A Friend of Caesar Part 45

"_Phui!_ What use have I of money? To paraphrase aeschylus: 'For more of money than I would is mine.' I can't eat it, or beat swords out of gold, or repair my ships therewith."

"Then why ama.s.s it at all?"

"Why drink when you know it is better to keep sober? I can no more stop plundering than a toper leave a wine-jar. Besides, perhaps some day I may see a road to amnesty open,--and, then, what will not money do for a man or woman?"

"Quintus Drusus, my patron, the Lady Cornelia, and the Lady Fabia all are rich. But I would not take up their sorrows for all their wealth."

"True," and Demetrius stared down into the inky water. "It will not give back those who are gone forever. Achilles could ask Hephaestus for his armour, but he could not put breath into the body of Patroclus.

_Plutus_ and _Cratus_[162] are, after all, but weaklings. _A!_ This is an unequal world!"

[162] Riches and strength.

When Agias fell asleep that night, or rather that morning, on a hard seaman's pallet, two names were stirring in his heart, names inextricably connected: Cornelia, whom he had promised Quintus Drusus to save from Ahen.o.barbus's clutches, and Artemisia. In the morning the yacht, having run her sixteen miles to Ostia, stood out to sea, naught hindering.

It was two months later when Quintus Drusus reentered Rome, no more a fugitive, but a trusted staff officer of the lawfully appointed dictator Julius Caesar. He had taken part in a desperate struggle around Corfinium, where his general had cut off and captured the army with which Domitius had aimed to check his advance. Drusus had been severely wounded, and had not recovered in time to partic.i.p.ate in the futile siege of Brundusium, when Caesar vainly strove to prevent Pompeius's flight across the sea to Greece. Soon as he was convalescent, the young officer had hurried away to Rome; and there he was met by a story concerning his aunt, whereof no rational explanation seemed possible. And when, upon this mystery, was added a tale he received from Baiae, he marvelled, yet dreaded, the more.

Chapter XIX

The Hospitality of Demetrius

I

While grave senators were contending, tribunes haranguing, imperators girding on the sword, legions marching, cohorts clashing,--while all this history was being made in the outside world, Cornelia, very desolate, very lonely, was enduring her imprisonment at Baiae.

If she had had manacles on her wrists and fetters on her feet, she would not have been the more a prisoner. Lentulus Crus had determined, with the same grim tenacity of purpose which led him to plunge a world into war, that his niece should comply with his will and marry Lucius Ahen.o.barbus. He sent down to Baiae, Phaon,--the evil-eyed freedman of Ahen.o.barbus,--and gave to that worthy full power to do anything he wished to break the will of his prospective patroness. Ca.s.sandra had been taken away from Cornelia--she could not learn so much as whether the woman had been scourged to death for arranging the interview with Drusus, or no. Two ill-favoured slatternly Gallic maids, the scourings of the Puteoli slave-market, had been forced upon Cornelia as her attendants--creatures who stood in abject fear of the whip of Phaon, and who obeyed his mandates to the letter. Cornelia was never out of sight of some person whom she knew was devoted to Lentulus, or rather to Phaon and his patron. She received no letters save those from her mother, uncle, or Ahen.o.barbus; she saw no visitors; she was not allowed to go outside of the walls of the villa, nor indeed upon any of its terraces where she would be exposed to sight from without, whether by land or sea. At every step, at every motion, she was confronted with the barriers built around her, and by the consciousness that, so long as she persisted in her present att.i.tude, her durance was likely to continue unrelaxed.

Cornelia was thirsty for the news from the world without. Her keepers were dumb to the most harmless inquiry. Her mother wrote more of the latest fashions than of the progress of events in the Senate and in the field; besides, Claudia--as Cornelia knew very well--never took her political notions from any one except her brother-in-law, and Cornelia noted her mother's rambling observations accordingly.

Lentulus studiously refrained from adverting to politics in letters to his niece. Ahen.o.barbus wrote of wars and rumours of wars, but in a tone of such partisan venom and overreaching sarcasm touching all things Caesarian, that Cornelia did not need her prejudices to tell her that Lucius was simply abusing her credulity.

Then at last all the letters stopped. Phaon had no explanation to give. He would not suffer his evil, smiling lips to tell the story of the flight of the oligarchs from Rome, and confess that Lentulus and Claudia were no farther off than Capua. The consul had ordered that his niece should not know of their proximity and its cause,--lest she pluck up hope, and all his coercion be wasted. So there was silence, and that was all. Even her mother did not write to her. Cornelia grew very, very lonely and desolate--more than words may tell. She had one consolation--Drusus was not dead, or she would have been informed of it! Proof that her lover was dead would have been a most delightful weapon in Lentulus's hands, too delightful to fail to use instantly.

And so Cornelia hoped on.

She tried again to build a world of fantasy, of unreal delight, around her; to close her eyes, and wander abroad with her imagination. She roamed in reverie over land and sea, from Atlantis to Serica; and dwelt in the dull country of the Hyperboreans and saw the gold-sanded plains of the Ethiops. She took her Homer and fared with Odysseus into Polyphemus's cave, and out to the land of Circe; and heard the Sirens sing, and abode on Calypso's fairy isle; and saw the maiden Nausicaa and her maids at the ball-play on the marge of the stream. But it was sorry work; for ever and again the dream-woven mist would break, and the present--stern, unchanging, joyless--she would see, and that only.

Cornelia was thrown more and more back on her books. In fact, had she been deprived of that diversion, she must have succ.u.mbed in sheer wretchedness; but Phaon, for all his crafty guile, did not realize that a roll of aeschylus did almost as much to undo his jailer's work as a traitor among his underlings.

The library was a capacious, well-lighted room, prettily frescoed, and provided with comfortably upholstered couches. In the niches were a few choice busts: a Sophocles, a Xenophon, an Ennius, and one or two others. Around the room in wooden presses were the rolled volumes on Egyptian papyrus, each labelled with author and t.i.tle in bright red marked on the tablet attached to the cylinder of the roll. Here were the poets and historians of h.e.l.las; the works of Plato, Aristotle, Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius and the later Greek philosophers.

Here, too, were books which the Greek-hating young lady loved best of all--the rough metres of Livius Andronicus and Cnaeus Naevius, whose uncouth lines of the old Saturnian verse breathed of the hale, hearty, uncultured, uncorrupted life of the period of the First Punic War.

Beside them were the other great Latinists: Ennius, Plautus, Terence, and furthermore, Pacuvius and Cato Major, Lucilius, the memoirs of Sulla, the orations of Antonius "the orator" and Gracchus, and the histories of Claudius Quadrigarius and Valerius Antias.

The library became virtually Cornelia's prison. She read tragedy, comedy, history, philosophy,--anything to drive from her breast her arch enemy, thought. But if, for example, she turned to Apollonius Rhodius and read--

"Amidst them all, the son of aeson chief Shone forth divinely in his comeliness, And graces of his form. On him the maid Looked still askance, and gazed him o'er;"[163]

[163] Elton, translator.

straightway she herself became Medea, Jason took on the form of Drusus, and she would read no more; "while," as the next line of the learned poet had it, "grief consumed her heart."

Only one other recreation was left her. Artemisia had not been taken away by Phaon, who decided that the girl was quite impotent to thwart his ends. Cornelia devoted much of her time to teaching the bright little Greek. The latter picked up the sc.r.a.ps of knowledge with a surprising readiness, and would set Cornelia a-laughing by her _navete_, when she soberly intermixed her speech with bits of grave poetical and philosophical lore, uttered more for sake of sound than sense.

As a matter of fact, however, Cornelia was fast approaching a point where her position would have been intolerable. She did not even have the stimulus that comes from an active aggressive persecution. Drusus was in the world of action, not forgetful of his sweetheart, yet not pent up to solitary broodings on his ill-fated pa.s.sion. Cornelia was thrust back upon herself, and found herself a very discontented, wretched, love-lorn, and withal--despite her polite learning--ignorant young woman, who took pleasure neither in sunlight nor starlight; who saw a mocking defiance in every dimple of the sapphire bay; who saw in each new day merely a new period for impotent discontent. Something had to determine her situation, or perhaps she would not indeed have bowed her head to her uncle's will; but she certainly would have been driven to resolutions of the most desperate nature.

Cornelia had practically lost reckoning of time and seasons. She had ceased hoping for a letter from her mother; even a taunting missive from Ahen.o.barbus would have been a diversion. She was so closely guarded that she found herself praying that Drusus would not try to steal a second interview, for the attempt might end in his murder.

Only one stray crumb of comfort at last did she obtain, and it was Artemisia who brought it to her. The girl had been allowed by Phaon to walk outside the grounds of the villa for a little way, and her pretty face had won the good graces of one or two slave-boys in an adjoining seaside house. Artemisia came back full of news which they had imparted: the consuls had fled from Rome; Pompeius was retreating before Caesar; the latest rumour had it that Domitius was shut up in Corfinium and likely to come off hardly.

The words were precious as rubies to Cornelia. She went all that day and the next with her head in the air. Perhaps with a lover's subtle omniscience she imagined that it was Drusus who had some part in bringing Domitius to bay. She pictured the hour when he--with a legion no doubt at his back--would come to Baiae, not a stealthy, forbidden lover, but a conqueror, splendid in the triumph of his arms; would enter the villa with a strong hand, and lead her forth in the eyes of all the world--his wife! and then back to Praeneste, to Rome--happy as the Immortals on Olympus; and what came after, Cornelia neither thought nor cared.

On those days the sea was lovely, the sunlight fair, and all the circling sea-gulls as they hovered over the waves cried shrilly one to the other; "How good is all the world!" And then, just as Cornelia was beginning to count the hours,--to wonder whether it would be one day or ten before Drusus would be sufficiently at liberty to ride over hill and dale to Baiae,--Phaon thrust himself upon her.

"Your ladyship," was his curt statement, "will have all things prepared in readiness to take ship for Greece, to-morrow morning."

"For Greece!" was the agonized exclamation.

"Certainly; it is useless to conceal matters from your ladyship now.

Caesar has swept all Italy. Corfinium may fall at any time. His excellency the consul Lentulus is now at Brundusium. He orders me to put you on board a vessel that has just finished her lading for the Piraeus."

This then was the end of all those glittering day-dreams! Caesar's victories only would transfer Cornelia to a more secure bondage. She had enough pride left not to moan aloud and plead with an animal like Phaon not to crush her utterly. In fact she was benumbed, and did not fully sense the changed situation. She went through a mechanical process of collecting her wardrobe, of putting her jewellery in cases and boxes, of laying aside for carriage a few necessaries for Artemisia. Phaon, who had expected a terrible scene when he made his announcement, observed to himself that, "The domina is more sensible than I supposed. I think her uncle will have his way now soon enough, if Master Lucius does not get his throat cut at Corfinium." And having thus concluded to himself,--satisfactorily, if erroneously,--he, too, made arrangements for the voyage impending.

II

Cornelia's sleeping room was large and airy. It had windows overlooking the sea--windows closed by the then extravagant luxury of panes of gla.s.s. When these were swung back the full sweep of the southwest wind poured its mild freshness into the room. The apartment was decorated and furnished with every taste and luxury. In one corner was the occupant's couch,--the frame inlaid with ivory and tortoise-sh.e.l.l, the mattress soft with the very choicest feathers of white German geese. Heaped on the cushion were gorgeous coverlets, of purple wool or even silk, and embroidered with elaborate figures, or covered with rare feather tapestry. Around the room were silver mirrors, chairs, divans, cabinets, dressers, and elegant tripods.

On one of the divans slept Artemisia, and just outside of the door one of the Gallic maids, whom Cornelia detested so heartily.

When Artemisia's curly head touched her pillow, its owner was fast asleep in an instant. When her patroness sank back on the cushions worth a king's ransom, Somnus, Hypnus, or whatever name the drowsy G.o.d may be called by, was far from present. Cornelia tossed on the pillows, tossed and cried softly to herself. The battle was too hard!

She had tried: tried to be true to Drusus and her own higher aspirations. But there was some limit to her strength, and Cornelia felt that limit very near at hand. Earlier in the conflict with her uncle she had exulted in the idea that suicide was always in her power; now she trembled at the thought of death, at the thought of everything contained in the unlovely future. She did not want to die, to flicker out in nothingness, never to smile and never to laugh again. Why should she not be happy--rightly happy? Was she not a Cornelian, a Claudian, born to a position that a princess might enjoy?

Was not wealth hers, and a fair degree of wit and a handsome face? Why then should she, the patrician maiden, eat her heart out, while close at hand Artemisia, poor little foundling Greek, was sleeping as sweetly as though people never grieved nor sorrows tore the soul?

Cornelia was almost angry with Artemisia for being thus oblivious to and shielded from calamity. So hot in fact did her indignation become against the innocent girl, that Cornelia herself began to smile at her own pa.s.sion. And there was one thought very comforting to her pride.

"Artemisia is only an uneducated slave, or little better than a slave; if she were in my station she would be just as unhappy. I am wretched just in proportion to the greatness of my rank;" then she added to herself, "_Hei!_ but how wretched then the G.o.ds must be!" And then again she smiled at admitting for an instant that there were any G.o.ds at all; had not her philosophy taught her much better?

So at last Cornelia turned over the pillows for the last time, and finally slept, in heavy, dreamless slumber.

Cornelia did not know at what watch of the night she awoke; awoke, not suddenly, but slowly, as consciousness stole over her that _something_ was happening. It was a dark, cloudy night, yet a strange red light was glinting faintly through the windows and making very dim panels on the rugs of the floor. There was a bare gleam of fire from the charcoal in the portable metal stove that stood in a remote corner of the room to dispel the chill of night. Artemisia was stirring in her sleep, and saying something--probably in a one-sided dream-dialogue.

Cornelia opened her eyes, shut them again; peeped forth a second time, and sat up in bed. There was a confused din without, many voices speaking at once, all quite unintelligible, though now and then she caught a few syllables of Greek. The din grew louder and louder. At the same time, as if directly connected with the babel, the strange light flamed up more brightly--as if from many advancing torches.

Cornelia shook the sleep from her eyes, and flung back the coverlets.

What was it? She had not yet reached the stage of feeling any terror.

Suddenly, drowning all lesser noise, came the blows of a heavy timber beating on the main door of the villa.