"Unto Caesar"

His voice had become perfectly steady and natural in its tones; all his restless, jerky movements had ceased. Outwardly he seemed to be completely master of himself. But of a truth the aspect of the madman now was more terrible than before. His sallow cheeks were the colour of lead, his pale eyes had narrowed down till they were mere slits through which gleams of deadly hate shot mercilessly on the informer.

Caius Nepos had great difficulty in keeping up an appearance of dignity. It was obviously in his interest to show neither confusion nor fear just now. Nothing but calm demeanour and a proud show of loyalty would ensure his personal safety at this moment. The praetorian praefect knew enough of the imperial despot to appreciate the danger of this outwardly quiet mood, which hid the utter callousness of demoniacal cruelty.

Therefore, in response to the horrible threat, Caius Nepos merely bent his head as if in humble submission to the will of one who was as a god. He felt his teeth chattering against one another, his limbs trembling, his blood frozen within him, and with it all he had the additional horror of knowing that the brutish tyrant was looking him through and through, that he saw the fear in him and was gloating on it with delight.

It was with a feeling of inexpressible relief that he at last understood that he was being dismissed. Steadying his limbs as best he could, he rose from his couch and made obeisance before the Cæsar. Then almost mechanically and like one in a dream, but holding himself erect and composed, he walked backwards out of the room.

The silken curtains weighted with gold fell together with a swishing sound behind him. And even as they did so a loud and prolonged roar of laughter, like that of a hundred demons let loose, echoed throughout the length and breadth of marble halls. Caius Nepos took to his heels and fled like one possessed, with hands pressed to his ears, trying to shut out the awful sounds that pursued him all down the corridors: the shrieks of pain, the whizzing of whipcord through the air, and, rising above all these, that awful laugh which must have found its origin in hell.

CHAPTER XIII

"Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"—St. John i. 46.

Dea Flavia was standing beside a tall stool, on the top of which—on a level with her hands—was a shapeless mass of clay. Her fingers buried themselves in the soft substance or ran along the surface, as the exigencies of her task demanded.

Now and then she paused in her work, drew back a step or two from the stool, and with head bent on one side surveyed her work with an anxious frown.

Some few paces from her, at the further end of the room, a young girl sat on an elevated platform, with shoulders bare and head straight and rigid, the model for the proposed statue. Dea Flavia, in a simple garment of soft white stuff falling straight from her shoulders, looked peculiarly young and girlish at this moment, when she was free from all the pomp and paraphernalia of attendants that usually surrounded her wherever she went.

The room in which she indulged her artistic fancy was large and bare, with stuccoed walls on which she herself had thrown quaint and fantastic pictures of goddesses and of beasts, and groups of charioteers and gladiators, drawn with a skilful hand. The room derived its light solely from above, where, through a wide opening in the ceiling, came a peep of cloud-covered sky. There was little or no furniture about, and the floor of iridescent mosaic was innocent of carpet. Only in the corners against the wall stood tall pots of earthenware filled with flowers, with a profusion of late summer lilies and roses and with great branches of leaves on which the coming autumn had already planted its first kiss that turns green to gold.

"Hold thy head up, girl, a little higher," said Dea Flavia impatiently; "thou sittest there like a hideous misshapen bunch of nothing-at-all. Dost think I've paid a high price for thee that thou shouldst go to sleep all day upon that trestle?"

And the girl, roused from semi-somnolence, would pull herself together with a little jerk, would straighten her shoulders and lift her chin, whilst a quickly smothered sigh of weariness would escape her lips.

The air was heavy both within and without, with the presage of a coming storm. It had been terribly hot the last few days. The weather-wise—for there were many such at this time in Rome—had prophesied that Jupiter would send his thunders roaring before very long, and the feeling of thunder in the air caused the model to feel very sleepy, and on the forehead of Dea Flavia beads of perspiration would appear at the roots of tiny fair curls.

She was working with a will but with strange, fretful movements, like one whose mind seems absent from the present task. Short sighs of impatience escaped her parted lips at intervals and a frown appeared and disappeared fitfully between her brows.

"Chin up, girl … shoulders straight!" came in curt admonitions once or twice to the drowsy model.

Whereupon from the furthest corner of the room Licinia would emerge, rod in hand, to emphasise the necessity of keeping awake when a beloved mistress so desired it.

"Let her be, Licinia," said Dea Flavia with angry impatience when for the fifth time now the model fell in a huddled heap, with nose almost touching her knees, and heavy lids falling over sleepy eyes. "It's no use … there is something in the air to-day. I cannot work.... Phew!… methinks I feel the approach of thunder."

She threw down her modelling tools with a fretful gesture and then nervily began to destroy her morning's work, patting the clay aimlessly here and there until once more it became a shapeless mass.

"That lazy baggage hath spoilt thy pleasure," said Licinia gruffly; "but I'll teach her–"

"No, no, good Licinia!" interposed the young girl with a weary smile. "Teach her nothing to-day.... The air is too heavy for serious lessons. Send her away and bring me water for my hands."

Then as Licinia—muttering various dark threats—drove the frightened girl before her, Dea Flavia breathed a sigh of relief. Her hands were covered with clay, so she stood quite still waiting for the reappearance of Licinia with the water; and all the while the frown on her face grew darker and the look of trouble in her eyes more pronounced.

Soon the old woman returned with a basin full of water in her hands and a white cloth over her arm. With her wonted loving care she washed Dea's hands between her own and dried them on the towel. Dea allowed her to perform this kindly office for her, standing quite still and gazing absently out into vacancy.

"What can I do now for thee, my precious?" asked Licinia anxiously.

"Nothing, Licinia, nothing," replied Dea with a sigh. "Just leave me in peace.... I have a desire for solitude and silence."

It was the old woman's turn to sigh now, for she did not like this unwonted mood of her beloved. Dea Flavia, when in the privacy of her own house, was always gay and cheerful as a bird, prattling of all sorts of things, telling amusing anecdotes to her old nurse and playing light-heartedly with her young slaves, whenever she was not occupied with her artistic work. This frown upon the smooth, white brow was very unusual, and the fretful, impatient gestures were as unwonted as was that dreamy, absent gaze which spoke of anxious, troubled thoughts.

Dea Flavia herself could not understand her own mood. She could not have confided in the faithful old woman, even had she been so minded, for truly she would not have known what to confide.

Her thoughts worried her. They were so insistent, dwelling obstinately on one moment which had flitted by yesterday—the moment when she stood facing the praefect of Rome, and looking into his deep, dark eyes, which then and there had reminded her of a stormy sea suddenly lulled to rest. It seemed as if nothing now or ever hereafter would chase from her mind the memory of his look and of his rugged voice, softened to infinite gentleness as he said: "I told thee that He died upon the Cross."

She could hear that voice now, even as at this moment from afar a muffled sound of thunder went echoing over the hills, and, strive as she might, wherever she looked her eyes were haunted by the vision which he had conjured up of a man with arms outstretched upon a cross, whose might was yet greater than that of Rome.

At the time she had been greatly angered. The praefect had spoken traitorous words, and she had hated him—she hated him still—for that allegiance which he seemed to have given to another. Then, with a quick, elusive trick, memory showed her the massive shoulders bent humbly at her feet, tying the strings of her shoe—a simple homage due to the daughter of Cæsar—and the sharp pang of wrath once more shot through her heart with the remembrance that he had not deigned to press his lips against her foot.

The man's face and figure haunted her for it was the face and the figure of one whom she had learnt to hate. Yes! She hated him for his treason to Cæsar, for his allegiance to that rebel from Galilee; she hated every word which he had spoken in that arrogant, masterful way of his, when he smiled upon her threats and calmly spoke of immortality. She hated the voice which perpetually rang in her ear, the voice with which he spoke of his own soul being in the keeping of God—of One Whose Empire is mightier than that of Rome.

Yet vaguely still—for she was but a girl—the woman in her was stirred; the power and desire which exists in every woman's soul to conquer that which seems furthest from her reach. She hated the man, and yet within her inmost heart there had sprung the desire to curb and possess his; to disturb the perfect serenity that dwelt in his deep-set eyes, to kindle in them a passion which would make of that proud spirit a mere slave to her will.

There was in her just now nothing but the pagan desire to rule, and to break a heart if need be, if she could not otherwise subdue it.

Memory had fanned her wrath. She saw him now as she had seen him yesterday, arrogantly thwarting her will, his bitter tongue lashing her with irony; and now, as yesterday, the blush of humiliation burned her cheeks, and her pride and dignity rose up in passionate revolt against the one man who had ever defied her and who had proudly proclaimed his allegiance to a man who was not the Cæsar.

That allegiance belonged to Cæsar and to his might alone; beyond that there was the House of Cæsar, and failing that, nothing but rebellious treachery. And the troubled look grew deeper in Dea Flavia's face, and now she buried her hot cheeks in her hands, for the humiliation which she had endured yesterday from one man seemed to shame her even now.

"I'll break thy will," she murmured, whilst angry tears rose, burning, to her eyes. "I'll shame thy manhood and never rest until I see thee crawling—an abject slave—at the feet of Cæsar, who shall kick thee in the face. Cæsar and the House of Cæsar brook no rivalry in the heart of a Roman patrician."

Her hands dropped from before her face. She threw back her head, and looked straight before her into the darkest corner of the room.

"Jesus of Nazareth, he called thee!" she said slowly and as if speaking to an invisible presence. "And he said at thy call he would give up the world, and suffer death and torture and shame for thee!… Then so be it! And I do defy thee, O man of Galilee! even I, Dea Flavia Augusta, of the imperial House of Cæsar! For that man whom I hate and despise, for that man who has defied and shamed me, for that man whose heart and allegiance thou hast filched from Cæsar, for him will I do thee battle … and that heart will I conquer; and it shall be Cæsar's and mine—mine—for I will break it and crush it first and then wrest it from thee!"

And even as she spoke, from far away over the hills and beyond the Campania the thunder rolled dully in response.

CHAPTER XIV

"Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him."—Job xl. 9.

A few moments later Licinia came running back into the room.

"Augusta!" she exclaimed excitedly even before she had crossed the threshold. "Augusta! quick! the Cæsar!"

Dea Flavia started, for she had indeed been suddenly awakened from a dream. Slowly, and with eyes still vague and thoughtful, she turned to her slave.

"The Cæsar?" she repeated, whilst a puzzled frown appeared between her brows and the young blood faded from her cheeks. "The Cæsar?"

"Aye," said the old woman hurriedly. "He is in the atrium even now, having just arrived, and his slaves fill the vestibule. He desires speech with thee."

"He does not often come at this hour," said Dea Flavia, whose face had become very white and set at mention of a name which indeed had the power of rousing terror in every heart just now. "Doth he seem angered?" she asked under her breath.

"No, no," said Licinia reassuringly, "how could he be angered against thee, my pet lamb? But come quickly, dear, to thy robing room; what dress wilt put on to greet the Cæsar in?"

"Nay, nay," she said with a tremulous little laugh, "we'll not keep my kinsman waiting. That indeed might anger him. He has been in this room before and hath liked to watch me at my work. Let him come now, an he wills."

Licinia would have protested for she loved to deck her darling out in all the finery that, to her mind, rendered the Augusta more beautiful than a goddess, but there was no time to say anything for even now the Cæsar's voice was heard at the further end of the atrium.

"Do not disturb your mistress. I'll to her myself. Nay! I'll not be announced. 'Tis an informal cousinly visit I am paying her this morning."

"He seemeth in good humour," whispered Dea Flavia, whose little hands were trembling as they made pretence once more of taking up the modelling tools. Licinia hurriedly tried to smooth down the golden hair which had become unruly during the course of the morning, but in her haste only succeeded in completely disarranging it and it fell in wavy masses down the young girl's shoulders, all but one plait which remained fixed over her brow like a wide band of gold.

Dea uttered an exclamation of horror and made a quick gesture, trying to capture the recalcitrant curls, even at the very moment that the Emperor Caligula entered the room.

He paused on the threshold and her arms dropped down to her side. Her golden hair fell all round her as she bent her knees making obeisance to the Cæsar. There was nothing regal about her now, nothing imperious or proud; she looked just like a child caught unawares at play.

Blushing with confusion she advanced toward her kinsman, and with head bent received his kiss upon her pure forehead. Nor did she shrink at this loathsome contact which would have filled almost any other woman's heart with horror. To her this man was not really human—he was the Cæsar—a supernatural being blessed by the gods, and endowed by them with supreme majesty and power.

"Dismiss thy slaves," he said curtly, "I would have speech with thee."

He had well schooled his turbulent temper to calmness. After Caius Nepos' departure and a final outburst of unbridled violence, he had plunged into a cold bath and given himself over for half an hour to the ministrations of his slaves. Then, cool and refreshed—at any rate outwardly—he had dressed himself in simple robes, and passing right through the halls of the Palace of Tiberius which adjoined his own, he had reached the precincts of Dea Flavia's house, which in its turn abutted on that built by Germanicus.

At any other time but the present one—when his frenzied mind was wholly given over to thoughts of the terrible treachery against his own person—he would have been conscious of Dea Flavia's exquisite beauty, as she stood before him, humble with the proud humility of one who has everything to give and nothing to receive; chaste with that pure ignorance which refuses to know what it cannot condone, and withal a perfect woman, imbued with a fascination which no man had ever been able to resist, for it was the fascination of youthful loveliness combined with the stately aloofness of conscious power.

At any other time but this, the unscrupulous voluptuary would have gazed on his beautiful kinswoman with eyes that would have shamed her with their undisguised admiration, and mayhap his look and actions would have placed a severe test on her loyalty and on her respect for him.

But to-day Caligula only saw in her the tool whom conspirators meant to use for their treacherous ends, her loveliness paled in his eyes before the awful suspicion which he had of her guilt, and whilst she stood quietly awaiting his pleasure, he marvelled how much she knew of the traitors' plans and whether her white fingers would effectually thrust the dagger into an assassin's hand.

She had dismissed her slaves at his bidding—all unconscious as she was of any danger that might threaten her through him. He waited for a while in silence, then he said abruptly:

"Dea Flavia, what is thine age?"

She looked up at him, smiling and puzzled.

"Some twenty years, great Cæsar," she replied, "but of a truth I had not kept count."

"Twenty years?" he retorted, "then 'tis high time that I chose a husband for thee."

This time she looked up at him boldly, and although in her glance there was all the respect due to the immortal Cæsar, yet was there no show of humility in her attitude as she threw back the heavy masses of her hair and drew up her slender figure to its full stately height.

"Was it to tell me this," she asked simply, "that the greatest of Cæsars sought his servant's house to-day?"

"In part," he rejoined curtly, "and I would hear thine answer."

"My lord has not deigned to ask a question?"

"Art prepared to accept the husband whom I, thine Emperor will choose for thee?"

"In all things do I give thee honour and reverence, O Cæsar," she replied, "but–"

"But what?"

"But I had no thought of marriage."

"No thought of marriage!" he retorted roughly as, unable to sit still, harassed by rage and doubt, he once more started on that restless walk of his up and down the room.

She watched him with great wondering eyes. That something serious lay behind his questionings was of course obvious. He had not paid her this matutinal visit for the sole purpose of passing the time of day; and she did not like this strange mood of his nor his reference to a topic over which he had not worried her hitherto.

In truth the thought of marriage had never entered her head, even though Licinia—with constant garrulousness—had oft made covert allusions to that coming time. She knew—for it had been instilled into her from every side ever since her father had left her under the tutelage of the Cæsar—that she must eventually obey him, if one day he desired that she should marry.

A young patrician girl would never dream of rebellion against the power of a father or a guardian, and when that guardian was the Cæsar himself and the girl was of the imperial house, the very thought of disobedience savoured of sacrilege.

But hitherto that question had loomed ahead in Dea Flavia's dreams of the future only as very shadowy and vague. She had never given a single thought to any of the young men who paid her homage, and their efforts at winning her favours had only caused her to smile.

She had felt herself to be unconquerable, even unattainable, and Caligula, before this mad frenzy had fully seized hold of him, had—in his own brutish way—indulged her in this, allowing her to lead her own life and secretly laughing at the machinations that went on around him to obtain the most coveted matrimonial prize in Rome.

Now suddenly this happy state of things was to come to an end; her freedom, on which she looked as her most precious possession, was to be taken roughly from her. One of the men whom she had despised, one of that set of libertines, of idle voluptuaries who had dangled round her skirts whilst casting covetous eyes upon her fortune, was to become her master, her supreme lord, and she—a slave to his desires and to his passions.

Strangely enough the thought of it just now was peculiarly horrible to her—the thought of what the Cæsar's wish might mean—the inevitableness of it all nauseated her until she felt sick and faint, and the walls of the room began to swing round her so that she had to steady herself on her feet with a mighty effort of will, lest she should fall.

She knew the Cæsar well enough to realise that if he had absolutely set his mind on her marriage nothing would make him swerve from the thought. If he once desired a thing he would never rest night or day until his wish had been fulfilled.

Men and women of Rome knew that. Patricians and plebs, senators and slaves, had died horrible deaths because the Cæsar had demanded and they had merely thought to disobey.

Therefore it was with wide-open, terror-filled eyes that she watched that tyrannical master in his restless walk up and down the room.

Outside greater darkness had gathered, heavy clouds obscured the light, and the gorgeous figure of the Cæsar now and then vanished into the dark angles of the room, reappearing a moment later like some threatening ghoul that comes and goes, blown by the wind which foretells the coming storm.

After a while Caligula paused in his walk and stood close beside her, looking as straight as he could into her pale face.

"No thought of marriage?" he repeated, with one of his mirthless laughs, "no thought, mayhap, of the husband whom I would choose for thee? No doubt there is even now lurking somewhere in this palace a young gallant who alone has the right to aspire to Dea Flavia's grace."

"My lord is pleased to jest," she said coolly, "and knows as well as I do that no patrician can boast of a single favour obtained from me."

"Then 'tis on a slave thou hast chosen to smile," he said roughly.

Then as she did not deign to make reply to this insult, he continued:

"Come! Art mute that thou dost not speak when Cæsar commands?"

"What does my lord wish me to say?"

"Hast a lover, girl?"

"No, my lord."

"Thou liest."

"Did I deceive my lord in this, then had I not the courage to look boldly in the Cæsar's face."

"Bah!" he said with a snarl, "I mistrust that maidenly reserve which men call pride, and I, clever coquetry. The women of Rome have realised, fortunately by now, that they are the slaves of their masters, to be bought and sold as he directs. The wife must learn that she is the slave of her husband, the daughter that she belongs to the father; the women of the House of Cæsar that they belong to me."

"It is a hard lesson my lord would teach to one half of his subjects."

"It is," he said with brutal cynicism, "but I like teaching it. I hope to live long enough—nay! I mean to live long enough—to establish a marriage market in Rome, where the lords of the earth can buy what women they want openly, for so many sesterces, as they can their cattle and their pigs."

She recoiled from the man a little at these words and a blush of shame slowly rose to her cheek. But she retorted calmly:

"The gods do speak through Cæsar's mouth and he frames the laws even as they wish."

Her words flattered his egregious vanity which had even as great, if not a greater, hold upon him than his tyrannical temper. He knew that to this proud girl he was as a god, and that her respect for his Cæsarship made her blind to every one of his faults, but this additional simple testimony from her pure lips caused him to relent towards her, and quite instinctively made him curb the violent grossness of his tongue.

"Thou speakest truly, O Dea Flavia," he said complacently. "The gods will, when the time comes, speak through my mouth and make known their will through my dictates even as they have done hitherto—even as they do at this moment when I tell thee that I desire to see thee married."

"My lord hath spoken," she said calmly.

"Do not think, O Dea Flavia," he continued, carried away by his own eloquence, "that I desire aught but thy happiness. If I decide to give thee for wife to a man, it shall only be to one who is worthy of thee in every respect. Thou shalt help me to choose him … for I have not yet made my choice … he shall testify before thee as to his nobility and his bravery.... An thou dost assure me that thou hast not yet bestowed thy regard on any man–"