The Grass Crown (104 page)

He looked directly at the consuls-elect. “Tomorrow, Gnaeus Octavius and Lucius Cinna, you will inherit my office and the office of my dead colleague, Quintus Pompeius. I shall have become a consular. Gnaeus Octavius, will you give me your solemn word that you will uphold my laws?”

Octavius didn’t hesitate. “I will, Lucius Sulla. You have my solemn word on it.”

“Lucius Cornelius of the branch cognominated Cinna, will you give me your word that you will uphold my laws?”

Cinna stared at Sulla fearlessly. “That all depends, Lucius Cornelius of the branch cognominated Sulla. I will uphold your laws if they prove to be a workable way of governing. At the moment I am not sure they will. The machinery is so incredibly antique, so manifestly unwieldy, and the rights of a large part of our Roman community have been—I can find no other word for it—annulled. I am very sorry to inconvenience you, but as things stand, I must withhold my promise.”

An extraordinary change came over Sulla’s face; like some other people of late, the Senate was now privileged to catch a glimpse of that naked clawed creature which dwelt inside Lucius Cornelius Sulla. And like all others, the senators never forgot that glimpse. And in the years to come, would shiver at the memory as they waited for the reckoning.

Before Sulla could open his mouth to answer, Scaevola Pontifex Maximus interjected.

“Lucius Cinna, leave well enough alone!” he cried; he was remembering that after his first glimpse of Sulla’s beast, Sulla had marched on Rome. “I implore you, give the consul your promise!”

Then came the voice of Antonius Orator. “If this is the sort of attitude you intend to adopt, Cinna, then I suggest you watch your back! Our consul Lucius Cato neglected to do so, and he died.”

The House was murmuring, new senators as well as old, and most of the words were of exasperation and fear at Cinna’s stand. Oh, why couldn’t all these consular men leave ambition and posturing aside? Didn’t they see how desperately Rome needed peace, internal stability?

“Order!” said Sulla, just the once, and not very loudly. But as he still wore that look, silence fell immediately,

“Senior consul, may I speak?” asked Catulus Caesar, who was remembering that his first experience of Sulla’s look had been followed by a retreat from Tridentum.

“Speak, Quintus Lutatius.”

“First of all, I wish to pass a comment about Lucius Cinna,” said Catulus Caesar coldly. “I think he bears watching. I deplore his election to an office I do not think he will fill meritoriously. Lucius Cinna may have a magnificent war record, but his political understanding and his ideas as to how Rome ought to be governed are minimal. When he was urban praetor none of the measures which ought to have been taken were taken. Both the consuls were in the field, yet Lucius Cinna—virtually in charge of the governance of Rome!—made no attempt to stave off her terrible economic afflictions. Had he done at that early stage, Rome might now be better off. Yet here today we have Lucius Cinna, now consul-elect, demurring at giving a far more intelligent and able man a promise which was asked of him in the true spirit of senatorial government.”

“You haven’t said a word to make me change my mind, Quintus Lutatius Servilis,” said Cinna harshly, calling Catulus Caesar servile.

“I am aware of that,” said Catulus Caesar, at his haughtiest. “In fact, it is my considered opinion that nothing any one of us—or all of us!—could say would influence you to change your mind. Your mind is closed fast, like your purse upon the money Gaius Marius gave you to whiten the reputation of his murdering son!”

Cinna flushed; it was an affliction he loathed, yet could not seem to cure, and it always betrayed him.

“There is one way, however, in which we Conscript Fathers can make sure Lucius Cinna upholds the measures our senior consul has taken with such care,” said Catulus Caesar. “I suggest that a most solemn and binding oath be required of both Gnaeus Octavius and Lucius Cinna. To the effect that they will swear to uphold our present system of government, as laid down on the tablets by Lucius Sulla.”

“I agree,” said Scaevola Pontifex Maximus.

“And I,” said Flaccus Princeps Senatus.

“And I,” said Antonius Orator.

“And I,” said Lucius Caesar the censor.

“And I,” said Crassus the censor.

“And I,” said Quintus Ancharius.

“And I,” said Publius Servilius Vatia.

“And I,” said Lucius Cornelius Sulla, turning to Scaevola. “High priest, will you administer this oath to the consuls-elect?”

“I will.”

“And I will take it,” said Cinna loudly, “if I see the House divide in a clear majority.”

“Let the House divide,” said Sulla instantly. “Those in favor of the oath, please stand to my right. Those not in favor, please stand to my left.”

Only a very few senators stood to Sulla’s left, but the first to get there was Quintus Sertorius, his muscular frame exuding anger.

“The House has divided and shown its wishes conclusively,” said Sulla, the look vanished completely from his face. “Quintus Mucius, you are the Pontifex Maximus. How do you say this oath should be administered?”

“Legally,” said Scaevola promptly. “The first phase involves the whole House going with me to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, where the flamen Dialis and I will sacrifice a victim to the Great God. It will be a two-year-old sheep, and the Priests of the Two Teeth will attend us.”

“How convenient!” said Sertorius loudly. “I’ll bet that when we get to the top of the Capitol, all the requisite men and animals will be waiting for us!”

Scaevola carried on as if no one had spoken. “After the sacrifice I will ask Lucius Domitius—who is son of the late Pontifex Maximus and not directly involved in this business—to take the auspices from the liver of the victim. If the omens are suitably propitious, I will then lead the House to the temple of Semo Sancus Dius Fidius, the god of Divine Good Faith. There—under the open sky, as is required of all oath-takers—I will charge the consuls-elect to uphold the leges Corneliae.”

Sulla rose from his curule chair. “Then by all means let us do it, Pontifex Maximus.”

The omens were propitious, made the more so on the walk from the Capitol to the temple of Semo Sancus Dius Fidius when an eagle was seen to be flying from left to right across the Porta Sanqualis by the whole Senate in procession.

But Cinna had no intention of allowing himself to be bound by an oath to uphold Sulla’s constitution, and he knew exactly how he was going to render his oath no oath. As the senators wended their way up the hill to the temple of the Great God on the Capitol, he deliberately fell in with Quintus Sertorius, and without letting anyone see him speak—let alone hear what he said—he asked Quintus Sertorius to find him a certain kind of stone. Then as the senators wended their way from one temple to the other, Sertorius dropped the stone unnoticed within the folds of Cinna’s toga. To work it to a place where he could close the fingers of his left hand around it was easy; for it was a small stone, smooth and oval.

From early childhood he, like every other Roman boy, had known that he must go outside into the open air before he could take one of the splendidly juicy oaths so loved by little boys—oaths of friendship and enmity, fear and fury, daring and delusion. For the swearing of an oath had to be witnessed by the gods of the sky; if they did not witness it, then it was not a true and binding oath. Like all his boyhood companions, Cinna had taken the ritual with total seriousness. But he had once met a fellow—the son of the knight Sextus Perquitienus—who, having been brought up in that hideous house, had abrogated every oath he ever swore. The two were much of an age, though the son of Sextus Perquitienus did not mix with the sons of senators. The encounter had been a chance one, and it had involved the taking of an oath.

“All you do,” had said the son of Sextus Perquitienus, “is hold on to the bones of Mother Earth. And to do that, you just keep a stone in your hand as you swear. You have put yourself in the care of the gods of the Underworld because the Underworld is built of the bones of Mother Earth. Stone, Lucius Cornelius. Stone is bone!”

So when Lucius Cornelius Cinna swore his oath to uphold Sulla’s laws, he held his stone tightly clenched in his left hand. Finished, he bent down quickly to the floor of the temple—which, being devoid of a roof, was littered by leaves, little stones, pebbles, twigs—and pretended to pick up his stone.

“And if I break my oath,” he said in a clear and carrying voice, “may I be hurled from the Tarpeian Rock even as I hurl this stone away from me!”

The stone flew through the air, clattered against the grubby, peeling wall, and fell back to the bosom of its mother, Earth. No one seemed to grasp the significance of his action; Cinna released his breath in a huge gasp. Obviously the secret known to the son of Sextus Perquitienus was not known to Roman senators. Now when he was accused of breaking his oath, Cinna could explain why it did not bind him. The whole Senate had seen him throw his stone away, he had provided himself with a hundred impeccable witnesses. It was a trick could never work again—oh, but how Metellus Piggle-wiggle might have benefited had he only known of it!

Though he went to see the new consuls inaugurated, Sulla did not stay for the feast, pleading as his excuse that he had to ready himself to leave for Capua on the morrow. However, he was present at the Senate’s first official meeting of the New Year in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, so he heard Cinna’s short, ominous speech.

“I shall grace my office, not disgrace it,” Cinna said. “If I have any misgiving, it is to see the outgoing senior consul lead an army to the East that should have been led by Gaius Marius. Even putting the illegal prosecution and condemnation of Gaius Marius aside, it is still my opinion that the outgoing senior consul ought to remain in Rome to answer charges.”

Charges of what? No one quite knew, though the majority of the senators deduced that the charges would be treason, the basis of the charges Sulla’s leading his army on Rome. Sulla sighed, resigned to the inevitable. A man without scruples himself, he knew that had he taken that oath, he would have broken it did the need arise. Of Cinna, he hadn’t thought the man owned such metal. Now it seemed the man did. What a nuisance!

When he left the Capitol he headed in the direction of Aurelia’s insula in the Subura, pondering as he walked how best to deal with Cinna. By the time he arrived he had an answer, so it was with a broad smile on his face that he entered when Eutychus held the door.

The smile faded, however, when he saw Aurelia’s face; it was grim and the eyes held no affection.

“Not you too?” he asked, casting himself down on a couch.

“I too.” Aurelia sat in a chair facing him. “You ought not to be here, Lucius Cornelius.”

“Oh, I’m safe enough,” he said casually. “Gaius Julius was settling himself in a cozy corner to enjoy the feast when I left.”

“Nor would it worry you if he walked in at this moment,” she said. “Well, I had better be adequately chaperoned—for my sake, if not for yours.” She raised her voice. “Please come and join us, Lucius Decumius!”

The little man emerged from her workroom, face flinty.

“Oh, not you!” said Sulla, disgusted. “If it were not for the likes of you, Lucius Decumius, I would not have needed to lead an army on Rome! How could you fall for all that piffle about Gaius Marius’s being fit? He’s not fit to lead an army as far as Veii, let alone Asia Province.”

“Gaius Marius is cured,” said Lucius Decumius, defiant yet defensive. Sulla was not only the one friend of Aurelia’s whom he couldn’t like, he was also the one man of his own acquaintance whom he feared. There were many things he knew about Sulla that Aurelia did not; but the more he discovered, the less urge he experienced to say a word to anyone about them. It takes one to know one, he had thought to himself a thousand times, and I swear Lucius Cornelius Sulla is as big a villain as I am. Only he has bigger chances to do bigger villainies. And I know he does them too.

“It’s not Lucius Decumius to blame for this mess, it’s you!” said Aurelia snappishly.

“Rubbish!” said Sulla roundly. “I didn’t start this mess! I was minding my own business in Capua and planning to leave for Greece. It’s fools like Lucius Decumius to blame—meddling in things they know nothing about, deluding themselves their heroes are made from superior metal than the rest of us! Your friend here recruited a large number of Sulpicius’s bully-boys to stuff the Forum and make my daughter a widow—and he mustered more of the same when I entered the Forum Esquilinum wanting nothing more badly than I did peace! I didn’t stir up the trouble! I just had to pay for it!”

Angry now, Lucius Decumius stood stiffly, every hackle up. “I believe in the People!” he said, out of his depth and not used to being at someone else’s mercy.

“You see? There you go, mouthing idiocies as empty as your Fourth Class mind!” snarled Sulla. “'I believe in the People' indeed! You’d do better to believe in your betters!”

“Lucius Cornelius, please!” said Aurelia, heart thudding, legs trembling. “If you’re Lucius Decumius’s better, then act like it!”

“Yes!” cried Lucius Decumius, collecting himself because his beloved Aurelia was fighting for him—and wanting to look courageous in her eyes. But Sulla was no Marius. His nature made Lucius Decumius feel the screech of nails being dragged down something smooth and stony. Yet he tried. For Aurelia. “You don’t mind yourself, Big Important Consular Sulla, you just might get a knife in your back!”

The pale eyes glazed, Sulla’s lips peeled back from his teeth; he got up from the couch wrapped in an almost tangible aura of menace and advanced on Lucius Decumius.

Lucius Decumius backed away—not from cowardice, rather from a superstitious man’s contact with something as mysterious as it was terrible.

“I could stamp on you the way an elephant stamps on a dog,” said Sulla pleasantly. “The only reason I don’t is this lady here. She values you, and you serve her well. You may have taken many a knife to many a man, Lucius Decumius, but don’t ever delude yourself you will to me! Even in your dreams. Stay out of my arena, content yourself with commanding in your own. Now be off!”