The Unwilling Vestal Part 27

With torch-bearing crowds the streets of Aricia were jammed. From gate to gate of the town they crawled, wading slowly through the press of revellers. Along the road to the Grove they were as a chip floated along on a tide of torchbearers, for the parties of worshippers converging to their great local yearly festival from Tusculum, Tibur, Cora, Pometia, Lanuvium and Ardea formed a continuous procession, their pulsing torch-flames looking strange and blurred through the fog.

When they reached the top of the ridge enclosing the Lake, Vocco dismounted and trusted his roan to one of Nemestronia's extra bearers, as horses were not allowed within the Grove or its precincts.

Not much before midnight the bearers swung sharply at the brink of the cliff and plunged down the steep narrow road cut along its face.

Brinnaria felt the dampness of the lake air on her cheek.

By the Lake the fog was, if possible, more impenetrable than elsewhere.

The Grove, the lodging for the cripples and invalids who thronged the place to be cured, the vast halls about the temple, the temple itself, all were doubly whelmed in the darkness and the mist.

Brinnaria made out only the six channelled vermilion columns of the temple portico and the black boughs of the sacred oak. These, to right and left of the temple area, showed vaguely in the light of thousands of torches in the hands of the throng packed about it.

Respect for a closed litter with sixteen bearers accompanied by a gentleman in a Senator's robes won them a way through the crowd, the torches surging in waves of flame as they ploughed through.

When they reached the margin of the open s.p.a.ce, Brinnaria, choking with the realization that she had arrived too late, peered between the drawn curtains of her litter and saw the pavement of the temple-area bright under the splendor of the torch-rays; saw a dozen young women, dressed in gowns of a startling deep orange, standing in a row clear of the torch-bearing crowd; saw the five aldermen of Aricia in their official robes, grouped about the square marble altar; saw before the altar a circular s.p.a.ce of clipped turf midway of the area pavement, saw standing on it to the right of the altar the King of the Grove, clad in his barbaric smock of dingy undyed black wool, his three-stranded necklace of raw turquoises broad on his bosom, the fox-tails of his fox-skin cap trailing by his ears; saw facing him Almo, bare-kneed, his hunting-boots of soft leather like chamois-skin coming half way up to his calves, his leek-green tunic covering him only to mid-thigh, his head bare, his right hand waving an oak bough.

After she recognized Almo and glimpsed the bough in his hand she hardly looked at him. She stared, fascinated, at the white marble altar on which, as an offering to Diana of the Underworld, the victor of the fight would lay the corpse of his victim.

The Dictator of Aricia, chief of the Aldermen, raised his hand. From somewhere in the darkness behind the dozen simpering wenches appeared two slaves, each carrying a small round shield and a double-headed battle-axe. The shields had painted on each a horse, the battle-axes were of the pattern always seen in pictures of the legendary Amazons.

The blade of each axe-head was shaped like a crescent moon. From the inner side projected a flat, thick shank, by which the blade was fastened to the helve. The curve of each blade made almost a half circle, the tips of the crescents almost touched the haft between them, so that their outer cutting-edges made a nearly complete circle of razor-sharp steel, from which protruded the keen spear-head tipping the shaft.

Two of the aldermen received these accoutrements from the slaves.

Brinnaria noticed that one of the other aldermen held the broad, gold-mounted, jeweled scabbard containing the great scimitar with which the King of the Grove kept girt, waking or sleeping. She even noted how its belt trailed from his hands and the shine of its gloss-leather in the torch-rays.

The two aldermen handed a shield and an axe to each contestant. One took from Almo the oak-bough and pa.s.sed it to the Dictator.

The two champions fitted the shields on their arms, balanced them, and hefted their battle-axes. Each a.s.sumed the posture that suited him best, his feet well under him. So they stood facing each other, waiting for the signal.

The King of the Grove was a stocky, solidly-built ruffian of medium height and weight. Almo seemed much taller and very much slenderer and lighter. His delicate features and thin nose contrasted strangely to the high cheek-bones, small, close-set eyes, and wide, flat nostrils of his antagonist.

The Dictator waved the oak-bough and shouted.

The two champions warily approached each other.

Each kept his left foot forward; each crouched, as it were, inside the shield tight against his shoulder; each held his axe aloft.

Each struck, each dodged, Almo awkwardly, his axe trailing behind him after it missed.

The stocky man thought he saw his chance and whirled his weapon, bringing it down in a terrible sweep. Craftily Almo caught it against his shield, just below the upper rim, horribly it grated against the bronze plating of the shield, with the full weight of the mighty swing it buried itself in the sod.

The force of his blow carried the a.s.sailant with it so that he almost fell face forward on the sward.

Before he could recover himself Almo's ready axe swung.

Brinnaria saw it flash in the air. Then she saw the fox-skin cap in two halves, a horrid red void between.

"Oh Vocco," she called, "t-t-take me home, t-t-take me home." At that volcanic instant, at the bitterest moment of her life, what kept back her tears was her tendency to laugh at the fact, that, ill the midst of her agony, she did not forget to stutter.

CHAPTER XVIII - FURY

THE darkness of the night, the impenetrability of the fog and the weariness of the bearers all contributed to impede their return journey.

While on her way and buoyed up by her wild purpose, Brinnaria had been able to rest herself by dozing along the roadway and had remembered to keep up her strength with food and wine. After they had turned back she could not have swallowed anything, if she had thought to try, and the nearest she came to sleep was an uneasy drowse which seemed a long nightmare. The Cappadocians, famous for their strength, endurance and indifference to wakefulness, exertion, hunger or thirst, were also astute foragers. On their way from Rome the reliefs had invaded every inn they pa.s.sed and, lavishly provided with small coins by Vocco, had provisioned themselves abundantly. These supplies they handed over to their fellows when they took up the litter. All the way back the spare carriers, plodding behind, munched their provender and conversed in undertones. The bearers, necessarily flagging, trudged leadenly.

Through it all Brinnaria was haunted by her memory of two pictures.

One was of the row of saffron-clad hussies watching the fight.

The King of the Grove was the only legal polygamist in Italy.

Concomitant with the barbarous and savage conditions determining his tenure of the office as High Priest in the Grove by the Lake of Diana of the Underworld, congruent with his outlandish attire and ornaments, he had the right to have twelve wives at once. Seldom had a King of the Grove failed to avail himself of the privilege; and, indeed, to have twelve wives was regarded as inc.u.mbent upon him, as necessary to his proper sanct.i.ty and as indispensable to maintain the curative potencies of the locality, which restored to health each year an army of sufferers.

He had the power to repudiate any wife at any time, to dismiss her and expel her from the Grove. Any former wife of his, when expelled or after leaving the Grove of her own accord, became a free woman with all the privileges of a liberated slave. Most of his ex-wives, however, elected to remain in the Grove and formed a sort of corps of official nurses for the sick who flocked there to be cured. In practice the King of the Grove usually repudiated any wife who lost her youthful charms.

His wives were commonly, like himself, truant slaves.

Fugitive male slaves were an ever-present feature of country life in all parts of the ancient world, as tramps are in modern times. A female runaway, however, was a distinct rarity. But the sanctuary afforded them by the Grove encouraged them about Aricia and many fled to it. If young and comely they became wives of its King. Also slave-girls were constantly being presented to him by grateful convalescents, who had come to the Grove as invalids or cripples and had left it hale and sound. Thus the twelve wives of the King were always as vital and buxom a convocation of wenches as could be found anywhere.

The spectacle they had made haunted Brinnaria.

They had been so utterly callous, so completely indifferent, so merely curious to see which contestant was to be their future master, so vacant-mindedly giggling and nudging each other. The impression they had made on her nauseated her, while the memory of their red cheeks, full contours, youthfulness and undeniable animal charm enraged her.

The other picture which had branded itself on her memory was the sight of Almo, straightening up after stooping over his butchered predecessor, clasping the triple turquoise necklace about his throat.

Almo was King of the Grove.

At that thought and at the recollection of the dozen jades wriggling and smirking, her blood boiled.

By the margin of the cliff Vocco had had much ado finding his horse.

On the road back to Aricia they pa.s.sed through many parties of belated worshippers. As the torch festival kept up until dawn that town was open all night. Unquestioned they pa.s.sed in at a wide-open gate, through torch-lit, but almost deserted streets, out at another wide-set gate.

In the Roman world travelling by night was almost unexistent. Only imperial couriers and civilians driven by some dire stress kept on their way after sunset. In general travellers halted for the night at some convenient inn or town, or camped by the road if darkness overtook them far from any hostelry. But on the night of the yearly festival of Diana, many parties were abroad. Between Aricia and Bovillae they met several convoys, and about half-way they were overtaken and pa.s.sed by a rapidly driven carriage, and somewhat tater by a troop of hors.e.m.e.n, trotting restrainedly, one of them on a white horse which showed rather distinctly, even in the fog and darkness.

Near Bovillae they overtook the same band of hors.e.m.e.n, halted about the wreck of two travelling carriages which had crashed together in the fog. Two of the horses lay dead on the stones, killed to put them out of their misery. From curb to curb the pavement was cluttered with pieces of wreckage and the carca.s.ses of the horses. The roadway was completely blocked and the bearers, at first, could find no way around the obstacle.

Some women were wailing over a little boy whose leg had been crushed and who was uttering frightful shrieks. The child screamed so terribly that Brinnaria impulsively leaned half-way out of her litter, carried away by her sympathies. Close beside her she saw the white horse and astride of it, vague in the mist, but unmistakable in his lop-sided, bony leanness, outlined against the glare of the torches behind him, she recognized Calvaster.

Instantly she shrank behind her litter curtains.

Almost at once a relief bearer who had gone to scout reported a free path through the fields by the road.

They continued on their way.

Bovillae, not being one of the towns partic.i.p.ating in the Festival of Diana, was closed for the night, its gates shut fast, its walls dark.

Going round it was a trying detour over rough cross-roads.

After they were again on the Appian Road they were for a second time overtaken by the same band of hors.e.m.e.n. When their hoof-beats had grown faint in the distance ahead, Vocco ranged his horse alongside the litter and asked:

"Did you notice the man on the white horse?"