Pandora - By Anne Rice Page 0,61

dagger and lunged at me. He was immediately stabbed by the Legate and at least two of the soldiers.

He hung there bleeding on their weapons, staring from right to left, and then he spoke, but his mouth was too full of blood. His eyes widened; it seemed again he would speak. Then, as the soldiers withdrew their daggers, his body folded up on the cobblestones at the foot of the stairs.

My brother Lucius was quite mercifully dead.

I looked at him and shook my head.

The Legate looked at me. This was a significant moment, and I knew it.

“What is it, Tribune,” I asked, “that separates us from the long-haired barbarians of the North? Is it not law? Written law? Traditional law? Is it not justice? That men and women are called to account for what they do?”

“Yes, Madam,” he said.

“You know,” I went on in a reverent voice, staring at this heap of blood and clothes and flesh that lay on the stones, “I saw our great Emperor Caesar Augustus on the day of his death.”

“You saw him? You did?”

I nodded. “When they were certain he was to die, we were rushed to him with a few other close friends. It was his hope to put down rumors in the capital that might lead to unrest. He had sent for a mirror and combed his hair. He was primly propped up. And he asked us as we entered the room: Didn’t we think he’d played his part well in the comedy of life?

“I thought, what courage! And then he made some further joke, the old theatrical line they say after plays:

If I have made you happy, kindly let me know

your appreciation with a warm goodbye.

“I could tell you more, but—”

“Oh, please do,” said the Legate.

“Well, why not?” I asked. “It was told to me that the Emperor said of Tiberius, his chosen successor, ‘Poor Rome, to be chewed slowly by those sluggish jaws!’ ”

The Legate smiled. “But there wasn’t anyone else,” he said under his breath.

“Thank you, Tribune, for all your assistance. Would you allow me to take from my purse sufficient funds to treat you and your soldiers to a fine dinner—”

“No, Madam, I wouldn’t have it be said I or any man here was bribed. Now this dead man. Do you know anything more of him?”

“Only this, Officer, that his body probably belongs in the river.”

The soldiers all laughed among themselves.

“Good night, Gracious Lady,” said the soldier.

And off I went, striding across the blackness of the Forum, with my beloved one-legged Flavius at my side and the torchbearers round us.

Only now did I shake all over. Only now did the sweat cover my whole body.

When we had plunged deeply into the unbroken darkness of a small alleyway, I said, “Flavius, let these torchbearers go. There is no reason for them to know where we are headed.”

“Madam, I don’t have any lantern.”

“The night’s full of stars and has a near full moon. Look! Besides, there are others from the Temple who are following us.”

“There are?” he asked. He paid off the torchbearers and they ran back towards the mouth of the street.

“Yes. There is one watching. And besides, we can see well enough by the lighted windows and Heaven’s light, don’t you think? I am tired, so tired.”

I walked on, reminding myself again and again that Flavius could not keep up. I began to weep.

“Tell me something with your great philosophical knowledge,” I said as I walked on, determined to make the tears stop. “Tell me why evil people are so stupid? Why are so many of them just plain stupid?”

“Madam, I think there are quite a few evil people who are quite clever,” he said. “But never have I seen such skilled rhetoric on the part of anyone, either bad or good, as your talents revealed just now.”

“I’m delighted that you know that that is all it was,” I said. “Rhetoric. And to think he had the same teachers as I, the same library, the same Father—” My voice broke.

He put his arm gingerly about my shoulder and this time I didn’t tell him to move away. I let him steady me. We walked faster as a pair.

“No,” I said, “Flavius, the majority of the evil are just plain dumb, I’ve seen it all my life. The true crafty evil person is rare. It’s bumbling that causes most of the misery of the world, utter stupid bumbling. It’s underestimation of one’s fellow man! You watch what happens with Tiberius. Tiberius