Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire

by Edward Lucas White

CHAPTER XIV

WINTER IN THE MOUNTAINS

Neither Agathemer nor I knew anything about bread-making. He tried, but merely wasted flour. And both of us hated the wearisome labor of grinding grain in either of the rough hand-mills which were in the store-house. He found a means of keeping us well fed, satisfied and looking forward to the next meal with pleasure. He screened a peck or so of barley, put it to soak in a crock, and then, when it was swelled, put it in a crock or flat- bottomed jar, with just enough water to cover it, and bedded this in the hot coals by the edge of the fire. There, under a tight lid, it stewed and swelled and steamed all day, unless he judged it done sooner. When it was cooked to his taste he mixed through it cheese, raisins, and several sorts of flavorings, also a little honey. The porridge-like product he baked, as it were, by turning a larger crock over the crock containing it. The result was always tasty and relishable.

I asked him why he used barley, not wheat, of which there was quite a supply. He said barley was supposed to be heating, and we certainly needed all the heating we could get.

The old smoked cheeses, of which an amazing number hung in the hut and store-houses, were, to me, very appetizing, used in this way, though too strongly flavored for me to eat any quantity of any sort as one would eat normal cheese. Agathemer said they had all been smoked too soon, while the cheese was yet soft, so that the smoke had penetrated all through the cheese. Certainly the outside of each cheese was mere soot to the depth of an inch, so that we had to throw it away. Even Hylactor would not eat it.

Soon after the first hard freeze we found, one morning, one of the goats with a leg broken. Agathemer, with me to help him, got her out into one of the buildings, out of sight or hearing of the other animals; and, there later, butchered her. We had, by this time, found butchering knives and kitchen knives, to the number of a score, but each hidden by itself, and in the oddest places, one under a sill of the cowshed, another under a wine-jar, several between the rafters and thatch, most buried in the thatch itself, as if they had been hidden on purpose. They were all rusty, but we soon had them bright and sharp. With some of these we butchered and cut up the goat. The offal we fed to Hylactor, not much at a time. Most of the rest of her we ate, a little at a time, as the frost kept the meat from spoiling.

The kidneys Agathemer used first. He washed them, soaked them, parboiled them, cut them into bits, fried the bits in olive oil, and then, when they were crisp, stirred some of them through one of his crocks of cooked barley. The result was delicious. The kidneys sufficed for two or three crocks of barley. Then he did something similar with the liver with a result almost as appetizing.

We had some chops, broiled over the hot coals; also collops, spitted, with bits of fat bacon between. But neither of us cared much for goat's meat, and Agathemer's attempt at a broth made of the tougher meat was not a success. It had a repulsive smell and a more repulsive taste, though it seemed nourishing. He made only one pot of broth. After that we fed the coarser parts, little by little, to Hylactor.

This loss of one goat led Agathemer to do some thinking. There was a pretty large supply of hay, but not enough to keep in good milk all through the winter, until grass grew next spring, two cows, eight ewes and twenty goats. We talked the matter over. The ram and the he-goat were manifestly of choice breeding stock, probably carefully selected and cherished. We judged their owner would be angry if he did not find them on his return. So Agathemer considered which of the ewes gave the least milk and promised least as a breeder, and, after all the goat's meat was used up, we killed her. Sheep's-kidneys and sheep's-liver are better eating than goat's-kidneys and goat's-liver. We both agreed on that and we liked mutton chops and mutton cutlets. Hylactor got only the offal and the coarser bits, the rest Agathemer made into a relishable broth flavored with marjoram, bay-leaves and other herbs.

During the winter he killed six more goats and one more ewe, so that we fed, all winter, six ewes and twelve goats. For these the hay sufficed and not a little was left when we departed.

For ourselves, while we wasted nothing, we were lavish with the food stores. The bitter cold and our unremitting toil all day long, at a thousand other tasks and always at preparing fire-wood, contributed to keep us ravenous. We ate heartily twice a day, never taking anything between meals except all the milk we chose to drink, and I found ewes' milk and goats' milk, yet warm, or milked that morning, good to drink in cold weather. Often we mixed hot water with the goats' milk and drank the mixture while warm.

One intensely cold and brilliantly clear day, as I was riving a log, panting and glowing with the labor, yet with fingers numb and feet aching with the cold, I heard a yell from Agathemer. Axe in hand, my left hand making sure that my knife was loose in its sheath, where I wore it stuck in my belt, I raced to the store-house. There I found Agathemer alone, unhurt, standing by an olive-jar, staring into it.

"What is wrong?" I queried.

"Nothing wrong," he said, "but something amazing."

He fumbled in the jar, reaching his arm down into it as far as he could, his arm-pit tight down on the rim. After some straining he held up his hand, all dripping with dregs, and, between his thumb and forefinger, exhibited an unmistakable gold coin. How many there were in that jar we never knew; there were too many to count. We turned the jar over on its side, with some labor, and made sure that there were enough gold coins in it to weigh more than either I or Agathemer weighed and we were about normal-sized men, in every way.

We discussed this find a good deal. We agreed that the coins were of no use to us and could be of no use to us. As we meant to pass ourselves off for Sabine cattle-buyers until we were out of Umbria, as we meant to press on to Aquileia, as soon as the weather was warm enough, as we meant to pass ourselves off for runaway slaves, if we were arrested and questioned gold coins in our possession would have been most dangerous to us. We agitated the idea of sewing a few into the hems of our tunics and into the ends of our belts; but we came to the conclusion that any attempt to exchange a gold coin for silver would be very dangerous and much too risky a venture.

We also agreed that if the master of the place returned he must not suspect that we knew of his hoard. So we replaced the jar as it had stood, effaced all signs of its having been moved and refilled it with olives, taking them from another jar, which proved to contain olives only, all the way to the bottom.

This find led Agathemer to investigate every jar on the place, running a long rod of tough wood down into each as a sounder. In another jar of olives he found a similar hoard of silver denarii. Of these we took as many as were necessary to replenish the store of coins Chryseros had furnished us with. Even of silver we dared not carry too much. The hoard was so large that the handful of coins we took was unlikely ever to be missed.

The little girls, early in our stay, became entirely accustomed to us and utterly trustful of us. In the chests Agathemer found other tunics, warmer than those they had on when we came, which were suited to them. But there were no cloaks small enough for them to wear. With our precious scissors Agathemer cut in two the smallest warm cloak he could find and, with the needles and thread Chryseros had given us, he roughly hemmed the cut edge. The two awkwardly-shaped cloaks, thus made, the children wore till spring.

We could find no shoes for the children and they went barelegged and barefooted all the winter. They did not seem to mind it, except on the most bitterly cold days, when the wind howled about the hut, roaring through the pines and naked-boughed oaks, blowing before it the snow in silver dust. Then they kept inside the hut all day. But, on sunny and windless days, they ran about barefoot in the snow and seemed entirely indifferent to the cold, though they always appeared glad to dry and warm their little pink toes at the fire, after they returned to the hut. Agathemer, more knowing than I, would not let them approach the fire until they had bathed their feet in a crock of water he kept standing ready inside the hut door and had partially dried them afterwards. He said that otherwise their feet would puff and swell and perhaps inflame. They seemed happy-hearted little beings and Secunda was bright. But Prima was very dull and less intelligent than her younger sister. We concluded that she was, while not anything like an idiot, certainly a very backward child, lacking the wit of a normal child of her age.

After the first snow fell we had no more trouble with violent outbreaks from the sick woman; or, at least, very little. Her next fit of raving came about ten days after the first snowfall and began in the daytime, when both Agathemer and I were in the hut. We forced her back into her bed and then Agathemer had an inspiration. He bade me hold her where she was and he took down his flageolet, from where it hung on a high peg on the partition, and began to play it.

The woman quieted at once and seemed to sink to sleep. After that her fits, which recurred at frequent intervals, took up little of our time, as upon each we had only to get her back into her bed and compose her by means of Agathemer's music.

It was well along towards spring, certainly far towards the end of the winter, when Agathemer made his most astonishing discovery. By that time the animals gave no more milk than sufficed for the five of us; there was no surplus to feed back to the best milkers. Also we had a little reserve of firewood and did not have to drive ourselves so unremittingly to escape death by freezing if our fuel gave out.

I was chopping wood in a leisurely way, and enjoying the exercise. The little girls were inside the hut at the moment, after playing about most of the morning. Agathemer came out of the store-house, glanced around, and beckoned to me: together we went inside. There he showed me where he, led by a very slight difference of color, had dug into the earth floor and come upon a small maple-wood chest, like a temple treasure-box. It was, outside, perhaps a foot wide and about as high, and not over a foot and a half long. He had forced it open with the hatchet and a heavy knife, like a Spartan wood-knife. The wood of the chest was so thick that the inside cavity was comparatively small. But it was big enough to have held, say, two quarts of wine. And it was almost full of jewels; opals, turquoises, topazes, amethysts, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

Agathemer shut the store-house door and fastened it so the little girls could not open it if they should chance to try. Then he spread his cloak on the earth floor and dumped the contents of the chest on it. Most of the gems were small, at least two score were very large, and there were many, of notable, though moderate, size. We could see them fairly well, though the store-house was dim, since, with the door shut, the only light was what came through chinks. We ran our fingers through the heap of jewels, picked up the largest and held them to the light and gained a general idea of the value of the hoard. We put them all back into the chest, shut it, and reburied it. It showed no marks of Agathemer's dexterous attempts at opening it, for the lid was held down only by a clasp outside, and by the swelling of the inside flange of wood against the overlapping rim of the lid.

We went out to the woodpile and I resumed my chopping, while Agathemer set to riving logs with the wedges and maul. We had always kept the little girls away from the woodpile and so were sure of being alone. Also we talked Greek as an extra precaution.

Agathemer, resting between assaults on a very big log, said:

"I am of the same opinion I have held since we found the gold. This place belongs to some Umbrian farmer who is in partnership with a bandit chief or the leader of a gang of footpads. Just as the King of the Highwaymen is said to have a brother in Rome, important among the Imperial spies, so most outlaws have some anchor somewhere with associates apparently honest and respectable. The owner of this place may be brother of a brigand, or related to one in some other way or merely a trusted friend. At any rate I am of the opinion that this fastness is used as a repository for robbers' loot. Everything points to it. The gems and the coins make it certain, to my thinking, but even if we had found none of these it is pretty plain from everything else. There is no sign that there ever was a pig anywhere about here: yet the store of fine old bacon surpasses anything any mere farm ever kept on hand; there is not a square yard of ground hereabouts that ever has been plowed, spaded or hoed: yet the place is crammed with all sorts of farm produce. Manifestly it was all brought here, where there are no pigeons to reveal the place by their flight above it, nor any cock to call attention to it by his crowing. This is not a farm, it is a treasure-house, lavishly provided with everything portable.

"The absence of the man and the flight of the slaves puzzles me. As for the slaves, I can form no conjecture. But I am inclined to think it possible that the man was betrayed somehow to the authorities and is in prison or has been executed. We must assume, however, that he is alive and will return and must comport ourselves accordingly.

"Now I tell you what I mean to do. In such a hoard of gems a few of medium size could never be missed, even if missed, their abstraction could never be proved. I'm going to select the best of the medium-sized emeralds, topazes, rubies and sapphires; enough to fill the leather amulet-bags Chryseros gave us. All slaves wear amulet-bags, if they can get them; ours are old, worn and soiled and will make unsurpassable hiding places for as many gems as they will hold. I'll take out the amulets and sew them into the hems of our tunics, at the corners. I'll fill the bags as full of gems as is possible without making them look unusually plump. Then, if we reach Aquileia, we shall have a source of cash enough to last us years; for I can sell the jewels one at a time at high prices."

"Are you sure that the stones are worth all that care?" I cavilled. "May you not be mistaken as to their value or even as to their genuineness?"

"Not I," Agathemer bragged. "I am one of the foremost gem experts alive. Your uncle, as you know, held it a wicked waste of money for a sickly bachelor to buy gems; but he was a natural-born gem fancier. He knew every famous jewel in Rome: every one of the Imperial regalia, every one ever worn by anyone at any festival or entertainment, every one in every fancier's collection of jewels. From him I learned all I know: I myself possess the faculties to profit by my training. I know more of gems than most, I tell you!"

I agreed, and, during the nest few days, he selected the stones he judged most valuable, enough to fill the hollow of one of my hands and as much for him, and sewed the two batches up in our emptied amulet-bags. The amulets, which were two Egyptian scarabs and two Babylonian seals, very crude in workmanship and of the meanest glazed pottery, he sewed into the corners of our tunics.

Soon after this came the first thaw of the spring; a mild sunny day cleared every bough of every tree of the last vestiges of clinging snow or ice. Then we had two days of warm rain, sometimes a drizzle, sometimes a downpour. Then, on the fourth day, the sky was clear again and the sunshine strong.

As usual after my morning duties, I went in to take a look at our insensible hostess. She lay, as she had mostly lain all winter, breathing almost imperceptibly, her eyes closed. As I bent over her, her eyes opened.

She sat up, wide-eyed, startled, the picture of amazement and it came over me that she was no peasant woman, but a lady.

"Who are you?" she demanded, supporting herself on one elbow. "I do not know you; what are you doing here?"

"I have been helping to nurse you," I said. "You have been ill a long time and have needed much care. Lie down; you will hinder your recovery if you exert yourself too soon."

She lay back, but propped herself up on her pillows, and in no weak voice insisted on knowing who I was.

At that instant Agathemer entered. He, far more diplomatic than I, took charge of the situation. The woman, instead of losing consciousness again at once, as I expected, appeared possessed of much more strength than anyone would have anticipated and asked searching questions.

Agathemer, tactfully but without any attempt at beating about the bush, told her the whole truth, as to her illness, our finding her alone with the two children, our care of her, and the length of our stay. He said afterwards that he hoped the shock would cure her.

"Am I to understand you to say," she asked, "that I have been in this bed since the middle of the autumn and that it is now almost spring?"

"Just that," said Agathemer simply.

"And that you two men have been, practically, in possession of this entire place all that time?"

"That is true also," I said.

Agathemer and I looked at each other. We had used our one pair of scissors mutually and our hair and beards were not shaggy or bushy. But we were a rough, rather fierce-looking, pair.

"This," she said, "is terrible, terrible! Where are my daughters?"

"Playing about out in the sunshine," I said. "Plump and well-fed, and healthy and cheerful."

"This," she repeated, "is terrible, terrible! May I not see them, may I not speak to them, will you not bring them to me?"

"Indeed we will," I said and motioned to Agathemer. While he was gone the woman and I regarded each other without speaking. When Agathemer returned with the children I said:

"We will leave you to talk to your daughters alone. When you wish us to return send one of the children for us."

The joy of the two at the sight of their mother, sensible and able to recognize them, was pathetic. Sobbing and laughing, they flung themselves on the bed and embraced her, kissing her and she kissing each.

We went out and set to chopping and riving wood.

Before very long Secunda came out and said her mother wanted to speak to me. Leaving Agathemer plying his maul I went in.

The woman was now well propped up against a heap of pillows. She told the children to run off and play till she sent for them. Then she motioned me to seat myself on the chest. I did so.

She regarded me fixedly, as she had while Agathemer had gone for the children. When she spoke she asked:

"What god do you worship?"

I was amazed at this unusual and unexpected question and hesitated a moment before I answered:

"Mercury, chiefly. Of course, Jupiter and Juno; Dionysius, Apollo,
Minerva. But most of all Mercury."

She sighed.

"I had expected a very different answer," she said. "But, whatever god or gods you worship, you are a good man and your servant is a good man. I am amazed. My children were truthful till I fell ill. I am sure they could not have changed in one winter. In any case Secunda's precocity and Prima's vacuity seem equally incapable of any deception. What they tell me is all but incredible, yet I believe it. You two men have acted to me and mine as if you had been my blood kin. If you two had been my own brothers you could have done no more for us. I shall always be grateful. What are your names?"

Agathemer and I had agreed to use the names Sabinus Felix and Bruttius Asper. These names, common enough in Sabinum, we, in fact, had given at the farms where Agathemer's flageolet-playing won us entertainment in the autumn. I gave them now. I added:

"It seems best to me that you should not ask either whence we came or whither we are bound."

"I understand," she said.

"And now," said I, "since you have our names, tell us how we should address the mother of Prima and Secunda."

"My name," she said, "is Nona. [Footnote: Ninth.] My mother had a larger family than I am ever likely to be blest with."

Nona recovered with marvellous rapidity. The weather continued fair and warm, with no strong winds, only steady, gentle breezes. This aided her, as it dried out the hut. She slept well at night, she said, and heavily in the afternoons. When awake she ate heartily and was almost alert. She questioned me again and again as to the condition in which we had found the place. I told her the exact truth, except as to finding the hoards of coins and jewels, to the smallest detail. I also told her of our stewardship and of our having killed and eaten a brace of ewes and eight goats. She approved.

I asked her about the children's tale of the slaves running away.

She sighed.

"I should have trusted any one of the seven," she said. "I believed that any one of them would have been faithful. I suppose almost all slaves are alike, after all. Hermes died about midsummer. He was the oldest of them and the best. I suppose that, in past winters, he had kept the others to their duty. But then, I was never ill before. Without Hermes to lead them, without me to order them, I suppose what they did was natural."

I told her of the great cold and abundant snow of the winter. She questioned me and said:

"Evidently you have had more cold and snow in one winter than I have had in ten."

On the third day after her revival she was able to get out of bed and, leaning heavily on me, to reach the door of the hut. There she sat basking in the sun, Secunda on one side of her, Prima on the other, Hylactor at her feet.

Hylactor had proved himself a perfect watchdog that winter. We had never allowed him to sleep in the hut, as he would have done if permitted, and as he tried to do at first. Agathemer had fashioned him a tiny shelter and into it he crawled nightly. Out of it, also, he dashed, if any sound or scent roused him. Tracks of wolves were frequent in the snow out in the forest, and not a few approached our clearing. But we lost not one sheep or goat to any wolf. Hylactor frightened off most and killed three, a medium-sized female and two full-grown young males, at the acme of their fighting powers. We rated Hylactor a paragon among dogs.

The warm weather held on, though unseasonable so early in the year. Nona recovered so rapidly that she was able to visit each of the outbuildings. Just when she was well enough to walk alone and firmly came a sharp spell of cold, as unseasonable as had been the heat. It began about noon, one clear day, with a high wind. By sunset everything was frozen.

Nona said:

"You two have had more than your share of sleeping on the earth floor by the fire. My bed will hold me and my girls, for a few nights. You two take their bed. It will be cold on the floor tonight."

That night, therefore, Agathemer and I enjoyed a sound night's sleep in a deep, soft bed. It was our first night in a Gallic bed, and we liked it. Since our crawl through the drain we had slept abed but four times, at farms in the Umbrian mountains. This was best of all. And we had a succession of nights of it, for the cold held on and, even when it abated, Nona insisted on our continuing to sleep so.

During the cold she mixed a batch of bread, and Agathemer baked it. She had praised his cookery, especially his savory messes of steamed barley, flavored with cheese, raisins and what not. But when the cold snap came after the thaws she suggested that we grind some wheat and she make bread. We acceded with alacrity. The bread tasted unbelievably good.

As soon as the weather was again warm it was plain that spring was coming in earnest. Nona stood out of doors after sunset, went out again after dark, staring up at the sky.

Next morning, while the children were at play, she said to me:

"Felix, you and Asper must leave this place at once and be on your way. My husband will return soon. He may return any day now. He is a terrible man. He will come with too many men for you to resist and he will not ask any questions until after he has killed you both. I know him. If I could be sure of telling him before he saw you what manner of men you are and how deeply I am in your debt he would repay you lavishly, for he is liberal and generous. But, being what he is, if he finds you here, you will be dead before I can explain. You must go. Prepare to set off at dawn tomorrow."

I told Agathemer and he agreed with me that we had best do as Nona said. She was, as she averred, well enough to care for herself and the children. But we lingered next day. By dusk she was frantic, begging, imploring us to depart at dawn. I feared a recurrence of her illness and gave her my promise.

We set off, actually, not at dawn, but about an hour after sunrise, the broad brims of our travelling hats flapping in the wind, our cloaks close about us, our wallets slung over our shoulders, our staffs in our hands. At the hut door Nona, Prima and Secunda bade us farewell, Nona thanking and blessing us. Hylactor was for following us: we had to order him back, for he paid more attention to us than to Nona.

With a last backward glance at the edge of the clearing we plunged into the forest by the track leading northward.

We had not gone a hundred paces when I thought I heard a scream and stopped. Agathemer declared he had heard nothing. But, listening, we did hear twigs snapping and Hylactor bounded into sight. He did not fawn on us, but seized my cloak in his teeth and tugged, growling and snarling.

"That dog," said Agathemer, "is asking for help. He knows what is too much for him to fight."

We threw off our shoes, wallets and cloaks, tucked up our tunics and, staffs in one hand and sheathless knives in the other, barefoot, raced back along the track after the guiding dog.

From that entrance of the clearing the outbuildings hid the hut from us. When our rush brought us in sight of the hut door we were not six paces from it and just in time to see Hylactor spring on and bear to the earth a man who stood before it. Leaving him to Hylactor we dashed inside, urged by indubitable shrieks.

In the dim interior we made out each child struggling with a man and Nona with two. Before they could turn our knives had slaughtered the children's assailants. One of the survivors Agathemer cracked over the head with his staff. I stabbed the other. Whereupon Agathemer cut the throat of the man he had downed, and dashing outside, finished the man Hylactor was worrying. Quicker than it takes to tell it the five were dead.

Nona had fainted, as we rescued her. But Agathemer revived her with a dash of cold water in her face and some strong wine poured between her lips. We laid her on her bed and told the children to watch her. Then we dragged out the corpses, laid them in a row and considered them. All five were pattern ruffians; black-haired, burly, brutal and fierce. We had had amazing luck to dispose of them so easily. Five lucky flukes, Agathemer called it, and we without a scratch.

One by one we picked them up and carried them off, down the slope, to a soft bit of soil among some beeches. There we laid them in a row. On them we found a few silver coins, five daggers, five knives, five amulet-bags, nothing else. Their tunics and cloaks were old and of poor material.

Back to the hut we went and found Nona revived and at the door.

"Begone!" she said. "Flee! Hasten! That man was my husband's bitterest enemy. He was intent on revenge. But he could never have found this place save by tracking my husband and conjecturing his destination. My husband must have camped last night less than a day's journey from here. He will be here today, he may be here any moment. Save yourselves. Begone!"

Agathemer and I looked at each other.

"We shall not set off," I said, "until we have buried the five corpses. I'm not going to be haunted on my way and perhaps for life by any such spooks as the ghosts of those five ruffians. We shall make sure that they are safely buried."

Agathemer agreed with me and we set about the task. During the winter we had found mattocks, pickaxes, hoes, spades and shovels hid in the most unlikely places, each by itself, and had hafted them; with these we dug a big pit and in it laid the five corpses, and buried them too deep for any wolf, badger or other creature to be at all likely to smell them and dig them out or dig down to them.

When the men were buried it was past noon. We went back to the hut, drank a second draught of the strongest and sweetest wine and drank it unmixed, as we had drunk our first before we set about carrying the corpses into the forest. Nona renewed her adjurations to begone.

But neither I nor Agathemer would listen to her. I said I was far too tired to travel until after a night's sleep and that after having saved her and her daughters, it was no more than fair that she should stand watch over us while we slept all the afternoon: she could easily watch at the hut door and explain matters to her terrible husband if he came and were as terrible as she averred.

We retrieved our wallets, cloaks and shoes, threw them down in a corner of the hut, ate some bread with plenty of milk to wash it down, and went to sleep in the children's bed, as we had slept the night before. We woke before sunset, did what was needful about the place, ate a hearty dinner of bread, bacon, olives, raisins and wine and at once went to bed for the night. After dark Nona ceased adjuring us to begone; she said that, if her husband came, she would hear him at the hut door and make him aware of the facts in time to prevent any trouble. We slept till sunrise. Then Nona declared that she and the children could milk the animals. We agreed with her, for they had little milk by then. We ate a hearty breakfast and set off.