should have thought it necessary to lay the facts before the College of
Pontiffs and ask their opinion. It looks fishy, stravaging all over the
landscape after dark with a cavalier beside your litter all night
long. I comprehend, I condone, I judge that you have not impaired your
qualifications for your high office. I have no qualms. But it is well
for you that Father instructed me. Go on, tell me the rest.” Over the
fight he rubbed his hands and chirruped with delight, and, when she
spoke of the King’s harem, he burst into roars of laughter, rolling
himself on his throne, slapping his thighs, holding his ribs.
“Oh you women,” he gurgled, “you are all alike, you Vestals as much as
the rest! The fire of womanhood smoulders under your icy composure like
the fires of Etna under her mantle of snow.
“You more than most Vestals, of course. You are a real human being, you
are! So you went out to save him, even if you lost your life trying,
even if you were buried alive for it, and you came back hot, red hot, to
have him killed, and the sooner the better, it couldn’t be too soon for
you.
“Oh, I’m glad you came. I haven’t been entertained like this since I was
made Emperor. Go on!” When she uttered the word Fagutal and told of
her visit to the rookery he had another fit of laughter and exhausted
himself with mirth.
When she narrated the repeated failures of the champions she had
suborned and Almo’s uniform success, Commodus was in ecstasy.
“He’s the boy for my money,” he cried. “He’s worth all the trouble
you’ve had with him. You’ll get a husband worth waiting for. He’s one in
a million. One hundred and five bouts in ten months and victor in all
of them! He’s a jewel, a pearl I I’d do anything for you, as I told you,
I’d keep myself on the rack day and night for you and him. You are a
pair! There’s not on earth the match for the two of you!”
At the end of her story he said:
“You have not gone to all this trouble and taken up so much of my time
and confided to me all the secrets of your heart merely to ease your
mind. There’s something you want me to do, some help you expect to gain
from me. You have given me no inkling of what it is. What is it? Speak
out!”
“He is certain to be killed sooner or later,” she said, wringing her
hands. “I want you to help me to save him.”
“Save him!” Commodus echoed. “Isn’t he competent to save himself? Hasn’t
he convinced you of his ability to protect himself--Sooner or later?
Much later, very much later. And he’s more likely to be killed by old
age than by any weapon in the hands of any man.
“I’ll never understand women. No man can, I suppose. You’re bent, bound
and resolved that he must die. You pour out gold like water to compass
his death. You have Italy ransacked for dexterous cutthroats. He never
turns a hair. It’s easy for him as for a Molossian dog to kill wolves.
He enjoys it; disposes of every man who dare face him. You can’t find
another bravo to take the risk, not for any money! Then, when he has
proved himself the best fighter in Italy, you face about and all of a
sudden you are in a wax for fear some one may kill him!
“Nobody will ever kill him. You and I saw him dispose of more than a
dozen expert gladiators, one after the other; you saw how daintily
and adroitly he did, it. You have just described his fight with his
predecessor. It was over almost before it was begun. The incumbent was
a dead man from the moment he faced Almo. Both knew it, too, and, since
then he has done for the pick of the blackguards from all Italy. If
Ravax and his gang could find no one to face him, there is none; if no
man of that crew could best him, not Ravax himself, no man can best him.
Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t,” she said. “It will be just like his fights in the arena.
No matter how often he wins, he is bound to lose at last.”
“Don’t you believe it,” Commodus argued. “I remember him well. I was
wild over him just after Father’s triumph and saw a good deal of him
before he set out for Britain. I was then no such all-round expert at
weapon-play as I have become since, but I was good for my age. I fenced
with him repeatedly and I know his quality. I had all the best swordsmen
in the capital pitted against him and not one of them was his match.
Murmex Lucro did not come to Rome till after Father’s death. So I never
saw Murmex and Almo fence. But let me tell you this: Murmex is the only
man alive who can fence with me for points and make anything like my
score. And Almo is the only man alive, except me, who is fit to face
Murmex on equal terms. There are only two men on earth who could kill
Almo in a fight with any kind of weapons--Murmex is one and I am the
other.
“Why, Almo is as safe in the Grove as I am in the Palace. Don’t you
worry about him. Nobody will kill him; take it from me, I know.”
Brinnaria, with a sharp intake of her breath, gazed about the room and
collected herself to resume her argument and make her next point.
“Do you concede,” she queried, “that I have the right to be solicitous
about Almo’s life?”
“Father said so,” Commodus replied, “and I never knew him to be wrong. I
took that opinion from him and I see no reason to change it.”
“Do you concede,” she pressed him, “that I have the right to looking
forward to marrying him at the end of my service?”
“Like Father, I do,” he admitted.
“How can I ever marry him,” she demanded, “if he remains King of the
Grove?”
The young Emperor laughed merrily.
“Don’t you worry about that, either,” he said. “I told you I’d do
anything for you and I meant it. I told you I’d do anything for Almo,
and I meant that too. But, as things are, doing what you want and what
is good for him will be doing just what I most want myself. I have a
frightfully poor memory. Barely seven years ago my Father triumphed
after what was thought a complete, decisive and crushing victory over
Avidius Cassius and a huge confederation of nomadic tribes. Cassius was
certainly abolished; he was buried. But after scarcely five years the
desert nomads were as active as ever and they have grown so pertinacious
and cocky that something must be done. I don’t want to go myself, and
I feel no confidence in my ability to accomplish anything if I went.
I have been on the rack to decide whom to send. I can’t afford to send
some bungler who’d mismanage and let the sand-hills devour a half a
dozen of my best legions.
“My councillors and I have found no promising candidate. All the while I
have been cudgelling my brains trying to remember something Father told
me. I distinctly recalled that he said that he had in view the very
paragon of a commander to dispatch against Avidius, but that some
occurrence made it impossible to send him and he had to go himself. I
couldn’t for the life of me recollect what had happened to hinder
the man going or what the man’s name was. Since it was a verbal
communication from Father I had no memorandum and no one else had ever
known it.
“Now I remember that Almo was the man and that his infatuation with the
life of a gladiator was what prevented.
“Do you see what I mean? I shall not have to go to Syria and I’ll send
the very best man for that job who can be found on earth. If anybody
knows what I’m doing they’ll say that Almo is a lunatic and I am another
to send him. But nobody will ever know and if everybody knows, what do I
care. Father knew a good man when he saw one. I’ll take his word for it
that Almo proved himself the greatest genius for desert fighting that
the Republic has produced in a hundred years. And I’ll follow my
own intuition that a swashbuckler whose own thoughts prompted him to
challenge the King of the Grove as a cure for tedium, who had the nerve
to carry out the idea and the skill to win a hundred and six fights in
ten months must be a good all-round man and a real man clear through.
I take it that being put in supreme command of a great expedition will
brush the cobwebs from Almo’s brain and restore him to himself. Do you
follow my idea?”
“I cannot conjecture,” Brinnaria replied, “how you expect to carry it
out.”
“Simple enough,” said Commodus. “I’m not the man my Father was, not by a
great deal. I am a natural all-round athlete, but I was never born to be
an Emperor. All the same, when I buckle down to my job, I’m not such a
bad hand at it. If I have a talk with Almo I’ll swing him my way without
half trying.”
“But,” Brinnaria interposed, “even you, even as Emperor and Chief
Pontiff, cannot free a man who has become King of the Grove. There is
no record of any form of exauguration for a Priest of Diana of the
Underworld. There would be an outcry. Once King of the Grove a man must
live out his life as King of the Grove.”
Commodus grinned a school-boy grin.
“My dear,” he said, “there are more ways of killing a dog besides
choking him to death on fresh curds.”
Brinnaria stared.
“You talk,” he said, “as if you had gone over all the records. Don’t you
recall two cases where a King of the Grove died without being killed?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Well,” he continued, “what was done?”
“Two challengers were brought forward,” she said, “and they fought each
other.”
“Just so,” said he, “and don’t you recall one case where a King of
the Grove disappeared and was believed to have run away, but was never
found, nor any trace of him?”
“I remember that, too,” she agreed.
“Well,” he pressed her, “what was done in that case?”
“Two challengers fought each other that time also,” she allowed.
“Well,” he summed up, “that’s what we’ll have done now. Almo will
vanish. He’s good at it, he’s had practice. Two challengers can be found
easily enough.”
“But,” she cavilled, wide-eyed, “there’s all the difference in the world
between egging on two challengers after the post is vacant and arranging
to vacate the post. What you propose would be sacrilege, impiety.”
“Don’t you worry about that!” he soothed her. “The priesthood at Aricia
is no part of our hierarchy; the safety of Rome in no way depends on its
sanctity. It is important enough for the nine towns that share the cult,
but it concerns no others. It’s an alien cult, anyhow. Whether Orestes
brought it to Aricia or Hippolytus or who else makes no difference,
nor the tradition that it is four hundred years older than Rome. It’s
a disgrace to Italy and it exists on sufferance. Father told me that
Grandfather and he were both in half a mind to have it suppressed as the
Bacchanals were suppressed. The curative repute of the Grove stood in
the way. As for me, if it were not for the sporting character of the
King’s tenure, I’d see to it that Almo would be the last King. I feel
free to do as I please in any matter that concerns it.”
Brinnaria said nothing.
He resumed:
“Leave it all to me. I’ll go to Aricia myself; I’ll expostulate with
Almo; I’ll appeal to his manhood, to his pride, to his patriotism. Ten
to one he’s disillusioned by this time, sick of his job and ready to
listen to reason. He’ll promise to obey me and he’ll obey me.
“The rest will be managed by men who will make no mistakes. They’ll find
two challengers each much like Almo in build and appearance. One dark
night Almo will slip off in charge of the men I delegate for that duty;
the two challengers will be guided so that each thinks he is fighting
the King of the Grove. Whichever survives will be rigged up in the
customary toggery. There will be a corpse properly offered on the altar.
Nobody will suspect anything.”
About a month later Lutorius conveyed to her a hint from the Emperor.
She at once applied for an audience.
Commodus was as expansive as a boy who has had a good day’s fishing.
“It’s all over,” he said, “and everything went off just as I foresaw and
planned. Almo was disgusted and tractable. We found two desperadoes of
suitable make. While we steered them at each other Almo slipped out.
Besides you, your two friends, your agents, Lutorius and myself, no one
knows that Almo was ever King of the Grove. I had him brought to the
Palace and Lucro and I had no end of good fun fencing with him. I
had the Senate pass a decree relieving him of all and sundry legal
consequences of having been sold as a slave in Britain. I had him choose
a full staff of the best possible aides, orderlies and such. He is off
to Syria. I did not send for you until I had word that he had not
only sailed from Brundisium but had actually landed at Dyrrhachium. I
anticipate that the job I have sent him on will take all of six years.
Just about when your service is drawing to an end he will return to Rome
covered with glory and loaded with loot. The nomads have been plundering
our cities and have accumulated in their strongholds immense amounts of
treasure. He’ll get it back. Meantime your mind should be at peace.”
Brinnaria was properly grateful and expressed her feelings fervently.
“And now,” said Commodus, “since I have done what you wanted and you are
pleased, may I ask a favor of you? You can do something for me that
no one else can and if you promise it will set my mind at rest to some
extent.”
Brinnaria earnestly promised to do her best.
“I am troubled,” said the Emperor, “very much troubled. You know how
rumors get about among people, starting no one knows where; and how,
when such a notion is abroad, nothing on earth can counteract it.
“Well, there’s a story going about of an oracle, an oracle which says
that the Republic reached its acme under Trajan, that the Empire kept up
its prosperity under Hadrian and my Grandfather and Father, but that the
glory of Rome is fated to fade and wane and that its decline will date
from my taking over the Principiate.
“I am worried about it. I have sent to Delphi and Dodona and every other
oracle from Olisipo to Pattala, but I can find no record of any such
oracle having been uttered. The people, however, credit it as if it came
from Delphi.
“I’ve had a hundred oracles consulted about the matter, Delphi too. They
all hedge; not one is clear. But they all speak of an impending disaster
that may be averted by watchfulness. And they all hint darkly at some
danger to the Palladium; they all mention it somehow; most of them
allude unmistakably to the Temple of Vesta; some of them manifestly
refer to the Atrium; all of them speak of fire.
“Now I know that the sacred fire will be cared for by you and Manlia and
Gargilia and Numisia as well as ever it was since Numa. Causidiena is
too old to count and Terentia is too young, but in the four of you I
have complete confidence as far as the fire is concerned.
“About the Palladium I don’t feel so sure. The six terra-cotta chests
are so exactly alike and the five counterfeits are so like the real
statue that I am afraid the precautions taken to baffle an intruding
thief might confuse you Vestals in a crisis.
“Do you know the real Palladium from the five dummies?”
“I do,” said Brinnaria; “we all do. When I had been a Vestal five years
Causidiena showed me the Palladium. No Vestal is ever shown it until she
is over fifteen. Like all other young Vestals I was made to spend hours
in the inner storeroom, blindfolded, learning to recognize the real
Palladium by touch.
“The differences between the original and the copies are very small,
mostly in the carving of the folds of the gown. But every young Vestal
is drilled until she can recognize the genuine relic by touch, one
hundred times out of one hundred times, and until she can similarly
discriminate the terra-cotta chest that contains it from the other five
chests. I could tell the Palladium from the imitations instantly any
time.”
“You relieve me,” said Commodus. “I’ve wanted to talk about this to
all you Vestals, but I’ve been ashamed to broach the subject. Since you
confided in me I feel no hesitation about confiding in you.”
“I promise you,” said Brinnaria, “that the Palladium will never be
stolen, lost, or come to any harm if I can prevent it, and I believe I
can. I pledge you my word.”
“I feel better,” said Commodus.
“And I want to say,” Brinnaria added, “that I have always felt a special
interest in the Palladium. Ever since I was old enough to share all the
duties and all the responsibilities of a Vestal, my feelings have been
particularly engaged with the Palladium. There is something tremendous
and crushing in the thought of being in charge of four of the seven
objects on the safety of which depends the safety of Rome and the
prosperity of the Republic. Whenever Causidiena has shown them to us
younger Vestals I have felt the strongest emotions at the sight of the
jar containing the ashes of Orestes, of the antique gold canister
which protects the plain, gold-mounted ivory sceptre of Priam, of the
lapis-lazuli casket which enshrines the tatters remaining of Ilione’s
veil; but more than at sight of them I have trembled with awe to look at
that little statuette, no longer than my forearm, and to think that if
it were destroyed the Empire would crumble and Rome would perish. You
maybe sure I shall do all I can to keep safe the precious treasure
committed to my charge.”
“I feel sure you will,” said Commodus.
BOOK IV--THE REVULSION OF DELIGHT
CHAPTER XX - ACCUSATION
AFTER Almo’s redemption and his departure for Syria Brinnaria calmed
down. Her feverish activity abated and vanished. She ceased to take any
interest in the speed of her litter-bearers or of her carriage-teams.
She took her outings for their own sake, not merely to feel herself
transported rapidly from somewhere to anywhere. She kept an oversight of
her stock-farms, but she left the management of them almost entirely to
her bailiffs. On music she spent more of her time and in it she took an
intenser delight.
Life in the Atrium altered chiefly through the growing up of Terentia,
whose fifteenth birthday was celebrated soon after Almo left Italy, and
by the steady waning of Causidiena’s eyesight. She could still recognize
familiar persons when between her and the strong light of a door or
window in the daytime; she could still place pieces of wood on the fire,
if it was burning well. But she was plainly verging on total blindness.
Except in so far as it was modified by pride in Terentia and solicitude
for Causidiena, life in the Atrium flowed on as it had for centuries.
Reports from Almo were uniformly good. From the first he displayed
all the qualifications requisite for a commander in chief. For him
everything promised well.
Under these conditions Brinnaria throve. Her natural vigor had always
been such that she never had showed any outward signs of the strain
to which she had been subjected. Uniformly she had looked handsome and
healthy. But now, if anything, she looked healthier and handsomer than
ever. She was then thirty-two years old. At ten years of age she had
looked eighteen, at eighteen she had looked twenty-four. At thirty-two
she still looked no more than twenty-five. Her hair was abundant and
glossy, her eyes bright, her cheeks rosy; she was neither slender nor
plump, but a well-muscled, graceful woman, decidedly young-looking, and
altogether statuesque in build and carriage, but very much alive in her
springy suppleness.
About a year after Almo’s departure for Syria Lutorius came to see her
one morning, his face grave.
He indicated that they had best confer alone. In her tiny sanctum he
came straight to the point.
“Daughter,” he said, “my news is as bad as possible. You are formally
accused of the worst misconduct.”
“Why look so gloomy?” said Brinnaria. “That is comic, not tragic. Who’s
the fool accuser?”
“Calvaster, as you might conjecture,” he answered; “and grieve to have
to inform you,” he added, “that this is no laughing matter.”
“Pooh!” said Brinnaria. “I’m not a bit afraid of Calvaster. Aurelius
gave Commodus emphatic injunctions about me. And he went into details.
Commodus can’t have forgotten his reprimand to Calvaster nor his
categorical threat.”
“I fear,” said Lutorius, “that his father’s instructions on that
particular point are not well to the front of the Emperor’s mind.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Brinnaria, “everybody knows my preoccupation with
Almo and everybody saw my behavior in the Amphitheatre. I feel pretty
safe in respect to my general reputation. As to particulars, I’ve been
vigilantly careful to keep away from Almo. Except twice, in the
presence of Aurelius, I haven’t been within speaking distance of him in
twenty-two years. Between the fact that no one can prove that I have had
anything to do with him and the improbability that anyone would suspect
me of interest in any other man, let alone misconduct with any other
man, I feel entirely secure.”
Lutorius wagged his head.
“You are accused of misconduct with another man,” he said.
“Absurd!” said Brinnaria, “easy to confute. Who is the man?”
“Not so easy to confute, I fear,” said Lutorius. “The man named is
Quintus Istorius Vocco.”
“Whew!” cried Brinnaria, springing to her feet and snapping her fingers.
“That is ingenious! That will give me trouble! I didn’t credit Calvaster
with that much sense. I never thought of anyone looking askance at my
relations with Quintus. I’ve never taken any precautions as to when
I was with him or how long or where. I’ve treated him as an honorary
brother, seeing I have no brothers of my own left alive. Flexinna has
been such a sister to me, that we have disregarded Quintus almost as if
he were a slave or a statue or a picture on the wall or another woman.
Whew!”
“You perceive,” said Lutorius, “that the situation, in general, is very
serious?”
“I do, indeed!” admitted Brinnaria.
“Serious as it is in general,” he went on, “it is still more serious in
particular. Your excursion to Aricia was by no means as much a secret
as you have all along supposed. I, for instance, knew of it before you
confessed it to me.”
“How was that?” Brinnaria inquired.
“Numisia,” he explained, “saw you go out in Flexinna’s clothes and
recognized you. She entered your room and talked with Flexinna. She
summoned me and we conferred. We both loved you and we both believed
in you. We were solicitous for the cult, but we were nearly as much
solicitous for you. We agreed that we were almost fully warranted in
assuming your entire innocence of heart and that your impulsive behavior
would not alienate the good will of the Goddess. We decided to take
it upon ourselves to judge you blameless and to shield you. Utta
was instructed never to let you know that Numisia had seen Flexinna;
Flexinna, of course, fell in with our plans. Numisia made every
arrangement that would prevent any more from learning the secret and
would make your return easy.
“After you came back safe our decision seemed justified. I talked with
Vocco and learned that nothing had occurred to render your exposure
likely, except your encounter with Calvaster. As we heard nothing from
Calvaster we felt entirely successful. It turns out that he was only
biding his time. He has formally accused you before the College of
Pontiffs, alleging in general your long-continued familiarity with
Vocco, and, in particular, your having been outside of Rome after
midnight in Vocco’s company.”
“Whew,” Brinnaria exclaimed, “this is indeed serious! I feel myself
strangling or starving in a vaulted cell. What am I to do?”
“See Commodus first of all,” said Lutorius.
In the short interval since her former audience, those traits of which
he had previously shown the merest traces had rapidly developed in
Commodus into fixed characteristics. He had become what he remained
until his end, an odd mingling of loutish, peevish school-boy,
easy-going, self-indulgent athlete and superstitious, suspicious despot.
“To begin with,” he said, “I want you to understand that I like you,
that I haven’t forgotten that you rescued the retiarius, whopped
Bambilio and behaved like a trump when Father tested you. I’m for you.
Your colts are the cream of Italian stud-farms. You are a wonderful
woman, all round. But, as a Vestal, you have your weak points. I
remember Father’s instructions about you and I have all that in mind.
Besides, I know that I, as Chief Pontiff, have the right to make my own
decision about any such matter and to brush aside anybody else’s opinion
and anybody else’s interpretation of the evidence. Also my impulse is
to make use of my prerogative, dismiss the accusation against you,
reiterate Father’s warning to Calvaster and get the whole thing off my
mind. I don’t like Calvaster and I don’t value him an atom. They say
he’s indispensable, but if he irritates me ever so little more I’ll
dispense with him and I’ll wager the Republic will get on without
him. You see that I am strong on your side and almost on the point of
deciding in your favor.
“But I hesitate. This case of yours worries me more than anything that
has come up since I took over the Principiate. I cannot make up my mind.
“I’m not the man I was a year ago. I’m shaken. Father told me that the
most wearing feature of his being Emperor was his recurring escapes from
assassination. I had my first escape just after your audience with
me. It jarred me horribly. The fool barely missed finishing me. The
experience made me take precautions and so no other miscreant has come
so near to doing for me. But the repetitions have grown monotonous.
I always thought highly of your lad, and I’ve often wondered how he
managed to get any sleep or swallow any food while he was King of the
Grove, but I think immeasurably more of him since I’ve been through
something faintly similar. He deserves the best of life and I hope he’ll
get his heart’s desire and marry you at the end of your service.
“You see how enthusiastically I am on your side.
“But there is much to be considered.
“If this were a question of judging a two-year-old filly I’d need no
man’s advice and I’d listen to no man’s opinion. I’m better fitted to
judge a horse than any man alive. It would be the same if it were
a question of refereeing a sword-bout or a boxing-mill or a
wrestling-match or anything of the kind. I know all about such things
and I know that I am a judge superior to anybody on earth. I’m a born
all-round athlete and everybody knows it and recognizes me as a past
master.
“But as an Emperor, as Chief Pontiff, such is not at all the case. I
feel a fumbler, a bungler. I grope. I suspect that the judgment of my
advisers is better than mine. What is worse, I know that they think so.
I am surrounded by men pre-eminent in their specialties, who look on me
as a green boy placed by mere chance in a position which I fail to fill
adequately. They watch me like hawks, they expect to see me blunder,
they raise eyebrows at each other, they exchange glances. It rattles me.
I wish I had Alexander’s nerve. He was as young as I am and he brooked
no opposition, but rammed his opinions down his councillors’ throats
from the hour when he became King. But I haven’t his nerve, not by a
long shot. I had as good teachers as he had, too. But, Hercules be good
to me, I never could learn anything out of a book.
“As a charioteer, or a swordsman I’m as confident as a lion. As an
Emperor I’m as cowardly as a jackal. It’s the effect of the prophecies
and auguries and oracles and such. They all hint at my impairing the
prosperity of the Republic or diminishing the power of the Empire. It
gallies me when I see two old bald heads wink at each other; I know they
are thinking:
“‘What did I tell you! Here’s this young fool ruining Rome, just as the
oracle prophesies.’ It gets on my nerves.
“I daren’t decide the matter on my own judgment.
“Besides, there’s the danger of assassination hanging over me. All the
men who have tried so far have been highly educated magnates of lofty
principles. They seem to feel I am an unworthy Prince and that to kill
me would be a service to the state. It galls me to think of it, and me
doing my best for the Republic and the Empire, denying myself hours of
pleasure daily, missing races and all kinds of contests and toiling over
documents and estimates and statistics. But it is true. If I decide this
case of yours, ten to one any number of self-righteous nobles will say
to themselves:
“‘Here is this lout on the way to destroy the foundations of Rome’s
greatness. Rome must be saved from him. My duty is clear. He must be put
out of the way.’ Nice situation for me. I dare not let loose any such
possible fanaticism for my own destruction.
“And apart from any qualms about my qualifications to judge, apart from
any dread of the consequences to myself, of absolving you, there is my
sense of duty to Rome. Here are these cursed ambiguous oracles hinting
some harm to Rome, mentioning fire and the Temple of Vesta and the
Palladium. Perhaps what they mean is just the possible wrath of Vesta at
an unworthy priestess. How can I tell?
“You see why I hesitate?”
Brinnaria nodded. She judged it no time to speak, and, had she wished to
speak she could hardly have done so.
“I might not have hesitated,” Commodus resumed, “if Calvaster had come
to me. But he pops up in a full meeting of the College of Pontiffs and
says he saw you, after midnight and before dawn, on the Appian Road,
between Aricia and Bovillae, in a litter that didn’t belong to you
and with Vocco on horseback beside it. That puts all the Pontiffs in
possession of the facts and on the watch to see how I’ll decide, if I
do decide. Calvaster made sure of proving those facts, for he had two
highly respectable and respected nobles to swear that they were with him
and saw Vocco and the litter and knew the litter for Nemestronia’s. That
he had any number of witnesses to swear to the frequency of your visits
to Vocco’s house, your habit of dining there and the freedom with which
you treated him.
“My impulse was to tell Calvaster I disbelieved any story he fathered,
that I had my Father’s instructions discrediting him, that I knew all
about your intimacy with Flexinna and her husband, that I knew all about
your excursion to Aricia and why you went and that I approved and that
was the end of it. I have told you why I hesitated.
“But I was inclined that way. I have talked with Lutorius and Causidiena
and Numisia. They feel towards you as my Father felt. They believe
in you and in your worthiness as a priestess, and they minimize your
irregularities. I sent for Flexinna and talked with her. She deserves
consideration, if only because she is the mother of the largest family
to be found among our nobility, even among our gentry. She hoots at the
idea of anything improper between you and Vocco, in act or thought. She
evidently tells the truth. It is plain that she and Vocco are a devoted
pair, that you and he never did anything wrong or thought of anything
wrong. I sent for Vocco and talked with him. I am all but clear what I
should do, but I am not quite clear.
“Now, there are only two ways to settle this: one is for me to settle
it myself and out of hand. The other is to have a formal trial of you
before the College of Pontiffs.
“If you are tried you’ll be condemned. All you can say of the innocence
of your intimacy with Vocco, all you can say of the innocence of your
regard for Almo, all I can say of my Father’s high esteem of you, of his
injunctions regarding you, will not avail to save you. The Pontiffs will
not heed the considerations which were so plain to Father and are
so plain to me and Lutorius and Numisia. They will say it makes no
difference whether you went to Aricia because of solicitude for Almo
or on account of an intrigue with Vocco. They will hold that such a
manifestation of interest in Almo proves you almost as unfit to be a
Vestal as if it were certain that you were philandering with Vocco.
“In particular they will hold that there might be room to absolve you
had you openly gone to save Almo in your full regalia and in your own
carriage, or your own litter, with your lictor before you; but that
while the fact of your being out of Rome all night in a litter is
damning enough, the appearance of duplicity and underhanded secrecy
given to the proceeding by your being disguised in another woman’s
clothing and carried in a borrowed litter makes terribly against you.
“Of course I could impose my will on the Pontiffs, but I should hesitate
to override their decision, even more than I hesitate to decide the case
myself, and for the reasons I have given.
“Yet I must say I could forget my dread of assassination and ignore any
opinionated contempt I might evoke, if I could be sure in my own heart
that I am doing what is best for Rome; I should be as arrogant an
Emperor as ever Domitian was if only I felt confident that my instincts
are right. My instincts all urge me to act as an Emperor and a Pontifex
Maximus and settle this matter out of hand, once and for all.
“But I hesitate. I can’t make up my mind. All I need is a sign that you
are as acceptable to Vesta as I believe you are. I have tried to satisfy
myself, to elicit some sign of the Goddess’ will, but no sign has been
vouchsafed me. I’ve had the Sibylline Books consulted, which is a trying
matter with Calvaster left out of the consulting board; I have sent to
every oracle within reach, have put questions to all the sibyls in all
the caves of Italy, have called in a rabble of Etruscan soothsayers,
every haruspex and auspex in Etruria, I believe. They all hedge. They
are all vague. They are all indefinite. They give me no help!
“Now, I like you; I like Almo; I like both of you and I respect you; I
believe in you. I’d hate to wake up and call for any breakfast I had a
whim for and look at it and smell it and think of you, all alone in the
dark in a vaulted cell six foot under the rubbish of that garbage-dump
out by the Colline Gate. And I hate the thought of the bother and worry
of a trial. I want to put my foot down and assert my will and be done
with it all. But, as I’ve said a dozen times already, I hesitate.
Chiefly I hesitate because I am resolute to do my duty to Rome according
to my lights. I feel I am right, but I am not quite man enough to follow
my feelings. If I could have some plain sign that Vesta understands and
condones your past irregularities as I do, that Vesta approves of you
and is pleased with you as I am, if I could feel Vesta corroborating my
feelings, if I could evoke an unmistakable token of her will, I’d not
hesitate. I’d scout the suggestion of a trial; I’d squelch Calvaster;
I’d absolve you.”
Brinnaria looked straight into his goggling, bloodshot eyes.
“Would you consider it an unmistakable sign,” she said, “a plain token
of my acceptability to my Goddess, of her esteem for me, if Vesta gave
me power to carry water in a sieve?”
Commodus goggled his eyes at her even more than habitually.
“Carry water in a sieve,” he cried, “as Tuccia did?”
“There is a legend,” said Brinnaria sedately, “that some Vestal once
proved her holiness by carrying water in a sieve. And the story is
connected with Tuccia in popular tradition. But if it was ever done some
other Vestal did it. Poor Tuccia was innocent, as far as I can judge
from the minutes of her trial. But she was not absolved, by intervention
of Vesta or of her judges. She was condemned and buried. You can read
the verdict as well as the details of the proceedings in the records.
And what is left of poor Tuccia is now in one of those tiny vaulted
cells under the Wicked Field. You will find, along with the documents
of her case, the bill for the wages of the mason who completed the vault
after she had descended the ladder and the affidavits of the sentinels
who patrolled the spot day and night for a month, according to custom.”
“Never mind who did it or didn’t do it, or whether it ever was done at
all before,” said Commodus, “if I saw you carry water in a sieve I’d
hold it a plain sign of Vesta’s particular favor to you, of your special
acceptability to her, of the correctness of my intuitions about you and
about this whole wretched business.
“Do I understand you to offer to demonstrate your innocence by carrying
water in a sieve?”
“That is my offer!” said Brinnaria.
“But,” he protested, “the thing can’t be done. It’s impossible! Better
stand your chance of a trial.”
“I am sure,” said Brinnaria, “that my Goddess will not desert me. I know
I am innocent and acceptable to her. She knows me and will give me the
power to prove my worthiness. She will no fail me. I know I can do it.”
“Do I understand you to offer to do it in broad daylight before me and
the whole College of Pontiffs, Calvaster and all?”
“In sight of all Rome,” said Brinnaria, “if all Rome could crowd near
enough to see.”
“Do I understand you,” said the Emperor, “to stake your life on the
venture, and, just as you would expect full absolution if you succeed,
so to expect a rigid and severely stern trial before me and the College
of Pontiffs, with your failure counting against you, if you fail in the
attempt?”
“That is my understanding,” said Brinnaria, unflinching, her clear eyes
on his face, her cheeks neither flushed nor blanched, her expression
calm, her pose easy, her voice unfaltering.
“Hercules be good to me!” cried Commodus. “That is a first class game
sporting offer! I like you, girl! I like the idea. I see my way to a
decision. I glimpse a method of banishing my hesitation. I’ll take you.
If you agree, clasp hands, like a man.”
Brinnaria stood up and put out her hand.
“For life or death,” said the Emperor.
They clasped hands.
“Done!” said Commodus.
CHAPTER XXI - ORDEAL
THE next day Commodus, officially, in his full regalia as Emperor
and Pontifex Maximus, convoyed by a magnificent retinue of gorgeously
apparelled gentlemen-in-waiting, equerries, aides, orderlies and pages,
and of gaudily uniformed guards, paid a formal visit to the Atrium.
He was received by Lutorius, Causidiena and Numisia, who had been in
close conference most of the previous afternoon and until late at night
and again most of the morning from dawn. Causidiena, on account of her
failing sight, was escorted by Manlia and Gargilia.
After the exchange of ceremonious greetings Commodus asked:
“Where is Brinnaria? Why isn’t she here?”
“We thought best,” Causidiena replied, “that she should not be present
at our conference.”
“As to part of it I quite agree,” said the Emperor. “Fairness to her
requires that much of what we have to say should be said in her absence,
as she must be free from any suspicion of participation in some of our
arrangements. But part of what we have to say she must hear and some
details I must talk over with her. Send for her, and meanwhile, sit
down, all of you, sit down, I say.”
Manlia and Gargilia departed to summon Brinnaria.
When she came and had seated herself the Emperor said:
“I’ve been thinking over this matter ever since you left me. Precious
little else did I do yesterday and mighty little sleep did I get last
night. I’m not clear yet altogether, but I see daylight on several
points.
“What you propose is more or less like interpreting the significance of
the appearances seen in the victim’s intestines after a sacrifice for
a specific object; it amounts to asking a definite question of your
Goddess and getting a yes or no answer.
“That is one way to regard it and seems to me correct from the religious
point of view.
“But there is another point of view and another way to regard it, not
less correct, it seems to me.
“This is a sort of a sporting proposal, like a dicing contest, or any
kind of match or wager.
“Now in such matters, it is important, it is of the utmost importance,
that there should be no differences of opinion between the principals
or among the backers or lookers-on after the contest or during its
progress; particularly that no unexpected differences of opinion should
crop up after starting the set of actions which determine the decision.
To avoid all such untoward possibilities, every detail must be settled
in advance before the matter comes to a test.
“Now, treating your appeal to Vesta not only as a solemn invocation of
the Goddess, but also as a sporting chance, I intend to have a definite,
unquestionable understanding beforehand on every debatable point.
“You see what I mean?
“Some of the points we others will settle without you, but we shall
begin with those which you must settle or share in settling.
“I and Lutorius, Causidiena and Numisia are to be the witnesses to the
stipulations and our agreement on any point is to prove that point. I
propose to make it impossible for there to be any misunderstanding
or disagreement among the four of us, to make it certain that we four
think, speak and act unanimously on all points whatever. Nothing must be
assumed, everything must be explicit.
“To begin with, is this a fair statement of your proposal?
“You maintain that you are a worthy priestess of Vesta and wholly
acceptable to her. You propose to demonstrate this by asking of her the
power to carry water in a sieve in the sight of the whole College of
Pontiffs and of such other persons as I may see fit to have present at
the test. If you fail you will expect to be tried for misconduct. If
you succeed you will expect to be then and there absolved from all
accusations and imputations connected with your deportment or behavior.
“Is that a fair statement of your proposal?”
“It is,” Brinnaria replied.
“What kind of water do you propose to carry?” Commodus asked. “Spring
water, rain-water from a tank, aqueduct-water, or what?”
“I assumed,” said Brinnaria, “that I would carry water from the river,
in accordance with the legend of my predecessor: Father Tiber being
himself one of our gods, one of the sternest to evildoers, yet to the
righteous most kindly and helpful.”
“Excellent!” said the Emperor. “My notion precisely. That is settled. I
accordingly appoint as the place of your test the Marble Quay, since
the porticoes flanking it shut out the mob and protect the Quay from
intruding eyes, and since the space enclosed by them is ample for
the assemblage of the College of Pontiffs, the Senate and the Court
officials. Are you satisfied with that place?”
“I am,” said Brinnaria.
“In what kind of a sieve do you propose to carry water?” came the next
question.
“A sieve,” said Brinnaria, “is a sieve.”
“Not at all,” Commodus objected. “There are sieves and sieves.”
“Well, of course,” Brinnaria reflected, “I do not mean a broken,
worn-out or imperfect sieve, nor one incompetently made.”
“Just so,” the Emperor amplified. “You propose to carry water in a sieve
with a circular rim, without any hole, crevice or crack in it and with a
web stretched taut on the rim, evenly woven and of the finest mesh.”
“That expresses my unformed idea,” said Brinnaria.
“Did you mean a linen sieve,” the Emperor asked, “or a horse-hair sieve,
or a metal sieve?”
“That,” said Brinnaria, “can make no difference, if it fulfills the
conditions you have just specified. I leave the choice of material to
you.”
“That is the correct attitude for you,” said Commodus, “and does you
credit.
“And now I think we four will settle the other details without you. Do
you agree to that?”
“No!” Brinnaria objected. “I think I should be a party to the settling
of several other details.”
“What are they?” Commodus queried.
“In the first place,” said Brinnaria, “there should be the clearest
understanding as to how much water I must carry.”
“What do you mean?” the Emperor asked.
“Well,” Brinnaria expounded, “a drop of water the size of my thumb-nail
would not be enough, I presume. That would not be considered as
demonstrating my innocence. You would expect me to carry more water than
that. On the other hand, to exact that I carry a sieve full of water to
the top of the rim, as if it were a pan, would be unfair to me.”
“I see,” said Commodus. “I should lay down the condition that the water
must cover the web of the sieve entirely and touch the rim all round,
and that it should be a finger-breadth deep. Deeper than that it need
not be, that depth would prove the favor of your Goddess as plainly as
if you carried all Tiber. Is that all? If not, what next?”
“Next,” she said, “it ought to be definitely agreed how far I must carry
the sieve with the water in it.”
“You do not need to carry it at all,” said Commodus. “If you stand up
and hold the sieve of water as high as your chin, you will have proved
the favor of your Goddess for you.”
Lutorius, tactful and bland, here spoke up.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “I doubt whether that will confute Brinnaria’s
enemies or even convince the majority of the Pontiffs.”
“What does it signify?” the Emperor demanded, “whether anybody else is
convinced, if I am satisfied?”
“Nothing whatever, your Majesty,” said Lutorius, “if you take that view
of the matter.”
“Perhaps,” Commodus admitted, “there may be something in your
suggestion. Suppose we make the stipulation that she must carry the
sieve of water from the brink of the river to the top of the steps.”
“The number of steps,” Lutorius reminded him, “varies at different
points along the Marble Quay.”
“True,” the Emperor admitted. “Let us specify the middle stair, which
has seven steps, if I mistake not. Do you agree to that?” he asked
Brinnaria.
“I agree,” she concluded.
After Brinnaria had gone, Commodus resumed:
“Now we must decide,” he said, “what kind of a sieve she is to use.”
Causidiena spoke up, her all but sightless eyes strained towards the
Emperor.
“Lutorius and Numisia and I have talked over that question,” she said.
“It seems to me that it would be unfair to her for us to decide on a
metal sieve. They are always coarse and the apertures between the wires
are comparatively large. It seems to us that no one could carry water in
a copper sieve, not even by a miracle.
“The meshes of linen sieves are the smallest of any made, but the linen
does not seem to have much sustaining power. We feel that with a linen
sieve not only Brinnaria would be, as Lutorius expressed it, severely
handicapped for water-carrying, but that, as he also said, I fear
irreverently, that Vesta herself would be too much handicapped in
respect to miracle-working.”
“A mighty sensible remark,” Commodus cut in, “and one with which I
concur. You are more of a sport than I thought you, Lutorius.”
“Considering only the construction of sieves,” Causidiena continued,
“we were of the opinion that a horsehair sieve would be the fairest. The
hairs are coarser than linen threads and finer than copper wires and the
apertures between are similarly of medium size, as sieves go.
“Besides, we have ascertained that horse-hair sieves are by far the most
usual kind. We are told that in most sieve-shops in Rome all the linen
sieves and copper sieves sold do not amount to one-third the horsehair
sieves.”
“That ought to settle that point,” said Commodus. “No one can cavil if
we use the commonest kind of sieve, of medium fineness and of normal
make.
“As to the question of procuring one we must arrange that Brinnaria may
feel wholly secure that it has not been tampered with by some enemy of
hers, and, on the other hand, that all persons whatever, to whomsoever
hostile or friendly, or wholly indifferent, may be at once and forever
certain that neither Brinnaria nor any partisan of hers has had any
access to it before the test. Have you any suggestions to make?”
“Yes,” Causidiena replied. “Lutorius and Numisia and I have debated that
point and have come to a conclusion which we think you might approve.
The best sieve-maker in Rome is Caius Truttidius Falcifer, a tenant of
one of our shops on the Holy Street. Not only are his wares reputed the
best-made sieves produced in Rome, but he sells more than anyone else
and carries a larger stock than can be found in the possession of any
other dealer. He is sieve-maker to the Atrium, like his father before
him. His horse-hair sieves are the closest and finest of their kind. We
use them to sift the flour for our ceremonial cakes. I had some brought
to show you. Where are they, Numisia?”
Numisia rose and took from an onyx console a flattish dish-like basket
of gilt wicker, containing a number of square cakes. In size and on
account of the ridges on them, each looked much like the joined four
fingers of a man’s hand.
Commodus took one, broke it and munched a piece.
“Very good,” he said. “If the excellence of the pastry demonstrates the
virtue of the sieve let us consider it proved. I do not see, however,
what the cakes have to do with it. But I am entirely willing to agree
that Brinnaria is to use a horse-hair sieve made by Truttidius.
“Now, how are we to select the particular sieve so as to convince
all concerned that it is a normal sieve chosen at random and not one
doctored for the occasion?”
“Our idea,” said Lutorius, “was to arrange that Truttidius be present
with a number of horse-hair sieves, practically with his whole stock of
his best, and that one of those be chosen before the whole College
of Pontiffs, perhaps by your Majesty, perhaps by some one of the
altar-boys, blindfolded, if you like that idea, or in any other manner
which seems good to you.”
“That,” said the Emperor, “is an excellent suggestion. But would not
there be some difficulty in carrying to the Marble Quay so large a
number of sieves at once, particularly just when it will be crowded with
notables and the neighboring squares and streets choked, even jammed,
with their equipages? We should not want to present a numerous gang of
sieve-carrying slaves. But if more than two sieves are trusted to each
slave, there will be danger of the sieves being damaged in transit. We
might find it difficult to select one sufficiently perfect.”
“We have thought of that,” said Lutorius, “and have devised a solution
which we think you might accept. I have arranged to have Truttidius
convey some eighty horse-hair sieves to the water-front of the Marble
Quay in a flat-bottomed row-boat, such as are used for bringing
vegetables to the quays of the Forum Olitorium. The oarsmen can keep
the boat nearly stationary off any point of the Quay indicated, and the
selection can be made in sight of the official assemblage of all the
Senators and Pontiffs.”
“That,” said Commodus, “is an excellent suggestion. Have it carried
out and see to it that only we four know of it and that no one but the
sieve-maker and his assistants have anything to do with conveying
the sieves from his shop to the boat and that only the boatmen, the
sieve-maker and his assistants are in the boat, that no one else has
been in the boat. I’ll detail any number of men you ask for to escort
the sieve-maker and his convoy.
“I’ll have the river policed and all possible traffic suspended. Any
craft that are let through the cordons of police-boats will be made to
follow the other side of the river. We’ll have nothing off the Marble
Quay except the boat-load of sieves and the patrol-boats.” He sighed.
“I believe,” he said, “that that is all except fixing the day and the
hour.”
“I suggest,” said Lutorius, “the day after to-morrow, the eighteenth
day before the Kalends of September, the twenty-third anniversary of
Brinnaria’s entrance into the order of Vestals, and, I regret to say,
the second anniversary of her night expedition to Aricia.”
“That suits me,” said Commodus.
“And the hour?” Numisia queried.
“Noon,” said the Emperor.
Accordingly it was settled that Brinnaria was to face her ordeal at
midday on August fifteenth of the nine hundred and thirty-seventh year
after the founding of Rome, 184 of our era.
That night Numisia, conferring with Brinnaria, concluded by saying:
“Truttidius enjoined me to remind you to be very careful not to touch
the web of the sieve with your fingers. Also he says that, if anybody’s
finger touches the web of the sieve as it is being handed to you, you
are to decline to accept it and to demand another.”
“I understand that already,” said Brinnaria.
The Marble Quay was that part of the embankment along the left bank of
the Tiber which was used by the Emperors of Rome for embarking on their
state barges and for landing from them whenever they took part in one of
the gorgeous river processions. Also it was used by all members of the
Imperial household for starting on excursions by water or when returning
from them. It was situated below the north corner of the Aventine Hill,
not far from the square end of the Circus Maximus, close to the round
Temple of Hercules and near the meat market. Every trace of it has
long since vanished, its precious marbles having offered most tempting
plunder for builders of every century since the fall of Rome.
In its glory it was a space about two hundred feet long and nearly a
hundred feet wide, bounded by a gentle hollow curve along the river, and
enclosed on the other three sides by magnificent colonnaded porticoes.
The shafts of the columns were of black Lucullean marble and fully
forty feet high. Their capitals and bases were of green porphyry, the
entablature they carried of red porphyry and the wall behind them of
yellow Numidian marble. The area was paved with slabs of pinkish and
light greenish marble while the copings of the Quay and the steps
leading down to the water were of coral red marble, a building material
extremely rare and very costly.
At noon on the fifteenth of August the area, lined all round just before
the colonnade by a double rank of Pretorian guards, gorgeous in their
trappings of red gloss leather, gilded metal and scarlet cloth, was
thronged with Senators, Pontiffs and officials of the Imperial Court, to
the number of nearly a thousand.
Midway of the crowd, near the head of the middle water-stair, a part of
the pavement, ringed about by the lucky dignitaries in the front row
of spectators, was left free. In it, by the water-steps, were grouped
a selection of Pontiffs, all the Flamens, four Vestals and the Emperor.
The yellow river was almost free of craft; along the other bank some
barges were being warped up-stream; nearby only patrol boats were
visible.
Brinnaria, standing alert and springily erect, her white habit
dazzlingly fresh, fresh as the white flowers clasped at her bosom by
her big pearl brooch, looked like a care-free young matron who had had
a long night’s sleep and a good breakfast. Commodus, looking her up nd
down, mentally contrasted her easy pose and the rosiness of her smiling
face with the tense statuesqueness and austere, almost grim countenances
of her three colleagues. He noticed that her three-strand pearl necklace
seemed to become her more than theirs became the other three and that
she wore her square, white headdress with an indefinable difference,
that there was a difference in the very hang of her headband and in the
way its tassels lay on her bosom. He noted two unusual adjuncts to her
attire; a long, rough towel through her girdle and a gold sacrificial
dipper thrust in beside it.
“Are you ready?” he asked her.
She looked him full in the face and slowly raised her left arm, stiffly
straight, hand extended, palm down, until her finger-tips were almost
level with his face and not a foot from it. Holding it so at full
stretch she asked:
“What do you think of that? Am I ready?”
Commodus regarded her finger-tips, her face, and again her finger-tips:
“Hercules be good to me!” he exclaimed. “Not a tremble, not a waver, not
a quiver. You are mighty cool. You’ve plenty of confidence. I take it
you are ready.”
“I am,” said Brinnaria. “Where is that sieve?”
From behind her spoke Calvaster. “I have a sieve here.”
Commodus rounded on him like an angry mastiff.
“Who authorized you to speak?” he demanded. “You act as if you were
Emperor. You are merely a minor Pontiff. Remember that and speak when
you are spoken to.”
Calvaster, abashed but persistent, stammered:
“I merely offered a sieve.”
“None of your concern to offer a sieve,” Commodus growled. “You insult
all of us and me most of all. Do you take me to be so unfair as to
subject this lady to her test with a sieve brought and offered by her
accuser?”
Calvaster was dumb.
“Show me that sieve,” the Emperor commanded.
Calvaster produced from under his robes a copper-hooped sieve strung
with linen.
Commodus handed it to Brinnaria.
“What do you think of that sieve?” he inquired.
Brinnaria held it up to the light and looked through the web; held it
level, upside down, and looked along the web.
“It is very irregularly woven,” she pronounced; “some of the meshes are
three times the size of others. It is very unevenly strung, it bags in
two places.” She held it up to her face a moment.
“Also,” she concluded, “it has been scrubbed with wood-ashes and
fuller’s-earth. Vesta herself could not carry water in that sieve.”
“Give it back to me!” the Emperor ordered.
He eyed it as she had, sniffed at it like a dog at a mouse-hole, and
glared over it at Calvaster.
“You advertise yourself to all the world,” he snarled, “as an unworthy
Pontiff and a contemptible caitiff. You attempt to entrap me into the
meanest unfairness! You pose as a public-spirited citizen solicitous
about the sanctity of the worship of Vesta and I find you a pettifogging
wretch actuated by spite and malice. You desire not a fair test, but the
ruin of a woman you are low-minded enough to hate. Eugh!” With one of
his excesses of unconventional energy he flung the sieve far out over
the river. It sailed whirling through the air, splashed in the water and
sank out of sight.
“For the price of one dried bean, I’d order you thrown after it,” said
Commodus to Calvaster.
He beckoned one of his aides.
“Signal that boat!” he commanded.
A broad blunt-ended cargo-boat, rather guided than propelled by its four
heavy oars, came drifting down with the current. Its gunwale was hung
with horsehair sieves. Up from the thwarts stood many poles, each with
cross-pieces, every cross-piece hung with sieves. Its oarsmen edged it
nearer and nearer to the Quay and slowed its motion until it was almost
stationary opposite the stair, scarcely an arm’s-length from the lowest
step.
When it was close the Emperor spoke to Numisia:
“Choose any sieve you see.”
Numisia indicated the sieve on the forward arm of the second cross-piece
of the fourth pole from the bow.
Lutorius, at the Emperor’s bidding, called the directions to Truttidius,
who, bowed and bent with age until he looked almost like a clothed ape,
wizened so that his leathery, wrinkled face was like a dried apple, was
standing near the middle of the boat.
“Go down the steps,” said Commodus to Brinnaria, “and yourself take the
sieve from him.” Brinnaria, on the lower step, reached over the water,
and grasped the rim of the sieve which Truttidius held out to her. She
held it up to the light. Its web was of black and white horse-hair, each
thread alternately of a different color. It was made for bolting the
finest flour and the tiny apertures between the hairs were all of a size
and scarcely broader than the hairs themselves.
She scrutinized the sieve from several angles and then looked back at
the Emperor.
“Are you satisfied with that sieve?” he queried.
“I am satisfied with this sieve,” spoke Brinnaria, loud and clear.
“I want to see close,” said Commodus, coming down the steps.
Brinnaria, holding the sieve in both hands, lifted it towards the blue
sky. “O Vesta!” she prayed aloud, “O my dear Goddess, manifest your
divinity, succor your votary! To prove me pleasing and acceptable in
your eyes, grant me the miraculous power to carry up these stairs water
from this river in the sieve which I hold!” She lowered her arms and
holding the sieve in her left hand knelt on one knee on the lowest
step, spread her towel over the other knee and took from her belt the
sacrificial dipper. With that she scooped up half a ladleful of Tiber
water. On the towel spread over her knee she carefully dried the bottom
of the dipper.
Holding it just outside the rim of the sieve she glanced up at Commodus.
“Go on,” he said.
She smiled.
“If you want to see me fail,” she said, “talk to me. If you want to see
me carry water in this sieve, let me alone.”
“I’m dumb*,” said he.
* “Dumb” at this time meant unable to speak. --PG editor
She eyed the sieve to make sure that it was level and steady. Commodus,
also eyeing it, judged it both steady and level.
She brought the ladle over the rim of the sieve and lowered it until it
all but touched the middle of the web.
She tilted the ladle slowly, slowly she poured its contents over its
lip.
She lifted it clear:
On the web of the sieve lay a silver disk, as it were, of water,
round-edged and shining.
“Hercules be good to me!” cried Commodus.
“Keep quiet!” she admonished him. “You’ll put me off.” She dipped up a
ladleful of water, flirted half the water out, wiped the bottom of the
ladle on her knee and brought it cautiously over the sieve, cautiously
she lowered it until it nearly touched the shining disk of water,
cautiously she tilted it, cautiously she let its contents flow over its
lip.
The disk of water spread. She repeated the process. The disk of water
spread.
Again and again she repeated the process.
The disk of water became a film hiding nearly all the web of the sieve.
Commodus noticed that, as she dipped up each ladleful of water, she
watched the dipper out of the corner of her eye, as it were, with a sort
of partial, sidelong glance, but that all the while her gaze was intent
on the sieve.
He noticed other details of her procedure.
“You never pour twice in the same place,” he commented.
Rigid as a statue, the sieve in her hand as unmoving as if clamped in a
vise, Brinnaria spoke:
“If I take my eyes off the sieve,” she rebuked him, “it will tilt in my
hand and the water will run through. If you make me look round you’ll
destroy me. You are not fair.”
“I’m dumb,” said Commodus again, apologetically.
As she poured in the next dipper-load, the film of water touched the rim
of the sieve at one point.
Commodus heard a sharp intake of Brinnaria’s breath.
The next half-ladleful she poured near the spot where the water touched
the sieve-rim.
Round near the hoop she dribbled in half-ladleful after half-ladleful
until the web of the sieve was entirely covered.
She had moved slowly from the first dip into the river. But now, since
she could not see any part of the web of the sieve, she moved yet more
slowly.
Commodus began to be impatient.
“That is plenty of water,” he said.
“Do you, as Pontifex Maximus,” she uttered, “certify that the water now
in this sieve is as deep as you stipulated?”
“I,” said Commodus in a loud voice, “as Emperor and as Pontifex Maximus,
here certify before all men that the water now supported by the web of
that sieve is enough to demonstrate the favor of Vesta towards you and
your impeccable integrity.”
“Back away,” said Brinnaria, “I’m going to stand up.” She thrust the
handle of the ladle through her belt, brushed the towel from her knee
and with her right hand also she grasped the sieve. Holding it now in
both hands, her eyes on it, she very slowly, inch by inch, rose to her
feet. When she was erect, she very slowly drew back her left foot until
her two feet were close together.
“Back away,” she repeated. “I’m going to turn round.” Slowly she pivoted
on her firm feet until she was standing with her back to the river.
Commodus at the top of the steps stared down at her.
“Back away,” she reiterated, “I’m coming up the steps.” Up the steps
she came, very slowly. Planted on her right foot she would almost
imperceptibly raise and advance her left foot. When it was firm on the
step, she would gradually shift her weight to that foot, would very
deliberately straighten up and very carefully draw up her right foot
until both feet were together. So standing she would breathe several
times before she repeated the process.
When she was standing firm on the top step on the level of the Quay
platform, she raised both hands until the sieve was level with her chin.
“You have won,” Commodus exclaimed. “You have demonstrated your
Goddess’s favor. The test is over.”
An arm’s length away stood Calvaster.
“It’s a trick!” he cried. “That is not water.”
“Not water!” cried Brinnaria.
All the forgotten tomboy of her childish girlhood surged up within her.
The obsolete hoydenishness inside her exploded.
“Not water!” she cried, and smashed the sieve over his head.
The rim on his shoulders, his head protruding from the torn eb,
frayed ends of broken horse-hair sticking up round his neck, the water
trickling down his clothing and dripping from his thin locks, from his
big flaring ears, from the end of his long nose, his face rueful and
stultified, he presented a sufficiently absurd appearance.
Commodus, like the overgrown boy he was, burst into roars of laughter.
The Pontiffs laughed, the Senators laughed, even Manlia and Gargilia
laughed.
“It’s a trick!” Calvaster repeated.
On the face of Commodus mirth gave place to wrath.
“Isn’t that enough water for you?” he roared. “Anybody would think, the
way you behave, that I am the minor Pontiff and you the Emperor. I’ll
teach you!” He turned and beckoned a centurion of the guard.
With his file of men he came on the double quick.
“Seize that man!” the Emperor commanded.
Two of the Pretorians gripped Calvaster by the elbows.
“March him out there to the edge,” came the next order, the Emperor
gesturing towards the quay-front on his right.
At the brink of the platform the Pretorians paused.
“Grab him with both your hands,” the Emperor commanded, “and pitch him
into the river.” Over went Calvaster with a mighty splash.
As all Romans were excellent swimmers he came to the surface almost at
once. A few strokes in front of him was the boat with the sieves. To it
he swam and Truttidius hauled him aboard and located him on a thwart.
After the general merriment had waned and the laughter had abated
Commodus faced the assemblage and raised his hand.
Into the ensuing silence he spoke not as a blundering lad nor as a
sportsman, but as a ruler. For the moment, in fact, he looked all the
Emperor.
“We have all beheld,” he said, “a miracle marvellous and convincing.
As Prince of the Republic, as Chief Pontiff of Rome, I proclaim this
Priestess cleared of all imputations whatever. Manifestly she is dear
to Vesta, and worthy of the favor she has shown her. Henceforward let no
man dare to smirch her with any slur or slander.”
CHAPTER XXII - TRIUMPH
IN recognition of Brinnaria’s complete and incontrovertible vindication
Commodus decreed an unusually sumptuous state banquet at the Palace,
inviting to it all the most important personages of the capital,
including the more distinguished senators, every magistrate, the higher
Pontiffs, the Flamens in a body and most of his personal cronies.
While old-fashioned households, such as that of Vocco and Flexinna,
clung to the antique Roman habit of lying down to meals on three
rectangular dining-sofas placed on three sides of a square-topped table,
this arrangement had long been supplanted at Court by a newer invention.
The mere fact that, from of old, it had been looked upon as the worst
sort of bad manners to have more than three diners on a sofa, and as
scarcely less ridiculous to have fewer than three, had made the custom
vexatious in the extreme, as it constrained all entertainers to arrange
for nine guests or eighteen or twenty-seven and ruled out any other more
convenient intermediate numbers. In the progressive circles of society
and at the Palace, the tables were circular, each supported from the
center by one standard with three feet, and each table was clasped, as
it were, by a single ample C-shaped sofa on which any number of guests
from four to twelve could conveniently recline.
At the Palace banquet in honor of Brinnaria, three tables only were set
on the Imperial dais at the head of the dining hall. On one side of the
Emperor’s table was that where feasted the higher Flamens and Pontiffs,
the sofa of the other was occupied by the young Empress, by the wives of
the higher Flamens, and by the four Vestals present.
Brinnaria declared that her appetite was as good as on the day when she
had returned home from her exile to Aunt Septima’s villa.
After two public advertisements of the Emperor’s favor and esteem she
was entirely free from any sort of worry. Her enemies were few, merely
Calvaster and his parasites, and they were thoroughly cowed and curbed
their tongues. Not only no defamation of her but not even an innuendo
gained currency in the gossip of the city during the remainder of her
term of service.
Quite the other way. Her fame as a Vestal whose prayers were sure to be
heard, at first a source of natural pride and gratification to her, came
to be a burden, even a positive misery. There was an immemorial belief
that if a Vestal could be induced to pray for the recapture of an
escaped slave, such a runaway, if within the boundaries of Rome, would
be overcome by a sort of inward numbness which would make it impossible
for him to cross the city limits, so that the retaking of such fugitives
became easy, as it was only necessary to search the wards for them.
City owners of escaped slaves besieged Brinnaria for years and as it
was reported that her intercessions were invariably effective, her fame
increased and petitions for her assistance pestered her.
She bore the annoyance resignedly, reflecting that, while she was in
such repute, no one was likely to impugn her honor.
Life in the Atrium, for the ensuing six years, altered little.
Causidiena, within three years after Brinnaria’s ordeal, became totally
blind. Care of her devolved particularly upon Terentia, of whom she was
dotingly fond.
The routine duties of the maintenance of the sacred fire those two
shared, for Causidiena, even stone blind, never required anyone’s
assistance to tell her the condition of the altar-fire and could care
for it and feed it even alone, judging its needs by the sensations of
her outstretched hands, never burning herself, never letting brands or
ashes fall on the Temple floor. But in all other matters Causidiena and
Terentia were concerned only when their participation was demanded
by canonical regulations, Terentia devoting herself to attendance on
Causidiena, while Causidiena officiated only when the presence of the
Chief Vesta was indispensable.
For Numisia, Gargilia, Manlia and Brinnaria, their main concern was to
arrange that Causidiena should have as little as possible to do and that
Terentia might devote as much as possible of her time to entertaining
Causidiena. This was not easy to accomplish, for Causidiena’s mind was
perfectly clear, her knowledge of every inch of the Atrium enabled her
to move about it unhesitatingly at all hours of the day and night, her
sense of duty urged her to do all that she had ever done when her sight
was perfect, and, like most blind persons, she resented any reference,
expressed or implied, to her infirmity. Consideration for her called for
almost superhuman tact and dexterity. To the best of their ability
the four strove to shield her without her being able to perceive their
sedulity. To the charm of Terentia’s music she, moreover, yielded
readily. Music, as never before, occupied the leisure of the Atrium.
During these years Brinnaria was almost entirely happy. Her duties, her
solicitude for Causidiena, her affection for Terentia, her delight in
her own and Terentia’s music filled up most of her time.
Her horse-breeding continued to interest her, but her interest was
milder and far from absorbing. She kept it up largely because she
regarded her outings as imperatively necessary to maintain her health,
while aimless outings bored her.
As when younger, she dined out very often and regularly with Vocco and
Flexinna. But since Calvaster’s accusation, she never visited Flexinna
alone, always in company with another Vestal, usually Terentia, so that
her dinners at Flexinna’s became restricted to evenings on which she
and Terentia were both off duty. Terentia, who was passionately fond of
small children, revelled in her visits to Flexinna’s house, where there
were children of all ages in abundance, all ready to make friends, all
diverting, all pleased at being petted, and, as Flexinna said:
“Not a stutterer among ‘em.”
From Almo news came frequently through Flexinna.
His campaign, deliberately prepared and relentlessly carried out,
progressed evenly and without any reverse.
The nomads nowhere withstood his legions and their attendant cloud of
allied cavalry; one after the other their strongholds were reached and
stormed, methodically and unhurriedly he reduced tribe after tribe to
submission, his prestige growing from season to season and from year to
year.
When Brinnaria’s term of service was drawing to an end and only about
eleven months of it remained, all Roman society was convulsed by what
was variously referred to as the Calvaster scandal, the great poisoning
trial or the murder of Pulfennia.
Pulfennia Ulubrana, one of Calvaster’s great-aunts, was a dwarfish
creature, humpbacked and clubfooted.
She was an only child and her parents, in spite of her deformities,
were devoted to her. They lavished on her everything that fondness could
suggest, and, as they were very wealthy, she not only lived but enjoyed
life in her way and to a very considerable extent.
To begin with she never had an ill hour or an ache or a pain from her
earliest years. Then, like many cripples, she had great vitality and
a wonderfully alert mind. Amid the small army of maids, governesses,
tutors, pages, litter-bearers, and so on, with which her parents
surrounded her she did not become merely peevish, exacting and
overbearing, as might have been expected. Even the services of her
personal physician, of three expert readers to read aloud to her and of
a half dozen musicians to divert her whenever she pleased, did not spoil
her. She was imperious enough, self-willed and obstinately resolute
to have her own way in all matters, but she had a great deal of
common-sense, realized what was possible and what impossible and was
considerate of her entire retinue, even of such unimportant slave-girls
as her three masseuses.
She was greedy of all sorts of knowledge and acquired an education
altogether unusual for a Roman woman.
Withal she was feminine in her tastes, spent much time on embroidery
and was justly proud of her complex and beautiful productions in this
womanly art. She overcame her disabilities to a great extent and, with
no lack of conveyances, became a figure almost as well-known in oman
society as Nemestronia herself.
As she had an accommodating disposition, an excellent appetite and a
witty tongue, she was a welcome guest at banquets and went about a great
deal. Also she entertained lavishly.
She survived the pestilence and, like so many of the remnants of the
nobility, found herself solitary and enormously wealthy.
Her vast estates she managed herself and she knew to a sesterce
the value of every piece of property, the justifiable expenses of
maintaining each, and the income each should yield. Self-indulgent as
she was and moreover an inveterate gambler, she grew richer every year.
Like all childless Romans of independent means she was the object of
unblushing and overwhelming attentions from countless legacy cadgers.
She enjoyed the game, accepted everything offered in the way of gifts,
services or invitations, and, moreover, played up to it, for she was
forever destroying her last will and making a new one. Each was read
aloud to a concourse of expectant and envious legatees. Each specified
scores of legacies of no despicable amount, and yet more numerous sops
to numerous acquaintances. In every will Calvaster, her nearest relative
and favorite grandnephew, was named as chief legatee.
She kept on making wills, and, what was more, she kept on living.
Naturally her wealth, her eccentricities, her amazing healthiness
and her obstinate vitality were subjects of general remark by all the
gossips of the capital.
One night, an hour or two after midnight, she was seized with violent
internal pains, and, in spite of the ministrations of her private
physician, died before dawn.
In Rome any sudden death was likely to be attributed to poison. In her
case the indications, from the Roman point of view, all converged on the
inference that she had been poisoned. No-one questioned the conclusion.
Calvaster was immediately suspected. The evidence against him would not
suffice to put in jeopardy any one in our days. To the Romans it seemed
sufficient to justify his incarceration and trial. He had more to gain
by the old lady’s death than anybody else. He had been chronically in
need of money and there had been much friction between him and Pulfennia
on this point. She had always provided for his necessities, but had
always insisted on scrutinizing every item in his accounts, and on being
convinced of his need for every sesterce she gave him. She had supported
him, but by an irritating dole of small sums. He had joked with his
cronies about her hold on life. He had been heard to say that he would
be glad when she was gone. He had bought various drugs from various
apothecaries, though none within a year of her death and none used
merely as a poison. Under torture some of her slaves and some of his
slaves told of his having tried to induce them to put poison in her
food.
Roman society promptly divided into two camps on the question of his
guilt or innocence. The subject was debated with vehemence, even with
acrimony. He had been a disagreeable creature from childhood and had
made many enemies. On the other hand, great numbers of fair-minded
people asserted that no man, however distasteful to themselves, should
be convicted on such flimsy evidence.
His trial was watched with great interest, and when he was convicted and
an appeal was successful and a retrial ordered, upper class Rome seethed
with altercations. The case, by common consent, was tabooed as a subject
of conversation at all social gatherings; feeling ran so high that it
was possible to mention the matter only between intimate friends.
Naturally Flexinna and Brinnaria, Terentia and Vocco discussed the case
frequently. To her friends’ amazement Brinnaria maintained that she did
not feel convinced of Calvaster’s guilt.
“I always despised him and hated him,” she said, “and I despise and hate
him as much as ever, if not more. He certainly has been my worst enemy
and he came very near to ruining me. But I see no reason why hate should
blind me in judging his case. I should be glad to have him plainly
convicted and put to death. It would please me. But I am not pleased at
his present plight. I am not convinced of his guilt. I don’t believe any
slave evidence given under torture. A tortured slave will say anything
he thinks likely to relax his sufferings or please his questioners. And
I see no proof of Calvaster’s guilt in the other evidence. Everybody
buys such drugs as he bought. And suppose he did joke about Pulfennia’s
tenacity to life, who wouldn’t? I don’t believe it is proved that she
died of poison anyway. People who have never been ill are reckless
eaters. Look at me, I am. She may have died of indigestion or
stomach-ache or what not. I’d do anything I could to save him, now.”
“D-D-Do you mean to say,” spoke Flexinna, “that if you encountered him
being led out to execution, you’d reprieve him?”
“A Vestal can’t use her prerogative of reprieving criminals,” said
Brinnaria, “unless she encounters by accident a criminal being led to
execution. She can’t lay in wait for one. Any suspicion of collusion
vitiates her privilege. The encounter must be unforeseen.”
“Suppose,” said Flexinna, “you did meet C-C-Calvaster on his way to
execution, wouldn’t you g-g-gloat over him and watch him on his way and
not interfere?”
“No, I should not, I should interfere,” said Brinnaria, “and anyhow,
what is the use of supposing? Suppose the moon fell on your front teeth,
would you stop stuttering?”
In June of 191 Almo returned from Syria, completely victorious and much
acclaimed. He brought with him his veteran legions and was received with
every mark of the Emperor’s favor. After his official reception he at
once left Rome for Falerii, where he was to remain until the last day of
Brinnaria’s service.
Meanwhile his house on the Carinae was opened and put in order under
Flexinna’s supervision.
On August 14th, Lutorius, Causidiena, Numisia and Brinnaria had a long
conference as to the details of her wedding, which was to take place on
August 16th.
The subject needed not a little discussion, as the circumstances were
unusual. Having no parents, nor indeed any near connections, it was
inevitable that the wedding should vary a great deal from what was
customary.
It was decided that on leaving the Atrium after her exauguration, she
should spend one night as the guest of Nemestronia; that on the next day
she should go to Vocco’s house and be married from there; but that in
the ceremonies, Lutorius, who had been her spiritual father for many
years, should take the part which her own father would have taken had
he been alive. It was also decided that the wedding feast should be
at Almo’s house, after the wedding-procession, instead of at Vocco’s
before, as it would have been if she had living parents and was being
married from her home.
Lutorius, who had a warm personal affection for Brinnaria, had been
hovering about her, as it were, for some days, and on this last full
day of her service he kept, so to speak, fluttering in and out of the
Atrium, repeatedly returning to confer about some trifle or other which
he had forgotten.
So it happened that he was approaching the portal as she came out for
her afternoon airing.
“You have your light carriage, to-day, I see,” he said. “Yesterday you
had out your state coach. Why the difference?”
Brinnaria, settling herself among her cushions, leaned out towards him
as he stood beside the vehicle, holding on to the tires, his arms stiff,
a hand on each wheel.
“This,” she said, “is merely a constitutional. Yesterday I took my last
outing with all my special privileges as a Vestal, drove all over Rome
in my state coach, drove up to the Capitol, and, in a fashion, said
farewell to the advantages of my office.”
“How do you feel about it all?” he asked.
Brinnaria pulled a wry face and laughed a forced laugh.
“I am finding out,” she said, “why so few Vestals ever leave the order.
When I realize that, after to-day, I shall have no lictor to clear
the streets for me, that I may go out in my litter daily, but even so
without a runner ahead, that I may never again drive through Rome, that
I have been driven up to the Capitol for the last time and may go there
hereafter only afoot or in my litter, I am almost ready to change my
mind, give up freedom and matrimony and Almo and all and cling to my
privileges. When it comes over me that, as I go out to-day, the lictors
of any magistrate will salute me, even the lictors of the Emperor,
whereas after to-morrow noon there will be no salutes for me, I
understand why most Vestals live out their lives in the order.”
“There is time still to change your mind and stay with us,” he said,
smiling.
Brinnaria laughed a perfectly natural laugh.
“No danger,” she said; “my heart is Almo’s as always.”
“And now, if you have nothing urgent to discuss, I’m off!”
“Where to?” asked Lutorius.
“I don’t care,” said Brinnaria, “I don’t even want to know. Give the
coachman any orders that come into your head, sketch a round-about drive
for me. I’m in the humor to have nothing on my mind.”
Lutorius, with a comprehending smile, whispered to the coachman, who
mounted his tiny seat.
Almost at once Brinnaria was lost in thought and jolted through the
streets oblivious to her surroundings, not even seeing what was before
her eyes.
From her muse she was roused by the halting of the carriage.
Amazed, she looked up.
Still more amazed, she recognized, standing near the head of the
off-horse, the state-executioner.
This repulsive public character, tolerated but despised and loathed, was
the last living creature in or about Rome who would dare to approach a
Vestal.
At sight of him she was inundated with a hot flood of wrath. She was
about to call to her lictor, to demand why the carriage had stopped and
rebuke him for being so negligent as to allow so unsavory a being to
come so near her.
Then she saw between her and the executioner, just in front of that
official, a kneeling figure.
She recognized Calvaster.
Also she saw the guards and executioner’s assistants grouped about the
two.
It came over her that she had encountered, wholly by accident, this
gloomy convoy, and that before her, beseeching her for a reprieve,
begging for a mere day and night more of life, knelt her inveterate,
furtive enemy.
She raised her hand and looked the executioner full in the eyes.
“Send him back,” she commanded. “He is reprieved until this hour
to-morrow.” The guards dragged off Calvaster, babbling his pitiful
gratitude.
“Drive home,” said Brinnaria to her coachman.
CHAPTER XXIII - SALVAGE
THE exauguration of a Vestal, by which canonical ritual she was formally
released from her obligations of chastity and service and became free to
go where she liked and to marry or to remain unmarried as she preferred,
was a brief and simple ceremony. But it required the presence of all the
Vestals, of the major Flamens, of many Pontiffs, of the entire College
of Augurs and of the Emperor himself as Pontifex Maximus. Commodus, who
was impatient of anything which curtailed the time he might lavish on
athletic amusements, arrived precisely at noon, at the very last minute.
The moment he had entered the Atrium he hurried the ceremony. It was
soon over and Brinnaria no longer a Vestal, but a free woman.
It had been arranged that immediately after her exauguration her
successor should be taken as a Vestal there in the Atrium by Commodus
himself as Chief Pontiff. Little difficulty had been encountered as to
selecting a candidate, since a most suitable child had been offered by
her parents, people of xcellent family and of unblemished reputation.
Her name was Campia Severina, and she was a small girl, just seven years
old, plump, with a round full-moon of a face, a leaden-pasty complexion,
and a most un-Roman nose, flat, broad and snub.
Commodus, prompted by Lutorius, droned through the required questions
and showed manifest relief when he pronounced the word “Beloved” and the
second ceremony was over.
He was, however, not wholly a loutish and unmannerly Emperor, but could
be tactful and gracious when his interest was aroused. He took time to
speak to each of the Vestals; complimented Terentia on her music and
spoke of the Empress’s admiration of her organ-playing, had a brief but
kindly commendation for Manlia and Gargilia; praised Numisia highly for
her efficient discharge of the duties devolving on her, and condoled
with Causidiena on her blindness and feebleness, wording what he said so
dexterously that she could not but feel cheered and comforted.
Then, aside from the assemblage of Pontiffs, Augurs, Flamens and the
rest, he spoke privately with Brinnaria:
“I’m sorry to lose you,” he said; “I felt comfortable about the
Palladium as long as you were a Vestal. Numisia is a woman to be relied
on too, and Gargilia and Manlia are capable creatures, but not one
of the three is your equal in any respect and they are but three; the
others are a corpse, a doll and an infant.
“Understand I’m not growling at your departure, I am trying to convey
to you how highly I esteem you. I’ll advertise it to all the world by
having you and your husband, the moment you are married, put on the
official roster of my personal friends who have the right of access to
me at all times and can go in and out of the Palace at their pleasure.
“As to your wedding, I’m sorry I gave you my promise to stay away from
it. I think that this recent notion of yours that the marriage of an
ex-Vestal is an ill-omened occasion, like a funeral, is morbid and
baseless. Every Vestal has a right to leave the order at the end of her
term of service and to marry if she pleases. The right is indubitable.
Nothing that is right is ill-omened. I think that an ex-Vestal’s wedding
ought to be regarded precisely as the wedding of anybody else. The most
I’ll concede is, that it might be likened to the wedding of a widow,
considering her service as a sort of first marriage. That is my
judgment, not merely as a man but as Chief Pontiff.
“My impulse is to revoke my pledge and to do all I can to make your
wedding a grand affair. But I’m too good a betting man to break a
promise. Besides, though I impugn your arguments as an ex-Vestal, I
respect your personal preference for a quiet wedding. I’ll not insist
on being invited to the banquet, and, so far from taking part in the
procession, I’ll not even peep at it down a side street. I’ll keep
inside the Palace.
“But I want you to release me from my promise in one small detail.
I want to be present at Vocco’s to see you two break and eat the
old-fashioned cake, and I want to be first to sign your marriage
register. I promise to leave as soon as I have signed the register.”
Brinnaria, of course, could not but acquiesce.
“Good for you!” said the Emperor, “and thank you too. I’ll keep away
from the procession, but that won’t make any difference in the throngs
you’ll find along your route. They’ll jam the streets and you’ll have to
plough your way through. No Emperor could ever call out more sight-seers
than will the wedding of Brinnaria the water-carrier.” He then went out
into the street which his escort blocked, and departed, accompanied
by his coterie of boxers, wrestlers, swordsmen, jockeys and such-like,
convoyed by a large and gorgeous retinue of pages, runners, guards nd
lictors.
Immediately after his departure Brinnaria said her farewells and set out
for Nemestronia’s.
Next morning, as she descended from her litter at Vocco’s door, a
Vestal’s carriage drove up and Gargilia got out.
“You’re surprised to see me at this hour,” she said, “and I don’t
wonder.” When they were indoors and seated with Flexinna she explained:
“We have been having a terrible night at the Atrium and the worst sort
of luck this morning. That little fool of a Campia is the most complete
cry-baby and the most homesick little wretch I ever saw or heard of.
She has sobbed herself ill and screamed us all out of a night’s sleep.
Terentia and Manlia were up half the night with her and she waked me and
Causidiena.
“The result is that Causidiena has had one of her semi-fainting
spells and is in her arm-chair for the day, poor Manlia has one of
her splitting headaches and Terentia is almost as bad. I never saw the
Atrium in such a state. Campia goes to sleep off and on from exhaustion,
but she wakes up howling and keeps blubbering and whining and sniveling.
I left both Terentia and Manlia in tears. They are so vexed to think
that to-morrow they will be entirely well, but for to-day there is
absolutely nothing for it but they must both keep abed and in the dark.
“Numisia sent me to tell you that she will be at your wedding, will walk
in the procession and will be at the banquet, but that I must be on duty
in the Temple. So we’ll just have to have our chat now and when I leave
we shall not see each other again for the present.”
As she climbed into her carriage she said:
“I’m sorry you haven’t a bright wedding day.”
“So am I,” said Brinnaria, glancing up at the gray canopy of rainless
cloud which hid the sky; “any day is a good day to be married on, but I
hoped for sunshine.”
Commodus, faithful to the spirit of his promise, came to Vocco’s house
with the smallest possible official retinue. He was in the best humor,
affable and genial, and cast no chill of formality over the ceremony. He
was the first to set his signature to the marriage register, signing in
his sprawling school-boy hand. Then he stood aside and looked on while
Flexinna, as matron of honor, led Brinnaria to Almo and joined
their right hands, while they seated themselves side by side on the
traditional cushioned stools, while the Flamen of Jupiter offered on the
house-altar the old-fashioned contract-cake, and said the formal prayers
for the happiness of the bride and groom; while the Flamen’s assistant,
one of Flexinna’s older boys, carried the cake to Almo and Brinnaria and
each broke off a piece and ate it, she uttering the old-time formula:
“Where you are Caius I am Caia.”
Above the voices of the guests Commodus’ could be distinguished shouting
with them:
“Good luck! Good luck!”
In the silence that followed he warned:
“Now, no rising, no bowing. I’m not here to spoil this wedding, I came
to enjoy it. No bowing, I tell you, no rising. Let me get out like an
ordinary man.”
Into the gathering dusk he vanished with his retinue.
As soon as he was gone the arrangement for the procession began, the
slaves lit their torches and grouped themselves outside the house-door,
the flute players struck up a tune, Flexinna’s thirteen-year-old boy
lit his white-thorn torch at the altar-fire, her eleven-year-old and
nine-year-old, as pages of honor, caught Brinnaria by the hands and led
her out at the door. So led by the two little boys, their brother with
the white-thorn torch walking before her, she passed through the streets
to Almo’s house, Nemestronia and Flexinna on either side of Almo, close
behind her, Vocco and the other guests following.
The people made good the Emperor’s prophecy.
From house-door to house-door the streets were packed with crowds eager
to see her pass and loud to acclaim her. Through cheers, good wishes,
loud jokes, merry longs and cries of “Talassio! Talassio!” she passed
along the upper part of the Fagutal, and past the flank of the Baths of
Titus to the Carinae.
Her bridal dress of pearl-gray, with the flame-colored bridal veil,
reminded her more than a little of that costume of Flexinna’s which
she had worn to Aricia and back, only that was mostly pink, this mostly
gray.
She looked well in it and wore the six braids and the headband more
naturally than most brides, having been habituated to them for thirty
years, since all Vestals always wore the bridal coiffure.
At the doorway of Almo’s house, the bearer of the white-thorn torch
halted and faced about inside the door, his two little brothers let go
her hands, Almo himself caught her up clear of the pavement and swung
her clear of the door-sill. As he held her in the air, nestling to him,
she repeated the formula:
“Where you are Caius, I am Caia.”
When he set her down inside the house she was at last a married woman.
She turned and watched the scramble for the white-thorn torch which its
bearer first put out and then threw among the crowd after the slaves had
also put out their torches.
So watching, Almo’s arm about her, she became aware of a strange
something in the look of the crowd and of the street.
“What makes it so light?” she asked Almo. “Why are the tops of their
heads all bright that way?”
Lutorius, who was near them, explained:
“There is a big fire somewhere the other side of the Capitol. I noticed
it at the top of the street. The Capitol stood out black, the outline of
both temples plain as in the daylight, against the red smoke behind it.”
“Send some of the slaves,” said Brinnaria, “to find out where the fire
is, and let us lie down to dinner. I’m as hungry as a wolf.” And like a
true Roman she began with a trifle of three hard-boiled eggs, merely to
take the edge off her appetite.
There were six tables set in Almo’s dining-room and an ample
crescent-shaped sofa to each. The sixty guests made the big room buzz
with talk and echo with laughter.
Nemestronia called across to Brinnaria:
“Now you have what you’ve always wanted. You’re a married woman at
last.”
“And I’ll soon have what I’ve wanted almost as much,” Brinnaria replied.
“What’s that?” several voices called.
“Two desires,” Brinnaria explained, “haunted me all the while I was a
Vestal. One was the longing for a horseback ride. I used to revel in
galloping bareback. I haven’t been astraddle of a horse for thirty
years. It won’t be many days now before I shall enjoy a good canter on a
good horse.
“Then, by to-morrow night, I trust, I shall have had a fine long swim
with my husband and six hundred other couples in the big basin of one of
the City Baths.
“Words could not tell you how I have longed to go swimming in the public
baths with the rest of my kind, as a lady should.”
The messengers returned with the news that the fire had started near
the round end of the Flaminian Circus, close to the Temple of Bellona.
Before a strong wind it had spread both ways, had caught everything
in the north slope of the Capitol between it and Trajan’s Forum: the
silver-smiths’ shops were all ablaze; to the south it had crept between
the slope of the Capitol and the theatre of Marcellus and was sweeping
over the booths of the Vegetable Market.
“It is the biggest fire in our time,” said Lutorius.
“Where will it stop?” queried Numisia.
Both sent their lictors to make further report.
Before the dinner was half over they returned, with messengers from the
Atrium. The conflagration was roaring up the Vicus Jugarius and Gargilia
was alarmed.
Lutorius and Numisia hastily excused themselves, called for their shoes
and went off; he in his litter and she in her carriage.
As Brinnaria was about to cut the wedding cake her former lictor, Barbo,
thrust himself into the dining-hall, frantic with concern, and narrated
how the fire was beyond any hope of control and was already devouring
the Basilica Argentaria and Basilica Julia.
“Lutorius has had the sacred fire carried out of the Temple in a copper
pan by Gargilia and Manlia,” he said, “and Terentia and Numisia, with
little Campia, were helping Causidiena along the Holy Street. Causidiena
had an earthenware casket in her arms. I saw them turn the corner to
their right into Pearl-Dealers Lane. They are safe in the Palace by
now.”
“Safe in the Palace?” Brinnaria echoed.
“Yes,” Barbo repeated. “Safe in the Palace. They say that the Temple and
the Atrium must burn, nothing can save them.”
“The Temple!” cried Brinnana. “Fire! And everybody ill except Gargilia
and Numisia! And all they could think of would be saving that dear old
blind saint and that contemptible cry-baby. Ten to one they have missed
the Palladium and taken one of the dummies by mistake!
“O, Almo, I must go save the Palladium!”
Of course Almo protested.
“Don’t hinder me,” she begged. “Go I must, whether you object or not.
We’d never forgive ourselves if to-morrow we learned too late that the
Vestals missed the true Palladium in the confusion, whereas I might have
saved it if I had tried. They may have taken the real Palladium; I may
be too late now to save it if they made a mistake, but I am bound to
try.”
He shut his lips, but she read his eyes.
“That is like my hero,” she said. “Patriotism first, self last.
“Barbo,” she called, “run before me and clear the way as if I were still
a Vestal. It’s illegal, but it will work.”
She started for the house-door and then paused.
“Have you any fire buckets?” she asked Almo. “Then have two of the
slaves each fill a bucket and keep close behind us.”
Amid the prayers and blessings of the wedding-guests, they went out hand
in hand, the two slaves with leather water-buckets behind them, Barbo
ahead, bellowing:
“Room for Brinnaria Epulonia! Room for Brinnaria Epulonia!” At the
street corner, before they started down the slope of the Carinae, they
had before them a wide view over the city directly towards the Capitol.
Between them and the Capitol Hill they could see the buildings about the
Great Forum all one sea of flames.
“The Basilica AEmilia is on fire,” said Brinnaria, “and the Temple of
Augustus is just catching. We shall be in time; our Temple won’t catch
before we get there.
“Run, let’s run.”
Run they did, the crowds making way at Barbo’s loud adjurations. In
their wedding finery, she with her veil wrapped round her head like a
market-woman’s shawl, they ran, hand in hand between the great Temple of
Venus and Rome, black on their right hand against the reddened clouds,
and the vast Colosseum on their left, all orange in the glare, the
gilding on its awning poles glimmering.
Up the Sacred Street they passed, running when they could, ploughing
through the crowds when the crowd was too thick.
By the time they passed through the Arch of Titus they were running,
panting and gasping, through a hail of warm ashes, hot cinders, glowing
embers, blazing bits of wood, flaming brands.
At the corner of the Pearl-Dealers Exchange Almo halted, detaining her
by her gripped left hand.
“It is no use,” he said; “we are too late. You might pass the portal
of the Atrium alive, but you’d never get back alive. And I doubt if you
could reach the portal through this heat. You’d scorch to death.”
“I shall reach the portal,” Brinnaria declared, firmly. “But I’m not
coming back through it. Listen to me and don’t forget. I’m going to make
a dash for the portal. I can reach it, our Temple has not caught yet,
the bronze-tile roof will hold the fire off the beams some time. This
end of the Temple of Augustus has not blazed yet; I can see the cornice.
“Once inside the Atrium I’ll not try to come back this way, I’ll find
the Palladium or make sure it is not there; then I’ll run upstairs to
the south-east corner. Those rooms are on a level with the pavement of
the New Street.”
“But,” Almo interrupted, “there isn’t an opening towards the New Street.
The outer wall of the Atrium towards the Palace is all blank wall to the
cornice, not even a ventilation hole anywhere.”
“I know,” she rebuked him; “keep still and listen. I’ll run into the
third room from the corner. All that end of the Atrium is of brick and
cement, not a beam anywhere and the ceilings are vaulted; the fire will
be a long time reaching me there. You go up Pearl Dealers’ Lane to the
corner of the New Street. From the corner measure thirty-eight feet
along the New Street. At that point have a hole smashed through the
wall. There are hordes of firemen about with their axes, sledge-hammers
and pick-axes. They’ll hack a hole through for you in no time. The wall
is thin there; we had a temporary door made there three years ago for
the plumbers when they were putting in the new bath-rooms.
“Now, every moment is precious. Hold my hand and help me to make my dash
for the portal, but drop my hand and turn back at the portal; no man
may enter the Atrium, except a Pontiff or a workman. When I squeeze your
fingers, drop my hand and make your dash back.
“Don’t try to check me, husband; self last and patriotism first, for
every Roman of us all. We have waited thirty years for each other and
we’ve hardly had time for three kisses yet. But if we must lose each
other to save Rome, then we must.
“If I fail, good-bye!” Then she turned and called the trembling slaves
to come nearer.
She ordered:
“Dash that water over us, one over him, one over me. Don’t waste any,
pour it on our heads. Now go where you please!”
Dripping, hand in hand, they ran over the cinder-strewn pavement,
under the rain of blazing fragments, up the Sacred Street, between the
furnace-hot walls.
Under the long arcade they were safe.
At its further end she had to face a dash of some ten yards through the
blazing brands, the very air seeming on fire.
“I’m afraid!” she cried. “Be brave, Almo, and give me courage!” Her
fingers pressed his, their hands parted.
Her hands over her face she dashed forward.
He saw her vanish through the portal.
He ran back.
Inside the Atrium Brinnaria turned to her right, passed through a small
door, traversed four dark rooms and groped, kneeling on the floor.
Her fingers found five earthenware caskets in a row.
Swiftly she felt them.
The third she opened.
Carefully she fingered the statuette inside, running the tips of her
finger-ends along the carved folds of the gown, over the helmet, over
the fingers clasping the spear.
With the statuette in her hands she stood up. Tearing off her veil she
wrapped the statuette in it.
Back she went to the peristyle, and ran round it to her right. Under the
roof of the colonnade she was safe from the rain of brands, but even
in there the heat was appalling. She felt as if the very marble columns
must crumble beside her as she ran.
At the far corner of the courtyard she dashed through a door and ran
up two flights of stairs; a short flight in front of her, and a longer
flight to her left from the landing of the first. At the top of the
stairs she passed through four rooms. In the fifth, lighted from
behind her through a door by an orange glow from the glare of the
conflagration, she sank down on the floor against its farther wall.
Almost at once she was on her feet, recoiling from the wall. It quivered
with the shock of blows from the outside.
A shower of plaster and bits of brick stung her face and spattered all
over her.
She saw the point of a pick-axe shine an instant in the fire-glare.
“I’m here,” she called. “I’m safe. Take your time. It’s not hot in here
yet.” The excited blows thudded on the wall. The sledges broke a hole as
big as her head, four times as big as her head.
“Take your time!” she repeated. “There is no hurry now.” Soon she could
see the torches outside, the faces of the firemen, Almo’s face.
“No!” she said, “I won’t be dragged through a crevice. There is plenty
of time. Dig that hole bigger!” When it was large enough to suit her she
bade her rescuers back away.
“No man must touch what I carry,” she warned.
Outside, in Almo’s arms, she was hurried through winding alleys, up
narrow stone stairways, to the Palace.
At the end of a deep, dark passageway between high walls Lutorius, with
some of the Emperor’s aides, was waiting for them at a small door. He
guided them to where they were eagerly expected. As they threaded the
corridors, they heard, at first far off, then closer and closer, the
sound of a child wailing, bawling, blubbering. Even in the Palace,
Campia was an irrepressible cry-baby.
In the chapel of the Statue of Victory they found the Vestals, the
Empress and the Emperor.
“I’ve got it safe,” Brinnaria proclaimed.
“I’m a frightful-looking bride,” she added, “wet as a drowned pup,
scorched all over, all my hair burnt off; I must look a guy.”
“Never mind that,” said Commodus; “you can’t get home to-night, the
conflagration is still spreading. I doubt if the firemen can save the
Colosseum. It would take you till daylight to work your way round the
districts which are in confusion. You’ll sleep here. I’ve had Trajan’s
own private suite made ready for you two, as soon as the first messenger
told me of your gallantry. You’ll find an army of maids and such waiting
for you. Go make yourselves comfortable.
“The bedroom of Rome’s greatest Emperor is none too good for you.
Nothing is too good for you, Brinnaria.
“You’ve saved the Palladium, and me, and the Empire and the Republic and
Rome.”
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Unwilling Vestal, by Edward Lucas White