Caesar Dies Part 17

"If I should do it?"

"That would be the end of you, my s.e.xtus."

"Let us say farewell, then, Galen! This right hand shall do it. It will save my friends. It will provide a culprit on whom Pertinax may lay the blame. He will ascend the throne unguilty of his predecessor's blood-"

"And you?" asked Galen.

"I will take my own life. I will gladly die when I have ridded Rome of Commodus."

He paused, awaiting a reply, but Galen appeared almost rudely unconcerned.

"You will not say farewell?"

"It is too soon," Galen answered, folding up his powder in a sheet of parchment, tying it, at great pains to arrange the package neatly.

"Will you not wish me success?"

"That is something, my s.e.xtus, that I have no powders for. I have occasionally cured men. I can set most kinds of fractures with considerable skill, old though I am. And I can divert a man's attention sometimes, so that he lets nature heal him of mysterious diseases. But success is something you have already wished for and have already made or unmade. What you did, my s.e.xtus, is the scaffolding of what you do now; this, in turn, of what you will do next. I gave you my advice. I bade you run away-in which case I would bid you farewell, but not otherwise."

"I will not run."

"I heard you."

"And you said you are sentimental, Galen!"

"I have proved it to you. If I were not, I myself would run!"

Galen led the way out of the room into the hall where the mosaic floor and plastered walls presented colored temple scenes-priests burning incense at the shrine of Aesculapius, the sick and maimed arriving and the cured departing, giving praise.

"There will be no hero left in Rome when they have slain our Roman Hercules," said Galen. "He has been a triton in a pond of minnows. You and I and all the other little men may not regret him afterward, since heroes, and particularly mad ones, are not madly loved. But we will not enjoy the rivalry of minnows."

He led s.e.xtus to the porch and stood there for a minute holding to his arm.

"There will be no rivals who will dare to raise their heads," said s.e.xtus, "once our Pertinax has made his bid for power."

"But he will not," Galen answered. "He will hesitate and let others do the bidding. Too many scruples! He who would govern an empire might better have fetters on feet and hands! Now go. But go not to the palace if you hope to see a heroism-or tomorrow's dawn!"

XII.-LONG LIVE CAESAR!

That night it rained. The wind blew yelling squalls along the streets. At intervals the din of hail on cobble-stones and roofs became a stinging sea of sound. The wavering oil lanterns died out one by one and left the streets in darkness in which now and then a slave-borne litter labored like a boat caught spreading too much sail. The overloaded sewers backed up and made pools of foulness, difficult to ford. Along the Tiber banks there was panic where the river-boats were plunging and breaking adrift on the rising flood and miserable, drenched slaves labored with the bales of merchandize, hauling the threatened stuff to higher ground.

But the noisiest, dismalest place was the palace, the heart of all Rome, where the rain and hail dinned down on marble. There was havoc in the clumps of ornamental trees-crashing of pots blown down from balconies- thunder of rent awnings and the splashing of countless cataracts where overloaded gutters spilled their surplus on mosaic pavement fifty or a hundred feet below. No light showed, saving at the guard-house by the main gate, where a group of sentries shrugged themselves against the wall-ill-tempered, shivering, alert. However mutinous a Roman army, or a legion, or a guard might be, its individuals were loyal to the routine work of military duty.

A decurion stepped out beneath a splashing arch, the lamplight gleaming on his wetted bronze and crimson.

"Narcissus? Yes, I recognize you. Who is this?" Narcissus and s.e.xtus were shrouded in loose, hooded cloaks of raw wool, under which they hugged a change of footgear. s.e.xtus had his face well covered. Narcissus pushed him forward under the guard-room arch, out of the rain.

"This is a man from Antioch, whom Caesar told me to present to him," he said. "I know him well. His names is Marius."

"I have no orders to admit a man of that name." Narcissus waxed confidential.

"Do you wish to get both of us into trouble?" he asked. "You know Caesar's way. He said bring him and forgot, I suppose, to tell his secretary to write the order for admission. Tonight he will remember my speaking to him about this expert with a javelin, and if I have to tell him-"

"Speak with the centurion."

The decurion beckoned them into the guard-house, where a fire burned in a bronze tripod, casting a warm glow on walls hung with shields and weapons. A centurion, munching oily seed and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, came out of an inner office. He was not the type that had made Roman arms invincible. He lacked the self-reliant dignity of an old campaigner, subst.i.tuting for it self-a.s.sertiveness and flashy manners. He was annoyed because he could not get the seed out of his mouth with his finger in time to look aristocratic.

"What now, Narcissus? By Bacchus, no! No irregularities tonight! The very G.o.ds themselves are imitating Caesar's ill-humor! Who is it you have brought?"

Narcissus beckoned the centurion toward the corner, between fire and wall, where he could whisper without risk of being overheard.

"Marcia told me to bring this man tonight in hope of making Caesar change his mood. He is a javelin-thrower-an expert."

"Has he a javelin under the cloak?" the centurion asked suspiciously.

"He is unarmed, of course. Do you take us for madmen?"

"All Rome is mad tonight," said the centurion, "or I wouldn't be arguing with a gladiator! Tell me what you know. A sentry said you saw the death of Pavonius Nasor. All the sentries who were in the tunnel at the time are under lock and key, and I expect to be ordered to have the poor devils killed to silence them. And now Bultius Livius-have you heard about it?"

"I have heard Caesar sent for him."

"Well, if Caesar has sent for this friend of yours, he had better first made sacrifices to his G.o.ds and pray for something better than befell poor Livius! Yourself too! They say Livius is being racked-doubtless to make him tell more than he knows. I smell panic in the air. With all these palace slaves coming and going you can't check rumor and I'll wager there is already an exodus from Rome. G.o.ds! What a night for travel! Morning will see the country roads all choked with the conveyances of bogged up senators! Let us pray this friend of yours may soften Caesar's mood. Where is his admission paper?"

"As I told the decurion, I have none."

"That settles it then; he can't enter. No risks-not when I know the mood our Commodus is in! The commander might take the responsibility, but not I."

"Where is he?" asked Narcissus.

"Where any lucky fellow is on such a night-in bed. I wouldn't dare to send for him for less than riots, mutiny and all Rome burning! Let your man wait here. Go you into the palace and get a written permit for him."

But nothing was more probable than that such a permit would be un.o.btainable.

s.e.xtus stepped into the firelight, pulling back the hood to let the centurion see his face.

"By Mars' red plume! Are you the man they call Maternus?"

s.e.xtus retorted with a challenge:

"Now will you send for your commander? He knows me well."

"Dioscuri! Doubtless! Probably you robbed him of his purse! By Romulus and Remus, what is happening to Rome? That falling star last night portended, did it, that a highwayman should dare to try to enter Caesar's palace! Ho there, decurion! Bring four men!"

The decurion clanked in. His men surrounded s.e.xtus at a gesture.

"I ought to put you both in cells," said the centurion. "But you shall have a chance to justify yourself, Narcissus. Go on in. Bring Caesar's written order to release this man Maternus-if you can!"

Narcissus, like all gladiators, had been trained in facial control lest an antagonist should be forewarned by his expression. Nevertheless, he was hard put to it to hide the fear that seized him. He supposed not even Marcia would dare openly to come to s.e.xtus' rescue.

"That man is my only friend," he said. "Let me have word with him first."

"Not one word!"