S.J.A. Turney - Tales of Ancient Rome

Rubus had been the main cutback. Not the only one, but the main one. The middle-aged Gaul had begun as a slave on the farm, freed by his grandfather toward the end of his life and installed as the overseer for the estate. His grandfather and father both had prized the Gaul for his knowledge and efficiency, but they had paid him a small fortune for his work.

Stupid, given that they were both present permanently at the villa and knew damn well how to run things themselves. What a waste of money. Totting up how much money he’d saved in the five years since he drove Rubus from the estate made his palm tingle. Enough to buy a new caravan of wagons, or to perhaps put down a payment on a barge; all things that would expand the growing empire of Pacutus.

Personal attention had changed everything. The money had started to pile up so rapidly he couldn’t have spent it if he’d tried. He didn’t, of course. He was too busy making the money to spend any of it.

Of course, there were days when the work was harder than others, such as today. Some days the slaves were especially lazy and stupid and he had to expend precious energy with the whip, or even use his own, soft, white hands to labour on the estate. After all, it was better to do some things oneself than to rely on unreliable wasters like the Numidian carpenter or the other slaves that had been given the task of building the arbour across the patio outside the villa.

It would be lovely when complete. The beautiful, decorative patio claimed an unrivalled view of the estate with its rolling slopes, and of the majestic peaks that towered over it. He smiled as he took it in once again. It was nice now, but when he could look at it from this very spot shaded by the timber structure with vines growing across it, laden with succulent grapes.

He would have to start thinking about a wife soon. He would need a son, of course, to pass the estate to. It certainly wasn’t going to that soft, podgy cousin of his that talked endlessly of the new Jewish religion that Nero had forbidden and urged him at every social engagement to free his slaves and hire free workers. The moron.

No. A son it would have to be. Then his son could sit on this very patio under the arbour, surrounded by the finest grapes in central Italia and watching his slaves work.

No sign of the slaves now, though, as the sun began to descend. His arms ached, but then they would, after such a day. He sighed as he scanned the vineyards once more from the patio viewpoint.

He wondered whether he’d spent more of the afternoon beating the damn wastrels or hammering the nails himself? Probably beating. He did seem to have beaten them a lot today; more than usual, and he would be the first to admit that he beat them a lot anyway.

But they were slaves. More slaves could always be found cheaply. They didn’t have to be clever or powerful to dig a hole or pick grapes. Slaves were worth less than the soil they worked. Beating them was natural; the very order of things.

That, of course, was why it had come as such a shock when they had turned on him. The Judean girl had been the first to use the whip. He’d been so surprised at the turn of events while the two Numidians held him down, that he’d barely noticed the pain as they flayed the skin from his back with the barbed lash. He’d not screamed. Why would he? They were only slaves.

He really wished he could scratch his nose, but his arms were tied fast to the crossbar of the hastily manufactured crucifix. There had been some intelligent irony among them, in the end. They’d crucified him using the very timber and nails he’d been beating them for misusing.

A raven cawed in a nearby tree, watching him with anticipation. He could swear it was almost drooling as it watched its meal start to sag and fade.

Marcus Aelius Pacutus looked out over his latifundium with a professional, practiced eye and nodded to himself.

Time was up.

Spurius Bulba took a deep breath and swallowed nervously. Glancing up surreptitiously he eyed the waiting folk. The handsome, chiselled features of the central figure, master of this grand palace and employer of unfortunate wretches, watched expectantly, his advisors gripping their togas in anticipation. Spurius swallowed again.

It had not been an easy morning.

The very first thing he had seen when he opened his eyes was the image of Castus the moneylender, his face a mixture of violent anger and hungry amusement. He’d been meaning to pay Castus back all month but, as was always the case, whatever money came into his hands seemed to evaporate whenever he passed by one of the thermopolia where men gathered to play dice. The dice didn’t like him, and his few satisfied customers had joked that he was safe anyway, since his entire being was anathema to chance itself.

Castus had been surprisingly accommodating. The Syrian thug with him broke the fourth and fifth fingers on Spurius’ left hand, which is the most excruciating way to wake up, but also allowed him an extra week to pay. It could have been worse, for sure.

Donning his tunic and quickly splashing water over his face and his ever-unruly hair with the bald patch that allowed the shining dome of his intellect to rise through like the Capitol, he quickly rifled around his table. The only furniture in his small room apart from the rickety bed and the washstand, the table was a permanent dumping ground for anything and everything. Broken wine pots mingled with unwashed underwear and the lead curse tablets he kept just in case. He’d been tempted to use one on Castus, but had relented, as they were costly, and it seemed like throwing good money after bad. Somewhere on the table, amid the chaos, a former meal had gone mouldy as the general reek announced, but he wasn’t over-keen to excavate and locate the errant fungus.

The search turned up, along with unspeakable things, seven copper asses. Seven asses! It wouldn’t even buy a morning snack. Grasping the coins as though they might flee and reaching for his work bag, Spurius had left his room, hurried down the grubby, badly-maintained stairwell and out of the insula into the street.

Jerusalem. Not the nicest city in the world, but one of the few that would have him. In the past eight years since he had left Rome via Ostia at high speed with bruisers chasing him intent on extracting blood, he had spent brief times in almost every great city of the empire.

Narbo had been nice for a while until the debts mounted up and he’d had just enough left to take ship, the moneylenders baying after him like hounds. Tarraco had been more civilized still, but he’d soon been found out and exiled by men of import. He’d tried Syracuse for a time, but the moneylenders there were shrewd and shunned him. Epirus had made him shudder. Everyone had been far too clever and pleasant. He’d felt like a turd in a bathhouse his entire stay, and it remained unique as the only city he had ever left voluntarily.

Athens had been pretty nice, despite the fact that a notorious lover of boys had taken a liking to him and followed him around, trying to get into his breeches. Still, a heavy bet on the track races there had seen him fleeing north on a stolen donkey with no possessions but the tunic he wore and the tools of his ‘trade’. Byzantium had been next and, unfortunately, a very similar story to Athens, though without the constant danger of rape. Tarsus had been brief but dangerous, with knife-wielding maniacs, the usual blood-hungry moneylenders and customers, and an almost fatal bout of something that caused the world to fall out of his bottom.

And so he’d ended up in Jerusalem at the arse end of the empire, where rebellious Jews spent their entire time badgering, corrupting, knifing and denouncing the occupying Roman forces. After the first week he’d even given up bothering to comment when they spat on his feet. It wasn’t as though he was going to get any dirtier, after all.