_ BOOK IV. THE LORD'S DAUGHTER AND THE ONE WHO WENT IN CHAINS
CHAPTER III
The Winter wore away and the great house hummed with preparation for the marriage festivities of Marius and Varia. All the friends of Eudemius and of Livinius and Marius were bidden; rich men and powerful, these, foremost of the circle of feudal lords whose power in Britain had become supreme, and whose allegiance to the Empire was long since merely nominal. Of them were Quintus Fabius, a senator in the curia, or governing body of Londinium; Caius Julius Valens, duumvir--chief magistrate, with rank corresponding in some sort to that of governor--of Isca Silurum, that great city which in the old days the Second Legion, the Augustan, had made famous. Also came the Comes Litoris Saxonici, Marcus Silenus Pomponius, Count of the Saxon Shore, in whose ward were the Eastern Marches and the Fens, of whose ancient power all the responsibilities and few of the prerogatives were left; Maximus Crispis, who owned the largest villa at the fashionable Aquae Solis, and boasted his own private and complete system of mineral baths; and fifty others with names as great as these.
Eudemius threw himself into the arrangements with an energy which made light of all obstacles. And of these there were many, since inevitably the disordered state of the country reacted on private concerns. From all the ends of the earth treasures were brought at his command. Swift-winged vessels, manned by tireless rowers whose one law of life was speed, came laden with rich stuffs and gems from the East; cups and dishes of virgin gold, crusted with uncut jewels; statuettes of Bacchus, the god of feasts, crowned with grapes of purple amethyst and leaves of emerald; of Fortuna, with the horn of Amalthea; of Hymen the torch-bearer, god of marriage; cups of figured and embossed glass, inscribed with sentiments such as "Bibe feliciter!" or "Ex hoc amici bibunt,"--all intended to be bestowed upon the guests as souvenirs during the feasts at which they were to be used. Lustrous silks came from far-away Serica; cloth of gold from Persian looms; glassware, fragile as tinted bubbles, from the great works near Lucrinum; spices and perfumes from Arabia, aloe, myrrh, and spikenard. To all that he owned he added tenfold more. Sometimes his ships were lost at sea; sometimes plundered by bands of pirates at his very doors. Then a messenger would be sent speeding by night and day to the agent from whom that ship had come, to return in a time incredibly short with an identical cargo--if by any means this could be duplicated. In this way he more than once sunk what was in truth a fortune without a denarius of profit in return. He wished to have tigers and lions brought from Africa, that his guests might hunt royal game, and spent many thousand aurei before he discovered that the cold invariably killed those of the animals which had survived the voyage. So he gave up that idea and stocked his parks and forests with wild boar,--the prime favorite for big game hunting,--with wolves, and lordly stags, and the wary, wild
bos longifrons, which afforded as good sport as might be wished.
Each day goods arrived, and messengers came with some rare thing brought by hand half across the world; each day bales and boxes were opened in rooms set apart for them; and each day Eudemius called his daughter and put into her careless hands some costly trifle which men had sweated and striven like overworked beasts of burden to lay before her.
When Varia's last month of maidenhood was nearly gone, Eudemius called Hito to him, to give account of what was in his hands. In the house were so many services of gold and silver, so many of Samian ware from Aretium, costly enough for an emperor's table; in the cellars, so many amphorae of Falernian wine and wines from Cyprus, so many ollae of ale and beer. In the servants' quarters were so many slaves of the field and of the household, male and female; so many trained to trades, so many dancing boys, musicians, and dancing girls. There were so many coloni and casarii, who owned Eudemius as patronus and paid house and land rent yearly in money, produce, or service, who belonged to the estate and might not be sold without it. Of the slaves those who had died were accounted for; those who had been resold, or exchanged, or manumitted,--all save two.
"These, lord," said Hito, without a change of face, "are two of whom I had it in mind to speak these many months ago. But when all things were to be prepared, there was no time. This woman, Eldris, did attempt escape; for what reason is not known. I gave command to pursue her. This was done. But when the men found her, she was dead; it is to be thought of cold and hunger. So she was put away. Let not my lord think that his servant was neglectful; we recaptured her, but she was dead. This one, Nicanor, was committed to the dungeons by order of our lord Marius; it is now nearly eight months ago. And for what reason is not known either. He is there still, since no further command hath been received regarding him. He was taken with a madness, and well-nigh killed my lord's slave. 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 Shore, 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 hoary, 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 Shore, sat on the couch beside Varia, slowly waving a new fan of peacock'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 companionship 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 goddess in heaven like me, and the beckon of my finger would be his command."
"Thou, Paula!" Gratia scoffed, and shook the peacock 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 shining 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."
"Get married, sweet, to him who loves thee, and then thou mayest have him whom thou dost love," said Nigidia. "If one has courage to do as one wills, and cleverness not to be found out, may not one do as one chooses? I know that Rubria, wife of Maximus Crispus, hath two lovers, and one of them is guest in this house. Who is thy lover, dear? What his name and station?"
Varia hesitated. The impulse which kept her from revealing the truth was dumb and blind, but it was there, and it saved her. She bit her lip.
"I will not tell!" she said in distress.
"We promise not to take him from thee," said Nigidia, and laughed with the rest.
"He sure must be the highest in the land, to win thy love," chimed in Paula, ready to carry on the game. "Perhaps it is Fabian, the friend of Marius, who hath the eyes of a god. Or perhaps it is old Aulus Plautus, of Gobannium. He is a widower these twenty years, and hath no teeth and but one eye--but his jewels sparkle enough for the other."
But Varia's face changed, and her eyes grew dark and hunted.
"Now you do make sport of me!" she cried. "What have I done that ye should bait me thus?" Before any girl could answer she faced them in a mist of quick, angry tears. "I am glad that my father's guests may be thus easily amused!"
They started upon her, in a moment all contrition, ready to embrace her and make amends; but she jumped off the couch and fled from them into her bedchamber and closed the door.
"We are as mean as we can be!" said Gratia, with reproach. "I think it great shame for us that we should not have remembered how it is with her. I am glad I was not first to start it!"
Paula and Nigidia took fire.
"What have we done save what we would do to any bride?" asked Paula. "Who could have thought she would take it so? But she is not so different from the rest of us, perhaps!"
"Perhaps no better!" said Nigidia.
"Then would she have thy teaching to thank for that!" Gratia flashed back. "And it is in my mind that the less she gets of it the better it will be for her."
When Nerissa came again, shortly, it was to find her lady alone and weeping. But this was no new thing of late. Nerissa came prepared to speak solemnly, as was her duty; Varia turned a petulant shoulder to her.
"Why will ye not let me be in peace?" she cried. "I do not wish to wed--I am happy as I am. I will
not be meek and obedient, and incline in all things unto my lord husband! I do not wish him for husband! I hate him. And oh, Nerissa, in three days--"
She wept afresh. Nerissa stroked her hair.
"There, then, lady-bird, never take it so! It is right that all maids should wed. The lord Marius will be kind to thee; he will give thee great affection. At least, the gods grant that he may! Thou wilt have jewels such as thou hast never dreamed of, and robes such as thou hast never seen. Thou wilt be a very great lady, little nursling o' mine. Ay me, but it is strange! These arms were the first to cradle thee; these hands dressed thee in the first little clothes of thy babyhood. Such
little clothes! Now they deck thee for thy bridal--and perhaps it may not be so long before they have other little clothes to handle. See, child of my heart, wouldst not be glad to have a tiny son of thine own, to love and play with? Wouldst not like to feel a round little head against thy heart, two so tiny hands opening the gates of all happiness before thee? Wouldst not see two baby eyes lulled into sleep by thy drowsy crooning? Say, sweet one, wouldst thou not like this?"
Varia raised her face slowly, starry eyes wide and very sweet with awe, young lips parting in reverent wonder.
"Ay," she breathed, and flushed and trembled. "I should like that. A little son, of all mine own! But I would not have it his son, O Nerissa! I would he might be son of a man such as I have dreamed of; a man brave, and rough, and tender--ay, all these! What should I care that he had no gold--have I found it such a blessing? For he would have more than gold--that which no man could give him, and no man take away. And his son should be like him; and the son of such a man I could love, and be proud that he was mine."
Nerissa smiled, a tender hand on Varia's head.
"Ay, I know, I know! Poor little one, we all have our dreams--even thou--and we all must wake from them. If this son of thine should be as the one who is to be his father, it will be very well. For the lord Marius is an honorable man, and strong."
Varia made a gesture of fierce protest.
"Bah! If he looked at me with those eyes, black and haughty, if his mouth was thin and his nose like an eagle's beak, and his hair stiff, so that I could not run it through my fingers, I should hate him even as I hate his father!"
Nerissa laughed.
"Sweet, my baby girl, it would be long or ever thou couldst see haughtiness in the eyes of that baby of thine, or thin lips; and as for the nose--! And I dare swear that when thou first dost look, thou wilt not find any hair at all, much less what is stiff. Come, cheer thee, my very dear! Believe that thy lord father knoweth what is best for thee. Thou art his own; he would never do thee wrong."
"Now am I not so sure of that!" said Varia, and her voice changed and was strange. "Oh, Nerissa, it is not that I would not wed! I, too, would know what joy and fulness a woman's life may hold, and perhaps I am not too much fool to understand. But one cannot teach me from whom I shrink with every breath I draw. These things I cannot understand. When I would think and question, there is something just beyond me, which I cannot grasp,--" she raised a hand, groping,--"something which escapes me, and when I think I have it, lo! it vanishes, and I wander in the dark. Birds I can understand, and trees, and little flowers, and clouds, and sunlight, and rippling brooks; but men and women I cannot understand; they all are strange to me, and I do not at all know why. I fear them; I am restless and unhappy. One only in all the world have I seen who was not strange. Him I could understand; when he spoke, all my heart sang in answer; it was what I longed to say and could not, and I do not at all know why. There was that in him which was in me, and yet I am fool and he is not, and this also I cannot understand. Will it ever be that I shall understand, O Nerissa?"
Nerissa sat on the couch beside her and drew her into her arms.
"Some day, surely, my pet," she soothed. "Think of it no more--never fret thyself with foolish fancies. Now it groweth late and is time to sleep. Thou shalt be my baby once again, for this night is the last I shall have thee all mine own."
She called slave women, and had them pack away the scattered silks and gauzes in the chests from which they had been taken, and make all ready for the night. Thereafter she sent them all away, even the body-slaves and tire-women, and herself waited upon her mistress. She freed Varia's hair from the jewelled pins which held it, combed its dusky length, and braided it in two long braids. She brought water in a great brazen jar, and filled the sunken marble bath in the red-tiled bathroom, and bathed her lady with scented soaps and perfumes. She cradled her in her arms, wrapped in warm rugs, and rocked and crooned old slumber songs as though her charge had been in fact a child again.
The lamps burned low, the room was warm and still. Varia, nestled in the arms that had been to her a mother's arms, stirred drowsily once or twice, and each time Nerissa bent over her, and felt her feet beneath the rugs to see that they were warm, studying with tender care the soft outline of rounded cheek, the long lashes down-dropped to hide the starry eyes, the quiet rise and fall of breath.
"She is but a child! She will forget!" she murmured.
But Varia spoke, in a voice straight from the land of dreams, opening upon her eyes misty with sleep.
"One does not forget!" she said drowsily. "One loses a thing, for a long time, it may be, but some shadow of that thing is always left, even to a fool. Is it not so?"
"Ay, if thou sayest," said Nerissa, as readily as she would have agreed that pigs were butterflies if her lady had willed them so. But Varia was asleep before she spoke.
All through that night Nerissa held her nursling in fond, anxious arms that knew no weariness, brooding over her as a mother with her child.
Just as gray dawn came drifting in at the windows, the feast in the great house broke up, and the guests, most of them half drunken, sought their rooms. And just at dawn word began to pass from station to station, and from town to town, of a city set in flames--fair Anderida in the South, as the crow flies, sixty Roman miles away. But of this, and what it portended, the villa knew nothing. _