"IN THE CLOAK OF TWO COLORS"
Marsyas turned on the gilded couch, threw off the light covering and
sat up. A Syrian slave thrust aside the heavy drapery over the
cancelli, which had been drawn in the atrium while the young man slept.
In the brilliant light of the Roman mid-afternoon, Marsyas looked
sleepily at the slave that bowed beside him, and the courier that stood
near by.
"A message for thee," the slave said.
Marsyas put out his hand and the courier laid in it a package wrapped
in silk. Marsyas broke the seal and read the contents.
"O MARSYAS:
"Gossip hath it now that thou art no longer confused when a woman
addresses thee: wherefore I write with less trepidation and more
confidence.
"I am in Rome these seven days, under my father's roof, for a little
space before we are commanded to join Caesar in Capri. In this time I
have not seen thee nor thy lord.
"If not myself, then perchance the news I bring from Alexandria may
urge thee to accept the invitation I extend.
"There exists no greater claim than thine upon my hospitality.
"Come thou, and make me welcome in mine own city.
"JUNIA."
Marsyas sprang up, the last of the languor gone from his face.
"Thou shalt conduct me," he said to the messenger.
He disappeared in the direction of his cubiculum.
In a time longer than he had consumed in his old Essenic days to
prepare himself for the streets he came again into Agrippa's atrium.
It was hard to recognize in him the picturesque Jewish ascetic that had
bent over the scroll in the great college of Jerusalem. He had
permitted the blade to come at his hair and beard; the kerchief had
been replaced by the fillet; the cloak and gown by the scarlet tunic
and mantle, the daylight had been let in on his fine limbs, and there
was the fugitive glitter of jewels on his fingers and arms. He had
assumed perfumes and polishes, had laid aside all his oriental habit
and had become not only a Roman but an exquisite. The change was not
all in his dress; the indefinable something that marks the man of
experience was upon him and the ascetic blankness was gone from his
brow.
He signed to the messenger to follow, and passing out of the house and
down the long banks of marble steps which led up to Agrippa's
magnificent eyrie on the brink of the Quirinal, entered a lectica that
awaited him in the streets.
Years are not time enough to weary one of Rome.
Marsyas had come into the capital with a spirit benumbed by a great
shock, so that the first day he walked the imperial streets he was less
conscious of their wonders than he was at this hour.
He was borne through narrow lanes that were like clefts between heights
of marble, under arches, chronicling the solemn consummation of
triumph, along crowding pillars that arose out of the ravines between
the seven hills, and, catching the sunlight on their white capitals,
cast it down in the gloom of the depressions. Glories clambered up the
bosom of the Esquiline; templed sanctity crowned the Aventine, and
might in marble and gold sat on the Palatine. Between were splendor
and squalor, confused, for only beauty stood up above the miseries and
defilement that made Rome hateful in its unsunned ways.
The feebleness of unwieldy and disunited multitudes cumbered the
Carinae, along which he passed. Starvation and the excess of plenty,
power and abject subjection, unspeakable depravity and innocence met
and passed. The slaves preceding the young man's litter made way for
it with staff and pilum, or again it made way for slaves bearing fasces
and maces. He did not proceed unnoticed. Albucilla, widow of Satrius
Secundus, in a litter with Cneius Domitius, turned from the languid
senator at her side to cast a bewitching smile at the young Essene;
Ennia, wife of Macro, the praetorian prefect, leaned from her litter to
cry him an invitation.
"To Tusculum! Come with us!"
"Many thanks: yet I would the invitation came to-morrow!"
"It shall," she said in answer and was borne on. Running slaves pushed
by him to overtake her chair, and Marsyas knew without looking that the
lectica they bore contained Caligula, Caesar's grand-nephew. Agrippina,
a young matron in a chair, with a month-old babe in her arms, cast a
sidelong glance out of her black eyes at the young man as he
approached. Stupid old Claudius, clad in a purple-edged toga and
stumbling as he walked, acknowledged the precedence Marsyas gave him
with a smile and a greeting. As the young Jew was borne on he did not
realize that he had made room for three coming Caesars in the Carinae.
After them streamed a great number of patricians in chairs, all
proceeding to the races at Tusculum, but Marsyas' bearers turned off
the Carinae and began to mount the Esquiline. In a few minutes he was
set down before a small, newly-erected house as classic as a Greek
temple, as compact as a fortification.
The messenger bowed him into the hands of the atriensis, who led him
into the vestibule and left him for a moment. Presently, a
soft-footed, scantily-clad boy bowed gracefully beside him and begged
him to follow. He was led into Junia's atrium.
The Roman woman, who had been lounging in a chair at the cancelli,
turned languidly, and sprang up in feigned surprise. But honest
feeling came into her face as she looked at the changed man that stood
before her.
"Welcome!" she cried, hastening to meet him. "Would thou wast a god!
Perchance there would be despatch about answering prayers!"
"Give the gods as welcome a supplication, and the answer would come
riding upon Jupiter's thunderbolts!" he responded.
She laughed and shook her finger at him.
"How hopeless a ruin thou art! A Jew speaking of the gods!" He led
her to a chair, and, drawing one up beside her, sat. With bright eyes
and a little changing smile she inspected him for a moment.
"It is true!" she cried at last. "And I do not like to see it! Thou
art indeed changed; no longer the sincere Jew that I met in Alexandria."
"A Jew, lady, nevertheless," he answered. "But tell me of thyself, and
after that of them that remain in Alexandria."
"No: thou canst not avert the preachment I have ready for thee. All
thy misdeeds are known to me. When I forewarned thee of the various
attributes of Rome, I did not add that Rome talks! I have heard how
thou hast put chaplets on thy head, reclined at feasts and upset half a
score of merry running courtships in the capital. I see thee, how thou
hast put off thy sober habit and got into raiment that makes thee
thrice and four times more deadly to the hearts of women. And thou an
Essene! Prayerfully hoping to return into the peace and inertia of the
salty desert of En-Gadi--some time! Overshadowing the Herod till in
very despair he hath taken to racing and left the triclinia and the
atria to thee! Fie and for shame, Marsyas!"
The young man smiled a little bitterly. Cypros' charge had not been
difficult, since his Essenism had been the obstacle which lay between
him and that love he would have, though it cost him his soul!
"But Rome enlarges," he protested. "Agrippa chaseth the elusive bubble
of Fortune: and I--having a purpose to be achieved in his success--I
speed him--in mine own way. But enough of ourselves. Tell me of
Alexandria!"
"But wait! I have not done. The charm of beauty hath lost its potency
here in Rome, where it is the business of every one to be beautiful.
The charm of riches is debased because of its great prevalence, since
every one hath his honor to sell, and honor commands the highest price.
The charm of rank is dissolved, for there is no rank with a centurion's
son bearing the aegis, and freedmen dispensing hospitality in the
mansions of the ancient Quirites! Wherefore there is only one rare,
unpurchasable charm--newness--and Roman society speedily dulls the
luster of that, if one stoops to flourishing socially. Beware, my
Marsyas!"
He remembered that she had always been concerned for his uprightness,
in a strangely unspiritual way. He had heard of upright atheists;
somehow she seemed to belong in that category with her moral, but
irreligious chidings. Now, she was bearing him welcome testimony that
he had changed.
"Be neither frequent nor democratic. Saith Agricola, the pleb,
'Brutus, the senator, is nobody; he speaks to me!' By Castor! I had
rather endure the contempt of the great than the approval of the small.
Wherefore, save thyself, as a rare wine, fit for only imperial feasts.
And lest thou be lonely meantime, let me amuse thee."
"How can I expect it, when thou wilt not tell me now what I wish?" he
complained.
"But this is trial of thy gallantry: I have as great a curiosity as
thine. So thou wilt wait for me. Thou hast been in Rome four months.
Tell me what happened in that time."
Marsyas slipped down in his chair and clasped his hands back of his
head.
"None leads a droning life who associates with Agrippa," he said. "I
have not seen a restful hour since I met him in Judea. Nay, then; hear
me. He landed at Capri, on the invitation of the emperor, and repaired
to the palace where, with the same grace that hath made me and others
his slaves, he won back in a single audience all the favor that he had
forfeited in twenty years. He came away radiant and under promise to
return the following night, and dine with the emperor. But the next
morning, who should drop anchor in the bay but Herrenius Capito, livid
with wrath because he had been outwitted at every turn by Agrippa. One
would think it were he whom Agrippa owed, so indecent his fervor in
reporting him. What followed but that the same imperial hand which had
been stretched in welcome to the prince one day, was, the next,
extended in banishment over him."
"What misfortune!" Junia exclaimed, half in sympathy, half in irony.
"Ate, herself, must be the patron genius of the Herod."
"Hot upon Herrenius' heels came Vitellius' contubernalis, with a
warrant for me, but we, meanwhile, had taken ship and sailed for Ostia.
And hear me, when I say, that some rabid foe had dropped the
information of our whereabouts, in Judea! I repaired to Rome, borrowed
three hundred thousand drachmae of Antonia, the _univira_, and
despatched messengers to Caesar and Herrenius Capito telling that the
debt so long overlooked had been paid, before my pursuer reached Rome.
So we laid the ghost of our debts. But feeling unhappy owing no man, I
immediately borrowed a million drachmae of Thallus, Caesar's freedman,
repaid Antonia, and established ourselves magnificently on the
Quirinal. Hence, being in debt and in favor again, we have nothing to
trouble us but the serious pursuit of our respective ambitions. But--!"
He stopped abruptly.
"O prescient contingent!" she said softly. "Does the Herod dally with
his opportunities?"
"Worse: he affronts them! Worse: those opportunities are not alone for
him! Part of them are mine!"
Her lips shaped an exclamation, but he went on.
"Listen; it is a proper sending on thee, for insisting on plunging me
into narrative. An oriental story-teller and a circle make no end.
Even as thou saidst to me in Alexandria so many weeks ago, Rome looketh
two ways for a new Emperor. Here is the little Tiberius, Drusus' son,
and there is Caligula, Caesar's grandnephew. Now Caesar seeth in the
little Tiberius a successor. Fatuous dotage! The praetorians are
stubbornly attached to Caligula, because forsooth he wore miniature
boots like theirs when he tumbled about in the peplus of an infant.
The reason is good enough to be a woman's! Be it as it may, that lean,
sallow, gluttonous Caligula is brow-marked for the crown!"
"_Hercle_! but thou art as good an image-maker with words as Phidias
was with a stone!"
"Patience! On a certain day, Agrippa and I went without the Porta
Esquilina to get into our chariots and drive to Tusculum. Many were
going, as many go every day. We had mounted our car, with
Eutychus--would he were at the bottom of the Tiber!--as charioteer,
when young Tiberius came and mounted his, and Caligula came and mounted
his. After them directly followed a cohort of praetorians. Their
bright armor, their noise, their steady undeviating advance, frightened
little Tiberius' horses, which backed into Caligula's chariot and
frightened his pair. The four bolted at once; the chariots upset and
both princes were spilled on the ground directly in front of the
advancing cohort.
"The tribune hastily brought up the column and Tiberius and Caligula
were helped to their feet. The lad withdrew to the roadside, but
Caligula turned upon the soldiers and flung camp-jokes at them, so
broad, so bold, so rough, that, at first chuckling, then roaring, the
whole cohort burst into a great shout in honor of their favorite.
"Meanwhile, Eutychus had permitted his horses by bad management to
become unruly. Agrippa seized the lines away from him and lashed him
across the shoulders once or twice, to the great rage of the
charioteer. I had in the meanwhile to alight and quiet the animals.
Agrippa then drove toward Tiberius to offer him the hospitality of his
chariot, while the slaves were pursuing the runaways. The boy saw him
coming, understood the prince's intent and handed his cloak to a slave
preparatory to mounting Agrippa's car, when the cohort began to cheer
Caligula.
"What did Agrippa, then, but wheel his horses, drive over to the
soldiers' favorite and take him into the car!"
"What! Did that thing openly?"
"Deliberately! The boy paled, flushed, and whirling about, stalked
back inside of the walls, before I could invent an excuse to cover
Agrippa's slight. And after him rushed a crowd of senators and
aediles--his umbrae--to feed his hate of the Herod!"
"What did Agrippa, then?" Junia asked after a dismayed silence.
"He was long gone up the road to Tusculum with Caligula by that time."
"It is not hard to guess how he lost Fortune before," Junia declared.
"He plays at legerdemain with Caesar's favor," Marsyas said, annoyed at
his own narrative. "Tiberius, most solemnly commended the boy Tiberius
to Agrippa's care and companionship. Caesar will hear of this!"
"Inevitably! Tale-bearing is a fine art in Rome and Tiberius is its
patron. And thus he conducts himself in the face of Cypros' peril, who
gave herself in hostage for him that he might succeed!"
"Cypros' peril!" Marsyas repeated, with startled eyes.
"Of Flaccus!"
Marsyas' astonishment was not pleasant.
"Why of Flaccus?" he asked.
"What! Hath Agrippa kept his counsel, thus long? Dost thou not know
that Flaccus hath an eye to the timid Cypros and Agrippa, discovering
it, all but killed Flaccus in a passage back of the temple, on the
night of the Dance of Flora?"
Marsyas looked at her steadily.
"How much dost thou know of this thing?" he demanded.
"Can I know too much of it?" she asked plaintively.
"No!" he answered penitently.
"Then I know all of it, cause, process and result," she declared.
"Tell it me, then!"
"Nay, then; Flaccus was in love with Cypros in Rome, when she was sent
here twenty years ago to marry Agrippa. So much he loved her, that
twenty years after, when next he met her, his old passion was
revived--stronger, less submissive and more dangerous than that of his
youth. Whether or not he spoke of it to Agrippa, or simply betrayed
himself, the night of the Feast, is not patent; nevertheless the
proconsul was discovered half-killed, in an alley back of the Temple of
Rannu, and the Herod had sailed suddenly and without farewell to
Cypros, in the night."
"How didst thou learn of this?"
"O simple youth! Is it then so common in Judea for powers to be
discovered with their hearts stunned, that no comment is made upon it?
Or perchance thou givest Flaccus credit for suffering in silence? That
is better. Know, however, that he was discovered by the constabulary,
and straightway such an outcry was never heard in Alexandria. But the
proconsul aroused and cut it off in full voice. And there he made an
error. He was made to be a straightforward man; he is too cumbrous to
be a knave. So speculation ran abroad in whispers, till the true cause
was unearthed."
"And Cypros?"
"Cypros? Now canst thou, knowing Cypros, ask of her expecting any
change? Beautiful statues do not change. What they express when they
are finished they express until they are broken. When she came from
under the sculptor's chisel, she was made to love her husband, and her
babes, to believe whatever is told her, be beautiful, simple and good."
"So much the more Flaccus must have distressed her!"
"She does not suspect him!"
"What!"
"Amazement, at times, gentle sir, is reproach; wherefore since I am the
author of this device, thou wilt be less astounded and, so, more
complimentary. I knew that Cypros, being sweet, simple and guileless,
would do no more than treat the proconsul with bitter disdain
thereafter, and precipitate a climax, which in my opinion would entail
twenty diverse calamities. I know Flaccus, I have sent the plummet to
the bottom of his oceanic nature. I also know that the Lady Herod is
an anomaly in her family, clean, faithful and loving. So with Agrippa
out of reach, the proconsul may conspire all he pleases to alienate the
princess from her Arab, in vain. Wherefore I permitted the good
alabarch in all innocence to go in his magisterial robes to the
proconsul's mansion and express his indignation, concern and anxious
hopes, and to say that Agrippa had taken advantage of favorable winds
to depart for Rome. I can see the smoldering eyes of the proconsul
study the white old face of that perfect diplomat and discover no guile
thereon. So apparent the alabarch's sincerity, that after due lapse of
time in which the proconsul plucked up courage and front, Flaccus
resumed his visits to the alabarch's house. And for all outward signs,
it was another and not Agrippa that dinted the Roman's chest!"
Marsyas leaned his elbows on his knees and a line appeared between his
level brows, marking the growing change from the thought of youth to
the thought of man.
"Lady," he said gravely, after a pause, "it was Flaccus and not Agrippa
that did the bloodthirsty deeds back of the Temple of Rannu; and it was
I--and not Agrippa, that dinted the Roman's chest!"
"What?" she ejaculated, springing up to lay hand on his arm. "Thou!"
"Flaccus led Agrippa into a trap and stabbed him in the back," he went
on, "and I struck the blow that laid Flaccus low. And Agrippa was
taken aboard his ship that night, with a knife wound between his
shoulders, wholly ignorant of the identity of his assailant--until I
told him--three days out at sea!"
After a long silence, she said softly:
"And that was thine errand--for Flora!"
Without a tremor he inclined his head in assent.
"Nay, then," she began again, after another pause, "what more dost thou
know? How much of this tale thou heardest so deceitfully is incorrect
history?"
"Enough of Flaccus," he parried, smiling. "Tell me of--Classicus."
Junia leaned back in her chair and laughed a little at his evasion.
"Classicus? Classicus is a knave, one lacking invention, but not
executive ability--wanting cunning, not courage. Now he leads us to
believe that he examines a new religion--that same heresy for which he
plunged thee into the Rhacotis peril. Some one put him up to it--mark
me. Thus, he hopes to recant his fault against thee, for which the
little Lysimachus was most unbending to him!"
"And Lydia?" he asked in a low tone.
Her softened eyes, steadily contemplating the yellow light on the
leaves of a huge plantain growing near her, narrowed.
"Lydia?" she repeated thoughtfully. "Oh, Lydia dances and studies and
makes ready for her marriage with Classicus."
One of those utter silences fell, which mark the announcement of
critical news. After it, Marsyas arose.
"I have profited by my visit," he said, in that soft and silken voice
which she had never heard before and did not understand. "I thank thee
for thy counsel--and thy news."
He extended her his hand, and she looked at him, feeling that it was
not steady.
"And thou wilt come again before I go?" she went on. "We are summoned
to Capri where my father hath been recently made a minister to
Tiberius. Come again, and let me lead thee back to thine old self."
"Perchance," he said evenly, "I have uselessly troubled myself to
change."
He pressed her hand and passed out.
At the threshold of her portals, he met Agrippa.
"Perpol!" the prince cried. "Hast thou supplanted me here, too?"
But Marsyas smiled painfully and went on. Agrippa looked after him.
"Nay, now: the boy is as pale as ivory!" he ruminated. "That is an
honest youth, and Junia must let him alone."