_ BOOK III. PAWNS AND PLAYERS
CHAPTER V
That day Nicanor had been assigned by Hito to the squad of the fire slaves, whose duty it was to tend the fires of the hypocausts which warmed the guest apartments, the rooms of the master's family, the banquet halls, and the baths. The great fireplaces, one for every hypocaust, built in arches under the outer walls of the villa, were approached from the outside by passages of rough masonry. From them the hot air was carried back through the hypocaust and led to the rooms above by means of an ingenious system of flue tiles. The fires, burning constantly from the first approach of the keen weather of Autumn, needed incessant attention. All day slaves went back and forth, carrying wood and buckets of mineral coal from the great mines near Uriconium, through the narrow alleys to the roaring furnaces, where the air, smoke-laden and acrid, was hot to suffocation. Here, panting, dripping with sweat, they fed the flaming mouths; then back again into the outer air, which by contrast struck knife-like to the very vitals. The colder the weather and the greater the necessity for fires, the more was the suffering of the slaves increased. The feeding and attendant cleaning of the furnaces was a task given usually either to none but the lowest menials or else as punishment. Hence Nicanor knew himself in Hito's black books, and obeyed his orders with an ill grace which did not tend to lighten his labors.
Once that day already he had shirked his duty, driven by restless longing, to stand outside the door which for him hid all the enchantment of the world, until the coming of Marius had sent him about any task he could lay hand to. With what had followed, and with the knowledge that his fate was absolutely in the hands of Marius, he became impatient at the delay. The sword hung above him and would not fall. If he but knew what was to happen he fancied that he might have prepared himself in a measure to meet it. Nothing in the way of escape could be attempted until after nightfall; he was too much the object of Hito's malicious attention for that. And escape meant escape from Varia, from stolen, memory-haunting visits, from all that just then made life bearable. Suspense and his own powerlessness turned him sullen; he went about his tasks under Hito's eye with a dogged surliness at which his fellow-slaves laughed in private and dared not challenge him in good-natured raillery.
Away from Hito, he straightway forgot what was in his hands, and remained deep in boding thought, his face lowering. He was on the edge of a precipice into whose depths no man dared look; into which Marius's hands might plunge him at will. Thoughts of Thorney, of the churned-up waters of the fords, of the camp-fires glowing through dusk, of the nervous press of men and beasts that lit upon the island like a swarm of bees, and, like a swarm, buzzed awhile and settled to brief rest, crowded upon him then. He would go back to Thorney--though never to the ivory workshop--and he would make enough to live on by telling tales to those who circled about the fires, even though these were not the worlds he had dreamed of conquering. And first of all, and somehow, he must free himself from the welded collar of brass about his throat. With this to brand him for what he was, the first man he met along the highway might return him to his master--if he could--and claim reward.
The slaves' quarters, following the general plan of the house, were built around a square inner court, with a cryptoporticus, or covered gallery, at the northern and southern ends. But here were no polished floors of rich design and coloring; no soft couches and brilliant draperies, no marbles and paintings. There were no hypocausts beneath to warm the rooms to Summer heat; these, small and bare as cells, were always cold. On the eastern side of the court were housed the women slaves; on the western, the men. Between these, on the northern end, were the apartments of the freedmen and stewards and overseers, with their offices. On the southern side, to the right of the main entrance to the court, were the storerooms leading down to the dark coldness of the wine-cellars. To the left of the entrance were the kitchens, with stoves, and with hypocausts beneath them. Outside the walls, singly and in groups, were the wattled huts of the field-hands, who cared for the parks and immediate lands of the villa, and who came twice daily to the great house to be fed.
In such a household, where economy was a lost word and extravagance the order of life, the stewards and overseers who managed it, being accountable only to their lord, were vested with much power, and made the most of it. Head and front of them all was Hito, fat and shining, with glinting pig's eyes. No detail of the great establishment was too trivial for his notice. Supposed to have general control over each division of slaves, which in turn was managed by its own headman, he yet had a finger in all businesses. Like all men of his stamp, he went in mortal fear of ridicule; thought to show his power by abuse of it. On his word alone a slave might be put to the rack; let an unfortunate incur his displeasure, and he had endless ways of revenge. His predominating characteristic was an oily sleekness; the very voice of him was smooth with unctuousness. Violent likes and dislikes he took, and was in a position to gratify both, a bad enemy and a worse friend. And his methods had but one trait in common,--an entire and often apparently irrational unexpectedness. It was the one thing which in him might be relied on; he would do the thing he was least expected to do.
After the evening meal came a period of respite for those not on duty at the house. Much license was carried on at such times, at which Hito discreetly winked--unless he held a grudge against some luckless one. Even he had been known to take a hand himself in various affairs, using his official authority to gain his private ends.
Dusk deepened, and night fell. Hito rolled to the door of his office and stood looking out into the court, picking his teeth with grunts of well-fed content. A slave was lighting a brazier of charcoal near the well in the centre of the court. The bit of blazing tinder, which he nursed carefully between his hands, threw its light up into his face and showed it in relief against the darkness, sombre, strongly marked, with a thatch of black bushy hair. Hito, recognizing him, scowled with an instantly aroused antagonism.
"Nicanor!" he shouted.
Nicanor lifted the brazier by its handle and came. When he reached Hito, he set it down, for it was heavy. Hito jerked his head at it.
"Where are you taking that?" he demanded. If he had thought Nicanor had been trying to steal it, he could not have thrown more suspicion into his voice.
"To the rooms of the Lady Varia," Nicanor answered. From his tone it was plain that the antagonism was mutual.
"Who commanded it?"
"Her nurse."
Even Hito had nothing to say to this. But, bound to show his authority, he thought to have the last word.
"Well, leave it, and I will send another. I have a thing for you to do."
"No!" said Nicanor.
Hito's little pig eyes glinted.
"So be it! Take it, then," he said, and his voice was smooth as oil. "You can still do what I would have--perhaps even better. Now pay attention. When you go to our lady's apartments, look well around and see one of her women there. She is, I know, on duty at this time, but in what room I do not know. Speak with her, if you can, and say that I, Hito, am willing to see her to-night, and that I expect her. She will understand! Say that I wait for her,--she will know where,--and if she does not come, I will find out why." He crossed his arms on his fat chest.
"If she is not in the outer room I cannot seek her. I am no eunuch," said Nicanor, shortly.
"Maybe she will be there," Hito replied. "See, this is how you shall know her. Look for one with black hair, with dark brows and eyes blue, white in the face and somewhat lean, as though consumed by inward fires,--of passion, you understand! Be sure and say to her that if she doth not come, I will find out why." He hugged himself gently, leering at Nicanor. "And--Nicanor, I ask this as a friend, not require it as a service; wherefore--you understand?--nothing need be said about it. I would not get the poor girl into trouble, but seeing that she urgeth so--"
Nicanor looked unmoved upon his fat smirk.
"I will do as you command," he said, and picked up the brazier and turned to go.
"Nay, never say command," Hito said in haste, and deigned to lay a hand on the slave's broad shoulder. "I do but ask it of you in all friendship. Therefore you should be grateful that I, Hito, admit you thus to confidence. For, look you, there be reasons; this, one might say, is--not official."
Nicanor's grim lips relaxed to a half smile.
"I will do it, then, since Hito craves it," he said, and went his way across the court. Hito shook his heavy jowls in rage.
"Dog!" he muttered. "'Hito craves' forsooth! I'll have that up against you, mighty lordling, one of these fine days! In the name of the gods, what is one to do with a fellow who cares not the snap of his finger for any punishment I can devise?"
Nicanor went along the covered gallery leading from the slaves' quarters to the mansion. At intervals he shifted the heavy brazier from hand to hand. The heat of the smouldering charcoal in it rose to his face, gratefully warm. When he reached the anteroom of Lady Varia's apartments, going by the rear passages, he found no one. The room, warmed to Summer heat, and filled with flowers, was empty. Perfumed lamps burned low, swinging from their bronze and silver standards; in a curtained recess in the wall a marble Minerva gleamed shadowed white, half concealed by curtains of dusky red. A silver jar of incense, burning before the shrine, tinged the air with faint fragrance. All was quiet and peaceful, a safe and sheltered nest. From the other inner rooms he could hear voices; a girl's voice steadily intoning sonorous blank verse; at intervals another voice, interrupting, slow and languid, that set his heart beating hard and his face flushing. He picked up a bell from the stand near the entrance and rang it.
The recitative stopped; there was a murmur of mingled voices, and footsteps. A girl parted the curtains which hung between the rooms and came toward him. Her hair was black, fastened by long pins of bone; her face white and resentful; her brows were straight and dark, and the eyes beneath were shadowy. She was slim and moved swiftly, and her skin was white as milk. This, then, was the girl upon whom Hito had cast his evil glance. Nicanor kept his eyes on her as she came, and wondered if she was newly bought, that he had not seen her during the months he had been at the villa.
"I bring the brazier Nerissa commanded," said Nicanor, and she nodded.
"Nerissa is busy with our lady. I will take it in."
"She is not ill?" he asked anxiously.
"Nay, not ill," the girl answered. "It is but that she feels the cold. I will take the brazier." She looked at him with some surprise that he did not give it up.
"It is heavy," he warned her. "Stay one moment, I pray you. Will you not tell me your name? I have been in this house these many months, and never before have I seen you."
"I am called Eldris," she answered. "And I have been here also, but--it is true you have not seen me, although at times I have seen you. I have been seen by none save--"
"Save one, perhaps," said Nicanor, and looked into her eyes. "I bring you word from Hito--if you are she he told me to seek out. He saith that he, Hito, is willing to see you to-night; that he expects you, and that you will understand. He saith that he awaits you--you will know where; and if you do not come, he will find out why. Also--"
He stopped on the word. The girl had gone gray; and into her eyes there leaped a look of helpless terror, of dumb anguish and nameless fear. And at once, with the look, she became elusively familiar. A memory, half lost, beckoned to him, of a white and tortured face, of eyes which held the terror of a wounded animal at bay, of a long red welt across brown shoulders. His glance went to the girl's shoulders, white as milk, half hidden under her coarse white tunic.
"Hito!" the girl exclaimed below her breath; and again--"Hito!" She flung out her hands with a movement of bitter despair and hid her face in them. "What can I do? Where can I go?" she cried hopelessly. "Since the first day he saw me this hath hung over me--and what can I do? O my God! what can I do against him?"
"You do not go willingly?" Nicanor questioned, and took note of the exclamation she had used.
"You will not force me to him!" she gasped in terror, misunderstanding, and shrank from him.
"Not I! I am no man's procurer!" Nicanor said curtly. "I give his message; the rest lieth with you and him."
"Never with me!" the girl exclaimed. She broke into hard dry sobs that racked her. Nicanor watched, quite at a loss what to say or do.
"He hath--he hath threatened force and the rack if I refuse," she sobbed.
"The rack is a bad thing to know!" said Nicanor, thinking of what he had seen in the room at the end of the passage. He spoke with all sincerity, being no better than his time.
"Ay, but there is something worse!" Eldris flashed back. "I would rather face my lord in the torture-chamber; I would rather be broken on the wheel and die the death--" She shuddered, and again hid her face. "And there is no way out of it but death. What can I do, a slave?"
The old bitter cry, wrung from the lips of many that the word of the Nations' Law might be fulfilled--wrung from the lips of Nicanor himself. He knew the full measure of its bitterness, and somewhere in him an answering chord stirred and woke to life. He put his hand on her shoulder.
"See then, if that be thy feeling,--though them knowest not the rack!--I too am a slave, but it may be that I can help thee." The girl stilled her sobs to listen. "Hito is a fat swine. It would give me great joy to foil him."
"I have tried to move him," she said, with a weary hopelessness more suggestive than many words. "It is because I struggle--" She stopped, biting her lips, her eyes dark with misery. "It is not me he would have now, but his way," she said forlornly.
"For me to take thy refusal would do no good," said Nicanor, his voice reflective. "Tell thy lady; surely she will give thee protection."
"Often I have tried to do that," Eldris answered. "Always Nerissa or other women are there to know what I would have with her; and always they say it is not for me to talk with her unless she gives command--that I am to tell them and they will carry the word to her. And when I tell,--" she faltered, with drooping head,--"they laugh, and call me fool, and ask why I should hold myself too good to do as others have done, and say our lady is not to be troubled with a thing such as this. That is what they say, and they are worse than he. And I fear him! Oh, I fear him!" She clenched her hands tightly across her breast and shivered with closed eyes. "By day I go in dread lest he give command to seize me; by night I start awake lest I see his face grinning in the dark, even though for weeks at a time he will give me peace and make no sign. When my service is done, I hide like a rat in its hole, wishing to be seen by none. But he never forgets, and he never forgives, and I have scorned him. Oh, I would to God that I were dead!"
"Art thou Christian?" Nicanor asked curiously.
"Ay," she answered, without spirit.
"Once I was at a Christian church," said Nicanor.
"Art thou of the faith?" she asked, quickly and eagerly.
"Not I," said Nicanor. "What good may it do a man? And if it doeth no good, any faith will do to swear by. It hath not done thee much good, this faith of thine, since it leaves thee in this pass."
"I trust it," she said quietly.
"Nay," said Nicanor, in all seriousness. "It is I whom thou must trust. It is not thy faith will help thee here, but I, and the wit I have and the strength I have, because I am the only one near thee. How then, if it be I, can it be thy faith?"
"I trust it," she repeated vaguely, as though she did not quite understand his meaning. He laughed shortly.
"I had rather trust myself. See now, if the door were opened, couldst thou escape from here?"
"I have no money--nowhere to go," she answered.
Nicanor shook his head.
"Money I have not, but I could see that friends received thee."
She shrugged her shoulders, a gesture half resignation, half despair. And with the movement, the elusive familiarity returned; the flickering memory leaped to life. Black straight hair, framing a gray face and burning eyes; a girl, a lean wisp of a thing, with chained wrists and a ragged frock which only half concealed a long red welt on a brown shoulder--he had seen them all before. The memory grew and would not be denied; suddenly forced itself into words.
"Art thou she who was bought at Thorney of a slave-driver by one Valerius, and claimed sanctuary of a Christian cross by the church of Saint Peter?"
Her glance at him was startled.
"Yea; but how dost thou know of it?" she asked in turn.
"I saw thee sold," said Nicanor, and looked at her with new eyes. "When Valerius pursued thee to the foot of the cross, I ran also. It was I who went for the priest, and came back and found no one. Often since, I have wondered what became of thee and the folk who had gathered." He laughed. "But it made a good tale. More than once I have used it, and fitted to it endings of mine own."
"While I lay grasping the cross, a man in the crowd cried out: 'Girl, the priest cometh! Run thou quickly to him!' And I, being well-nigh dazed with fear, had no better sense than to spring up, crying, 'Where?' And no priest was there at all; but the instant my hands were off the cross that man seized me and ran, and all the crowd ran after to see what might happen next, some saying it was not just, and others finding it rare good sport. At the river he thrust me into a boat and gave the man money to row quickly; and since their sport was over, the people went away. It did not take long." She looked at him with quickened interest, and in her face also there was new thought.
"So--art thou, then, that teller of tales, whom men call Nicanor of the silver tongue?"
Nicanor laughed again, but softly, all the hardness gone from his grim face, his eyes shining oddly. Did they indeed call him that?
"I am Nicanor," he said. His quick ears caught a step approaching from the inner rooms. "Some one comes!" he said warningly, and added, "It is heavy; let me take it to the door."
He picked up the brazier and carried it to the door. Eldris followed, her steps lagging.
"I will wait near until thy duty here is ended," he said in a rapid undertone. "None shall touch thee this night, I promise thee. As for to-morrow--well, to-morrow is to-morrow, and there is small use in worrying to-day."
She flashed a glance of gratitude at him and took the brazier. It was too heavy for her, but she staggered bravely with it across the threshold, and the curtains fell behind her. Nicanor heard Nerissa's sharp voice from within.
"Why so long, girl? Bring it quickly--thy lady's feet are chilled."
Nicanor lingered a moment, his eyes on the hidden entrance, and turned and went out with his long and cat-like stride.
In the courtyard one ran against him in the darkness and cursed him soundly. Nicanor, recognizing the ring of Hito's eloquence, halted and waited for what might come. Hito, in his turn, recognized him, and changed his tone.
"So, thou? In the dark I did not know thee. Didst find the girl?"
"Ay, I found her," Nicanor answered with indifference. "But she is on duty to-night with our lady, and knows not when she can get away." He gave a short laugh. "Truly, Hito--since this is not official!--I had thought thee with an eye for woman-flesh as keen as the best. But that!--At first I doubted mine own eyes, that thou hadst singled out such an one for thy favor, when there be others whose better no man could wish. What one can see in long sulky eyes, a gray face that never smiles, hair like a mare's tail, a body gaunt and spare as a growing boy's--I cannot say I admire thy taste. Thou, who art so keen a judge of women's beauty, who can pick and choose from among the fairest--what hath bewitched thee, man?"
"You do not know her!" Hito said sulkily, forced into a defence of his choice. "A creature all fire and ice--well, I know she hath no beauty, but--I'd not have thee believe it is because I am no judge. What do I care for the girl? Bah!" He snapped his fingers in contempt. "But she hath flouted me, defied me,--me, Hito, whose word could send her stripped to the torment,--and by my father's head I'll break her for it! When I approached her with soft words, these many weeks ago, she laughed,--mind you that!--and it is dangerous to laugh at Hito. But she will not laugh when I am through with her! Also she said that she would prefer the rack. A pity that in this world people cannot always have what they prefer. More than ever I desire her; I would break her, see her cringe and follow like a beaten hound; and the more she fights me, the more surely I shall win, and the more my victory shall cost her. That is my way--the way of Hito!" He licked his thick lips.
"'And the lion said: "I find it rare good sport to hunt a mouse; it is most noble game!"'" Nicanor quoted. His voice held a taunt.
"No insolence, sirrah!" Hito snarled, instantly suspicious of ridicule. "Because I held speech with thee to-night, it does not follow that thou art privileged to criticize!"
"If I am insolent, why choose me for your messenger?" Nicanor asked boldly.
Hito slipped an arm about the slave's broad shoulders and patted him.
"Because thou art a man after mine own heart," he said smoothly. "Because I love thee and thy bold eyes and thy dare-devil recklessness, and would make a friend of thee. Why else? Now, then, to-morrow thou shalt bring the girl to me. I am minded for an hour's sport with the tiger-cat. My fingers itch for that lean throat of hers. After, I will give her to thee if it please thee--and then we'll see what the rack will leave of her beauty." His oily chuckle was diabolic.
"And our lady?" Nicanor suggested. "What will she say when she knows how a handmaiden of hers hath been disposed of?"
"How will she know," Hito retorted, "when there be a dozen and odd to take her place? A slave more or less is a small matter in this house." His tone was significant. "So bring her to-morrow at the noon hour, my friend. I think thou canst find a way! Till then, good-night. The gods have thee in their keeping!"
"And thee!" Nicanor responded with a grin.
Hito was absorbed into the darkness. Nicanor spat upon the ground where he had stood.
"Rather the gods smite thee with death and ruin!" he muttered. "Now to wait for thy lady. How well he loves her, in truth!"
He took to pacing up and down the gallery before the storerooms, for the night air was biting cold, noiseless, a blot of shadow in the darkness. His thoughts wandered from the black-haired slave girl to her whom they both served; to Marius; to his own plight. How long would it be before it pleased Marius to speak and snap the jaws of the trap upon him? Why did he hold his hand? Or had he perhaps already spoken? He knew that if he were to escape at all, the sooner he made the attempt, the better. His fingers went uncertainly to the collar at his throat. He could bribe no one to cut it for him; to do it himself would be more than difficult, even if he could steal the tools. He paused before a door that led into deeper blackness. At the far end of that passage was another door through which he must enter, where many another had entered before him, and where he had seen too much of what went on within to expect less for himself than had fallen to the lot of these. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Even a trapped rat may fight," he muttered, and turned to continue his pacing. Then it was that he saw a light coming down the gallery, dancing upon the wall; and a group of three approaching, revealed by a torch in the hands of one. Wary as a buck which scents danger on every breeze, he drew back into the space between two pillars to wait and watch. And he saw that of the three, the middle one was Marcus, held fast and struggling, and whimpering like a dog dragged to a beating.
In the first moment, Nicanor did not understand. Then it grew upon him that this had something to do with him, and it might be well to find out what. The three passed him and entered at that door before which Nicanor had paused.
"So--they take him to the torture!" Nicanor muttered. "I think that I shall see the end of this."
Lithe and noiseless as a cat he went after the three down the passage, keeping well out of range of the flaring torch. _