The Lion\'s Brood

D >> Duffield Osborne >> The Lion\'s Brood

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So frank a question, so different from all that had been told of the
more than Oriental craft of the Carthaginians, and one that went so
straight to the motive of her presence, threw Marcia into some
confusion. Calavius noticed it, and, fearing lest she might say
something to do away with the impression of her former tact, he came to
the rescue.

"Surely we shall not insult my Lord Bacchus by a council of war in his
presence?" but Hannibal waved his hand toward him and looked fixedly at
Marcia.

"Goddesses may speak on all subjects, at all times; and the gods smile."

"That my words," she began, with eyes still cast down, "were deemed
worthy to be borne to my Lord, is too much honour. That he should deem
them worthy of thought, is beyond the dream of mere woman." Then,
glancing up and smiling wistfully into his face, she went on: "Know,
that whatever of judgment born of knowledge of the place and the men
has come to me, a girl,--that and more is for the service of the great
general of Carthage,--the benignant liberator of Italy."

"Why do you advise delay?" asked Hannibal again, and the eyes of
Maharbal glittered, as he leaned over from the other table. "There are
those who say I have delayed too long already."

"For this," replied Marcia, boldly; "that you may save your soldiers
and your allies; that they may lie in rest and luxury, and that, ere
springtime, the cities of the Latin Name, yes, truly, and the very
rabble of Rome, shall come to you on their knees for leave to bear the
horseheads along the Sacred Way, up the Capitoline slope--"

"If in the spring, why not now?"

Maharbal and Hannibal-the-Fighter made a clucking sound of assent;
Hasdrubal and the other guests seemed indifferent, but the Capuans were
hanging on Marcia's words.

"Because the time is not ripe--" she began.

"Words!" cried her questioner, cutting off her speech; "I asked, _why_?"

Frightened at his vehemence, but put to it of necessity, she answered:--

"Because there are strifes and bickerings--at Rome--throughout the
Latin Name--that must soon bear fruit of civil strife. The nobles
grind and hold to their privileges; the commons serve and starve and
look to Carthage for aid. How shall these things grow better, while
you hold the garden of Italy--while the Greeks of the south and the
Samnites and the men of the soil gather behind you on one side, and the
Gauls and Etruscans muster in the north? The water is eating at the
mole; soon the waves will lash up and sweep it from its foundations."

Hannibal eyed her closely for a moment. Then he said: "There are those
at Rome and among the Latin Name who tell me otherwise. They are good
men, and they know. Perhaps I have been even too cautious. You are
young and beautiful. Hold fast to matters suited to youth and beauty,
and leave the conduct of wars and statecraft to men." Turning to
Stenius, he went on, "If this Leucadian wine of yours, my Stenius, were
let into the veins of those who lie dead at Cannae, they would be fit
to rise and do battle again."

Stenius bowed and smiled; Marcia grew red and then pale with shame and
vexation, seeing how her plots were like to fall and crush her; but, at
this moment, the voice of Hannibal-the-Fighter rose from the other
table. Flushed with wine, he was boasting of his slain. "Four at
Trebia," he cried out, "seven at Trasimenus, eighteen at Cannae--but
all men. It is better to slay the wolves' whelps, if only to teach
women that it is no longer wise to bring forth Romans. I--I who speak
have already killed eleven boys--ah! but you must wait till we enter
Rome. Then will be the day when they shall build new cities in Hades!"

The Carthaginians heard him with indifference; the Capuans, all save
Perolla, applauded nervously; and Marcia grew sick at heart and mad
with a rage that could almost have strangled the giant as he reclined.

"And now," began Ninius, mildly, when there was a moment's silence,
"that we may the better enjoy what is to come, there are baths and
attendants; and the red feather will make way for new feastings at the
end of two hours."

Slaves had run in to assist the diners from their couches; the Capuans,
with dreams of relief, refreshment, and re-repletion; the
Carthaginians, bored, but striving to be polite and to follow the
customs of their entertainers. Even Hannibal, while his smile was half
a frown, permitted himself to be led away.

Filled with disgust and despair, Marcia felt herself all unfit to begin
a new revel--one that was to be made possible by loathsome practices,
as yet unknown at Rome, and which bade fair to end in aimless and
hideous debauchery. The women were but warming to their part, when the
summons of Stenius Ninius had proclaimed a truce with Bacchus and
Venus--a truce with promise of more deadly battle to be joined. She
had seen glances hot with wine and lust, claspings of hands, loosened
cyclas, and more lascivious reclinings. The gloomy Perolla had yielded
a little to the soft influences, and even Hannibal seemed to force
himself to toying, if only in the name of courtesy; while, through it
all, and more and more as the light of day advanced, Marcia felt the
eyes of Iddilcar, priest of Melkarth, burning into her soul. He at
least gave no heed to nearer blandishments, and terror and loathing
filled her in equal measure.

A faintness--a sudden weakness born of her recent journey--served for
excuse, which Calavius seemed not unwilling to voice, and, surrounded
by a guard of slaves, her litter bore her back to his house, through
streets littered with drunken men and fluctuant with the figured robes
of courtesans.

VI.

ALLIES.

Night had come again, before Marcia could arouse herself from the deep
sleep with which exhaustion of mind and body had overwhelmed her. She
remembered the scenes of the banquet as the phantasms of a
dream--strange and terrible; for her thoughts were slow to gather the
threads and weave the woof. Only a feeling of failure, of fruitless
abasement, was ever present. Hannibal had admired her, but, proof
against any controlling attraction, he had put her words aside with
little short of contempt. A dread, even, lest the strange acumen of
this wonderful man had pierced her mask, and that her very motive and
mission were already suspected, was not lacking to add dismay to
discouragement. Such thoughts were but wretched company, and they
brought with them a vague conception of her own vain egotism in
imagining the possibility of other outcome. She tried to sleep again,
but could not. What mattered it though, by some shifting of hours, her
day had become night and her night day! She must arise and talk with
some one, if it were only the host whom she so heartily despised.

Attendants entered at her summons, and the refreshment of the bath and
the labour of the toilet were once more passed through. Then,
dismissing the slaves, she walked out alone into the garden and sat
down on a softly cushioned seat of carved marble. A fountain plashed
soothingly in the foliage near by, the stars were shining again, while,
from without, the jarring sounds of the city came to her ears.

How long she sat, awake yet thinking of nothing, dull and dazed, she
could not tell. Then she was aroused by a sandalled step upon the
pavement. A man was standing before her, whose face, despite its
youthful contours, was deep-lined and melancholy. He was short of
stature and slenderly though gracefully built, and his black curls
clustered over brow and eyes that seemed rather those of a poet or a
dreamer than of a man of action. In the sombre, dark blue garments of
mourning, without ornaments or jewels, so different from the gay
banqueting robes in which she had last seen him, Marcia gazed a moment,
before she recognized Perolla, the son of Pacuvius.

"You are not pretty to-night, Scylla," he said tauntingly, "though you
left us early. There are dark circles under the eyes that looked
kindly at the enemy of your country."

Marcia flushed crimson, and he went on: "Yes; I watched you smiling and
ogling, but it will take greater traitors than you to snare him. He is
like Minos, in that he did not reach out to take from your hands the
purple lock shorn from your father's head: he is not like him
otherwise: he is not just, and he will not give honourable terms."

"You, at least, are faithful to Rome?" said Marcia, slowly, and
ignoring his insults.

"Can you ask?" he answered; "is it that you wish to betray me? Well,
then, know truly that I have betrayed myself to your heart's content.
Do you not see the mourning garments I wear for my city's faithlessness
and for her coming ruin? Have you not heard how my father dragged me
from the side of Decius Magius in the market place that I might attend
the banquet?--ah! but you have not heard how I had planned to startle
them all."

Marcia began to wonder whether she was talking with a madman.

"Shall I tell?"

She made a sign of assent.

"It was toward evening--they have but just risen from the tables now.
Then, it was to seek the red feathers for the third time; but I led my
father back among the rose bushes and showed him a sword which I had
girt to my side, beneath my tunic. 'This,' said I, 'shall win us
pardon from Rome. Look you, when we return, I will plunge it into the
Carthaginian's breast.'"

Marcia bent forward eagerly.

"And then," he went on, "my father bound my arms to my sides, with his
own around me, and wept and talked of our recent pledges to these
foreigners. 'Can they outweigh our ancient pledges to Rome?' I
answered. So he pleaded how the attendants would surely cut me down,
and mentioned Hannibal's look, which he affirmed I would not be able to
confront; but I laughed and made little of these things. Then he spoke
of the hospitable board, which I admitted had something of reason; and,
finally, when he had declared that the sword must reach Hannibal only
through his own breast, then, at last, from filial duty, mark you, I
threw the weapon from me, telling him that he had betrayed his country
thrice: in revolting from Rome, in allying with foreigners, and, now,
in turning aside the instrument of escape. Then we returned to the
banquet, but my father trembled, and ate and drank no more. There,
now, is a story to tell your city's destroyer. If you betray me,
perhaps he may yet love you."

Marcia viewed him sternly.

"Truly your father was right, when he said you were ill in mind."

"Yes, ill in mind and in heart."

"How, then, do you not recognize one whose heart is sicker than your
own?"

Perolla looked at her inquiringly, and she went on:--

"You have a city that has been false to itself, and is in danger of
punishment--a father, too, if you will. _My_ city has already suffered
every evil but destruction: my brother and he to whom Juno was about to
lead me have been killed by these pulse-eaters. Are such things the
benefits that go to make friendship and love for the slayers? Say,
rather, hate and the craving for revenge."

"Yes," said Perolla, moodily; "they are indeed evils, but less than
mine, in that they are passed--"

"And is Rome safe, do you think?" she asked quickly.

"Rome will conquer," he said doggedly, "unless there be many more
traitors like you."

"Fool!" she cried, grasping his wrist. "Can you not see--you who claim
to be a philosopher and to have Greek blood?--you, at least, should
have understood my words."

He gazed at her vacantly, and she began to regret her vehemence. It
came to her mind that this was not altogether a safe man to trust with
her secret. Faithful he was, no doubt; but a fool might be even more
dangerous than a traitor. Still, she had said too much to be silent,
and she felt the need of some ally to whom she could talk--upon whom
she could at least pretend to lean when the weight of her burden was
heaviest.

"I have told you what I have lost--what I dread to lose. Now learn
what I am here to gain. For many days after the black news of Cannae,
I heard them talking in my father's house--talking of the advance of
the insolent victors and of the paltry defence we could oppose, the
certain destruction that awaited us. Still they were brave--old men
and boys. The soldiers were dead, but we set to work training
new--shaping them alike out of youth and age and bondmen; and the
slayers of our citizens delayed, and we gained strength and courage.
In every temple of the twelve gods it was the same prayer by day and
night: 'Grant us delay. Grant us that the winter may find him in the
south!' At last came the news that he was advancing to Capua, and
rumours of a Carthaginian party in the city. From Capua, seized with
all its engines of war, was but a few days to Rome. Then I took a
resolve and made a vow: tell me, am I beautiful?"

"Beautiful as Venus."

"Know, then, that I have dedicated this beauty to her, that she may
guard Rome and avenge me upon Rome's enemies."

He shook his head stupidly.

"Minerva does not favour me, lady," he replied; "for I do not
understand your words."

"Listen!" she went on, with the earnestness of desperation, "He shall
_love_ me--he or one who can sway him--and they shall play the laggards
here, until the winter gives us time--and time brings safety."

He understood her now, but still he shook his head.

"If you speak truth," he said slowly, "you speak foolishness as well.
Hannibal will love no mistress but Carthage, and there is no man living
who shall sway him by a hair's breadth. _Now_ I see why you spoke to
him of plots at Rome and of the wisdom of delay. Ah! a woman to make
game of _him_!" and he threw back his head and laughed. "Do you
imagine he has not divined your plot? Give him your beauty if you
will. He will take it, doubtless, if he have time, and march north
forthwith, after you have confessed your little plottings beneath the
hot tweezers. Only one thing shall stay him--steel,--and in the hands
of man--not blandishments in the mouth of a girl."

Marcia was in despair.

"And is there no help," she cried, "for me, a Roman woman, from you, a
friend of Rome? Surely we shall be stronger together, even if our
plots are different. Two plans are better than one."

Before he could frame his answer they heard footsteps coming toward
them, and then a man, enveloped in the brown cloak of a slave, pushed
aside the foliage and glided out into the moonlight. Perolla, wheeling
about, had half drawn his sword, while Marcia shrunk back into the
shadow.

"Put up your sword, my Perolla," said the newcomer, speaking in low
tones and throwing aside his mantle.

"Decius Magius, by all the gods!" cried the young man; "but why are you
disguised?"

"Because, my friend," said Magius, slowly "Capua is no longer free;
because spies of the Carthaginian and of our senate are watching my
house, making ready to seize me. Decius Magius can no longer walk in
his own city, clad in his own gown, and to-morrow, doubtless, he cannot
walk at all. Therefore I wish to speak with you, and I have put on
this disguise in order that I might gain your house unobserved, and
that your father might not die of fright, learning me to be here."

"But how did you enter? how find me?"

"I entered, my Perolla, because your porter, like every slave in Capua,
is drunk to-night, and because the boy whom he left to keep the gate
was only enough awake to mumble that you were in the garden."

Perolla frowned. Then, suddenly, he remembered Marcia, concerning whom
his suspicions were not yet entirely removed, and he raised his hand in
warning.

"There is a woman here--a Roman woman, who tells a strange story," he
whispered. "It is better to be discreet."

"The time for discretion is past for Decius Magius," said the other,
wearily. "Let him at least speak freely upon his last night of
freedom."

Marcia came forward.

"Is it permitted a Roman maid to honour a Campanian who is true to his
city's faith?"

"Assuredly, daughter," replied Magius, quietly. She could not see his
face except that it was stern and gray-bearded; but, kneeling down
beside him, she took his hand and poured out the story of her life, her
sorrow, her resolve, and its prosecution. Here, at least, was a man
upon whose faith and judgment she could rely, and his manner grew more
gentle as she made an end of speaking.

"So you doubted her truth, my Perolla," he said softly. "That is
because you have not felt her hand tremble, and because you are too
young and too much of a philosopher to judge of the honesty of a
woman's face. The same instinct that tells me, doubtless warned
Hannibal also that this was not a courtesan, much less an immodest
woman well born, and, least of all, a coward who would flee her city,
or a traitress who would betray it. You will know more of such things,
my Perolla, when you learn to study them less." Then, turning to
Marcia, he went on: "What you have designed, my daughter, is noble and
worthy of your race--and yet, while I commend, I am slow to encourage.
Are you strong to carry your sacrifice to the uttermost?"

Marcia shuddered.

"Yes, if there be need," she said, in a low voice; "I look to no
marriage now. Is not the Republic worthy of our best?"

"It is a hard thing," he said, doubtfully, "for a woman well born and
modest to belong to a man she hates."

"But it is easy to die, my father, as died Lucretia."

Decius Magius looked at her. Several times his lips moved as if about
to speak, and, once, he turned away sharply for a moment, as if to gaze
up into the night.

"Tell me, my father," she said earnestly, "do you give me no hope? Is
not my beauty worth the purchase of a few paltry months? And then
comes the winter, bringing safety."

Still Magius said nothing for several minutes, and when he spoke, it
was in harsh, quick tones.

"Yes, it is all possible, as you say it."

"Hannibal to surrender his plans for a woman?" cried Perolla,
scornfully. "Surely, my Decius, you jest. Do you not know him--that
only the gods can turn him from his purpose?"

Marcia had wheeled about with flashing eyes and faced the last speaker.

"You have shown me the way," she cried. "It is the gods who _shall_
delay him."

Perolla gazed at her in astonishment, as at one gone mad, but Magius
nodded and frowned.

"It is the best chance," he said slowly, "the only one."

"Still Minerva does not favour me," said Perolla, shaking his head; but
Marcia went on in a high, nervous voice and with a gayety that made the
older man draw his cloak up to his face in pity:--

"Come, my philosopher, you are indeed stupid to-night. If you did not
observe it at the house of the Ninii, you should have heard me just now
when I told the story of the banquet to my lord Decius. It is
Iddilcar, the priest of Melkarth, who shall bring his god to be my
ally--Rome's ally: Iddilcar, who could not so much as take his eyes
from me, through all their feasting. There is the man who will prefer
my beauty, even to his god's favour; and surely your Hannibal will not
wage war against the auspices."

The face of Magius was still shaded by his cloak, and he said nothing;
but over the features of the younger man came strange expressions:
first amazement, then horror, then a look which had something of horror
but more of yearning. He held out his hands in supplication.

"No--no," he cried. "You shall not do it. You are too beautiful.
First I hated you, when I dreamed you to be but a courtesan traitress.
Now--now--O gods favour me! Listen! you shall not do it. It is I who
will kill him--yes, and you also first," and, turning suddenly away, he
staggered. Then, as Magius raised his hand to support him, he shook
himself free and ran furiously into the house.

Marcia turned to Magius in astonishment, and he smiled sadly.

"Even philosophers are not proof," he said; "and you are very
beautiful--and he is young--and half a Greek." She blushed, and the
grim senator took her hand. "May the gods grant, my daughter, that
your sacrifice be not for nothing. You have spoken wisdom; but he--he
is a madman. As for me, I am as one who is dead. Farewell."

He dropped her hand, and she felt, rather than heard or saw him go;
only her voice would not obey her when she strove to detain him, if but
for a moment: the only man in Capua whom she could honour--upon whom
she could rely. Surely he would not desert her thus?--yes, truly, he
was _gone_.

Then she ran several steps in the direction he had taken, and called,
though she dared not call his name, until a female attendant came
hurrying to answer her.

"My lord, Perolla," said the girl, "had but just rushed out into the
street, as if possessed of a daimon. As for a strange slave, she had
observed no one; but if such there was, doubtless he had slipped by the
porter's boy--who was worthless."

Marcia groped her way to her sleeping apartment, harshly brushing aside
an offer of aid. Once alone, she threw herself down upon the couch and
burst into a torrent of moans and sobs.

The girl, who had followed hesitatingly, listened in the hallway,
nodding her head with conscious satisfaction. "And so the Roman women
loved, for all they were said to be so grand and stern. What a fool
this one was, though, to prefer the son to the father, who was much
richer, and who, being old, would doubtless realize the necessity of
being more generous."

And she went back to the slaves' apartments, laughing softly to herself.

VII.

"FREEDOM."

The morning air of the Seplasia reeked with perfumes, more, even, than
was its wont; for Carthaginian and Capuan revellers had been carousing
there, and several of the shops had been broken open. The gutters
streamed wine with which were mingled all the essences of India and
Asia. Flowers, withered and soaked with coarser odours than their own,
floated on the pools and drifted down the rivulets. Inert bodies,
drunk to repletion, lay scattered about, helpless, unable to drink
consciously, but absorbing the wasted liquor through every pore. A
dead citizen, his head crushed in by a single blow, sprawled hideously
in the middle of the street; while his murderer, a gigantic Gaul, was
embracing the corpse with maudlin affection and whispering in its ear
to arise and guide him back to camp. Those who passed, from time to
time, paused to join the soldier's comrades in laughter and rude jests
and suggestions of new methods of awakening his friend.

And now, down the street, extending from wall to wall, came a line of
young men, their faces flushed, their garments disordered or cast
aside, and their brows crowned with what had once been chaplets of
roses. Three or four courtesans, with gowns and tunics torn from their
white shoulders, were being dragged along, half laughing, half
resisting, and wholly possessed by Bacchic frenzy.

In front of the company marched a slender youth with dark, curling hair
and delicate features. In his hand was a thyrsis, and his eyes blazed
with the madness of the wine.

"Evoe! evoe!" he shouted. "Comrades! Bacchantes! there is no water in
Capua to mix with wine. Equal mixture for poets and fools; undiluted
wine for victors and lovers!"

"Perolla is a good Carthaginian to-day," shouted one of his fellows.
"Behold how Bacchus has answered our prayers! Kiss him, Cluvia, for a
reward."

Pushed forward, the courtesan fell upon the young man's neck, almost
bearing him to the street and overwhelming him with drunken caresses.
A moment later he freed himself from her arms.

"What is Roman beauty to our Capuan?" he hiccoughed.
"Marcia--Cluvia--all are one. All are women, and we are Capuans;
braver than Romans, wiser than Carthaginians. Listen, friends! when my
father rules Italy, you shall all be kings and queens. Evoe! evoe!"

Shouts and shrieks of drunken joy greeted his words. Several sought to
embrace him, and, staggering back, he stumbled over the Gaul and the
dead Capuan where they sprawled in the street. Mingled laughter and
curses rose all around. Blows and kisses were given and received, and
the mad company rolled on through the Seplasia and into the Forum.

Here, too, were intoxication and debauchery, but they were restrained
within some manner of bounds. The fact that grave events were taking
place, seemed to exert a sobering influence on the populace, and they
gathered in a dense throng around the Senate House, whence ominous
rumours pursued each other in quick succession.

"The Senate was in session. Hannibal was before them. Decius Magius
had been arrested at his demand." So ran the talk.

Guards of Carthaginian soldiery were posted at several points, but
especially at all the entrances to the chamber in which the fathers of
the city discussed--or obeyed; and against these lines the waves of the
rabble surged and broke and receded. Men offered the soldiers money
for free passage or news; women offered them kisses for money; and the
soldiers took both and gave nothing but jeers and blows.

Perolla and his drunken company had but just poured out to swell the
tide of this ocean of popular passion, when a commotion of a different
character began at the other end of the Forum. The closed door of the
Senate House swung open, and a man in the garb of a senator, but
chained and shackled, issued forth and stood on the steps, beneath the
porch. Surrounded by a guard of Africans, it was fully a moment,
before the mob recognized Decius Magius, the partisan, of Rome. Then a
chorus of howls and curses rose up. Insults were hurled,--the grossest
that the minds of a licentious rabble could suggest, fists were shaken,
women spat toward the prisoner,--even a few stones were cast, and when
one of these happened to strike an African of the guard, he turned
quietly and cut down the nearest citizen. Then, with their heavy
javelins so held as to be used either as spears or clubs, the soldiers
descended into the Forum, and, with the captive in their midst, began
their progress toward the street and gate that led to the Carthaginian
camp. There was no weak delay in this progress, no requests for
passage; the escort clove through the mass of the people, as a war
galley dashes through the breakers of a turbulent sea. A spray of
human beings that strove to escape but could not, boiled up about the
prow; a wake of bodies, writhing or senseless, fell behind the stern,
while, at either side, the stout javelins rose and fell like the
strokes of oars, splashing up blood for foam.

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