The Lion's Brood Part 11

"Do you beware, though, Varro," continued Sergius, "lest, in striving to attain power and place on the wings of calumny against those better than yourself, or by the suggestion of false grievances to those who are ignorant and weak, you may, by these things, incite one riot too many. Beware, above all things, lest you win."

Then, drawing his toga close, as if to avoid a contaminating touch, he strode by to join the approaching band of young men, leaving his opponent vicious to snarl, but powerless to bite.

After the usual greetings and inquiries concerning his health, they walked on together toward the Curtian Pool, and Sergius' thoughts took on a deeper colour from the despondent speech of his friends. That Varro would receive the votes of the centuries, beyond all doubt, was unanimously conceded; and so great was the dissatisfaction with Fabius, that their regret seemed only for the manner of the popular victory and the man who was to gain it. A few hot-heads dropped hints to the effect that it might become necessary to reorganize the patrician clubs and meet violence with violence, in which event there could be but little doubt as to the result; but the sentiment of the majority was adverse to such measures, and they viewed the possibilities with an indifference that to Sergius seemed even more ominous than the frenzy of the rabble and the worthlessness of its leaders. His attempts to defend the Fabian policy, speaking as one of its victims, were hopelessly thrown away. All Rome was mad for battle, even at the cost of sending the butcher's son to command the legions; and, two days later, the result of low chicanery and indifferent lethargy took shape.

The trumpet had summoned the army of the city to the Field of Mars, and century after century had entered the enclosure to cast its vote for Varro--for Varro alone, until no one of the n.o.ble candidates, who received the half-hearted support of their fellows, got even enough pebbles to be proclaimed elected to the second consulship. To Varro alone, cringing and insolent, was the oath administered; for Varro alone was the prayer put up; for Varro was the declaration twice made, according to the laws of the Republic, and into Varro's hands was placed the presidency over the a.s.sembly that was to elect his colleague.

Then followed an exhibition of plebeian cunning. There were among the supporters of the consul those who realized what he himself could not: his military incompetence and the terrible necessity that, at such a juncture, there should be at least one soldier-consul. Varro had won on his merits as self-announced, on the strength of his own arraignment of his adversaries' shortcomings. He stood forth the incarnation of party and cla.s.s hatred; and now the victors, half dazed by the very completeness of their triumph, paused in mid career to look for a soldier with whom the army might be entrusted. That he must be a n.o.ble, was self-evident. Even the rabble, now that its first outburst had pa.s.sed, was not so mad as to attribute military skill to any of its wordy leaders. The butcher's colleague must be a patrician, but he must be such a patrician as would cast reproach upon his cla.s.s, while he supplied the one quality requisite to the plebeian situation. To whose political ac.u.men first occurred the name of Lucius Aemilius Paullus, no one seemed to know; but, once suggested, there was none to deny its entire appropriateness. Paullus was a veteran of several wars, an experienced commander, a brave soldier; and there his merits ended. He had been brought to trial for misappropriation of the plunder taken in the Illyrian campaign, and, as many thought, acquitted by means as scandalous as the crime itself, while his less influential colleague suffered for both. Harsh and rude, no high-born Roman was less popular; and his exaggeration of cla.s.s insolence bade fair to offer him as an ill.u.s.tration, ready to the tongue of every demagogue, of what the people must always expect from patrician rule.

So, one by one, the five n.o.ble opponents of Varro were rejected, and the word went out that, of their enemies, the people would have Paullus and him alone.

XII.

BRAWLINGS.

More sick at heart, as he grew stronger in body, Sergius returned from the final voting in the Field of Mars. For some reason the popular party, sated with triumph, had permitted the election, as praetors, of good men who had experience in military affairs; perhaps that these might, together with Paullus, make surer the victory that was to redound to the honour of the darling of the mob and proclaim to all the Roman world the superiority of the butcher, Varro, over Fabius, the well-fathered.

As Sergius was borne along toward the Palatine district, he found the streets crowded with a populace he had hardly known to exist in the city. Down from the lofty tenements of the Aicus, up from the slums of the Suburra, the Gate of the Three Folds, and the Etruscan Street they poured, drunk with joy and with hatred of all men who wore white togas and had money to lend or lands to till. At each corner a denser throng was gathered around jugglers, tumblers, wrestlers that writhed over the road-way, actors who danced Etruscan pantomimes and carried their make-up in little bags slung around their necks, singers of medleys, and would-be popular poets who spouted coa.r.s.e epigrams and ribald satires levelled at the thieving, the effeminate, the adulterous patricians who thought to rule Rome and had named an Aemilius Paullus to stand beside and check the generous, the fearless, the incorruptible Varro. Threatening looks and words were cast at Sergius and the company of freedmen and clients that surrounded him, until he was not ill-pleased to see the escort of another n.o.ble issue from a side street and beat its way to where the exhausted bearers had set down the tribune's litter, pausing to gain breath before attempting to push on farther. When, however, he recognized in the st.u.r.dy old man who strode along in the midst of the new company, no more distant acquaintance than the father of Marcia, he was conscious of a strong revulsion.

Better the continued buffeting with an obstreperous mob than the embarra.s.sments he foresaw in such a rencontre; but it was too late to avoid it: the interests and perils of the two parties were too nearly identical, and he heard the gruff voice of his old friend crying out:--

"Back, exercisers of the whip! Back, colonizers of chains! To the cross with you all! Is this Animula or Rome, where rude clowns do not recognize their betters?" Then, for the first time, perceiving Sergius: "Greeting to you, my Lucius! May the G.o.ds favour you better than they have the Republic this day."

At that moment, a big, hulking fellow thrust himself forward in the path of the advancing patrician and hiccoughed out:--

"May you meet with a plague, master! Truly there are to be no betters or worsers in Rome--now that the n.o.ble Varro is consul and--"

The staff of Torquatus felled him to the ground, where he lay shuddering and drawing up his legs, while a yell of rage and menace broke from the crowd. Scarcely changing a line in his grim face, the old man calmly trussed the folds of his toga about his left arm, freed his right more fully, and drew a stylus of such size as to suggest a dagger much more than an instrument for writing: such a weapon as was born of the election brawls of earlier days, innocent under the law, yet equally efficient as pen or sword.

Daunted at his aspect, the foremost a.s.sailants held back.

"Are there not more vinegar drinkers that wish to learn from an old Roman the manners of old Rome?" asked Torquatus, sneeringly.

How the fight, once begun, would have ended seemed hardly uncertain, for the crowd filled all the neighbouring streets: half were drunk, and nearly half were provided with arms of some sort, many of them such as were warranted by no pretext of law, save the knowledge that Varro was consul, and the belief that he would protect his adherents in whatever breach might please them. The dangerous front of Torquatus and his company might have sufficed to check those who would have to lead a rush, but they, unfortunately, had the least to say on the subject of giving battle. Already the mobs, pouring in from the side streets at the first scent of a brawl, were pushing the forlorn hope, all unwilling, to its fate; three or four had already gone down with broken heads, and a freedman of Torquatus had been stabbed in the side, when, above the tumult, rose a voice crying:--

"Make way for the Consul, Paullus! Way! way!"

The matter, truly, was becoming serious, thought the outskirts of the mob--all of them who could hear the shout. A brush with the fiercest, the most hated, the most hating aristocrat that had been borne behind the fasces for many a year, would mean punishment with a heavy hand.

The pressure was at once relieved, and though those in front saw no sign of consul or lictor--saw only Sergius who had descended from his litter and was leading his company in a vigorous attack--yet they were, for the most part, only too glad to escape from the glaring eyes of t.i.tus Manlius and the broad sweep of his weapon. The old man was puffing hard from the unwonted exertion when Sergius reached his side through the fast-scattering a.s.sailants.

"The G.o.ds have punished my blasphemy with kindness," began Torquatus, "in sending my Lord Paullus in such timely fashion."

"Say, rather, my father, in sending his name into the mind of one Lucius Sergius," said Sergius, laughing.

For a moment the other frowned with a puzzled look; then his face cleared, with as close an approach to a smile as it could wear.

"And our rescue is not due to the consul, then?" he asked, still slow to fully grasp the ruse.

"To the consul's name and to the favouring cunning of Mercury," said Sergius, bowing.

"Truly, you should command," exclaimed Torquatus. "A general so ready in craft as you are might hope to match the African--and, by the G.o.ds!

no one else seems able to. Come, let us go on to my house."

Though harshly said, and in tones that one less acquainted with the speaker might well have mistaken for sarcasm, Sergius knew that the compliment was genuine. The aged patrician had turned and strode away, as he finished speaking, and etiquette left to the younger man no choice but to pay to the elder the reverence of his escort. That he had asked what he might well have looked for as a matter of course, was something of a condescension, according to the strict ceremoniousness of the ancient usage; therefore Sergius hurried on and overtook him, offering his litter, at which the other sniffed contemptuously.

"May the G.o.ds grant me to lie at rest by the Appian Way, before I require such feet!" Then, as his sharp eyes noted the flush upon Sergius' face, he added: "Fever, wounds, and death may pardon effeminacy; and, truly, I would beg you to accompany me as you came, were it not that a climb up the Palatine should bring new health to one who could run ten miles with a broken shoulder. Believe me, my friend, the dictator thought better of you than he spoke, and would have regretted the axe. Jupiter grant that it be yours to justify his opinion!"

No stimulant could have given such strength to the convalescent as did these words, and from such a source. The dictator had not condemned, then; he had even spoken well of him. The knowledge of it put to flight the embarra.s.sment he had felt when he realized that he was going perforce to Marcia's house--perhaps into her presence; and he found himself standing straighter and stepping out with longer and bolder strides.

"Good words are better than bad ones for a good man," mused Torquatus, wagging his head sententiously, and darting at his companion a comprehensive glance, behind which lurked a grim smile. "If women could ever learn as much, they might govern us the more readily--which the G.o.ds forefend! as I doubt not they will."

Then the company halted. It was many months since Sergius had stood before that door, and he could not, without grave discourtesy, refuse the invitation to enter. Well, what mattered it? Marcia cared nothing; why should he? Then, too, the stimulus of the dictator's approval was still upon him, as the warning cry of the porter bade those nearest stand back while the door swung out. Most of the party took their leave here, but several followed into the atrium for adieus more appropriate to their station.

At last all had departed save Sergius, who, having given orders that his attendants should await him in the street, pa.s.sed on into the peristyle with his host.

There, beside the fountain, spinning, as he had so often seen her--as he had seen her through all the days and nights of the campaign--sat the lady Marcia. Two of her maidens were a.s.sisting: one who glanced up at Sergius and smiled tauntingly; and another who turned her face away, and seemed to be trying to hide it in the close inspection of a great bunch of fleece. But both the forwardness of the one and the bashfulness of the other were wasted upon the visitor. As a matter of fact, he was so lost in wonder at his courage and self-control as to be well past observing the idiosyncrasies of slaves; and, if his own att.i.tude was acceptable, even to himself, his admiration for that of his hostess amounted to absolute bitterness. That she, a mere girl, should rise and come forward with so conventional yet friendly a greeting, that neither her lip should tremble nor her cheek flush, was little short of intolerable. Nevertheless it helped to brace his own resolves yet more firmly. Such poise, after all that had been between them, could have its source only in the most absolute indifference.

"Health to the n.o.ble Lucius! Let him believe that there is no one of his friends who thanks the G.o.ds more fervently for his recovery."

On its face the speech was cordial--much too cordial for love that has quarrelled; therefore he bent his head and answered:--

"Were it not impiety, the n.o.ble Lucius would thank his well-wisher for her words, more, even, than he thanks the G.o.ds for his recovery."

"Ah!" she replied lightly, "then he must scatter his thanks yet more broadly, for there cannot be a defenceless woman in Rome who does not rejoice that so brave a defender is spared to the State."

Sarcasm for sarcasm, he thought bitterly, but he answered as carelessly:--

"In that case, I shall not bear my thanks beyond the G.o.ds; for if my health be no greater care to you than to all the white stoles in the city, I think I can measure its value."

An expression of almost infantile surprise and reproach crossed her features.

"You are either very forgetful or very ungrateful," she said. "If Venus has healed so faithful a votary, surely mortal women have not been lacking in their sympathy; nor, if report tells truly, has the n.o.ble Lucius been lacking in grat.i.tude--until now."

That shaft struck home, and, for a moment, Sergius could find no answer. He could only remember the episode of the girl who had come to him, and wonder which one of his household could have borne treacherous word to Marcia of his weakness and his discomfiture. Meanwhile she had turned carelessly and dismissed her women, and one had gone, throwing back laughing glances, the other, with her face still buried in the wool with which she had filled her arms.

Torquatus had been standing near, somewhat puzzled by what he felt to be a battle of words between his daughter and his guest, but a battle whose plans of attack or defence he found himself at a loss to fathom.

Feeling at last that it was inc.u.mbent upon him as host to break in upon badinage that bade fair to become embarra.s.sing, he spoke briefly of his encounter with the mob and of Lucius' timely aid and clever ruse.

Marcia listened closely, nodding her head from time to time, but her colour had deepened and her hand was clenched tight when the story was finished.

"Who will be safe in Rome, father!" she burst out. "The rabble elect their magistrates, and the magistrates, in return, let them do as they please. When it comes to attacking you; a consular--a Manlius! We must sleep no more in our houses unless the household be in arms and on guard."

Sergius gazed in astonishment. A Marcia spoke whom he had never known; but the old man smiled grimly.

"It is the blood," he said. "She is truly 'Manlia,' though called, against custom, for my dead Marcius. When Claudians change the toga for the paludamentum, and Ogulnians cease to babble of Greek philosophy, then shall a Manlian be lacking in the spirit of our order--ay, and in the courage to act."

Marcia did not seem to hear his words. Her brows were drawn together in what Sergius considered a very pretty frown. She turned toward him.