_ BOOK III. PAWNS AND PLAYERS
CHAPTER IV
That night Eudemius and his younger guest supped alone, with but one slave to wait upon them. Marius, never prone to speech, kept his own counsel as to the events of the afternoon, and bided the time when he might turn them to his own ends. Eudemius also was more silent than his position as host seemed to warrant. That he was in bad humor was to be seen from the threatening glances he cast at the luckless slave when a dish was delayed or a wine too warm. He was an old man, this latter, white-haired and bent and very skilful, with a sunken face as pale as parchment. Marius, as keen to observe as he was silent, saw that always the old man watched his lord's face with an eager anxiety, like a dog that would read every thought in its master's eyes.
Eudemius, as was his custom, took only fruit and one of the light Cyprus wines. Marius, not at all disturbed by his host's example, dined luxuriously and drank freely. Wine had small effect on him; but he noticed that each time his glass was filled Eudemius glanced at him, with apparent carelessness. This amused him, and, sure of himself, out of sheer perversity, he took care to have it replenished many times.
Halfway through the meal, Eudemius clapped his hands.
"Marcus, come hither!" he said shortly. Marcus came, with servile submission. "Go to Nerissa, and bid her bring her mistress here. She will know what to do."
The old man hesitated a bare instant, with a strange glance at his lord, crossed his arms, and went.
"Marius." Marius's keen wits, instantly at work upon the name and the half-forgotten idea it conjured up, found the thread they sought. "Marcus came once and tried to play; he was the third," Varia had said. Marius's eyes lightened to a secret satisfaction. Here was one, at his hand, who could supply the information he wanted. He leaned forward across the table.
"To-day I had speech with thy daughter," he said, as one introducing a topic which may prove of interest. Eudemius turned his inscrutable eyes on him.
"So?" he said calmly.
"She told me a wondrous tale of a man who came to her in a garden," said Marius; and watched suspicion grow into the other's eyes and burn there. "She said it was a game they played--what game, thou and I may guess. I put it down to the--fancies she hath at times, and paid no heed. But when she said that one Marcus had seen this man there also, it came to me that perhaps there might be more in it than might be thought. If this be the Marcus of whom she spoke, it may be that he would have something to tell.--Try these roasted snails, I pray thee; they are beyond praise. It would seem that they are delicate enough--"
"She herself hath said--" Eudemius began, and stopped. The mask of his face never changed; only his mouth settled into sterner lines and his eyes grew more forbidding. Silence fell between the two and lasted until Marcus came in again and held the curtains apart for Varia. She entered quickly, her bosom heaving, lips pouting, eyes full of tears.
"Nerissa would have it that I should wear this dress, and I hate it!" she cried petulantly, before either man could speak. "She said that thou didst will it so. Wherefore? I will not wear it ever again. I scolded her until she wept, but she made me wear it."
"She was right. I gave command to her," Eudemius said coldly. "Sit there."
Varia dropped into the seat opposite Marius, with a resentful glance at her father and a wrathful twitch of the hated robe. It was of faintest amethyst, with tunic embroidered in gold, fastened by many jewels. She looked like a fair young princess, a very angry young princess; and Marius, from where he reclined at ease on the opposite side of the table, looked across at her with quite evident admiration.
"Why should you hate it, if unworthy man may ask?" he said amusedly. "Surely not because you think it makes you less fair, since nothing could do that. Why, then?"
"Because I do!" she flashed at him, as though that settled the matter. Marius bowed in mock humility.
"The best reason of all!" he said gallantly.
"Child, with whom didst thou play thy game in the garden?" Eudemius asked. His voice was gentler than his face, and quite casual. Varia fell into the trap. She looked up eagerly.
"It was a game--" she began, and stopped, with the red blood flushing into her face and her eyes turning from her father to Marius. "I do not remember!" she stammered.
Eudemius turned his sombre eyes full on her, and she shrank and trembled.
"Thou dost not remember?" Eudemius said in his even, inexorable voice. "But there was a game? Was it a game in which a man held thee in his arms and kissed thee?"
She nodded quickly.
"Ay, a game," she exclaimed, and caught herself up. "No, no!" she cried fearfully. "It was no game--Oh, I do not know! I cannot remember!"
She hid her face in her hands and wept. Eudemius motioned to the silent slave behind her chair.
"Take her to her nurse and return," he said. "I'll have the truth of this by some means."
Marcus led his weeping mistress away; and Eudemius saw that Marius's eyes followed her until the curtains fell behind her, and read the look therein.
With her exit, Eudemius all at once lost his composure. He sprang from his place at the table and took to striding up and down the room. Unexpectedly he stopped before Marius.
"If there be truth in this," he said, and his voice shook with rising fury, "I'll find the man who hath entered my gates by night, and for what damage he has wrought I will make him pay tenfold with living flesh and blood. Marcus was there, thou sayest; he will know. And if he will not tell--if he thinks to shield him--"
He broke off with a quick intake of breath, and put a hand to his side. A spasm of pain crossed his pale face and distorted it. "Come back, thou knave, while I have sense to question!" he muttered, and dropped into the nearest seat, and sat there, with head bent forward and hands clutching claw-like the arms of the chair.
Marcus entered, alone. Eudemius raised his head.
"Didst thou--" he began, and stopped. But he gathered himself together, and tried again.
"Didst thou see him who entered the women's place by stealth to hold speech with thy mistress?"
Marcus nodded eagerly. His voice was drowned in Eudemius's exclamation of fury.
"So the fool spake truth when I thought she raved! Not so much fool after all, perhaps, but better fool than--" He checked himself on the word. "Who is the man?" Again his face grew distorted; on the hands that gripped his chair the veins stood out dark and swollen. Pain made him brutal; he glared at Marcus with the bloodshot eyes of a goaded beast. Marcus, with a hoarse cry, bowed himself to the ground, his hands before his face. Eudemius brought his fist down on the arm of his chair.
"Who is the man? Answer, slave, if thou wouldst keep the flesh on thy living bones! Who is the man, and what hath been his work?"
Then Marcus raised himself, with outstretched hands, gesticulating frantically. The effort he made to speak was fearful; his face became congested, his eyes seemed starting from his head. And his voice was as fearful, hoarse, bestial, with apish gibberings. But no words came; he could only beat the air and cry out in impotent despair.
"The man is mad!" Marius exclaimed, staring.
Eudemius lifted himself half out of his chair. Beads of sweat stood thick upon his forehead.
"Mad or sane, I'll have the truth from him!" he snarled. He caught the dog-whip from the back of his chair and lashed the slave across the face.
"Now speak!" he shouted. "Think not to shield him so, for I'll have thee flayed alive before thou shalt defy me thus!"
"I--I!" groaned Marcus. The word had a strange and guttural sound, but Eudemius did not notice.
"Go on!" he ordered furiously.
"I--I--!" Marcus screamed, and fell grovelling at his master's feet.
A spasm of pain shook Eudemius and turned him livid. He kicked savagely at the writhing figure on the floor and clapped his hands thrice loudly. Two slaves came running, with faces pale with apprehension. Eudemius, almost beyond speech himself, raised a shaking hand and pointed downward at the heap.
"Take him to the stone room and put him to the rack until he is ready to say what I would hear!" he said hoarsely. His voice broke into a gasp; he leaned back heavily, with his other hand against the chair from which he had risen. "When he is ready, call me!"
The men lifted Marcus to his feet and took him away.
Marius watched interestedly. To counsel mercy never crossed his mind--the mind of a Roman bred to consider bloodshed a sport and mortal strife a pastime. If Eudemius chose to kill his slave for a whim--well, the slave was his, and it was nobody else's business. He turned to the table and poured himself another glass of wine.
Eudemius dropped back heavily into the chair and sat, as before, with head bent slightly forward and gripping hands. And, as before, he seemed listening; only this time it was with a cruel and eager greed, and his eyes, bloodshot and terrible, were as the red eyes of a vulture that waits for its victim's death. From time to time his mouth twitched, and a shudder, long and uncontrollable, ran through him.
But still he waited, and there was silence in the room. _