Outcast

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  He stayed in the plunge-bath until the slave who had brought him there came back and demanded to know whether he thought he was a fish; and then he got out and rubbed himself down and pulled on the tunic which the man tossed to him —a tunic of unbleached wool, soft and clean—and followed him out. His own stinking rags they left on the bath-house floor, to be collected and burned by anybody who happened to feel like it, if anyone ever did. That, Beric was to realize later, was typical of the house of Piso.

  Without any clear idea of how he got there, he found himself in a small lamp-lit room, standing before a thin grey man, who sat looking at him appraisingly across a table littered with tablets and papyrus rolls. ‘Ah yes, the new slave,’ said the man in tones of quiet authority. He glanced at a tablet in his hand.’ Your name is Beric?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Beric hoarsely.

  The grey man wrote it down on a scroll before him. ‘So. My name is Nigellus, and I am the steward of this household. You will take most of your orders from me.’

  Beric said ‘Yes’ again.

  Nigellus let the scroll fly back on itself abruptly. ‘Panteon will find you somewhere to sleep, and the cook will give you a meal if you are hungry. But first——’ He took up something from the table before him, and held it out. ‘See if this will go over your elbow. If not, I have a larger one.’

  Beric took it from him. It was a broad silver arm-ring, stamped with a badge of some sort; and he stared at it stupidly, holding it between his hands as though he did not know what to do with it.

  ‘It is the badge of the house of Piso,’ said the steward. ‘All Publius Piso’s slaves wear such an arm-ring. Put it on, and go.’

  Without a word, Beric ran the thing up his left forearm and began to work it over his elbow. It was a tight fit, but he managed it at last, and looked up again, just as the grey man reached out to set aside the scroll in which he had entered the new slave’s name: and saw, half revealed by the updrawn sleeve, the rim of just such another arm-ring sparkling in the lamplight.

  His gaze jerked up to the steward’s face, and encountered a faint flicker in his eyes that might have been amusement or bitterness. ‘Oh yes, I also,’ said Nigellus.

  VI

  A FRIEND AND AN ENEMY

  FOR the first few days that he wore the Piso arm-ring Beric lived in a state of perpetual bewilderment, so that his head felt hot all the time, and nothing and nobody seemed quite real. And then, very slowly, he began to get his breath back and be able to look about him. His head stopped feeling hot, and he began to learn his way about the courts of the great house on the Viminal Hill, where at first he had got constantly lost, and through the unfamiliar pattern of the days, and even which were which of his fellow slaves.

  There were many slaves in the household of Publius Piso, and they all had a tendency to do bits and pieces of each other’s work, while somebody else did theirs—or did not, as the case might be. That was not Nigellus’s fault; it was partly because the Lady Poppaea was in the habit of calling to any slave she saw and ordering him to drop what he was doing and run instantly and do something else; partly because Publius Piso changed his slaves so often that there were always some in the household who did not know their jobs. Publius Piso was forever buying and selling slaves; Beric soon learned that. The only one who seemed safe from that habit of his was Nigellus. Nigellus had been his body-slave when they were both boys, had gone with him through his Tribune Service with the Legions, and risen slowly to be the steward of his household, and had become so much a part of him that he would as soon have thought of selling his own right arm.

  At first Beric wondered why none of the slaves ran away. It would have been quite easy, for they were often sent on errands into the city, and sometimes they had time off, and could go out and spend it as they chose. And then he realized that it was because most of them knew no other life, and for the few like himself who did, there was nowhere to run to. To run away would mean going underground, perhaps joining the robbers, to live at all. There was little future in that.

  At least he was no longer hungry, nor beaten without cause.

  Officially he was a house slave, but it was not long before he began to find his way into the stables. He liked old Hippias, who had charge there, and who liked him in return; and with the horses—Publius Piso kept fine horses and did not sell them as often as he did his slaves—he was less lonely than with his fellow slaves.

  His world was a slave’s world, ruled by Nigellus, and the family he served were figures moving in another world, seen at a distance. Publius Piso was a fussy man, but under the fuss and the self-importance a kindly man, who might even have been kind to his slaves if it had occurred to him that they had feelings. His wife, the Lady Poppaea, was a very different matter; fat and white and fretful, and without kindness. The Lady Lucilla was her mother over again, though not fretful. But that, Beric thought, was probably because she was only fifteen. Maybe the Lady Poppaea had not been fretful when she was fifteen. And then there was Glaucus; Glaucus, with his gay good looks and his lazy, laughing manner, standing out from his family like a goldfinch among sparrows.

  So Beric saw them, coloured but flat, like figures in a fresco, those first few months that he belonged to them.

  The autumn rains had broken soon after he joined the household and the winter came, and there was snow on the Alban Hills, that he could glimpse from an upper window of the slaves’ quarters. And then the snow went, and the first faint promise of spring began to stir. And Beric’s longing for his own hills and his freedom, that had never left him for a moment, grew quick and urgent within him. ‘It must be so that the wild geese feel when they fly north in the spring,’ he thought, ‘and the swallows when they come from the south to nest under our eaves. But the swallows and the wild geese are free to go when they hear the call.’ It was all the worse, in a way, because by that time he was allowed outside the gates, and even, with one or two others, sent out sometimes to exercise the horses; and it would have been so easy to escape, only there was nowhere to escape to.

  Then came a morning when the promise of spring was suddenly fulfilled as with a fanfare of trumpets; a morning when the hazels would be flinging their yellow pollen to the wind along the wood-shores of the north, and the curlews would be calling. And something within Beric seemed beating and beating for freedom, until he felt bruised with its beating.

  But he was not the only one to feel the spring that morning, for the Lady Lucilla, who always had breakfast in her sleeping-cell in the usual way, suddenly decided to have it in the garden. It so happened that Beric entered the kitchen just as the tray was ready, and the cook thrust it into his hands, saying: ‘It is for the young lady. Take it out to her, there’s a good lad. She’s on the terrace.’

  Carefully carrying the tray set with little hot loaves and wild honey, Beric made his way across the inner court with its fountain and its lemon and myrtle trees in slender stone jars, and out into the small garden. The shadow of a flying bird darted before him over the grass, and in the brown shade of the ilex tree beside the terrace steps were a host of tiny pink flowers that looked as though they too were winged and might take flight at any moment.

  The Lady Lucilla was sitting on the curved stone bench in a kind of bay of the parapet, with nothing but sky beyond her, for the garden of the Piso house was on the very brow of the Viminal, and beyond the terrace the hill dropped steeply to the heart of Rome. She was playing with a small white kitten with golden eyes, and did not look up at the sound of Beric’s sandals on the pavement.

  Beric hesitated, wondering suddenly whether he ought to have put the tray down somewhere and brought out a table first; he did not know; it was the first time he had actually waited on any of the family. ‘My Lady,’ he began at last, ‘may I put this on the bench, while I fetch a table?’

  She looked up at him. ‘Oh, it is you, Beric. Yes, set the tray here beside me. I shall not want a table.’

  Beric bent and set the tray carefully where s
he bade him, poured water into the silver cup and shifted the napkin so that it was towards her hand; and straightened again to find her still watching him. ‘You did that very well,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, my Lady.’ Beric stood straight before her, waiting to be dismissed.

  But Lucilla did not dismiss him. Instead she said: ‘I saw you bring back the new Icenian mare from exercise yesterday.’ And then, as he did not answer: ‘You are British, too, are you not?’

  ‘I——’ Beric began, and hesitated, gazing at the parapet behind her. ‘I am from Britain.’

  Lucilla did not seem to notice the hesitation. After a moment she said with a small contented sigh, ‘Isn’t it lovely that it is spring again? The cyclamen are all coming into flower under the ilex tree, and soon the swallows will be back … Do you have swallows in Britain, in the spring?’

  Beric’s gaze slipped away over the parapet into the faint opal mist of the morning, out of which the hills of Rome rose into the sunlight. But they were other hills that he was seeing. ‘Yes, we have swallows in Britain, in the spring.’

  The Lady Lucilla bent her head quickly over the kitten in her lap, then looked up again and said with a catch in her voice: ‘That was stupid of me. I am sorry—I did not think.’

  Beric stared at her in surprise, at the warmth in her voice as much as her words. ‘My Lady, it—it makes no difference. I was remembering the swallows already, this morning.’

  ‘Were you? I am so sorry,’ said the Lady Lucilla again.

  There was an uncertain silence. Beric shifted his weight from one foot to the other, realizing that she knew no more than he did what to say next, or how to break off the small, half-shy exchange that had somehow taken them both unawares.

  Finally he said: ‘My Lady, would you rather have cheese than honey? Shall I bring some?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I like honey best. Thank you for bringing me my breakfast, Beric.’

  A few moments later, making his way back to the house, with the ache of his misery suddenly a little warmed and comforted, Beric was thinking to himself that the Lady Lucilla was not in the least like her mother, after all. The Lady Poppaea was fat and white and without kindness, but the Lady Lucilla had been kind to a homesick slave, and she no longer looked fat or white to him.

  Spring passed by, with its sudden downpours that the sun and the mistral dried almost as they fell, and the lemon-blossom scattered its petals into the cool waters of the fountain, and the long, breathless days of summer came; and it was more than a year since Beric’s old life had cast him out. Usually, he found, the household moved out for the hot months to the Piso farm in the Alban Hills, but this year they remained in Rome, because the Lady Lucilla was to be married at the summer’s end, and there was so much to do, to make ready for the marriage. The Lady Lucilla was marrying a friend and fellow magistrate of her father’s, Valarius Longus by name. Beric had seen him sometimes when he came to the house: a lean, dark man, who bore the traces of his early soldiering far more clearly than Publius Piso did. There was a quiet, finely-tempered air about him, and presumably Lucilla liked him, for she seemed well content; but he must be nearly as old as her father, and Beric could not help wondering whether she was as content as she seemed. As the Lady Lucilla had cared whether he was homesick, so he cared whether she was happy.

  But Beric had little leisure for wondering, that summer. Only a few days after he first heard about the coming marriage, Bucephalus, the big roan charger, was stung by a gadfly while Hippias was combing his tail, and gave the old man a kick as the result of which he was now laid up with a broken leg, and Beric found himself doing all he could to fill his place for him, so that Publius Piso should not buy another groom. Hippias could not be sold off while he had a broken leg, because naturally no one would buy him; but it was quite possible that Publius Piso might buy another slave now, and if he liked the new one best, sell Hippias the instant he was saleable. Hippias was frightened of that. He was growing old, getting to the stage when a change of masters was almost bound to mean a change for the worse. And squatting beside the pallet bed at the end of the men’s dormitory, where the old man lay frightened and in pain, Beric had reassured him as best he could. ‘If there is no need for a new groom, it will not come into our master’s mind to buy one; not with the Lady Lucilla’s marriage to think about. And there will be no need for a new groom. I will see to that.’ And he had gone to Nigellus and asked to be taken off house duties for the time being. And Nigellus had done his best, so that now nearly all Beric’s time was passed in the stables.

  He was there one breathless August evening, seeing to Venetia, the Icenian mare, whom the master of the house had just had out. Publius Piso rode for exercise before dinner every other day, unless business prevented him or the weather was too bad. He was not a big man, but he rode heavily and hardly, and to-day Venetia was clearly distressed. Beric did not wonder. There had been a storm brewing all day, brassy clouds banked round the sky-line, and the air heavy and sour with thunder. In the shadowed stable, with every door open, there seemed no air to breathe, and out in the stable yard beyond the door the heat danced above a shimmering mirage that looked like pools of water on the cobbles. The mare hung her head, dribbling and uneasy. The master might have forgone his ride to-day, Beric thought. But the master was a man of habit. At least he might have taken Bucephalus, who was better up to his springless thumping. Beric talked to her, softly and consolingly in the Celtic tongue, as he rubbed her down and covered her with the light cloths that would keep her from getting chilled. ‘Poor little sister—beautiful sister—it is better now … . Yes, I know you are thirsty; you shall drink soon.’ And the mare, with some dim remembrance of the tongue that had been familiar to her when she was a foal, whinnied softly, and swung her head to nuzzle at his shoulder. When she was cooled off enough, he brought her a pail of water, and then filled her manger with fresh hay and a handful of beans to keep her happy while he got on with her grooming.

  Footsteps came across the yard, loud in the breathless hush, and a shadow darkened the doorway; and he looked up to see Glaucus, cool from the baths and exquisite in a tunic of pale green silk. Beric drew himself to attention, making the obeisance that had become habit with him now.

  Glaucus acknowledged it with a friendly nod, and propped himself against the manger. Beric wondered what he had come for. He was often in the stables, but that was to visit the white chariot team that he used as his own, though they were actually his father’s. He seemed to be taking an interest in Venetia, watching her eat. ‘She is only playing with her food,’ he said after a moment. ‘Why?’

  ‘She is tired and not hungry,’ Beric told him. ‘No one could be hungry in such weather as this.’ He jerked his head towards the open doorway, beyond which the sunshine was growing dim and sulphurous.

  ‘Take the cloths off a moment, and let’s have a look at her.’

  Beric did as he was bid, and Glaucus ran an experienced eye over the glossy flanks and beautiful arched neck. ‘She has been over-hot.’

  ‘I know,’ Beric said. ‘May I cover her again now?’

  ‘Yes, of course. If she is out of condition——’

  ‘She is not out of condition,’ Beric said quickly. ‘She has been——’

  ‘Over-ridden on a hot day. Yes, I know.’ The other sounded friendly, and Beric looked up to encounter a grin and a cocked eyebrow of amused understanding that somehow failed to act on him as it did on most people who came within the range of Glaucus’s charm. ‘My father is a vile horseman, is he not?’

  ‘If he is, it is not for me to say so,’ Beric said stiffly. He wondered why the son of the house, who had never before spoken to him save to toss him an order, should come and talk to him like this.

  ‘No. But it is true, none the less. He should never attempt to ride anything less than an elephant—which is what I came to talk to you about.’

  ‘Sir?’ Beric gazed at him in bewilderment.

  Glaucus drew a h
and lightly down Venetia’s neck, watching it. ‘Yes,’ he said reflectively. ‘As you say, she is not out of condition, but I think that it would take little to get her out of condition.’ He raised his eyes to Beric’s face and added, as though changing the subject, ‘Have you begun saving to buy your freedom yet?’

  ‘It is not easy to save, without money,’ Beric said, after a surprised silence.

  ‘Could you do with a gold aurum to start the fund? Or to have fun with, if that appeals to you better?’

  Beric was suddenly on his guard. ‘How should I have to earn it?’

  ‘Quite simply. Now listen. There’s no one in the hayloft, is there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then, the thing is that Venetia is wasted on my father, while a friend of mine, a man who rides as she deserves to be ridden, is itching to have her. You can’t wonder. She is a beauty, and goes like the wind, don’t you, my lady?’ He drew his hand again down the mare’s neck, while Beric, who knew that she was a beauty and went like the wind, stood warily looking on. ‘Well, my father is being as stubborn as a mule about selling her—I wish he was as easy about selling his horses as he is about selling his slaves—but if she was to go suddenly out of condition, badly out of condition, he would be only too pleased to sell her, and at half what she is worth, lest he be not able to sell her at all. I know my father … . There are—ways, I think, for anyone skilled in horsecraft? Ways which leave no trace and do no lasting harm to the horse? It would have to be done while that old dotard Hippias is out of the way.’

  ‘Yes, it would have to be done while Hippias is out of the way,’ agreed Beric.

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘I do not think that I understand.’

  The other laughed. ‘Don’t pretend to be a half-wit. However, if you would liefer have it in so many words, you get the mare into poor condition, my father sells her off in a hurry to this friend of mine, who wants her so badly that he’ll forgive me a whole fistful of money that I owe him, in exchange for having got her, let alone at half what she is worth—and you have an aurum for your pains.’