by Talbot Mundy
The dignity of drama was the essence of all Roman ceremony. The formalities of greeting were observed as elegantly, and with far more evident sincerity, in Cornificia’s house than in Caesar’s palace. Cornificia, dressed in white and wearing very little jewelry, received her guests more like an old-time patrician matron than a notorious modern concubine. Her notoriety, in fact, was due to Flavia Titiana, rather than to any indiscretions of her own. To justify her infidelities, which were a byword, Pertinax’ lawful wife went to ingenious lengths to blacken Cornificia’s reputation, regaling all society with her invented tales about the lewd attractions Cornificia staged to keep Pertinax held in her toils.
That Cornificia did exercise a sway over the governor of Rome was undeniable. He worshiped her and made no secret of it. But she held him by a method diametrically contrary to that which rumor, stirred by Flavia Titiana, indicated; Cornificia’s house was a place where he could lay aside the feverish activities of public life and revel in the intellectual and philosophical amusements that he genuinely loved.
But Livius loathed her. Among other things, he suspected her of being in league with Marcia to protect the Christians. To him she represented the idealism that his cynicism bitterly rejected. The mere fact of her unshakable fidelity to Pertinax was an offense in his eyes; she presented what he considered an impudent pose of morality, more impudent because it was sustained. He might have liked her well enough if she had been a hypocrite, complaisant to himself.
She understood him perfectly — better, in fact, than she understood Marcia, whose visits usually led to intricate entanglements for Pertinax. When she had sent the slaves away and they four lay at ease on couches in the shade of three exotic potted palms, she turned her back toward Livius, suspecting he would bring his motives to the surface if she gave him time; whereas Marcia would hide hers and employ a dozen artifices to make them undiscoverable.
“You have not brought Livius because you think he loves me!” she said, laughing. “Nor have you come, my Marcia, for nothing, since you might have sent for me and saved yourself trouble. I anticipate intrigue! What plot have you discovered now? Is Pertinax its victim? You can always interest me if you talk of Pertinax.”
“We will talk of Livius,” said Marcia.
Leaning on his elbows, Livius glared at Caia Poppeia, Marcia’s companion. He coughed, to draw attention to her, but Marcia refused to take the hint. “Livius has information for us,” she remarked.
Livius rose from the couch and came and stood before her, knitting his fingers together behind his back, compelling himself to smile. His pallor made the hastily applied cosmetics look ridiculous.
“Marcia,” he said, “you make it obvious that you suspect me of some indiscretion.”
“Never!” she retorted, mocking. “You indiscreet? Who would believe it? Give us an example of discretion; you are Paris in the presence of three goddesses. Select your destiny!”
He smiled, attempted to regain his normal air of tolerant importance — glanced about him — saw the sunlight making iridescent pools of fire within a crystal ball set on the fountain’s edge — took up the ball and brought it to her, holding it in both hands.
“What choice is there than that which Paris made?” he asked, kneeling on one knee, laughing. “Venus rules men’s hearts. She must prevail. So into your most lovely hands I give my destiny.”
“You mean, you leave it there!” said Marcia. “Could you ever afford to ignore me and intrigue behind my back?”
“I am the least intriguing person of your acquaintance, Marcia,” he answered, rising because the hard mosaic pavement hurt his knee, and the position made him feel undignified. But more than dignity he loved discretion; he wished there were eyes in the back of his head, to see whether slaves were watching from the curtained windows opening on the inner court. “It is my policy,” he went on, “to know much and say little; to observe much, and do nothing! I am much too lazy for intrigue, which is hard work, judging by what I have seen of those who indulge in it.”
“Is that why you sacrificed a white bull recently?” asked Marcia.
Livius glanced at Cornificia, but her patrician face gave no hint. Caia Poppeia’s was less under control, for she was younger and had nothing to conceal; she was inquisitively enjoying the entertainment and evidently did not know what was coming.
“I sacrificed a white bull to Jupiter Capitolinus, as is customary, to confirm a sacred oath,” he answered.
“Very well, suppose you break the oath!” said Marcia.
He managed to look scandalized — then chuckled foolishly, remembering what Pertinax had said about the value of an oath; but his own dignity obliged him to protest.
“I am not one of your Christians,” he answered, stiffening himself. “I am old-fashioned enough to hold that an oath made at the altar of our Roman Jupiter is sacred and inviolable.”
“When you took your oath of office you swore to be in all things true to Caesar,” Marcia retorted. “Do you prefer to tell Caesar how true you have been to that oath? Which oath holds the first one or the second?”
“I could ask to be released from the second one,” said Livius. “If you will give me time—”
Marcia’s laugh interrupted him. It was soft, melodious, like wavelets on a calm sea, hinting unseen reefs.
“Time,” she said, “Is all that death needs! Death does not wait on oaths; it comes to us. I wish to know just how far I can trust you, Livius.”
Nine Roman nobles out of ten in Livius’ position would have recognized at once the deadliness of the alternatives she offered and, preserving something of the shreds of pride, would have accepted suicide as preferable. Livius had no such stamina. He seized the other horn of the dilemma.
“I perceive Pertinax has betrayed me,” he sneered, looking sharply at Cornificia; but she was watching Marcia and did not seem conscious of his glance. “If Pertinax has broken his oath, mine no longer binds me. This is the fact then: I discovered how he helped Sextus, son of Maximus, to avoid execution by a ruse, making believe to be killed. Pertinax was also privy to the execution of an unknown thief in place of Norbanus, a friend of Sextus, also implicated in conspiracy. Pertinax has been secretly negotiating with Sextus ever since. Sextus now calls himself Maternus and is notorious as a highwayman.”
“What else do you know about Maternus?” Marcia inquired. There was a trace at last of sharpness in her voice. A hint conveyed itself that she could summon the praetorians if he did not answer swiftly.
“He plots against Caesar.”
“You know too little or too much!” said Marcia. “What else?”
He closed his lips tight. “I know nothing else.”
“Have you had any dealings with Sextus?”
“Never.”
He was shifting now from one foot to the other, hardly noticeably, but enough to make Marcia smile. “Shall we hear what Sextus has to say to that?” asked Cornificia, so confidently that there was no doubt Marcia had given her the signal.
Marcia moved her melting, lazy, laughing eyes and Cornificia clapped her hands. A slave came.
“Bring the astrologer.”
Sextus must have been listening, he appeared so instantly. He stood with folded arms confronting them, his weathered face in sunlight. Pigment was not needed to produce the healthy bronze hue of his skin; his curly hair, bound by a fillet, was unruly from the outdoor life he had been leading; the strong sinews of his arms and legs belied the ease of his pretended calling and the starry cloak he wore was laughable in its failure to disguise the man of action. He saluted the three women with a gesture of the raised right hand that no man unaccustomed to the use of arms could imitate, then turning slightly toward Livius, acknowledged his nod with a humorous grin.
“So we meet again, Bultius Livius.”
“Again?” asked Marcia.
“Why yes, I met him in the house of Pertinax. It is three days since we spoke together. Three, or is it four, Livius? I have been busy. I fo
rget.”
“Can Livius have lied?” asked Marcia. She seemed to be enjoying the entertainment.
Livius threw caution to the winds.
“Is this a tribunal?” he demanded. “If so, of what am I accused?” He tried to speak indignantly, but something caught in his throat. The cough became a sob and in a moment he was half-hysterical. “By Hercules, what judges! What a witness! Is he a two-headed witness who shall swear my life away? I understand you, Marcia!”
(At least two witnesses were necessary under Roman law.)
“You?” she laughed. “You understand me?”
He recovered something of his self-possession, a wave of virility returning. High living and the feverish excitement of the palace regime had ruined his nerves but there were traces still of his original astuteness. He resumed his air of dignity.
“Pardon me,” he said. “I have been overworked of late. I must see Galen about this jumpiness. When I said I understand you I meant, I realize that you are joking. Naturally you would not receive a highwayman in Cornificia’s house, and at the same time accuse me of treason! Pray excuse my outburst — set it to the score of ill-health. I will see Galen.”
“You shall see him now!” laughed Marcia, and Cornificia clapped her hands.
Less suddenly than Sextus had appeared, because his age was beginning to tell on him, Galen entered the court through a door behind the palm- trees and stood smiling, making his old-world, slow salute to Marcia. His bright eyes moved alertly amid wrinkles. He looked something like the statues of the elder Cato, only with a kindlier humor and less obstinacy at the corners of the mouth. Two slaves brought out a couch for him and vanished when he had taken his ease on it after fussing a little because the sun was in his eyes.
“My trade is to oppose death diplomatically,” he remarked. “I am a poor diplomatist. I only gain a little here and there. Death wins inevitably. Nevertheless, they only summon me for consultation when they hope to gain a year or two for somebody. Marcia, unless you let Bultius Livius use that couch he will swoon. I warn you. The man’s heart is weak. He has more brain than heart,” he added. “How is our astrologer?”
He greeted Sextus with a wrinkled grin and beckoned him to share his couch. Sextus sat down and began chafing the old doctor’s legs. Marcia took her time about letting Livius be seated.
“You heard Galen?” she asked. “We are here to cheat death diplomatically.”
“Whose death?” Livius demanded.
“Rome’s!” said Marcia, her eyes intently on his face. “If Rome should split in three parts it would fall asunder. None but Commodus can save us from a civil war. We are here to learn what Bultius Livius can do to preserve the life of Commodus.”
Livius’ face, grotesque already with its hastily smeared carmine, assumed new bewilderment.
“I have seen men tortured who were less ready to betray themselves,” said Galen. “Give him wine — strong wine, that is my advice.”
But Marcia preferred her victim thoroughly subjected.
“Fill your eyes with sunlight, Livius. Breathe deep! You look and breathe your last, unless you satisfy me! This astrologer, who is not Sextus — mark that! I have said he is not Sextus. Galen certified to Sextus’ death and there were twenty other witnesses. Nor is he Maternus the highwayman. Maternus was crucified. That other Maternus, who is rumored to live in the Aventine Hills, is an imaginary person — a mere name used by runaways who take to robbery. This astrologer, I say, reports that you know all the secrets of the factions that are separately plotting to destroy our Commodus.”
Livius did not answer, although she paused to give him time.
“You said you understood me, Livius. But it is I who understand you — utterly! To you any price is satisfactory if your own skin and perquisites are safe. You are as crafty a spy as any rat in the palace cellars. You have kept yourself informed in order to get the pickings when you see at last which side to take. Careful, very clever of you, Livius! But have you ever seen an eagle rob a fish-hawk of its catch?”
“Why waste time?” Cornificia asked impatiently. “He forced himself on Pertinax, who should have had him murdered, only Pertinax is too indifferent to his own—”
“Too philosophical!” corrected Galen.
Then Caia Poppeia spoke up, in a young, hard voice that had none of Marcia’s honeyed charm. No doubt of her was possible; she could be cruel for the sake of cruelty and loyal for the sake of pride. Her beauty was a mere means to an end — the end intrigue, for the impassionate excitement of it. She was straight-lipped, with a smile that flickered, and a hard light in her blue eyes.
“It was I who learned you spy on Marcia. I know, too, that you keep a spy in Britain, — one in Gaul, another in Severus’ camp. I read the last nine letters they sent you. I showed them to Marcia.”
“I kept one,” Marcia added. “It came yesterday. It compromises you beyond—”
“I yield!” said Livius, his knees beginning to look weak.
“To whom? To me?” asked Sextus, standing up abruptly and confronting him with folded arms. “Who stole the list I sent to Pertinax, of names of the important men who are intriguing for Severus, and for Pescennius Niger, and for Clodius Albinus?”
“Who knows?” Livius shrugged his shoulders.
“None knew of that list but you!” said Sextus. “You heard me speak of it to Pertinax. You heard me promise I would send it to him. None but you and he and I knew who the messenger would be. Where is the messenger?”
“In the sewers probably!” said Marcia. “The list is more important.”
“If it isn’t in the sewers, too,” said Livius, snatching at a straw.
“By Hercules, I know nothing of a list.”
“Then you shall drown with Sextus’ slave in the Cloaca Maxima, the great sewer of Rome,” said Marcia. “Not that I need the list. I know what names are written on it. But if it should have fallen into Caesar’s hands—”
She shuddered, acting horror perfectly, and Livius, like a drowning man who thinks he sees the shore, struck out and sank!
“You threaten me, but I am no such fool as you imagine! I know all about you! I perceive you have crossed your Rubicon. Well—”
“Summon the decurion and two men!” Marcia interrupted, glancing at Cornificia. But she made a gesture with her hand that Cornificia interpreted to mean “do nothing of the kind!”
Livius did not see the gesture. Rage, shame, terror overwhelmed him and he blurted out the information Marcia was seeking — hurled it at her in the form of silly, useless threats:
“You wanton! You can kill me but my journal is in safe hands! Harm me — cause me to be missing from the palace for a few hours, and they may light your funeral fires! My journal, with the names of the conspirators, and all the details of your daily intriguing, goes straight into Caesar’s hands!”
The climax he expected failed. There was no excitement. Nobody seemed astonished. Marcia settled herself more comfortably on the couch and Galen began whispering to Sextus. The two other women looked amused. Reaction sweeping over him, his senses reeled and Livius stepped backward, staggering to the fountain, where he sat down.
“Bona dea! But the man took time to tell his secret!” Marcia exclaimed. “Popeia, you had better take my litter to the palace and bring that minx Cornelia. I suspected it was she but wasn’t sure of it. Don’t give her an inkling of what you know. Go with her to her apartment and watch her dress; then make an excuse to keep her waiting in your room while you go back and search hers. Have help if you need it; take two of my eunuchs, but watch that they don’t read the journal. Look under her mattress. Look everywhere. If you can’t find the journal, bring Cornelia without it. I will soon make her tell us where it is.”
VIII. NARCISSUS
“A gladiator’s life is not so bad if he behaves himself, and while it lasts,” Narcissus said.
He was sitting beside Sextus, son of Maximus, in the ergastulum beneath the training school of Bruttius Mar
ius, which was well known to be the emperor’s establishment, although maintained in the name of a citizen. There was a stone seat at the end where sunlight poured through a barred window high up in the wall. To right and left facing a central corridor were cells with doors of latticed iron. Each cell had its own barred window, hardly a foot square, set high out of reach and the light, piercing the latticed doors, made criss-cross patterns on the white wall of the corridor. Narcissus got up, glanced into each cell and sat down again beside Sextus.
“The trouble is, they don’t,” he went on. “If you let them out, they drink and get into poor condition; and if you keep them in, they kill themselves unless they’re watched. These men are reserved for Paulus, and they know they haven’t a chance against him.”
“Paulus’ luck won’t last forever,” Sextus remarked grimly.
“No, nor his skill, I suppose. But he doesn’t debauch himself, so he’s always in perfect condition.”
“Haven’t you a man in here who might be made nervy enough to kill him?” Sextus asked. “They would kill the man himself, of course, directly afterward, but we might undertake to enrich his relatives.”
Narcissus shook his head.
“One might have a chance with the sword or with the net and trident, though I doubt it. But Paulus uses a javelin and his aim is like lightning. Only yesterday at practise they loosed eleven lions at him from eleven directions at the same moment. He slew them with eleven javelins, and each one stone dead. Some of these men saw him do it, which hasn’t encouraged them, I can tell you. In the second place, they know Paulus is Commodus. He might just as well go into the arena frankly as the emperor, for all the secret it is. That substitute who occupies the royal pavilion when Commodus himself is in the arena no longer looks very much like him; he is getting too loose under the chin, although a year ago you could hardly tell the two apart. Even the mob knows Paulus is Commodus, although nobody dares to acclaim him openly. Send a gladiator in against another gladiator and even though he may know that the other man can split a stick at twenty yards, he will do his best. But let him know he goes against the emperor and he has no nerve to start with; he can’t aim straight; he suspects his own three javelins and his shield and helmet have been tampered with. I myself would be afraid to face Paulus, being not much good with the javelin in any case, besides being superstitious about killing emperors, who are gods, not men, or the senate and priests wouldn’t say so. It is the same in the races: setting aside Caesar’s skill, which is simply phenomenal, the other charioteers are all afraid of him.”