"He offered to buy her.
"That was just before Quadratus became involved in the intrigues radiating from Lucilla"s conspiracy, was implicated in the conspiracy itself and so disgraced and executed.
"Marcia seems to have had some prevision or inkling of what was coming.
Anyhow she could not have acted more for her own interest if she had had accurate information of what was impending. She cajoled Uncle into buying her and coaxed Quadratus into selling her.
""Take her," Quadratus told him, "at your own price. If you don"t or if somebody else don"t free me from this vampire, I"ll be fool enough to manumit her and marry her as soon as she is free!"
"Uncle brought her up here.
"Did she wail at leaving Rome and mourn over seclusion in our hills? Not she.
"She made as big a fool of Uncle as she had of Quadratus.
"He, with his ill health and his frequent illnesses, got as much satisfaction out of Marcia as a blind man would get from a painting. But he indulged her far beyond his means. He gave her the little west villa for her home, and a small horde of servants. She wheedled him into freeing her and then, from the day she was freed, set herself to marry and marry well. She had every bachelor and widower hereabouts visiting her, dangling about her, competing for her smiles, showering gifts on her, soliciting her favor!
"When they found, one by one, that the only road to her favors was by matrimony, they sheered off in terror, one by one.
"She nearly married Vedius Caspo, came almost as near with Satronius Sabinus.
"Then, when she saw no hope left of a senator, she almost landed Hirnio, tried to marry Uncle, and tried to marry me."
"And just missed all three," said Hirnio, fervently. "I am still equally congratulating myself on my escape and wondering over it. I was sure Andivius would marry her, sure of it until his last illness made it impossible. And I feared for our Hedulio here.
"The only man hereabouts whom she did not try to marry was Ducconius Furfur. She had made eyes at his father, and Ducconius was precious afraid she would be his stepmother. At first he railed at her. Then, just before his father"s death, it was manifest to everybody that he was yielding to her fascinations, himself. Hardly was old Ducconius buried when young Furfur lost his head completely and fell madly in love with Marcia. She could have married him easily; in fact, he offered marriage, not only to her in private, but before witnesses. She, for some reason, would not hear of marrying him. In fact, Furfur, it seems, was the only bachelor hereabouts whom she was unwilling to marry. She flouted him, derided him, and finally forbade him her house and ordered him never to dare to approach her. He kept away, sulky and morose and low-spirited.
"After that episode she had a go at Muso, the only other bachelor among us seven.
"Finally she fastened on Marcus Martius, who is not quite as rich as Muso, but yet comfortably well off. She married him day before yesterday."
"Thanks be to Hercules," Tanno cried, "that I have never set eyes on the jade. I"m for matrimony only with an heiress of my own cla.s.s and only with such an heiress as I personally fancy. No matrimony for me otherwise."
With this the party broke up. We all went out on the terrace. My six neighbors mounted and cantered off on their various roads home; Tanno, Hirnio and I went in and to bed.
CHAPTER V
ENCOUNTERS
Next morning I was wakened by a dash of cold water over me and sat up in bed dripping and angry. Tanno was bending over me.
"I had to souse you," he explained. "I"ve been shaking you and yelling at you and you stayed as fast asleep as before I touched you. Get up and let"s start for Rome."
We enjoyed a brief rubdown and after Entedius joined us each relished a small cup of mulled wine and one of Ofatulena"s delicious little hot, crisp rolls.
In the east courtyard we found our equipages and I descried my tenants outside the gate, all horsed and each m.u.f.fled in a close rain-cloak, topped off by a big umbrella hat, its wide brim dripping all round its edge, for the weather was atrocious; foggy mist blanketing all the world under a gray sky from which descended a thin, chilly drizzle.
Hirnio was inspecting Tanno"s litter and chatting with Tanno about it.
"Never saw one with poles like this," he said. "All I have seen had one long pole on each side, a continuous bar of wood from end to end. What"s the idea of four poles, half poles you might call them, two on a side?"
"You see," Tanno explained, "It is far harder to get sound, flawless, perfect poles full length. Then, too, full-length spare poles are very bothersome and inconvenient to carry. With a litter equipped in this fashion one man can carry a spare pole, and they are much easier and quicker to put in if a pole snaps."
"I should think," Hirnio remarked, "that the half-poles would pull out of the sockets."
"Not a bit," said Tanno, "they clamp in at the end, this way. See? The clamps fasten instantly and release at a touch, but hold tenaciously when shut."
Under the arcade my household had gathered to say farewell and wish me good luck. I spoke briefly to each and thanked Ofatulena for her distinguished cookery, both in respect to the credit her masterpieces had done me at dinner and also for the taste of her rolls, which yet lingered in mouth and memory. Tanno also expressed his admiration of her powers.
Last I said farewell to my old nurse and foster mother Uturia, who, when I was scarcely a year old, had closed the eyes of my dying mother, and not much later of my father, and who had not merely suckled me, but had been almost as my real mother to me in my childhood.
She could not keep back her tears, as always at our partings; the more as she had had dreams the night before and she took her dreams very seriously.
"Deary," she sobbed, "it has been revealed to me that you go into great perils when you set out to-day. I saw danger all about you, danger from men and danger from beasts. Beware of strangers, of narrow streets, of walled gardens, of plots, of secret conferences. All these threaten you especially."
I kissed her as heartily as if she had been my own mother.
"Don"t worry, Uturia," I said, "as long as I live I"ll take care of you and if I die you shall be a free woman with a cottage and garden and three slaves of your own."
But she only sobbed harder, both as she clung to me and after I had mounted.
Tanno, of course, rolled into his litter and slid the panels against the rain. His bearers were m.u.f.fled up precisely like my tenants. So was Tanno"s intendant, so was Hirnio, so was I. The entire caravan was a mere column of horses, cloaks and hats, not a man visible, all the faces hid under the flapping hat-brims, no man recognizable.
Hirnio and I led, next came Tanno in his litter, then his extra bearers, next his intendant on horseback, then my nine tenants, each horsed and leading a pack-mule, last the mounted servants, Tanno"s, Hirnio"s and mine, similarly leading pack-mules, in all twenty-seven men afoot, sixteen mounted and twelve led mules.
As we strung out Tanno called to me:
"Luck for us if we don"t blunder into one of those ambushes we heard about at dinner last night. With all this cavalcade everybody we meet cannot fail to conjecture that so large a party can only be from either Villa Vedia or Villa Satronia, such an escort misbefits anyone not of senatorial rank. If we do blunder into an ambush either side will know we are not their men and will a.s.sume we are of the other party. No one can recognize anybody in this wet-weather rig. Any ambush will attack first and investigate afterwards or not at all."
Had I heeded his chance words I might, even then, have saved myself. But while my ears heard him my wits were deaf. I called back:
"There are no ambushes. Each side spreads such rumors to discredit the other, but neither so much as thinks of ambush. If Xantha or Greia is located, the clan concerned for her freedom will gather a rescue-party and there may be fight over her, but there are no ambushes."
At the foot of my road Hirnio and I turned to our left. Tanno from his litter emitted a howl of protest.
"Nothing," he yelled, "will induce me to traverse that road again. I told you so. You promised to take the other road. What do you mean?"
"Don"t worry, Opsitius," Hirnio rea.s.sured him. "We turned instinctively according to habit. You shall have your way. It is not much farther by the other road."
"Anyhow," I added, "Martius is not in sight. He was to have been here before us. If we went this way we should have to wait for him. If we go the other we shall most likely meet him at the fork of the road."
We turned to our right towards Villa Vedia and Vediamnum. About half way to the entrance to Villa Vedia, at the top of the hill between the two bridges, the rain for a brief interval fairly cascaded from the sky.
During this temporary downpour, as we splashed along, we saw loom out of the rain, fog and mist the outline of what might have been an equestrian statue, but which, as we drew up to it, we found a horse and rider, stationary and motionless to the south of the road, on a tiny knoll, facing the road and so close to it that I might have put out my right hand and touched the horse"s nose as we pa.s.sed.
Like everyone in our convoy the rider was enveloped in a rain-cloak and his head and face hidden under a wide-brimmed umbrella hat. He saluted as I came abreast of him, but his salutation was merely a perfunctory wave of a hand, an all-but-imperceptible nod and an inarticulate grunt.