The Unwilling Vestal Part 25

"On the f.a.gutal?" he made sure, "at the second corner beyond the end of the Subura?"

He laughed again.

Then he tactfully explained that the tenants in that particular congeries of buildings were professional secret cut-throats, good enough husbands and fathers and amicable among themselves, but earning an honest livelihood by putting out of the way any persons displeasing to anybody able to pay for their services.

Brinnaria abruptly ceased slumming.

All the more she threw herself into her horse-breeding. She visited her stud-farms oftener; and, oddly enough, as the result of her overwrought state of mind, the management of the farms themselves came to mean less to her than the means of reaching them and returning. She paid close attention to the make of her road-carriage, to the speed and pace of her roadsters. She bought picked teams of blooded mares, selecting them especially for their ability to keep up a fast walk without breaking pace. She boasted that she had six spans of mares, any one of which could, at a walk, outdistance any team in Rome owned by anybody else.

By specializing in fast-walking cattle she saved much time in pa.s.sing from the Atrium to the city gates and in returning.

Outside the city her mares displayed their capacity for other paces than the walk. She saw to it that her coachman kept them at their utmost speed. The sight of her tearing along a highway became familiar everywhere throughout the suburban countryside. She made a hobby of extremely fast driving and of buying fast mares.

Also she fell into another fad, at the time all the rage, invented since the accession of Commodus and made fashionable by the young Emperor.

Some popinjay had conceived a whim for travelling by litter instead of in his carriage. It was far less expeditious and far more expensive. But the notion took. All at once every fop in Roman society must needs take his country outings, go to his villa and come back from it, not in his carriage but in his litter. The plea was that a carriage jolted and that riding in a litter was less tiring. There was something in that, for carriage springs had not been invented in those days. But mostly it was just a craze among the very wealthy, as distinguishing them from people who could afford but one set of litter-bearers. An ordinary four-man litter could be used only for going about the city--longer distances were impossible, and excursions into the country soon tired out eight bearers. For road travelling one must have sixteen bearers, two sets relieving each other in turn. Brinnaria bought sixteen gigantic negroes and tested them on her inspections of her stock-farms. She tried German bearers, Goths and Cilicians. Her bearers became famous for their speed and endurance. If she heard of any squad reputed better than hers, she bought it at any price, until, not counting the teams of bearers belonging to the Palace, there was only one gang in Rome which she envied. She tried to purchase them but could not. They belonged to her mother's friend Nemestronia.

Nemestronia always had been a wonder and was a marvel. She was one of the wealthiest women in Rome and had never been ill a moment in her life. A very beautiful girl, she had kept her looks and a wonderful singing voice, still clear and sweet when she was over sixty. She had been, since within a year after her first marriage, one of the social leaders of Rome. She had become the social leader of Rome, her influence almost equal to that of the Empress. She had outlived three empresses and had reigned unquestioned in the social world for over fifty years, yet had not an enemy in Rome. Everybody loved Nemestronia. At the time of the litter craze she had already celebrated her eighty-first birthday, was plump, rosy, merry and spry, always ready for any amus.e.m.e.nt, and was living happily with her fifth husband.

She prided herself on her litter-bearers and with her unerring social instinct antic.i.p.ated the caprice of her world and provided herself with three sets of carriers, sixteen to a set. One gang, of brawny Cappadocians, outcla.s.sed any but the Emperor's own.

These Brinnaria tried to buy, tried in vain. Nemestronia was willing to exchange, if she could do so to her advantage. But sell she would not.

Amid her opulence no sum could tempt her.

Brinnaria fumed and drove her horses almost to death, urged her litter-men almost to exhaustion. But, with all her haste, care outpaced her steeds or carriers. She gnawed her heart out.

Only at Vocco's house, amid Flexinna's bevy of youngsters, did she find peace of mind.

Even there, at last, care followed her.

When Alma had been more than a year at Fregellae, Brinnaria, visiting Flexinna about the middle of May, scented more trouble. As they lay down to dinner she said:

"The occasion, I perceive, calls for an extra supply of wine. Let it be the old Falernian this time and have the mixture strong." After they had eaten, none any too heartily, Vocco told his news.

Almo had left his master's estate without a permit, in plain words had gone off like any runaway slave and had thereby exposed himself to the penalties incurred by a fugitive. Egnatius had taken the usual steps to recapture him, but neither he nor the authorities had any clue to Almo's whereabouts. As far as they were concerned he had vanished.

He had not, however, eluded the vigilance of Brinnaria's agents, of the men Vocco had employed to keep him in view. They understood that Egnatius was to be kept in ignorance of their activity, and gave no aid to the police of the neighborhood in their efforts to retake him. They had reported only to Vocco.

Almo had money with him and at Arpinum had garbed himself decently for the road. He avoided the main highway and wandered along by-roads, zigzagging and circling about. He idled at inns, sometime for days in one place, often in small towns, oftener at road-houses between.

He was then near Atina.

At intervals during June and July Vocco gave Brinnaria reports about Almo. He seemed to enjoy the society of the casual travellers he met at small inns and of the local frequenters of them. He got on famously with everybody. Nowhere was he suspected of being a runaway slave and naturally, for he had the unmistakable carriage and bearing of a born freeman. The hue and cry Egnatius had set loose after him was active wherever he went, but he sat under placards offering rewards for his capture and no one applied the description to him.

Early in June he was at Casinum and Interamna, before it ended at Fundi and Privernum. In July he pa.s.sed through Setia, Ulubrae, Norba and Cora. Early in August he was idling at Velitrae, playing quoits in the inn-yard morning after morning.

He seemed to like Velitrae. He stayed there longer than anywhere else.

CHAPTER XVII - RECKLESSNESS

ON the fifteenth of that same August, not long after noon, Brinnaria was much surprised by a call from Flexinna.

"The most amazing weather that ever was," Flexinna stated. "I never heard of such, everybody says n.o.body ever heard of the like. Even Nemestronia says she never saw or heard of anything to compare to it.

The densest imaginable fog, as white as milk. You c-c-can't see across a street, you c-c-can hardly see the bearers in front of your litter."

"I noticed it in the courtyard," Brinnaria replied, "and it is thicker than usual. But we often have morning fogs and I have seen several almost as dense as this."

"Nothing unusual in a fog d-d-down hereabouts and along the river,"

Flexinna admitted. "B-B-But this fog is most unusual. It is all over the whole city. I have lived on the Esquiline ever since I was b-b-born and I never saw a fog up there except p-p-perhaps a whiff just about sunrise and then only in wisps. This fog is high up on the Esquiline, as d-d-dense as along the river. I know the fog is all over the city b-b-because I sent two slaves to the P-P-Pincian and two to the Aventine, and they reported that it is just as b-b-bad everywhere as here and at home. And I met Satronius Satro, just b-b-back from B-B-Baiae. He slept at B-B-Bovillae last night and he says the fog is just as b-b-bad all the way from B-B-Bovillae. He says it is heavy over the whole c-c-country for miles. It amounts to a portent."

"Flexinna," said Brinnaria, "you never came here and at this time of day, to talk about the weather."

"I d-d-didn't know how to b-b-begin," Flexinna admitted.

"What has Almo done now?" Brinnaria queried.

"He left Velitrae day before yesterday," said Flexinna, "and went to Aricia. Yesterday he challenged the K-K-King of the G-G-Grove."

"Just as Celsia.n.u.s conjectured," Brinnaria groaned. "Some unthinkable method of suicide. Is he dead?"

"No," Flexinna replied. "He's very much alive."

"Then he is the King of the Grove!" Brinnaria cried.

"They haven't fought yet," Flexinna informed her.

"Impossible!" Brinnaria exclaimed. "Or there is something wrong with your information. There is only one way to challenge the King of the Grove and that is to enter the Grove with a weapon. Almost as many men as women go to worship at the Temple of Diana in the Grove by the Lake; the King of the Grove never notices any unarmed man. But let a man with a weapon of any kind, spear, sword, or what not, even a club, step over the boundary line of the Grove and that act of entrance there with a weapon const.i.tutes a challenge to the King of the Grove; at sight of an armed man the King or the Grove attacks him. They fight then and there till one is killed. The survivor is the King of the Grove.

"The challenger is supposed to pluck a twig from the sacred oak-tree and the act of picking the branch is supposed to be the challenge. But, in practice, the King of the Grove watches the sacred oak so carefully, that n.o.body remembers any challenger who succeeded in pulling a twig unless he won the fight.

"That is the only way to challenge the King of the Grove. Everybody knows that."

"That is just what I always thought," Flexinna confessed, "b-b-but, it seems we are b-b-both mistaken. There is another way to challenge the K-K-King of the G-G-Grove; that is to go to the Dictator of Aricia and enter formal challenge. In that c-c-case, the Dictator notifies the K-K-King of the G-G-Grove that he must face the challenger at midnight next d-d-day. Meanwhile, the challenger is entertained in the t-t-town-hall of Aricia. He is b-b-bathed, p-p-provided with fresh c-c-clothing, g-g-given whatever food he asks for and accommodated with a c-c-comfortable b-b-bed for the night after his challenge. Then, when he has had a g-g-good chance to sleep all night and has had at least four g-g-good meals, he is c-c-conducted by the aldermen to the G-G-Grove just b-b-before midnight. The aldermen t-t-take with them two ancient shields, p-p-precisely alike, and two ancient Amazonian b-b-battle-axes, also p-p-precisely alike, which are k-k-kept among the t-t-treasures in the strong room of the t-t-town hall at Aricia. The challenger plucks a t-t-twig from the sacred oak. Then he and the K-K-King of the G-G-Grove face each other in the open s.p.a.ce b-b-before it. A shield and a b-b-battle-axe are handed to each. Then they wait for the word of the Dictator of Aricia. At the word they fight.

"That is the other way to challenge the K-K-King of the G-G-Grove."

Flexinna, as generally happened, had been shown at once up to Brinnaria's private apartment and had walked straight into Brinnaria's bedroom. In that small room they sat facing each other.

"Then they fight at midnight to-night," Brinnaria deduced.

"Yes," Flexinna corroborated.

"How did you come here?" her friend queried.

"In Nemestronia's litter," the visitor answered. "I b-b-borrowed it."