The First Man in Rome (34 page)

"Why should I, you—you—savage?" Scylax ran his hands through his carefully arranged, dyed golden locks; he fluttered his long lashes, darkened with
stibium,
and rolled his eyes between them.

"Because the boy's not yours body and mind," said Sulla, testing a pouffe with his foot to see if it was less yielding.

"He
is
mine body and mind! And he hasn't been the same since you stole him from me and took him all over Italy with you, Lucius Cornelius! I don't know what you did to him, but you certainly spoiled him for me!"

Sulla grinned. "Made a man out of him, did I? Doesn't like eating your shit anymore, eh? Aaaaaaaah!" With which sound of disgust, Sulla lifted his head and roared, "Metrobius!"

The lad came flying through the door and launched himself straight at Sulla, covering his face with kisses.

Over the black head Sulla opened one pale eye at Scylax, and wiggled one ginger brow. "Give up, Scylax, your bum-boy just likes me better," he said, and demonstrated the truth of this by lifting the boy's skirt to display his erection. Scylax burst into tears, streaking his face with
stibium.

"Come on, Metrobius," said Sulla, struggling to his feet. At the door he turned back to flip a folded paper at the blubbering Scylax. "Party at Clitumna's house in four days," he said. "It's going to be the best one ever, so swallow your spleen and come. You can have Metrobius back if you do."

Everyone was invited, including Hercules Atlas, who was billed as the world's strongest man, and hired himself out to fairs and fetes and festivals from one end of Italy to the other. Never seen outside his door unless wearing a moth-eaten lion skin and toting an enormous club, Hercules Atlas was a bit of an institution. However, he was rarely asked as a guest to the parties where he entertained with his strongman act, for when the wine flowed down his throat like water down the Aqua Marcia, Hercules Atlas became very aggressive and bad-tempered.

"You're touched in the head, to ask that bull!" said Metrobius, playing with Sulla's brilliant curls as he leaned over Sulla's shoulder to peer at yet another list. The real change in Metrobius that had occurred while he was away with Sulla was his literacy; Sulla had taught the lad to read and write. Willing to teach him every art he knew from acting to sodomy, Scylax had yet been too crafty to endow him with something as emancipating as letters.

"Hercules Atlas is a friend of mine," said Sulla, kissing the lad's fingers one by one with a great deal more pleasure than ever he felt kissing Clitumna's.

"But he's a madman when he's drunk!" Metrobius protested. "He'll tear this house apart, and very likely two or three of the guests as well! Hire his act by all means, but don't have him present as a guest!"

"I can't do that," said Sulla, seeming unworried. He reached up and pulled Metrobius down across his shoulder, settling the boy in his lap. And Metrobius wound his arms about Sulla's neck and lifted his face: Sulla kissed his eyelids very slowly, very tenderly.

"Lucius Cornelius, why won't you keep me?" Metrobius asked, settling against Sulla's arm with a sigh of utter content.

The kisses ceased. Sulla frowned. "You're far better off with Scylax," he said abruptly.

Metrobius opened huge dark eyes, swimming with love. "But I'm not, truly I'm not! The gifts and the acting training and the money don't matter to me, Lucius Cornelius! I'd much rather be with you, no matter how poor we were!"

"A tempting offer, and one I'd take you up on in a trice—
if
I
intended to remain poor," said Sulla, holding the boy as if he cherished him. "But I am not going to remain poor. I have Nicopolis's money behind me now, and I'm busy speculating with it. One day I'll have enough to qualify for admission to the Senate."

Metrobius sat up. "The
Senate
!
"
Twisting, he stared into Sulla's face. "But you can't, Lucius Cornelius! Your ancestors were slaves like me!"

"No, they weren't," said Sulla, staring back. "I am a patrician Cornelius. The Senate is where I belong."

"I don't believe it!"

"It's the truth," said Sulla soberly. "That's why I can't avail myself of your offer, alluring though it is. When I do qualify for the Senate, I'm going to have to become a model of decorum—no actors, no mimes—and no pretty-boys." He clapped Metrobius on the back, and hugged him. "Now pay attention to the list, lad—and stop wriggling! It's not good for my concentration. Hercules Atlas is coming as a guest as well as performing, and that's final."

In fact, Hercules Atlas was among the first guests to arrive. Word of the revels to come had got out all up and down the street, of course, and the neighbors had steeled themselves to endure a night of howls, shrieks, loud music, and unimaginable crashes. As usual, it was a costume affair. Sulla had tricked himself out as the absent Clitumna, complete with fringed shawls, rings, and hennaed wig convoluted with sausagelike curls, and he constantly emitted uncanny imitations of her titters, her giggles, her loud whinnies of laughter. Since the guests knew her well, his performance was deeply appreciated.

Metrobius was equipped with wings again, but this night he was Icarus rather than Cupid, and had cleverly melted his large feathered fans along their outer edges, so that they drooped, and looked half-finished. Scylax came as Minerva, and contrived to make that stern, tomboyish goddess look like an old and over-made-up whore. When he saw how Metrobius hung all over Sulla, he proceeded to get drunk, and soon forgot how to manage his shield, his distaff, his stuffed owl, and his spear, and eventually tripped over them into a corner, where he wept himself to sleep.

Thus Scylax failed to see the endless succession of party turns, the singers who commenced with glorious melodies and stunning trills, and ended in warbling ditties like

My sister Piggy Filler

Got caught with Gus the Miller

A-grinding of her flower

Beneath the miller's tower.

"Enough of this," said our dad.

"It's clear that you've been had.

Married you'd better be quick

Or your arse will feel my stick!"

which were far more popular with the guests, who, knew the words, and could sing along.

There were dancers who stripped to the buff with exquisite artistry, displaying pubes devoid of the smallest hair, and a man whose performing dogs could dance almost as well— if not as lubriciously—and a famous animal act from Antioch which consisted of a girl and her donkey—very, very popular with the audience, the male half of which was too intimidated by the donkey's endowments to proposition the girl afterward.

Hercules Atlas did his turn last of all, just before the party segregated into those too drunk to be interested in sex, and those drunk enough to be interested in nothing else. The revelers gathered around the colonnades of the peristyle-garden, in the midst of which Hercules Atlas had set himself up on a very sturdy dais. After warming up by bending a few iron bars and snapping a few thick logs like twigs, the strong man picked up squealing girls by the half dozen, piling them on his shoulders, on his head, and under each arm. Then he lifted an anvil or two in his hands and began to roar lustily, more fearsome than any lion in any arena. Actually he was having a wonderful time, for the wine was flowing down his throat like water down the Aqua Marcia, and his capacity to guzzle was as phenomenal as his strength. The trouble was, the more anvils he picked up, the more uncomfortable the girls became, until their squeals of joy became squeals of terror.

Sulla strolled out into the middle of the garden and tapped Hercules Atlas politely on his knee.

"Here, old fellow, do drop the girls," he said in the most friendly way. "You're squashing them with lumps of iron."

Hercules Atlas dropped the girls immediately. But he picked up Sulla instead, his hair-trigger temper let loose.

"Don't you tell me how to do my act!" he bellowed, and spun Sulla around his head like a priest of Isis his wand; wig, shawls, draperies fell from Sulla in a cascade.

Some of the party goers began to panic; others decided to help by venturing out into the garden and pleading with the demented strong man to put Sulla down. But Hercules Atlas solved everyone's dilemma by shoving Sulla under his left arm as casually as a shopper a parcel, and leaving the festivities. There was no way he could be stopped. Ploughing through the bodies hurling themselves at him as if they were a cloud of gnats, he gave the door servant a shove in the face that sent him halfway across the atrium, and disappeared into the lane, still toting Sulla.

At the top of the Vestal Steps he halted. "All right? Did I do all right, Lucius Cornelius?" he asked, setting Sulla down very gently.

"You did perfectly," said Sulla, staggering a little because he was dizzy. "Come, I'll walk home with you."

"Not necessary," said Hercules Atlas, hitching up his lion skin and starting down the Vestal Steps. "Only a hop and a skip away from here, Lucius Cornelius, and the moon's just about full."

"I insist," said Sulla, catching him up.

"Have it your own way," shrugged Hercules Atlas.

"Well, it's less public if I pay you inside than out in the middle of the Forum," said Sulla patiently.

"Oh, right!" Hercules Atlas clapped a hand to his well-muscled head. "I forgot you haven't paid me yet. Come on, then."

He lived in four rooms on the third floor of an insula off the Clivus Orbius, on the fringes of the Subura, but in a better neighborhood by far. Ushered in, Sulla saw at a glance that his slaves had seized their opportunity and taken the night off, no doubt expecting that when their master came in, he would be in no state to take a head count. There did not seem to be a woman of the house, but Sulla checked anyway.

"Wife not here?" he asked.

Hercules Atlas spat. "Women! I hate 'em," he said.

A jug of wine and some cups stood on the table at which the two men seated themselves. Sulla pulled a fat purse from where he had secreted it inside a linen band around his waist. While Hercules Atlas poured two cups full of wine, Sulla loosened the strings holding the mouth of the purse shut, and deftly palmed a plump screw of paper he fished out of its interior. Then he tipped the purse up and sent a stream of bright silver coins tumbling across the tabletop. Too quickly; three or four rolled all the way to the far edge and fell to the floor, tinkling tinnily.

"Oh, hey!" cried Hercules Atlas, getting down on all fours to retrieve his pay.

While he was occupied in crawling about the floor, Sulla, taking his time, untwisted the paper he had palmed and tipped the white powder it contained into the further of the two cups; for want of any other instrument, he stirred the wine with his fingers until Hercules Atlas finally lumbered up from all fours to hind legs, and sat down.

"Good health," said Sulla, picking up the nearer cup and tipping it at the strong man in the friendliest manner.

"Good health and thanks for a terrific night," said Hercules Atlas, tilting his head back and his cup up, and draining it without pausing for breath. After which he refilled the cup and tossed a second drink back, it seemed on the same lungful of air.

Sulla got up, pushed his own cup under the strong man's hand, and took the other cup away, tucking it inside his tunic. "A little souvenir," he said. "Good night." And slipped out the door quietly.

The insula was asleep, its open concrete walkway around the central courtyard heavily screened to prevent refuse being tipped down the light well, and deserted. Very quickly and without making a sound, Sulla stole down three flights of stairs, and stepped into the narrow street unnoticed. The cup he had purloined went between the bars of a gutter drain; Sulla listened until he heard it splash far below, then thrust the screw of paper after it. At the Well of Juturna beneath the Vestal Steps he paused, dipped his hands and arms to the elbows in its still waters, and washed, and washed, and washed. There! That ought to rinse off whatever white powder might have adhered to his skin while he handled the paper and stirred the wine Hercules Atlas had devoured so satisfactorily.

But he didn't go back to the party. He bypassed the Palatine completely, heading up the Via Nova toward the Capena Gate. Outside the city he entered one of the many stables in the vicinity that hired out horses or vehicles to those resident inside Rome; few Roman houses kept mules, horses, transport. It was cheaper and easier to hire.

The stable he chose was good and reputable, but its idea of security was lax; the only groom in attendance was sound asleep in a mound of straw. Sulla assisted him into a far deeper sleep with a rabbit punch behind one ear, then took his time cruising up and down until he found a very strong-looking, amiable mule. Never having saddled a mount in his life, it took him some time to work out precisely what to do, but he had heard of an animal's holding its breath while the girth was being strapped tight, so he waited patiently until he was sure the mule's ribs were normal, then swung himself up into the saddle and kicked the beast gently in the flanks.

Though he was a novice rider, he wasn't afraid of horses or mules, and trusted to his luck in managing his mount. The four horns—one on each corner of the saddle—kept a man fairly securely upon the beast's back provided it wasn't prone to buck, and mules were more docile than horses in this respect. The only bridle he had managed to persuade the mule to take had a plain snaffle bit, but his steed seemed comfortable and placid chewing on it, so he headed down the moonlit Via Appia with every confidence in his ability to get quite a long way before morning. It was about midnight.