Part 27 (2/2)

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 wors.h.i.+ppers. 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?”

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