COMMODUS received Brinnaria in the same palatial room in which she had so often conferred with his father. The majestic impression of the magnificent hall was, however, marred by the evidence of the young Emperor’s chief interests. On one of the great chests lay a pair of boxing gloves, on another a quiver of arrows and two unstrung bows, on a third a bridle; a fourth was open and from it protruded a sheaf of those wooden swords which the Romans used for fencing-practice as we use foils. Commodus could never wholly free himself from his absorbing passion for athletic sports.
He himself was a sort of artistic caricature of his father, being very like him in height, build, features and complexion, with similarly abundant hair and beard falling over his shoulders and bosom in long ringlets. But in place of the gravity, wisdom, intelligence and sympathy which had ennobled the countenance of Aurelius, his face wore an expression of boyish frivolity, silly vanity, vapid stupidity and impatient selfishness.
Brinnaria had seen him countless times and often near at hand, not only close to her when both occupied their official seats in the Amphitheatre or the Circus, at horse-races or other shows, but almost at arm’s length at various religious functions, processions, sacrifices and other acts of public worship. Necessarily they had often exchanged formal greetings, but never yet any other words.
He greeted her effusively, with a comical mixture of hobbledehoy clumsiness and imperial dignity.
“I’m glad you demanded an audience,” he said, as she sat down; “we should have had a good talk long ago. You lambasted old Bambilio. That is one for you. A juicier story I never heard. You are made of pepper. And you saved the retiarius, the year after I was born. I’ve often gloated over the story and wished I had been there to see. I was there when you had your embarrassing experience and came through it so gallantly. I was proud of you, like everybody else. I remember it well. And Father gave me special instructions about you, so emphatically that even scatter-brained as I am I have not forgotten them. I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you ever since I took up this Emperor job. But you know how it is. Every day there are ready and waiting for me to do more things I really want to do than anyone man could get through in anyone day, and three-quarters of them I have to forego doing because of the pressure of my official duties. I can never seem to get time for half the sword-exercise and archery drill and driving practice I need, let alone for chats with heroines.
“I trust you’ll accept my apologies.
“There! That is all the talking I mean to do. I’m going to listen, now. Tell me what you want and I’ll see your desire accomplished. I’ll do anything for you, not only for your heroism and on account of Father’s directions, but because of your horse-breeding. They say you’re as good a judge of a horse as any man in Italy and I believe there are not a dozen to equal you.
“I’ve driven several pairs of your crack colts and they are paragon racers, docile as lambs and mettlesome as game-cocks.
“There! I’ve gone on talking! But I am really going to stop now and listen. State your wishes.”
“I’ll have to make a long story of it,” said Brinnaria, hesitatingly.
“And one sixty times better worth listening to than ninety-nine out of a hundred of the long stories folks bore me with, I’ll wager,” said Commodus. “If it is long we’ll get to the end quicker by beginning at once. And take your time, I’ll talk to you till dark, if need be. You are entitled to all of my time you choose to claim.” Brinnaria began at the beginning and rehearsed her story fully, Commodus listening without much fidgeting and interrupting only to say now and then:
“Yes, I know about that. I remember that.” When she came to Almo’s escape from Britain the Emperor slapped his thigh and emitted a sound between a grunt and a squawk.
“The joke is on me!” he guffawed. “Just like me! Father told me particularly about his injunctions to Opstorius, and Pertinax himself reminded me about Almo after Father’s death. But it all went out of my head and I never thought of it from the moment Pertinax bowed himself out until this very instant. I’ll make up to you for my forgetfulness, I promise you. Go on.” Upon her telling of Almo’s idling at inns after he ran away from Fregellae, Commodus cut in with:
“I liked Almo, what little I saw of him, but I had forgotten him. You make me remember him, make me recall trifling things about him, attitudes, smiles, tones of his voice, witty replies, quips. I liked him. But I like him better than ever from what you tell me of him. I understand him. I know just how he feels. I long, sometimes, to chuck Emperorizing and go off alone, with no responsibilities, and have a really good time hobnobbing with the good fellows the world is full of. I envy him. I dream of doing it, but he cut loose and did it. Good for Almo.” At first mention of the King of the Grove Commodus leapt up from his throne, strode up and down the room and clapped his hands.
Two pages rushed in.
“Get out!” he shouted. “I wasn’t clapping for you.” He paced the room like a caged tiger.
“Think of it!” he exclaimed. “Think of it! Your lad certainly has fire in his belly, yes and brains in his head, too! Think of it! He thought it all out up there in the raw all-day mists, thought it all out, and he works towards his purpose like a pattern diplomat, like a born general, like a Scipio, like a cat after a bird! Has himself sold as a slave, bides his time, puts himself in the pink of condition, watches his opportunity.
“Think of it! Disconsolate because he couldn’t marry you, moody because he has to wait so long, he seeks comfort in challenging the King of the Grove. Oh, I love him! Only a prince of good fellows would have thought of it. No ordinary adventure would divert him. He picks out the most hazardous venture possible. Oh, I love him!”
When she narrated her interchange of clothing with Flexinna and her litter-journey, Commodus looked grave. The loutishness vanished from his attitude and expression. He became wholly an Emperor.
“Out of Rome, outside the walls, beyond the Pomoerium all night!” he exclaimed. “That sounds bad. You were fool-hardy, too reckless entirely. Why that is impiety. That amounts to sacrilege!” As with Flexinna, Brinnaria reminded him of the Vestals’ flight after the disaster at the Allia and of their sojourn at Caere, again emphasizing the contrast between their unreprehended departure and the scrupulous steadfastness of the Flamen of Jupiter.
“You have me!” he acknowledged. “Your contentions are sound. But, all the same, even if it was merely a violation of rule, still, it is a mighty serious matter. It is a good thing for you that I like you, that my Father trusted you so notably, and gave me such explicit and emphatic injunctions about you, that you have made a clean breast of it all to me. If I had known nothing more about you than I know of Manlia or Gargilia, if I had learned of your escapade from anyone but you, I’d have had you formally accused, tried, convicted and buried alive with the utmost dispatch.
“As things are, after all Father had to say about you, after his detailing to me your several conversations with him, I understand, I sympathize, I am convinced of the innocence of your feeling for Almo, of the austerity with which you have banished from you all thoughts unbefitting a Vestal and have postponed your anticipations of marriage until your service shall have come to an end, I believe in the impeccable correctness of your attitude.
“But, without that, even having learnt of your prank from yourself, I 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.
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