The Grass Crown Read Online Free PDF Page A

this Mithridates!” He lay back on his left elbow and gazed at Sulla anxiously. “Come with me, Lucius Cornelius, do! What’s the alternative? Another boring year in Rome, especially with Piggle-wiggle prating in the Senate, while the Piglet takes all the credit for bringing his tata home.”
    But Sulla shook his head. “No, Gaius Marius.”
    “I hear,” said Rutilius Rufus, nibbling the side of his fingernail idly, “that the official letter recalling Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle from his exile in Rhodes is signed by the senior consul, Metellus Nepos, and none other than the Piglet, if you please! Of the tribune of the plebs Quintus Calidius, who obtained the recall decree, not a mention! Signed by a very junior senator who is a privatus into the bargain!”
    Marius laughed. “Poor Quintus Calidius! I hope the Piglet paid him handsomely for doing all the work.” He looked at Rutilius Rufus. “They don’t change much over the years, do they, the clan Caecilius Metellus? When I was a tribune of the plebs, they treated me like dirt too.”
    “Deservedly,” said Rutilius Rufus. “All you did was to make life hard for every Caecilius Metellus in politics at that time! And after they thought they had you in their toils, at that! Oh, how angry was Dalmaticus!”
    At the sound of that name Sulla flinched, was conscious of a flush mounting to his cheeks. Her father, Piggle-wiggle’s dead older brother. How was she, Dalmatica? What had Scaurus done to her? From the day Scaurus had come to see him at his home, Sulla had never set eyes on her. Rumor had it she was forbidden ever to leave Scaurus’s house again. “By the way,” he said loudly, “I heard from an impeccable source that there’s going to be a marriage of great convenience for the Piglet.”
    Reminiscences stopped at once.
    “I haven’t heard about it!” said Rutilius Rufus, a little put out; he considered his sources the best in Rome.
    “It’s true nevertheless, Publius Rutilius.”
    “So tell me!”
    Sulla popped an almond into his mouth and munched for a moment before speaking. “Good wine, Gaius Marius,” he said, filling his cup from the flagon placed close at hand when the servants had been dismissed. Slowly Sulla added water to the wine.
    “Oh, put him out of his misery, Lucius Cornelius, do!” sighed Marius. “Publius Rutilius is the biggest old gossip in the Senate.”
    “I agree that he is, but you must admit it made for highly entertaining letters while we were in Africa and Gaul,” said Sulla, smiling.
    “Who?” cried Rutilius Rufus, not about to be deflected.
    “Licinia Minor, younger daughter of none other than our urban praetor, Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator himself.”
    “You’re joking!” gasped Rutilius Rufus.
    “No, I’m not.”
    “But she can’t be old enough!”
    “Sixteen the day before the wedding, I hear.”
    “Abominable!” growled Marius, eyebrows interlocked.
    “Oh really, it’s getting beyond all justification!” said Rutilius Rufus, genuinely concerned. “Eighteen is the proper age, and not a day before should it be! We’re Romans, not oriental cradle snatchers!”
    “Well, at least the Piglet is only in his early thirties,” said Sulla casually. “What about Scaurus’s wife?”
    “The least said about that, the better!” snapped Publius Rutilius Rufus. His temper died. “Mind you, one has to admire Crassus Orator. There’s no shortage of money for dowries in that family, but just the same, he’s done very well with his girls. The older one gone to Scipio Nasica, no less, and now the younger one to the Piglet, only son and heir of. I thought that Licinia was bad enough, at seventeen married to a brute like Scipio Nasica. She’s pregnant, you know.”
    Marius clapped his hands for the steward. “Go home, both of you! When the conversation degenerates to nothing more than old women’s gossipy tidbits, we’ve exhausted all other avenues. Pregnant! You ought to be