The Songs of Slaves

by David Rodgers

  Connor nearly cut himself with his shears. The Domina, the master’s daughter, working out in the field in the heat with the slaves? Philip had not exaggerated when he said that everybody would be participating in the harvest. Yet Lucia handled the grapes and the shears as if she had been doing it her whole life. With economy of motion and deftness, she singled out the clusters, rejecting the marred ones; clipped them; and dropped them in her basket. Connor reminded himself to get back to work, but his eyes seemed to be drawn to her like a magnet. His flow was broken, but Lucia’s was not. She was suddenly finished with the vine in front of her, and so she hopped her coworkers in line and started on the next one.

  She was now what Connor felt was an impossible distance away. Hastily he snipped the last few clusters of his vine and followed her.

  Again positioned behind her, Connor got back to work. Lucia was moving swiftly, the sun reflecting on her long white tunic and making her skin glow bronze. Connor was fascinated by her movements; by the way she carried herself. The length of her neck, the set of her chin, the subtle curving lines from her shoulders to her wrists, the symmetry of her hips, – everything about her body seemed so perfect to him. As she bent down to reach the low hanging grapes he was incapable of taking his eyes off of her.

  Connor suddenly cursed as the tips of the shears pinched the meat of his palm. He stood up straight and brought the small wound to his mouth to stop the bleeding.

  “You again?” Lucia said. “Are you alright?”

  Her eyes were crinkled to hold back the glare of the sun, but the smile she gave him seemed brighter by far.

  “Of course, Domina. It’s just a scratch.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Lucia moved some of the tendrils back so that she could reach Connor through the vine supports. She took his calloused hand in her two small, smooth hands, cupping it as if it were something precious.

  “You’re a big baby,” she laughed.

  “I told you it was nothing, Domina,” Connor smiled. Perhaps she would think the flushing in his face was just from the heat.

  “Well, be careful. You can’t get out of all this work by hiding in the infirmary. We need everybody.”

  Connor’s smile broadened at her teasing, but he felt an almost palpable sense of loss when she released his hand and turned back to her work. And then she was done once more and skipping ahead to the next vine. Connor turned to Philip and Brontius who had stopped working to eye him incredulously. Connor joined in the song once more, and smiling slyly to them he walked away from his vine – which was far from finished – and skipped ahead to be behind Lucia once more. Philip shook his head, but Brontius laughed as they all returned to work.

  “Connor! Connor!” someone called. “Where is Connor?”

  “Here,” Connor responded.

  One of the bucellarii on horseback appeared at the head of the row.

  “Gossip couldn’t have travelled that fast, could it?” Connor asked Brontius.

  “The Dominus needs you,” the rider called. “Go to the cellars immediately. They are already starting the crush. The Dominus said ‘do not walk, run’.”

  Connor set down his basket and his shears and stealing one last glance at Lucia, he jogged to the end of the row and then on towards the villa.

  He slowed to a walk as he reached the open double doors and entered through the foyer to the courtyard, and then to the back of the house. He descended the steps to the cellar, blessing the respite from the sunlight and heat.

  His hopes for working in the cool air were disappointed upon reaching the cellar. All the doors – both the wide ones that led to the drop-off as well as huge sliding doors to the south of the cellar were open wide, and the hot air was blowing in. Lucius Montevarius stood on top of the highest scaffold calling out orders to the heavy lifters and the others he had assembled. The men were as organized as ants as they moved in an almost unbroken loop to empty the first of the wagons and drop the fruit into the wide wooden vat.

  “That’s it, men,” Lucius called. “Be gentle getting them out of the wagon, but sling them into the vat. At that point and at that point only would we want them broken or bruised. Careful, men. Keep it going. This is the first of many.”

  The vat was filling up steadily. Connor did not wait to be told what to do, but took his place in the work line.

  “No, Connor. I need you up here with me.”

  “Yes, Dominus,” Connor said, and immediately took to the scaffolding.

  The scaffolding was of sturdy timbers, and so Connor did not take the time to walk around to the ladder but pulled himself up beam by beam. As he reached the top, he came to the precarious part of climbing up onto the wide platform. As he did so, he got a good look down and was suddenly reminded of Philip’s story about the death of his predecessor. Connor joined the master with a cursory bow of his head.

  “Help me feed this rope through the pulley system,” Montevarius said. “Alright, men, the vat is full enough. You four, secure the ropes to the side rings. Make the knots tight – I want no accidents and nothing to spill. All other lifters take your place at the ropes.”

  The ropes were soon in place and the hoisting began. At first it seemed that the heavy vat would not move, but soon it began a lurching ascent as the men put their backs into their work. Montevarius and Connor kept their hands on the ropes, gently guiding them so that they would not hop the pulleys. As the vat reached the top Connor reached out to steady it.

  “Careful, Connor. I need more hands up here. Four more of you, hasten up.”

  Soon four other lifters joined them, while their fellows kept the tension on the ropes. Carefully they guided the vat into position on the platform. For a moment Connor feared that the scaffold might not be able to take the weight of the load plus six men, but the well-designed structure barely creaked.

  “Get the press screw in place.”

  The press screw, which stayed on top of the scaffolding, was a device that looked like two massive wagon wheels bound together by a long iron screw. With great effort, the five slaves lifted it and placed it on the vat so that the slightly larger wheel was resting on the edges of the vat and the end of the iron bar reached the bottom.

  Montevarius was impatient for his men to catch their breath. Connor could see that the man’s excitement was driving him furiously. If they all had to keep pace with the master, they might not sleep for the next few days.

  Montevarius handed Connor and three of the other lifters long wooden dowels to slide into the screw yoke. Taking their cue that the minute or two of rest had been long enough, they drove the dowels in place and twisted them tight.

  “Now, men, push!”

  Connor and the others set themselves behind their dowels and prepared to walk the circle around the vat. Connor braced himself with the dowel at the level of his chest and dug his heels in. With a grunt he pushed his whole body weight. The screw turned, but slowly, rotating the lower wheel into the grapes below. It was remarkable – one grape was a weak and fragile thing, but the hundreds of thousands of grapes in the vat were proving difficult to crush.

  “Push!” Montevarius called. “I do not want it fast, but I do want it steady. It must be steady.”

  Montevarius tapped one of the lifters – a Germani almost twice his size – and took the man’s place at the dowel.

  “Push!” he grunted.

  The wheel was turning slowly and evenly now. Connor could feel the grapes bursting beneath the press. A cry of adulation broke from Montevarius as the first trickle of juice began to run through the opening and down the chute towards the collecting vat. The trickle became a steady flow. Montevarius let the lifter have his place back, and ran over to the chute. He dipped his hand into the wine must and splashed it back to his mouth.

  “We have done well. We have done well. Thank God. Keep it coming, men. Keep it flowing like this. The juice must have air – now is the only time that it must ever have air until it is served, but it must have its ai
r now.”

  Eventually, they reached the bottom. As they removed the screw – which proved more difficult than putting it on – the slaves below got to work filling the next vat. Connor saw the second wagon coming in from the fields and taking its place by the wide open doors. He prepared the ropes for hoisting the skins of the first vat down to the ground, where they would be dumped in with the wine must of the collecting vat.

  “The skins and the seeds are where the magic is, Connor,” Lucius told him. “Unless we are making white wine, we must bring them back together. The more they are together the more soul the wine will have.”

  As he and the others moved into place to lower the vat, Connor glanced again to the wagon loads of grapes waiting. He knew that more would be coming in constantly. It was going to be the first long, long day of a long, long week. He glanced over to Montevarius, who was showing a lifter how to properly tie the knot that he wanted. He could see the undercurrent of elation on the Master’s face. Connor knew that it was not because of the money he was going to make from this – that was still a long way off. It was not because he would have more wine in his cellars – he already had so much. Connor realized it was because Lucius Montevarius Corvinus was doing what he was meant to do. Connor turned his attention back to the work.

  ***

  Sunset finally came and ended the day’s work for the slaves in the vineyard. In the cellar lamps were lit, and Connor and the others set to work trying to finish the seemingly infinite list of tasks their Dominus decreed essential before work could cease there. At last, even the indefatigable Montevarius cast himself into his chair and poured a bowl of wine. Instead of the usual ritual, he dismissed the lifters with a wave of his hand. There was no grumbling at this though, for everyone knew that the field slaves and domestics had been outside on the lawn feasting since nightfall. Eager to get to the food and wine before it was all gone, the lifters ascended the steps two at a time, heedless of their own weariness. With a final nod of the head to Lucius, Connor followed the others up and outside.

  Tables had been laid out along the lawn, just outside of the villa walls. Flickering torches illuminated the spread of bread, olives and olive oil; figs, apricots, pears, and apples; boiled eggs and salted fish; sautéed snails and roasted pigeons; and of course wine in red, white, and rosé. There were even a few beakers of the coveted fish sauce free Romans found indispensable, though even the ever-positive Philip declared it to be of the cheapest kind. The lifters descended on the tables and ate heartily, as the other slaves who had reached the slowing point in their feast moved towards the bonfire. There some groups had brought their simple instruments – pipes and flutes, drums and small cymbals. Connor saw Sergius with a tankard in one hand moving with wild abandon amongst the other dancers, whooping and exclaiming ridiculous boasts. People were talking loudly, straining to be heard over the din. Laughter seemed to be infectious. Connor was struck by what great spirits everyone was in after what might have been the hardest day of work he had here – especially given the fact that tomorrow and the next few days were to be more of the same. But it was the Harvest. It was what their year had all been about. The Dominus had made it abundantly clear that work would begin for all at dawn the next day and that stragglers would not be tolerated; but then he had provided this small feast so that the slaves could have something of an immediate reward for their labor. Good for morale, which was good for work.

  Connor finished eating and got up from the table. He was exhausted, and had enough of socializing through the long day. Montevarius would be depending on him especially tomorrow. It was time to go home. Filling his wine cup once more, he slipped away from the throng into the moonlit night.

  As Connor followed the path he realized that this had been the first party he had been to since Mannus and Grania’s wedding. Well – the first he had taken part in. Connor thought back to that night with the two lovers, and Titus, Dervel, Cumragh, Dania, and all of his old friends. It seemed so long ago, so impossibly far away that in ways it was difficult to remember. Connor drained his cup and cast it aside. Reaching the base of the hill he cut across the fields towards home.

  The moon was full and bright. Connor did not know if the phase of the moon was one of the factors Montevarius had considered when he declared this the harvest, or if it was merely a coincidence. He ducked under the low branches as he reached an arbor of trees. He realized that he was close to the small hollow in the copse of trees where he had seen Lucia hiding from Mercius that one Sunday, months ago. But even as his mind lingered on the more pleasant parts of that memory, he saw moonlight reflect on white amidst the branches.

  Reflexively, Connor crouched down. He listened closely, and noticed for the first time that aside from the sound of the flowing brook he could hear the faint, musical sound of a voice. Connor dropped to his belly and crept closer, using the craft of silence that he had long-refined over his years of hunting in the wilds. He gazed through the branches into the clearing. It was indeed the same clearing within the circle of willows that he had seen Lucia before; but tonight there was a small altar of carefully piled river stones. On top of the altar was a small, ivory statue of a slender female, nude except for a cloth at her waist; but the figure had wings on her back and a serpentine crown on her head. In her hand was what looked like a cross or a key of some kind. Lucia knelt before the altar – Connor knew it was her even though her hair was hooded and a white muslin veil covered her face. She had changed her work dress for a white stolla. Her bare arms were upheld, and she lightly grasped a spiraled ivory athame – a short, slender wand – in her right hand. In the space between her and the altar there was a broad, flat river stone with a conical clay vessel, from which a wisp of fragrant smoke was gently rising. Beside this was a clay beaker, presumably holding a libation of wine.

  Lucia was chanting in a strange tongue. Her chest and arms pulsed in emphasis of the arcane words as she stared at the moonlit statue. She traced figures in the air with the athame. She raised the vessel with the burning material under her face, moving it in a circle three times. After she had set it down again, she raised the other vessel and made a similar motion. Then coiling her arms as if tracing a descending spiral, she brought the one vessel above the other and slowly turned it downward, pouring the dark red wine on top of the burning material. There was a hiss as the wine absorbed the heat and the hidden contents mixed. With a practiced hand, Lucia poured the remainder of the wine as a libation in an arc ahead of her. She pulled back her veil. Her face was radiant in the moonlight, her soft lips parted in an expression of ecstasy, but her eyes remained fixed ahead. Her chest heaved as she breathed quickly and deeply. She reached for the cup, raised it to the idol, and then took it to her lips. As the liquid filled her mouth and ran down her throat her whole body seemed to vibrate. She took up the athame once more, dropping her head for the first time and shifting her gaze from the statue to the river stone. Still on her knees, Lucia began rotating her hips in a circle over and over again. Her slender arms moved as if she were wrapping invisible silk. She lifted her face to the moon and the hood fell back, revealing her raven hair. Her chanting resumed, growing more urgent and insistent as she called out to her goddess.

  Connor shook off his own trance. His heart skipped faster as he remembered Sergius’ story from months before. He had decided at the time that he did not believe it, but seeing the altered state the young woman moved in it no longer seemed so implausible. Certainly the athame Lucia held was a wand for conducting rituals, like the hazel wands the Druids of his homeland used. It could not be what Sergius had described. And yet Connor remembered hearing that Isis had lost her husband, Osiris; but had reconstructed and resurrected him, replacing his phallus with one she had made by hand. Isis was the Great Mother, the bringer of life and of fertility, but no one Connor had asked knew anything of what happened within her cult. All took place in secret – almost always in secluded temples. Yet now Connor was seeing the secret practices performed by the girl who h
ad already enchanted him without magic, and he was both excited and afraid.

  But it was wrong to watch her in her secrets, he thought. Besides, what magic might fill this place and catch him here? Carefully, reluctantly, he crept backwards into the shadows.

  His heart was pounding, but not with the fear of being caught. Once more behind one of the oak trees, he rocked up on his heels and carefully rose. He looked around, but saw that they were alone. The slaves’ celebration was still barely audible from the hillside. The smell of late summer air filled him, along with the slightest remnants of the incense, or whatever it had been, that Lucia had been burning. He wanted to go back – not sneak back, but walk boldly back to her. Connor took a deep breath and mastered himself. He glanced back to the copse of trees once more, and then turned back to his way home.

  “Good night, Domina,” he breathed.

  XII

  The trees that had been full and gold were now dropping browning leaves along the path. Connor fought off a shiver as he walked towards home under an overcast sky. He was approaching his first winter here, and despite the reduced workload the other slaves had assured him of, winter was never something anyone looked forward to. Connor could imagine how drafty the cottage he shared with his work team must be, even if the Dominus would not restrict how much wood they might burn. He would be looking forward to working in the underground wine cellars just to warm himself up.