Caesar Dies Part 18

The centurion made a gesture with his head. The guards took s.e.xtus by the arms and marched him out into the night, he knowing better than to waste energy or arouse anger by resisting.

"Then I will go to the commander! I go straight to him," Narcissus stammered. "Idiot! Don't you know that Marcia protects Maternus? Otherwise, how should an outlaw whose face is so well known that you recognized him instantly-how should he dare to approach the palace?"

The centurion touched his forehead.

"Mad, I daresay! Go on in. Get Marcia's protection for him. Bring me her command in writing! Wait, though-let me look at you."

He made Narcissus throw his heavy cloak off, clean his legs and change into his other foot-gear. Then he examined his costume.

"Even on a night like this they'd punish me for letting a man pa.s.s who wasn't dressed right. Let me see, you're not free yet; you don't have to wear a toga. I spend half my days teaching clodhoppers how to fold hired togas properly behind the neck. It's the only way you can tell a slave from a citizen these days! The praetorian guard ought to be recruited from the tailors' shops! Lace up your sandal properly. Now- any weapons underneath that tunic?"

Sullenly Narcissus held his arms up and submitted to be searched. He usually came and went unchallenged, being known as one of Caesar's favorites, but the centurion's suspicions were aroused. They were almost confirmed a moment later. The decurion returned and laid a long, lean dagger on the table.

"Taken from the prisoner," he reported. "It was hidden beneath his tunic. He looks desperate enough to kill himself, so I left two men to keep an eye on him."

The centurion scratched his chin again, his mouth half-open.

"Whom do you propose to visit in the palace?" he demanded.

"Marcia," said Narcissus.

The centurion turned to the decurion.

"Go you with him. Hand him over to the hall-attendants. Bid them pa.s.s him from hand to hand into Marcia's presence. Don't return until you have word he has reached her."

To all intents and purposes a prisoner, Narcissus was marched along the mosaic pavement of a bronze-roofed colonnade, whose marble columns flanked the approach to the palace steps. Drenched guards, posted near the eaves where water splashed on them clanged their s.h.i.+elds in darkness as the decurion pa.s.sed; there was not a square yard of the palace grounds unwatched.

There was a halt beside the little marble pavilion near the palace steps, where the decurion turned Narcissus over to an attendant in palace uniform, but no comment; the palace was too used to seeing favorites of one day in disgrace the next.

Within the palace there was draughtily lighted gloom, a sensation of dread and mysterious restlessness. The bronze doors leading to the emperor's apartments were shut and guards posted outside them who demanded extremely definite reasons for admitting any one; even when the centurion's message was delivered some one had to be sent in first to find out whether Marcia was willing, and for nearly half an hour Narcissus waited, biting his lip with impatience.

When he was sent for at last, and accompanied in, he found Marcia, Pertinax and Galen seated unattended in the gorgeous, quiet anteroom next to the emperor's bedchamber. The outer storm was hardly audible through the window-shutters, but there was an atmosphere of impending climax, like the hush and rumble that precedes eruptions.

Marcia nodded and dismissed the attendant who had brought Narcissus. There was a strained look about her eyes, a tightening at the corners of the mouth. Her voice was almost hoa.r.s.e:

"What is it? You bring bad news, Narcissus! What has happened?"

"s.e.xtus has been arrested by the main gate guard!"

Galen came out of a reverie. Pertinax bit at his nails and looked startled; worry had made him look as old as Galen, but his shoulders were erect and he was very splendid in his jeweled full dress. None spoke; they waited on Marcia, who turned the news over in her mind a minute.

"When? Why?" she asked at last.

"He proposed I should smuggle him in, that he might be of service to you. He was stormy-minded. He said Rome may need a determined man tonight. But the centurion of the guard recognized him-knew he is Maternus. He refused to summon the commander. s.e.xtus is locked in a cell, and there is no knowing what the guards may do to him. They may try to make him talk. Please write and order him released."

"Yes, order him released," said Pertinax.

But Marcia's strained lips flickered with the vestige of a smile.

"A determined man!" she said, her eyes on Pertinax. "By morning a determined man might give his own commands. s.e.xtus is safe where he is. Let him stay there until you have power to release him! Go and wait in the outer room, Narcissus!"

Narcissus had no alternative. Though he could sense the climax with the marrow of his bones, he did not dare to disobey. He might have rushed into the emperor's bedroom to denounce the whole conspiracy and offer himself as bodyguard in the emergency. That might have won Commodus' grat.i.tude; it might have opened up a way for liberating s.e.xtus. But there was irresolution in the air. And besides, he knew that s.e.xtus would reckon it a treason to himself to be made beholden for his life to Commodus, nor would he forgive betrayal of his friends, Pertinax, and Marcia and Galen.

So Narcissus, who cared only for s.e.xtus, reckoning no other man on earth his friend, went and sat beyond the curtains in the smaller, outer room, straining his ears to catch the conversation and wondering what tragedy the G.o.ds might have in store. As gladiator his philosophy was mixed of fatalism, cynical irreverence, a semi-military instinct of obedience, short-sightedness and self-will. He reckoned Marcia no better than himself because she, too, was born in slavery-and Pertinax not vastly better than himself because he was a charcoal-burner's son. But it did not enter his head just then that he might be capable of making history.

Marcia well understood him. Knowing that he could not escape to confer with the slaves in the corridor, because the door leading to the corridor from the smaller anteroom was locked, she was at no pains to prevent his overhearing anything. He could be dealt with either way, at her convenience; a reward might seal his lips, or she could have him killed the instant that his usefulness was ended, which was possibly not yet.

"s.e.xtus," she said, "must be dealt with. Pertinax, you are the one who should attend to it. As governor of Rome you can-"

"He is thoroughly faithful," said Pertinax. "He has been very useful to us."

"Yes," said Marcia, "but usefulness has limits. Time comes when wine jars need resealing, else the wine spills. Galen, go in and see the emperor."

Galen shook his head.

"He is a sick man," said Marcia. "I think he has a fever."

Galen shook his head again.

"I will not have it said I poisoned him."

"Nonsense! Who knows that you mixed any poison?"

"s.e.xtus, for one," Galen answered.

"Dea dia! There you are!" said Marcia. "I tell you, Pertinax, your s.e.xtus may prove to be another Livius! He has been as ubiquitous as the plague. He knows everything. What if he should turn around and secure himself and his estates by telling Commodus all he knows? It was you who trusted Livius. Do you never learn by your mistakes?"

"We don't know yet what Livius has told," said Pertinax. "If he had been tortured-but he was not. Commodus slew him with his own hand. I know that is true; it was told me by the steward of the bedchamber, who saw it, and who helped to dispose of the body. Commodus swore that such a creeping spy as Livius, who could be true to n.o.body but scribbled, scribbled, scribbled in a journal all the scandal he could learn in order to betray anybody when it suited him, was unfit to live. I take that for a sign that Commodus has had a change of heart. It was a manly thing to slay that wretch."

"He will have a change of governors of Rome before the day dawns!" Marcia retorted. "If it weren't that he might change his mistress at the same time-"

"You would betray me-eh?" Pertinax smiled at her tolerantly.

"No," said Marcia, "I would let you have your own way and be executed! You deserve it, Pertinax." Pertinax stood up and paced the floor with hands behind him.

"I will have my own way. I will have it, Marcia!" he said, calmly, coming to a stand in front of her. "He who plots against his emperor may meet the like fate! If Commodus has no designs against me, then I harbor none against him. I am not sure I am fitted to be Caesar. I have none to rally to me, to rely on, except the praetorian guard, which is a two-horned weapon; they could turn on me as easily and put a man of their own choosing on the throne. And furthermore, I don't wish to be Caesar. Glabrio, for instance, is a better man than I am for the task. I will only consent to your desperate course, for the sake of Rome, if you can prove to me that Commodus designs a wholesale ma.s.sacre. And even so, if your name and Galen's and mine are not on his proscription list-if he only intends, that is, to punish Christians and weaken the faction of that Carthaginian Severus, I will observe my oath of loyalty. I will counsel moderation but-"

"You are less than half a man without your mistress!" Marcia exploded. "Don't stand trying to impress me with your dignity. I don't believe in it! I will send for Cornificia."

"No, no!" Pertinax showed instant resolution. "Cornificia shall not be dragged in. The responsibility is yours and mine. Let us not lessen our dignity by involving an innocent woman."

For a moment that made Marcia breathless. She was staggered by his innocence, not his a.s.sertion of Cornificia's-bemused by the man's ability to believe what he chose to believe, as if Cornificia had not been the very first who plotted to make him Caesar. Cornificia more than any one had contrived to suggest to the praetorian guard that their interest might best be served some day by befriending Pertinax; she more than any one had disarmed Commodus' suspicion by complaining to him about Pertinax' lack of self-a.s.sertiveness, which had become Commodus' chief reason for not mistrusting him. By pretending to report to Commodus the private doings of Pertinax and a number of other important people, Cornificia had undermined Commodus' faith in his secret informers who might else have been dangerous.

"Your Cornificia," Marcia began then changed her mind. Disillusionment would do no good. She must play on the man's illusion that he was the master of his own will. "Very well," she went on, "Yours be the decision! No woman can decide such issues. We are all in your hands- Cornificia and Galen-all of us-aye, and Rome, too-and even s.e.xtus and his friends. But you will never have another such opportunity. It is tonight or never, Pertinax!"

He winced. He was about to speak, but something interrupted him. The great door carved with cupids leading to the emperor's bedchamber opened inch by inch and Telamonion came out, closing it softly behind him.

"Caesar sleeps," said the child, "and the wind blew out the lamp. He was very cross. It is dark. It is cold and lonely in there."