by Talbot Mundy
Orwic’s veins began to boil, so, being British, he proceeded to look preternaturally wise.
“What is all this about destiny? What did you read in the stars?” he demanded.
“You would better not let me influence you,” Pkauchios suggested. “I have never yet made one mistake in reading others’ destiny, but I have no right!”
“Oh, nonsense! Out with it!” said Orwic. “If you can read my destiny, you have no right not to tell me.”
“I must have your definite permission.”
“You have it.”
“Know then, that the stars have indicated for a month that this is the night when Balbus, Governor of Gades, dies! On this night, too, dies Caesar, Imperator of the Roman troops in Gaul! But the conjunction of the stars is such that, if the Governor of Gades dies by the hand of a common murderer, as may be, then anarchy will follow and no good come of it. But should he die by the hand of the prince who stepped out of the red ship and was lost in Gades, then the prince shall wear a red cloak and shall rule a province.”
“Strange!” said Orwic. “Strange! I have had peculiar dreams of late.”
“How many men have you on board that ship?” asked Pkauchios. “If I should show you how to smuggle them ashore and where to hide them and how to reach Balbus’ house unseen at midnight, and should tell you that in Balbus’ treasury is money enough with which to recompense those men of yours and to pay others and to raise an army—”
“I am not a murderer. I am not a thief,” said Orwic, his sense of self- restraint returning.
“Did you slay no Romans when they invaded Britain?” Pkauchios asked. “Did the Romans slay none of your friends? According to the stars that prince, who steps out of the red ship, is to be an avenger and shall drive the Romans out of Gaul!”
“Ah, now you are trying to persuade me,” Orwic commented.
“Not I! But I will give you Chloe, if you seize your opportunity.
She is the richest prize in Gades. She is worth two hundred thousand sesterces.”
Orwic had not the slightest notion how much money that was, so he magnified it in his own mind, and the result rearoused suspicion. He got up and began to pace the floor, to discover whether or not Pkauchios was proposing to detain him forcibly. But Pkauchios made no move; simply leaned against a corner of the wall and watched him. Orwic decided to probe deeper; he desired to justify temptation by proving to himself that Pkauchios was friend, not enemy. He drew back the curtains at the doorway by which he had entered the room. There was nobody there. He passed into a hall lined with statuary, entered rooms that opened to the right and left of it, found nobody, and tried the house door. It was unlocked; doves were cooing in the garden; fountains splashed; there were no lurkers; only a few old Egyptian slaves who dipped out water from a well a hundred yards away.
Plainly, then, he was not a prisoner. And as he breathed the incense smoke out of his lungs, refilling them with blossom-scented air, he felt the challenge of his youth and strength.
“Off Vectis, the Lord Druid said,” he muttered to himself, “there is a man in Gades to whom he could have sent Tros, only that Tros’s mind was closed against him. This Pkauchios is probably the man!”
Musing to himself, his hands behind him, he returned along the hall toward the room where he had left the old Egyptian. Chloe had said he should agree to anything the Egyptian should propose. It might do no harm to pretend to agree. But he wondered how he should explain away his rudeness, how he should accept the man’s proffered aid now without cheapening his own position and above all, how he should explain to Tros.
“You must help me to convince the Lord Tros,” he began, reentering the room.
But Pkauchios was gone. There was no trace of him nor any answer, though he called his name a dozen times.
CHAPTER 76. Balbus qui murum aedificabit
I believe it is true that people have the rulers they deserve. The very wise have said so. Nothing that I have seen has made me think the contrary. Therefore, when I observe those rulers, is it insolence in me to hope that these, whom I rule, are a little worthier than some?
— from The Log of Tros of Samothrace
PONDERING the situation in all its bearings, Tros called Chloe back into the cabin while the deck crew lowered Simon into the longboat.
“Your Horatius Verres waits for Caesar and is Caesar’s man. You have befriended Verres. Therefore Caesar will befriend you. Why, then, should you be in haste to flee from Gades?”
“Torture!” she said and shuddered. “Horatius Verres sent a messenger who may reach Caesar in time to warn him. But if Balbus dies and Caesar comes, then Caesar will investigate—”
“This is not his province. He has no authority in Hispania.”
“He is Caesar,” Chloe answered. “And I shall be tortured, because Pkauchios will certainly be found out and they will need my evidence against him.”
“So, unless we save Balbus’ life—”
Chloe looked into Tros’s eyes. She laid the palms of her hands against his breast, her lip quivering for a second — on the verge of tears, but struggling to regain her self-control.
“Lord Tros,” she said, “there isn’t a slave in Gades but knows Caesar would jump at an excuse to invade Pompey’s province. Pompey and Caesar pretend to be friends. They’re as friendly as two lovers of one woman! Balbus is Pompey’s nominee, and he is willing to win Gaul for Pompey or to betray Hispania into Caesar’s hands, whichever of the two he thinks is stronger. All men know there will be war before long, and none can guess whether Pompey or Caesar will win. Pompey is lazy, proud, rich, popular. Caesar is energetic, loved, feared, hated, deep in debt.”
“Wager your peculium on Caesar!” Tros advised.
“Nay, on Horatius Verres! Have you ever loved a woman?” she asked.
Tros did not answer. He stroked his chin, watching her eyes. She asked him another question.
“Do you think it possible for me to tell the truth?”
He nodded. He expected a prodigious lie was coming. Her eyes were melting, soft, abrim with tears, held bravely back. The stage was all set for Gadean trickery. But she surprised him.
“I would die for Horatius Verres! I would submit to torture for him. But not for you, Pkauchios, Simon, Balbus, Caesar nor any other man!”
“Pearls?” Tros asked her, studying her face.
She reached for the hem of her chlamys and produced the one pearl he had already given her, holding it out in the palm of her hand.
“You may keep them! Simon may keep my money unless you find a way of freeing me tonight! I will sing no more. I will dance no more and please none but myself. For they shall bury me where the other dead slaves’ bodies rot if I lose Horatius Verres. Tros of Samothrace, if you have never loved a woman—”
“Come,” said Tros.
The longboat set them on the seaweed-littered beach, where an officer of Balearic slingers, aping Roman airs and very splendid in his clanking bronze, signed to Tros to pass on, but demanded to be told by what right Simon, the Jew, paid visits to a foreign ship in harbor. A party of Simon’s slaves, with his great unwieldy, paneled litter in their midst had been detained some distance off, a detachment of slingers guarding them.
Simon began to argue excitedly, gesticulating, gasping as the nervousness increased his asthma. Chloe interrupted.
“Do you know me?” she asked.
“I pass you, exquisite Chloe!” the officer answered in Latin with an atrocious Balearic accent.
“I pass Simon!” she retorted. “Do you dare to prevent me?”
“But Chloe—”
“Bring me Simon’s slaves or count me your enemy!” she interrupted.
With a half-humorous grimace the officer beckoned to his men to let Simon’s slaves advance.
“Remember me, O favorite of Fortune!” he said to Chloe. “My name is Metellus.”
“I will mention you to Balbus. I will lie to him about your good looks and your loyalty,” she
promised, and motioned to Simon to climb into his litter.
“Be your memory as nimble as your wits and feet!” Metellus answered, shrugging his shoulders and signing to his men to let the party pass.
Those Balearic slingers lined along the beach were a godsend from Tros’s point of view. There was a crowd of hucksters, pimps, idlers and loose women noisily protesting because the soldiers would not let them approach the shore. In the distance where the fishing boats were anchored three liburnians patrolled the waterfront and kept small boats from putting out. There was no chance of communication with the ship, no risk of the crew getting drunk or of Jaun Aksue and his Eskualdenak escaping.
All the way to the city gate the road was lined with idlers who had come to stare and touts who heralded the fame of Gades’ brothels. They praised Tros’s purple cloak, admired his bulk and strength, flattered, coaxed and tried to tempt him with descriptions of alleged delights, pawing at him, pulling, fighting one another, spitting and cursing at Simon’s slaves for thrusting the litter through their ranks. They offered horses, donkeys, mules, drink, women and at last a litter.
Tros hired the litter and bade Chloe climb into it and ride with him. But she refused.
“There are some things I can not do. Once I bought a litter. But it is against the law for a slave or even for freed women. The Romans’ wives threatened to have me whipped. So I walk, and those women envy me my health, if nothing else!”
They were stared at by the gate guards and by the crowd that swarmed there, but not in any way molested. There was no wheeled traffic, but the narrow street was choked with burdened slaves, mules, oxen and leisured pedestrians who flowed in a colorful hot stream between the lines of stalls and booths that backed against the houses. There was a din of chaffering and a drone of flies where the fruit — and meat — and fish-shops made splurges of raw color; and there was a stench of overcrowded tenements that made Tros cough and gasp.
But people were less curious inside the city, and Chloe’s presence had more effect. She walked ahead with one of Simon’s slaves on either side of her, and the crowd made way, occasionally cheering, calling compliments, addressing her by name as if she were a free celebrity. One man, forcing his way through the crowd, presented her with flowers and begged her to ride in his chariot if he should win next month’s quadriga race in the arena.
She nodded gaily and led on along the winding street until it widened suddenly and approached an irregular square with trees along one side of it and a statue of Balbus the Governor in the midst. On the left hand of the street, with its front toward the square, was a great white building with small, iron-barred windows and the legend S.P.Q.R. in enormous letters amid scroll work all along the coping. From the windows issued shrill, spasmodic, tortured woman’s screams, increasing and increasing, until the street crowd set its teeth and some laughed nervously. It ceased abruptly, only to begin again.
There was no passing at that point. The crowd jammed the street. Even Chloe was helpless to force a way through, and while she pushed, coaxed, pleaded, argued, a girl younger than herself rushed out of a doorway fighting frantically with the crowd that interfered with her and, falling to her knees, seized Chloe’s legs.
Her face was half hidden in a shawl; Chloe pulled it back and recognized her. The girl sobbed, and as the screams from the window rose to a shrill, broken summit of inflicted agony, she burst into a torrent of stuttering words all choked with sobs, her fingers clutching Chloe’s knees.
Tros rolled out of the litter, for it was useless to try to force that eight-manned object through the crowd. He touched Chloe’s shoulder.
“Her mother!” she whispered. “Some informer has told Balbus of a plot. He takes her mother’s testimony.”
She stooped and kissed the girl, then broke away from her and, beckoning to Tros to follow, began using violence and Balbus’ name to force her way through, the crowd gradually yielding.
Around the corner, on the side of the building that faced the trees, eight Roman soldiers under a decurion leaned on spears beside the stone steps that led to a wide arched entrance. Beyond them, in the shadow of the wall, eight more legionaries stood guard over a group of miserable prisoners, gibing at them when they shuddered at the screams that could be heard there even more distinctly than in the street because the stone arch of the entrance magnified the noise. Held back by a rope between the steps and the trees at the back of the square was a crowd of Romans, Spaniards, Greeks, Moors, Jews, slaves and freemen, their voices making a sea of sound that paused regularly when the screams increased.
Chloe led Tros to the steps and whispered Balbus’ name to the decurion in charge, who stared at Tros but nodded leave to enter. They fought their way into a crowded lobby, where men and women stood on tiptoe trying to see through the open courtroom door over the shoulders of two legionaries whose spears and broad backs blocked the way. There was hardly breathing room. A woman in a corner had fainted and a man was pouring water on her from a lion’s mouth drinking fountain built into the wall.
Chloe kicked, shoved, imprecated, cried out Balbus’ name and worked her way at last, with Tros behind her, until she touched the spears held horizontally across the door and Tros could see over her shoulder into the crowded courtroom.
The screams for the moment had ceased. On a sort of throne on a raised dais with a chair on either side of it on which the secretaries sat, was Balbus, Governor of Gades, exquisitely groomed, pale, clicking at his front teeth with a thumb-nail. He was handsome, but much darker than the average Roman; there were rings under his eyes, that had a bored look, as if he found it difficult to concentrate on a subject that vaguely irritated him. His crisp black hair was turning gray, although he was a comparatively young man. He looked decidedly unhealthy.
Presently he sat bolt upright and the crowded courtroom grew utterly still. When he spoke his well-trained voice had the suggestion of a sneer, and his frown was a tyrant’s, impatient, exacting, final — like the corners of his mouth that tightened when his lips moved.
“I have considered the advocate’s argument. It is true, it is a principle of Roman law that no injustice shall be done; but this woman is not a Roman citizen, nor is she the mother of more than one child, so she has no rights that are involved in this instance. Treason has been charged against the Senate and the Roman People, a most serious issue. This woman has refused to answer truthfully the questions put to her, although she has been accused of knowing the conspirators’ names. Let the torturers continue. Apply fire.”
He leaned forward, elbow on his knee, and again the awful screams began to fill the stone-roofed hall. A scream from the street re-echoed them. The crowd on the wooden benches reached and craned to get a better view and the sentries in the doorway stood on tiptoe; all that Tros could see over their shoulders was a glimpse of the men who held the levers of a rack and the red glow of a charcoal brazier. There began to be a stench of burning flesh.
Chloe stepped under the spears of the sentries; one of them reached out an arm but recognized her as she turned to threaten him, grinned and nodded to her to go wherever she pleased. She disappeared into the crowd that stood in the aisle between the benches. The next Tros saw of her she was in front of the dais, looking up at Balbus, who sat motionless, chin on hand, elbow on knee, apparently not listening. The tortured woman’s screams made whatever Chloe said inaudible to any one but Balbus and, perhaps, his secretaries, who, however, were at pains to appear busy with their tablets. Balbus suddenly sat upright, raising his right hand.
“Cease!” he exclaimed in a bored voice. “There will be a short recession. Remove the witness. Let the doctor see to her. After the recession I will examine the other witnesses in turn. It is possible we may not need this one’s testimony.”
The witness’ screams died to a sobbing moan, and there was a murmur in the courtroom. Some one cried out, “Favoritism!” At the rear of the room there were audible snickers. Ushers and sentries roared for silence and, as two men carri
ed the victim out on a stretcher through a side door, Balbus spoke with a metallic snarl:
“I will clear the court if there are further demonstrations! This is not a spectacle, but a judicial process. A courtroom is not an arena. Let decency attend the acts of justice. The next spectator who betrays disrespect for the dignity of Roman justice shall be soundly flogged!”
He arose and left the courtroom by a door at the rear of the dais, nodding to Chloe as he went. She seized a court official by the arm and the crowd in the aisle made way in front of them. The official, lemon-faced, his skin a mass of wrinkles, sly-eyed from experience of litigation and his long nose looking capable of infinite suspicion, beckoned to Tros. The sentries let him through and the crowd in the courtroom turned to stare as he swaggered up the aisle, his sea legs giving him a roll that showed off his purple cloak and his great bulk to advantage. With his sword in its purple scabbard and the broad gold band that bound his heavy coils of black hair he looked like a king on a visit of state and, what was more to his purpose, he knew it. They passed the torture-implements, where a Sicilian slave on his knees blew at a charcoal brazier in preparation for the next unwilling witness; the long-nosed official opened the door at the rear of the dais and Chloe, all smiles and excitement, led the way in.
“The renowned and noble Tros of Samothrace!” she exclaimed, and shut the door behind her, leaning her back against it.
Balbus looked up. He was sitting by the window of a square room lined with racks of parchments, holding toward the light a tablet, which he appeared to find immensely interesting. Tros approached him and bowed, hand on hilt.
“So you are that pirate?” said Balbus, looking keenly at him.
“That is Caesar’s view of it,” Tros answered. “I had the great Pompeius’ leave to come and go and to use all Roman ports, but Caesar stole my father’s ship and slew him.”
“Why do you come to Gades?”
“To find a friend who shall make it safe for me to take my ship to Ostia, and there to leave the ship at anchor while I go to Rome.”