Read The Tribune's Curse for Free Online Page B

was concluded, we strolled about the renovated house, socializing and gossiping. I soon found fat old Lisas by the salt pool, talking with a sturdy-looking young man of soldierly bearing. The genial old pervert greeted me with a welcoming smile.
    “Decius Caecilius, my old friend! I’ve just spent the most enjoyable evening speaking with your lovely and most noble wife. Have you met young Caius Cassius?”
    “I don’t believe so.” I took the young man’s hand. His direct blue eyes were set in a blocky face of hard planes, burned dark by exposure. He had the thick neck common to wrestlers and to those who train seriously for warfare, developed by wearing a helmet every day from boyhood on.
    “The martial young gentleman accompanies Crassus to Parthia,” Lisas said. “I have been telling him what I know of the place and the people.”
    “The honorable ambassador warns me not to underestimate the Parthians,” Cassius said. “He says that they are more warlike than we imagine and treacherous in their dealings.” He spoke with an earnestness rare in Romans of his generation. It went well with his soldierly bearing.
    “For a people recently settled down from a nomadic existence, they are sophisticated,” Lisas said. “They are cunning in the art of horseback archery, and one should always beware their invitations to parley.”
    “I don’t expect that they’ll have any cause to parley except when they surrender,” Cassius said. “The bow hasn’t been made that can send a shaft through a Roman shield, and they can ride around all they like. Sooner or later, they’ll have to come to close quarters to decide the issue, and that’s when we’ll finish them.”
    “This is what we all hope,” Lisas said, none too confidently.
    “What will be your capacity?” I asked Cassius.
    “Military tribune. I was sponsored by Lucullus and confirmed by the Senate.”
    Military tribune in those days was a most ambiguous position, a sort of trying-out stage for a young man embarking upon a public career. He might spend the campaign running errands at headquarters. But if he proved promising and capable, he could be granted an important command. All was at the discretion of the general.
    “You have my heartiest wishes for a successful and glorious campaign,” I said, with some sincerity. It wasn’t his fault that he was to be commanded by one of the men I most despised.
    “I thank you. And now, if you will give me leave, I must go pay my respects to the consul.” He departed, and as he went, I felt cheered to know that we still produced dutiful young men. Because of his later notoriety Cassius’s part in the Parthian war came into question, but as far as I was concerned, any officer who brought himself and his men out of that fiasco alive had my admiration, and I never really lost respect for him.
    “An excellent young nobleman,” Lisas said. “One could wish that he had a worthier commander.”
    “Don’t tell me you’re against the Parthian war, too,” I said, snagging a full cup from a passing tray.
    He shrugged his fat shoulders, and his slaves stood by, alert lest he should topple. “Elimination of Parthia would mean one less threat to Egypt. Were the Roman forces to be commanded by General Pompey, or Gabinius, or even Caesar, busy as that gentleman is, I would have no objection.”
    “Surely you don’t object because Crassus is in his dotage?” I said. Ptolemy Auletes remained in power through Roman support, but I suspected that a slightly weaker Rome would be to his liking.
    “You are unaware, perhaps, of the consul’s activities when my sovereign master, the most glorious King Ptolemy, was here inRome almost from the time you departed until last year?”
    I had some vague memory of letters mentioning something at the time, but I had been so diverted by terror for my own life that scandals in the capital interested me very little. “I’m afraid not. Will you tell me?”
    “Gladly. When King Ptolemy