Fortune's Favorites (63 page)

“Whom are you to marry?” asked Aurelia.

“That's just it,” said Julia, frowning. “He hasn't told her, poor child. We can't even decide from his letter whether he has someone in mind, or whether he just wants Mucia to find her own husband.”

“Let me see it,” said Caesar, holding out his hand. He read the missive at a glance, gave it back. “He gives nothing away, does he? Just orders you to marry again.”

“I don't want to marry again!” cried Mucia Tertia.

A silence fell, which Caesar broke. “Write to Sulla and tell him that. Make it very polite, but very firm. Then see what he does. You'll know more.”

Mucia shivered. “I couldn't do that.”

“You could, you know. Sulla likes people to stand up to him.”

“Men, maybe. But not the widow of Young Marius.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Caesar of Julia.

“I have no idea,” Julia confessed. “It's just that you're the only man left in the family, so I thought you ought to be told.”

“You genuinely don't want to many again?” he asked Mucia.

“Believe me, Caesar, I do not.”

“Then as I am the paterfamilias, I will write to Sulla.”

At which moment the old steward, Strophantes, shuffled into the room. “Domino., you have a visitor,” he said to Julia.

“Oh, bother!” she exclaimed. “Deny me, Strophantes.”

“He asked specifically to see the lady Mucia.”

“Who asked?” Caesar demanded sharply.

“Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.”

Caesar looked grim. “The prospective husband, I presume!”

“But I've never so much as met Pompeius!” cried Mucia Tertia.

“Nor have I,” said Caesar.

Julia turned to him. “What do we do?”

“Oh, we see him, Aunt Julia.” And Caesar nodded to the old man. “Bring him in.”

Back went the steward to the atrium, where the visitor stood oozing impatience and attar of roses.

“Follow me, Gnaeus Pompeius,” said Strophantes, wheezing.

Ever since Sulla's wedding Pompey had waited for further news of this mysterious bride the Dictator had found for him. When he heard that Sulla had returned to Rome after his nuptial holiday he expected to be summoned, but was not. Finally, unable to wait a moment longer, he went to Sulla and demanded to know what was happening, what had eventuated.

“About what?” asked Sulla innocently.

“You know perfectly well!” snarled Pompey. “You said you had thought of someone for me to marry!”

“So I did! So I did!” Sulla chuckled gleefully. “My, my, the impatience of youth!”

“Will you tell me, you malicious old tormentor?”

“Names, Magnus! Don't call the Dictator names!”

“Who is she?”

Sulla gave in. “Young Marius's widow, Mucia Tertia,” he said. “Daughter of Scaevola Pontifex Maximus and Crassus Orator's sister, Licinia. There's far more Mucius Scaevola in her than genuine Licinius Crassus because her maternal grandfather was really the brother of her paternal grandfather. And of course she's closely related to Scaevola the Augur's girls called Mucia Prima and Mucia Secunda-hence her given name of Mucia Tertia, even though there's fifty years in age between her and the other two. Mucia Tertia's mother is still alive, of course. Scaevola divorced her for adultery with Metellus Nepos, whom she married afterward. So Mucia Tertia has two Caecilius Metellus half brothers-Nepos Junior and Celer. She's extremely well connected, Magnus, don't you agree? Too well connected to remain the widow of a proscribed man for the rest of her life! My dear Piglet, who is her cousin, has been making these noises at me for some time.” Sulla leaned back in his chair. “Well, Magnus, will she do?”

“Will she do?” gasped Pompey. “Rather!”

“Oh, splendid.” The mountain of work on his desk seemed to beckon; Sulla put his head down to study some papers. After a moment he lifted it to look at Pompey in apparent bewilderment. “I wrote to tell her she was to marry again, Magnus, so there's no impediment,” he said. “Now leave me alone, will you? Just make sure I get an invitation to the wedding.”

And Pompey had rushed home to bathe and change while his servants chased in a panic to find out whereabouts Mucia Tertia was living these days, then Pompey rushed straight to Julia's house blinding all those he encountered with the whiteness of his toga, and leaving a strong aroma of attar of roses in his wake. Scaevola's daughter! Crassus Orator's niece! Related to the most important Caecilii Metelli! That meant that the sons she would give him would be related by blood to everyone! Oh, he didn't care one iota that she was Young Marius's widow! He would not even care if she was as ugly as the Sibyl of Cumae!

Ugly? She wasn't ugly at all! She was very strange and very beautiful. Red-haired and green-eyed, but both on the dark side, and skin both pale and flawless. And what about those eyes? No others like them anywhere! Oh, she was a honey! Pompey fell madly in love with her at first glance, before a word was spoken.

Little wonder, then, that he hardly noticed the other people in the room, even after introductions were made. He drew up a chair beside Mucia Tertia's and took her nerveless hand in his.

“Sulla says that you are to marry me,” he said, smiling at her with white teeth and brilliantly shining blue eyes.

“This is the first I know about it,” she said, unaccountably feeling her antipathy begin to fade; he was so patently happy-and really very attractive.

“Oh well, that's Sulla for you,” he said, catching his breath on a gasp of sheer delight. “But you have to admit that he does have everyone's best interests at heart.”

“Naturally you would think so,” said Julia in freezing tones.

“What are you complaining about? He didn't do too badly by you compared to all the other proscribed widows,” said the tactless man in love, gazing at his bride-to-be.

Almost Julia answered that Sulla had been responsible for the death of her only child, but then she thought better of it; this rather silly fellow was too well known to belong to Sulla to hope that he would see any other side.

And Caesar, sitting in a corner, took in his first experience of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus unobserved. To look at, not a true Roman, that was certain; the Picentine taint of Gaul was all too obvious in his snub nose, his broad face, the dent in his chin. To listen to, not a true Roman, that was certain; his total lack of subtlety was amazing. Kid Butcher. He was well named.

“What do you think of him?'' asked Aurelia of Caesar as they trudged back to the Subura through the noon heat.

“More germane to ask, what does Mucia think of him?”

“Oh, she likes him enormously. Considerably more than ever she liked Young Marius.”

“That wouldn't be hard, Mater.”

“No.”

“Aunt Julia will find it lonely without her.”

“Yes. But she'll just find more to do.”

“A pity she has no grandchildren.”

“For which, blame Young Marius!” said Aurelia tartly.

They had almost reached the Vicus Patricius before Caesar spoke again. “Mater, I have to go back to Bithynia,” he said.

“Bithynia? My son, that isn't wise!”

“I know. But I gave the King my word.”

“Isn't it one of Sulla's new rules for the Senate that any senator must seek permission to leave Italy?”

“Yes.”

“Then that's good,” said Aurelia, sounding pleased. “You must be absolutely candid about where you're going to the whole House. And take Eutychus with you as well as Burgundus.”

“Eutychus?” Caesar stopped to stare at her. “But he's your steward! You won't manage easily without him. And why?”

“I'll manage without him. He's from Bithynia, my son. You must tell the Senate that your freedman who is still your steward is obliged to travel to Bithynia to see to his business affairs, and that you must accompany him, as is the duty of any proper patron.”

Caesar burst out laughing. “Sulla is absolutely right! You ought to have been a man. And so Roman! Subtle. Hit them in the face with my destination instead of pretending I'm going to Greece and then being discovered in Bithynia. One always is discovered in a lie, I find.” A different thought occurred to him. “Speaking of subtlety, that fellow Pompeius is not, is he? I wanted to hit him when he said what he did to poor Aunt Julia. And ye gods, can he brag!”

“Incessantly, I suspect,” said Aurelia.

“I'm glad I met him,” said her son soberly. “He showed me an excellent reason why the slur upon my reputation might prove a good thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing has served to put him in his place. He has one-but it is not as high or as inviolate as he thinks. Circumstances have conspired to inflate his opinion of himself to insufferable heights. What he's wanted so far has always been given to him. Even a bride far above his merits. So he's grown into the habit of assuming it will be forever thus. But it won't, of course. One day things will go hideously wrong for him. He will find the lesson intolerable. At least I have already had the lesson.”

“You really think Mucia is above his merits?”

“Don't you?” asked Caesar, surprised.

“No, I don't. Her birth is immaterial. She was the wife of Young Marius, and she was that because her father knowingly gave her to the son of a complete New Man. Sulla doesn't forget that kind of thing. Nor forgive it. He's dazzled that gullible young man with her birth. But he's neglected to expound upon all his reasons for giving her away to someone beneath her.”

“Cunning!”

“Sulla is a fox, like all red men since Ulysses.”

“Then it's as well I intend to leave Rome.”

“Until after Sulla steps down?”

“Until after Sulla steps down. He says that will be after he superintends the election of the year after next's consuls- perhaps eleven months from now, if he holds his so-called elections in Quinctilis. Next year's consuls are to be Servilius Vatia and Appius Claudius. But who he intends for the year after, I don't know. Catulus, probably.”

“Will Sulla be safe if he steps down?”

“Perfectly,” said Caesar.