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THE NIGHT AND THE DAWNING

BOOK V

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Book V

THE NIGHT AND THE DAWNING

I

When Wardo had delivered his charges to the superintendent of the mine
and received a receipt for them from him, he started back, with his
assistants, on his homeward journey. But at Bibracte, where they would
leave the main road and turn due south toward the villa, ten Roman miles
away, he bade his men wait for him at the station until his return.
Instead of striking across country for the villa, he kept along the main
road, riding swiftly and steadily, as one who pursues a definite plan.
He crossed the Tamesis at Pontes, after a night's rest, and at evening
of the next day rode through the marsh-ford at Thorney.

Here he met with one who also was on horseback, splashed to the waist
with mud, for even the high-roads were heavy with the springtime thawing
out of the frost. He was muffled in a cloak, and his spurs were
bloodstained. He hailed Wardo in Latin tinged strongly with a foreign
accent.

"Can you tell me, friend, if there be an inn in this place where soft
beds and good food may be found?"

Wardo was moved to curiosity.

"For yourself?" he asked, spurring up to the stranger's side.

"Nay, for my lord and his wife and daughter. I am sent ahead to find
lodging for them. They are on the road to Rutupiae, to take ship for
Gaul, and travel by way of Londinium, where my lord hath affairs to
settle; but the women have given out and vow that they will go no
farther. So do the chickens break for cover when the hawk swoops."

His voice was slightly contemptuous. He turned his face, covered with a
wiry red beard, upon Wardo. His eyes, small and light, glinted from a
network of wrinkles under reddish brows.

"You are no Roman," he said abruptly.

"Why, no," said Wardo, somewhat surprised, "I am Saxon."

"Like myself," said the stranger, grandly. "Men call me Wulf, the son of
Wulf."

"There is an inn here," said Wardo, without returning information. "I
will show you, if you like. It is kept by Christians, and it is clean."

"Then it will be poor," Wulf grumbled, "and the wine will not be fit for
decent men."

"There you are wrong," said Wardo. "It is where my lord Eudemius stops
with his train when he passeth through here."

"So!" Wulf's glance held awakening curiosity. "The lord Eudemius of the
white villa south of Bibra