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bed, so her happiness had been undiluted for quite a long time. And when the twinges of disquiet began to intrude, they came not from her adored Magnus but from his faithful retainers, servants and minor squires who not only looked down on her, but actually seemed to feel free to let her know they looked down on her. Not a great burden-as long as Pompey was close enough to come home at night. But now he was talking of going off to war, of raising legions and enlisting in Sulla's cause! Oh, what would she do without her adored Magnus to shield her from the slights of his people?
    He was still trying to convince Varro that the only proper alternative was to go with him to join Sulla, but that prim and pedantic little fellow-so elderly in mind for one who had not been in the Senate more than two years!-was still resisting.
    “How many troops has Sulla got?” Varro was asking.
    “Five veteran legions, six thousand cavalry, a few volunteers from Macedonia and the Peloponnese, and five cohorts of Spaniards belonging to that dirty swindler, Marcus Crassus. About thirty-nine thousand altogether.”
    An answer which had Varro clawing at the air. “I say again, Magnus, grow up!” he cried. “I've just come from Ariminum, where Carbo is sitting with eight legions and a huge force of cavalry-and that is just the beginning! In Campania alone there are sixteen other legions! For three years Cinna and Carbo gathered troops-there are one hundred and fifty thousand men under arms in Italy and Italian Gaul! How can Sulla cope with such numbers?”
    “Sulla will eat them,” said Pompey, unimpressed. “Besides, I'm going to bring him three legions of my father's hardened veterans. Carbo's soldiers are milk-smeared recruits.”
    “You really are going to raise your own army?”
    “I really am.”
    “Magnus, you're only twenty-two years old! You can't expect your father's veterans to enlist for you!”
    “Why not?” asked Pompey, genuinely puzzled.
    “For one thing, you're eight years too young to qualify for the Senate. You're twenty years away from the consulship. And even if your father's men would enlist under you, to ask them to do so is absolutely illegal. You're a private citizen, and private citizens don't raise armies.”
    “For over three years Rome's government has been illegal,” Pompey countered. “Cinna consul four times, Carbo twice, Marcus Gratidianus twice the urban praetor, almost half the Senate outlawed, Appius Claudius banished with his imperium intact, Fimbria running round Asia Minor making deals with King Mithridates-the whole thing is a joke!”
    Varro managed to look like a pompous mule-not so very difficult for a Sabine of the rosea rura, where mules abounded. “The matter must be solved constitutionally,” he said.
    That provoked Pompey to outright laughter. “Oh, Varro! I do indeed like you, but you are hopelessly unrealistic! If this matter could be solved constitutionally, why are there one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers in Italy and Italian Gaul?”
    Again Varro clawed the air, but this time in defeat. “Oh, very well, then! I'll come with you.”
    Pompey beamed, threw his arm around Varro's shoulders and guided him in the direction of the corridor which led to his rooms. “Splendid, splendid! You'll be able to write the history of my first campaigns-you're a better stylist than your friend Sisenna. I am the most important man of our age, I deserve to have my own historian at my side.”
    But Varro had the last word. “You must be important! Why else would you have the gall-good pun, that!-to call yourself Magnus?” He snorted. “The Great! At twenty-two, The Great! The best your father could do was to call himself after his cross-eyes!”
    A sally Pompey ignored, busy now with steward and armorer, issuing a stream of instructions.
    And then finally the vividly painted and gilded atrium was empty save for Pompey. And Antistia. He came across to her.
    “Silly little kitten, you'll catch