Nicanor - Teller of Tales Part 12

"I have won a man!" she said, and her voice was slow and haunting. "Body and soul I have won him; he is mine for all time to come, to do with as I will. I am a fool, but I have done this thing, and I think--" She stopped, and her voice changed and grew scornful--"I think it is but a little thing to do!"

Eudemius stared at her.

"Thou hast--" he whispered, and moistened his lips with a dry tongue.

"Say that again, girl! Thou hast--Is this thy raving? Nay, tell me, who is the man?"

But another mood was on Varia. She laughed, like a rippling brook.

"He hath no name!" she said merrily. "No name--nothing; for he is nothing! He comes in the clouds and in the storms and in the moonlight, and whispers strange things which none may hear but I. His voice is the wind and his words are the rustle of the leaves, and his speech is golden as flame; and oh, the tales he hath told to me!"

Eudemius laughed shortly.

"At first I even thought--" he muttered, and broke off. "Child, are thy women always with thee?"

"Ay, save at night. I sleep alone," said Varia.

Eudemius poured wine from the silver pitcher and drank it. Outside, the rain was falling with a gentle dripping. The thunder had died; the breeze, cooler, came laden with damp earthy smells. Varia went to the window and knelt beside it, leaning out into the warm darkness. Her father's eyes followed her. But if Varia's mood had changed, his was not to be shaken off so lightly. He sat down on the couch, wiping his forehead free from sweat. Here, he was close enough to touch her, and he drew her back from the window so that she leaned against the couch and his knee.

"Varia," he said, moved by an impulse born of what had gone before, "dost love thy father?"

"Nay," said Varia, simply. "Why should I, my lord?"

"True," said Eudemius. "Why shouldst thou?"

Varia leaned her elbows on his knee, looking up at him with her chin on her hands. Her att.i.tude held the frank fearlessness of a child.

"Does my lord father love me?" she asked, and smiled up at him.

Something within him warned Eudemius to honesty.

"Nay, Varia," he said gently, and put a hand on her dark soft hair. "Thy father hath never loved thee."

Varia suddenly rested her cheek against his other hand.

"Poor father!" she murmured, as though he were somehow deserving of all sympathy for this, "Didst ever wish that I had not been born?"

"Ay," said Eudemius, still gently. "I have wished that."

Varia considered a long moment, and he knew that her eyes were on him.

"Why was I born?" she asked.

Eudemius turned his head away.

"Because thy mother loved me," he said, low and harshly.

"Because--my mother--loved thee!" Varia repeated. "Now that is strange!

Did ever any one love thee?"

Eudemius started. Then he laughed.

"_Habet!_" he exclaimed, in the language of the arena when a gladiator is down; and laughed again. "Ay, child; once one loved me, and once I loved. Thou canst not credit such softness in me? Well, I do not blame thee; but it is truth."

"I believe," said Varia, "for thou hast told me truth before, to-night.

If thou hadst said my father loved me, I should never have believed thy word again, but thou gavest me truth for the truth I gave to thee. I am a fool, and sometimes it is given to fools to know the truth."

"And therein to be wiser than the sane," Eudemius muttered. "And that is truth also." He looked at her a moment with something awakened in his face.

"Is there a change then, after all, in thee?" he said suddenly, deep in thought and study of her face. "Thrice to-night hast thou said what I did not understand, and never thought to hear thee say. Can it be that sometime in the future the dawn will break?"

Varia looked at him in her turn, a curious sidelong glance. In the dim light her face all at once showed strange to him, as occasionally one will see a well-known face in a new aspect--pale, with scarlet mouth and long veiled eyes. "Thou art something besides the child I've known; though whether that thing be good or evil--" His speech died; he gazed at her as though he would pierce the mystery which shrouded her and learn what it was that made her alien, forgetting to finish his words.

"There is a change, and I cannot fathom it. What is working in thee? Or is it the delusion of mine own imaginings? Thy face--thy eyes--have they changed also? Mine own imaginings--vain imaginings! What is there in thy life which could have changed thee? Ah, if but these next months might see thee still more changed!"

Varia rose from her knees beside him.

"Why should I be changed?" she asked. "And why wouldst have me changed?

I am happy--I have been happy as I am. If the joy of life is not mine, as thou hast said so often, the sorrow of life is not mine either; and I do not wish to change!" Her voice grew and gathered pa.s.sion. "I fear to change, for I know not what the change might bring. I do not understand.

Oh, father--do not wish that I should change!"

She took a step toward him with outstretched, appealing hands. Eudemius watched her with critical eyes.

But even as he watched, his own face changed and went gray, and he caught his breath and put a hand against his side. His body stiffened and grew rigid, while at the same time long shudders ran through it, dumb protest of tortured nerves against what was in store for it and them.

"Go for Claudius!" Eudemius gasped; and Varia turned and ran. Eudemius flung himself back on the couch and lay there, striving with all his iron will to hold the convulsions in check. But he began to writhe, terribly, with no sound but the whistling of his breath through locked jaws. His hand, outflung, touched the cup that glowed like a ruby on the stand beside the couch. He clutched it, and crushed its fragile beauty into atoms; and blood dripped with the wine upon the floor.

A torch gleamed outside the door, and hasty feet came running. Claudius, the physician, entered, very old, very small, with silver hair and beard that was like a snow-drift, followed by two slaves with lights and instruments. They lighted all the lamps, so that the room was bright as noon; and Claudius took from them what he wanted, and sent them both away. Then he rolled his sleeves above his elbows, and went to the couch where the silent figure lay twisting; and as he went he tucked his long white beard inside the collar of his gown.

III

But the plans of Marius did not fall out as he had intended. It was a month before he returned to the villa, with the prospect of remaining on British soil until another galley could be fitted out and commissioned.

This was exasperating, and Marius fumed secretly and swore at the delay.

Thinking to make the best of his enforced idleness by betaking himself to Aquae Solis, the fashionable watering-place of Britain, and what solace he could find there, he found himself again disappointed. The leave he applied for was granted, but as he was starting upon his journey, word was brought to him that his father was ill. He found it nothing serious, but Livinius, grown querulous and childish in his fever, begged Marius not to leave him. So, perforce, Marius stayed, contenting himself with boar-hunting in Eudemius's vast parks, and being entertained by his host.

Eudemius, seemingly unchanged since his illness, had not forgotten that the young tribune's eyes had once looked with favor on his daughter. And since love, like life, is but a game, and much may be done by a player who handles his p.a.w.ns wisely, Eudemius began to conjure up hopes which, in spite of himself, he knew might never see fulfilment. The more he saw of Marius, the more he coveted his strength to prop his dying house. His fortune would be safe in Marius's hands, his name would be safe in Marius's keeping. For with all his faults Marius had a soldier's honor, and could guard what was given to his charge. Forthwith, then, Eudemius began to lay silent plans; to scheme indirectly, with cautious skill. It was a new game for him; he went about it much as one ruler who seeks alliance, for political ends, with a neighboring kingdom. He was entirely consistent in his course; no thought of his daughter's desires or wishes moved him--even no thought as to whether or not she had desires or wishes on the subject. Nor did he consider the personal inclinations of Marius himself. The alliance would mean much for him, saving only for one thing--a thing which yet might override all advantages. This was where Eudemius considered all his skill and finesse would be needed.

At first Eudemius mentioned this, the desire of his heart, to no living soul. He took Marius with him over his estates on his tours of inspection, tours become unexpectedly frequent; he took pains to have him present when overseers came with long tax-lists and rent-rolls to render account to their lord. Marius saw himself surrounded with every luxury art could devise and skill could execute, not as though brought forth for some occasion, but quite plainly in everyday use and service.

Life, eased for him from all exertion by the unseen hands of many slaves, became a dream of indolence and content. Horses, grooms, slaves, were at his disposal; no wish of his, however lightly uttered, but was unostentatiously fulfilled. In the midst of all this he was left with no sense that it was done with a view to impress upon him the magnificence of the villa and the villa's lord. He took it as he was intended to take it, and as it was, as a matter of course, since all his life he had been accustomed to wealth and the luxury it might bring. And, being so accustomed, he was able to appreciate justly the amount of money it must take to maintain such an establishment in such a style. He listened to the reports of overseers and stewards, all unaware that he was meant to do so; by degrees his own and his father's fortunes came to seem by contrast mean and small. He fell readily enough into ways which, reasonable for Eudemius, were extravagant for him. But, in spite of his inclinations toward the life sybaritic, it was plain that he had no intention of getting himself in debt to Eudemius in any shape or form.

When Eudemius judged the time to be ripe, he brought Varia upon the scene. This he did after his own fashion, studying carefully each effect that she should make, with an artist's eye and a mind that would stop at no subterfuge to gain its end.

Livinius was convalescent, though still weak and unable to leave his bed, when Eudemius went upon a day to his apartments and was admitted.

Livinius lay in bed, looking gentler and frailer than of old, with a slave reading to him from the _De ira_ of Seneca. He signed to the latter to leave, and held out a hand to his friend.

"Sit by me here, if you will," he said. "I have much to ask, and, I doubt not, you to tell. That worthy physician of yours is dumb as any oyster. Were it not for my boy bringing me sc.r.a.ps of news now and again, I should indeed feel out of touch with the world."

Eudemius seated himself beside the bed, his back, as usual, to the light.

"The world wags to its own appointed end," he said carelessly. "Have you heard, then, that Rome has again refused to send troops to our aid?

Verily, Britain is left to struggle with her independence like a dog with a bone too large for it. There is but a sorry time in store for us, if present indications point aright. You have asked me often to go back with you to Rome, and I have been long considering it. But Rome has twenty strong men where Britain has one, and I think that my place is here. To my mind, the people of the land, seeing those in power withdrawing, and not knowing what to do of themselves, will turn like sheep to any who will stand by them. Why, man, if one played his game with skill in this coming crisis, and kept from joining in the panic into which others have flung themselves headlong, he might make his power here little short of absolute, and reap his reward when Rome has settled her affairs and the storm has blown over. One might become a second Carausius, another Constantine. Already, since the troops of aetius have gone, folk believe they hear that endless storm muttering again in the West and South, and tell tales of new invasions of Jutes and Saxons. It is a fact also that merchants going north require a double bonus on the goods they take. What Britain will do without the hand to hold to which has led her for so long, is a question which no man can answer and all men ask. But these be weighty topics to concern a sickroom, and I have other matters to discuss with thee."