Felicitas Part 2

"I would not go, uncle, if I could; and why, indeed, could I not? My art, my trade will be honoured everywhere, so long as the Romans dwell in stone, not wooden houses, like the Germans. But I am firmly fixed to this soil. Many, many generations have my fathers dwelt here; they say since the founding of the colony by the Emperor Hadrian. They have cleared the forests, drained the marshes, made roads, raised fords, laid out house and garden, grafted the rich fruits on the wild apple and pear-trees; the climate itself has become milder. I know Italy, I have bought marble in Venetia, but I would rather live here on the old inheritance of my fathers."

"But if the barbarians come, wilt thou then also?"----

"Stay! I have my own thoughts about that. For us unimportant people it is better under the barbarians than"----

"Say not, than under the Emperor. Thou art a Roman!"

The stout Crispus said this very gravely, but the other laughed; the good uncle but little resembled a Roman hero. His neighbours declared that he modelled his statues of Bacchus from his own figure.

"Half-blood! My mother was a Noric Celt. Induciomara! That does not sound much of the Quirinal."

"And we do not stand under the Emperor, but under his hangman servants, Exchequer officials, and under the murderous fist of the Moorish and Isaurian troops. If I must serve barbarians, I prefer the Germans."

"But they are heathen."

"In part. A hundred and fifty years ago so were we all. My grandfather sacrificed secretly to Jupiter. And there are also Christians among them."

"Arians! heretics! worse than heathen, says the Holy Church."

"A few decades past our emperors were also heretics. And the Germans ask no one what he believes; but how heavily did our fathers suffer, if their faith did not exactly agree with that of the ruling emperor!"

"You take too lenient a view of the coming of the barbarians. They have set fire to many towns."

"Yes; but stone does not burn. The Romans quickly fit new timbers in the undestroyed walls. Then no German settles in a town. They pasture their herds on the land; it is the peasant in his farm who suffers from them. They take from him a third of his fields and pasturage. But the land profits thereby. It is now sadly dispeopled; nowhere is there a free peasant on a free soil. For the masters, whom they never see, who carouse in Naples or Byzantium, _slaves_ cultivate the ground, or rather they do _not_ cultivate it, they only work enough to keep them from starving. If they gained more the slave-master would take it from them. But it is different with plough and sickle, when hundreds of Germans press into the country, each with innumerable white-headed children. For so many children as _these_ people have, I could not have imagined over the whole earth!--And in a few years the grown-up son builds his own wooden house in the cleared forest or the drained swamp.

They swarm over the furrows like ants, and they soon throw away their old wooden plough-shares and copy the iron shares of the colonists, and in a few years the land bears so much more than formerly, that it richly feeds both conquerors and conquered."

"Yes, yes," nodded Crispus, "we have seen all that in the frontier lands, where they have settled. If the sons become too numerous they cast lots, and the third part, that draws the lot to migrate, wanders on wherever hawk or wolf directs; but never back, never towards the north!" sighed Crispus, "so they press ever nearer to us."----

"But they leave us our laws, our language, our G.o.d, our Basilica, and demand much, much less in tribute than the slave-master of the landlord or the tax-gatherer of the Emperor."

"It is well that Severus does not hear you, the old _armaturarum magister_ in Juvavum; he would"----

"Yes, he thinks we have yet the old times, and there are still living the old Romans as in the days of that tamer of the Germans, the Emperor Probus, of whose race he counts himself. But by the saints he is mistaken. Why should I be over zealous for the Emperor? He, this Emperor, certainly shows no zeal for me; in strong Ravenna he sits and invents new taxes, and new punishments for those who pay no taxes, because they have nothing."

"The old Severus has long been drilling volunteers to lead against the barbarians, in case they should roam this way. I have been there a few days, painfully carrying spear and s.h.i.+eld in this heat. I have never seen thee, so much younger and stronger, on our '_Campus Martius_,' as they call it."

Fulvius laughed. "I have no need, uncle; I have learnt to use arms long enough while a prisoner with the Germans, and if the town and one's own hearth must be defended I shall not be wanting--for honour's sake! not that I think we shall do much; for, believe me, if they seriously intend to come, that is, if they _must_ because they _need_ our acres, then Severus will not keep them back with his old-fas.h.i.+oned generals.h.i.+p and his new-fas.h.i.+oned 'Legions of the Capitol of Juvavum,' under the golden eagle which he has presented to them. Nor the Tribune either with his cavalry from Africa and his mercenaries from Isauria. But look! Philemon, the slave, is beckoning; I see the drinking-cup s.h.i.+ning on the seat in the little porch--the table is ready. Now drink of our rough Rater-wine; Augustus long ago knew how to value it, and it has been already a year in the cellar since the pack-mule brought it here from the Tyrol. Let us look at Felicitas and the child at her breast, and forget emperors and barbarians."

CHAPTER II.

Meanwhile, slowly walking up the high-road, the two men whom Crispus had announced were approaching the villa; they often stood still, interrupting their progress with an animated conversation.

"No, no," warned the money-dealer, shaking his bald head, which, in spite of the sun, was uncovered, and striking with his staff on the hard road, "such haste, such violence, such impetuosity, as thy pa.s.sionate longing craves, will not answer, O friend Tribune. Only leave me alone! We are on the right, the safe way."

"Thy way is a crooked, weary, roundabout way, a snail-pace," cried the soldier impatiently, and he threw back his proud head so that the black plume of his helmet rustled on the links of his armour. "To what purpose are these ceremonies? They do not hasten the time when you shall add the little property to your vast possessions. And I--I cannot sleep since the sight of this young woman has inflamed my pa.s.sions. My heart beats to breaking. All night I toss on my hot couch. By the ungirdled Astarte of Tripolis! I _will_ have this slender Felicitas!

And I _must_ have her, or my veins will burst." And his fiery black eyes flashed.

"Thou shalt have her, only patience."

"No! no patience. A sword-thrust will make the milk-sop of a husband cold; in these arms will I lift the struggling one on Pluto, my black horse, and quick to the Capitol, even if all the market-women of Juvavum raise an outcry behind me."

"Murder and rape! Thou knowest the punishment."

"Bah! Would an accuser come forward? And the Emperor? The Emperor of _Juvavum_--is myself. Let us see who will climb the walls of my Capitolium."

"The Cross, my roaring Leo, the Cross and the Presbyter. No, no, it must not be an open sin crying to heaven. True, the Judge and his lictors are weak in this land, which is almost given up by Rome. But the Church is so much the stronger. If the haggard, white-bearded Johannes thrust thee out, thou art a lost man. No pound of meat, no cup of wine, will the people of Juvavum again sell to thee."

"I will take what I need with my lancers."

"But thy lancers are Mauritanians: pious Christians, baptised by the Presbyter. See if they will follow, if the old man have cursed thee."

"I will strike him dead after, or rather, before the curse," cried the officer, and he made a quick step forwards; his long dark-red mantle floated in the wind.

But the money-changer again stopped, adjusting with his bony fingers his yellow tunic.

"How useless! Dost thou not know that _they_ are immortal? If thou strikest _one_ dead, the Bishop sends another. And they are all alike--much more than thy soldiers resemble each other. And I--I would not look at thee across the street if thou wert thrust out from the Holy Church."

But now the soldier stopped and laughed aloud: "Thou! Zeno of Byzantium! Thou believest as little in the Holy Church as Leo himself.

And it is my opinion, that thy soul-destroying usury is not regarded more favourably by the saints, than my trifle of pleasure in love and murder. What hast thou to do with the Church?"

"I will tell thee, thou rash son of Mars. I _fear_ her! She is the only power now left in these lands. The Emperor is far away, his officers are all venal; the barbarians are like the storm, they bl.u.s.ter around us, we bend to them, and they again bl.u.s.ter away; but the Church is everywhere, even if only a single priest says ma.s.s in a half-ruined house of prayer. And the priest is not to be bought. The miserable creature dares not live like a man, so he needs nothing; and all who hope for heaven follow him, that is to say: all fools. But woe to the man who has the fools against him--he is lost. No, no! we must not rouse the Church against us."

"I need him yet, the sneak!" grated Leo through his teeth, with an angry look at his companion; and he impatiently pushed aside his short, broad sword in the finely-worked scabbard.

"For that reason truly, I have to serve you," continued the merchant.

"For a good reward," interrupted Leo scornfully.

"But which, alas! I have yet only received in half."

"The other half when I have the gazelle-eyed beauty in my chamber."

"For that reason I have taken all this trouble, woven all these meshes, and gathered them in my hand; one jerk, and the net closes over the head of the stone-mason; he and the sweet nymph struggle therein, defenceless, powerless, and best of all, without a right. Emperor and Church can look on whilst thou seizest the bird, and I the land. Not that it is valuable; but it rounds off my fields here. I can then more easily sell the whole to a great lord in Italy."

"I also do not intend to keep the fragile creature long; only through the autumn and winter. When the slave-dealers come here in summer from Antioch, I shall sell her at a high price. This half-bluish white of the eyes is much sought for. Whence has she it?"

"From h.e.l.las or Ionia. Her parents were slaves of a Greek trader in purple, who died here on the return journey from Pannonia. They declare that the old man set them free before his death; they then carried on a little trade in salt. When they also died, the child became the wife of their neighbour's son, the stone-mason, who had grown up with her. I am eager to know if they have preserved the letter of emanc.i.p.ation. If not, then good-night, Felicitas! We are now at our goal; the foot-path here turns down, from the main road towards the Mercurius Hill.

Moderate, I beseech thee, the violence and the eagerness in thine eyes, or thou wilt spoil all."

"I have not been born or trained to wait."

Thereupon the Tribune approached the open entrance of the garden. Zeno followed slowly. The setting sun threw its beams fully on the threshold-stone and the newly-cut inscription.

"Hic habitat Felicitas!" read the Tribune. "For yet how long?" asked he, laughing.