“He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar.”
Titus Veturius Barrus had grown up very much under his grandfather’s
influence; he was taught to disapprove of scent and pretty clothes and
Greek singers and frivolous poetry. And at nineteen he did not quite
realize that one political party has very seldom any more principles
than another.
He had been educated chiefly at home, under approved tutors, though once
he went to Greece and loved it and would have liked to stay longer, but
his grandfather sent for him back, fearing the enervating effect of
Greek society. He was shy and had very few friends of his own age; they
found him a little dull, a little too full of the early Roman virtues.
So instead of amusing himself with women and politics among his
contemporaries, he stayed at home and read a good deal; his grandfather
did not altogether like Aristotle and the Neo-Pythagoreans, but if he
didn’t read Greek, what was he to read? Ennius was rather impossible;
Catullus was equally impossible--in other ways. Of course there was
always Varro on agriculture; but Varro was quite often at the house
himself; he disapproved of the way Caius Barrus ran his estate.
But by this time Titus Barrus was beginning to be bored. And the more
he found out that his grandfather was not, after all, the most perfect
type of civilization, the more his grandfather delighted in him and gave
him everything he asked for. The old man had visions of his grandson
reforming society, reviving the citizen spirit, putting back the
aristocracy into its right place, restoring order and stability, the
good old days.... But Titus wanted to go soldiering, just as his father
had done; and he wanted to go somewhere where there was a real war; and
he had been very much excited by the campaigns against the Helvetii and
the Germans; and, in fact, he wanted to go to Gaul. Which was all very
distressing, because the proconsul Julius Cæsar was the most terrible
radical, the worst enemy the state had ever had--worse than his Uncle
Marius even! But Titus meant to go; he was a very persistent young man,
and go he finally did. It was to be hoped that his admirable upbringing
would counteract the evil influences he was sure to meet with in Gaul.
In early April, when all the vines were budding, Titus Barrus rode north
through Italy; he wore his new armour a little self-consciously and his
military knowledge was only theoretical. But he had the best horse money
could buy, and an old servant went with him. At night he stayed with
friends of his grandfather’s in country houses among flowering orchards;
there was more than one pretty daughter who would have taken a kiss in a
corner from him, but he never looked her way.
He found Gaul vastly interesting; he wanted to stop everywhere, see
everything, observe the customs of the country, collect the very
charming native enamel work, and learn Gallic. But the Belgians were
arming in the North; he had to hurry. He arrived at Vesontio, reported,
and was told to keep out of the way till some one had time to show him
what to do. For the first few weeks, of course, he was a thorough
nuisance, though not so much so as some of the young officers, as he was
modest, attentive and sensible, had a good memory, and was very keen on
becoming efficient.
He learnt something about quickness in the hurried march north, that
ended on the bank of the Axona; and he learnt much--admiringly--about
Cæsar, when he saw him receive and welcome the envoys from the friendly
Remi. He knew enough to carry messages at the battle of the bridge-head,
and was very glad to have something to do. He had never seen a dead body
near by, only at the safe and unreal distance of the theatre, and that
not often. Once he had ridden at a gallop through a little wood and a
gap in a turf wall, straight into a knot of Belgians. He drew his sword
and slashed at them as he plunged through, and found it afterwards
dripping with a new red. His servant congratulated him on it afterwards;
he was one of Cæsar’s officers and had killed an enemy of the Republic!
If he had killed him: which was unlikely.
After that battle, which broke up the power of the Belgic League, he
wrote a long letter to his grandfather; it took nearly a month to get
South. Caius Barrus, forgetting to be calm, tore it open with shaking
hands, and read it through, murmuring the words over to himself. The boy
was finding himself then! He would be like his father--how well the old
man remembered _his_ first letter! He took it out of the cedar-wood box
and looked at them together; the writing was much the same, they used
the same phrases. Twenty years ago--no, it was more: how short it seemed
... he thought of his wife reading over that first letter with him, the
mother’s tears and laughter and pride: so it should be. But she was dead
long ago; and his pretty daughter-in-law had died too, when Titus was a
baby.... He turned back to the letter to read it more attentively.
Titus was well; he had been to the doctor with a cut leg, but it was
nothing (he’d be sure to say that, even if it was bad). He thought he
was beginning to be some use (of course!). His horse was splendid. The
barbarians were brave but easily discouraged: they would not hold out
much longer; he was learning their language but found it difficult. He
liked most of his fellow officers and thought they liked him; there was
a Tribune called Quintus Velanius (now who could he be? It seemed a
respectable name: he must find out), they had shared a tent for two or
three nights and had made friends; Quintus had read Thucydides and they
had discussed history together.
The next sheet. He was very favourably impressed with his superior
officers. He had heard so much against the proconsul before he went out,
but it was entirely his doing that the battle was won, still more that
it was followed up afterwards--the most important thing of all. Quintus
Velanius believed in him too. He wished his grandfather would tell
people in Rome that he had been misjudged--after all, politics were not
everything, and Cæsar had reorganized the army, Cæsar had seen to the
engineers, Cæsar was so wonderful with the barbarians, Cæsar this and
Cæsar that!
Caius Barrus frowned: what had come over the boy? At this rate he would
be a radical before he came home! He sat down and wrote to his grandson,
thanking him for his news, telling him about their friends, the state of
the crops, the latest intelligence from the East, then going on about
Cicero’s return from exile, at last, only to find his house in Rome
burnt, his country villas plundered--such was the respect paid nowadays
to true patriotism! He ended up with a few scandals about that profiteer
Crassus, a few remarks about Cæsar’s morals, and an assurance that now
the democrats would soon be out of power and right would triumph in the
end.
Titus Barrus got the letter just before the battle with the Nervii, so
nearly lost, but so completely won!--and all through Cæsar. He was
growing experienced by now: thus rapidly did the proconsul’s young men
learn. And after all that slaughter, so wide a clemency: the survivors
allowed to keep all their lands and villages, and given protection, now
they were helpless, against their neighbours! Then, after that, came the
siege of the city of the Atuatuci; the town had capitulated on the usual
terms, but nearly half the arms had been kept back; in the night the
garrison rushed on the Romans, thinking to take them unawares, but were
surrounded and cut to pieces. As a punishment, the whole of the
townspeople, some fifty thousand, they heard, were sold as slaves; a
severe sentence, thought Titus, but well justified against treachery.
After that the rest of the Belgian tribes gave in altogether,
surrendering on almost any terms, and the campaign was over for the
year.
Titus read his grandfather’s letter over again; it seemed almost
incredible that people should think and speak so of Julius Cæsar! He
took it over in the evening to his new friend, Quintus Velanius; he
found him in his tent, a tall, open-faced young man with a brown skin,
freckled across the nose. He read the letter and threw it back to Titus
with a laugh: “You don’t suppose they understand about him in Rome? My
dear man, they don’t begin to! They give him a thanksgiving when he’s
beaten two nations in four months, and then forget all about him! We
know, of course, and any one else who has anything to do with him; but
the Alps take a deal of crossing. Even your grandfather’s bound to find
out about Cæsar some day, though. Only, don’t let him change you in the
meantime.”
“Oh, it’ll take more than a letter to do that! But I’m glad Cicero’s
back in Rome.”
“Cæsar’ll be glad too. Good men get together. Titus, I’m going to get
leave to go to one of the warm springs in the South if things are quiet
this Autumn. Those Germans got me a bad arm last year; every one says
these springs are the best thing for stiffness. If you can get off too,
will you come with me?”
“I’d like nothing better. They’re in the Arvernian country, aren’t
they?”
“Yes: up in the hills. All very friendly, I believe. You’d be able to
pick up plenty of your old pots and pans there!”
“Well, it seems to me to be good art--for barbarians.”
He wrote back to his grandfather that he was glad about Cicero’s return,
and they had just won the most splendid victory over the Belgians; also
that he was going to visit some of the towns in southern Gaul that
Autumn. And he sent him a Belgian slave, but the man fell sick and died
on the journey, and that was so much money wasted: not that prisoners
were at all expensive just then, but still it was a pity.
In Autumn, after Cæsar had definitely annexed Gaul, the two young
officers set out with their servants and horses; everywhere the country
people stared at them--they were just beginning to realize the Romans as
a fact in their lives. The corn was all in stooks in the Arvernian
fields, and the fruit was mostly gathered, as they rode up along that
very fertile valley which runs north and south through the hills. The
warm springs were high up among the pines, with big, straggling villages
all round them, continually filling and refilling with sick people. The
Romans installed themselves in a long, low house of pine logs with a
thatched roof and good stables, that lay in a sunny hollow of the woods,
a little south of the springs. Quintus Velanius consulted the local
doctor and made offerings at the local shrines, which were many. He was
prescribed for with much ceremony: baths, waters to drink, exercise,
massage by a very pretty little slave with soft, strong hands and two
long plaits that were always dropping over her face and tickling the
patient’s arm. Titus began by taking the waters too, but found them much
too nasty and so had baths instead, went for long rides in the country,
and made friends with various Gauls. He was learning Gallic fairly
quickly, and, better still, he was never shy of talking a foreign
language, even if he only knew a few words; he was much more awake since
leaving his grandfather. Besides, the Gallic nobles could generally
speak some Latin or Greek, and even read it.
Autumn was always the best time of year at these springs; the small wars
were mostly over, and so was the busiest season of the harvest; but it
was still warm enough to lie out in the sun under the pines or sit on
the stone steps by the springs, talking to one’s friends and throwing
little pine cones at the slave-girls who came to dip out the water.
Titus was sitting there one afternoon, looking out over the hazy valley,
and observing, out of the tail of his eye, two young Arvernian nobles
who were standing on the steps a little to his right; he thought he saw
the beginnings of a promising quarrel. Neither of them was much older
than himself and they were a good-looking pair. One stood on the top of
the steps, his hands on his hips, in coat and breeches of tartan, with
heavy golden tassels on the plaid; his thick hair was held in place by a
circle of leather, which dangled on to his forehead, and over his ears
bright squares of Hæduan enamel, dark blue and brilliant red. The other
looked up at him, frowning; he wore a different tartan with more yellow
in it, and on a chain round his neck swung a silver cock with crest and
eyes of garnet. They both had swords and daggers and seemed as if they
might use them.
Titus tried to make out what they were saying and caught scraps of it;
they seemed to have been having a boasting-match--a very Gallic thing
to do!--and now they were both talking at once about their own
possessions, their own places, Curdun, Gergovia. The Roman looked round
at that, thinking that the man from Gergovia must be the young chief
Vercingetorix, lover of civilization, encourager of trade and the Greek
artists--he wore a finely-cut Grecian emerald on his right hand--one of
the Gauls whom Cæsar had charmed to be his friend. He heard him say,
“And I’ve a black colt, Coré, that I’ll back against anything of yours!”
The other answered scornfully, “You and your colts! Haven’t you a better
test than that? Or are you afraid?” Both had their hands on their swords
now, and Titus was frankly staring at them; there was a clear space,
level both ways, at the top of the steps; they went up, and the drawn
steel flashed in the sun. “To the death, Ardorix?” said Vercingetorix,
softly, and “Yours!” the chief of Curdun threw back at him.
They moved about, light-footed, sword in the right hand, dagger in the
left, each trying to get the sun into the other’s eyes. Titus watched
from the steps: this was more exciting than the arena! But he didn’t
want to be drawn into it himself. Then suddenly everything happened with
a rush: the fighters closed, with the whickering clash of steel on
steel: a girl with a baby in her arms ran screaming past him up the
steps, straight at the fight, right on to the swords! Titus leapt the
top steps after her, trying to stop her being killed; he found himself,
in the thick of it, stammering Gallic at the top of his voice, a man’s
wrist in one hand, the other dripping blood from a cut palm. Every one
was shouting, plunging about--barbarians! Two other men were separating
the fighters, and then the girl collapsed heavily on to Titus’ shoulder.
There was a deal of blood everywhere; it was dripping steadily from his
hand, which he clenched to stop the flow; the girl? She was unhurt; but
as she undid the plaid there was wail on wail from the child, its face
all crumpled up with pain, its hands clutching at air. The mother sank
to her knees, tearing at the brooch to get her dress open; the baby
fastened on to her breast with a sob, and sucked hard for a minute
before it started screaming again; its soft little arm was cut from
elbow to shoulder.
They had it bandaged up in a minute; quite wonderfully soon it quieted
down and was sucking happily but for a little sobbing moan from time to
time, as the girl rocked herself to and fro with it. But if Ardorix was
angry before, he was raging now. “My son,” he cried, “my son--you’ve
hurt him! You coward, you shall pay for this!” and then, furiously, to
the man who held him back, “Let be, Caltane! Where’s my sword? I’ll have
his heart out!”
Caltane, his cousin, kicked the sword further away and held on to him
still: “Why were you fighting? Who was here? What happened?”
And Vercingetorix, panting, said, “I never meant this--on my honour, I
never meant it! How could I know there was a child?”
“My son--my baby son--he may die of it! That on you!”
“I’ll give you any satisfaction you ask.”
Caltane and the other man cried out at this, “That’s fair, that’s
honest dealing! Ardorix, listen to what he says--put a fine on him!”
The baby was nearly asleep, the sudden heavy sleep of exhaustion; his
mother’s hair fell over him, she was crying like a child herself.
Ardorix knelt beside her, stroking the back of her neck: “What fine,
Guemoné?”
She whispered back, passionately, “Nothing--kill him!”
But the moment was passed; he turned to the others, a little doubtful:
“Caltane----? Molhir----?”
But they shook their heads: “No, no, a fine! Name it, we’ll see he gives
it!”
Vercingetorix picked up his sword and laid it down at Guemoné’s small
feet: “Let the child take this when he’s grown; he’ll be proud to have
it then--my sword.”
Ardorix got to his feet slowly, surprised: “You give your sword?”
“A sword for a right arm. And here----” He pulled off the rings from his
right hand, the emerald among them.
“A good fine,” said Caltane; but Guemoné glowered, with a white,
tear-streaked face: “My eldest son can be wounded then, if his father is
paid for it!”
Ardorix looked uncertainly from one to the other; all at once Molhir
said, “Make the Roman judge! He was here before any of us.”
They all turned to Titus, and Guemoné saw his cut hand. “Oh,” she cried,
“you’re hurt too--trying to help! Yes, I’ll take your word over this.”
Titus did not in the least want to be judge, but he felt as if this was
perhaps the best chance he would ever have of impressing the Gauls with
Roman justice and dignity. He asked them to come with him to his house,
hoping that they might all have calmed down by then. They agreed;
Guemoné got up from the ground very carefully so as not to wake the
baby; Molhir and Caltane picked up the sword and the rings.
At the house, wine was offered, Quintus Velanius sent for the doctor to
see the baby, and the two Romans listened to the whole story. It was
obviously not in their interest to make enemies on either side; they
compromised, with many words and much soothing down of the angry
barbarians. In the end Guemoné was the only one who was not satisfied,
and they gave her a pot of ointment for the child, which had come all
the way from Egypt, and seemed to pacify her a little. Titus watched her
sideways; she was a pretty girl--oh, very pretty!--hardly full grown as
yet, fifteen years old perhaps, not more; her hair was curled in a
yellow fleece across her back and over her temples; her blue, resentful
eyes matched the blue stones of her necklace; how creamy-white her
breast had been as she suckled the child! He liked these blonde,
firm-limbed Gallic women: something to bite on.... The doctor came and
pronounced favourably on the baby, but he began to fret again, and
Guemoné rose to go. The chief from Curdun and the chief from Gergovia
were quite friendly as they went out, and the Roman officers
congratulated one another on a good day’s work; this was the way to make
their rule welcome in the new province; this was how Cæsar would have
wished them to be.
Vercingetorix went back to Gergovia the next week. The others stayed on
rather longer; Ardorix used to go about a great deal with his cousin
Caltane, but yet they were not too good friends. The baby got well, but
his right arm was never so strong as his left, and the red scar was
always there to keep his mother angry every time she saw it.
Molhir of the Carnutes was going to be a Druid; he was learning the
ritual and the hymns, all their unguessable and complicated secrets; but
it would be months yet before he could make his first sacrifice. In the
meantime he travelled and observed and made friends; it was all part of
his preparation to learn what men were like. He liked these Arvernians
less than he liked the Celts of the north, the Veneti, Meromic and his
sister for instance. And he liked the Romans, as a whole, even less; he
felt them a menace to druidism, these straightforward, deliberate
people; they were hard to frighten, hard to influence; they would think
nothing of laying axes to the sacred groves if they had the will to do
it.
The Romans went back, too, at the end of Autumn; Quintus Velanius was
actually rather better, and thought himself even more so. Publius
Crassus, the Legate under whose command they were, had quartered his
legions among the friendly people in northern Gaul. Titus was beginning
to be quite happy; he liked the camp life, the long lines of huts with
fires in front of them, the sound of marching feet, the trumpet calls on
winter evenings. And he liked dealing with the Gauls, getting in food,
buying horses, settling disputes between them and the soldiers. He only
wished he could do something about his servant; this old freedman of his
grandfather’s had the greatest objection to anything out of the way,
particularly the Gallic stuffs and ornaments which Titus wanted to have
decorating his hut; and he somehow made it difficult for Titus to ask a
guest to come in. Particularly a she-guest. Perhaps it was only that he
reminded that young man of his grandfather; but he was certainly trying.
Corn was beginning to run short and could not be had locally; there was
the same trouble at some of the other winter-quarters. So a few of the
officers were sent off to requisition it from the further tribes.
Quintus Velanius and Titus Barrus rode out of the camp together, with a
small following of soldiers, army accountants and slaves; they headed
north-west, bound for the barley-growing cantons of Aremorica. It was
the depth of winter, and the paths were sometimes hard to find, but they
could always get guides from one village to the next. Titus watched his
friend at work in a couple of places: it seemed easy; the landowners,
chiefs and magistrates, with whom they had to deal, were on the whole
willing to sell the corn at a reasonable price. He went on by himself,
half afraid of the responsibility, half delighted to have it; he used to
ride alone in front of his men, watching the sea-gulls wheeling above
the frozen fields, and feeling intensely proud of being a Roman and one
of Cæsar’s officers.
He went from town to town of the Veneti, bargaining, drawing up
contracts, hiring horses to send the corn back on; he always tried to be
as friendly as possible with the Gauls, modelling himself on his great
commander, and very soon he could speak Gallic well enough never to need
an interpreter. But, as he went up among the Veneti, further and further
from his base, he began to notice that they were getting less friendly.
He would perhaps get his corn, but the country people would throw stones
at him; one or two of his men got killed in quarrels with the natives,
and it seemed impossible to find out who had done it or get justice from
the local chief. He began to be uneasy and thought he would turn back at
once; he had nearly the full tale of corn.
He was in a small town near the coast, waiting to put through the last
of his negotiations; the chief had made some delays, but finally the
corn had appeared and was duly being weighed and checked by the
accountants in the market-place. Titus had left them to it and was
walking up and down the main street, which was unusually full of Gauls;
his own men were just a handful, standing together beside the corn-sacks
or leading the horses about to keep them warm. It was a chill, bright
day; the ruts all along the street were frozen into hard edges with
thick ice on the pools between; every now and then Titus slipped and
cursed his nailed boots. On each side there was a long row of mud and
wattle huts, with thatch hanging in deep eaves over the doors; in front
of one there would be salted fish for sale, cheese or cloth in front of
another.
The street sloped up, round a dozen sharp corners, towards the chief’s
house at the end, a big, scrambling place with a tower at each side, all
round it sheds, haystacks, barns and stables, and finally a five-foot
turf wall, wide enough to walk along, and a ditch that was frozen over
except in one place where the ice had been broken for cattle to drink.
Titus heard a horseman coming up behind; the hoofs rang on the hard
ground as he trotted past and on to the castle; Titus thought he must be
a messenger from the chief’s over-lord, Kormiac the Wolf, partly because
of the way every one stared after him, partly because of the wolf’s head
in black on the pennon at the end of his lance. The news might be
anything, of course, but still Titus felt a little uneasy and turned to
go back.
A glance at the castle showed him a score of armed horsemen riding down;
he began to hurry along the slippery street. A couple of men came out of
one of the huts with some story of pack ponies to sell, and, when he
told them he didn’t want any, caught him by the sleeve to keep him. He
shook them off and went on down the street; an old woman came up to him
and stopped him, saying that one of his soldiers had broken into her
house and ill-treated her and her daughter--what compensation would he
give her? He bade her come along with him and show him which man it was;
she hobbled beside him, talking all the time. For a moment he kept pace
with her, then broke away again, bidding her follow. Then it was more
people with things to sell, crowding all round him, getting in his way,
shouting so that he couldn’t hear if there were horses coming up behind
him or not! He told them to come after him to the market-place, where he
would settle with them all; they were still thick in front of him and he
drew his sword, nervously, to clear a passage. He felt like running but
tried not to show it, and only walked as fast as he could. Suddenly he
slipped again and fell on his back, hitting his head on the edge of the
rut. His sword flew out of his hand, he rolled over in a desperate
clutch at it, but the whole town was on top of him! He fought them
furiously, biting and kicking, and was nearly up once, but they knocked
all the breath out of him and kept him down; he was gagged before he
could shout twice, and elbows and wrists were tied behind him. The
horsemen from the castle were all round him, with the chief himself at
their head, who hoisted him up in front of his saddle, with a great
shout of laughter and “Come along, baby!”
Titus Barrus blushed from ear to ear: he had fallen into the trap so
easily! What would Quintus Velanius say? What would his Legate
think?--and Cæsar--and his grandfather! His helmet had fallen off, and
some one reached over and put it on to him back-side-foremost: the
abominable Gallic sense of humour! He was an ambassador too, or as good,
come on an errand of peace; it was contrary to all right--even the
barbarians must know it! What did they mean to do with him? The final
humiliation was when his nose started bleeding: after that he felt as if
nothing else they could do to him would matter.
They came to the market-place; first of all the chief, with Titus very
conspicuously a prisoner, and then the horsemen with a great mob of
townspeople, all more or less armed, behind them. The accountants and
slaves almost all dropped the corn-sacks and weights and money-bags, and
fell on their knees, holding out their hands for mercy; the half-dozen
soldiers ran together and faced the Gauls, with drawn swords and a very
Roman firmness. The chief undid the piece of stuff from over Titus’
mouth, saying, “Speak to them. We don’t want bloodshed.”
Titus looked round: he hadn’t the least chance of being rescued. “What
terms do you give them?” he asked.
“Their lives, and they’ll not be badly treated.”
“Very well.” So he shouted to his men to surrender, as they were far
outnumbered. They threw down their swords, and the Gauls took them and
the others off to the castle, not always even troubling to tie their
hands.
Titus said nothing at first; he was trying to hear what the Gauls were
saying to one another, and also wondering what exactly he ought to do;
it wasn’t a situation he had ever considered. The Gauls were too
irritatingly pleased with themselves; the chief wagged his great red
beard and told his men how Kormiac would praise them all. One of them
rode up with a sack of corn across his horse’s back behind, a bag of
gold in front; he shouted, “I’ve been marketing with the Romans!” They
all laughed and the chief poked Titus in the ribs. At the castle gate
they dismounted and marched him up between them to the hall, where all
the women had collected; he heard the story of his capture repeated with
comic additions, and the young maids crowded round to stare at him and
stick bits of hay into his hair. He was then put into chains, which were
heavy but not so painful as the ropes, and, besides, left him enough
liberty to move his arms and walk.
The chief sat down in a great carved chair, close to the fire, and
started drinking at once. Titus was brought up to him and began, with
his heart rather in his throat, by blaming his captor for using violence
on one who should have been safe by all the laws of nations, and then
asked why he had done it. The chief pointed a large hairy forefinger at
him and said, “If you Romans think we don’t know all about you, you’re
wrong. Who wants to go to Britain and take all our trade away? You! Who
thinks we’re going to lie down under it? You! Who’s going to get a
surprise? You!” and he very cheerfully offered Titus a drink. It was no
good trying to get information out of him; he was obviously acting under
orders. But he treated Titus and his men very well; it would have been a
different matter if they’d been taken prisoner during a war, but just
now the Gauls were in a good temper.
Later in the evening a man ran breathlessly up the hall, and threw
himself in front of the chief with a message which set all the drinkers
shouting and clashing their swords. Quintus Velanius had been taken, and
news was coming in from the Aremorican chiefs in all the cantons that
the rest of the Roman officers who had been sent to buy corn were safely
prisoners. Titus was almost glad; if he had been an idiot, at least it
was in good company. But what was it all about? Suddenly he remembered
that Crassus had hostages from all these tribes; so presumably the
intention was that they should be exchanged for the hostages. Not that a
Roman General would ever let himself be dictated to like that by
barbarians! But in the meantime he could eat and drink with these
Gauls. Their clothes were rougher--more skins and less woven stuff;
their houses were much more primitive; the men almost all had long
beards instead of shaving, and altogether they were less civilized than
the Arvernians and Hæduans he had been seeing lately.
A week later another of the messengers came, this time for him to be
taken off to the over-lord, Kormiac; he had to leave his men behind, and
went off himself on a pony between armed guards. They rode out from the
town on to a wind-swept moor where they seemed to be guided by the rare
trees they passed from time to time. The snow was not very deep, though
sometimes it had drifted into hollows where the ponies stumbled; once
three of them fell and he was thrown off and got rather uncomfortably
tangled in his chains. They stayed the night in a bothy where the
shepherd’s wife fed them on rye-bread and strips of dried meat. Towards
the afternoon of the next day they came to their journey’s end; a thaw
had set in, with slanting rain, and all the burns in heavy spate and
dangerous to cross; soon they and the ponies were mud from head to foot
and soaking wet. Titus heard the sea roaring in front of him and caught
a glimpse of it, grey and forbidding under the rain, as they came up on
to the cliffs.
The house stood rather by itself, without the usual surrounding village,
but there were any amount of out-buildings on each side; it was built of
wood with great blocks of granite as a foundation, round three sides of
a courtyard where the maids splashed across with their skirts up to
their knees; the walls were all lime-washed and the doors outlined in
red, but it didn’t look cheerful in this weather. Inside it was rather
dark; most of the windows had been shuttered against the wet, and the
fires only lighted the two ends of the hall. He and his guard went up to
the further one, and waited, dripping on to the floor and warming their
chilled hands. At the other side of the fire several women were standing
round a loom, where already the upper third of the stuff was woven; two
of them were altering the weights that held down the warp threads;
another held the shuttle and directed them. Further from the fire a
slave girl with matted hair stood spinning wool, the distaff under her
left arm; her twisting spindle rose and fell quickly and regularly; the
creamy wool shone in the firelight. The three at the loom looked round
at the prisoner--tall, kindly girls, one fair head and two brown. They
had long skirts with embroidered hems, short-sleeved bodices of fine
wool, and leather brogues; bracelets were bronze and coral; their hair
was loose. The fair one had gold ear-rings, each with a coral bead, and
swung on a leathern thong, a pendant of bronze; she looked up and smiled
at Titus as she and her women went back to their work.
They had been waiting about half an hour, and were beginning to get
warm, though not yet dry, when a big, loose-limbed boy ran in, shaking
the rain out of his hair; he was younger than Titus, but taller already.
The fair girl called to him and he came over, glancing at guards and
prisoner, then pulled off his clinging wet shirt and trousers and threw
them down in front of the fire. He kept on his shoes and a great golden
necklace, all finely wrought with twists and spirals, and roundels of
scarlet enamel. “Father’s coming back,” he said, “but the bay mare’s
slipped her shoulder; the road’s all mud outside.”
“Oh,” said the girl, “he won’t like that!”
“He doesn’t. So you’d better keep out of the way, Fiommar.” And he went
off himself.
A few minutes later there was a great stir; the women looked at one
another questioningly, and Titus turned to see his real captor, Kormiac
the Wolf, who came in with great strides, a huge man; the scabbard of
his sword clattered against the door jamb, his plaid swung behind him.
The guards brought Titus forward, a hand on each shoulder; he felt
rather small. Kormiac stuck his chin out, frowning at him: “So this is
the man, is it? Take him off at once and see he’s chained fast. Why in
God’s name couldn’t you have done it already?” The man stammered
apologies; Kormiac turned his back, with “Don’t talk. Get on with it.”
But suddenly the girl spoke: “Father, you’re surely not going to send
him down to the prison like this! It’s not dry, and he’s wet: he’ll die
of cold!”
“What’s that to you? Do you suppose our hostages have any better
quarters? You wouldn’t talk like that if I’d had to send Meromic!”
But Fiommar went up to her father, put her arm round his neck and looked
up at him with calm eyes: “Now, father, don’t be hasty! You must let him
get dry. He hasn’t even had anything to eat.”
At this Kormiac swung off to “What were you doing not to feed him,
then?”
“I was waiting for you to come home; now we can have supper.”
She called to the slave girl, who dropped her distaff and ran out, and
then set herself to soothing her father down, so that by the time the
food was on the table he was almost in a good temper. And she sent for
dry clothes for Titus, who was shivering with the beginnings of a chill,
and watched him change, much to his embarrassment.
They ate together, but Kormiac was still moody, and Titus was much too
frightened of him to do any talking himself. Meromic came back rather
late, but he didn’t talk either, except in undertones to the man next
him; and he went out early with a muttered excuse about riveting a
shield-grip. Fiommar tried to keep the old Wolf on to pleasant subjects,
but after a whole jar of mead to himself, he remembered the mare with a
start and a curse, and bade them take the Roman down, and chain him to a
staple.
So they marched him off, one man ahead with a flare to light them down
stone steps and along passages that dripped water on their heads. The
place where they chained him was a sort of cave hollowed in the rock,
sloping up from the main tunnel; there was a barred opening four feet
up, on the level of the ground outside, and gusts of rain blew in
through it. The mud floor was streaming with cold trickles, and the
bundle of straw they brought with them was soon sopped. For five days
Titus Barrus lay there wretchedly in the grip of his chill; Fiommar or
one of her maids came down from time to time with food and curious
medicines, but he was too ill to take much notice. He woke up on the
morning of the sixth day, feeling much better; the early sun shone in
brightly from outside, and he stood in front of the grating, trying to
get as much of it as he could. Suddenly he heard a great baying of
hounds out of sight, and in a moment they were pelting past, just at the
other side, great long-legged deer-hounds, black and grey, with collars
of bronze on their stretched necks! And all at once there was Meromic
running in the middle of them, leaping high in the sunlight, crying loud
and ringingly to the pack, his feet no heavier than theirs. Not more
than time to see him, and he was gone. The prisoner shook angrily at the
bars, envying that barbarian boy out there, so free and alive and
careless; then he turned away, catching himself up sharply: he was a
Roman officer and a patrician, and--oh, this prison couldn’t last
forever!
And indeed they came the same day and brought him up; Kormiac was in a
good temper again and a different man: genial, kindly, slapping the
young Roman on the back, laughing monstrously at his own jokes, calling
Fiommar away from her work to sing to them; he seemed only surprised
that Titus did not not always respond! Meromic came in from his hunting
at dusk, the blood of some slain beast on his arms.
“Did you go far?” asked his father.
“We killed on the beach over by the Black Rocks; Louaven was there too.”
“Ah. We must take our guest out hunting with us some day.”
The boy looked at Titus with a broad grin; Fiommar giggled softly:
father was so unaccountable! Titus himself thought he ought to say
something; he went over and fingered Meromic’s short spear: “What were
you after--deer?”
“Yes; but we’ve got wild cats in the woods to the east and boar as well;
I like boar hunting.”
“And wolves?”
“Oh, no!”--the boy looked horrified. “It would be geas for me to kill a
wolf!”
“Geas----?”
“Well: not right. I couldn’t--except in self-defence. I suppose you
didn’t know, but I’m a wolf myself--we all are; so it would be killing
one’s brother; the thing one mustn’t do. Father’s really the Wolf, you
see, the head wolf; but I’m the next after him. And I think the other
wolves--the wild ones--understand, because they don’t come and take our
sheep, like they do further along.”
Titus was surprised, but he had got used to odd things among the
barbarians.
After all, he never did go hunting with them, because very soon
afterwards he was sent away again, this time to a strong town on the
coast, where he found Quintus Velanius, who had had much the same
experience. Crassus, of course, could not hold converse with an armed
enemy nor exchange the hostages; his officers had to shift for
themselves. Titus and Quintus both managed to escape in late winter,
after heavy bribing of their guards and a boatman; a few more bribes,
and they were back with the army. As soon as Cæsar’s orders came, they
were both sent off, first to start the building of ships of war, then
to raise oarsmen from the Province. They were very cautious this time,
and took really adequate forces with them; but nothing happened. The
fleet was assembled gradually, the legions were prepared and waiting for
the word: a fine vengeance brewing against the Veneti!