Pertinax and Marcia have used you. They
will try to use me. They will blame me. They will certainly blame you.
I advise you to run to your friends in the Aventine Hills. Thence
hasten out of Italy. If Pertinax should fail and Commodus survives this
night--"

"No, Galen. He must not fail! Rome needs Pertinax. That poison--
phaugh! Is no sword left in Rome? Has Pertinax no iron in him? Better
one of Marcia's long pins than that unmanly stuff. Where is Narcissus?"

"I don't know," said Galen. "Narcissus is another who will do well to
protect himself. Commodus is well disposed toward him. Commodus might
send for him--as he will surely send for me if belly-burning sets in.
He and I would make a good pair to be blamed for murdering an emperor."

"You run!" urged Sextus. "Go now! Go to my camp in the Aventines. You
will find Norbanus and two freedmen waiting near the Porta Capena; they
are wearing farmers' clothes and look as if they came from Sicily. They
know you. Say I bade them take you into hiding."

Galen smiled at him. "And you?" he asked.

"Narcissus shall smuggle me into the palace. It is I who will slay
Commodus, lest Pertinax should stain his hands. If they prefer to turn
on me, what matter? Pertinax, if he is to be Caesar, will do better not
to mount the throne all bloody. Let him blame me and then execute me.
Rome will reap the benefit. Marcia has the praetorian guard well under
control, what with her bribes and all the license she has begged for
them. Let Marcia proclaim that Pertinax is Caesar, the praetorian guard
will follow suit, and the senate will confirm it so soon after daybreak
that the citizens will find themselves obeying a new Caesar before they
know the old one is dead! Then let Pertinax make new laws and restore
the ancient liberties. I will die happy."

"O youth--insolence of youth!" said Galen, smiling. He resumed his
mixing of the powders, adding new ingredients. "I was young once--young
and insolent. I dared to try to tutor Commodus! But never in my long
life was I insolent enough to claim all virtue for myself and bid my
elders go and hide! You think you will slay Commodus? I doubt it."

"How so?"

Sextus was annoyed. The youth in him resented that his altruism should
be mocked.

"Pertinax should do it," Galen answered. "If Rome needed no more than
philosophy and grammar, better make me Caesar! I was mixing my
philosophy with surgery and medicine