by Jack Ludlow
‘How do I come in?’
Barbinus fixed him with a sour look. ‘Meaning what’s in it for me?’
‘That too,’ replied Flaccus, returning the stare.
Barbinus stood and, hands on hips, stretched his back. ‘You want money, I want revenge. The land is there, the seed and the sun are there, as well as the slaves. Now I know it doesn’t turn in the crop yield my other farms manage, so I will give you the figure for the yield so far and provide funds for any improvements you need to make. Money for things like irrigation and I’ll even provide more slaves if you can justify them. You have both places for three years and any increase in the profits you can keep for yourself. After that, the whole income from the properties reverts to me.’
‘What do they turn in now?’
‘A million sesterces a year, Flaccus, most of which goes straight back into the soil or some slave’s belly. I know you want to have enough to be a knight. Double the yield on that land in Sicily and you’ll be able to join me in the Senate.’
‘I derive as little pleasure from my presence here as you do,’ said Cholon.
‘I need more time,’ replied Quintus.
‘If anything could count as your father’s dying wish, it was that these behests should be paid.’
‘You sound like a lawyer, Cholon,’ Quintus said sourly. ‘Being a free man obviously suits you.’
‘There was no attempt at impertinence there, Quintus Cornelius.’
‘How the world changes, Cholon. You now address me as Quintus Cornelius instead of master.’
Cholon frowned. The proper forms of address between Roman citizens were a little unfamiliar. ‘Is that not correct?’
Quintus looked at the Greek. Gone was the simple gown he had worn as a slave, to be replaced by a blue unadorned toga. His problem was not that his father had freed Cholon but that he had left instructions for the care of the families of those soldiers who had died with him at Thralaxas, written instructions too. Not that it mattered; Quintus knew that Cholon would never lie about such a thing. He could refuse to pay them immediately but a man who wished to advance in the public domain could hardly relish the thought of such an accusation attached to his name.
‘You have called me by my name, that is all, Cholon. I cannot forget that a few weeks ago you would not have dared.’
‘I can’t recall being cowed by the prospect. Perhaps it is more likely that you wouldn’t have been pleased.’
‘Oh yes, Cholon. My father would never have bothered if you’d called him by name. One wonders that a man can expend so much energy being humble.’
Cholon bridled; he would not have the memory of Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus sullied by anyone, even his eldest son. ‘In his case it was effortless, the natural extension of his remarkable personality.’
Quintus was stung. He stood, something he had been determined not to do in the presence of this ex-slave. ‘Well, that remarkable personality has been so prolific with his bequests that I’m having to call in outstanding loans, sell land and slaves to pay them. Since I have no desire to part with my inheritance at a lower price than it should command, I must move slowly. So you will forgive me if these people are forced to wait.’
‘I have seen to as many cases as I can from the money your father left me.’
‘What?’
Cholon smiled, speaking with perfect assurance, aware that Quintus was attempting to talk down to him. ‘I know that you will reimburse me in time.’
That was the point at which Quintus lost his temper, his dark eyebrows gathering together as he sought to stare down the insolence he perceived. ‘Don’t be so sure, Greek!’
‘But I am sure. You are not equal to your father by a long league but you’re enough his son to pay the family debts.’
‘Get out,’ Quintus hissed. ‘Leave a tally of the sums you’ve paid with my steward. When I have enough to reimburse you, I shall send you word.’
Cholon gave a small bow and left. Claudia emerged from her quarters as he crossed the atrium and, since she stood before him, he could hardly do as he wished and ignore her. So he stopped, bowed slightly and waited for her to speak. They looked at each other for several seconds before she obliged, with a wry smile.
‘I’m aware that you don’t like me, Cholon, just as I’m aware of the reasons.’
The Greek, of all people, had seen the way Claudia’s coldness, after the birth of her bastard, a child he had himself placed on the cold ground to die, had affected his late master. He had also seen their relationship as it was before her capture: happy and tactile. Claudia had turned to stone from the moment she and her husband had been reunited, and Aulus, who blamed himself for her ordeal as well as her fall from grace, had suffered when to Cholon’s way of thinking he should not.
‘Then there seems little more to say, Lady.’
Claudia paused, hoping that he would say more, but Cholon stood silent. ‘I heard raised voices.’
‘Only one voice was raised.’
She smiled again. ‘Quintus has a temper.’
‘Indeed!’
‘Would you mind telling me the cause of the argument?’
His face was like a death-mask. ‘It was not an argument, Lady.’
‘You seem to have acquired the stiff Roman neck very quickly,’ Claudia snapped. ‘It is a pity that in adopting our codes you didn’t take on board our manners as well.’
The reply was calm, his demeanour imperturbable. ‘No doubt I shall, in time, if I’m careful with my tutors.’
Claudia clasped her hands together, her face taking on an anxious look. ‘This will not do, will it, Cholon?’
‘Do for what, Lady?’
‘Do you see me as an enemy?’ she asked. ‘There was a time, wasn’t there? I hurt Aulus and you hated me for it.’
‘Emotions may pass on with those who die. They tend to remain in the living.’
‘I know Quintus is short of money. I wonder if you know why?’
‘It would be impolite to enquire.’
‘His father, many years ago, transferred a large portion of his wealth to me.’ Cholon tried, but he could not keep the surprise off his face. ‘Unfortunately for Quintus, it seems to be the most easily tradable part of the estate. You are aware that an eldest son normally inherits everything. Aulus felt that Quintus might be unjust to me…’
‘I wonder why he felt that?’ said Cholon, coldly.
Claudia’s eyes dropped and she clasped her arms together and shivered slightly. Quintus had found her the day her ‘captivity’ had ended; it was his men who had killed Brennos’s personal bodyguards to free her. He had also seen her condition and the thought that it might become public terrified him. She could remember the thoughts she had had when Quintus went to fetch his father, Claudia refusing to move from the spot where he had found her. Sitting in the wagon, she had contemplated killing herself, but the first stirring of the child in her womb had stayed that thought. Like Aulus, Cholon only knew half the truth and, tempted as she was to open up now that she was widowed, she knew she still had to keep secret the truth.
‘You and I are now the only people who know what happened. I am aware of the regard you had for my husband. I doubt if I could ever convince you how much I esteemed him…’
The interruption was brutal. ‘I doubt he sought your esteem.’
She reached out and grasped his arm. ‘Unbend, Cholon. I cannot explain to you, neither will I demean myself to attempt it, but if we were enemies once, we can be friends now. The memory of that man is as dear to me as it is to you.’
Cholon’s voice had a crack in it, half a sob. ‘I cannot believe that!’
Claudia tightened her grip as she saw his head drop. ‘Who will you talk to? With whom can you share your past with some degree of understanding, or will you be forever telling strangers of the greatness of the man you loved, knowing that they don’t believe you, thinking that you are merely taking on airs in a famous man’s shadow. You can talk to me. I know what he w
as worth.’
The anger returned again. ‘Do you?’
‘Ten times me, if not a hundred. I hurt him more than anyone alive, yet I asked him to put me aside.’ Cholon looked into her eyes, seeking the truth. ‘Aulus refused. In a way he inflicted the suffering on himself. He was a victim of his own nobility.’
‘He loved you, Lady.’
Claudia quickly wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘I have money to pay his bequests, and to reimburse you.’
‘You were listening?’
Claudia shook her head. ‘I do not need to listen at doors. One of the soldier’s wives came with her children to express her thanks. I know Quintus didn’t pay her. I’m like you, Cholon. I would not want Aulus to suffer from posthumous disgrace and, sometimes, I would like someone to talk to that I know I can trust.’
Cholon bowed his head, half in acknowledgement, half to hide his distress. Thoas the Numidian slave flitted from behind a nearby pillar. Cholon, more alert than Claudia, turned and saw him. The man’s colouring and height identified him, making the Greek wonder if Quintus had set Thoas to spy on his stepmother. He could quite believe it, which only served to widen the gulf between what he thought of the father and the lack of regard he had for the son. It was because he decided to say nothing that Cholon missed the point; his suspicion of Claudia outweighed every other consideration. If he had spoken, he would have found that Thoas, along with her handmaiden Callista, had been bought from Quintus as soon as the will was read.
CHAPTER FIVE
The road was dusty, the air hot and arid, so Didius Flaccus ordered his men to dismount and walk the horses, a command greeted with blank and silent stares. It worried him that they did not grumble; he was used to the company of legionaries, and they did little else. These men were not soldiers, though a few of them must have been so at one time. They had recently been guards and instructors at a gladiator school, which had gone under due to the owner’s debts; tough, scarred men and ruthless, who would spear an opponent on the nod from anyone who would pay their wages. He had offered them more than that to act as his personal bodyguard because what he had to do would be hard and dangerous. The Sicilian slaves he was about to take over would work or die, probably both, and no one man, alone, could feel secure in such a situation.
‘How far’ve we come?’ demanded Toger. ‘I need a wet.’
Flaccus stopped and half-turned to answer; unlike the others, this individual actively troubled him. He was squat, lantern-jawed, with huge shoulders and a square head covered in tight curls. His eyes, small and pig-like, never ceased to move, as though he was forever on guard against some unseen attack, an impression strengthened by the worry lines that furrowed his tiny forehead. He would smile occasionally, but there was no friendliness in it. Toger’s physical presence was alarming and he had a wild and unpredictable temper. The other men did not like him, though they laughed heartily enough at his feeble jokes, and never questioned any of his suggestions. They were afraid of him and it was quite possible, Flaccus thought, that the best way to ensure their undying loyalty would be to kill him.
‘We’re near a place called Aprilium,’ he replied, looking around the cultivated fields that lined the road and stretched to the grazing land for sheep and cattle on the nearby foothills. The substantial and well-tended villas they had passed were ample evidence of the wealth such land produced, just as they were proof that the owners would not be common farmers. Barbinus himself had a property round these parts – one he had just avoided – there was no way he could take this bunch of thugs into such a place, but thinking on that reminded him of another fact. His mind went back to the pass at Thralaxas and the men he had left to die there. ‘A few of my cohort came from round here, poor bastards.’
Toger snorted derisively. ‘Poor bastards is right, if they have to work the soil.’
‘They’re even worse off than that. They were trampled into it, that is if there was anything left of them after they had been hacked to pieces.’
‘Are you thinkin’ of payin’ any social calls?’ asked Dedon, another of his ruffians.
Flaccus did not reply. Clodius Terentius had come from land that lay close to the Barbinus properties, which caused the centurion to remember two other things: Clodius had been a surrogate legionary for someone better off than he, called Piscius Dabo. The second thing was that Clodius had died owing him money. They would have to stop for the night soon, find a bunkhouse in one of the flea-ridden post-houses that lined the route. How much better and cheaper it would be to impose themselves on a free billet. Right now, Flaccus was paying for everything, their wages as well as their bed and board; a personal bodyguard had not been part of his deal with Barbinus. This lot would not consent to sleeping in a field and if they did stay at a post-house, Flaccus knew that he would probably wake in the morning to find a couple of women and several flagons of drink added to his bill.
He turned to Dedon and gave him a grim smile. ‘I’m thinkin’ of paying a call, though I doubt I’ll be welcome.’
Toger grinned, his tiny yellowed teeth making a sharp contrast with the thick red lips. ‘Who cares about that?’
They turned off the busy road slightly further south and started to ask for directions. Perhaps if Dabo had been less crabbed he might have had on his side the natural hostility of country folk for strangers, let alone a band of men such as these. That would have guaranteed a dumb response to questions about the location of his farm, but his grasping nature, as well as his parsimony, had become a local byword, so even people who had had no dealings with him, and therefore no real cause to dislike him, were happy to direct Flaccus to the right place.
The builders, Mellio and Balbus, were near to finishing for the day and, still working on the roof, they were the first to see the small band of armed men approach. What they observed made them hurry to put away their tools and for once their attitude to Aquila was as dusty as the boy himself. An air of impending trouble seemed to emanate from the horsemen as they rode into the compound, hauling their mounts to in front of the main section of the house. Minca stood, his tail stretched out behind him, the ruff along his back proud, a sure sign of danger. The workmen left from the back of the building, taking care to keep out of sight. Dabo, who had come out to greet these visitors, hurried back into the house having looked them over, sending a slave to fetch everyone in from the fields.
‘Greetings,’ he said when he re-emerged, squinting up at Flaccus, astride his horse with the sinking sun behind him.
‘I’m looking for a fellow called Piscius Dabo.’
The idea of lying crossed Dabo’s mind but he dismissed it, sure that this man knew he was at the right farm. Besides Aquila had jumped down from the uncompleted roof and wandered over to stand beside him. The dog loped across the compound and took station by the boy’s leg, his presence causing some of the horses to shy away till Aquila took him by the ear, said something quietly in that heathen tongue he had learnt from the Celtic shepherd who had owned the animal, and Minca sat down.
‘That’s me,’ Dabo replied with an air of confidence he certainly did not feel. ‘And who might I be addressin’?’
‘Says it all really. Here he is, Piscius Dabo of the 10th, a legionary Hastari, who has just spent years fighting in Illyricum, and he don’t recognise his own centurion.’
‘Is this some kind of joke?’
‘It’s no joke to Clodius Terentius,’ replied Flaccus coldly.
The name froze Dabo’s blood but it acted very differently on Aquila, who rushed forward and grabbed at the greave on Flaccus’s leg. ‘You know him?’
Flaccus looked down at the dust-covered boy, his hair standing on end, full of red stone mixed with sweat. Then Dabo spoke, his voice hard and commanding. ‘Get back in the house, Aquila.’
Minca, suddenly on his feet, growled at Dabo’s tone. Flaccus looked at him, then back at the boy. ‘Aquila? Is this Clodius’s youngster?’
‘In the house,’ shouted Dabo again, ignor
ing the threatening sound of the dog beside him.
Aquila was long used to ignoring Dabo but something unusual in the voice had him halfway to complying. He turned to go, but Flaccus’s words, matter of fact and free from emotion, stopped him.
‘Lad ought to know that his Papa’s dead, Dabo, don’t you think?’ Aquila spun round and grabbed the leg again, his red-rimmed eyes looking up pleadingly at the grey-haired centurion. Flaccus continued in the same flat tone. ‘Killed at a place called Thralaxas, along with the rest of my men. Heroes all of them, you might say.’ He must have seen the pain but the voice hardened and he pointed his finger at Dabo. ‘Died a soldier’s death, lad. Trouble was, it was this man’s death, not his own.’
Dabo’s children, in from the fields, had gathered in a group by the well. Aquila gripped the leather greave on Flaccus’s leg tightly and his head fell forward to touch the horse’s sweating flank. When he lifted it again, and gave Flaccus a final look with those bright blue eyes, full of the hope that he was lying, the centurion could see the streaks of the tears that were cutting a path through the thick dust on the boy’s face. He was not a soft man; years of soldiering had removed what little kindness he possessed, yet he spoke gently now, reaching down to touch Aquila’s hair.
‘Sorry, lad. There’s no easy way to say a loved one’s gone.’
Aquila pushed himself violently away from both horse and rider, causing Flaccus’s mount to rear slightly at the strength of the shove. The boy ran between the other horses, heading for the group by the well. Minca followed, with each rider taking a firm grip on their reins as their mounts sought to avoid the black menace that was suddenly in their midst, barking wildly as it raced after the boy. The group by the well stood rock-like and bemused as Aquila pushed his way through, though they parted more readily for the dog, then turned to gaze as the pair ran off into the fields, heading for the woods on the other side.