Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Part 15

CHAPTER VI

A RATHER BAD DAY

Next morning, strangely enough, I wakened at my normal, habitual time for wakening when in town, and wakened feeling weak indeed and still sore in places, but entirely myself in general and filled with a sort of sham energy and spurious vigor.

By me, when I woke, was Occo, my soft-voiced, noiseless-footed, deft- handed personal attendant. At my bidding he summoned Agathemer. When I told him that I proposed to get up, dress and go out as I usually did when in Rome, in fact that I intended to follow the conventional and fas.h.i.+onable daily routine to which I had been habituated, he protested vigorously. He said that both Celsia.n.u.s and Galen, the two most acclaimed physicians in Rome, who had been called in in consultation by my own physician, but also he himself, had enjoined most emphatically that I must remain abed for some days yet, must keep indoors for many days more, if I was to continue on the road to recovery on which their ministrations had set me, and that all three had bidden him tell me that any transgression of their instructions would expose me to the probability of a relapse far more serious than my initial illness and to a far longer period of inactivity.

I was determined and obstinate. When he added that I must not only remain quiet, but must not talk for any length of time nor concern myself with any news or any matters likely to excite me, I revolted. I commanded him to obey me and to be silent as to the physicians' orders.

I began by asking him what day it was. I then learned that I had been ill fifteen days since reaching Rome, for I had left my villa on the eighth day before the Ides of June and it was now the ninth day before the Kalends of July.

Next I asked after my tenants. Agathemer said that they had most dutifully presented themselves each morning to salute me and attend my reception, if I should be well enough to hold one; to ask after my progress towards recovery if I was not; that Ligo Atrior, as recognized leader among them, had also come each evening between bath-time and dinner-time to ask personally after my condition; that, as all the physicians had, the day before, stated that I must by no means be allowed to see anyone save Tanno or to leave my bedroom, for some days, he had told Ligo the evening before not to diminish his and his fellows' time for sight-seeing by coming on this particular morning; that Ligo had expressed his unalterable intention of coming each evening in any case.

I commended Agathemer's discretion but told him to tell Ligo, when he came in the afternoon, that I intended to hold a reception next morning and wanted to see all nine of them at it.

I then asked about Murmex. Agathemer said that Tanno had offered to bring him to the Emperor's notice, but that Murmex had declined, thanking him, but remarking that, as I had offered to bring him to the Emperor's notice, it would be bad manners on his part to appear under the countenance of any other patron and would moreover be inviting bad luck instead of good luck on his presentation.

Agathemer said Murmex had called twice to ask after me and had told him where he lodged. I instructed him to apprise Murmex of my intention to hold a morning reception. I knew Agathemer would send out notifications to all my city clients of long standing without any admonition of mine.

He told me that no message of any kind had come from Vedia nor from Vedius Vedia.n.u.s, the head of her clan, nor from Satronius Satro. I could not conjecture just why Vedia had remained silent, and I was not only worried over the fact of her silence and aloofness, but felt myself wearied, even after a very short time, by the uncontrollable turmoil of my mind, puzzling as to why she had ignored me.

As to Vedius and Satronius, I was vividly aware of their state of mind and acutely wretched over it.

Only nineteen days before I had seen my _triclinium_ walled and floored with flowers presented by the local leader of one clan; had seen my dinner table groan under the fruit sent me by the local leader of the other clan, had known that both clans were competing for my favor and that I was high in the good graces of each.

Now I felt that all men of both clans must be bitterly incensed with me, for I knew their clan-pride. No man of either clan would weigh the facts: that neither fight had been of my seeking; that both fights had been forced on me; that I could not by any exercise of ingenuity have avoided either, once the onset began; that each had been the result of the headlong impetuosity and self-deception of my a.s.sailants, that both were the outcome of conditions which I could not be expected to recognize as dangerous beforehand, of a mistake not of my causing, for which I was in no way to blame. I knew that every man of both clans, and most of all the head of each clan, would consider nothing except that I had partic.i.p.ated in a roadside brawl in which men of their clan had been roughly handled, some of them by me personally, and from which their men had fled in confusion, routed partly by my partic.i.p.ation.

I saw myself embroiled with both clans, conjectured that the two fights were the staple of the clan gossip on both sides, and that animosity against me was increasing from day to day. I felt impelled to state my case to both Vedius and Satronius, but I knew that even if I had been in the best of health, even if I should be eloquent beyond my best previous effort, there was little or no chance that anything I might say would avail to placate either magnate or to abate either's hostility toward me.

And I knew that, in my dazed condition, the chances were that I would bungle the simplest mental task.

Yet I formed the purpose of attempting, that very morning, to see both Satronius and Vedius, and of attempting, if I was admitted to either, to convince him that he had no reason to be incensed with me, but that he should rather be incensed against my a.s.sailants: an aim impossible of attainment, as I knew, but would not admit to myself.

As I was to have no reception that morning I lay abed a while longer, at Agathemer's earnest solicitation.

Little good it did me. In my mind, behind my shut eyelids, I rehea.r.s.ed the unfortunate occurrences on the road, I groped back to their causes.

I could see that Tanno's jesting replies to the Satronians he had met on the road had given them the idea that Xantha was being conveyed, in a shut litter, to Villa Vedia: similarly his quizzical words to the Vedians he had met had given them a similar notion that Greia was being smuggled behind slid panels and drawn curtains, to Villa Satronia.

The men of each side had spread their conjecture among their clansmen.

Each side had made the forecast that the abductors would try to carry off their prize to Rome: each had calculated that the other side would try to fool them, that they would not travel the obvious road, but try to escape by boldly following the route least to be expected. So the Vedians inferred that the Satronians, instead of taking their direct road to the Salarian Highway, would expect an ambush along it and would try to sneak through Vediamnum. Therefore they were in ambush at Vediamnum. Similarly and for similar reasons the Satronians were in ambush below their road entrance, calculating that the Vedians would pa.s.s that way.

I had blundered on both ambushes in succession.

I lay, eyes closed, raging at my lack of foresight and at my hideous bad luck.

When Agathemer knew that I could not be kept longer abed he brought me a cup of delicious hot mulled wine and a roll almost as well-flavored as Ofatulena's, for my town cook was fit for a senator's kitchen. I lay still a while longer.

When I stood up I felt dizzy and faint, but I was resolved and stubborn.

Besides, I craved fresh air and thought that an airing would revive me. In fact, once out of doors and in my litter, with all Uncle's sliding panels open, I felt very much better. I told my bearers to take me to the Vedian mansion.

There the doorkeeper, indeed, stared, and the footmen nudged each other, but I was received civilly and was shown into the atrium, which I found crowded with the clan clients and with gentlemen like myself.

The atrium of the Vedian mansion had kept, by family tradition, a sort of affectation of old-fas.h.i.+oned plainness. It was indeed lined with expensive marbles, but it was far soberer in coloring, far simpler in every detail, than most atriums of similar houses. Instead of striving for an effect of opulent gorgeousness by every device of material, color and decoration, the heads of the Vedian family had expressed, in their atrium, their cult of primitive simplicity. Compared with others of the houses of senators their atrium appeared bare and bleak.

His guests gazed at me curiously as I advanced to greet our host.

Vedius, the smallest man in the throng, stood blinking at me with his red eyelids, his bald head s.h.i.+ning from its top to the thin fringe of reddish hair above his big flaring ears, his small wizened face all screwed up into a knot, his thin lips pursed, his little ferret eyes, close-set against his mean, miserly nose, peering at me under their blinking red lids.

His expression was malign and sneering, his tone sarcastic, but his mere words were not discourteous.

"I am delighted to see you, Andivius," he said, "and very much amazed to see you here.

"I have been told that on the eighth day before the Ides, you entered Vediamnum early of a rainy morning, with an escort so numerous that none could have conjectured that the cavalcade was yours; that, when three or four of the inhabitants of the village accosted you civilly and asked who you were and where you were going, your men, without any reply, fell on them and beat them unmercifully; that, when the population of Vediamnum rushed to the a.s.sistance of their fellows, your convoy set upon them and started a pitched battle, mishandling them so frightfully that the street was strewn with stunned and bleeding villagers; that you not only partic.i.p.ated in the affray, but fomented it and led it; that the two men who have since died, fell under blows from your own quarter-staff.

"Now, the fact that I see you here leads me to conjecture that, after the occurrences which I have rehea.r.s.ed, you would not have presented yourself before me and come to salute me, had you not had some version of these events other than that uniformly reported to me. If you have any version differing from those which I have heard, speak; we listen."

I had begun to feel dizzy and faint just as soon as I was indoors, I seemed dazed and as if my faculties were numb; at his ironical mock- courtesy I felt myself hot and cold all over. Yet I essayed to state my side of the case.

I explained all the circ.u.mstances, narrated Tanno's unexpected arrival, his quizzical bantering of the persons whom he encountered on the road, my tenants' pet.i.tion, my agreement with Marcus Martins, the accretion of Hirnio and Murmex to our party, Tanno's insistence on reaching the Salarian Highway through Vediamnum, and all the other trivial factors which had conspired to my undoing; I described the affray in Vediamnum, both as I had seen it and as Tanno and Agathemer had told me of it; similarly the fight below Villa Satronia. I thought I was lucid and convincing.

When I paused Vedius leered at me.

"Andivius," he said, "I am not such a fool as you take me for. I am not in any way deceived by all that rigmarole. I see through you and your words as I saw through your actions. I comprehend perfectly that you connived with the Satronians to entice my people into a roadside brawl to discredit our clan. I understand how ingeniously you made all your arrangements, even to concocting a sham fight with the Satronians to enable you to put forward the excuses you have offered.

"Your plans miscarried at only two points: you did not mean to leave any corpses, yet you caused the deaths of two of my retainers; you did not mean to suffer anything yourself, yet in your sham fight you were accidentally hit on the head.

"Blows on the head often unsettle the intellect. I take that into consideration in dealing with you. If you go home now and recover from your injury your mind will clear. Then you will have wit enough to decide how soon and how often it will be advisable for you to return here!"

His labored sarcasm was entirely intelligible. I bade him farewell as ceremoniously as I could manage.

He silkily said:

"I have a bit of parting advice for you, Andivius. The climate of Bruttium is far better than that of Rome or Sabinum in promoting a recovery from any sort of illness; it is also far more conducive to long life. If you are wise Rome will not see you linger here, nor will either Sabinum or Rome see you return; a word to the wise is enough."

Somehow I reached my litter. I understood his implied threat and saw endless difficulties and perils confronting me.

At the Satronian mansion the lackeys were insolent and it needed all Agathemer's tact and self-control, and all mine to browbeat them into admitting me.

As much as possible in contrast with the Vedian atrium was the Satronian atrium, a hall decorated as gorgeously, floridly and opulently as any in Rome; fairly walled with statues almost jostling in their niches, so closely were the niches set; and all behind, between and above them ablaze with crimson and glittering with gilding; every inch of walls and ceiling carved, colored, gilded and glowing.

Satronius was similarly in contrast with Vedius, a man tall, bulky, swarthy, rubicund and overbearing.

No finesse about Satronius, not a trace.

From amid his bevy of sycophants and toadies, over the heads of his fas.h.i.+onably garbed guests, he towered, his face red as a beacon, his big bullet head wagging, his great mouth open.

He roared at me: