The Grass Crown (40 page)

“In his summer palace at Ecbatana, eh?” asked Sulla.

Orobazus blinked. “You are well informed, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. I was not aware our movements are so well known in Rome.”

“Lucius Cornelius will do, Lord Orobazus,” said Sulla. He leaned forward a little, still keeping his spine absolutely straight, his pose in the chair a perfect fusion of grace and power, as befitted a Roman conducting an audience of magnitude. “We make history here today, Lord Orobazus. This is the first time that the ambassadors of the Kingdom of the Parthians have met with an ambassador of Rome. That it takes place upon the river which forms the boundary between our two worlds is fitting.”

“Indeed, my lord Lucius Cornelius,” said Orobazus.

“Not ’my lord,’ just plain Lucius Cornelius,” said Sulla. “In Rome there are no lords and no kings.”

“We had heard it was so, but we find it strange. You do follow the Greek way, then. How is it that Rome has grown so great, when no king heads the government? The Greeks one can understand. They were never very great because they had no High King—they fragmented themselves into a myriad little states and then went to war against each other. Whereas Rome acts as if there was a High King. How can your lack of any kind of king permit such power, Lucius Cornelius?” asked Orobazus.

“Rome is our king , Lord Orobazus , though we give Rome the feminine form, Roma, and speak of Rome as ’her’ and ’she.’ The Greeks subordinated themselves to an ideal. You subordinate yourselves to one man, your king. But we Romans subordinate ourselves to Rome, and only to Rome. We bend the knee to no one human, Lord Orobazus, any more than we bend it to the abstraction of an ideal. Rome is our god, our king, our very lives. And though each Roman strives to enhance his own reputation, strives to be great in the eyes of his fellow Romans, in the long run it is all done to enhance Rome, and Rome’s greatness. We worship a place, Lord Orobazus. Not a man. Not an ideal. Men come and go, their terms on earth are fleeting. And ideals shift and sway with every philosophical wind. But a place can be eternal as long as those who live in that place care for it, nurture it, make it even greater. I, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, am a great Roman. But at the end of my life, whatever I have done will have gone to swell the might and majesty of my place—Rome. I am here today not on my own behalf, nor on behalf of any other man. I am here today on behalf of my place—Rome! If we strike a treaty, it will be deposited in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, the oldest temple in Rome, and there it will remain—not my property, nor even bearing my name. A testament to the might of Rome.”

He spoke well, for his Greek was Attic and beautiful, better by far than the Greek of the Parthians or Tigranes. And they were listening, fascinated, obviously wrestling to understand a concept utterly alien. A place greater than a man? A place greater than the mental product of a man?

“But a place, Lucius Cornelius,” said Orobazus, “is just a collection of objects! If it is a town, a collection of buildings. If it is a sanctuary, a collection of temples. If it is countryside, a collection of trees and rocks and fields. How can a place generate such feeling, such nobility? You look at a collection of buildings—for I know Rome is a great city—and do what you all do for the sake of those buildings?”

Sulla extended his ivory wand. “This is Rome, Lord Orobazus.” He touched the muscular snow-white forearm behind it. “This is Rome, Lord Orobazus.” He swept aside the folds of his toga to display the carved curved X of his chair’s legs. “This is Rome, Lord Orobazus.” He held out his left arm, weighed down by fold upon fold of toga, and pinched the woolen stuff. “This is Rome, Lord Orobazus.” And then he paused to look into every pair of eyes raised to him on high, and at the end of the pause he said, “I am Rome, Lord Orobazus. So is every single man who calls himself a Roman. Rome is a pageant stretching back a thousand years, to the time when a Trojan refugee named Aeneas set foot upon the shores of Latium and founded a race who founded, six hundred and sixty-two years ago, a place called Rome. And for a while Rome was actually ruled by kings, until the men of Rome rejected the concept that a man could be mightier than the place which bred him. No man must ever consider himself greater than the place which bred him. No Roman man is greater than Rome. Rome is the place which breeds great men. But what they are—what they do—is for her glory. Their contributions to her ongoing pageant. And I tell you, Lord Orobazus, that Rome will last as long as Romans hold Rome dearer than themselves, dearer than their children, dearer than their own reputations and achievements.” He paused again, drew a long breath. “As long as Romans hold Rome dearer than an ideal, or a single man.”

“But the King is the manifestation of everything you say, Lucius Cornelius,” Orobazus objected.

“A king cannot be,” said Sulla. “A king is concerned first with himself, a king believes he is closer to the gods than all other men. Some kings believe they are gods. All personal, Lord Orobazus. Kings use their countries to fuel themselves. Rome uses Romans to fuel herself.”

Orobazus lifted his hands in the age-old gesture of surrender. “I cannot understand what you say, Lucius Cornelius.”

“Then let us pass to our reasons for being here today, Lord Orobazus. It is an historic occasion. On behalf of Rome, I extend you a proposition. That what lies to the east of the river Euphrates remain solely your concern, the business of the King of the Parthians. And that what lies to the west of the river Euphrates become Rome’s concern, the business of those men who act in the name of Rome.”

Orobazus raised his feathery greying brows. “Do you mean, Lucius Cornelius, that Rome wishes to rule every land west of the Euphrates River? That Rome intends to dethrone the Kings of Syria and Pontus, Cappadocia and Commagene, many other lands?”

“Not at all, Lord Orobazus. Rather, that Rome wants to ensure the stability of lands west of the Euphrates, prevent some kings expanding at the expense of others, prevent national borders shrinking or expanding. Do you, for instance, Lord Orobazus, know precisely why I am here today?”

“Not precisely, Lucius Cornelius. We received word from our subject king, Tigranes of Armenia, that you were marching on him with an army. So far I have not been able to obtain a reason from King Tigranes as to why your army has made no aggressive move. You were well to the east of the Euphrates. Now you appear to be traveling west again. What did bring you here, why did you take your army into Armenia? And why, having done so, did you not make an aggressive move?”

Sulla turned his head to look down at Tigranes, discovering that the toothed margin of his tiara, decorated on either side above the diadem with an eight-pointed star and a crescent formed by two eagles, was hollow, and that the King was going very bald. Clearly detesting his inferior position, Tigranes lifted his chin to glare angrily up at Sulla.

“What, King, not told your master?” Sulla asked. Failing to receive an answer, he turned back to Orobazus and the other Greek-speaking Parthians. “Rome is seriously concerned, Lord Orobazus, that some kings at the eastern end of the Middle Sea do not become so great that they can expunge other kings. Rome is well content with the status quo in Asia Minor. But King Mithridates of Pontus has designs on the Kingdom of Cappadocia, and on other parts of Anatolia as well. Including Cilicia, which has voluntarily placed itself in Rome’s hands now that the King of Syria is not powerful enough to look after it. But your subject king, Tigranes here, has supported Mithridates—and upon one occasion not long ago, actually invaded Cappadocia.”

“I heard something of that,” said Orobazus woodenly.

“I imagine little escapes the attention of the King of the Parthians and his satraps, Lord Orobazus! However, having done Pontus’s dirty work for him, King Tigranes returned to Armenia, and has not stirred west of the Euphrates since.” Sulla cleared his throat. “It has been my melancholy duty to eject the King of Pontus yet again from Cappadocia, a commission from the Senate and People of Rome that I concluded earlier in the year. However, it occurred to me that my task would not be finished conclusively until I journeyed to have speech with King Tigranes. So I set off from Eusebeia Mazaca to look for him.”

“With your army, Lucius Cornelius?” asked Orobazus.

Up went the pointed brows. “Certainly! This is not exactly a part of the world I know, Lord Orobazus. So—purely as a precaution!—I took my army with me. It and I have behaved with perfect decorum, as I am sure you know—we have not raided, looted, sacked, or even trodden down crops in the field. What we needed, we bought. And we continue to do so. You must think of my army as a very large bodyguard. I am an important man, Lord Orobazus! My tenure of government in Rome has not yet reached its zenith, I will rise even higher. Therefore it behooves me—and Rome!—to look after Lucius Cornelius Sulla.”

Orobazus signed to Sulla to stop. “One moment, Lucius Cornelius. I have with me a certain Chaldaean, the Nabopolassar, who comes not from Babylon but from Chaldaea proper, where the Euphrates delta runs into the Persian Sea. He serves me as my seer as well as my astrologer, and his brother serves none other than King Mithridates of the Parthians himself. We—all of us here today from Seleuceia-on-Tigris—believe in what he says. Would you permit him to look into your palm, and into your face? We would like to find out for ourselves if you are truly the great man you say you are.”

Sulla shrugged, looked indifferent. “It makes no odds to me, Lord Orobazus. Have your fellow poke his nose into the lines on my palm and in my face to your entire satisfaction! Is he here? Do you want him to do it now? Or must I go somewhere more seemly?”

“Stay where you are, Lucius Cornelius. The Nabopolassar will come to you.” Orobazus snapped his fingers and said something to the little crowd of Parthian observers seated on the ground.

Out of their ranks stepped one who looked exactly the same as all the others, with his little round pearl-studded hat, and his spiral necklace, and his golden garments. Hands tucked into his sleeves, he trotted to the dais steps, hopped up them nimbly, and then stood on the step halfway between Sulla’s podium and the main floor of the platform. Out came one hand, snatching at Sulla’s extended right hand; and for a long time he mumbled his way from one line to another, then dropped the hand and peered at Sulla’s face. A little bow, and he backed off the step, backed across the dais to Orobazus, only then turning his front away from Sulla.

The report took some time to give; Orobazus and the others listened gravely, faces impassive. At the end he turned back to Sulla, bowed down to the ground in Sulla’s direction, and got himself off the platform without ever presenting more than the top of his head to Sulla, an extraordinary obeisance.

Sulla’s heart had leaped, had begun to thud a hasty tattoo as the Nabopolassar gave his verdict, leaped again joyously as the Chaldaean seer wormed his way off the platform and back to his place among the little crowd on the ground. Whatever he had said, he had clearly confirmed Sulla’s own words, that he, Sulla, was a great man. And he had bowed down to Sulla as he would have bowed down to his King.

“The Nabopolassar says, Lucius Cornelius, that you are the greatest man in the world, that no one in your lifetime will rival you from the River Indus to the River of Ocean in the far west. We must believe him, for he has by default included our own King Mithridates among your inferiors, and thereby placed his head in jeopardy,” said Orobazus, a new note in his voice.

Even Tigranes, Sulla noticed, now gazed at him in awe.

“May we resume our parley?” asked Sulla, not varying his pose, his expression, or his tone from normal.

“Please, Lucius Cornelius.”

“Very well, then. I have arrived at that point in my account, I think, where my army’s presence has been explained, but not what I came to say to King Tigranes. Briefly, I instructed him to remain on his own side of the Euphrates River, and warned him that he was not to assist his father-in-law of Pontus in attaining Pontus’s ambitions—be they with regard to Cappadocia, Cilicia, or Bithynia. And, having told him, I turned back.”

“Do you think, Lucius Cornelius, that the King of Pontus has even grander designs than Anatolia?”

“I think his designs encompass the world, Lord Orobazus! He is already the complete master of the eastern Euxine from Olbia on the Hypanis to Colchis on the Phasis. He secured Galatia by the mass murder of its chieftains, and has murdered at least one of the Cappadocian kings. I am very sure he masterminded the invasion of Cappadocia undertaken by King Tigranes here. And, further to the point of our meeting”—Sulla leaned forward, his strange light eyes blazing—“the distance between Pontus and the Kingdom of the Parthians is considerably less than the distance between Pontus and Rome. Therefore I consider that the King of the Parthians should look to his boundaries while ever the King of Pontus is in an expansive mood. As well as keep a stern eye on his subject, King Tigranes of Armenia.” Sulla produced a charming smile, canines well hidden. “That, Lord Orobazus, is all I have to say.”

“You have spoken well, Lucius Cornelius,” said Orobazus. “You may have your treaty. All to the west of the Euphrates to be the concern of Rome. All to the east of the Euphrates to be the concern of the King of the Parthians.’-’

“This means, I trust, no more western incursions by Armenia?”

“It most certainly does,” said Orobazus, with a glare at the angry and disappointed Tigranes.

At last, thought Sulla as he waited for the Parthian envoys to file off the dais—followed by a Tigranes who looked nowhere save at the white marble floor—at last I know how Gaius Marius must have felt when Martha the Syrian prophetess foretold that he would be consul of Rome seven times, and be called the Third Founder of Rome. But Gaius Marius is still alive! Yet I have been called the greatest man in the world! The whole world, from India to Oceanus Atlanticus!

Not one tiny hint of his jubilation did he display to any other man during the succeeding days; his son, who had been let watch proceedings from a distance, knew only what his eyes had seen, as his ears were beyond hearing distance; in fact, no member of Sulla’s own people had been within hearing distance. All Sulla reported was the treaty.