Unto Caesar Part 14

"We must look stern and deliberate," said Ancyrus. "Dost know, O Caius Nepos, if he is at one with us?"

"We must enlist him," rejoined the latter hurriedly; "he holds the plebs, and without his help our position might become difficult. A word from him to the crowd and the new Caesar is a.s.sured of peace within the city."

"Then do thou tell him what has been decided," said one of the others who was busy smoothing his tangled hair.

"No, no!" whispered cautious Ancyrus, the elder, "have a care ... thou, Caius Nepos, must probe him ere thou speakest."

"Tell him naught of Escanes' dagger," added another hurriedly.

"Speak of abdication," said the older man, "of anything that comes in thy mind. Some men there are who----"

But he had no time to explain his meaning further, for the next moment Taurus Antinor stepped into the room.

CHAPTER IX

"There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets."--PROVERBS XXVI. 13.

He had exchanged his embroidered tunic for a gorgeous synthesis of crimson embroidered with gold, which set off to perfection the somewhat barbaric splendour of his personality, and as he stood there ma.s.sive and erect, beneath the gilded beams of Caius Nepos' dining-hall, with the slaves at his feet undoing the strings of his shoes, he looked every inch the ruler for whom all these men here were blindly and senselessly seeking.

His deep-set eyes beneath that stern frown had swept quickly over the a.s.sembly as he entered, and though now comparative order had been restored and a semblance of calm reigned around the table, Taurus Antinor did not fail to note the flushed faces and glowing eyes, the broken goblets, and stained and tattered cloths which gave ugly evidence of the riotous orgy that had gone before.

But though forty pairs of eyes were fixed upon his face, none could boast that they had perceived any change in its somewhat severe impa.s.siveness as he now advanced towards his host.

"Greeting to thee, O Caius Nepos!" he said. "I crave thy pardon for my late coming, but I had other duties to which to attend."

"Duties?" said Caius Nepos lightly; "nay, Taurus Antinor, there are just now duties so high and sacred that others must of necessity stand aside for these! But of this more anon. Wilt rest now and partake of wine?"

"I thank thee, good Caius," replied the praefect, "but I have supped, and only came at thy bidding, because thou didst say that affairs of State would claim our attention this night."

To all those present he gave courteous if not very hearty greeting. Then did his glance encounter that of Hortensius Martius who alone had said no word or made a movement to welcome him.

There was a vacant place beside young Hortensius, and Taurus Antinor took it, but he did not lie along the cushions as the others did but half sat, half leaned on the couch, and turning to the young man said simply:

"I give thee greeting, O Hortensius! I had no thought of meeting thee here."

"I told thee yesterday that I would be present," said the other curtly.

"I remember now and am proud and honoured to sit by thy side; wilt pledge me in a goblet of wine?"

He had forced his rough voice to tones of gentleness. Hortensius Martius raised his glowering eyes with some curiosity on his face.

But a day and a night had elapsed since his life had lain wholly at the mercy of this powerful giant whom he had insulted, and who had been on the point of punishing that insult with death.

Young Hortensius, held aloft in the mighty grip of the praefect twenty feet above the flagstones of the Forum, seeing a hideous death waiting for him below, did not even now realise how it came to pa.s.s that--when he recovered from the swoon into which horror and fear had thrown him--he found himself being tended by an old woman, and anon delivered safe and sound into the keeping of his slaves; he had entered his litter and been borne to his home still marvelling, but of the praefect of Rome he had not since then seen a trace.

He had questioned his slaves who swore that from the arcades of the tabernae, where they had been waiting, they had seen nothing of what went on around the rostra. Hortensius knew that they lied, they must have seen something of the quarrel; they must have seen him being carried like a recalcitrant child up to the top of the highest rostrum, and threatened with awful punishment by the very man whom he had affected to despise. They must also have seen the praefect relenting, carrying him down again, content apparently with the fright which he had given him.

His slaves must have been witnesses to his humiliation, and now were afraid to tell him what they had seen; and for the first time in his life Hortensius Martius felt a wave of cruelty pa.s.s over him, in an insensate desire to make the slaves speak under pressure of torture.

At the time he was ashamed to seem too eager and had forborne to question further. But he allowed his humiliation to breed the quick-growing weed of hate. When first the name of Taurus Antinor was mentioned he realised how that weed had grown apace, and now that he sat beside him, and felt the inquisitive eyes of his host fixed with ill-concealed mockery upon him, he knew in his innermost heart that after this day there would no longer be room in the city of Rome for himself as well as for this man who had vanquished and humiliated him.

For the moment, however, he did not care to proclaim before all these men the hatred which he felt for Taurus Antinor. Thoughts of supreme grandeur were coursing through his brain. He knew that no one stood so high in Dea Flavia's graces as he himself had done this year past, and that no one was so like to win her for wife, since she had in her own proud and aloof way already accepted his respectful wooing.

Therefore, putting a rein upon his jealousy and upon his unruly tongue, he took up a goblet and responded to the pledge of the man whom he hated. But whilst Antinor drained the crystal cup to the dregs young Hortensius scarcely wetted his lips, and pretending to drink deeply, he kept his eyes fixed upon the praefect of Rome.

It seemed to him as if he had never really seen him before, so sharp are the eyes of hate that they see much that is usually hidden to those of indifference. Young Hortensius, over the edge of his goblet, embraced with a steady glance the whole person of his enemy--the ma.s.sive frame, the strong limbs, the hands and feet slender and strong. He looked straight into those deep-set eyes over which a perpetual frown always cast a shadow, and saw that they were of an intense shade of blue and with a strange look in them of kindliness and of peace, which belied the stern fierceness of the face and the wilful obstinacy of the ma.s.sive jaw.

But now Caius Nepos began to speak. Taking the advice of Marcus Ancyrus the elder, he spoke vaguely, trying to probe the thoughts that lay hidden behind the Anglica.n.u.s' furrowed brow. He had received advice, he said that the Caesar was tired of government and wished to spend some quiet days in the Palace of Tiberius, on the island of Capraea; all this cleverly interwoven with sighs of hope as to what a happier future might bring if the Empire were rid--quite peaceably, of course--of the tyranny of a semi-brutish despot.

Then, as Taurus Antinor made no comment on his peroration, he recalled in impa.s.sioned language all that Rome had witnessed in the past three years of depravity, of turpitude, of senseless and maniacal orgies and of b.e.s.t.i.a.l cruelty, all perpetrated by the one man to whom blind Fate had given supreme power.

"And to whom, alas!" said Taurus Antinor in calm response to the glowing speech, "we have all of us here sworn loyalty and obedience."

There was silence after this. Despite the lingering fumes of wine that obscured the brain, everyone felt that with these few words the praefect of Rome had already given an answer, and that nothing that could be said after this would have the power of making him alter his decision. But Marcus Ancyrus, conscious of his own powers of diplomacy, took up the thread of his host's peroration.

"Aye! but we should be obeying him," he said simply, "if we accept his abdication."

"There is no disloyalty," a.s.serted Escanes, "in rejoicing at such an issue, if the Caesar himself doth will it so."

"None," admitted the praefect; "but there would be grave difficulty in choosing a successor."

"To this," said the host, "we have given grave consideration."

"Indeed!"

"And have come to a decision which we all think would best serve the welfare of the State."

"May I hear this decision?"

"It means just this, O praefect! that since the sceptre of Caesar must, if possible, remain in the House of Caesar, and since no man of that House is worthy to wield it, we would ask the Augusta Dea Flavia to take to herself a lord and husband, on whom, by virtue of his marriage, the imperium would rest for his life, and after his death fall on the direct descendant of great Augustus himself."

Taurus Antinor had not made a sign whilst Caius Nepos thus briefly put before him the main outline of the daring project, and Hortensius Martius, who was watching him closely, could not detect the slightest change in the earnest face even when Dea Flavia's name was spoken. Now, when Nepos paused as if waiting for comment, Antinor said gravely:

"Ye must pardon me, but I am a stranger to the social life in Rome. Will you tell me who this man is whom the Augusta will so highly favour?"

"Nay, as to that," said Caius Nepos, "we none of us know it as yet! Dea Flavia has smiled on many, but up to now hath made no choice."

"Then 'tis to an unknown man ye would all pledge your loyalty?"

"Unknown, yet vaguely guessed at, O praefect," here broke in Escanes, with his usual breezy cheerfulness; "we all feel that Dea Flavia's choice can but fall on an honourable man."

"Thou speakest truly," rejoined Taurus Antinor earnestly; "but I fear me that for the present your schemes are too vague. The Augusta hath made no choice of a husband as yet, and the Caesar is still your chosen lord."

"A brutish madman, who----"