Roman Blood (22 page)

The more I turned it over in my head the more tangled the problem became, and the more the danger seemed to grow, until I began to wonder if Bethesda was safe where I had left her. Having no idea where the threat came from, how could I protect her against it? I pushed the doubt from my mind and stared at the road ahead. Fear was useless. Only the truth could bring me safety.

At the second crossing of the Tiber I stopped for a while beneath the 143

shade of a massive oak beside the riverbank. While I rested, a gray-haired farmer and three overseers came riding down from the north with a train of thirty slaves in tow. The farmer and two of his men dismounted and sat cross-legged in the shade, while the third led the slaves, who were chained neck to neck, down to the river to drink. The farmer and his men kept to themselves. After a few suspicious glances they ignored me completely. From overhearing bits of his conversation I gathered he was a Narnian who had recently come into a property near Falerii; the slaves were being led to reinforce the workers there.

I took a bite of bread and sipped at my wineskin and gently waved aside a bee that circled my head. The slaves lined up at the riverbank and dropped to their knees, splashing the dust from their faces and bending down to drink like animals. Most were middle-aged; a few were older, some much younger. All of them wore a sort of sandal for protection, a scrap of leather strapped to each foot. Otherwise they were naked, except for two or three who wore a thin rag tied about the waist. Many had fresh scars and welts across their buttocks and backs. Even the sturdiest among them looked haggard and unhealthy. The youngest, or at least the smallest, was a thin, naked boy at the end of the train. He sobbed continually and kept muttering incoherently about his hand, which he held in the air at a crooked angle. The overseer shouted at him, stamped his foot, and finally snapped his whip, but the boy would not stop complaining.

I finished my bread, drank a mouthful of wine, and leaned back against the tree. I tried to rest, but the constant whimpering of the slave punctuated by the slashing of the whip set my nerves on edge. To a rich farmer, slaves are cheaper than cattle. When they die they are effortlessly replaced; the influx of slaves into Rome is endless, like crashing waves upon a beach. I mounted Vespa and rode on.

The day grew hotter and hotter. Throughout the afternoon 1 saw hardly another person. The fields had been abandoned until a cooler hour, and the road was empty; I might have been the only traveler in the world. By the time I reached Narnia the fields began to stir again and the traffic slowly increased. Narnia itself is a busy market town.

Gravestones and small temples line its outer streets. At the center I came upon a wide square shaded by trees and ringed by shops and animal pens.

The sweet smell of straw and the strong odors of oxen, cows, and sheep were heavy in the heated air.

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There was a small tavern at one corner of the square. Set into the open wooden door was a clay tile that showed a young shepherd with a lamb slung over his shoulders; a wooden sign above the lintel bade welcome to The Bleating Lamb. The place was dim and gloomy within, but cool.

The only other customer was an emaciated old man who sat at a table in the corner, staring rigidly at nothing. My host was an enormously fat Etruscan with dark yellow teeth; he was so huge he almost filled the tiny room. He was happy to bring me a cup of the local wine.

" H o w far to Ameria?" I asked him.

He shrugged. " H o w fresh is your horse?"

I looked about and caught my reflection in a plated ewer on the counter. My face was red and sweaty, my hair tangled and powdered with dust. " N o fresher than I a m . "

He shrugged again. " A n hour if you pressed it. Longer if you care to keep the animal's heart from bursting. Where have you come from?"

" R o m e . " The word was out before I could call it back. All day I had been reminding myself of the dangers of the countryside, yet a few moments inside a quaint tavern had already loosened my lips.

" R o m e ? All this way in a single day? You must have had an early start.

Have another cup. Don't worry, I'll cut it with plenty of water. Rome, you say. I have a son there, or used to. Fought for Sulla in the wars.

Supposed to get a piece of land out of it. Maybe he did. I haven't had a word from him in months. All this way since this morning? You have family in Ameria?"

It is easier to trust a fat face than a gaunt one. Treachery shows itself like a scar on a haggard face but hides well behind a plump, infantile blandness. But the eyes do not lie, and his were completely without guile.

My host was merely curious, talkative, bored.

" N o , " I said. " N o t family. Business."

" A h . It must be important for you to ride so long and so hard."

Guileless or not, I decided to trust him with no more of the truth than I had to. " M y patron is an impatient man," I said. " A s impatient as he is rich. There's a parcel of farmland up near Ameria in which he's taken an interest. I've come to check it out for him."

" A h , happens all the time these days. When I was a boy it was all small farmers hereabout, local people who passed their land from father to son.

Now strangers come up from Rome, buying it all up. Nobody knows who owns half the land anymore. Never your neighbors; instead it's some rich 145

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man down in Rome who comes up twice a year to play farmer." He laughed, then his face darkened. "And the larger the farms the more slaves they bring in. They used to march them right through the square here, or cart them through in wagons, until we put a stop to that and routed them off the main way. It doesn't do for men in chains to come through here and get a sniff of freedom. T o o many unhappy slaves about make a man like me uneasy."

Still staring at nothing, the old man in the corner banged his cup against the table. The taverner waddled across the room. The least exertion made him wheeze and gasp for air.

" S o you worry about runaway slaves?" I said.

"Things happen. Oh, not so much in the town, but I have a sister who married a farmer up north. Lives in the middle of nowhere. Of course they have their own household slaves and a few freedmen for protection.

Even so, only a fool would leave his doors unlocked at night. I tell you, one of these days it's going to be more than just two or three runaway slaves. Imagine if it were twenty—or a hundred, and some of them professional killers. There's an estate not thirty miles up the way where they send slaves to be trained as gladiators. Imagine a hundred of those beasts escaped from their cages with nothing to lose."

" A h , you're a fool!" barked the old man. He raised his cup and emptied it in a single draft. The red wine spilled from the corners of his gray mouth and dribbled down his grizzled neck. He slammed the cup down and stared rigidly ahead. " F o o l ! " he said again. "Nothing to lose, you say? They'd be crucified and disemboweled! Do you think Sulla and the Senate would let a hundred gladiators go about killing landholders and raping their wives? Even a slave doesn't want to have his hands nailed to a tree. Don't worry, misery won't object so long as there's plenty of fear to keep it in line."

The old man thrust out his chin and made a ghastly smile. I finally realized he was blind.

" O f course, Father." The fat Etruscan simpered and made a bow that the old man could not possibly have seen.

I leaned forward and turned the cup in my hand. "Afraid of the slaves or not, sometimes it seems a man is not safe even in his own household.

A father may not be safe even from his son. Only water this time." I held up my cup. The taverner bustled over.

"Whatever do you mean?" His hands were unsteady as he poured from the jug. He glanced uneasily over his shoulder at the old man.

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"I was only thinking of some gossip I heard yesterday in Rome. I mentioned my trip to some of my associates in the Forum and asked if they happened to know anything about Ameria. Well, most of them had never heard of it."

I took a long sip and fell silent. The taverner pinched his brow, marshaling a host of plump wrinkles in the furrow of his forehead. The old man moved at last, inclining his head in my direction. The little room was suddenly as quiet as a tomb.

The Etruscan wheezed. " A n d ? "

" A n d what?" I said.

" T h e gossip!" It was the old man. He sneered and turned away, suddenly disinterested or pretending to be. " T h e little pig lives for it.

Worse than his mother ever was."

My host glanced at me and made a helpless grimace.

I shrugged wearily, as if it were hardly worth the effort of telling.

"Only something about a trial about to take place in Rome, involving a man from Ameria. The name is Roscius, I think; yes, like the famous actor. Accused of—well, I'm almost ashamed to say it—accused of killing his own father."

My host nodded slightly and stepped back. He pulled a rag from the belt of his tunic, rubbed the beads of sweat from his forehead, then began wiping the counter, wheezing from the effort. "Is that right?" he finally said. " Y e s , I'd heard something about it."

"Only something? A crime like that, in such a small place, so nearby, I'd have thought it would have been on everyone's lips."

"Well, it didn't exactly happen here."

" N o ? "

" N o . The crime actually occurred in Rome. That's where Old Man Roscius was murdered, so they say."

" Y o u knew him, did y o u ? " I tried to keep my voice light, as if I were only half-listening. My host might not be suspicious, but the old man certainly was. I could tell from the way he pursed his lips and slowly moved his jaw from side to side, listening to every word.

"Old Sextus Roscius? No. Well, hardly. We used to see him in here occasionally when I was a boy, isn't that right, Father? But not much lately. Not for years and years. A citified Roman with worldly ways, that's what he became. Must've come home occasionally, but he never stopped in here. Am I right, Father?"

" F o o l , " the old man growled. "Fat, clumsy fool . . ."

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My host wiped his forehead again, glanced at his father and gave me an embarrassed smile. I looked at the old man with as much feigned affection as I could muster and shrugged as if to say,
I
understand these

things. Old and impossible to put up with, but what is a good son to do?

"Actually, when I asked if you knew this Roscius, I meant the son.

If it's true, what he's charged with—well, you have to wonder what sort of man could commit such a crime."

"Sextus Roscius? Yes, I know him. Not well, but well enough to greet him on the street. A man about my own age. He'd come to market here on holidays. It wasn't rare for him to pay a visit to The Bleating Lamb."

" A n d what do you think? Could you tell by looking at him?"

" O h , he was bitter against his old man, no doubt about that. Not that he'd go on and on, he wasn't the ranting sort, even after he'd had a few.

But he'd let out something every now and then. Probably other people would hardly notice, but I listen. I hear."

"Then you think he might actually have done i t ? "

" O h , no. I know for a fact that he
didn't."

" A n d how is that?"

"Because he was nowhere near Rome when it happened. Oh, there was plenty of talk when the news came about the old man's death, and there were plenty of people who could tell you that Sextus hadn't left his main farm in Ameria for days."

"But no one accuses the son of actually wielding the knife. They say he hired assassins."

My host had no answer for that, but was clearly unimpressed. He furrowed his brow in thought. "Strange that you should mention the murder. I was practically the first to hear about it."

" T h e first in Narnia, you mean?"

" T h e first anywhere. In happened last September." He stared at the opposite wall, remembering. " T h e murder happened at night; yes, I suppose it must have. It was cold weather hereabouts, blustery winds and gray skies. If I was superstitious, I suppose I'd tell you I had a grim dream that night, or woke up with a ghost in the r o o m . "

"Impious!" the old man snapped, shaking his head in disgust. " N o respect for the gods."

My host seemed not to hear him, still staring into the depths of the mottled clay wall. "But something must have woke me, because I was up very early the next morning. Earlier than my usual habit."

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"Always was the lazy one," the old man muttered.

"There's no reason for a taverner to be up early; customers seldom come before midmorning. But that morning I was up before daylight.

Perhaps it was something I ate."

The old man snorted and scowled. "Something he ate! Can you
believe

that?"

"I washed and dressed. I left my wife sleeping and came down the stairs, into this room. I stepped into the street. It was a bit chilly, but very still. Over the hills I could see the first streaks of dawn. The sky had cleared overnight; there was only a single cloud on the eastern horizon, lit up all red and yellow from below. And up the road there was a man coming from the south. I heard him first—you know how sound carries when the air is still and cold. Then I saw him, in a light chariot drawn by two horses, racing so fast that I almost stepped inside to hide myself. Instead I stood my ground, and as he drew by he slowed and stopped. He pulled off the leather cap he was wearing, and then I saw it was Mallius Glaucia."

" A friend?"

My host wrinkled his nose. "Some man's friend, but not mine. Used to be a slave, and even then he was insolent and arrogant. Slaves take after their masters, they say, and that was never truer than with Mallius Glaucia.

"You'll find two branches of the Roscius family over the hill in Ameria," he went on. "Sextus Roscius, father and son, the respectable ones who built up their farms and their fortunes; and those two cousins, Magnus and Capito, and their clan. Foul types I'd call them, though I can't say that I've ever had personal dealings with them more than to serve them a cup of wine. But you can tell that some people are dangerous just by looking at them. That's Magnus and old Capito. Mallius Glaucia, the man who came thundering up from the south that morning, was Magnus's slave from birth, until Magnus freed him. A reward for some unspeakable crime, I have no doubt. Glaucia went on serving Magnus, and still does. As soon as I saw it was him in the chariot, how I wished I'd stepped back into the doorway before he'd had a chance to see m e . "