A Friend of Cæsar: A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. by - (best ereader for manga TXT) 📖

the hostler, and rested himself by fuming over the squalor and poor cooking of the inn. II

Agias secured the fast Numidian from the stables of Gallus, and was soon away. His frequent journeys between Rome and Præneste, in service of Cornelia and Drusus, made him a fairly expert rider, and his noble mount went pounding past the mile-stones at a steady, untiring gallop. The young Hellene was all tingling with excitement and expectation; he would save Drusus; he would send the roses back into his beloved mistress's cheeks; and they would reward him, give him freedom; and then the future would be bright indeed.

But it grew late, fast as the horse bore him. He felt it his duty to press on with all speed to Præneste. He had still a very vague notion of the final form of the conspiracy, especially of the rôle assigned to Phaon. Of one thing he was certain: to intercept Phaon was to deprive Dumnorix of an essential ally; but how to intercept the wily freedman was nothing easy.

As the Numidian swept into Gabii, Agias drew rein, telling himself that the horse would make better speed for a little rest and baiting. The tavern court into which he rode was exceedingly filthy; the whole building was in a state of decay; the odours were indescribable. In the great public-room a carter was trolling a coarse ditty, while through the doorway ran a screaming serving-maid to escape some low familiarity.

A shock-headed boy with a lantern took Agias's bridle, and the Greek alighted; almost under his eyes the dim light fell on a handsome, two-horse gig, standing beside the entrance to the court. Agias gave the vehicle close attention.

"It belongs to a gentleman from Rome, now inside," explained the boy, "one horse went lame, and the veterinary[103] is coming." Agias's eye caught a very peculiar bend in the hollow in the neck-yoke. He had seen that carriage before, on the fashionable boulevards—along the Tiber, in the Campus Martius—the carriage of Lucius Ahenobarbus. Phaon was waiting in the tavern!

"Care for my horse at once," remarked Agias, a little abruptly. "Time presses." And he turned on his heel, and leaving the boy gaping after him, went into the squalid public-room of the tavern.

The landlord of the establishment, a small, red-faced, bustling man, was fussing over some lean thrushes roasting on a spit before the open fire that was roaring on the hearth. The landlady, lazy, muscular, corpulent, and high-voiced, was expostulating with a pedler who was trying to slip out without settling. Four other persons, slaves and peasants, were sitting on two low benches beside a small, circular table, and were busy pouring down the liquor which a young serving-boy brought them in tumbler-shaped cups, or eating greedily at loaves of coarse bread which they snatched from the table. It was so late that little light came into the room from the door and windows. The great fire tossed its red, flickering glow out into the apartment and cast a rosy halo over the hard brown marble pavement of the floor. Upon the dingy walls and rafters hung from pegs flitches of bacon, sausages, and nets of vegetables. Agias stopped in the doorway and waited till his eyes were fairly accustomed to the fire-light. Over in a remote corner he saw a lamp gleaming, and there, sprawling on a bench, beside a table of his own, well piled with food and drink, he distinguished in solitary majesty Phaon—too exquisite to mingle with the other guests of the tavern.

The landlord quickly noticed his new customer, and sprang up from the fire. Agias had on a coarse grey woollen cloak over his light tunic, and he drew his hood up so as partly to cover his face as he stepped into the room.

"Salve!" was the landlord's salutation. "What hospitality can the Elephant[104] afford you?"

The good host did not think Agias anything more by his dress than a common slave, and saw no need of excessive politeness.

Agias noticed that he was expected to join the other drinkers around the centre table.

"Eho, mine host!" cried he, letting the fire give one glint on a gold piece. "Can't you give me a seat at the other end of the room? I don't know these good people, and they won't thank me for thrusting myself on them."

"Certainly, certainly," exclaimed the landlord, all condescension. "There is a gentleman from Rome drinking by himself at that table over there. Perhaps he will not object."

Now was the crisis. Agias had seen Phaon many times with Lucius Ahenobarbus; but he was reasonably certain that the freedman had never degraded himself by taking any notice of the numerous slaves of Lentulus's household. Without waiting for the host to continue, he hastened over to the farther table, and exclaimed with all the effrontery at his command:—

"Hem! Phaon; don't you remember an old friend?"

The freedman for once was completely off his guard. He started up, stared at Agias, and began to mutter excuses for a very short memory.

"Well, well," cried Agias. "You have a poor recollection of faces! Don't you remember how Pratinas took you to the Big Eagle restaurant, down on the Vicus Jugarius, on the last Calends, and how you met me there, and what good Lesbian and Chian wine there was? None of your weak, sickening Italian stuff! Surely you remember Cleombrotus, from whom you won four hundred sesterces."

Phaon, who remembered the tavern, a visit, and winning four hundred sesterces at one time or another, tried to make himself believe that he won them from a young man, like the one before him, and that his name was Cleombrotus.

"Um! Yes, of course," he faltered. "I'm very glad to see you. What brings you here?"

"Business, business," complained Agias; "my master's a grain merchant with dealings at Puteoli, and he has sent me thither, to make some payments." Phaon pricked up his ears. "The Via Appia is more direct, but there is less chance of robbers by the Via Prænestina."

"I hope your master can trust you not to lighten his pouch on the way," remarked Phaon.

"Well," chuckled Agias, "he'll have to take his risk. If it's lost on the road, why, highwaymen stripped me. It is one of the fortunes of trade." Phaon was fully convinced that here was a fine chance to do some picking on his own account.

"Doubtless," he began, "you are not in such haste that you cannot enjoy one of those thrushes that sheep of a landlord is roasting for me. Phui! What a nasty place to have one's horse give out in. You will give me at least a little company to pass the time?"

Agias affected reluctance; then as the host brought up the birds, savory and hot, on an earthen platter, he gracefully accepted the invitation. The thrushes and the rest of the bill of fare, bacon, sweet nut-flavoured oil, bread, and the cheap wine of the Campagna were not unwelcome, though Phaon cursed the coarse food roundly. Then, when hunger had begun to yield, Phaon suggested that Cleombrotus "try to secure revenge for his losses on the Calends"; and Agias, nothing loth, replied that he did not wish to risk a great sum; but if a denarius were worth playing for, there was no objection to venturing a few casts, and "he would ask the host to bring them the gaming implements."

So the landlord brought dice and dice boxes, and Phaon—who had come to the conclusion that he had to deal with a light-headed bumpkin, who represented merely so much fair plunder—began to play with a careless heart. The landlord brought more and more flagons of wine, wine that was mixed with little water and was consequently very heady. But the game—with some veering of fortune—went the freedman's way. He won a denarius; then another; then a third; lost a fourth time; won back everything and five denarii more; and finally his opponent, heated with play, consented to stake two gold pieces.

"What did you say a minute ago to the landlord?" muttered Phaon, feeling that the undiluted liquor was getting the best of him. "This wine is very strong. It makes my head ache."

"Phy!" retorted Agias. "Who complains of good liquor? I only told the host to set another lamp near us. Shall we play again?"

"By Zeus!" exclaimed the delighted freedman. "Here I have cast four 'sixes' once more." And again he drained the beaker.

"Vah!" sniffed Agias. "Luck will turn at last. Let us play for real stakes. More wine, mine host! I will put down ten philippi. This will be worth winning or losing."

"As you say," gleefully chuckled Phaon, tossing the gold on the table. "Yes, more wine, I say too. One always enjoys play when his temples are all athrob."

Agias quietly reached over, took up his opponent's dice box, and rattled it, and appeared inspecting and fingering the tali.[105] "You have won your throws fairly," he said, handing it back. "Now let us invoke the decision of Fortune once more. A libation to the Genius of Good Luck!" And instead of spilling out a few drops only, he canted the flagon too far and spattered the wine on to the floor.

"Heracles!" growled Phaon, "what a poor hazard! I have thrown four 'ones'!"

"And I have all 'fours' and 'sixes,'" cried Agias, in delight, sweeping the money toward him.

"The gods blast my luck," muttered the freedman, "I shall be ruined at this rate." And he poured down more liquor. "I have hardly five philippi left."

"Come," shouted Agias, jumping up; "I make a fair offer. Your five philippi against all my winnings."

Phaon had a dim consciousness that he was getting very drunk, that he ought to start at once for Præneste, and that it was absolutely needful for him to have some money for bribes and gratuities if he was not to jeopardize seriously the success of his undertaking. But Agias stood before him exultant and provoking. The freedman could not be induced to confess to himself that he had been badly fleeced by a fellow he expected to plunder. In drunken desperation he pulled out his last gold and threw it on the table.

"Play for that, and all the Furies curse me if I lose," he stormed.

Agias cast two "threes," two "fours."

"I must better that," thundered the freedman, slapping the tali out on to the table.

"'Ones' again," roared Agias; "all four! you have lost!"

Phaon sprang up in a storm of anger, and struck over the dice. "Three of them are 'sixes,'" he raged. "I have won! You got loaded dice from the landlord, just now, when he brought the wine!"

"Not at all, you cheating scoundrel," retorted Agias, who had already scooped in the money, "I have you fairly enough."

"Fair?" shouted Phaon, dashing down the dice again, "they are loaded! Lack-shame! Villain! Whipping-post! Tomb-robber! Gallows-bird! You changed them when you pretended to inspect them! Give me my money, thief, or—" and he took a menacing but unsteady step toward Agias.

The young Greek was ready for the emergency. He knew that Phaon was almost overcome with his wine, and had no dread of the issue. A stroke of his fist sent the freedman reeling back against the wall, all the wind pounded from his chest. "You born blackguard," coughed Phaon, "I won it." Agias was renewing the attack, when the landlord interfered. Seizing both of the gamesters by their cloaks, he pushed them out a side door into the court-yard. "Out with you!" cried the host. "Quarrel without, if you must! This is no place for brawls."

Phaon staggered a step or two out into the dark, then reeled and fell heavily upon the dirty pavement. Agias prodded him with his foot, but he was quite insensible. For the present he was harmless enough.

"My good host," said Agias, to the disquieted landlord, "I did not ask you to give us an unmixed wine and those dice for no purpose. This excellent gentleman here seems sadly in need of a bed, where he must stay for some time. But since I have won every sesterce he owns I must needs pay for his board. Take good care of him, and here are six philippi which are yours on condition that you keep him quiet until to-morrow at this time, and suffer no one coming from Rome to see him, or send him a message. To-morrow evening a messenger from Præneste will come here, and if your guest is still safe in your custody, you shall have six more gold pieces. At that time, doubtless, you can let him go; but don't violate my orders, or—"

"Your excellency pays like a senator," said the landlord, bowing, as he fingered the gold. "Trust me that your wishes shall be obeyed."

"They had better be," hinted Agias. "I am not what I seem by my dress. If you disobey, fear the wrath of a man before whom the world trembles!"

"He must be an agent of Cæsar, or Pompeius," muttered the landlord to himself. And Agias, having seen two serving-boys tugging Phaon's prone weight away to a secluded hay-mow, called for his refreshed Numidian, clattered out of the filthy court, and