CHAPTER XV
THE HUNT
That day we met no one and made a long march north-westwards along theflank of the mountain, camping at dusk by a spring. There we rehearsed ourrescue of Nona and marvelled at the ease with which we had disposed offive burly ruffians. Agathemer agreed with me that it had been mostly theeffect of complete surprise. But he took a good deal of the credit tohimself. He reminded me how he had practiced me, ever since we began ourflight, at the art of fighting with knives, at knife attack in general. Inparticular he had drilled me, as well as he could without a corpse ordummy to practice on, at the favorite stroke of professional murderers,the stab under the left shoulder-blade, the point of the knife or daggerdirected a little upward so as to reach the heart. By this stroke I hadkilled both my victims, and he one of his. I acknowledged his claims, butwas inclined to thank the gods for special aid and favor. We discussedthat amazingly lucky fight until too sleepy to talk any more.
Next day we met some charcoal burners, who were both friendly andunsuspicious and who gave us intelligible directions for making our waytowards Sarsina. The second night we again camped in the woods; the thirdwe spent at a farmhouse, thanks to Agathemer's flageolet.
The farmer, whose name was Caesus, told a grewsome tale of the horrors ofthe plague and of the death of almost all his slaves. He was gloomy abouthis future, as he, his two sons, and their surviving slave were too few towork his farm. He seemed to regard us as fugitives from justice and as menwhom it was his duty to help and protect. As the season was too early forcomfortable travelling along byways or for safety from suspicion alonghighways, and as he welcomed us, we spent a month with him, well fed, welllodged and rather enjoying the hard farm work and the outdoor life, thoughwe spent also much time under-cover, working at what could be done undershelter during heavy rains.
After he had come to feel at ease with us, our host, one day when we threewere alone, asked:
"Are you some of the King of the Highwaymen's men?"
On our disclaiming any connection with the King of the Highwaymen, or anyknowledge of such a character, he sighed and said:
"Oh, well! Of course, if you were, you would deny it, anyhow. You may beor you may not be. Anyhow, if you are, tell him I treated you well andshall always do my best for any man I take for one of his men.
"You don't look like his kind nor act like any I ever was sure of, but hehas all sorts. I thought it best to make sure. It is best to stand wellwith him. He passes somewhere near here every spring or early summer onhis way north and again in the autumn on his way south."
We left this bourne only on the solstice, the tenth day before the Kalendsof July, and trudged comfortably to Sarsina, where we put up at the inn,frequented by foot-farers like us. So also at Caesena and Faventia. Therewe agreed that we had had enough of the highway, as we might encountersome Imperial spies of the regular secret service department, and not afew of these spies might know me by sight in any disguise. So we struckoff due north through the almost level open country, intending to keep onnorthward until we came to the Spina and to follow that to the Po. AsAgathemer said, if we could not find ferrymen by day we could steal askiff by night.
Not far north of Faventia, after an easy-going day's march under a mildspring sky, we came, just before sunset, to a forest of considerableextent. As we could not conjecture whether to turn east or west, we campedat its edge and slept soundly, comfortable in our cloaks, for the nightwas warm and still.
Next morning the weather was so charming that we were tempted to plungeinto the forest and cross it as nearly due north as we could guideourselves by the sun. Since we reached the edge of the forest we had seenno human-being near enough for us to ask in which direction we had besttry to go round it. We plunged into it and in it we wasted the entire day.
The country is very flat between Faventia and the Spina. I do not believethat in any part of that forest the surface of the soil was four yardshigher than in any other part. And it was marshy, all quagmires andsloughs, with narrow, sinuous ribbons, as it were, of fairly dry landbetween them. We were hopelessly involved among its morasses before werealized our plight and, after we did realize it, we seemed to make littleprogress. We agreed that it would be folly to try to regain our camp: weheld to our purpose and tried to advance northwards. But we doubled rightand left, had to retrace our steps often and could form no idea how far wehad penetrated.
There was an astonishing abundance of game in that forest: hareseverywhere; does with fawns, young does, and not a few stags; wild boars,which fled, grunting, out of their wallows as we approached; foxes ofwhich we three times glimpsed one at a distance; and we came onindubitable wolf tracks. We had plenty of food and ate some at noon, forwe were tired. Then we spent the day threading the mazes of that swampyforest. We were careful not to get bogged and we kept our tunics andcloaks dry, though we were mired to the knees. But our very care delayedus. The day was breezy and mild but not really warm, so that we did notsuffer from the heat. But by nightfall we were exhausted and had no ideahow far we had advanced northward. Just at dusk we came to reasonably firmgoing and walked due north about a furlong. There, as the twilightdeepened, we encountered another stretch of ooze. We retreated from it adozen paces and camped under some swamp-maples on comfortably dry ground.We ate about half of our food, bread, olives, and dried figs; and whileeating dried and warmed our feet and shanks at a generous fire of fallenboughs, which Agathemer, who was clever with flint and steel, had madequickly. When our feet felt as if they really belonged to us, we wrappedourselves in our cloaks and slept soundly.
We slept, indeed, so soundly, that it was broad day when, we waked. And wewaked to hear the wood ringing with the barking and baying of dogs andwith the cries of hunters and beaters. Instantly we realized that we werein danger. For a hunt of such size as was approaching us must have beengotten up by a coterie of wealthy land-owners; and such magnates, if theycaught sight of us, would at once suspect us of being runaway slaves. Ithad been easy enough to pass ourselves off for farmerly cattle-buyers inthe Umbrian Mountains. But, habited as we were, camped in the depths of athick, swampy forest, we were sure to be suspected of being runaway slavesby anyone who encountered us; and such gentry as organize big hunts withswarms of beaters are always prone to suspect any footfarers of beingrunaway slaves.
We hastily girded ourselves for flight, meanwhile reminding each other ofthe story we had planned to tell if caught.
At first we seemed to have luck. We turned westwards away from the beatersand found and passed the upper end of the morass which had stopped us thenight before. From there the going was good, through open underbrush,beneath big beeches and chestnuts, over firm and gently rolling ground.Stopping and listening we tried to judge by the sounds the location of theline of beaters. We seemed to have a chance of getting beyond its westernend. We set off again; just as we started on nine deer dashed past us, abig stag, two young stags and six does.
Then we did run, for we knew it was our last chance and, indeed, butlittle further, a young wolf raced down a ferny glade, vanishing into somealders on the further side of the glade. I nearly trod on a fleeing hare.The beaters could not be far off.
Yet, for a bit, we seemed to be gaining on them, although we werequartering their front on a long slant. The third time we stopped to pantand listen we thought that our next dash would carry us where we mightcrouch in the first thicket and let their line sweep past us.
But, some fifty yards or so beyond, when we came to the dancing redfeathers on the cord and thought we would be safe in a few breaths, thererose at us, from behind the feathered cord, three stocky men, armed withbroad-bladed hunting-spears, who yelled at us:
"Halt! Stand! Surrender!"
We recoiled from them, amazed, threw away our wallets, threw off ourcloaks, and bolted, incredulous; and as we ran, we heard them yelling:
"Here! Here! Here they are! We see them! This way, all of you! We've gotthem! Here they are!"
No bogs, no sloughs tur
ned us or delayed us. The going was good, over firmfooting, through light underwoods, among wide-set, big trees. For ourlives we ran. There seemed a very slender chance of our crossing the wholelength of the line of beaters and escaping on the other side, but thatslender chance seemed our only chance. We ran fit to burst our hearts.
And the hunt was plainly converging on us. The noises of the beaters drewnearer. We seemed in a swarm of fleeing hares: more deer and more deerpassed us, this time, I thought, does with young fawns. We caught aglimpse of another wolf, of two foxes. And, in a moist hollow, we barelyavoided a nasty rush of eight panic-stricken, grunting wild swine.
We did run across the entire line of beaters, but little good it did us.Again we saw before us the feathered cord, the scarlet plumes dancing inthe sun. At it we ran, sure of safety if we passed it unseen andpenetrated even ten yards beyond it into the underbrush. But we were againdisappointed.
This time only two huntsmen rose at us, but they, too, flourished huntingspears with gleaming points, as big as spades. They too yelled at us andyelled to their fellows:
"Halt! You are caught! Hands up! Give yourselves up!"
And:
"There they go! Both of them! Come on! Here they are!"
Off we went again, slanting back across the approaching line of dogs andbeaters, now closer together as they drew on towards the nets, and alreadyappallingly close to us. Again we crossed the whole line, now muchshorter. But this time we ran, not against part of the long stretch offeathered cord, but against the outer yard-high net. Of course this waswell guarded and again we were yelled at and turned back.
Doubling back, now steaming, panting, gasping, with knees trembling underus, we reached the net on the other side.
Turned again, we found the beaters so near us and so close together, thatwe ran away from them rather than across their line. We ran, in fact, ina sort of mob of hares, foxes, boars, deer and even wolves, for some ofeach were in sight every moment.
So running we came where we could see the line of nets, now of six-foot,heavy-meshed nets, on either side of us. We made a last, desperate dash atone of the nets, I hoping to leap it or vault it or clamber over it andescape, after all. But six keepers, all with broad-bladed hunting spears,rose at us beyond it, rose with triumphant yells:
"We've got you now! We've got you now!"
From them we shied off and ran, half staggering with exhaustion anddespair, between the converging lines of nets, ran in a veritable press ofterrified game of all sorts, ran madly, since we heard now, not thebarking and whine of dogs straining at their leashes, but the exultantyelping, barking and baying of great packs of dogs unleashed behind theirgame.
Of course, although no single dog, however infuriated, would ever attackme in daylight, when it could see my face, yet I could do nothing whateverto protect myself, and far less Agathemer, against the massed onset ofmore than a hundred maddened hunting dogs, each bigger than a full-grownwolf.
So running, staggering, stumbling, at the end of our strength, we foundourselves running into the battue-pocket at the meeting of the two longconverging lines of nets. Anything would be better than that. We tried todouble back and were met by a dozen big dogs, some Gallic dogs of thebreed of Tolosa, spotted black and white, others mouse-colored Molossians.To escape them we dodged apart, each ran for a tree, each jumped, eachcaught the lowest limb of a thick-foliaged maple, the two not much overfive yards apart. So thick were their leaves that I could hardly make outAgathemer in his tree. The two maples were close to the beginning of thepocket net. From my perch I could see plainly how cunningly the pocket hadbeen set.
It was of strong, close-meshed nets fully three yards high stretched onsturdy forked stakes and well guyed back outside to pegs like tent-pegs.These pocketing nets were set along the tops of the two banks of a gullyabout twenty yards wide, sloping sharply downward from its top near ourtrees and with sides three or four yards high and steep. Once in thisgully, between the pocketing nets along the upper edge of its sides, noboar could scramble out, the lower meshes of the pocketing nets were toofine for any hare to squeeze through; no doe, no stag even, could leapsuch nets at the top of such banks.
I could just spy a part of the heaviest net across the gully at the end ofthe pocket. It seemed a large meshed net of rope thicker than my knee,with the large meshes filled in with smaller meshes of rope the size of mywrist.
Hardly was I safe in the crotch of my tree when the last of the game sweptby below us, the dogs hot behind them, up came the press of beaters, and,from each side, in rushed the hunters, a score of handsome nobles andgentry, habited in green tunics, wearing small, green, round-crowned,narrow-brimmed hunting hats and green boots up to just below their knees.Each carried a heavy shafted hunting spear, tipped with a huge triangulargleaming head, pointed like a needle, edged like a razor, broad as a spadeat its flare.
Even in my terror and exhaustion I could not but feel a certain pleasurein the beauty of the scene, a sort of thrill at its strangeness. I hadparticipated in such hunts in Bruttium and Sabinum, but never as huntedgame.
The sun was not yet half way up the heavens, the dew had not yet driedfrom the leaves, owing to the very late spring the freshness of springtimehad not yet passed into the fullness of early summer. Through the tendergreen of the young leafage, starry with drops of moisture, the sunshineshot long shafts of golden light. Under the beautiful canopy of blue skyand golden green foliage was the amazing turmoil of the hunt.
More than a hundred large animals, pigs, fawns, sows, does, boars andstags had fled before the beaters and were now jammed pellmell in thegully, for the end-net held. There they frantically jostled each other andthe half dozen wolves caught among them which, indeed, snapped, slashedand tore at everything within reach, but, cowed themselves, had no effectwhatever on the maddened victims which all but trod them under andactually trampled on foxes and on the swarm of squeaking, helpless hares.
Upon this mass of terrified flesh the two hundred dogs flung themselves,through the nets the huntsmen stabbed at the nearest victims, behind thedogs the shouting hunters advanced to spear their game, the battue was onand I watched it till the last animal was flat. The few which, frenzied,doubled back through the dogs and hunters were met and killed by thebeaters. Not one escaped.
As the battue ended up came the rush of beaters and our trees were soonsurrounded by a crowd of eager, exultant, infuriated beaters and huntsmen.
Up the trees young beaters swarmed and we were plucked down, thumped,whacked, punched, kicked and manacled, our tunics torn off, ourselvesmishandled till we streamed blood, all amid abuse, threats, epithets,execrations and curses.
We stood, half fainting, utterly dazed, supported by the two or threecaptors who held each of us, but for whose clutches we should havecollapsed on the earth.
We expected to be torn limb from limb, yet could not conjecture why wewere the objects of such infuriated animosity. A beater clutching eitherelbow, a hand clutching my neck from behind, my knees knocking together,naked, bruised, bloody, gasping, fainting, I, like Agathemer, was haled afew paces to one corner of the pocket net. There we were held till thegentlemen came up out of the gully.
Up they came, a score of handsome young fellows, mostly each with his hatin his hand and mopping his forehead.
"Why!" the foremost of them cried. "These are not the men! These are notthe men at all! They are not in the least like them!"
"Not in the least like Lupercus and Rufinus, certainly," another added.
"What a pack of asses you are!" cried a third, "to mishandle twostrangers. Couldn't you look at them before you mauled them?"
"We all took them for Rufinus and Lupercus," the head huntsman rejoined."Certainly they are desperate characters and runaways. Look at theirbacks."
They turned us round, to display the marks of scourging still plain on usboth.
"They've both been branded," said a gentleman's voice.
"Pooh!" cried another, "that proves nothing. They may have bee
n scourgedand branded by former masters, and manumitted since. I'll have no strangerill-treated on my land until he has had a chance to explain himself."
While he was speaking my guards turned me round again and took their handsoff me.
Our champion was a tall, powerful, plump and florid young man, with verycurly golden hair, very light blue eyes, and the merest trace of downy,curly yellow beard. He was very handsome, with small delicate nose andmouth, a round chin and the most beautiful ears I ever saw on any man. Hewore senators' boots and a tunic of pure silk, dyed a very brilliant greenand embroidered all over with a flowering vine in a darker, glossiergreen.
"What are your names?" asked the elder man who had noticed our brand-marks. He was swarthy and probably over thirty.
I gave him the name of Felix and Agathemer that of Asper, as we hadagreed, neither of us thinking it advisable to claim to be free Romans byprefixing, "Sabinus" and "Bruttius."
"Shut up, Marcus," our champion ordered, "can't you see that these poorfellows are in no condition to answer any questions? We'll interrogatethem after they have bathed, eaten and slept."
"Here, Trogus," he called to one of the chief-huntsman's assistants, "takecharge of these two fellows. Treat them well; if they report anyincivility or omission on your part I'll make you regret it. When they arebathed and fed, let them sleep all they want to.
"And, here, Umbro" (this to the head-huntsman), "see that their effectsare found and restored to them."
He turned to us.
"Did you have wallets?" he asked.
We nodded, too shaken to speak.
"Umbro," he said, "scour the wood. Have their shoes, their cloaks andespecially their wallets found and brought to me. And make sure thatnothing is taken from those wallets, that they are handed to their ownersas they were found. If they find anything missing, I'll make you and yourmen smart. Be prompt! Be lively. Get those wallets and cloaks and shoes."
While he gave these orders, some beaters brought us our torn tunics;which, even so, were better than no clothing at all. We put them on.
Then we were led off to the edge of a forest, bestowed in a light Gallicgig, drawn by one tall roan mule only, and in it, the driver sitting atour feet, sideways, on one shaft, his legs hanging down, we were drivenoff through a beautiful gently rolling country, clothed with thesuperabundant crops, vines and orchards of the lower Po Valley, all bathedin brilliant spring sunshine, to a magnificent villa, most opulentlyprovided with white-walled, neat outbuildings, all roofed with red tiles.In one of these, apparently the house of the farm-overseer, we werebathed, clothed with fresh tunics, far better than our own, lavishly fedand led to rest in tiny white-washed rooms, very plain, but clean andairy, where we went to sleep on corded cots provided with very thin grass-stuffed mattresses.
When we woke each found his wallet beside his cot, set on his neatlyfolded cloak; with our old worn shoes, well cleaned, on the floor by thefolded cloaks.
Later we were led before our host and champion, who turned out to beTarrutenus Spinellus; in no wise, it seemed, affected, by the downfall ofhis great kinsman. He questioned us and Agathemer told the story we hadagreed on: that we had been slaves of Numerius Vedius of Aquileia, who hadbeen kind to both of us and had made him overseer and me accountant of hisvegetable farms on the sandy islets offshore along the coast of theAdriatic by Aquileia. There we had lived contentedly till we had beencaptured by raiding Liburnian pirates from the Dalmatian islands. They hadsold us at Ancona, where we had been horribly mistreated by a cruel andsavage master, who had branded and scourged us for imaginarydelinquencies.
From him we had run away, intent on making our way back to Aquileia and toour rightful owner.
"This all sounds plausible," said Tarrutenus, "and I believe you, and itfalls out well. For my cousin, Cornelius Vindex, will leave tomorrow ornext day for Aquileia and you can travel in his company all the way."
We were well fed and lodged while at Villa Spinella. While there welearned that Lupercus and Rufinus, the two escaped malefactors for whom wehad been mistaken by the huntsmen and beaters, had been runaway slaves,long uncatchable and lurking in swamps and forests, who had lately, triedto rob at night the store-house of a farmstead: and who, when the farmerrushed out to defend his property, had murdered him and even thereafter,in mere wantonness, had also murdered two of his slaves, his wife and ayoung daughter. This horrible crime had roused the whole countryside tohunt them down and the great battue in which we had been involved had beenorganized at a time of the year most unusual and ruinous to the increaseof deer-herds, precisely in order to snare the outlaws along with thegame. They had not been caught and we had.
After two nights' good sleep, and a day's rest, with excellent andabundant meals, we set off at dawn in Cornelius' convoy, our preciousamulet-bags untouched; our wallets just as we had flung them down in theforest, not a coin missing; and we were clothed in new good tunics, ourbruises pretty well healed up or healing nicely, ourselves well contentwith our escape, but meditating a second escape, this time from,Cornelius.
For we had no stomach for the road to Aquileia, if in such company that wemust present ourselves before Vedius as claiming to be slaves of his.
We escaped easily enough, just after crossing the Po, by sneaking off inthe darkness from a villa where Cornelius, stopped overnight with afriend. Without any difficulty we recrossed the Po, not far belowHostilia, and from there made for Parma.
For we agreed that, after our story to Tarrutenus, with Cornelius Vindexin Aquileia, Aquileia would be no fit bourne for us. So we decided, afterall, to risk the highway from Parma to Dertona and from there make our wayacross the Ligurian Mountains to Vada Sabatia and from there along thehighway to Marseilles, where we should be able to hide in the slums amongthe mixture of all races in that lively city; and where Agathemer was surehe could turn gems into cash without danger or suspicion.
All, went well with us till we reached Placentia. There we put up at aninn. As we were leaving the town next morning, when we were about half wayfrom the inn to the Clastidian Gate, Agathemer gripped my arm and motionedme up a side street. We walked with every indication of leisurelyindifference until we had taken several turns and were alone in a narrowstreet. Then he told me that we had barely missed coming face to face withGratillus himself.
This barely missed encounter with one of the most dreaded of the Emperor'sspies, a man who knew me perfectly and who had always disliked me, soterrified both of us that we left Placentia by the Nuran Gate and made ourway southwestward into the Apennines.
Once in the mountains we avoided every good road we saw and kept to badbyways, until we were completely lost.
Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Page 16