those willing to work. Free games!” He cackled with excitement. “No work! No need to work! Free corn! Free games!”
“Who are the Gracchi?” Spartacus asked.
“Demagogues, long dead,” Varro said. “Only after casting spell of promise.”
“How long dead?” Spartacus asked.
“He would have been a child,” Varro replied, gesturing with his manacled hand at the babbling old man.
“Free games!” the old man declared. “Gladiators and beasts, men fighting men. Criminals thrown to the… to the…” He looked around him, stopped talking and stared at the forest.
The cart came to a gentle halt, the low rumble and clank of its wheels giving way to birdsong and quiet. Their cart stood on the left-hand side of the forest avenue, trees all around, and some branches already entwined overhead. The first errant leaves of autumn made a bid for freedom, whirling downward like falling feathers. A gust of wind shook the branches above them, and caused another dusting of dead leaves to shake free.
They heard the drover clambering down from the front and walking slowly around to the back. He pulled open the rear gate, his nose wrinkling at the stench.
“Old man,” he said. “This is your destination.”
Spartacus peered into the forest, seeing nothing but the trees.
“I have arrived?” the man mumbled. “I have arrived.”
The drover swiftly unlocked the old man’s manacles, dragging him by one of his skeletal arms.
“Wait! Wait!” the old man cried, but he was already falling off the cart. He landed on his ankle with a sickening snap, and began whimpering.
“Hold your tongue or I will cut it out!” the drover snapped, dragging the old man to the edge of the road.
“My leg!” the old man shouted. “It hurts!”
“No concern of mine,” the drover said, dropping the emaciated body in the gutter, among a mulch of fallen leaves, and wet puddles from the most recent storm.
“Where does he take him?” Spartacus asked, but Varro would not meet his eye.
“What does he mean, ‘arrived’?” Spartacus said. “This place is nowhere.”
“Do not leave me!” the old man begged, reaching out to the drover, although the man was already walking back to the cart. The old man tried to drag himself toward the cart, moving in agonising increments across the flagstones.
“Leave you?” laughed the drover. “I am not leaving you. I am freeing you!”
The man blinked, uncertain, trembling from the pain in his ankle.
“I… am… free…?”
“For the remainder of your life,” the drover said, climbing back into the cart.
Spartacus strained at his manacles. He looked imploringly at his fellow passengers, but none of them would look at him.
“Slaves must work,” Varro said sadly. “A slave that cannot work is of no value.”
“But he is a
“You Thracian tribesmen care for their elders, I suppose.”
“We do!”
“And for your slaves?”
“We hold no slaves.”
“No medicus either, I wager,” Varro snorted. “Perhaps that is why none of you barbarians lives to see old age.”
Their voices receded as the cart rolled on, and soon there was nothing but the sounds of the forest. A broken old man lay sobbing by the side of the road in the dwindling light of day.
A trio of ravens fluttered onto a branch above him and waited. Somewhere within the trees, there was a rustle as something moved toward him. He tried to drag himself up, and the noise from the trees ceased.
The man waited, whimpering, knowing that somewhere in the shadows, some other creature waited with greater patience.
Pelorus’s body had been carefully wrapped, his face lightly brushed with pollen, his cheeks pinched with a dash of rouge. Timarchides watched the undertakers labor around the bier.
“The presence of these men makes me nervous,” he confided to the man who stood beside him.
“A feeling echoed by any man of sanity,” Verres responded. “Undertakers serve to remind all of mortality. A lesser man might see grim-faced men in dark clothes and colored hats. But a thinking Roman sees emissaries of death, and naturally gives them wide berth.”
“Slaves, too.”
“What of them?”
“They regard such men as ill-starred. You see undertakers, Gaius Verres, when someone dies.”
“Er… of course, Timarchides.”
“Slaves, however, see them when master requires the extraction of deep-lodged truths. They are despoilers of human flesh. If you wish to ensure that your slave has not stolen from you; if you wish to find out what he has been told by your rivals. If you wish to punish him in a way that leaves no enduring marks, but scars the mind eternally, then it is for the undertakers you will send.”
“They are torturers?” Verres looked surprised. “Should I need someone twisted or burned, I order it done. I have little concern with hows and wheres.”
“They reside on the outskirts of town,” Timarchides said. “Far from neighbours or prying eyes. Far from rescue or disapproving passers-by. Where screams go unheard and smells of burning flesh unnoticed.” As he spoke, he let his gaze linger on one undertaker in particular, an aging, fleshless man who stood watching the others. Their eyes met, and the old undertaker looked away, fidgeting.
“Let us hope so,” Verres said cryptically. “For now, continue to employ these men in management of this household. A title which, as discussed, I shall see conferred upon you.”
“You foresee no obstacle?”
“Pelorus was blessed with no wife, no children. You were treasured companion, as evinced in your recent manumission. Who better to inherit what shall remain of his wealth when justice is done?”
Timarchides glanced to the side to ensure that none could hear them.
“You play a dangerous game,” he said quietly.
“You do not desire inheritance from Pelorus?”
“It will amount to little,” Timarchides sighed. “But gratitude nonetheless.”
“And when this is done, Timarchides, you shall hold advantageous position in my circle. That I promise you.
“One small regard,” Verres continued, flicking demonstratively at a scrap of papyrus he held in one hand, newly opened. “There is the matter of the hospes list. Those acquaintances of Pelorus deemed so important as to be
“He had none.”
“He had two.”
“By what name?”
Verres flung his arm around Timarchides in a friendly fashion, and walked him away from the bier. They strode through the house of Pelorus as slaves bustled around them working to make it liveable again. Floors were scrubbed, fragments of glass swept up. Tables were righted or removed for repair by dozens of pairs of hands. Neither man saw the slaves. It was as if the house repaired itself around them.
“Timarchides, now you are a freedman, you must learn to act as one,” Verres said. “In Latin, the hospes, it is… like a guest, and a friend. A guest-friend.”
“All guests are friends by definition. Surely?”
“It is not such a simple matter. A hospes is a man to whom you must open your doors as if your house is his
