CHAPTER XV.
Before Stephanus went through to the anteroom, where Polycharma was waiting with the other slaves, he paused a moment to recover his breath. He drew himself up, and his face resumed its usual expression of supercilious indifference. He now could measure with calmer blood the extent of his success; that which, a few minutes since, had deprived him of his senses, now filled his spirit with elasticity, and he told himself that he had selected, with infinite psychological insight, the moment for realizing his long-cherished purpose—the moment in fact, when her first meeting with her husband had shaken the proud woman’s nature to the foundations. He believed, that the happy result was obviously to be ascribed to this fortunate coincidence, and this doubled his good opinion of his own judgment. His glance lingered with supreme satisfaction on the magnificent room, the statue of Venus, the little Eros and the purple pillows on the divans. The inarticulate language of the smile, that played upon his thin lips, was easy to interpret—it told of his hope ere long to rule as master in this apartment, as the declared favorite of its lovely mistress—lovelier and grander than the marble goddess there, and oh! a thousand times warmer and more gracious.
He dropped his right arm, letting his white robe sweep the ground like the mantle of an eastern prince, and went on to the anteroom. He favored the wily Polycharma with a gracious nod, marching past the other girls with the strut of a promoted peacock. The Sicambrian stared at him open-mouthed.
The steward’s apartments were on the farther side of the peristyle, on the side towards the Circus Maximus. His offices were lower down still, on the Quirinal, where the Empress had been living since her separation from her husband, excepting when she went every summer to her villa at Baiae. The elaborate paraphernalia of official papers made a prompt removal impossible, and only certain small branches of the steward’s business had as yet been reinstated in the palace.
Stephanus went into his private room, laid aside his toga, and stretched himself at full-length on a comfortable couch. His restless brain was already seething with a thousand plans, which chased each other like a flight of crows. Numbers of impressions and motives, which hitherto had lurked unheeded, started up in his memory as possible starting points for future operations; but foremost of all the figure of Eurymachus, as yet irretrievably lost, occupied his thoughts. To judge from the reports of the slaves, who had followed the fugitive, the behavior of Quintus Claudius had been strange enough to suggest its connection with the slave’s successful escape, even if no direct connection existed. Stephanus dimly felt, that here lay the fulcrum for his lever—but how could he use it? Well, he had solved harder problems than this in his time. The son of so influential a man as the Flamen was, no doubt, a more difficult subject to deal with than Thrax Barbatus, whose cries had easily been drowned; still—the higher the obstacle, the greater the triumph.
He lay gazing thoughtfully at the tips of his fingers. Wholly possessed by the idea of avenging Domitia, he had forgotten for the moment, that the escape of Eurymachus was of importance to him on far graver grounds, than the use he could make of it to injure Quintus; now, this consciousness pressed with double weight on his soul. He would have given half his fortune, to learn that Eurymachus was silent forever. By some accident, which to Stephanus remained an unsolved mystery, Eurymachus had learned a momentous secret.—Supposing that now, when he was no longer gagged, he should make himself heard—supposing he should shout it out in the ears of the world. A hundred times did the steward curse the fatal idea, of making the execution of his slave an entertainment for Lycoris’ guests. Quietly strangled, or thrown into a tank to feed the lampreys—that would have been the rational thing, and more like his usual good sense. To be sure, hatred and rage had spoken loudly, and Lycoris had entreated him so earnestly.—Still it was folly, madness. Who could tell what Fate might bring out of it, if such precious material should happen to fall into the hands of Cneius Afranius—that cruel vampire who, for more than six months, had had his clutches on the steward’s neck. His eyes were fixed vacantly on the ceiling, as the long train of his crimes passed before him. Each separate deed appeared clothed in flesh and blood, incarnate in the form of Cneius Afranius, who seized him by the hair and dragged him before the Senate; till, at last, the direst deed of all came forth and cried to Heaven, till the great city shook to its foundations, and Domitian himself, the blood-stained tyrant, hid his face in horror.
Stephanus started up.
“Be still, mad brain!” he exclaimed, striking his forehead with his fist. “I have been too easy; a prudent man should strike and hold; till now I only kept out of the way of the arrows of Afranius, now—let him see to it, that he hides himself from mine. Quintus and he! The same stroke may by good hap fall on both at once.”
He paced his room uneasily; suddenly he stood still—before him stood a lad with soft and girlish features.
“Antinous!” cried the freedman. “You glide about like a weasel.”