by Talbot Mundy
At the palace door he was kept waiting so interminably that his men grew restless. Orwic whispered that another night was wasted. But the lictor came at last through a painted, carved door opening on silent hinges. The lictor beckoned. Orwic followed Tros.
They stepped on marble into a dim magnificence. An atrium adorned with columns and the statues of dead Vestals faded into gloom, so that the walls were hardly seen. Gold glinted on the cornices. There was a glimpse of marble stairs. Dark tapestries receded into shadow. There were two chairs, ebony and ivory, beneath a canopy between two pillars; and a rug was spread before the chairs that Pompey looted from the bed-chamber of Mithridates’ queen — a thing of gorgeous silences, in which the feet sank deep.
The lictor turned his back toward the door, his fasces raised. A bell, whose note was like the drip of water in a silver basin, rang once and a curtain moved. In dim light from the lanterns near the canopy two Vestals — she to whom Tros had spoken and another, twenty years her junior — each followed by her women, entered and the women rearranged the folds of their white pallia as they were seated.
“You may approach now,” said the lictor.
The chief Vestal murmured, hardly opening her lips. Slave-women moved into shadow. The surrounding gloom became alive with eyes and figures almost motionless but it was possible to speak low-voiced and be unheard by any but the Vestals. Tros and Orwic marched up to the carpet, bowed with their right hands raised, and stood erect, waiting until the chief of the Vestals spoke.
“Your name?” she asked.
Her tone implied authority that none had challenged. Equally, no pride obscured her calm intelligence; she looked like one at peace within herself, because she understood and was assured of peace whatever happened. There was candor in her eyes that might turn cruel, but no weakness and not too much mercy. She was the patrician, consciously above the law and none the less steel-fettered by a higher law of duty.
“I am Tros of Samothrace.”
“You have appealed in the unutterable Name. It is forbidden to seek favors for yourself in that Name. Nor am I initiated in the mysteries that you invoke, save in so far as I must recognize all branches of the Tree. For whom do you seek benevolence?”
Tros, taking Orwic’s hand, presented him, the younger man not lacking dignity; his inborn aristocracy impelled him to behave as if the Vestal, of whose virtues he was ignorant, was no less than an empress. He conveyed the unmistakable suggestion that respect paid by himself was something that the very gods might envy — and the Vestal smiled.
“Orwic, a prince of Britain,” Tros announced. “Regrettably he knows no Latin.”
In his heart he laughed to think that Orwic knew no Latin. He could plead the Britons’ cause more artfully than any Briton could, and run less risk of noosing his own neck.
“You seek benevolence for him? Is he accused of crime? Is he a fugitive from justice?”
The Vestal’s voice was tinged with iron now. She held her power to set aside the law — no cheap thing, not a force to be invoked for ordinary reasons. Conscious of responsibility as well as privilege, doubtless, too, she understood the value of not interfering often; privileges, strengthened by their rare use, grow intolerable and are lopped off when they cease to be a nine days’ wonder — which is something that the privileged too seldom bear in mind.
“Virgo vestalis maxima, we plead for Britain! Caesar plans invasion against people who have done no injury to Rome. The Roman law permits him to declare war and to make peace as he chooses, and the Roman senate is as powerless as I am to prevent him. We appeal to you, who are above the Roman law—”
“Caesar is Pontifex Maximus!” the Vestal interrupted. “I will hear no calumnies.”
But Tros knew that. He knew that Caesar was the only man on earth who even nominally had authority to discipline the Vestals, and he guessed that was the key to Caesar’s plans. Though theoretically uncontaminated by political intrigue, the Vestals’ influence was much the subtlest force in Rome; it easily might be the factor that should tip the scales in Caesar’s favor, more particularly since his influence depended on the plebes, whose favor he had always courted. Not even Marius, nor Sulla at the height of the proscriptions when the garden of his private villa was a torture-yard and headless corpses strewed the paths, had dared to refuse clemency to any one the Vestals indicated. It was not in the arena only that their thumbs turned upward could avert the very blood-lust of the crowd, though only there, when a man lay bleeding on the sand, was their interference open. It was never challenged, because not abused; they never interfered to save a sentenced criminal. The crowd, that enjoyed butchery ten times as much because it took place in the presence of the Vestals, had an extra thrill whenever the six Virgins autocratically spared a victim. As far-sighted as he was ambitious, Caesar had chosen the office of Pontifex Maximus as his first step toward malting himself master of the whole republic, and there had been many an apparent stroke of luck since then that might have been explained as something far more calculable if the Vestals had not been past-mistresses of silence. Tros’s last thought would be to try to turn them against Caesar.
“I have come to assist Caesar,” he said, swallowing. Resentment against destiny half-choked him. “Virgo beatissima, my father was a prince of Samothrace. He foretold, with his last breath, when his spirit stood between two worlds and he could see into the future and the past, that I, his son, should turn away from enmity of Caesar and befriend him. This I do, not gladly, but with goodwill, since I know no other way of saving Britain, and a friendship may not be forgotten for the sake of enmity. The Britons are my friends. So I will yield my enmity and be of use to Caesar, though three times to his face I have repudiated him.”
The Vestal nodded. Though aloofness limits men and women in the field of action, it enlarges their ability to see deep into character.
“How shall you save Britain and be Caesar’s friend?” she asked.
“Virgo vestalis maxima, can Rome survive, if Caesar fails?” Tros answered. “He will meet with resistance in the Isle of Britain that will tax his strength and give the Gauls encouragement to rise behind him. What then? Are the patricians strong enough, or well enough united to keep Rome from anarchy, if Caesar meets disaster? Can Pompey hold the factions that would fly at one another’s throats if Caesar’s standards fell?”
“What if Caesar should prevail in Britain?” asked the Vestal.
“Virgo beatissima, if all Rome’s legions should invade that wooded isle, in five years they could not boast they had conquered it! There is a race of men who have defeated Caesar once. There is a king who will oppose him while the last man breathes.”
“Yet Mithridates fell. Is Gaul free?”
“Wait yet for the news of Crassus!” Tros retorted. “Roman arms are not invincible. Let only Crassus meet defeat, and Caesar fail to conquer Britain — who then shall preserve Rome from the people’s tribunes and the mobs? Pompey? The patrician who holds his nose because the rabble’s stench offends him? Pompey, who has twice let pass an opportunity to seize the reins? Pompey, who refuses the dictatorship because he knows his popularity would melt like butter in the sun? Pompey, whom the tribunes hate because he lords it over them, and keeps postponing the elections to upset their plans? Will tribunes, and the mobs they lead, serve Pompey — or rebel? And if the people’s tribunes should successfully rebel, how long then—”
The Vestal stopped him with a gesture, frowning. It was not compatible with dignity to lend ear to a stranger’s views of what demagogues might do to Rome’s most sacred institutions.
“For a stranger you are possessed by a strange interest for Rome,” she said ironically.
“Rome is not my city, but I know her weakness and her strength,” said Tros. “I would rather save Rome than see Britain ravished by the legions to whom Caesar has been promising the plunder.”
“Caesar is not straw blown by the wind,” she answered. “Nor is he a slave to be beckoned—”
&n
bsp; Tros slipped a hand under his cloak.
“Nor a hireling to be bought,” she added, sure she understood that gesture. “He is not like Cato, who prefers the lesser of two evils; Caesar seizes on the greater evil as the keenest weapon. Nor does he resemble Cicero, whom gratitude or grudge can turn into a purblind hypocrite. Caesar is not Antonius, whom the mob’s praise renders drunk. Nor is he a fool like Sulla, using power for revenge; he makes friends of his enemies if they will yield to him. There is no man in the world like Caesar. Who shall tame his pride?”
“But one may foster it,” said Tros, and put his hand under his cloak again. When he drew it forth there rested on his palm a heavy leather bag, not large but tightly filled and tied around the neck with gold wire.
“Why,” he asked, “does Caesar say he goes to Britain? What bid has he made to justify himself?”
The Vestal almost smiled.
“He has told all Rome that he will bring back pearls,” she answered, “for a breastplate for the Venus Genetrix.”
“These pearls,” said Tros, “are plenty for that purpose — I am told they are superior to those that Pompey brought from Asia and put on exhibition in a temple, but did not give. They were entrusted to me by those who ponder over Britain’s destiny. I am to use them as I see fit, in the cause of Britain. Virgo beatissima, I crave leave to deposit them in your charge, as a trust, for Caesar’s use, to be employed by him to make the breastplate for the goddess, to be known as his gift, if — and only if — he turns back from invading Britain!”
Not one moment did the Vestal hesitate.
“You ask what I may not refuse,” she answered. “Whosoever obtains audience may leave whatever sacred things he pleases in my charge. But had I known what you intended you would not have been received! I am not Caesar’s monitor; nor have I any means of reaching him. If it were known in Rome that—”
She glanced sharply at the younger Vestal — then at the lictor over by the door — then swiftly into the shadows where her women stood, all eyes — but they were out of earshot.
“Were it known that I send messengers to Caesar,” she said, lowering her voice, “all Rome would say the Vestal Virgins are no longer higher than intrigue. And Caesar’s ways are too well known. No woman corresponds with Caesar and remains above suspicion.”
“Virgo beatissima, send me!” said Tros. “I have a ship — my own swift, splendid ship, well manned. By the unutterable Name, I swear that rather than betray you to the Romans I will taste death sooner than my destiny intends, and every man of mine shall taste it with me! I fulfill a friendship, than which no more godlike course is open to a man in this life. And I hold that he who trims his sails to catch the gods’ wind, wrecks his soul if he breaks faith! If you think Caesar can save Rome from anarchy, send me to save him from invading Britain, where he will only squander strength and wreak a havoc, while Rome dies, mad and masterless!”
“I can not protect you. I can not acknowledge you — except to Caesar,” said the Vestal.
“Let the gods protect me! Let the gods acknowledge me!” Tros answered. “If I will do my duty they will do theirs.”
For a while the Vestal pondered that, chin resting on her hand, her elbow on the chair-arm.
“Caesar’s pride will be well satisfied,” she said at last. “If he could make believe he had brought pearls from Britain for the Venus Genetrix — he might assert they are a tribute from the Britons — that would glut his craving for renown, at least a little while. He is a madman with a god’s ability, a man’s lust to appear generous, and a fool’s ignorance of where to stop and when to turn. He might have been a god. He is a devil. But he can save Rome, being ruthless, and because, although he panders to the mob, he will deceive them, saving Rome’s heart, seeming to supplant her head. Rome may live because of Caesar and in spite of him.”
“I am not Rome’s advocate, but I will serve Rome for the sake of Britain,” Tros exclaimed. He held the bag of pearls out in his right hand, kneeling. “Virgo beatissima, so send me now to Caesar with your word.”
The Vestal took the bag of pearls into her lap and Tros stood up. Not even in a climax of emotion did it suit his nature to stay long on bent knee. Even reverence had limits.
The Vestal beckoned and a woman came; she whispered and the woman brought a golden bowl, engraved with figures of the Muses, that had once adorned a temple before Sulla raped the shrines of Hellas. When the woman had retired into the shadows she undid the golden thread and poured the pearls into the bowl, the other Vestal leaning to admire them, not exclaiming and not opening her lips — but her nostrils and her throat moved suddenly, as if she caught her breath. Tros had not enlarged beyond the bounds of truth. Not even Rome that plundered Ephesus had seen such treasure in one heap. Those pearls, under the lamp light, were like tears shed by a conquered people’s gods.
“Draw nearer,” said the Vestal, and again Tros knelt, that she might whisper in his ear. She said one word, then laid her finger on his lips.
“That word,” she said, “will be sufficient proof to Caesar that you come from me. He will believe your lips. But if you use it falsely, then I know of no death and of no curse that were not bliss as compared to what your destiny will hold! There are degrees of shame below the reach of thought. And there are depths of misery where worms that crawl in corruption appear godlike in comparison to him who dies so deep! Not Tantalus, who told the secrets of the gods, knows suffering so dreadful, as shall he who violates that confidence!”
“I keep faith, not from fear,” Tros answered, rising stubbornly. “What word shall I take to Caesar?”
“Bid him look toward Rome! Bid him waste no energy, but keep his hands on Gaul, that when the hour strikes he may leave Gaul tranquil at his back.”
Tros bowed. Her attitude appeared to signify the interview was over, but he had a task yet — and he needed for it greater daring than he had yet summoned from the storehouse of his faith in the invincibility of promises performed. He had assured Helene he would do her no harm if she trusted him; his own interpretation of that promise was a thousand times more generous than any she was likely to assume. Mistaken he had been in letting Zeuxis guide him to her house, and he had made a worse mistake confiding in her; but none of that was her fault. He would set right the results of that — and yet if he proposed to save her from the praetor’s torturers he must summon enough brazen impudence to plead, before a woman whose authority depended on her chastity, for mercy for an alien whose insolent contempt of chastity was typical of what was steadily destroying Rome!
He made abrupt, curt work of it:
“If Caesar is to save Rome, let him use all agencies,” he said. “There is a woman in the clutches of the praetor’s men, whom Caesar had employed to ferret information. Helene, the daughter of Theseus of Alexandria—”
“That immodest rake — !”
“Is Caesar an immaculate?”
“Caesar is Pontifex Maximus. For Rome, and for the sake of institutions older than the city, I let myself see only Caesar’s virtue. For that woman I will not offend against the public decency by turning up my thumb!”
“Virgo beatissima, let Pompey carry that blame!” Tros retorted. “He has violated modesty so often that one more offense will hardly spoil his record! I am told he comes—”
“At dawn,” she said, “to offer sacrifices for his wife’s recovery.”
“Virgo vestalis maxima, one word from you will be enough. If Caesar’s daughter — Pompey’s wife — dies, who then shall keep Pompey from defying Caesar? Will the mob not rend Rome unless Caesar can prevail over the patrician factions, into whose hands Pompey will deliver Rome’s fate? And shall Caesar be allowed to fail because, forsooth, unquestioned chastity was timid and too careful of itself to whisper in behalf of Caesar’s spy?”
“You overstep your privilege,” the Vestal answered frowning. “I will mention her to Pompey. I will keep these pearls in trust, for Caesar’s gift to Venus Genetrix, provided he draws back
from Britain. But remember — I can not protect you or acknowledge you. Farewell.”
She rose, inclining her head slightly in reply to Tros’s salute, her dark eyes curiously scanning Orwic, whose expression suggested a schoolboy’s when a lesson-period was over.
“This way!” said the lictor loudly. “This way! More to the right!”
Tros and Orwic backed, until the silent door shut slowly in their faces and they turned, expecting to be greeted by the Northmen.
They were gone! The portico was empty. Silence, silver moonlight and a Forum peopled only by the statues and the watchful guards, who leaned against the closed shop-windows.
Silently a lictor, followed by a file of four men in the Vestals’ livery, emerged out of the shadows and stood guard before the Vestals’ door.
“Move on!” he ordered arrogantly. “This is no place for loiterers!”
CHAPTER 88. The Praetor’s Dungeon
I have seen more lands than many men have heard of, and more dungeons than most men believe there are. Ever I visit dungeons, because their keepers are seldom as cruel as their masters who commit the victims to living death in the name of justice. Many a man, for a coin or two to ease a avarice, has died on parchment. Many a corpse has pulled an oar on my ship — aye, and pulled well, no better, it may be, but at least no worse for freedom and work. If I see a city’s dungeons, thereafter that city’s rulers are an open book. The worse the dungeon, the more surely the city’s rulers are unfit to clean it; justice is for sale in that city, and its dungeons are a likeness of its rulers’ hearts.
— from The Log of Tros of Samothrace