"I'm bored!" he said then through clenched teeth. "At least when Piggle-wiggle returns to the Senate, things might take an interesting turn. I miss those titanic battles you and he used to have." "In which case, Lucius Cornelius you're going to be disappointed. I'm not going to be here when Piggle-wiggle arrives in Rome." Both Sulla and Rutilius Rufus sat up. "Not going to be in Rome?" asked Rutilius Rufus, squeaking. "Not going to be in Rome," said Marius again, and grinned in sour satisfaction. "I've just remembered a vow I made to the Great Goddess before I beat the Germans. That if I won, I'd make a pilgrimage to her sanctuary at Pessinus." "Gaius Marius, you can't do that!" said Rutilius Rufus. "Publius Rutilius, I can! And I will!" Sulla flopped on his back, laughing. "Shades of Lucius Gavius Stichus!" he said. "Who?" asked Rutilius Rufus, always ready to be sidetracked if there was a possibility of gossip. "My late lamented stepmother's late lamented nephew," said Sulla, still grinning. "Many years ago he moved into my house it belonged to my late lamented stepmother then. His aim was to get rid of me by destroying Clitumna's fondness for me, and his thinking was that if the two of us were there together in Clitumna's house, he'd show me up. So I went away. Right away from Rome. With the result that he had nobody to show up except himself which he did very effectively. Clitumna was fed up in no time." He rolled over, belly down now. "He died not long afterward," Sulla said reflectively, and heaved a stagey sigh through the middle of his smile. "I ruined all his plans!" "Here's hoping then that Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle finds his return a hollow victory," said Marius. "I'll drink to that," said Sulla, and did. A silence fell that was not easy to break, for the old accord was missing, and Sulla's answer had not brought it back. Perhaps, thought Publius Rutilius Rufus, that old accord was a matter of expedience and the battlefield, rather than a truly deep-seated friendship.