Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven - Страница 44

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“None. Icilius has stirred the plebs into a frenzy. I had hoped the influence of their betters might serve to cool their thirst for your blood, but even outright bribery has failed. Tomorrow you’ll be tried before the people’s assembly and found guilty of impugning the dignity and endangering the persons of the tribunes. Your property will be confiscated and auctioned; the proceeds will be donated to the fund for the poor in the Temple of Ceres. Your mother and wife will be left with nothing.”

“And I?”

Cominius hung his head. “You will be publicly scourged and executed.”

“No! Never!” cried one of the young warriors from the shadows of the colonnade. His colleagues joined him with cries of outrage.

Gnaeus raised his hands to quiet them. He turned to Cominius. “And if I leave Roma tonight, of my own volition? If I flee into exile?”

Cominius drew a deep breath. “Icilius could try you in absentia, but I think I can convince him not to. He will have scored the victory he seeks, establishing the inviolability of the tribunes. If there is no trial, your property will remain intact. Your mother and wife will be provided for.”

“I care nothing for my own life,” said Gnaeus. “Let them flay me and eat my flesh, if they wish. But I will never allow my property to be put into the hands of the aediles, to feed the lazy rabble of Roma!” He turned his face up to stare at the full moon. By its white light, his handsome features looked as though they had been sculpted from marble. “Exile!” he whispered. “After all I’ve done for Roma!” He lowered his face, so that it was once again in shadow. He addressed the warriors who surrounded him.

“Some of you, when last we met, made a pledge that you would raise a sword and spill plebeian blood rather than see me executed, or, failing that, that you would follow me into exile. But now that the moment of decision has arrived, I do not hold any man to that pledge.”

“We made a vow!” objected one of the men. “A Roman never breaks his oath!”

“But if we leave Roma, never to return, are we still Romans? Think what it means to be a man without a city! This fate was thrust upon me. I cannot thrust it upon anyone else.”

One of the men stepped forward. “We all came here tonight armed and ready to fight-ready to die, if necessary. If your decision as our commander is to withdraw instead of engaging the enemy, we go with you, Coriolanus!”

“Even beyond the gates of Roma?”

“Yes, just as we followed you inside the gates of Corioli! That day, you fought your way inside, alone, and the rest of us trailed after you, like tardy schoolboys. Not so, on this day! We remain at your side, Coriolanus!”

“So say you all?”

“So say we all!” shouted the warriors.

Gnaeus laughed. “With that cry, you’ve awaked the whole Palatine! All Roma will soon be wondering what’s afoot at the house of Gnaeus Marcius. We have no choice now, but to leave at once!”

While the others made ready, Gnaeus said farewell to Cominius and Claudius. He saw Titus standing in the shadows and went to his side. “I’ve already said farewell to my mother and my wife. Look after them, Titus, as carefully as you look after Claudia.”

“I should go with you.”

Gnaeus shook his head. “You heard what I told my warriors. This is a sacrifice I can demand of no man.”

“Yet they follow you.”

“That is their choice.”

“It should be my choice, as well.”

Gnaeus was silent for a long moment. Shadows hid his face, but Titus felt the man’s eyes upon him. “You have a temple to complete, Titus.”

“Damn the Temple of Ceres, and all it stands for!”

Gnaeus frowned. “A man must have something to believe in.”

“As you once believed in Roma?”

“Believe in Roma, Titus. Believe in the Temple of Ceres. Forget that Coriolanus ever lived.” Gnaeus turned and walked away. His followers encircled him. The entourage departed from the garden.

Titus’s house was only a short distance away. Claudius offered to go with him, but Titus preferred to walk alone.

The night was warm. The shutters were open. Moonlight flooded the chamber where Claudia was sleeping. Titus gazed upon her face for a long time. He walked to the room where his son slept, and gazed upon his face for an even longer time.

He kept thinking of the image which Cominius had planted in his mind, of Gnaeus confronted by a stampeding bull. Hercules, whose altar had been in the keeping of Titus’s family for generations, had once fought a bull on the faraway island of Crete. Gods demanded sacrifice; heroes deserved loyalty. Was not Coriolanus just such a hero as Hercules had been?

In his study, by moonlight-for he feared that lighting a lamp might wake those who slept-he wrote a message to Appius Claudius: Father-inlaw, I beseech you, look after your daughter and your grandson. I have done what I know to be right.

He entered his son’s room. He lifted the talisman of Fascinus over his neck and slipped it, carefully and quietly, over his son’s neck. Deep in slumber, the boy reached up and touched the talisman, but never woke.

If Titus hurried, he might catch up with Coriolanus and his men before they passed beyond the city gates.

491 B.C.

“It’s a long road that’s brought us here,” said Gnaeus.

“A very long road indeed,” said Titus, smiling ruefully. He knew that his friend did not literally mean the road beneath their feet, which brought them, with each clop of the horses’ hooves, closer to Roma. Gnaeus was speaking of the curious twists and turns their lives had taken since the night they fled the city, two years ago.

A man such as Gnaeus, with his knowledge of warfare and his reputation for bravery, and with a company of fanatically devoted warriors at his side, would have been welcomed in many cities. It was ironic, but perhaps predictable, that he chose to make an overture to the Volsci. True, he had spilled much Volscian blood, but always in honorable combat, and who was more likely than the Volsci to recognize his true worth? It was a curious thing, puzzling at first to Titus, that those whom Gnaeus had fought so ferociously could welcome him into their rank so enthusiastically. This was the way of the warrior: By a simple twist of fate, and in the blink of an eye, an enemy could become an ally.

Of course, Gnaeus, being Gnaeus, had become much more than an ally. He quickly became the Volsci’s leading warrior, and then, just as quickly, commander of the whole army. The campaign to wreak vengeance on Roma had not been his idea, but that of the Volscian elders, who had to argue long and hard to overcome his resistance. Who better to anticipate and foil every Roman strategy than the man who been Roma’s greatest warrior? What greater triumph for the Volsci than to see Coriolanus do to Roma what he had done to Corioli? What sweeter revenge for Gnaeus Marcius than to bring the city that had spurned him to its knees?

In the campaign against Roma, Gnaeus had transcended himself. The man who had proclaimed his desire to become Roma’s greatest warrior had become the greatest warrior in all of Italy, and the boldest general as well. It seemed to Titus, who fought at Gnaeus’s side in battle after battle, that the gods themselves must have taken a hand in delivering so many victories to his friend. The men under Gnaeus developed a superstitious belief in his leadership; the magic of his presence, not their bravery, was the key to victory. It was Titus’s private conviction that the ancient spirit of Hercules now lived again in Coriolanus, the hero of the age. This religious conviction was a great solace to Titus in those moments when homesickness for Roma and his family threatened to overwhelm him.

Now the final battle drew near. Every clop of the horses’ hooves along the road brought Gnaeus and the army of the Volsci closer to the very gate by which he had fled the city. In battle after battle, the armies of Roma had been defeated. Their ranks were depleted, their stores of arms captured and confiscated. The people were weakened as well. Crops had been burned, Roman colonies had been looted, and emergency supplies of grain from Sicily had been intercepted. As Roma grew more enfeebled, all the enemies whom she had humiliated in recent years flocked to join Gnaeus and the Volsci. The force led by Coriolanus was invincible.

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