Age of Heroes (Age of Heroes Chronicles)

Chapter 84: The oration of silas (4)

'The safety of this institution must not be too often allowed to be risked on one person. As long as you, O Caitlin, plotted against me while I was the consul-elect, I defended myself, not with a public guard, but by my own private diligence. When, in the next consular comitia, you wished to slay me when I was actually consul, and your competitors also, in the Campus grounds, I checked your nefarious attempt by the assistance and resources of my own friends, without exciting any disturbance publicly. In short, as often as you attacked me, I by myself opposed you, and that, too, tho I saw that my ruin was connected with great disaster to the institution. But now you are openly attacking the entire institution. For if I order you to be put to death, the rest of the conspirators will still remain in this institution; if, as I have long been exhorting you, you depart, your companions, those worthless dregs of this sacred place, will be drawn off from this place, too.'

Caitlin opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

Silas fired accusations after accusations at her, but she had nothing to defend herself with.

Her reputation at the university had never been positive, and nobody would believe her word over Silas's.

"What's the matter Caitlin?" said Silas, watching her closely. "Why are you hesitating? The consul orders an enemy to depart!"

"Am I to be expelled from this place?" Caitlin asked finally, and then she sneered. "Am I to go into banishment at your words? How mighty you are Silas!"

"I do not order it," Silas smirked. "But, if you consult me, I advise it'

And the Consul laughed.

Even the duchess, high on her seat, chuckles. Silas is also chuckling. Then his face turns hard once more.

'For what is there, O Caitlin, that can now afford you any pleasure in this place? For there is no one in it, except that band of profligate conspirators of yours, who does not fear you, no one who does not hate you. What brand of domestic baseness is not stamped upon your life? What disgraceful circumstance is wanting to your infamy in your private affairs? From what licentiousness has your eyes, from what atrocity has your hands, from what iniquity has your whole body ever abstained? Is there one youth, when you have once entangled him in the temptations of your corruption, to whom you have not held out a sword for audacious crime, or a torch for licentious wickedness?'

"You slander me," Caitlin spat. Her eyes were fiery with anger.

Silas only smirks and then he said

"How often," Silas raised his eyebrows, "have you endeavored to slay me, both as consul-elect and as actual consul? How many shots of yours, so aimed that they seemed impossible to be escaped, have I avoided by some slight stooping aside, and some dodging, as it were, of my body? You attempt nothing, you execute nothing, you devise nothing that can be kept hid from me at the proper time; and yet you do not cease to attempt and to contrive. How often already has that dagger of yours been wrested from your hands? How often has it slipped through them by some chance, and dropped down? And yet you cannot any longer do without it; and to what sacred mysteries it is consecrated and devoted by you I know not, that you think it necessary to plunge it in the body of the consul. But now, what is that life of yours that you are leading? For I will speak to you not so as to seem influenced by the hatred I ought to feel, but by pity, nothing of which is due to you. You came a little while ago into the senate; in so numerous an assembly, who of so many friends and connections of yours saluted you? If this in the memory of man never happened to anyone else, are you waiting for insults by word of mouth, when you are overwhelmed by the most irresistible condemnation of silence? Is it nothing that at your arrival all those seats were vacated?'

The consuls nodded at Silas's words.

It had gone unnoticed by the Duchess, but when Caitlin had entered the consuls had not shown the proper respect, and Julia began to understand the feelings that permeated the senate.

But Silas's attack was relentless.

'Did you not notice that all the men of consular rank, who had often been marked out by you for slaughter, the very moment you sat down, left that part of the benches bare and vacant? With what feelings do you think you ought to bear this?'

Silas smiles in a mocking manner, his words dripping with sarcasm.

'On my honor, if my servants feared me as all your fellow consul fear you, I should think I must leave my house. Do not you think you should leave the city? If I say that I was even undeservedly so suspected and hated by my fellow citizens, I would rather flee from their sight than be gazed at by the hostile eyes of every one. And do you, who, from the consciousness of your wickedness, know that the hatred of all men is just and has been long due to you, hesitate to avoid the sight and presence of those men whose minds and senses you offend? If your parents feared and hated you, and if you could by no means pacify them, you would, I think, depart somewhere out of their sight. Now, this place, hates and fears you, and has no other opinion of you, than that you are meditating parricide in her case; and will you neither feel awe of her authority, nor deference for her judgment, nor fear of her power? And she, O Caitlin, thus pleads with you, and after a manner silently speaks to you: There has now for many years been no crime committed but by you; no atrocity has taken place without you; you alone unpunished and unquestioned have murdered the consuls. Repeatedly, secretly and openly, against the institutions, have harassed and plundered the Senate; you alone have had power not only to neglect all laws and investigations, but to overthrow and break through them. Your former actions, tho they ought not to have been borne, yet I did bear as well as I could; but now that I should be wholly occupied with fear of you alone, that at every sound I should dread Caitlin, that no design should seem possible to be entertained against me which does not proceed from your wickedness, this is no longer endurable. Depart, then, and deliver me from this fearthat, if it be a just one, I may not be destroyed; if an imaginary one, that at least I may at last cease to fear. Since, then, this is the case, do you hesitate, O Caitlin, if you cannot remain here with tranquility, to depart to some distant land, and to trust your life, saved from just and deserved punishment, to flight and solitude? Make a motion, say you, to the senate, for that is what you demand, and if this body votes that you ought to go into banishment, you say that you will obey. I will not make such a motionit is contrary to my principles, and yet I will let you see what these men think of you. Be gone from

this place, O Caitlin; deliver this state from fear; depart into banishment, if that is the word you are waiting for.'

Staring at Silas, Caitlin did not know what to do. She could not attack him, nor threaten him. She could only continue to stare.

Her eyes took in the senate, the faces of her former allies, and each one averted their gaze. She had never felt so defeated.

With words. Silas has brought down the rampaging menace of the Institute.

Silas looking triumphantly at Caitlin. The Senate was in full silence. No one spoke of any defense for Caitlin.

"What now, O Caitlin?" Silas asked, breaking the hall's dreadful silence.

"Do you not perceive, do you not see the silence of these men; they permit it, they say nothing; why wait you for the authority of their words when you see their wishes in their silence? And yet, why am I speaking? That anything may change your purpose? That you may ever amend your life? That you may meditate flight or think of voluntary banishment? I wish God may give you such a mind; tho I see, if alarmed at my words you bring your mind to go into banishment, what a storm of unpopularity hangs over me, if not at present, while the memory of your wickedness is fresh, at all events hereafter. But it is worthwhile to incur that, as long as that is but a private misfortune of my own, and is unconnected with the dangers of the institution. But we cannot expect that you should be concerned at your own vices, that you should fear the penalties of the laws, or that you should yield to the necessities of this body, for you are not, O Caitlin, one whom either shame can recall from infamy, or fear from danger, or reason from madness. Wherefore, as I have said before, go forth, and if you wish to make me, your enemy as you call me, unpopular, go straight into banishment. I shall scarcely be able to endure all that will be said if you do so; I shall scarcely be able to support my load of unpopularity if you do go into banishment at the command of the consul. O Caitlin, be gone to your own misfortune and injury, and to the destruction of those who have joined themselves to you in every wickedness and atrocity. My fellow Consul, Imperator of the Senate, repel this woman and her companions from your walls of this place,from the lives and fortunes of all the scholars here.'

Silas finished his speech, his eyes looking fiercely at his defeated nemesis and he was met with thunderous applause from the senate.

He smiled as he walked back to his seat, still unaware of Duchess Julia's intense interest in him.

*********************************************************************************

"Lord Silas."

"Ser Massey," Silas replied, startled by the voice.

"You look distracted."

"I was remembering something," he smiled. "It's nothing important."

Together the two men walked to the throne room of Rockstill, Silas the King's courtier and his attendants.

Stopping in front of the exquisite wooden door, Silas dusted himself down and entered.

******************************************************************************

See you all tomorrow and hope you enjoy the introduction of one of the smartest character in Age of Heroes