Rosemary Rowe - A Roman Ransom

‘Junio!’ I protested. But he ignored my pleas.

‘Doctor’s orders.’ He grinned up at me. ‘You are not permitted to exert yourself today, not even so much as to raise a spoon. I am to get you to eat as much as possible and report it to the physician afterwards. Open wide.’

Perhaps my patron and his medicus were right. It was exhausting swallowing the food, without attempting to hold the bowl and feed myself as well. I could manage only tiny sips, although — for some reason — it tasted quite ambrosial today. In general I’m not very fond of gruel.

‘Tell your mistress this was very good,’ I said, after a few minutes, leaning back to pant and rest my spinning head. ‘Or, better, I will tell her so myself. Where is she now?’

‘She has gone to have a rest.’ Junio held another spoonful of warm gruel to my lips. ‘The poor lady has scarcely slept since you fell ill. She has hardly left your side except occasionally to snatch an hour or two of sleep — and even then she always made sure that there was someone here.’

‘You?’

He grinned again. ‘Who else could be trusted to keep an eye on you?’ A shadow crossed his face and he looked serious suddenly. ‘Though it was worrying. You were hot and cold and shivering by turns, talking in your sleep — thinking that you were back in slavery again and that your wife was lost. You threshed about a lot as well — shouting out her name and struggling.’

I shuddered at the memory. ‘I kept dreaming that the pirate boat had come and the slavers were snatching us apart.’

He made a sympathetic face. ‘We tried to comfort you. Many an hour she has stood here by your side, whispering that you’d found her now, and everything was well — but you didn’t even know her when she spoke to you.’

‘Poor Gwellia.’ This time I said the words aloud.

He gave the grin once more. ‘Poor all of us,’ he said. ‘We servants had to sleep in the dye-house first of all — since it was obviously impossible to stay in here — but then Marcus sent down his slaves to help us build another sleeping room, next door to this. Kurso and I did most of it, but Cilla helped — once she had got the idea of how to weave the walls from osiers, and daub them with manure and clay to keep the water out. It’s very snug, with a hearth, a wooden bench and everything, so that those who were not watching you could sleep, or work or cook without disturbing you.’

Kurso and Cilla! I had half forgotten them. I was so accustomed to my little threesome here — myself, my wife and Junio — that for a moment I’d failed to remember that I now had other slaves. Of course, I had acquired them in the last few months, much to Gwellia’s delight — though both times it had been more or less by accident, as a kind of payment for my services. ‘How are they both?’

‘Much as usual. They’ll come and see you, now you are awake. When they come in, that is. Kurso is out with the chickens now and Cilla is gathering kindling for the fire. They have been a great help while you’ve been ill — Kurso hasn’t broken anything for days.’

I grinned. Poor Kurso had been a kitchen boy before, but he had been so ill treated by his former owners that he was really too nervous to work in the house. He could still run faster backwards than forwards, and jumped every time you spoke to him — usually dropping any dish he held — but he had found a kind of contentment in tending our chickens, goats and kitchen crops, and helping in the workshop now and then. Cilla, on the other hand, was skilled. She was a gift from Marcus’s house, a plump, bright, cheerful little maidservant who helped with household chores and generally waited on my wife — when Junio wasn’t making eyes at her.

If they hadn’t been in servitude, there might have been a real romance between those two, I thought — but of course liaisons were forbidden between slaves. I had once or twice considered the idea of rewarding Junio with his freedom in the end, but when I had discussed it with the boy he had sworn that he would publicly refuse — which would make him my bondsman in perpetuity. Anyway, he was too young to manumit. That was a problem for another day.

I said now, ‘I shall look forward to seeing both the others soon, and my new sleeping hut as well. Marcus has been very good, it seems. You know he was even talking yesterday of having me moved up to his house? It’s almost a pity I’ve recovered quite so well. I might have enjoyed a day or two of luxury — Marcus’s slaves take splendid care of his guests — and the under-floor heating would have been a treat. But now I suppose he will not need my help.’

Junio stabbed another spoon of gruel at me. ‘You are a cynic, master. Your patron was genuinely concerned about your health. He would have had you up there two days ago and more, but the medicus arrived and said that you could not be moved. But I expect you’re right. Now that he’s let this Lallius fellow go, presumably he’ll get his wife and infant back, so you have lost your chance.’

This time I did sit bolt upright. ‘He’s let Lallius go? Already? Dear gods! I thought at least he’d talk to me again before he rushed into anything like that. Junio, I’m afraid I fear the worst. He does not even know who he is dealing with. There could be more demands. He has no guarantee of anything, not even a firm promise of how and when they will be returned. Or has he had some message that I haven’t heard about?’

‘I don’t believe so, master.’ Junio looked instantly penitent. ‘I should have woken you. I wanted to — I know he really came here to try to talk to you — but when he heard that you were still asleep he changed his mind and insisted that I should leave you undisturbed.’

‘Marcus has been here again? Today?’

‘He looked in with the medicus a little while ago — on his way to the basilica, he said. Poor man. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. He’d had the high priest of Jupiter up there half the night, and between them they’ve found a way to handle the matter. I was to tell you that. He’d decided to do what the abductors said, without appearing to. He was pretty shaken and extremely grim. I think he was unhappy at trifling with the law. You know how he always prides himself on being strictly just.’

‘So he is proposing to overrule the magistrate who presided at the preliminary court?’ I could hardly believe it. Junio was right. Marcus would have cut his own hand off rather than betray his role of trust — in any other circumstances but these.

Junio shrugged. ‘Not that exactly. They’ve hit on some legal quibble which will allow him to dismiss the case. It is only a pretext. Something about the official sacrifice and the magistrate in question coming late and failing to observe some minor rite — crossing the threshold with his left foot first, or something of the kind. It’s the sort of thing that these days would ordinarily be ignored, but once the high priest has identified the lapse, it is enough to throw question on all proceedings for that day by making the magistrate unpropitious — “nefas”, as they say.’

‘So any decisions that he made that day can be annulled, without making Marcus seem to be personally involved, or drawing attention to any accused person in particular? I hope it works. It’s so unusual for courts to be annulled that people are bound to wonder why. If news of Julia’s abduction has already reached the town — as almost certainly it has, since Marcus had all the passers-by brought in and questioned — someone is certain to put two and two together in the end.’

Junio clearly did not share my reservations. ‘Even if they do,’ he said, ‘they won’t be able to prove anything, not even who he wanted to set free. It isn’t fair, of course, because other offenders will get off as well and the magistrate will have to pay a fine. However, you must admit it does what was required. Not only will Lallius — among others — be released, but, because the formula itself has failed, he will be free from any legal charge, at least until Julia and Marcellinus are returned. Then, Marcus says, he’ll bring him in again, and those who helped him, too — on charges of conspiracy if nothing else — and Dis knows there’ll be no mercy for any of them then. Marcus will conduct the case himself.’