Andivius Hedulio | Page 5

at the entrance to Villa
Vedia, but I would not give up, I took the left-hand turn and went down
stream. Beyond the first bend in the road we found ourselves
approaching a long, straggling, one-street village of tall, narrow stone
houses along the eastern bank of the little river. By the road, just before
the first house, watching five goats, was a boy, a boy with a crooked
twitching face.
"'The village idiot,' I put in. 'They can never let him out of sight and he
is always beside the road.'
"He was not too big an idiot to tell us it was Vediamnum."
"He was enough of an idiot," I said, "to forget you, and your question
the next minute. The boy is almost a beast."
"He had enough sense to tell us the name of the village," Tanno
retorted, "and I had to acknowledge to Dromanus he was right, and so
we turned round. When we were hardly more than out of sight of
Vediamnum we met another party, a respectable-looking man, much
like a farm bailiff, on horseback, and two slaves afoot. I had not seen
them before, and they, apparently, had not previously seen us. The rider
asked, very decently, whose was the party. I treated them as I had the
others.
"'My master is asleep,' I said again. (It was not such an improbable lie
that time, for the road by Vediamnum is pretty good.) 'I have the honor
to escort Mamercus Satronius Sabinus.'
"I had guessed that they were Vedians and I was sure of it when I said
that. The slaves scowled and the bailiff saluted very stiffly.

"Just after we turned into your road, I stopped the escort and told
Dromanus to take his horse. He had relieved me of his hat and poncho
and I had one hand on the litter, ready to climb in, when I heard hoofs
behind us on the road. I looked back. There was a rider on a beautiful
bay mare coming up at a smartish lope. Just as he came abreast of us
she shied at the litter and reared and began to prance about. I give you
my word I never had such a fright in my life. If you can imagine
Commodus in an old weather-beaten, broad-brimmed hat of soft,
undyed felt and a mean, cheap, shaggy poncho of undyed wool, and
worse than the hat, that was the man on the mare. He was left-handed,
too."
"How did you know that?" I asked.
"By the way he handled his reins, of course," said Tanno.
"The mare was a magnificent beast, vicious as a fury, with a mouth as
hard as an eighty-pound tunny. He sat her like Castor himself. She
pirouetted back and forth across the road and my fellows scampered
from under her hoofs. The mare was such a beauty I could not take my
eyes off her."
"Yes," I put in, "Ducconius has a splendid stud."
"Was he Ducconius?" Tanno exclaimed. "Your adversary in your old
law- suit?"
"His son Marcus, from your description," I amplified. "He is proprietor
of the property now. His father died last year."
"Well," Tanno went on. "You know that look Commodus has, like a
healthy, well-fed country proprietor with no education, no ideas and no
thoughts beyond crops and deer-hunting and boar-hunting, with a
vacuous, unintelligent stare? Well, that was just the way he looked."
"That is the way young Ducconius looks," I rejoined. "He ought to.
You have described exactly what he is."

"Does he know he looks like the Emperor?" Tanno asked, "and how
does it happen?"
"Pure coincidence," said I. "The family have been reared in these hills
for generations, none of them ever went to Rome. Reate is the end of
the world for them."
"Well," Tanno commented, "he might be Commodus' twin brother, by
his looks. He'll be a head shorter, in a hurry, if Commodus ever hears
of him. He is the duplicate of him. I stood in the road, staring after him,
and forgot to climb into the litter. When I woke up and climbed in, my
lads swung up your road at a great pace, and here I am. If I had had any
sense I'd have been here not much after noon. As it is I have wasted
most of the day."
When we went into the hot room, I asked him,
"Where did you get your new bearers? They look to me like
Nemestronia's. What have you done with your Saxons?"
"Nemestronia has them," he explained, "and my Nubians were hers.
The dear old lady took a fancy to my Saxons and teased and wheedled
until I agreed to exchange. Nobody ever can refuse anything to
Nemestronia. I argued a good deal. I told her