Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  TROS’s first impulse was to rush around corners and hunt for his men. Orwic’s bewilderment brought out his reserves of level-headedness.

  “If they are near, we shall soon know it,” he said, shrugging off the tremor he felt creeping up his spine. “If they are far, then only wits, not feet, can find them.”

  He strode up to the nearest watchman, who lounged against a shop-front entertaining himself by plaiting a wrist-thong for the vicious looking bill- hook of a weapon that he carried. The free man, an Etruscan, merely grinned when questioned, spat, and called Tros “Pretty Hercules” — then asked whether the gods had use for money on Olympus. Tros produced a coin. The Etruscan spun it in the air. As he caught it back-handed and spun it again he answered Tros’s question by putting another:

  “Will they seat you in among the equites? Or are you an ambassador? The senate sometimes entertains ambassadors in very good seats, but the compliment fools nobody. Ambassadors in Rome pay richly for whatever courtesy they get. Me? I am paid to guard this goldsmith’s. Is there no more money in Olympus? Have our Roman armies stripped that treasury, too?”

  Tros showed him another coin and let the moonlight glint on it.

  “Which way did my men go?” he asked. “Who took them?”

  “How should I know they were your men? Who else should know it, either? I should say they were suspicious characters and that’s what the praetor’s man thought, evidently.”

  Fifty guards could not have arrested his Northmen without a clamor that would have wakened Rome. There had been trickery, not violence. He showed the coin again.

  “The praetor’s man may have thought there was a bribelet to pick up, but he could not make those wooden-headed fellows understand him. What were they doing, lurking in the Vestals’ portico? He had a right to order them away. But it is forbidden to make noises there at night, so he tried arguing, instead of sending his runner to turn out the guard. But I daresay he would have had to turn out the guard all the same — for they were dumb fools — if a fellow who looked like a Greek hadn’t turned up and told them to follow him. They went like goats after a piping boy. Ss-s-s-t! Haven’t you forgotten something? Gold, eh? Hercules, I thank you! If I weren’t afraid to lose my sinecure, employment being none too plentiful for free men nowadays, I might advise you to go hunting for your men not far from Pompey’s school of gladiators. Things being as they are, I don’t dare to give advice; the owner of this place I’m paid to watch is one of Pompey’s clients. What breed of barbarian is that one?”

  He pointed to Orwic, who stood like a statue, moon behind him, peering into gloom along the Via Sacra.

  “I would give a month’s pay to see you and him in the arena! You should wield a club, like Hercules, or take the caestus. He looks like a retiarius — as agile as a leopard — look at him! See how he supples his loins when he moves!”

  “Would you know the Greek again who led my men away?” Tros asked him.

  “Maybe. But I also know on which side of the street the sun shines. Even in the senate there is only Cato who tells all he knows. Perhaps he likes to have stones thrown at him! For myself, a little bread and wine and olives, with a ticket for the circus now and then, seems better than wagging the tongue and what comes of it. But I have seen that Greek in company with Zeuxis, who is one of the contractors who — but I am not a woman. My peculiarity is silence as to matters that are no concern of mine.”

  The news that Zeuxis had a hand in the betrayal of his men made Tros draw on instantly his full protective armor of dissimulation. He hid his consternation — swallowed it — suppressed it — grinned — put his wits to work. He knew the Greek mind. He could outplay Zeuxis!

  It was no use going to him; direct means would be met with plausible obscurity — countered with guile. He must be indirect, and swift.

  “You have relieved my mind, my friend,” he said to the Etruscan. “Now I know where I can find my men, and that is worth another coin or two — here — pocket these. For a moment I feared my men had met such a fate as that woman Helene’s, whom the praetor dragged out of her house! What happened to her? Was she thrown into the Tullianum?”

  “Hardly!” The Etruscan laughed. “She is worth too much to be let rot in that hole. Not even Cato would do that with her. Cato is economical. That Tullianum is a pesthouse; there’s a dark hole where they lower them and let them perish of disease or hunger. I have seen it; I was sent in with a message for Septimus Varro, who was the custodian until they caught him substituting corpses for the prisoners whose friends had money and were free with it. Varro was crucified; so money isn’t everything, after all; but I never heard that the men who bribed him suffered. If you asked me, I should say that some of Cato’s men will disobey him and take as good care of Helene as they think her fashionable friends will pay for. Cato might have her scourged — he’s a stern men, Cato is — but that won’t happen until tomorrow or the next day, when he tries her case in public. Meanwhile, she’ll be lodged under the praetor’s office; you can see the front wall of the cells from here, but where she’ll be is ‘round behind; they’d be afraid to keep her where her friends might rescue her.”

  “She’ll be guarded closely.”

  “Not a doubt of it. But praetor’s cells are not the Tullianum. Any one with money in his hand can see a prisoner on one excuse or other — that is, if the torturers aren’t busy with them; now and then they torture some one all night long to save the magistrate’s time next morning, but you can generally hear the outcry when they’re doing that. You see, they can’t take evidence from slaves unless they’re tortured first, and any one who’s not a Roman citizen is liable to have his testimony questioned with a hot iron. That’s a good law; it makes citizenship valued — not that citizens aren’t liars, but they’ve a right to be privileged over mere colonials and slaves and aliens. If everybody was allowed to tell lies in the law-courts how could justice be administered?”

  Tros walked away, but the Etruscan went on talking to the night. Orwic stepped forth like a shadow from among the statues in the Forum and followed Tros, who led toward the praetor’s office. There were no lictors on the portico, they being personal attendants on the magistrate; in place of them a guardian as grim as Cato, without Cato’s dignity, yawned while he watched three underlings throw dice beside a lantern.

  “Halt!” he ordered, as Tros started up the steps. “No visitors. The praetor will be here soon after sunrise.”

  “I have urgent business,” said Tros.

  “Who cares? Have you a permit? Jupiter! Am I to be disturbed all night long by the gallants who buzz for that woman Helene like flies after fruit? Get hence!”

  But already Tros stood on the portico. The guards ceased throwing dice to stare at him and reached into the shadow for their weapons, but none showed any eagerness to be the first to try to throw him down the steps. Their chief, a fat man with a double chin and strange, old-fashioned keys hung from a big ring fastened to the girth on his big belly, puffed his cheeks out and exploded, tilting back his stool on one leg:

  “Jupiter! What now? Did you hear me tell you to be gone? By sulphury Cocytus—”

  “I have heard,” Tros answered. “You have yet to hear. Come yonder and speak alone with me.”

  He strode along the portico and waited, leaving Orwic standing near the upper step. Inquisitive, astonished, curious — inclined to continue asserting his official consequence, but growing cautious now that he could see the gold embroidery on Tros’s cloak — he with the two-fold chin said something to his men about observing Orwic and, arranging his own cloak over his great belly, shuffled toward Tros, his slippers rutching on the stone.

  “It is no use, master. I have turned away two-score of gallants, though they offered me enough coin to have bought the next election! There are definite orders. The praetor has—”

  Tros interrupted

  “Cackler! I have come from Pompey, who intends to set the woman free. Have you not heard that Pompey entered Rome?�
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  “By Venus, who did not hear? He and his men made noise enough! But what has that to do with me?”

  “If you wish Pompey’s favor you will let me in and let me speak to her.”

  “Nay, master! Nay, nay! It is all my place is worth! If Pompey wants to override the praetor’s orders, let him come himself! I mean no disrespect for Pompey. Bacchus knows, I drank to him but two hours since. I wish him the dictatorship. But Gemini! What sort of guardian does he think I am, that he should send a stranger to me — and no writing — not a signet — nothing? Tell me your name. Who are you? Offer me a proof that you are Pompey’s messenger.”

  Tros could invent a tale more suddenly than any Parthian could wing an arrow on its way. His amber eyes, glowing in moonlight, looked like pools of honesty; his bravery of bearing and his air of power in restraint aroused conviction. It was next thing to impossible to guess that he was lying. Even that familiar of courthouse perjury and criminal intrigue believed him.

  “Pompey was in great haste,” Tros said, speaking swiftly. “As an act of generosity to Caesar, he intends to set that woman free because he knows she has been doing Caesar’s errands. He will make no scandal. Therefore, he will first see Cato in the morning. Meanwhile, he dreads that the woman, in fear, may reveal such information as she has, and to prevent that he has sent me to assure her she shall go free. There was neither time to write a permit, nor would that have been discreet; such messages are best conveyed by word of mouth. He told me, though, that I should find you are a man of excellent discretion who would have no scruples about doing him this favor when the matter is explained. I am to tell you, you may look to him for favorable notice.”

  “Did he tell you my name?” asked the keeper of the keys, a shadow of suspicion dimming credulity.

  “No. Neither he, nor any of his friends remembered it. He called his secretary, but the secretary had forgotten, too. A nobleman like Pompey has so many interests, it would be strange if he could name you off-hand.”

  “He is likely to forget this service just as easily,” the other grumbled.

  “Aye, he might,” said Tros. “Great men are not fastidious rememberers! But that is my responsibility; you may depend on me to keep you in his mind. Lead on; I have to make haste; I must report to Pompey before daylight.”

  Doubtfully shaking his keys — although he did not any longer doubt Tros’s story — the man led the way into the praetor’s office, down a dimly lighted stairway and along a passage stifling with dampness and the smell of dungeons.

  “Look you!” he said, turning suddenly where a guttering candle threw distorted shadows on an ancient wall. “Is this a trick? We lost two prisoners a week ago through people passing poison in to them. They dread the torture and their friends dread revelations! You’re not meaning to slip her a dagger? No phials — nothing of that sort? Cato would have me scourged if I should lose one as likely to tell other folks’ secrets as she is. Well — you can’t go in. You’ll have to speak to her through the grating, and mind you, I’ll watch. I want to see both your hands the whole time.”

  Tros clasped his hands behind him. The custodian led toward a heavy oaken door and hammered on it with his keys. The thump and jingle brought a dozen answers from the nearby cells, including one that cried out from the dark for water:

  “I will tell all! Only give me a drink and I will tell all I know!”

  “Time for that in the morning!” said the jailer. “Silence!”

  He shook the keys again and slapped Helene’s cell door with his flat palm.

  “Mistress!” he whispered hoarsely, “wake up! Here’s a visitor — and as you love your life, don’t let a soul know I admitted him! Understand now — if you get me in trouble over this—”

  “Who is it?”

  Fingers appeared through the grating and a nose was pressed against it.

  “Keep those hands down! You may talk to him, but if I see a thing passed in there’ll be trouble! Now,” he said, signing to Tros. “Be quick and keep your voice low. There are three-score ears, all listening.”

  Tros stepped up to the grating, keeping his hands clasped behind his back where the custodian could watch them in the candle-light.

  “Water! Water! I’ll be dead if you don’t let me drink! I’m dying now!” a voice croaked from the darkness.

  “Silence!” roared the jailer, “or I’ll let you know what thirst is! Shall I fetch salt?”

  That threat was enough. The passage ceiling ceased to echo to the cries. There fell the silence of a tomb, irregularly broken by the clank of fetters and the dripping of some water set where the man in agony of thirst could hear it.

  “Who are you? I can’t see you,” said Helene’s voice.

  “Tros of Samothrace.”

  “You! You! I have friends who will—”

  “Sh-sh-sh-sh! I received word that Cato had ordered you seized. I have worked to release you, and I know now I can manage it.”

  “How? Who?”

  “Never mind. Cato is determined to have you scourged as an example, and the more your friends try to dissuade him the more determined he will be.”

  “By Isis! It is I who will prevent that! I have death-drops hidden. Even Romans don’t flog corpses!”

  “Sh-sh-sh-sh! There are greater ones in Rome than Cato. I have influence. By noon tomorrow you shall go free. But remember — you will owe your liberty to me and you will have to recompense me.”

  “How? They will have looted all my property! The rascal who owns my house will have put his bailiffs in already. They have chained my slaves. It will take me months to recover, even if I don’t catch plague in this pest-hole! The worst is that Caesar is sure to hear of it. He’ll say I’m an incompetent and never trust me any more. I’m ruined!”

  “No,” said Tros, “but you might easily be ruined if you failed to keep in my good graces! I will make your peace with Caesar, if you—”

  “You? You are Caesar’s enemy!”

  “Not I. Now listen. It is Pompey who will order your release, but he will do it proudly and against his will. Don’t trust him, but pretend to trust him. When they let you out, go straight to the house of Zeuxis and pretend to Zeuxis that you don’t know it was he who betrayed both of us.”

  “He? Zeuxis? What has he done?”

  “Nothing that can not be undone. I will tell you when we meet at Zeuxis’ house. He wants my pearls. He thought I had entrusted some of them to you—”

  “The Greek dog!”

  “Watch him! Aid me to make use of him and I will stand by you as long as you deserve my confidence.”

  The custodian rattled his keys.

  “Make haste!” he urged. “There’s no knowing when they’ll bring in prisoners. It’s all my place is worth to have you seen down here!”

  “Are we agreed?” Tros asked, his face against the bars, for he was curious to see what clothing they had left her and whether she was locked into a less filthy dungeon than the others. Suddenly Helene pressed her lips between the bars and kissed him.

  “Aye! Agreed!” she said, and laughed. “I am no imbecile, Tros of Samothrace! You need me, or you would never have stirred a finger to release me. You shall have me!”

  “Come!” exclaimed the jailer. “Come now! You have been here long enough to tell the story of the fall of Troy!”

  He took Tros by the arm and tugged at him. As Tros turned, scowling at the prospect of intrigue with any kind of woman, he could hear Helene’s voice, half-mocking but vibrating with excitement, as she whispered:

  “It was Tros who founded Troy! Argive Helen owes a recompense to Tros! I think his gods have set this table for a feast of the affections! Go and lay an offering on Venus’ altar, with a gift from me beside it”

  CHAPTER 89. Pompeius Magnus

  I am not of their number who deny the virtue or the greatness of a man because he lacks a touch or two of modesty and honesty. I make allowances for the poison of his flatterers, whose filthy lies would rot a man
of iron. But what he has done is not my measure. What is he doing? What will he do? I have seen men so proud of their record that they view the future through a veil of vanity on which the past is painted. Their future discovers such men trying to relive the echoes of the deeds they once did.

  — from The Log of Tros of Samothrace

  DAWN found Tros and Orwic striding gloomily along the Via Sacra, turning and returning until they knew by heart the statues and the very cracks between the flagstones. Dust was stirred into their nostrils by the city slaves, who appeared in an army to sprinkle and sweep, their overseers watchful to pounce on coins or jewelry. One slave was flogged until he lay half stunned for trying to secrete a coin he picked out of a gutter.

  Very shortly after dawn, demolishment resumed where Caesar’s agents had bought up the ancient buildings, and the usual cursing and thrashing attended the first speeding up of sleepy slaves, dog-weary from the day before. Draft animals were better treated, having cost more money; there was scarcity of horses, and the price of meat was higher than when Spartacus had raided the Campagna, but since Pompey drove the pirates from the seas there had been no interruption in the streams of slaves that found their way to market, so a slave of the laboring sort cost very little. It was reckoned economical to work a man to death and buy another in his place.

  The hurried sweeping done, on temple porticos and at an altar in the middle of the Forum, shaven-headed priests went through a ritual of invocation. There appeared to be a competition between temples to see which could hurry fastest through the service, for the wind had risen and the clouds of dust made the increasing heat unbearable. Dust gritted in the teeth and filled the nostrils; it was underfoot again in gray drifts almost as soon as the sweeper gangs had vanished.

  Shops were opened, and the yawning shop-assistants sunned themselves, greeting their neighbors and cursing the builders who obliged them to clean shop so constantly. There was a sudden roar of voices and a fire-brigade, all clad in leather and brass helmets, streamed across the Forum carrying their ladders, ropes, poles and leather buckets — hundreds of buckets all nested together, for use by any slave or citizen they could impress into the service. Their united shout was like a war-cry: