The centurion turned to the decurion.
"Go you with him. Hand him over to the hall-attendants. Bid them pass him from hand to hand into Marcia's presence. Don't return until you have word he has reached her."
To all intents and purposes a prisoner, Narcissus was marched along the mosaic pavement of a bronze-roofed colonnade, whose marble columns flanked the approach to the palace steps. Drenched guards, posted near the eaves where water splashed on them clanged their shields in darkness as the decurion passed; there was not a square yard of the palace grounds unwatched.
There was a halt beside the little marble pavilion near the palace steps, where the decurion turned Narcissus over to an attendant in palace uniform, but no comment; the palace was too used to seeing favorites of one day in disgrace the next.
Within the palace there was draughtily lighted gloom, a sensation of dread and mysterious restlessness. The bronze doors leading to the emperor's apartments were shut and guards posted outside them who demanded extremely definite reasons for admitting any one; even when the centurion's message was delivered some one had to be sent in first to find out whether Marcia was willing, and for nearly half an hour Narcissus waited, biting his lip with impatience.
When he was sent for at last, and accompanied in, he found Marcia, Pertinax and Galen seated unattended in the gorgeous, quiet anteroom next to the emperor's bedchamber. The outer storm was hardly audible through the window-shutters, but there was an atmosphere of impending climax, like the hush and rumble that precedes eruptions.
Marcia nodded and dismissed the attendant who had brought Narcissus. There was a strained look about her eyes, a tightening at the corners of the mouth. Her voice was almost hoarse:
"What is it? You bring bad news, Narcissus! What has happened?"
"Sextus has been arrested by the main gate guard!"
Galen came out of a reverie. Pertinax bit at his nails and looked startled; worry had made him look as old as Galen, but his shoulders were erect and he was very splendid in his jeweled full dress. None spoke; they waited on Marcia, who turned the news over in her mind a minute.