Part 22 (1/2)
[109] College of chief priests.
Fabia grew a shade paler, if it were possible, than before.
”I know,” she replied, still very gently, ”that an unfaithful Vestal is buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus; but I know, too, that her seducer is beaten to death with rods. Accuse me, or attack me, and whatever be _my_ fate, I can say that which will send your black soul down to Tartarus with guilt enough for Minos to punish. Your delicately anointed skin would be sadly bruised by the stripes falling upon it. And now, if these creatures will stand one side, I will leave you.”
And Fabia drew her mantle about her, and walked straight past the awestruck slaves into the atrium, where she unbolted the door and pa.s.sed out. Gabinius stood gazing after her, half-fascinated, half-dazed. Only when the door closed did he burst out to one of the slaves:--
”Timid dog, why did you let her escape?”
”Dominus,” whimpered the menial, ”why did _you_ let her escape?”
”Insolence!” cried Gabinius, seizing a staff, and beating first one, then the other, of his servants indiscriminately; and so he continued to vent his vexation, until Fabia's litter was well inside the Porta Capena.
II
Fabia had thus escaped from the clutches of Gabinius, and the latter was sullen and foiled. But none the less the Vestal was in a tremor of fear for the consequences of her meeting with the libertine. She knew that Gabinius was determined, dexterous, and indefatigable; that he was baffled, but not necessarily driven to throw over his illicit quest. And Fabia realized keenly that going as she had unattended into a strange house, and remaining there some time with no friendly eye to bear witness to her actions, would count terribly against her, if Gabinius was driven to bay. She dared not, as she would gladly have done, appear before the pontifices and demand of them that they mete out due punishment on Gabinius for grossly insulting the sanct.i.ty of a Vestal. Her hope was that Gabinius would realize that he could not incriminate her without ruining himself, and that he had been so thoroughly terrified on reflection as to what might be the consequences to himself, if he tried to follow the intrigue, that he would prudently drop it. These considerations hardly served to lighten the gloom which had fallen across Fabia's life. It was not so much the personal peril that saddened her. All her life she had heard the ugly din of the world's wickedness pa.s.s harmlessly over her head, like a storm das.h.i.+ng at the doors of some secluded dwelling that s.h.i.+elded its inhabitants from the tempest. But now she had come personally face to face with the demon of impurity; she had felt the fetid touch almost upon herself; and it hurt, it sickened her. Therefore it was that the other Vestals marvelled, asking what change had come over their companion, to quench the mild suns.h.i.+ne of her life; and Fabia held little Livia very long and very closely in her arms, as if it were a solace to feel near her an innocent little thing ”unspotted of the world.”
All this had happened a very few days before the breathless Agias came to inform Fabia of the plot against her nephew. Perhaps, as with Cornelia, the fact that one near and dear was in peril aided to make the consciousness of her own unhappiness less keen. None could question Fabia's resolute energy. She sent Agias on his way, then hurried off in her litter in quest of Caius Marcellus, the consul.
aemilius Paulus, the other consul, was a nonent.i.ty, not worth appealing to, since he had virtually abdicated office upon selling his neutrality to Caesar. But Marcellus gave her little comfort. She broke in upon the n.o.ble lord, while he was partic.i.p.ating in a drunken garden-party in the Gardens of Lucullus. The consul--hardly sober enough to talk coherently--had declared that it was impossible to start any troops that day to Praeneste. ”To-morrow, when he had time, he would consider the matter.” And Fabia realized that the engine of government would be very slow to set in motion in favour of a marked Caesarian.
But she had another recourse, and hastened her litter down one of the quieter streets of the Subura, where was the modest house occupied by Julius Caesar before he became Pontifex Maximus. This building was now used by the Caesarian leaders as a sort of party headquarters. Fabia boldly ordered the porter to summon before her Curio--whom she was sure was in the house. Much marvelling at the visit of a Vestal, the slave obeyed, and in a few moments that tribune was in her presence.
Caius Scribonius Curio was probably a very typical man of his age. He was personally of voluptuous habits, fearfully extravagant, endowed with very few scruples and a very weak sense of right and wrong. But he was clear-headed, energetic, a good orator, a clever reasoner, an astute handler of men, courageous, versatile, full of recourse, and on the whole above the commission of any really glaring moral infraction.
He was now in his early prime, and he came before Fabia as a man tall, athletic, deep-chested, deep-voiced, with a regular profile, a clear, dark complexion, curly hair carefully dressed, freshly shaven, and in perfect toilet. It was a pleasure, in short, to come in contact with such a vigorous, aggressive personality, be the dark corners of his life what they might.
Curio yielded to no man in his love of Lucrine oysters and good Caecuban wine. But he had been spending little time on the dining couch that evening. In fact he had at that moment in his hand a set of tablets on which he had been writing.
”_Salve! Domina!_” was his greeting, ”what unusual honour is this which brings the most n.o.ble Vestal to the trysting spot of us poor Populares.”
And, with the courtesy of a gentleman of the world, he offered Fabia an armchair.
”Caius Curio,” said the Vestal, wasting very few words, ”do you know my nephew, Quintus Drusus of Praeneste?”
”It is an honour to acknowledge friends.h.i.+p with such an excellent young man,” said Curio, bowing.
”I am glad to hear so. I understand that he has already suffered no slight calamity for adhering to your party.”
”_Vah!_” and the tribune shrugged his shoulders. ”Doubtless he has had a disagreeable time with the consul-elect, but from all that I can hear, the girl he lost was hardly one to make his life a happy one.
It's notorious the way she has displayed her pa.s.sion for young Lucius Ahen.o.barbus, and we all know what kind of a man _he_ is. But I may presume to remark that your ladys.h.i.+p would hardly come here simply to remind me of this.”
”No,” replied Fabia, directly, ”I have come here to appeal to you to do something for me which Marcellus the consul was too drunk to try to accomplish if he would.”
Fabia had struck the right note. Only a few days before Appius Claudius, the censor, had tried to strike Curio's name from the rolls of the Senate. Piso, the other censor, had resisted. There had been an angry debate in the Senate, and Marcellus had inveighed against the Caesarian tribune, and had joined in a furious war of words. The Senate had voted to allow Curio to keep his seat; and the anti-Caesarians had paraded in mourning as if the vote were a great calamity.
Curio's eyes lit up with an angry fire.
”Lump of filth! Who was he, to disoblige you!”