by Jack Lindsay
“Fair play!” he cried, and the man let him draw the blade.
The landlord screeched and tried to interpose, but the gladiators shoved him back and he fell against the counter, upsetting some cups that toppled on his face. The other drinkers ran for the door, except for two more adventurous porters who came up grinning and stood behind the watching gladiators.
The man whom Lucius had insulted swung his sword. Lucius leaned aside, then swung his own sword back and contemptuously hit the man on his shoulder with the flat of the blade as he stood swaying off his balance. The tap infuriated the gladiator, but made him more careful. The two men fenced agilely, circling round, urged on by the jests and applause of the onlookers. The gladiator was a newcomer to the school, and he hacked and thrust with ungainly violence. Lucius had no difficulty in parrying or catching the blows on the guard of his sword. The man, blinded with rage at the jeers of his comrades, ceased circling round, stood panting for a moment, and then hurled himself at Lucius, whirling his sword recklessly. Lucius caught the blade, turned it aside, and, while the man swerved, shortened his own guard, and buried the sword-point in the man’s throat.
There was a howl of exasperation from the other gladiators. They made to charge Lucius, but he had the only other sword. Quickly he drove the men back, cleared his passage to the door, and broke through. Once in the street he flung the sword down, startling a beggar who had come to take up his post at the door, and ran across the road. He darted up a lane, and in a few moments had gained a crowded thoroughfare. There, noticing a barber’s shop, he decided to have a wash.
Reaching home, he found that Antonius was still out. He no longer felt the band of heat round his brow, and knew what he must do. He no longer feared the eyes of his brother, but feared the threat of a woman offered but untaken.
Fulvia was still in her room, seated with hands loosely held in her lap.
“Say what you said before,” said Lucius, masterfully standing before her.
“You can take me now if you want me.”
He beat his breast in exultation of strength. “I’m yours, all yours, Fulvia. I’ve burned out everything else. I’m yours. Every drop of blood in my body is yours.”
“I knew you would come back,” she said, and rising, placed her hands on his shoulders. “Shall I say yet again what I have said?”
He shuddered and leaned over her to kiss her loose mouth.
*
“I think we ought to stay,” said Cassius.
Servilia fluttered her eyelids nervously. She had done her best to keep Brutus from meeting his sister Tertulla, for she dreaded lest Tertulla would make some reference to Servilia’s confession of love for Caesar; but it had been impossible to stop this conference at the house of Cassius. The conference was necessary, and Cassius couldn’t leave Tertulla. Brutus had come with a strong guard, hastening down unfrequented streets. Even during the lull before the advent of Marius it had been highly dangerous for the two praetors to go outside their doors; now the populace were growing rowdier daily again. The stress had told heavily on both men; but as soon as Cassius learned that Brutus wanted to leave Rome, he saw only the arguments against such a step.
“Now that Antonius has executed Marius, things will quieten down. More importantly, we know now that we can trust Antonius.”
“You said things would quieten down when the funeral-riots ceased,” said Brutus. “Then they got worse. Matters like this go by waves, and each wave is worse. There’ll be another lull now, and then a worse outbreak.”
“I think Marcus is right,” said Servilia with her air of impartiality that annoyed Cassius; for she always used it to support Brutus. “There’s no point in exacerbating the mob. Now that Antonius has come out so splendidly for law and order, there’s no reason why you both shouldn’t go. No good will be done by staying. I’ll negotiate with Antonius and see that you both get worthwhile provinces for next year. Don’t forget that Decimus has been accepted by the army in Cisalpine Gaul. That means everything. Rome must be left to exhaust itself. Neither of the consuls-elect are extremists, and Decimus is to be consul for the year after.”
There was no gainsaying her facts, but Cassius felt uneasy.
“All you say is true, but things aren’t moving any longer by the obvious road. There are too many indeterminate factors. If Rome is abandoned, anything might happen. We ought to stay. We’re the only leaders left for our party.”
Brutus wavered; he felt that Cassius was right; they’d have to stay, however unpleasant it was. But Tertulla, who had been lying on a couch at the side, wriggling her toes, interrupted.
“O leave Rome to us women. Mother will manage the Senate.”
Servilia breathed again after finding that Tertulla had made no exposure, but Brutus spoke with lowering brows.
“Mother, I think you ought to surrender that estate in Campania you were given by Caesar. Also that house at Neapolis.”
Servilia’s mouth closed firmly. “They weren’t given to me. I bought them. At the auctions.”
“That’s as bad. You got them for almost nothing. And whatever you paid, we can’t have people saying we bought up the property of ruined patriots.” He had heard a man in the street singing a lampoon on the subject, but didn’t like to admit himself affected by such trivialities.
“I won’t give them up,” replied Servilia. “There’s no reason whatever for doing so. It would merely look guilty and draw attention. Somebody had to buy the places.”
“What about that magnificent pearl Caesar gave you?” asked Tertulla, mockingly. “It was far bigger and richer than the one I had till Gaius stole it.” Servilia drew away, a hand over her eyes; she knew what was coming. Tertulla went on: “But men don’t understand women. We hate to part with things our lovers once gave us.”
“Lovers! What do you mean?” asked Brutus, tartly.
“Caesar and our mother,” replied Tertulla, with a laugh. “Though personally I can’t comprehend how a woman could ever betray a man that she’d once taken to bed — unless he did something wicked to her, like stealing her pearls — and Caesar was always so good to our mother, wasn’t he?”
Brutus stood aghast. “What are you talking about, Tertulla? What madness ...” His gaze sought Servilia, and he saw her admission of the truth; and with an agonising twist of emotion he knew that he had always known it, that it had been the bitterest thing in his life.
“Mother” he said, in a strained voice, painful to hear.
Memories rushed over him. Of course he had always known it. How had he hidden from it so long? Why then had she acquiesced ... He fought to understand. It was all too complex. He fought to hold down a covering over his exposed mind, to press out of consciousness the struggling thoughts and gibbering dark faces of emotion. Now he could never touch his mother again, never look a man in the face; he was befouled.
Cassius stared gloomily at the mother and her children. It was all beyond his comprehension, wretchedly embarrassing and disgraceful. He walked out of the room.
“Mother,” said Brutus, in a choking voice. He couldn’t believe it after all; it was impossible. Why didn’t she deny it?
“Don’t, don’t,” cried Servilia, for once without sympathy for her son’s suffering. “Don’t ask me anything. Don’t judge me. Don’t think about it. I love you more than anything in the world.”
Tertulla was overcome with remorse. “I didn’t mean to say it. O I’ll bite my tongue out.”
But neither of the others heard her. Brutus sank down on his knees before his mother, and laid his head on her lap. He couldn’t think; he didn’t want to think; he must forget it all; nothing had happened; he was pure of heart and hand; he had thought only of Rome.
*
Half an hour later Cassius was called back into the room. To his relief no reference was made to the scene from which he had fled.
Brutus paced about the floor. “We’ve talked things over, and it’s best for you and me to go. There’s no doubt of it.�
� Cassius did not demur this time; he was too disheartened. “Very well; I’ll ask Antonius for another interview — or at least to send a note verifying his promise to get Marcus leave of absence.”
Servilia rose energetically. “I’ll set to work about arranging that decree for the provincial appointments.” Ever since the murder she had become her old brisk political self, intriguing among the senatorial families, holding a salon, and ordering the votes of a section of the Senate.
After Brutus and Servilia had gone, Cassius asked Tertulla for an account of what had passed while he was out of the room.
“O they wept of course, and talked about virtue being its own reward or something. And Marcus had a fit of the horrors, and mother kissed him on the brow and swore she’d only had a sisterly interest in Caesar. And I almost died of shame. I was frightened to breathe lest they’d notice me, and the baby gave me a most awful kick inside, as if he objected to the family I was giving him. Don’t you think I’ve got the most ravishing toes? And I don’t care what the season is, you’ve simply got to get me some plums.”
*
Ammonios and Sara stood cowed. As Cleopatra turned away for a moment to pick up a silver hand-mirror and stare at the reflection of her face on its polished surface, they exchanged a glance of suspicious self-commiseration.
She recovered herself, returned to where they stood, and spoke to Sara. “Go on.”
“I bribed one of the slaves. I met him in the back lane, throwing out some rubbish. He told me that his master and mistress had had a quarrel of some kind. One of the girls said in the servants’ quarters that she looked through the curtains of a side-room after the quarrel, and they were lying on the floor there.”
“The floor!”
“I was surprised. The man told me there wasn’t any couch in the room — if that’s an explanation.”
Cleopatra looked again in the mirror, brushing back her hair and parting her mouth to show the small even teeth. So Fulvia had somehow got him back. She, Cleopatra, had known it was a risk to tell him what she had told; but it was the only way to gain him, if he was to be gained. The prophet Marius was no use alone; and she was sure that Antonius, on leaving her, had been genuinely roused. She had said more perhaps than necessary, for she had felt more drawn to him than she expected; he wasn’t only a bullying vinous swashbuckler; there was a fineness somewhere in him, but a fibre of cowardice too. The failure of her plans hadn’t come because she said too much. Some unforeseeable accident had spoiled things; and he had confessed to Fulvia. Perhaps the woman had spies to follow him everywhere.
But what was Cleopatra to do now? Nothing definite could be achieved without some commanding man whom she could use. Perhaps Dolabella would serve. But her heart sank. No, Antonius was the man, and he was a coward. But she wouldn’t give in yet.
“Find as many agents as you can for working on the mob. Pay them well. Bid them preach two things: Revenge Caesar, and give Caesar’s son his inheritance.”
Some day she would have her reckoning with Antonius. He was a coward, and yet he had unsealed her body; he had drawn out of her something that even Caesar had not awoken. Perhaps it was the months of abstinence, the shock of Caesar’s death, the re-knitting of purpose and hope on a more daring determination, the mingled fineness and physical power of the man; but never before had she surrendered as to him. And the coward had gone and told his wife.
Ammonios and Sara, seeing that she had no more orders to give, saluted and bowed their way out, loathing each other more thoroughly than ever after being rebuked in one another’s presence.
*
A necklace of gold with a pendant of large rubies and emeralds, and a pearl set in silver. Gallus looked at the jewelry glittering in his lap and tried to realise that he had won it with a few throws of the dice. The things looked alive, a nest of serpents, stinging with barbs of light.
The man with whom he had been playing rose unsteadily to his feet.
“Someone cheated,” he shouted, and flung the dice-box on the floor. “And it couldn’t have been me, since I’ve lost everything I had in the world.”
“There wasn’t any cheating,” said one of the bystanders. “You deserved to lose for boasting like you did. The fellow was only playing you for a few silver pieces, and it was you that slapped the jewels down and talked big.”
Gallus, sobered and hypnotised by the snakish gleam of the gems, took another drink of the red wine and looked round the tavern helplessly.
The loser advanced toward him with threatening fists. “Hand it all back.”
Gallus stared at the jewelry and decided that he didn’t want it; he had never owned any such things before, and the ownership seemed sinful; the gems were alive with baleful fires, glints of forked light, tongues of evil greed and vanity. It wasn’t as if he could even give them to Cytheris now. But the thought of Cytheris roused him to an angered sense of his rights; he wouldn’t be defrauded.
“I won them,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
The watchers, loafers and cut-throats who yet had a deep sense of the proprieties of gambling, murmured their agreement. They closed in and pushed the man back. Gallus, realising at last the value of his win, hastily wrapped it in a fold of his tunic, out of sight, and called to the bartender.
“Free drinks for everyone here.”
There was a shout of approval at this tactful suggestion, and the disgruntled loser was ejected contumeliously.
Gallus felt an urgent need to get home and sleep. If he were to drop off asleep here, he would never wake. Weariness settled on him leadenly; his stomach felt hot and slowly turning over and over. But he managed to reach the bar and beckon to the landlord.
“I’m going home,” he said, placing all his money carefully on the counter, coin beside coin — having a vague idea that it looked more that way. “Give everybody drinks, and lend me six slaves to see me home. Two with torches.”
“That’s all I’ve got,” grumbled the man. “Have you far to go?”
“Not at all,” said Gallus, who had no notion where he was. “Only round the corner. I’ll recommend your house to thousand friends. Come on. Look at all th’ money.”
“I can make it four,” said the landlord, “and I’ll give them good strong clubs. I’m not saying that you aren’t a man wise to the ways of a wicked world.”
It was as well that Gallus bargained for the escort. Round the corner waited the losing gambler and a friend, both with knives; but the slaves with their clubs laid out one man senseless in the mud, and the other ran away screaming, while Gallus leaned against a shutter and laughed feebly.
In this way Gallus reached home in safety; and a worried Leonidas put him to bed, astonished to find a little heap of jewels clatter upon the floor as he drew off the tunic.
“Jewels,” murmured Gallus. “Stars dropped from her eyes. Her glittering sweat. Snakes. Hang them from her nose. Bore a hole through her to hang them on. Throw them out of the window. Trash.”
Reverently, with bulging eyes, Leonidas hid the treasure under the small stove. Then he spent the rest of the night thinking of better places and shifting the treasure round, afraid that every creak of the wood partitions and flooring, every scurry of mice, was a robber come at last.
*
“What would you do if the Queen was to leave Rome and take me away?” asked Karni.
“I’d weep,” replied Amos, lifting his head to place his mouth close to her ear. The narrow bed rattled so loudly, and the men below clanged so shatteringly, that it was hard to converse otherwise.
“Would you call that manly?”
“No,” said Amos, honestly. “But what else could I do?”
He tried to spread out his hands to illustrate convincingly how helpless and hopeless the situation would be, and fell out of bed. And Karni, though a good-natured girl, was glad he had fallen out.
*
Lucius came closer to Fulvia and passed his hand up her wide sleeve so that it rested on her bare should
er blade as he clasped her.
“I found the two fellows,” he whispered. “Two rogues I’ve used before. I gave them the full instructions. They know all they have to do. I’ve promised them ten thousand each and a farm at Casilinum.”
“But only if they kill her. Only if they kill her.”
Lucius moved his fingers caressingly up and down her spine, which arched under the touch. “I’ve told them that. Now you and I are going to take charge of Marcus for his own good.” His mouth was hot against her ear. “You’re the only woman for me. I’d like to be flayed if my skin was used to make slippers for your feet. I’m so jealous of you that if you were to have a child by me I’d drink all the milk of your breast with my own mouth. Every time Marcus goes near you I feel wounds opening in the palms of my hands.”
*
The two men sat drinking in a small front-room on the second floor of a tenement-house. Gaius Barcha and Publius Blattius were their names. Barcha was a squat man with black hair cut in a fringe across his forehead; Blattius a thin man with one ear like a cankered crab apple and a hooked nose.
They clinked cups and continued with their plans. “Sticking her will be easy,” said Barcha. “It’s getting in that will take the time and sweat the brains out of the top of our heads.”
“I understood what he told us, even if you didn’t. It’s lucky there’s one of the two of us with more use for his ears than growing wax in them. It’s like this.” He sketched some lines on the table with wine-wetted finger. “The sleeping-rooms are along here. Now there’s a window at the end of this hall that opens into a clothes-cupboard. All the guards will be at the other end of the hall. Unless one of us treads on the other, or unless she has the captain of the guard sleeping with her to keep ghosts away, it’ll be as easy as making an apple roll downstairs.”
“Well, don’t go making any swipes in the dark unless you know what you’re about. I haven’t forgotten yet how you stuck me in the knee that night on the Appian Way. I still can’t walk like a man with nothing on his conscience.”
“O don’t bring up the grey-headed past. I’ve learned a lot since then.”
