Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  His face looked something like a satyr’s as he leaned forward to observe Tros. There were no signs of ferocity about him — rather of a philosophic humor, slightly cynical but tolerant. He struck the table with his fist and called for wine, which was brought in by a woman less agreeable to look at than himself. She had thick lips and most of her teeth were missing; her figure was shapeless, her arms like a fighting man’s and her greasy hair like Medusa’s. But it was good wine; and she provided lumps of bread to eat with it, breaking them off from the loaf with fingers that looked capable of tearing throats.

  “And so now you are in trouble,” remarked Nepos, eyeing Zeuxis comically. “You believe because I am a friend of Cato I can get you out of it. Isn’t that so? Well, I tell you Cato doesn’t like you, Zeuxis. Has he caught you cheating the public treasury over some contract for a spectacle?”

  “He has arrested Helene,” said Zeuxis.

  Nepos suddenly sat upright, swallowed wine and snapped his mouth shut.

  “So it is Cato who is in trouble, is it?” he said. “Obstinate old tamperer with hot irons! Fool! She’ll wreck him! The mob loves her. What will he do — have her thrown to the beasts? Old imbecile! They’ll leave the benches and throw Cato in, in place of her! There are some things Cato can’t do, praetor though he is.”

  “How teach him?” wondered Zeuxis.

  “Oh, he’s teachable,” said Nepos. “You couldn’t have taught Sulla anything, or Marius — and Pompey won’t learn nowadays, since flattery went to his head. But you can teach Cato what the crowd will have and what it won’t have. Cato believes in the voice of the people. He’ll hear it! As I’ve told him often, all they care for is money, doles of corn and entertainment. Cato sat there, on that bench, last night. He likes me because I talk good sense and never flatter him.

  “I like Caesar, who knows how to rule; but I told Cato now is the time to throw in his lot with Pompey, and increase corn-doles and give astonishing spectacles, if he hopes to stand in Caesar’s way. But Cato hates Pompey nearly as much as he does Caesar, so that’s mutual. Pompey detests him for going bare-footed and poking his nose into public accounts. So he has bagged Helene, has he? Well, we’ll have to save him from that predicament! You can’t tell me Helene isn’t Caesar’s woman. Caesar can’t afford to let his spies become disorganized. He’ll kill Cato! He hates him. He’d love an opportunity to turn on him. Cato is a fool. I love him better than a brother, but he’s a fool — he’s a fool — he’s an old fool — and that’s worse than a young one!”

  Zeuxis shrugged his shoulders.

  “He is honest, which is much the same thing!”

  “No, he isn’t,” said Nepos. “He is proud and obstinate. There’s no such thing as honesty.”

  There came a hammering at the outer door and Nepos’ wife admitted one of Zeuxis’ slaves, who delivered his news breathlessly:

  “The praetor’s men have not come near the house. But the freedman Conops went to Ostia, so now there is none who can control the lord Tros’s barbarians, who are afraid because of their master’s absence and are threatening to go and look for him.”

  Instantly Julius Nepos seemed to throw off twenty years. His muscles tautened. Even his voice grew younger:

  “Barbarians? What sort?” he asked. He glanced shrewdly at Orwic, who resented the appraisal and frowned haughtily. Tros sat still, acutely conscious of a tingling in his spine. It was Zeuxis who answered:

  “Northmen — whatever that is. They are a breed never before seen in Rome, having red beards; and they fight with axes. But some are Britons and resemble Gauls. That one” — he pointed at Orwic— “is a prince among the Britons.”

  “Are they free men?” Nepos asked.

  Instantly Tros lied to save them. If he had answered they were free men, nothing would have been more simple than to bring some charge against them. Then, as aliens unrepresented by an influential advocate, they might be condemned and sentenced to the arena.

  “Slaves,” he remarked, compelling his voice to sound casual. But his fist was clenched and Nepos noticed it.

  “I have seen too many die, not to know when a man is afraid, friend Tros,” he said, a lean smile on his face. “Good gladiators bring a high price. Men who fight with axes would be something new. They might be matched against the Mauritanians. Pompey would buy them. It would be a short way into Pompey’s favor. That way we could approach Pompey, who is difficult to reach. We might persuade him; he would be glad to make trouble for Cato. And by releasing Helene he would again put Caesar under obligation.”

  Zeuxis chuckled. His superficial subtlety was stirred by Nepos’ argument; he saw all sides of it, if not the inside.

  “Dionysus! Excellent! Nothing ever was more accurate! Julius Nepos, you are fit to govern Rome; you understand Pompey and Caesar so well! Tros, have you not understood him? Pompey and Caesar lavish favors on each other, while they watch each other like cat and dog. Each hopes to be able to accuse the other of ingratitude when the time comes that they quarrel openly at last. Pompey will compel Cato to set Helene free, and he will tell all Rome he did it to oblige Caesar. He likes nothing better then to get Cato into difficulties with the Roman mob, because he knows that if it weren’t for Cato’s blunders and lack of tact the old man might be dangerous. Pompey will jump at it! Sell him your Northmen, Tros!”

  Zeuxis leaned back and enjoyed the alarm that Tros could not conceal. He knew the Northmen were not slaves. He knew Nepos — understood the old man’s combination of ferocity and amiable instinct.

  But Tros’s subtlety could under-dig the Greek’s. He was at bay. He had his men to save, which stirred his wits. And he was not afraid Zeuxis would utterly betray him so long as there were pearls to be obtained by other means than downright treachery.

  “The notion is good,” he said, rising. “I will visit Pompey. Where is he?”

  “As I told you, his wife is ill. You will have to drive out to his country villa, where senators wait at the gate like slaves for the chance of a word with him.”

  “No,” said Nepos. “Pompey comes to Rome tonight. How do I know? Never mind. There are those who must go to Pompey and beg favors; but there are others whom not even Pompey the Great dares refuse if they send for him, no matter at what hour.”

  “The Vestal Virgins,” Zeuxis said, and shuddered. “May the gods protect us from entanglements with them! This mob, that worships venery, adores those virgins and will kill you if they frown. But what should Pompey have to do with them?”

  “Doubtless he brings gifts. Possibly he begs a favor for his wife,” said Nepos; but he did not look as if he thought that was the reason. He was sly eyed.

  “Where will he lodge?” Tros asked him.

  “In his own house. Look you now — men have made worse friends than myself, and I love Cato, who is much too obstinate a man to be persuaded. We must get that Helene out of Cato’s hands, if we want to keep Cato from being mobbed. Once or twice already they have nearly killed him because he did something stupid — once it was closing the brothels and once it was stopping payment of illegal bills on the treasury. So if you want my friendship, go you to Pompey and ask him to overrule Cato. You will either have to flatter him or buy him. Better both! For twenty gladiators of a new breed he would give you almost anything you ask. Cato will yield; he will have to. That will save his skin, which is what I want, and it may also force him into Pompey’s camp, which would be good politics. But never mind politics. Get Helene released and you’ll find my friendship worth more to you than Pompey’s or any other man’s in Rome.”

  Tros had made up his mind. Orwic, who had learned to recognize the symptoms, strode to the door and opened it. Tros, with a jerk of his head, beckoned Zeuxis. The Greek, too, recognized finality.

  “Zeus sneezes and the earth quakes!” he remarked, then took his leave of Nepos, winking and making suggestive movements with his hand when he was sure Tros could not see what he was doing. Nepos’ face as he answered Tros’s salute was an
enigma.

  It was dark when they emerged out of the maze of lanes into a street. Torches were already breaking up the gloom where gallants swaggered to some rendezvous amid a swarm of their retainers. The city’s voice had altered from the day din to the night roar; it suggested carnival, although there was no merrymaking in the streets; whoever had no bodyguard slunk swiftly through the shadows. Bellowing voices on the stone blocks under yellow lamps announced attractions within walls; the miserable eating-houses and the wine-shops did a thronging trade; but the streets were a danger zone, dagger-infested, along which the prosperous strode in the midst of armed slaves and whoever else ventured went swiftly from shelter to shelter. Dawn never broke but saw the slaves of the municipium pick up dead bodies in the street.

  “To your house,” Tros commanded, as if giving orders from his own poop, and Zeuxis led the way, his five slaves, fussily important, doing their utmost to make the party look too dangerous to interfere with.

  But Zeuxis was in no mood to dispute the right of way with any Roman gallant and his gladiators. At the sight of any group of men approaching he turned instantly down side-streets. He preferred to risk a scuffle with the unattached ruffians who made a living by taking one side or the other in the riots that the politicians staged whenever a court decision or a ruling of the senate upset calculations. Such men seldom attacked any one unless paid to do it. Gladiators who attended gallants on their way to dissolute amusement flattered their owners’ vanity by bullying any group they met less numerous or pugnacious than their own.

  So they were a long time reaching the bridge that crossed the Tiber, and had splashed into many a pool of filth besides unconsciously assuming the rather furtive air that strategy of that sort imposes on pedestrians. The five slaves altogether lost their arrogance. In the glare of the lanterns at the guard-house at the bridge-foot, where the stinking empty fish-boxes were piled and the boat-men slept like corpses on the long ramp leading to the quay, they made no deep impression on the guards of the municipium.

  “Halt there! Stand aside and wait!”

  A gruff ex-legionary, leaning on a spear and leering with the easy insolence acquired in six campaigns, made a gesture that brought six more spearmen into line behind him, barring the narrow approach to the bridge. Over beyond the river there was torchlight. There came a trumpet call. It was answered by shouts from guards stationed at intervals along the parapet in impenetrable darkness. Lights on the bridge were forbidden.

  Then another trumpet call. Presently a stream of torchlight flowed on to the bridge, its glare reflected is the water. Fire laws, or any other laws, are subtly honored when the famous disobey them.

  “Who comes? Pompey!” said the spearman, grinning into Tros’s face. “Better get out of the way, my friend!”

  His insolence was tempered by familiarity. He seemed to recognize in Tros an old campaigner like himself. Though Tros stood still, he made no effort to enforce the order, merely moving his head sidewise, curiously, to observe him with a better slant of light. The wooden bridge began to thunder to the tramp of men all breaking step.

  “Let us stand back in the shadow!” Zeuxis whispered and set the example, followed by his slaves, but Tros remained facing the spearman and Orwic, arms folded, stood with him.

  “Are you one of Pompey’s veterans by any chance?” the spearman asked. “Take my advice, friend. This is a poor place and a poor time to approach him.”

  “He expects me,” Tros answered and the spearman stared at him with new appreciation.

  “You are either over-bold or more important than you look with that small following,” he said. “We will see. We will see. I have seen strange happenings in my day.”

  Tros turned to Orwic and spoke quietly in Gaulish:

  “When the lictors order us to stand aside, keep place abreast of me.”

  A horse’s head — a phantom in the torchlight — tossed above the lictors’ fasces. Dimly, behind them, more horses appeared, and streams of men on foot, like shadows, with the torchlight shining here and there on armor or an ornament; but there was silence except the groaning of the bridge’s timbers and the echoing tramp of feet. There was a sense of mystery — or portent.

  Suddenly the man in front of Tros threw up his spear and swung the men behind him into line, facing the roadway. They stood rigidly, like statues, as the lictors, two lines of four in single file, advanced with all the dignity attainable by human symbols of authority in motion. Stately, measured, neither slow nor fast but like the passing of the hours into eternity, they strode toward Tros, and he was no such fool as to attempt to let the two files pass on either hand. Though Rome was rotten at the core, that very fact increased insistence on respect for the tokens of her magistracy. To have dared to stand ground would have meant, more likely than an interview with Pompey, a cudgeling and then a ducking in the Tiber. He shouted before they reached him.

  “Pompeius Magnus, hail!”

  His voice was like a captain’s on his poop — resounding, sudden, vibrant with assurance. There was something of a gong note in it.

  “I am Tros of Samothrace!”

  “Halt!” said a bored voice and a dozen men repeated the command. There was a rush of footmen to surround the leader’s horse, then silence so tense that the swirling of the river past the bridge-piles struck on the ear like music.

  Torches moved, swaying confusedly. Pompey, his cloak thrown back so that torchlight gleamed on the gold inlay of his breastplate, leaned forward on his horse, shielding his eyes with his right hand. “Who did the man say he is?”

  “I am Tros of Samothrace.”

  “I believe I remember him. Let him approach.”

  Two lictors lined up, one on either side of Tros; two more opposed themselves to Orwic and prevented him from following. Tros was marched to about half a spear’s length from Pompey’s stirrup, where the lictors signed to him to stand still and a dozen faces peered at him.

  “Is this an omen, Tros?” asked Pompey in a pleasant, cultured voice suggestive of half humorous contempt for his surroundings. “I remember you. I gave your father leave to use all Roman ports. I trust he has not misused that privilege.”

  “He is dead,” said Tros. “I have word for your private ear.”

  “All Rome has that!” said Pompey. “I am pestered with communications. However, I will hear you. What is it?”

  “Secret as well as urgent. Name place and hour and let me speak with you alone. I seek nothing for myself.”

  “Rare individual! Comites,” said Pompey, laughing in the patronizing way of men who have been flattered until all comment becomes condescension, “here is a man who has sufficient. He asks nothing! Envy him! So many of us have too much!”

  He stared at Tros, signing to some of the slaves to move the torches so that he could better read his face. His own was pouched under the eyes but rather handsome in a florid, heavy, thick-set way. His eyes glittered. The lips curled proudly, and he sat his horse easily, gracefully, with rather portly dignity. He looked as if success had softened him without his being aware of it, but there were no signs of debauch.

  “You may follow,” he said, “and I will hear you when I have time.”

  But Tros had cooled his heels once too often in the anterooms of Alexandria, where Ptolemy’s eunuchs pocketed the fees of applicants, kept them waiting and dismissed them without audience, to be pigeon-holed as easily as that. His sureness that the gods were all around him made him no cringing supplicant.

  “You may listen or not, as you please, Pompeius Magnus. I have crossed two seas to speak with you. Name me an hour and a place, or I will find another who will listen.”

  Pompey legged his horse to hide astonishment. In all Rome there was only Cato who had dared to affront him since Crassus went away. A handsome youngster strode into the torchlight and stood swaggering in front of Tros.

  “Do you know to whom you speak?” he demanded.

  “Please, Flavius! Stand aside!” said Pompey, reining h
is horse toward Tros again. “This may prove interesting. Tros, do you know where the temple of Vesta stands? Approach me there, after the morning ceremony. Forward!”

  The two lictors hustled Tros aside. The bridge began to tremble as the march resumed and Pompey passed on into darkness, torchlight gleaming on the shield and helmet carried for him by a slave in close attendance.

  “You are mad!” remarked Zeuxis, striding gallantly enough out of the shadow when the last of the long cortege had streamed by and a roar in the narrow city streets announced that Pompey, recognized already, was receiving an ovation. “If you go to the temple of Vesta Pompey will offer you employment, for the sake of obtaining your Northmen and Britons, about whom Nepos certainly will tell him before midnight. And if you refuse, he will seize your men for the arena. He will throw you into prison if you make the least fuss; he will simply say you are the enemy of Rome. You are as mad as Cato himself! You should have won his favor while you had the opportunity.”

  “You will do well if you earn mine!” Tros retorted, visibly annoyed. “Lead on.”

  Zeuxis fell into stride beside him but there was no more talk until they came to Zeuxis’ house. Relationship of host and guest was obviously superficial now. Neither man trusted the other. Even Orwic, who could understand no word of Greek or Latin, realized that Zeuxis’ house had turned into a place of danger rather than a refuge.

  CHAPTER 87. Virgo Vestalis Maxima

  How I wonder at the credulous who think their impudence endows them with all knowledge! So vast is their credulity that if they hear of something that they understand not, they declare it is not. Such is their credulity that they believe their senses. But they disbelieve in spirit, though they see death all around them and not even their ignorance pretends to know what breathed the life into that which dies when the breath is withdrawn.