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Updated: May 28, 2025
They had their wives with them, but I forget their names. The three women were arrayed in wonderful costumes of cheap fabrics dyed in gaudy hues and adorned with jewelry of gilt or silvered bronze set with bits of colored glass. I had seen such at a distance, but never so close. Both Agathemer and I liked Ramnius and Uttius; we felt at ease with them at first sight.
Strangely enough, when, at Baiae, I read letters from Falco, Tanno and Agathemer describing the devastation, my mind dwelt more on the annihilation of the shop where I had encountered Vedia than on the destruction of the Palace records and most of the public records, or of the many revered temples which had vanished in the flames.
I jumped and my fingers caught his shoulders. He held on. My body sank slowly through the ooze, which gave way with a sickening sliminess, until I was in contact with Agathemer all the way to my toes. Then I began to try to crawl up over him. I found it far harder than either of us had anticipated.
Neither Chryseros nor Agathemer had any doubt that a close watch was being quietly kept to make sure that I could not now return to Villa Andivia without being caught; nor yet leave it if I did return or had returned. As a result of his discussion with Agathemer they had agreed that we were to leave by night and on foot, as we had originally intended.
"I told you I had a suspicion that this was a dangerous locality," Agathemer whispered when we had stood up and gotten our breath. "Those were regular infantry of some sort. We can only hope that they are on that side only. Let's try towards Rome." There, at about the same distance we were similarly challenged.
Over our wine after dinner, when we two dined alone together, much as Agathemer and I had when I was my former self, he unbosomed himself to me. "Pertinax is right," he averred, "there is a real difference between enterprises which enrich only the participants and those which, while profiting their promoters, also add to the wealth of the Republic. I applaud his distinction between the two.
Then arena-slaves carried in and set down on the sand a full hundred feet from the hoop and chains, a dozen or more wicker crates full of quacking white ducks with yellow bills. They and the noise they made recalled unpleasantly to me my sensations as I clung to the alder bush immersed in Bran Brook, after Agathemer and I had crawled through the drain at Villa Andivia.
Into the heaps he burrowed. The warmth of his naked body warmed me a trifle. There we lay still till dark. I slept, I think, from about noon till after sunset. While we could still see, Agathemer, making me keep flat as I was, wriggled out of the leaves and pushed them aside from my head and face. We then ate half our remaining food. As it grew dark Agathemer expounded to me his plans.
Agathemer led and I followed, my teeth chattering and the night insects biting me severely. Hugging our precious copper cylinders we waded more than waistdeep in the water, up the Bran Brook, sometimes all but swimming, as we skirted some of the deeper pools. There was no moon and we could see but little by the faint starlight.
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.
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