The Grass Crown (114 page)

“About Gaius Marius, you mean?”

“Yes.” Cinna turned the cup between his hands. “I am no longer in total command. Oh, I’m respected among the senior ranks! I mean the men. The soldiers. The Samnite and other Italian volunteers. It’s Gaius Marius they follow, not me.”

“It was bound to happen. In the old days it wouldn’t have mattered a rush. No fairer-minded, more farsighted man than Gaius Marius ever lived. But this isn’t that Gaius Marius,” said Sertorius. A bloody tear slid from beneath his bandage, and was wiped away. “No worse thing could have happened to him at his age and in his infirmity than this exile. I’ve seen enough of him to know that he’s simply counterfeiting an interest in the job—what he’s really interested in is his revenge on those who exiled him. He’s surrounded himself with the worst specimens of legate I’ve seen in years—Fimbria! A complete wolfshead. As for his personal legion—he calls it his bodyguard and refuses to admit it’s an official part of his army—it’s composed of as vicious and rapacious a collection of slaves and ex-slaves as any Sicilian slave rebel leader might hope for. But he’s not lost his mental acuteness, Lucius Cinna, so much as he’s lost his moral acuteness. He knows he owns your armies! And I very much fear he intends to use them for his personal advancement, not Rome’s welfare. I am only here with you and your forces for one big reason, Lucius Cinna—I cannot condone the illegal dismissal of a consul during his year in office. But I cannot condone what I suspect Gaius Marius is planning to do, so it may well be that you and I will have to part company.”

Cinna’s hackles were rising; he stared at Sertorius in dawning horror. “You mean he’s set on a bloodbath?”

“I believe so. Nor do I think anyone can stop him.”

“But he can’t do that! It is absolutely essential that I enter Rome as rightful consul—restore peace—prevent further shedding of blood—and try to get our poor Rome on her feet again.”

“The best of luck,” said Sertorius dryly, and stood up. “I’ll be on the Campus Martius, Lucius Cinna, and I intend to stay there. My men will follow me, so much you can count on. And I support the reinstallation of the legally elected consul! I do not support any faction led by Gaius Marius.”

“Stay on the Campus Martius, by all means. But please, I beg you, come to whatever negotiations ensue!”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t miss that fiasco for anything,” said Sertorius, and departed, still wiping his left cheek.

The next day, however, Marius packed up his camp and led his legions away from Rome toward the Latin plains. The death of Pompey Strabo had brought home a lesson; that so many men temporarily crowded around such a large city bred frightful disease. Better, Marius decided, to draw his men into the fresh air and unpolluted water of the countryside, and there pillage the grain and other foodstuffs they needed from the various granaries and barns dotted all over the Latin plains. Aricia, Bovillae, Lanuvium, Antium, Ficana, and Laurentum all fell, though none had offered resistance.

Hearing of Marius’s departure, Quintus Sertorius privately wondered whether the real reason behind Marius’s withdrawal was a reflexive movement to safeguard himself and his men from Cinna. Mad he might be, but a fool he was not.

It was now the end of November. Everyone on both sides—or all three sides might have been a more accurate assessment—knew that Gnaeus Octavius Ruso’s “true” government of Rome was doomed. The dead Pompey Strabo’s army had flatly refused to accept Metellus Pius as its new commander, then marched over the Mulvian Bridge to offer its services to Gaius Marius. Not to Lucius Cinna.

The death toll from disease now stood at over eighteen thousand people, many of them from the ranks of Pompey Strabo’s legions. And the granaries within Rome were now completely empty. Sensing the beginning of the end, Marius brought his five-thousand-strong bodyguard of slaves and ex-slaves back to the southern flank of the Janiculum. Significantly, he did not bring the rest of his army with him, neither the Samnites, the Italians nor the remnants of Pompey Strabo’s forces. Thus ensuring his own safety? wondered Quintus Sertorius. Yes, it very much looked as if Marius was deliberately keeping the bulk of his own men in reserve.

On the third day of December a treating party crossed the Tiber via the two bridges connecting through Tiber Island. It consisted of Metellus Pius the Piglet (who was its official leader), the censor Publius Crassus, and the Brothers Caesar. Waiting for them at the end of the second bridge was Lucius Cinna. And Gaius Marius.

“Greetings, Lucius Cinna,” said Metellus Pius, outraged to see Marius present, especially as he was attended by that vile wretch Fimbria, and a gigantic German in ostentatious golden armor.

“Do you address me as the consul or as a private citizen, Quintus Caecilius?” asked Cinna coldly.

As Cinna said this, Marius rounded on him furiously and snarled, “Weakling! Spineless idiot!”

Metellus Pius swallowed. “As consul, Lucius Cinna,” he said.

Whereupon Catulus Caesar rounded on the Piglet furiously and snarled, “Traitor!”

“That man is not consul! He is guilty of sacrilege!” cried the censor Crassus.

“He doesn’t need to be consul, he’s the victor!” shouted Marius.

Clapping his hands over his ears to shut out the heated exchanges between all present save himself and Cinna, Metellus Pius turned on his heel in anger and stalked back across the bridges into Rome.

When he reported what had happened to Octavius, Octavius too flew at the hapless Piglet. “How dared you admit he’s consul? He is not consul! Cinna is nefas! snapped Octavius.

“The man is consul, Gnaeus Octavius, and will continue to be consul until the end of this month,” said Metellus Pius coldly.

“A fine negotiator you turned out to be! Don’t you even understand that the worst thing any of us can do is to acknowledge Lucius Cinna as true consul?” asked Octavius, wagging one finger at the Piglet much as a schoolmaster might chastise a student.

The Piglet lost his temper. “Then you go and do better!” he said tightly. “And don’t you point your finger at me! You’re little better than a jumped-up nobody! I am a Caecilius Metellus, and not Romulus himself points a finger at me! Whether it suits your ideas or not, Lucius Cinna is consul. If I go back again and he asks me the same question again, I will give him the same answer!”

His unhappiness and discomfort, present since the very beginning of his tenure of the curule chair, now became intolerable; the flamen Dialis and suffect consul Merula drew himself up and faced his colleague Octavius and the enraged Metellus Pius with all the dignity he could muster. “Gnaeus Octavius, I must resign as consul suffectus,” he said quietly. “It is not fitting that the priest of Jupiter be a curule magistrate. The Senate, yes. Imperium, no.”

Speechless, the rest of the group watched Merula leave the lower Forum—where this exchange had taken place—and walk up the Via Sacra toward his State House.

Catulus Caesar then looked at Metellus Pius. “Quintus Caecilius, would you assume the military high command?” he asked. “If we made your appointment official, perhaps both our men and our city might take on a new lease of life.”

But Metellus Pius shook his head firmly. “No, Quintus Lutatius, I will not. Our men and our city have no heart for this cause, between disease and hunger. And—though it gives me no joy to say it—their uncertainty as to who is in the right. I hope none of us wants another battle through the streets of Rome—Lucius Sulla’s was one too many. We must come to terms! But with Lucius Cinna. Not with Gaius Marius.”

Octavius looked around the faces of his treating party, lifted his shoulders, shrugged, sighed in defeat. “All right then, Quintus Caecilius. All right. Go back and see Lucius Cinna again.”

Back went the Piglet, accompanied only by Catulus Caesar and his son, Catulus. It was now the fifth day of December.

This time they were received in greater state. Cinna had set up a high platform and sat atop it in his curule chair while the treating party stood below and were forced to look up at him. With him on the dais—though unseated and standing behind him—was Gaius Marius.

“First of all, Quintus Caecilius,” said Cinna loudly, “I bid you welcome. Secondly, I assure you that Gaius Marius’s status is that of an observer only. He understands that he is a privatus, and cannot speak during formal negotiations.”

“I thank you, Lucius Cinna,” said the Piglet with equally stiff formality, “and inform you that I am authorized to treat only with you, not with Gaius Marius. What are your conditions?”

“That I enter Rome as Rome’s consul.”

“Agreed. The flamen Dialis has already stepped down.”

“No future retaliations will be tolerated.”

“None will be made,” said Metellus Pius.

“The new citizens from Italy and Italian Gaul will be given tribal status across the full thirty-five.”

“Agreed absolutely.”

“The slaves who deserted from service under Roman owners to enlist in my armies are to be guaranteed their freedom and the full citizenship,” said Cinna.

The Piglet froze. “Impossible!” he snapped. “Impossible!”

“It is a condition, Quintus Caecilius. It must be agreed to along with the rest,” Cinna maintained.

“I will never consent to free and enfranchise slaves who deserted their legal masters!”

Catulus Caesar stepped forward. “A word with you in private, Quintus Caecilius?” he asked delicately.

It took Catulus Caesar and his son a long time to persuade the Piglet this particular condition must be met; that in the end Metellus Pius yielded was only because he too could see Cinna was adamant—though he wondered on whose behalf, his own or Marius’s? There were few slaves in Cinna’s forces, but Marius’s were riddled with them, according to reports.

“All right, I agree to that stupidity about the slaves,” said the Piglet ungraciously. “However, there is one point on which I must set the terms.”

“Oh?” from Cinna.

“There can be no bloodshed,” said the Piglet strongly. “No disenfranchisements, no proscriptions, no banishments, no trials for treason, no executions. In this business, all men have done as their principles and convictions have dictated. No man ought to be penalized for adhering to his principles and convictions, no matter how repugnant they may seem. That goes as much for those who have followed you, Lucius Cinna, as it does for those who followed Gnaeus Octavius.”

Cinna nodded. “I agree with you wholeheartedly, Quintus Caecilius. There must be no revenge.”

“Will you swear to that?” asked the Piglet slyly.

Cinna shook his head, blushing. “I cannot, Quintus Caecilius. The most I can guarantee is that I will do my personal utmost to see that there are no treason trials, no bloodshed, no confiscations of men’s property.”

Metellus Pius turned his head slightly to look directly at the silent Gaius Marius. “Are you implying, Lucius Cinna, that you—the consul!—cannot control your own faction?”

Cinna flinched, but said steadily, “I can control it.”

“Then will you swear?”

“No, I will not swear,” said Cinna with great dignity, red face betraying his discomfort. He rose from his chair to signify that the meeting was over, and accompanied Metellus Pius down to the Tiber Island bridge. For a few precious moments he and the Piglet were alone. “Quintus Caecilius,” he said urgently, “I can control my faction! Just the same, I would rest easier if Gnaeus Octavius is kept out of the Forum—kept completely out of sight! In case. A remote possibility. I can control my faction! But I would rather Gnaeus Octavius was not on display. Tell him!”

“I will,” said Metellus Pius.

Marius caught up to them at a hobbling run, so anxious was he to cut this private conversation short. He looked, the Piglet thought, quite grotesque. There was something new and horribly simian about him, and a diminishing in that awesome air of power he had always radiated, even in the days when the Piglet’s father had been his commander in Numidia, and the Piglet a mere cadet.

“When do you and Gaius Marius plan to enter the city?” asked Catulus Caesar of Cinna as the two parties prepared to go their separate ways.

Before Cinna could answer, Gaius Marius broke his silence with a contemptuous snort. “Lucius Cinna can enter as the lawful consul any time he likes,” said Marius, “but I am waiting here with the army until the convictions against me and my friends have been legally quashed.”

Cinna could hardly wait for Metellus Pius and his escort to start walking away down the Tiber Island bridge before he said to Marius sharply, “What do you mean, you’ll stay with the army until your conviction is quashed?”

The old man stood there looking more inhuman than human; like Mormolyce or Lamia, a monstrous, wickedly intelligent tormentor from the Underworld. He was smiling, his eyes glittering through the tangled curtain of his brows, bushier than of yore because he had developed a habit of pulling at them.

“My dear Lucius Cinna, it’s Gaius Marius the army follows, not you! Were it not for me, the desertions would have been all the other way, and Octavius would have won. Think on that! If I enter the city still inscribed on the tablets as an outlaw under sentence of death, what’s to stop you and Octavius agreeing to patch up your differences and carry out the sentence on me? What a pickle for me to be in! There I’d be, standing around with my cap of liberty in my hand, a privatus waiting for the consuls and the Senate—a body I no longer belong to!—to absolve me of my nonexistent crimes. Now I ask you—is that a fitting stance for Gaius Marius?” He patted Cinna patronizingly on the shoulder. “No, Lucius Cinna, you have your little moment of glory all to yourself! You enter Rome alone. I’ll stay where I am. With the army I own. Because you don’t.”

Cinna writhed. “Are you saying you’d use the army—my army!—against me? The lawful consul?”

“Cheer up, it won’t get as far as that,” said Marius with a laugh. “Say, rather, that the army will be most concerned to see Gaius Marius gets his due.”

“And what exactly is Gaius Marius’s due?”

“On the Kalends of January, I will be the new senior consul. You of course will be my junior colleague.”