I barely caught a glimpse of his face, but I made sure he was no one I had ever seen before and equally sure that he was not a Sabine.
When we reached the entrance of Villa Vedia, which was also the crossroad down which Marcus Martius and his bride must come, there was no sign of a travelling carriage, nor any fresh ruts in the road.
We halted and peered into the mist. Nothing was in sight on the road, but there was a stir in the bushes by the roadside. Out of them appeared a bare head, with a shock of tousled, matted, rain-soaked gray hair, a hatchet face, brow like a bare skull, bleared eyes, far apart and deepset on either side of a sharp hooked nose like the beak of a bird of prey, high cheekbones under the thin, dry, tight-drawn skin above the sunken cheeks, a wide, thin-lipped mouth and a chin like a ship"s prow. The rain trickled down the face.
Up it rose, till there was visible under it a lean stringy neck, a tattered garment, and the outline of a gaunt, emaciated body, that of a tall, spare, half-starved old woman.
I recognized the Aemilian Sibyl, as all the countryside called her, an old crone who had, since before the memory of our oldest patriarchs, lived in a cave in the woods on the Aemilian Estate, supported by the gifts doled out to her by the kindness, respect or fear of the slaves and peasantry living nearest her abode, for she had a local reputation for magical powers in the way of spells to cure or curse, charms for wealth or health, love philtres, fortune-telling, prophecy and good advice on all subjects likely to cause uncertainty of mind in farm-life.
She towered out of the dripping shrubberies and pointed a long skinny finger at me.
"I know you under your cloak and hat, Hedulio," she wheezed. "Well for you if younger folk than I had such, eyes in their heads as I have in my spirit. I know you, Andivius Hedulio. You turn your face towards Reate, but you shall never see Reate this day. You might as well take the road to Rome and be done with it, for to Rome you shall go, whether you will or not. Whether you will or not, whatever road your feet take, you will find it leads you to Rome, whatever ship you take, no matter to what port she steers, will land you at Rome"s Wharf. They say all roads lead to Rome.
For you, in truth, every road leads to Rome, whether you face towards Rome or away from Rome.
"Be warned! Yield to your fate! If you would have luck, go to Rome, abide in Rome; and if you must leave Rome, return to Rome.
"And hearken to my words, let them sink deep into your mind, remember them and heed them; beware of a man with a hooked nose, beware of secret conferences, beware of plots, walled gardens, beware of narrow streets, for these will be your undoing."
Agathemer had edged his horse along the roadside the length of our cavalcade and had joined me. He dismounted, strode to the hag and held out his hand to her, some silver pieces on its palm, saying:
"My master thanks you for your warning and offers you these as a guerdon."
"Greek!" she screamed. "I warn not for guerdons, but at the behest of the G.o.d of Prophecy. Begone with your silver! Silver I scorn and gold and all the treasures of mankind"s folly and all the joys of mankind"s life. I am the Sibyl!"
And she tramped off through the crackling underbrush till the trees hid her and the noise of her going died away, till she was so far off that we heard the rain drops drip from the boughs and the horses fret at their bits.
So at a standstill, as we stared expectantly up the crossroad, we saw come into sight, not a travelling carriage, but a horseman, looming huge out of the fog, a vast bulk of a man on a big black horse like a farm work-horse.
He drew rein and saluted civilly, tilting up his hat. His face was ruddy, his eyes blue, his expression that of a mountaineer from a village or small town.
"I have lost my way," he said. "My name is Murmex Lucro. I come from Nersae and am bound for Rome. I was told of a short cut that should have brought me out on the Salarian Road near Trebula. But I must have taken a wrong turn, for I was wholly at a loss at dusk yesterday and so camped in the woods by a spring. I have not met a human being since daylight. Where am I and how can I reach the Via Salaria?"
"You are not far from it," Hirnio told him. "We are bound for Rome and if you join us you can reach Via Salaria with us by the road on which we are going. Should you prefer to follow the road along which we have come, which is rough, but less roundabout, you can, by taking every turn to the right, reach the Via Salaria some miles nearer Rome than where our road will bring us out on it."
"I"ll join your cavalcade, if you have no objection," the stranger said.
Hirnio and I expressed our entire willingness to have his company.
Hirnio asked him:
"Are you in any way related to Murmex Frugi?"
"He was my father," Murmex replied, simply.
"Was!" Hirnio repeated. "The word strikes ominously on my ear. Someone from this neighborhood, I forget who, was in Nersae since the roads became fit for travelling this spring and returned from there, or perhaps some wayfarer from Nersae stopped with someone hereabouts. At any rate we heard he had seen Murmex Frugi still hale and sound, even at his advanced age."
"My father," said Murmex, "was still hale and sound on the Kalends of May and for a day or two thereafter. He fell ill with a cough and fever, and died after only two nights" illness, on the Nones of May, barely more than a month ago."
"He lived to a green old age," said Hirnio, "and must have enjoyed every moment of his life."
"He seemed to," said Murmex.
"And I conjecture," I put in, "that he was proud of his son."
"He seemed so," Murmex admitted, "but he was never a tenth as proud of me as I of him."
"It is an honor," I said, "to be the son of the greatest gladiator of our fathers" days, of the man esteemed the best swordsman Italy ever saw live out his term of service and live to retire on his savings."
"It is," Murmex said, as simply as before.
Here we were interrupted by a yell from Tanno, as he leaned out of his litter.
"Are we going to take root here," he bawled, "like Phaethon"s sisters? We were supposed to be journeying to Rome. We appear to be bound for Hades; we shall certainly reach it if we continue sinking into your Sabine mud!"
"Martius agreed to wait for me, if I was late," I shouted back to him. "I agreed to wait for him; I keep my word. If you choose, we"ll get out of your way and let you pa.s.s on. We can catch up with you."
"Bah!" he roared. "No going it alone on a Sabine road for me! I"m tied to you hand and foot. But this waiting in the rain is no fun! Did you notice that man on horseback we pa.s.sed on the road?"
"I did," I called back.
"Do you know who he is?"
"Never set eyes on him before," I replied.
"Do you know what he is?"
"No," I answered, "I do not. What is he, according to your conjecture?"
"I"m not depending on any conjectures," Tanno bellowed, "I know to a certainty."
"Then tell us," I called.
"Not here!" cried Tanno. "I"ll tell you later."
He pulled his head inside his litter.
We again stared up the crossroad. Nothing was in sight.
"It seems to me," Hirnio again addressed Murmex, "that not only your father was a Nersian, but also Pacideia.n.u.s and that I have heard that he also was living in retirement at Nersae."
"He is yet," rejoined Murmex, laconically.
"Then you know him?" Hirnio queried.
"My mother," said Murmex, "is his sister."
"Your uncle!" cried Hirnio, "son to one of the two greatest retired gladiators in Italy, nephew to the other! Living in the same town with them! Did either of them ever teach you anything of sword play?"