Cornelius, I would like to obtain some further opinions.”

“Do whatever you like,” said Sulla sharply. “Just keep the comings and goings unobtrusive tomorrow-I have a wedding to see to. I suppose my wife cannot attend?”

“Definitely not, Lucius Cornelius.”

Thus it was that Aemilia Scaura, five months pregnant by her previous husband, married Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in Sulla's house without the support of anyone who loved her. And though beneath her veils of flame and saffron she wept bitterly, Pompey set himself the moment the ceremony was over to soothing and pleasing her, and succeeded so well that by the time they left, she was smiling.

It ought to have been Sulla who informed Dalmatica of this unexpected bonus, but Sulla continued to find excuse after excuse as to why he couldn't visit his wife's rooms.

“I think,” said Cornelia Sulla, upon whom his communication with Dalmatica had devolved, “that he can't bear to see you looking so ill. You know what he's like. If it's someone he doesn't care about he is utterly indifferent. But if it's someone he loves, he can't bring himself to face the situation.”

There was a smell of corruption in the big airy room where Dalmatica lay, reinforced the closer a visitor came to the bed. She was, Cornelia Sulla knew, dying; Lucius Tuccius had been right, no baby was growing inside her. What was pushing her poor laboring belly into a travesty of pregnancy no one seemed to know, except that it was morbid, malign. The putrid discharge flowed out of her with sluggish remorselessness, and she burned with a fever no amount of medicine or care seemed to cool: She was still conscious, however, and her eyes, bright as two flames, were fixed on her stepdaughter painfully.

“I don't matter,” she said now, rolling her head upon her sweat-soaked pillow. “I want to know how my poor little Aemilia got on. Was it very bad?”

“Actually, no,” said Cornelia Sulla, with surprise in her voice. “Believe it or not, darling stepmother, by the time she left to go to her new home, she was quite happy. He's rather a remarkable fellow, Pompeius-I'd never more than seen him in the distance before today, and I had all a Cornelian's prejudice against him. But he's terribly good-looking-far more attractive than silly Glabrio!-and turned out to have a great deal of charm. So she started out in floods of tears, but a few moments of Pompeius's telling her how pretty she was and how much he loved her already, and she was quite lifted out of her despond. I tell you, Dalmatica, the man has more to him than ever I expected. I predict he makes his women happy.”

Dalmatica appeared to believe this. “They do tell stories about him. Years ago, when he was scarcely more than a child, he used to have congress with Flora-you know who I mean?”