Caesar Dies, Talbot Mundy [top reads TXT] 📗

divine his mood and to pose attractively.

"Where is Marcia? What will she do to me next? Is this some new scheme of hers to keep me from enjoying my manhood? Send them away! The next girl I catch in the corridor shall be well whipped. Where is Marcia?"

Throwing away his toga for a slave to catch and fold he turned between gilded columns, through a bronze door, into the antechamber of the royal suite. There a dozen gladiators greeted him as if he were the sun shining out of the clouds after a month of rainy weather.

"This is better!" he exclaimed. "Ho, there, Narcissus! Ho, there, Horatius! Ha! So you recover, Albinus? What a skull the man has! Not many could take what I gave him and be on their feet again within the week! You may follow me, Narcissus. But where is Marcia?"

Marcia called to him through the curtained door that led to the next room—

"I am waiting, Commodus."

"By Jupiter, when she calls me Commodus it means an argument! Are some more of her Christians in the carceres, I wonder? Or has some new highwayman—By Juno's breasts, I tremble when she calls me Commodus!"

The gladiators laughed. He made a pass at one of them, tripped him, scuffled a moment and raised him struggling in the air, then flung him into the nearest group, who broke his fall and set him on his feet again.

"Am I strong enough to face my Marcia?" he asked and, laughing, passed into the other room, where half a dozen women grouped themselves around the imperial mistress.

"What now?" he demanded. "Why am I called Commodus?"

He stood magnificent, with folded arms, confronting her, play-acting the part of a guiltless man arraigned before the magistrate.

"O Roman Hercules," she said, "I spoke in haste, you came so much sooner than expected. What woman can remember you are anything but Caesar when you smile at her? I am in love, and being loved, I am—"

"Contriving some new net for me, I'll wager! Come and watch the new men training with the caestus; I will listen to your plan for ruling me and Rome while the sight of a good set-to stirs my genius to resist your blandishments!"

"Caesar," she said, "speak first with me alone." Instantly his manner changed. He made a gesture of impatience. His sudden scowl frightened the women standing behind Marcia, although she appeared not to notice it, with the same peculiar trick of seeming not to see what she did not wish to seem to see that she had used when she walked naked through the Thermae.

"Send your scared women away then," he retorted. "I trust Narcissus.
You may speak before him."

Her women vanished, hurrying into another room, the last one drawing a cord that closed a jingling curtain.

"Do you not trust me?" asked Marcia. "And is it seemly, Commodus, that
I should speak to you before a gladiator?"

"Speak or be silent!" he grumbled, giving her a black look, but she did not seem to notice it. Her genius—the secret of her power—was to seem forever imperturbable and loving.

"Let Narcissus bear witness then; since Caesar bids me, I obey! Again and again I have warned you, Caesar. If I were less your slave and more your sycophant I would have tired of warning you. But none shall say of Marcia that her Caesar met Nero's fate, whose women ran away and left him. Not while Marcia lives shall Commodus declare he has no friends."

"Who now?" he demanded angrily. "Get me my tablet! Come now, name me your conspirators and they shall die before the sun sets!"

When he scowled his beauty vanished, his eyes seeming to grow closer like an ape's. The mania for murder that obsessed him tautened his sinews. Cheeks, neck, forearms swelled with knotted strength. Ungovernable passion shook him.

"Name them!" he repeated, beckoning unconsciously for the tablet that none dared thrust into his hand.

"Shall I name all Rome?" asked Marcia, stepping closer, pressing herself against him. "O Hercules, my Roman Hercules—does love, that makes us women see, put bandages on men's eyes? You have turned your back upon the better part of Rome to—"

"Better part?" He shook her by the shoulders, snorting. "Liars, cowards, ingrates, strutting peacocks, bladders of wind boring me and one another with their empty phrases, cringing lick-spittles—they make me sick to look at them! They fawn on me like hungry dogs. By Jupiter, I make myself ridiculous too often, pandering to a lot of courtiers! If they despise me then as I despise myself, I am in a bad way! I must make haste and live again! I will get the stench of them out of my nostrils and the sickening sight of them out of my eyes by watching true men fight! When I slay lions with a javelin, or gladiators—"

"You but pander to the rabble," Marcia interrupted. "So did Nero. Did they come to his aid when the senate and his friends deserted him?"

"Don't interrupt me, woman! Senate! Court!" he snorted. "I can rout the senate with a gesture! I will fill my court with gladiators! I can change my ministers as often as I please—aye, and my mistress too," he added, glaring at her. "Out with the names of these new conspirators who have set you trembling for my destiny!"

"I know none—not yet," she said. "I can feel, though. I hear the whispers in the Thermae—"

"By Jupiter, then I will close the Thermae."

"When I pass through the streets I read men's faces—"

"Snarled, have they? My praetorian guard shall show them what it is to be bitten! Mobs are no new things in Rome. The old way is the proper way to deal with mobs! Blood, corn and circuses, but principally blood! By the Dioscuri, I grow weary of your warnings, Marcia!"

He thrust her away from him and went growling like a bear into his own apartment, where his voice could be heard cursing the attendants whose dangerous duty it was to divine in an instant what clothes he would wear and to help him into them. He came out naked through the door, saw Marcia talking to Narcissus, laughed and disappeared again. Marcia raised her voice:

"Telamonion! Oh, Telamonion!"

A curly-headed Greek boy hardly eight years old came running from the outer corridor—all laughter—one of those spoiled favorites of fortune whom it was the fashion to keep as pets. Their usefulness consisted mainly in retention of their innocence.

"Telamonion, go in and play with him. Go in and make him laugh. He is bad tempered."

Confident of everybody's good-will, the child vanished through the curtains where Commodus roared him a greeting. Marcia continued talking to Narcissus in a low voice.

"When did you see Sextus last?" she asked.

"But yesterday."

"And what has he done, do you say? Tell me that again."

"He has found out the chiefs of the party of Lucius Septimius Severus. He has also discovered the leaders of Pescennius Niger's party. He says, too, there is a smaller group that looks toward Clodius Albinus, who commands the troops in Britain."

"Did he tell you names?"

"No. He said he knew I would tell you, and you might tell Commodus, who would write all the names on his proscription list. Sextus, I tell you, reckons his own life nothing, but he is extremely careful for his friends."

"It would be easy to set a trap and catch him. He is insolent. He has had too much rein," said Marcia. "But what would be the use?" Narcissus answered. "There would be Norbanus, too, to reckon with. Each plays into the other's hands. Each knows the other's secrets. Kill one, and there remains the other—doubly dangerous because alarmed. They take turns to visit Rome, the other remaining in hiding with their following of freedmen and educated slaves. They only commit just enough robbery to gain themselves an enviable reputation on the countryside. They visit their friends in Rome in various disguises, and they travel all over Italy to plot with the adherents of this faction or the other. Sextus favors Pertinax—says he would make a respectable emperor— another Marcus Aurelius. But Pertinax knows next to nothing of Sextus' doings, although he protects Sextus as far as he can and sees him now and then. Sextus' plan is to keep all three rival factions by the ears, so that if anything should happen—" he nodded toward the curtain, from behind which came the sounds of childish laughter and the crashing voice of Commodus encouraging in some piece of mischief—"they would be all at odds and Pertinax could seize the throne."

"I wonder whether I was mad that I protected Sextus!" exclaimed Marcia.
"He has served us well. If I had let them catch and crucify him as
Maternus, we would have had no one to keep us informed of all these
cross-conspiracies. But are you sure he favors Pertinax?"

"Quite sure. He even risked an interview with Flavia Titiana, to implore her influence with her husband. Sextus would be all for striking now, this instant; he has assured himself that the world is tired of Commodus, and that no faction is strong enough to stand in the way of Pertinax; but he knows how difficult it will be to persuade Pertinax to assert himself. Pertinax will not hear of murdering Caesar; he says: 'Let us see what happens—if the Fates intend me to be Caesar, let the Fates show how!'"

"Aye, that is Pertinax!" said Marcia. "Why is it that the honest men are all such delayers! As for me, I will save my Commodus if he will let me. If not, the praetorian guard shall put Pertinax on the throne before any other faction has a chance to move. Otherwise we all die—all of us! Severus—Pescennius Niger—Clodius Albinus—any of the others would include us in a general proscription. Pertinax is friendly. He protects his friends. He is the safest man in all ways. Let Pertinax be acclaimed by all the praetorian guard and the senate would accept him eagerly enough. They would feel sure of his mildness. Pertinax would do no wholesale murdering to wipe out opposition; he would try to pacify opponents by the institution of reforms and decent government."

"You must beware you are not forestalled," Narcissus warned her. "Sextus tells me there is more than one man ready to slay Commodus at the first chance. Severus, Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus keep themselves informed as to what is going on; their messengers are in constant movement. If Commodus should lift a hand against either of those three, that would be the signal for civil war. All three would march on Rome."

"Caesar is much more likely to learn of the plotting through his own informers, and to try to terrify the generals by killing their supporters here in Rome," said Marcia. "What does Sextus intend? To kill Caesar himself?"

Narcissus nodded.

"Well, when Sextus thinks that time has come, you kill him! Let that be your task. We must save the life of Commodus as long as possible. When nothing further can be done, we must involve Pertinax so that he won't dare to back out. It was he, you know, who persuaded me to save Maternus the highwayman's life; it was he who told me Maternus is really Sextus, son of Maximus. His knowledge of that secret gives me a certain hold on Pertinax! Caesar would have his head off at a word from me. But the best way with Pertinax is to stroke the honest side of him —the charcoal-burner side of him—the peasant side, if that can be done without making him too diffident. He is perfectly capable of offering the throne to some one else at the last minute!"

A step sounded on the other side of the curtain. "Caesar!" Narcissus whispered. As excuse for being seen in conversation with her he began to show her a charm against all kinds of treachery that he