A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

  But they had hardly reached the temple of Vesta, reflecting brilliantly white in the long blue pool before it, when the storm incontinently broke and with ferocity. Marcus fled into the temple. Instant by instant, clear columns became shadowy and unsubstantial in the growing darkness. Shafts of fiery lightning exploded into the temple, lighting up pillars and floor and altar like a conflagration. Thunder roared simultaneously with the lightning, and the temple trembled a little. The wind had come on wings of destruction, screaming in the sulphurous air. Roman storms were notoriously intimidating, but this was extreme. One could not see the scene without because of walls of glittering rain. Marcus did not enjoy storms, and he shuddered at each roar, at each burning blaze. He leaned against a cool marble wall and his arm touched another arm, soft and yielding.

  He turned his head and looked into the eyes of Livia Catilina, illuminated by lightning.

  He stood absolutely still, forgetting the storm, forgetting everything but that sudden wild vision, believing it a dream, a fantasy. His heart began to stroke with sickening speed; his knees felt soft; a heavy lump rose in his throat. Before the next flare of lightning, he turned his head and saw a dim mantled form beside him, tall and slight, a form so still and unmoving that it was hardly more than a shadow in the darkness. Then another blaze of light lit up Livia’s face, which was turned upon him, and he saw it with savage clarity, and he saw her eyes.

  Once her eyes had been extraordinarily blue, large and passionate and intense, full of young life. They were still large and blue. But it was as if sapphires, glowing and vital and intact, had been smashed into a thousand infinite crystals so that though they still reflected light they reflected it in cold and meaningless ruin, ready at an instant to disintegrate. He had a horrible sensation that the young woman was blinded, for there was no recognition in those calamitous eyes, no start, no widening. Her face remained blank and empty and it was as pale as sorrow, even to her lips. A few strands of her autumn-colored hair escaped the hood of her cloak and lay about her neck as if all life had gone from them.

  So would she look at the hour of her death, untenanted, lost, forsaken.

  Now it was dark and dull in the temple again. A few people near the altar murmured prayers. A few small votive lights burned before the marble goddess. The thunder prowled savagely outside, invaded the temple like a beast, searching. And Marcus stood as unmoving as Livia, his mouth open to take smothering air.

  The lightning flashed again, and again Marcus saw her, and again his heart plunged and he was as sick as if dying. Surely this silent woman, this woman who appeared not to be alive at all, this abandoned woman, was not Livia, his dream, his beloved, the haunter of his nights, the radiant companion of his days! He pressed his back closer to the wall, and felt the ice of sweat on his forehead and on his lip.

  The storm was retreating as fast as it had come, like all summer storms. Now the lightning came rarely, though the thunder roamed as if seeking a victim, like a lion hungry for that which had escaped. Still Marcus could not stir, nor did Livia stir. They stood alone with no one near them, shadows in the depths of shadows.

  Then Marcus murmured, “Livia?”

  She did not reply. A random shaft of lightning touched her, raining down upon her from the high round hole in the painted ceiling. It was surely Livia. He stretched out his hand. It encountered soft but lifeless flesh that did not start away, did not respond to his touch. It was the hand of one dead for hours, chill and quiet. He found himself squeezing it; it was limp in his fingers. “Livia!” he exclaimed. “Livia?”

  She said nothing. He continued to hold her hand frantically, as if he were willing to infuse it with his own warmth and blood. She did not resist, did not withdraw. She was like one unconscious, drugged beyond hearing or speech or awareness.

  Suddenly the hot red sun lighted the drenched Forum outside and the rain ceased abruptly. The worshipers at the altar rose with mutters of relief, and came toward the door, passing the two shadowy ones against the wall. The people stepped outside, and the noise of the refreshed city came vehemently to Marcus’ ears.

  Marcus turned and faced Livia directly. She looked at him with those awful eyes which had no recognition in them. They appeared not to blink. He put out his hand and pushed back her hood, and his hand brushed her silken hair, which was disordered. Light from the vehement sun above and from outside leaped upon it, so that it began to burn metallically. But it was a lifeless burning. Her face, smooth and fixed, was the face of a statue, and as expressionless. She had not aged; she did not have the aspect of a matron. She had been frozen in her early youth, an embalmed and silent corpse.

  Marcus bent his head and pressed his forehead against the wall near her cheek in his agony. He still held one of her hands. Then he heard the faintest sound, hardly even a murmur: “Why do you weep?”

  “For you,” he whispered. “For you, Livia, my beloved. And, for me.”

  She sighed. It seemed that the sigh rose not from herself but from the underworld the dead roam speechlessly and sightlessly.

  “Oh, Livia,” said Marcus.

  “Do not weep,” she said, indifferently. “There are no more tears to shed. I have shed them all.” She paused. “I have had a message from—him. He will return with Sulla very soon. He will return to me, and our little son. Where shall I flee? Where shall I go? Where shall I hide myself? Where shall I hide my child—from him?”

  Marcus had the impression that she was still hardly aware of him, and that she was addressing sister ghosts. He thought that he had experienced agony before in his life, but this was beyond all enduring, beyond all expression. He said with incoherence: “Come with me. I shall guard you. I shall keep you safe. My mother—there are places to hide, where no one will find you. Let me be your shield, beloved. Livia, Livia.”

  She sighed again, over and over, in the barest sound of tragedy. “He will find me. I am afraid. But I am more afraid for my child, my little one.”

  “Livia, what has he done to you?”

  “He took my life from me. Why did he not die?”

  Accursed am I, accursed am I! cried Marcus in the depths of his soul. I could have killed him, but I spared him, anathema, anathema!

  He did not know that he was embracing Livia until he felt her head drop heavily upon his shoulder. Then he held her tightly to his breast, and he touched her cold cheek and forehead with his lips. What had Catilina done to this girl, this innocent child, this nymph of the forest? What horror had he brought to her that her eyes were shattered, her soul broken, her heart hardly beating against his? Her arms lay flaccidly along her sides. She did not move in his own, did not turn her head. She had closed her eyes, and now she appeared utterly without life, a dead body held upright only by his support.

  “Come with me, beloved,” he said, brokenly. “I will hide you. I will protect you.”

  “My child,” she whispered, not hearing him. “His uncle possesses him in the house where we live. I am mad, they laugh at me. My child. I cannot flee without him.” The head on Marcus’ shoulder was like a fallen stone, pressing into his flesh. The girl sighed over and over, dolorously. “I cannot leave without him, for then he would die also. There is no pity in Catilina. He will return to divorce me, and I shall never see my child again. Nor is there shelter for me anywhere. Not anywhere, not anywhere. I died a long time ago.”

  “He is not here, in Rome, Livia. He may never return, for Sulla may never return. I am a lawyer, Livia. Divorce him! Have you no relatives, no friends?”

  “My uncle believes me mad, also,” the faint voice continued, unheeding. “They will rarely let me see my little one, who cries for me. I hear him crying in the night, but the door is barred to me. Listen! He is weeping for me now!”

  She lifted her head and stared wildly before her, pushing Marcus away with incredible strength. “I must go!” she cried. “I must go! My child is calling for me!”

  He could not restrain her. She slipped through his hand like a shade, r
unning from him, stola and mantle flying, hair blowing behind her, feet flashing.

  He shouted, “Livia! Livia!”

  But she vanished through the door. He followed her. The Forum was crowded again in the raw red sunlight of approaching evening, and the voices of the people rose like a flock of angry birds. But Livia had vanished among the throngs.

  “Accursed am I, accursed am I!” Marcus shouted, aloud, and with crushing self-hatred and loathing he struck his breast over and over with his clenched fist. Some of those passing below him, as he stood on the top of the stairs, looked up and stared, then pointed at his terrible and disordered aspect.

  He dropped his voice and muttered, “Anathema, anathema.”

  Syrius, whom he had forgotten, had also been in the temple. He came to Marcus’ side and looked into his desperate face. “Master,” he said quietly, “let us go.”

  But Marcus could not return home now. Accompanied by Syrius, he roamed the streets of Rome, blindly, and did not come to himself for a long time. When Helvia saw his face and his eyes, she asked no questions. She knew only that something terrible had happened to her son. She let him go without words to his cubiculum, and then she questioned Syrius.

  So, he had not forgotten Livia. Helvia was full of pity, but also full of impatience. But she was a wise woman and she greeted her pale son the next morning in a tranquil tone and spoke of casual things. She saw his eyes, bloodshot and sleepless, and she mentioned that the garden would produce many excellent fruit this year.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Marcus dined with Scaevola and the other young qualified lawyers at noon. For some, it was the only worthy meal of the day, for they were poor and they ate ravenously of the boiled meat, onions, artichokes in garlic oil, wine, cheese and summer fruit and little hot pastries. Scaevola would watch them with a pursed lip and a scowl, but this was to conceal the fact that he was secretly benign to his fledglings. Marcus, he noticed today, as he had been observing for several days at least, hardly touched the food, and drank unusually large quantities of wine. The young man’s face was drawn and haggard and his eyes were heavy and red.

  Scaevola said, “I have good news of our Marcus, and I wish you all to share it and to felicitate him.”

  The young lawyers glanced up alertly, but Marcus, not hearing, poured more wine from the bottle into his goblet, then began to drink it, staring heavily at nothing. Scaevola raised his voice irascibly. “Am I to be ignored at my own table, Marcus?” The young man started so violently at this direct assault that the goblet slipped in his hand and the wine splashed on his fingers. Scaevola glared into his eyes and said with elaborate patience, “I have been speaking of your good fortune, and have been addressing you.”

  Marcus murmured an apology. He saw the amused and curious smiles of his colleagues. “I was thinking of something else,” he said.

  “Without doubt,” said Scaevola. “And when a man is so absorbed in his thoughts he is not thinking of a law case. He is thinking of a woman. That is stupid.”

  The young lawyers laughed merrily to please their mentor and because they knew of Marcus’ austere life and his very rare excursions from virtue.

  “Stupid,” repeated Scaevola. “But let me return to the reason for our felicitations. Marcus had occasion to defend a rich old man a year ago from his rapacious sons, who wished to seize his fortune. The old man, the sons declared, was incompetent to manage his own affairs and was entirely mad. Why was he mad? He published at his own expense, a short book of hortatory diatribes and polemics against the corruption and venality of modern Rome. He prophesied the coming age of tyrants in our nation. He cried out against the Senate, once a body of honorable men impervious to bribes and other little peccadilloes of public creatures. He decried the new method of permitting low magistrates to become Senators through wealth and deviousness. In long paragraphs of lamentation, he described how we have fallen from republicanism into democracy, and the results which shall soon come to pass. His pejorative sentences had a vigor amazing in one so old; it was as if he were on fire. He denounced Cinna in furious language. Therefore, according to his wily sons, he was mad. I agree. All virtuous and patriotic men have some madness in them, for it is normal for men to be wicked and to be traitors.”

  He smiled fiercely at the listening young men. “Nonetheless, our Marcus did not believe him mad. He believed him to be a true Roman, and Marcus loves Rome. Is that not very unsophisticated in these days? So Marcus defended him and so ably that even the magistrate was moved to tears and in that emotional state upbraided the sons for their craftiness and congratulated the old father.”

  Marcus looked down at his plate, which he had barely touched.

  Scaevola exhaled a gusty breath. “The old man died three days ago. He entrusted his will to me. He has left our Marcus one hundred thousand gold sesterces!”

  The lawyers shouted and applauded loudly and hailed Marcus as a magnificent success and gathered about him to embrace him enviously.

  “So our Marcus is rich. Temporarily. Before taxes,” added Scaevola. “I trust he will invest in property if there is any money left after the vultures have calculated how much he ‘owes’ the government.”

  Marcus tried to smile. But all his emotions, except for hatred and lust for vengeance, were dulled these days. “It is very pleasing,” he said in a dim voice.

  “It is excellent!” cried Scaevola. “Let us have another goblet of wine in honor of this good fortune!”

  After the wine Scaevola dismissed his lawyers, except for Marcus. “I wish to speak with you,” he said. So Marcus, sunken again in his apathy, and incurious, remained behind. He sat like a statue in his chair, and Scaevola, smacking his lips, ate a pastry or two and watched him sharply. Finally, he said, “There are many things which trouble you these days, but one greater than the rest. I suspect it is a woman. I do not ask for your confidences, lest I lose my respect for you. There are more important matters which should disturb us. I have heard, this morning—and the city is only now quaking with the news—that Cinna was murdered a short time ago in a mutiny near Thessaly, whence he had gone to challenge the advance of Sulla on Rome. Now we have Gnaenus Papirius Carbo as our Roman Consul, the colleague of Cinna. He is no improvement over the latter.”

  Despite himself, Marcus looked up with a change of countenance. Scaevola nodded grimly. “You have despised Cinna. Yet, for all his expedient association with the old murderer, Marius—who decimated the best Senators—Cinna was not entirely evil, and distrusted Marius and his party, including Julius Caesar, the nephew of Marius. We have had worse Consuls than Cinna, including Carbo, our new one, who is considerably of a fool as well as exigent. I say this dispassionately, for as a wise man I do not engage in overt politics. However, I am threatened. Who knows at what hour I shall be assassinated?”

  “Nonsense,” said Marcus. “Are you not pontifex maximus, and holder of a most sacred office? Who would lift a hand against you, lord?”

  “Many,” said Scaevola, promptly. “And certainly Carbo, whom I detest. Let us consider Sulla, who suspects the Senate as all military men suspect civilians. But he is a man of genius, for he had been born poor and rose to riches. If he succeeds in seizing Rome then the Roman mobs will have met their master at last, and for that alone we should wish him well. He is a cold and ruthless general. He will not spare his enemies, especially those Senators of the Marius party, the populares or ‘democratic’ party of your dear young friend, Julius Caesar. Sulla believes in law, which should induce you to admire him. He especially believes in laws he invents. Young Julius is in hiding, is he not? He will not escape Sulla.”

  Marcus looked alarmed. Scaevola smiled. “But Julius has the genius for being all things to all men. His nature is serpentine. He may escape, in spite of Marius.”

  Scaevola ate a handful of fresh grapes and ruminated. “Carbo, who hates me, suspects that I favor Sulla. I do have a weakness for men who know their own minds. Look at me. I have always avoided entanglem
ents with men who lust for power. Nevertheless, I am in danger. I should like a worthy successor for the future. You.”

  Marcus was incredulous. “I? I am no one!”

  “I wish to recall to you that only recently an attempt was made on your life. Those who are nobodies are not singled out for such distinguished treatment. Incidentally, I have come upon a strange thing. You may remember that friend of Julius, Pompey.”

  Marcus frowned, trying to remember, then he recalled the ambiguous young man, evidently a pleb, who had been the companion of Julius when Marcus had addressed the Senate. “Pompey?” he said.

  “Pompey,” said Scaevola. “I saw him a month ago near the Senate doors. He was wearing a ring such as you described, when you were attacked.”

  Marcus stared wildly. Then he exclaimed, “But, I remember his voice! It was not his voice that I heard on our island!”

  Scaevola nodded. “Certainly it is not, for you should have remembered. Therefore, the ring symbolizes an arcane brotherhood. I wonder if Julius also possesses such a ring.”

  “Impossible,” said Marcus. But he paled even more as he considered the matter. “Julius shook his head in bewilderment when I described the ring to him, and asserted that he knew no one who possessed such an elaborate article.”