Fortune's Favorites (67 page)

Lucius Marcius Philippus had come a long way since the day he had paid a visit to the seaside villa of Gaius Marius and told that formidable man that he, Philippus, had just been elected a tribune of the plebs, and what might he do for Gaius Marius?-for a price, naturally. How many times inside his mind Philippus had turned his toga inside out and then back again, only Philippus knew for certain. What other men knew for certain was that he had always managed to survive, and even to enhance his reputation. At the time Pompey went to see him, he was both consular and ex-censor, and one of the Senate's elders. Many men loathed him, few genuinely liked him, but he was a power nonetheless; somehow he had succeeded in persuading most of his world that he was a man of note as well as clout.

He found his interview with Pompey both amusing and thought-provoking, never until now having had much to do with Sulla's pet, but well aware that in Pompey, Rome had spawned a young man who deserved watching. Philippus was, besides, financially strapped again. Oh, not the way he used to be! Sulla's proscriptions had proven an extremely fruitful source of property, and he had picked up several millions' worth of estates for several thousands. But, like a lot of men of his kind, Philippus was not a handy manager; money seemed to slip away faster than he could gather it in, and he lacked the ability to supervise his rural money-making enterprises-as well as the ability to choose reliable staff.

“In short, Gnaeus Pompeius, I am the opposite of men like Marcus Licinius Crassus, who still has his first sestertius and now adds them up in millions upon millions. His people tremble in their shoes whenever they set eyes on him. Mine smile slyly.”

“You need a Chrysogonus,” said the young man with the wide blue gaze and the frank, open, attractive face.

Always inclined to run to fat, Philippus had grown even softer and more corpulent with the years, and his brown eyes were almost buried between swollen upper lids and pouched lower ones. These eyes now rested upon his youthful adviser with startled and wary surprise: Philippus was not used to being patronized.

“Chrysogonus ended up impaled on the needles below the Tarpeian Rock!”

“Chrysogonus had been extremely valuable to Sulla in spite of his fate,” said Pompey. “He died because he had enriched himself from the proscriptions-not because he enriched himself by stealing directly from his patron. Over the many years he worked for Sulla, he worked indefatigably. Believe me, Lucius Marcius, you do need a Chrysogonus.”

“Well, if I do, I have no idea how to find one.”

“I'll undertake to find one for you if you like.”

The buried eyes now popped out of their surrounding flesh. “Oh? And why would you be willing to do that, Gnaeus Pompeius?”

“Call me Magnus,” said Pompey impatiently.

“Magnus.”

“Because I need your services, Lucius Marcius.”

“Call me Philippus.”

“Philippus.”

“How can I possibly serve you, Magnus? You're rich beyond most rich men's dreams-even Crassus's, I'd venture! You're-what?-in your middle twenties somewhere?-and already famous as a military commander, not to mention standing high in Sulla's favor-and that is hard to achieve. I've tried, but I never have.”

“Sulla is going,” said Pompey deliberately, “and when he goes I'll sink back into obscurity. Especially if men like Catulus and the Dolabellae have anything to do with it. I'm not a member of the Senate. Nor do I intend to be.”

“Curious, that,” said Philippus thoughtfully. “You had the opportunity. Sulla put your name at the top of his first list. But you spurned it.”

“I have my reasons.”

“I imagine you do!”

Pompey got up from his chair and strolled across to the open window at the back of Philippus's study, which, because of the peculiar layout of Philippus's house (perched as it was near the bend in the Clivus Victoriae) looked not onto a peristyle garden but out across the lower Forum Romanum to the cliff of the Capitol. And there above the pillared arcade in which dwelt the magnificent effigies of the Twelve Gods, Pompey could see the beginnings of a huge building project; Sulla's Tabularium, a gigantic records house in which would repose all of Rome's accounts and law tablets. Other men, thought Pompey contemptuously, might build a basilica or a temple or a porticus, but Sulla builds a monument to Rome's bureaucracy! He has no wings on his imagination. That is his weakness, his patrician practicality.

“I would be grateful if you could find a Chrysogonus for me, Magnus,” said Philippus to break the long silence. “The only trouble is that I am not a Sulla! Therefore I very much doubt that I would succeed in controlling such a man.”

“You're not soft in anything except appearance, Philip-pus,” said the Master of Tact. “If I find you just the right man, you will control him. You just can't pick staff, that's all.”

“And why should you do this for me, Magnus?”

“Oh, that's not all I intend to do for you!” said Pompey, turning from the window with a smile all over his face.

“Really?”

“I take it that your chief problem is maintaining a decent cash flow. You have a great deal of property, as well as several schools for gladiators. But nothing is managed efficiently, and therefore you do not enjoy the income you ought. A Chrysogonus will go far toward fixing that! However, it's very likely that-as you're a man of famously expensive habits-even an expanded income from all your estates and schools will not always prove adequate for your needs.”

“Admirably stated!” said Philippus, who was enjoying this interview, he now discovered, enormously.

“I'd be willing to augment your income with the gift of a million sesterces a year,” said Pompey coolly.

Philippus couldn't help it. He gasped. “A million?”

“Provided you earn it, yes.”

“And what would I have to do to earn it?”

“Establish a Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus faction within the Senate of sufficient power to get me whatever I want whenever I want it.” Pompey, who never suffered from bashfulness or guilt or any kind of self-deprecation, had no difficulty in meeting Philippus's gaze when he said this.

“Why not join the Senate and do it for yourself? Cheaper!”

“I refuse to belong to the Senate, so that's not possible. Besides which, I'd still have to do it. Much better then to do it behind the scenes. I won't be sitting there to remind the senators that I might have any interest in what's going on beyond the interest of a genuine Roman patriot-knight.”

“Oh, you're deep!” Philippus exclaimed appreciatively. “I wonder does Sulla know all the sides to you?”

“Well, I'm why, I believe, he incorporated the special commission into his laws about commands and governorships.”

“You believe he invented the special commission because you refused to belong to the Senate?”

“I do.”

“And that is why you want to pay me fatly to establish a faction for you within the Senate. Which is all very well. But to build a faction will cost you far more money than what you pay me, Magnus. For I do not intend to disburse sums to other men out of my own money-and what you pay me is my own money.”

“Fair enough,” said Pompey equably.

“There are plenty of needy senators among the pedarii. They won't cost you much, since all you need them for is a vote. But it will be necessary to buy some of the silver-tongues on the front benches too, not to mention a few more in the middle.” Philippus looked thoughtful. “Gaius Scribonius Curio is relatively poor. So is the adopted Cornelius Lentulus- Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus. They both itch for the consulship, but neither has the income to attain it. There are a number of Lentuli, but Lentulus Clodianus is the senior of the branch. He controls the votes of those backbenchers in the Lentulus clientele. Curio is a power within himself-an interesting man. But to buy them will take a considerable amount of money. Probably a million each. If Curio will sell himself. I believe he will for enough, but not blindly, and not completely. Lucius Gellius Poplicola would sell his wife, his parents and his children for a million, however.”

“I'd rather,” said Pompey, “pay them an annual income, as I will you. A million now might buy them, yes, but I think they would be happier if they knew that there was a regular quarter million coming in every year. In four years, that's the million. But I am going to need them for longer than four years.”

“You're generous, Magnus. Some might say foolishly so.”

“I am never foolish!” snapped Pompey. “I will expect to see a return for my money in keeping with the amount of it!”

For some time they discussed the logistics of payments and the amounts necessary to people the back benches with willing-nay, eager!-Pompeian voters. But then Philippus sat back with a frown, and fell silent.

“What is it?” asked Pompey a little anxiously.

“There's one man you can't do without. The trouble is he's already got more money than he knows what to do with. So he can't be bought and he makes great capital out of that fact.”

“You mean Cethegus.”

“I do indeed.”

“How can I get him?”

“I haven't the faintest idea.”

Pompey rose, looking brisk. “Then I'd better see him.”

“No!” cried Philippus, alarmed. “Cethegus is a patrician Cornelian, and such a smooth and syrupy sort of man that you'd make an enemy out of him-he can't deal with the direct approach. Leave him to me. I'll sound him out, find what he wants.”

Two days later, Pompey received a note from Philippus. It contained only one sentence: “Get him Praecia, and he's yours.”

Pompey held the note within the flame of a lamp until it kindled, shaking with anger. Yes, that was Cethegus! His payment was his future patron's humiliation! He required that Pompey should become his pimp.

Pompey's approach to Mucia Tertia was very different from his tactics in dealing with Aemilia Scaura-or Antistia, for that matter. This third wife was infinitely above numbers one and two. First of all, she had a mind. Secondly, she was enigmatic; he could never work out what she was thinking. Thirdly, she was quite wonderful in bed-what a surprise! Luckily he hadn't made a fool of himself at the outset by calling her his wee pudding or his delectable honeypot; such terms had actually teetered on the tip of his tongue, but something in her face had killed them before he articulated them. Little though he had liked Young Marius, she had been Young Marius's wife, and that had to count for much. And she was Scaevola's daughter, Crassus Orator's niece. Six years of living with Julia had to count for something too. So all Pompey's instincts said Mucia Tertia must be treated more like an equal, and not at all like a chattel.

Therefore when he sought Mucia Tertia out, he did as he always did; gave her a lingering tongue-seeking kiss accompanied by a light and appreciative fondling of one nipple. Then-going away to sit where he could see her face, a smile of enslaved love and devotion. And after that-straight to the subject.

“Did you know I used to have a mistress in Rome?” he asked.

“Which one?” was her answer, solemn and matter-of-fact; she rarely smiled, Mucia Tertia.

“So you know of them all,” he said comfortably.

“Only of the two most notorious. Flora and Praecia.”

Clearly Pompey had forgotten Flora ever existed; he looked perfectly blank for several moments, then laughed and held his hands out. “Flora? Oh, she was forever ago!”

“Praecia,” said Mucia Tertia in a level voice, “was my first husband's mistress too.”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Before or after you approached her?”

“Before.”

“You didn't mind?”

He could be quick, as he was now: “If I haven't minded his widow, why should I mind his ex-mistress?”

“True.” She drew several skeins of finest woolen thread further into the light, and inspected them carefully. Her work, a piece of embroidery, lay in her swelling lap. Finally she chose the palest of the various purplish shades, broke off a length, and after sucking it to moisten it and rolling it between her fingers, held it up to ease it through the large eye of a needle. Only when the chore was done did she return her attention to Pompey. “What is it you have to say about Praecia?”

“I'm establishing a faction in the Senate.”

“Wise.” The needle was poked through the coarse fabric on which a complicated pattern of colored wools was growing, from wrong side to right side, then back again; the junction, when it was finished, would be impossible to detect. “Who have you begun with, Magnus? Philippus?”

“Absolutely correct! You really are wonderful, Mucia!”

“Just experienced,” she said. “I grew up surrounded by talk of politics.”

“Philippus has undertaken to give me that faction,” Pompey went on, “but there's one person he couldn't buy.”

“Cethegus,” she said, beginning now to fill in the body of a curlique already outlined with deeper purple.

“Correct again. Cethegus.”

“He's necessary.”

“So Philippus assures me.”

“And what is Cethegus's price?”

“Praecia.”

“Oh, I see.” The curlique was filling in at a great rate. “So Philippus has given you the job of acquiring Praecia for the King of the Backbenchers?”

“It seems so.” Pompey shrugged. “She must speak well of me, otherwise I imagine he'd have given the job to someone else.”

“Better of you than of Gaius Marius Junior.”

“Really?” Pompey's face lit up. “Oh, that's good!”

Down went work and needle; the deep green eyes, so far apart and doelike, regarded their lord and master inscrutably. “Do you still visit her, Magnus?”

“No, of course not!” said Pompey indignantly. His small spurt of temper died, he looked at her uncertainly. “Would you have minded if I had said yes?”

“No, of course not.” The needle went to work again.

His face reddened. “You mean you wouldn't be jealous?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then you don't love me!” he cried, jumping to his feet and walking hastily about the room.

“Sit down, Magnus, do.”

“You don't love me!” he cried a second time.

She sighed, abandoned her embroidery. “Sit down, Gnaeus Pompeius, do! Of course I love you.”