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HISTORICAL ADVENTURE MAGAZINE
OCTOBER 1938 Vol. 1 No, 1.
LONG NOVELETTES
ROMAN HOLIDAY . by Talbot Mundy 2
An Epic Tale of Homans, Christians — and Lions — in the Reign at Mad Caligula. Illustrated by Harold S. Delay
WHALES' WAY . by Bertrand L. ShurUeif 62
Rival Whalers Battle lor Love and Command When the South Seas Are Young. Illustrated by Harold S, Delay
SHORT STORIES
COASTS OF CHANCE . by H. Bedford-Jones 44
I— Evening at the Black Bull
Roving Eye ol Petty Robber Baron In 17th Century Italy Changes Course of History and World Commerce. Illustrated by Jay Jackson
ROSEBUD JOE . . by Anthony Rud 110
Indiana and Wild Horse* Complicate a Difficult Situation. Illustrated by James Carr
THE HERO . . by Hcd G. Vermes 120
Grandpa p's Memory Wasn't Perfect But He Knew a Hero.
FACT ARTICLE
AN AMERICAN MANDARIN . . by Allen P. Wescott 126
An American Soldier of Fortune in the Taiping Rebellion.
DEPARTMENTS
TOOLS OF DEATH — Illustrated by Jan Janecek . . . 43
THE ROUND TABLE . . . . 128
COVER DESIGN
Painted in oils by Harold S Delay lor "Roman Holiday1*
A. J. Goalie r, Jr. ASSOCIATE EDITORS J. H. Bellamy
Published monthly by Sun Publications. Executive and Editorial Offices* Rand McNally Bldg,, SIB S. Clark St., Chicago Ill. Single copy price 3Dc. Yearly subscriptions in the United States 12.00 per year. Foreign Postage $1.00 a year extra. Application for Second Glass Entry pending at the Post Office at Chicago, 111* under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title Registration applied for at U. S. Patent Office. Notice to authors— When submitting manuscripts, kindly enclose stamped and self-addressed envelope for their return, if found unavailable* Although care wilt be exercised in handling unsolicited manu* scripts, the publishers cannot accept responsibility for their return* **»*t*;p imo.
CHAPTER I "I was free born in Judea”
IMON UNOCULUS sat at the gate. He restrained himself. Life was risky in Rome, where the emperor was bestially crazy, which was bad enough; but his ministers were bestially sane, which was much worse. However, a man could be safely obscure in Rome; but, out here in the suburbs, where the great estates lay boundary on boundary
and the rich had locked their back gates to prevent espionage, not even a modest tradesman's life was safe from one hour to another.
“1 wish to see the steward, and I only wish to buy skins,” he repeated.
"I don’t believe you,” said Boas. He kept the gate, his qualification for the job being a knack of insolence toward the wrong people and obsequious servility to¬ ward the right ones. He lolled on a mar¬ ble bench beneath the stucco arch and,
2
by
TALBOT
MUNDY
Illustrated by Harold Delay
CHAPTER I *7 was free born in Judea/'
I MON UNOCULUS sat at the gate. He restrained himself. Life was risky in Rome, where the emperor was bestially crazy, which was bad enough ; but his ministers were bestially sane, which was much worse. However, a man could be safely obscure in Rome; but, out here in the suburbs, where the great estates lay boundary on boundary
and the rich had locked their back gates to prevent espionage, not even a modest tradesman's life was safe from one hour to another*
4*l wish to see the steward, and I only wish to buy skins," he repeated.
"I don't believe you," said Boas. He kept the gate* his qualification for the job being a knack of insolence toward the wrong people and obsequious servility to¬ ward the right ones. He lolled on a mar¬ ble bench beneath the stucco arch and.
with the ferrule of an ivory-handled less important slaves might sweep it away stick, lazily drew patterns in the dust that at his command.
kept on covering the tiles however often "I am an honest man,” Simon insisted.
3
with the ferrule of an ivory-handled less important slaves might sweep it away stick, lazily drew patterns in the dust that at his command.
kept on covering the tiles however often “I am an honest man,” Simon insisted.
3
4
GOLDEN FLEECE
“I seek leave from the steward to show my dressed leopard-skins to your master Fastidius FI arcus. I sell cheap, and I buy raw hides, skins, pelts and castoff clothing at good prices.”
"You look like a Jew to me,” said Boas.
“ T AM a Roman citizen. I was free
J. born in Judea.”
"Much good may that do you,” Boas retorted. “Jews are Christians. Only yesterday I saw a slave beaten to death for being a Christian — and serves the fool right. I myself overheard him saying that one man is as good as another. I suppose you rate yourself as good as Caesar.”
Julius Verres Vulpes overhead that. As a member of the Equestrian order he was entitled to display himself on horseback ; but as a matter of convenience he was be¬ ing carried in his much more comfortable litter by eight matched Egyptian slaves — to dine with Fastidius Flaccus. Vulpes was the last man in the world to overlook moral turpitude. His huge belly shook with indignation. He put himself to the trouble of turning his fat-jowled face to summon the four slave-gladiators, without whom he never ventured beyond the walls of his own villa.
"Seize me that infamous Jew !” he com¬ manded. “Seize him, I say ! Cudgel him ! I heard him say he is as good as Caesar I I say, I heard him. Hercules ! My ears are split by his abominable words! Is a patrician's gate a meeting place for Chris¬ tians? It is time these Christians were dealt with as a public danger. Cudgel him !”
The leopard-skin cloaked gladiators ran to obey; but before they could get near Simon they had to scatter to avoid the horse of Vergilius Cleandcr, who cantered up with an armed attendant running be¬ side him. Simon appealed to him instant¬ ly, clutching the narrow purple border of
Cleatider’s tunic, although the attendant tried to prevent that.
"Most illustrious Cleandcr! Just and generous Cleander! You remember me? I am Simon, who buys hides from your honor’s steward.”
“Yes, I know you. What is it, Vulpes ? Usurping the rights of magistrates, as usual ? However, it so happens I protect this man. Now what about it, Vulpes?”
“Oh, if I had known he was one of your boon companions,” Vulpes sneered, his big jowls blue with anger, “J would have invited him into my litter ! Open me that gate, fellow! Is Julius Verres Vul¬ pes to be kept waiting while Vergilius Ge- ander gossips with Caesar’s enemies?”
THE opened gate revealed a tiled walk, framed in the pastel hues of flowers. It was lined with statuary plun¬ dered from the groves of Greece in Sulla's day. Beyond a well spaced group of shade-trees the wall of a great house stood silhouetted against a blood-red sunset. Vergilius Cleander lingered and spoke with Simon.
“Most illustrious Cleander, business is terrible in Rome. They are slaying no more animals in the arena. It is said that a dozen recent shipments of lions and leop¬ ards have been lost in a storm at sea. So they send in only unarmed victims against the few mean animals that are left ; and because meat is dear, Caesar has ordered them to be fed on the flesh of the victims, which is economical in one sense only, since it makes the pelts worth¬ less. So now is the time to buy good ones before the price goes higher. My artificers have dressed a hundred leopard- skins, all slain in the animals’ prime. I have them with me, at the inn.”
“That inn is a horrible place,” said Cle¬ ander.
ROMAN HOLIDAY
5
“True. But I must lodge my porters somewhere.”
“Very well. But let them first carry your bales to my house. My steward will give you a place to sleep, and in the morn¬ ing I will see what you have to offer.”
Cleander left his horse outside the gate in charge of his attendant and walked up the path to the house. He was not par¬ ticularly respectful of his wealthy host, and he was too contemptuous of men like Vulpes to permit himself even to seem to imitate them. So he walked. One half of him loved luxury, devouring beauty with discerning eyes; the other, more stoical half of his nature mocked not only luxury but men who cultivated it, himself included. He knew he was good looking, because he had so often been flattered about it ; hut the knowledge failed to interest him. He was athletic and in
the pink of condition because he despised effeminacy. He was perfectly turned out, and rode the best horse on the country¬ side, because he could not endure less than the best ; but he was inconsistent enough to loathe the airs and graces of the newly rich. Cleander himself was newly poor, for the third or fourth time; he was so extravagant that he could not keep money, no matter how his steward plead¬ ed and economized ; and he vras so con¬ temptuous of money that it seemed to flow to him of its own accord and beg to be allowed to refill empty coffers.
Unmarried at thirty, he had never per¬ suaded himself that marriage was desir¬ able, or even tolerable ; he considered the modern Roman women vulgar, graceless and Immodest. They had broken with the old conventions and ideals, so he went them one better and was devoted to a
GOLDEN FLEECE
6
slave named Marcia, whom he had bought because she could play stringed instru¬ ments and sing the songs he wrote when he could think of nothing else to pass the time. Her beauty and artistic talent had made him fall deeply in love with her. He was amused, too, by the naively op¬ timistic notions of eternal life that she had learned from a Jew named Paulus.
HOWEVER, Marcia’s charms did not prevent him from enjoying the re¬ ception in Fastidius Flaceus' vestibule. There was the usual swarm of slaves to wipe his sandals and offer him scented water for his hands; but there were two most sensually charming slave-girls one of whom crowned him with a chaplet of flowers, while the other handed liim a small crystal goblet full of the sharp wine that arouses appetite. He did not mind Fastidius Flaccus doing that kind of thing. Flaccus was a patrician, although a man of scant personality, who tried to compensate for that lack by lavish hos¬ pitality. The girls might be rather out¬ rageous, but as a foretaste of an evening’s entertainment they were beyond criti¬ cism. It was such upstarts as Vulpes that Cicander could not tolerate — Vulpes who was so rich that few men dared to defy him, and who had had the insolence to try to buy Oleander's small estate in order to add it to his own, which was growing con¬ stantly.
There were seven guests. Vulpes had the seat of honor at his host’s right hand ; Oleander's couch was at the middle of the table, on the left hand side. It was an¬ noying to have to sit facing Vulpes ; one could not look at one’s host without being offended by the sight of Vulpes* gluttony, nor speak to one’s host without seeming to bespeak Vulpes also. Even the bou¬ quet and the flavor of the wine were ruined for Geander by the sight of Vul¬
pes swilling the precious stuff as if it were nothing wonderful. And for the same reason he could not enjoy the danc¬ ing girls, who had been sent from Rome by a contractor. They were marvelously trained; they knew every sensuous and suggestive trick, and how to beautify it with an air of innocence; to Geander they were vastly more attractive than the wine or the endless procession of rich viands, cooked by a slave who was said to have been bought for twenty thou¬ sand sesterces. But Vulpes looked at them with gloating eyes that filled Ge¬ ander with disgust; he could not endure to share even an emotion with Vulpes.
So the conversation developed, before long, into a duel between them, encour¬ aged by the other guests, who were afraid of Vulpes but well pleased to watch Cle- ander thrust at the man’s offensive purse- pride. And Fastidius Flaccus, though irritated, and even alarmed, was an easy¬ going man who had no notion how to keep a conversation within limits. Vulpes was in a mood to show his statesmanship.
“I tell you," he insisted, "Christians are a public menace. They are most of them staves and the scrapings of debt¬ ors’ prisons, who have been promised by Jews that slavery and wealth shall be abolished. Naturally slaves like the pros¬ pect of that." He glared at Geander. "Men who have squandered their for¬ tunes are the next to listen.’’
"Poor fat Vulpes!" Geander sympa¬ thized. "How that great paunch of yours is full of dreads !”
‘‘You will see,” Vulpes insisted; for the wine was taking hold of him, and he was showing off, too, for the benefit of a dancing girl who might be one of Cae¬ sar’s spies, so flatteringly attentive she was. "There will be another slave war. Mark my prophetic word. There was unrest in Augustus’ reign. There was
ROMAN HOLIDAY
worse unrest under Tiberius. Today, there arc three or four slaves to every free man, and the unrest has become con¬ spiracy incited by these Christians. It will end by our having to crucify a hun¬ dred thousand of them.”
"Too much wealth and too much glut¬ tony bring bad dreams,” said Cleander. "There are not a thousand Christians in all Rome — not many more than a thou¬ sand in all Italy. Of what are you afraid?”
“Of men like you,” Vulpes answered. "It is true I have had bad dreams, but such are sent to us as warnings. I fear for the imperium, and for the life of our beloved Caesar. Caesar should be warned against the Christians. And let me warn you, young man ! The provinces are safer— do you understand me?”
"Perfectly. You bought my debts once, but I disappointed you by paying them. So now I am to be scared into flight, in order that Caesar’s friend Vul¬ pes may be appointed custodian of my estate?” A sudden recklessness began to riot in Cleander ’s veins. “Too com¬ plicated, Vulpes — too contemptible — too stupid. How much is my estate worth?”
“TT'IVE hundred thousand sesterces,”
^ Vulpes answered promptly. He knew the forced sale value of every prop¬ erty he craved to own.
"That is about half its value. How¬ ever, let die gods decide between your greed and my contempt for it. One throw of the dice! Win, you own my house and lands. Lose, and you pay me five hundred thousand sesterces.”
“Throw in Marcia,” said Vulpes.
"Not for a million sesterces. Are you afraid ?”
"Not I. Bring on the dice. Bear witness, all of you: Cleander’s house
7
and lands against five hundred thousand sesterces. Who shall throw first?”
There was argument about that, but Fastidius Flaccus decided it, by throw¬ ing the dice the gamblers were to use, and the first throw fell to Vulpes, who called on the goddess Venus:
“I was ever loyal to you. I have had your shrine re-gildcd. I will give a neck¬ lace of choice jewels for your statue. Only favor me against that unbeliever!”
Suddenly he threw — two fives and a four. “Not bad,” he said, but he was disappointed. “Beat that if you can, Cleander.”
Even the female tumbler, who was dancing naked amid upturned knives, stood still while a slave took the dice to Cleander. The wild string-music ceased. Cleander seemed the only per¬ son unconcerned.
“Two fives and a four? Yours, Vul¬ pes, looks like Caligula’s luck,” he re¬ marked. The emperor notoriously cheated at the game. “You will all pardon me if I examine the dice?”
"They are mine. They are new,” said Fastidius Flaccus. So Cleander waived examination — "unless Vulpes gave them to you?” he suggested.
“Call on Christ!” sneered Vulpes. "I am told your Marcia is a Christian, Hasn’t she taught you how to shake the box?”
Cleander showed exasperating calm, hie threw two sixes and a three, and hardly glanced at them.
“You may draw me a bill of exchange on Rome. I will be waiting for it at my house tomorrow morning, Vulpes.”
"Double! I dare you to double it! One throw for the doubled stake. Venus against your Christ again.” Vulpes was scowling, but he did his best to imitate Cleander’s coolness.
“No. I call you all to witness, I said
“Beat that if you can, Clean der.”
GOLDEN FLEECE
one throw. And now I go home. Vulpes is a poor loser and I don't enjoy his lamentations. However, I thank you, Vulpes; your immodest money will pay my modest debts twice over.”
He waived aside protests, but he took the trouble to be courteous to his host, who liked him too well to take serious offense at his leaving a meal half fin¬ ished. Besides, Flaccus had resources.
As Oleander wrapped his toga around him and stepped forth into the moonlight, Flaccus whispered to a servant. Hardly a moment later, one of Rome’s least innocent entertainers threw her arm
ROMAN HOLIDAY
around Qeander's shoulder. She looked lovelier, because more living, than the statue of Leda bathed in moonlight at the turn of the path, and she was scented with Egyptian perfume.
“Lover, return and love me by and by," she whispered. "I know all the elegancies — all the subtleties.”
“Try them on Vulpes,” he answered. He shoved her away, and she cursed him in a low voice, with ingenious profani¬ ties such as Arabs address to stray dogs. She was valuable; she knew that her contractor-master would protect her for his own sake, provided there were no witnesses to convict her of insolence. Geander knew it, too, and, with a twist of his toga, shrugged her out of mind.
CHAPTER II “/ keep some promises
THERE was a summer-house in his garden and Geander went there in¬ stead of to the house. He sat drinking in the midnight silence, his eyes ex¬ cited by the beauty of the scene on which he had gazed a thousand times. He al¬ most forgot he had offended Vulpes; he entirely forgot his attendant Strabo, whom he had told to go to bed and who, he knew, if he had thought about it, would be news on the wing. Swift as a bat, he would go straight to the stew¬ ard Giton and regale him with a gar¬ bled account of the evening’s events, gleaned piecemeal from Flaccus’ servants.
However, Geander was in one of his restlessly poetic moods in which noth¬ ing of that sort mattered. He was in a mood to watch the stars and speculate on the meaning of life and death. He was displeased when he saw Marcia coming — displeased, that is, until the beauty of her movement and the almost
9
spectral marvel of her outline made imagination leap. He could forgive any¬ one anything who could do that. By the time she reached him he had recalled the hours they had spent in that place to¬ gether, and he even mocked himself as he remembered he had never thought at all about the stars until Marcia sang a hymn about them that she had learned from a Jew in Rome.
As his slave — his marketable chattel — it was not within the scope of even her wide privilege to bring him down to earth too soon. She was not his wife. She had to yield, first, to his caresses and to guide him, subtlety by subtlety, until in the end he almost asked her outright for the words she was bursting to speak.
“Marcia, your eyes are lovelier than stars. Your body is more beautiful than—"
“Confess, my master! Did you even notice I was beautiful until I sang to you one night, and then you asked about the song, and I told you? Then you gave me leave to speak such words as those to you at all times, even though they should amount to reproof, because, you said, wisdom and beauty are one ?”
“Oh, am I to be scolded ?”
“Never! But do you think it just, most generous Geander, to fill me with such great happiness, so that I love you more than all the world; and then to crown that happiness by saying that I make you happy; but then — on a throw of the dice — to risk such happiness?”
“Who told you, Marcia? Have Vul¬ pes ’ lamentations fouled the midnight air already ?"
“Strabo awoke Giton, who awoke me. Vulpes — ”
"Hah ! I wager that malice is burn¬ ing that great belly of his I”
“Watch, Geander, lest it bum you
10
GOLDEN FLEECE
also. Is it not the law, that if anyone's possessions become forfeited to the em¬ peror for treason, the informer shall receive one half? That is how Vulpcs has grown rich.”
"Who told you?”
“Simon Unoculus.”
“And where did omniscient one-eyed Simon get his information?”
“Let him speak for himself.”
SHE was gone before Geander could protest, and She was back again with Simon much too soon for Simon not to have been waiting near at hand.
“Most gracious Geander — ”
“You may omit the list of my alleged virtues for the moment, Simon. Cut short your story, too, I pray you. What is this you have been telling Marcia about Julius Verrcs Vulpes? And where did you learn it?”
Simon’s unembarrassment was almost as dramatic as the scene itself. He was a veteran who had seen all sorts of inti¬ macies, and to whom a love-nest was only one more nineptn for the ball of Jehovah's hurling.
“Most noble Geander, I am only a poor tradesman, but sometimes even the poor can do little favors for one another. Those condemned to die have hopes and fears and hatreds just like anybody else. So Gaius Ruber the lanista — he who has charge of the dungeons and of the send¬ ings into the arena — your honor knows him?”
“No. I have heard he is popular.” “He is successful ; and like all suc¬ cessful men, he has a system. Even I, who deal in leopard-pelts, succeeding only in a small way, have a system. Gaius Ruber is successful because so many of his prisoners go forth splendidly to die. It grows monotonous if all of them die like sheep in a shambles ; the public likes
to see some of them die bravely. And I must confess, it seems better to me to die cheerfully than miserably.”
“On with your story, Simon. You begin to bore me.”
“Patience, excellency, I am coming to it. Why should I waste your valuable moments ? I, who buy the pelts of leop¬ ards that are slain in the arena, keep my peace with Gaius Ruber, who at¬ tends to it that the best ones fall to my share. Gaius Ruber gives me access to the dungeons, where men of high rank, whom Caesar has degraded and con¬ demned, lie crowded together with com¬ mon criminals. Some of them are no worse than you and I, if you will for¬ give the comparison ; and the gentler they are, the more they crave little favors, down there in the stinking darkness. I am a good listener. And it is easy to promise. Many a victim has faced the lions and leopards gallantly because he thought he had sown the seeds of ven¬ geance in my ears and believed I would inform against informers. Such tales I have heard— such tales— eh-yeh 1”
“A contemptible system, Simon."
“Is it ? I keep some promises. Some of them send only farewell messages to them they love. But I have heard tales even against the magistrates, and against the friends of Caesar. It so happens that I spoke, in the dungeons, shortly before they died, with Livius Carfax, and with Titus Iturbius Varro, and with Coriolanus Nepos — men of high rank, as your honor doubtless knows, whom Caesar had degraded that they might be slain with ignominy. They were ac¬ cused of having slandered Caesar; and all three told me that their secret ac¬ cuser was Julius Verres Vulpcs. Fur¬ thermore, they gave me information against Vulpes, thinking I would wreak their vengeance on him in the hope of
ROMAN HOLIDAY
an informer's share of the spoils, not suspecting that I prefer to mind my own business, as being very much safer in the long run. It is possibly within your honor's competence to find out whether Vulpes came into possession of the half of those three men’s estates.”
GLEANDER nodded. “He is sup¬ posed to have purchased them.” “Yes,” said Marcia, “he did. At the price of his soul he bought them. There was a man named Judas — ”
“Eh-eh-eh-eh I" Simon plucked at Cleander’s toga that he had thrown over Marcia’s naked shoulders. “None of that talk, it is dangerous; I have seen as many as nineteen Christians sent into the arena in one party, condemned for having said that God will deal with the tax-gatherers. Caesar’s spies have long ears.”
“Asses’ ears,” said Marcia.
“But I was saying: Livius Carfax, Titus Varro and Coriolanus Nepos, all three, told me that the cause of Vulpes’ hatred of them was merely some hot words passed amid the wine cups.”
Marcia stood with clenched hands, staring at the stars, Cleander wishing he were a sculptor that he might catch that subtly sensuous outline and record it. Suddenly she turned and faced hint.
“I am your slave, but you have said you love me. And I love you so, that I would rather die at your hands than not say what I know. Beat me — crucify me if you will— but listen first."
“Don’t be ridiculous, Marcia. You may say what you wish.”
“Cleander — Vulpes craves to own this villa. And he hates you. We all know it. Strabo has told us how you won from him tonight. But do you think that Vulpes would have risked his money if he had not known that it was no real
11
risk? What if he has already informed against you? What if Caesar’s lictors reach your house before Vulpes can have time to pay the money? Or what if he pays the money, but the lictors come then ? Is the price too high? Suppose Caesar takes the money; and Vulpes, for hav¬ ing informed against you, receives land, house, slaves and furniture? Will Vul¬ pes not have bought a bargain?"
“This is a nightmare," said Cleander, "a mere nightmare.” But he was grow¬ ing thoughtful. He remembered Vul¬ pes’ diatribe against the Christians and his sneer, at Flaccus’ front gate, about talking with Caesar’s enemies.
MARCIA bared her breast to him, and in the moonlight it looked lovelier than Grecian marble. “If you love me, as I truly think you do, Cle¬ ander, slay me rather than let Vulpes — " “Cover yourself, child, and don’t talk nonsense. Let me think a moment." He got up and began pacing the floor of the summer-house, pausing, each time he turned, to gaze at the shadowy landscape and the clouds reflected in the star-lit pond.
“It is too bad that the Christians make such trouble for us all,” said Simon. “It is known that the Christians teach each other that Caesar is no god, though he pretends he is and invites the moon to come and share his bed. And that makes trouble for all Jews, because we think the same, so they accuse us of being Christians, which we are not.”
“I am known to be a Christian,” said Marcia. “And so are many other of your slaves, because I taught them. Have you not permitted that, Cleander? And have I not tried to teach you also? If you are accused, and you deny you are a Christian, they will put all your slaves to torture. And though those of us who
12
GOLDEN FLEECE
are Christians will tell the truth, that you arc not one, there will be others, who will say what the magistrates wish them to say, so it will do you no good.”
“And that,” said Simon, "means the dungeons and the lions.” He lowered his voice. “For me also, if I am found here. They will accuse me also. Noble Cleander, I warn you : I am not one who can endure the torture. I have seen a black slave, with a hot iron through his foot, who refused, nevertheless, to change his testimony; and it was false testimony, that he gave to protect his master; and though they crucified him on the Via Appia he never changed one word of it. But not I — nay, nay — I have not that fortitude.”
“If you are so afraid, then why not go?” Cleander asked him.
“But my leopard pelts? I brought them, as you commanded.”
“Choose then between the leopards’ skins and your own!” said Gcander, smiling. "No, no, Simon, I was jesting. Go to the columbaria. Tell my steward Giton he is to give you porters to carry your bundles, and he is also to lend you my four gladiators to protect you from thieves until daylight. Then bring me pen and ink and I will write you a pass, saying that you travel on honest busi¬ ness ; nobody will question that.”
“May I live to reward your kindness!” Simon thrust his one eye closer to Cle- ander’s than was good manners. “May I live to recompense yout” Then he vanished in the direction of the “dove¬ cote,” where, because he preferred a contented household, Geander’s slaves were quartered better than some men’s horses. Even the so-called gladiators, whose real duty was to keep their ath¬ letic master in good physical condition, slept on good straw pallets in a comfort¬ able hut. Geander turned to Marcia;
"Is there no lamp here? Can you light it? As soon as Simon brings pen and ink I will write your manumission. That will save you from Vulpcs in any event ; it will make you legally free, even if there isn’t time to take you before the praetor and confirm it. And if there is nothing in this fear of Vulpes’ treach¬ ery, no matter, since I had intended to set you free on my birthday. It comes a little sooner, that is all.”
“Oh, Cleander! If your vision were only as perfect as your virtue! Why have I not Paufus* eloquence, that I might give you faith in Paulus' teach¬ ings of eternal life?”
“Eternal life, I think, would be a bore,” he answered. “Even old age is a bore. Imagine an eternity of tliat — growing older and older ! No, no. I enjoy some phases of existence, such as loving you, and being generous and virile. I enjoy being just, or 1 would certainly be un¬ just. And I loathe some other phases, such as breathing the same air with swine like Vulpes, and saluting such an animal as Caesar, on whom any man of character would sooner spit. On the whole, I be¬ lieve I will greet death rather tolerantly when it comes. A moment’s agony, per¬ haps, and after that, eternity of nothing. I shall not even miss you, Marcia ; there will be nothing of me left with which to miss you.”
SIMON came, and with him, Giton and the gladiators, Giton fussily con¬ cerned and the gladiators wide-eyed with curiosity, their coppery bodies sheening in the lamp-light. Cleander wrote Si¬ mon’s permit,
“There is nothing to worry about, Giton.”
“Oh, there is — there is !” said Marcia. And that loosed Giton's tongue:
“Most generous master, if you are ac-
ROMAN HOLIDAY
13
cased of being a Christian, or even of favoring Christians, they will torture all of us for evidence against you.”
Simon had grown speechless; he mis¬ trusted the four gladiators, having had lots of experience of men of that dreaded profession. Even his gestures were re¬ strained, but he frowned at Giton as at a fool who lacked discretion. However, Giton had responsibilities, which Simon had not :
"Is it true,” he asked, "that Lucius Vcrres Vulpes lost to you five hundred thousand sesterces, which he is to pay in the morning?”
"Yes, true,” Cleander answered. He was busy writing. "Is there anything in that to disturb you, of all people? Haven’t you bedeviled me for money all this past year ? In the morning, you will have half a million with which to pay my debts and — by the way, take care that when Vulpes comes to pay me we treat him courteously. I might forget myself unless reminded.”
"Master ! Must you stay to meet him? I can be here to receive the money; that is a steward's duty ”
"What do you want me to do ?” Cle¬ ander had a disconcerting way of asking that, although he almost never took ad¬ vice when Giton gave it.
"Go to Rome, master I Go now. Get Caesar's ear, before it is too late. Go now, and hreak the spokes of Vulpes’ wheel — before he breaks you, chariot and all l"
“Not a bad thought, Giton. Here, Marcia my dear, accept your manumis¬ sion. Bear witness, all of you, that with this document I now set Marcia free. Simon, you are a free man; can you write your name? Well, never mind; bear witness. Marcia, be f ree.”
There were formalities— sudden-emo- tional — Marcia on her knees to kiss Cle¬
ander 's hands. The gladiators expected gifts from Marcia’s peculium, it being reckoned wise to share good fortune so that when the inevitable day of til luck comes there may be friends to share that also. But the manumission had been unexpected and Marcia had no money with her, so Cleander relieved her em¬ barrassment at the extended right hands and the greedy grins:
“Give them what is customary, Giton, out of my purse. And now, Giton, for once I will take your advice, because it happens to agree with my own. And besides, to make that manumission ab¬ solutely legal, I should take Marcia be¬ fore the praetor and record it I will leave for Rome at daybreak. Get me together what money I iiave, and pack me enough clothing for a week or ten days ; getting audience with Caesar is not always done in a moment”
“ T~\ O IT swiftly, master — swiftly!
-L' Use bribes, but be economical, otherwise they will keep you waiting all the longer, to extort more bribes. Brow¬ beat all the underlings and give them nothing. Then, when you reach the as¬ sistant chamberlain, make no bones about it but drive your bargain. Ask him, how much ? And when he tells you, offer him about the half of what he demands. He will be insulted, but he will gladly compromise for two thirds. Then prom¬ ise him the other third— afterwards — provided that the audience goes well. Then he will speak to Caesar’s women, who will drop hints, and Caesar will be predisposed in your favor.”
"Very well, Giton. Simon, will you wait and travel with me?”
“Not I — not if I can help it, excellent Qeander! 1 am a poor man, who can ill afford to be seen with one who is perhaps to be accused of who knows what I
14
GOLDEN FLEECE
would be grateful for the loan of the gladiators as far as the door of the inn, and a mile beyond it. If they awaken the innkeeper he will make no trouble for me. And when my own porters take over the loads, and we march away with gladiators guarding us, the robbers who sleep at the inn will believe we are well protected ; so they will not follow. I will send the gladiators back a long time be¬ fore daylight.”
"Very well, Simon. Farewell, and be prosperous. Go and attend to the pack¬ ing, Giton. Don't send too many serv¬ ants with me; I will stay at the house of Fabius Arbiter, who is always hos¬ pitable, even at a moment's notice, but has not much room for an extra retinue. — And now, Marcia — as a freed woman — do you love me— or am I — ?"
“Cleander, I know not what to think, or say, or do! I only know I love you with every breath I breathe.”
“Make music then. Sing me one of those curious Christian hymns. I am in a curious mood.”
“We might be overheard. Are you not afraid, Cleander?”
”1 am afraid of nothing — except, per¬ haps, of having to bend my stiff neck before Caligula. Have you a song that makes such exercises seem becoming to a man of my temperament ?”
CHAPTER III
“ Only men in trouble visit Rome
ITON the steward gloomed and VJT shuddered, saying the omens were unpropitious. Birds had flown too low at daybreak. A slave had smashed a day lamp.
“Whip the slave, and net the birds for dinner,” Cleander retorted. If he must go and humble himself before Caligula,
that was no reason why he should let superstition trouble him. He had his own ideas of dignity and of what made life worth living. “Get out the Jitter for Marcia.”
“But master, it is unlawful for a freedwoman to ride in a litter. You will only make more trouble for your¬ self.”
“A little more won't matter. Argue with me, Giton, and I will have her ride to Rome on horseback.”
Even Marcia protested, but Cleander had his own way, though he would have resented another man’s freedwoman trav¬ eling like a lady of rank. It was a case of inconsistent obstinacy that would have made him laugh if he had really thought about it. As it was, it served to bolster up his recklessness. He led the way on horseback; pack-mules fol¬ lowed with the luggage, and then the slave-borne litter with its red crushed- leather curtains, guarded by four gladi¬ ators, trudging two on either hand. Thinking of arrogant phrases with which to browbeat the guard at the city gate if they should dare to question Marcia's rank ; and what with the glorious weather, and the thought that Giton presently would pay his debts with Vul- pes’ money, Cleander grew more and more cheerful until they reached the execution place, at a crossroads, on ris¬ ing ground within a furlong of the city wall. There was a small inn near by where breakfasted the soldiers, whose duty it was to see that no living victims were removed from the gibbets. Only a few slaves writhed in torment, al¬ though there was nearly an acre of cru¬ cifixes occupied by ravens waiting for their meal of festered carrion.
That changed his mood again. As a Roman, he was hardly squeamish; and he knew what drastic means are some-
ROMAN HOLIDAY
times needed if a hundred thousand free¬ men are to keep in subjection four times their number of slaves. But there was something horribly contemptiWe about that shambles. It made him loathe life. He was angry by the time he noticed Simon Unoculus in the dust near the door of the inn. They had beaten the Jew and taken away his bales of leopard skins; his porters were carrying water to fill a great clay cistern for the sol¬ diers* bath.
"Worshipful Cleander, they refused even to read your honor's letter. They accused me of being a thief, and a run¬ away slave, and I know not what else. I am beaten until my bones are powder."
So Cleander again earned Simon's gratitude. There was only a decurion in charge of that execution guard — a man of merely eight or ten years’ service who had not yet learned the sort of iron insolence centurions achieve. He wilted under the flail of Cleander’s vehemence. He even begged Simon’s pardon. He restored his loads. He paid his porters for the trifle of carrying water. He pressed wine on Simon, and a gift of reeking cheese and too- ripe olives. He implored Cleander not to report him to his legion commander. He was voluble, penitent; not worth vengeance; a mere coward turned into a bully by the sight of writhing victims. And all Simon said was:
“Good Cleander, may I live to recom¬ pense you.”
But Marcia used her skill on Simon’s bruises, so Simon had word with her, while Cleander persuaded the decurion -to go and cut the throats of the cru¬ cified slaves before the sun should get strong enough to make their torment unimaginable. It was none of G Gan¬ der’s business. It was even an act of contempt of Roman law. Expression of
15
contempt is a luxury against which there are subtly self -enforcing penalties that no man ever wrote into a statute book. The stinking purlieus of the city gate increased and fed contempt and he was primed now — ready for the dangerous gratification of insulting the guards at the gate if they should dare to so much as notice Marcia.
BUT because Marcia loved him, and Simon had repaid kindness with a little whispered advice, she deceived Cleander. In the crowd outside the gate, where the rough guards bullied peasants and the lines of laden slaves poured in and out, she stepped down from the lit¬ ter and walked behind it, through the gate, on foot. Safely inside the city she climbed in again, and Cleander never knew he had not successfully defied the sumptuary laws of Rome.
His was the disgust of a young phi¬ losopher who felt that the most impor¬ tant city in the world should be a decent place to live in, but who could not see how to make it so. The narrow lanes resembled sewers pouring streams of hu¬ man riff-raff into sunlit spaces where plundered foreign marbles shouldered wooden busts of yesterday’s mob-orators and splendid buildings stood wedged be¬ tween reeking tenements. Yelling trades¬ men stormed and chaffered. Black slaves, standing on barrels, bellowed forth the alleged amusement to be had in steneb- ing brothels. Blood-smeared butchers, shouldering newly quartered beef, strug¬ gled for right of way against tides of laden slaves amid the booths of vege¬ table sellers. Din — savage laughter — brawling — money changers, testing coin by coin the debased, clipped currency.
A cohort of praetorian guardsmen clanked down -street, led by a centurion who almost looked like an old time Ro-
■
GOLDEN FLEECE
16
man, save for a sly uncertainty about his eyes. Two Vestal Virgins on some un¬ imaginable errand, preceded by lictors who caused twice the commotion the guardsmen did. A tenement on fire; dogs and children chasing the evicted rats; slaves of the municipium, armed with pikes and ladders, withstanding all attempts to save surrounding buildings while their officer made his bargain with the owners. A magistrate's court, and the screams of a tortured witness, with women and children peering through the narrow windows for a glimpse of some¬ one’s agony, while armed guards leaned on their spears outside and joked with one another.
Fabius Arbiter’s house at last, at the end of a cul-dcsac near the Saepta Julia, fronting on a small tiled courtyard and protected by a high wall. A Nubian slave at the gate gave ample warning; Fabius Arbiter came hurrying through the vestibule to greet Geander midway of the courtyard and embrace him.
“Welcome, and welcome again.” He took him by the shoulders. “But what brings you? Only men in trouble visit Rome; only criminals, paupers and mad¬ men remain here. By the Genius of Caesar — that is the only safe oath now¬ adays — if I could sell my house for a fair price, I would look for less undig¬ nified annoyances in Gaul or Egypt. However, enter. All that I have is yours.”
CHAPTER IV
“There is no use in arguing with a love- struck tnan.“
ARBITER’S was an old fashioned house, partly altered and redeco¬ rated, built around a central atrium that could be protected by a canvas awning drawn on ropes. As a young widower
of moderate means he lived without much regularity and his slaves showed the lack of a feminine hand to control them ; such women as sometimes visited the house were likelier than not to loosen discipline, and the steward was an Egyptian with Alexandrian ideas of ex¬ travagance, so that with Arbiter, as with Oeander, debt was a normal condition. There were luxuries, whether or not they were paid for.
They sprawled on couches in the atrium, with a breakfast table between them and a wine-slave in attendance; but the slave was presently dismissed while Cleancler told his story.
“What a man will not do for a wom¬ an !” said Arbiter. “And you say Marcia is a Christian? At the moment that is your principal danger. We arc begin¬ ning to be really disturbed alxmt the Christians, because of the risk of an¬ other slave war; and Caligula is espe¬ cially angry with them because someone told him that the Christians say it is wicked to try to make gold from arsenic, which is his obsession just now. They rounded up some Christians for him, and he made them swallow arsenic, to show him what they could do with it. On the other hand, he has equally mon¬ strous moods of an opposite sort. You know the Grristians are supposed to practice necromancy? Yes they do, I tell you. Nine tenths of their talk is of raising the dead. Well — when the informers told that to Caligula, in the hope that for a change he might get after the Christians and leave the rest of us to our own devices, he disap¬ pointed them. He said, ‘We will see if they can raise the dead. I will give them plenty of Romans to practice on.’ There is never any guessing what surprise Caligula will spring next.”
“Nevertheless, I must have an audi-
ROMAN HOLIDAY
ence with him. How else shall I fore¬ stall Vulpes?”
“I can get you an audience. I stand well with Caesar’s chamberlain. But re¬ member the name Caligula and drive the thought of Caesar from your mind. He is not Caesar. He is a madman who uses a Caesar's opportunities and preys off Roman cowardice and we are all such cowards that we can*t get rid of him, and he heaps one imposition upon another. He invites the moon to sleep with him, to say nothing of senators’ wives, whose husbands have to smile and tell him they are greatly honored.. He has set his statue in the temples, next to those of the gods. He has made his horse a consul. If he hears a man lias money, his only concern is how- to confiscate it. He is money-craay. Yes, I can get you an audience, but — ”
"How else shall I protect myself from Vulpes?”
“True! True! Vulpes is a very dan¬ gerous informer, who has been useful to Caligula. Informers are about the only people whose lives and possessions seem absolutely safe. You would better have your audience, because Caligula may take a momentary liking to you. His likes never last long; only his dislikes appear permanent. But that won’t be enough. We must use backstairs influence as well. Has Vulpes not an enemy or two? I must find out. I know a woman who might help us — Chloe — a contractors’ slave — a bad devil if ever there was one, but clever; if she is in Rome I will have her sent here. Now and then she takes part in the palace orgies. She might whisper to Vulpes’ enemies that his es¬ tates are well worth confiscating. Per¬ haps, too, she will be able to think of something else. We will have to pay her master handsomely. Well, go to your room and get some sleep, Cleander.
17
I will send for Chloe and I wiH send word, too, to the praetor’s office that we will call there to manumit a slave on our way to the thermae this afternoon. But by the way: warn Marcia to keep her mouth shut in the praetor’s office. My man Ossianus says he saw a shc-slave manumitted not long since, and the fool knelt down and praised Christ in the praetor’s presence. She was crucified, of course. What else could the praetor do? Tell Marcia to hold her tongue.”
IN a room where painted Fauns pur¬ sued Nymphs on the stucco walls and a voluptuous looking Venus leered down from the ceiling, Cleander slept consid¬ erably longer than he had intended. He was awakened by the sound of wrestling. In the atrium, Fabius Arbiter was vainly striving to put Cleander’s gladiator Spi- cillus on his back; Cleander watched his chance and threw them both into the fountain, to save his friend from the embarrassment of failure. They fooled for a while. Then Cleander took wooden sword and buckler and fought Thrax, his favorite, promising the man five ses¬ terces for every blow that he could strike home with edge or point; but Thrax earned nothing, though they strove until master and man were bathed in sweat and Arbiter said it was time for the thermae.
“The aediles — asses ! — say that to light up the baths after dusk might lead to immorality. The result is, darkness sees men and women flitting out of the place like bats to go and be immoral elsewhere. What is it that makes aediles idiots? And what is immorality? Don’t an¬ swer, because I'm sure you don’t know. Tell me something you do know. How did you ever learn how to drub such a swordsman as Thrax? I tried him be¬ fore I tried to wrestle with Spicillus. I can handle a sword better than most men
18 GOLDEN
of my age, but I couldn’t touch him and he landed on me as he pleased.”
‘‘Speed,” Cleander answered. “That's the secret of it. I wish I could put such speed into by business with Vulpes. Learn from the animals, Fabius- A quick blow is worth two slow ones. A quick thrust, followed thrice as quickly by another, then another— Hercules ! I grudge the time we are to squander at the thermae."
“Ingrate! In the thermae we will do your business. Let your gladiators fol¬ low us and protect Marcia; that girl is too good looking.”
Two of Arbiter's servants followed also. Suitably cloaked to avoid atten¬ tion, Marcia followed midst six men to the praetor's office, where the gladiators forced an opening through the crowd that was reading posted notices and clamor¬ ing for access to the office that was guarded by red-cloaked lictors. There was more business to lie done by that one office than could have been handled by all the offices in Rome, and there was a swarm of lawyers who specialized in get¬ ting precedence for claims of one sort or another. However, Arbiter had in¬ fluence enough to force his way in and the ceremony of manumission was soon over. In the presence of a bored assistant of the praetor he turned Marcia around three times, pushed her away from him and said, ‘Go free, Marcia, I manumit you.’ The assistant recorded the act in a file, a fee changed hands, and there was a short delay while Marcia’s certif¬ icate of freedom was sent into another room for the praetor’s signature. But the delay was fraught with an incident that made Fabius Arbiter bite his fin¬ ger nails, although Geander thought nothing of it.
A slightly built, gray-bearded Jew with lustrous eyes was led into the room. His
FLEECE
name was announced as Paulus. He was chained to an ex-legionary who wore the badge of the praetor’s office, and who seemed, not exactly afraid of his prisoner, but remarkably deferent to him. The official showed impatience :
“I am tired of you, Paulus.”
“May the Lord relieve your weariness,” the prisoner answered ; and he had a voice that disarmed irritation. “But I think that neither you nor I can be as weary as this good fellow must be of the use¬ less chain that makes him more a prisoner than me,”
THE official fell hack on bureaucratic arrogance. “Such a complaint is insolence. You arc fortunate not to be held in the dungeon."
“Fortunate indeed," said Paulus.
"I only wish Caesar would appoint a day for your trial — and to the lions with you! Only Jupiter himself could say what secret influence you have. A Chris¬ tian — are you not a Christian?”
“I have made no secret of it,” Paulus answered.
“Christians have been crucified in dozens. They have been thrown to the lions in dozens. Nevertheless, you, who are the ringleader of them all, are al¬ lowed to wander where you please — " "Provided I report here frequently," said Paulus. “I have wronged no man by remarking that this chain is even more troublesome to the guard than to me. I will not seek to escape. I came to Rome because I appealed to Caesar, having that right, being a Roman citizen. 1 will await my turn for Caesar’s judgment” “Meanwhile, preaching to runaway slaves and criminals in catacombs and tombs and such-like hiding places T*
“Do they not need the Word of the Spirit that altars men’s hearts and minds ?”
ROMAN HOLIDAY
"Perverting them with eastern doc¬ trine that makes them traitors, worthy of no other fate than death in the arena 1” Paulus smiled at him. His eyes, and his smile, and the confident calm of his persuasive shoulders were as eloquent as his voice. “You say, they are criminals,” he answered. “Would your law, then, spare them in any event? Then do I wrong them, or the law, if I persuade them of eternal life?”
“Oh, go your way," the official an¬ swered. “It is a mystery to me that you were not tried and executed long ago. No, I will not remove the chain. I have no authority to do that. If I might, I would not. Go your way,”
He turned to attend to the business of important citizens and Paulus led rather than followed his custodian toward the door. But on his way Marcia interrupted him. She knelt, and Paulus blessed her, touching her bowed head with his right hand.
Outside, on the edge of the crowd, hug¬ ging her certificate of freedom, Marcia blessed Geander, as she had right to do, and as convention obliged that she should. There were no words too ex¬ travagant, nor any place too public, for the gratitude of a slave set free,
“Oh generous Geander — ”
However, Arbiter interrupted. “Just the very thing I warned you to beware of ! Justus Cassius and Cornelius Varro were in the praetor’s office. They saw her kneel to that Jew. Cassius is one of Caligula’s backstairs panders, and Varro is about the vilest spy in Rome! Get rid of the woman — tell her to go and hide before she gets us all in trouble.”
“She has nowhere to go,” said Geander. The thought of losing sight of Marda disturbed him more than danger did.
“Nonsense. Give the girl some money. Give it to her now— don’t argue.” He
19
turned on Marcia: "Listen. Understand this: it is the law that no slave may be manumitted to avoid her giving evidence against her master. If Virgilius Geander should be charged with an offense against the State, your manumission would be canceled and you would be tortured, just like any other slave, for evidence against him,”
“I would not give evidence against him. I would rather die,” said Marcia. “And besides, he has done no wrong to any¬ one.”
"Who cares ? Let them catch you, and then see what happens! Hide, I tell you, until we know what Vulpes has con¬ trived against Geander. When we have defeated Vulpes, come back.”
CLEANDER protested, but Arbiter stuck to his point and Marcia had no option but to do what she was told. Geander gave her money and, in spite of Arbiter’s objections, ordered two of his gladiators to escort her to whatever hiding place she might decide on ; they were to return to Arbiter’s house with news of her whereabouts, and to take more money to her as soon as she should need it.
“Dangerous 1 However, there is no use in arguing with a love-struck man, said Arbiter. “I have yet to hear of a glad¬ iator who could keep a secret. In or out of the arena they are good for nothing except their own grim trade; and they would be no good for that unless the penalty for flinching were worse than the chances they have to take. Your glad¬ iators follow Marda — someone will fol¬ low and watch the gladiators — wait and see.”
"I think you are unduly nervous," said Geander.
“Am I ? Well, don’t you be nervous in the thermae. Flaminius Glaucus, Ca¬ ligula’s chamberlain, will be there and I
■
■
20
GOLDEN FLEECE
intend to introduce you to him. He is usually in a vicious temper until after he has been scraped down with the strigil, so let us hope we catch him in the tepi¬ darium, well oiled and for the time being almost human. And by the way, when you take off your clothes in the cloakroom and the slave gives you a token for them, give the blackguard an as for himself and threaten him with mayhem ; otherwise you will get the wrong clothes back and have no remedy. I don’t know where they find such shameless thieves as they employ in the thermae cloakroom."
CHAPTER V
“Chloc ir quite an experience.,t
“/"OBSERVE,” said Arbiter, as they v/ threaded their way through the crowd of slaves outside the thermae. “Everybody's slaves, eh? Everybody’s secrets being told. Inside, the masters who make the scandal and the mistresses who cause it; outside, the servants who multiply rumor. How long do you think it will be before you and JMarcia are hot news?"
However, he threw off gloom inside the thermae. Everybody did. The sheer physical comfort of leaving one's clothes in care of the attendant and strolling naked amid tiled luxury where, at least for the moment, there were no social distinctions, had a peculiar mental effect on Romans. The right of entry was a zealously guarded social privilege, the more appreciated since, once inside, all were more nearly equal than anywhere else in Rome.
“I don’t know whether we are wise or not to admit women," Arbiter remarked as they strolled into the tepidarium and stood on the marble brink of the plunge. Around all four sides of the great room
was a colonnade, beneath which men and women strolled like gods and goddesses, the sheer grace of the Roman stride and gesture, and the broken light that filtered through thick glass making even corpulent shapes look beautiful. “It is possibly good for the women, since it may make them understand us better ; and the act of walk¬ ing naked among naked men obliges them to practice modesty. Nevertheless, I think I liked it better when they were not admitted."
Certainly it made for decency and self- restraint. A man who stared, or a woman who appeared self-conscious would have been promptly excluded and never al¬ lowed to return. There was a valuable atmosphere of mutual tolerance, and of comradeship between the sexes, that ex¬ isted nowhere else in Rome.
THEY plunged, swam the length of the pool a time or two, and strolled into the tepidarium, deciding to omit the usual routine of swearing and being scraped and rubbed, because Flaminius Glaucus was in the tepidarium, holding a court of his own on a marble seat within one of the arched alcoves. He was being flattered and regaled with gossip, but he looked bored, although his crocodilish eyes glanced with swift interest and ap¬ praisal at each new arrival. He was an athletic man himself — or rather, had been, and he instantly noticed Cleander’s mus¬ cular physique and seemed pleased when Arbiter came near to introduce him. He had, too, a marvelous gift for dismissing men who had a perfect right to remain where they were if they wished; it was only a few moments before he, Arbiter and Cleander had the alcove to them¬ selves.
“How now. Arbiter? Tell me about your friend. He wants something, of course, all do, who get themselves intro-
ROMAN HOLIDAY
21
duced to me. Tf he doesn’t want my post as chamberlain, such a handsome fellow may have anything I can do for him — in reason — mind you, I said, in reason. Come now, what does he want?"
“An audience with Caesar.”
Who is he, you say? The son of— oh yes, I remember ; let me write that on my tablet. But why an audience ? Caesar detests them, since he has to endure so many. However much he might other¬ wise like a man, he always hates him at an audience. What does Cleander want with Caesar?"
“Good standing, that is all,” said Ar¬ biter. “How else shall a man establish his position?”
“True. True. What else lias he be¬ sides breeding and good looks to recom¬ mend him ?”
“He writes poems. I have never read them, but — "
“Neither will Caesar read them. Can he talk intelligently? Has he humor?”
“He can converse,” said Arbiter, “like a son of Aspasia by Pericles.”
“A very dangerous ability! However, he seems also to have a gift of silence. And a new, good looking face — how long, Arbiter, since you were at Caesar’s dinner- table?”
“More than a year. I can't afford such privileges. The last occasion cost me more than two months’ income in gifts to assistant chamberlains."
“Assistant chamberlains must live. You should have pressed your opportunity and reimbursed yourself by means of Caesar’s favor. However, opportunities recur. It happens that two members of the senate lost their heads last night; or, at least, I suppose they lost them; they were or¬ dered to be tortured first. 'Let them feel themselves die,’ said Caesar. But they were not the type of men who can endure prolonged pain. And they were fools.
They are not, perhaps, worth mentioning except that they serve to point a moral. Did you know them? Tullius Faltonius and Lucius Salinator.”
“By sight,” said Arbiter. “Did not Salinator marry quite recently.”
“Yes, that was the beginning of it. Salinator invited Caesar to the wedding. Caesar admired the wife and took her home with him; but he did not enjoy her much, she was too readily complaisant, so he banished her to one of the islands, I forget which. Salinator thought he had better remove from Caesar’s mind any suspicion that he might be feeling resentful, so he and his friend Faltonius sought an audience. They thought they had caught Caesar in a mood to be be¬ guiled by abject flattery.”
“Isn’t flattery what he demands ?” asked Arbiter.
“He likes it subtle. Faltonius asked him, would it not be better to abolish all law than to have to be constantly changing it ? Caesar was silent ; he sat leaning on his elbow with his right hand covering his mouth and his head moving slowly from side to side, the way he always does when his mood is deadly. However, that fool Salinator piped up: ‘Let the world know that all of us live and manage our affairs at Caesar’s sole caprice/ Caesar smiled then. I knew what was coming. T have a caprice now,’ he remarked, and he summoned the guards. ’You wish to see me so disliked that the Roman mob will tear me into pieces. I will teach you what that feels like.’ He followed them out, to make sure that slaves were not substituted for them. That has been done, you know; they peel the slave's face to make it unrecognizable. Caesar enjoyed Salinator 's agony so much that he has been in a good mood ever since. I want to keep him in a good mood.”
“And the moral?”
GOLDEN FLEECE
22
“There are several. One is, that if Caesar takes your wife or your mistress, don’t try to presume on the strength of it. Ignore the incident. Forget the woman. Another is, never suggest to Caesar a course of conduct ; he can think of quite enough disturbing novelties with¬ out anyone's assistance. And a third is, that the easiest way to arouse his suspi¬ cion, which is the same thing as his deadly enmity, is to try to avoid doing it. Now it happens that those two fools were bidden to tomorrow’s banquet. How would you two like to take their places ?”
CLEANDER and Arbiter glanced at each other — glances that did not es¬ cape Flaminius Glaucus, court chamber¬ lains being nothing if not observant. He read, and understood their hesitation, so he went on:
“Caesar is growing weary and suspi¬ cious of his present intimates. He is secretly very nervous about plots against his life. He may take a fancy to you two youngsters. Who knows ? So I will set down your names now and you shall have your formal invitations in the morn¬ ing. I think it is a bright idea ; you may serve, so to speak, to counterbalance the effect of one of those dreadful people whom one can’t avoid inviting now and then. There is a man named — ’’
He was interrupted by a slave who brought a whispered message that sent him hurrying to be dressed and gone, clutching his tablets and muttering impre¬ cations.
“Now," exclaimed Arbiter, grinning wryly, “we are in for it. The next thing is to — ”
He had no time to continue just then. Men who had never thought him worth consideration, and who did not even know Qeander’s name, pressed forward to in¬ gratiate themselves with two such for-
tunates as had the private ear of Caesar’s chamberlain. It was hard work to escape them without making enemies. They were followed to the cloakroom. Three men even followed to the street and, by offering their company on the way home on the excuse that the streets were unsafe after dark, tried to get themselves invited to Arbiter’s house for the evening meal.
“Thanks," said Arbiter, “we have two gladiators and our servants. And be¬ sides, we have an assignation.”
That excuse was valid. Everyone knew the details of everyone else’s love affairs, but it was good form, nevertheless, to go through the outward gestures of observing secrecy. So, arm-in-arm, the two walked home alone, protected by their servants.
“You will miss your Marcia tonight," said Arbiter, “but never mind. I have sent for Chloe, who wilt probably amuse you. She has been out of Rome on some debauch or other, but her master promised to send her to my house this evening. Use her well, because she is the ablest back¬ stairs intriguer in Rome and she will do anything — literally anything, for a man she likes. The thing for you to do, is so to endear Chloe to you that she will whisper in Caesar's women’s ears, and in the ears of his eunuchs and bedroom slaves. She must do all that not later than tomorrow afternoon, so that when Caesar finds you at his dinner table he will be already predisposed in your favor. How¬ ever, let me have the first talk with her — alone is better. I will explain to her what is expected, promise her a big reward for herself in addition to her master's fee for her services, and I will sing your praises to her. You do the rest."
“I will try,” said Clcander.
“Nonsense! Are you so love-sick for Marcia that you can’t amuse yourself with Chloe to preserve your own neck? Let me tell you, Chloe is quite an experi-
ROMAN HOLIDAY
23
ence. There isn’t a worse devil or a more amusing baggage in Rome, and she can talk and joke more entertainingly than any honest woman in the world — suppos¬ ing, I mean, that there were such a thing as an honest woman. She knows every¬ body's secrets. She knows all the scandal. And she has brains. So mind you rise to the occasion.”
GLEANDER went to his own room, rather gloomily, wondering where Marcia was and trying to make himself look forward to the opportunity of worst¬ ing Vulpes by obtaining Caesar’s favor. He detested the thought of bowing hts stiff neck in Caesar’s presence. He would vastly have preferred, if that were pos¬ sible, to leave the whole intrigue in Chloe’s hands ; whatever he might have to pay her and her Alexandrian owner would be cheap as the price of avoiding the hu¬ miliation of having to ingratiate himself with such a monster as Caligula was said to be. Cleander’s pride was about the only thing he dreaded losing, and he told himself that, were it not for Marcia, he would keep the pride and let the fortune go. He wondered whether Marcia would tum out to be worth it after all.
"Freedom sometimes makes the best of them ungrateful. And hers is a strange superstition. Who knows what a Chris¬ tian will do when placed in a dilemma? Am I a madman ? Well — ”
A servant summoned him to drink an appetizer with his host beside the lamp-lit fountain in the atrium. He shrugged away his gloom and strode forth, his ar¬ tistic eye observing the slim, supple figure of a Greek slave girl who stood answering Arbiter’s questions.
"This is Chloe,” said Arbiter. "Let us take our cups and let her pour the wine ; she will inspire it with Hellenic zest.” Chloe took the wine jar in her hands
and turned as gracefully as a bramble swaying in the wind. Cleander almost gasped. She was the woman who had followed him from Fastidius Flaccus* house, and who had cursed him in Flaccus’ garden because he had told her to go and offer her obscenities to Vulpes. She smiled as mischievously sweetly as if they shared a good joke.
"I have told her all about your feud with Vulpes and what you and I expect of her,” said Arbiter,
CHAPTER VI
"Love me — and let tomorrow bring forth what it way/”
SHE was an artist in her own way, Chloe. She enjoyed Cleander 's con¬ sternation, and let him know she did. Nevertheless, her attitude was perfectly respectful and she left it to Cleander to decide whether or not to try to make his peace with her. Meanwhile, as a hired out entertainer, she was obviously pleased to sing, dance, gossip and be com¬ plaisant. Alexandria had taught Rome what to expect from dancing girls and Chloe followed the two friends into the dining room with the air of being soul and body at their service and delighted to oblige them.
For a while, as they reclined on couches and the slaves brought wine and viands fit for far more wealthy men than those two, she sang to them, plucking a strange stringed instrument. Her songs were chaste and lyrical; her voice was tow, well trained and pleasing. Told by Ar¬ biter to make herself at ease, she reclined on a heap of cushions and presented an apparently unstudied picture of rather ex¬ perienced innocence. She could not have been less than thirty years old, and the fife she had been trained and forced to
24
GOLDEN FLEECE
lead would have taxed a lioness' strength, yet, dim light favoring perhaps, she looked r.o more than twenty-two or -three; and though she had come that day from enter¬ taining Flaccus and his friends, she looked gay and tireless. If she tried to listen to the conversation, she gave no sign of it ; and as long as she sang, there was not much risk of her overhearing Cleander's low voiced comments on the situation.
"Has she spoken with anyone other than you?"
“Undoubtedly. She came in through the servants’ entrance."
“And you say she is bad?"
“There is not a worse devil in Rome." A sort of pride stirred Arbiter as he ad¬ mitted that. By no means every Roman knew the ins and outs of life so well that he could summon Chloe for the sendee of his guest.
“You have told her about Vulpes? She has very likely spoken to my gladiators. And she may have learned that Marcia is in hiding. We are undone, my friend, before we begin. Unless — ” He paused, because her song ceased.
“Sing agam," said Arbiter.
“Unless you know some way of — "
“Two ways,” said Arbiter, “love her or kill her."
“If she has the brains you intimate she has, then she understands perfectly that I am telling you why she is my enemy."
“You have not yet told me.”
GLEANDER described the incident in Flaccus’ garden, "1 told her to take her blandishments to Vulpes, and she very likely did. What more natural than that Vulpes should have commissioned her to betray me by some means or other? She was as angry as a kicked she-wolf. She knew Vulpes is my enemy. She probably went straight to him and offered herself as an ally against me.”
“Cleander — whom the gods would ruin, it is true they first make mad. Are you so young and innocent that you parade your virtue before a dancing girl? Oh, Vanity, what next ? Have you not learned that such as she must think us lecherous and despicable, even if we are not, other¬ wise they set to work at once to make us so; and if they fail they hate us to the death? Dioscuri! She has learned, I sup¬ pose, about Marcia being a Christian?”
“Vulpes will have told her that. He accused me of the same thing.”
“Jupiter! You will need omniscience, my friend, to get you out of this mess. True, I have a small ergastulum, but if I should imprison her, her owner would be here by noon to find out why she has not returned to him. Her services are usually spoken for a week or ten days in advance. Caligula's master of cere¬ monies may have engaged her for tomor¬ row night. I know her sort ; if we should beat or bribe her she would agree to any¬ thing, and betray us with the next breath. No, Cleander, you liave one chance. You must make her love you.”
“If she were a child I might,” Cleander answered. “But she is a grown woman. If I should feign love, she would see through that and hate me all the more."
“It is either that, or kill her,” Arbiter advised, “or else she will destroy you. You might order Thrax to break her neck and throw her into the street for the slaves of the municipium to carry away at daybreak. But the worst of that is, that her owner is a Roman citizen — a spiteful fellow with an Alexandrian’s intelligence. She cost him an enormous sum of money and is a good investment. He would set enquiries going and would presently sue one or other of us for her value. He would have the right to post a bond of indemnity in case of destruction of their market value and then order our slaves
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ROMAN HOLIDAY
25
tortured before the magistrate for evi¬ dence against us. And you know what gladiators are. Under torture Thrax would tell the truth and add to it. On the other hand, if you should send Thrax to the country that would be regarded as suspicious; and even if they should never be able to produce Thrax, they would torture your other servants, who would — Go on singing, Chloc.”
"No, her singing irritates me," said Geander. “I will talk to her. Let her come and sit here between us."
ANOTHER slave brought cushions.
Chloe curled on them between the couches, chastely unchaste, eager to enter¬ tain them both or to be a bone of conten¬ tion between them, whichever course
events might indicate. Geander studied her a long while, until at last he held his wine cup for a slave to fill and passed it to her.
"Drink, girl.”
"My name is Chloe," she said smiling, answering his gaze over the brim of the cup. But she only sipped the wine.
“Chloe, did you ever forgive anyone in all your life?” Geander asked her.
“No. How should I? Slaves have no forgiveness to give to anyone. I was slave-born. Who would want my forgive¬ ness — saying that 1 had it in my gift? What I am — what I can — what I do — is for hire. And I am worth the money.”
“Do you mean I can buy your interest?”
“I have none for sale. 1 am a slave. I work in my master's interest.”
“My name ia Chloe,” she said smiling — over the brim of the cup.
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■
mem
GOLDEN FLEECE
26
"And your owner — ?*'
"Hires me to the highest bidder.”
"I am not a rich man. I can not afford to bid high,” said Cleander. "However, I know that my enemy Vulpes has per¬ suaded you to help him to destroy me. And I know you hate me because I treated you without much consideration the other night. You are probably quite justified in hating me. It is not my habit to be insolent to men or women who are not entitled to retaliate, but I forgot my¬ self that night because of mixed emotions. What I wish to learn is, how to make such amends as you consider suitable ; and how to get you to work for me, not Vulpes. Tell me.”
Chloe showed him her beautiful teeth, in a smile that was worthy of Leda se¬ ducing the swan. "You are the hand¬ somest man I have ever seen, most mar¬ velous Cleander !”
"Let us forget that for a moment.”
"How can I forget it when you have shoulders like Apollo and arms like Zeus himself, O lover of lovers, O — ”
"Listen to me,” said Cleander.
“Thou whose voice is like the warm wind calling forth the scented blossom on Hymettus I”
"I am calling forth your better nature, Chloe.”
"Humming happiness, as bees amid the blossom, Chloe is already yours. And the night is young ; why waste it speaking of unpleasant tilings? O glorious Clean¬ der, such a torso as you have — such mus¬ cles — such thighs of sculpted marble ! Did Praxiteles carve you out of Parian stone, O stoney-hearted one? You speak to Chloe of forgiveness ? You with such lips as can tempt her to die for the bliss of enjoying them ! You — "
"It is of death I would speak,” said Cleander. "I have a friend — ”
"I doubt not that the whole world loves you.”
"I have a friend who would avenge me on the body of my betrayer.”
“Friends die also; it is only life that is worth thinking about — life while it lasts,” said Chloe. "Love me, and let tomorrow bring forth what it may.”
STRANGE, gray-iron notions held Cleander in a grip that he felt no wish to break. He was no more virginal in thought or deed than any other Roman, but his pride stirred strongly and con¬ tempt, which is an unwise impulse, smiled along the thin line of his lips. By law and immemorial custom Marcia, whom he had set free, nevertheless was almost more his than she had been; gratitude and a kind of freedom both gave dignity to what the law of ownership had merely licensed. The weird, un- Roman, uncon¬ ventional idea played with him and pleased him, that he was bound to Marcia as much as Marcia to him. And the good, old-Roman manhood in him rigidly re¬ fused to risk his dignity in Chloe’s arms. Daylight would find her as free as ever to serve Vulpes and to whisper calumnies up palace backstairs ; she would probably take exquisite delight in the double treach¬ ery. However, he knew that Arbiter would urge him to accept that risk; and he did not care to speak, even with Ar¬ biter, about the veiled, dim Christian ideals that lie had mocked with tolerant good humor but that actually, he knew, made Marcia something dearer to him than a boughten bed -mate. It was dis¬ agreeable to analyze his motives. So he rode rash impulse — gave full rein to contempt that he knew he should have been too proud to feel.
"Hands off me!” he commanded, frowning. "Again I tell you: you may take your blandishments to Vulpes. He
ROMAN HOLIDAY
27
may value them. As for your hatred of me, I prefer it to the thought of accepting favors from you.*'
Arbiter’s lips moved, framing the words that leaped to them : “You idiot !” But he made no sound ; he was watching Chloe scramble to her feet and by sheer will power inask such hatred as almost turns breath into viperous mist. She backed away and stooped for her stringed instrument.
Then suddenly, beside the screen that concealed the service door, stood Ajax, the least pleasing of Oleander’s gladiators — a great-shouldered man with hairy legs and eyes too closely set. And Chloe’s self restraint broke down ; she let escape one damning sarcasm that convicted her once and for all of having used her charms on the gladiators in the kitchen.
“He brings you tidings of your Marcia."
Arbiter summoned his steward. “Turn her out of the house !"
The steward bowed. “But it was stipu¬ lated in the terms of hire that if dis¬ missed by night she should not be sent home unprotected. Whom, sir, shall I send with her?"
"Take her away. I will tell you pres¬ ently. Meanwhile, let her talk to no one. Send the other servants from the room and let Ajax approach."
Ajax told his story bluntly. “Marcia found that one-eyed jew named Simon, who directed her to a house in a street where armorers ply their trade. She drove her bargain and found lodging with a maker of tents. There we left her and returned hither by a round-about way, as your honor commanded."
“Are the wine shops open at this hour ?" Cleander wondered. He could smell the man’s breath, “Where is Murmex?"
“In the servants’ quarters. He has colic."
“Too drunk to stand up, I suppose. If you men can’t go on a simple errand without guzzling wine in every den you pass, I shall have to sell you for the arena. Wait outside the door until I send for you again,"
RBITER finished the wine in the goblet in front of him, draining it to the last drop. “You are quite right," he said, nodding. “It is the only thing to do. Send Ajax, and let Ajax kill her in some dark corner; afterwards he can say that she gave him the slip to go wan¬ toning on her own account. If she should live until the morning she will inform against you as surely as you have earned her enmity. Her master will get the in¬ formation money, and she will keep a small percentage for her own peculium. She will probably link you up in some way with the Christians ; or she may prefer to say she heard you criticizing Caesar. Very likely she will make both accusations. So let Ajax kill her. Call him in and give him orders."
“She may live, for all I care, until the Greek Kalends," Cleander answered. “Let Rome rot, and Caesar with it I 1 would rather die than have to live by such means. No, no, friend of mine; if my affairs have made you timid I will leave your house and so absolve you from all risk on my account. You may say you turned me out because you doubted my — "
“Jupiter capitolinus ! Silence, will you 1 I will not permit my friendship to be spurned in that way! If you insist on dying like a fool, then I will die with you, that is all. Let us open our veins and have done with it — as Horatius Scipio did quite recently, and Claudius Tor¬ mentor, and at least a dozen others. Why give that beast Caligula the pleasure of killing us?”
“Let us give him the chance to play
28
GOLDEN FLEECE
the man before we play the weakling/* Cleander answered. "No, no. Let us attend his banquet. Life is not worth much, but it is ours and it involves our dignity. Let us preserve it by all hon¬ orable means before we let a cur like Vulpes and a mcretrix like Chloe frighten us to an ignoble end, I would as soon be crucified. Let Ajax take that strumpet home and tell her owner she was not worth table-leavings."
CHAPTER VII "She is a Christian.’'
DAYLIGHT renewed optimism. On a sunny morning, listening to the caged birds sing beside the flower-decked fountain in Arbiter’s atrium, it appeared ridiculous that destiny, Caligula or any other monstrous force should have hor¬ rors in store. Fleecy white clouds idled in a clear blue sky and the breakfast fruit tasted Olympian. After all, this was Rome, and they Patricians. It was nonsense to suppose that Caligula, a mere youth of no particular talent and no especial breeding, could destroy the traditional rights of men whose ancestors had conquered nearly all the known world. Men who are bom with a sense of dignity revert to that as instinctively as other men, who have none, hate it and react against it.
The invitations to the banquet arrived early and threw the entire household into half hysterical excitement. Slaves are the establishers of routine. Slaves are the creators of social distances; they are the drawers of the veils of mystery that hide mere human vanities from human eyes and make impossible absurdities not only possible but unavoidable. It was Arbiter’s and Geander's slaves, from the Alexandrian steward downward, who made an invitation to a meal in Ceasar’s
palace seem like a summons to some un¬ earthly sphere. And unearthly it was, since Caesar’s slaves insisted that it should be.
Litters borne on solemn shoulders tli rough the torch-lit streets toward a Capitol that uprose like the ghost of his¬ tory against a star-lit sky. A dark gate made mysterious by lantern light. A quiet challenge, and the dank of armor from the darkness where the picked prae¬ torian guard stood motionless. A lantern borne by an orderly. A veteran officer who peered into the lantern light to scrutinize the written invitations.
“Eja ! — age! You may pass in.”
Darkness again for a moment where an archway cast its shadow on square flagstones. Then, suddenly, no longer Rome — the orient. Not even Roman statuary — Greek and Egyptian gods — a marble stairway plundered from Geo- patra’s waterfront. Not even Roman insolence as blunt and wholesome as an onion, but a new sort, sly-eyed and obse¬ quious, arno'ed in scented silk that came from who-knew-where by way of Trebi- zond. Politeness vaguely veiling greedy and suspicious smiles and not a trace — none— none whatever of the great Au- gustian simplicity. The grimness of Tiberius was gone. The gilt-and-marble stairway and the columned corridor be¬ yond it leading to the great reception room, were lined with more attendants than a company of kings should need and not one face was frankly hostile or indifferently friendly, as a stranger’s should be; they were curious, alert, sly, opportunist.
LEANDER and Arbiter, striding down the corridor with the masculine grace of old-time Romans, were led by a silk-robed effeminate freedman who stank of exotic perfume. He led on past the
ROMAN HOLIDAY
29
door of the great reception room toward a curtained antechamber. Slaves drew back the curtains as if they were reveal¬ ing unchaste mysteries. The freedman led toward a desk of rare, carved wood where a freedman secretary wrote on parchment by the light of an oil lamp set inside a gilded human skull. He de¬ manded the invitations.
“Are you Fabius Arbiter? Are you Vergilius Geander? Very well."
He nodded, checked off the names on a tablet and resumed his writing. Two slaves at the far end of the anteroom drew crimson curtains clashing on a bronze rod; a double door opened sud¬ denly, and they strode through into the small reception room where Greek erotic legends were depicted on the walls and Flaminius Glaucus, the palace chamber- lain, a trifle pompous and a bit too genial, was doing the preliminary honors for about two dozen guests, of whom six were women. He greeted Arbiter without fuss, but he was so immediately cordial to Geander that everyone else in the room turned and stared at him. He de¬ manded that;
"Look, all of you! The handsomest young Roman who has come to court since I was chamberlain 1 Vergilius Clcandcr. Husbands, guard your wives !”
He may have thought Cleander’s ob¬ vious embarrassment was due to bashful¬ ness under the gaze of six beautiful women. He laughed with evident, but otherwise not easily explained amuse¬ ment as he took Cleander' s arm. He seemed almost excited — turned so sud¬ denly that he bumped into the slave who 'teas carrying a tray of glasses, followed by another who bore the sharp tanged appetizer wine; in spite of the slave’s adroitness half a dozen glasses fell and were smashed to splinters on the floor, where they were pounced on by a third
slave and swept out of sight in an instant,
“Bacchus! I trust that is not an evil omen — are you readily disturbed by omens? — Whip that clumsy duffer — take him out and whip him as he deserves — give him two hundred strokes of the cane. The rogue is fortunate; if Caesar had seen him make that blunder — Did I tell you that we have with us tonight a neigh¬ bor of yours — do you know him? — "
But Geander had seen Vulpes almost before the doors had closed behind him and Arbiter. The sight had chilled his skin. It almost sickened him. He guessed that Glaucus' cordiality was due to a desire to cover up intrigue — his chuckle an indication of malicious zest for ar¬ ranging stupefying shocks. However, Vulpes seemed equally taken aback. Geander walked straight up to him.
"How are you, Vulpes? Did you pay that money to my steward?"
"I am well, Geander, thank you. Yes, I paid him — though I thought it rank discourtesy in you to absent yourself and leave only a servant to greet me."
“Did you go to my house alone?"
“I never move unattended. In spite of Caesar’s constant vigilance in our behalf, the roads are unsafe.”
“Of course you had your gladiators with you. Whom else ?”
“My attendants."
"Your’s or Caesar’s? Foxl I know you. I stole a move on you. Do now what you dare, and you shall And me ready for you."
HE WAS not ready. He had no no¬ tion how to protect himself, except, perhaps, by making a good impression on Caligula. But he hoped to stir in Vulpes a suspicion that a well timed counter-move was under way; it might cause Vulpes to delay his own plans. Anything to gain time.
GOLDEN FLEECE
30
"You talk,” said Vulpes, "like a cock¬ erel. However, I have eaten cockerels that crowed before their spurs were ready.” He thrust out his great belly and his lower lip, rubbing his chin with the palm of his right hand and looking slyly sideways at Cleander, who resisted the impulse to tell him he looked like a seller of horse-ineat. He made, instead, a shrewd, sneering foray for information:
"I had your pet mereirix, Chloe, with me last night.”
“Yes,” said Vulpes. “Yes, yes. But not all last night, Cleander. Chloe was dismissed by you at — what hour was it ? She is a girl who knows the difference between an onion and a bunch of grapes, as you may have noticed.”
Cleander turned his back and looked for Arbiter, w'ho was conversing, with what seemed like genuine gaiety, with two women. He wanted to break to Arbiter the grim news that already Chloe had done mischief. But he had no chance to get near him. Opulently dressed slaves took their places at the top of three steps at the far end of the room, and Glaucus began reading the order of precedence from his tablet, rather roughly ordering the guests to line up as he called their names. Cleander ’s place was last; he would be at the foot of the table. Arbiter would be near the middle of the table, facing Vulpes.
The tall doors opened wide, revealing Caesar's banquet hall. In spite of his patrician tastes, Cleander had always thought himself a rather modern minded man, but his emotions instantly rebelled at the sight of that extravagance of oriental luxury. There was nothing Roman about it, no simplicity and no concession to the stern idealism of the days gone by. There was no harmony, no beauty. It was a lurid splurge of gross¬ ness, scowled on by a marble statue of
Publius Scipio Africanus at the far end of the hall. The other statues were of naked women. Almost naked slave girls, with their arms outstretched, upheld a sort of pergola of woven flowers, under whose overpoweringly scented arches the guests must pass to reach the table. Slave musicians in a balcony discoursed some sort of oriental music with a maddeningly suggestive lilt. Beneath the balcony, up¬ ended, three Egyptian mummy-cases stood like curiously observant sentinels, one be¬ tween, and one on either side of two doors through which entertainers pres¬ ently would come, and facing those, at a gilded door at the back of a high dais, stood two lictors and four plumed guards¬ men, in armor, with spears and shields.
The scene so jarred Oleander's nerves that he forgot his own fear for the mo¬ ment, He felt as if Rome’s neck were under an alien heel. He felt it even more as he stood at the end corner of the long dinner table, beside his couch, with the scented breath of Caesar's boughten women in his ears, and waited in humble, indecorous silence for the tyrant,
SUDDENLYa golden trumpet sounded.
The gilded door opened and Caesar strode on to the dais. He was not alone ; lie had a leopard with him and was fol¬ lowed by two black slaves, of whom one kept an eye on the leopard and held a noose in his gloved hand, with which to subdue the animal in case of need.
Of the two, the leopard looked by far the nobler, although Caligula wore an im- perator’s cloak over his silken garments and carried in his right hand a caduceus to suggest that he was something more than mortal. He was a scrawny, tall young man, with so much hair on his body that he could not by any means conceal it ; but he was clean-shaven and, despite his youth, his head was almost bald. He
ROMAN HOLIDAY
had pale eyelashes that made his green- gray eyes, red-rimmed from lechery and lack of sleep, look like those of a fish. He glanced down at the leopard and grinned. He seemed to try to imitate the leopard’s sneer as he swung the caduceus to and fro in a probably half -unconscious simulation of the movements of the leop¬ ard’s tail. The guests bowed, silent. Geander was the only one whose eyes met Caligula’s, and they stared at each other for nearly a minute, until at last Caligula stepped down to his own wide divan, draped in silks and leopard skins, at the head of the table. Prodding the couch with the caduceus, as if he thought there might be snakes concealed, he pres¬ ently sat clown and sprawled with the in¬ solence of a barrack room bully, clucking and snapping his fingers to persuade the leopard to leap up and lie beside him.
“If my leopard were more obedient I would make him a senator/’ he remarked. That was all. No greeting to his -guests. That was their permission to take their places, and they all did.
Suddenly the music struck up wildly and the flower girls leaped into move¬ ment, dancing with their ropes of flowers around and around the table. They were marvelously trained, but Caligula took no notice of them. Under slightly lowered eyelids he observed his guests, staring them one at a time out of counte¬ nance, but paying most attention to the women, craning his long neck to see them better, until at last his judgment fell on the youngest matron in the room.
“Is that your wife, Gratillus? I never suspected you of such good taste.” His bet unpleasant voice was vibrant and it carried through the music and the thump of bare feet dancing on the carpets. “Send her here to me. Let me see if she looks as lovely at dose quarters.”
The husband smiled. The wife obeyed.
31
She went and stood before him, and he signed to her to sit beside him on the divan. But she feared the leopard. Caligula laughed. For a minute he went through the farce of trying to persuade her; then he suddenly grew tired of it, prodded her with the caduceus and sent her, looking foolish and humiliated, to her husband.
“Good enough for you, Gratillus; but I like them twice as bold as leopards. Then I have some fun. And by my Genius, I tell you, there is not enough fun. There are too few Romans who have throats worth slitting."
Having made that offering to the eve¬ ning’s entertainment, he grew genial and began to talk to the guest at his right hand, joking with him about the dozens of new horses he had bought in the hope of entering at least one winning team in the chariot races. Conversation be¬ came general. Aurelius, a senator, whose place was at Cleander’s left hand, talked with him sotto voce:
“Our Caligula is virginal tonight. He usually gives a pretty woman’s husband more than that to remember him by. I have seen him — ”
“Gaiety! More gaiety!” Caligula shouted. He was already drinking like a dry sponge. "Drive out these fools!” One gesture and the dancing girls all fled like frightened children through a door between the mummy-cases. A long line of slaves came through another door carrying mounds of food. “Bring on your entertainers! Jupiter! I have had no sleep for three nights. Does nobody care ? Am I to sit here mocked by mel¬ ancholy ?”
“As for me," said Aurelius, “I am one of those who refuse to marry, lest Caligula should hear of it. He might bid my wife to a banquet. But did you hear about Marcus Longinius? Thinking to incrati-
GOLDEN FLEECE
32
ate himself with Caesar he married a woman and sent out tempting rumors. Sure enough, Caligula invited them. But he is shrewd; he can see through subtler schemes than that. He gave the woman one glance and then banished them both to an island to endure each other’s com¬ pany. He said he could imagine no worse fate for anyone, nor anyone more worthy of a worse if only that could be invented,”
/'"'I ONJURERS came in, and tumblers, to whom impossibilities seemed com¬ monplace. Caligula looked bored. He began to fool with the leopard beside him until the slave whose business it was to guard him from the animal crouched nearer to the throne on tiptoe, with his noose in both hands, ready. Then a slave behind the dais whispered, and Caligula remembered something.
“Is that not Virgilius Qeander at the far end 7* he demanded. “By the Dios¬ curi, you are too good looking ! It is small wonder that women love you. I am told you have a slave whose beauty has even made you write bad poems! Let us see this Venus. Where is she?”
"I don’t know,” said Cleander.
“Don’t you ? I do. Bring the woman in!”
Geander almost groaned aloud. Aure¬ lius, beside him, chuckled in a sort of help¬ less sympathy, lialf cynical, half fearful to betray itself. Arbiter, on the far side of the table, met Oleander's eyes ; he had turned ashen gray.
“She is a Christian,” said Vnlpes, smirking.
“Is she?” asked Caligula. “I am told that Christians don't believe in Roman gods, in which they are not far from being wise. If they should say there is no god but Caesar I would pack the senate with them and we might see decent
government for once. However, bring the woman in !”
CHAPTER VIII "] accuse myself*
MARCIA came in between two guardsmen. Someone had dressed her in yellow linen, with a chaplet of rose-buds and a chain of flowers around her shoulders. That was Glaucus’ doing; he looked proud of his showmanship; he eyed Cleander sideways, not yet openly, but obviously gloating at the chagrin of a man whom he had been at such pains to flatter. Vulpes tolled and looked self¬ consciously important — virtuous — tri¬ umphant. To Geander now the whole plot was as plain as if written iu words on the wall: Chloe had traced Marcia and connected her with the outlaw Chris¬ tians — Marcia was to be the bait for Caesar’s gluttony — he, Cleander, was to be humiliated in exchange for the humilia¬ tion he had tendered Vulpes in the house of Flaccus — he was then to be accused of treason.
Marcia met his eyes. She loved him. For the first time in his life he knew what love was. She was loyal to the death; he understood that — thrilled so to the understanding of it that he hardly heard Aurelius’ low voice :
“Have you poison with you? If so, swallow it. Caligula hates a handsome man. It is too bad, but the dice seem loaded.”
Geander glanced at Arbiter, whose pallor betrayed the fear that gripped him. He decided to save Arbiter at all costs. He could see no hope of saving Marcia from the clutches of Caesar, who already was leering at her, licking his lips, oblivious for the moment of every¬ thing except her. He enjoyed unwilling
I
ROMAN HOLIDAY
women. Modesty enflamcd his madness.
Suddenly a sort of madness seized Cleander. Dignity seemed better to him than any prize that life could offer. Marcia had dignity. Had he none? His was a Roman’s heritage. Such swine as Vuipes — such a bestial tyrant as Caligula might rob him of money and lands. Could they rob him of valor. He, too, could spring surprises. He arose from his couch. His voice was as abrupt and vibrant with authority as some scarred tribune’s on parade.
“Caesar, that women is free. I freed her yesterday. She is no man’s property. As her patron, I appeal on her behalf to Roman law.”
He sat down, cool, in spite of the sen¬ sation he had caused. He smiled at Caesar’s answering oath; it was a fight now, and the fight was on; he had never yet flinched in action. He stood up again ; that oath had ripped aside Caligula’s mask ; the coward showed within the mon¬ ster:
“The law is your own. You have used it scores of times. I defy you to dare to ignore it now.”
The guards clanged shields on armor to remind Caligula that they were there to do his bidding. Caligula scowled like a maniac. There was silence for at least a dozen deep-drawn breaths. Even the music ceased. Then Vuipes croaked his contribution to the climax ;
“Is the law not, that a slave may not be freed to save her from being tortured to give evidence against her master?"
Again Cleander stood up. “Evidence on what charge?" he demanded. “I am a Roman. It is my right to know who my accusers are.”
“I have heard it said,” said Vuipes, sticking out his lower lip, “Virgilius Qe- ander is accused of having said that Caesar is a traitor to Rome because he ignores
33
our Roman laws and destroys our Roman institutions. If to speak such words is treason, then the Roman law is that the man’s slaves all may be examined under torture. If convicted, the man’s pos¬ sessions are forfeit — and the man’s life also.”
ARBITER was whispering to Glaucus, who nodded repeatedly. Glaucus somehow seemed aware of humor in the situation — sardonic humor; but then, Glaucus understood Caligula. Cleander, knowing lie had called down death on his own head, faced it mockingly — a mood that made him swift to snatch at chances; there was one chance in a million that Arbiter had thought of something, so Cleander sparred to give him time :
“Are you my accuser, Vuipes?” he de¬ manded.
Glaucus gave him no time to deny it; craning his neck to miss nothing of what Arbiter was saying, he tossed his scrap of fuel in the flame:
“Yes, Vuipes is your accuser.”
“I am more amused," announced Cali¬ gula, “than I have been for weeks. Vuipes is a fine fat pigeon."
“He is very rich,” said Glaucus. Even Marcia smiled at that remark; it meant that Arbiter would make no claim for a percentage of the fat man’s plunder. Ar¬ biter had given information— true or false, no matter — deadly.
“Is the law not, that a false informer stands convicted of the crime he charged ?" Cleander asked. “I charge you, Vuipes, on two counts. Deny one, and you prove the other. How long since you accused me?”
Vuipes made no answer ; he was watch¬ ing Caesar’s face; and Caesar’s face was uglier than the leopard’s on the throne beside him. Glaucus began studying his tablet.
GOLDEN FLEECE
34
"It was Vulpes," he remarked, "who wrote suggesting that Geander 's Marcia might make a welcome gilt for Caesar."
"Pluto!” exclaimed Caligula. "You knew she was a Christian and you rec¬ ommended her for me? Did you wish to sec me murdered? Poisoned? Done to death by magic?”
Vulpes stammered : "Imperator, I have thought of nothing but your welfare.”
"Toad !” Geander interrupted. "You accused me. Nevertheless, you sat at table with me in Flaccus’ house ; and yesterday you paid to my steward five hundred thou¬ sand sesterces. I denounce you as a liar or else as one who knowingly consorts with traitors!”
"I denounce you as a Christian,” said Vulpes.
"Excellent. They both stand charged with treason. We will torture them all,” said Caligula. "Slaves first, masters after¬ wards, Oleander being such a stickler for our cherished forms of law."
"Then you, too, appeal to the law?” Geander asked him.
Caligula glanced at Glaucus: “How long is it since 1 put two senators to death for daring to advise me to abolish law?”
"They are probably more or less dead by now,” said Glaucus.
"Oh, yes, I remember, we invented a new way of killing them. We will begin by torturing Oleander’s lady-love, whom he has manumitted too late. Are his other slaves in custody? Where are they ? By my Genius, if one escapes me I will punish someone! Where are Vulpes’ servants? Round up all of them,”
Four guards strode forward, eyebrows raised, eyes watchful for the first hint.
"Yes, yes, put them both in fetters. T raitors at Caesar’s banquet table — this is the most interesting moment since — ”
Geander interrupted him, although he
no longer troubled himself to look at Vulpes or at Caesar. His eyes met Marcia’s ; he knew no torture in the world could make her say one word against him, and he knew the thought of death was hugely sweeter to her than the prospect of an hour in Caesar’s dutches— one of her strange, chaste, Giristian principles that had no taint of pride — incomprehen¬ sible, but rather beautifully blameless ; her astonishing ideals were what he loved best. She would welcome death, if she might meet it unpolluted by Caligula, and he, Geander, had it in his mind to give her that gift. In addition, it was not within his estimate of dignity to let slaves suffer for their master’s ill luck. With a char¬ acteristic Roman gesture of the right arm he appealed to his fellow guests, inviting their opinion and daring Caesar to defy it :
"May the slaves of a man whose guilt is self-confessed before more than a dozen witnesses be put to torture ?” he de¬ manded.
THERE was a murmur. One answer was possible, and only one.
"May a freedwoman be tortured if she has confessed her guilt? Marcia, are you a Christian?”
"All know I am,” said Marcia. "I have not denied it. I will be a Christian with my last breath,”
“You have heard her,” said Geander. "I, too, am a Christian. I accuse myself ” His gestures were as eloquent as only Roman charm could make them, as he turned toward Caligula. "That all may know me guilty, I accuse you, Caesar, of usurping powers not entrusted to you by the people. Let the law pursue its course. I have a Roman's right to die in the arena — as has Marcia also. Vulpes, who pretends he is a guiltless paragon of virtue, you may torture as you see fit.” That was the one sure thrust Geander
ROMAN HOLIDAY
35
made. Caligula’s insomnia-maddened brain was fertile wilh expedients for making law submit to his caprices; he had fifty laws he could have cited, passed by a servile senate and forgotten until Caesar chose to use them. It would add to his enjoyment to torture them, master and slave, in each other’s presence, if that might lawfully be done. But Vuipes saved that moment for them all, intending nothing of the kind.
He rose and flung himself at Caesar’s feet. He groveled. He offered money. Utterly losing his head, he vowed he would reveal the names of plotters against Caesar's life. He would surrender his estates and all his wealth to Caesar — ”
"They are mine already," Caesar an¬ swered, stroking his leopard and licking his lips.
“But not the lions, Caesar — not the lions!"
There was possibly remaining in Cali¬ gula some remnant of appreciation for a manly attitude, some measure of contempt for cowardice. More probably a sense of drama lingered in his mad mind. Con¬ trast stirred in him sardonic humor. And he may have thought of the political ad¬ vantage to himself, of glutting the eyes of the Roman niob with the sight of a beautiful woman and two men of rank done shamefully to death in the arena.
"To the lions with them — all three! Drag that fool out ! Secretary — where is that slow drudge? Write the order — make haste — all three to the carceres — for treason — to be tom by lions in the next games."
CHAPTER IX
"Which way do you like death?"
GAIUS RUBER, the lanista, was a man whose charity was tempered by the obvious responsibilities of his pro¬
fession, and by his own cupidity, which was no less obvious. His wintry-blue eyes were too close-set to be those of a generous man; and, commonly with exe¬ cutioners and jailers of all times, it was not a soft heart that had earned him his peculiar distinction. He had seen too many die to care a clipped as for the rank, sex. guilt or innocence of victims.
“How do you propose to pay mci"
But his pay was nothing much and, un¬ der Caligula, lie did not always get it; so, within extremely rigid limits set by knowl¬ edge that the last lanista had been beaten to death by Caligula's order for permit¬ ting prisoners to escape, he was not above persuasion if it took the form of some¬ thing he could use for money.
Down in the reeking darkness of the dungeons underneath the Circus, Maxi¬ mus Qcander spoke with him through the small iron grating of a cell door. There was a fire, in a brazier, at the end of the stone passage, but that was not for
36
GOLDEN FLEECE
anybody’s comfort ; it was to heat the irons with which to keep the prisoners in order in the event they made unneces¬ sary noises or indulged despair with at¬ tempts at mutiny. Its red light glowed on Gains Ruber’s face and made one half of it look like a sardonyx cameo.
"A well born gentleman might lie to me,” said Ruber. "I have known them to do it.”
"Yes, and I could hold my tongue,” Cleander answered. "I am telling you the truth, and what I ask will cost you noth¬ ing; so that even if you should get noth¬ ing you would not he out of pocket. You will be running no risk — none what¬ ever.”
“Mow do you propose to pay me?”
“You may pay yourself. Like most men with their life and liberty at stake in these uncertain times, I buried a con¬ siderable sum of money. I can tell you where I buried it.”
“Go on then, tell nre.”
"I will tell you at the moment when I enter the arena — not until then — and then only if you have done what I ask you to do.”
“You want poison, I suppose,” said Ruber, “or an opiate. Well, you can’t have either. I send in my prisoners to amuse the people, not to die drunk.”
“Pluto take you and your opiates ! For myself I want very little — nothing but my own clean clothing.”
“It is usual to sell good clothing to a dealer,”
“You may sell mine after I am dead.”
“All torn and bloody? Bacchus! Do you take me for a born fool ?”
“All right then. My money can stay where I buried it.”
“Don't get testy. What else do you want?”
“I want Marcia to enter the arena with me—”
"She will do that anyhow. Vulpes, she, you and a dozen others; but the others are all prisoners from Sicily— ac¬ cording to the execution warrant, ban¬ dits.”
“I want Marcia unviolated, unharmed and decently dressed.”
"Hey ! Hey ! Arc you crazy ? That’s a good looking girl, that Marcia. I can sell her favors for a fine price to the merry lads who like to brag about that sort of pastime from their seats in the stadium. They pay well, since it gives them a peculiar emotion to see a woman they have violated tom by lions.”
"My buried hoard would pay you ten times letter. Much more than ten times better.”
“If I thought it weren't a mare’s nest at a rainbow’s end.”
"It is all gold money of Augustus' mint¬ ing, And its secret shall die with me un¬ less you do exactly as I ask. But if you do exactly as I ask, then I will tell you, just before we enter the arena, where the money is and how to get it.”
"Bacchus! Almost I believe you. Well, as you say, it will cost me nothing. I will chance it — maybe. I will think it over. Pluto! Tell me an unlikely story when the time comes, and I will give you a touch of the hot iron as you enter the arena that will make you crave the lions as a quick way out of anguish ! Hey-yeh, I have heard so many stories. On the war¬ rant yon are called a Christian. Do you swear by the God of the Christians?”
"Ndf1 By my father’s hearth and by my manes.”
“Well, that sounds convincing. And you look honest. Maybe I will risk it — maybe.”
ARBITER, by some strange freak of destiny, had not been charged with harboring a traitor. Possibly the total
ROMAN HOLIDAY
of his debts was known to exceed his assets, so that his estate was not worth confiscating. And Cleander knew that Arbiter would leave no ingenuity un¬ tried to effect a rescue, even though the odds against it were a million to one. All other friendship failing, Arbiter would very likely smuggle in some poi¬ son. But Cleander, if so, was deter¬ mined not to use it, since he knew that Marcia would refuse to use it, that be¬ ing one of her incomprehensible rules of conduct; and the |>oct in him made it almost seem a privilege to die with Marcia, since both of them must die tn any case. He could comfort her and lend her courage; that was something. Thirty thousand mocking voices — thirty thousand staring faces — that would he the worst of the ordeal. Hungry Hons do their business fairly quickly.
He could hear the lions. He could smell them. There was an air-shaft lead¬ ing from the dens up through the dun¬ geons. When the framers went in to en¬ rage the hungry brutes by offering them meat and then withdrawing it, only to crack them instead on the nose with a stick, he wondered about lions. There was not much else to think about. He wondered how the hunters faced them in their native deserts — how much fight one nian could offer twenty of them, if he had a weapon— and what sort of weapon? There was no more skillful swordsman than himself in all Rome —
That brought Arbiter to mind again. He wondered whether Arbiter would realize that next to an actual rescue, which was so nearly impossible as not to be worth considering, the greatest serv¬ ice he would do would be to smuggle in some sort of weapon, if only a dagger. He dared not try to send him word to that effect. He could only hope that Arbiter would think of it. To go down
37
fighting would make death easier even though the fight were hopeless. He began to wonder how much truth there was in stories he had heard of sending thought through stone walls. How was the trick done? He began to try to do it — frown¬ ing — concentrating.
“Arbiter! Arbiter! Send me a weapon !’’
But the days and nights dragged on without a sign from Arbiter, until the morning came when thunder on the wooden platforms of the stadium an¬ nounced that the people were taking their seats. The unfed, irritated lions roared in darkness. Leopards yowled. There was a din of voices like the far-off frenzy of the sea, ascending to a burst of greet¬ ing as the people recognized some fa¬ vorite official. It was almost possible to tell when Caesar took his place. And there was no doubt when the master of ceremonies gave the signal to begin. There was a sudden silence, lasting all the while the gladiators marched past Caesar’s box and halted to salute him;
“Caesar! nos morituri te salutamus !"
Then the short, sliarp bursts of mob excitement, as the gladiators fought in pairs, and the exultant shout of “ Habet !” when a man lay bleeding on the sunlit sand.
At last the summons. Hastily Clean¬ der donned the clean and neatly folded clothing that Gaius Ruber sent to him by the hand of a dungeon guard. So Gaius Ruber kept faith ? He had even sent the beautifully woven toga that Cleander wore the night of his arrest. Cleander smiled ; he wondered what Caligula and all his intimates would say to a man being sent to execution in a toga! But had Ruber kept the bargain about Marcia? If so, he should have the secret of the buried hoard — not otherwise. Up then, out of stenching darkness to the fresher air and
GOLDEN FLEECE
38
dim light of the arched enclosure beneath Caesar’s royal box ; he stumbled over corpses of seven gladiators in a row that had been dragged out by the masked slaves — two with throats cut — three marked by the hot iron to determine whether they were actually dead or only shamming.
THERE was din in the arena; thirty Spanish bulls were being done to death by men on horseback, and were giving a gory account of themselves ac¬ cording to the comments of a guard who peered through a knot hole in the high, wide entrance door.
"Hercules! Seven— no, eight horses slain — and six men !”
Vulpes stepped forth from a group of prisoners— a pale, emaciated Vulpes in the unbleached smock served out to such criminals as had clothes worth taking from them. There was no sign yet of Marcia. A slave-guard with a hot iron brandished it at Vulpes, driving him back to the group he had left; but other slaves with hot irons drove the entire group toward the dingy corner where Cleander stood; he found himself face to face with Vulpes, hemmed in by the other hopeless wretches, hungry, verminous and clothed like Vulpes in the smocks that were to be their shrouds.
"Cleander, I have poison. I will share it with you.”
"Swallow it yourself, you blackguard. Offer some to those poor devils.”
“No, no, I have barely enough for two of us.”
"Then swallow it all. And may the Harpies hound your shade forever!"
"Is that generous, Cleander?”
It was Marcia at last, edging her way between the prisoners, wearing the same light yellow costume they had decked her with for Caesar's banquet — pale from the
dungeon darkness, but as gay as if bound to her wedding.
"How have they treated you, Marcia?”
"Almost kindly. It is very sweet to die with you, Cleander.”
"No humiliation ?”
"No, none. Gaius Ruher — "
Gaius Ruber, looking worried — as a man must be on whom, in part, depends the entertainment of a candid audience — came near them, from behind Cleander, standing half invisible within the shadow of the wall. He had left a narrow, wooden door in the wall half open, for a swift retreat in case some notable should chance to pass through, as they sometimes did for the sake of sneering at an enemy con¬ demned to die.
“What of it?” he demanded. “Do you keep that promise?"
Cleander nodded. "At the north end of my farm, eleven paces from the great oak, stands a granite landmark. Stand exactly midway of the line between them. Take eleven paces southward. Dig — and you have it.”
"May your shade know never a resting place if you have lied to me,” said Gaius Ruber. Then he vanished and the door shut squeaking on a hinge innocent of oil. Cleander then took Marcia in his arms, but he embraced her almost sternly ; he was afraid to let emotion master him, lest dignity should suffer. He wanted to keep calm for Marcia’s sake. No word — no sign from Arbiter. That stung him; he supposed that even Arbiter was faith¬ less, like the others. Just one word by the mouth of a slave from Arbiter, and he could have met death gaily; stoically.
“You are a brave girl, Marcia. I love you, and I die with you without regret.”
He did not hear her answer; it was smothered in a half -sob on his shoulder. And besides, he had a glimpse just then of the arena and the tiers on tiers of
ROMAN HOLIDAY
39
crowded seats, as the door swung wide to let them drag out mangled carcasses of bulls and horses — presently of men, too. He wondered whether Arbiter was up there among the spectators— hoped he was — then hoped he was not. Slaves went hurrying out with hags of sand to cover up the bloodstains, and the door swung shut. Another moment now. Marcia, with her face against his breast, was pray¬ ing; he patted her and stroked her hair, but he was thinking about Arbiter.
“Farewell to friendship, friend of mine. Though you liavc failed me. may you not know — ”
THE hinge of the door in the shadow l>eliind him creaked again and premo¬ nition stirred him. He could not well move, because of Marcia, but he turned his head ; the door was partly open, and he thought he saw someone's figure crouching in the deepest darkness. How¬ ever, there was no time to look twice. A brazen trumpet blared in the arena and tile voice of Gaius Ruber shouted : “Vic¬ tims for the lions next ! Step forward, all of you. The moment the door opens, out with you!” A masked slave rattled his iron against a brazier, “And remember: hot iron for whichever of you halts be¬ fore you reach the middle of the arena V* Something touched Geander's left hand, and a voice said: “Take it — make haste — don't look !” He groped, gripped, heard the hinge squeak — and hugged Marcia — a new man ! Then he let go of her, he needed both hands for a moment ; somehow he must manage to conceal a long sword and a long stiletto in his toga ; he found he could do it by letting the toga fall unevenly, the longer portion hanging from liis left arm.
“O ye gods, if yc are gods, be good to Arbiter who did not fail hts friend!” he prayed — the first time he had prayed un-
cynicatly since he had been old enough to reason. Then the door swung wide again, saluted by a mocking roar from thirty thousand throats. He threw his right arm around Marcia and led the way in boldly— careless— reckless — he could die now as a man should. He was eager to get well into the center before any of the guards should see that good long sword and take it from him — not that anyone would get it without a hot fight. Not until he reached the center, prac¬ tising his eyes to get them used to the glare of the sand, his fellow victims trail¬ ing in a miserable group behind him, did he turn and stare at the Imperial suite, where he could see Caligula and Glaucus and a dozen others lolling on golden cush¬ ions beneath a purple awning.
IT was then that he took his first look at the fine Damascus blade and once more blessed his good friend Arbiter. The stiletto was no less perfect; it was such a dagger as had once slain Caesar be¬ neath Pompey's statue on the Ides of March. He wrapped his toga thought¬ fully around his left arm and explained to Marcia how to tuck the ends in, so that it would serve him as a sort of armor — and better, at that, than a shield that would have made his left hand useful only for defense. He laughed, remembering his own advice to Arbiter: “Speed! A swift blow is worth two slow ones — a quick thrust, followed thrice as swiftly by another — ”
They on the high- banked seats had seen his sword. There was a murmur, and then tumult. Scornfully his brave eyes answered as he gazed around him to mark the openings through which the lions would come. Then Vulpes :
“Pity me and run me through with that, Oleander!” He was on his knees, baring his gray -liai red breast.
GOLDEN FLEECE
40
“Swallow your poison, you vermin !”
“I did- — I have — it was not poison— Gaius Ruber fooled me !’’
“Go and complain to Caesar, There he sits. Salute him — offer to betray another dozen Romans.”
Mad with terror, Vulpes leaped at that idea. Raising his smock to let his fat legs run the faster, he almost scampered toward Caesar’s awninged seat. The first lion, blinking at the sunlight as he stole forth from an opening, gave chase and slew him before Vulpes knew that they had pulled the cords and loosed the lions for their meal. Applause — yells — cat¬ calls from the mob. Then silence.
Marcia's voice : “The lions are coming now, Oleander. I am sorry you were not baptised; but neither was the thief who died beside the Saviour on the cross, and he was promised he should be that night in paradise. Die fighting, if it makes death easier, but die remembering the Lord, who died that we might have eternal life.”
He had no heart to undeceive her. Let her die believing him a Christian ; it might make death easier for her, too.
“Marcia, keep close behind me. Do you hear me? Move swiftly whenever I turn, and keep behind me. Keep dose, but keep away from my sword arm.”
“Brave Cleander, I fear not death.”
He knew that — knew that unless he could think of good reasons she would not try to prolong life. And there was no real reason. He imagined one:
“You know how to bless me as I die. I don’t. So you must die last, Marcia.”
He felt the pressure of her hand but did not hear her answer. He did not even see the spectators ; they had merged into a splurge of sunlit color. He was not really aware of the other victims, except vaguely. He had concentrated all his fac¬ ulties. There was a male lion sniffing at the blood beneath the freshly strewn sand ;
several more, crouching, stalked from one direction; three were on his right hand, heads high, staring at their prey and won¬ dering, apparently, where to begin. One famished looking female, on his left hand, crouching by herself, suddenly made up her mind and came on swiftly, belly to the sand. Cleander made his mind up also; for a swordsman, determined attack is the essence, the heart of defense.
He met that lioness midway of her spring, side-stepping, stabbing her three times before she could correct her impetus. There came a sea roar from the tiers of seats, but it did not drown Marcia’s quiet voice behind him:
“On your right, Cleander !”
Three together now — three male lions, ravening with hunger. He attacked the foremost ; it rose and struck him on the forearm, but the folded toga deadened the terrific shock. The sword went home like lightening. One lion jumped the stricken one to come at him in flank. Cleander jumped, too— forward. The third lion sprang at Marcia ; he slew it as it passed him, with a blow of the edge of his sword that severed the neck verte¬ brae — turned swiftly as Marcia screamed to him and drove his point home down the throat of the second lion, then closing — stabbing with the long stiletto, all but disarmed by the death throes of the beast. He had to set his left foot on the lion's head to drag the sword free. Time then — three breaths — for a glance around him.
THERE was havoc among the other victims. Most of them were down, being rent, but four still stood, half dead with horror, awaiting death like dumb sheep in a shambles. Cleander slew one lion from behind as it tore at a victim’s entrails. Marcia screamed again and he turned in time to attack an old lion that had left his meal to deal with danger
ROMAN HOLIDAY
1
first; he charged in, crouching low, but the sword point pierced his right eye and as he rolled in agony the next stab pierced his lungs.
Speed — speed I "Keep close, Marcia 1" The wild thought flashed into Cl candor’s mind that if he should stay all those lions then the crowd might acclaim him par¬ doned and perhaps Caligula would yield to the crowd’s demand. He might save Marcia, himself and those four wretches who remained. But even as he sprang to defend those four they were dragged down all in a heap and five lions fought with one another for the spoil. Of the five lions he slew three; two more fled from him, and then he paused again. The crowd was frantic with excitement, but there was no more thrill to offer them ; the remaining lions had dragged their victims in all directions, to be away from one another, and the tumult lessened. He held up his sword to appeal to the crowd, but there was no such response as would force Caligula to let him go free. He glanced toward the Vestal Virgins in their box near Caesar’s suite, but there was no sign from the Vestals either.
"Marcia, if the crowd grow weary of us — "
Even as he spoke the pike-armed keep¬ ers of the lions came in through half a dozen doors and drove the lions snarling to their dens, where live goats bleated. Suddenly a new excitement stirred the crowd. One voice like a cry in a wilder¬ ness yelled “Murmex !” In a moment the whole stadium was yelling "Murmex I Murmex !” And then sudden silence as the great door at the far end opened and a gladiator strode in, armed with helmet, shield and sword.
He was a giant. He was the hated favorite of Rome. Three years invincible — swaggering — insolent — loathed for his vanity — loved for his fighting genius —
41
contemptuous of the crowd that praised him, of the women who flung their flowers to him, and of all opponents, he strode in, faced the imperial awning and saluted Caesar. Someone tossed a jeweled brace¬ let to him, and he stooped and clasped it on his left wrist, leering, gesturing with his thumb at Marcia. Then he turned to face Cleander. But Clcandcr offered
Caesar no salute. Holding sword and dagger in his left hand for a moment, he raised his right arm toward the Vestal Virgins, marveling at their pale, impas¬ sive faces. They made no response.
Murmex gestured to Oeander with an insolent jerk of the head to go back to the center of the arena and be slain there ; but Cleander saw fit not to humor him.
"I earn the wench for my reward,” said Murmex. “Which way do you like death —edge or point?”
"Wait and see,” said Oeander, and
GOLDEN FLEECE
42
Murtnex waited just one second too long, He was forced on the defensive before he could turn with his back to the sun, and he found that buckler smalt use against the swift stiletto. Blood came streaming front his ribs before his weight was off his heels. H is heavy bronze sword foand no room to swing ; he needed every ounce of strength he had to spring hack and recover balance, and Qeander kept on leading — lunging at him, using lightning speed against the big man's weight and huge strength ; forcing him to give ground — -backward — backward- — until the mob’s excitement sounded like a storm at sea, and Murmcx, trying the ancient ruse of suddenly retreating to gain footroom for a whirlwind charge, slipped sideways on the blood from Vulpes’ lion-rent corpse and fell dead, with Cleander’s sword- point thrust into his heart. “Habet! Murmex habet! Habet 1”
THE stadium went mad. Cleander threw his left arm around Marcia. He thrust his thrumming sword-point in the sand and, turning, raised his right arm toward the Vestal Virgins.
“Thumbs up! Thumbs up!” Thirty thousand throats were one in thunderous applause as the Vestals, all together, made the sign that neither Caesar, mob nor senate would have dared to challenge. Caesar waved a purple handkerchie f . The great, grim gate beneath the imperial box, through which so many victims went, so few returned, swung wide and someone in the dimness beckoned :
“Haste! Haste! You are delaying business !”
Masked slaves hurried in with hooks and bags of sand, to drag the carcasses away and cover the bloodstains. Murmex’ body, drawn by hooks beneath the arm- pits, passed through ahead of Marda and Cleander, so swift was the disciplined
service — even swifter than the changing moods of Rome’s impatient mob.
And in the shadow of the gloom within, beside a charcoal brazier, stood Arbiter, his arms outreaching. He embraced Cleander. He was neither dry-eyed nor articulate. “Away — away from here,” he urged. He took their arms and shoved them toward the exit, past the locked cells where gladiators watted for their cues — then found speech: “But where did you get your weapons?"
“You— did you not send me sword and dagger?” asked Cleander.
“I? No—”
“It was God,” said Marcia.
“ — I did work all avenues to reach the Vestals. I got word to them at last through Flavius Augustus Nepos, father of the youngest Vestal, who lias recently donated a million sesterces to the temple funds.”
They passed two shadowy forms within the gloom of the passage entrance. Gaius Ruber held a small man by the throat and shook him :
“Answer me ! By Bacchus, I will make you answer. Did you give that sword to him? I swear to Pluto I will have you crucified !”
“What does it matter who gave him the sword?” asked Simon’s voice. "Has Caesar not been satisfied, and does he not go free ? Let go of me.”
“Jupiter! Why did you do it? You dog of an impudent Jew ! You — ”
"How else should I buy lion skins, if nobody kills lions? And what have you lost? Don’t I pay good prices?”
Quietly Qeander laid his hand on Gaius Ruber’s shoulder. “Gently, Ruber. As he says, what has my life cost you ? You shall have your pot of money without digging for it. Pass us out. Let Simon follow. Simon — ”
“Has been a Christian for seven years,” said Marcia, whispering in Cleander ’s ear.
TOOLS OF DEATH
By JAN JANECEK
A GREAT IMPROVEMENT OVER DAVID'S SLINGSHOT
A throwing machine for siege use— a pivoted arm with weight on one end and missile in a sling on the other. The "cannoneer" winds it up and then trips the beam. This weapon was used from the earliest Greek days till well past the days of Julius
Caesar — who called it a "ballista."
THE ORIGINAL BLACKJACK
THE FLAIL— A very ancient and widely used weapon, being found from the 13th to the 18th centuries in India, China and Japan. Originally, it probably was an agricultural implement, but rts effectiveness for military use was soon increased by adding spikes. Very short flails were sometimes
used by horsemen.
43
The Coasts of
FIRST OF A SERIES
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FLEECE, he made the re*
■353 fc> rnar/f i/iar “many a noble
barque, in history, hat gone to wreck an the coasts of chance f* We caught at the phrase. “There,* f tee exclaimed, **is the tub * feci for a series! Little known historical drama*, great dreams, crafty plots, where tome unforeseen pebble stubbed the toe of history!™ Maybe our metaphors were mixed, but Mr* Bed ford -Jones got the idea , as proved by this, hit first story of the series to come~*
44
Coasts of
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44
FIRST OF A SERIES
Chan ce
by H. BEDFORD-JONES
Illustrated by JAY JACKSON
lununi his JicmcI 4 link and then stif- ftncd, motionJcM, as he glimpsed the figure that stood behind him with k-vtkd sward* black."
EVENING AT THE BLACK BULL
Y FRIEND HABERLEIN comes into my ofike and calmly settles down and raises hob with my business in a most annoying manner, I can’t resist him; no one can resist him.
45
He has a hypnotic charm that amounts to genius. If he says: "Stopl” the dock on the desk ceases work — hefs that kind.
When he came in yesterday, I saw at a glance that he was all lit up; not with
Chan ce
by H. BEDFORD-JONES
Illustrated by JAY JACKSON
EVENING AT THE BLACK BULL
My friend haberlein
comes into my office and calmly settles down and raises hob with my business in a most annoying manner. 1 can't resist him; no one can resist him.
45
He has a hypnotic charm that amounts to genius. If he says : “Stop !" the dock on the desk ceases work — he's that kind.
When he came in yesterday, I saw at a glance that he was all lit up; not with
46
GOLDEN FLEECE
liquor but with a new idea. He pulled up a chair, fastened his black and glittering eye upon me, and let me have both bar¬ rels.
“Harry, I’ve been looking into history. I’m making a collection of what’s posi¬ tively the most fascinating line of stories you ever heard ! You know, a lot of queer things happened that don’t get into the his¬ tory books ; odd, trifling matters that changed the course of human events, in a greater or lesser degree. Who knows that, if a man hadn’t stopped to shave, Bona¬ parte would have gone to the guillotine? It's a fact.”
“Tell it to the marines,” I said crossly. “Here I've got a pile of work - ”
“Well, listen !” he said, and with a groan of resignation I listened. “What I've got on my mind right now, is rich stuff. In the middle of the seventeenth century, when Cromwell ruled in England and Mazarin in France, a piddling little unknown rob¬ ber baron over in Italy changed the whole course of the world’s commerce and even history; and it all happened because a scoundrelly Frenchman couldn’t keep his hands off a gal ! Can you beat that 1”
"I don’t believe it,” was my weak response. Haberlein leaned forward.
“I'll prove it to you. Leghorn, at that time, was one of the greatest free ports in the world, the greatest center of com¬ merce in the Mediterranean; even the Moslem merchants could come there un¬ molested. The English, however, had settled Leghorn heavily and were in prac¬ tical control of commerce there. Leghorn was in the territory of Tuscany, ruled by the Grand Duke, one of the fast of the old Medici family. Got it?”
I nodded. He shoved aside my papers, spread himself on the desk, and pitched in.
‘‘That's just the background. France
hated and feared England ; the war for all the commerce of the east was on, but it remained underground. With that in mind, I want you to look at the Italian coast, at the highway north of Leghorn and Florence. I want to make you see the man who was whipping his horse along, riding hell for leather, in a late afternoon. He was only a short distance outside the town of Corthia, for which he was mak¬ ing—”
The magic of that voice persuaded me, moved me. haunted me. The yellow spurt¬ ing dust of the road, the chestnut trees, the sharp Italian hills, uprose before me. And the man, who with whip and spur urged his lathered, wheezing horse along the curving road.
A little man, ferret-nosed, with very wide shoulders and very long arms, and in his sharp features a peculiar deadly ex¬ pression. At an inbend of the road, the Tavern of the Black Bull suddenly ap¬ peared, and a sigh of relief escaped him.
It was a pleasant inn, to anyone who knew not its evil name, with high oak trees shading the courtyard from the hot Italian sun. A structure half of outward stone, half built into the steep hillside.
The staggering horse clattered to a halt in the courtyard, the rider slid down. No grooms came forth; no one was in sight save the innkeeper, a burly man who stood in the entrance and emitted a cheery but wary word of greeting.
“Welcome, Ser Nicolo! Whether pur¬ suing or pursued, you’ve come to the right place! Are you followed ?”
“No, blast you ! Do I have to be a fugi¬ tive because I’m riding hard?" The little man, not so little now that he stood on his feet, stumbled stiffly across the stones. “A fresh horse, quickly! I must reach Duke Raymond of Corthia at once !”
THE COASTS OF CHANCE
"You’ll do that without killing another horse." "The duke will be here at any moment ; he’s overdue now. He’s riding out from town on business.”
"The usual business, eh ? Good !*’ Ser Nicolo dapped the other on the shoulder. "Inside ! You’re going to have business and plenty of it, in another hour or less.”
In the vast, gloomy ordinary of that sinister inn, Ser Nicolo settled himself comfortably at a table, opposite the innkeeper.
"What news?” the latter demanded. Ser Nicolo gulped down his wine and grunted.
"For Raymond, not for you."
"Careful, Ser Nicolo!” said the burly man. "You may be the most famous spadassin in Italy, your stiletto the highest priced and surest but after all, you’re a hired bravo. This is Duke Raymond’s tavern, and I’m in his con¬ fidence.”
Ser Nicolo grinned faintly. "True. News? Well, Cromwell rules in Eng¬ land, Mazarin rules France for the boy Louis, and Raymond rules in Corthia. A fine weapon, a fine gem, a fine woman — Raymond welcomes any of the three. I bring him jewels and a woman — the daughter of a Genoese merchant and her lover, a puling Frenchman. They’ll be here in an hour. Enough said?"
"Enough, aye! Hello, here's Fran¬ cesco now; his job must be finished.”
SOMEWHERE in the cavernous re¬ cesses of the place, whose immense oak beams were black with age and smoke, a massive door creaked open. A low, shuddering sound echoed faint¬ ly; the groans of a man in mortal agony. A swaggering figure came for¬ ward to the table, a stout fellow whose bare forearms and leathern apron were
47
splashed with ominous crimson; he flung down a folded parchment.
"There it is, signed and sealed and witnessed,” he said. The innkeeper took it.
"A good thing for you Raymond is late! You’ve been slow."
“I had to string up the stubborn devil three times and then go to work on him with hot pincers,” said Fran¬ cesco. "But he gave in at last. He can still walk.”
"Give him a horse and turn him loose. Then tell Maria to prepare the big upper chamber; guests are com¬ ing. Is the meal ready for Duke Ray¬ mond?1'
“Aye. And speak of the devil— there he is!”
A clatter of hooves from the court¬ yard, a ringing, impetuous voice; the host went rushing out, grooms ap¬ peared from nowhere, and the Black Bull took on life. Ser Nicolo gulped hastily at his wine and stood up to meet the man he served.
Raymond of Corthia strode in, bid¬ ding his half-dozen guards make them¬ selves scarce in the kitchens. He took the parchment, glanced at it, and tucked it away with a nod. He looked at Ser Nicolo, and came eagerly to him, like a hawk pouncing.
"What’s this? You, Nicolo? Corpo di Bacchol I thought you were in Genoa !”
Ser Nicolo bowed ; greatest assassin in Italy he might be, but to Raymond of Corthia he was mightily respectful, and with reason.
Ruler of a tiny hill-estate that was no more than a town, with a few square miles outside it, Raymond was slim and straight and powerful ; no man could stand before him with wit or weapons, and none had ever found
48
GOLDEN FLEECE
“I had ID siring up the stubborn devil three times and then, go to work on him with hot pincers.”
mercy at his hands. His dark features were all alive with a cruel and mock¬ ing energy. No woman, it was said, could resist his gay spirit and his crafty tongue. He was feared, dreaded, hated, from the Alps to Tarentum, and no one dared lift finger against him. From Venice to Naples, the threads of poli¬ tical intrigue were in his hands, and he pulled them shrewdly ; ambassadors were sent to him as to a king, for his counsel and help. He was behind the scenes on many a stage, but was still ruled by three passions greater to him than any ambition.
"So! Something’s up, eh?" He swung a chair around, sat down, poured wine and sipped it. "Weapons, jewels or women ?"
Ser Nicolo repeated his story. Ray¬
mond listened ; he was clad all in black, with a bulk to his shoulders that hinted at chain mail under the black velvet.
“I didn't see the woman ; I hear she’s fair and young," concluded Ser Nicolo. “But the two of them skipped out with all the old man’s jewels — the finest lot of gems in all Genoa, I hear. They’re headed for Rome. The Frenchman is some sort of soldier; he speaks Italian."
Raymond frowned slightly. "Hra! That's curious. The Grand Duke of Tuscany has been fool enough to dis¬ regard my advice, and let Mazarin cozen him into turning the English out of Leghorn; do away with all free trade and put Leghorn into the hands of French merchants. I’ve been ex¬ pecting some courier from Paris — well, well, this would hardly be the man, if he’s running away with a Genoese damsel! Nicolo, we’ll handle this lit¬ tle matter ourselves, you and I.”
"Gladly, my lord,” and Ser Nicolo smiled in his thin face. "Their coach¬ man is my man. That leaves the Frenchman alone. Shall I dispose of him?”
“Not before I give the signal,” Ray¬ mond glanced up, as the inukeeper ap¬ proached. “Dinner? Not yet. In half an hour; I'll have two guests to join me. Get the board ready. Keep those men of mine out of sight, and don’t let them drink too much. I may need them. Bring a flask or two of my own wine. Ha, Nicolo! You know steel. Look at this! A gift from the Grand Duke at Florence, to make up to me for disregarding my counsel. The old fool ! Think what the Medici have come to, that such a man should rule Tuscany !*’
He whipped out his sword from its sheath and Nicolo took the long straight blade, eyeing it shrewdly. A
THE COASTS OF CHANCE
49
beautiful piece of steel, with the water¬ ed markings of damascened work, in¬ laid along one side of the blade with an Arabic inscription in gold. The eyes of Ser Nicolo glittered, and Raymond laughed softly.
"You like it? Then, in testimony of my love for you, keep it I” Raymond unbuckled the belt, passed it and the scabbard across the table. "No, I in¬ sist! You need a sword, Nicolo. My dagger is all I need.”
He touched the extremely long poniard at his right hip. Ser Nicolo gulped out his thanks for the princely gift and waxed warm in his enthusi¬ asm. The eyes of Raymond dwelt upon the man for an instant, a touch of cruel amusement in their dark depths, then flitted to the table that was being set with linen and silver and Venetian glass — strange treasures to And in a roadside inn ! But then, the Black Bull was a strange place.
A MAN from outside came running in; the coach was approaching and men were posted to stop it if need were. Raymond rose and sauntered outside. There was a creaking, a rumble and a squeak of brakes, a bang¬ ing of hooves; a coach with four horses appeared and swung into the inn-yard. The driver was a gangling fellow with the scarred features of a bravo, and shaggy red hair dangling about his ears; a rogue, thought Ray¬ mond, and a rascal.
The coach door opened. A man in dark but handsome attire leaped out and burst into vehement French, to which the driver replied; master and man. Raymond gathered. As the driver pointed out, one horse was lame. Perhaps another could be procured here. The Frenchman turned to the
innkeeper, who swore that extra horses were rare as green cheese from the moon. Then Raymond stepped for¬ ward, with his graceful, gallant bow.
“Your pardon I” he said, in his most charming way. “I'm named Messire Raymond, I'm a gentleman of Corthia, and if you’ll do me the honor of join¬ ing me at dinner, it'll give me the great¬ est pleasure in the world ! The food here is superb, I assure you. The beds are like those of the blessed saints in Para¬ dise, The sun is sinking — why go far¬ ther and fare worse?”
The Frenchman’s face cleared. A face that looked young but was not ; a face outwardly handsome, but to Ray¬ mond's shrewd eye full of craft and guile and braggadocio.
"Why. messire, thank you!” he an¬ swered in Italian. “I'm the Sieur de Castelmore, a gentleman of Gascony, traveling with my wife to Rome. If this place is safe — ”
"I know of none safer in all Italy,” said Raymond, smiling. "Let your wife join us, and our happiness is complete 1 Perhaps she’d like to judge of the ac¬ commodations. Landlord! Your best room for my friends; they’ll join me at dinner, so prepare accordingly!”
The graceful assurance of Raymond settled everything, as it usually did. A man used to having his way, nearly always has it.
The Frenchman, he noted, wore a long, plain rapier; then he observed nothing else, as Castelmore handed out his traveling companion and presented Raymond to her.
She was tired; as she said frankly, they had traveled fast and hard since leaving Genoa. Yet she was radiant, lovely as a flower, so instinct with youth and character and nobility that Raymond was actually stupefied for a
50
GOLDEN FLEECE
moment. When he stooped his lips to her fingers, did they gently press his own ? When he looked into her eyes, did a flash of appeal strike out at him? He was not certain; but for an instant his heart leaped high. Debauched, de¬ praved, callous as he was to all fine things, here in this girl’s face and eyes and voice was something that stirred forgotten memories within hint.
He conducted them to the stairs. She was holding a leather casket beneath her arm, as though it were precious. Beneath the dark coat of Castclmore was a bulge, as though something pre¬ cious lay there. Promising to be back in five minutes, they departed with the host to seek their room, and Raymond went striding back to Ser Nicolo.
“My good Nicolo, you're positively a fool for once/’ he snapped. "That man is a scoundrel ; he looks young and is not. The lady is an angel ! Ten to one he’s tricked her by promises of mar¬ riage, into leaving home with her jew¬ els. She’s no common merchant’s daughter, if I know anything of char¬ acter.”
Ser Nicolo shrugged. “Her jewels, and herself as well, may be better in your keeping than in his, then.”
“Right. Keep your eye on me. When I overturn my glass, go to work on the rogue and blood your new blade. Mind you, no foolishness ! Kill him and have done.”
“With all my heart,” said Ser Nicolo, his lip twisting wolfishly. Killing was his trade.
From the hidden kitchens in the rear, which were used in summer, came fowl and meat fresh from the spits, fruit of the earth and the tree, bread and sauces galore; a very banquet to be heaped along the board, with rare wines from the private stores of Raymond. Out¬
side, the setting sun reddened and died. Inside, silver candelabra were brought out and set along the table, blazing with candles of the finest wax that gently perfumed the air as they burned.
Ser Nicolo departed to wash. The burly host came up to Duke Raymond with a low word.
“Lord, next time you have a fine sword to give away, remember me.”
“What?” Raymond looked up at him and suddenly broke into laughter. “But not such a sword as that, my honest friend ! That was a gift from the Grand Duke Ferdinand himself; and when the Medici send gifts, it pays to look well at them. Ser Nicolo, unluckily for himself, did not look too well ; and, still more unluckily, has wormed him¬ self into too many of my secrets, and his sold one or two of them to the Duke of Mantua.”
DONNA LUISA, as the girl was named, looked more radiant than ever; she had donned a dress of sky- blue velvet sewn with seed pearls, which rarely became her delicate, frag¬ ile loveliness, her pale golden hair and unafraid blue eyes. Raymond in¬ troduced Ser Nicolo as a gentleman of Padua, and the four sat down to the board, Castelmore and his lady oppo¬ site Raymond and Ser Nicolo. If the Frenchman was not amazed at sight of the Venetian glasses, a treasure such as only kings could know, the girl cer¬ tainly was.
With every passing moment, Ray¬ mond’s admiration became more pro¬ found. The girl was more French than Italian; she had an amazing grasp of practical things, even politics, and her swift intelligence delighted him. Talk¬ ing, he learned she had spent six months in Paris, with the family of
THE COASTS OF CHANCE
51
Cardinal Mazarin. Her father, it seemed, had known Mazarin. Why had she left Paris? At his question, she hesitated, slightly confused.
“The customs, the life — well, it was distasteful.” Her clear, pure eyes rest¬ ed upon him. In them he caught an¬ other flash of appeal, almost of terror. “There, they think all women are alike, given to loose ways—”
“Come, come, women were made for love!” intervened Castelmore. He did not appreciate Raymond's intense in¬ terest in the girl ; he made the fact plain. So, upon a smile, Raymond sud¬ denly turned all his attention to the Gascon, with subtle flattery.
"You’ve been in Paris? At court, perhaps? Yes, you have the manner of a courtier. Tell me, what’s the gos¬ sip about the plans between our Grand Duke and Mazarin— putting Leghorn into French hands? Come, come, it’s no secret here! I know all about it, and so do you.”
The wine was ardent, and Castel¬ more was presently persuaded to talk. He had thought the new treaty was a state secret, but since it was not —
“It’s a tremendous stroke of busi¬ ness!” be exclaimed. “For centuries Leghorn has been a free port. The English are securely entrenched there. Now that'll be changed ; out they go, and the Dutch as well! It means that the entire balance of trade and com¬ merce in the Mediterranean will be al¬ tered, will be swung to France!”
"It means more than that," Duke Raymond said softly. “It means war! The English will stir up Venice, Rome and other states against Tuscany. The French will go to war. Armies will be inarching through Italy — and J do not like that. It will be bad business for me. I should tike to stop this treaty.”
The Gascon bellowed with laughter. “You, stop the diplomacy of France? That’s a good one! You, change the plans of Mazarin? That’s rich! No, no, my friend! The Cardinal has al¬ ready arranged with your Grand Duke, has approved the proposals, has draft¬ ed with his own hand the final terms! Once approved by your Grand Duke, the French envoy in Florence will set¬ tle the matter and draw up the treaty. Then the fat’s in the fire, eh? And you talk of stopping it I As well stop the finger of destiny!”
“Perhaps,” said Duke Raymond, smiling, "even that is not beyond my power.” and with his hand he knocked over his priceless Venetian glass, and broke it.
Just what happened was not very clear, at least to the staring, bewil¬ dered, quivering Donna Luisa; but to the cynically amused Raymond, it was clear as daylight. Castelmore, like all Gascons, was a swelling fount of brag¬ gadocio. Ser Nicolo was gentle, but terrible and deadly as a viper. Words rose high, and Ser Nicolo slapped the Gascon across the face; with this, steel scraped out of scabbard.
Donna Luisa cried frantic protest, but Raymond's fingers clamped down on her wrist, his smiling, intent eyes pierced into hers, his voice gripped at her,
“Quiet, madonna, quiet! He is not your husband. Didn’t you ask to be relieved of him? Well, keep your mouth shut and see what happens.”
What happened was that honor de¬ manded blood ; and all was done very courteously, as between gentlemen. At Duke Raymond’s suggestion, the two doffed doublets and went to the wide hearth, before the great spits that were not used in summer; and, again at his word, the steel crossed and clanered.
52
GOLDEN FLEECE
Silent, pale as death, the girl watched.
The art of fence was not, in this day, greatly practiced. It was cut and come again, sword in one hand, dagger in the Dther; steel was made for killing, not for the light fantasy of fencing. The Gascon was a shrewd, strong, master¬ ful swordsman, but the eye of Ray¬ mond saw that Ser Nicolo, with his long arms and nimble skill, was the better man at this business.
’’r'HEY fought, with mounting flame l of fierce rage, with clash of steel ind rasp of hot oaths — and suddenly there was a snap, a clang, a wild cry. Ser Nicolo’s blade flew asunder; the Gascon's long steel drove past his guarding poniard, drove through his throat, and stood out a span behind the nape of his neck.
“Ah 1” observed Duke Raymond, on
the sudden silence. *'I was right. That gold inlay did extend too far through the steel ; it's very lucky I was not using that sword myself ! That is, lucky for me. Unlucky, let us say, for the Grand Duke, who gave it to me.”
He glanced around. The innkeeper was standing among the shadows, watching the proceedings. At a slight gesture from Raymond, he disappeared.
Castelmore. panting, freed his weap¬ on, He wiped it and slid it into his scabbard.
"The devil!” he exclaimed. "Now I’ve killed the rascal !”
"You certainly have,” said Raymond coolly. "And there’s a law in Cortliia that anyone who kills a man in duel, is hanged by the neck until he’s very, very dead.”
The Gascon stared at him from blood¬ shot eyes.
THE COASTS OF CHANCE
“It was forced upon me!” he burst out. “Besides, no such law applies to me. I’m not a subject of Corthia. I enjoy diplomatic immunity! I bear a message from the court of France to the Grand Duke of Tuscany! Letters to the Grand Duke himself!"
“So I thought." said Raymond pleas¬ antly. “It's nice to have the question settled. But all the same, the law ap¬ plies to you.”
There was a stir In the shadowed recesses of the great room. Figures appeared ; armed men came forward. Two of them held pistols, and advanced upon either side of the Gascon, and the pistols were cocked.
“Your sword, messire,” said a third, coming up behind Castelmore.
The latter knew himself trapped and lost. He glared, helpless; he found frantic voice.
"I thought there was something queer about all this! Who are you? Who arc these men? What does it all mean ?’’
Raymond smiled. “It means that the law of Corthia is enforced, for I am the law — I, Duke Raymond of Corthia! Take him outside and hang him, and do it quickly. But first, give me the folded packet that is under his shirt.”
The packet of papers was given him. Donna Luisa, staring at him with eyes of horror, uttered one shrill cry of pro¬ test and appeal — it ended in a gasp, and she fell back in her chair, in a dead faint.
The Gascon, bellowing curses, was dragged out. Raymond glanced at the innkeeper.
“Where is that man of mine, Mario, the scrivener? Drunk, as usual?”
“Well on the road, lord.”
“Hold his head in the horse-trough, sober him. send him here.”
53
Cutting with his stiletto the silk cord bound about the documents, Raymond laid them out. Here was the passport of Sieur de Castelmore, a lengthy vel¬ lum signed in the sprawling boyish hand of the French king. Here were other documents in Italian, which had been sent to Mazarin from Florence; these were sealed again with the Car¬ dinal’s seal. And lastly was a letter addressed to the Grand Duke in the Cardinal’s hand, also sealed with Ma- zarin’s seal. Raymond eyed them, and reflected, half aloud.
“Hm ! Suppose I turn all these over to the Venetians or the English — at least, threaten to do so? The Grand Duke might or might not be forced to give up the scheme. He's a stubborn old devil, though, and these Medici are all tricky — hm ! No, the safest w*ay is to make him so utterly and absolutely furious at the worthy Cardinal Mazarin that he’ll drop the whole affair."
A spluttering, dripping, white faced figure shambled forward; this was the scribe, Mario, once a clever man, now an arrant rogue. Two others came in, lifted the body of Ser Nicolo, and bore it away.
Raymond rose, quaffed his wine, and stooped above the figure of the uncon¬ scious girl. Admiration glowed in his eyes. He leaned down and gently brushed her cheek with his lips, and straightened up.
“Is she not a precious, lovely thing, Mario? Like a tender flower. She’s lost a poor lover this night, and gained a better one; truly, the dispensations of Providence are wonderful! Well, well, to business. You have vellum, I think, and ink, and brains? We need them, Mario. We’ve used your clever brains often, and now must use them again.”
“At— at your service, lord,” fumbled
GOLDEN FLEECE
54
out the scrivener. Duke Raymond picked up the sealed letter.
’’Remove the outer sea! very care¬ fully, without breaking it, so we can use it again. This letter is doubtless in the hand of a secretary; Cardinal Mazarin is an Italian, and it will be written in Italian, being for the eye of the Grand Duke himself. Now, get to work. There’ll be an inner seal, so be mindful of that also; it will bear the Lilies of France, and we must be very careful of such precious flowers. Copy ail the preamble of the letter; when you reach the body of it, bring them both to me and I'll dictate what’s to be said.”
M ARIO took the vellum and de¬ parted. Duke Raymond pock¬ eted the other documents, and with a sigh of satisfaction, laid aside the mat¬ ter temporarily. He went again to the girl, lifted her head, and poured a swallow of wine between her lips. She choked, and sat up, staring around. Then, meeting his eyes, she shrank in sudden memory.
"No, no — it must have been a dream 1 Where is he?”
"Hanged,” said Raymond amiably. "And good riddance to you, also to the world.”
"But you — you !” She stared wild eyed, her bosom rising and falling to sharp breaths. “You can’t be that frightful man, that beast, of whom all Italy has heard ! You can’t be Duke Raymond; the murderer, the ravisher, the soulless betrayer of everything and everyone! The brother of Satan him¬ self, they call him !”
"No, my dear, no. If I were Satan’s brother, then I’d assuredly be an angel 1 However, I’m Raymond of Corthia, and I love you,”
She started. "Love? Oh, you foul beast I”
“Ah, but listen 1” said he, and began to speak very earnestly, of himself and his life and the charges against him; of good and evil, of lust and of love, and of many things beside.
Now, there was this about Raymond of Corthia : By the magic of his tongue he had the power of charming man, woman or beast, and could make white seem any color he desired, and could bring tears to the sternest eyes. When he was excommunicate and with a price of ten thousand scudi on his head for the murder of his brother, did he not steal unknown into Rome, gain audi¬ ence with the Holy Father, and in half an hour convince him that Raymond of Corthia was an innocent man ? And it is well known how he cozened the Duke of Milan, who had wounded and captured him, into becoming for a lit¬ tle while his greatest friend and ally.
Thus, it might be expected that this guileless girl would straightway yield to his magic and, like all other women, become his loving victim; but to his great astonishment she did not.
True, she became quiet, calm, thoughtful; she lost her resentment and horror ; she even smiled a little and suffered the touch of his hand on hers, and sipped her wine. Yet, when he looked into her eyes. Raymond found there something cool and beautiful and assured, which entirely baffled him. It was like a piece of shining mail which the keenest sword could not pierce.
‘T’ve heard many terrible things about you, Duke Raymond,” she said quietly, when he paused. "It’s said that you have an unbridled passion for fine weapons, for glowing jewels, for lovely women. I should be afraid of you ; but I am not.”
THE COASTS OF CHANCE
55
And she was not, as he perceived. "Then.” he said quickly, "you like me a little?”
"I do not like you at all.” she replied calmly. "I met the Sieur de Castel- more when I was in Paris; and it seemed I was in love with him. He came to Genoa, stayed three days, and persuaded me to fly with him. Then, too late, I discovered that he was an arrant rascal, seeking only to beguile me and steal my jewels. Yet I think I was far safer with that man, than I am with you.”
"Sweet dove, I’d not harm you for the world!” protested Raymond. She looked at him, unsmiling. "Sec, now! I’ve rid you of that scoundrel. When you came here, when I met you, I read the appeal in your eyes.”
"I thought you were a gentleman,” she said quietly. “Those jewels arc all I have in the world; take them, keep them, if you’ll let me go back to Genoa.”
"Tomorrow?” he said quickly.
"Now.”
A laugh touched his lips. "No, lit¬ tle dove! I’ve not seen the jewels; but I’ve seen you, and you're the most precious jewel of all. You’ve brought me the greatest luck in the world. If that Gascon had kept his hands off you, I’d never have caught him. I have spies watching for any courier from Paris, and they failed completely; they did not even dream he was the courier, nor at first did I. But see! He’s hanged. War and armies are averted, the wily Mazarm’s plans arc spoiled. You’re here, and you shall go to Corthta with me, and love me as I love you!”
The scrivener Mario came shuffling forward, and laid before Raymond two sheets of fine vellum. One was the letter from Mazarin, denuded of its
seals; the other, identical in size, was that on which he had copied the pre¬ amble of the letter,
Raymond scrutinized them both, and his eye lit up. The forgery was perfect.
"Mario, you’re a jewel ! Finish this task, and you shall be drunk for a month, and wench yourself to death if you’ve a mind! You’ve a quill and ink? Take down what I want written in the tetter; and mind you copy Ma- zarin’s signature with care!”
He dictated what he desired the French Cardinal to say to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and laughed softly as he dictated. It was a letter which abandoned all thought of the Leghorn scheme, a letter so filled with con¬ temptuous insult and sly thrusts as to drive the prince of the Medici into a foaming fury.
And all the while, Donna Luisa sat, sipping her wine, and listened.
“That’s all,” concluded Raymond. “Faith, the Grand Duke will be purple in the face when he reads it! Seek that rascal, Jean Gontter, of my guards, and send him here. He’s a Frenchman — or was — and has a nimble wit.”
The scrivener withdrew, and a mo¬ ment later one of the guards strode across the huge chamber and saluted the duke. Raymond extended the king’s passport.
“Take this, Frenchman; from this moment you’re the Sieur de Castel- morc, a Gascon gentleman, hearing des¬ patches from Paris to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Take my own black horse and the letter I’ll give you presently. Ride like the devil to Florence, deliver the letter to the Grand Duke in per¬ son, and then get out of Florence be¬ fore he reads the letter and has a mind to hang the messenger.” He tossed the man a purse. "Here’s gold ; twice as much
GOLDEN FLEECE
56
if you return safe, your errand done.”
THE man saluted and departed.
Raymond relaxed, leaning back in his chair; he filled a glass with wine and drank it off, and met the calm, thoughtful gaze of Donna Luisa. He smiled suddenly.
"What, little dove? The prospect's not so bad after all, eh ? Tomorrow we'll be in Corthia. You'll have a palace, with riches, velvets, servants, horses, friends —whatever your heart desires!”
"My heart desires virtue,” she said calmly. Raymond chuckled.
"At the moment, no doubt; you’ll get over that, my dear. You’re no hysterical lass to clap a dagger through her heart because a man has kissed her t A tear or two, a scream or two, per¬ haps a blow or two; then you’ll settle down to enjoy the advantages that life of¬ fers the most beautiful woman in Italy.”
She regarded him steadily, medita¬ tively.
"A liar,” she said reflectively. "A man with a heart so cold and selfish- callous that he's lost all perception of goodness. Poor Raymond 1” Her blue eyes softened. “I do pity you, so small and petty a thing you are, when with your talents you might have grown so great !”
A slight flush crept into his cheeks, for it was evident that she meant her words.
“The devil 1” He stared at her, and laughed shortly. Then he glanced around, at shuffling steps. It was the scrivener, Mario, and with him the French guard.
Raymond looked at the two vellum letters; the writing was identical, the signatures were identical. The true letter he crumpled up. The false let¬ ter, with its inner seal and tie of twist¬ ed vellum, he folded over and gave back to Mario.
"Perfect,” he said crisply. “Apply the outer seal and give it to the Sieur de Castelmore. And you. Frenchman, remember my words! Once you’ve de¬ livered it, get out of Florence quickly !”
"No danger, lord; I’ll remember.” With a grin, the man departed.
Raymond leaned back again, sipped his wine, met the steady eye of Donna Luisa. A silence fell ; presently came voices from the courtyard, a ring and click of hooves, and the shouted fare¬ well of the messenger as he departed.
And Raymond, eyeing the girl, found a slow, mocking smite on her lips.
"What amuses you, little dove?" be demanded. "The thought of tomorrow and Corthia?”
"No; the thought of tonight, and the Black Bull. I suppose,” she said soft¬ ly, with a lift of her brows, "you could overtake and bring back that messen¬ ger, if you wished?”
"Mounted on my own black Arab, and with orders to speed, not the devil himself could overtake that man 1” said Raymond confidently. "Why do yon ask such a question?”
“You’ll learn soon enough. Are you going to order out my coach, with ftesh horses, and let me go back to Genoa —here and now?”
“I am not," he said with cool amuse¬ ment. "Instead, we’re going upstairs, together. And there, you shall show me those jewels of yours ; not that I want them, little dove, for you shall deck yourself in them to delight my eye, and at Corthia you shall have such jewels as you’ve never seen before I”
"Indeed f Again she smiled, slight¬ ly, mysteriously. "Tell me something; is it true there’s a price of five thou¬ sand crowns on your head?”
"In Venice, aye,” he said, and laughed lightly. "They’ve offered that
THE COASTS OF CHANCE
57
for my death. It’ll never be collected; I’ve had more than that offered for me, in vain ! Where did you hear of it?”
“In Genoa,” she said.
Something in her manner wakened a vague uneasiness in him ; he eyed her warily, and could not guess at what lay in her mind. Then, catching sight of the innkeeper, he beckoned; the other came forward.
"Light our chamber, above.”
"It is already lighted,” said the land¬ lord. "I placed lights in it when they first went up. But, my lord! That rascally coachman of theirs, he of the shaggy red hair, has vanished. There were no orders to put him in a cell ; he must have stolen forth and taken to his heels.”
Raymond burst out laughing, and rose.
"So much the better! We’re rid of him easily. Come, my dear!” He bowed to Donna Luisa, and extended his arm. She rose, and her enigmatic smile touched him again for an in¬ stant before she accepted his arm. Raymond flung a glance and a word at the innkeeper. "On no account, dis¬ turb us! Tell my men to make them¬ selves comfortable.”
They went to the stairs; a flicker¬ ing cresset there lighted the way.
THE door to the chamber above stood open. Donna Lnisa passed in ; Ray mond followed, then closed the massive door and bolted it.
It was a large room, with casement windows ; on the table by the windows stood an iron candelabrum in which two candles were burning. By this reposed Donna Luisa’s casket of leath¬ er. The luggage was on the Boor near¬ by. The remainder of the room was shadowy, obscure. A huge festered
bed in one corner; huge armoires along the walls, to serve as closets; huge beams overhead, all huge, dark, omi¬ nous with flickering shadows.
Donna Luisa went to the table, took out a little key, set it to the casket and threw back the lid. She glanced side¬ ways at Duke Raymond,
"Do you care to see the jewels?”
"Bah ! Such jewels as a shopkeep¬ er’s daughter might own; not the sort of gems you shall have tomorrow, the sort of gems to become you, madonna 1” With a scornful laugh, he took a hand¬ ful of broad gold pieces from his pocket and tossed them on the table. "There’s the worth of double your jewels, little dove !”
She drew a deep breath, closed the lid of the casket, and turned to him. He caught her suddenly, kissing her lips, her eyes, her lips again. She did not struggle or resist, but stood pas¬ sive until he held her away, looking at her. Then her eyes smote him.
"There are two things, Raymond, you do not know,” she said calmly. "First, since leaving Genoa and discov¬ ering the true nature of that brute who had beguiled me, I took measures to protect myself from him; these same measures will protect me against you.”
Her quiet, unexcited assurance would have been staggering at any other mo¬ ment, but now passion was flaming in Raymond's brain. He uttered a wild laugh.
"Yes? I’ll repay your confidence with another, madonna! A little while ago you said I might have become great; well, I shall become great! I have my plans laid. Soon I go to Rome — Rome, you understand? And Rome shall become mine. You shall go with me; you shall become mistress of Rome, little dove I”
She regarded him steadily, her blue
GOLDEN FLEECE
58
eyes unafraid, untouched, unmoved.
“No/' she said. “I have warned you, Raymond. Now, before telling you the second thing you don’t know, 1 appeal to you.” Her voice became soft, ten¬ der, musical. "Look at me, Raymond ; I’m not the sort of woman to serve your lust. I beg of you, spare me ; act like the prince you should be, and spare me, send me on my way ! Do this, and blessings will fall upon you. Refuse, and all your ambitions shall end in dis¬ aster and death and misery. It is yours to choose, between blessing and curse 1"
Again was that queer shining thing in her eyes, which stirred such old for¬ gotten memories in him ; for one in¬ stant, a sense of shame came upon him, so that his grip on her shoulders loos¬ ened. Then the loveliness of her, and passionate desire, swept away all else; he crushed her against him, crushed her lips to his own.
“That for warnings and blessings alike!” he exclaimed, vigorously. “How do you like that. answer, little dove?”
“It brooks only one reply,” she said quietly, “What about the other mes¬ senger to Florence, with the duplicate letter from Mazarin?”
His eyes dilated. Passion died out of his features; they tightened, hard¬ ened, stiffened ; his hands relaxed their grip. She went on speaking, calmly.
"Another messenger, Raymond, dis¬ guised, going by a different route. You could still catch him, stop him! But you don’t know who he is, or where to find him. Castelmore knew, but you hanged him and lie can’t tell. I can tell, I alone!”
In a flash, Raymond saw all his plans and triumph going to smash. The wily Mazarin, taking no chances on a sin¬ gle messenger; his own forgery now on the way to Florence, only to be dis¬
credited; and Duke Ferdinand would make him rue that forgery bitterly.
“Then tell — tell me quickly. Do you hear, woman? Quickly!”
“No, Raymond; why should I tell? I’m in your power, and you refuse to spare me; well, do your worst! Tor¬ ture me, if you like; whip me, rack me, burn me— can you make me tell? You cannot.”
And, looking into her eyes, he knew he could not. Fury rose in him ; knot¬ ted veins stood out upon his forehead, his hands clenched. And, in the back of Ins brain, was a rising tide of fear —dismay and fear, for his ghastly error.
“I must know, I must know!” he said in a stifled voice. “What do you want?”
“Freedom,” she returned curtly.
“Very well,” he said, and checked himself.
ALMOST she had won her play.
He was shaken, helpless, beaten. Then, as he looked into her eyes, he suddenly sensed something there — something that again stopped his pulses, telegraphed his brain, wakened his faculties. And he remembered, for the first time, that the proposals from Grand Duke Ferdinand had been en¬ closed in that letter from Mazarin. His head lifted, his shoulders squared, and with a slow smile he put out his hands again and gripped her arms.
“Clever! Little dove, you’re clever!” he murmured. “But you forgot one thing. You lie! You lie!”
The blue depths fronting him were abruptly stricken with terror, and at this, he became quite certain.
“No, no! I tell you— ”
“Tell me no more,” he said, and drew her slowly to him. “The letters from Tuscany to Paris were in this packet
THE COASTS OF CHANCE
59
—this alone. There was no duplicate letter from Mazarin, There was no other messenger. Ah, you played it well ! I love you all the more for the game, madonna! Kiss me, kiss me, yield to destiny and happiness — ”
Fear, horror, consternation were in her face; she tried to struggle, and could not. He pressed her to him, sought her lips eagerly, joyously — and, in this instant, felt something touch the back of his neck. Something sharp, that pricked his flesh ; something cold, that chilled his brain.
He turned his head a little and then stiffened, motionless, as he glimpsed the figure that stood behind him with leveled sword blade. A gangling fig¬ ure, a face scarred and evil, framed in shaggy, dangling red hair. It was the driver of the coach, the servant of the Frenchman,
From Raymond's nerveless hands, Donna Luisa drew away unhindered.
“Excellency, keep your arms as they are; up! Don't move, or the point drives home."
"You fool! I’m Raymond of Cor¬ tina!”
“I know it,” and the harsh voice cackled a laugh. "And I’ll get five thou¬ sand crowns at Venice for skewering you ! So stand steady.”
Raymond obeyed. He turned his head again and looked at Donna Luisa. With a bit of lace, she was wiping her lips, wiping away the touch of his caresses. She was white and still and proud as she met his gaze.
“I warned you,” she said calmly, "I told you I'd made my plans. I bribed this man to serve me ; he was willing to kill his master, he’s willing to kill you.”
"Fool!” said Raymond. “I’ll give you fifty thousand crowns to leave this room !”
"Aye! And then you’d string me up. I’ve heard of you. excellency; I play safe, and you die here. Or else you stay bound and gagged while we