THE ROBE (20 page)

Once he roused to consciousness as the figure of a man with a pack on
his shoulder neared his darkened doorway. The fellow was keeping close to the
wall, proceeding with stealthy steps. It was Paulus's slave. He had the furtive
air of a fugitive. As he passed, he gave a sudden start at the sight of
Marcellus sitting there; and, taking to his heels, vanished like a frightened
antelope. Marcellus thought this faintly amusing, but did not smile. So, Melas
was running away. Well, what of it? The question arrived and departed with no
more significance than the fitful flicker in the masses of exotic shrubbery
where the fireflies played.

After what seemed a very long time, there came the sound of sandals
scraping along the marble corridor, and thick, tired voices. The banquet was
over. Marcellus wondered dully whether he should make his presence known to
them as they passed, but felt powerless to come to a decision. Presently the
footsteps and voices grew fainter and fainter, down the corridor. After that,
the night seemed more dark. But Marcellus had no sense of desolation. His mind
was inert. He laboriously edged his way over to the marble pillar at the right
of the arch; and, leaning against it, dreamlessly slept.

Demetrius had spent a busy hour in the Legate's suite, packing his
master's clothing and other equipment for the journey he would be making in the
morning, back to Minoa. He had very few misgivings about escaping from his
slavery, but the habit of waiting on Marcellus was not easy to throw off. He
would perform this final service, and then be on his way to liberty. He might
be captured, or he might experience much hardship; but he would be free!
Marcellus, when he sobered, would probably regret the incident in the
banquet-hall; might even feel that his slave had a just cause for running away.

He hadn't accomplished his freedom yet, but he was beginning to
experience the sense of it. After he had strapped the bulky baggage, Demetrius
quietly left the room and returned to his own small cubicle at the far end of
the barracks occupied by the contingent from Minoa where he gathered up his few
belongings and stowed them into his bag. Carefully folding the Galilean's robe,
he tucked it in last after packing everything else.

It was, he admitted, a very irrational idea, but the softness of the
finely woven, homespun robe had a curious quality. The touch of it had for him
a strangely calming effect, as if giving him a new reliance. He remembered a
legend from his childhood, about a ring that bore the insignia of a prince. And
the prince had given the ring to some poor legionary who had pushed him out of
an arrow's path. And, years afterwards, when in great need, the soldier had
turned the ring to good account in seeking an audience with the prince.
Demetrius could not remember all the details of the story, but this robe seemed
to have much the same properties as the prince's ring. It was in the nature of
a surety, a defence.

It was a long way to the Sheep Gate, but he had visited it before on one
of his solitary excursions, lured there by Melas's information that it was now
rarely used except by persons coming into the city from the villages to the
north. If a man were heading for the Damascus road, and wished to avoid a
challenge, the Sheep Gate offered the best promise. Demetrius had been full of
curiosity to see it. He had no intention of running away, but thought it might
be interesting to have a glimpse of a road to freedom. Melas had said it was
easy.

The gate was unguarded, deserted indeed. Melas had not yet arrived, but
his tardiness gave Demetrius no concern. Perhaps he himself was early. He
lounged on the parched grass by the roadside, in the shadow of the crumbling
limestone bastion, and waited.

At length he heard the rhythmic lisps of sandal-straps, and stepped out
into the road.

'Anyone see you go?' asked Melas, puffing a little as he put down his
pack for a momentary rest.

'No. Everything was quiet. How about you?'

'The Legate saw me leave.' Melas chuckled. 'He gave me a fright. I was
sneaking along the barracks wall, in the courtyard, and came upon him.'

'What was he doing there?' demanded Demetrius sharply.

'Just sitting there, by himself, in a doorway.'

'He recognized you?'

'Yes, I feel sure he did; but he didn't speak. Come! Let's not stand
here any longer. We must see how far we can travel before sunrise.' Melas led
the way through the dilapidated gate.

'Did the Legate appear to be drunk?' asked Demetrius.

'N-no, not very drunk,' said Melas, uncertainly. 'He left the hall
before any of the others; seemed dizzy and half out of his mind. I was going to
wait and put my mean old drunkard to bed, but they kept at it so long that I
decided to leave. He probably won't miss me. I never saw the Centurion so drunk
before.'

They plodded on through the dark, keeping to the road with difficulty.
Melas stumbled over a rock and cursed eloquently.

'You say he seemed crazy?' said Demetrius, anxiously.

'Yes, dazed, as if something had hit him. And out there in that archway,
he had a sort of empty look in his face. Maybe he didn't even know where he
was.'

Demetrius's steps slowed to a stop.

'Melas,' he said, hoarsely, 'I'm sorry--but I've got to go back to him.'

'Why, you--' The Thracian was at a loss for a strong enough epithet. 'I
always thought you were soft! Afraid to run away from a fellow who strikes you
in the face before a crowd of officers, just to show them how brave he was!
Very well! You go back to him and be his slave forever!'

Demetrius had turned and was walking away.

'Good luck to you, Melas!' he called, soberly.

'Better get rid of that robe!' shouted Melas, his voice shrill with
anger. 'That's what drove your smart young Marcellus out of his mind! He began
to go crazy the minute he put it on! He is accursed! The Galilean has had his
revenge!'

Demetrius stumbled on through the darkness, Melas's raging imprecations
following him as far as the old gate.

'Accursed!' he yelled. 'Accursed!'

Chapter VII

Although winter was usually brief on the Island of Capri, there was
plenty of it while it lasted--according to Tiberius Cæsar, who detested it. The
murky sky depressed his spirit. The raw dampness made his creaking joints ache.
The most forlorn spot, he declared, in the Roman Empire.

The old man's favourite recreation, since committing most of his
administrative responsibilities to Prince Gaius, was residential architecture.
He was forever building huge, ornate villas on the lofty skyline of Capri, for
what purpose not even the gods knew.

All day long, through spring, summer, and autumn, he would sit in the
sun--or under an awning if it grew too hot--and watch his stonemasons at work
on yet another villa. And his builders had respect for these constructions too,
for the Emperor was an architect of no mean ability. Nor did he allow his
æsthetic taste to run away with his common sense. The great cisterns required for
water conservation on a mountain-top were planned with the practical skill of
an experienced plumber and concealed with the artistry of an idealistic
sculptor.

There were nine of these exquisite villas now, ranged in an impressive
row on the highest terrain, isolated from one another by spacious gardens,
their architectural style admitting that they had been derived from the mind
and purse of the jaded, restless, irascible old Cæsar who lived in the Villa
Jovis which dominated them all--a fact further illuminated by the towering
pharos rising majestically from the centre of its vast, echoing atrium.

Tiberius hated winter because he could not sit in the sun and watch his
elaborate fancies take on form and substance. He hadn't very long to live, and
it enraged him to see the few remaining days slipping through his bony fingers
like fine sand through an hourglass.

When the first wind and rain scurried across the bay to rattle the doors
and pelt the windows of his fifty-room palace, the Emperor went into complete
and embittered seclusion. No guests were welcome. Relatives were barred from
his sumptuous suite. No deputations were received from Rome; no state business
was transacted.

Prince Gaius, whom he despised, quite enjoyed this bad weather, for
while the Emperor was in hibernation he felt free to exercise all the powers
entrusted to him--and sometimes a little more. Tiberius, aware of this, fumed
and snuffled, but he had arrived at the stage of senescence where he hadn't the
energy to sustain his varied indignations. They burned white-hot for an
hour--and expired.

Through the short winter, no one was allowed to see the decaying monarch
but his personal attendants and a corps of bored physicians who packed his old
bones in hot fomentations of spiced vinegar and listened obsequiously to his
profane abuse.

But the first ray of earnest sunshine always made another man of him.
When its brightness spread across his bed and dazzled his rheumy eyes, Tiberius
kicked off his compresses and his doctors, yelled for his tunic, his toga, his
sandals, his cap, his stick, his piper, his chief gardener, and staggered out
into the peristyle. He shouted orders, thick and fast; and things began to hum.
The Emperor had never been gifted with much patience, and nobody expected that
he would miraculously develop this talent at eighty-two. Now that spring had
been officially opened, with terrifying shrieks and reckless cane-waving, the
Villa Jovis came to life with a suddenness that must have shocked the
conservative old god after whom the place had been named. The Macedonian
musicians and Indian magicians and Ionian minstrels and Rhodesian astrologers
and Egyptian dancing girls were violently shaken out of their comfortable
winter sloth to line up before his fuming majesty and explain why (at the
expense of a tax-harried, poverty-cursed Empire) they had been living in such
disgusting indolence.

For the sake of appearances, a servant would then be dispatched to the
Villa Dionysus (the name of his aged wife's palace had been chosen with an
ironical chuckle) to inquire about the health of the Empress, which was the
least of the old man's anxieties. It would not have upset him very much to
learn that Julia wasn't so well. Indeed, he had once arranged for the old
lady's assassination, an event which had failed to happen only because the
Empress, privily advised of the engagement planned for her, had disapproved of
it.

This season, spring had arrived much earlier than usual, forcing
everything into bloom in a day. The sky was full of birds, the gardens were
full of flowers, the flowers were full of bees, and Tiberius was full of joy.
He wanted somebody to share it with him; somebody young enough to respond with
exultation to all this beauty: who but Diana!

So that afternoon a courier, ferrying across to Neapolis, set forth on a
fast horse, followed an hour later by the most commodious of the royal
carriages--stuffed with eider-down pillows as a hint that the return journey
from Rome to Capri, albeit hard to take, should be made with dispatch; for the
distinguished host was not good at waiting. His letter, addressed to Paula
Gallus, was brief and urgent. Tiberius did not ask whether it would be
convenient for her to bring Diana to Capri, and, if so, he would send for them:
he simply advised her that the carriage was on the way at full gallop, and that
they were to be prepared to take it immediately upon its arrival.

At dusk on the third day of their hard travel, Paula and Diana had
stepped out of the imperial barge on to the Capri wharf, and, climbing wearily
into the luxurious litters awaiting them, had been borne swiftly up the
precipitous path to the Villa Jovis. There the old Emperor had met them with a
pathetic eagerness, and mercifully suggested that they retire at once to their
baths and beds, adding that they were to rest undisturbed until tomorrow noon.
This inspired announcement Paula Gallus received with an almost tearful
gratitude, and made haste to avail herself of its benefits.

Diana, whose physical resources had not been so thoroughly depleted,
lingered, much to the old man's delight; slipped her hand through his arm and
allowed herself to be led to his private parlour, where, when he had sunk into
a comfortable chair, she drew up a stool; sat, with her shapely arms folded on
his emaciated knee, and looked up into his deep-lined face with a tender
affection that made the Emperor clear his throat and wipe his hawk-like nose.

It was so good of him, and so like him, she said, to want her to come.
And how well he was looking! How glad he must be to see spring come again. Now
he would be out in the sunshine, every day, probably supervising some new
building. What was it going to be, this season: another villa, maybe? Diana
smiled into his eyes.

'Yes,' he replied, gently, 'another villa. A truly beautiful villa.' He
paused, narrowing his averted eyes thoughtfully. 'The most beautiful of them
all, I hope. This one'--Tiberius gave her an enigmatic smile--'this one is for
the sweet and lovely Diana.' He did not add that this idea had just now
occurred to him. He made it sound as if he were confiding a plan that had been
long nurtured in secret.

Diana's eyes swam and sparkled. She patted the brown old hand tenderly.
With a husky voice she murmured that he was the very dearest grandfather anyone
ever had.

'And you are to help me plan the villa, child,' said Tiberius warmly.

'Was that why you sent for me?' asked Diana.

The old man pursed his wrinkled lips into a sly smile and lied
benevolently with slow nods of his shaggy white head.

'We will talk about it tomorrow,' he promised.

'Then I should get to bed at once,' she decided, springing to her feet.
'May I have breakfast with you, Grandfather?'

Tiberius chuckled amiably.