"Nothing is secret, which shall not be made manifest."--ST. LUKE
VIII. 17.
Caligula himself led the way to the triclinium and Dea Flavia followed
him.
He threw himself upon a couch and she, with her own hands, served him
with wine and fruit. He refused to eat but drank freely of the wine,
whilst she stood beside him calmly waiting until he should be ready to
go.
Seeing Blanca cross the atrium, she had called to her and ordered her to
serve the soldiers. The men were grateful for they were exhausted. They
had not tasted food since the day before, and had been on the watch
round the Cæsar's person all night.
The underground passage which runs beneath the declivity between the two
points of the Palatine, and by tortuous ways under the temple of Jupiter
Victor on its highest summit, did connect the house which Dea Flavia now
occupied with the Palace of Augusta. The latter, since the death of the
great imperator, had been used entirely as a hall of justice: a few
scribes alone inhabited the rearmost portion of the huge edifice.
The passage itself abutted in Dea Flavia's house on one of the small
rooms that lay round the triclinium. There were several such passages
connecting the various palaces on the Palatine, but their existence was
not revealed to the army of slaves, only a few responsible ones knew
that they were there. In this instance the Cæsar could, from the
triclinium, reach this road to safety without again crossing the atrium
and encountering the prying eyes of hundreds of cowardly slaves.
He had no thought of thanking Dea Flavia for what she did for him, but
having drunk his fill, he rose from the couch and made ready to go.
She escorted him to the door of the passage and gave brief instructions
to the men how to proceed. She had lighted a small lamp which would
guide the Cæsar and his escort on their way. From the door, a flight of
precipitous steps led down into the darkness. Caligula was the first to
descend and his soldiers followed him; the one who held the lamp keeping
close to the Cæsar's person.
Dea Flavia stood at the door until the footsteps of the men ceased to
send their echo back to her along the vaulted passage. Then, with a sigh
of relief, she closed the door on them and hastily fled from the room.
Her one desire now was to shut out, as completely as possible from her
mental vision the picture of her shattered ideal, the degradation of
that majesty which she had honoured all her life. So imbued was she with
that sense of honour and of reverence for the Cæsarship, that she would
not dwell in thought on that awful sight of the Cæsar grovelling in
abject terror at her feet. She wished to forget it--to forget him--the
man who, in her eyes, was already no longer the Cæsar, for the Cæsar was
a god, and like unto a god in glory and in dignity--whilst Caligula, her
kinsman, had sunk lower than the beasts.
Almost involuntarily she had turned back toward the studio. A while ago
she had wished to look on the praefect of Rome as he lay in a drugged
sleep, desiring to assure herself that all was well with him; then the
advent of the Cæsar had interrupted her. Over an hour had gone by since
then and the whole aspect of the world had changed.
The Cæsar was a fugitive and a coward, and the people who had the upper
hand were prepared to acclaim the hero of their choice.
The atrium now was gloomy and deserted. The slaves--gathered together in
their remote quarters--shunned the vastness and the enforced silence of
the reception halls; they preferred to huddle together in close groups
in corners, distant from the noise of the street.
Dea Flavia stood quietly listening. Still from afar came the insistent
cries of "Death!" and of "Vengeance!" Still overhead that lurid light
and smoke-laden atmosphere. But now those same cries seemed almost
drowned by a sound more persistent if less ominous: the sound of heavy
pattering rain on leaden roofs and into the marble basin of the
impluvium, whilst the roll of Jove's thunders appeared to be more nigh.
It was obvious that the storm which had been threatening all the morning
from over the Campania, had burst over the great city at last. It was
Jove's turn now to make a noise with his thunder, to utter cries and
howls of vengeance and of death through the medium of his storm, and to
drown the fury of men in the whirl of his own.
Now a vivid flash of lightning rent the leaden sky overhead and searched
the dark corners of the atrium. Dea Flavia uttered an involuntary little
cry of terror, and hid her face in her hands.
A high wind howled among the trees outside the house; Dea could hear the
tiny branches cracking under the whip-lash of the blast, breaking away
from the parent stem and sending an eddy of dry dead leaves whirling
wildly along the narrow streets and into the open portals of the
vestibule. She could hear the fall of the torrential rain, and the
flames, which sacrilegious hands had kindled, dying away with
long-drawn-out hissing moans of pain. She could hear the wind in its
rage lashing those flames back into life again, and could see through
the opening overhead the huge volumes of black smoke chased across the
sky.
Smoke and flames were fighting an uneven battle against the persistent,
heavy rain. The wind was their ally, but he was gusty and fitful: now
and then helping them with all his might, fanning their activity and
renewing their strength, but after a violent outburst he would lie down
and rest, gathering strength mayhap, but giving the falling rain its
opportunity.
The rain had no need of rest; it fell, and fell, and fell, steadily and
torrentially, searching the weaker flames, killing them out one by one.
To Dea Flavia's straining senses it seemed clear that in this storm the
number of rebels had greatly diminished; none, no doubt, but the most
enthusiastic remained to face the discomforts of drenched skin and bone
chilled to the marrow. No doubt too the gale blowing the flames and
smoke hither and thither on the exposed slopes of the Palatine, had
rendered a stand in the open unmaintainable.
All this of course was mere conjecture, but the young girl, worn out
mentally and physically with the nerve strain of the past
four-and-twenty hours was grateful for the momentary sense of peace. The
steady fall of the rain acted soothingly upon her senses; her wearied
thoughts flew aimlessly hither and thither on the wings of her
imagination.
Only the storm frightened her because she was not sure if it were an
expression of Jove's wrath, or whether his mighty hand had only
scattered the infuriated populace so that she--Dea Flavia--could weigh
the destinies of Rome in peace.
She thought of going quietly back to her room, to think a while in the
solitude; the danger being less imminent gave her leisure to ponder and
to weigh in the balance her allegiance to Cæsar, and that other nameless
sense within her which she did not yet understand, but which invariably
drew her wandering thoughts back, and then back again to the man who lay
in a drugged sleep under her roof.
He slept, and throughout the great city the people called on him: "Hail
Taurus Antinor! Hail!"
She sighed and involuntary tears gathered in her eyes: but the sigh was
not one of sadness, rather was it one of longing for something
intangible and exquisite, and this longing was so sweet and withal so
mysterious, that instinctively she turned away from the magnificent
reception hall toward her own room, with a wild desire to be alone and
nurse that longing into an all-compelling desire.
It was at this moment that five or six men--all wrapped in dark woollen
cloaks--entered the atrium from the vestibule, and catching sight of the
Augusta, called to her loudly with greetings of respectful homage.
She paused, angered at the intrusion; peace and solitude seemed indeed
denied to her to-day; but recognising the praetorian praefect as the
foremost of her visitors, she could not--owing to his high rank--dismiss
him from her presence.
Caius Nepos had already bent the knee before her. He looked flushed and
agitated as did most of the others, only my lord Hortensius Martius who
was in the background, looked pale and wan from the terrible exposure of
yesterday.
She did not think to wonder how these men had entered her house, how
they had found their way to her presence, past her janitors, and without
the usual formalities and ceremonies of introduction which her high rank
demanded. She knew that her slaves were demoralised, that men who had
been friends of the Cæsar were now fugitives, and vaguely thought that
the praetorian praefect and his friends had found their way into her
house as into a likely haven of refuge, and would, the next moment, be
kneeling at her feet begging for protection and shelter, just as their
lord and Cæsar had done on this selfsame spot half an hour ago.
"Your pleasure, my lords?" she asked.
"To speak with thee privately, O Augusta!" said Caius Nepos, sinking his
voice to a whisper. "My friends and I have tried all the morning to
forge our way through the mob and to reach thine ear. But the praetorian
guard, faithful to me, was unable to make headway. Then did we think of
covering ourselves with dark cloaks and of following the crowd, as if we
were one with it, until it led us to the precincts of thy house. The
storm as it broke overhead was our faithful ally; the crowd has sought
refuge against it under the arcades of the Forum, and the slopes of the
Palatine are comparatively free."
"Yet, do ye want shelter and protection from me?" asked Dea Flavia.
She had no liking for these men, all of whom she knew. Caius Nepos,
selfish and callous; Ancyrus, the elder, avaricious and self-seeking;
young Escanes whom she knew to be unscrupulous; Philippus Decius whose
ostentation and lavishness she despised. She vaguely wondered why my
lord Hortensius Martius was among them.
"Nay, gracious lady!" said Caius Nepos suavely, "'tis not thy protection
which we crave, save for a few moments whilst we lay at thy feet our
desires for the welfare of Rome."
"The welfare of Rome?" she queried vaguely. "I do not understand ye!
What hath your coming hither to do with the welfare of Rome?"
"Allow us to make the meaning clear to thee, O Augusta. But not here,
where prying eyes might be on the watch or unwelcome ears be prepared to
listen. Grant us but a brief audience in strict privacy ... the
destinies of Rome are in thy hands."
She made no immediate reply, but, as was habitual with her, she tried to
read with searching eyes all that went on behind the obsequious masks
wherewith these men sought to hide their innermost thoughts from her.
And as she peered into their smooth, humble faces, all at once she knew
why they had come. She knew it even before they put their proposals into
words; she knew why the praetorian praefect was so servile, and why my
lord Hortensius Martius, despite his obvious weakness, wore an air of
triumph.
They had come to betray the Cæsar and to place the destinies of Rome in
her hands. It was strange indeed that this mealy-mouthed sycophant
should be using those very words which had stood before her eyes like
letters of fire, searing her brain ever since she had stood here--half
an hour ago--with the grovelling Cæsar at her feet.
The whirl of thoughts which rushed to her brain now made her giddy.
Instinctively now, as she had done then, she looked down on her
hands--those hands which were to guide the destinies of Rome--and her
heart had a curious twinge of pain, almost of fear, for she realised
more fully than before how small and delicate they were.
"Time walks closely on the heels of destiny, O Augusta!" urged Marcus
Ancyrus, the elder, in his gently insinuating voice; "for the nonce Jove
has damped the wrath of the people of Rome, but that wrath is only
dormant, it will break out afresh. The storm in the heavens will pass
by, but the tempest caused by a raging mob will reawaken with double
fury. In thy hands, Augusta, in thy hands!..."
She knew that all these men wanted was to use her as a tool--a puppet to
dance to their piping. She knew that anon they would be as ready to
betray her as they were betraying their Cæsar now. Yesternight had they
come to her with their proposals she would have rejected them with
unqualified scorn; but since yesternight she had seen the Cæsar abject,
cowardly, degraded, dragging his bespattered majesty across the floor of
this house; she had measured him--not by what he represented, but by
what he was, and she had taken his measure ... and that of another ...
and the Cæsar was lower than the brutes--and that other was greater than
men.
A silent voice, a whisper which mayhap was an inspiration, caused her to
look toward the studio.
"In there, my lords," she said, pointing to the door, "we shall be safe
from watchful eyes and ears, and I will listen to what you have to say."
She chose not to see the look of triumph which flashed from six pairs of
eyes, but calmly led the way toward the studio.
Caius Nepos and the others followed her without a word. Dion and Nolus
rose as she entered, and she dismissed them, whilst ordering them to
wait her pleasure outside the door. The two men--brought up in the
school of slavery, were too well drilled to marvel at the gracious
lady's many moods; they did not even cast one look in the direction of
the inner room where they knew that the praefect of Rome still lay in a
drugged sleep.
As soon as they were gone Dea Flavia turned again to Caius Nepos and to
his friends.
"I pray you sit," she said simply.
She herself sat on a high chair with circular back carved of citrus
wood, but Caius Nepos and the others preferred to stand.