Part 10 (1/2)
He closed his lips tight ”I know nothing else”
”Have you had any dealings with sextus?”
”Never”
He was shi+fting now froh to make Marcia smile ”Shall we hear what sextus has to say to that?” asked Cornificia, so confidently that there was no doubt Marcia had given her the signal
Marciaeyes and Cornificia clapped her hands A slave caer”
sextus , he appeared so instantly He stood with folded arment was not needed to produce the healthy bronze hue of his skin; his curly hair, bound by a fillet, was unruly fro sinews of his ar and the starry cloak he as laughable in its failure to disguise the esture of the raised right hand that no man unaccustohtly toward Livius, acknowledged his nod with a huain, Bultius Livius”
”Again?” asked Marcia
”Why yes, I met him in the house of Pertinax It is three days since we spoke together Three, or is it four, Livius? I have been busy I forget”
”Can Livius have lied?” asked Marcia She see the entertainment
Livius threw caution to the winds
”Is this a tribunal?” he denantly, but soh became a sob and in a es! What a witness! Is he a two-headed witness who shall swear my life away? I understand you, Marcia!”
(At least titnesses were necessary under Rohed ”You understandof his self-possession, a wave of virility returning High living and the feverish exciteime had ruined his nerves but there were traces still of his original astuteness He resunity
”Pardon me,” he said ”I have been overworked of late I must see Galen about this jumpiness When I said I understand you INaturally you would not receive a highwayman in Cornificia's house, and at the same time accuse me of treason! Pray excuse my outburst-set it to the score of ill-health I will see Galen”
”You shall see hihed Marcia, and Cornificia clapped her hands
Less suddenly than sextus had appeared, because his age was beginning to tell on hih a door behind the pal his old-world, slow salute to Marcia His bright eyeslike the statues of the elder Cato, only with a kindlier humor and less obstinacy at the corners of the ht out a couch for hi a little because the sun was in his eyes
”My trade is to oppose death diploain a little here and there Death wins inevitably Nevertheless, they only suain a year or two for somebody Marcia, unless you let Bultius Livius use that couch he will swoon I warn you The man's heart is weak He has er?”
He greeted sextus with a wrinkled grin and beckoned hi the old doctor's legs Marcia took her ti Livius be seated
”You heard Galen?” she asked ”We are here to cheat death diplomatically”
”Whose death?” Livius demanded
”Rome's!” said Marcia, her eyes intently on his face ”If Rome should split in three parts it would fall asunder None but Commodus can save us from a civil war We are here to learn what Bultius Livius can do to preserve the life of Corotesque already with its hastily smeared carmine, assumed neilderment
”I have seen men tortured ere less ready to betray the wine, that is hly subjected