A Struggle For Rome Volume Iii Part 33

CHAPTER VII.

The Emperor ordered the Empress and Na.r.s.es to follow him to his room.

When they reached it, he embraced his wife with great tenderness, unembarra.s.sed by the presence of a witness.

"How your enthusiasm rejoices and exalts me!" he exclaimed. "I am proud of such a wife. How beautiful you were, O Theodora, in your n.o.ble indignation. How can I reward you! Choose any favour, any sign of my grat.i.tude, my best and truest councillor and co-ruler?"

"If I, a weak woman, dare indeed believe that I may share your thoughts and plans in this war, then confide in me, and tell me how you intend to conduct it."

"I am resolved to send Belisarius again to Italy. But not alone. His trifling with a crown has made me wary."

"Then I beg the favour of being allowed to propose a second general.--Na.r.s.es," she continued, before Justinian could speak, "will you be the other?"

She wished to make it impossible for him to go.

"No, I thank you," Na.r.s.es answered bitterly. "You know that I am a stubborn and ill-tempered horse; I cannot endure to draw together with another. A marshal's staff and a wife, Justinian, should be kept on the same condition."

"How?"

"Alone, or not at all."

"Then _you_ not at all," answered Justinian with vexation. "You must not imagine that you are indispensable, magister militum."

"No one on earth is so, Justinian. With all my heart! Send great Belisarius again! He may try his luck for the third time in that country, where laurels grow so thickly. My turn will come later. I am no doubt unnecessary here as a witness of your domestic felicity, and at home, opposite to my sickbed, stands a map of the Italian roads.

Allow me to continue my study of it. It is more interesting than the map of our Persian frontier. One piece of advice. You will ultimately be obliged to send Na.r.s.es to Italy. The sooner you send him the more you will spare yourself defeat, vexation, and money. And if gout or that wretched epilepsy should carry Na.r.s.es off before King Totila lies upon his s.h.i.+eld, who then will conquer Italy for you? You believe in prophecy. In Italy there runs a saying: 'T beats B, N beats T.'"

"Does that mean, perhaps, that Theodora beat Belisarius, and Na.r.s.es beats Theodora?" asked the Empress mockingly.

"That is not _my_ interpretation of the riddle; it is yours. But I accept it. Do you know which was the wisest of your many laws, O Justinian?"

"Well?"

"That which made death the punishment of all accusations against the Empress, for it was the only way in which you could keep her." And he left the room.

"The insolent fellow!" cried Theodora, sending a venomous look after him. "He dares to threaten! When Belisarius has once been rendered harmless, Na.r.s.es must quickly follow."

"But meanwhile we need them both," said Justinian. "Do you really propose, as the second general to be sent to Italy, the man who persuaded us to reject the proposals of Ca.s.siodorus?"

"The same."

"But my distrust of that ambitious man has since then become stronger."

"Have you then forgotten," retorted Theodora, "who revealed the intentions of Silverius? Who was the first to warn you of Belisarius's dangerous game?"

"But he now frequents the company of the men who are conspiring against me!"

"Yes; but, O Justinian, it is by my order, as their destroyer."

"Indeed! But if he is also deceiving you?"

"Will you believe him and me, and send him to Italy, if he brings the conspirators to your feet in chains to-morrow, and amongst them their unknown chief?"

"I already know who it is; it is Photius, the freedman of Belisarius."

"No, Justinian; it is he whom you would again send to Italy if I did not warn you: Belisarius himself!"

The Emperor grew pale, and grasped the arm of his chair. "Will you now believe in that wonderful Roman's devotion, and send him to Italy with your army, instead of Belisarius?"

"Everything, everything!" said Justinian. "Belisarius, then, is really a traitor! Then we must make haste! Let us act at once."

"I have already acted, Justinian. My net is cast, and no one can escape. Give me full power to draw it close."

The Emperor nodded acquiescence.

And pa.s.sing through the curtains, Theodora said to the door-keeper:

"Fetch Cethegus, the Prefect of Rome, from his house, and take him to my room."

CHAPTER VIII.

Shortly after, Cethegus once more stood before the still seductive woman, whom he had known in youth. She was lying stretched upon her couch in the room in which we have before seen her.

Galatea frequently handed to her a small onyx-cup, filled with the drops prescribed by her Persian physician. Grecian doctors no longer sufficed.

"I thank you, Theodora," said Cethegus, after a friendly greeting, "and if I must thank any other than myself--and a woman!--I would rather owe something to my early friend than to another."

"Listen, Prefect," said Theodora, looking gravely at him. "You would be just the man--shall I say the barbarian or the Roman?--to first kiss a Cleopatra whom a Caesar and an Antony had adored, and then take her in triumph to the Capitol in order to strangle her, as, perhaps, Octavia.n.u.s once intended, if that sly Queen had not been beforehand with him. Cleopatra has always been my model. 'Tis true, I have never found a Caesar. But the asp, perhaps, will not be wanting. But you need not thank me. I have spoken and acted out of conviction. The insolence which we have suffered from these Goths must be smothered in blood.

Perhaps I have not always been such a faithful wife as Justinian believed; but I was always his best and truest adviser. Belisarius and Na.r.s.es cannot be sent together, and still less singly, to Italy. You shall go. You are a hero, a general, and a statesman, and yet you are too weak to harm Justinian."

"Thanks for your good opinion," said Cethegus.

"Friend, you are a general without an army, an Emperor without an empire, a pilot without a s.h.i.+p. But enough of this--you will not believe me. I send you to Italy because I believe that you hate the barbarians with all your heart. The second general, whom the imperial distrust will undoubtedly send after you, shall be Areobindos. He will not trouble you much! I am rejoiced that I can thus serve not only my old companion but also the Empire. Ah, Cethegus, our youth! To you men it is either golden hopes or golden memories: to a woman it is life itself! Oh for a single day of the time when I sent you roses and you sent me verses!"

"Your roses were beautiful, Theodora, but my verses were poor."

"They were fine to me, for they were addressed to me! My choice of you, which is necessary for the Empire, is sweetened by old and new hate as well as by old love. Belisarius must not rise to new honours. He must fall, and this time fall low and for ever. As sure as I live!"

"And Na.r.s.es? I should understand and like it better if you were to ruin that head without an arm, than this arm without a head."

"Patience! One after the other."

"What has the good-natured hero done to you?"

"He? Nothing. But his wife! that clumsy Antonina, whose whole triumph lies in her good health."