A Friend of Caesar Part 16

"Quintus Drusus, of Praeneste," repeated the other.

"_Ai! Ai!_ In the name of Zeus!" cried Pisander, dropping the beaker, and spilling the wine all over his threadbare himation. "Oh, such a plot! Such a crime! Was ever anything so villanous ever heard of before!"

"My dear Pisander," exclaimed Agias, all amazement, "what _is_ the matter? Your speech is as obscure as Cinna's[92] poem called 'Zmyrna,'

which I've heard was ten years in being written, and must be very fine, because no one can understand it. No more can I fathom you."

[92] A poet at that time of some little reputation.

"What a stroke of fortune!" raved the philosopher. "How we will be revenged on that rascal, Pratinas! O Destiny, thy decrees are just!"

Again Agias expostulated, and at last brought out of Pisander a tolerably coherent account of the conversation which he had heard between Valeria and Pratinas. Then, indeed, the merry slave-boy was troubled. Accustomed to a rather limited ambition in life, he had attached himself with implicit devotion to Cornelia; first because his preserver, Drusus, had so enjoined him, and second because each day he grew more drawn to her personally. The peril which yawned before the unfortunate Drusus menaced at the same time the happiness of his mistress and his own welfare,--for if Lucius Ahen.o.barbus had his way, Agias himself would become the slave of that not very gentle patrician. Cornelia and Drusus had had troubles enough before; but in the present crisis, actual destruction stared Agias's saviour in the face. The situation was maddening, was sickening. Agias wrung his hands in anguish. Then came the healthy reaction. Drusus was still alive and well. He could be warned. The plot could be thwarted.

Pratinas and Ahen.o.barbus were not yet beyond the reach of retribution.

He--Agias--was no longer to be a mere foot-boy and lackey; he was to match his keen Greek wits in subtle intrigue against foemen worthy of his steel. He would save Drusus's life, would save Cornelia's happiness. If he succeeded, who knew but that his owner would reward him--would give him freedom. And with a natural rebound of spirits, Agias's eyes glittered with expectation and excitement, his cheeks flushed, his form expanded to a manly height.

"_Euge!_ Well done, old friend!" he cried, with the merriment of intense excitement. "No matter if you say you were only able to hear a small part of what our dear fellow-h.e.l.lene, Pratinas, told Valeria. I have gathered enough to defeat the plotters. Leave all to me. If you learn anything new, send word to the house of Lentulus Crus, and ask to see me. And now I must forsake this pleasant wine untasted, and hurry away. My mistress will bless you, and perhaps there will be some reward."

And leaving the bewildered Pisander to wipe the wine from his dress, Agias had darted out of the tavern, and was lost in the hurly-burly of the cattle-market.

How Agias had forced his way into Cornelia's presence we have related.

The young Greek had stated his unpleasant intelligence as diplomatically and guardedly as possible; but Cornelia had borne this shock--following so soon upon one sufficiently cruel--grievously enough. After all, she was only a girl--perhaps more mature for her years than the average maiden of her age of to-day, but almost friendless, hopeless, and beset with many trials. And this new one was almost more than she could bear. We have said that to her suicide had but just before appeared a refuge to be desired; but to have Quintus die, to have him taken out of that life that ought to be so fair for him, no matter how darksome it was for her; to have him never realize her ambition that he become a statesman, warrior, philosopher, in short her ideal hero--this was unbearable! This phase of the question was so overpowering that she forgot to feel rage against Ahen.o.barbus and his wily ally. Cornelia threw herself down upon the floor, and cried to Agias to slay her quickly. She did not care to live; she could endure no more.

Agias here manifested exquisite tact. Instead of attempting any ordinary means of expostulation, he pleaded with her not to give way to despair; that Drusus was not yet at the mercy of his enemies; that she, if she would, could do an infinite deal to a.s.sist him.

"I save Quintus?" questioned Cornelia, with white, quivering lips.

"You can do much, my lady," replied Agias, kindly taking her by the hand, and with gentle pressure forcing her to sit on the divan. "You can do what neither I, nor Pisander, nor any one else can accomplish.

You can make Lucius Ahen.o.barbus betray his own plot. You, and you only, can penetrate the final plans of the conspirators. Therefore be strong, and do not despair."

"I? What can _I_ do?" cried Cornelia, staring at him with sad, tearless eyes.

"Lady Cornelia," said Agias, delicately, "Drusus would never receive back his life if it were to be purchased by any sacrifice of honour on your part. But this is not needed. Lucius Ahen.o.barbus--forgive my plain speech--worships the ground whereon you tread. A smile from you raises him to Olympus; a compliment from you makes him feel himself a G.o.d; a soft word from you creates him the peer of Zeus. Lady, I know you hate that man; but for Master Drusus's sake make Ahen.o.barbus believe that you are not indifferent to his advances. Slander Drusus before him. Complain of the provisions of your father's will that, despite your uncle's intention, will make it difficult to avoid a hateful marriage. If in the past you have been cold to Ahen.o.barbus, grow gracious; but not too rapidly. Finally, at the proper time, do not hesitate to urge him to commit the act we know he is meditating.

Then he will make you a full partner of his plot, and Pratinas and he can be permanently thwarted."

"You say that Drusus can be saved by this?" asked Cornelia, steadying herself as she rose from the divan;

"I will warn him at once," replied Agias. "Any premature attempt on his life will certainly fail. But it is not Ahen.o.barbus that I fear; it is Pratinas. Pratinas, if baffled once, will only be spurred on to use all his cunning in a second trial. We must enmesh the conspirators so completely that when their stab is parried, not merely will their power to repeat it be gone, but they themselves will be in danger of retribution. And for this, some one must be confederate to their final plan."

"Agias," said Cornelia, quietly, "Quintus said that you would be a faithful servant to him and to myself. I believe he was right. You have asked a great thing of me, Agias. I would not do it unless I believed that you were unlike other slaves. I might imagine that Lucius Ahen.o.barbus had bribed you to tell me this story, in order that I should put myself in his power. But I trust you. I will do anything you say. For you h.e.l.lenes have wits as keen as sharp steel, and I know that you will do all you may to repay your debt to Quintus."

Agias knelt down and kissed the robe of his mistress. "My lady," he said gently, "it is no grievous thing to be a slave of such as you.

Believe me; I will not betray my trust. And now if you can let me leave you, I will hurry to Praeneste, and for the present our minds may be at rest. For old Mamercus will, I am sure, be able to take good care of Master Drusus for yet awhile."

"Go, and the G.o.ds--if there be G.o.ds--go with you!" replied Cornelia.

Agias kissed her robe a second time, and was gone. His mistress stood in the middle of the empty room. On the wall facing her was a painting of "Aphrodite rising from the Foam," which Drusus had given her. The sensuous smiles on the face of the G.o.ddess sickened Cornelia, as she looked upon it. To her, at the moment, laughter was more hideous than any sobbing. Outside the door she heard the gay, witless chatter of the maids and the valets. They were happy--they--slaves, "speaking tools,"--and she with the blood of the Claudii and Cornelii in her veins, a patrician among patricians, the niece of a consul-elect, a woman who was the heiress of statesmen and overturners of kingdoms,--_she_ was miserable beyond endurance. Cornelia paced up and down the room, wishing she might order the giggling maids to be flogged and their laughter turned into howling. Then she summoned Ca.s.sandra.

Cornelia had never before tried to play the actress, but that night she flung herself into the game for life and death with all the earnestness of an energetic, intelligent, and spontaneous woman. She had been barely civil to Lucius Ahen.o.barbus before; to-night the young man began to persuade himself that the object of his affections was really a most adorable coquette, who used a certain brusqueness of speech to add to her witchery. He had heard that there had been some very disagreeable scenes at Praeneste, when Lentulus had told his niece that Drusus, on account of his dangerous politics, was unfit to be her husband. But Ahen.o.barbus was sure that either these accounts were exaggerated, or more likely, Cornelia, like most women, was quick to fall in love and quick to leave an old sweetheart for a new one. Be that as it may, Lucius felt that night on good terms with himself and all the world. Phormio had consented to continue his loans--until his debtor could realize on "certain property." Pratinas had said that Dumnorix would shortly start with a band of gladiators for some local festival at Anagnia, a little beyond Praeneste; and on the way back, if nothing went amiss, the prearranged programme could be carried out.

Some pretext must be found for keeping Drusus on his estate at the time when Dumnorix would march past it, and that task could be confided to Phaon, Lucius's freedman, a sly fox entirely after his patron's own heart.

Cornelia, to whom the dinner-party at Favonius's house began as a dreary enough tragedy, before long discovered that it was by no means more easy to suck undiluted sorrow than unmixed gladness out of life.

It gratified her to imagine the rage and dismay of the young exquisite whose couch was beside her chair,[93] when he should learn how completely he had been duped. Then, too, Lucius Ahen.o.barbus had a voluble flow of polite small talk, and he knew how to display his accomplishments to full advantage. He had a fair share of wit and humour; and when he fancied that Cornelia was not impervious to his advances, he became more agreeable and more ardent. Once or twice Cornelia frightened herself by laughing without conscious forcing. Yet it was an immense relief to her when the banquet was over, and the guests--for Favonius had ordered that none should be given enough wine to be absolutely drunken--called for their sandals and litters and went their ways.

[93] Women sat at Roman banquets, unless the company was of a questionable character.

"And you, O Adorable, Calypso, Circe, Nausicaa, Medea,--what shall I call you?--you will not be angry if I call to see you to-morrow?" said Ahen.o.barbus, smiling as he parted from Cornelia.

"If you come," was her response, "I shall not perhaps order the slaves to pitch you out heels over head."

"Ah! That is a guarded a.s.sent, indeed," laughed Lucius, "but farewell, _pulcherrima!_"[94]

[94] Most beautiful.

Cornelia that night lay down and sobbed herself to sleep. Her mother had congratulated her on her brilliant social success at the dinner-party, and had praised her for treating Lucius Ahen.o.barbus as she had.

"You know, my dear," the worthy woman had concluded, "that since it has seemed necessary to break off with Drusus, a marriage with Lucius would be at once recommended by your father's will, and in many ways highly desirable."

II

Only a very few days later Lucius Ahen.o.barbus received a message bidding him come to see his father at the family palace on the Palatine. Lucius had almost cut himself clear from his relations. He had his own bachelor apartments, and Domitius had been glad to have him out of the way. A sort of fiction existed that he was legally under _the patria potestas_,[95] and could only have debts and a.s.sets on his father's responsibility, but as a matter of fact his parent seldom paid him any attention; and only called on him to report at home when there was a public or family festival, or something very important. Consequently he knew that matters serious were on foot, when he read in his father's note a request to visit Domitius's palace as soon as convenient. Lucius was just starting, in his most spotless toga,--after a prolonged season with his hairdresser,--to pay a morning call on Cornelia, and so he was the more vexed and perturbed.

[95] Sons remained under the legal control of a father until the latter's death, unless the tie was dissolved by elaborate ceremonies.

"Curses on Cato,[96] my old uncle," he muttered, while he waited in the splendid atrium of the house of the Ahen.o.barbi. "He has been rating my father about my pranks with Gabinius and Laeca, and something unpleasant is in store for me."

[96] Cato Minor's sister Portia was the wife of Lucius Domitius.

Cato was also connected with the Drusi through Marcus Livius Drusus, the murdered reformer, who was the maternal uncle of Cato and Portia.

Lucius Ahen.o.barbus and Quintus Drusus were thus third cousins.

Domitius presently appeared, and his son soon noticed by the affable yet diplomatic manner of his father, and the gentle warmth of his greeting, that although there was something in the background, it was not necessarily very disagreeable.

"My dear Lucius," began Domitius, after the first civilities were over, and the father and son had strolled into a handsomely appointed library and taken seats on a deeply upholstered couch, "I have, I think, been an indulgent parent. But I must tell you, I have heard some very bad stories of late about your manner of life."

"Oh!" replied Lucius, smiling. "As your worthy friend Cicero remarked when defending young Caelius, 'those sorts of reproaches are regularly heaped on every one whose person or appearance in youth is at all gentlemanly.'"

"I will thank you if you will not quote Cicero to me," replied the elder man, a little tartly. "He will soon be back from Cilicia, and will be prodding and wearying us in the Senate quite enough, with his rhetoric and sophistries. But I must be more precise. I have found out how much you owe Phormio. I thought your dead uncle had left you a moderately large estate for a young man. Where has it gone to? Don't try to conceal it! It's been eaten up and drunk up--spent away for unguents, washed away in your baths, the fish-dealer and the caterer have made way with it, yes, and butchers and cooks, and greengrocers and perfume sellers, and poulterers--not to mention people more scandalous--have made off with it."

Lucius stretched himself out on the divan, caught at a thick, richly embroidered pillow, tossed it over his head on to the floor, yawned, raised himself again upright, and said drawlingly:--

"Y-e-s, it's as you say. I find I spend every sesterce I have, and all I can borrow. But so long as Phormio is accommodating, I don't trouble myself very much about the debts."

"Lucius," said Domitius, sternly, "you are a graceless spendthrift. Of course you must have the sport which all young blood needs. But your extravagance goes beyond all bounds. I call myself a rich man, but to leave you half my fortune, dividing with your older brother Cnaeus, who is a far steadier and saner man than you, would be to a.s.sure myself that Greek parasites and low women would riot through that part of my estate in a twelvemonth. You must reform, Lucius; you must reform."

This was getting extremely disagreeable in spite of his expectations, and the young man yawned a second time, then answered:--

"Well, I presume Uncle Cato has told you all kinds of stories; but they aren't at all true. I really never had a great deal of money."

"Lucius," went on his father, "you are grown to manhood. It is time that you steadied in life. I have let you live by yourself too long.