Beric the Briton · Chapter 15 (2/3)

“You must take them,” Scopus said, “or you will undo the favourable impression you have made, which will be useful to you should you ever enter the arena again and be conquered. Go, go!”

Beric again entered the arena, and the attendants led him up to the emperor, who presented him with a gold bracelet, saying:

“I will speak to you again, Beric. I had wondered that you and your people should have resisted Suetonius so long, but I wonder no longer.”

Then Beric was led round the arena. Ladies threw down rings and bracelets to him. These were gathered up by the attendants and handed to him as he bowed to the givers. Norbanus, his wife, and daughter had already left their seats, surrounded by friends congratulating them, and bearing with them the still insensible girl. Having made the tour of the arena Beric again saluted the audience and retired. One of the imperial attendants met them as they left the building.

“The emperor bids me say, Scopus, that when Beric is recovered from his wound he is to attend at the palace.”

“I thought the emperor meant well towards you,” Scopus said. “You will in any case fight no more in the arena.”

“How is that?” Beric asked in surprise.

“Did you not hear the shouts of the people the last time you entered, Beric?”

“I heard a great confused roar, but in truth I was feeling somewhat faint from loss of blood, and did not catch any particular sounds.”

“They shouted that you were free from the arena henceforth. It is their custom when a gladiator greatly distinguishes himself to declare him free, though I have never known one before freed on his first appearance. The rule is that a gladiator remains for two years in the ring, but that period is shortened should the people deem that he has earned his life by his courage and skill. For a moment I was sorry when I heard it, but perhaps it is better as it is. Did you remain for two years, and fight and conquer at every show, you could gain no more honour than you have done. Now I will get a lectica and have you carried out to the hills. You are not fit to walk.”

They were joined outside by Porus and Lupus. The former was warm in his congratulation.

“By the gods, Beric, though I knew well that you would gain a great triumph in the arena when your time came, I never thought to see you thus fighting with the beasts unarmed. Why, Milo himself was not stronger, and he won thirteen times at the Olympian and Pythian games. He would have won more, but no one would venture to enter against him. Why, were you to go on practising for another five years, you would be as strong as he was, and as you are as skilful as you are strong it would go hard with any that met you. I congratulated myself, I can tell you, when I heard the people shout that you were free of the arena, for if by any chance we had been drawn against each other, I might as well have laid down my net and asked you to finish me at once without trouble.”

“It was but a happy thought, Porus: if a man could be caught in a net, why not a lion blinded in a cloak? That once done the rest was easy.”

“Well, I don’t want any easy jobs of that sort,” Porus said. “But let us go into a wine shop; a glass will bring the colour again to your cheeks.”

“No, no, Porus,” Scopus said. “Do you and Lupus drink, and I will drink with you, but no wine for Beric. I will get him a cup of hot ass’s milk; that will give him strength without fevering his blood. Here is a place where they sell it. I will go in with him first, and then join you there; but take not too much. You have a long walk back, and I guess, Lupus, that your head already hums from the blow that Briton gave it. By Bacchus, these Britons are fine men! I thought you had got an easy thing of it, when boom! and there you were stretched out like a dead man.”

“It was a trick,” Lupus said angrily, “a base trick.”

“Not at all,” Scopus replied. “You fought as if in war; and in war if you had an opponent at close quarters, and could not use your sword’s point, you would strike him down with the hilt if you could. As I have told you over and over again, you are a good swordsman, but you don’t know everything yet by a long way, and you are so conceited that you never will. I hoped that drubbing Beric gave you a few days after he joined us would have done you good, but I don’t see that it has. There are some men who never seem to learn. If it had not been for you our ludus would have triumphed all round today; but when one sees a man we put forward as one of our best swordsmen defeated by a raw Briton, people may well say, ‘Scopus has got one or two good men; there is Beric, he is a marvel; and Porus is good with the net; but as for the rest, I don’t value them a straw.’ ”

The enraged gladiator sprang upon Scopus, but the latter seized him by the waist and hurled him down with such force that he was unable to rise until Porus assisted him to his feet. As to Scopus, he paid him no farther attention, but putting his hand on Beric’s shoulder led him into the shop. A long draught of hot milk did wonders for Beric, and he proposed walking, but Scopus would not hear of it.

“Sit down here for five minutes,” he said, “till I have a cup of wine with the others. I should think Lupus must need it pretty badly, what with the knock on the head and the tumble I have just given him. I am not sorry that he was beaten by your countryman, for since he has had the luck to win two or three times in the arena, his head has been quite turned. He would never have dared to lay his hand on me had he not been half mad, for he knows well enough that I could strangle him with one hand. The worst of him is, that the fellow bears malice. He has never forgiven you the thrashing you administered to him. Now I suppose he will be sulky for weeks; but if he does it will be worse for him, for I will cut off his wine, and that will soon bring him to his senses.”

Scopus had gone but a few minutes when he returned with a lectica, which was a sort of palanquin, carried by four stout countrymen.

“Really, Scopus, it is ridiculous that I should be carried along the streets like a woman.”

“Men are carried as well as women, Beric, and as you are a wounded man you have a double right to be carried. Here is a bag with all those ornaments you got. It is quite heavy to lift.”

The bearers protested loudly at the weight of their burden when they lifted the lectica, but the promise of a little extra pay silenced their complaints. They were scarcely beyond the city when Beric, who was weaker from loss of blood than he imagined, dozed off to sleep, and did not wake till the lectica was set down in the atrium of the house on the Alban Hills.

Next morning he was extremely stiff, and found himself obliged to continue on his couch.

“It is of no use your trying to get up,” Scopus said; “the muscles of your flank are badly torn, and you must remain quiet.”

An hour later a rheda or four wheeled carriage drove up to the door, and in another minute Norbanus entered Beric’s cubicle. There were tears in his eyes as he held out both hands to him. “Ah, my friend,” he said, “how happy you must be in the happiness you caused to us! Who could have thought, when I entertained, as a passing guest, the friend of Pollio, that he would be the saviour of my family? You must have thought poorly of us yesterday that I was not at the exit from the amphitheatre to meet and thank you. But I hurried home with Ennia, and having left her in charge of her mother and sister came back to find you, but you had left, and I could learn no news of you. I searched for some time, and then guessing that you had been brought home by Scopus, I went back to the child, who is sorely ill. I fear that the strain has been too much for her, and that we shall lose her. But how different from what it would have been! To die is the lot of us all, and though I shall mourn my child, it will be a different thing indeed from seeing her torn to pieces before my eyes by the lion. She has recovered from her faint, but she lies still and quiet, and scarce seems to hear what is said to her. Her eyes are open, she has a happy smile on her lips, and I believe that she is well content now that she has done what she deems her duty to her God. She smiled when I told her this morning that I was coming over to see you, and said in a whisper, ‘I shall see him again, father.’ ”

“Would she like to see me now?” Beric said, making an effort to rise.

“No, not now, Beric. I don’t think somehow that she meant that. The leech said that she must be kept perfectly quiet; but I will send a slave with a letter to you daily. Oh, what a day was yesterday! The woes of a lifetime seemed centred in an hour. I know not how I lived as I sat there and waited for the fatal moment. All the blood in my veins seemed to freeze up as she was left alone in the arena. A mist came over my eyes. I tried to close them, but could not. I saw nothing of the amphitheatre, nothing of the spectators, nothing but her, till, at the sudden shout from the crowd, I roused myself with a start. When I saw you beside her I thought at first that I dreamed; but Aemilia suddenly clasped my arm and said, ‘It is Beric!’ Then I hoped something, I know not what, until Nero said that you must meet the lion unarmed.

“Then I thought all was over⁠—that two victims were to die instead of one. I tried to rise to cry to you to go, for that I would die by Ennia, but my limbs refused to support me; and though I tried to shout I did but whisper. What followed was too quick for me to mark. I saw the beast spring at you; I saw a confused struggle; but not until I saw you rise and bow, while the lion rolled over and over, bound and helpless, did I realize that what seemed impossible had indeed come to pass, and that you, unarmed and alone, had truly vanquished the terrible beast.

“I hear that all Rome is talking of nothing else. My friends, who poured in all the evening to congratulate us, told me so, and that no such feat had ever been seen in the arena.”

“It does not seem much to me, Norbanus,” Beric said. “It needed only some coolness and strength, though truly I myself doubted, when Nero gave the order to fight without weapons, if it could be done. I cannot but think that Ennia’s God and mine aided me.”

“It is strange,” Norbanus said, “that one so young and weak as Ennia should have shown no fear, and that the other Christians should all have met their fate with so wonderful a calm. As you know, I have thought that all religions were alike, each tribe and nation having its own. But methinks there must be something more in this when its votaries are ready so to die for it.”

“Do not linger with me,” Beric said. “You must be longing to be with your child. Pray, go at once. She must be glad to have you by her, even if she says little. I thank you for your promise to send news to me daily. If she should express any desire to see me, I will get Scopus to provide a vehicle to carry me to Rome; but in a few days I hope to be about.”

“Your first visit must be to Caesar, when you are well enough to walk,” Norbanus said. “They tell me he bade you come to see him, and he would be jealous did he know that he was not the first in your thoughts.”

Norbanus returned to Rome, and each day a letter came to Beric. The news was always the same; there was no change in Ennia’s condition.

Beric’s wound healed rapidly. Hard work and simple living had so toughened his frame that a wound that might have been serious affected him only locally, and mended with surprising rapidity. In a week he was up and about, and three days later he felt well enough to go to Rome.

“You would have been better for a few days more rest,” Scopus said, “but Nero is not fond of being kept waiting; and if he really wishes to see you it would be well that you present yourself as soon as possible.”

“I care nothing for Nero,” Beric said; “but I should be glad, for the sake of Norbanus, to see his daughter. It may be that my presence might rouse her and do her good. I want none of Nero’s favours; they are dangerous at best. His liking is fatal. He has now murdered Britannicus, his wife Octavia, and his mother Agrippina. He has banished Seneca, and every other adviser he had he has either executed or driven into exile.”

“That is all true enough, Beric, though it is better not said. Still, you must remember you have no choice. There is no thwarting Nero; if he designs to bestow favours upon you, you must accept them. I agree with you that they are dangerous; but you know how to guard yourself. A man who has fought a lion with naked hands may well manage to escape even the clutches of Nero. He has struck down the greatest and richest; but it is easier for one who is neither great nor rich to escape. At any rate, Beric, I have a faith in your fortune. You have gone through so much, that I think surely some god protects you. By the way, what are you going to do with that basketful of women’s ornaments that I have locked up in my coffer?”

“I thought no more about them, Scopus.”

“I should advise you to sell them. In themselves they are useless to you. But once turned into money they may some day stand you in good stead. They are worth a large sum, I can tell you, and I don’t care about keeping them here. None of my school are condemned malefactors. I would never take such men, even to please the wealthiest patron. But there is no use in placing temptation before any, and Porus and Lupus will have told how the Roman ladies flung their bracelets to you. I will take them down to a goldsmith who works for some of my patrons, and get him to value them, if you will.”

“Thank you, Scopus, I shall be glad to get rid of them. How would you dress for waiting on Caesar?”

“I have been thinking it over,” Scopus said. “I should say well, and yet not too well. You are a free man, for although Nero disposed of you as if you had been slaves, you were not enslaved nor did you bear the mark of slavery, therefore you have always dressed like a free man. Again, you are a chief among your own people; therefore, as I say, I should dress well but quietly. Nero has many freedmen about him, and though some of these provoke derision by vying with the wealthiest, this I know would never be done by you, even did you bask in the favour of Nero. A white tunic and a paenula of fine white cloth or a lacerna, both being long and ample so as to fall in becoming folds, would be the best. As I shall ride into Rome with you, you can there get one before going to see Nero.”

On arriving at Rome Beric was soon fitted with a cloak of fine white stuff, the folds of which showed off his figure to advantage. Scopus accompanied him to Nero’s palace.

“I know several of his attendants,” he said, “and can get you passed in to the emperor, which will save you waiting hours, perhaps, before you can obtain an audience.”

Taking him through numerous courts and along many passages they reached a chamber where several officials of the palace were walking and talking, waiting in readiness should they be required by Nero. Scopus went up to one with whom he was well acquainted. After the usual greetings he explained to him that he had, in accordance with Nero’s order, brought the young Briton, Beric, who had conquered the lion in the arena, and begged him to ask the emperor whether he would choose to give him audience at present.