CHAPTER XXV
THE OPEN COUNTRY
After some days of rest, abundant food and leisurely hot-baths in the freedman's house, I left Nuceria under convoy of three genial road- constables and journeyed deliberately northward along the Flaminian Highway to the Imperial estate which was to be my abode. I am not going to locate it precisely nor to name the villages nearest it nor the neighboring towns. It will be quite sufficient to set down that it was near the Flaminian Highway and approximately half way between Nuceria and Forum Sempronii.
My reasons for vagueness are mandatory, to my mind. Feuds in the Umbrian mountains differ greatly from feuds in the Sabine hills; but, like Sabinum, Umbria is afflicted with feuds. Now I anticipate that this book will not only be widely read among our nobility and gentry and much discussed by them, but also that it will be talked of by more than half Rome and that copies of it and talk about it will spread all over Italy and even into the provinces. Talk of it may trickle into the Umbrian mountains. Umbrian mountaineers live long. Some of those who loved me and befriended me or loved and befriended those who loved and befriended me, may still be alive and hearty and likely to live many years yet. So also may be some of those who hated me. I do not want anyone holding a grudge, or nursing the grudge of a dead kinsman or friend, to learn through me of any secret kindness to me which he might regard as treachery to his kin and so feel impelled to avenge on those who befriended me or their children or grandchildren. Umbrian enmities ramify incredibly and endure from generation to generation. I remember with gratitude many Umbrians who were kind to me; I would not, however, indirectly cause any trouble to them in their old age, or to their descendants.
The Imperial estate was large and I learned its history. It was made up of three adjacent properties confiscated at different periods by different Emperors. One had fallen to the fiscus under Nero, a second under Domitian, and a third under Trajan, each as the result of its owner being implicated in a conspiracy against the Emperor. The administration of the resultant large estate was a perfect sample of the excellent management in detail and stupid misjudgment in general so common under the fiscus. The estate was hilly, some of it mountainous, and quite unfitted for horse- breeding, which is best engaged in, as everybody knows, on estates composed chiefly of wide-spreading plains or gently rolling country with broad, flat meadows. Good judgment would have put this estate chiefly in forest, with a few cattle, some sheep and more goats, but no horses. As I found it, it had, to be sure, many goats, but almost as many sheep and cattle, and horses almost as numerous as the cattle and far more important, for to their breeding most of the efforts of the overseer were directed.
The overseer's house was the best of the three original villas. About it were ample, commodious and scrupulously clean quarters for slaves like me. Also it had yards for fowls, ducks, geese, guinea-fowls, and peacocks, arranged before the confiscation and allowed since to run down, but still productive and fairly well-filled with birds, as were the big dovecotes. Besides, there were fish ponds and a rabbit-warren, left from the former villa. There were extensive stables, cattle-sheds and pens, sheep-folds, goat-runs and pig-sties adjoining the house. In the quarters I found a goodly company of hearty, healthy, contented slaves, sty-wards, goatherds, shepherds, cowmen and horse-wranglers. These were friendly from my first arrival among them, seemed to look me over deliberately and appraise me, and appeared to like me.
I was first sent out as one of two assistants to an experienced herder in charge of a rather large herd of beef-steers. We drove them up the mountains to a grassy glade and, when they had eaten down the grass there, to another. Our duties were light, as the steers were not very wild or fierce and were easy to keep together, to keep in motion by day and to keep stationary by night. Each night two of us slept by a smouldering fire and the third circled about the herd as the steers lay sleeping or chewing their cuds. The circling was done at the horse's slowest walk. Our horses were good, our food good, and my two companions genial, though reticent.
Only once did any of our charges bolt. Then, when we missed three steers, our senior asked me:
"Do you think you could find them and fetch them back?"
On my affirming confidence that I could he smiled doubtfully, and shook his head, but drawled:
"I'll give you the chance, just to try you out."
I found the runaways with no trouble whatever, for their trail was nowhere faint, turned them easily and brought them back, manifestly, much sooner than he had hoped. He appeared pleased, but merely grunted.
Yet he must have spoken well of me to the superintendent, for after a day's rest in the slave-quarters I was assigned the sole care of a small bunch of young cows with their first calves. It seemed to be assumed that I would make no attempt to escape. As I had been given a good horse and a serviceable rain-cloak, I had thoroughly enjoyed my life from the start.
The landscape was charming, the climate agreeable, spring was approaching, I was out in the open air, camping at night by a fire wherever my charges lay down to sleep, eating what I chose of the ample supply of good food which I carried in my saddle-bags. I was happy, thoroughly happy, and I throve from my arrival. I still mourned for Agathemer, but I did not miss him as acutely as I had in the ergastulum.
After about ten days in the woodland glades I brought my charges back to the villa for inspection, according to orders. The inspector was pleased with their condition and commended me. Some of the fellow-herdsmen, off duty, stood or sat about and they seemed to approve.
One of them asked:
"Have much trouble, Greenhorn?"
"Not a bit," I answered.
"How'd you like to try to milk one of those cows?" another enquired.
"I can milk any one of them," I replied. "I have milked most of them. I've been drinking all the milk I could hold all the while I was out with them."
"That's the silliest lie I ever heard," they chorused. "Why, if you tried to handle any one of those cows she'd gore you to death. You couldn't get near enough to the udder of any one of them to get your hand on her teats. Invent a lie we can swallow, or quit bragging. You can't fool us."
I kept my temper, scaled the enclosure of the cow-pen, being careful not to make any sudden movement, strolled to the nearest cow, stroked her nose, pulled her ears, walked down her flank, patting her as I went and handled her udder.
"What have you to say now?" I called to the gaping yokels.
"Try that on another," they shouted back.
I did the like with two more.
They were dumb.
"Hand me a crock," I called, "and I'll get a quart or so of milk, if the calves have left any."
When, one handed me a small olla I milked it more than half-full from a dozen cows. I exhibited the milk, offered it to them, and, on their laughingly replying that they were no milk-sops, they preferred wine, I drank most of it. Then I went to the nearest calf, gentled it, picked it up, lifted it onto my back, its legs sticking out in front of me across my shoulders, and paced back and forth along the inside of the fence, the mother following me, licking the calf and lowing, but mild and with no show of anger, let alone any threat of attack on me.
Before I put the calf down the superintendent came along.
"What's all this?" he queried.
"Felix here," he was answered, "is a sort of wizard. He can gentle these cows, he can milk them, and he has been showing off how one will let him carry her calf and yet not get excited."
"Can you do as well with bulls, too?" the Villicus enquired.
"I think so," I replied. I had put down the calf and climbed out of the cow-pen.
"Come along!" the Villicus commanded.
We trooped off to a pen where there was a fine breeding-bull all alone.
"Get inside, lad!" said the Villicus; "that is, if you dare. But be sure you are ready to vault out again, and entirely able to clear the pen."
I climbed into the pen and stood. The bull gazed at me, but made no threatening movement and his demeanor was placid. I walked up to him, a pace at a time, patted his nose, pulled his ears, walked round him, stroking him, took hold of the ring in his nose and led him over toward the awestruck gapers:
When I climbed out of the pen one man said:
"Try him on old Scrofa."
We trooped off to the hog-pens and there was a six or eight-year-old sow with a young litter. She was a huge beast, as ugly a sow as ever I saw. I got into her pen, miring half to my knees in its filth, but keeping my feet. She made no move to attack me, but grunted enquiringly. I picked up one of her pigs, it hardly squealed and she grunted scarcely more than she had already. I dangled the piglet before her, and she only smelt it and kept on grunting, with no sign of wrath.
"Come out, Felix," the Villicus drawled, "you are sow-proof. But how do you do it?"
"I don't know," I replied, "but I have always been able to gentle fierce animals of any kind. No animal ever attacks me."
Thereupon he tried me with three rams famous for butting, two he-goats of even worse reputation and half a score of watch-dogs. I came unscathed from close companionship with the goats and rams, and the dogs behaved as if they had been my pets from their puppyhood.
"Can you do as well with horses?" the Villicus enquired.
"I believe so," I replied; "give me a chance."
"I shall," he asserted. "I'll round up all our colts fit for breaking and try you on them. I'll get in most of the boys to watch the fun. It'll take about ten days to get ready. Meanwhile you can take out another bunch of heifers with new calves. It seems to suit you and the calves and the heifers."
When I returned from my third outing, hard and fit and happy, the Villicus asked me how soon I would be ready for colt-breaking.
"Tomorrow," I said.
The next day was made a sort of festival, with all the horse-herders at the villa paddocks.
First of all four experienced horse-wranglers roped a filly, threw her, bitted and bridled her while one sat on her head, let her get on her feet, hobbled her, held her so while two more saddled her and then held her while one mounted her. When they let her go she reared, bucked, dashed about, bucked again and again, and continued till exhaustion forced her to quiet down and obey her rider, who had kept his seat from the first.
"What do you think of that, Felix?" the Villicus asked me.
"As good horse-wrangling as can be seen anywhere," I replied. "Up to standard and even above normal. But I can do better."
"Bold words," said the Villicus; "we'll give you a chance to prove them."
Another filly was roped, bitted, bridled, and saddled, and her captors invited me to mount.
"Pooh!" said I. "Let some one else ride her. I don't need all those preliminaries. I can walk right out into that bunch of colts, catch any young stallion you point out, hold him by the nose, gentle him without any rope or thong on him, mount him by vaulting onto his back, and ride him about unbitted, unbridled, bareback, and as I please, without his rearing or backing or kicking."
"Son," said the Villicus, "you are either a lunatic or a demigod. Go in and try what you boast you can do. Show us."
"Point out your stallion," I suggested.
He indicated a beautiful bay with a white face. He let me approach him at my first attempt, let me take him by the nose, let me lead him close to my dumbfounded audience, let me mount him. I rode him about, turning him to right or left as the Villicus ordered, at my suggestion. When I got off I lifted each of his hoofs in succession, crawled under his belly, crawled between his fore-legs, and then between his hind-legs, while the onlookers held their breath; finally I stood behind him, slapped his rump and pulled his tail.
"Is he broken?" I queried.
"Apparently he is gentle as a lamb to you," the Villicus admitted, "but how about the rest of us?"
"Bring in a saddle and bridle," I suggested, "and I'll bit him and hold him while two of you saddle him and until one of you mounts him. He should be no more dangerous than a roped filly."
They did as I suggested and I then rode him about until he appeared used to the saddle and bit and already, at once, bridle-wise. Then one of the wranglers rode him.
I gentled colt after colt all that day till sunset, with a very brief pause for food and rest. Also I kept it up next day until mid-afternoon, when the last colt had been tamed.
Then, as we stood breathing, one of the horse-wranglers suggested:
"Try him on Selinus."
"That would be plain murder," one of the others cried.
"I am not so sure," the Villicus ruminated. "I am almost ready to feel that he might even tame Selinus."
Off we trooped to the stable of the choice breeding-stallions. There, in a darkened box-stall, I was shown a beautiful demon of a horse, four years old, a sorrel, with a white face and white forefeet. He certainly looked wicked enough.
"Will you try him?" the Villicus asked me.
"Of course," I said. "Let him out into the yard or the paddock."
Into the paddock he was let out, by means of a door in his stall worked by winches from above. In the afternoon sunlight he pranced and curvetted about, a joy to see.
"Let me show Felix what he is like," one of the younger horse-wranglers suggested.
"You can," the Villicus agreed. "We all know how agile you are and how quick at vaulting a fence."
The fellow vaulted into the paddock when Selinus was at its further corner. The moment the beast saw him he charged at full-run, screaming like an angry gander, the picture of a man-killer, ears laid back, nostrils wide and red, mouth open, teeth bared, forehoofs lashing out high in front, an equine fury. The lad vaulted the fence handily when Selinus was not three yards from him and the brute pawed angrily at the palings and bit them viciously.
"Want to try, Felix?" the Villicus asked me again.
Without a word I vaulted the enclosure within two yards of Selinus. He stood, ears cocked forward, nostrils quiet, mouth shut, all four hoofs on the ground, quivering all over.
Inch by inch I neared him till my hand touched him. He trembled like an aspen-leaf, but did not attack me.
"Hercules be good to us all!" exclaimed one of the men.
After that I did with Selinus all I had done with the first stallion-colt, gentling him, leading him by the nose, mounting him, riding him, crawling under his belly, between his fore-legs and hind-legs, pulling his tail, slapping him liberally all over. Then, timidly, urged by their comrades' jeers, the two wranglers whom I invited brought me a saddle and bridle and I bitted him and held him while they saddled. Then I rode him.
Afterwards, with much misgiving, but shamed into boldness, the chief horse-wrangler mounted him and rode him.
Selinus was tamed!
"Felix," said the Villicus, "you are too valuable to set to herding cattle. You are henceforward chief horse-wrangler of this estate. I'll give you a house all to yourself and a girl to keep house for you. When not horse taming here or wherever I lend you out, you can spend your time as you please."
The onlookers acclaimed his award and the displaced chief horse-wrangler shook hands with me and declared that he was proud to be second to such a wonder as "Felix the Wizard."
After that I lived a life of ease. My dwelling was a neat cottage well shaded with fine trees and bowered in climbing vines, with a tiny courtyard, a not too tiny atrium with a hearth, a kitchen, a store-room and two bed-rooms. It was as clean as possible and well furnished for a slave's quarters. The girl and I liked each other at first sight. I am not going to tell her name, but a jest we had between us led me to call her by the pet name of Septima. If she had been a free-woman, she would have been described as a young widow. Her former mate, one of the horse-wranglers, had been killed by Selinus the previous autumn. Their child, not a year old, had died before his father. Septima had recovered from her grief during the winter and had become normally cheerful before she was assigned to me. I found her constitutionally merry, very good company, always diligent, a surpassing cook, magical with the garden, especially with her beloved flowers, a capable needle-woman, always neat, and very good- looking. We got on famously together.
With her beehives only, Septima had trouble. She understood bees perfectly, but was afraid of them, and with reason, for she was manifestly obnoxious to bees and was far too often stung. Of course, bees, like all other living creatures, were mild to me. I tended her hives, under her supervision, for I knew nothing of bees; according to her directions I captured several swarms for her. Also I, when the time came, removed combs from such hives as she designated.
Spring was in its full glory and I felt the exhilaration of it. Each home- coming was a delight. And I was much away, for the Villicus had me convoyed about the countryside to every estate which possessed an unbroken colt or an intractable horse. I gentled successfully every one I encountered.
After all the bad horses and raw colts for miles around had been tamed I spent some days idling about my cottage and getting acquainted with it and with Septima. But within not many days I grew restive. I told the Villicus I wanted something to do.
"Well," he said, "five steers have eluded one of my herd-gangs and no one can find them. Question the men (he named them) so as to get the right start, and try your luck."
I was off, trailing those five steers, for three days and two nights. By sunset of the third day I had them back at the villa.
After that I was called on to hunt down and round up all stampeded cattle and all strays, whether cattle, horses, goats, sheep or swine. I enjoyed my lone outings and between them basked contentedly in the comfort of my cottage and the amenity of Septima's cheeriness. During my stays at home I thoroughly familiarized myself with the villa, its outbuildings and all their inhabitants. Also I put a good deal of time on Selinus, whom I transformed from an insane man-killer into one of the gentlest stallions I ever heard of. I taught him all the niceties of obedience acclaimed in perfect parade horses till he would stand, sidle, back, sidle diagonally, curvet and execute all the show-steps promptly at the signalling touch or sound. I tamed him till he would let anybody gentle him, till it was perfectly safe for anyone to ride him. I even trusted Septima on him and he justified my confidence in my training of him and in him. In fact, from being a man-killer who had to be kept penned up in the dark, whom not even the boldest horse-master dare approach, he became so gentle and so trustworthy that he could be let run at large, mild to all human beings, even to strangers.
He grew to love me like a pet dog, followed me about when I was not riding him, and would come to me from far away to a call or gesticulation; and he could see me and recognize me at such distances that I revised my notions as to the powers of sight possessed by horses, for I had held the common opinion that no horse can see clearly or definitely any object at all far from him. Selinus repeatedly saw and recognized me a full half-mile away and galloped to me, approaching with every demonstration of joy.
During my horse-wrangling expeditions and my excursions after wandering stock I had grown well acquainted with the country-side and its inhabitants. I was on terms of comradeship with all my fellow-slaves, of easy sociability with the yeomanry; while I was treated by the overseers, the Villicus, and inspectors with marked consideration. Thus I rapidly learnt all there was to know of the idiosyncrasies of the locality, since everybody seemed to trust me and no one held aloof or was reticent with me.
I found conditions in the Umbrian mountains as amazing, as incredible as in the ergastulum at Nuceria. There the two vital facts were the negligence and impotence of the warders and the secret system for cheating and thwarting them. Here all the thoughts of slaves, peasants and yeomen on the one hand, and of overseers, inspectors and landowners on the other, pivoted on the existence in the district of a post of road-constabulary on the lookout for bandits and of a camp of brigands owing allegiance to the King of the Highwaymen.
The wealthy proprietors, the gentlemanly landowners, the inspectors of the Estate, its Villicus and his overseers all suspected the presence of the bandits and were doing all they could to assist the road-constabulary to locate them, pounce on them and capture them. Their efforts were completely futile. Neither any of the constabulary nor any of the well-to- do persons who sided with them, could ever get an inkling of the location of the outlaws' various camps nor was any of them ever able to be really sure that bandits were actually within a few miles. For the whole body of yeomanry, peasants and slaves, even the slaves of those proprietors keenest on the scent of the brigands and most eager to nab them, were leagued to bamboozle, thwart and oppose their masters and betters, and to aid the outlaws, to keep them posted on everything said and proposed by the loyal inhabitants, and to assist them in outwitting the authorities, the constabulary and all persons who sided with them. In this they were notably successful.
It is my keen recollection of this condition of things which determines me to omit from this part of my narrative all names of persons and places. The generality of the population made a sort of religion out of their complicity with the outlaws. They took an almost religious pride in cooperating with them and in antagonizing their adversaries. They hated all the adversaries of the outlaws, whether landowners, constabulary or inspectors. But, above all, they loathed, abhorred, abominated and detested with a white-hot animosity any yeoman, peasant or slave who failed to do all in his power to foster the interests of the outlaws; regarding such persons, male or female, as traitors to the cause of the populace. Especially did they cherish an envenomed and malignant grudge against anyone who actually sided with the constabulary, gave them information or betrayed the outlaws: or even against anyone who helped or shielded any such informer.
As I was the means of spoiling the long-prepared and much-hoped for coup on which the robbers had set their highest hopes, as not a few men and women assisted me with information, aided me in other ways and protected me afterwards, I dare not name any names for fear that some survivor or some son or grandson of some participant in these doings might learn through me of long suspected but never verified treason to the unwritten law of the country-side and might bloodily avenge it on a surviving helper of mine or on any such helper's children or grandchildren. The Umbrian mountaineers are spleenful, tenacious of a grudge and ferociously acrimonious.
I learnt all these amazing facts without difficulty, for slaves, peasants and yeoman alike assumed that I was of their party and was heart and soul with the outlaws. I was not subject to suspicion because I visited the post of the constabulary, became acquainted with every man of them, their sergeants and their officers and frequented their company. All the yeomen, peasants and slaves whose abodes were near the post, were, on the surface, on the best of terms with the road-constables; pretended to help them with information, retailing to them as rumors all sorts of inventions calculated to throw them off the scent of the outlaws, always with an air of the friendliest good-will; and loitered, idling about the post, chatting of local gossip.
I was so entirely trusted that I was taken to the outlaws' camp and made acquainted with the entire band. Paradoxically the members of the band were all hulking burly ruffians of twenty-five to thirty-five years, whereas their chief, while big and brawny enough, was inferior in size to any of his subordinates and younger by six full years than the youngest of them. To him I was boisterously presented as a brother, for his name also was Felix. In fact, he was the man since famous as Felix Bulla, for long the most redoubtable outlaw in Italy. Then he was hardly more than a lad, for all his bulk and strength and ferocity. He had been appointed chief of the band by the King of the Highwaymen in person, who held him in the warmest regard for his ruthlessness, courage, skill, and cunning, especially for his cunning, rating him, as I was told by all the band, and having proclaimed him to them, as the most subtle and crafty outlaw alive after himself.
Bulla, like everybody else, appeared to take to me and treated me as an equal, after conversing with me for hours at a time. I was always a welcome guest at any of the bandits' camps and they often made me show off my admired powers on fox-cubs, badgers, weasels and other such wild creatures which they or their peasant friends had trapped alive. My ability to tame, handle, fondle and make tractable to anyone such animals appeared a source of unflagging interest and unceasing entertainment to these ruffians.
As I was allowed to dispose of my time as I chose, whenever I was not busy rounding up strayed stock or taming raw colts, I had plenty of leisure to ride about the country-side, make friends, get intimate with the constabulary and the outlaws and idle many of my days as appeared most pleasant. I took full advantage of my partial liberty.
The weather, from my arrival at the Imperial estate, was mostly fine and often glorious. Spring came early and merged beautifully into summer. I enjoyed myself hugely. Besides local peculiarities and the humors of the tacit league to thwart the constabulary and foster the interests of the outlaws, I derived much entertainment from the traffic on the Flaminian Highway. Of course, there were Imperial couriers, travellers of all sorts, and convoys of every kind of goods, long strings of wagons, carts or pack- mules laden with wheat, other grains, wine, oil, flax, charcoal, firewood, ingots of bronze, lead or iron, and countless other commodities on their way to Rome; or convoys of clothing, hangings, furniture, utensils and the like, going northwards from the City.