A Friend of Caesar Part 17

You are even too indolent to engage in politics, or to go into the army. I have come to a determination. You must marry the woman I have selected for you."

Ahen.o.barbus p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. As a matter of fact, he had surmised what was coming, but he had no intention of admitting anything prematurely.

"Really, father," he said, "I hope you won't use your legal right and force a wife on me. I have no desire to tie myself up to a decent married life."

"I hardly think," said Domitius, smiling, "that you will resist my wishes long. I have seen Lentulus Crus the consul-elect, and he and I agree that since your mother's distant kinsman Quintus Drusus of Praeneste is an unsuitable husband for Cornelia, Lentulus's niece, on account of his very dangerous political tendencies, no happier alliance could bind our families together than a marriage between Cornelia and yourself."

Lucius yawned a third time and fell back on the couch.

"It's true," he ventured, "I have cared a good deal for Cornelia; and I've thrown over that little Greek Clyte and all the others for her; but then, to make a girl your sweetheart and to make her your wife are two very different things. _Vina Opimia_ is best; but because one drinks a _cyathus_[97] of that, why should he forego a good nil of Thasian or Caecuban? If I could have but one choice, give me plenty of the good, and I'll give up my few drops of the best."

[97] About one-twelfth pint.

"Come, come," said Domitius, a little impatiently, "you must positively reform. Besides, while appearances must be kept up, there is no need for leading the life of a Stoic. You won't find Cornelia a hard companion. You have your pleasures and she hers, and you will live harmoniously enough and not the least scandal."

And with this remark Domitius closed the matter, and Lucius was actually delighted at the situation. What his father had said had been true enough; half, nay, nearly all, Rome lived in the manner Domitius had guardedly proposed for his son and intended daughter-in-law.

Marriage was becoming more and more a mere formality, something that was kept up as the ancient state Pagan worship was kept up by the remnants of old-time superst.i.tion, and as a cloak to hide a mult.i.tude of sins. Fifty-nine years before, the consul Metellus Numidicus had declaimed, "Quirites, we would fain be free from all this annoyance (of marriage); but since nature has so brought it about that it is neither possible to live pleasantly with our wives nor by any means to live (as a race) without them, we ought to consider the welfare of the future rather than the mere pa.s.sing pleasure of the present." And ever since that day Romans had been striving desperately to make the married state as endurable as possible; usually by reducing the importance of lawful wedlock to a minimum.

Of course the announcement of the informal betrothal was soon spread over Rome. The contracting parties were in the very highest life, and everybody declared that the whole affair was a political deal between Lentulus Crus and Domitius. It was commonly reported, too, how Cornelia had broken with Drusus, and every one remarked that if the young man had cared to enforce her father's will in the courts, his claim to her hand and fortune would be valid unless--and here most people exchanged sly winks, for they knew the power of Domitius and Lentulus Crus over a jury.

And how had Cornelia borne it--she at whom Herennia had stared in amazement, when that "dear friend" discovered the friendship the other was displaying to Lucius Ahen.o.barbus? Cornelia had received the announcement very quietly, one might almost say resignedly. She had one great hope and consolation to support her. They would not force her to marry Lucius Ahen.o.barbus until Drusus was dead or had reached the age of five-and-twenty. The marriage formula with Ahen.o.barbus once uttered, while Quintus lived, and by no possibility, save by an open spoliation that would have stirred even calloused Rome, could Lucius touch a sesterce of his intended victim's property. Cornelia's hope now, strangely enough, was in the man she regarded as the most consummate villain in the world, Pratinas. Ahen.o.barbus might have his debts paid by his father, and forego risk and crime if he did not absolutely need Drusus's fortune; but Pratinas, she knew, must have planned to secure rich pickings of his own, and if Ahen.o.barbus married permanently, all these were lost; and the Greeks never turned back or let another turn back, when there was a fortune before them. It was a fearful sort of confidence. Drusus had been warned promptly by Agias.

Old Mamercus had straightway taken every precaution, and forced his foster son to put himself in a sort of custody, which was sufficiently galling, in addition to the ever present sense of personal danger. The villa at Praeneste was guarded quietly by several armed slaves and peasants; not a morsel or drop pa.s.sed Drusus's lips that had not been tested and tasted by a trusty dependent. The young man was not to go to Rome, despite his infinite yearning to see Cornelia, for every opportunity would be given in the dark city streets for an a.s.sa.s.sin.

In fact, Drusus was virtually a prisoner in his own estates, for only there could he feel reasonably safe from attack.

All these precautions Cornelia knew, for Agias was a master at smuggling letters in and out. She had told Drusus frankly all that had pa.s.sed, and how that she was acting as she did only for his sake. She asked him to trust her, and he wrote back that no doubt of her fidelity to him had crossed his mind; he was not worthy of such love as she had for him; it did not matter very much if Ahen.o.barbus did kill him, except that it would give her new grief and pain, and the thought of that he could not bear. Cornelia had replied that if Drusus was murdered, she was woman enough and Roman enough to stab Lucius Ahen.o.barbus on their marriage night, and then plunge the dagger into her own breast. And there the fearful matter had rested; Cornelia smiled by day, and dazzled all she met by her vivacity, and her aggressive queenliness; and by night cried with tearless sobs, which came out of the depths of her heart. And all the time she waited for Agias to foil the plot, and a.s.sure Drusus of his life. Let Quintus once be safe, and then--how could she resist the irresistible pressure that would be brought to bear to force her into a hated marriage, which Ahen.o.barbus--balked though he might be of a fortune--would no longer care to defer? And when Cornelia thought of this, and when she was alone, she would open a little casket, of which no other had the key, and touch the ivory-carved hilt of a small damascened knife. The blade was very sharp; and there was a sticky gum all along the edge,--deadly poison; only a very slight scratch put one beyond aid of physician.

The bitterest cup of all was the att.i.tude she felt forced to a.s.sume toward Lucius Ahen.o.barbus. There were limits of familiarity and simulated affection beyond which she could not drive herself to go.

Lucius was with her at all hours and in all places. The more she saw of him the more she abhorred his effeminate sensuality and lack of almost every quality that made life worth the living. But she must--she must learn the plot against Drusus, and precisely how and when the trap was to be sprung. And in a measure, at least so far as Lucius was concerned, she succeeded. By continually and openly reviling Quintus, by professing to doubt the legality of a marriage contracted against the terms of her father's will, by all but expressing the wish that her late lover were out of harm's way, she won her point. In a fit of half-drunken confidence Ahen.o.barbus a.s.sured her that she would not be troubled by Drusus for long; that he would soon be unable to annoy her. And then came a great disappointment.

When Cornelia asked--and how much the request cost her, only she herself knew--to be let into the plot, Lucius owned that he had left the details in the hands of Pratinas, and did not himself know just how or when the blow was to fall. In Pratinas--whom Cornelia met very seldom--she met with a sphinx, ever smiling, ever gracious, but who, as if regretting the burst of confidence he had allowed Valeria, kept himself closed to the insinuations and half-questions of every one else. The truth was, the lanista Dumnorix was unwilling to do his part of the business until the festival at Anagnia brought him and his band through Praeneste, and this festival had been postponed. Consequently, the projected murder had been postponed a few days also. Agias had tried to penetrate into the secrets of Pratinas, but found that judicious intriguer had, as a rule, carefully covered his tracks. He spent a good deal of time and money, which Cornelia gave him, trying to corrupt some of the gladiators of Dumnorix's band and get at the intentions of their master; but he was not able to find that any of these wretches, who took his gold greedily enough, really knew in the least what were the appointments and engagements of the Gallic giant.

As a matter of fact, the boy began to feel decidedly discouraged.

Pisander had nothing more to tell; and, moreover, the worthy philosopher often gave such contradictory accounts of what he had overheard in Valeria's boudoir, that Agias was at his wit's end when and where to begin.

So pa.s.sed the rest of the month since Cornelia had been brought from Praeneste to Rome.

III

Cornelia began to grow sick at heart. The conviction was stealing over her that she was the victim of a cruel destiny, and it was useless to fight against fate. She had made sacrifices for Drusus's sake that had cost her infinitely. All Rome said that Cornelia returned the love of Lucius Ahen.o.barbus. And with it all, she knew that she had not succeeded in discovering the real plot of Pratinas, and could not thwart it. She knew that nearly every one placed her, if actually not as vicious as the rest, at least in the same coterie with Clodia, and the wife of Lentulus Spinther the younger Metella, and only a grade better than such a woman as Arbuscula, the reigning actress of the day. There was no defence to offer to the world. Did she not go with her mother to the gay gathering, in the gardens by the Tiber? Was she not waited on by half the fashionable young aristocrats of Rome? Was she not affianced to a man who was notoriously a leader of what might to-day be called the "fast set" of the capital? And from Drusus, poor fellow, she gained not the least consolation. That he loved her as she loved him, she had never cause to doubt. But in his self-renunciation he gave her advice that sprang out of his own sorrow and pessimism. It was no use, ran his letters, for a woman like her to try and battle against the evident decrees of Fortune. He was a man, and must fight his battle or die his death bravely; but she was not called on for this. There was no reason why she should not really enjoy herself, in the way most of the world thought she was enjoying herself. She had better wed Lucius Ahen.o.barbus, and stoop to the inevitable. Her husband could go his way and she go hers, and none would complain.

Perhaps the Epicureans were right,--this life was all, and it was best to suck from it all the sweets one might, and not be disturbed by p.r.i.c.ks of conscience. Drusus and Cornelia were not lovers of a modern romance, to entertain fantastic ideas of love and duty, to throw themselves away for a fancy, or tie themselves with vows which militated against almost every worldly advantage. They were both Romans, and by that we mean eminently practical persons, faithful to one another, pure and n.o.ble in their affections, but habituated to look a situation in the face and accept the plain consequences. In this spirit Drusus had advised as he did, and Cornelia became discouraged accordingly. Her reason told her to submit to the inevitable. Her heart cried out against it. And so she continued to finger the hilt of the little dagger, and look at its keen poison-smeared edge.

But one day at the end of this dreary period Agias appeared before his mistress with a smiling face.

"Don't raise high hopes, my lady, but trust me. I have struck a path that I'm sure Pratinas will wish I'd never travelled." And that was all he would say, but laid his finger on his lips as though it was a great secret. When he was gone, for Cornelia the sun shone brighter, and the tinkling of the water in the fountain in the peristylium sounded sweeter than before. After all, there had come a gleam of hope.

Cornelia needed the encouragement. That same day when Herennia called to see her, that excellent young lady--for not the least reason in the world--had been full of stories of poisoning and murders, how some years ago a certain Balbutius of Larinum was taken off, it was said, at a wedding feast of a friend for whom the poison had been intended; and then again she had to tell how, at another time, poison had been put in a bit of bread of which the victim partook. The stories were old ones and perhaps nothing more than second-hand scandal, but they were enough to make poor Cornelia miserable; so she was doubly rejoiced when Agias that evening pressed his lips again and smiled and said briefly: "All is going well. We shall have the root of the matter in a few days."

Agias had actually come upon what he was right in considering a great piece of good fortune. He had easily found the tenement in the Subura where Pratinas lodged, but to learn anything there that would be useful was a far more difficult affair. He had hung around the place, however, as much as he dared, making his headquarters at a tavern conveniently near, and tried to learn Pratinas's habits, and whether he ever took any visitors home with him. All this came to little purpose till one morning he observed an old Ethiop, who was tugging a heavy provision basket, stagger up the street, through the nondescript crowd. The old slave was being a.s.sailed by a mob of street gamins and low pedlers who saw in the contents of the hamper so much fair plunder. These vagabonds had just thrown the Ethiop down into the mud, and were about to divide their booty, when Agias, acting on a generous impulse, rushed out from the tavern to the rescue. Nimble, for his age powerful, and armed with a stout staff which he had caught up in the wine-shop to aid him, the young Greek won an easy victory over cowardly antagonists, put all the plunderers to flight, and lifted the old slave out of the mire. The Ethiop was profuse in his thanks.

"And whose slave are you?" demanded Agias, well pleased to be out of the adventure.

"I'm Sesostris, servant of Pratinas the Greek."

Agias p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "And you live--"

"In the top story of this tenement;" and Sesostris tried to pick up the hamper.

"Oh!" laughed his rescuer, "you must let me save you that trouble. I will carry up the basket. Your master is a brute to pile on such loads."

Sesostris again fawned his grat.i.tude, and Agias, with quickened wits and eyes alert, toiled up the dark stairway, and found himself at the top of the building. He had "entered the enemy's country." The Ethiop might not have been open to bribes, but he might be unlocked through friendship, and Agias never needed all his senses more than now. They had reached the topmost flight of stairs, and Sesostris had stopped as if embarra.s.sed whether to invite his deliverer in to enjoy some hospitality, or say him farewell. Then of a sudden from behind the closed door came a clear, sweet, girlish voice, singing, in Greek:--

"O Aitne, mother mine: A grotto fair Scooped in the rocks have I, and there I keep All that in dreams man pictures! Treasured there Are mult.i.tudes of she-goats and of sheep, Swathed in whose wool from top to toe I sleep."

It was an idyl of Theocritus, very well known by Agias, and without the least hesitation he took up the strain, and continued:--

"The fire boils my pot; with oak or beech Is piled,--dry beech logs when the snow lies deep.

And storm and sunshine, I disdain them each As toothless sires a nut, when broth is in their reach."[98]

[98] Calverly's translation.

Agias paused. There was a silence, then a giggle behind the door, and it half opened, and out peered the plump and rosy face of the young girl we have heard Pratinas salute as his niece, Artemisia. The moment she caught sight of the rather manly form of Agias, the door started to close with a slam, but the latter thrust out his foot, blocked the door, and forced an entrance.

"_Eleleu!_" cried Agias, pushing into a small but neatly furnished room. "What have we here? Do the muses sing in Subura? Has Sappho brought hither her college of poetesses from Lesbos?"

"_Ai!_" exclaimed Artemisia, drawing back, "who are you? You're dreadfully rude. I never saw you before."

"Nor I you;" replied Agias, in capital good humour, "but that is no reason why I should take my eyes away from your pretty little face.

No, you needn't point your middle finger at me so, to ward off the evil eye. I'm neither Chaldean astrologer, nor Etruscan soothsayer.

Come, tell me who you are, and whom you belong to?"

Artemisia did not have the least idea what to say. Agias, partly through youthful love of adventure, partly because he felt that he was playing now for very high stakes and must risk a good deal, had thrown himself on the divan, and was holding Artemisia captive under his keen, genial eyes. She grew redder in face than before, began to speak, then broke off with more confused blushes.

"She means to say," finally ventured Sesostris, "that she is Artemisia, the niece of Pratinas."

"The niece of Pratinas!" exclaimed Agias, settling himself upon the cushions in a manner that indicated his intention to make a prolonged stay; "and does Pratinas keep his pretty niece shut up in a gloomy tenement, when she has the voice of one of the Graces, and more than their share of beauty! Shame on him; I thought he had better sense than that!"

"Sir," ventured Artemisia, trying desperately to stand on her dignity, "I do not know you. My uncle will be greatly vexed to find you here.

Will you go away at once?"

"That I will not," replied Agias, firmly; and he drew from the hamper a baker's bun, and began to munch it, as though laying in provision for a lengthy stay.

Artemisia and Sesostris exchanged glances of dismay.

"What _shall_ I do?" said the girl to the Ethiop in a very audible whisper.

"Sing," interrupted Agias. "Let me hear the rest of the Theocritus."

"I don't like to sing those songs," objected Artemisia. "Pratinas makes me, I don't know why."

"Well," said Agias, smiling, "I wouldn't for the-world make you sing against your will. Suppose you tell me about yourself. Tell me when your uncle is away, and when I may come and see you again."