by Talbot Mundy
The villa was built in the style that had grown fashionable when the Roman legions had brought their plunder home from Greece. It was faced with columns looted from a temple in Boeotia. Stolen statues — fawns, Bacchantes, Naiads — grinned, danced and piped under every group of trees, so that the grounds looked like the entrance to an art museum; it would have taxed even the ingenuity of a Roman money-lender to find room for one more proof that culture can be dragged in with a team of oxen.
But within there was something like taste, although the cornices were far too richly ornamented and the paintings on the walls were garish. Some woman’s hand had draped the place with Babylonian embroidery, so rich that it challenged attention and threw overcrowded elegance into comparative obscurity. The art of Alexandria had overlaid confusion of design.
However, there was no time to admire the hangings. There was laughter, the echoing clash of weapons and the thumps of bare feet leaping on a marble floor. There was a glimpse along a marble corridor of gardens leading to the Tiber. The eunuch drew aside embroidered curtains to reveal a sunlit court surrounded by a balcony. Young Romans lounged against the columns, laughing and applauding; in the midst of one side Zeuxis sat amid a group of women, to whom he appeared to be giving intricate instructions. In the midst of the mosaic, sunlit floor, half-naked and aglow with exercise, Helene fought with net and trident against a Nubian armed with a blunted sword. There were great red splotches on her skin where he had smitten her, but he was backing away warily, circling toward her right to keep clear of the sharpened trident that she held in her left hand.
Suddenly, as Tros strode in, she lunged with the trident. The Nubian dodged and tried to smite her with the flat of his short weapon. She ducked, leaped, cast her net and caught him, spinning her trident and driving its blunt end with a thump against his ribs. Then, clinging to her rope, she spun herself around him, keeping him tight in the toils and prodding him until he yelled for mercy while the onlookers shouted applause.
“Hoc habet! Punish him! Don’t spare him!”
She did not cease until the Nubian went down on his back and she had put her foot on him, holding up her trident in imitation of a victor at the games, amid cries of “Kill him!”— “No, wait — whose gladiator is he? He might cost too much.”— “I’ll pay for him. Go on, Helene — see if you can kill him with the trident — only one thrust, mind! — it isn’t so simple as it looks.”
She laughed down at the gladiator, breathless, prodded him again and turned away — caught sight of Tros and Orwic with their backs to the curtained entrance, and came running to them.
“Which is the king’s nephew? Which is Tros?” She looked at Orwic longest as he took her in his arms and kissed her; which was perfect British manners but, to put it mildly, unconventional in Rome. The sons of Roman equites roared their astonishment, loosing noisy volleys of jests, but Orwic kept her in his arms and kissed her three times before she could break free.
“This is the king’s nephew!” she assured them in a strident laughing voice that made the courtyard ring. “The other—”
Tros raised up his hand in greeting and the banter ceased. He was dressed as a Roman; except for the gold band on his forehead and the length of his raven hair he might have been a Roman of the old school, conscious of the debt he owed his ancestors.
“ — this other doubtless is the uncle!” said Helene. “I expected Tros of Samothrace. All hail, thou king of an end of the earth! Helene welcomes you to Rome, where even Ptolemy had to wait on Cato’s doorstep! Isis! You have dignity! What muscle! Do you seek a queen, most terrifying majesty? Or is the nephew to be married? I abase myself!”
She curtsied to the marble floor, the rhythm of her movements bringing a burst of applause from the gilded youths, who cried to her to repeat it, some urging her to dance — all anxious to attract her attention to themselves. Zeuxis left the women who surrounded him and, stepping forward into the sunlight, cried out:
“Pardon, mistress! Noblemen, your pardon! This is the most noble Tros of Samothrace. His friend is a royal prince whose name is Orwic.”
“Not a king?” Helene gasped in mock astonishment. “Lord Tros, that Greek fool told we you were no more than a sailor! Kings go to Rome’s back-doors, but I see you are neither a fool of a king nor a louse with a vote for sale!”
Again she curtsied, three times, throwing back the dark hair from her forehead with a toss that suggested blossoms nodding in the wind. Then:
“Equites!” she cried, addressing the youths who had begun to swarm around her. “Favor me by entertaining them until I have bathed and dressed.”
She ran off through a door between two Doric columns, followed by the women who had been surrounding Zeuxis. Zeuxis came forward again and introduced the Romans, reeling off their names as each one bowed with almost perfect insolence, restrained, however, within bounds by recognition of Tros’s strength of character and muscle and air of being somebody who might have influence. They tried to talk to Orwic, but, as he could not understand them and disguised embarrassment behind an air of aristocratic boredom, they were obliged by curiosity to turn to Tros again.
“I am from Hispania,” he answered, telling half the truth. “I have brought despatches from your imperator Caesar,” he added, which was more than half an untruth. “To the senate? No. What would Caesar say to the senate?”
They all laughed at that. Whatever their opinions of Caesar, none pretended that he held the senate in respect. They began to ask news of Caesar, eagerly inquiring what the prospect was of his invading Britain and how true it might be that the Britons made their common cooking-pots of gold. So Tros seized opportunity and told them about Britain, saying it was nothing but a miserable, foggy island full of trees, where no wealth was and the inhabitants fought valiantly because there was nothing to make peace endurable.
“Then why does Caesar talk of invasion?” they protested.
“Possibly he talks of one thing and intends another,” Tros retorted. “It is known that he prepares an army, and I have heard something about ships. However, which way will tomorrow’s wind blow? How many miles from Gaul to Rome? If I were a young Roman I would watch to see Pompey’s eagles gather. These are wild times. Stranger things might happen than that Caesar should propose to himself to seize Rome.”
But such talk only vaguely interested them. They had the absolute contempt for politics peculiar to rich men’s sons. The youngest of them had seen the mob made use of to reduce itself into submission. They had all heard gossip about Caesar. They considered Pompey vastly his superior. However, Caesar had significance.
“Caesar has sent three more shiploads of wild animals from Gaul,” said one of them. “There are to be games to celebrate his recent victories. They are to surpass anything ever seen in the Circus Maximus. Crassus’ agents have sent bears from Asia. There will be nine elephants. From Africa Jugurtha has sent fifty coal-black savages from the interior, who look fit to fight even our best gladiators. And there are two hundred and ten criminals in the dungeons, some of them women; they talk of slaughtering the lot in one melee — give them a taste of the hot iron, and a spear or something to defend themselves, and turn the wild beasts loose on them! There is rumor of a promise of freedom for the last man and the last woman left alive — but that may be only talk to make them try hard.”
An older man, Servilius Ahenobarbus, waxed scornful:
“Any one in his senses would rather see two good gladiators fight than watch a thousand people butchered,” he objected. “Fie on you, Publius! Are you degenerating? Such stuff is all very well for the rabble. I can smell them in my nostrils as I think of it! Can’t you hear the snarl and then the yelp as they watch women being ripped by a bull? Caesar has sent bulls from Hispania. But you forget the best part — two days’ chariot racing.”
“Phaugh! A safe and pretty spectacle for Vestal Virgins!” Publius sneered. “I have heard Britons fix swords to their chariot wheels. Now, if they would have a race — quad
rigas, say — with swords fixed to the wheels, wolves loosed at the horses and fifty or sixty prisoners of war in the way, tied in groups, to escape if they could, I would call that a spectacle! Wait until I am old enough and they elect me aedile!”
“Ah! Then at last my turn will come! You will let me fight then, won’t you, Publius?”
Helene danced forth from her dressing-room in a chlamys made of Chinese silk from Alexandria, with a wreath of crimson flowers in her hair and a girdle that flashed fire as its opals caught the sunlight. She was better looking clothed; the drapery softened the lines of her too athletic figure and the wreath offset the hardness of her eyes — delicious dark-gray eyes that, nevertheless, could only half conceal the calculation in their depths. She was mentally weighing Tros.
She turned suddenly toward the Romans, laughing in their faces:
“Nobiles, who loves me? Who will hurry to the slave-market and buy Thracian grooms for my white team? Those Armenians I have are useless; I will sell them for farm-work.”
There was a race to be first to find suitable Thracian slaves. The Roman youths cut short the courtesies and ran to find their chariots. Helene took Tros by the hand.
“And now those fools have gone we may talk wisdom,” she said, looking almost modest. “Zeuxis tells me you have come from Britain and desire my influence — although I have not altogether understood him. Come.”
She led into a room which formerly had been the atrium, which she had refurnished and disguised with hangings until it resembled nothing Tros had ever seen. There was crimson cloth with golden dragons; there were gilded cornices and curtains made from beads of ivory; the feet sank silently into rugs of amber and old-rose; the couches, the chairs and the very foot-stools were of ivory inlaid with gold. There was a smell of incense.
“Go!” she ordered, and the lurking slaves vanished.
Tros prodded the hangings. He opened a closet. He drew back the curtains that covered a doorway. He looked through the window and listened for breathing from behind some potted shrubbery through which he could not see. Then, striding to where she had thrown herself on an Egyptian couch of ivory and crimson cloth, he looked down at her dark eyes and, with his hands behind him, challenged her:
“I heard you say you wish to fight. Do you desire to fight me? With any weapon? With your wits?”
She shuddered.
“You look too much like Zeus!” she answered, rallying her impudence. “I understood you came to ask a favor of me.”
“Whose slave are you?” he demanded.
She sat upright suddenly. She tried to look indignant but her eyes betrayed her; there was fear in their depths. She nearly spat the answer at him.
“I was born free! I am the daughter of Theseus the musician—”
“And was Theseus free?”
She nodded. Words were choking in her throat. Her fingers moved as if she sought a weapon.
“Since when were the musicians at the court of Ptolemy free men?” Tros asked. “I have seen you dancing at the court of Ptolemy. You are the girl who danced when Ptolemy Auletes played the flute. Are you Ptolemy’s slave?”
“I am free!” she insisted. Coiled on the couch, looking up at him, she suggested a snake in the act of striking. All the laughter was gone from her eyes, all her impudence.
“I am a silent man,” said Tros. “I listen.”
He began to pace the floor, his hands behind him, presenting his broad back toward her as he turned, to give her time to recover her self-possession; but she had no sooner regained a little of it than he snatched it from her, to convert it to his own use.
“Understand!” He stood in front of her again. “No panic-stricken yielding that broods treachery! Use reason. Judge me, whether I am one whom you can sway; or whether I am one who will betray you, if you keep good faith.”
“Master of men, you are cruel!”
“I am just,” Tros answered. “I will do you no harm if you yield to me.”
“My body?” Her eyes lighted; her lips quivered in the faint suggestion of a smile.
“That for it!” He snapped his fingers. Instantly her whole expression changed; resentful, sullen.
“What then?” she asked. “Yield what?”
“Your secret!”
“I have no secret. I am the daughter of—”
He stopped her with a gesture. “Shall I go?” he asked, and turned toward the door.
She flinched at the veiled threat — sprang from the couch and stood between him and the doorway.
“I have influence,” she said. “I dare to fight you one way or the other! Knife against knife, or cunning against cunning! If we make a bargain, you shall keep your share of it or—”
Tros thrust his thumb into the little pocket in his tunic and drew out a pearl of the size of a pea — a rosy, lustrous thing that looked incongruous as he rolled it on the palm of his enormous hand. She curled her lip scornfully.
“I could have pearls from Pompey. I can have anything in Rome my heart desires.”
But Tros produced another one, and then a third. Her eyes changed subtly, though she still defied him, standing like an Amazon at bay. Tros was watching her eyes.
“I gave nine of these to Zeuxis. You shall have eighteen.”
“For my secret?”
“No. I know your secret. There is only one man who would dare to risk burning his fingers in your flame. You are Caesar’s spy.”
“Liar! Rabirius sent me to Rome!”
Tros laughed. Rabirius was Caesar’s money-lender — possibly a third as rich as Crassus, with perhaps a thirtieth of Crassus’ manhood — an avaricious rat with brains enough to recognize his limitations and not vie with great men but play into their hands and pocket fabulous commissions.
“Sit down!” Tros commanded, pointing to the couch. He returned the pearls to his pocket. Then, as she obeyed him, “Judge whether I know your secret.”
She set her elbows on her knees and clasped her chin, staring at Tros as if he were a prophet reading off her destiny.
“Caesar will need limitless fountains of money when he makes his bid to be the master of the world. He invaded Gaul to make a reputation and for practice in playing off men against men. He married his daughter to Pompey to keep Pompey quiet. He encouraged Crassus to make war on Parthia, that Crassus might bleed Italy of men and leave none but Pompey and the idle rich to stand between him and ambition. Seeing far into the future, he sent agents into Egypt who should stir the Alexandrians against their king. So the Alexandrians drove out Ptolemy; but it was too soon; Caesar was not ready. Who was it then but Caesar who, in return for a promise of seventeen million sesterces, agreed to defy the Roman senate and send Gabinius with troops from Syria to restore Ptolemy to the throne, along with Rabirius to control Ptolemy’s exchequer? Now you say you are the agent of Rabirius. That may be. But I think you are the slave of Caius Julius Caesar.”
“What if I were? Is that your affair?” she answered.
“Aye! Caesar might learn too easily what I intend! You may report to him about Rabirius. You may tell him all the secrets of these young patricians who babble their fathers’ treacheries in your ears. But concerning me you will be as silent as the tomb in which they bury Vestal Virgins.”
“Caesar,” she said, “is a terrible man to trifle with.”
Tros nodded.
“Aye. I know him. His slaves keep watch on one another as well as on such Romans as he mistrusts and such provincials as he hopes to use. But since the gods, against my will, have guided me to your house, you shall run that risk of not informing Caesar!”
“You will injure him?” she asked.
“Nay. I will let him conquer Rome and leave the Britons to themselves!”
“You are his friend?”
“I am here to save Britain from Caesar.”
Helene stood up, laughing, her eyes blazing. She defied him: “Do you dare to kill me in my own house? How else shall you gag me now I know your secret?”
> “Gag you? I will make you garrulous!” Tros answered. “You shall find a way to make me famous in a city where such infamy abounds that no voice can be heard above the din! To Caesar you shall send word that Tros of Samothrace has prophesied Rome shall be his. Vanity may make him think he has persuaded me at last to love him.”
“Many honest men love Caesar,” said Helene.
“Aye, and many love you,” Tros answered, “but not I. You shall have your choice of playing my game or explaining what you are, and why you are in Rome, to Cato. Now choose!”
“Cato?” she answered. “Are you of Cato’s party?”
“No,” he answered, “but I have a speech for Cato’s ear that shall include you one way or another. Shall I say you are the agent of Rabirius and Caesar’s spy — for I can prove it to him! — or—”
“Say Helene is your friend,” she answered. “Cato is an old fool, but he is dangerous.”
She looked keenly into Tros’s eyes, and then laughed with a little breathless catch of nervousness:
“Tros, few in Rome would not like to say Helene is—”
“I am one of those few,” Tros interrupted.
“Did you never love a woman?” she asked — curiously. His blunt rejection of her offer pleased her. By the light in her gray eyes he knew that she had made up her mind to conquer him.
“I am of Samothrace.”
As he intended, she jumped to the conclusion he was an initiate under a vow to refrain from women.
“I will show you deeper mysteries than the Samothracian,” she said with a confident toss of her chin and a laugh that had hypnotized many a man. “If I trust you, you must trust me.”
“I have pearls. And you will do well to obey me,” Tros retorted. “Be alone when I return from interviewing Cato.”
CHAPTER 85. Marcus Porcius Cato
There are some men so enamored by a half-seen truth that they devote their energy to quarreling with untruth rather than to proving the little they do know. They are like slaves with fans, who drive out through one window flies that return through another. Stern men and unforgiving, they are so intent on punishing the evil-doer that they have no time to practice magnanimity. Such men forget, or never knew, that cruelty and justice mix no better than fire and water, but that one extinguishes the other, leaving cruelty or justice. I have never seen one such man who favored mercy rather than his own delight in the importance of his fear of self-respect. Self-importance gives them no time for importance.