Domitia

Domitia went to the wall and took down the sword of Corbulo, there suspended.

“It is this, mother. I need it.”

Then she departed.

“That sword – ah!” said Duilia. “It has been a little overdone. I have caught my guests exchanging winks when I alluded to it, and dropped a tear. O by all means she shall have it. It has ceased to be of use to me.”

CHAPTER XII.

THE TABLETS

Elymas the sorcerer stood bowing before Domitia, his hands crossed upon his breast.

She looked scrutinizingly into his dark face, but could read nothing there. He remained immovable and silent before her, awaiting the announcement of her will.

“I have sent for thee,” she said. “How long, I would know, before the sixth veil falls?”

“Lady and Augusta,” answered the Magian, “remember that when thou lookest out upon the Sabine Mountains, on one day all is so distinct that thou wouldst suppose a walk of an hour would bring thee to them. On the morrow, the range is so faint and so remote, that thou wouldst consider it must require days of travel to attain their roots. It is so with the Future. We look into its distance and behold forms – but whether near or far we know not. This only do we say with confidence, that we are aware of their succession, but not of their nearness or remoteness.”

“What! and the stars, will they not help thee?”

“There is at this time an ominous conjuncture of planets.”

“I pray thee, spare me the details, and tell me that which they portend.”

“Is it thine own future, Augusta, thou desirest to look into?”

“Elymas, my story has been unfolded – to what an extent it has been managed by such as thyself, that I cannot judge. But of a certainty it was thou who didst contrive that I was carried away from my husband’s house. Then what followed, the Gods know how far thou wast in it, but I have heard it said that the God Titus would not have had his mortal thread cut short but that, when in fever, thou didst persuade him to a bath in snow water. It is very easy to predict what will be, when with our hands we mould the future. And now – I care not whether thou makest or predictest what is to be – but an end there must be, and that a speedy one – for thine own safety hangs thereon.”

“How so, lady?”

“The Augustus has been greatly alarmed of late at sinister omens and prophesies; and he attributes them to thee. Perhaps,” with a scornful intonation, “he also is aware that fulfilment is assured before a prophesy is given out.”

The Magus remained motionless, but his face became pale.

“I know, because at supper with his intimates, Messala and Regulus and Carus, he swore by the Gods he would have you cast to savage dogs, and he would make an example of such as filled men’s minds with expectation of evil.”

“Lady – ”

But Domitia interrupted him. “Thou thinkest that I say this to alarm thee and bend thee to my will. If the Augustus has his spies that watch and repeat to him whatsoever I do, whomsoever I see, almost every word I say – shall not I also have a watch put upon him? Even now, Magus, that I have sent for thee, and that thou art closely consulted by me this has been carried to his ears, and as he knows how I esteem him, he will think this interview bodes him no good.”

“When, Lady Augusta, was this said?”

“The Emperor is this day returned from Albanum, and the threat was made but yesterday. Who can say but that the order has already been given for thy arrest, and for the gathering together of the dogs that are to rend thee.”

The man became alarmed and moved uneasily.

“Magus,” said Domitia, “I cannot save thee, thine own wits must do that. Find it written in the stars that thy life is so bound up with that of the Cæsar, that the death of one is the extinction of the other; or that thou holdest so potent a charm that if thou wilt thou canst employ it for his destruction. It is not for me to point out how thou mayest twist out of his grasp – thou art a very eel for slipperiness, and a serpent for contrivance. What I desire to know is – How much longer is this tyranny to last, and how long am I to suffer?”

Then the magician looked round the room, to make sure that he was unobserved; he raised the curtain at the door to see that none listened outside, and satisfied that he was neither observed nor overheard, he pointed to a clepsydra.

This was an ingenious, but to our minds a clumsy, contrivance for measuring time. It consisted of a silver ball, with a covered opening at the top, through which the interior could be replenished. About the base of the globe were minute perforations through which the liquid that was placed in the vessel slowly oozed, and oozing ran together into a drop at the bottom which fell at intervals into the bucket of a tiny wheel.

When the bucket was full, the wheel revolved and decanted the liquid whilst presenting another bucket to the distilling drops.

At each movement of the wheel a connection with it gave motion to the hand of a statuette of Saturn, who with his scythe indicated a number on an arc of metal. The numbers ranged from one to twelve, and the contrivance answered for half the twenty-four hours.

“Lady,” said the Magus, “before Saturn has pointed to the twelfth hour – ”

Steps were heard, approaching the room, along the mosaic-laid passage, and next moment, the curtain was snatched aside, and Domitian, his face blazing with anger, entered the apartment of his wife.

“So?” said he, “you are in league with astrologers and magicians against me! But, by the Gods! I can protect myself.”

He clapped his hands, and some of the guard appeared in the doorway.

“Remove him,” said the Emperor. “I have given orders concerning him already. Hey! Magus! knowest thou what will be thy doom, thou who pretendest to read the fate of men in the stars?”

“Augustus,” answered the necromancer, “I have read that I should be rent by wild dogs.”

“Sayest thou so? Then by Jupiter! I will make thy forecast come to naught. Go, Eulogius! – it is my command that he be at once, mark you, this very night, burned alive. We will see whether his prophecies come true. Here is my order.”

Domitian plucked a packet of tablets from his bosom, bound together with a string, drew forth one, and wrote hastily on it, then pressed his seal on the wax that covered the slab and handed it to the officer.

Then the guard surrounded the astrologer, and led him away.

Domitian waved his hand.

“Every one out of earshot,” ordered he, and he walked to the window and looked forth.

It was already night; to the south the sky was quivering with lightning, summer flashes, without thunder.

“A storm, a storm is coming on,” said the Emperor; “there’ll be storms everywhere, and lightning falling on all sides – portents they say. So be it! as the sword of heaven smites, so does mine. But it falls not on me, but on my enemies. Domitia,” said he, leaving the window, “there has been a conspiracy entered into against my life, and the fools thought to set up Clemens – he, that weakling, that coward; but I have sent him to his death, and those who were associated with him, the sentence is gone forth against them also.”

“I marvel only that any in Rome are suffered to live.”

“Minerva gives me wisdom – to defend myself.”

“Any wild beast can employ teeth and claws.”

“Domitia,” he came close to her, “I am the most lonely of men. I have no friends; my kinsmen either have been, or hate me; my friends are the most despicable of flatterers, who would betray their own parents to save their own throats; I use them, but I scorn them. You know not what it is to be alone!”

“I! I have been alone ever since you tore me from Lamia.”

“Lamia!” he ground his teeth; “still Lamia! But by the Gods! not for long. And you – you my wife whom I have loved, for whom I would have done anything – you are against me; you take counsel with a Chaldæan how long I have to live; the Senate, the nobles hate me, and by Jupiter, they have good cause, for I cut them with a scythe like ripe wheat. That was a good lesson of Tarquin to his son Sextus to nip off the heads of the tallest poppies. And the people – you have been currying favor with them – against me; the soldiers alone love me, because I have doubled their pay; let another offer to treble it and, to a man, they will desert me. By the Immortals! it is terrible to be alone – and to be plotted against, even by one’s wife.”

He walked the room, flourishing his tablets, then halted in front of the clepsydra.

“What said that star-gazer about the twelfth hour?” he asked. “Walls have ears, nothing is said that does not reach me. So, old Saturn, with thy scythe, dost thou threaten? Then I defy thee – ha! I saw the storm was coming up over Rome.”