The Lion's Brood Part 21

So frank a question, so different from all that had been told of the more than Oriental craft of the Carthaginians, and one that went so straight to the motive of her presence, threw Marcia into some confusion. Calavius noticed it, and, fearing lest she might say something to do away with the impression of her former tact, he came to the rescue.

"Surely we shall not insult my Lord Bacchus by a council of war in his presence?" but Hannibal waved his hand toward him and looked fixedly at Marcia.

"G.o.ddesses may speak on all subjects, at all times; and the G.o.ds smile."

"That my words," she began, with eyes still cast down, "were deemed worthy to be borne to my Lord, is too much honour. That he should deem them worthy of thought, is beyond the dream of mere woman." Then, glancing up and smiling wistfully into his face, she went on: "Know, that whatever of judgment born of knowledge of the place and the men has come to me, a girl,--that and more is for the service of the great general of Carthage,--the benignant liberator of Italy."

"Why do you advise delay?" asked Hannibal again, and the eyes of Maharbal glittered, as he leaned over from the other table. "There are those who say I have delayed too long already."

"For this," replied Marcia, boldly; "that you may save your soldiers and your allies; that they may lie in rest and luxury, and that, ere springtime, the cities of the Latin Name, yes, truly, and the very rabble of Rome, shall come to you on their knees for leave to bear the horseheads along the Sacred Way, up the Capitoline slope--"

"If in the spring, why not now?"

Maharbal and Hannibal-the-Fighter made a clucking sound of a.s.sent; Hasdrubal and the other guests seemed indifferent, but the Capuans were hanging on Marcia's words.

"Because the time is not ripe--" she began.

"Words!" cried her questioner, cutting off her speech; "I asked, _why_?"

Frightened at his vehemence, but put to it of necessity, she answered:--

"Because there are strifes and bickerings--at Rome--throughout the Latin Name--that must soon bear fruit of civil strife. The n.o.bles grind and hold to their privileges; the commons serve and starve and look to Carthage for aid. How shall these things grow better, while you hold the garden of Italy--while the Greeks of the south and the Samnites and the men of the soil gather behind you on one side, and the Gauls and Etruscans muster in the north? The water is eating at the mole; soon the waves will lash up and sweep it from its foundations."

Hannibal eyed her closely for a moment. Then he said: "There are those at Rome and among the Latin Name who tell me otherwise. They are good men, and they know. Perhaps I have been even too cautious. You are young and beautiful. Hold fast to matters suited to youth and beauty, and leave the conduct of wars and statecraft to men." Turning to Stenius, he went on, "If this Leucadian wine of yours, my Stenius, were let into the veins of those who lie dead at Cannae, they would be fit to rise and do battle again."

Stenius bowed and smiled; Marcia grew red and then pale with shame and vexation, seeing how her plots were like to fall and crush her; but, at this moment, the voice of Hannibal-the-Fighter rose from the other table. Flushed with wine, he was boasting of his slain. "Four at Trebia," he cried out, "seven at Trasimenus, eighteen at Cannae--but all men. It is better to slay the wolves' whelps, if only to teach women that it is no longer wise to bring forth Romans. I--I who speak have already killed eleven boys--ah! but you must wait till we enter Rome. Then will be the day when they shall build new cities in Hades!"

The Carthaginians heard him with indifference; the Capuans, all save Perolla, applauded nervously; and Marcia grew sick at heart and mad with a rage that could almost have strangled the giant as he reclined.

"And now," began Ninius, mildly, when there was a moment's silence, "that we may the better enjoy what is to come, there are baths and attendants; and the red feather will make way for new feastings at the end of two hours."

Slaves had run in to a.s.sist the diners from their couches; the Capuans, with dreams of relief, refreshment, and re-repletion; the Carthaginians, bored, but striving to be polite and to follow the customs of their entertainers. Even Hannibal, while his smile was half a frown, permitted himself to be led away.

Filled with disgust and despair, Marcia felt herself all unfit to begin a new revel--one that was to be made possible by loathsome practices, as yet unknown at Rome, and which bade fair to end in aimless and hideous debauchery. The women were but warming to their part, when the summons of Stenius Ninius had proclaimed a truce with Bacchus and Venus--a truce with promise of more deadly battle to be joined. She had seen glances hot with wine and l.u.s.t, claspings of hands, loosened cyclas, and more lascivious reclinings. The gloomy Perolla had yielded a little to the soft influences, and even Hannibal seemed to force himself to toying, if only in the name of courtesy; while, through it all, and more and more as the light of day advanced, Marcia felt the eyes of Iddilcar, priest of Melkarth, burning into her soul. He at least gave no heed to nearer blandishments, and terror and loathing filled her in equal measure.

A faintness--a sudden weakness born of her recent journey--served for excuse, which Calavius seemed not unwilling to voice, and, surrounded by a guard of slaves, her litter bore her back to his house, through streets littered with drunken men and fluctuant with the figured robes of courtesans.

VI.

ALLIES.

Night had come again, before Marcia could arouse herself from the deep sleep with which exhaustion of mind and body had overwhelmed her. She remembered the scenes of the banquet as the phantasms of a dream--strange and terrible; for her thoughts were slow to gather the threads and weave the woof. Only a feeling of failure, of fruitless abas.e.m.e.nt, was ever present. Hannibal had admired her, but, proof against any controlling attraction, he had put her words aside with little short of contempt. A dread, even, lest the strange ac.u.men of this wonderful man had pierced her mask, and that her very motive and mission were already suspected, was not lacking to add dismay to discouragement. Such thoughts were but wretched company, and they brought with them a vague conception of her own vain egotism in imagining the possibility of other outcome. She tried to sleep again, but could not. What mattered it though, by some shifting of hours, her day had become night and her night day! She must arise and talk with some one, if it were only the host whom she so heartily despised.

Attendants entered at her summons, and the refreshment of the bath and the labour of the toilet were once more pa.s.sed through. Then, dismissing the slaves, she walked out alone into the garden and sat down on a softly cushioned seat of carved marble. A fountain plashed soothingly in the foliage near by, the stars were shining again, while, from without, the jarring sounds of the city came to her ears.

How long she sat, awake yet thinking of nothing, dull and dazed, she could not tell. Then she was aroused by a sandalled step upon the pavement. A man was standing before her, whose face, despite its youthful contours, was deep-lined and melancholy. He was short of stature and slenderly though gracefully built, and his black curls cl.u.s.tered over brow and eyes that seemed rather those of a poet or a dreamer than of a man of action. In the sombre, dark blue garments of mourning, without ornaments or jewels, so different from the gay banqueting robes in which she had last seen him, Marcia gazed a moment, before she recognized Perolla, the son of Pacuvius.

"You are not pretty to-night, Scylla," he said tauntingly, "though you left us early. There are dark circles under the eyes that looked kindly at the enemy of your country."

Marcia flushed crimson, and he went on: "Yes; I watched you smiling and ogling, but it will take greater traitors than you to snare him. He is like Minos, in that he did not reach out to take from your hands the purple lock shorn from your father's head: he is not like him otherwise: he is not just, and he will not give honourable terms."

"You, at least, are faithful to Rome?" said Marcia, slowly, and ignoring his insults.

"Can you ask?" he answered; "is it that you wish to betray me? Well, then, know truly that I have betrayed myself to your heart's content.

Do you not see the mourning garments I wear for my city's faithlessness and for her coming ruin? Have you not heard how my father dragged me from the side of Decius Magius in the market place that I might attend the banquet?--ah! but you have not heard how I had planned to startle them all."

Marcia began to wonder whether she was talking with a madman.

"Shall I tell?"

She made a sign of a.s.sent.

"It was toward evening--they have but just risen from the tables now.

Then, it was to seek the red feathers for the third time; but I led my father back among the rose bushes and showed him a sword which I had girt to my side, beneath my tunic. 'This,' said I, 'shall win us pardon from Rome. Look you, when we return, I will plunge it into the Carthaginian's breast.'"

Marcia bent forward eagerly.

"And then," he went on, "my father bound my arms to my sides, with his own around me, and wept and talked of our recent pledges to these foreigners. 'Can they outweigh our ancient pledges to Rome?' I answered. So he pleaded how the attendants would surely cut me down, and mentioned Hannibal's look, which he affirmed I would not be able to confront; but I laughed and made little of these things. Then he spoke of the hospitable board, which I admitted had something of reason; and, finally, when he had declared that the sword must reach Hannibal only through his own breast, then, at last, from filial duty, mark you, I threw the weapon from me, telling him that he had betrayed his country thrice: in revolting from Rome, in allying with foreigners, and, now, in turning aside the instrument of escape. Then we returned to the banquet, but my father trembled, and ate and drank no more. There, now, is a story to tell your city's destroyer. If you betray me, perhaps he may yet love you."

Marcia viewed him sternly.

"Truly your father was right, when he said you were ill in mind."

"Yes, ill in mind and in heart."

"How, then, do you not recognize one whose heart is sicker than your own?"

Perolla looked at her inquiringly, and she went on:--

"You have a city that has been false to itself, and is in danger of punishment--a father, too, if you will. _My_ city has already suffered every evil but destruction: my brother and he to whom Juno was about to lead me have been killed by these pulse-eaters. Are such things the benefits that go to make friendship and love for the slayers? Say, rather, hate and the craving for revenge."

"Yes," said Perolla, moodily; "they are indeed evils, but less than mine, in that they are pa.s.sed--"

"And is Rome safe, do you think?" she asked quickly.

"Rome will conquer," he said doggedly, "unless there be many more traitors like you."

"Fool!" she cried, grasping his wrist. "Can you not see--you who claim to be a philosopher and to have Greek blood?--you, at least, should have understood my words."

He gazed at her vacantly, and she began to regret her vehemence. It came to her mind that this was not altogether a safe man to trust with her secret. Faithful he was, no doubt; but a fool might be even more dangerous than a traitor. Still, she had said too much to be silent, and she felt the need of some ally to whom she could talk--upon whom she could at least pretend to lean when the weight of her burden was heaviest.

"I have told you what I have lost--what I dread to lose. Now learn what I am here to gain. For many days after the black news of Cannae, I heard them talking in my father's house--talking of the advance of the insolent victors and of the paltry defence we could oppose, the certain destruction that awaited us. Still they were brave--old men and boys. The soldiers were dead, but we set to work training new--shaping them alike out of youth and age and bondmen; and the slayers of our citizens delayed, and we gained strength and courage.

In every temple of the twelve G.o.ds it was the same prayer by day and night: 'Grant us delay. Grant us that the winter may find him in the south!' At last came the news that he was advancing to Capua, and rumours of a Carthaginian party in the city. From Capua, seized with all its engines of war, was but a few days to Rome. Then I took a resolve and made a vow: tell me, am I beautiful?"

"Beautiful as Venus."