‘What should I do without thee? It is the willing horse gets ever the most work; but this matter is particular.’
Then before he told his officer the nature of the service required, he proceeded to put to him a number of questions in relation to his experiences during his mission. When he had exhausted his ingenuity concerning everything he could think of, pertaining to matters in the imperial household, he [pg 60]relapsed into silent reflection for a few minutes, during which he paced up and down the room.
‘Centurion!’ he said, at length, ‘Drusus leaves Capreae and comes to Rome shortly. To-morrow, after nightfall, take a troop of twenty men and ride to Ostia. Drusus will arrive there in a galley. You must stop it and arrest him. Bring him to Rome, under guard, at night, and place him in charge of the keeper of the palace on the Palatine. All will be in readiness to receive him. Be careful and secret. Leave and enter the city by night; and, when you have completed your mission, hasten to report the same to me without delay. Now to bed!’
Martialis was not loth to obey, and, seeking his room, was in a few minutes sleeping the profound slumber of tired limbs, an easy conscience, and bright hopes.
CHAPTER V.
From the house of Apicius and the spectacle of his sudden and awful end Sejanus had first gone to the modest abode of Domitius Afer. There they remained closeted by themselves, engaged in earnest conversation, until shortly before the meeting of the Prefect and his officer, as described.
Previous to this Afer had quietly sent off a message to Cestus by the Greek Erotion. That astute youth threaded the inmost haunts and foul intricacies of the Subura with sure confidence, and succeeded in discovering the object of his search, deluged with wine, and revelling in the heat of a brutal orgy, amid ruffians and women of the lowest type. Assailed by the obscene chorus of this satanic crew, the Greek, with the readiness and aptness of his race, exchanged witticisms with a fluency and smartness which equalled, if not exceeded, their own. Seizing an opportunity, he whispered into the ear of the intoxicated Cestus the instruction to meet his master in the gardens of Maecenas, on the following morning, at a particular spot, at a particular hour. The fellow, with a leer, nodded and agreed, and the young slave departed to report the result of his errand.
The gardens of Maecenas were on the north-eastern side of the Esquiline, nor must the term gardens be accepted in the modern sense; for, to suppose that they were ornamental grounds, and duly kept in order by a staff of servants, would be misleading. They seemed to be, and there were many such in Rome, open places for the common recreation and airings of the populace. These, to which Afer repaired to keep his appointment with Cestus, had been formed by the celebrated patron of literature and art, upon ground which, [pg 62]hitherto, had held bad repute, as the burial-place of the lowest orders of the people. It seems, even, to have been no uncommon matter for the bodies to be thrown down and left without any covering of earth whatever. To clear this charnel ground, and change it from a horrid repository of mouldering bones and putrefying flesh into a pleasant lounge for the people, was one of the generous works of Maecenas. It lay outside, and adjoining, the ring wall of Servius, and we may conclude the place was not altogether denuded of its sepulchral memories, since it was here that Canidia, the witch of Horace, came to perform her incantations, and invoke the shades of the dead amongst the tombs.