Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER XLI

  _THE KING OF THE GROVE_

  ‘Vallis Aricinæ sylva præcinctus opaca Est lacus, antiqua religione sacer.’

  OVID, _Fast._ iii. 263.

  When Onesimus recovered full consciousness he did not recognisehis unfamiliar surroundings, and was too weak to piece together thebroken threads of his memory. Gradually he recalled the incidentsof the past. He remembered the gladiators’ school, the fight in theamphitheatre, the death of Glanydon, the recoil of feeling whichprevented him from killing the Samnite Kalendio, even the sensationwhich he felt when the sword-thrust pierced his ribs. All therest was darkness. Where was he? How had he been rescued from thespoliarium? How had he escaped the finishing blow of the confector?

  Old Dromo, the vineyard-keeper, was very reticent, for he did notwish to endanger any of those who had taken part in the youth’sdeliverance. But the quick intelligence of Onesimus, working uponbroken hints conjectured that Nereus and Junia, as members of hisold _familia_, must have had some share in saving his life. Pudens,when he visited his vineyard to receive his accounts, came and sawhim, and spoke a few kindly words; but the youth could see that thecenturion had lost his old regard for him. He saw no one else, exceptoccasionally one of the peasant neighbours. Junia, of course, camenot. Such a visit would have been impossible to her maiden modesty.What could she do but silently combat a love which she felt to behopeless? How could she ever marry a gladiator with such a past, andwith so hopeless a probable future--a renegade, to all appearance,from the faith of Christ? She could but pray for him, and then striveto prevent her thoughts from turning to him any more. And Nereus camenot to see him. He distrusted him, as he thought of all the crimesthrough which he must have fallen, from the position of a Christianbrother, into such a sink of degradation as a gladiators’ school.

  Lonely, disgraced, abandoned, in deadly peril of his life froma hundred sources if once he should be recognised, prostrated byweakness, often suffering torments from the pain of wounds whichas yet were but half healed, Onesimus sank deeper and deeper intodespair. Repentance and the love of God may often grow in the midstof adversity, like some Alpine gentian amid the snows; but sometimesthere is a deadliness in the chill of hopeless misfortune which killsevery green leaf of faith. The youth, smitten by so many calamities,began to feel as though the river of his life, which might have beenso full and rejoicing, had lost itself in mud and sand. His sun hadgone down while it yet was day. What was he to do? How could he live?Why had they saved him? If Nereus and Junia and Pudens had done it,by what means he knew not, it was a cruel kindness. Why should theyhave preserved him to a destiny so miserable? Junia must despise himnow: why should she have wished that his life should be spared?

  He murmured against God in his heart. He cursed the day of his birth.He had had many chances and recklessly flung away one after another.Sometimes he thought of Christ and of all that he had heard from thelips of Paul in Ephesus about the Friend of publicans and sinners.But had he not denied the faith? Had he not lived like an apostate?If Christ could still love him, why was he left in all this miseryand hopelessness? Why did no ray of light gleam through his darkenedsky?

  And thus he made his heart like the clay which the fire does butharden, not like the gold which it melts. But, notwithstanding hisdespair, he grew stronger. In two or three months his wounds healed,and he was free to leave his couch of hay and beechen leaves and towander about the exquisite scenery of his temporary home. Aricia wasbuilt in a valley, the crater of an extinct volcano, at the foot ofthe Alban Mount. Below it the Lacus Nemorensis, ‘the Mirror of Diana,’lay gleaming like a transparent emerald, while the steep lava slopeswhich descended to its level were rich with vineyards and groves andflowers.

  But he seldom ventured out in the broad daylight. Aricia lay on theAppian road, only sixteen miles from Rome, and its hill was the hauntof a throng of clamorous beggars, who assailed with their importunityevery vehicle that passed along that ‘queen of ways.’ Hundreds werefamiliar with the features of Onesimus, and, though their beauty wasnow impaired by pallor and emaciation, he might again be recognised,with fatal consequences. He only went out after sunset, and by theunfrequented paths which led him towards the grove of Diana andthe Nemorensian lake. The lower slopes of the Alban Mount were soovershadowed with dense foliage that, among the woods, he couldeasily escape observation and indulge without disturbance in hismelancholy thoughts.

  One day, as he sat under a huge chestnut-tree, he heard the pipe of ashepherd lad driving home his herd of goats from the upland pastures;and, as the hut of the boy’s parents adjoined the lodge of Pudens’vineyard, he recognised him as an acquaintance whose name was Ofellus.But instead of coming up to talk with him, as usual, the boy gave alow whistle and beckoned. Onesimus thought that Ofellus only wantedto play a game at _mora_ after he had herded his goats, but the boylaid a finger on his lip, and made signs to him to be on his guarduntil they had got some distance from the place where he was sitting.

  ‘What is the matter?’ whispered the Phrygian, in alarm. ‘Is any onepursuing me?’

  ‘No,’ answered Ofellus, ‘but if the king sees you he will think youmean mischief.’

  ‘The king! What king?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ said the boy. ‘Come and help me to drive in mygoats, and I will tell you.’

  When they were well out of the grove, and the goats, with theirfrisking kids, which gave Ofellus so much trouble, were safe in theirpen, the boy said: ‘We may speak aloud now; but don’t you really knowwho the king is?’

  ‘I did not know that Romans had had a king since Tarquin the Proud,’said Onesimus, laughing; ‘unless you mean some Jewish or EasternAlabarch, like Herod or Izates.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Ofellus, ‘but the priest of yon temple has been calledfor ages “the King of the Grove.”’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why, except that there are some sacrifices which only aking can offer; so they have to call him king, just as they call oneof the priests at Rome “the King of the Sacred Rites.”’

  ‘Well, but why were you in such terror of this so-called king?’

  Again the boy lifted up his hands in astonishment, with the question,‘Don’t you know?’

  Onesimus explained that he was an Asiatic, and did not know muchabout the neighbourhood of Rome. Ofellus therefore garrulously pouredout the legend of the place. ‘There was once some Greek or other,’he said, ‘named Hippolytus, who had vowed to live a virgin life forDiana. He was killed by the jealousy of his father, who got Neptuneto frighten his chariot horses with a sea monster. So the pooryouth was flung out of his chariot, and dragged to death. ThenDiana brought him here, and raised him to life again, and called himVirbius, and he was her priest. But, because he was raised to life,every priest has to murder his predecessor before he can be priesthimself.’

  ‘And may any one kill the priest who can?’

  ‘Yes, but first they’ve to pluck the golden bough.’

  ‘The golden bough?’

  ‘Yes. It is not really golden, you know; it is that yellow-whiteplant, which grows on an old oak in the wood.’

  ‘Mistletoe?’ said Onesimus.

  ‘Yes. If a man wants to be king he has to pluck it, and then fightor murder the present king. If he fails he is killed; if he wins hekills the king, and becomes king in his place.’

  ‘Is the king often killed?’

  ‘Very often. Some runaway slave is sure to kill him, and so escapethe cross or the branding-iron. Hardly a year passes that he is notattacked. My father says that, before I was born, one king, who wasvery strong and fierce, was priest for a good many years; and thenthe Emperor Caligula, out of sheer mad malice, sent a strong youngslave on purpose to kill him.’

  ‘But what harm would the king have done to us?’

  ‘None to a boy like me, nor to one who is free-born; but--’

  ‘You take me for a runaway slave?’ asked Onesimus.

/>   Ofellus nodded his head, and added, ‘I saw the king among the trees.’And then he quoted an old Roman song about--

  ‘The dim lake that sleeps Beneath Aricia’s trees; The trees in whose dim shadow The ghastly priest doth reign: The priest who slew the slayer, And shall himself be slain.’

  Onesimus, too, had seen the Priest of Diana; but, as he was somedistance off, had not observed him closely. Now, however, thegoat-boy’s words seized his attention. Whoever succeeded in killingthe Nemorensian King was secure from the consequences of all pastmisdeeds, and had ample maintenance and a fine spacious temple tolive in. Wandering down the rocky bed of the stream sacred to Egeria,Onesimus had seen the shrine, and had wondered why the trees aroundit were hung with so many gay woollen streamers, and so many votivetablets; and why women came to it from Rome with garlands on theirheads and torches in their hands; and why they treated the priestwith so much reverence.

  Surely the man’s life was a ghastly one, with a murder on hisconscience and a murderer on his track! Yet a terrible purposegradually fixed itself in the mind of Onesimus. He persuaded himselfthat he was utterly God-forsaken; that such a deluge of calamitiescould not otherwise have come upon him. Every hope of his life wasfrustrated; for him there seemed no future possibility of honesty, orhappiness, or home, and his heart was burdened with the sore weightof a hopeless love. Why should he not become the King of the AricianGrove? ‘_The king is always a runaway slave._’ Those words of Ofellusrang in his ear. He was regaining strength. He was swift of foot. Hisgladiatorial training had taught him how to wield a sword. If Christhad forsaken him, why should not he forsake Christ? What mattered itthat he would soon be murdered in his turn? For a few years, at anyrate, he might keep his life, and be in honour, and share in gayfestivals. He resolved to watch for his opportunity, and to try hischance.

  Full of his desperate purpose, he stole under the dark shadows of thetrees, with no guide but the straggling starlight, to find the greatoak which Ofellus had described to him. It grew deep in the greenhollow close beside the lake, and the hoary mistletoe tufted itsupper branches. He climbed the tree, plucked ‘the golden bough,’ andwaited for the rising of the moon to attack the Arician priest if hecame out of the temple, as he usually did, before he went to rest.

  It was not long before the moon began to silver the dense foliage ofthe grove, and then he heard a wicket open, and from the place wherehe knelt crouched among the brushwood he saw the tall figure of thepriest, whose shadow fell across the sward and almost reached hishiding-place. He was a gaunt-looking man, but of powerful frame. Hecarried a large sword in his hand and looked round him suspiciouslyon every side.[84] In his excitement Onesimus moved, and a fallenbranch snapped under his foot. The priest looked round with astartled glance, and Onesimus could see his features working in themoonlight. He had armed himself for his frightful purpose with theonly weapon he could find--a reaping-hook, which he took down fromDromo’s wall. Listening intently, the priest walked along the grassypath, but as no other sound followed he seemed to relax his vigilanceand turned back. Then, with a sudden shout, Onesimus sprang upon him.

  But habitual terror had made the priest an adept at self-defence. Itwas impossible to take him wholly off his guard. At the first soundhe turned, quick as lightning, and, dropping his sword, seized withone arm the hand which grasped the reaping-hook--the gleam of whichhe had caught in the moonlight--and with the other dealt Onesimus ablow on the face which knocked him stunned upon the turf. To stoopover his prostrate form and wrench from his grasp the reaping-hook,was the work of a moment. With a scornful laugh he flung the weaponover the wall which enclosed the sacred shrine, and then placed hisfoot on the youth’s breast.

  Onesimus came to his senses, felt the heavy foot on his breast, andopened his eyes.

  ‘So,’ said the priest, with a grim laugh, ‘you wanted to be RexNemorensis, did you? It’s none so enviable a post, let me tell you;and it will take a stronger and craftier man than you to kill Crotowhen his day comes.’

  ‘Kill me at once,’ said the Phrygian, with a groan.

  Croto stooped to pick up his sword, and placed its point at thethroat of his assailant; but he paused. ‘By Hercules,’ he said--‘orperhaps officially I ought to say by Virbius--I have seen this facebefore!’

  Onesimus looked up at him, and dimly recalled the slave-prison atAntium.

  ‘Do you know me?’ asked the priest.

  ‘I once gave an _aureus_ to a man named Croto to let me escape from aslave-prison. You are like him.’

  ‘I am Croto,’ said the priest, again laughing grimly. ‘Is that howyou repay your benefactor? Do you know that it is through you I amhere, and am never sure any day of not being murdered before evening?Some sneaking slave betrayed that I had let you escape from Antium.I was threatened with chains and torture. I had seen enough of thatsort of thing, so I fled. I thought of Aricia; plucked the goldenbough, as I see you have done; and killed Manius, my predecessor.’

  ‘I did not know,’ answered Onesimus. ‘Kill me. I ask nothing better.’

  But Croto still did not drive home the sword. ‘Poor wretch!’ he said.‘You are but a youth, and are you tired of life already?’

  ‘Utterly tired, or I should not have been the wicked fool I haveshown myself to-night.’

  ‘Why should I kill thee?’ said Croto. ‘Swear never again to attackme, and thou shalt go unscathed.’

  ‘It would be kinder to kill a wretch whom God hates.’

  ‘Go,’ said Croto. ‘Diana has so many victims, she can spare this one.Give me your “golden bough,” and let us part good friends.’

  Onesimus rose, miserable and crestfallen. ‘I am penniless,’ he said,‘or I would try to show myself grateful.’

  ‘Tush!’ answered Croto. ‘I am King of the Grove and priest of Dianaand of Virbius--whoever Virbius was,’ he added under his breath. ‘Thewomen give me so many offerings that, but for the never knowing whereor when the sword will smite, I should be as fat as a Salian, and Ifeed nearly as well. Nay, poor lad, I can well do something for theeand never feel the loss. I have more money than I know what to dowith, for I can never leave the grove. Take some. I dare say you willneed it.’

  He forced into the youth’s hands a leather bag, full of silver coins,and turned away. Onesimus stood abashed in the moonlight. Then heburst into tears. He had found pity and magnanimity in the heartof the doomed and murderous fugitive! Was there no hope for such aman? Shall any germ of good in man’s soul perish unperfected? Shallgenerosity and forgiveness pass without their reward? The unexpectedmercy extended to him by the grim priest of Virbius, in that darkwood of Nemi, brought a blessing to Onesimus, and as he went backto Dromo’s hut, the whole scene--the lake, the white mist, themoonlit-silvered foliage, the twinkling of the stars, the song of thenightingale, the silence of the hills--fell with a healing touch onthe anguish of his heart.