“I will, sovereign mistress!” cried Stephanus in a choking voice. “Your hatred is one with mine, for I too loathe this man as if he were plague-stricken. He shall die under the dagger of my meanest slave, and when he lies gasping in the dust, I will cry to him: Remember Domitia!”
The Empress started to her feet, and put out her hands with a gesture of horror.
“No, oh no!” she cried vehemently. “Death by the hand of an assassin, the mean fate of a merchant waylaid and flung from his cart by robbers near the Three Taverns – that would be a satisfaction too mean for this aching heart! I must feast my soul on his misery, set my feet upon his neck. A dagger-thrust – what is that to him? Do you know the man and his proud contempt of life? Look but once in his face, and ask yourself whether I am to be avenged by a stab. He would die, as another man would get up and take his leave at a banquet; he would die, and then it would be no worse for him, than if he had never breathed. No, Stephanus; go and devise some better plan than that! wound him, crush him in that which he loves best; overwhelm him with disgrace; break his towering pride – then you will have done all I can ask of your skill and devotion!”
“I will try. As yet I have not the faintest idea of the way to do it, but I have no doubt I can find it And when I have fulfilled the task you have set me…”
“In conquering my enemy, you will conquer my heart,” said Domitia smiling graciously.
“I will conquer or perish.”
He flung his toga over his shoulder with an air, and went to the door. The Empress watched him with a fixed, almost a vacant stare. No sooner had the curtain fallen and the door closed upon him, than she dropped into the nearest seat, sobbing convulsively, and set her teeth deep into the cushion in which she hid her face, while a torrent of scalding tears rushed from her half-closed eyelids.
CHAPTER XV
Before Stephanus went through to the anteroom, where Polycharma was waiting with the other slaves, he paused a moment to recover his breath. He drew himself up, and his face resumed its usual expression of supercilious indifference. He now could measure with calmer blood the extent of his success; that which, a few minutes since, had deprived him of his senses, now filled his spirit with elasticity, and he told himself that he had selected, with infinite psychological insight, the moment for realizing his long-cherished purpose – the moment in fact, when her first meeting with her husband had shaken the proud woman’s nature to the foundations. He believed, that the happy result was obviously to be ascribed to this fortunate coincidence, and this doubled his good opinion of his own judgment. His glance lingered with supreme satisfaction on the magnificent room, the statue of Venus, the little Eros and the purple pillows on the divans. The inarticulate language of the smile, that played upon his thin lips, was easy to interpret – it told of his hope ere long to rule as master in this apartment, as the declared favorite of its lovely mistress – lovelier and grander than the marble goddess there, and oh! a thousand times warmer and more gracious.
He dropped his right arm, letting his white robe sweep the ground like the mantle of an eastern prince, and went on to the anteroom. He favored the wily Polycharma with a gracious nod, marching past the other girls with the strut of a promoted peacock. The Sicambrian stared at him open-mouthed.
The steward’s apartments were on the farther side of the peristyle, on the side towards the Circus Maximus. His offices were lower down still, on the Quirinal, where the Empress had been living since her separation from her husband, excepting when she went every summer to her villa at Baiae. The elaborate paraphernalia of official papers made a prompt removal impossible, and only certain small branches of the steward’s business had as yet been reinstated in the palace.
Stephanus went into his private room, laid aside his toga, and stretched himself at full-length on a comfortable couch. His restless brain was already seething with a thousand plans, which chased each other like a flight of crows. Numbers of impressions and motives, which hitherto had lurked unheeded, started up in his memory as possible starting points for future operations; but foremost of all the figure of Eurymachus, as yet irretrievably lost, occupied his thoughts. To judge from the reports of the slaves, who had followed the fugitive, the behavior of Quintus Claudius had been strange enough to suggest its connection with the slave’s successful escape, even if no direct connection existed. Stephanus dimly felt, that here lay the fulcrum for his lever – but how could he use it? Well, he had solved harder problems than this in his time. The son of so influential a man as the Flamen was, no doubt, a more difficult subject to deal with than Thrax Barbatus, whose cries had easily been drowned; still – the higher the obstacle, the greater the triumph.
He lay gazing thoughtfully at the tips of his fingers. Wholly possessed by the idea of avenging Domitia, he had forgotten for the moment, that the escape of Eurymachus was of importance to him on far graver grounds, than the use he could make of it to injure Quintus; now, this consciousness pressed with double weight on his soul. He would have given half his fortune, to learn that Eurymachus was silent forever. By some accident, which to Stephanus remained an unsolved mystery, Eurymachus had learned a momentous secret. – Supposing that now, when he was no longer gagged, he should make himself heard – supposing he should shout it out in the ears of the world. A hundred times did the steward curse the fatal idea, of making the execution of his slave an entertainment for Lycoris’ guests. Quietly strangled, or thrown into a tank to feed the lampreys – that would have been the rational thing, and more like his usual good sense. To be sure, hatred and rage had spoken loudly, and Lycoris had entreated him so earnestly. – Still it was folly, madness. Who could tell what Fate might bring out of it, if such precious material should happen to fall into the hands of Cneius Afranius – that cruel vampire who, for more than six months, had had his clutches on the steward’s neck. His eyes were fixed vacantly on the ceiling, as the long train of his crimes passed before him. Each separate deed appeared clothed in flesh and blood, incarnate in the form of Cneius Afranius, who seized him by the hair and dragged him before the Senate; till, at last, the direst deed of all came forth and cried to Heaven, till the great city shook to its foundations, and Domitian himself, the blood-stained tyrant, hid his face in horror.
Stephanus started up.
“Be still, mad brain!” he exclaimed, striking his forehead with his fist. “I have been too easy; a prudent man should strike and hold; till now I only kept out of the way of the arrows of Afranius, now – let him see to it, that he hides himself from mine. Quintus and he! The same stroke may by good hap fall on both at once.”
He paced his room uneasily; suddenly he stood still – before him stood a lad with soft and girlish features.
“Antinous!” cried the freedman. “You glide about like a weasel.”
“Forgive me, my lord, but I had asked three times to be admitted. I heard you speaking to yourself…”
“You heard?”
“Not a word, my lord. You muttered through your teeth – only disconnected words – I thought you were vexed and angry with the slaves…”
“And you came to comfort me?” asked Stephanus smiling. “It is well that I have you; for the next few weeks you will have heavy work on hand. Shut the door and sit down on the couch there.”
“Heavy work?” asked the boy disconsolately. “What, am I to carry water; or till the fields? Am I to be as miserable as the others are?”
Stephanus laughed, and patted the lad’s beardless cheek.
“Not yet, my boy. I have chosen you for something better than that. What I have for you to do is serious and very difficult, but amusing and interesting; and if you accomplish the task, you shall be – well, you shall be free. Do you hear, Antinous, free? And rich besides, for I will give you an estate…”
“My lord, you know that my devotion is boundless. Only a few hours since I risked my life for two thousand miserable sesterces…”
“Not too rashly, I imagine. You thought that discretion was the better part of valor!”
“Pardon me, but you are mistaken. I rushed down upon him, when he was surrounded by his clients and slaves; and if I had not slipped away at the very instant…”
The boy shuddered.
“What is the matter?” asked Stephanus.
“I do not know, but I shiver whenever I think of it. As I struck him, I met his eye – so cool and contemptuous. – If at that moment he had seized me, I should have been lost…”
“You are childish, Antinous. I am afraid, that if you are so excitable you will not earn your freedom in a hurry.”
“What, again must I…?”
“No, his life is spared. You must do more than that.”
“More?” said the lad in astonishment.
“Aye, more, boy. Why any bandit from the Appian Way could stab him; what I want you to do requires not only zeal, skill and courage, but intelligence, readiness, and the craftiness of Ulysses287. Greek blood flows in your veins288– you are at once panther and fox. You shall hear the details in the course of the day; I shall expect you to dinner with me here in the study. Enough for the present. Now tell me where you have been so long? You had no sooner told me that your blow had missed, than, you rushed away again. I waited in vain … you really abuse my kindness…”
“Oh! my lord, are you angry?” said the boy coaxingly. “Indeed, if I sinned, it was not from insolence, but from fear. I felt irresistibly driven to his house; I mixed with the people, that I might learn whether information had reached the prefects of the attack upon him…”
“Well?”
“Up to the present hour no one knows of it. Quintus Claudius seems inclined to keep it a secret. Even the gate-keeper, whom I began to talk to…”
“Are you mad?” interrupted Stephanus. “Do you want to find yourself imprisoned and crucified?”
“Nay, my lord. Antinous does not go to work so clumsily. When I stopped to talk to the gate-keeper, I was in girl’s clothes.”
“It is all the same; the whole thing was aimless.”
“Not altogether, an accident rewarded my daring. Only think, as I was standing there talking over the weather – he took me, as sure as I am alive, for some street hussy – a woman came towards us through the ostium, with an old man with a snow-white beard. As soon as I saw her, I knew her to be that saucy Euterpe, who so often played the flute for us at Baiae; do you not remember? The pretty girl from Cumae, who always looked so shy and stupid, when you praised her shape…”
“Well, and what does she matter to me?”
“Euterpe? nothing whatever; but the old man. – As they came past us, a vague remembrance crossed my mind. I said to myself: I must surely know that man. Then he used some little gesture, and at once I had found the trace. It was none other than Thrax Barbatus, that obstinate fool who wanted, a little while since, to force his way in to see you…”
“Thrax! with Quintus Claudius?” cried the steward horrified. “Ah! I understand now! Claudius and Afranius are plotting together, to restore the old idiot to his rights. The Flamen’s son has long honored me with his hatred. A reason the more, for disarming and disabling him…” Then he suddenly checked himself, pushed his fingers through his hair, and scowled.
“Listen,” he began eagerly. “I have an idea. Was it not Euterpe, who troubled herself so much about Eurymachus, when I had him flogged?”
“To be sure, Euterpe, the pretty Cumaean! He was supposed to be her lover, and while he was laid up she brought him herbs and salves; and she cried…”
Stephanus drew a deep breath.
“What more do you know of all this?”
“Very little,” said Antinous. “In Baiae I had something better to do, than to trouble myself about anything so commonplace as the love affairs of a flute-playing hussy. At any rate, the noble Eurymachus does not seem to have been very eager. Astraeus heard him once scolding her soundly.”
“Why?”
“It had something to do with her salves and ointments. She had bought the stuff of some Egyptian magician, and that vexed her lover…”
Stephanus nodded, and a gleam of malicious satisfaction lighted up his vulture face.
“Ah! I was not mistaken,” he muttered between his teeth; then, turning to the slave, he added: “And is that all you learnt from Astraeus?”
“All.”
“Very good, then I will question him myself; I foresee great results. Go now, Antinous; my head whirls with a multiplicity of wonderful possibilities. Claudius, Afranius, Thrax, Euterpe – you must watch them all with the eye of an Argus.”
“My lord, your confidence in me makes me vain. You have only to command, and I will obey. I will climb the Capitol like the invading Gauls289; I will dive to the depths of the sea and bring you a message from Thetis.290 But then, do not forget your promise.”
“I will keep it,” replied Stephanus, stroking the lad’s cheek. “Freedom and gold are the charms, that give wings to your services.”
“You are the kindest master291 in the whole Roman Empire! Farewell.”
He nodded to Stephanus with saucy familiarity, danced across the room with a graceful step, leaped lightly over one of the broad couches, and slipped out of the door like an eel.
“Hail, all hail to thee, Quintus!” Stephanus muttered mockingly. “This is a better beginning, than I dared to hope for. And if Fortune continues to favor me, I will raise on this foundation such a structure as you need not disdain to take your pleasure in.”
CHAPTER XVI
Quintus rose very early the morning after his visit to Thrax Barbatus, and the stars were still sparkling brightly, when he got into his litter and in a weary voice bid the slaves carry him to the palace. He almost fell asleep again within the curtains, so coolly and indifferently could he look forward to his interview with the awe-inspiring Caesar, who was always treated with a degree of cautious respect, even by his intimates and favorites – somewhat as a tame tiger is treated by its keepers. This coolness he derived from a sense of the justice of his cause; he was still young enough to have preserved that noble simplicity of a lofty nature, which attributes irresistible power to Truth, and which cannot use the specious defences, with which vulgar humanity is content to arm itself.
In the outer court of the palace a tumultuous crowd had already assembled – of magistrates, senators, and foreign ambassadors. Quintus gave one of the chamberlains on duty292 a note from the Flamen Titus Claudius Mucianus, to deliver to Caesar in his audience chamber, and so powerful was the effect of this venerated name, that Domitian granted an immediate interview to the young patrician, in the midst of the terrific pressure of official receptions.
Quintus entered the presence chamber with a fearless and independent mien, but with the calm dignity and winning courtliness of the Roman aristocrat.
“My lord,” he said, as a sign from the emperor bid him speak, “it is as the son of Titus Claudius, that you have so readily granted me a hearing, but it is as the future husband of Cornelia, the niece of Cinna, that I craved an audience. I stand before you as a petitioner. Cornelius Cinna, the illustrious senator – whose intrinsic value you must certainly have discerned, even under the husk of some singularities – is suffering under the sense of an insult, as he deems it. That midnight banquet, of which all Rome is talking, was of course, no more than a harmless prelude to the Saturnalia293– the overflow of festive whimsicality. But Cinna, who is rigid and impervious to all joviality, regards the jest as a humiliation and dishonor. It lies in your power, my lord, to efface this painful feeling from the noble senator’s mind. One gracious word of explanation…”
Domitian did not let the bold youth finish his sentence. The mere mention of the name of Cinna had been enough to set his blood boiling. And now, what was this audacious, seditious, rebellious suggestion? – If he still kept some check on his anger, it was that the grave, steadfast figure of the Flamen floated, unbidden, before his eyes, and compelled his respect for all who bore his name. Still, the glance he threw at Quintus out of his cunning green eyes gave grounds for reflection.
“My dear Quintus,” he said with forced composure, “our time is too precious for such follies. It is not Caesar’s business, either to console Cinna or to offer him explanations. Remember that. And now leave us, lest the welfare of the commonwealth should suffer.” With these words he turned his back on Quintus.
Quintus was speechless; he angrily quitted the audience chamber, feeling as if every slave must read in his face how insultingly the emperor had treated him. Incapable from indignation, to judge accurately and fairly, he felt as a bitter disgrace, what was, in fact, the inevitable result of a false assumption. Standing apart as he did from the life of the court, and strongly influenced by his father’s views, he had always regarded Caesar in too favorable a light; still, he might have been shrewd and judicious enough, to have understood the folly and impossibility of his preposterous suggestion; he might have told himself that, even under the most favorable conditions, only those, who have sinned unintentionally, ever make advances towards reconciliation.
From the palace Quintus hastened on foot to his father’s residence, which lay at no great distance. He desired his clients and slaves to wait in the vestibule, and went first to the women’s large sitting-room, where he found his mother and the two girls, with Caius Aurelius in attendance. The Batavian was holding a book in his left hand, and with an awkward blush on his face was standing near the window, while the ladies leaned expectantly on their couches.
A shade of annoyance flitted across Claudia’s brow as her brother entered the room; the young Northman flushed a shade deeper, and dropped the hand which held the roll as he, not too warmly, returned his friend’s greeting.
“I am disturbing a recitation,” said Quintus apologetically.
“Oh! the day is before us!” cried Lucilia, and Octavia asked her son what had brought him so early to the house.
“Nothing of much importance,” said Quintus vaguely; “a request to my father. I am only waiting, till the atrium is perfectly clear. Pray go on reading, Aurelius. I will sit quite still in this corner and listen for a time. Meanwhile, will Lucilia fetch me a cup of mead294; my tongue is literally parched.”
“‘He spoke, and the dark-browed Kronion nodded assent!295’” quoted Lucilia, going to a side door. “Baucis,” she called out, and gave her orders in a lower voice. Caius Aurelius, obeying Octavia’s glance of request, had already unrolled the book again, and he now began to read in a full and pleasant voice. In truth, the much-lauded Papius Statius might have been satisfied. He himself, a master in the art, could not have read his own poem better or more effectively. Quintus was astonished beyond words. What delightful tones, what various modulation, and above all what supreme intelligence of interpretation! and though Lucilia now and then struggled with a yawn, it was evidently from sheer physical fatigue, for it had been past midnight before she had gone to sleep.
When Aurelius had got to the end of the second canto of the poem, Quintus drank the remainder of his draught of mead and desired old Baucis to enquire in the atrium, whether Titus Claudius had not yet received the last of his morning visitors and, hearing that his father was alone, he took leave and hastened to the priest’s study. He found his father deep in work, even at his son’s greeting he only just raised his head.
“Welcome,” said he without interrupting himself: “One moment, Quintus – ” and his reed296 went gliding on over the yellow paper. Then he laid it across a little metal rest and rose.
“You find me dreadfully busy, my dear Quintus,” he said affectionately. “Hardly am I left apparently in peace, when I am overwhelmed with a mass of work, that will bear no delay. I must take advantage of every minute, for a decision on the great question of the day is now imminent.”
“I am sorry for that, father, for I came to you as a petitioner.”
“Speak on,” said the Flamen smiling. “I must find time for my son.”
“Thank you very much, but I fear that my petition may be too trivial, to engage your interest at this moment.”
“Nay, so much the better. Small matters need few words. Speak plainly and at once.”
“You know,” Quintus began, going a step nearer, “that the Empress’s steward Stephanus is in pursuit of a slave…”
“Yes, I know,” said the priest frowning: “A criminal, who was forcibly set free by some unknown hand. All Rome is horrified at such unheard-of atrocity.”
“It is certainly unheard of, that such an attempt should succeed. To escape in the midst of such a crowd – the cowardly crew of Lycoris’ slaves seemed thunderstruck.”
“Pah! who can say, if they were not concerned in the abominable conspiracy? My word for it, Quintus, all these villains have a secret understanding; they wait only for a watchword to rise and strike as one man, and to overthrow everything we hold sacred. If the state does not ere long exercise its authority in earnest, we shall have a Spartacus297 on the throne of Rome.”
“You are jesting, father. Shall the Roman empire, borne by the eagles of her legions to the uttermost ends of the earth, the unconquerable daughter of Ares,298 tremble before her own slaves?”
“She has trembled before now,” replied Titus Claudius. “Read the chronicles of the historians. The gladiator, who escaped with a handful of rabble from the school at Capua, collected an army, before the Senate had realized the fact. He beat the praetors, he defeated the quaestor Thoranius, he overran almost a third of the peninsula…”
“Then, and now; think of the difference,” exclaimed Quintus, to whom the unexpected turn taken by the conversation was most painful. “That was possible in the time of the Republic, but the strong hand of Caesar will be able to protect us. Besides, the slaves of our day lack the one thing needful – the irresistible Spartacus.”
“He will be forthcoming, when the time is ripe. Indeed, from all I hear, I fancy a candidate for the honor has already been discovered. He is called Eurymachus.”
“Really?” cried Quintus, who was fast losing all his presence of mind. “Do you really think…?”
“Yes, my son, I do think… Does not the very mode of his rescue show how great and dangerous his personal influence must be? And I hear on all sides of this man’s defiant tenacity, contempt of suffering, strength and endurance. It is out of such rough wood as this, that a Spartacus is hewn. And a Spartacus to-day is more dangerous than his prototype; he can command a more mischievous force, against which sword and spear are wielded in vain: that of superstition. I cannot fail to see this plainly; for years I have watched the tendencies of the commonalty with all the keenness of suspicion. The creed of the Nazarenes ferments and spreads – the next Spartacus will be a Christian.”
“Father,” Quintus began after a pause, “I know that in this instance you are mistaken. This slave – I happen to know certainly – never conceived such a scheme. Besides, it seems to me, that the acumen of our statesmen is somewhat at fault, when it makes that sect responsible for everything that shocks or shakes society…”
“You do not know them,” interrupted his father, “and I do. Enough – we have digressed. What connection has all this with your request? Speak, for my time is precious.”
Quintus stood undecided. What could he hope for in this state of things? Well – he could but try.
“Father,” he began hesitatingly, “I came to speak in behalf of the very man, whom you are making every effort to brand as a Spartacus. I saw him two or three times in Baiae; he pleased me greatly, and I then determined to buy him of Stephanus. Then this most unlucky business occurred, and I lost the slave whom I had already begun to think of as my own. When I tell you, that Stephanus deliberately and maliciously tortured and punished him; when I swear to you solemnly, that the sentence of death…”
“What do you want?” asked his father coldly; “speak and have done.”
“Well, father; I want to become possessed of that slave at any price, and I ask you whether, in the event of his being captured, it would not be possible to mitigate the rigor of the law…”
“You astound me! For a mere whim you would endanger the state, cut a trench in the dyke which alone is able to protect us against the flood of rebellion? And you ask me – ME – to be your accomplice in such a proceeding? I admit, that Stephanus is brutal and tyrannical, nay – from my point of view – criminal. But then, are there not laws to protect slaves against such barbarities?”
“Laws, yes – ” cried Quintus bitterly, “but they do not exist as against the rich and powerful.”
“Every earthly thing is of its nature imperfect. If Stephanus defies the law, that does not justify us in leaving the crime of Eurymachus unpunished. I lament deeply, that my own son should so utterly misunderstand the first and highest principles of my views of life. Go, my dear Quintus, and for the future consider twice, before you trouble your father with such follies. Eurymachus must die by the hand of the executioner, though you should pledge half your estates to buy him. Go, my son, and do not altogether forget that you are a Roman.”
Thus speaking, Titus Claudius sat down again to his desk. Quintus stood for a moment as if in absence of mind; then he slowly went towards the door.
“Farewell, father,” he said, as he left the room. His voice was sad, almost gloomy, as though they were parting for a long, sad interval. Titus Claudius, struck by the strangeness of his tone, raised his head in astonishment and gazed, like a man waking from a painful dream, at the door through which Quintus had departed; a vague presentiment fell on his spirit.
“I was too hard,” he said to himself. “His error springs from a noble source – from pity. I ought to have said a kind word to him before he went away,” and he hastily rose from his seat.
“Quintus, Quintus!” he called out into the hall. “Skopas, Athanasius, did you see my son?”
The slaves flew into the vestibule, but Quintus had long since disappeared in the bustle of the street. The Flamen returned to his sitting-room, oppressed with melancholy foreboding.
“I will tell him the very next time I see him. – He has the best and truest heart that ever beat, and the noblest souls are easiest wounded. – However, away with such thoughts now, and to work once more.”
Titus Claudius sat down again and bent over his table and, as he sat there, he might have been taken for a poet in the act of composition, for his fine face glowed with eager inspiration. But the words he wrote were not those which enchant the populace, but the eloquent flow of a mighty impeachment; what he was forging were not lines and verses, but terrific weapons against what he believed to be the most threatening foe of the Roman Empire; against Christianity.299