'You seem by your speech to be a Thracian from the district of Adrianople. Do I recognize you after the lapse of so many years? Were we not schoolmates together under the learned Malthus?'
Apion's face grew red, for he could not forget what a mean figure he had cut in the eyes of his schoolfellows. He answered: 'That is neither here nor there.'
We domestics were led away to the prison and put to the torture, one by one — both slaves and freedmen, from the youngest foot-page to Andreas and myself, who were both close upon seventy years of age. We were racked and scourged; and twisted cords were bound tightly around our foreheads, and our feet were burned in a charcoal brazier. For some the torture was made more severe than for others. I was chained in a cell with Andreas before we were taken out to the torture. He had witnessed the arrest of Belisarius, and was hot with fury against Apion. 'The Public Prosecutor has followed a most glorious career while his schoolfellow was commanding the armies of the Emperor — quills, ink, parchment, humility, bribery! After twenty years as spare clerk, he attains the dignity of shorthand writer to the Crown; twenty years more and he is Assistant Registrar-General. Five more and he is Public Prosecutor, waited upon subserviently by the whole tribe — copy-clerks, messengers, process-servers, gaolers, policemen. A little copy-clerk boasts to his comrades: 'The Distinguished Apion honoured me with a smile today, and remembered my name.' Now bribes are taken, not offered; humility is laid aside. He is the fearful Torture-Master — lord of chains, scourges, racks, branding-irons, the taste of which now awaits us.' Andreas also said: 'That snivelling little Apion! I can still sec him crouched in a comer of the schoolroom, glowering at us because he was given no spiced bun — having shirked the snow-battle with the oblates. O bun of discord! I think we must persuade the President of the Streets to remove the Elephant from his pedestal and set up a statue of the distinguished Apion in his place.'
Andreas died under the torture, but in order to vex Apion he did not utter a single cry. I yelled and screamed without ceasing. I knew that to do so would cither satisfy the officer of the torture chamber or else disconcert him, so that he would say to the slave:' Enough for the moment, fellow: relax the cords, unscrew!' All my cries were: 'Long life to his Gracious Majesty!' and 'I know nothing, nothing.' So I escaped. Of the bodily injuries that I received that day I shall not trouble you. I am a person of no importance.
The inquisitors asked me again and again: 'Did you not hear the traitor Belisarius in conversation with Marcellus the Patrician — did he not utter treasonable phrases? Sec, here are written the words which your fellow- domestics heard him speak one evening at dinner with your mistress. Are you sure that you did not hear the same words yourself? They all swear that you were present.'
I denied everything and maintained that Belisarius was the best and kindest and most loyal of men. However, others confessed to all that was necessary, because of the torture.
I was not present at the trial, which took place in the month of January behind closed doors. They say that Belisarius made no reply to any of the charges except to deny them. There were wilder ones than those of treason. For he was accused of committing sodomy upon his adopted son Theodosius and filthiness upon his stepdaughter Mattha. He asked leave to cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution — Herodian, John the Epicure, and Procopius; but this was refused by Justinian, who judged the case in person. They say also that when Justinian taunted him with the mockery of a fair trial, by asking: 'Are there any reputable witnesses whom you would wish to call, my lord, to testify that you are no traitor?' he replied: 'There are four.'
'And who are they? Arc they present in the city?'
'No, Clemency.'
'Name them, nevertheless.'
'Geilimer, formerly King of the Vandals; Wittich, formerly King of the Goths; Khosrou, the Great King of Persia; Zabergan, Grand Cham of the Bulgarian Huns. These know to their cost that I am no traitor.'
My mistress Antonina was charged as an accomplice. They say that when she was brought into Court she spoke in a rambling way, as if already in her dotage, bringing up foul memories of Justinian's life before he became Emperor. Her talk, they say, was very fanciful and sarcastic. She said: 'My friend Theodora of the Blue club-house had a little lap-dog, most gluttonous and lecherous. She used to talk theological nonsense to him all night and feed him with lumps of raw meat; and he was a fawning, inquisitive little dog and would lick every foot in the city and sniff at every street comer. We called him Caesar, but he had a barbarous Gothic name before that.'
She also said: 'Your worship, I knew a little, smiling, rosy-checked man once who committed fornication with three generations of women.' (She meant the Lady Chrysomallo, her daughter, and granddaughter.) 'He offered prayers to Beelzebub and never learned to speak good Greek. But in pity I was courteous to such a little, smiling, rosy-checked man.'
Justinian was agitated. He closed her case in haste: 'This noble lady has lost her wits. She must be put in charge of doctors. She is not fit to plead.'
Yet my mistress continued: 'The pretty girls of the Blue clubhouse all made the same complaints about Phagon the Glutton. They said that his demands on them were unnatural; that he was stingy with love-gifts; that he confused spiritual ecstasy with that of flesh — worshipping the corruptible; and that he smelt of goat.'
'Remove her, remove her!' Justinian cried in a shrill voice.
'Of goat and incense mixed. He was a bed-wetter, also, and had warts upon his thighs.'
The sentences were promulgated. The penalties were various. To some death by the axe, to some death by the rope, to others lifelong imprisonment. To Herodian and John the Epicure, pardon.
My mistress was confined in the Castle of Repentance which Theodora had built at Hieron, and her property given into the keeping of the Church. Belisarius's life was spared. But he was deprived of all his honours and all his possessions in land and treasure, and disqualified even from drawing the common dole. But still another fearful vengeance was taken upon him. Alas, now! Let me write it quickly: the light of both his eyes was quenched in the Brazen House that same evening with red-hot needles.
My mistress, prostrate on her pallet in the sick ward of the Castle, called for me at midnight and said: 'Eugcnius, do you fear the Emperor more than you love me and my dear husband?'
'What do you ask of me, mistress? I am yours to command.'
'Eugenius, take a boat across the Bosphorus and stand near the Brazen House, but out of sight; and be ready to act as a guide to my Belisarius when he is set free tomorrow. They will release him very early before the streets are full of people.'
I waited in the Square of Augustus, near the Brazen House, for many hours. At dawn I saw him rudely thrust out of the gate by two drunken soldiers. One cried: 'Go and seek your fortune now, old man. You are free as air.'
'Ay,' cried the other.' No money, no home, no eyes, no fame!'
But a young corporal came out and reproved them: 'You are two ill-conditioned beasts, who have never raised your heads above your trough of swill. Go now at once, I order you, and lie upon your backs on the pavement of the Brazen House. Gaze up at the mosaics on the ceiling and observe the pictured battles there. You will sec the great victories of the Tenth Milestone and Tricameron, and the capture of Naples, and the defence of Rome, and the victory at the Mulvian Bridge. From whom does the Emperor in those pictures receive the spoils of victory — kings and kingdoms and all that is most valued by monarchs? Why, from this Belisarius, whom you now insult in his blindness, denying that any fame remains to him!'
Belisarius, turning his sightless face towards the Corporal, said: ' Softly, best of men! Whom the Emperor hates, shall his soldiers praise?'
The Corporal replied: 'My father fought in Persia and in Africa with your Household Squadron, and fell at Rome defending Hadrian's mausoleum. If these ruffians take fame from you, they dishonour my father's memory. Accept this broken spear-staff, brave one, to steady your faltering steps. I do not care who hears me say: 'Fame cannot be quenched with a needle.' '
The streets were empty of all but scavengers and homeless beggars. Belisarius, staff in hand, walked with many pauses down the High Street, across the coloured marble flags of the pavement; I followed him at a little distance. When he reached the statue of the Elephant he stopped to finger the rugged legs of the beast. I heard him mutter idly to himself: 'Behold now Behemoth whom I made with thee; he eateth grass like an ox. His bones are as strong pieces of brass, his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God.'
Presently he spoke again more to the purpose, quoting from the same book:' Behold I cry out of wrong but I am not heard, I cry aloud but there is not judgement He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths. He hath stripped me of my glory.'
Then I spoke sofdy from behind him and said: 'My lord, this is I, Eugenius the eunuch. My dear mistress
