Last year a Celtic army had trespassed on Etruscan territory, a large army, too strong to be repelled in open battle. The citizens had shut themselves behind their wall and waited for the savages to go away. Before snow had closed the passes the savages withdrew; but first they destroyed the standing crops, so that the citizens went hungry that winter. When another army appeared in the spring there was nothing for it but to go out and fight them or face starvation. Perperna had been one of the youths left behind to hold the walls; which was perhaps a stroke of luck, for few spearmen of the citizen levy survived the encounter. Perhaps he had not been so lucky after all. It might have been better to die in battle, with his comrades round him and his city still standing, rather than to drag out a few more months of life as a hopeless and solitary fugitive.
But at the time of the defeat no one had thought the disaster irreparable. There were still enough old men and boys to garrison the walls, and it was common knowledge that these savages could not break into a fortified place. The city would be very hungry indeed, after the loss of two successive harvests; perhaps in the spring they would have to abandon their hearths and move south of the river to the protection of the main Etruscan League. But for the present all they had to do was to stand firm and man the wall. They had underestimated the skill of the savages, who were learning by experience.
Perperna lay behind his bush until late afternoon. Then the long shadows made it possible to slip away southward, unobserved by watchers on the citadel. It was likely that the town was already deserted, for the savage would not stay long in it after they had sacked it. In any case he was hungry and thirsty and exhausted, and must prepare for the night before darkness fell.
He had a linen tunic and an unscabbarded iron sword, and nothing else in the world. But mentally he was well equipped for survival, even in these conditions. His training as priest and haruspex had taught him to think coolly, and he was used to cold and fasting. Luckily he had not seen the horrors of the sack. Though he knew that all his friends and family had been barbarously slain, he could not picture their bodies lying unburied and disfigured; they had merely left this world for the next, and it would be his duty, as soon as he found a safe refuge, to see that their spirits were properly tended. He could think clearly, without disabling fear.
With his sword he cut a strip from his tunic to serve as a sling, and at his feet were smooth waterworn pebbles. Presently he was lucky enough to find a jagged piece of flint. Tonight the glow of a fire might bring the savages on his trail, but now he could warm himself when he judged it to be safe. He journeyed for several miles, and slept, cold and hungry, in a rock cleft where a range of hills bounded the southern edge of the plain.
As dawn broke he killed a wild goat, and lay up for three days while he roasted the flesh and made a more serviceable sling from the hide. He made also a baldric to carry the naked sword, and rough sandals for his feet. When he wore these accoutrements he stank horribly, but that was not a grave handicap; passers-by might smell him out, but the mixture of he-goat and man would puzzle sheepdogs. On the fourth day he broke off a branch to serve as a staff, put a little sun-dried meat in his goatskin wallet, and set off to look for another city. He had not seen a single man; the Celts had not crossed the river, but fear of them had driven the local peasants into hiding.
He journeyed slowly, keeping always in narrow valleys where he could not be seen from a distance. It was ten more days before he came to cultivated fields, and hid behind a rocky out-crop to see what kind of men lived there. It was the beginning of harvest, so there were men in the fields. But harvesters work in groups, and it was not until evening that he saw a man alone.
The man was repairing a road, levelling the ruts and filling the puddles with stones. It was obviously hard work, but it called for some skill; it was not the sort of task that would be left to an unsupervised slave. Besides, the man looked intelligent; there was on his face the indefinable expression of responsibility and self-control that marks a free citizen who judges issues of peace and war. Perperna did not want to approach a slave in the first place, for slaves were often so frightened of any stranger that they could not talk sense. This was a good person to interrogate.
The stranger worked along the track until a low rise of ground hid him from the nearest harvesters. Now was the time. Perperna had been crawling cautiously on his belly; he stood erect, his right hand open in sign of peace, though the sword dangling from his baldric showed that he was not defenceless. He called a greeting.
The stranger started, and gripped his hoe as though it were a spear. Then he saw that Perperna was alone, and answered his greeting in the correct and grammatical Etruscan of the nobility.
‘You made me jump, young man,’ he said easily. ‘Lucky for you that I carry no arms, or I might have struck first and spoken after. You seem to be in a very bad way. If you seek food and shelter you must come with me to the city.’
‘I need help,’ Perperna replied, ‘but I would like to know more about this place before I enter its walls. I wasn’t even sure that it is an Etruscan settlement. I suppose it must be, since you speak the language so correctly.’
The stranger bowed. ‘My parents taught me carefully, and I am glad to know I have not forgotten their training. But this is not my native place, and here their tongue is more barbarous. I suppose you are a fugitive from one of the northern cities, destroyed by the Celts. So am I. I have been here two years.’
‘And is this a good place in which to seek refuge?’
‘It’s a lot better than wandering over the plain, with no roof to your head and no hope of a hot meal. The rulers are Etruscans of sorts, though the common people are Italian. Unless you have kin in some safe city who will give you a fresh start I advise you to come here. The council will protect you, and you will sleep safe at night. But unless you have silver you must earn your keep. Do you know a trade?’
‘That will be all right. I am trained in two skilled crafts. I can read the omens in a liver; and I can use all the weapons of a free man, though at present I have only this sword.’
‘No good at all, I’m afraid. No foreigner may follow either of those callings. The priests here don’t welcome competition, and of course they won’t let strangers bear arms. That’s only prudence.’
‘Then what will they expect me to do? I don’t want to live on alms.’
‘You won’t get alms, after the usual three days of hospitality. If you want to eat regularly you will be expected to work in the fields, as I do. In the morning they will give you a task, and a dinner when you have finished it. Then next day they will give you another task, and so on.’
‘But that’s the life of a slave,’ Perperna protested. ‘Haven’t they given you a ploughland? Aren’t you working your own field?’
‘Indeed not. There isn’t enough land to go round, especially now that the Celts are driving us out of the north. I’m not a slave, you know, even though the life is pretty hard. I am a free refugee, a ward of the city. I sleep in the porch of the council house, and they give me a warm tunic every winter. Nobody is supposed to beat me, though it isn’t tactful to complain at every whack across the shoulders. Perhaps it isn’t much of a life, but then I don’t deserve much. My city was sacked, and my kin are dead. I’m lucky to have escaped formal slavery, since I possess nothing.’
‘Then why not move on, to some place where you would be more welcome?’
‘Where would that be? Here they speak my language, and worship the gods I knew as a child. It’s my own fault. I should have fought to the death when the savages broke into my city. Now I have food, and a safe place to sleep in. If I moved on to the Italian cities they would make me a slave, working in chains and shut up at night.’
‘If you are strong enough to work you are strong enough to fight. You could join a band of brigands, and perhaps gain silver enough to buy land of your own.’
‘I have thought of that, naturally. But it’s not a life that would suit me. I’m old, an
d stiff in my joints. Probably I would be killed by some angry farmers, and if not the other brigands would steal my plunder. Here I am safe, and that counts for a lot when you have been chased as I was.’
‘Then you advise me to do as you did, to go as a suppliant to the city council?’
‘I don’t give you advice. You must do as you wish. If you enter the city you will be granted the three days of hospitality due to any wayfarer. But if they suspect that you plan to join the brigands they will crucify you before you can get away. In these parts we don’t like brigands. When the three days are up they will put you to work. What more can you hope for? By rights you should be dead, killed in the defence of your city.’
‘Thank you for the warning,’ answered Perperna. ‘I shall be a brigand. In fact from this moment I am a brigand. You see this sword? Have you anything that would be useful to me?’
‘You have decided for yourself,’ said the old man with a weary sigh. ‘Don’t pretend afterwards that I advised you. Here you will have bread and wine, with a bit of meat on feast days, and you will sleep safe while a sentry guards the wall. As a brigand you will eat beef every day, except when you eat nothing; and it’s just possible you will gather riches, though more likely that you will be stabbed in the back as soon as you are worth robbing. If you have really made up your mind I won’t hinder you. Let me see. Here is a hunk of bread and cheese, and this little knife may be useful. Please don’t take my shoes. They are my only pair, and no better than your goatskin sandals. After you have gone I must raise the alarm, to explain how I lost the knife they lent me. So don’t raid our sheepfold tonight, when the sentry will be looking out for you.’
‘Very well. I don’t know when I shall taste bread again, so I’ll take yours; also the knife, but you may keep the shoes. By the way, one day I might meet some of your kin. Will you tell me your name, and the name of your city?’
‘I am a fugitive. I have no name, and no city. When I am dead no one will tend my spirit, and as my ashes cool I shall be utterly forgotten. That’s what it is to be a fugitive. Perhaps you are right to choose the brigands. Now get into hiding. I shall count to a thousand before I shout for help.’
It was not difficult to join a band of brigands. Perperna carried a good sword, and was not himself worth robbing, so the leader made no objection. This leader was himself an Etruscan fugitive, a nameless man whom his followers called Mor, a barbarian word meaning Tall. There were four other Etruscans in the group, and a score of Ligurians and Italians. They lived rather by petty thieving than by armed robbery, for since they had only six shields among twenty-five men they dared not face real warriors; but they had a lair in a narrow glen, where they slept in huts of turf and cooked openly over big fires. During the winter Perperna sheltered with them rather than try to live alone in the open. When spring came round he had a thick sheepskin cloak and sound shoes, and plentiful roast mutton had built up his reserves of strength.
As soon as the weather was warm enough for sleeping in the open he left the band and wandered southward alone. He felt the need for companionship, but the brigands could not give it to him. Even the Etruscans among them had degenerated into slow-witted oafs, thinking no farther than the next meal; and their customs embarrassed him. Three frowsy women lived in the camp, survivors of many stolen from outlying fields; but at the end of winter Mor’s private concubine died, and the leader seemed to think that the latest recruit, a handsome youth in his nineteenth year, would make an adequate substitute. It was time to be moving.
He could look after himself. His nerves were steady; he could feast or starve, doze or watch, huddle by a fire or endure the frost, with an equal mind. Night and day he was in danger of death, but he was seldom afraid though he avoided unnecessary risk. The sword which was his only link with home was clean and sharp, and with a sling-stone he never missed. Anyone would find it hard to kill him. That was why he was still alive.
He travelled slowly, for he must hunt or steal his food; and when he had killed a sheep or a deer it would be wasteful to move on until it was eaten. But he kept moving in a definite direction, with the coast on his right and the high hills on his left. He knew, from what he had learned in the old days, that beyond the Etruscan settlements he would find other peoples who also lived in cities; they might be more generous to penniless fugitives. But when the first frosts of autumn warned him to seek shelter he was still in lands ruled by Etruscans, though most of the men working in the fields were commoners who spoke only Italian.
Once, while he dozed on a hillside, a troop of mercenaries marched noisily through the valley below. He crept up behind the rearguard; when he had been recognised as a solitary outlaw he approached boldly and asked whether they had room for another recruit. They were willing to take him if he wanted to come, though at present they were unemployed and so not very eager to increase their numbers. For a few days he ate well and slept soundly, with a sentry watching over him and comrades to guard his back.
After ten days he slipped away from the band. He had drawn no pay and they did not bother to chase such an unimportant deserter. The life did not suit him, chiefly because his pride would not allow him to fill the place appropriate to a mere swordsman. He had no shield and no armour; since he could not stand in the line of battle he was inferior to the basest Ligurian who had picked up a full panoply. He was told that when they fought his post would be somewhere on the flank, where he might use his sling; and that in the meantime he might as well get on with cooking and fetching water, tasks beneath the dignity of fully armed warriors.
During his second winter as a fugitive he actually worked for his living, like a peasant. In these more settled southern lands he could not find a suitable band of brigands; the few and hunted outlaws were as likely to murder him for his sword as to welcome him as a recruit. During a heavy rainstorm, which reminded him that soon he must find a permanent shelter, he came on a solitary sheepfold high among the hills. So late in the season he expected it to be deserted, but before he could enter he was bayed by two fierce dogs; an old shepherd came out to investigate the noise. The old man knew him at once for what he was, a dangerous outlaw on the run; but that did not worry him. He was a slave, and the sheep belonged to his master. The young stranger could take a sheep if he liked, for there was nothing else worth stealing; but if he was seeking safe harbour for the winter let him stay and work for his food. Perperna, cold and wet and miserable, looked towards the glowing hearth and closed the bargain.
After years of solitude the old man was very like a sheep himself. In these southern districts the flocks were left out all winter, and he did not expect a visit from his master until spring at the earliest. He spoke a few words of Etruscan; but his own language was Italian, and he talked softly to himself all the time he was awake. Time had stopped for him more than fifty years ago, when he was stolen by slave-raiders; he chattered of his childhood in a Sabine village, never of anything later. When Perperna had helped him with the lambing, and it was time for him to be on his way again, he had learned a fluent, ungrammatical Italian besides the elements of caring for sheep.
This kind of life could not go on for ever. He was clearsighted enough to realise that he had been very lucky; in the summer it was not very hard for an outlaw to pick up a living, and so far for each winter he had found a safe harbour. But sickness or an accident might leave him starving and helpless in some hidden cave, or an enraged farmer might get him with a lucky javelin; there had been narrow escapes already. He was entirely alone. That was the trouble.
He might steal a girl, though as a rule there were warriors within call when village maidens took the pigs to pasture in the beech-wood. In theory, once he had caught a girl and raped her no other man would touch her and she would have to be faithful to him. But in practice things did not always work out like that; the girl might still hate him enough to betray him. Besides, the gods disapprove of such behaviour, and Perperna himself did not like it.
If he joined a large band h
e would never be more than a scullion; a shieldless swordsman was not the equal of true warriors. Besides, a large band, its members bound by long comradeship, might regard him as an outsider and sell him into slavery. He could go into partnership with another solitary outlaw; there were plenty about, though it was not easy to get in touch with them. There the tiresome obstacle was his youth and good looks; his partner would always be trying to climb into his blankets.
All the same, this summer he must find companionship, if it could be managed; and preferably in a large community, where he could sink unnoticed into the background until he had learned his way about. If there was no other chance he could at any time enter an Etruscan city, to lead the serf-like life of a penniless fugitive. But he had been told that beyond Etruria the Italians lived in some kind of imitation city they had copied from their more civilised neighbours; if he found himself near one he would try its welcome first, before he resigned himself to what his countrymen offered to their fellows in distress.
Shortly after harvest-time he came to another river, flowing southward to the sea on his right like all the other rivers he had encountered. On the western bank the land was fertile and closely cultivated; but there were patches of scrub and woodland, and a single man, long practised in these evasions, could work down unseen to the bank of the stream.
In the river below him, by a little island, a bend slowed up the current and left a ridge of gravel which was evidently a much-used ford. On the farther bank a cluster of low but steep-sided hills rose from a flat plain of beech-woods and scattered cultivation. Two neighbouring hills were crowned with palisades, and in the valley was a dusty hollow with a few buildings scattered about it, perhaps the common meeting-place of the two villages.
Founding Fathers Page 16
