I was quite excited about this and tried to expound the theory to Tibur, but he laughed at me. He was about to eat an apple at the time, and he placed a copper on top of the apple and then slowly turned the apple over. The copper fell off. "There goes that foolishness, my chick," he said. I had no answer, but I still believed that the earth was a sphere and I still so believe.
I had many acquaintances, but I had few friends. Tibur was my best. I was very fond of him, but he left much to be desired when it came to a communion of the minds.
Speaking relatively, Tibur just didn't have any; and one can't commune with a vacuum. Instead of a great brain, the gods had given Tibur the muscles of a bull, the heart of a lion, and the loyalty of a dog. Being a composite of the best in beasts, he ranked right up at the top as a friend; but as a savant he was a total loss.
My wanderings about Rome were prompted largely by a hope which I endeavored to dissimulate even to myself, but one day it was realized. Whistling nonchalantly, I strolled along the foot of the Caelian Hill and out by the Via Appia toward the old rampart of Servius Tullius; and right at the Capena Gate, whom should I meet but Attica!
Although I had seen her but once before, and that at night, I recognized her even before I saw her face. I wondered if she would remember me. For some reason, which seemed most inexplicable to me at the time, my heart pounded furiously as I approached her. Could it be that the great-grandson of Cingetorix was afraid? And of a slender slave girl with golden hair!
She was talking with a young man whose face seemed familiar to me but whom I could not place. She chanced to turn as I neared her, and when she saw me her eyes lighted with recognition and pleasure. There was no mistaking it-recognition and pleasure! My heart leaped right up among my tonsils.
"Britannicus!" she exclaimed. She even remembered my name! I was so overcome that, for a moment, I lost the faculty of speech. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I had constantly conversed on easy terms with Caesars. I had even exchanged jokes with the Emperor of Rome, but the fact that a little slave girl remembered my name rendered me as inarticulate as an oyster.
And her face! Perhaps that is what stunned me to dumbness. I had thought her lovely in the uncertain light of the moon; but now that I could see her features clearly, I realized the inadequacy of the languages of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Britons.
"Attica!" I managed to croak at last. "Imagine meeting you here! You are the last person in the world I hoped to see." I was getting all mixed up and felt like a fool. What, I said to myself, is the matter with you? Had I not been such a fool, I should have known.
She turned to her companion. "This," she said by way of introduction, "is Britannicus, the young man who saved me from those two thugs. You have heard me speak of him."
"I certainly have," he said, and, I thought, with something of acerbity.
"This is Numerius, Britannicus," Attica concluded the introduction.
Now I remembered the fellow. He had driven the White chariot in the tenth race that day. He was very good-looking. I felt that he was far too good-looking. I wondered what he and Attica had been doing out here together and what they had been talking about. I began to dislike the fellow exceedingly, but I instantly realized how ridiculous was such a snap judgment.
"Oh, yes," I said. "I saw you in the tenth race the other day. You drove magnificently."
He unbent and smiled at that. "I hope you didn't have any money on me," he said.
"I shall next time. I had never seen you drive before."
"Well, don't bet on me if Manius is in the race," he advised. "There is no driver in all of Rome who can compare with Manius."
I thought that a pretty fine thing to say, and it made me change my opinion of Numerius.
"Well, I must be running along," he said. "I'm going out on the Via Appia to look at a horse for Pius. See you again, I hope. You'd better get back home, Attica, or that little she-devil will scratch your eyes out."
"I suppose he means your mistress," I said.
Attica nodded. "Yes, but Caesonia will never scratch my eyes out; I know too much about her, and she needs me, too. She wouldn't dare trust anyone else as a go-between in her affairs."
"Affairs!" I exclaimed: "You don't mean to tell me that a thirteen-year-old girl has affairs? I thought that one you told me about was just a little romantic childishness."
"I don't want to."
"I hope you never do."
How little did either of us dream how well I was to know Caesonia in years to come.
"How is your little Caesar?" asked Attica. "I understand that he has been very ill."
"He almost died. They don't know whether it was the fortune-tellers or the astrologers who saved him, but I know what it was: he's too mean to die."
Attica laughed. She had a most distractingly infectious laugh. It wrinkled her little nose and revealed a set of marvelously white and even teeth. Her eyes scintillated. I tried to think of something else to make her laugh, but she interrupted my train of thought.
"You are going out the Via Appia?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"But you were going in that direction."
I could feel the blood mounting to my face. It was just as though she knew why I was loitering around in this neighborhood.
"I was just walking," I explained, lamely.
She looked at me narrowly for a moment; then she laughed again. "I'll bet you were going to meet a girl," she rallied.
I got hold of myself then: the old Cingetorix assurance returned. I looked her straight in the eyes. "I hoped to," I said.
Her eyes dropped, and I saw a little flush creep into her cheeks. The score was even!
"I must be getting back home," said Attica.
"I'll walk with you; I'm going that way."
Attica nodded, and we set off slowly in the direction of the house of Helvidius Pius. For a while neither of us spoke. I was quite content. I walked in the aura of a subtle perfume that surrounded her; sometimes my arm touched hers as we walked. The sun was never brighter, the sky was never bluer, the air was never sweeter.
"This Numerius," I said. "You see a great deal of him, I suppose!"
"Oh, yes," replied Attica.
"He seems to be a very nice chap."
"He is wonderful, and such a charioteer!"
"He is very good-looking," I said.
"He is beautiful!" exclaimed Attica.
We were at the door of the house of Helvidius Pius.
"I suppose you are very fond of him," I said.
"Oh, very!" said Attica. "And now goodby; I must hurry in."
She did, and closed the door. I walked on toward the Palatine Hill and the palace of Agrippina. I thought: What an abominable day this is.
As I entered a side door, the house seemed very quiet. It was as though it were deserted. This suited my mood, and I went out into the gardens behind the palace that I might be alone and undisturbed for as long as possible.
I found Tibur there. I did not wish to talk, but Tibur did. "What ho, sonny!" he cried. "Where have you been?"
"Walking," I said, glumly.
"Where?"
"Around."
"What makes you so cross?"
"I am not cross."
"You are as cross as a bear with a javelin in his guts.
"Do you remember the fellow who drove the White chariot in the tenth race the other day?" I asked.
"Numerius? Yes. An excellent charioteer. A nice fellow, too. I know him."
"Do you think him very good-looking?"
"Very."
"Oh," I said.
"He is one of the handsomest fellows in Rome. Why did you ask?"
"Did I ask?"
"Of course you asked. What's the matter with you? Have you gone crazy? You had better go in and lie down. You must have a fever. Maybe you are coming down with measles. Caligula was cranky like that the day he came down. Don't you remember how cranky he was?"
"Listen, Cicero
," I said, "I didn't come out here to listen to an oration. I came out here for quiet and peace."
Tibur scratched his head. "You weren't drunk last night, were you?"
"Of course not."
"The she-wolf was looking for you. I thought I'd tell you so that you could have a good alibi ready."
"What did she want of me?"
"She wanted you to go out and search for Nero and Drusus. They didn't come home last night. She had everybody looking for them."
"I hope they never come home," I said.
"Well, so did I; but they came home. The city watch found them sleeping off a drunk in the house of Amaryllia."
Amaryllia was the notorious keeper of a lupanar of ill fame. Nero was seventeen and Drusus but sixteen, yet they had already started upon their dissolute careers.
"I almost feel sorry for Rome," I said.
"Why?" asked Tibur.
"Nero is weak-minded and vicious by nature: dissipation will make him worse, and some day he may be emperor." Tibur scratched his head again. "Yes," he said, "I never thought of that. Well, Drusus, Tiberius' son, is ahead of him and maybe Gemellus, the grandson. And there is even Claudius."
"Claudius is a good man," I said, "but everybody thinks him dumb; so Tiberius will never name him his successor; and Gemellus is too young. If Drusus drinks himself to death, Nero will be emperor."
"Then you will be out of luck. He doesn't like you."
"He doesn't like anybody but himself, and he can't kill everybody."
"There is nothing that a Caesar can't do," Tibur reminded me.
Just then a slave came into the garden, and behind him were four soldiers of the Praetorian Guard. "There he is," said the slave, pointing in our direction.
"Hello, Tibur"' greeted one of the soldiers. as they advanced toward us.
"Hi, Vaburu!" returned Tibur. "What are you baboons doing here?"
"We have come to arrest you, you big gorilla," explained Vaburu, "and you'd better not make us any trouble. There are four of us."
"Do you think I can't count, you fungus? Who told you to arrest me, and why? Where is your warrant?"
"Here," said Vaburu, holding out a paper.
"Read it," said Tibur, handing it to me. "My eyes hurt."
As a matter of fact, he could not read, and he was very sensitive about it. I took the warrant and read it.
"It is an order for your arrest," I said, "for the murder of one Cassiu, citizen of Rome, and it is signed by the Praefect of the Praetorian Guard."
"Will you come along now, peaceably?" demanded Vaburu.
"Of course I will," said Tibur, "but not because I have to. I could kill all four of you if I wanted to, and you know it."
"Yes, we know it; so does the Praefect. That is why he sent ten of us; the other six are waiting outside."
Tibur grinned from ear to ear. He realized that a great compliment had been paid him.
He handed over his weapons and went away with them quite cheerfully.
But I was not cheerful. The day that had started so auspiciously had become progressively more barren and gloomy. All it needed now to complete it was Agrippina.
Chapter X
A.U.C.776 [A.D. 23]
TIBUR WAS imprisoned in a jail near the Tullianum and not far from that in which I had been incarcerated. I went daily to visit him, bringing him presents of food and wine. He was a great man in the jail, for he had been a popular gladiator before he became a legionary. Even the guards were obsequious to him, so he fared well. So much so that he had a room to himself when he wished it.
"This is not bad at all," he told me. "I live like a senator, with no labor and no responsibility. I have servants whom I do not have to pay. The State feeds me, and you bring me wine and delicacies. Had I known that it would be like this, I should have murdered a Roman citizen long ago." And then his great, booming laugh echoed throughout the vaulted chambers of the gloomy prison.
But he couldn't fool me. I knew that he was worried. So was I. Every day I asked when the trial was to be, but no one knew. I would be at the trial; perhaps they would acquit Tibur, for he was innocent. If they didn't-v
I spent sleepless nights, and when I did sleep my dreams were horrid dreams. From thinking of the tortured creatures along the Via Flaminia, I dreamed of them. Only it was I upon a cross in my dreams. Had it been the reality, I could not have suffered more. I awoke bathed in cold sweat. But it would not be! I swore it. I found a razor, and I carried it with me always, hidden beneath my tunic.
And then one day they told me at the jail that Tibur was to be tried in the Basillica of Julius in an hour's time. They would not let me see him that morning. It seemed to me that already he had been condemned to death. My poor Tibur! Great, uncouth hulk of pure gold! My one and only friend!
I was there when he was brought in. The jury filed in. The prosecutor was there. Tibur had no lawyer. I had begged Agrippina to employ one, but she had refused. "Why should I pay out money to defend a murderer, slave?" she demanded. "It will be better if he is dead. I never did like the hulking brute."
At last the Praetorian Praefect entered. It was he who was to conduct the trial. My heart sank. The fellow was a creature of Sejanus, and the mere fact that Tibur was attached to the household of Agrippina would prejudice the Praefect against him. One after another, the prosecutor questioned witnesses; and one after another they perjured themselves. Three, who had not been in the alley at all during my encounter with the thugs, swore that they had seen the entire affair, that Tibur had picked the quarrel, that they had seen him kill the man. Each one identified Tibur as the murderer.
Not one of them had ever seen Tibur close up before that night. They did not know him, nor anything about him other than he had once been a gladiator whom some of them had seen in the arena. They could have had nothing against him personally. The only reasons in the world that they could have had for testifying at all were the inherent Roman bias for blood and torture and the common inclination o f the vulgar for exhibitionism. For these brief moments in the public eye they would send an innocent man to his death-they hoped.
When they had testified, the Praefect questioned Tibur. "Why did you kill Cassiu?" he demanded.
"I did not kill Cassiu," replied Tibur. "He was dead when I first saw him."
"But you were in the alley when he was killed."
"I was not. I was in a house on the alley, and when I heard screaming and cursing, I came out to see what it was all about."
"A likely story," said the Praefect, "in view of the testimony of these reputable citizens who saw you commit the murder. Have you anything else to say in your defense?"
"Only that these witnesses are all liars," said Tibur.
The Praefect turned to the jury. "You have heard the testimony," he said. "There can be no doubt of the guilt of this man, a former gladiator, ruthless, brutal, steeped in blood. A human life means nothing to such as he. Your duty is clear. I assume that, there being no alternative, you will find him guilty."
The jurors fidgeted on their bench and whispered among themselves for a few moments; then they pronounced their verdict: Guilty.
The Praefect nodded in commendation. "Tibur," he said, "under the Cornelian Law on Assassins I could sentence you to death; but because of your service to the State with the army in the provinces and in the Imperial Guard in Rome, I shall be lenient. I therefore sentence you to the mines for life."
I was appalled; so was Tibur, but he took it like a man. The injustice of it! The farcical trial! The unquestionable prejudice of the judge! The biased charge to the jury! The indecent haste with which the whole affair had been conducted!
I stood up. I was filled with rage. Perhaps I didn't realize what I was doing, but I know that under like circumstances I should do the same again.
"So this is Roman justice!" I shouted.
The Praefect looked at me; everybody looked at me. "What is the meaning of this, fellow?" demanded the Praefect. "Who are you?"
; "I am the man who killed Cassiu," I said. "Tibur is innocent; he was not even in the alley when I killed the man."
"What is your name?" demanded the Praefect.
"Britannicus Caligulae Servus."
"So!" he exclaimed. "'You, a slave, admit having killed a Roman citizen?"
"I didn't intend to kill him; I didn't know that I had killed him until two days later."
"But you killed Cassiu!"
"He and his companions were attacking a girl," I explained. "I only wished to save her from them."
"Who is that girl? Why is she not here to testify?"
"She is a slave girl. I do not know why she is not here.''
"A slave girl! So there were two slaves implicated in the murder of a citizen of Rome!"
The fellow rolled this morsel around his tongue as one might a choice viand. It was a choice viand to such as he. "What is the girl's name?"
"I don't know," I replied. "She ran away the moment the honorable citizens of Rome released her."
"You don't know her? A likely story, but it is more likely that she was your accomplice. Doubtless we have uncovered here the beginning of another plot to foment an uprising of the slaves and the massacre of countless Roman citizens."
That was so funny that I had to laugh, which was unwise. It seemed to infuriate the Praefect. "So!" he exclaimed. "You laugh! A hardened criminal and plotter." He turned to the witnesses. "Do any of you recognize this man?" he asked.
"Yes," said a fellow with an arm in a sling. "I recognize him now. He is the fellow who broke my arm and killed Cassiu. It was quite dark in the alley, and at first I thought that it was Tibur who had attacked us, but now I see that I was mistaken. It was this slave."
The Praefect turned toward Tibur. "You are free, my good fellow," he said. "It is fortunate for you that we were able to apprehend the guilty man." Then he wheeled on me. "You have confessed, slave, to the murder of a Roman citizen, and your testimony has been corroborated by a reputable citizen of Rome. There is, therefore, no need for a trial. I sentence you to death-by crucifixion."
I turned cold. It was such cold as no man might know even upon the highest pinnacle of the winter Alps. It was a cold that penetrated the spirit and the soul. Crucifixion! For a moment I felt my knees give way: and then, to my rescue, came the memory of my heritage: you are the great-grandson of Cingetorix! I stood very straight and proud and looked the Praefect in the eyes with no sign of the hideous fear that gnawed at my vitals.