A Struggle For Rome Volume I Part 59

Silently Petros listened to these words; silently he turned and went out, followed by his companions.

Some of them accompanied him to his residence, amongst them the Bishop of Florentia.

"Reverend friend," Petros said to the latter at parting, "the letters of Theodahad about the matter you know of, which you entrusted to me for perusal, you must leave entirely at my disposal. I need them, and they are no longer necessary to you."

"The process is long since decided," answered the Bishop, "and the property irrevocably acquired. The doc.u.ments are yours."

The amba.s.sador then dismissed his friends, who hoped soon to see him again in Ravenna with the imperial army, and went to his chamber, where he at once despatched a messenger to Belisarius, ordering him to invade the country. Then he wrote a detailed report to the Emperor, which concluded in the following words:

"And so, my Emperor, you seem to have just reason to be contented with the services of your most faithful messenger, and the situation of affairs. The barbarian nation split into parties; a hated Prince, incapable and faithless, upon the throne; the enemy surprised, unprepared and unarmed; the Italian population everywhere in your favour. We cannot fail! If no miracle occur, the barbarians must succ.u.mb almost without resistance; and, as often before, my great Emperor appears as the protector of the weak and the avenger of wrongs.

It is a witty coincidence that the trireme which brought me here bears the name of _Nemesis_. Only one thing afflicts me much, that, with all my efforts, I have not succeeded in saving the unhappy daughter of Theodoric. I beg you, at least, to a.s.sure my mistress, the Empress, who was never very graciously disposed to me, that I tried most faithfully to obey all her injunctions concerning the Princess, whose fate she entrusted to me as her princ.i.p.al anxiety during our last interview. As to the question about Theodahad and Gothelindis, by whose a.s.sistance the Gothic Kingdom has been delivered into our hands, I will venture to recall to the Empress's memory the first rule of prudence: it is too dangerous to have the sharers of our profoundest secrets at court."

This letter Petros sent on in advance with the two bishops, Hypatius and Demetrius, who were to go immediately to Brundusium, and thence through Epid.a.m.nos by land to Byzantium.

He himself intended to follow in a few days, sailing slowly along the Gothic coasts of the Ionian Gulf, in order to prove the temper and excite the rebellion of the inhabitants of the harbour towns.

He would afterwards sail round the Peloponnesus and Eub[oe]a to Byzantium, for the Empress had ordered him to travel by sea, and had given him commissions for Athens and Lampsacus.

Before his departure from Ravenna, he already calculated the rewards he expected to receive at Byzantium for his successful operations in Italy.

He would return twice as rich as he had come, for he had never confessed to the Queen, Gothelindis, that he had come into the country with the order to overthrow Amalaswintha.

He had rather, for some time, met her with representations of the anger of the Empress and Emperor, and had, with great show of repugnance, allowed himself to be bribed with large sums to connive at her plans, when, actually, he but used her as his tool.

He looked forward with certainty to the proud rank of patrician in Byzantium, and already rejoiced that he would be able to meet his haughty cousin, Na.r.s.es--who had never used his influence to advance him--on equal terms.

"So everything has succeeded better than I could wish," he said to himself with great complacency, as he set his papers in order before leaving Ravenna, "and this time, my proud friend Cethegus, cunning has proved truly excellent. The little rhetorician from Thessalonica, with his small and stealthy steps, has advanced farther than you with your proud strides. Of one thing I must be careful: that Theodahad and Gothelindis do not escape to Byzantium; it would be too dangerous.

Perhaps the question of the astute Empress was intended as a warning.

This royal couple must be put out of our way."

Having completed his arrangements, Petros sent for the friend with whom he lodged, and took leave of him. At the same time he delivered to him a dark-coloured narrow vase, such as those which were used for the preservation of doc.u.ments; he sealed the cover with his ring, which was finely engraved with a scorpion, and wrote a name upon the wax-tablet appended to it.

"Seek this man," he said to his host, "at the next a.s.sembly of the Goths at Regeta, and give him the vase; the contents are his. Farewell.

You shall soon see me again in Ravenna."

He left the house with his slaves, and was soon on board the amba.s.sador's ship; filled with proud expectations, he was borne away by the _Nemesis_.

As his ship, many weeks after, neared the harbour of Byzantium--he had, at the Empress's wish, announced his speedy arrival at Lampsacus, by means of an imperial swift-sailer which was just leaving--Petros looked at the handsome country houses on the sh.o.r.e, which shone whitely from out of the evergreen shade of the surrounding gardens.

"Here you will live in future, amongst the senators of the Empire," he thought with great contentment.

Before they ran into the harbour, the _Thetis_, the splendid pleasure-boat of the Empress, flew towards them, and, as soon as she recognised the galley of the amba.s.sador, hoisted the purple standard, as a sign to lay to.

Very soon a messenger from the Empress came on board the galley. It was Alexandros, the former amba.s.sador to the court of Ravenna. He showed to the captain of the galley a writing from the Emperor, at which the captain appeared to be much startled; then he turned to Petros.

"In the name of the Emperor Justinian! You are condemned for life, convicted of long-practised forgery and embezzlement of the taxes, to the metal-works in the mines of Cherson, with the Ultra-Ziagirian Huns.

You have delivered the daughter of Theodoric into the hands of her enemies. The Emperor thought you excused when he read your letter; but the Empress, inconsolable for the death of her royal sister, revealed your former guilt to the Emperor, and a letter from the Prefect of Rome proved that you had secretly planned the murder of the Princess with Gothelindis. Your fortune is confiscated, and the Empress wishes you to recollect--" here he whispered into the ear of Petros, who was completely stunned and broken by this terrible blow--"that you yourself, in your letter, advised her to get rid of all the sharers of her secrets."

With this, Alexandros returned to the _Thetis_, but the _Nemesis_ turned her stern to Byzantium, and bore the criminal away for ever from all civilised community with mankind.

CHAPTER VIII.

We have lost sight of Cethegus ever since his departure for Rome.

During the events which we have described, he had been extremely active in that city, for he saw that things were coming to a crisis, and looked forward with confidence to a favourable result.

All Italy was united in hatred against the barbarians, and who could so well direct this hatred as the head of the conspiracy of the Catacombs, and the master of Rome?

For now he was so in fact. The legions were fully formed and equipped, and the fortifications of the city--the works of which had been carried on for the last few months night and day--were almost completed.

And, as he thought, he had finally succeeded preventing an immediate incursion of the Byzantine army into Italy, the greatest calamity which threatened his ambitious plans. He had learned, through trustworthy spies, that the Byzantine fleet--which, till now had been anch.o.r.ed off Sicily--had really left that island, and sailed towards the African coast, where seemed occupied in suppressing piracy.

Cethegus certainly foresaw that it would yet come to a landing of the Greeks in Italy; he could not do without their help. But it was material to his plans that the Emperor's a.s.sistance should be of secondary importance, and, to insure this, he must take care that, before a single Byzantine had set foot in Italy, a rebellion of the Italians should have taken place spontaneously, and have been already carried to such a point, that the later co-operation of the Greeks would appear to be a mere incident, and could be easily repaid by the acknowledgment of a light supremacy of the Emperor.

To this end he had prepared his plans with great nicety.

As soon as the last tower on the Roman walls was under roof, the Goths were to be attacked on one and the same day all over Italy, and, at one stroke, all the fortresses, castles, and towns--Rome, Ravenna, and Neapolis foremost--were to be overpowered and taken.

If the barbarians were once driven into the open country, there was no fear--considering their complete ignorance of the art of siege, and the number and strength of the Italian fortresses--that they would be able to take these last, and thereby again become masters of the peninsula.

Then an allied army from Byzantium might aid in finally driving the Goths over the Alps; and Cethegus was resolved to prevent these allies from entering the most important fortresses, so that, later, they also might be got rid of without difficulty.

To ensure the success of this plan, it was necessary that the Goths should be taken by surprise. If war with Byzantium were in prospect, or, still worse, already broken out, it naturally followed that the barbarians would not allow their fortified places to be wrested from them by a mere stroke of the hand.

Now as Cethegus--since he had penetrated the motives of the emba.s.sy of Petros--fully expected that Justinian would come forward at the first opportunity, and as he had barely succeeded in preventing the landing of Belisarius, he was resolved not to lose a moment's time.

He had arranged that a general meeting of the conspirators should take place in the Catacombs on the day of the completion of the Roman fortifications, when their successful termination should be celebrated, the moment of the attack on the Goths decided, and Cethegus himself designated as the leader of this purely Italian movement.

He hoped to overcome the opposition of the timorous or the bribed--who were inclined to act only for and with the a.s.sistance of Byzantium--by the enthusiasm of the Roman youth, whom he would promise to lead at once to battle.

Before the day of meeting arrived, he had heard the news of Amalaswintha's murder, and of the confusion and division of the Goths, and he impatiently longed for the crisis.

At length the last tower of the Aurelian Grate was completed. Cethegus himself gave the finishing stroke, and as he did so it seemed to him that he heard the sound of the blow which would liberate Rome and Italy.

At the banquet which he afterwards gave to thousands of labourers in the theatre of Pompey, most of the conspirators were present, and the Prefect made use of the opportunity to show them how unlimited was his popularity. Upon the younger members the impression which he wished and expected to make was produced, but a small party, headed by Silverius, retired from the tables with discontented and gloomy looks.

The priest had lately seen that Cethegus would not consent to be a mere tool, but that he contrived to carry out his own plans, which might prove extremely dangerous to the Church and to his (the priest's) personal influence. He was decided to overthrow his colleague as soon as he could be spared, and it had not been difficult for him to excite the jealousy of many Romans against Cethegus.

The wily archbishop had taken advantage of the presence of the two bishops from the Eastern Empire, Hypatius of Ephesus and Demetrius of Philippi--who secretly treated with the Pope in matters of faith, and with King Theodahad in affairs of policy--to enter into a close and secret alliance with Theodahad and Byzantium.

"You are right, Silverius," grumbled Scaevola, as they issued from the doors of the theatre, "the Prefect unites Marius and Caesar in one person."

"He does not throw away such immense sums for nothing," said the avaricious Albinus warningly; "we must not trust him too far."

"Beloved brethren," said the priest, "see that you do not lightly condemn a member of our community. Who should do this would be worthy of h.e.l.l-fire! Certainly Cethegus commands the fists of the workmen as well as the hearts of his young 'knights;' and it is well, for he can therewith break the tyranny----"