The Lion\'s Brood

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"I will be more serious than will please you," she said, "if you please
me as little as you do now. Learn, I am not your wife that you should
seek to restrain me, and it is quite possible that I never shall be."

"You speak truly," he said; "it is quite possible that no woman shall
be a new mother to the house of Fidenas--that our name shall die in me.
So be it; and may the gods only avert the evils that threaten the
Republic, nor look upon one of the race of the Trojan Segestes as an
unworthy offering."

Bending his head in respectful salutation, he turned toward the
entrance hall.

Marcia stood silent beside the fountain, and her face clouded with
thought. The sound of her lover's footsteps grew fainter and fainter.
She started forward as if to follow him. Then she stopped and
listened. The noise of the street had drowned their echoes; the door
had creaked twice on its pivots. He was gone. Then she called,
"Lucius!" but there was no answer. Her eyes drooped with a little
frown of regret, but in a moment she turned away laughing.

"Never mind. He cannot do anything very desperate yet, and I will
treat him better next time--perhaps."

III.

PARTING.

The ensuing days were pregnant with rumour and action. The waves of
terror and despair that lashed over the city, as blow after blow fell,
had now receded. The white banner, that was always lowered at the
approach of an enemy, still spread its undulating folds above
Janiculum; the crops and fruit trees and vines smiled upon the
hillsides; the flocks and herds browsed peacefully along the Campagna
with never a Numidian pillager to disturb their serenity; and, amid
all, there was no rumour of allied gates opened to receive the invader,
no welcome from the Italians whom he had striven to conciliate.
Courage returned, and with courage firmness, and with firmness
confidence to endure and dare and do, so long as invaders presumed to
set foot upon the heritage of Rome.

How far this new confidence was born of the news that the Carthaginian
was turning aside to the west, through Umbria and Picenum, how far by
the rumour that Spoletum had closed her gates and repulsed his
vanguard, or how far by wrath at the tales of ravage and the numberless
murders of Roman citizens that marked his line of march, it would be
difficult to apportion.

However these, the city was now seething with energetic preparation.
The Senate sat daily and into each night. No word of peace was
uttered--all was war and revenge. Quintus Fabius Maximus was elected
pro-dictator by a vote of the Comitia--not dictator, because that could
only be done through appointment by the surviving consul, then absent
in Gaul--or none knew where. By the same power, and in order to
appease the commons irritated by criticisms of Flaminius, Marcus
Minutius Rufus was elected master of the horse. Nor were the gods
neglected. Their stimulating influence was invoked by the dictator to
inspire the people with confidence, while he soothed them with the
intimation that Flaminius had failed rather through overcourage and
neglect of divine things than through mere plebeian temerity and
ignorance. Fabius took care to impress it upon all that he himself
would take full warning from the lesson. He moved that the Sibylline
books should be consulted, and the Senate promptly acted upon the
motion. These directed that a holy spring be proclaimed forthwith;
that every animal fit for sacrifice, and born between the Kalends of
March and May throughout all Italy, should be offered to Jupiter.
Votive games were decided upon, couches were set by the judges, whereon
the twelve gods should feast in splendour, temples were vowed, to Venus
Erycina by the dictator himself, to Mens by Titus Otacilius, the
praetor.

But with all, and, as Fabius put it, that the immortal gods should not
be overburdened with the petty affairs of mortals, every care that
human prudence and warcraft could suggest was taken. Walls and towers
were strengthened, and bridges were broken down; the inhabitants of
open towns were driven into places of security, and their houses and
crops destroyed. Amid all, the rumour came that Servilius was
hastening back from Gaul; then, that he was close at hand, and,
finally, Fabius set out to meet him, sending orders in advance that the
consul should come without lictors, so that the dignity of the
dictatorship might stand high before the people. And when Servilius
had come, in all respects as commanded, then he, the consul, after
first delivering up his legions which he had left at Ariminum, was
ordered to Ostia and the fleet to keep watch and ward over the Italian
coast and to protect the corn ships. So all the armies of the Republic
went to the pro-dictator, together with authority to raise such more as
he should consider needful; two new legions in the place of those dead
on the shores of Trasimenus, and some thousands of poorer citizens from
the tribes, to man the quinqueremes of Servilius and the walls of Rome.

Amid these days of bustle and preparation, Sergius had found little
difficulty in keeping his footsteps from Marcia's threshold. After the
first grief of the conviction that she did not love him, pride came to
his rescue. Should he, the head of the noblest house of the noble
Sergian gens, should he abase himself and submit to scornful words even
from a daughter of Torquatus? or, yet, should he, as a man, desire to
bear the torch before an unwilling bride? These were simple questions,
and there was but one word that could answer them; so Sergius struggled
to put Marcia from his heart, until he flattered himself that the
difficult task had at last been accomplished.

During this internal struggle, there came, also, to help him, word that
he had been named as one of the military tribunes in the new Fourth
Legion, and, his wound being now almost well, he threw himself headlong
into the work of the levy and of exercising his men, striving to bring
them to such a degree of efficiency as might win honour for himself and
advantage to the Republic. Now and again twinges of the old heart-pain
would rack him, but he obstinately attributed all depression and
melancholy to the inferior quality, both physically and socially, of
many of the new levies, and to his misgivings as to the account they
would render of themselves when confronted by the veterans of Hannibal.

At last the day of marching arrived, and with it the greatest struggle
of all. Suddenly a suspicion awoke within him, whispering that the
task he had set for himself was but poorly done; that the image of
Marcia still smiled unbanished above the altar of his heart; and, with
all his pride and strength, this suspicion of his weakness was, oddly
enough, a source of positive exultation. Caius had been with him
through much of his work, for Caius served in the same legion. It was
evident, however, that the young man had received strict orders on one
subject; for, in all their talks, the name of Marcia never passed his
lips. This was unlike Caius, who was thought by many to be given to
overmuch speaking, and, for that reason, it irritated Sergius the more,
who would sooner have cut away his hand than questioned his friend
concerning his sister. Thus the two men, illogically but humanly
enough, continued to grow apart, until, with never a thought but of
friendliness, their intercourse became limited, through sheer
embarrassment, to the commonplaces of fellow-soldiers who held light
acquaintance with each other's names and faces.

As the hour drew near, the city bubbled with excitement, and the altars
of the gods reeked with unnumbered victims. Especially invoked were
Castor, Fortune, Liberty, and Hope, but, above all, the mighty trinity
of the Capitol. Lest the pang of so great a parting with men who were
about to encounter such grave dangers might sap the courage of those
remaining, and thence that of the new levies, the dictator had wisely
decreed that the army should assemble at Tibur. So it happened that
there was none to go now save himself and a small escort of cavalry,
five turmae, at the head of which was Sergius. With these went Rome's
last hope: the cast behind which lay only ruin, but for the averting
favour of the gods.

At midday the fasces would be carried forth, and it lacked but an hour
of the time. Sergius had prepared everything; his men were ready to
mount at the blast of the trumpet, and his household was set in order
against the absence of its master. He was standing within the Viminal
Gate, while an attendant held his horse close by and a little apart
from the crowds of weeping women who surrounded the soldiers of the
dictator's escort. Suddenly he felt some one pluck him by the cloak,
and turned quickly to see a young woman in the single tunic of a slave.
Her dress, however, was of finer texture than that worn by most of her
class, and seemed to bespeak a rich mistress and especial favour. She
stood with her finger to her lips, her eyes great with the importance
of her mission.

"My mistress, the Lady Marcia, orders that you come and bid her
farewell," she whispered hurriedly.

Then she darted away among the crowd, before the young tribune could
make answer to an invitation so oddly worded.

His first impulse was to show the Lady Marcia that he was not to be
dismissed and sent for--much less ordered back at the caprice of a
girl. His next was to humour the whim of a child, and his third was to
obey humbly and thankfully, without a thought but of Marcia's beauty
and his own good fortune.

A word to his slave and another to his horse, whereat the former loosed
the bridle, and the latter knelt for his master. Then came a wild
gallop across the crest of the Viminal Hill, through the ill-omened
street where the wicked Tullia had driven over her father's corpse,
into the Forum, and out up the New Way to the house of Torquatus.

Throwing his rein to the porter, Sergius entered the court of the
atrium, vacant and resounding to the hurried tread of his cothurni.
Pausing for a moment and hesitating to penetrate farther into the
house, he became aware that the porter had followed him. Like most of
his class, he was a man considerably past middle life, and thus
considered suited to the comparative ease and responsibility of his
position. With a freedom and garrulity born of long service, he
began:--

"It was a word I was commanded to deliver to the most noble Sergius,
and I doubt not it would have been well and truly delivered, but for
his springing from his horse so quickly and rushing past me. It is
possible that I might have come to him sooner had he not left me to
take care of the animal, and it needed time to summon the groom, whose
duty such work is. Therefore--"

"By Hercules, man, give me the message! Do you think I can listen all
day to your gabbling?" cried the soldier, furious with impatience.

A faint laugh seemed to come from somewhere beyond the hallway.

"I was about to say, most noble lord," pursued the porter, hardly
ruffled by the outburst; "and I trust you will pardon me if I dallied
over-much; but--"

Sergius raised his hand. Then, thinking better of the blow, he seized
the man by the throat.

"Perhaps I can shake the words out like dice from a box. Now for the
Venus cast!" he cried, suiting the action to the speech.

"Are you making trial of your strength that you may break more readily
into Carthaginian houses? Remember it is soldiers with whom you are to
contend."

Sergius turned quickly, to see Marcia herself standing at the entrance
to the hall. In her eyes, on her lips, was malicious laughter; but a
little red spot on either cheek seemed to tell of some stronger feeling
behind. He had released the porter so quickly that the latter
staggered back almost into the fountain, and Marcia smiled.

"I think I have been taking a great deal of trouble for the sake of a
very discourteous person," she said. "I sent Minutia to tell a certain
soldier that I am willing to bid him farewell, despite his
unworthiness, and he comes and nearly strangles poor old Rhetus for
trying to say that I was awaiting him in the peristyle."

"Rhetus' attempt was not very successful, and my time was short," said
Sergius, growing alternately red and pale.

"And so you thought to hasten his speech by closing his throat? Oh!
you are a wise man--a very logical man. They should have made _you_
dictator, so that you could save Italy by surrendering Rome."

"Is it to say such things that you sent for me?" asked Sergius, after a
pause during which he struggled against embarrassment and wrath.

"Surely not, for how could I know that you were going to behave so
outrageously? If you will follow me, we will go into the peristyle."

She turned back through the passage, and Sergius followed, issuing a
moment later into a large, cloister-like court, open in the middle, and
decorated with flowers and shrubs. Four rows of columns, half plain,
half fluted, supported the shed roof that protected the frescoes.
These covered three of the walls. On the back was a garden scene so
painted as to seem like a continuation of the court itself into the far
distance; on the right was the combat between Aeneas and Turnus, and on
the left a representation of the first Torquatus despoiling the slain
Gaul of the trophy from which the family took its name.

"And now I will tell you why I sent."

She had seated herself in a marble chair with wolf heads carved on the
arms, and her face had grown grave and thoughtful.

"It was to tell you a dream--a dream of you that I had last night."

Her cheek flushed, and Sergius' eyes sparkled.

"You dreamt of _me_?" he said in a low voice. He half raised his arms
and came nearer; but she held up one hand in the old imperious manner.

"If you please, I have not sent for you that you should grow
presumptuous, because I was unmaidenly enough to dream of so badly
behaved a person as yourself. It--it was because it--I thought you
should know, so that the omen might be expiated."

Sergius had halted and was standing still. His lip curled slightly.

"I dreamt," she went on, after a short pause, "that there was a wide
plain with mountains about it and a river running through; and it was
all heaped up with dead men--thousands upon thousands--stripped of arms
and clothing, and the air was gray with vultures, and the wolves and
foxes were calling to each other back among the hills. And I was very
sad and walked daintily so that my sandals and gown might not be
splashed with the blood that curdled in pools all about. Suddenly I
came to a heap of slain whereon _you_ were lying, with a long javelin
through your body. So I screamed and awoke--"

"Surely, then, you felt sorrow," cried Sergius, who had followed the
narrative with deep interest, but who seemed to consider nothing of it
save the concern she had shown at his death.

"I--I," she began; and then, as if angry with herself at the betrayal
of feeling and of her embarrassment, she burst out; "I did not send,
foolish one, that you should consider _me_. Look rather to yourself."

But Sergius was full of the joy of his own thoughts.

"That I shall do, my Marcia, by setting my mind upon things that are
better than myself--the Republic--you--"

"Ah, but the omen?"

"I shall put it aside together with the other: that you have called me
back from the march; and I shall consider both well expiated by the
knowledge that I am not as nothing to you."

Her face grew pale, and she half rose from the chair.

"Truly, I did not think about calling you back. It is terrible--all
this--and it is my doing--"

"Then, if you wish, I shall lay it up against you," cried he, gayly,
"unless you promise to be Caia in my house--"

"You are unfair to press me now and by such means."

"But it must be now," exclaimed the young man, springing forward and
trying to catch her in his arms. "Do you not see I must leave you at
once? Shall it be without a promise?"

The blush had turned again to little anger spots, as she evaded him.

"Very well," she said slowly. "I will be Caia where thou art Caius--"

Sergius' face shone with exultation, and his lips parted.

"I will be Caia," she resumed, "upon the day when Orcus sends back the
dead from Acheron."

His expression of joy faded, and indignation took its place. Surely
this was carrying light speech too far--and at such a time. Suddenly
he realized that the dictator might already have ridden on, and
disgrace have fallen upon a Sergius at the very beginning of the
campaign.

"So be it! I accept that omen--with the others," he cried sternly,
and, turning, strode out through the atrium, bounded upon his horse,
and dashed headlong down the street, before Marcia was fairly aware
that he had gone from her presence.

IV.

FABIUS.

Sergius rode back to his men, deeply wounded in love and pride. He
tried to excuse Marcia for her treatment of him, on the score of her
youth and of youth's thoughtlessness; he blamed himself for his
abruptness and his lack of knowledge of women--failings that had
perhaps turned an impending victory into the defeat that now oppressed
him. Worst of all, there was no hope to remedy his or her fault. A
dangerous campaign lay before him, and the omens--but pshaw! _he_ was
not one of the rabble, to tremble at a flight of birds from the west or
an ox with a bad liver. He had always admired the spirit of that old
sceptic, Claudius, who had drowned the chickens off Drepana, though he
admitted the faulty judgment in failing to realize the effect of such a
defiance upon ignorant seamen and marines: the hierarchy was necessary
for the State; if only to keep fools in order, but for a man of family
and education--well, he smiled. It provoked him, amid all his
disbelief, that he could not help preferring that those same omens had
been more favourable. Pride, pride was his last and truest safeguard.
He, a descendant of the companion of Aeneas, to fear the Carthaginian
sword! he, a Roman noble, about to face death for his country, to waste
his thoughts upon a silly girl who chose to flout him!

Then the long clarions of the cavalry rang out, and the horsemen ran to
their steeds. Down the slope of the Viminal rode the dictator: before
him went the twenty-four axes, each in its bundle of staves, their
bearers robed in military cloaks of purple cloth; behind came a small
troop of illustrious Romans--his legati, his staff, nominated by him
and sanctioned by the Senate for their fame and skill in war; also such
senators as had elected, by way of personal compliment, to ride with
the general and to partake as volunteers in whatever share of the war
he might set for them.

Quintus Fabius Maximus seemed a man just passing the prime of life.
His figure, as he sat his horse, was squat rather than tall, though
this appearance might be due, in a measure, to the great breadth of his
shoulders; altogether his frame seemed one better adapted to feats of
strength and endurance than for those of agility. The face, with its
grizzled hair and beard, both cut short, suited well the figure that
bore it. Dignity, firmness, and kindliness were in its strong and
rugged outlines, with less, perhaps, of the pride of race and rank than
might have been looked for in the head of the great family whose name
he bore--he who was now twice dictator of the destinies of Rome. For
dress, his purple cloak, similar to those of his lictors, hung loosely
from his shoulders to below his knees, and, opening in front, disclosed
a corselet of leather overlaid with metal across chest and abdomen, and
embossed with bronze designs of ancient pattern and workmanship. The
hem of the white tunic showed below the leathern pendants that hung a
foot down from his girdle; the greaves were ornamented at the knees
with lions' heads; an armour-bearer carried his master's bronze helmet
with its crest of divergent red plumes.

Such was the man upon whom Rome now depended for her saving--"for
victory," dreamed such of the unthinking as had recovered from their
terror; "for time, time, time," reasoned the man with the deep-set,
gray eyes upon whom they had pinned their faith.

Hardly a stride behind him rode Marcus Minucius Rufus, tall and
well-built, with bold, coarse features and fierce, roving eyes. His
red hair bristled from his brow, and he seemed to restrain with
difficulty either his steed or himself from darting forward into the
lead.

"Yonder is the sword of the Republic," said one of Sergius' men, as the
master-of-the-horse rode by the escort; but the man to whom he said
it--an old soldier of the Spanish wars--only shrugged his shoulders. A
moment later he grunted in reply:--

"Like enough; but it is a shield that the Republic needs most of all."

Then the clarion summoned them to fall in behind the dictator's
company, and the troop rode out from the gate--out into the broad
plain--away from the protecting walls fluctuant with waving stoles, and
from which tear-dimmed eyes strove to follow them among the villas,
farms, and orchards of the country-side--away from the Forum, from the
sacred fig tree and the black stone of Romulus--away from the divine
triad that kept guard over the Capitol. Beyond lay the Alban
Mountains, and, beyond these,--no one knew where,--the strange dangers
that awaited them: fierce Spaniards with slender blades as red as the
crimson borders of their white coats; wild Numidian riders that always
fell upon the rear of Rome's battle; serried phalanges of Africans,
veterans of fifty wars; naked Gauls with swords that lopped off a limb
at every stroke; Balearic slingers whose bullets spattered one's brains
over the ground; Cretans whose arrows could dent an aes at a hundred
yards; and above all, over all, the great mind, the unswerving,
unrelenting purpose that had blended all these elements into one
terrible engine of destruction to move and smite and burn and ravage at
the touch of a man's will.

The cavalry rode two and two, thinking of such things; picked men,
equipped in the new Greek fashion with breastplate, stout buckler, and
strong spear pointed at both ends. What thoughts held the mind of the
general, none could fathom. With head slightly inclined he seemed to
study, now the ribbons woven in his horse's mane, now the small,
sensitive ears that pricked backward and forward, as the Tiburtine Way
flowed sluggishly beneath. As for Minucius, he alone seemed hopeful
and unimpressed by the dangers that menaced. He glided here and there,
reining his horse beside this senator or that lieutenant to utter a
word of the safety assured to Rome and of the ruin that hung over the
invader, or even calling back to the foremost of the escort some rough
badinage upon their gloomy looks; for Minucius was a man of the people,
scorning patrician pride of race, and wishing it known that, however
high his rank, he held himself no whit better than any potter of the
Aventine or weaver of the Suburra.

So, riding, thinking, talking, they reached Tibur, where the new levies
lay encamped.

Thence began the march of the army--a long, weary march to strike the
line of the Carthaginian devastators; and, as it rolled onward, the
stream of war gathered volume. At Daunia they were joined by the
legions of Servilius that had marched down from Ariminum; and, at every
point, contingents of the allies poured in, until even the most timid
began to believe it impossible that disaster could befall, and grew
first confident, then defiant, then boastful.

To the mind of the dictator himself, however, came no such change. He
alone knew the danger, he alone knew the value of the force with which
he must meet it--soldiers in whose minds, despite all their present
spirit, lingered the tradition of defeat; raw levies not yet truly
confident of their officers or themselves, however much the sight of
their numbers and their brave show might blind them to the fact that
there was another side to the war.

And now rumours began to reach them of the enemy. He was at Praetutia,
at Hadriana, at Marrucina, at Frentana! He had set out toward Iapygia!
he had reached Luceria! and everywhere the country was a garden before
him and a desert behind. Only one gleam of light shone through the
darkness,--the Apulians submitted to ravage, but they refused to save
their lands by joining fortunes with the invaders.

At last came the day of trial. "The enemy was at hand." Scouts poured
in with news of foraging parties, of masses of troops on the march; and
at Aecae the dictator ordered the camp to be pitched and fortified in
the order that Roman discipline prescribed, with rampart and ditch and
stakes--a city in embryo.

Now it was that the boasters must stand by their boasts.

Scarcely had the morning broke, when the distant mist of the plain
seemed to sparkle with myriads of glittering points--seemed to thicken
and become dense with clouds of dust. Mingled noises came to the ears
of the waking legions,--the neighing of horses, the inarticulate murmur
of a multitude, the dull rumble of marching men, the ring of arms and
accoutrements.

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