THE ROBE (75 page)

It was as if the Imperial City had reached out her malevolent arms in
all directions to clutch and pollute her victims as they moved into the orbit
of her fetid breath; and they, ashamed of their rustic simplicities, had sought
to appear urbane by cursing one another. Marcellus, making his way past this
ill-tempered cavalcade, wondered whether many people could be found in Rome who
would care to hear about the man of Galilee.

Arriving in the good-sized town of Alatri at sundown, Marcellus found
the only tavern buzzing with excitement. An agitated crowd jostled in the
stableyard. Inside, there was barely standing room. He made his way in and
asked the tall man wedged beside him what was going on. The news had just come
from Rome that Prince Gaius was dead.

At this juncture, the tavern-keeper stood up on a chair and announced
importantly that all who did not wish to be served should get out and make way
for his guests. Most of the shabby ones sullenly withdrew. In the centre of the
room, three flashily dressed wool-buyers from Rome sat at a table, laving the
day's dust with a flagon of wine. Crowded about them was an attentive audience,
eager for further details concerning the tragedy. Marcellus pressed close and
listened.

Last night there had been a banquet at a palatial home of Tribune
Quintus and his wife Celia, the niece of Sejanus, in honour of young Caligula,
the son of Germanicus, who had just arrived from Gaul. Prince Gaius had been
taken suddenly ill at dinner and had died within the hour.

The wool-merchants, conscious of their attentive auditors, and growing
less discreet as they replenished their cups from the second flagon, continued
to discuss the event with a knowledgeable air, almost as if they had been
present at the fateful banquet. It was evident that they were well informed on
court gossip, as indeed anyone in Rome could be if he made friends with
servants.

There was little doubt, declared the wool-men, that the Prince had been
poisoned. He had been in the best of health. The sickness had been swift and
savage. Suspicion had not centred definitely on anyone. Tribune Tullus, who in
the afternoon had married the young daughter of Senator Gallio--sister of
Tribune Marcellus, the one who drowned himself in the sea, a few weeks ago--had
spoken some hot words to the Prince, earlier in the evening; but they had both
been so drunk that little importance had been attached to the argument.

Old Sejanus had sat opposite the Prince at dinner, and everybody knew
that Sejanus had no use for Gaius. But it was agreed that if the crafty old man
had wanted to assassinate the Prince he had too much sense to risk it in such
circumstances.

'How does it happen that Quintus can live in a palace and give expensive
dinners?' inquired the tavern-keeper, anxious to show that he knew a thing or
two about the great ones. 'Old Tuscus, his father, is not rich. What did
Quintus ever do to make a fortune? He has led no expeditions.'

The wool-merchants exchanged knowing glances and shrugged superiorly.

'Quintus and the Prince are great friends,' said the fat one who
presided over the flagon.

'You mean the Prince and Quintus's wife are great friends,' recklessly
chuckled the one with the silver trinkets on his head-band.

'Oh, ho!' divined the tavern-keeper. 'Maybe that's how it happened!'

'Not so fast, wise man,' admonished the eldest of the three, thickly.
'Quintus was not present at the banquet. He had been sent, at the last minute,
to Capri.'

'Who did it, then?' persisted the tavern-keeper.

'Well, that's what everybody wants to know,' said the fat one, holding
up the empty flagon. 'Here! Fill that up--and don't ask so many questions.' He
glanced about over the silent group, his eyes tarrying for a moment as they
passed Marcellus. 'We're all talking too freely,' he muttered.

Marcellus turned away, followed by the tavern-keeper, and inquired for a
bath and a room for the night. A servant showed him to his cramped and
cheerless quarters, and he began tossing off his clothes. So--Diana need not be
worried about Gaius's attentions any more. That was a great relief. Who would
rule Rome now? Perhaps the Emperor would appoint tight-pursed old Sejanus to
the regency for the present.

So Gaius had been poisoned, eh? Perhaps Celia had done it. Maybe Gaius
had mistreated her. He couldn't be loyal to anyone; not for very long. But
no--Celia wouldn't have done it. More likely that Quintus had left instructions
with a servant, and had contrived some urgent business at Capri to provide an
alibi. Quintus could dispose of the servant easily enough. Marcellus wondered
if Quintus had encountered Demetrius at Capri. Well, if he had, Demetrius could
take care of himself very nicely.

So Lucia was married. That was good. She had always been in love with
Tullus. Marcellus fell to speculating on the possibility that Lucia might have
confided to her husband the story of Gaius's crude attempts to make love to her
when she was little more than a child. If she had, and if Tullus were drunk
enough to be foolhardy--but no, no--Tullus wouldn't get drunk enough to do a
thing like that. Tullus would have used a dagger.

Marcellus reverted to Celia, trying to remember everything he could
about her; the restless, sultry eyes; the sly, preoccupied smile that always
made her manner seem older than her slim, girlish body. Yes, Celia might have
done it. She was a deep one, like her Uncle Sejanus.

Well--whatever had caused the Prince's indigestion, the dangerous
reptile was dead. That was a comfort. Perhaps Rome might now hope for a little
better government. It was inconceivable that the Empire could acquire a worse
ruler than Gaius Drusus Agrippa.

Chapter XXIII

When the hard-riding couriers brought the report to Capri that Gaius was
dead, the Emperor--in the firm opinion of old Julia--was much too ill to be
confronted with such shocking news. That, of course, was nonsense, as the
Empress well knew; for her son had long been Tiberius's favourite aversion, and
these tidings, far from doing the sick old man any damage, might have
temporarily revived him.

But, assuming that the tragic death of a Prince Regent should be viewed
as an event too calamitous to be announced at the bedside of a seriously ailing
Emperor, everybody conceded that Julia was within her rights in commanding that
no mention be made of it to her enfeebled husband, though it was something of
an innovation for the Empress to display so much solicitude in his behalf.

With less mercy, Julia had immediately thrust a letter into the hands of
the exhausted Centurion who had brought the bad news, bidding him return to
Rome at top speed. The Centurion, resentful at being pushed off the island
without so much as an hour's respite and a flagon of wine, had no compunction
about showing the address of the Empress's urgent message to his long-time
friend the Chamberlain who had accompanied him and his aides to the wharf. The
letter was going to Caligula.

'Little Boots,' growled the Centurion, contemptuously.

'Little brat!' muttered the Chamberlain, who had seen something of
Germanicus's son when he was ten.

Old Julia, for whom Fate seemed always contriving fortuitous events, was
feverish to see her grandson at this critical juncture. She had not felt so
urgent a need of him, the day before yesterday, when Quintus had suddenly
appeared with the suggestion--phrased as diplomatically as possible--that the
Empress immediately invite the youngster to Capri. Julia had laughed almost
merrily.

'He's a handful for Gaius, eh?' she snapped. 'Well, let Gaius bear his
burden as best he can, for a month or two.'

'The Prince thought Your Majesty would be impatient to see Little
Boots,' wheedled Quintus, 'and wanted me to say that he would not detain him in
Rome if Your Majesty--'

'We can wait,' chuckled Julia.

But to-day the situation had changed. Julia wanted very much to see
Little Boots. How lucky for him that he should have happened to be available at
this important hour!

Bearing her bereavement with fortitude, as became a Roman and an
Empress, Julia nervously counted the dragging hours; watched and waited at her
northern windows; grew almost frantic at the sight of a large deputation of
Senators being borne up the hill to the Villa Jovis; and strained her old eyes
for a certain black-hulled ferry--her own ferry--plying across the bay from
Puteoli.

Nobody on Capri thought, when young Caligula arrived, that his ambitious
grandmother had anything larger in mind for the puny youth than a brief interim
regency, probably under the guidance of Sejanus--as a little child might hold
the dangling ends of the reins and pretend he was driving. Perhaps Julia
herself had not ventured to dream of the amazing thing that came to pass.

Caligula, at sixteen, was wizened and frail. He jerked when he walked.
His pasty-white, foxish face was perpetually in motion with involuntary
grimaces and his restless fingers were always busily picking and scratching
like a monkey. He was no fool, though. Behind the darting, close-set eyes a
malicious imagination tirelessly invented ingenious pursuits to compensate for
his infirmities.

Because of his child's defects, Germanicus had insisted on having him
under his eye, even in the heat of military campaigns. The officers had petted
and flattered him until he was abominably impudent and outrageously cruel. His
bestial pranks were supposed to be amusing. Someone had made a pair of little
boots for him, like those worn by the staff officers, and the legend spread
that Germanicus's sick boy frequently waddled out in front of a legion on
review and barked shrill orders. The whimsical nickname 'Caligula' ('Little
Boots') stuck to him until nobody remembered that he had been named after his
Uncle Gaius. As a lad, everything Caligula did was clever, including the most
shocking vandalisms and brutalities. By the time he was sixteen, it wasn't
thought so amusing when Little Boots would jerkily propel himself up to a
Centurion and slap him in the face; and even Germanicus, noting that his heir
was becoming an intolerable pest, thought it time he was given another change
of scenery. So he was sent back to Rome again to visit his Uncle Gaius, who, it
was hoped, would make something of him. What manner of miracle the Prince might
have wrought was to remain forever a matter of conjecture. It was rumoured that
Germanicus's staff officers, upon learning of the death of Gaius, agreed that
he could hardly have timed his departure more opportunely.

Caligula arrived on Capri in the late afternoon and old Julia took him
at once (duly instructed as to his behaviour) into the deeply shadowed
bedchamber of the Emperor, where a dozen or more Senators stood about in the
gloom, obviously waiting for Tiberius to take notice of them.

The old man dazedly roused to find a weeping youth kneeling beside his
pillow. In a grieving voice the Empress explained that poor Gaius was dead, and
Caligula was inconsolable.

Tiberius pulled his scattered wits together, and feebly patted Caligula
on the head.

'Germanicus's boy?' he mumbled, thickly.

Caligula nodded, wept noisily, and gently stroked the emaciated hand.

'Is there anything I can do for you, sire?' he asked, brokenly.

'Yes, my son.' Tiberius's tired old voice was barely audible.

'You mean--the Empire?' demanded Julia, in much agitation.

The attentive Senators moved in closer about the bed.

'Yes, the Empire,' breathed Tiberius, weakly.

'Have you heard that?' Julia's tone was shrill and challenging as she
threw back her head to face the stunned group at the bedside. 'Caligula is to
be the Emperor! Is it not so, Your Majesty?'

'Yes,' whispered Tiberius.

It was late in the night. The Emperor lay dying. He had been close to it
on several occasions. There was no doubt about it this time.

The learned physicians, having made all their motions, took turns
holding the thin wrist. The priests, who had spent the day cooling their heels
in the atrium, were admitted to do their solemn exercises. The Senators, who
had been invited to withdraw after the incredible announcement had been made at
sunset, were permitted to enter, now that it was reasonably sure the old man
would have nothing more to say. They were still dazed by the blow he had
delivered and were wondering how they would tell the Senate that Germanicus's
deficient son was to rule the Empire. Of course the Senate, if it courageously
took the bit in its teeth, could annul Tiberius's action; but it was unlikely
that the solons would risk offending Germanicus and the army. No, their new
Emperor--for good or ill--would be Little Boots.

Diana Gallus had not seen Tiberius for a fortnight. Old Julia had given
orders that she was not to be admitted. Every morning and evening Diana had
appeared at the door of the imperial bedchamber to inquire, and had been
advised that the Emperor was too ill to be disturbed.

Shortly after Demetrius's arrival on Capri, he had been assigned to
serve as Diana's bodyguard. Strangely enough, this had been done at the suggestion
of Tiberius, who, perhaps with some premonition that he might not long be able
to insist upon her adequate security, had felt that Marcellus's intrepid slave
would protect her.

As the Emperor grew more frail, and the Empress's influence became more
pressing throughout the island, Demetrius's anxiety about Diana's welfare
increased; though he was careful not to let her know the full extent of his
worry. He began making private plans for her rescue, in case her insecurity
should become serious.

At the enforced departure of Marcellus, Diana had become restless,
moody, and secluded. There was no one on the island in whom she could confide.
Most of her daylight hours were spent in her pergola, reading without interest
and indifferently toying with trifles of needlework. Sometimes she would bring
one of her maids for company. As often she came alone, with Demetrius trailing
her at a respectful distance and always within call. Her admiration for the
Greek had always been deep and sincere. Now she began to lean on him as a close
and understanding friend.