Nicanor - Teller of Tales Part 25

I would have put him to the rack, but my lord Marius said nay, that he was to be held until wanted. This was done." Lies and truth mingled on his tongue like oil and honey.

Marius, sitting at Eudemius's elbow, looked up.

"I remember the fellow," he said, searching his memory. "I meant to bring him to thy notice, that thou shouldst deal with him, and as I live, I forgot him. He it was who sought Lady Varia in her garden and was found by Marcus, whom you killed because he would not betray. But it appears, from what I could learn of Varia since then, that the man did no harm--was rather a poor fool telling crazy tales to which she listened as a child. It was a whim of Varia's, nothing more. And Nerissa doth swear that always she was within sight and hearing of the two,--though whether she says this to free her own skirts from blame, I know not,--and that all which was said and done was with her knowledge, for the humoring of her lady. So that the fellow hath done no actual wrong, it would seem."

From the high pinnacle of his power he could afford to be indifferent--and he and Eudemius had weightier matters than a slave's fate to settle.

"Hath he the privilege of trial?" Eudemius asked. "In what degree is he slave?"

"Absolute!" said Hito, promptly. "Neither colonus nor casarius nor the son of such is he, nor even _esne_, whose trade might win him privileges."

"Then send him to the mines," said Eudemius, with indifference. "If he hath done nothing, he cannot die, but his presumption deserves punishment, and this he shall have,"--and was deep in fresh papers before Hito had left the room.

Hito summoned Wardo, upon whom of late days his favor had unexpectedly descended, and laid on him his commands.

"Friend, there be a dozen and odd slaves marked for punishment, who are to be sent to the mines within the week. And among them is one black brute Nicanor; he goeth first of all. Thus our lord commands. Thou shalt go with them, with two men or three to aid thee, to receive their tally from the superintendent of the mines. Make arrangements so soon as may be, for I would be well rid of them. And if any seek escape by flight or mutiny--well, there is no need to be over easy with them. They will not be missed."

But for one reason and another it was full two weeks before Wardo could get his people together; and by that time the festivities had begun, with the first of the arriving guests.

First to come was Marcus Pomponius, Count of the Saxon Sh.o.r.e, with his wife Gratia, a woman whose beauty was famed throughout the island. He was a stately man, of the type which had made Rome what she would never be again,--mistress of the world. His face was pale, and high-bred, and graven deep with the chisel-lines of thought; his hair was h.o.a.ry, a silver crown; his eyes, under black contrasting brows, were quick, keen, indomitable, as in his long-dead days of youth.

Eudemius received his guests at the threshold of his house, attired royally, with a torques of gold about his neck and the great signet ring of his house upon his thumb. Gracious and commanding, he made his friends welcome with a courtly ease which no brooding years of solitude could rust. Beside him were Livinius and Marius; and to all who came Eudemius presented Marius as "my son."

So shortly after the first guests came others, alone, or with their wives and daughters, until the great house was crowded full with busy life. The stately halls, warmed, perfumed with exotic plants, resounded with talk grave and gay, with songs and merriment and laughter.

Musicians played on lyre and cithara, reed and tambour; there began an endless round of feasting, hunting, games, and sports. From the women's side of the house came floating breaths of perfume, suppressed laughter, a subtle emanation of aristocratic and luxurious femininity. And Varia, the pivotal point on which all hinged, the least considered of all of the household, was given neither peace nor solitude. From day till dark women fluttered around her, examining robes, jewels, head-dresses, shoes, with question and comment. She must try on this and try on that; she must be petted and caressed like a pampered plaything, and all with significant glances of pity and concern.

Varia was very quiet these days. Childlike, she hid from Marius; childlike, sulked when he found her. Childlike, also, she hung in raptures over the gifts which were showered upon her, nor ever dreamed that they were the price with which she was bought. She hung aloof, shyly, from the invasion of her home; in her eyes a child's longing to join the merrymaking, mingled with all its dread of a rebuff.

Marius, for his part, bore his honors easily. That he was popular among the guests went without saying. He hunted with the men and talked of state and war; he parried the agile thrusts of the women with laughing skill; he made persistent love to Varia.

Nerissa, the old nurse who had brought up Varia from her forsaken childhood, going in to her charge to instruct her formally in the duties of wife and mother which lay before her, looked in at the door, smiled to herself, and went away. Half a dozen young beauties had taken possession before her, with chatter and laughter--slender Roman girls, of the haughtiest blood in Britain. Julia danced on the marble floor, in and out among the slender columns, in jewelled sandals of Varia's, her skirts held high; Nigidia and Valencia, between them, examined a peplus of white silk soft enough to be drawn through the hand, and woven with threads of gold. Gratia, named for her mother, and daughter of Count Pomponius of the Saxon Sh.o.r.e, sat on the couch beside Varia, slowly waving a new fan of peac.o.c.k's feathers set in a handle of chased gold.

Paula and Virginia were turning over an ivory casket of trinkets at a table near by. Varia sat with empty hands, watching and listening. For the first time in her darkened life she was knowing the companions.h.i.+p of her own age and kind, very shy, but longing greatly to be friendly, to talk and laugh as did these radiant others.

"Tell us, Varia, what thy lover hath given thee?" Paula called gayly across the room. Julia, ceasing her dancing, put off the sandals, slipped on her own, and came to sit by Varia, on the other side.

"Ay, tell us!" she cried, and slipped an arm around Varia's neck, girlwise. Varia flushed, half with pleasure at the embrace, half with confusion.

"Many things, but I will have none of them," she answered.

"Now but thou art a strange girl!" cried Paula. "Here thou hast a lover, on fire with love for thee, as all the world may see, and thou wilt avail thyself nothing of him. By the girdle of Venus! Had I such a lover pursuing me, I'd lead him such a dance that when I did yield he'd swear there was no G.o.ddess in heaven like me, and the beckon of my finger would be his command."

"Thou, Paula!" Gratia scoffed, and shook the peac.o.c.k fan at her. "Thou who hast more lovers than fingers on thy hands--"

"Ay, but truly none quite like Varia's here. Whom can you name so strong, so masterful, so--well, so all that a girl would have? Varia, I am jealous! Why chose he thee instead of me?"

"That were easy to tell," Nigidia murmured over the end of the peplus she held. But Varia did not hear.

"I would that he had!" she said seriously, so that Gratia hugged her in a gale of laughter. "I do not wish to be pursued, as you say."

"Now did ever woman wish that before!" cried Julia. "Even though we act perforce as though we did not. But I will say, cara, that thou hast succeeded very well with him. For it needs practice to treat a man with icy disdain when all the while thou art secretly longing that he will be bold and dare thy displeasure. When a girl knows how to tell a man that he must not, but he may if he will, her education is complete."

"I do not understand," Varia said slowly, and flushed again. "I am very stupid; but--may, if he will, do what?"

"Nay, never put such fancies in this innocent's head!" cried Gratia, in a protest only half serious. "She will learn soon enough without thy teaching."

Nigidia left the ivory casket and came and sat on a footstool at Varia's feet, looking up at her with black eyes alight with raillery.

"Tell us, cara," she said, "dost love him very much, this so masterful lover of thine?"

"Nay," said Varia, in all seriousness. "I love him not at all."

At once they fluttered around her, exchanging glances.

"Why, how may that be? Tell us of it! How did he woo thee? What did he say and do?"

Varia, laughing because they laughed, considered a moment, her head on one side.

"As thou sayest, he is strong and very masterful," she said. "How did he woo me? Why, as ever a man wooes a maid, I suppose."

"You suppose?" said Nigidia, sweetly, with a glance at the others. "Do you not know? Has none sought you in marriage before?"

Varia shook her head. She knew not how to parry their curiosity; they, seeing this, were the more curious.

"No," she confessed, low-voiced.

They looked at her and at each other with round eyes of wonder in which laughter lurked.

"Thy husband thy first lover!" Nigidia exclaimed, as one incredulous.

"Poor little thing! Girls, is this not sad to hear? But then, poor child, how couldst thou help it, shut away in here where thou canst see never a man at all?"

"Oh, I have seen a man!" Varia cried eagerly. "It is not quite so bad with me as that! A man like unto no other man in the world, I think!"

Her face flushed, her eyes shone. Again a glance went round. "He, too, is strong and masterful, but tender--ah, so tender!" She clasped her hands; her lips trembled.

"So, it is he whom thou lovest?" said Paula.

Again the old pained bewilderment grew in Varia's eyes.

"I--do not know," she faltered.

"But I do!" said Paula. "See, then, is this how it is with thee?" She glanced at her companions with lowered lids; they drew closer, silent.

"Night and day his voice, his eyes, are with thee. His name is a song which thy heart singeth dumbly; when it is spoken it makes thee quiver like a harp on which a certain note is touched. At the very thought of him, of his words, and his caresses, thou dost flush and tremble as though his hands had touched thee. (Girls, see the color burn!) A dear and tender pain is at thy heart; thou livest in dreams, and art possessed by aching unrest which yet is sweet. Is it not even thus with thee?"

"Ay," said Varia, very low. "It is even thus."

"Then thou dost love this man," said Paula. Her tone was final, admitting of no doubt.

Varia, flushed from throat to brow, looked at her with s.h.i.+ning eyes.

"Ay, I love him--I know it now! For night and day his voice and eyes are with me, and his name and the words he hath said are a song to me. And night and day I hear him calling me, from far and far away, as so many times he hath called me to the garden. But now--woe is me! I may not come."