She took him on her knee and began reading what was written, putting him down when he tugged at the parchment to make her show him how to fold it. She found him another sheet to play with and told him to take it to Pertinax who was a soldier and knew more about helmets. Then she went on reading, clutching at the sheet so tightly that her nails blanched white under the dye.
"Pertinax!" she said, shaking the parchment, speaking in a strained voice, "this is his final list! He has copied the names from his tablets. Whose name do you guess comes first?"
Pertinax was playing with Telamonion and did not look at her.
"Severus!" he answered, morbid jealousy, amounting to obsession, stirring that cynical hope in him.
"Severus isn't mentioned. The first six names are in this order: Galen, Marcia, Cornificia, Pertinax, Narcissus, Sextus alias Maternus. Do you realize what that means? It is now or never! Why has he put Galen first, I wonder?"
Galen did not appear startled. His interest was philosophical— impersonal.
"I should be first. I am guiltiest. I taught him in his youth," he remarked, smiling thinly. "I taught him how to loose the beast that lives in him, not intending that, of course, but it is what we do that counts. I should come first! The state would have been better for the death of many a man whom I cured; but I did not cure Commodus, I revealed him to himself, and he fell in love with himself and—"
"Now will you poison him?" said Marcia.
"No," said Galen. "Let him kill me. It is better."
"Gods! Has Rome no iron left? You, Pertinax!" said Marcia, "Go in and kill him!"