A Friend of Caesar Part 22

[109] College of chief priests.

Fabia grew a shade paler, if it were possible, than before.

"I know," she replied, still very gently, "that an unfaithful Vestal is buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus; but I know, too, that her seducer is beaten to death with rods. Accuse me, or attack me, and whatever be _my_ fate, I can say that which will send your black soul down to Tartarus with guilt enough for Minos to punish. Your delicately anointed skin would be sadly bruised by the stripes falling upon it. And now, if these creatures will stand one side, I will leave you."

And Fabia drew her mantle about her, and walked straight past the awestruck slaves into the atrium, where she unbolted the door and pa.s.sed out. Gabinius stood gazing after her, half-fascinated, half-dazed. Only when the door closed did he burst out to one of the slaves:--

"Timid dog, why did you let her escape?"

"Dominus," whimpered the menial, "why did _you_ let her escape?"

"Insolence!" cried Gabinius, seizing a staff, and beating first one, then the other, of his servants indiscriminately; and so he continued to vent his vexation, until Fabia's litter was well inside the Porta Capena.

II

Fabia had thus escaped from the clutches of Gabinius, and the latter was sullen and foiled. But none the less the Vestal was in a tremor of fear for the consequences of her meeting with the libertine. She knew that Gabinius was determined, dexterous, and indefatigable; that he was baffled, but not necessarily driven to throw over his illicit quest. And Fabia realized keenly that going as she had unattended into a strange house, and remaining there some time with no friendly eye to bear witness to her actions, would count terribly against her, if Gabinius was driven to bay. She dared not, as she would gladly have done, appear before the pontifices and demand of them that they mete out due punishment on Gabinius for grossly insulting the sanct.i.ty of a Vestal. Her hope was that Gabinius would realize that he could not incriminate her without ruining himself, and that he had been so thoroughly terrified on reflection as to what might be the consequences to himself, if he tried to follow the intrigue, that he would prudently drop it. These considerations hardly served to lighten the gloom which had fallen across Fabia's life. It was not so much the personal peril that saddened her. All her life she had heard the ugly din of the world's wickedness pa.s.s harmlessly over her head, like a storm dashing at the doors of some secluded dwelling that shielded its inhabitants from the tempest. But now she had come personally face to face with the demon of impurity; she had felt the fetid touch almost upon herself; and it hurt, it sickened her. Therefore it was that the other Vestals marvelled, asking what change had come over their companion, to quench the mild sunshine of her life; and Fabia held little Livia very long and very closely in her arms, as if it were a solace to feel near her an innocent little thing "unspotted of the world."

All this had happened a very few days before the breathless Agias came to inform Fabia of the plot against her nephew. Perhaps, as with Cornelia, the fact that one near and dear was in peril aided to make the consciousness of her own unhappiness less keen. None could question Fabia's resolute energy. She sent Agias on his way, then hurried off in her litter in quest of Caius Marcellus, the consul.

aemilius Paulus, the other consul, was a nonent.i.ty, not worth appealing to, since he had virtually abdicated office upon selling his neutrality to Caesar. But Marcellus gave her little comfort. She broke in upon the n.o.ble lord, while he was partic.i.p.ating in a drunken garden-party in the Gardens of Lucullus. The consul--hardly sober enough to talk coherently--had declared that it was impossible to start any troops that day to Praeneste. "To-morrow, when he had time, he would consider the matter." And Fabia realized that the engine of government would be very slow to set in motion in favour of a marked Caesarian.

But she had another recourse, and hastened her litter down one of the quieter streets of the Subura, where was the modest house occupied by Julius Caesar before he became Pontifex Maximus. This building was now used by the Caesarian leaders as a sort of party headquarters. Fabia boldly ordered the porter to summon before her Curio--whom she was sure was in the house. Much marvelling at the visit of a Vestal, the slave obeyed, and in a few moments that tribune was in her presence.

Caius Scribonius Curio was probably a very typical man of his age. He was personally of voluptuous habits, fearfully extravagant, endowed with very few scruples and a very weak sense of right and wrong. But he was clear-headed, energetic, a good orator, a clever reasoner, an astute handler of men, courageous, versatile, full of recourse, and on the whole above the commission of any really glaring moral infraction.

He was now in his early prime, and he came before Fabia as a man tall, athletic, deep-chested, deep-voiced, with a regular profile, a clear, dark complexion, curly hair carefully dressed, freshly shaven, and in perfect toilet. It was a pleasure, in short, to come in contact with such a vigorous, aggressive personality, be the dark corners of his life what they might.

Curio yielded to no man in his love of Lucrine oysters and good Caecuban wine. But he had been spending little time on the dining couch that evening. In fact he had at that moment in his hand a set of tablets on which he had been writing.

"_Salve! Domina!_" was his greeting, "what unusual honour is this which brings the most n.o.ble Vestal to the trysting spot of us poor Populares."

And, with the courtesy of a gentleman of the world, he offered Fabia an armchair.

"Caius Curio," said the Vestal, wasting very few words, "do you know my nephew, Quintus Drusus of Praeneste?"

"It is an honour to acknowledge friendship with such an excellent young man," said Curio, bowing.

"I am glad to hear so. I understand that he has already suffered no slight calamity for adhering to your party."

"_Vah!_" and the tribune shrugged his shoulders. "Doubtless he has had a disagreeable time with the consul-elect, but from all that I can hear, the girl he lost was hardly one to make his life a happy one.

It's notorious the way she has displayed her pa.s.sion for young Lucius Ahen.o.barbus, and we all know what kind of a man _he_ is. But I may presume to remark that your ladyship would hardly come here simply to remind me of this."

"No," replied Fabia, directly, "I have come here to appeal to you to do something for me which Marcellus the consul was too drunk to try to accomplish if he would."

Fabia had struck the right note. Only a few days before Appius Claudius, the censor, had tried to strike Curio's name from the rolls of the Senate. Piso, the other censor, had resisted. There had been an angry debate in the Senate, and Marcellus had inveighed against the Caesarian tribune, and had joined in a furious war of words. The Senate had voted to allow Curio to keep his seat; and the anti-Caesarians had paraded in mourning as if the vote were a great calamity.

Curio's eyes lit up with an angry fire.

"Lump of filth! Who was he, to disoblige you!"

"You will understand," said Fabia, still quietly; and then briefly she told of the conspiracy against the life of Drusus, so far as she had gathered it.

"Where did you learn all this," queried Curio, "if I may venture to ask?"

"From Agias, the slave of Cornelia, niece of Lentulus."

"But what is Drusus to her?" demanded the marvelling tribune.

"He is everything to her. She has been trying to win her way into Ahen.o.barbus's confidence, and learn all of the plot."

A sudden light seemed to break over the face of the politician. He actually smiled with relieved pleasure, and cried, "_Papae!_ Wonderful!

I may be the farthest of all the world from Diogenes the Cynic; but a man cannot go through life, unless he has his eyes shut, and not know that there are different kinds of women. I was sorry enough to have to feel that a girl like Cornelia was becoming one of Clodia's coterie.

After all, the world isn't so bad as we make it out to be, if it is Curio the profligate who says it."

"But Drusus, my nephew?" exclaimed Fabia. "He is in frightful danger.

You know Dumnorix will have a great band of gladiators, and there is no force in Praeneste that can be counted on to restrain him."

"My dear lady," said Curio, laughing, "I am praising the happy Genius that brought you here. We Caesarians are taught by our leaders never to desert a friend in need; and Drusus has been a very good friend to us, especially by using all his influence, very successfully, for our cause among the Praenestians and the people of those parts. When did you say that Dumnorix would pa.s.s through the town?"

"Early to-morrow, possibly," replied the Vestal.

"_Phui!_ Dismiss all care. I'll find out at once how many gladiators he took with him to Anagnia. Some of his gang will be killed in the games there, and more will be wounded and weak or disabled. I am tribune, and I imagine I ought not to be out of the city over night,[110] but before daybreak to-morrow I will take Antonius and Sall.u.s.tius and Quintus Ca.s.sius; and perhaps I can get Balbus and our other a.s.sociates to go. We will arm a few slaves and freedmen; and it will be strange indeed if we cannot scatter to the four winds Dumnorix's gladiators, before they have accomplished any mischief."

[110] This was the law, that the tribunes might always be ready to render help (_auxilium_) to the distressed.

"The G.o.ds reward you!" said Fabia, simply. "I will go back to the Temple, and pray that my nephew be kept from harm; and you also, and your friends who will defend him."

Curio stood in the atrium a long time after the Vestal had left.

"The G.o.ds reward you!" he repeated. "So _she_ believes in the G.o.ds, that there are G.o.ds, and that they care for us struggling men. Ah!

Caius, Caius Curio; if the mob had murdered you that day you protected Caesar after he spoke in the Senate in favour of the Catilinarians, where would you be to-day? Whence have you come? Whither do you go?

What a.s.surance have you that you can depend on anything, but your own hand and keen wits? What is to become of you, if you are knocked on the head in that adventure to-morrow? And yet that woman believes there are G.o.ds! What educated man is there that does? Perhaps we would, if we led the simple lives our fathers did, and that woman lives. Enough of this! I must be over letters to Caesar at Ravenna till midnight: and then at morn off to gallop till our horses are foundered."

Chapter X

Mamercus Guards the Door

I

Agias left Phaon in the clutches of the landlord and his subordinates and was reasonably certain that since the freedman had not a farthing left with which to bribe his keepers, he was out of harm's way for the time being. The moon was risen, and guided by its light the young slave flew on toward Praeneste without incident. Whatever part of the conspirator's plans depended on Phaon was sure to collapse. For the rest, Agias could only warn Drusus, and have the latter arm his clients and slaves, and call in his friends from the town. With such precautions Dumnorix could hardly venture to risk himself and his men, whatever might be the plot.

Thus satisfied in mind, Agias arrived at the estate of the Drusi, close to Praeneste, and demanded admittance, about two hours before midnight. He had some difficulty in stirring up the porter, and when that worthy at last condescended to unbar the front door, the young Greek was surprised and dismayed to hear that the master of the house had gone to visit a farm at Lanuvium, a town some fifteen miles to the south. Agias was thunderstruck; he had not counted on Drusus being absent temporarily. But perhaps his very absence would cause the plot to fail.

"And what time will he return?" asked Agias.