The First Man in Rome (56 page)

All the way to Icosium he chafed, in spite of the fact that he was a good sailor, and had discovered in himself a great liking for the sea and ships. This expedition was a lucky one. And a significant one for himself. He knew it, as surely as if he too had received a prophecy. Oddly enough, he had never sought an interview with Martha the Syrian, though Gaius Marius urged him to it often; his refusal had nothing to do with disbelief, or lack of the necessary superstition. A Roman, Lucius Cornelius Sulla was riddled with superstitions. The truth was, he was too afraid. Yearn though he did to have some other human being confirm his own suspicions about his high destiny, he knew too much about his weaknesses and his darknesses to go as serenely into prognostication as had Marius.

But now, sailing into Icosium Bay, he wished he had gone to see Martha. For his future seemed to press down on him as heavily as a blanket, and he did not know, could not feel, just what it held. Great things. But evil too. Almost alone among his peers, Sulla understood the tangible brooding presence of evil. The Greeks argued about its nature interminably, and many argued indeed that it did not exist at all. But Sulla knew it existed. And he very much feared it existed in himself.

Icosium Bay craved some majestic city, but instead owned only a small township huddled in its back reaches, where a rugged range of coastal mountains came right down to the shore, and rendered it both sheltered and remote. During the winter rains many streamlets discharged themselves into the water, and more than a dozen islands floated like wonderful ships with the tall local cypresses appearing as masts and sails upon them. A beautiful place, Icosium, thought Sulla.

On the shore adjacent to the town there waited perhaps a thousand Moorish Berber horse troopers, equipped as were the Numidians—no saddles, no bridles, no body armor— just a cluster of spears held in one hand, and long-swords, and shields.

"Ah!" said Bogud as he and Sulla landed from the first lighter. "The King has sent his favorite son to meet you, Lucius Cornelius."

"What's his name?" asked Sulla.

"Volux."

The young man rode up, armed like his men, but upon a bedizened horse bearing both saddle and bridle. Sulla found himself liking the way his hand was shaken, and liking Prince Volux's manner; but where was the King? Nowhere could his practised eye discern the usual clutter and scurrying confusion which surrounded a king in residence.

"The King has retreated south about a hundred miles into the mountains, Lucius Cornelius," the prince explained as they walked to a spot where Sulla could supervise the unloading of his troops and equipment.

Sulla's skin prickled. "That was no part of the King's bargain with Gaius Marius," he said.

"I know," said Volux, looking uneasy. "You see, King Jugurtha has arrived in the neighborhood."

Sulla froze. "Is this a trap, Prince Volux?"

"No, no!" cried the young man, both hands going out. "I swear to you by all our gods, Lucius Cornelius, that it is not a trap! But Jugurtha smells a dead thing, because he was given to understand that the King my father was going back to Tingis, yet still the King my father lingers here at Icosium. So Jugurtha has moved into the hills with a small army of Gaetuli—not enough men to attack us, but too many for us to attack him. The King my father decided to withdraw from the sea in order to make Jugurtha believe that if he expects someone from Rome, he expects his visitor to travel on the road. So Jugurtha followed him. Jugurtha knows nothing of your arrival here, we are sure. You were wise to come by sea."

"Jugurtha will find out I'm here soon enough," said Sulla grimly, thinking of his inadequate escort, fifteen hundred strong.

"Hopefully not, or at least, not yet," said Volux. "I led a thousand of my troopers out of the King my father's camp three days ago as if on maneuvers, and came up to the coast, We are not officially at war with Numidia, so Jugurtha has little excuse to attack us, but he's not sure what the King my father intends to do either, and he dare not risk an outright breach with us until he knows more. I do assure you that he elected to remain watching our camp in the south, and that his scouts will not get anywhere near Icosium while my troopers patrol the area."

Sulla rolled a skeptical eye at the young man, but said nothing of his feelings; they were not a very practical lot, these Moorish royals. Fretting too at the painful slowness of the disembarkation—for Icosium possessed no more than twenty lighters all told, and he could see that it would be this time tomorrow before the process was complete—he sighed, shrugged. No point in worrying; either Jugurtha knew, or did not know.

"Whereabouts is Jugurtha located?" he asked.

"About thirty miles from the sea, on a small plain in the midst of the mountains, due south of here. On the only direct path between Icosium and the King my father's camp," said Volux.

"Oh, that's delightful! And how am I to get through to the King your father without fighting Jugurtha first?"

"I can lead you around him in such a way that he'll never know," said Volux eagerly. "Truly I can, Lucius Cornelius! The King my father trusts me—I beg that you will too!" He thought for a moment, and added, "However, I think it would be better if you left your men here. We stand a much better chance if our party is very small."

"Why should I trust you, Prince Volux?" Sulla asked. "I don't know you. For that matter, I don't really know Prince Bogud—or the King your father, either! You might have decided to go back on your word and betray me to Jugurtha—I'm quite a prize! My capture would be a grave embarrassment for Gaius Marius, as you well know."

Bogud had said nothing, only looked grimmer and grimmer, but the young Volux was not about to give up.

"Then give me a task which will prove to you that I and the King my father are trustworthy!" he cried.

Sulla thought about that, smiling wolfishly. "All right," he said with sudden decision. "You've got me by the balls anyway, so what have I got to lose?" And he stared at the Moor, his strange light eyes dancing like two fine jewels under the brim of his wide straw hat—an odd piece of headgear for a Roman soldier, but one famous these days clear from Tingis to Cyrenaica, anywhere the deeds of the Romans were told over by campfires and hearths: the albino Roman hero in his hat.

I must trust to my luck, he was thinking to himself, for I feel nothing inside me that warns me my luck will not hold. This is a test, a trial of my confidence in myself, a way of showing everyone from King Bocchus and his son to the man in Cirta that I am equal to—no, superior to!— anything Fortune can toss in my way. A man cannot find out what he's made of by running away. No, I go forward. I have the luck. For I have made my luck, and made it well.

"As soon as darkness falls this night," he said to Volux, "you and I and a very small cavalry escort are going to ride for the King your father's camp. My own men will stay here, which means that if Jugurtha does discover a Roman presence, he'll naturally assume it is limited to Icosium, and that the King your father will be coming here to see us."

"But there's no moon tonight!" said Volux, dismayed.

"I know," said Sulla, smiling in his nastiest manner. "That is the test, Prince Volux. We will have the light of the stars, none other. And you are going to lead me straight through the middle of Jugurtha's camp."

Bogud's eyes bulged. "That's insanity!" he gasped.

Volux's eyes danced. "Now that's a real challenge," he said, and smiled with genuine pleasure.

"Are you game?" Sulla asked. "Right through the middle of Jugurtha's camp—in one side without the Watch seeing us or hearing us—down the middle on the
via praetoria
without disturbing one sleeping man or one dozing horse—and out the other side without the Watch seeing us or hearing us. You do that, Prince Volux, and I will
know
I can trust you! And in turn trust the King your father."

"I'm game," said Volux.

"You're both mad," said Bogud.

Sulla decided to leave Bogud behind in Icosium, not sure that this member of the Moorish royal family was to be trusted. His detention was courteous enough, but he had been left in the charge of two military tribunes who were under orders not to let him out of their sight.

Volux found the four best and surest-footed horses in Icosium, and Sulla produced his mule, still of the opinion that a mule was a better beast by far than any horse. He also packed his hat. The party had been fixed at Sulla, Volux, and three Moorish nobles, so all save Sulla were used to riding without saddles or bridles.

"Nothing metal to jingle and betray us," said Volux.

However, Sulla elected to saddle his mule, and put a rope halter around nose and ears. "They may creak, but if I fall, I'll make a lot more noise," he said.

And at full darkness the five of them rode out into the stunning blackness of a moonless night. But the sky glowed with light, for no wind had come up to stir the African dust into the air; what at first glance seemed misty straggling clouds were actually vast conglomerations of stars, and the riders had no difficulty in seeing. All the animals were unshod, and pattered rather than clattered over the stony track which traversed a series of ravines in the range of hills around Icosium Bay.

"We'll have to trust to our luck that none of our mounts goes lame," said Volux after his horse stumbled, righted itself.

"You may trust to my luck at least," said Sulla.

"Don't talk," said one of the three escorts. "On windless nights like this, your voices can be heard for miles."

Thence they rode in silence, the remarkable devices of their eyes adjusted to pick up the smallest particle of light, the miles going by. So when the orange glow of dying campfires from the little basin where Jugurtha lay began to appear over the crest before them, they knew where they were. And when they looked down upon the basin, it seemed as brilliant as a city, its layout manifest.

Down from their mounts slid the five; Volux put Sulla aside, and set to work. Waiting patiently, Sulla watched as the Moors proceeded to fit specially adapted hippo shoes over every hoof; normally these had wooden soles and were used on loose ground to keep the tender underside of the hoof around the frog clear of stones, but Volux's hippo shoes had been soled with thick felt. They were held on with two supple leather straps fixed to their fronts; these crossed over, looped under a hinged metal hook at the back, and were brought forward again to buckle over the front of the hoof.

Everyone rode his mount around for a while to get it used to the hippo shoes, then Volux headed off on the last half mile between them and Jugurtha's camp. Presumably there were sentries and a mounted patrol, but the five riders saw no one wakeful, no one moving. Roman trained, naturally Jugurtha had based the construction of his camp upon the Roman pattern, but—an aspect of foreigners which fascinated Gaius Marius, Sulla knew—had not been able to summon up the patience or the willingness to reproduce the original properly. Thus Jugurtha, well aware Marius and his army were in Cirta and Bocchus not strong enough to attempt aggression, had not bothered to entrench himself; he had merely raised a low earthen wall so easy to ride a horse up and over that Sulla suspected it was more to keep animals in than humans out. But had Jugurtha been a Roman, rather than Roman trained, his camp would have had its full complement of trenches, stakes, palisades, and walls no matter how safe he felt himself.

The five riders came to the earthen wall some two hundred paces east of the main gate, which was really just a wide gap, and urged their mounts up and over it easily. On the inside, each rider turned his steed abruptly to walk parallel with the wall and hugging it; in the freshly dug soil, not a sound did they make as they headed for the main gate. Here they could discern guards, but the men faced outward and were far enough in front of the gap not to hear the five riders wheel onto the broad avenue running down the center of the camp, from the front gate to the back gate. Sulla and Volux and the three Moorish nobles rode all the way down the half-mile-long
via praetoria
at a walk, turned off it to hug the inside of the wall when they reached its far end, and then crossed to the outside of the camp and freedom as soon as they judged themselves far enough away from the back gate guard.

A mile further on, they removed the hippo shoes.

"We did it!" whispered Volux fiercely, teeth flashing at Sulla in a triumphant grin. "Do you trust me now, Lucius Cornelius?''

"I trust you, Prince Volux," said Sulla, grinning back.

They rode on at a pace between a walk and a trot, careful not to lame or exhaust their unshod beasts, and shortly after dawn found a Berber camp. The four tired horses Volux offered to trade for fresh ones were superior to any the Berbers owned, and the mule was a bit of a novelty, so five horses were forthcoming, and the ride continued remorselessly through the day. Since he had brought along his shady hat, Sulla hid beneath its brim and sweated.

Just after dark they reached the camp of King Bocchus, not unlike Jugurtha's in construction, but bigger. And here Sulla balked, reining in on his awkward halter well out of sentry distance.

"It isn't lack of trust, Prince Volux," he said, "it's more a pricking of my fingers. You're the King's son. You can ride in and out any time of day or night without question. Where I am obviously a foreign stranger, an unknown quantity. So I'm going to lie down here in as much comfort as I can manage, and wait until you see your father, make sure all is well, and return to fetch me."

"I wouldn't lie down," said Volux.

"Why?"

"Scorpions."

The hair stood up on Sulla's neck, he had to discipline himself not to leap instinctively; since Italy was free of all venomous insects, not a Roman or an Italian lived who did not abominate spiders and scorpions. Silently he drew breath, ignoring the beads of cold sweat on his brow, and turned a disinterested starlit face to Volux.

"Well, I'm certainly not going to stand up for however many hours it's going to take for you to return, and I am not climbing back up on that animal," he said, "so I'll take my chances with the scorpions."