The Horse Changer by Craig Smith Page B

answered.
    ‘That’s impossible,’ he said.
    ‘You’ve taken me hunting before.’
    ‘A wild boar is considerably more dangerous than the game we’ve hunted. It isn’t safe for you.’
    ‘With all these armed men about? You have to be joking.’ To her slave, she said, ‘Fetch Artemis and be quick about it!’
    ‘Stay where you are!’ Nero told the fellow.
    ‘Go!’ the girl answered petulantly. The slave was naturally torn between commands: the refusal of either would get him a beating.
    Fortunately for the poor fellow, Dolabella inserted himself into Nero’s domestic affairs. Dolabella of course cared nothing about the fate of a slave; he simply loved scandal of every hue and thought to nurture this one in its infancy. ‘Let her ride with us, Nero,’ he said. ‘Dellius will keep her safe.’ He turned to me. ‘Won’t you, Dellius?’
    I knew better than to complain of losing my chance at riding in the vanguard and answered my patron crisply. ‘On my life!’
    ‘You see? On his life. She will be perfectly safe.’
    I expect Nero knew he had been turned into a laughing stock. All the same, he relented, for he dearly loved that girl. Let the neighbours make their jokes; nothing is as sweet in life as a happy wife. Of course, at the time, I was astonished that a senator of Rome would submit to a mere child. I had no respect for the old fellow. In my bachelor’s ignorance I believed a man must never submit to the whims of a woman, especially if she happened also to be his wife. Time has softened my opinion considerably. When I was Nero’s age, somewhere in my fifties, and about the business of my second marriage, I did not let my new bride hunt wild boar with the young gentry of our neighbourhood, but like Nero I spoiled her at every turn. Those who make us happy we learn to indulge. It is partly our sentiment for their sweet compliance and partly a desire to give them a life that is kinder than the one we have endured.
    At any rate, Livia was athlete enough to ride with the men, a better athlete than most, if truth were told. Nero knew this and was not worried about her tiring or falling from her horse. He did, however, take the precaution of keeping his wife from danger by sending all but Dolabella and me ahead. With luck we could hope to join up in time for the kill, but there would be no adventuring at the front of the chase.
    For her part, Livia appeared to agree to Nero’s conditions until her mare was brought out and saddled. By then the rest of the hunters were a mile or so up the mountain. When Artemis bowed down to allow Livia to mount, she took her seat and brought the mare up quickly, kicking her flanks as she did. Nero called her back, for all the good it did. Livia departed at a full gallop, and nothing was going to turn her back. Still on the ground and having no chance of catching her anyway, Nero looked at me angrily. ‘Your life, Dellius, if anything happens to her!’

    The land around Nero’s estate was wooded, hilly and wild. Livia knew every ridge and ravine from her morning rides and soon left the trail by which the hunters had ascended the mountain. Her path was more direct and thereby more treacherous. There were jumps over logs and ditches. Then there were the breakneck descents, which I took at a gallop for the sake of keeping up with her. The fog that shrouded Rome that summer had covered all Campania as well; if anything the air was thicker and more foul.
    Before long I found myself utterly alone. I knew Livia had gone off trail to lose me. Realising that there can be no pleasure in such a game if one is unavailable to be laughed at, I turned back and headed down the mountain. Soon enough Livia came ambling out of her hiding place. She began at once to tease me about my equestrian talents: ‘I’m not sure you are the fellow I care to have guarding me. You can barely keep up.’
    ‘Have you ever encountered a wild boar, Lady?’ I asked.
    ‘They are no longer common in