Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “That young man hopes to die in the arena where he won his laurels. Death comes not so obediently. Observe my Arab officers.”

  It was easy to observe them without their knowing it. Their eyes were on those four rebellious stallions and not a motion escaped them, not a symptom of condition or a detail of the way in which Apollodorus got them gradually under his control without reducing one fraction of their fiery resentment of restraint. They were sweating, snorting, kicking at the hated chariot, but they had hardly yet begun to feel their strength, and they were discovering that the fragile racing shell was something that it was easier to flee from than to shake loose. An Arab began to question Tros as to where and with whom bets could be placed and presently he vanished after making a collection of his companions’ money. The other Arabs — twenty of them — began to chant their tribal rhapsody that had in it the breath of deserts and the passionate mystery of unknown causes:

  “Allah! Who knoweth the horse and the spirit of strength that resides in him!

  Allah! His eyes are as embers that glow in the jewels of Sheba!

  Allah! The breath of his nostrils: it burns as the blaring of trumpets!

  Allah! The thunder of hoofs as a dawn rises over the desert!

  “Who hath regarded a horse, and the soul of the song that resides in him?

  Spirit of wandering wind, and the pride of the Djinn that resides in him!

  Lo, how he wandereth forth, and the heat and the drought are his homeland!

  Lo, how he paweth the earth, how he raiseth his head to the challenge!”

  The race was four times around the arena, starting and finishing in front of the royal box. A quarter of an hour was used up getting the contestants into line, the teams of Phidias and Cleisthenes not causing much trouble, but Apollodorus’ stallions becoming increasingly violent as a result of Gelo’s deliberate efforts to obstruct and irritate them. There were a dozen false starts, the voice of the throng, like an explosion, each time maddening the horses into greater frenzy.

  Cleopatra leaned over the front of her box and tried to throw a rose down to Apollodorus as the teams wheeled and passed her in the thirteenth attempt to cross the starting line together. It struck the off-side stallion on the ear; he shook his head, screamed an insulted challenge to his yoke-mates and all four, seizing the bits in their teeth, went headlong up the course exactly as the starter gave the signal.

  That saved Apollodorus. Gelo, meaning to make short work of him, with one eye on the starter, wrenched at the reins to hurl his own team’ sidewise into Apollodorus’ four — too late! Apollodorus shot past, neck and neck with Phidias and Cleisthenes, careering headlong for the turn, and holding his own in spite of being on the outside and having a greater distance to traverse.

  The proper course for Gelo to have taken then would have been to follow, saving his team for a spurt, and watching for opportunity to cut in on the inside whenever the terrific speed should force the contestants wide of the turns at the barrier’s ends. By that means he might have stolen the lead after a round or two. But instead he lashed his horses and pursued at utmost speed, endeavoring to crowd in from the rear and force Apollodorus to the outer wall.

  At the far turn, on the first lap, Apollodorus executed a maneuver that in one instant restored the crowd’s enthusiasm for him He contrived to check his stallions for a second; then he loosed them and sent them like a bolt out of a catapult into the gap that opened between Phidias and Cleisthenes. There was not an inch to spare and both men tried to crush him between them, losing enough speed by that to send Apollodorus shooting to the front. By the time he had reached the home turn he had gained a chariot’s length and had the inside berth.

  And now the stadium became the heart of thunder, as the spectators realized that they were witnessing another such race as had made Apollodorus famous. Men ceased to behave like human beings. The Arabs clasped one another’s hands and swung together in motions meant to stimulate the magic that resides in horses’ hearts and legs. Women tore their clothing and beat their breasts. The Roman legionaries lost all interest in keeping order; they, too, cried to the gods to favor this or that one and gesticulated with dice-throwing gestures, leaning across the shoulders of whoever happened to be nearest. Men in the front rows stood, and men behind them smote them down on to their seats. There were shrieks from women pressed against the arena wall. And through and through the din came sharp staccato volleys from the bull-lunged professional gamblers, as the odds against Apollodorus shortened by fifty per cent. explosions and he became the odds-on favorite.

  Apollodorus’ team, in front now, with nothing in sight to overtake, reverted to rebellion and swung wide; Phidias and Cleisthenes opened up to let Gelo through, both yelling to him as he passed them; Gelo, lashing furiously, drove in on Apollodorus’ left hand but did not pass him; he crowded him outward and farther outward as the Arab stallions gave ground nervously, until Cleisthenes and Phidias had room to challenge once more on the inside and all four raced abreast for the turn at the far end.

  There was no holding that pace, and there was no room for Apollodorus to pursue his former tactics. Gelo nursed him, trying to crowd him to the outer wall. But the superior speed of the four bay stallions told and he headed Gelo, forcing him to give way to the left; it was possible to crowd in on a reckless driver who held a lead by even half a head, if he could only make his horses swerve in toward the challenger instead of edging away. Apollodorus gained again on Phidias and Cleisthenes, with Gelo hanging on his flank to worry him, and Phidias and Cleisthenes drew rein a little, being minded not to spend their horses’ strength too early in the game. At the turn by the royal box all four were in a crowd together, with Apollodorus on the outside.

  Once more Phidias and Cleisthenes let Gelo pass them, as if they were willing to let Gelo make the pace, which was no unusual proceeding. An experienced eye could tell by now that Gelo’s horses were outclassed; it was a race between Apollodorus and the other two. But they took the turn wide, permitting Apollodorus to repeat his diagonal spurt that placed him again on the inside, neck and neck with them, and Gelo leading. There was something a bit too obvious about the way they let him steal that great advantage; his unruly team was at its best with something ahead to overtake and thundering hoofs on the right hand by way of added inspiration. Din died. Everybody saw there was a foul about to take place, as all three chariots gave chase to Gelo, whips fanning, gaining on him — and Apollodorus, his heart in the race at last, utterly forgetting melancholy and the will to die, discerned the trap too late! His rivals had him hemmed in, extended and blocked beyond all possibility of reining clear of a collision.

  But by only he knew what compelling magic of the reins Apollodorus checked his frenzied team enough, three-chariot-lengths before they reached the turn, to upset calculations. Phidias, nearest to him on the right, and watching him, with his team in hand, checked also, hemming him in, but Cleisthenes on the outside, not aware that Apollodorus was awake to the danger, fanned his four bays and shot ahead, thus overtaking Gelo, who had slowed a trifle; and Gelo thought that Cleisthenes was Apollodorus.

  One thing that Gelo did not lack was courage. Pulling his horses’ heads together to break the rhythm of their gallop and throw them into confusion he suddenly leaned his whole weight on the off rein. The team tried to answer to it, tripped one another and fell, at the turn, in the path of Cleisthenes, who met the fate intended for Apollodorus and charged headlong into the wreck.

  A writhing mass of chariots, men and horses was thus spread directly in Apollodorus’ path. Phidias, being on the outside, pulled clear, but allowed no room for Apollodorus to avoid the obstacle. The roar of thirty thousand voices rose to a shriek, for it was evident that Phidias was to finish the race alone. Apollodorus was done for — gone the way of many an erstwhile favorite.

  But Apollodorus possibly remembered his desire to die then. Or perhaps his instinct to take all chances and never to admit defeat until defeat was proved and irre
vocable governed his brain and nerve and overrode all lesser emotions. He cracked on speed. He shouted to his stallions. He braced himself and, seeming to gather magnetism from the tumult in the air, drove headlong at the writhing mass of shattered chariots and kicking horses.

  Those four stallions of his were trained in war. The agonized excitement of the onlookers awakened in them all the sudden fire and spirit that an Arab chieftain values. They were unanimous at last; they understood the endeavor demanded of them — the impossible that they must overcome. They leaped the wreckage, dragging their chariot through behind them. The shock and the jerk — the exultant frenzy and the tumult from the madly moving sea of faces all around them — the exertion of their utmost, wildest, wantonest determination loosed their battle ardor. The collision, as the chariot wheels struck wreckage, threw them slightly sidewise and they saw Phidias’ team on the outside racing belly to the earth to make good the advantage. They snorted — challenged — charged it, only swerving to the left in answer to the reins in time to shoulder the team, instead of crashing headlong into it to fight with teeth and hoofs as they intended. The shock threw Phidias’ near-side horse; the other three went down on top of him, and Phidias was catapulted, with a broken neck, against the wall of the arena.

  The attendants hurried out from doors in the arena wall to pull the men free, kill the injured horses and drag away the wreckage. There was no obstruction left by the time Apollodorus had made the circuit of the arena. He finished the race alone amid a tumult such as even Alexandria had never witnessed, and Cleopatra herself descended from the royal box, to stand on the rose-embowered platform that was wheeled out from the entrance gate and crown him with the golden chaplet that many Alexandrians would have preferred to a kingdom.

  Then the crowd broke all restraint and poured into the arena, mobbing him, dancing around him, flattering him with sacrilegious names and tearing off scraps of his tunic as souvenirs, until they all but stripped him naked. Caesar and Cleopatra were forgotten. All Alexandria was in love again with its former idol, and even Tros went down into the arena to help to rescue him from the mob’s embraces and to tell him he was almost as good as Caswallon, the King.

  Only Cleopatra, Caesar and the Arab chieftains did not lose their heads over Apollodorus. The Arabs sang their rhapsody about the horses, holding hands and swinging to and fro to emphasize the rhythm:

  “Who hath regarded the horse? Allah! He treadeth them under him —

  Desert and valley and hill; mountain and plain are his kingdom.

  Who is a lord of the horse? Lo, he is more than a conqueror!

  Money and women and love, all these are his for the asking!”

  They descended to collect their money and to look for love among the women who were clamoring around Apollodorus. Caesar, watching the crowd while the attendants stood ready to escort him and Cleopatra to her litter that was waiting, borne on the shoulders of twenty-four slaves, wore such a sardonic, thin-lipped smile that for the moment Cleopatra thought Apollodorus was in danger from him.

  “He has forgotten Lollianè now,” she said, “and he will be as useful as ever, because he has manners and is not afraid of people. But he will never be dangerous. He is made of vanity extremely well starched, and I always know how to damp the starch or stiffen it when needed.”

  “I was thinking of the crowd,” said Caesar. “Whether or not there are gods and an after-life, and whether or not there are gods on earth in the shapes of mortal men, it is apparent that the populace needs something of the sort. It might be policy — it might be closer to the truth than I suspect, to recognize the need and to accept the deification. Otherwise it might be necessary always to be surpassing the exploits of charioteers and similar people, who think that acrobatics are a sign of virtue.”

  CHAPTER XXX. “Caesar — were you afraid to cross the Rubicon?”

  Whoever is so awake to the phenomena of the material world as to reason chiefly from the basis of the things he sees, is correspondingly asleep to the realities of intuition and the spiritual universe, and his waking is worse than his sleep. The slave of instinct, he is as an owl in daylight, when the inner voices speak; or as a dove in darkness, when the spirit challenges; and as the spider that has spun her web so is he, competent among the dungheap flies: but when the weather changes, lo! what shall become of him?

  — Fragment from The Diary Of Olympus.

  BUT there came an end of celebration for the city, because mortal men must swing like pendulums between the prize and paying for it — between math and aftermath. On sunlit marble steps the hierophants, with faces veiled in mystery of heliotrope, entoned a blessing from inscrutable divinities whose symbols were the sun and moon and stars. Then Alexandria went back to work, to earn the taxes and consider the executions at the city gate.

  For it was not within Caesar’s idea of what was good, either for his own troops or for Alexandria, that disaffected and abominable men should totally escape example. What he needed was stabilization and money; a tonic was called for to insure both. But it was only decent to defer the punishments until the holiday was over; and they were only unimportant people, with no influence worth mentioning, who were now to serve the public weal and Caesar’s purposes by being tortured.

  Alexandrians disliked crucifixions, as a vulgar and indecent eyesore, necessary to keep slaves in order, but revolting to the passer-by; which was Caesar’s considered reason for selecting that method of advertising how extremely unrevengeful he had been and how fortunate they were who had enjoyed his tolerance. In all, not more than fourteen score unfortunates were flogged on backs and stomachs and nailed alive to upright balks of timber near the Gate of Canopus, where potentially much more dangerous people on their way to enjoy an evening in the Groves of Eleusis might regard them and remember prudence. The legend tied to each one’s breast was to the effect that he had brought upon himself the discipline of Rome by rebelling against the Queen whom Rome had recognized. The executions were attended to by Caesar’s men; he did not witness them in person, but he left no room for doubt in anybody’s mind that it was Rome, and above all Caesar who imposed peace and would henceforth punish its infringement.

  Cleopatra, who received the public credit for the moderation used in meting out penalties, began now seriously to consider Caesar’s awakening restlessness and to divert it. His devotion to herself was apparently absolute, but she was too sensible to suppose that there were no more unexplored compartments of his ambitious mind, or that his contentment with the Alexandrian climate and the luxuries of the Lochias would keep him eternally dancing attendance on her.

  She saw, and she pointed out to Caesar, that there was nothing to prevent him from defying Rome, as in fact he had done more than once already. The loyalty of the Roman legions was as personal to himself as were the money he had wrung from Gaul and the estates that he had bought with it.

  “By returning to Rome,” she told him, “you will make no new friends. Rather you will stir old enmities. Would it not be wiser to let Rome decay, while you summon your loyal friends around you, reward them here in Alexandria, and make yourself so strong by that means that no senate on earth can challenge your authority?”

  He seriously thought of it, although he smiled incredulously to conceal the treason. He knew the bitter jealousy and pride of Rome. He knew how Cicero, and others, would resist every move he might make in his plan to make himself a crowned king — the first king of the royal house of Caesar — and perhaps — he was not sure of that yet, but perhaps — with Cleopatra for his consort and their son the anointed heir. He could divorce his wife Calpurnia without difficulty, and by persuading some other man to marry her he might even negotiate a strong political alliance. But he secretly dreaded the gibes of the Romans; personal abuse and the sneers of such important men as Cicero and Cato stung him much more than he was ever willing to admit. He dreaded that ordeal, although he knew how to silence Cato presently, for Cato was in arms against him Above all, and in spite of his
hold on the mind of the Roman mob, he doubted whether even he was great enough to defy with impunity that law against marrying foreigners which was almost as much a part of Rome’s religion as were the ancient sacrificial rites.

  It was into that rift in his reflections that Cleopatra thrust her subtlest arguments:

  “Here, Caesar, you are already accepted as a god. Men recognize you, knowing that it proves their own spiritual discernment to accord you that distinction. Why make your headquarters in Rome, where men are too grossly superstitious to accept an idea that is new to them?”

  He did not admit to Cleopatra that his craving for a throne was stronger than any other problem in his thought, but she divined it; and again she caused her ministers to urge him to accept the throne of Egypt in co-dominion with herself. She upheld their arguments:

  “Caesar, you will then be linked irrevocably with the oldest reigning dynasty. After that the Romans either must accept you as their king or else repudiate you and take the consequences. Were you afraid to cross the Rubicon? Do you believe you could not conquer Rome a second time — now — with all the wealth of Egypt at your command?”

  He was conscious of a tremendous change in her since she had made known to him that she was to be the mother of his child. She had matured, as it were, in a moment. Always intellectually brilliant and charming, and possessed of that natural authority that comes of inner wisdom, she had now assumed executive authority that she derived from him, and that touched his vanity, making him think he had weaned her away from the mysterious unseen influences — as indeed, to an extent, he had done; as the mother of his child she was mentally under his influence, and it was not in her nature to be less than loyal to the man to whom she had yielded herself. She was much more exacting of herself in that respect than Caesar would have dreamed of asking her to be, he having cynical Roman notions about chastity, which she only shared to the extent of contempt for its legal aspects.