The Lion's Brood, Duffield Osborne [i love reading txt] 📗

was still doubtful, when a sudden commotion in the crowd about them drew the attention of all to a short, thick-set man of middle age, in the light panoply of a mounted legionary. Cries went up from all about:—

"It is Marcus Decius." "He is from the army." "Tell us! what news?"

For answer the newcomer turned from one to the other of his questioners, with a dazed expression on his pale, drawn face.

"What shall I say, neighbours?" he muttered at last. "My horse fell just out there on the Flaminian road, and I came here on foot. I have eaten nothing for a day."

But they paid no attention to his wants, thronging around with almost threatening gestures and crying:—

"What news? What news—not of yourself—of the army?—of the battle?"

"There was no battle, and there is no army," said the man, dully.

Sergius forced his way to the front and threw one arm about the soldier. Then, turning to the crowd:—

"Stand back!" he cried, "and give him air. Do you not see the fellow is fainting?"

"No battle—and yet no army," repeated Decius, in a murmurous monotone, when, for a moment, there were silence and space around him. "We marched by the Lake Trasimenus, and the fog lay thick upon us. Then came a noise of shouts and clash of arms and shrieks, but we saw nothing—only sometimes a great, white, naked body swinging a huge sword, and again a black man buried in his horse's mane that waved about him as he rushed by—only these things and our own men falling—falling without ever a chance to strike or to see whence we were stricken."

The crowd shuddered.

"And the elephants?"

"I did not see them. They say they are all dead."

"And the consul?"

"I do not know."

Just then the cripple from the steps was pushed forward.

"Flaminius is dead. He died fighting, as a Roman consul should. But you? What are you, to let the pulse-eaters at him. You should have seen how we dealt with them off the Aegusian Islands."

"Or at Drepana?" sneered the horseman, roused from his lethargy by the other's taunt.

"That was what a patrician consul brought us to," muttered the cripple, glancing at Sergius. "Do you know what the Claudian did? When the sacred chickens would not eat, he cried out, 'Then they shall drink,' and ordered them thrown overboard. How could soldiers win when an impious commander had first challenged the gods?"

"And what about Flaminius ordering our standards to be dug up when they could not be drawn from the earth?" retorted the other.

"Did he do that?" asked several, and for a moment the feeling that had been with the cripple, and against the victim of this latest disaster, seemed divided.

Sergius perceived only too clearly that, in the present temper of men's minds, the faintest spark could light fires of riot and murder that might leave but a heap of ashes and corpses for the Carthaginian to gain. Taking advantage of the momentary lull, he said in conciliatory tones:—

"Flaminius neglected the auspices, and disaster came upon us for his impiety, but it appears that he died like a brave soldier, and he is a whip-knave who strikes at such. As for this man, he needs succour and care. Stand aside, then, that I may take him where his wants may be ministered to. There will soon be plenty of fugitives to fill your ears with tales."

"Not many, master, not many," murmured Decius, as the young man forced a way for them through the crowd. "Some are taken, but most lie in the defile of Trasimenus or under the waters of the Lake."

Sergius hurried on, thinking of Varbo the butcher's dream, and of Arates the Greek soothsayer's interpretation.

II. WORDS.

Three days had passed since the awful news from the shore of Lake Trasimenus had plunged Rome into horror and despair. Every hour had brought in stragglers: horse, foot, fugitives from the country-side, each bearing his tale of slaughter. Crowds gathered at the gates, swarming about every newcomer, vociferous for his story, and then cursing and threatening the teller because it was what they knew it must be.

In the atrium of Titus Manlius Torquatus, on the brow of the Palatine, overlooking the New Way, was gathered a company of three: the aged master of the house, a type of the Roman of better days, and a worthy descendant of that Torquatus who had won the name; his son Caius, the youth who had been with Sergius in the Forum; and Lucius Sergius himself. All were silent and serious.

The elder Torquatus sat by a square fountain ornamented with bronze dolphins, that lay in the middle of the mosaic paving of the apartment. The walls were painted half yellow, half red, after the manner of Magna Grascia, while around them were ranged the statues of the Manlian nobles. The roof was supported in the Tuscan fashion by four beams crossing each other at right angles, and including between them the open space above the fountain.

It was the old man who spoke first.

"Do not think, my Lucius, but that I see the justice of your prayer, or that I wish otherwise than that Marcia should wind wool about your doorposts. Still there is much to be said for delay. Surely these days are not auspicious ones for marriages, and surely better will come. You have my pledge, as had my dead friend Marcus Marcius in the matter of her name. Do you think it was nothing for me to call a daughter other than Manlia—and for a plebeian house at that? Yet she is Marcia. Doubt not that I will keep this word as well."

"Aye, but, father," persisted Sergius, "is it not something that she should be mine to protect in time of peril?"

"And who so able to protect as Lucius," put in Caius, with an admiring glance, for Caius Torquatus was six years younger than his friend, and admired him with all the devotion of a younger man.

"Has it come that our house cannot protect its women?" cried the elder Torquatus. "What more shameful than that our daughter should be carried thus across a Sergian threshold—going like a slave to her master!" He spoke proudly and sternly. Then, turning to Sergius, he went on more gently: "Were you to remain in the city, my son, there might be more force in what you claim; but you will go out with one of the new legions that they will doubtless raise, and you will believe an old man who says that it is not well for a soldier in the field to have a young wife at home."

Sergius flushed and was silent, lest his answer should savour of pride or disrespect toward an elder.

Suddenly they became conscious of a commotion in the street. Shrill cries were borne to their ears, and, a moment later, blows fell upon the outer door, followed by the grinding noise as it turned upon its pivots. A freedman burst into the atrium.

Titus Torquatus rose from his seat, and half raised his staff as if to punish the unceremonious intrusion. Then he noted the excitement under which the man seemed to be labouring, and stood stern and silent to learn what news could warrant such a breach of decorum.

"It is Maharbal, they say—" and the speaker's voice came almost in gasps—"Maharbal and the Numidians—"

"Not at the gates!" cried both young men, springing to their feet; but the other shook his head and went on:—

"No, not that—not yet, but he has cut up four thousand cavalry in Umbria with Caius Centenius. The consul had sent them from Gaul—"

"Be silent!" commanded the elder Torquatus. "Surely I hear the public crier in the street. Is he not summoning the Senate? Velo," he said, turning to the freedman; "you are pardoned for your intrusion. Go, now, and bear orders from me to arm my household, and that my clients and freedmen wait upon me in the morning. It is possible that the Republic may call for every man; and though I fear Titus Manlius Torquatus cannot strike the blows he struck in Sicily, yet even his sword might avail to pierce light armour; and he is happy in that he can give those to the State whose muscles shall suffice to drive the point through heavy buckler and breastplate."

"Shall it be permitted that I attend you to the Senate House?" asked Caius.

His father inclined his head, and, donning the togas which slaves had brought, they hurried into the street, hardly noting that Sergius had reseated himself and was gazing absently down into the water, counting the ripples that spread from where each threadlike stream fell from its dolphin-mouth source.

He did not know how long he had sat thus, nor was he, perhaps, altogether conscious of his motive in failing to pay the aged senator the honour of accompanying him, at least so far as the gates of the Temple of Concord. Sounds came to his ears from the apartments above: the trampling of feet and bustle of preparation that told of Velo's delivery of his patron's commands. Then a woman's laugh rang through the passage that led back to the garden of the peristyle.

Sergius rose and turned, just as a girl sprang out into the atrium, looking back with a laughing challenge to some one who seemed to pursue her, but who hesitated to issue from the protecting darkness.

"What do you fear, Minutia," she cried. "My father and Caius have gone, and there is no one—oh!"

Suddenly she became conscious of Sergius' presence, and her olive cheeks flushed to a rich crimson. Then she faced him with an air of pretty defiance and went on:—

"No one here but Lucius Sergius Fidenas, who should have business elsewhere."

Sergius said nothing, but continued to stand with eyes fixed thoughtfully upon her face.

Her figure was tall, slender, and very graceful, her hair and eyes were dark, and her features delicate and perfectly moulded. Over all was now an expression of hoydenish mirth that bespoke the complete forgetfulness of serious things that only comes to young girls. His attentive silence seemed at last to disturb her. An annoyed look drove the smile from her lips, and, with an almost imperceptible side motion of her small head, she went on:—

"Surely Lucius Sergius Fidenas has not allowed my father to go to the Senate House with only Caius to attend him! Lucius respects my father too much for that—and too disinterestedly. It is an even more serious omission than his failure to attend the consul at Trasimenus—"

Sergius' eyes blazed at the taunt, and, struggling with the answer that rose to his lips, he said nothing for fear he might say too much.

The girl watched him closely. Her mirth returned a little at the sight of his confusion, and, with her mirth, came something of mercy.

"Oh, to be sure, his wound. I almost forgot that. Tell me, my brave Lucius, did the Gauls bite hard when they caught you in the woods and drove you and my brave uncle to Tanes? How funny for naked Gauls to ambush Roman legionaries and chase them home! Father has not spoken to Uncle Cneus since. He says it was his duty to have remained on the field, and I suppose he thinks it was yours, too, instead of running away like a fox to be shut up in his hole."

Sergius had recovered his composure now, but his brow was clouded.

"You are as cruel as ever, Marcia," he said. "And yet I know you have heard that it was the men of my maniple who carried me away, senseless from the blow of a dead man."

"Oh, you did kill him. I remember now," she resumed, with some display of interest. "You had run him through, had you not? and he just let his big sword drop on your head. I got Caius to show me about it, and I was the Gaul. Caius did not stab me, but I let the stick fall pretty hard, and Caius had a sore head for two days. I meant it for you, because you are trying to make an old woman of me when I am hardly a girl."

"Marcia—" began Lucius; but she raised her hand warningly and went on:—

"Do you want me to tell you why my father will not let you marry me now? There are two reasons. One because I don't want him to, and another because he thinks you must do something