"How will it be to-morrow?"
"When the tumult is at its highest, he who has the surest hand shall strike the Caesar down. I, in the meanwhile----"
"Then thou, Caius Nepos, art not certain of the sureness of thy hand?"
interposed Hortensius Martius who hitherto had taken no active part in the discussion.
He lay on a couch at some distance from his host and had declined every morsel offered to him by the waiting-maids; but he had drunk over freely, and his good-looking young face looked flushed and dark beneath its wealth of curls. Unlike his usual self he was ill-humoured and almost morose to-night, and there was a dark, glowering look in his eyes as from time to time he cast furtive glances towards the door.
"Nay, good Hortensius," said the host loftily, "mine will be the greater part. The praetorian guard know and trust me. It will be my duty when the Caesar is attacked to keep them from rushing to his aid. The army is apt to forget a tyrant"s crime, and to think of him only as a leader to be obeyed. But when the guard hear my voice, they will understand and will be true to me."
""Tis I will strike," now broke in young Escanes, with all the enthusiasm of his years. The ardour of leadership glowed upon his face, and he seemed to challenge this small a.s.sembly to dispute his right to the foremost place in the great event of the morrow.
But his challenge was not taken up; no one else seemed eager to dispute his wish. Somewhat sobered, he resumed more calmly:
"The Caesar hath much affection for me. I oft sat beside him in the Circus or at the games last year. The Augustas too like to have me beside them, to talk pleasing gossip in their ears. "Twill be easiest for me, at a signal given, to strike with my dagger in the Caesar"s throat."
"Thine shall be that glory, O Escanes, since thou dost will it so," said Caius Nepos, not without a touch of irony. "Directly the deed is done, the praetorian guard shall raise the cry: "The Caesar is dead!""
"And it should at once be followed by another," said Marcus Ancyrus, the elder, "by "Hail to thee, O mighty Caesar!""
""Tis thou shouldst raise that cry, O Caius Nepos," said Hortensius with a sarcastic curl of his lip.
"Oh! as to that----" began the other with some hesitation.
"Aye! as to that," said Escanes hotly, "if I slay the tyrant to-morrow with mine own hand, then must I know at least for whom I do the deed."
There was silence after that. Everyone seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. Dreamy eyes gazed abstractedly in crystal goblets, as if vainly trying to trace in its crimson depths the outline of an imperial sceptre. At last Caius Nepos spoke:
"Let us be rid of the tyrant first. The army then will soon elect its new chief."
"And is it on the support of the army, O praefect! that thou dost base thine own hopes of supreme power?" asked Hortensius, whose ill-humour seemed to grow on him more and more.
"Nay!" retorted Caius Nepos, "I did not know that by so doing I was dashing thine!"
"Silence," admonished Marcus Ancyrus, the elder. "Are we children or slaves that we should wrangle thus? Have we met here in order to rid the Empire of an abominable and bloodthirsty tyrant, or are we mere vulgar conspirators pursuing our own ends? There was no thought in our host"s mind of supreme power, O Hortensius! nor in thine, I"ll vow. As for me, I care nought for the imperium," he added navely, "it is difficult to content everyone, and a permanent consulship under our chosen Caesar were more to my liking. Bring forth thy tablets, O Caius Nepos, and we"ll put the matter to the vote. There are not many of the House of Caesar fit to succeed the present madman, and our choice there will be limited."
"There is but Claudius, the brother of Germanicus," interposed the host curtly.
"Germanicus" brother to succeed Germanicus" son," said another with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
"And he is as crazy as his nephew," added Caius Nepos.
He had not a.s.sembled his friends here to-night, he had not feasted them and loaded them with gifts with a view to pa.s.sing the imperium merely from one head to another. He was fairly sure of the support of the praetorian guard, whose praefect he was, and had counted on the adherence of these malcontents, who he hoped would look to him for future favours whilst raising him to supreme dignity.
He liked not this talk of the family of Caesar which took the attention of his closest adherents away from his own claim.
"The entire House of Caesar," he said, "is rotten to the core. There is not one member of it fit to rule."
"But of a truth," said prudent Ancyrus, "they have the foremost claim."
"Then if that be the case," broke in young Hortensius Martius suddenly, "let us turn to the one member of the House of Caesar who is n.o.ble and pure, exalted above all."
"There is none such," said Caius Nepos hotly.
"Aye! there is one," retorted the younger man.
"His name?" came loudly from every side.
"I spoke of a woman."
"A woman!"
And shouts of derisive laughter broke from every lip. Only Marcus Ancyrus remained grave and thoughtful, and now he said:
"Dost perchance speak of Dea Flavia Augusta?"
"Even of her," replied Hortensius.
Involuntarily at the name, the voice of the older man had a.s.sumed a respectful tone, and all around the vulgar sneers and bitter mockery had died away as if by magic contact with something hallowed and pure.
Even Caius Nepos thought it wise to subdue his tone of contempt, and merely said curtly:
"A G.o.ddess of a truth, but a woman cannot lead an army or rule an empire."
"No," rejoined Hortensius Martius, "but a wise and virtuous woman can rule wisely and virtuously over the man whom she will choose for mate."
There was silence for a moment or two, whilst young Hortensius" glowing eyes swept questioningly over the a.s.sembly. Everyone there knew of his pa.s.sion for the Augusta, a pa.s.sion, in truth, shared by many of those who had the privilege of knowing her intimately, and strangely enough though the proposal had so much daring in it, it met with but little opposition.
"Wouldst thou then suggest, O Hortensius Martius," quoth Marcus Ancyrus, the elder, after a slight pause, "that the Augusta"s husband be made Emperor of Rome?"
"Why not?" retorted the other simply.
"It is not a bad notion," mused young Escanes, who thought himself high in the favour of Dea Flavia.
"An admirable one," a.s.sented Ancyrus, "for we must remember that Dea Flavia Augusta is of the true blood of the Caesars--the blood of the great Augustus--and there is none better. Since she, as a woman, cannot rule men or lead an army, what more fitting than that her lord, whoever he might be, should receive the imperium through her hands?"
"He might prove to be a more miserable creature than the Caligula himself," suggested Philario, who was too ill-favoured to have hopes of winning the proud and imperious beauty for himself.
"Nay! that were impossible," a.s.serted Hortensius hotly; "the man whom Dea Flavia will favour will be a brave man else he would not dare to woo her; he will be honourable and n.o.ble else he could never win her."
"Methinks that thou art right, O Hortensius," added Ancyrus, who had taken upon himself the role of a wise and prudent counsellor, "and moreover he will be rich by virtue of the wealth which the Augusta will have as her marriage portion; her money, merged with the State funds, would be of vast benefit to the land."
"And on his death his son and hers--a direct descendant of great Augustus--would be the only fitting heir," concluded another.
"Meseems," now said Ancyrus decisively, "that we would solve a grave difficulty by accepting the suggestion made by Hortensius Martius. The imperium--as is only just--would remain in the family of the great Augustus. We should have a brave, n.o.ble and rich Caesar whose virtuous and beautiful wife would wield beneficial influence over him, and for the present we should all be working for unselfish ends; not one of us here present can say for a certainty whom the Augusta will choose for mate. Directly the tyrant is swept out of the way, we, who have brought about the great end, will ask her to make her choice. Thus our aims will have been pure and selfless; each one of us here will have risked all for the sake of an unknown. What say you friends? Shall we pledge our loyalty to the man whom not one of us here can name this day--a man mayhap still unknown to us: the future lord of Dea Flavia Augusta of the House of Caesar?"
The peroration seemed greatly to the liking of the a.s.sembled company: the thought that they would all be working with pure and selfless motives flattered these men"s egregious vanity; vaguely every one of them hoped that all the others would believe in his unselfish aims, even whilst everyone meant to work solely for his own ends. Hortensius Martius" proposal pleased because it opened out such magnificent possibilities: the imperium itself, which had seemed infinitely remote from so many, now appeared within reach of all.