The Unwilling Vestal Part 20

"Manifestly it did not agree with Almo. It got on his nerves somehow.

That is the most probable explanation of his eccentric vagary. Don't be discouraged. He'll turn up somewhere, after a while, safe and sound and none the worse for his experiences."

Brinnaria, in fact, was not discouraged. She resolutely and unweariedly prosecuted her efforts to find Almo. Nor was she despondent. She scouted the suggestion that he might be dead. She kept up her spirits, did not mope or brood and never lost her hearty appet.i.te. She was the life of the dinners she attended and as talkative and witty as ever.

But the strain affected her greatly. She was outwardly controlled, statuesque and dignified, but the inward turmoil of emotion that surged through her manifested itself in an unremitting activity. She slept well and soundly, but rose early and kept on the go. Besides her duties, her music and her partic.i.p.ation in social gatherings, she must needs find other outlets for her energy, other means to pa.s.s her time and distract her thoughts.

In the course of her dealings with the racing companies she became interested in them not merely as means towards locating Almo, but for themselves. She became particularly interested in their stables, their jockeys and their horses. There was no bar of religious tradition or of social custom which hindered a Vestal from freely mingling with men visibly in the open daylight in public. Visiting the stables of the racing companies had long been a fad with Rome's social leaders, men and women alike. Brinnaria availed herself of her freedom in this regard and followed her inclination. She haunted the training-stables of all six corporations, but mostly of the Greens, always in company with Manlia, or Flexinna, or Nemestronia or some other of her women friends; she visited the barracks almost daily, chatted with the charioteers, grooms and ostlers, watched the exercising of the teams, inspected the stalls, conned the racers.

She made herself an excellent judge of a jockey and a better judge of a horse.

She interested herself in the methods by which the companies obtained and selected their animals. She became an adept on the entire subject of horse-raising. It engrossed her thoughts.

Then she herself took over the management of several of her estates in the environs of Rome; of all, in fact, which were near enough for her to visit personally. She redistributed the force of slaves that managed them, sold some, bought others and fitted up the properties as stud-farms. Herself she selected the brood mares and stallions with which to stock these estates. She herself laid down the principles guiding their management and she herself dictated the methods of breeding them. She herself superintended the carrying out of her orders, visiting each estate frequently and inspecting everything carefully and intelligently.

Her first offering of two-year-olds sold at good prices. She was encouraged, felt herself completely an adept, and would take no one's word about anything relating to horses, relying solely on her own judgment.

All this would have subjected her to much reprehension had Faltonius Bambilio survived. But he had died just about the time of Almo's disappearance. His son, also named Faltonius Bambilio, had taken up a political rather than a priestly life and was not to be thought of as his successor. In his place Aurelius, on his way to Syria, had nominated Lutorius Rusco, a man who impressed everyone at first sight, and more and more the better anyone knew him, as the paragon of a Pontifex. He was not lacking in ecclesiastical unction, but did not wallow in it as had Bambilio. He was pious, but did not think it necessary to advertise it day and night unremittingly. He was not lax in religious matters, but he was no stickler for minute trifles. He inspired confidence by every characteristic of his appearance and behavior. He was a man somewhat over medium height, well built, neither heavy nor large, with an unusually dignified bearing and carriage, not a hint of self-a.s.sertion and with a genially comprehending smile. It was impossible not to confide in him and unthinkable that confiding in him should ever be regretted. Brinnaria confided in him and never regretted it.

Of Almo's disappearance she talked to him freely; freely also she talked of her feelings for Almo. He was as sympathetic and comprehending as the Emperor and Empress and he encouraged her to hope that Almo was yet alive, which she sometimes doubted.

Of her stock farms he said to her:

"I should certainly not have advised any woman to enter upon such an enterprise, least of all a Vestal. I know of no other member of our hierarchy who has any similar interests, except Calvaster, whose haunting of the gladiatorial schools and a.s.sociation with trainers of gladiators has given some scandal. Some people would call your horse-breeding unseemly for a Vestal. But I see no harm in it. I have talked with Causidiena and it is clear that you do not neglect or skimp your duties, that you give them full time and close attention. Your leisure is your own to do with as you please. And your immediate success appears an evidence that, to say the least, your undertakings give no offence to the G.o.ds."

During the latter months of Bambilio's oversight Brinnaria had felt restive and as if some inward force was forever driving her to feverish activities; under the care of Lutorius she became placid and thought less of her stock-raising, journeys to and fro to her estates, talks with grooms and such like activitie and devoted herself with more cool ardor to her duties.

CHAPTER XIV - AMAZEMENT

AURELIUS returned from Syria with his victorious army in the nine hundred and twenty-ninth year of Rome, 176 of our era, ten years after the great pestilence. He had merely crushed a local rebellion, but a vast coalition of nomadic Arab tribes of the desert had been allied with the rebels, and to the Romans it seemed that their Emperor had won a great victory in a mighty campaign. Aurelius humored their mood, and with good judgment, for they needed all the encouragement possible. He arranged to have his return celebrated by shows of all kinds, theatrical performances, fights of gladiators, beast fights, horse-races uncountable and above all, by that thrilling procession of a victor and his armed soldiers through the city along the Sacred Street, up to the great temple on the Capitol, which was the highest honor an army and a commander could receive at the hands of the Roman government, which signalized a notable victory over notable odds, which was called a triumph. Of triumphs Rome had seen fewer than three hundred in more than nine hundred years. Not one of the three hundred had been as magnificent as the triumph of Aurelius.

Its auxiliary spectacles were similarly magnificent. In particular the gladiatorial shows surpa.s.sed anything within the memory of the oldest living spectator.

Causidiena, whose eyes troubled her greatly, found that watching the triumphal procession caused her so much pain that she absented herself from the remaining shows. To all of these, races, beast-fights and combats of gladiators, she insisted that the other five Vestals should go together. The arrangement was unusual, but no one could object, for no one would hint or even think that the sacred fire would be in any danger of going out with such a Chief Vestal as Causidiena caring for it or that she needed any other Vestal to a.s.sist her. Likewise her five colleagues were genuinely pleased that not one of them would miss any part of the shows.

As the number was odd, Causidiena decreed that they should be conveyed to the spectacles each in her own state coach, attended by her maid of honor. The maids, of course, did not sit with the Vestals, but had seats far back with the populace.

In their luxurious private box in the Colosseum the five Vestals sat in the ample front row arm-chairs. They were seated not according to seniority, but Numisia in the middle, Meffia and Brinnaria, as the youngest, on either side of her, Gargilia next Meffia, and Manlia next Brinnaria.

In the Imperial loge near them Aurelius, now for more than a year a widower, presided over the games, clad in his gorgeous silk robes and attended by his fifteen-year-old son Antoninus, afterward known by his nickname of "Commodus." The four tiers of the Colosseum were packed with spectators, pontiffs, senators, n.o.bles, amba.s.sadors magistrates and other notables in the front seats along the coping of the arena wall, lesser notables in the first tier, well-to-do persons in the second tier, traders and manufacturers and such like in the third tier and the commonalty in the fourth.

Besides the ninety thousand seated spectators* many thousand more stood in the galleries, in the openings of the stairways, in any place where a foothold could be found and from which a view could be obtained. The outlook from the Vestals' box was across the level sand to the gigantic curve of seats, all hidden under their occupants, so that the interior of the Amphitheatre was a vast expanse of flower-crowned heads, eager faces and waving fans.

*The author forgets himself. Earlier in the book he describes an audience of 100,000 as Brinnaria tells the emperor how she felt down on the sand in her shift, with "two hundred thousand eyes" (implying one hundred thousand people) staring at her. In fact, the Colosseum could handle an audience of about 45 to 50 thousand.--GB ed.

During that second day of gladiatorial fighting Manlia had several times said to Brinnaria:

"Is there anything wrong? Are you ill? You do not seem yourself!" Each time Brinnaria had positively denied that anything was wrong and had a.s.serted that she was entirely herself.

About the middle of the afternoon, the arena was filled with pairs of gladiators, all the couples fighting simultaneously. Each pair had with it a trainer, called a lanista, who watched, guided or checked the fighting.

The contending pairs were of a kind much liked by the Romans, because of the excitement they afforded, each pair consisting of a light-built, light-armed, nimble expert pitted against a heavily built, heavily armed ruffian, the two supposed to be equally matched, the strength and weapons of the one fully balanced by the skill and agility of the other.

Viewing fights of this kind Manlia felt rather than heard or saw a change in Brinnaria next her, felt her stiffen and grow silent, rigid and tense. Manlia glanced at her, followed her gaze and became interested in the fight Brinnaria was watching. Before them, not immediately below them, but some distance out in the arena, fought a conspicuous pair of gladiators. One was a great hulking full-armored brute of a Goth, helmeted and corseleted, kilted in bronze-plated leather straps, booted, as it were, with ample shin-guards of thick hide, bronze-plated like the straps of his flapping kilt. He carried a big oval shield and threatened with a long straight sword his adversary, a Roman in every outline, a slender young man, barefoot, bare-legged, kilted with the scantiest form of gladiator's body-piece and ap.r.o.n, clad in a green tunic and carrying only the small round shield and short sabre of a Thracian. He wore a helmet like a skull cap with a broad nose-guard that amounted to a mask, above which were small openings for his eyes.

Conning this pair Manlia's attention was riveted by the slighter man.

He was very light on his feet, jaunty of bearing and, as it were, ablaze with self-confidence.

Manlia, who was an expert judge of sword-fighting, perceived at once that he was a master of his art. His method for the moment was to hold back, lead his opponent on and bide his time. His att.i.tudes and movements bespoke the most perfect knowledge of sword play in all its finest details. But what most held Manlia's attention was his beauty of form and a strange something about him, a long-armed, long-legged appearance. She turned to Brinnaria.

"I should have sworn," she said, "that there was not in all the world another man like Segontius Almo. But that Thracian is a duplicate of him, as like him as if he were his twin brother."

"More like him than a twin brother," Brinnaria replied, her voice m.u.f.fled and choked. "I've been watching him ever since he came in. I recognized him in the procession this morning. That is Almo."

"Almo!" breathed Manlia, in a horrified whisper.

"Yes, Almo!" hissed Brinnaria.

"What shall we do?" quavered Manlia.

"Do?" snorted Brinnaria, "do nothing."

"But we can pray," Manlia panted. "We can pray. Surely you are praying, Brinnaria?"

"I am praying," came the answer, in a viperish whisper. "I'm praying he may be killed."

"Killed!" Manlia gasped.

"Yes, killed," repeated Brinnaria, viciously. "Killing is what he deserves, mere killing is too good for him. If he wanted to commit suicide why couldn't he do it decently at once and privately without all this elaborate machinery of selling himself as a slave, and lying about his intentions and disgracing himself by becoming a prize-fighter and exposing himself to getting killed in public? Why couldn't he get killed at Treves or Lyons or Aquileia? Why must he humiliate me by this exhibition of himself before me and all Rome? The quicker he is killed the better. I'm praying he'll be killed at once."

"Oh, Brinnaria!" groaned the horrified Manlia.

The Thracian was not killed in that first fight; he was never in any danger of being killed. He played with his man as a cat plays with a mouse; held him off without an effort, caught the attention of all the nearby spectators; won their interest by the perfection of his sword-play; and aroused their enthusiasm by that nameles quality which marks off, from even the best drilled talent, the man who is a born genius in his line.

He pinked his victim between corselet and helmet, so lightly that only those spectators watching most closely saw the lunge, so effectually that the man died almost as he fell.

"You must have prayed for him to win; I did," spoke Manlia.

"I didn't," Brinnaria snapped. "I prayed for him to be killed. I wish he had been. I'm not the only one who has recognized him. Aurelius has and he has told Antoninus; I watched him."

"How could you?" Manlia exclaimed. "How could you watch anything but Almo?"

"I could and I did," Brinnaria a.s.severated. "I'm looking all ways at once, just now. The news is all over the Imperial loge already. They are looking at me as well as at him. I hope he'll be killed this next bout."

The lanista, in fact, at once matched Almo with another full-armed giant. Again Almo gave an exhibition of perfect swordsmanship. The Romans were as quick to appreciate form in fighting as we moderns are to applaud our best bail players; they recognized pre-eminence in the swordman's art, as we acclaim the skill of a crack baseball pitcher or cricket bowler.