Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Part 34

Hylactor had proved himself a perfect watchdog that winter. We had never allowed him to sleep in the hut, as he would have done if permitted, and as he tried to do at first. Agathemer had fas.h.i.+oned him a tiny shelter and into it he crawled nightly. Out of it, also, he dashed, if any sound or scent roused him. Tracks of wolves were frequent in the snow out in the forest, and not a few approached our clearing. But we lost not one sheep or goat to any wolf. Hylactor frightened off most and killed three, a medium-sized female and two full-grown young males, at the acme of their fighting powers. We rated Hylactor a paragon among dogs.

The warm weather held on, though unseasonable so early in the year. Nona recovered so rapidly that she was able to visit each of the outbuildings.

Just when she was well enough to walk alone and firmly came a sharp spell of cold, as unseasonable as had been the heat. It began about noon, one clear day, with a high wind. By sunset everything was frozen.

Nona said:

"You two have had more than your share of sleeping on the earth floor by the fire. My bed will hold me and my girls, for a few nights. You two take their bed. It will be cold on the floor tonight."

That night, therefore, Agathemer and I enjoyed a sound night's sleep in a deep, soft bed. It was our first night in a Gallic bed, and we liked it.

Since our crawl through the drain we had slept abed but four times, at farms in the Umbrian mountains. This was best of all. And we had a succession of nights of it, for the cold held on and, even when it abated, Nona insisted on our continuing to sleep so.

During the cold she mixed a batch of bread, and Agathemer baked it. She had praised his cookery, especially his savory messes of steamed barley, flavored with cheese, raisins and what not. But when the cold snap came after the thaws she suggested that we grind some wheat and she make bread.

We acceded with alacrity. The bread tasted unbelievably good.

As soon as the weather was again warm it was plain that spring was coming in earnest. Nona stood out of doors after sunset, went out again after dark, staring up at the sky.

Next morning, while the children were at play, she said to me:

"Felix, you and Asper must leave this place at once and be on your way. My husband will return soon. He may return any day now. He is a terrible man.

He will come with too many men for you to resist and he will not ask any questions until after he has killed you both. I know him. If I could be sure of telling him before he saw you what manner of men you are and how deeply I am in your debt he would repay you lavishly, for he is liberal and generous. But, being what he is, if he finds you here, you will be dead before I can explain. You must go. Prepare to set off at dawn tomorrow."

I told Agathemer and he agreed with me that we had best do as Nona said.

She was, as she averred, well enough to care for herself and the children.

But we lingered next day. By dusk she was frantic, begging, imploring us to depart at dawn. I feared a recurrence of her illness and gave her my promise.

We set off, actually, not at dawn, but about an hour after sunrise, the broad brims of our travelling hats flapping in the wind, our cloaks close about us, our wallets slung over our shoulders, our staffs in our hands.

At the hut door Nona, Prima and Secunda bade us farewell, Nona thanking and blessing us. Hylactor was for following us: we had to order him back, for he paid more attention to us than to Nona.

With a last backward glance at the edge of the clearing we plunged into the forest by the track leading northward.

We had not gone a hundred paces when I thought I heard a scream and stopped. Agathemer declared he had heard nothing. But, listening, we did hear twigs snapping and Hylactor bounded into sight. He did not fawn on us, but seized my cloak in his teeth and tugged, growling and snarling.

"That dog," said Agathemer, "is asking for help. He knows what is too much for him to fight."

We threw off our shoes, wallets and cloaks, tucked up our tunics and, staffs in one hand and sheathless knives in the other, barefoot, raced back along the track after the guiding dog.

From that entrance of the clearing the outbuildings hid the hut from us.

When our rush brought us in sight of the hut door we were not six paces from it and just in time to see Hylactor spring on and bear to the earth a man who stood before it. Leaving him to Hylactor we dashed inside, urged by indubitable shrieks.

In the dim interior we made out each child struggling with a man and Nona with two. Before they could turn our knives had slaughtered the children's a.s.sailants. One of the survivors Agathemer cracked over the head with his staff. I stabbed the other. Whereupon Agathemer cut the throat of the man he had downed, and das.h.i.+ng outside, finished the man Hylactor was worrying. Quicker than it takes to tell it the five were dead.

Nona had fainted, as we rescued her. But Agathemer revived her with a dash of cold water in her face and some strong wine poured between her lips. We laid her on her bed and told the children to watch her. Then we dragged out the corpses, laid them in a row and considered them. All five were pattern ruffians; black-haired, burly, brutal and fierce. We had had amazing luck to dispose of them so easily. Five lucky flukes, Agathemer called it, and we without a scratch.

One by one we picked them up and carried them off, down the slope, to a soft bit of soil among some beeches. There we laid them in a row. On them we found a few silver coins, five daggers, five knives, five amulet-bags, nothing else. Their tunics and cloaks were old and of poor material.

Back to the hut we went and found Nona revived and at the door.

"Begone!" she said. "Flee! Hasten! That man was my husband's bitterest enemy. He was intent on revenge. But he could never have found this place save by tracking my husband and conjecturing his destination. My husband must have camped last night less than a day's journey from here. He will be here today, he may be here any moment. Save yourselves. Begone!"

Agathemer and I looked at each other.

"We shall not set off," I said, "until we have buried the five corpses.

I'm not going to be haunted on my way and perhaps for life by any such spooks as the ghosts of those five ruffians. We shall make sure that they are safely buried."

Agathemer agreed with me and we set about the task. During the winter we had found mattocks, pickaxes, hoes, spades and shovels hid in the most unlikely places, each by itself, and had hafted them; with these we dug a big pit and in it laid the five corpses, and buried them too deep for any wolf, badger or other creature to be at all likely to smell them and dig them out or dig down to them.

When the men were buried it was past noon. We went back to the hut, drank a second draught of the strongest and sweetest wine and drank it unmixed, as we had drunk our first before we set about carrying the corpses into the forest. Nona renewed her adjurations to begone.

But neither I nor Agathemer would listen to her. I said I was far too tired to travel until after a night's sleep and that after having saved her and her daughters, it was no more than fair that she should stand watch over us while we slept all the afternoon: she could easily watch at the hut door and explain matters to her terrible husband if he came and were as terrible as she averred.

We retrieved our wallets, cloaks and shoes, threw them down in a corner of the hut, ate some bread with plenty of milk to wash it down, and went to sleep in the children's bed, as we had slept the night before. We woke before sunset, did what was needful about the place, ate a hearty dinner of bread, bacon, olives, raisins and wine and at once went to bed for the night. After dark Nona ceased adjuring us to begone; she said that, if her husband came, she would hear him at the hut door and make him aware of the facts in time to prevent any trouble. We slept till sunrise. Then Nona declared that she and the children could milk the animals. We agreed with her, for they had little milk by then. We ate a hearty breakfast and set off.

CHAPTER XV

THE HUNT

That day we met no one and made a long march north-westwards along the flank of the mountain, camping at dusk by a spring. There we rehea.r.s.ed our rescue of Nona and marvelled at the ease with which we had disposed of five burly ruffians. Agathemer agreed with me that it had been mostly the effect of complete surprise. But he took a good deal of the credit to himself. He reminded me how he had practiced me, ever since we began our flight, at the art of fighting with knives, at knife attack in general. In particular he had drilled me, as well as he could without a corpse or dummy to practice on, at the favorite stroke of professional murderers, the stab under the left shoulder-blade, the point of the knife or dagger directed a little upward so as to reach the heart. By this stroke I had killed both my victims, and he one of his. I acknowledged his claims, but was inclined to thank the G.o.ds for special aid and favor. We discussed that amazingly lucky fight until too sleepy to talk any more.

Next day we met some charcoal burners, who were both friendly and unsuspicious and who gave us intelligible directions for making our way towards Sarsina. The second night we again camped in the woods; the third we spent at a farmhouse, thanks to Agathemer's flageolet.

The farmer, whose name was Caesus, told a grewsome tale of the horrors of the plague and of the death of almost all his slaves. He was gloomy about his future, as he, his two sons, and their surviving slave were too few to work his farm. He seemed to regard us as fugitives from justice and as men whom it was his duty to help and protect. As the season was too early for comfortable travelling along byways or for safety from suspicion along highways, and as he welcomed us, we spent a month with him, well fed, well lodged and rather enjoying the hard farm work and the outdoor life, though we spent also much time under-cover, working at what could be done under shelter during heavy rains.

After he had come to feel at ease with us, our host, one day when we three were alone, asked:

"Are you some of the King of the Highwaymen's men?"

On our disclaiming any connection with the King of the Highwaymen, or any knowledge of such a character, he sighed and said:

"Oh, well! Of course, if you were, you would deny it, anyhow. You may be or you may not be. Anyhow, if you are, tell him I treated you well and shall always do my best for any man I take for one of his men.

"You don't look like his kind nor act like any I ever was sure of, but he has all sorts. I thought it best to make sure. It is best to stand well with him. He pa.s.ses somewhere near here every spring or early summer on his way north and again in the autumn on his way south."

We left this bourne only on the solstice, the tenth day before the Kalends of July, and trudged comfortably to Sarsina, where we put up at the inn, frequented by foot-farers like us. So also at Caesena and Faventia. There we agreed that we had had enough of the highway, as we might encounter some Imperial spies of the regular secret service department, and not a few of these spies might know me by sight in any disguise. So we struck off due north through the almost level open country, intending to keep on northward until we came to the Spina and to follow that to the Po. As Agathemer said, if we could not find ferrymen by day we could steal a skiff by night.

Not far north of Faventia, after an easy-going day's march under a mild spring sky, we came, just before sunset, to a forest of considerable extent. As we could not conjecture whether to turn east or west, we camped at its edge and slept soundly, comfortable in our cloaks, for the night was warm and still.

Next morning the weather was so charming that we were tempted to plunge into the forest and cross it as nearly due north as we could guide ourselves by the sun. Since we reached the edge of the forest we had seen no human-being near enough for us to ask in which direction we had best try to go round it. We plunged into it and in it we wasted the entire day.

The country is very flat between Faventia and the Spina. I do not believe that in any part of that forest the surface of the soil was four yards higher than in any other part. And it was marshy, all quagmires and sloughs, with narrow, sinuous ribbons, as it were, of fairly dry land between them. We were hopelessly involved among its mora.s.ses before we realized our plight and, after we did realize it, we seemed to make little progress. We agreed that it would be folly to try to regain our camp: we held to our purpose and tried to advance northwards. But we doubled right and left, had to retrace our steps often and could form no idea how far we had penetrated.

There was an astonis.h.i.+ng abundance of game in that forest: hares everywhere; does with fawns, young does, and not a few stags; wild boars, which fled, grunting, out of their wallows as we approached; foxes of which we three times glimpsed one at a distance; and we came on indubitable wolf tracks. We had plenty of food and ate some at noon, for we were tired. Then we spent the day threading the mazes of that swampy forest. We were careful not to get bogged and we kept our tunics and cloaks dry, though we were mired to the knees. But our very care delayed us. The day was breezy and mild but not really warm, so that we did not suffer from the heat. But by nightfall we were exhausted and had no idea how far we had advanced northward. Just at dusk we came to reasonably firm going and walked due north about a furlong. There, as the twilight deepened, we encountered another stretch of ooze. We retreated from it a dozen paces and camped under some swamp-maples on comfortably dry ground.

We ate about half of our food, bread, olives, and dried figs; and while eating dried and warmed our feet and shanks at a generous fire of fallen boughs, which Agathemer, who was clever with flint and steel, had made quickly. When our feet felt as if they really belonged to us, we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and slept soundly.

We slept, indeed, so soundly, that it was broad day when, we waked. And we waked to hear the wood ringing with the barking and baying of dogs and with the cries of hunters and beaters. Instantly we realized that we were in danger. For a hunt of such size as was approaching us must have been gotten up by a coterie of wealthy land-owners; and such magnates, if they caught sight of us, would at once suspect us of being runaway slaves. It had been easy enough to pa.s.s ourselves off for farmerly cattle-buyers in the Umbrian Mountains. But, habited as we were, camped in the depths of a thick, swampy forest, we were sure to be suspected of being runaway slaves by anyone who encountered us; and such gentry as organize big hunts with swarms of beaters are always p.r.o.ne to suspect any footfarers of being runaway slaves.