It so happened that my agents had just completed their preliminary investigations and acquainted themselves with general conditions when your idiotic feud broke loose in two abductions of women, one by each side, that put my agents on their mettle.

They kept awake.

They are no fools.

My head man has a keen scent for incipient trouble; he managed to have one of his helpers get among the ambushers in Vediamnum and another among those on your byway, Satronius.

Each of these two severally heard all the talk of the ambushers with whom he mingled; so I have had a faithful report of just what the Vedian ambush meant to do to the Satronian convoy they lay in wait for and similarly of the other side.
Each was waiting for a sheep; both caught a wildcat.