Andivius Hedulio | Page 6

that even if she is the
youngest-looking old lady in Rome it would never do in the world to
set herself in contrast to such blue eyes and pink skins and such yellow
hair: that Nubians were much more appropriate and that nothing could
be more trying than Saxons, even for a bride. She told me I mustn't
make fun of her old age and decrepitude. She said that the Saxons had
such cheerful, bright faces and looked such infantile giants that she
really must have them. So I let her have her way. The Nubians stand
the heat better and the Saxons were almost too showy."
Even while the attendant was thumping and kneading him on the slab,
Tanno went on talking a cheerful monologue of frothy gossip. I asked
him about the Emperor.
"As fretful as possible," he said. "The trouble with Commodus is that

he is growing tired of exhibiting himself as an athlete to invited
audiences in the Palace. He is perfectly frantic to show himself off in
the Circus or in the Amphitheatre. He oscillates between the
determination to disregard convention and to do as he likes and
virtuous resolutions, when he has been given a good talking-to by his
old councillors and has made up his mind to behave properly. He will
break out yet into public exhibitions of himself. He is really
pathetically unhappy over his hard lot and positively wails about the
amount of his time which is taken up with State business and about the
pitifully small opportunity he has for training and exercise."
My bath was broken off, sooner than I had intended, by the appearance
of one of the kitchen-boys, who asked for me so tragically and so
urgently and was so positive that no one else would suffice, that I went
down into the kitchen in a towering rage at being interrupted and
wondering why on earth I could be needed. I found Ofatulena, wife of
the Villa-farm bailiff, in violent altercation with my head-cook. He
asserted that she had no business in his kitchen and must get out. Her
contention was that she, as bailiff's wife, was above all slaves whatever,
that she knew her place and that when a distinguished stranger visited
the Villa she would show him what old-fashioned Sabine cooking was
like, so she would. The cook had had, through Agathemer, my
directions for a formal dinner and he declared that one more guest
made no difference and that his dinner was good enough for anybody. I
compromised by telling him to continue as he had planned, but to allow
Ofatulena to prepare one dish for each course and to add to each one of
her own. I was rather pleased at her intrusion, for there was no better
cook in Sabinum, and anything old-fashioned was sure to be a novelty
to Tanno.
I found Tanno on the terrace, basking comfortably in the late sunshine
and gazing down the valley,
"What is that big hill away off to the East?" he asked.
"That is on the Aemilian property," I answered. "Villa Aemilia has a
direct outlet to the Via Valeria and the Aemilian Estate does not belong
to this neighborhood at all. It runs back to the Tolenus and mostly

drains and slopes that way. Huge as the Vedian estates are, and though
the Satronian estates are still huger, yet the Aemilian estates are so vast
that they are larger than both the Vedian and Satronian lands together.
The Aemilian land has much woodland along its western borders and
blankets and almost encloses the Vedian and Satronian estates and all
of us in between. The road you came up is a sort of detour east of the
Salarian way. The Satronians and Vedians and we in between all use it,
turning to the right towards Reate and to the left towards Rome."
Tanno blinked at the soft, hazy view and swept his arm southward.
"That is all Satronian over there?" he asked.
"All," I said, "as far as the Aemilian domain."
"Which way," he queried, "is Villa Vedia?"
"To see it from here," I said, "you would have to look straight through
this house and half a dozen hills. It is almost due north."
"Vedians to the northward," he continued, "Satronians to the southward,
and just you and Ducconius sandwiched in between, clapper-clawing
each other."
"No, quite otherwise!" I retorted. "My property does not touch Vedian
or Satronian land anywhere, and Ducconius has barely half a mile of
boundary line along the Satronian domain. There are six other estates,
the largest half as big as mine, the smallest not much bigger than the
largest of my tenant-farms; three are on one side of me and three on the
other. You will meet the proprietors at dinner,