Connor opened his mouth to offer her assurance, but the slave woman spoke first.
“He is alright, Domina,” she spoke with a quick bow of her head. “This good man was watching over him, and we are just taking him to bed now that he is ready.”
Lucia nodded. Connor could see in her eyes that she was well acquainted with this scene, but that this familiarity did nothing to ease her concern.
Without a word, she moved out of her room and led them; constantly looking back to her father, and occasionally glancing at the man who carried him.
Connor drank in the sight of her. The moonlight danced on her form, as an impish goddess delighting in tormenting him with the hint of her shape. Connor was compelled forward, to try to come into any kind of contact with her, or to even let the breeze carry the suggestion of her to him.
But suddenly, reality pushed past the wine joy and past the trance of this young woman. Connor realized he was deep within the family home. Behind any of these doors the son of Lucius may lie. Connor’s heart quickened at the thought of his enemy. And what would that monster say when he saw Connor carrying his father, the way a dutiful slave should? And what would the young man do, to pay him for his good deed? Connor silently cursed himself. What a fool he was! Here, carrying his owner, the depriver of his God-given freedom; even following his daughter as a dog might, waiting to hungrily accept even the slightest gift of attention she may bestow.
Lucia opened the double doors to an expansive room. Even without much light, Connor picked out the wide, canopied bed at the far side of the room. He made for it and set Lucius Montevarius down to sleep as best as he may. The women moved in as Connor stepped back, relieved of his burden and yet saddled with another.
“Help me undress him and cover him to sleep,” Lucia said to the slave woman.
Without another word Connor tucked the scroll under his arm and turned to go. He half expected one of the two to call after him demanding to know where he was going with such a valuable item.
“Slave,” Lucia called. The word stabbed into Connor’s back.
“Thank you,” she said. She turned back to her father without waiting for a reply.
Connor hastened out. Best to go the way he had come. Best not to run into anybody. He tried to slow his steps – best not to be seen running as well. But he was sick to be out of the villa. He had wasted far too much time here tonight. He found his way back to the wine cellar, grabbed his lifter’s gift, and then went out the service door.
The breeze hit him as he walked out. He was on the hillside, in full exposure to the voice of the night. The full moon shone down on him with a judge’s eye. He walked quickly ahead towards home. Towards home? It was that easy. Replace idealism with expedience. Connor cursed, aloud this time. The valor of freedom is replaced with the murder of vengeance, and then this too gives way to the expediency of need – the great inaction. But what else was he to do? What would he ever do? Indeed, what could he do, for had the philosopher not shone clearly how he was just an instrument in God’s will, in Natural Order, and in the political expedient? But could a man lose all rights? Become equal with property, except for the good or bad graces of a master – an owner? Yet here he was – dependent on the whims of man – a man who now slept a dark sleep in the bed he had placed him in? A man who would awaken to the wealth that people like Connor had provided him with?
And yet, so it was. And so it always had been. And so it always would be. Declan’s dreams of equality were dreams. The way of the world was written. And who but God could break it? But it seemed that God had no inclination to do so.
“Where are you going so late?”
It was a woman’s voice.
Connor turned to see who spoke. Lost in his thoughts he had seen almost nothing around him since he left the house. His legs carried him automatically towards his quarters. He was just outside the cluster of cottages that some of the household staff – those not elevated enough to live within the villa – dwelled together.
A young woman stepped out from the door. Connor had seen her before a couple of times, but did not know her name.
“Don’t you speak?”
“I am on my way home,” Connor said. “I’ve been working late.”
“Very,” the girl giggled. Had Connor’s mind not been so darkened – or perhaps if he had not been so mesmerized moments before by Lucia – he would have thought her pretty. Her small nose crinkled as she laughed with her brown eyes. Her face was round and pleasant. She was wearing a simple unbleached dress, gathered at the waist with a cord to accentuate the full curves of her body.
“What do you have there?” she said, coming closer to him. Connor expected her to stop an arm’s length away, but she did not.
“A scroll,” Connor said, hoping she would not think he was a thief and become alarmed. “Aristotle. I’m borrowing it.”
“Borrowing it?” she laughed again. “Oh yes.”
The girl leaned into him, her right breast coming into contact with his shoulder. He could smell sweet wine on her breath.
“I did not mean the book,” the girl said. “I meant that.”
“This? This is my reward for the day. Meat and wine to replenish my strength, so they can use me more tomorrow. My lifter’s gift.”
“You’re funny,” the girl said, sounding her silvery laugh again. “Or perhaps clever is a better word. I could see you are one of the lifters. You’re big and full of energy.”
Connor said nothing. He was just aware of the woman before him, pressing closer into him.
“Are you going to go home and eat that food and wine all by yourself?” she purred.
Then she leaned in and whispered into his ear. “Or are you going to share it with me, while you show me what else you can be used for.”
Connor took a step back and looked into the woman’s eyes. The words of Titus rang in his ears. The warnings of Solomon sprang into his mind. Connor reminded himself that he was not a fool. The woman was only interested in what sport he could give as he wasted his lifter’s gift on her. And from the feel of her voluptuousness he was not the first man that she had taken from. He looked into her eyes. She was a year or two younger than he, and a slave – where the only family you have is the one that you form around you. And so was he. He glanced back over his shoulder to the villa. In the terrace to the room where Lucia slept all was dark. Tonight had been a lie. There was no hope ahead.
And as the girl pressed in, the moonlight gleaming on her greedy smile, he could not think of why he was fighting that anymore.
“My name is Mella,” she said, placing a hand in his chest. Even her fingertips filled him with energy. Connor placed a trembling hand on her waist.
“I’m Connor.”
“I like that name. And you know what, Connor? I think you like me.”
She placed her other hand low on his thigh.
“Well?” Mella said.
With a deep breath, Connor let her take his hand and lead him inside.
IX
“Constantine the Usurper is under siege in Valentia,” Paulinus Effacus said, as he dipped a handful of olives into a dish of green oil.
“So I have heard,” Lucius Montevarius replied. “But I thought we were calling him Constantine Augustulus the Third, the Deliverer.” He slid the amphora of his best white towards his guest, who accepted it readily.
“Times change,” Paulinus said, not bothering to wipe the oil from his full lips. “These days, faster than ever.”
“So they do. But my condolences, Paulinus Effacus, for I know that – whatever his title might be – Constantine’s court was filled with your best customers.”
“Indeed it was. But now that it is outlawed and under siege, turned on itself and split between Valentia, Arlete, and even Hispania; I am more than making up for it supplying the armies of Honorius.”
“Indeed?”
“Why, of course. The armies require food and wine; canvas to repair their tents; lumber to supplemen
t what they cannot acquire to repair their war machines; horses and mules to replenish their losses; entertainment for their morale; and numerous luxuries for their officers and executives. And when a new administration is instated – or the current one restored to glory (I care not) – rest assured, I will be there to supply their needs in exchange for good Roman coin.”
The assembled guests chuckled their approval.
“Carrying your fine wines with me, of course,” Paulinus added, raising his goblet and draining it with a flourish.
“And besides, I’m not sure that he ever earned that title – Deliverer. You there, fan me faster. It is growing hot.”
The pair of tall men behind Paulinus complied, as he rearranged his massive weight on the cushions, and wiped his broad white forehead with a silk cloth.
“Shall we move to the shade?” Montevarius offered.
Paulinus dismissed this idea with a wave of his chubby fingers, and took a deep gulp of cool wine.
“Constantine is a Briton – scarcely any Roman blood in him – and a glorified soldier at that,” Paulinus continued. “The fact that he even shares a name with the great emperor of yore only proves what the philosopher once said – ‘the gods, too, are fond of a joke.’ He defeated the barbarians, because he practically is one. I know –I have supped at his very table. He is all lean; with a well-scarred skin, like leather. He even has blue tattoos on his right arm. He said almost nothing the whole night, but watched the entire assembly with a dark, piercing gaze.”
“That is as they say,” said Montevarius. “But how can you discount the peace and stability he has brought? Three years ago all Gaul burned; now the barbarians have been driven to the edges of this land and into Hispania or Belgica. For the past months there has been scarcely a raid on any home. The law has returned, and patrols of Constantine’s soldiers hunt down the brigands and the highwaymen. I would say that if it were not for the constant march of Roman soldiers – both the armies of Constantine, and of Honorius, who are incessantly at war with each other – there would be peace, and commerce could even return to normal.”
“Ah, you are a wise man, my friend,” Paulinus said, as a slave refilled his goblet. “But what has Constantine done? He drove the Sueves, the Allamani, the Burgundians, and the Franks back to the frontiers, or to different ones, where they become other men’s problems. And then he hires them as armies to fight each other.”
“Such has always been Roman strategy. You cannot expect a barbarian to live a peaceful life. If you cannot put him to work as your slave, then you must put him to work against your enemies.”
“Well said, my noble Lucius Montevarius. But what are these feodarati – these bands of Alan cavalry, Frankish axe men, and Scythian archers – but savages turned loose on the land under a different banner? Now thieves and cut throats hide under the Roman Eagle. You know who is the real deliverer of Gaul? Alaric! For at least he led all of the Goths to Italy, where they trouble Honorius and not us!”
With that Paulinus laughed until he wheezed. Beside him, his young son Mercius smirked. But Montevarius furrowed his brow, not at the joke but at the mix of obtuseness and bitterness he read in the boy’s expression. He sipped from his goblet and hid his disappointment before any but Connor saw it.
Connor emerged onto the upper terrace from the narrow rough-hewn steps. His tunic was stained with dirt and sweat, for he had been straining all morning moving the stone tables and ornamental vases for the garden party. He saw immediately that he had come at a bad time –Montevarius and his guests were already well into the first course of their meal – and yet, he was reluctant to abandon his task. The scroll Montevarius had loaned him was, as all books, an expensive treasure, and he needed to have it back to its owner before other slaves stole it.
Connor picked his way past the other tables of guests, and the body slaves that stood behind them awaiting their needs. He was as yet unnoticed. Montevarius was sitting at one end of what Connor remembered as being the heaviest of the tables. Beside him sat Lucia, clothed in white silk with a heavy necklace of deep blue lapis and silver. Her black hair was pulled up and held in place by a fine net of silver and gems. The summer sun gleamed on her face and newly oiled arms, but as she turned her head towards him, Connor saw sadness in her green eyes. Recognition flashed for a moment as Lucia saw him. But just as swiftly, she turned her head back to the guests. She straightened her back and looked ahead. He allowed himself to gaze at her for one more moment, as she sat still – beautiful and aloof, appearing as if she were a goddess carved from marble. And like all gods, Connor thought, she was completely uninterested in the likes of him.
Connor turned his gaze away to where Paulinus Effacus Murena – his master’s most important business contact – sat gorging himself on the fine food. Beside him sat Mercius – a pre-pubescent caricature of his father, dressed in the same indigo silk toga. But Mercius was less interested in the food and the wine than Paulinus was, and looked about with boredom and generalized disdain. Connor instantly hated the boy. But there he was – the betrothed husband to Lucia; the boy who would take the most beautiful girl Connor had ever seen to his bed the moment he could manage to grow hair on his loins – all on account of his family’s money and connections. Connor looked back to Lucia, and reproached himself for caring. And he realized that, for someone who considered himself to be a philosopher and a Christian, he engaged in a great deal of indulgent bitterness. Best to deliver the book and get out of there, while there was still something of a Sunday to enjoy.
Connor approached Montevarius lead body servant – an old man with a permanent suspicious look in his eyes. He pulled Aristotle’s work from his satchel and went to hand it to the man. But Connor realized that this slave could be just as likely to steal it or to mislay it as anyone else, and then the blame would still lay on him.
“Be certain to give this book to the Dominus,” Connor said loud enough so that the Master may hear him.
Apparently, he was louder than he had meant to be, for the entire table of guests took notice.
Montevarius looked at him, somewhat perturbed.
“Forgive my interruption,” Connor said with a perfunctory bow. “Dominus, I brought back your book.”
For a moment, Lucius Montevarius did not seem to remember the book; but then recollection dawned on him. He turned to his guests, who – Paulinus especially – seemed to be waiting for Connor to be thrashed.
“So some months ago, I went to the market in Massilia, where a stingy little Greek sold me a heavy lifter from Hibernia,” Montevarius said. “No sooner do I get him home then I find that he actually reads and writes Latin and Greek. Now it seems he borrows my books.”
Connor colored as all eyes turned incredulously back to him.
“Really?” Paulinus said. “Remarkable. Indeed, so much for the shrewdness of the Greeks if they sell a scholar as a lifter! But many of my clients – officers and executives of Constantine’s, therefore men who would know – say that the Hibernians are the most savage and untrainable of all barbarians.”
“He was raised by priests, it would seem”
“Well, God be praised!” Paulinus bellowed, raising his goblet. He commenced to another fit of derisive laughter.
“It seems that you are as lucky as you are credited to be,” another of the guests chimed in.
“Yes,” said Mercius; trying to tag along with the adults now that condescension was involved. “You purchased a monkey, only to find that it can already dance and perform tricks.”
“Perhaps I could borrow him for my next party;” Paulinus said “if he knows any Ovid at least.”
“Friends,” Montevarius said, rising to his feet. “The next course of our meal is not yet ready. Perhaps we should like some shade and some music.”
The guests rose, taking their goblets with them. Connor turned to see that Lucia had already disappeared. He turned to take leave of Montevarius, but the Dominus’ attention was already elsewhere. As the crowd began
to move for the shade of the ornamental arcades, Connor slipped away.
He trotted down the steps and across the greenway. His ears were hot, and his face red with the sting of the insults. His mind returned to the litany of anger against his captors – the scab again rubbed open by the disdain of these men whom God seemed to favor so. But his contempt failed to hold his own attention, for the rumors he had heard pushed forward in his head. So there was trouble. Trouble that was big enough – despite the flippant façade the men of business were putting up – to worry everyone. Upheaval. That is why the slave traders had not been able to sell him for what they expected – in the brief time they were away, change had come. And more was coming, it would seem. And the ruling class was afraid. They were afraid for their peace, and their normalcy. Their commerce and their comfort were at high risk. But what did a slave have to fear? Nothing. As the book asserted, other men were making the decisions and other men were taking the risks. What was the worst that could happen? Death? He had faced that enough. No. The worst that was likely to happen was to change hands. And was that not worth the risk just to see justice done?
But even as the scent of the summer lilacs wafted around him, and the lavender fields to the right of the path moved in the breeze, he could not feel that he wanted that. If justice was the coming of indiscriminant destruction, how could he desire it? This place was not about Lucius Montevarius. It was not about Lucia. It was not about Roman order. It was about all of them who lived there, all of them who worked to make it beautiful and who benefited from the bounty of the land. Let trouble come to the north or to the south, but let this place remain untouched by it; for the desire of his people – of his fellow slaves – was to get the good out of each day. The strength of his people was to put one foot in front of the other, oblivious to troubles or tyrants.
The Songs of Slaves Page 14
