CHAPTER VI
WINE ON THE LEES
The commander of the Lost Legion, when he parted with Placidus after thecouncil of war, retired moodily to his tent. He, too, was disappointed anddissatisfied, wearied with the length of the siege, harassed and uneasyabout the ravages made by sickness among his men, and anxious moreover asto his share of the spoil. Hippias, it is needless to say, was lavish inhis expenses, and luxurious in his personal habits: like the mercenarieshe commanded, he looked to the sacking of Jerusalem as a means of payinghis creditors, and supplying him with money for future excesses. Not a manof the Lost Legion but had already calculated the worth of that goldenroof, to which they looked so longingly, and his own probable portion whenit was melted into coin. Rumour, too, had not failed to multiply by tensthe amount of wealth stored in the Temple, and the jewels it contained.The besiegers were persuaded that every soldier who should be fortunateenough to enter it sword in hand, would be enriched for life; and thegladiators were the last men to grudge danger or bloodshed for such anobject.
But there is a foe who smites an army far more surely than the enemy thatmeets it face to face in the field. Like the angel who breathed on thehost of the Assyrians in the night, so that when the Jews rose in themorning, their adversaries were "all dead men," this foe takes his prey byscores as they sleep in their tents, or pace to and fro watching undertheir armour in the sun. His name is Pestilence; and wherever man meetsman for mutual destruction, he hovers over the opposing multitudes, andsecures the lion's share of both. Partly from their previous habits,partly from their looser discipline, he had been busier amongst thegladiators than in any other quarter of the camp. Dwindling day by day innumbers and efficiency, Hippias began to fear that they would be unable totake the prominent part he had promised them in the assault, and thechance of such a disappointment was irritating enough; but when to thisgrievance was added the proposal he had just heard, for the peacefulsurrender of the city--a proposal which Titus seemed to regard withfavourable eyes, and which would entail the distribution in equal portionsof whatever treasure was considered the spoil of the army, so that thegladiator and legionary should but share alike--the contingency was nothingless than maddening. He had given Titus a true report of his legion incouncil; for Hippias was not a man to take shelter in falsehood, under anypressure of necessity, but he repented, nevertheless, of his frankness;and, cursing the hour when he embarked for Syria, began to think of Romewith regret, and to believe that he was happier and more prosperous in theamphitheatre after all. Passing amongst the tents of his men, he wasdistressed to meet old Hirpinus, who reported to him that another scorehad been stricken by the sickness since watch-setting the previous night.Every day was of the utmost importance now, and here were two more to bewasted in negotiations, even if the assault should be ordered to takeplace after all. The reflection did not serve to soothe him, and Hippiasentered his own tent with a fevered frame, and a frown of ill-omen on hisbrow.
For a soldier it was indeed a luxurious home; adorned with trophies ofarms, costly shawls, gold and silver drinking-vessels, and other valuablesscattered about. There was even a porcelain vase filled with fresh flowersstanding between two wineskins; and a burnished mirror, with a delicatecomb resting against its stand, denoted either an extraordinary care forhis personal appearance in the owner, or a woman's presence behind thecrimson curtain which served to screen another compartment of the tent.Kicking the mirror out of his way, and flinging himself on a couch coveredwith a dressed leopard-skin, Hippias set his heavy headpiece on theground, and called angrily for a cup of wine. At the second summons, thecurtain was drawn aside, and a woman appeared from behind its folds.
Pale, haughty, and self-possessed, tameless, and defiant, even in herdegradation, Valeria, though fallen, seemed to rise superior to herself,and stood before the man whom she had never loved, and yet to whom, in amoment of madness, she had sacrificed her whole existence, with the calm,quiet demeanour of a mistress in the presence of her slave. Her beauty hadnot faded--far from it--though changed somewhat in its character, growingharder and colder than of old. If less womanly, it was of a deeper andloftier kind. The eyes, indeed, had lost the loving, laughing look whichhad once been their greatest charm, but they were keen and dazzling still;while the other features, like the shapely figure, had gained a severe andmajestic dignity in exchange for the flowing outlines and the roundcomeliness of youth. She was dressed sumptuously, and with an affectationof Eastern habits that suited her beauty well. Alas! that beauty was heronly weapon left; and although she had turned it against herself, a truewoman to the end, she had kept it bright and pointed still.
When Valeria left her home to follow the fortunes of a gladiator, she hadnot even the excuse of blindness for her folly. She knew that she wasabandoning friends, fortune, position--all the advantages of life for thatwhich she did not care to have. She believed herself to be utterlydesperate, depraved, and unsexed. It was her punishment that she could notrid herself of her woman's nature, nor stifle the voice that no woman ever_can_ stifle in her heart. For a time, perhaps, the change of scene, thevoyage, the excitement of the step she had taken, the determination toabide by her choice and defy everything, served to deaden her mind to herown misery. It was her whim to assume on occasions the arms andaccoutrements of a gladiator; and it was even said in the Lost Legion,that she had fought in their ranks more than once in some of theirdesperate enterprises against the town. It was certain that she neverappeared abroad in the female dress she wore within her tent: Titus,indeed, would have scarcely failed to notice such a flagrant breach ofcamp-discipline; and many a fierce swordsman whispered to his comrade,with a thrill of interest, that in a force like theirs she might mingleunnoticed in their ranks, and be with them at any time. It was but awhisper, though, after all, for they knew their commander too well tocanvass his conduct openly, or to pry into matters he chose to keepsecret.
These outbreaks, however, so contrary to all the impulses and instincts ofa woman's nature, soon palled on the high-born Roman lady; and as thesiege, with its various fortunes, was protracted from day to day, the yokeunder which she had voluntarily placed her proud white neck, became toogalling to endure. She hated the long glistening line of tents; she hatedthe scorching Syrian sky, the flash of armour, the tramp of men, theconstant trumpet-calls, the eternal guard-mounting, the wearisome andmonotonous routine of a camp. She hated the hot tent, with its stiflingatmosphere and its narrow space; above all, she was learning daily to hatethe man with whom she shared its shelter and its inconveniences.
She handed him the wine he asked for without a word, and standing there inher cold scornful beauty, never noticed him by look or gesture. She seemedmiles away in thought, and utterly unconscious of his presence.
He remembered when it was so different. He remembered how, even when firsthe knew her, his arrival used to call a smile of pleasure to her lips, aglance of welcome to her eye. It might be only on the surface, but stillit was there; and he felt for his own part, that as far as he had evercared for any woman, he had cared for her. It was galling, truly, thisindifference, this contempt. He was hurt, and his fierce undisciplinednature urged him to strike again.
He emptied the cup, and flung it from him with an angry jerk. The goldenvessel rolled out from under the hangings of the tent; she made no offerto pick it up and fetch it back. He glared fiercely into her eyes, andthey met his own with the steady scornful gaze he almost feared; for thatcold look chilled him to the very heart. The man was hardened, depraved,steeped to the lips in cruelty and crime; but there was a defencelessplace in him still that she could stab when she liked, for he would haveloved her if she had let him.
"I am very weary of the siege," said he, stretching his limbs on the couchwith affected indifference, "weary of the daily drudgery, the endlessconsultations, the scorching climate, above all, this suffocatingatmosphere, where a man can hardly breathe. Would that I had never seenthis accursed
tent, or aught that it contains!"
"You cannot be more weary of it than I am," she replied, in the samecontemptuous quiet tone that maddened him.
"Why did you come?" he retorted, with a bitter laugh. "Nobody wanted sucha delicate dainty lady in a soldier's tent--and certainly nobody ever askedyou to share it with him!"
She gave a little gasp, as though something touched her to the quick, butrecovered herself on the instant, and answered calmly and scornfully, "Itis kindly said, and generously, considering all things. Just what I mighthave expected from a gladiator!"
"There was a time you liked the Family well enough!" he exclaimed angrily;and then, softened by his own recollections of that time, added in amilder tone, "Valeria, why will you thus quarrel with me? It used not tobe so when I brought the foils and dumbbells to your portico, and sparedno pains to make you the deadliest fencer, as you were the fairest, inRome. Those were happy days enough, and so might these be, if you had buta grain of common sense. Can you not see, when you and I fall out, whomust necessarily be the loser? What have you to depend on now but me?"
He should have stopped at his tender recollections. Argument, especiallyif it has any show of reason in it, is to an angry woman but as the_bandillero's_ goad to the Iberian bull. Its flutter serves to irritaterather than to scare, and the deeper its pointed steel sinks in, the moreactively indeed does the recipient swerve aside, but returns the morerapidly and the more obstinately to the charge. Of all considerations,that which most maddened Valeria, and rendered her utterly reckless, wasthat she should be dependent on a gladiator. The cold eyes flashed fire;but she would not give him the advantage over her of acknowledging that hecould put her in a passion, so she restrained herself, though her heartwas ready to burst. Had she cared for him she might have stabbed him todeath in such a mood.
"I thank you for reminding me," she answered bitterly. "It is not strangethat one of the Mutian line should occasionally forget her duty toHippias, the retired prize-fighter. A patrician, perhaps, would havebrought it more delicately to her remembrance; but I have no right toblame the fencing-master for his plebeian birth and bringing up."
"Now, by the body of Hercules, this is too much!" he exclaimed, springingerect on the couch, and grinding his teeth with rage. "What! you tax mewith my birth! You scout me for my want of mincing manners and whitehands, and syllables that drop like slobbered wine from the close-shavenlip! You, the dainty lady, the celebrated beauty, the admired, forsooth,of all admirers, whose porch was choked with gilded chariots, whose litterwas thronged with every curly-headed, white-shouldered, crimson-cloaked,young Narcissus in Rome, and yet who sought her chosen lovers in theamphitheatre--who scanned with judicious eye the points and the vigour andthe promise of naked athletes, and could find at last none to serve herturn, but war-worn old Hippias, the roughest and the rudest, and theworst-favoured, but the strongest, nevertheless, amongst them all!"
The storm was gathering apace, but she still tried hard to keep it down.An experienced mariner might have known by the short-coming breath, thewhite cheek, and the dilated nostril, that it was high time to shortensail, and run for shelter before the squall.
"It was indeed a strange taste," she retorted. "None can marvel at it morethan myself."
"Not so strange as you think," he burst out, somewhat inconsistently. "Donot fancy you were the only lady in Rome who was proud to be admired byHippias the gladiator. I tell you I had my choice amongst a hundred maidsand matrons, nobler born, fairer, ay, and of better repute than yourself!any one of whom would have been glad to be here to-day in your place. Iwas a fool for my pains; but I thought you were the fittest to bear thetoil of campaigning, and the least able to do without me, so I took you,more out of pity than of love!"
"Coward!" she hissed between her clenched teeth. "Traitor and fool, too!Must you know the truth at last? Must you know what I have spared you thislong time? what alone has kept me from sinking under the weight of theseweary days with their hourly degradation? what has been disease andremedy, wound and balm, bitterest punishment, and yet dearest consolation?Take it then, since have it you will! Can you think that such as I couldever love such as you? Can you believe you could be more to Valeria thanthe handle of the blade, the shaft of the javelin, the cord of the bow, bywhich she could inflict a grievous wound in another's bosom? Listen! Whenyou wooed me, I was a scorned, an insulted, a desperate woman. I loved onewho was nobler, handsomer, better. Ay, you pride yourself on your fiercecourage and your brutal strength. I tell you who was twice as strong, anda thousand times as brave as the best of you. I loved him, do you hear? asmen like you never can be loved--with an utter and entire devotion, thatasked but to sacrifice itself without hope of a return, and he scorned me,not as you would have done, with a rough brutal frankness that had takenaway half the pain, but so kindly, so delicately, so generously, that evenwhile I clung to him, and he turned away from me, I felt he was dearerthan ever to my heart. Ay, you may sit there and look at me with your eyesglaring and your beard bristling like some savage beast of prey; but youbrought it on yourself, and if you killed me I would not spare you now. Ihad never _looked_ at you but for your hired skill, which you imparted tothe man I loved. I took you because he scorned me, as I would have takenone of my Liburnians, had I thought it would have wounded him deeper, ormade him hate me more. You are a fencer, I believe--one who prides himselfon his skill in feints and parries, in giving and taking, in judgingaccurately of the adversary's strength and weakness at a glance. Have Ifoiled you to some purpose? You thought you were the darling of the high-born lady, the favourite of her fancy, the minion to whom she could refusenothing, not even her fair fame, and she was using you all the time as amere rod with which to smite a slave! A _slave_, do you hear? Yes, the manI preferred, not only to you, but to a host of your betters, the man Iloved so dearly, and love so madly still, is but your pupil Esca, abarbarian, and a slave!"
Her anger had supported her till now, but with Esca's name came a flood oftears, and, thoroughly unstrung, she sat down on the ground and weptpassionately, covering her face with her hands. He could have almost foundit in his heart to strike her, but for her defenceless attitude, soexasperated was he, so maddened by the torrent of her words. He couldthink of nothing, however, more bitter than to taunt her with herhelplessness, whilst under his charge.
"Your minion," said he, "is within the walls at this moment. From thattent door, you might almost see him on the rampart, if he be not skulkingfrom his duty like a slave as he is. Think, proud lady, you who are soready, asked or unasked, for slave or gladiator, you need but walk fivehundred paces to be in his arms. Surely, if they knew your mission, Romanguards and Jewish sentries would lower their spears to you as you passed!Enough of this! Remember who and what you are. Above all, remember _where_you are, and how you came here. I have forborne too long, my patience isexhausted at last. You are in a soldier's tent, and you must learn asoldier's duty--unquestioning obedience. Go! pick up that goblet I let falljust now. Fill it, and bring it me here, without a word!"
Somewhat to his surprise, she rose at once to do his bidding, leaving thetent with a perfectly composed step and air. He might have remarked,though, that when she returned with his wine, the red drops fell profuselyover her white trembling fingers, though she looked in his face as proudlyand steadily as ever. The hand might, indeed, shake, but the heart wasfixed and resolute. In the veins of none of her ancestors did the Mutianblood, so strong for good and evil, ebb and flow with a fuller, moreresistless tide, than in hers. Valeria had made up her mind in the spaceof time it took to lift a goblet from the ground.