Chapter VII: The Departure

It was a long and dreary pause; but at length the stern and virtuous soldier, who, ere many more years had passed, seated himself without crime or bloodshed in the chair of the C[ae]sars, laid his hand upon the arm of Theodore, with a firm but kindly pressure which spoke at once to a heart full of high feelings and of noble energies, and roused it from the dull stupor of sudden grief.

"Oh! Marcian," exclaimed the youth, "this is an unexpected stroke! So short a while since I saw him depart full of vigour, and life, and happiness. So short, so common a journey--so easy--so safe! How, tell me how this has befallen? Was it by sickness, or accident, or war with some rebel, or in the chase of some wild beast?"

"Alas, no!" replied Marcian; "it was by none of these, my son. Nor would I wound your young heart afresh by telling how it did take place, were it not absolutely necessary for you to know your father's fate, in order that you may gain an augury or a warning of your own, and timely prevent it."

"The emperor," cried Flavia, "the emperor has destroyed his faithful friend: Paulinus saw it before he went. Every line of his last letter breathes the anticipation of his coming fate. He saw it in the gloomy brow of Theodosius; he saw it in the smile of Chrysapheus; he felt that he was going, never to return. Say, tribune, say! was it not the emperor's deed?"

"Even so!" replied Marcian. "By the order of him whom he had served with unequalled fidelity and truth--the friend of his schoolboy hours, the companion of his high and noble studies--by the hands of those he thought his friends--hands that had been plighted to him in affection, and raised with his in battle--at his own social board, and in the hour of confiding tranquillity--was slain Paulinus, leaving not a nobler or a better behind."

Theodore again shed tears, but Flavia asked eagerly, "The cause, tribune! What was the cause--or rather, what the pretext for cause--reasonable cause there could be none for dooming to death one of the purest, noblest, least ambitious men that the world has ever yet seen."

"The cause was jealousy, lady," replied Marcian; "a cause that leads men ever to wild and madlike actions. In the gardens of the C[ae]sars, near their eastern capital, is a solitary tree, which bears fruit rarely; but when it does, produces an apple like that which hung in the garden of the children of Hesperus--small in size, golden in colour, and ambrosial to the taste. Paulinus had bestowed on Eudoxia a book, containing poems of Sappho, which no other manuscript can produce; and the empress, in return, had sportively promised her husband's friend the rarest thing that she could find to bestow. The tree of which I spoke had in the past autumn produced but one apple, and that was sent, on the entrance of the new year, by Theodosius to Eudoxia. She, in thoughtless innocence, sent it as the rarest of all things to Paulinus, and Chrysapheus took good heed that the fact should reach the emperor's ears, distorted to his purpose. Fury seized upon the heart of Theodosius; but the base eunuch had sufficient skill and power to make him conceal his suspicions and his hatred, for Chrysapheus well knew that an open accusation might produce a bold and successful defence. Paulinus was sent to C[ae]sarea; and there, unheard, without trial, and without justice, was put to death!"

"Tyrant!" muttered Theodore. "Base, ungrateful tyrant!"

"Let your indignation swallow up your grief, my Theodore!" replied Marcian; "but let it not injure your country. Great as it is, great as it well may be, still greater will it become when you hear that Valens, your father's bosom friend, has been since sacrificed for no other crime than his love for Paulinus; that several of your household slaves have been slain by the emperor's orders; and that all the wealth of Paulinus has been bestowed upon Chrysapheus!"

Theodore again started up, exclaiming--"I swear by all my hopes, and by my father's spirit--"

But Marcian caught his arm. "Swear nothing against your country, my son," he cried: "Theodore, we have need of every Roman!"

"Hear me! hear me!" cried Theodore. "Naught against my country. No, never, let the temptation be what it may, will I draw the sword against Rome. So help me the God in whom I trust! But should ever the time come when this hand can reach a tyrant, or a tyrant's minister, it shall doom him to death as remorselessly as he has doomed my noble father;" and having spoken, he cast himself down, and again covered his face in his mantle.

Never, perhaps, through all the long tragic record of human woes and suffering which the past, the sad and solemn past, holds in its melancholy treasury--never was there yet a scene in which the dark feeling of desolation penetrated more deeply into every bosom, than in the one which surrounded the tribune Marcian. The horrors, the fatigues, the destruction of the preceding night, had laid every heart prostrate in the general calamity; and when the blow of individual grief fell heavy upon all alike, it seemed to crush and trample out in every breast the last warm kindly hopes--the last bright delusions of our phantasm-like existence.

Flavia gazed on her children and on the orphans in deep melancholy; while Theodore, with his face buried in his robe, sat apart, and Eudochia hid her streaming eyes upon her adoptive mother's lap. Ildica, with clasped hands, and cheeks down which the large bright tears rolled slow, now gazed upon her young and mourning lover; now turned an inquiring, anxious, longing glance towards Marcian; who, on his part, again, with knitted brow and downcast eyes, sat in the midst, stifling emotions which struggled hard against control. Even the slaves of Flavia and Paulinus, among whom the news had spread, gathered round the open tent, and, standing wrapped up in their dark penul[ae], gazed with mournful and sympathizing looks upon the sad group beneath its shade; while, mingled among them, here and there, were seen some of the stout soldiers who had accompanied the tribune, evidently sharing, notwithstanding all their own habits of danger and suffering, and their frequent familiarity with death itself, in the grief of the young and hapless beings before them.

One only of the party seemed occupied with other thoughts, and yet the seeming belied him. Ammian, reclining by the side of the little sandy path which crossed the meadow where they sat, seemed busy, in his usual abstracted manner, in tracing figures on the dust. One of the soldiers moved across to see what he was employed in, and by that action drew the attention of Marcian, whose eyes turned thither too; when, to his surprise, he beheld written in the Greek character upon the sand--

"Death to all tyrants! The blood of the guilty for the blood of the innocent! Vengeance for Paulinus!"

Rising at once, he set his foot upon the writing ere the slower soldier could decipher what it meant; and then, raising his finger to Ammian, he said, with emphasis, "Beware!"

The boy looked up in his face, and answered calmly, "I will beware, most noble Marcian!" But there was meaning in his eyes, and Marcian chose not to urge his wild and daring spirit further.

Seating himself again by Flavia's side, the tribune, with the calm gentleness of a compassionate heart, endeavoured to sooth the pain which it had been his bitter task to inflict; and when he had, in a degree, succeeded in gaining attention, he gave some orders to the soldiers, and spoke some words to the slaves, which caused them to retire from the vicinity of the tent.

"Listen to me, Theodore," he said; "listen to me, noble lady! Grief has had its part; other duties call for your consideration. I would fain ask you, sweet Flavia, whither you now propose to turn your steps; what plan you now propose to follow?"

"We proposed," replied Flavia, after a moment's hesitation, "to go forward to Salona; there to wait, if we could find a refuge, till the palace was again rendered habitable, or till we could send those things which may be necessary to our own villa upon the mountains. I have not dwelt in it since my husband's death, but if it be necessary I can conquer memory."

"To Salona!" replied Marcian, musing; "to Salona! It is true, you could easily fly thence in case of necessity to Ravenna; but Valentinian, if report has informed me rightly, loves you not, and might avenge himself by giving you up to Theodosius!"

Flavia gazed earnestly in the tribune's countenance, as the new and painful conviction of fresh dangers broke upon her. "More sorrows!" she said, "more, more, to be endured! Think you, then, noble Marcian, that we are in danger at Salona? Think you, then, that Theodosius will extend his persecution even to us, innocent as we are?"

"He has already slain one as innocent as any of us, lady," replied the tribune, "and he has given up to the sword one friend and many of the slaves of him who is gone. Do you believe, then, that he will spare the cousin of one whom he hated--a cousin who was loved as a sister? Can you trust to his stopping short with the father, and not carrying on his vengeance to the son?"

"Oh that I were in his palace!" cried Theodore: "oh that I were in his hall, and before his throne!"

But Flavia answered more calmly: "Tell us all our danger, tribune. Give your kind and generous advice. You are known as wise and good, as well as brave and skilful. We will give our actions into your hands for guidance. You shall shape our course as you think fit."

"Lady," replied Marcian in a tone which, notwithstanding all his command over himself, showed how much his heart was moved,--"lady, I loved Paulinus as a brother. He was wise and eloquent, learned and brave, and I am but the son of a common soldier, nurtured in camps, and educated in the rude field. Yet between my heart and his there were common feelings; and in the course of our various lives we chained our souls together by mutual benefits: may his shade find Elysium! When I heard of what had befallen, my first thought was of my friend's children. My cohort was in Dalmatia, my time of command approaching; and though I had been called to the capital by the imperial mandate, I prepared to come hither with all speed. While I so prepared, I heard of the death of Valens and his slaves, and doubted not that the cup might next pass to me. I presented myself before the emperor to know at once my doom; but he contented himself with commanding me to come hither, and lead the troops instantly into Thrace. Another cohort under the command of Strator, the bitter enemy of Paulinus, is ordered hither instantly to regulate--such is the pretext--the line of frontier with the messengers of Valentinian. Lady, I fear me there may be other purposes to execute; and I have hastened, without pause or rest, to bring you tidings which, sad as they are, might have been crowned with bitterer still if I had not been the messenger--to bring you such tidings, and to take counsel with you for your safety. My opinion, indeed, my advice, is little worthy of your having; but still, let us consult together, and--as far as my duty as a soldier and a Roman will permit--let me be a brother to the Lady Flavia, a father to my dead friend's orphans."

"Your advice will be as wise as your heart is kind," replied Flavia. "Oh give it us, my friend! give it to us fully and openly. We will be guided by it, unless there be reasons against it, which even you yourself shall approve. If safety be not to be found in Illyricum, whither would you have us go?

"To the extreme limits of the empire!" replied Marcian. "What matters it to you what the land be called which you inhabit for a few short years? what matters it if the north wind blow somewhat more coldly than in this golden land? if winter wear a ruder aspect, and the flowers and fruits linger for the summer sun ere they bloom and ripen?"

"What matters it, indeed!" said Flavia. "We love this scene, tribune--well and dearly do we love this glorious scene--but we love it more from the tender memories that have been attached to it, than even for its sunny splendour and its face of beauty. But now the thunder which has stricken us has turned the sweet and fruity wine which filled our cup to sour and hateful dregs. Another land will be brighter in our sight. Freedom from a tyrant's neighbourhood shall supply the place of beauties that we leave behind; the absence of objects that recall our griefs shall compensate for those that once awoke our joys; peace shall be our atmosphere of balm, security our sunshine. What say you, Theodore?

"Let us go, my mother," replied the youth: "where you and Ildica, Ammian and Eudochia, are with me, shall be my country. The tyrant has smitten down one object of my love, but he is powerless over my capability of loving: that which was parted is now all concentrated. You will go with me, my Ildica, is it not so? and my father's blessing--the blessing of the dead--shall follow, and comfort us in exile. But whither would you direct our course, noble Marcian?"

"Towards the banks of the Danube," he replied. "There, at the extreme verge of the imperial territory, the power of Theodosius waxes weak, and is exercised with difficulty. There, too, if mad and persevering jealousy drive him still to seek your hurt, ten steps place you beyond his reach, where the feeble and degenerate C[ae]sar dare not stretch a hand to grasp you: your father's brother dwells at Margus, bishop of the place."

Theodore's countenance fell. "He was indeed the brother of my father's blood," he answered, "but was never the brother of his love. Grasping, avaricious, crafty, I have heard my father say that Eugenius has the talents, but not the virtues, of a Roman."

"Yet with him," replied Marcian, "are you sure of a safer asylum than with any one else. Even at this moment he is at enmity with the court of Theodosius, and bears a mortal hatred to Chrysapheus, who had wronged him, abandoned him, and, notwithstanding the pleading of your father in his behalf, would have willingly given him up to the barbarians. With him you will find safety, I must not say you will find vengeance--but it may be so."

"Let us go!" cried Theodore; "let us go, my mother! The gold and jewels which, unwitting of all this, I made the Numidians carry forth last night, will render the journey lighter to you, dear mother; and if my uncle, careful of his wealth, refuse to give me support, I will find means to win it for myself."

"Fear not for that," replied Marcian; "your father's wealth, Theodore, is gone, but his estates are yours; and even Theodosius dares not openly take from you that which no law has sentenced you to lose. Strange that he who unquestioned takes a life unjustly should not have power to seize your land, and yet it is so. Now, lady, let me send once more to the palace, and bid them bring forth all that your treasury contains. Take with you all your moveable wealth; for if you do not so guard yourself, it will fall into hands which render no account. I will bid them, too, bring forth whatever litters and carriages they find, to bear you less weary on the way; and ere two days be over, I will follow, and rejoining you, protect you from harm, till, on the frontiers of M[oe]sia, I must leave you and march on. At all events, my presence and my troops will ensure your safety so far; and even after that, I shall be interposed between you and your enemies, so that no messenger of evil can pass without my learning his purpose, delaying his journey, and giving you timely tidings. Speed, however, matters much, and now I would have you set forth without a day's delay."

Flavia sought not to procrastinate; for though many a clinging memory attached her to those scenes by the fine filmy ties of associations, which even the sharp edge of grief could not cut, yet the safety of Theodore, the happiness of her own child, the enfranchisement from a state of society, where virtue was no safeguard and justice afforded no shield, were objects too dear and high to be risked by delay. Few and melancholy were the words that now passed, but the orders of Marcian were promptly obeyed; and though he would suffer neither Flavia nor Theodore to return, even for an hour, to the palace, knowing far more of the cruel orders which Theodosius had already given against them than he chose to communicate, yet a number of their domestics were sent thither with his soldiers to remove all that belonged to either family in the building.

Ere the sun had passed the meridian more than an hour, all who had been sent had returned, and many and curious were the objects which now surrounded that sad group by the side of the cemetery. A number of mules and horses were there; the black charger which had carried Paulinus in his last victory over the Alani, and which had never been ridden since by any one but himself; the white horses which drew the low carriage called _pilentum_, wherein Flavia was accustomed to drive along the margin of the sea; litters with their silver feet, and covered chairs of gold and ivory; rich caskets; leathern bags of gold and silver coin; and large quantities of silks and fine linens (then become general, but still considered costly,) made up into packages of convenient sizes for carrying on the shoulders of the slaves, or placing on the beasts of burden, together with cups and vases of gold, silver, and precious stones; and slaves of all complexions and of every different feature. Everything, in short, which was usually collected in a wealthy and powerful Roman house, at that luxurious and extravagant period, was there scattered round in glittering profusion, giving that group the appearance of some caravan from Ophir or from Tyre reposing on its journey. Some confusion and some delay took place, though everything was arranged as quickly as possible, while Flavia looked on in calm sadness, and Theodore gazed upon the scene with burning indignation unquenched by grief, making his lip still quiver and his bright eye flash.

At length all was prepared, and, with a few words of heartfelt thanks to Marcian, the lady placed herself with Ildica in one of the _lectul[ae]_ or litters, Eudochia and her chief attendant reclined in another. Ammian sprang upon a small Thracian horse, and Theodore mounted his father's charger. The noble beast, wild with unwearied strength, reared high and snorted fiercely, as he felt the light weight of the young Roman; but Theodore with skill and power soon curbed him to his will, and patted his proud neck, while a tear, given to the memory of him who was gone, wetted his eyelids. The whole party then moved on, winding back again along the path which they had trodden that very morning.

Their way lay over the hills, and for an hour they moved on, ascending gently, but without stopping, till at length, on the highest spot of the inferior acclivity, which lies at the foot of the higher mountains, Flavia bade the bearers stop, and gazed out of the litter upon the scene which she was quitting perhaps for ever. There it lay, robed in the same splendid sunshine which had adorned it on the preceding day. To the eyes which looked upon it not a change was to be seen. The palace, the village, the distant town of Salona, the beautiful bay, the golden islands which are scattered along the coast, the liquid sapphire in which they seemed to float, were all sleeping beneath the wanderers' glance in the drowsy heat of midday, looking calm and tranquil, as if nature herself imitated the hypocrisy of man, and covered with deceitful smiles the desolation which reigned within her bosom. The measured round of the sun had scarcely been accomplished, since those who now stood upon the hill-top, fugitives from their dear domestic hearths, had met together after separation, and had gazed over that same lovely prospect from the clump of cypresses which now lay beneath their eyes. Scarcely had one round of the sun been accomplished since, standing there, they had gazed upon that pageant-like scene of beauty, and had felt all its fair features reflected from the clear bright mirror of the happy heart. Scarcely had one round been accomplished since every splendid object that the eye could find, and every sweet sound that the ear could catch, in a spot, and a moment when all was music and brightness, had seemed but an image, a type, a prophecy of joys, and happiness, and successes yet to come; and yet in that brief space an earthquake had rent and torn that enchanted land, and had scattered ruin, desolation, and death over its fair calm face: in that brief space, from the bosoms of those who gazed upon it had been torn the bright joys of youth and inexperience; had been scattered the dear hopes and warm imaginings of innocent expectation; had been riven one of the dearest ties of human existence, the great band of the loving and the loved; for not one in that sad family but felt that the unjust fate of Paulinus had given a chilly coldness to their hearts--no, not one from the youngest to the oldest. The young felt that the fresh bloom was gone for ever from the Hesperian fruit; the elder that the cropped flower of hope, which had again been beginning to blossom, had been once more crushed down, and never could bloom again.

Between their fate and the scene they gazed upon there seemed some fanciful affinity; each felt it, each lingered with fond regret to gather into one glance all the thousand lovely and beloved sights; each sighed as they gazed and thought of the "_For ever!_" and at length, even from Flavia's eyes, broke forth the long-repressed tears.

The slaves stood round and sympathized with those who mourned. Many a dark eye and many a rough cheek was moistened with the drops of kindly feeling, till at length the lady wiped her tears away, and, waving her hand towards the valleys on the other side, said, "Let us go on!"

Again they began to move, when the voices of two slaves broke forth in a mournful song, which they had probably often sung in their own remote land.

SLAVE'S SONG.

I.

"We leave ye behind us, sweet things of the earth;
Our life's but a race to the death from the birth;
We pause not to gather the flowers as they grow,
The goal is before us, and on we must go!
We leave ye behind us, sweet things of the earth."

II.

"Fair scenes of our childhood, dear homes of our youth,
Memorials of innocence, virtue, and truth,
The land of our birth, the dear mother that bore--
We leave ye behind us, we see you no more!
We leave ye behind us, sweet things of the earth."

III.

"The joys that we tasted we taste not again;
Each hour has its burden, each day has its pain;
No moment in flying, but hurries us past
Some sight, sound, or feeling more dear than the last!
We leave ye behind us, sweet things of the earth."

IV.

"We leave ye behind us, and others shall come
To tread in our footsteps, from cradle to tomb;
Still gazing back fondly, with lingering eyes,
Where behind them the bright land of memory lies!
We leave ye behind us, sweet things of the earth."

V.

"The sound of Time's pinion, as fast he doth fly,
Is echoed from each mortal breast by a sigh;
What if there be fruits? they ungather'd must grow,
For fate is behind us, and on we must go!
We leave ye behind us, sweet things of the earth."

VI.

"We leave ye behind us, sweet things of the earth.
Hopes, joys, and endearments, sport, pleasure, and mirth,
Like a tempest-driven ship, sailing by some bright shore,
Time hurries us onward--we see you no more!
We leave ye behind us, sweet things of the earth."