The Unwilling Vestal Part 28

"I recognized him," said Brinnaria briefly.

The fog held all the way to the Appian Gate, which they reached as some watery sun-rays struggled through the mist, held until they reached the Atrium.

Out of her litter tumbled Brinnaria in Flexinna's rumpled finery, feeling unescapably recognizable, even inside her double veil and under her broad-brimmed, tied-down travelling hat.

But the heavy-built, sinewy slave-woman who guarded the portal of the Atrium pa.s.sed her in without remark. She met no one on her way up to her suite, where she found Utta squatted outside her bedroom door.

Flexinna was incredulously delighted, pathetically overjoyed to see her.

"You have a wonderful larder here," she said. "Every single thing I asked for was b-b-brought me at once. I d-d-didn't have any appet.i.te, b-b-but I had to have food. And I g-g-got it."

Promptly she put on her own clothing and was gone.

In a trice Brinnaria was flat on her back in bed with Utta ma.s.saging her vigorously and methodically. After one comprehensive rubbing she went off for hot milk, hot wine, honey, barley-meal and spices. The posset she brewed she compelled her mistress to swallow. Then she gently ma.s.saged her until she was asleep. Thanks to these attentions Brinnaria, after some four hours abed, was able to reappear in the Temple looking not much unlike a Vestal who had enjoyed twenty-four hours of unbroken repose.

Numisia appeared to suspect nothing. Certainly she remonstrated with her and begged her not to exhaust herself so by hard riding.

After that first sleep, induced by fatigue and by Utta's ministrations, Brinnaria slept little. She tossed and turned. Before her eyes was continually the recollection of that row of saffron-clad minxes, of their exuberant health, heartiness and rollicking vivacity.

The memory of them suffocated her. In the Atrium she had to conceal her inward convulsions of rage, had to appear calm, placid and collected.

The effort made her the more explosive when she was at Flexinna's and could speak out. She stormed.

Flexinna let her talk herself hoa.r.s.e. But no amount of talking relieved her. Whatever she said, no matter how often she had said it, she wound up the same way:

"Here I am, packed in ice, so to speak, for thirty years and there he is, King of the Grove, with twelve wives, twelve wives, _twelve wives_!"

Jealousy, in its most furious form, is not a mild malady, even in our days, and in women of northern ancestry and cold blood. Brinnaria was a hot-blooded Latin and the pulses of her heart were earthquakes of fire.

The Romans were a ferocious and sanguinary stock. Even among the most delicately nurtured women love turned quickly into hate and solicitude might in a brief time give place to the thirst for vengeance.

Brinnaria struggled with herself for some days.

Then she bade her coachman drive her to the f.a.gutal. Her appearance among her tenants caused general trepidation, as usual.

When the cl.u.s.tering drabs and brats discovered that she felt no present interest in women and children, but that she demanded speech with the men, the elder men, their dismay deepened into acute consternation.

Since she would take no denial some dotards and striplings were routed out and the patriarch of the clan was thrust forward. He looked senile from his slippered feet to the shine on his bald-pate, he was blear-eyed and hard of hearing, but he understood plain Latin when he heard it, he knew of old the signs he read in the flash of her eyes, the set of her jaw and every feature as she stood or moved. Also no dog ever had a keener scent for game than he for business.

He shouted in the slang of his caste.

The women and children vanished.

Promptly a chair was brought, carefully dusted and she was invited to seat herself. Before her cringed, in att.i.tudes of obsequious deference, a group of as hulking, truculent, ruthless villains as could have been found anywhere on earth. Just out of earshot of a low-voiced conversation, stood younger men, sentinels, to keep all others at a distance.

The patriarch's son, recognized chief of the brotherhood, an appallingly inhuman brute, acted as spokesman.

At the first word their wary expression altered to one of brotherly comprehension. There was a man to be killed. Pride in their vocation shone all over them. Yes, they knew of the King of the Grove, who did not? and they especially, since the patriarch's grandfather, great-grandfather to the spokesman, had at an advanced age ended his life in the Grove, after years as its priest, having become King late in life, the last of a long series of challengers whom the Emperor Caligula had suborned against an insufferable and all but invincible hierophant.

Could they find a swashbuckler willing to a.s.sail the present inc.u.mbent?

Of a surety and what was more able to vanquish anybody.

Could it be arranged secretly?

No human being would ever suspect that she knew anything about the matter; what was more, the most inquisitive would never divine that they themselves had any hand in the change of priests at Aricia.

How could this be accomplished?

In countless ways. One might find a discontented slave, mighty and skilled with weapons, and reveal to him a means of bettering his condition, or one might bribe the owner of a capable slave to wink at his running away, or if no fit slave could be found, a suitable freeman might be induced to become a slave under a master also in the plot. It was easy, merely a matter of money.

How much money would be needed?

That would depend. If they could cajole a slave the job would call only for cash for the instigator's expenses, for journey-money and for a good sabre for the challenger, and at the last a bonus for all concerned. If a slave-owner had to be bribed, more cash and more money for bonuses would be required. If a freeman had to be employed the enterprise would be still more expensive. It was all a matter of money, above all, of cash.

Cash was forthcoming.

Brinnaria returned to the Atrium by a circuitous drive out the Tiber Gate, round through the suburbs and in at the River Gate. She needed fresh air. All the way, all the afternoon, all the wakeful night, she was in an eery state of icy, numb exaltation. It was all over--Almo was a dead man, she had avenged herself, she had vindicated the proprieties, her wrath was righteous, her vengeance laudable. This tense condition of her nerves lasted for some days.

According to stipulation the messenger from the tenements on the f.a.gutal was a decently clad woman of inconspicuously respectable appearance.

She came after an interval of about ten days. She was apologetic. Their first champion had perished.

Twice more she brought the same message. Then Brinnaria ventured a second visit to the unsavory locality. She was sarcastic. The chief was abashed.

This, he said, was evidently a task unexpectedly difficult. The more certain was it that they would measure up to the requirements. They felt that their time-honored reputation was at stake.

There followed for Brinnaria an exciting, a wearing autumn and winter.

For some months messages came to her at about nine-day intervals, all of the same tenure. Towards mid-winter, on a mild fair day, she risked a third expostulation with her hirelings. On an apologetic and humiliated rabble she poured her scorn.

Thereafter the messages came thicker, about one every four days, but monotonously unwelcome. Brinnaria set her teeth and sent all the money asked for.

Meanwhile her wrath, her jealousy, her thirst for vengeance steadily waned and their place was largely taken by admiration for Almo's incredible skill and by a sort of pride in him.

But again and again the vision of the twelve baggages returned to her and she steeled her heart. One warm June morning she lost patience and burst in on her gang of cut-throats.

Inundated by a cascade of vitriolic denunciations and stinging sneers they hung their heads, too limp to utter a protest. The patriarch was weeping openly.

Turned from anger to curiosity she found the rookery was in mourning.

Their chief, the apple of their eye, aghast at the failures of his minions, had himself undertaken to redeem their honor. For him they grieved. They owned themselves beaten. They had scoured Italy, had sent against Almo every promising bully in the fifteen districts. Their best young men had gone, lastly their adored leader. They could do no more; Almo was invincible.

Brinnaria, reflecting that, after all, she was to blame for their dejection and woe, that, after all, they had done their best, distributed what cash she had with her and promised them a lavish apportionment of gold.

As she went she realized, as they realized, that the place would never see her again.

Next morning she sent for Guntello. That faithful Goth, still huge, mighty and terrific, came, mild as a pet bulldog.

"Go kill him!" she commanded.

"Certainly, Little Mistress," he acquiesced, "but whom am I to kill?"