by Talbot Mundy
All the while Verres was speaking Chloe whispered to Quintilian. Her hand was on his arm and she was urging him. Suddenly Quintilian sat upright and rapped with his hand on the table.
“Time presses,” he said. “Comrades, we must come to a decision. Shall we trust the illustrious Tros and take a pledge from him?”
There was a murmur of assent.
“A pledge?” said Tros. “From me?”
“Why, yes!” said Chloe. “We think you are an honorable man, but at a word from you to Balbus we might all be crucified!”
The men in the doorway behind Tros rattled their weapons.
“We all risk our lives if we give you liberty,” Quintilian remarked. “You are a stranger to us.”
Tros began to turn over in his mind what pledge he could deposit with them. There was no alternative except to fight his way out to the street, and he suspected now that there were more than three men on the stairs. Quintilian enlightened him:
“You would have seven men to fight, besides ourselves. But why fight? Why not leave your faithful follower with us?”
Conops drew breath sharply. Tros turned his head to glance at him.
“Little man,” he said, “shall we fight?”
“Nay, there are too many,” Conops answered.
For a fraction of a second Conops’ face wore the reproachful look of a deserted dog’s. But he saw Tros’s eyes and recognized the resolution in them. Never, in all their long experience together, had Tros looked like that at him and failed.
“You are not such a fool as you look!” Conops sneered, staring straight at Quintilian. “My master would lose his own life rather than desert a faithful servant. Harm me if you dare, and see what happens!”
At a sign from Quintilian everybody in the room rose, making a rutching of feet and a squeal of moved benches. Only Tros heard Conops’ whisper:
“Now they will trust you! It was I who led you into this trap. Leave me and sail away. The worst they’ll do is kill me.”
For answer Tros grinned at him, grinned and nodded, clapped him on the back.
CHAPTER 79. At Simon’s House
What money is, I know not. But concerning its lending, I know this: that if I lend not with it courage, sympathy and vision I but burden a man already burdened with his own need. Give, then, and forget. Or else lend heart and money — aye, money and a gale of good-will to blow it to good use.
— from The Log of Tros of Samothrace
TROS watched Conops led away through the door by which Chloe had entered, and then beckoned to Horatius Verres.
“Roman,” he said, “you have risked my life for Caesar’s sake. Now the wind shifts. Lean the other way and serve me or, by all the gods, you shall not live to mock my downfall!”
“I serve Caesar!” Verres answered.
“I also, by the irony of fate!” Tros took him by the shoulder.
“My father, Perseus, Prince of Samothrace, tortured to his death by Caesar’s executioners, told me with his dying breath that I should live to serve that robber of men’s liberties, whose enemy I am! I see I must.”
“Serve well!” said Verres. “Caesar values good-will higher than the deed.”
“I bear him ill-will, but I will not be his murderer,” Tros answered. “In fair fight, yes. In treachery I have no willing hand.”
“I believe you,” said Verres, and nodded.
“Then tell me, when is Caesar coming?”
“I don’t know,” Verres answered. “If I did know, I might lie to you. Since I don’t know, I tell you the plain truth.”
“You know that Pkauchios has prophesied the death of Caesar. Do you know that he expects the news of Caesar’s death tonight?” Tros asked him.
Verres nodded.
“Do you know by what means he expects the news?”
“By a slave, I suppose. He sent murderers to Gaul. Doubtless he has reckoned up the days, hours, minutes and awaits a messenger.
Tros gripped him again by the shoulder.
“Get you a disguise,” he said. “Tonight, near midnight, creep into Balbus’ garden and send word to Pkauchios by one of Balbus’ slaves that a messenger has come from Gaul who wishes word with him. When Pkauchios comes to you, whisper to him from the darkness, ‘Caesar is dead!’ Then Pkauchios will return into the house and make the signal to me to slay Balbus. But instead, when the trumpets sound, my men will rush into the house and protect him against Pkauchios’ rabble.”
“There will be more than rabble,” Verres answered. “Pkauchios has bribed some of the Roman guard. I know that, for I know where some of them have spent the money and I have heard that they boast how they will excuse themselves by saying that Balbus plotted against Rome. I think you will have a hard time to save Balbus’ life. Yet if you warn him, he will only suspect you and throw you in prison. Caesar understands good-will. Balbus only understands a fact that he can see with his two eyes, feel with his two hands, bite with his teeth and then turn promptly into an advantage for himself. I think that even should you save his life, he will turn on you afterward.”
“I will cross that bridge when the time comes,” Tros replied. “Will you whisper that word to Pkauchios?”
“Yes. I can lie to him circumstantially. I know the names of the murderers he sent to Gaul.”
Tros wasted no more time on him, knew he must trust him whether he wished to or not, dismissed him with a gesture, beckoned Chloe. She laughed in his face confidently yet not without wistfulness.
“Now we are all committed,” she said, “and all depends on you! We die unless you win for us all tonight!”
It was her action that restored Tros’s trust in her. She slipped a vial into his hand, a tiny thing not bigger than a joint of her own finger.
“Three drops from that are enough,” she remarked. “It is swifter than crucifixion or being butchered at the games!”
“I go to Simon’s house,” Tros answered, pocketing the vial. He understood enough of the Samothracian teachings to despise the thought of suicide, but he did not propose to chill her friendliness by refusing such proof of it. “Go you to Pkauchios’ eunuch. Lie to him as to where I am. Invent your own tale. Bid him look for me at Simon’s house. Then go back to your master Pkauchios and tell a likely tale to him.”
She nodded and vanished through the same door through which they had taken Conops.
“Simon, old friend, we squander time like men asleep!” said Tros. “Where waits your litter? Will it hold the two of us?”
Simon rose to his feet, but he was numb, dumb, stupid with the fear that made him tremble and contracted all the muscles of his throat until his breath came like the rasping of a saw-mill. He gestured helplessly, but no words passed his lips, though he tried as he leaned on Tros’s shoulder. Quintilian approached to reassure them both:
“We nineteen and the few we keep in our employ are not ingrates,” he said. “Balbus tortured one of our people all day yesterday. He betrayed no one. We will protect you in all ways possible.”
Quintilian led Tros and Simon out by tunnels and devious passages to a walled yard where Simon’s litter waited; there he told off four men to follow the litter secretly as far as Simon’s house, where they approached by a back street so as not to be seen by Pkauchios’ eunuch.
It was an almost typically eastern house — all squalor on the outside, with windowless walls and doors a foot thick, fit to be defended against anything less than Roman battering-rams. The plaster on the walls was peeling off; there was no paint, nothing except size to offset the appearance of mean shabbiness. But within was splendor.
The door in the wall of the back street opened on a tiled court, with a fountain and exotic trees in carved stone Grecian pots. A Jewish major domo marshaled half a dozen slaves, who set chairs and a table beneath potted palms. More slaves brought cooling drinks and light refreshment. Simon in the guise of host began to throw off some of the paralysis of fear; in his own house he was master and the evidence of wealth around
him counteracted the terror of debt and the anguish of unsecured loans, made to powerful, slow-paying creditors.
“Write two bills on Balbus’ treasury,” said Tros, “one for two hundred and twenty thousand sesterces, the other for whatever balance Balbus owes you.”
Simon wrote, his hand trembling and, signing, gave the bills to Tros.
“Tros, Tros,” he said, “I rue the day I ever came to Gades! It was bad enough in Alexandria, where Ptolemy the Piper borrowed from the Romans and taxed us Alexandrians to death to pay the interest. But Ptolemy was human and knew men must live. We all lived well in Alexandria. Yey! These Balbuses and Caesars think of nothing but themselves and their ambition!”
Tros clapped him on the back, his mind on pearls he had on board the ship. There was market for enough of them in Gades to relieve all Simon’s difficulties. Yet the druids had not given them to him to provide relief for slave-trading Jews. It was bad enough to have to give a dozen of them to a dancing girl. Simon, his mind groping for new hope, detected something masked under Tros’s air of reckless reassurance.
“Tros,” he said, “haven’t you a cargo on your ship, some tin or something with which we two could turn a profit? Better that than running risks with Balbus! Stchnrarrh! That Roman would kill us both, for having talked with the committee of nineteen, rather than pay those orders on his treasury! Any excuse would serve him! Spies may have seen us. Safer to go to him straight away, denounce Pkauchios and beg a trading-favor from him as reward! That’s it! That’s it! Beg leave to take a shipload of my slaves to Ostia! Then I can draw money against them here in Gades—”
Tros interrupted with another shoulder slap. That panic mood of Simon’s had to be cured at all costs, druids or no druids. But he was cautious.
“Simon, I have assets in reserve. If I should fail tonight to coax your money out of Balbus for you, I will loan you enough to tide you over.”
“Ah! But the Roman wolf is crafty! What if Balbus learns of this conspiracy too soon and sets a trap for you, accuses you of a plot to murder him and—”
Tros touched his sword-hilt.
“Simon, I have two hundred and fifty fighting men. It will be a sorry pass if I can’t cut my way to the beach.”
“And me? What of me?”
“I will take you with me. Since you are so fearful, hide yourself tonight on my ship—”
“No,” said Simon, “no! Those beach guards would arrest me!”
“Very well, then hide by the city gate. Watch the street from an upper window. Keep two or three men near you whom you can trust. Then, if you see anything of Roman soldiers entering the city after dark, you can send me warning — your messenger can pretend he brings me news about the safety of my ship. Balbus’ servants may admit him, but if not, they will at least announce a messenger and I will understand. If it comes to a fight, Simon, I will pick you up by the city gate and carry you away with me. But I hold a hostage on my ship — one Gaius Suetonius. Balbus will search all Gades until he finds Conops to exchange against Gaius Suetonius.”
“O-o-o-hey! But my household goods!” groaned Simon. “My daughters and my daughters’ children!”
He put his head between his hands and leaned his elbows on the table. Tros stared at him, scratching the back of his head, wondering what argument to use next. He did not dare to leave the man in that state of panic, nor did he dare to threaten him. Fear is no antidote for fear. Somehow he must make him hope and give him courage.
“Simon,” he said suddenly, “it is not too late for me to turn back. I will go to that committee of nineteen, tell them I have thought better of the risk and reclaim Conops. They will return him to me if I promise to leave Gades straight away!”
Simon sat up and for a moment stared at him with frightened eyes.
“You mean — you mean — ?”
“I will sail away. I will forgive you what you owe me. I will let Gades rot in its own conspiracies.”
“Tros! Tros! You can’t! You promised! You can’t back out of it, now you have gone this far!” Simon clutched his wrist, and Tros gave him time to feel the full force of a new emotion, staring at him coldly, looking resolute in his determination to have no more to do with Gades and its dancing-girl conspiracies. “Tros! I am an old man, you a young one! We are friends, your father was my friend. You — Tros!”
Tros shook his hand off.
“Farewell, Simon!”
“Tros! You will leave me to be crucified?”
“You have frightened me with your fears and your forebodings,” Tros answered. “No man can succeed with such a lack of confidence as yours to make the skin creep up his back.”
Simon staggered to his feet and, almost tottering, took hold of Tros by either arm.
“You — are you your father’s son? You turn back? You?” His hoarse breath came in snores. “You leave us all at Chloe’s mercy? Tros, do you know what it means to be at the mercy of a dancing girl of Gades? She knows everything. She will betray us all to save her own skin. Tros, if you leave us in the lurch now, may God—”
Tros drew Chloe’s vial out of the pocket in his cloak. He offered it to Simon.
“Three drops,” he remarked.
“Stchnrarrh! You! To that, what would your father have said? Tros, I will sooner endure the torture!”
Tros poised the vial in his hand.
“Simon, is it yes or no? Do we burn our bridge and see this matter through to a conclusion, or—”
He offered the vial again on his open palm. Simon took it, held it in his clenched fist, set his teeth — then suddenly dashed the vial to the tiles and smashed it into fragments. A cat came and sniffed at the liquid.
“Then we are agreed? You will be brave? You will see this through?” Tros asked.
His eye was on the cat; he was beginning to feel nearly sure of Simon.
“Go!” said Simon hoarsely. “Yes. I see this through. God give you wisdom, skill, cunning, and make Balbus blind! May God protect us all.”
“Amen!” said Tros.
He was watching the cat. It had lapped up nearly all the poison and seemed none the worse for it.
“Watch Chloe!” Simon urged. “She is as fickle — as fickle as quicksilver! She will betray you for the very sake of cleverness at the last second if she can see a way of doing it!”
Tros nodded. The cat had selected a sunny, warm place in a palm pot and was licking its fur contentedly.
“She will play on your emotions, she will win your confidence, she will put herself into your power, but remember, she loves nothing except slavery! Her wits are sharp. She loves to be outwitted! She is clever enough to govern Gades by whispering to Pkauchios and Balbus. And with her whole soul she craves to be governed by some one cleverer than herself! Watch her, Tros!”
Tros watched the cat, which was watching a bird, its tail twitching with the inborn instinct of a destroyer. He kicked the fragments of the vial.
“Better have those gathered, Simon! Now I go marshal my men for tonight. I have a golden bugle that the Britons gave me, and if anything goes wrong at Balbus’ supper I will wind a blast on it to summon Orwic and my men. So be waiting by the city gate with your daughters and your daughters’ children if you wish, in case that I have to fight my way out of Balbus’ clutches.”
“Have you only that Briton and those Eskualdenak?” asked Simon.
“Aye,” Tros answered. “I must leave my Northmen on the ship, and to man the longboat and the barge.”
“Take care! Take care!” urged Simon. “Chloe will turn that Briton and your Eskualdenak against you if she sees advantage in it!”
“She will have shot her bolt and earned her pay,” Tros answered, “if she has persuaded Pkauchios that I went from his house straight to yours. I will see that the eunuch has no chance to carry tales. Those Balearic slingers on the beach shall guard him and the litter bearers until I need them again to carry me to Balbus’ house. Now, swiftly, write me out an order for the manumission of a slave and l
eave a space blank for the slave’s name and plenty of room at the bottom for Balbus’ seal and signature.”
CHAPTER 80. In Balbus’ Dining Hall
The Jews have a proverb that says, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish.” And the Romans say, “Wine tells truth.” But how often is not such truth shameful? As for me, I will not perish. I can not imagine that beyond death there is less than this life. Nay, nay, death is an awakening. But to some it may resemble waking after too much wine in evil company.
— from The Log of Tros of Samothrace
IN THE litter belonging to Pkauchios, borne by eight slaves and preceded by a sulkily insolent eunuch, Tros presented himself at the guardhouse by the arched front gate of Balbus’ palace one hour after sunset. An officer of the gate guard peered into the litter; the eunuch sneered to him in an audible falsetto whisper about the incredible grossness of barbarians who did not give self-respecting servants time to change their uniform; the legionary clanked a shield against his breastplate as a signal to proceed and Tros was carried up a winding, broad path, in the shadow of imported Italian cypresses, into the glare of lamplight at the marble-columned porch.
There was a veritable herd of well-trained slaves in waiting. Two laid a mat for Tros to tread on as he rolled out of the litter. Two more held his cloak, lest it should inconvenience him as he moved. Two others spread a roll of carpet across the porch into the house, covering the three-headed dog done in colored mosaic and its legend, Cave Canem. Two splendidly dressed slaves preceded him into the house between two lines of bowing menials and led him into a small room to the left of the hallway where no less than three slaves dusted off his sandals. A household official offered to take charge of his sword, but Tros refused, which caused some snickering among the slaves.
“Tell Balbus, your master, that to me this sword is as his toga to himself. As he receives no guest without his toga, so I enter no man’s house without my symbol of independence!”
