A Struggle For Rome Volume I Part 5

For by knowledge of their motives one can govern men. Well, I am sorry, reverend friend, but I cannot help you. I really do not know myself what my motive is. I am so curious about it, that I would gladly tell it to you--and allow myself to be governed--if I could only find it out. Only one thing I feel--that these Goths are my antipathy. I hate these full-blooded fellows, with their broad flaxen beards. I cannot bear their brutal good humour, their ingenuous youthfulness, their stupid heroism, their unbroken natures. It is the impudence of chance, which governs the world, that this country, after such a history, possessing men like--like you and me--should be ruled by these Northern bears!"

He tossed his head indignantly, closed his eyes, and sipped a small quant.i.ty of wine.

"That the barbarians must go, we are agreed," said Silverius, "and with this, all is gained as far as I am concerned. For I only await the deliverance of the Church from these heretical barbarians, who deny the divinity of Christ, and make Him a demi-G.o.d. I hope that the primacy of all Christendom will, as is fitting, incontestably fall to the share of the Roman Church. But as long as Rome is in the power of the heretics, while the Bishop of Byzantium is supported by the only orthodox and legitimate Emperor----"

"The Bishop of Rome cannot be the first Bishop of Christendom, nor the master of Italy; and therefore the Roman Apostolic See, even when occupied by a Silverius, cannot be what it ought to be--the highest.

And yet that is what Silverius wishes."

The priest looked up in surprise.

"Do not be uneasy, reverend friend. I knew this long ago, and have kept your secret, although you did not confide it to me. But further----" He again filled his cup. "Your Falernian has been well stored, but it is too sweet.--Properly speaking, you can but wish that these Goths may evacuate the throne of the Caesars, and not that the Byzantines should take their place; for in that case the Bishop of Rome would have again a superior bishop and an emperor in Byzantium. You must therefore, instead of the Goths, wish--not for an Emperor--Justinian--but--what else?"

"Either," eagerly interrupted Silverius, "a special Emperor of the Western Empire----"

"Who, however," said Cethegus, completing the sentence, "would be only a puppet in the hands of the holy Petrus----"

"Or a Roman republic, a State of the Church----"

"In which the Bishop of Rome is master, Italy the princ.i.p.al country, and the barbarian kings in Gaul, Germany, and Spain the obedient sons of the Church. All very fine, my friend. But first the enemy must be annihilated, whose spoils you already divide. Therefore let us drink an old Roman toast: 'Woe to the barbarians!'"

He rose and drank to the priest.

"But," he added, "the last night-watch creeps on, and my slaves must find me in the morning in my bedchamber. Farewell!"

With this he drew the _cucullus_ (hood) of his mantle over his head and departed.

His host looked after him. "A very important tool!" he said to himself.

"It is a good thing that he is only a tool. May he always remain so!"

Cethegus walked away from the Via Appia in a north-westerly direction, towards the Capitol, beneath which, at the northern end of the Via Sacra, his house was situated, to the north-east of the Forum Romanum.

The cool morning air played refres.h.i.+ngly over his brow. He threw open his mantle and deeply inflated his strong broad chest.

"Yes, I am a riddle," he said to himself. "I join in a conspiracy and go about by night, like a republican or a lover at twenty. And wherefore? Who knows why he breathes? Because he must. And so I do what I must. But one thing is certain, this priest may--perhaps must--become Pope; but he must not remain so long, else farewell my scarcely-avowed thoughts, which are yet but dreams and cloud-mists. Perhaps it may be that from them will arise a storm that will decide my fate. See, it lightens in the east! 'Tis well; I accept the omen!"

With these words he entered his house.

In his bed-chamber he found a letter on the cedar table before his bed, tied with a silken string, and sealed with the royal seal. He cut the string with his dagger, opened the double waxen tablets, and read:

"To Cethegus Caesarius, the Princeps Senatus, Marcus Aurelius Ca.s.siodorus, Senator.

"Our lord and king lies on his death-bed. His daughter and heiress, Amalaswintha, wishes to speak with you before his end.

"You are to undertake the most important office in the kingdom.

"Hasten at once to Ravenna."

CHAPTER V.

Over the King's palace at Ravenna, with all its gloomy splendour and inhospitable s.p.a.ciousness, lay an air of breathless anxiety.

The old castle of the Caesars had suffered many disfiguring changes in the course of centuries, and since the Gothic kings, with all their Germanic courtiers, had taken the place of the emperors, it had a.s.sumed a very inharmonious aspect, for many chambers, intended for the peculiar customs of Roman life, stood, still retaining the old magnificence of their arrangements, unused and neglected.

Cobwebs covered the mosaic of the rich baths of Honorius, and in the toilet-chamber of Placidia the lizards climbed over the marble frames of the silver mirrors on the walls. On the one side, the necessities of a more warlike court had obliged the removal of many walls, in order to change the small rooms of the ancient building into wider halls for a.r.s.enals, banqueting and guard-rooms, and, on the other, neighbouring houses had been joined to the palace by new walls, so as to create a stronghold in the middle of the city.

In the dried-up _piscina maxima_ (large fish-pond) fair-haired boys now romped, and in the marble halls of the _palaestra_[1] neighed the horses of the Gothic guards. So the extensive edifice had the dismal appearance partly of a scarcely-preserved ruin, and partly of a half-finished new erection; and thus the palace of the present ruler seemed a symbol of his Roman-Gothic kingdom, and of his whole half-finished, half-decayed political creation.

On the day, however, on which Cethegus, after years of absence, once again entered the house, there lay heavy upon it a cloud of anxiety, sorrow and gloom, for its royal soul was departing from it.

The great man, who here had guided, for the s.p.a.ce of a man's life, the fate of Europe; who was wondered at, with love or with hate, by West and by East; the hero of his age; the powerful Theodoric of Verona, of whose name--even during his lifetime--Legend had possessed herself; the great Amelung, King Theodoric, was about to die.

So said the physicians--if not to himself, yet to his nearest relations--and the report soon spread in the great and populous city.

Although such an end to the secret sufferings of the aged King had been long held possible, the news that the blow was at hand now filled all hearts with the greatest excitement.

The faithful Goths were anxious and grieved, and a dull fear was the predominating feeling even of the Roman population, for here in Ravenna, in the immediate vicinity of the King, the Italians had had frequent opportunities of admiring his mildness and generosity, and of experiencing his beneficence.

And besides, it was feared that after the death of this King, who, during his lifetime--with the single exception of the last contest with the Emperor and the Senate, when Boethius and Symmachus bled--had protected the Italians from the harshness and violence of his people--a new rule of severity and oppression would commence on the part of the Goths.

And, finally, another and more n.o.ble influence was at work; the personality of this hero-King had been so grand, so majestic, that even those who had often wished for the destruction of himself and his kingdom, could not--at the moment when this luminary was about to be extinguished--revel in a feeling of malicious joy, and were unable to overcome a deep depression.

So, since early morning--when servants from the palace had been seen rus.h.i.+ng in all directions, and special messengers hurrying to the houses of the most distinguished Goths and Romans--the town had been in a state of great excitement.

Men stood together by pairs or in groups in the streets, squares and baths, questioning or imparting to each other what they knew; trying to detain some person of importance who came from the palace, and talking of the grave consequences of the approaching catastrophe. Women and children, urged by curiosity, crouched on the thresholds of the houses.

As the day advanced, even the populations of the nearest towns and villages--princ.i.p.ally consisting of sorrowing Goths--streamed into the gates of the city to hear the news.

The counsellors of the King, pre-eminently the pretorian prefect, Ca.s.siodorus, who earned great praise for preserving order in those days, had foreseen this excitement, and perhaps expected something worse.

At midnight all the entrances to the palace had been closed, and guarded by Goths. In the Forum Honorum, before the palace, a troop of cavalry had been placed. On the broad marble steps that led up to the grand colonnade of the princ.i.p.al entrance, lay, in picturesque groups, strong companies of Gothic foot-soldiers, armed with s.h.i.+eld and spear.

Only there, according to the order of Ca.s.siodorus, could admittance be gained to the palace, and only the two leaders of the infantry--Cyprian, the Roman, and Witichis, the Goth, were allowed to grant permission to enter.

It was to the first of these persons that Cethegus applied.

As he took the well-known way to the King's apartments, he found all the Goths and Romans whose rank or importance had procured them admittance, scattered in groups about the halls and corridors.

In the once noisy banqueting-hall the young leaders of the Gothic hundreds and thousands stood together, silent and sorrowing, or whispering their anxious inquiries, while here and there an elderly man--a companion-at-arms of the dying hero--leaned in the niche of a bow-window, seeking to hide his ungovernable sorrow. In the middle of the hall stood--pressing his head against a pillar and weeping loudly--a rich merchant of Ravenna. The King, now on the point of death, had once pardoned him for joining in a conspiracy, and had prevented his goods from being plundered by the enraged Goths.

Cethegus pa.s.sed by them all with a cold glance of contempt.

In the next room--a saloon intended for the reception of foreign emba.s.sies--he found a number of distinguished Goths--dukes, earls, and other n.o.bles--who evidently were a.s.sembled together to consult upon the succession, and the threatened overthrow of all existing conditions.

There was the brave Duke Thulun, who had heroically defended the town of Arles against the Franks; Ibba, the conqueror of Spain; and Pitza, who had been victorious over the Bulgarians and Gepidians--all mighty warriors, proud of their n.o.bility, which was little less than that of the royal house of Amelung; for they were of the house of Balthe, which, through Alaric, had won the crown of the Visigoths; and no less proud of their services in war, which had protected and extended the kingdom.

Hildebad and Teja were with them. They were the leaders of the party which had long since desired a more severe treatment of the Italians, whom they at once hated and shunned; but had been forced, against their will, to give way to the milder opinions of the King.

What looks of hatred shot from their eyes upon the aristocratic Roman who now came to witness the death of the great Gothic hero!