by Talbot Mundy
“People who vanish usually reappear unless the guards have seized them. Private business or perhaps a woman, who knows? At any rate, I will trouble you not to disturb a peaceful household. Go away!”
He closed the peep-hole and in the darkness Tros could sense rather than see that he bowed with peculiar dignity.
“Do me the favor to come this way,” he murmured, using the Roman language in as gentle a voice as Tros had ever heard. He led down the dark stairs as if they were not quite familiar to him.
Tros groped for Conops, seized him by the neck and swung him face to face.
“Well?” he demanded.
Conops answered in a hurried whisper:
“That fellow Horatius Verres came out of the hold and said ‘If you value your master’s freedom, follow me!’ Then he jumped overboard and swam. I followed to the beach in a boat. All the way to this place he kept a few paces ahead of me. Then he said ‘Find your master and bring him here, or he’ll be dead by midnight!’ I was on my way to Pkauchios’ house when—”
“Go ahead of me!” Tros ordered.
He loosed his sword in the scabbard and trod quietly, hoping Conops’ heavier step would be mistaken for his own in the event of ambush, so leaving himself free to fight. But the curtain was drawn aside, only to reveal a dim lamp and another curtain. The sound of men’s voices increased; there was now laughter and a smell of wine. Beyond the second curtain was a third with figures on it done in blue and white. Some one pulled the third curtain aside and revealed a great square room whose heavy beams were set below the level of the street. The walls were of stone, irregularly dressed. There was a tiled floor covered with goat-hair matting, and a small table near one end of the room, at which a man sat with his back to a closed door. Around the other walls were benches occupied by men in Roman and Greek costume, although none of them apparently was Roman and by no means all were Greeks. There were two Jews, for instance, of whom one was Simon. All except Simon rose as Tros entered. Simon seemed exhausted, and was sweating freely from the heat of the bronze illuminating lamps.
“The noble Tros of Samothrace!” said the man with the gentle voice who had led the way downstairs.
Tros glared around him, splendid in his purple cloak against the golden leather curtain, and the man at the table bowed. Simon coughed and made movements with his hands, suggesting helplessness. He who had led the way downstairs produced a chair made of wood and whaleskin and with the air of a courtier offered it to Tros to sit on, but he pretended not to notice it.
“Illustrious Tros of Samothrace, we invite you to be seated,” said the man at the table.
He looked almost like Balbus, except that his face was harder and not wearied from debauch of the emotions. He had humor in his dark eyes, and every gesture, every curve of him suggested confidence and good breeding.
Tros noticed that Horatius Verres was seated in the darkest corner of the room, that Conops’ knife-blade was a good two inches out of the sheath, that his own sword was at the proper angle to be drawn instantly, and that the men nearest to him looked neither murderous nor capable of preventing his escape past the curtain.
“Illustrious Tros of Samothrace,” said the man at the table, “we have learned that you will lend your dagger to the cause of Gades.”
“Who are you?” Tros retorted bluntly.
“We are a committee of public safety, self-appointed and here gathered, unknown to our Roman rulers, for the purpose of conspiracy in the name of freedom,” he at the table answered. “My own name is Quintilian.”
Tros heard a noise behind the curtain, was aware of armed men on the stairs. By the half smile on the chairman’s face he realized he was in a trap from which there was no chance of escape without a miracle of swordsmanship or else a shift of luck. He stared very hard at Simon, who seemed to avoid his gaze.
“We wish to assure ourselves,” said the man who had called himself Quintilian, “that we have not been misinformed.”
“There are two who might have told you,” Tros answered. “One is Simon, the other Chloe, a Greek slave. I will say nothing unless you tell me which of them betrayed me.”
Quintilian smiled. His dark, amused eyes glanced around the room, resting at last on Simon’s face.
“Your friend Simon,” he said, “has refused to answer questions. We are pleased that your arrival on the scene may save him from that application to his person of inducements to speak, which we had in contemplation.”
Tros blew a sigh out of his lungs, half of admiration for his old friend Simon, half of contempt for himself for having trusted Chloe. Then he glared at Horatius Verres over in the corner.
“How came I to trust you?” he wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” the Roman answered, smiling. “I myself marveled at it. I am greatly in your debt, illustrious Tros. You gave me opportunity to hold a long conversation with Herod ben Mordecai down in the dark, in the hold of your ship. And you left me free to watch for signals from the shore. You knew that Chloe loves me. I am sure you are much too wise to suppose that a woman in love would neglect to signal to her lover.” The voice was mocking, confident, cynical.
Tros tossed his head as if about to speak, staring straight at the man at the table to conceal his intention of charging up the stairs and fighting his way to the street. Up anchor and away from Gades — there was nothing else to do! The only thing that made him hesitate was wondering how to rescue Simon.
“You are in no danger at present. Be seated,” said Quintilian courteously. “We wish to hear from your lips confirmation of a plot that interests us deeply. We also are conspirators.”
Tros closed his mouth grimly.
He did not sit down, but laid his left hand on the chair-back, intending to use the chair as a shield when he judged the moment ripe.
“Ah, you have not understood us properly,” said Quintilian. “Trouble yourself to observe that we are not warlike men, not even armed with anything but daggers. We are students of philosophy, of music, of the sacred sciences. Our purpose is, that Gades shall become a center of the arts, a city dedicated to the Muses. We have heard that Pkauchios the Egyptian plans an uprising which you will lead by slaying Balbus, for whom none of us has any particular admiration. In the interests of Gades we propose to discover in what way we can be of assistance to you.”
Tros let a laugh explode in one gruff bark of irony.
“I am no friend of Balbus. I am the enemy of Caesar and of Rome,” he answered. “But if I were so far to forget my manhood as to cut a throat like a common murderer, it would be the throat of Pkauchios! You fools!”
“Not so foolish, possibly, as weak!” Quintilian answered with a suave smile. “But as the poet Homer says, ‘The strength even of weak men when united avails much!”’
The mention of the poet Homer mollified Tros instantly. He began to feel a sort of friendly condescension. These were harmless, poet-loving people after all. They might be saved from indiscretion.
“Fools, I said! But I, too, have been foolish. I thought to pluck my own advantage from the whirlpool of this city’s frenzy! Murder never overthrew a tyranny. Ye are like dogs who bite the stick that whips them instead of fighting foot and fang against the tyranny itself! Slay Balbus, and a tyrant ten times worse will take advantage of the crime to chain a new yoke on your necks!”
There was a murmur of surprise. Quintilian raised his eyebrows and, leaning both elbows on the table, answered:
“But we know for a fact you have agreed with Pkauchios to stab Balbus in his house at the supper — tonight.”
“Chloe told you. Well, I, too, was fool enough to trust her, but not altogether,” Tros said, grimly. “I would not trust Pkauchios if I had him tied and gagged! My plan was nothing but to rescue Balbus, to protect him, and so win his gratitude! I seek a favor from him. Bah! Do you think I would lend my men for a purpose that would bring disaster on a city against which I have no grudge? Phaugh! Murder your own despots, if you will, but count me
out of it! Look you—”
He drew his sword and shook the cloak back from his shoulder. Behind him he heard the click of Conops’ knife emerging from the sheath.
“I go!” He took a stride toward the door, but as none moved to prevent him he paused and faced Quintilian again. He decided to test them to the utmost. If he had to fight his way out he proposed to know it. “Simon may come if he will. I have two words of advice for you: Kill me if you can before I gut your men who guard the stairs, because I go to Balbus! I will warn him, for the sake of Gades! Fools! If you must murder some one, make it Pkauchios! If that dark trickster has his way, all Hispania and Gaul will run blood! You have let the Romans in and now you must endure the Romans! Make no worse evil for yourselves than is imposed already!”
He beckoned to Simon, but Quintilian rose and bowed with such dignity and obvious good-will that Tros paused again. “Illustrious Tros,” Quintilian said, “if you could favor us with any sort of guarantee that those are your genuine sentiments, we would even let you go to Balbus! It is just Balbus’ death that we hope to prevent!”
Smiling, his dark eyes alight with amusement and with something strong and generous behind that, he struck the table sharply with the flat of his hand. There was a sudden sound behind Tros’s back; the inner curtain had been drawn; in the opening stood two men armed with javelins, and there was a third behind them with a bow and arrows.
“You may live and we will turn you loose if you will convince us,” remarked Quintilian. “Time presses. Won’t you do us the favor to be seated?”
But Tros refused to sit.
“It is you who must convince me!” he retorted.
With his cloak, his sword, the whaleskin chair and Conops to create diversions, he knew himself able to defeat javelins and bow and arrow, but he was interested to discover whether there were any more armed men in hiding. Quintilian, however, gave him no enlightenment on that point beyond continuing to smile with utmost confidence.
“You see,” he said, “none of us can go to Balbus, who is altogether too suspicious. He would have us crucified for knowing anything about conspiracies. Yet we have suffered so much in pocket and peace and dignity from former abortive risings that we ventured to take liberties with you in order to nip a new one in the bud, or rather, to prevent its budding. Balbus and his troops would nip!”
“Then his troops aren’t mutinous?” Tros asked.
Quintilian smiled.
“They are always mutinous. Just now they talk of marching to join Caesar in Gaul. But a chance to loot the city would restore them to sweet reasonableness, as Balbus perfectly understands. Illustrious Tros, perhaps we might not feel so determined if we liked Pkauchios or if we thought the city were united. We believe ourselves sufficiently intelligent to take advantage of the disaffection in the Roman camp. The moment might be ripe for insurrection but for one important fact: We have learned that Julius Caesar is coming!”
He glanced at Horatius Verres, who smiled at Tros and nodded with the same air of amused confidence that he had displayed from the beginning.
“Speak to him,” said Quintilian. So Horatius Verres stood up, arms folded, and in a very pleasant voice explained how he came to be there.
“Illustrious Tros,” he said, “I am in a worse predicament than you, I being Caesar’s man, and you your own. I obey Caesar, because I love him. While I live, I serve him at my own risk, whereas you are free to follow inclination. I discovered a plot to murder Caesar. It was launched in Gades, and I sent him warning as soon as I knew.
“I received a reply that he will come here. But though he is Caesar, he can not be here for several days, whether he come by land or water. I can not warn Balbus, who is touchy about being spied on and would have my head cut off to keep me from telling Caesar things I know. But it is not Caesar’s desire that Balbus should meet death, there being virtues, of a sort which Balbus imitates, that might serve Caesar’s ends to great advantage.
“From Herod, the Jew, in the darkness of the hold of your ship, I learned of these distinguished Gadeans, who call themselves a committee of public safety. So I risked my life by coming to them, and I risked yours equally, by persuading your man Conops to summon you, believing you to be a man who might see humor in the situation and take the right way out of it.”
He sat down again.
“May the gods behold your impudence!” said Tros. But he could not help liking the man.
“We know,” said Quintilian, “that Pkauchios has ruffians ready to attack Balbus’ house at midnight. We also know that he has bribed some of the bodyguard, and we suppose he will make some of the others drunk with drugged wine. We imagine he has offered you inducements to bring a few hundred men ashore—”
“You had that from Chloe,” said Tros, but Quintilian took no notice of the interruption.
“ — to give backbone, as it were, to the mob that might otherwise flinch. And we know there are weapons in Simon’s warehouse, some of which we presume are to be supplied to your men. We ourselves might kill Pkauchios, but Balbus has a great regard for him and, strange though it may appear, though public-spirited, we prefer not to be tortured and we object to having our possessions confiscated. Nevertheless, we will not permit Balbus to be slain, and if you are willing to protect him for the sake of Gades—”
He paused and Tros waited, almost breathlessly. In his mind he made a bargain, named the terms of it by which he would abide for good or ill — a final test of these men’s honesty.
“We will offer you our silent gratitude,” Quintilian went on, “and we will take a pledge from you not to reveal our names or our identity to Balbus.”
It was a tactful way of saying they would not murder him if he succeeded and provided he should keep his mouth shut. Tros laughed.
“If you had offered me a price,” he said, “I would have spat on you.”
“As it is, are you willing to betray Pkauchios to Balbus?” Quintilian asked. “You could do it without risk whereas we—”
Tros snorted.
Quintilian smiled with a peculiar, alert, attractive wrinkling of his face and glanced around the room. Men nodded to him, one by one.
“Had you agreed to betray Pkauchios, we would have known you would betray us!” he said. “Illustrious Tros, what help can we afford you? We are nineteen men.”
“See that Caesar doesn’t catch me when he comes!” Tros announced. “Keep me informed of the news of his movements.” He looked hard at Horatius Verres. “You,” he said, “will you keep me informed? Your Caesar is my enemy, but I befriended you.”
“I know no more than I have told you,” Verres answered.
Once again Tros hesitated. Impulse, sense of danger urged him to escape while it was possible. It would be easy to make these men believe he would go forward with the plan, then to return to his ship ostensibly to instruct his own men for the night’s adventure. Orwic was on board. He could sail away and leave Gades to stew in its own intrigues.
But obstinacy urged the other way. He hated to withdraw from anything he had set his hand to before the goal was reached. And again he remembered the Lord Druid’s admonition, “Out of the midst of danger thou shalt snatch the keys of safety!”
While he hesitated, the door behind Quintilian opened. He recognized the hand before the woman came through, knew it was Chloe without looking at her, looked, and knew she held the keys of the whole situation. There was triumph in her eyes, although she drooped them modestly and stood beside Quintilian’s table with hands clasped in an attitude of reverence for the August assembly.
“Speak!” Quintilian commanded, and she looked at Tros, her eyes alight with impudence.
“Lord Tros,” she said, “would you have come here of your own accord? Would you have come, had I invited you? Would you not have sailed away, if you had known these noblemen would kill you rather than permit you to kill Balbus? And do you think I propose to lose those pearls you promised me, or my freedom?”
She nodded and
smiled.
“Do you think I intend to be tortured?”
There was a long pause, during which everybody in the room, Quintilian included, looked uncomfortable. Then she answered the thought that was making Tros’s amber eyes look puzzled:
“These noblemen don’t kill me because they know there are others who know where I am, who would go straight to Balbus and name names. It would deeply interest Balbus to learn of a committee of nineteen who propose to direct the destiny of Gades unbeknown to him! It was not I who told these nobles of your plot with Pkauchios. There is one of this committee — illustrious Quintilian, shall I name him?”
Quintilian shook his head.
“There is one in this room who pretends to be Pkauchios’ friend and whom Pkauchios trusts. It was he who told. To save your life I signaled to the ship, and when Horatius Verres hurried through the streets I whispered to him so that he knew where to come.”
“Who told him to persuade Conops to come?” Tros demanded, not more than half believing her. But Verres himself answered that question:
“Caesar does not select agents who are wholly without wits,” he remarked in his amused voice. “Chloe signaled, which she would not have done if all went well. Suspecting that you might be causing her trouble I proposed to myself to bring a hostage with me, whose danger might bring you to reason. I had observed that you value your man Conops. So I hinted to him that your life was in danger, and of course he followed me, being a good faithful dog. Chloe reached this place ahead of us, and when she whispered to me again through the hole in the door, I sent Conops to find you. Is the mystery explained?”
“You are a very shrewd man,” Tros answered. “But why did you tell these noblemen that Caesar is on the way?”
“To confirm them in their resolution not to let Balbus be slain. It might not suit Caesar to find Gades in rebellion. You see, this is not his province and it is not certain what the troops would do. If he should assume command here, it might stir Pompey to go before the Senate and demand Caesar’s indictment and recall to Rome.”