The Grass Crown (79 page)

When Gaius Marius roused him from sleep as the half-moon was sinking into the western sky, Cinna had no idea of the eventual consequences of this visit; rather, he pulled on a tunic and shoes with a heavy heart and prepared himself to say unpleasant things to the father of one who had seemed a most promising boy.

The Great Man entered the command tent with a peculiar escort in tow—a very common-looking man of perhaps a little under fifty years, and a very beautiful boy. The boy it was who did most of the work, and in a manner suggesting he was well accustomed to the task. Cinna would have deemed him a slave except that he wore the bulla around his neck and comported himself like a patrician of a better family than Cornelius. When Marius was seated the boy stood on his left side and the middle-aged man behind him.

“Lucius Cornelius Cinna, this is my nephew Gaius Julius Caesar Junior, and my friend Lucius Decumius. You may be absolutely frank in front of them.” Marius used his right hand to dispose his left hand in his lap, seeming less tired than Cinna had expected, and more in command of his faculties than news from Rome—old news, come to think of it—had implied. Obviously still a formidable man. But hopefully not a formidable opponent, thought Cinna.

“A tragic business, Gaius Marius.”

The wide-awake eyes roamed around the tent to ascertain who might be about, and when they found no one, swung to Cinna.

“Are we alone, Lucius Cinna?”

“Completely.”

“Good.” Marius settled more comfortably into his chair. “My source of information was secondhand. Quintus Lutatius called to see me and found me not at home. He gave the story to my wife, who in turn reported it to me. I take it that my son is charged with the murder of Lucius Cato the Consul during a battle, and that there is a witness—or some witnesses. Is this the correct story?”

“I am afraid so, yes.”

“How many witnesses?”

“Just the one.”

“And who is he? A man of integrity?”

“Beyond reproach, Gaius Marius. A contubernalis named Publius Claudius Pulcher,” said Cinna.

Marius grunted. “Oh, that family! It’s one notorious for harboring grudges and being difficult to get on with. It’s also as poor as an Apulian shepherd. How therefore can you state unequivocally that the witness is beyond reproach?”

“Because this particular Claudius is not typical of that family,” said Cinna, determined to depress Marius’s hopes. “His reputation within the contubernalis tent and throughout the late Lucius Cato’s staff is superlative. You will understand better when you meet him. He has a high degree of loyalty toward his fellow cadets—he is the oldest of them—and much genuine affection for your son. Also much sympathy for your son’s action, I add. Lucius Cato was not popular with any of his staff, let alone his army.”

“Yet Publius Claudius has accused my son.”

“He felt it his duty.”

“Oh, I see! A sanctimonious prig.”

But Cinna disputed this. “No, Gaius Marius, he is not! Think for a moment as a commander, I beg you, not as a father! The young man Pulcher is the finest kind of Roman, as conscious of his duty as of his family. He did his duty, little though he liked it. And that is the simple truth.”

When Marius struggled to rise it was more apparent that he was tired; clearly he had become accustomed to performing this deed unaided, yet now he could not move without Young Caesar. The commoner Lucius Decumius slid round to stand at Marius’s right shoulder, and cleared his throat. The eyes staring at Cinna were trying to speak volumes, some sort of message.

“You wish to say something?” asked Cinna.

“Lucius Cinna, begging your pardon and all, must the hearing of the case against young Gaius Marius be tomorrow?”

Cinna blinked, surprised. “No. It can be the day after.”

“Then if you don’t mind, let it be the day after. When Gaius Marius gets up tomorrow—and that isn’t going to be early—he will need exercise. He’s just spent far too long sitting cramped up in a gig, you see.” Decumius spoke slowly, concentrating on his grammar. “At the moment his exercise is riding, three hours a day. Tomorrow he has to ride, you see. He also has to be given the opportunity to inspect this Publius Claudius cadet for himself. Young Gaius Marius stands accused of a capital crime, and a man of Gaius Marius’s importance has to satisfy himself, do he not? Now it might be a good idea if Gaius Marius was to meet this Publius Claudius cadet in a—a—a more informal way than in this tent. None of us wants—want—things to be more horrible than they need—needs—to be. So I think it would be a good idea if you organized a riding party for tomorrow afternoon and have all the cadets along on it. Including Publius Claudius.”

Cinna was frowning, suspecting that he was being maneuvered into something he would regret. The boy to Marius’s left gave Cinna a bewitching smile, and winked at him.

“Please forgive Lucius Decumius,” said Young Caesar. “He is my uncle’s most devoted client. And he’s a tyrant too! The only way to keep him happy is to humor him.”

“I cannot permit Gaius Marius to have private speech with Publius Claudius before the hearing,” said Cinna miserably.

Marius had stood looking utterly outraged throughout this exchange; he now turned in such a patently genuine temper upon Lucius Decumius and Young Caesar that Cinna feared he would push himself into a fresh apoplexy.

“What is all this nonsense?” Marius roared. “I don’t need to meet this paragon of youth and duty Publius Claudius under any circumstances! All I want to do is see my son and be present at his hearing!”

“Now, now, Gaius Marius, don’t work yourself into a twitter,” said Lucius Decumius in an oily voice. “After a nice little ride tomorrow afternoon, you’ll feel more up to the hearing.”

“Oh, preserve me from coddling idiots!” cried Marius, stumping out of the tent without assistance. “Where is my son?”

Young Caesar lingered while Lucius Decumius chased after the irate Marius.

“Don’t take any notice, Lucius Cinna,” he said, producing that wonderful smile again. “They squabble incessantly, but Lucius Decumius is right. Tomorrow Gaius Marius needs to rest and take his proper exercise. This is a very worrying business for him. All we are really concerned about is that it not affect Gaius Marius’s recovery process too severely.”

“Yes, I understand that,” said Cinna, patting the boy paternally on his shoulder; he was too tall to pat on the head. “Now I had better take Gaius Marius to see his son.” He took a spitting torch from its stand and walked out toward Marius’s looming bulk. “Your son is this way, Gaius Marius. For the sake of appearances I have confined him to a tent on his own until the hearing. He is under guard and is allowed to have congress with nobody.”

“You realize, of course, that your hearing is not a final one,” said Marius as they passed between two rows of tents. “If its outcome is unfavorable toward my son, I will insist, that he be tried by his peers in Rome.”

“Quite so,” said Cinna colorlessly.

When father and son confronted each other, Young Marius stared at Marius a little wildly, but looked to be in control of himself. Until he took in Lucius Decumius and Young Caesar.

“What have you got this sorry lot along for?” he demanded.

“Because I couldn’t make the journey alone,” said Marius, nodded a brusque dismissal to Cinna, and allowed himself to be lowered into the small tent’s only chair. “So, my son, your temper has got you into boiling water at last,” he said, not sounding very sympathetic or interested in hearing what his son had to say.

Young Marius gazed at him in apparent bewilderment, seeming to search for some signal his father was not semaphoring. Then he heaved a sobbing sigh and said, “I didn’t do it!”

“Good,” said Marius cordially. “Stick to that, Young Marius, and all will be well.”

“Will it, Father? How can it? Publius Claudius will swear I did do it.”

Marius rose suddenly, a bitterly disappointed man. “If you maintain your innocence, my son, I can promise you that nothing will happen to you. Nothing at all.”

Relief spread over Young Marius’s face; he thought he was receiving the signal. “You’re going to fix it, aren’t you?”

“I can fix many things, Gaius Marius Junior, but not an official army hearing conducted by a man of honor,” said Marius wearily. “Any fixing will have to be for your trial in Rome. Now follow my example, and sleep. I’ll see you late tomorrow afternoon.”

“Not until then? Isn’t the hearing tomorrow?”

“Not until then. The hearing is postponed a day because I have to have my proper exercise—otherwise I’ll never be fit enough to stand for consul a seventh time.” He turned in the tent entrance to smile at his son with grotesque mockery. “I have to ride, this sorry lot tell me. And I will be presented to your accuser. But not to persuade him to change his story, my son. I have been forbidden any private congress with him.” He caught his breath. “I, Gaius Marius, to be instructed by a mere praetor as to the proper way to conduct myself! I can forgive you for killing a military bungler about to permit his army to be annihilated, Young Marius, but I cannot forgive you for putting me in the position of a potential panderer!”

When the riding party assembled the following afternoon, Gaius Marius was punctiliously correct in his manner toward Publius Claudius Pulcher, a dark and rather hangdog-looking young man who obviously wished he was anywhere but where he was. As the men moved out Marius fell in alongside Cinna, with Cinna’s legate Marcus Caecilius Cornutus riding behind them with Young Caesar, and the cadets bringing up the rear. After he established the fact that none of the others knew the area very well, Lucius Decumius took the lead.

“There’s a magnificent view of Rome about a mile away,” he said, “just the right distance for Gaius Marius to ride.”

“How do you know Tibur so well?” asked Marius.

“My mother’s father came from Tibur,” said the leader of the expedition as its members strung themselves out along a narrow path winding steadily and steeply upward.

“I wouldn’t have thought you had a rural bone in your whole disreputable body, Lucius Decumius.”

“Actually I don’t, Gaius Marius,” said Decumius cheerfully over his shoulder. “But you knows what women are like! My mother used to drag us up here every summer.”

The day was fine and the sun hot, but a cool breeze blew in the riders’ faces and they could hear the tumbling Anio in its gorge, now louder, now dying to a whisper. Lucius Decumius set a slow pace and the time went by almost imperceptibly, only Marius’s evident enjoyment making the rest of the party feel this activity was at all worthwhile. Deeming the ordeal of meeting Young Marius’s father intolerable before it had actually happened, Publius Claudius Pulcher gradually relaxed enough to converse with the other two cadets, while Cinna, escorting Marius, wondered if Marius would try to make overtures to his son’s accuser. For that, Cinna was convinced, was the true purpose of this ride. A father himself, he knew he would have tried every ploy he could think of if his son ever got into such trouble.

“There!” said Lucius Decumius proudly, reining his steed back out of the way so that the rest of the party could precede him. “A view worth the ride, isn’t it?”

It was indeed. The riders found themselves on a small shelf in the side of a mountain, at a place where some massive cataclysm had pared a great slice of the flank away and a cliff fell sheer to the plains far below. They could trace the hurrying, white-flecked waters of the Anio all the way to its confluence with the Tiber, a blue and snaky stream coming down from the north. And there beyond the point where the two rivers joined lay Rome, a vivid sprawl of colored paints and brick-red roofs, the statues atop her temples glittering, and the clear air permitting even a glimpse of the Tuscan Sea on the knifelike edge of the horizon.

“We’re much higher than Tibur here,” said Lucius Decumius from behind them; he slid off his horse.

“How minute the city is from so far away!” said Cinna in wonder.

Everyone was pressing forward to see except Lucius Decumius, and the riders intermingled. Determined Marius was not going to get a chance to talk to Publius Claudius, Cinna pushed both of their mounts away as the cadets approached.

“Oh, look!” cried Young Caesar, kicking his horse hard when it balked. “There’s the Anio aqueduct! Isn’t it like a toy? And isn’t it beautiful?” He directed his questions at Publius Claudius, who seemed quite as entranced by the view as Young Caesar, and just as eager to sample its delights.

The two of them edged as close to the brink as their horses were prepared to take them and gazed out to Rome, smiling at each other after their eyes were sated.

Since it truly was a magnificent view, the whole party save for Lucius Decumius directed all their attention forward. Thus no one noticed Lucius Decumius withdraw a small, Y-shaped object from the purse tethered to the belt of his tunic, nor saw him slip a wicked little metal spike into a slot in the middle of a band of soft, stretchy kid connected between the open ends of the Y-shaped piece of wood. As casually and openly as he might have yawned or scratched himself, he raised the wooden object to eye level, stretched the kid to its utmost, sighted carefully, and let the leather go.

Publius Claudius’s horse screamed, reared up, its front legs flailing; Publius Claudius clutched instinctively at its mane to stay on its back. Oblivious to his own danger, Young Caesar came forward of his saddle onto his horse’s neck and grabbed for the other animal’s bridle. It all happened so quickly that no one afterward could be sure of more than one glaring fact—that Young Caesar acted with a cool bravery far beyond his years. His mount panicked and reared too, cannoned broadside into Publius Claudius, and found its front legs coming down on nothing. Both horses and both riders went over the cliff, but somehow Young Caesar, even in the act of falling, had balanced upright on the tilting edge of his saddle and leaped for the shelf. He landed more on it than off it and scrabbled like a cat to safety.

Everyone was clustered on the ground at the brink of the precipice, faces white, eyes goggling, only concerned at first to see that Young Caesar was all right. Then, Young Caesar in the lead (breathing more easily than any of the rest), they looked over the edge. There far below lay the disjointed heaps of two horses. And Publius Claudius Pulcher. A silence fell. Straining to hear a cry for help, they heard only the sighing of the wind. Nothing moved, even a hawk in midair.