Late afternoon sunlight glinted across the Tiber's murky surface, transforming it into a broad stream of painful golden sparks. River stench assaulted Charlie's nostrils well before he limped out through the gate behind the house. The stink of filthy mud, human waste, slaughterhouse reek, and dead fish permeated his life so completely, he'd almost grown accustomed to it.
Almost.
Charlie negotiated the path down to the dock slowly, using extreme caution on marble steps set here and there in the hillside. River yachts under sail and oar drifted past to a rhythmic creaking sound and the slap of water on wood. Rich men, bound for unknown destinations. Seaside villas, perhaps, where constant breezes made the summer heat bearable. Charlie wiped sweat from his face with the back of one arm and limped awkwardly down the next switchback of the path, leaning heavily against his crutch.
Downriver, wharves at the long, long reach of the Porticus Aemilia's warehouses attracted barges like flies. Some were heavily loaded with amphorae of oil, olives, wine. Others were empty, headed back downriver, their goods disgorged for the Emporia's marketplace. Rome didn't export much, except soldiers. They didn't even send back the empty amphorae.
A few thousand more broken jugs for the Mons Testae. An entire hill, made of nothing but broken clay amphorae. Helluva trash heap. Somebody ought'a teach 'em about recycling. The Mons Testae was nothing, of course, to the mountains of garbage that New Jersey seagulls covered in flocks thick enough to block the sunlight, but it was impressive nonetheless, for an entire hill made from just one kind of trash.
Charlie followed one of the empty barges with his gaze until it vanished around the river's bend, hating the men on it for their freedom to leave, then shook himself slightly and made the next turn of the path with a thump of crutch and a drag of his left foot. After a long two years (after two years of slavery in the Imperial Gladiatorial School), he'd grown accustomed to the sound, but not to the harsh reality of his crippling injury—which had, at least, ended the two previous years of forced "performance" in the games. To a Roman, the fight-and-die "game" was as addictive and enjoyable as playing dice.
The sole good he could find in having been crippled for life was that it had brought the slaughter to an end, at least for him. Every limping step he took, however, was a reminder of things he might have sold his soul to forget, had he been another sort of man.
Charlie Flynn didn't want to remember, but he wouldn't sell his soul to anyone—not to the devil and certainly not to the man who owned him. He'd come damn close, at that. An involuntary shiver caught him, unawares. At least the Aventine hillside's sprawl of noisy tenements, rich men's villa urbae and the imposing stone walls of public buildings hid from sight the monstrous shape of the Circus Maximus.
Memory chilled Charlie, despite the heat. The sunlight was blistering, the air sultry. Sweat clung to his skin, sullenly refusing to evaporate. A few cloud shadows raced ahead of the barges, their momentary chill passing across Charlie as he limped and hobbled down the last switchbacks of the path.
Raucous city noises, so alien from the scream of traffic and sirens he'd grown up with, all but drowned out the sound of slow-moving river craft. Barking dogs, the distant din of hammer on metal, rasping saws, chisels on marble and other clatter, much of it from a workshop district down the river, floated on the oddly quiet wind. No sirens, no choppers or jets, no blaring car horns, no sound of high-speed boats in Biscayne Bay, screaming past at nearly sixty miles per hour, despite "No Wake: Manatee Zone Maximum Speed 15 mph" signs posted every few yards.
No radios or boom boxes, either, or joggers in CD headphones, not even the distant rumble of a television left on as white noise to drown out the rest of the ruckus.
The only sounds floating on today's wind were the distant sound of hand-powered tools, dogs, and above it all, the sound of voices: arguing, shouting, endlessly yammering in a dozen foreign tongues.
Charlie Flynn could speak only one of those many languages—and not very well, at that, despite strenuous efforts to learn. He still made mistakes even the slaves laughed at. The eternal din of alien voices only underscored multiple, profound losses which came to him, sometimes, with wrenching suddenness.
He tightened one hand around the handle of the heavy bucket he carried and the other around his crutch. Ancient history, Flynn. Forget it. You've got work to do.
Charlie limped onto the dock, careful the tip of his crutch didn't slip on mossy stone. Xanthus' household steward had kept him so busy this past week, he hadn't found time to scrub the dock. If he didn't clean it before Xanthus Imbros Brutus—the Lycian Roman—returned, he'd probably catch another beating.
Charlie muttered under his breath and carried the smelly contents of the household's slop bucket to the end of the dock. Ordinarily, such waste would've gone straight into the house's privy; Xanthus' villa perched so near the river, it had its own sewage outflow, rather than connecting with a major branch of Rome's sewers. Unfortunately, the privy was clogged and had to be cleaned so that water could flow constantly through it again, the way it did in public privies. The steward hadn't assigned that job to any of the household slaves yet, but Charlie knew exactly who would draw that duty. For the moment, given the million impossible tasks Xanthus' steward had delighted in pouring onto him, it was easier to dump the stuff in the river than it was to open the privy and attempt unclogging it.
Most of Rome flung its filth into the street to be washed away by rains or Imperial slaves charged with street cleaning. Anything that ran into the great cloacae ended as raw sewage dumped straight into the Tiber. The huge Cloaca Maxima poured its filth into the river just a little ways upstream, between the Pons Sublicius and the Pons Aemilius farther upriver, just visible past the little round Temple of Hercules (the one all his childhood textbooks had called the Temple of Vesta) and the squarish Temple of Fortuna Virilis. And just hidden from sight behind them—
Charlie muttered under his breath and dumped the contents of his bucket. The sharp stink of ammonia and feces arced outward, then foul liquid splattered against the golden water and stained it dark, like ink. A passing yacht's wake caught the dark water and churned it into white froth, shot through with golden light. Charlie felt a grim kinship with the waste he'd thrown into the river. Out of place, swallowed up alive . . .
He adjusted his crutch so the fleecy wool padding rested a little more comfortably in his armpit, then set the bucket down and eased aching shoulders. Charlie wanted nothing more than to lie down in what remained of the sunlight and soak up rest like a dry sponge. So tired . . . He closed his eyes and leaned against the crutch, wondering how long he could get away with loafing on the dock.
Not long. Of that, Charlie was certain. Xanthus wasn't due to return until tomorrow, but any number of his master's household would delight in telling the merchant of Charlie's latest misconduct, simply to shunt the man's temper onto someone else. Charlie was afraid of another beating. Not only had he not healed completely from the last one, each new round of abuse brought him closer to the breaking point, where he would either give up and die or murder Xanthus—which amounted to the same thing.
And if he died . . .
Charlie muttered under his breath, just a few choice words in the language no one else in this godforsaken time could understand. You can't even rescue your sorry self, Flynn. How the hell are you supposed to protect and defend anything now?
Anything . . . or anyone.
Fierce emotion—he wasn't sure whether to call it longing or hatred—closed his throat. Entire weeks passed, now, when he didn't think of home—or other, nearer things—with this depth of pain. Mostly, he just tried to survive. That took most of what he had in him. Sometimes Charlie actually forgot what he'd once been in the endless struggle to stay alive, to earn the money it would take to buy freedom, to make plans for the future, rescue—
"Rufus!"
He grabbed at the crutch. Then swung around toward the river and the sound of a hated voice he hadn't expected to hear until tomorrow. A canopied, oar-propelled phaseli (a lightly built, bean-shaped boat) had turned course and was rapidly approaching the dock. A thick, swarthy man in an expensive, embroidered tunic stood in the pleasure yacht's bow.
His master.
Charlie's belly drew in so tautly it was hard to breathe. Xanthus Imbros Brutus, the Lycian Roman, glared at him across the open water. "Slave!"
Vicious little . . . Charlie forced the rage down, buried it under the need to stay alive.
"Yes, Domine?"
"Catch the line!"
Sailors who were part of Xanthus' household scrambled to ship oars and make ready the anchor. One tossed a heavy rope across. Charlie caught it awkwardly, then braced himself as best he could. Even so, the jerk nearly dragged him into the river. Charlie caught his balance and hauled on the line. There certainly wasn't anything wrong with his arms. The small yacht grounded against the stone dock with a scraping sound that set his teeth on edge. The anchor splashed into filthy Tiberian mud.
Sailors leaped nimbly across and relieved Charlie of the line, which they made fast. They moved with unconscious ease, oblivious of the careless way they walked or flexed leg muscles or jogged across the dock to retrieve a wooden plank for the disembarking passengers.
Charlie watched through narrowed eyes and hated them.
"Rufus, don't just stand there looking stupid! Help me onto shore!"
Buried rage kicked him in the gut. He kicked it right back. Charlie was nearly two feet taller than his master, but Xanthus had the might of Roman law on his side. He was also one helluva lot stronger than he looked—as Charlie'd had the misfortune to discover—and owned plenty of other slaves to enforce his will. Slaves who had amply demonstrated their willingness to hold Charlie down, if necessary.
All Charlie had was a useless left leg, a body with too many scars on it, and the will to get out of this alive. Roman medicine being what it was . . .
Charlie swallowed pride and everything that went with it and meekly assisted his master onto terra firma. He then limped awkwardly out of the way. Charlie had not given up the dream of being a man again, but for now, he must obey the sadist who legally owned his body and held the right to further maim or even kill him at will. There was pride and there was stupidity.
Stupid and dead would help no one.
Most of the time, Charlie managed to remember that. Just the memory of the few times he hadn't left him chilled with sweat. For the moment, his master ignored him. Xanthus had returned with a guest and, from the look of it, new stock. The girl lying on a pallet under the canopy had been drugged unconscious. Ropes bound her wrists and ankles. Someone had already collared her. The collar at Charlie's throat chafed over sweat and a prickly heat rash, but he would never again risk the punishment of breaking the lock.
Whoever the new girl was, she didn't look Roman. He wondered how she'd ended up a slave. Sold by her family? Confiscated for someone's back taxes? Maybe captured in a border skirmish somewhere. Or just possibly, she'd sold herself into slavery to keep starvation at bay.
Charlie frowned. No . . . if she'd sold herself, they wouldn't have needed ropes and drugs to keep her secured. War captive, then, or maybe a kidnap victim from some coastal village. She was beautiful, in a wholesome way. About fifteen or sixteen, judging from her face and slender form under the shapeless tunica. She reminded him, oddly enough, of Florida summers. He thought about that for a moment. She was pale under a golden tan. Well, any provincial farm girl would be tanned. So would many a provincial town girl.
But she didn't have the defined musculature or visible calluses of a girl used to heavy labor, farm or urban. And her hair looked wrong. Shorter than it should have been, just about shoulder length, with dark brown curls that reminded him of something, or someone, he couldn't quite place what, or whom.
Whoever she was, this girl certainly didn't have the hard-edged, big-city look of Roman whores, the look that reminded him too vividly of wasted years in New Jersey. Charlie closed his hands until his fingers ached. In whatever godforsaken year this was—they didn't even use the same dates or calendar system—nobody had ever heard of Florida or New Jersey and wouldn't for another fifteen hundred or so years.
Thinking about time, Charlie shook his head—more than years were mixed up in this place. It had taken months for Charlie to learn enough Latin to figure out the system of reckoning days—the system that ruled Charlie's life for four terrifying years. Any given day, for example, was counted as being so many days before a major monthly event, of which there were quite of few. The kalends at the first of the month, the infamous ides at midmonth, the nones between the two, plus a sort of unofficial "work week" of eight days. Every ninth day was called a nundinae—farmer's market day. So, while not official, most people tended to talk in terms of so many days before the next nundinae. Then, of course, there were any number of official state and/or religious holidays, even days on which certain types of businesses were banned from opening.
Charlie thought the Roman calendar system was insane.
But, then, so had his life been, through four aching years.
Charlie turned his back and bent to retrieve the slop bucket. He tried to ignore the lump in his throat which sight of the young girl's tousled curls had brought. She was just another slave, a little shorter-haired than most, maybe, but just another slave all the same. She'd be sold probably before she even woke up.
"Careful!" an unknown voice chided, sending a prickle of irritation up Charlie's back. He glanced around as a dark-eyed, scowling man he'd never seen before backhanded the sailor carrying the girl. "Aelia is worth a great deal more than you are! Bruise her and I'll lay your back open!"
Asshole . . .
Then it happened.
Xanthus slipped on a patch of moss.
"Rufus!"
Charlie's insides cringed. "Yes, Master?"
The trader had regained his balance, but his face had flushed dangerously under a swarthy complexion. "A week ago, I told you to scrub this dock clean! What if my guest had slipped and fallen on this mess?"
Charlie tried to explain. "Master, your steward has kept me so busy—"
"I don't care what orders my steward left! I'm your master, boy. Never forget that. And I ordered this dock scrubbed."
"Yes, Master, I know that, Master, but Lucius—"
The Lycian Roman grabbed Charlie's shapeless tunic and jerked him off balance. Charlie went down hard, banging both knees on the stone dock. His crutch skittered away. He clenched his jaw shut and bit back any sound, waiting on his knees for his master to pronounce judgment.
Xanthus gazed at him silently for a long moment, evidently waiting for any sign of rebellion. Charlie offered none. His master finally spoke, in a deceptively soft voice Charlie had come to dread. "For two years, Rufus, you thrilled all Rome with your victories. But all through the next two years, you have done nothing but disappoint me again and again. You flout my authority, force me to punish you more harshly than I have wanted. How many times must I say it? Forget what you were. You are no longer Rufus the Champion. No longer a free barbarian, at liberty to do whatever you please. You are a slave, my slave. I had hoped you would prove valuable. You had a duty, boy, and you have failed in it every single time you have been put to the test."
Charlie bristled silently. It was not his fault that lead poisoning had done its work on nearly every child he'd been forced to sire, but lead-linked birth defects were simply unheard of in this time.
So Charlie's master blamed him, not the lead levels of the women they kept bringing to be bred. The one time Charlie had tried to explain, Xanthus had called him several filthy words and beaten him nearly senseless for blatantly attempting to foist off falsehoods as excuses. After all, who had ever heard of such a thing—simple water turning babies into monsters that must be exposed immediately to die.
Charlie knew how to hate, how to bide his time, but some days it was harder than others, knowing yet another child of his had been deliberately allowed to die.
Xanthus spoke again, soft-spoken voice a mockery of a concerned man who actually gave a damn about anything but the number of coins in his money chests. "It was my fondest hope to coddle and pamper you. Instead, you offer me treachery, laziness, constant disobedience. Do you prefer to be beaten into submission?"
Charlie, forced to huddle at his master's feet by the grip on his tunic—and by sure knowledge of the consequences of rebellion—remained silent.
"Answer me!"
Hating himself, Charlie whispered, "I do not, Domine."
"Then tell me, slave, what am I to do when you fail me in something as simple as cleaning the moss off my dock? Must I beat you yet again, in front of guests? Would that make you give me the respect and adoration I am owed as father of the household to which you now belong?"
Not goddamned likely, you pompous little bastard.
Evidently the answer, silent as it remained, was clearly visible even in his downturned face.
Xanthus sighed, a shade too theatrically. "I try to be a fair master. Really, I do. But you would try Jupiter's patience, boy, and mine is not nearly so great." The beating was mild, comparatively. All Xanthus did was bruise a few aching muscles with a folded-up bit of rope. Charlie compressed his lips and stood it. When it was over, Xanthus said, "I want every bit of moss gone from this dock by sunset. Is that clear?"
Charlie didn't point out that not enough daylight remained to complete the job by the deadline. He merely whispered, "Yes, Master," and crawled the hell out of Xanthus' way. He'd been lucky, this time. Xanthus hadn't wanted to seem too harsh a master in front of company—company which, ironically, had forced Xanthus to do something to punish dereliction of duty.
Charlie's back throbbed where the rope had thudded against old bruises and half-healed welts. He closed his hand around the fallen crutch, wishing bitterly it were a javelin. Xanthus' guest brushed past as though he didn't exist—which, in the eyes of any freeborn man, he didn't. The sailor followed, carrying Aelia.
Achivus, Xanthus' personal secretary, strolled off the phaseli's shaded deck, holding a cylindrical leather case that would contain important business papers. Achivus' tunic was richer than most freedmen's. As the secretary disembarked, a boy of about ten came skipping hastily down the steps from the house, breathless from his run.
"Master," he cried, "they said you'd come back!"
Achivus handed the boy his leather case. "Be very certain you don't drop these, boy. Take them to Dominus Xanthus. Then be sure to have a basin of hot water ready for me. I reek of travel."
"Yes, Master!"
Achivus' slave ran ahead, leaving his master to follow at his leisure. Himself a collared slave, Achivus was not only well educated, he received a large enough monthly allowance to purchase slaves of his own to wait on him. Charlie's disgust ran all the deeper because of it, but Achivus was only one of many thousands of slaves who owned other human beings.
Over the last couple of years, with greater access to slaves who knew more than how to fight and kill, Charlie had managed to acquire a basic understanding of more of the seemingly endless insane situations life here provided. Thanks to the enormous influx of war captives and the lucrative kidnapping trade throughout the Empire—not to mention thousands of unwanted babies exposed on garbage heaps, free for the taking—most slaves were so cheap even extremely poor families owned a few. Not possessing even one slave was the mark of abject poverty.
Charlie—who'd once been popular in a way he tried desperately to forget—was universally looked down on by Xanthus' household for yet another reason: he'd never acquired slaves of his own, even when he could have. "Silly barbarian," people had said of him. "He'll come to no good in the end, just you see."
Well, it ain't over till the fat lady yodels. I might be down . . . but not completely out. Not of hope (or, at the very least), fighting spirit. Just now they amounted to the same thing—or as close as it came for accounting purposes. Achivus, who endured far less abuse in a month than Charlie did in the course of the average day, moved directly toward him. Charlie braced himself for the inevitable and wasn't disappointed.
"How's your back, gladiator? The welts were very bad when we left."
The question—and Achivus' dark eyes—were filled with genuine concern that only made Achivus seem more alien than ever. More alien, even, than Xanthus, and Charlie hadn't completely figured him out in a whole two years. Both men were as incomprehensible as any alien species in any science fiction movie he'd ever watched—and if Charlie Flynn were anything, he was a genuine, twentieth-century movie-holic.
Whenever he had wrangled off-duty time, he'd spent some of that leisure on getting women into bed—but mostly he watched movies. Any movies. Old, new, tragic, hilarious, musical, violent action-adventure, mystery: whatever it was, Charlie'd watch it, with rare exception, just to put out of mind for a few hours what he did for a living.
When Achivus reached out to pull aside the neckline of Charlie's loose tunic, Charlie shrugged out of his grip without putting either thought or effort into it. Nobody touched Charlie except Xanthus—the only man who gave him no opportunity to avoid unwanted physical contact—or anyone Xanthus ordered to touch him.
Irish hatred ran deep and lasted a lifetime.
It was often all he could do to control it, to stay alive rather than give in as everything he was demanded.
"Back's healing," Charlie told the slave–secretary shortly. "And Achivus? Don't ever touch me again. Got that? Now get out of my way. I have work to do."
"Yes. I heard. Rufus, why didn't you obey him? Cleaning the dock was such a small thing. Must you defy Master at every single order? He only wants you to love and obey him—"
Something in Charlie's expression must've gotten through, because Achivus paused without finishing.
The secretary sighed and looked away. "Please keep trying, Rufus. It isn't so difficult to be a good slave, you know. Just do whatever you can to make sure his fortunes rise. You might be surprised how well he'll treat you. He . . . wants to treat you well. If only you'd let him."
Charlie, who knew exactly what Xanthus wanted from him to "make his fortunes rise" held silent. That was one thing among many he simply could not give the Lycian Roman: lead poisoning was not his fault, nor could he change the way engineers constructed the aquaducts.
Achivus glanced the long way up into Charlie's face again. "Your trouble," he said with a touch of bitterness, "is your pride from being a champion. It galls to be just an ordinary slave. There is no shame, Rufus, in whatever the master orders. Pleasing him is our duty. Take pride in it. I certainly do. Master's whole household does. All except you. Rufus the Champion. Rufus the great, popular hero. Rufus the gladiator, the man even senators' wives wanted to sleep with, if their husbands would've looked the other way. Dammit, Rufus, stop pining away for the glory and—"
"Don't tell me what I feel about those years!"
Achivus backpedaled a step, eyes wide in sudden fright.
Charlie ground his fists until his hands ached, trying desperately to forget the sights, the sounds and stenches, the terror and the burning, red rage that caused even greater terror, it was so overpowering—
He thrust aside any attempt at explanation with a bitter, Why try to explain anything to an alien? Then, changing his mind just as quickly, desperate to connect with someone, try to make someone understand (and Achivus was the only person who'd ever seen him as something besides "Rufus the Champion"), he said a bit hoarsely, "Achivus, there is nothing about the arena that made me proud of what I did there. And there's nothing to be proud of in being a slave, either, good or bad."
Achivus swallowed a couple of times while the sultry evening breeze ruffled their hair.
Achivus' lips thinned, the household secretary still without the slightest comprehension of what Charlie was trying to explain. "Always, the stubborn fool. You will end a hopelessly bad slave, bringing death on yourself and disgrace on our master. Perhaps one day you will finally grow a brain to match those scarred muscles."
With that, Achivus headed toward the steep pathway and the marble steps Charlie had spent the past week cleaning with a scrub brush and a bucket of cold water. Charlie gripped his bucket for a moment, aware that in his hands, nearly anything was a lethal weapon. Then, forcing a deep breath, Charlie told himself hating Achivus was no answer. He might as well hate a beetle for the color of its carapace or the food it preferred. Achivus' beliefs were so far beyond anything Charlie had ever encountered, it was impossible to remain angry with him. Amazingly, very nearly all the slaves Charlie had encountered held the same insane attitudes about their masters.
Spartacus and his bunch were a minority.
Charlie watched the flow of the muddy Tiber for long moments. Achivus, the educated Greek secretary. Achivus, the master's favorite. Achivus was a good slave. Docile, obedient, devoted. Oh, to be sure, he gossiped about Master and Mistress—what slave didn't—but he actually loved that bastard and his harpy of a wife. Or claimed to, anyway. In reward, they treated him like a favored pet capable of particularly useful tricks.
The whole business made Charlie sick.
Charlie listened for a moment to the sailors as they finished securing the little yacht, but he didn't learn anything of importance. All they wanted was food in their bellies and a woman under their thighs. Rutting pigs. . . .
The nearest scrub brush was up at the house. Charlie held back a groan and limped painfully up the path toward the villa urba he had called "home" for slightly more than two years, now. The back wall, heartlessly plain, hid Xanthus' wealth from casual observation. It also deadened city noise, an important function, as close as they were to the wharves of the Porticus Aemelia. Charlie limped through the gate and made certain it was latched, then passed through the kitchen. Xanthus' cook screeched at him.
"Get that shit bucket out of my kitchen, cripple!"
Charlie flipped him a good old-fashioned American bird.
"And none of that barbarian filth, either!"
"Blow it out your ass," Charlie muttered in English. But he kept going.
Xanthus was in the triclinium, the Roman equivalent of a dining room. He and his guest had already reclined on couches. Household slaves were serving the evening meal, which would probably go on for hours. Some of Xanthus' banquets lasted up to a grueling ten hours of hard work for the slaves required to serve and entertain them.
Xanthus' wife, Adflicta, seated in the high-backed armchair only privileged ladies were permitted, remained silent and pale. Xanthus' sons, cowed by the terrifying formality of dinner with their parents—their one meal away from the comforting safety of pedagogus and nurse—also remained silent and pale. Charlie skirted the room, overhearing snatches of the conversation.
" . . . Caelerus, simply astonishing."
"Yes, the voyage from Iberia was well favored with good winds."
Iberia? Charlie frowned and tried to remember where that was supposed to be. Somewhere to the west? He hadn't been all that good at modern geography, never mind ancient Roman geography. The next comment brought him up short.
"Yes," Xanthus was saying, "Publius Bericus will be delighted with her. She's exactly as you described. I've already sent word. If we're fortunate, he won't have left yet for his villa rustica."
Publius Bericus? Hatred and terror detonated inside Charlie. Despite his crutch, Charlie's knees began to wobble. Publius Bericus was coming here?
"That would be excellent," said the man who'd slapped the sailor. "I want this business transacted quickly. A trade in goods is what I want, as you know."
Unable to move for the sudden tremors in his legs, Charlie studied this newcomer covertly from the shadows. He was thin-faced, surprisingly tall, with a look Charlie would once have identified as savvy street predator. He possessed the sharp, cold eyes of a vulture. When he smiled, Charlie repressed the instinctive urge to reach for his backup gun. He was a colonial, judging from his accent. Charlie's was much worse, of course.
Xanthus laughed. "Bericus will consider it a bargain, even with the gold you're asking in addition."
"If you would be so kind, Xanthus, perhaps you might handle the negotiations? For a . . . percentage?"
Xanthus' eyes gleamed. Adflicta compressed her lips. No Roman lady of quality wanted to have it whispered, "Her husband is in trade!"
"Of course. Say . . . ten percent?"
The conversation devolved into a haggling war over percentage points. Charlie regained control of his shuddering pulse and tried to inch past along the edge of the room, since the dining couches were between him and the storeroom where cleaning supplies were kept. The thump of the crutch, however, caught his master's attention.
"What are you doing in here?" Xanthus' brows had twitched down.
His guest glanced up. Judging by the pinched look around Caelerus' nostrils and mouth, Charlie's appearance and smell clearly disgusted him. Xanthus' sons squirmed in eager anticipation.
"I am returning this to the privy," he said carefully, to be sure he got the Latin verb tenses correct, "and I am searching for a brush to scrub the dock, Master, as you ordered."
"While I'm eating? Idiot! I want that bucket scrubbed out, slave, clean enough to drink from. It stinks. Then after you've scrubbed the dock, get to your other chores. Lucius tells me the privy is clogged. Clean it."
"Yes, Domine." He had to clench his teeth to keep from growling it out.
Xanthus eyed him suspiciously. "Use that tone again, slave . . ." He left the threat hanging.
Xanthus had decided shortly after acquiring him that Charlie was a "bad" slave who merited constant correction. Well, by Roman definitions, Charlie was a bad slave. Not even Charlie debated that.
Charlie forced himself to whisper humbly, "Yes, Domine."
"That's better. Proving even the stupidest of slaves can learn, under proper stimulation." The Lycian gave a short, hard bark of laughter before turning away. His guest grinned.
It would be so simple to break Xanthus' neck . . .
It took him fifteen minutes of cautious maneuvering through the villa to retrieve a coil of rope and a crude brush made of some kind of prickly plant fibers. He'd never been much of a botanist—hell, he'd never been much of anything, when it came to formal classroom learning—so he didn't have the slightest idea what it was made from. Whatever it was, it made a lousy scrub brush.
He hobbled out to the river again and lowered the bucket into it, then hauled it back up to the dock and used a lot of elbow grease to clean out the slime. What I'd give for a lousy bar of soap. . . . But soap—greasy stuff made from goat's fat and wood ashes in Pompeiian factories—was expensive. Slaves weren't allotted soap to scrub out shit buckets. When that chore was finally done, Charlie began dragging up bucketfuls of water. He sloshed them across the mossy dock and got down on hands and knees.
Xanthus' dock was a large one, built—as was Xanthus' villa—between the old Servian Wall and the frantic activity of the Porticus Aemilia. Not the most fashionable part of town, certainly, but close enough to holy places and luxury villas on the Aventine Hill that tongues still wagged.
Xanthus Imbros Brutus, although rich, was after all a foreigner. A citizen, yes, but born in Lycia, which Charlie had finally gathered was somewhere in modern Turkey—hell and gone from the power center at Rome. Worse, it was whispered one of Xanthus' ancestors had helped murder the divine Julius Caesar.
Those whispers in high society galled Charlie's master, galled as much as the fact that some of the family had cowardly fled to Lycia in the aftermath of a murder that had occurred more than a century previously, rather than face the mobs. Romans were nothing if not incredible snobs. And Charlie—not just a slave, but a barbarian one—was on the very bottom of the pecking order. Xanthus' temper was infamous when some slight or insult from a social superior—or worse, an inferior—sent him into a towering rage.
Charlie dreaded those days.
On hands and knees in the gathering darkness of evening, Charlie paused for breath and eased aching shoulders. He glanced to the north, where the Bridge of Probus spanned the Tiber, then up the hillside, where the imposing edifice of the Temple of Juno Regina stood bathed in rust-colored light. Charlie had never seen the inside and had stopped wondering, long ago. He was just grateful both structures helped block the view of the great Circus beyond.
A feeling of relief touched him as the sun sank behind distant buildings, leaving Charlie in lengthening shadow. Not only was he just getting comfortable with the drop in temperature, twilight would hide many sins, like rest stops for breath. He set to work again and skinned knuckles on rough stone. Charlie cursed under his breath and kept going. He fiercely ignored aching pain that gradually made itself felt in his rope-bruised back and shoulders.
The smell of cooking food floated across the river from the elegant villas built on the Janiculum hill directly across the Tiber. The Janiculum wasn't precisely part of Rome proper, but a fashionable suburb for those who couldn't afford the really high-rent districts. Charlie's belly rumbled emptily. The scent of real food flooded his mouth with saliva. The scrub brush rasped against wet, mossy stone in a monotonous rhythm broken only when Charlie paused to slosh rinse water. Twilight deepened until Charlie scrubbed more by feel than by sight.
When he finally reached the end of the dock and the spine-cracking job, Charlie allowed himself to pause for breath. Stars speckled a velvet-black sky like a dusting of sugar on licorice. Charlie's belly rumbled again, demanding nourishment. He wiped sweat off his face with the back of one arm and swallowed down the saliva, telling his belly that was the best he could do at the moment. He stared into the night sky, captured by his own random thoughts. Sugar on licorice. . . . It'd been four years since he'd tasted sugar.
Four years was a long time to eat nothing but heartlessly plain gruel and whatever meat he managed to trap in snares along the riverbank. Over on the Janiculum, the black hulk of an amphitheater which could be flooded for mock naval battles blotted out the stars. The Colosseum—the Flavian amphitheater—(which Charlie bet was still under construction, as he'd heard no gossip about its opening) would shift the gladiatorial combats away from the Circus Maximus, but he was given to understand the "naval" battles would continue on the Janiculum hill. The old saw (even Charlie had heard it) about flooding the Colosseum had turned out to be just that: an old saw.
Charlie glared at the dark amphitheater on the Janiculum through narrowed eyes, remembering the stink of blood in the water and the crack of timbers as miniature warships rammed one another. He had fought there, too, and survived, sometimes only because he knew how to swim.
"Someday," he growled at the dark, murmuring river, "someday, I will kill you, Jésus Carreras."
He turned his back on the river, the Janiculum, his whole past. Carreras was so far beyond Charlie's revenge, it didn't bear thinking about. He hobbled back up the path, so tired he couldn't even find strength to curse at the thought of the rest of the chores waiting for him. He skirted the dinner party, which was in full swing, complete with musicians and a dancer. Xanthus' sons listened, wide-eyed, to the off-color jokes and bawdy songs. Adflicta had already retired for the night.
Charlie replaced the slop bucket in the privy, then cleaned that, having to light a lamp to provide enough light to unclog the water pipes. At last water from Rome's aqueducts began to flow again. The accumulated mess rinsed away, pouring down the outflow into the sewers. Charlie knew he stank of shit and urine and his own body sweat. There'd be no time tonight for a bath, either. So he cleaned hands, arms, and body as best he could, scrubbing with the brush he'd used on the dock.
He sniffed. Better, he allowed cautiously. The odor was still there, faintly, but at least he could breathe without half-choking on the smell. He finished up his latrine duties by checking the chamber pot in Adflicta's private sleeping chamber, taking care not to disturb the domina as her maidservants prepared her for bed. She was saying bitterly, "It's bad enough he works, but to sell slaves to that superstitious libertine, Publius Bericus . . ."
Charlie got the hell out. When Mistress was in that mood, she was nearly as dangerous as Master. She'd once had a hairdresser crucified for tugging too hard on a tendril of hair. At least she hated Publius Bericus as much as Charlie did. For any Roman to call another Roman "superstitious" was the height of insult. Calling him libertine paled by comparison. Many a Roman's conduct earned him the name libertine. But no public man wanted to be known as someone so superstitious, he'd tremble before the gods like a slave before his master.
Charlie emptied the chamber pot, which was no longer needed, put it away with the brush and coil of rope, and got busy with his main evening chore: feeding those slaves valuable enough to be kept at Xanthus' home while awaiting sale. They were housed in the west wing, in tiny, dark rooms barred from the outside. Their doors opened onto an interior portico that bordered a pleasant peristyle garden, which made viewing by potential customers both simple and pleasant. Because they were valuable stock, Xanthus included cut-up figs in the wheat gruel which comprised the standard slave diet.
Before his crippling injury and sale to Xanthus, Charlie had eaten figs in his gruel, too, although back then it had been barley gruel, not wheat. The school which had owned him had wanted a man at top fighting form—but without the independent will to rebel. So they'd given him figs with his barley, a diet believed to give gladiators strength. Meat, of course, had been strictly forbidden. Rome still remembered Spartacus' rebellion as vividly as Charlie remembered the movie—and its ending. The school's barracks masters had talked of Spartacus often enough when beating him and the other gladiators into submission.
Charlie shivered and thrust aside memory of those tiny, windowless little rooms; of the cold-eyed, alert soldiers on guard during practice sessions; the whips and brands and chains and men driven to suicide . . .
Better to think of food. Memory of two years in that hell wouldn't keep him alive. Food—and thinking up new ways to get it—would. Charlie hadn't believed it would be possible to miss a handful of half-rotten figs so desperately. After a few months with Xanthus, he'd grown so desperate for a more balanced diet, he'd started setting snares for rats. Not only had he eaten them—raw—he'd been glad for the solid protein. A seemingly endless supply wandered into Charlie's snares along the river, which also hid the debris from his illicit meals.
But catching rats wasn't the only way to sneak food. Charlie entered the peristyle garden, empty at this hour, and pushed his cart toward the west wing, then paused in the darkness to bolt down five dipperfuls of fig-laden gruel as fast as he could swallow, not bothering even to chew. Food eased the hollow in his belly and the trembling in his limbs, enough that he could continue working, anyway. Charlie risked another quick couple of dipperfuls, then busied himself feeding his master's most valuable for-sale stock.
He stopped at each room in turn, made certain the occupant of each cell had water to drink, then dished out gruel from the bucket the cook had given him. None of the slaves ever offered to escape. Most seemed deeply grateful for the twice-a-day visits he made.
Most of what Charlie had learned about his new "home" he had learned from other slaves eager to talk to someone. Even gladiators trained to fight to the death had wanted someone to talk to on long, empty nights. Many of Xanthus' slaves openly pitied him. Charlie cordially hated them all. That didn't stop him from using them to improve his understanding of Latin. Learning the language of his masters was better than dwelling on the miracles of surgery which remained nearly two thousand years beyond his grasp.
The last door on the right was open. Lamplight flickered inside. Charlie frowned. That room had been empty for weeks. He limped to the doorway and found Sextus busily engaged bathing the new girl. Charlie glanced hastily away and retraced his steps. If Xanthus had Sextus watching her, she must be a virgin. She hadn't looked young enough. He was betting she hadn't seen her twelfth birthday for at least three years. But if Sextus were involved . . .
Charlie shivered and felt the icy hatred in his soul tighten down another notch. Xanthus and that other trader were going to sell that poor, untouched kid to Publius Bericus. Not only did they have no pity, clearly they had no souls.
Charlie returned the empty gruel bucket to the kitchen, then found his broom and a flint and pyrite. He lit lamps and torches in the garden so he could see what he was doing, then got busy sweeping the peristyle portico, a chore he was not permitted to shirk no matter how late other chores kept this one waiting. Dust coated the tile floor, along with leaves, twigs, and flower petals blown in from the garden by stray breezes.
He loathed the broom itself, which was difficult to use without propping his crutch against the wall, but the job was just about the least strenuous of his major daily tasks. Charlie took full advantage of his slowness of foot to stretch that job as long as humanly possible—without risking punishment, of course. Usually, he had the peristyle garden to himself.
He enjoyed the silence. Starlight fell across statuary that reminded Charlie of a trip his grade-school class had made into the City, to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Even there, however, his new reality jarred unpleasantly with his old life. Unlike the museum statues, these had been painted in lifelike tints, which only underscored the differentness of the world into which he'd been dumped.
Charlie thrust away all memories of his former life and concentrated on the scent of the flowers and the splash of the courtyard fountain. Charlie enjoyed this garden more than anything else in his new life. It was very nearly the sole pleasure he managed to wring from his existence, which left him deeply jealous of the time he spent here. Thoughts of other fleeting pleasures brought a tremble to his torso.
Publius Bericus, not Xanthus, had possession of Charlie's only surviving, born-healthy-and-normal child, sired on a woman newly brought in from the frontier, where lead had not yet had its chance to creep into her blood. Charlie halted in the middle of a row of tiles, wondering with a helpless ache in his soul if Bericus had abused his little girl yet. Surely not?
Little Lucania wasn't even a year old, the very first child he'd been essentially forced into siring on a sweet but unfortunate slave girl who didn't particularly want to become pregnant with a killer's child. Surely Bericus hadn't hurt Lucania yet? Not even Bericus could be such a monstrous libertine as that. Could he?
Charlie closed his eyes as hurt throbbed through him. He wondered what his one surviving little girl looked like. He would probably never know. He doubted Bericus would keep a girl who couldn't fight in the Circus Maximus. Not unless he really were into child rape.
Enough Romans were—he'd seen the girls on the auction blocks, sold into brothels—Charlie closed his hands on the wooden handle of his broom until his palms burned against rough wood. Charlie wanted to hurt Publius Bericus and Xanthus Imbros Brutus as desperately as they'd hurt him—and knew there would never be a way to do it. Not and survive. Not and protect Lucania's life, too.
He was a slave. That said it all.
At least Xanthus and Bericus had apparently given up their grandiose plans, convinced by the fact that he sired only girls and monsters, that breeding Rufus the Champion might not be such a good—
Voices close by jerked Charlie's attention back to the present. Xanthus and his guest had emerged from the main house. Charlie returned to sweeping with renewed haste. Loud laughter and drunken talk shattered the hush in the peristyle garden.
Dinner's over early tonight. That made him uneasy. Whenever his master broke routine, unpleasant things occurred. Charlie listened with only half an ear, just enough to know if his name were mentioned, and concentrated on cleaning the portico floor. The Lycian merchant and his guest drank wine and wandered through the torchlit garden, talking, while Charlie swept half of one long wing of the four which comprised Xanthus' house. He had just paused to retrieve his crutch for the next four rows of tile when the household steward entered the courtyard and bowed.
"Master, Publius Bericus."
Charlie went cold. He eased deeper into the shadows and narrowly studied the new arrival. Bericus was somewhere between thirty and thirty-five. He possessed the kind of nose that had earned "Roman noses" the name: it drooped at the end, just like a Clydesdale stallion's. His hairline had receded considerably since Charlie had last seen him. Bericus was, if anything, fleshier than ever. Gold jewelry glittered at his throat and on his hands.
As alienated as Charlie was in this world, even he had come to recognize the expensive tunics from the shoddy ones. An armed guard, collared as a slave, moved unobtrusively behind Bericus. If this had been Miami or Hoboken, Charlie would've pegged Bericus as a particularly vicious breed of pimp. Here . . .
Charlie slatted his eyes and gripped his broom.
Torchlight played over the white scar Bericus still sported on his chin. Hatred tightened through Charlie again, worse than before. It choked him into immobility. If he ever got hands on Jésus Carreras . . .
Across the courtyard, Bericus, Xanthus, and the trader Caelerus were moving toward the new girl's room. Charlie stayed well out of their way. He recognized Bericus' smile all too clearly. The wealthy Roman said something to which Xanthus Imbros Brutus responded with a polite laugh, then Bericus' glance fell directly on Charlie. For an instant, utter malice glinted in those cold eyes.
Then Bericus turned to Xanthus. A moment later, Charlie's master called sharply, "Rufus! Come here!"
Charlie gripped the broom so tightly he bruised his hands. Everything in him wanted to refuse. Instead, Charlie found his crutch, laid aside the broom, and limped toward the three men. Flickering torchlight caught the gold at Bericus' throat and emphasized the sallow pallor of his complexion. Too much wine and dissolved lead . . .
"Master?" Charlie managed, forcing his gaze to remain carefully on the ground.
"My dear friend has requested your company, Rufus."
He had to bite back a foul comment that seared his throat. A thick-fingered hand caught his chin. Charlie knew better than to break free of that grip. He was forced, instead, to content himself with meeting Bericus' gaze steadily. If we were in Miami, asshole . . .
But they weren't. Here, the crushing weight of law, Imperial law, was completely on Bericus' side. The Roman's eyes glinted, reflecting the dancing flame of a nearby oil-soaked torch. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Still defiant, little barbarian?"
Charlie didn't bother to answer.
"I have not forgotten, you know. Two years isn't very long, Rufus."
Thick fingers caressed the burn scar on Charlie's throat. Charlie's stillness had once been infamous, a signal to gang members and street roughs that a deadly explosion was about to follow. He had no real weapons, beyond his crutch, but even a wooden crutch was a lethal weapon in the right hands. All questions of survival aside, he did not intend to be locked helpless into a room with Publius Bericus ever again.
Bericus chuckled. "Xanthus, it might amuse me to finally buy this one, as well as the girl. I'd like to watch his face when I sell the brat he got on Benigna."
The wooden crutch handle creaked ominously.
Xanthus' dark eyes darted a glance toward Charlie. The threat in them was unmistakable. Do it, and you'll beg for death. . . . The Lycian Roman coughed delicately. "I would advise you, Bericus, to keep him chained if you do. I've had to beat him nearly every week just to force decent drudge work out of him. He's not fit for your household."
The glint in Bericus' eyes sharpened. "Really? Let me see your back, slave."
To comply, he'd have to let go of the crutch. That would leave him effectively weaponless. The tilt of Bericus' mouth told him that was precisely the bastard's intention. He glanced back toward Xanthus and found no pity. "Obey or die" his master's eyes told him.
Charlie ground his teeth and let the crutch fall to the ground. He turned his back on the Roman and dragged off the coarse woolen tunic that was his only decent garment. Bericus sucked in his breath. Not in shock, but in perverse pleasure. Thick fingers touched scars on his back. Charlie started to jerk around, then forced himself to stand rock-still. Rage shook through him, until his muscles felt more like stone than flesh.
The other trader, Caelerus, laughed from Charlie's blind side. "You have had trouble with him."
Not as much trouble as you'll have if you sell me to that—
Publius Bericus patted Charlie's shoulder in a caress that brought unbearable memory. Charlie swallowed a snarl and endured it.
"I see you've at least beaten some restraint into him." Bericus laughed. He caressed Charlie's scarred back again, sensually.
Charlie clenched white-knuckled fists until his hands hurt—and hated with every fiber of his being.
"I'll consider him. Meanwhile I'd like a look at this girl you've brought me, Caelerus."
The three men moved off, leaving Charlie to stand semi-naked in the shivering torchlight. He found he'd tightened his fists through the woolen tunic so tightly the seams had given under one armhole. He didn't care. Charlie jerked the ripped tunic back on and stooped for his crutch. Xanthus had conducted his guests into the new girl's room. Bericus' voice drifted across the garden, asking questions in tones that strove not to sound eager.
Charlie narrowed his eyes. If Bericus bought the girl, it would be a tragedy. If the bastard bought him . . .
Then neither he nor the Roman would likely survive the week.