"I discover I am like the rest of you—like all Rome. At my age such a discovery makes for bitterness." For a minute or two Galen went on scraping powder from the crucible, then suddenly he looked up at Sextus, stepping backward so as to see the young man's face more clearly in a shaft of sunlight.
"Did you send that Christian into the tunnel to kill Commodus?" he asked.
"I? You know me better than that, Galen! When the time comes to slay
Commodus—but is Commodus dead? Speak, don't stand there looking at me!
Speak, man!"
Galen appeared satisfied.
"No, not Commodus. The blow miscarried. Somebody slew Nasor. A mistake. A coward's blow. If you had been responsible—"
"When—if—I slay, it shall be openly with my own hand," said Sextus. "Not I alone, but Rome herself must vomit out that monster. Why are you vexed?"
"That wanton blow that missed its mark has stripped some friends of mine too naked. It has also stripped me and revealed me to myself. Last night I saw a falling star—a meteor that blazed out of the night and vanished."
"I, too," said Sextus. "All Rome saw it. The cheap sorcerers are doing a fine trade. They declare it portends evil."
"Evil—but for whom?" Old Galen poured the powder he had scraped into a dish and blinked at him. "Affiliations in the realm of substance are confined to like ingredients. That law is universal. Like seeks like, begetting its own like. As for instance, sickness flows in channels of unwholesomeness, like water seeping through a marsh. Evil? What is evil but the likeness of a deed—its echo—its result—its aftermath? You see this powder? Marcia has ordered me to poison Commodus! What kind of aftermath should that deed have?"
Sextus stared at him astonished. Galen went on mixing.