The Grass Crown (54 page)

Listening with ear to Drusus’s chest, Marius shook his head. “A severe collapse, but not death,” he said, leaning back on his heels and drawing in a deep breath of relief.

The syncope lasted so long that Drusus began to mottle and grey in the face; his arms and legs moved, jerked colossally several times while he emitted dreadful and frightening sounds.

“He’s having a fit!” cried Scaurus.

“No, I don’t think so,” said the militarily experienced Marius, who had seen in the field almost everything at one time or another. “When a man passes out for so long, he often starts to jerk around, but at the end of it. He’ll revive soon.”

Philippus paused on his way out to look down from far enough away to ensure that if Drusus should vomit, his toga would not wear it. “Take the cur out of here!” he said contemptuously. “If he’s dying, let him die on unhallowed ground.”

Marius lifted his head. “Mentulam caco, cunne!” he said to Philippus loudly enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear.

Philippus walked on, rather more quickly; if there was any man in the world he feared, that man was Gaius Marius.

Those who cared enough to linger waited a long time for Drusus to come round; enormously pleased, Marius saw that among them was Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

When Drusus did return to consciousness, he seemed not to know where he was, what had happened.

“I’ve sent for Julia’s litter,” said Marius to Scaurus. “Let him lie here until it arrives.” He was minus his toga, sacrificed as a pillow for Drusus’s head and a blanket for his poor cold limbs.

“I’m absolutely confounded!” said Scaurus, perching on the edge of the curule dais, and so short that his feet swung clear of the ground. “Truly, I would never have believed it of this man!”

Marius blew a derisive noise. “Rubbish, Marcus Aemilius! Not believe it of a Roman nobleman? I’d not be prepared to believe the contrary! Jupiter, how you do fool yourselves!”

The bright green eyes began to dance. “Jupiter, you Italian bumpkin, how you do shine a light on our weaknesses!” Scaurus said, shoulders heaving.

“It’s just as well someone does, you attenuated heap of old bones,” said Marius affably, seating himself beside the Princeps Senatus and looking at the only three men who remained—Scaevola, Antonius Orator, and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, thrusting his legs out and waggling his feet, “what do we do next?”

“Nothing,” said Scaevola curtly.

“Oh, Quintus Mucius, Quintus Mucius, forgive our poor inanimate tribune of the plebs his very Roman weakness, do!” cried Marius, now laughing as hard as Scaurus was.

Scaevola took umbrage. “It may be a Roman weakness, Gaius Marius, but it is not one I own!” he snapped.

“No, probably not—which is why you’ll never be his equal, my friend,” said Marius, pointing one foot at Drusus on the floor.

Scaevola screwed up his face in disgust. “You know, Gaius Marius, you really are impossible! And as for you, Princeps Senatus, pray stop regarding this as a laughing matter!”

“None of us has yet answered Gaius Marius’s original query,” said Antonius Orator pacifically. “What do we do next?”

“It isn’t up to us,” said Sulla, speaking for the first time. “It’s up to him, of course.”

“Well said, Lucius Cornelius!” cried Marius, getting up because the familiar face of his wife’s chief litter bearer had poked itself timidly around one great bronze door. “Come on, my squeamish friends, let’s get this poor fellow home.”

The poor fellow still wandered deliriously through some strange world when he was delivered into the care of his mother, who very sensibly declined to call in the doctors.

“They’ll only bleed him and purge him, and they’re the last things he needs,” she said firmly. “He hasn’t been eating, that’s all. Once he comes out of his shock, I’ll feed him some hot honeyed wine, and he’ll be himself again. Especially after a sleep.”

Cornelia Scipionis got her son into his bed and made him drink a full cup of the promised hot honeyed wine.

“Philippus!” he cried, trying to sit up.

“Don’t worry about that insect until you feel stronger.”

He drank again and did manage to sit up, pushing his fingers through his short black hair. “Oh, Mama! Such a terrible difficulty! Philippus found out about the oath.”

Scaurus had apprised her of the situation, so she had no need to question him; instead, she nodded wisely. “Surely you didn’t think Philippus or some other wouldn’t ask?”

“It’s been so long that I’d forgotten the wretched oath!”

“Marcus Livius, it isn’t important,” she said, and drew her chair closer to the bed, took his hand. “What you do is far more significant than why you do it—that’s a fact of life! Why you do a thing is solely balm for the self, why you do a thing cannot affect its outcome. The what is all that matters, and I’m sure that a sane and healthy self-regard is the best way to get what done properly. So do cheer up, my son! Your brother is here, and very anxious about you. Cheer up!”

“They will hate me for this.”

“Some will, that’s true. Mostly out of envy. Others will be utterly consumed with admiration,” said the mother. “It certainly doesn’t seem to have deterred the friends who brought you home.”

“Who?” he asked eagerly.

“Marcus Aemilius, Marcus Antonius, Quintus Mucius, Gaius Marius,” she said. “Oh, and that fascinating man, Lucius Cornelius Sulla! Now if I were only younger—”

Knowledge of her had softened the impact of such remarks, no longer offensive to him; he was able therefore to smile at this whimsy. “How odd that you like him! Mind you, he does seem very interested in my ideas.”

“So I gathered. His only son died earlier this year, not so?”

“Yes.”

“It shows in him,” said Cornelia Scipionis, getting up. “Now, Marcus Livius, I shall send your brother in to you, and you must make up your mind to eat. There is nothing wrong with you that good food won’t remedy. I’ll have the kitchen prepare something as tasty as it is nourishing, and Mamercus and I will sit here until you eat it.”

Thus it was that darkness had fallen before he was left alone with his thoughts. He did feel much better, it was true, but the dreadful weariness would not go away, and he seemed no more inclined to sleep after his meal, even after so much mulled wine. How long had it been since he last slept deeply, satisfyingly? Months.

Philippus had found out. Inevitable that somebody would, inevitable that whoever did would go either to him, Drusus, or to Philippus. Or Caepio. Interesting, that Philippus hadn’t told his dear friend Caepio! If he had, Caepio would have pushed in, tried to take over, unwilling that Philippus should have all the victory. Which was, no doubt, why Philippus had kept it to himself. All will not be peace and amity in the house of Philippus tonight! thought Drusus, smiling in spite of himself.

And now that the knowledge of discovery had sunk into his conscious mind, Drusus found himself at rest. His mother was right. Publication of the oath couldn’t affect what he was doing; it could only affect his own pride. If people chose to believe he did what he had done because of the enormous clientele the deed would bring him, what did it really matter? Why should he want them to believe his motives were entirely altruistic? It would not be Roman to abrogate personal advantages, and he was Roman! In any other instance, he could see now very clearly, the implications of a clientele in one man’s giving the citizenship to several hundred thousand men would have screamed at his fellow senators, at the leaders of the Plebs, and probably at most of lowly Rome. That no one had seen the implications until Philippus actually read out the oath was symptomatic of how emotional this issue was, how lacking in reason—it provoked a storm of feeling so powerful it clouded every practical aspect. Why had he expected people to see the logic in what he was trying to do, when they were so enormously involved emotionally that they hadn’t even seen the client side of it? If they couldn’t see the clients, then they had no hope of seeing the logic, so much was sure.

His eyelids lowered, and he slept. Deeply, satisfyingly.

When he went to the Curia Hostilia at dawn the next morning, Drusus felt his old self, and quite equal to dealing with the likes of Philippus and Caepio.

In the chair, Philippus ignored any other business, including the march of the Marsi; he got straight down to Drusus and the oath sworn by the Italians.

“Is the text of what I read out yesterday correct, Marcus Livius?” Philippus asked.

“To the best of my knowledge, Lucius Marcius, yes, though I have never heard the oath, nor seen it written down.”

“But you knew of it.”

Drusus blinked, face the picture of surprise. “Of course I knew of it, junior consul! How could a man not know about something so advantageous to himself, as well as to Rome? If you had been the advocate of general enfranchisement for all of Italy, wouldn’t you have known?”

This was attacking with a vengeance; Philippus had to pause, thrown off balance.

“You’d never catch me advocating anything for the Italians beyond a good flogging!” he said haughtily.

“Then more fool you!” cried Drusus. “Here is something well worth doing on every level, Conscript Fathers! To rectify an injustice which has persisted for generations—to bring all of our country into an hegemony as real as it is desirable—to destroy some of the more appalling barriers between men of different Classes—to remove the threat of an imminent war—and it is imminent, I warn you!—and to see every one of these new Roman citizens bound by oath to Rome and to a Roman of the Romans! That last is vitally important! It means every one of these new citizens will be guided properly and Romanly, it means they will know how to vote and who to vote for, it means they will be led to elect genuine Romans rather than men from their own Italian nations!”

That was a consideration; Drusus could see it register on the faces of those who listened intently, and everyone was listening intently. He knew well the chief fear of all his fellow senators—that an overwhelming number of new Roman citizens spread across the whole thirty-five tribes would markedly decrease the Roman content of the elections, would see Italians contest the polls for consul, praetor, aedile, tribune of the plebs, and quaestor, would see Italians in huge numbers enter the Senate, all determined to wrest control of the Senate away from the Romans and into the hands of Italy. Not to mention the various comitia. But if these new Romans were bound by an oath—and it was a frightful oath—both to Rome and to a Roman of the Romans, they were honor-bound to vote as they were told to vote, like any other group of clients.

“The Italians are men of honor, as are we,” said Drusus. “By the very swearing of this oath, they have shown it! In return for the gift of our citizenship, they will abide by the wishes of true Romans. True Romans!”

“You mean they will abide by your wishes!” said Caepio with venom. “The rest of us true Romans will simply have appointed ourselves an unofficial dictator!”

“Nonsense, Quintus Servilius! When in the conduct of my tribunate of the plebs have I shown myself anything less than completely conforming to the will of the Senate? When have I shown myself more concerned with my own welfare than with the welfare of the Senate? When have I shown myself indifferent to the wants of every level throughout the People of Rome? What better patron could the men of Italy have than I, the son of my father, a Roman of the Romans, a truly thoughtful and essentially conservative man?”

Drusus turned from one side of the House to the other, his hands outstretched. “Whom would you rather have as patron to so many new citizens, Conscript Fathers? Marcus Livius Drusus, or Lucius Marcius Philippus? Marcus Livius Drusus, or Quintus Servilius Caepio? Marcus Livius Drusus, or Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis? For you had better make up your minds to it, members of the Senate of Rome—the men of Italy will be enfranchised! I have sworn to do it—and do it I will! You have taken my laws off the tablets, you have stripped my tribunate of the plebs of its purpose and its achievements. But my year in office is not yet over, and I have honorably acquitted myself in respect of my treatment of you, my fellow senators! On the day after tomorrow, I will take my case for the general enfranchisement of Italy to the Plebeian Assembly, and I will have the matter discussed in contio after contio, always religiously correct, always conducted with due attention to the law, always in a peaceful and orderly manner. For, other oaths aside, I swear to all of you that I will not pass out of my tribunate of the plebs without seeing one lex Livia on the tablets—a law providing that every man from the Arnus to Rhegium, from the Rubicoto Vereium, from the Tuscan to the Adriatic, shall be a full citizen of Rome! If the men of Italy have sworn an oath to me, I also swore an oath to them—that during my time in office, I would see them enfranchised. And I will! Believe me, I will!”

He had carried the day, everyone knew it.

“The most brilliant thing about it,” said Antonius Orator, “is that now he has them thinking of general citizenship as inevitable. They’re used to seeing men break, not being broken. But Drusus has broken them, Princeps Senatus, I guarantee he has!”

“I agree,” said Scaurus, who looked quite lit up from within. “You know, Marcus Antonius, I used to think that nothing in Roman government could surprise me—that it has all been done before—and usually done better. But Marcus Livius is unique. Rome has never seen his like. Nor will again, I suspect.”

Drusus was as true as his word. He took his case for the enfranchisement of Italy to the concilium plebis, surrounded by an aura of indomitability every man present could not but admire. His fame had grown and spread, he was talked about at every level of society; that solid conservatism, that iron determination to do things properly and legally, now turned him into a novel kind of hero. All of Rome was essentially conservative, including the Head Count, capable of espousing a Saturninus yet not willing to kill its betters for a Saturninus. The mos maiorum—all those traditions and customs piled up by centuries of time—would always matter, even to the Head Count. And here at last was a man to whom the mos maiorum mattered as much as justice did. Marcus Livius Drusus began to assume the mantle of a demigod; and that in turn meant people started to believe that anything he wanted must be right.