‘Are you with the shepherd?’
Another shock. ‘You know about him?’
‘Everybody knows about him.’ There was enough moon to show how much that notion alarmed Aquila, so she added quickly. ‘Well, not everybody, just the women. He comes to visit Nona quite often, but usually he is alone.’
‘Who’s Nona?’
‘A slave.’
‘What is he doing with her?’
Sosia chuckled, and said, ‘Listen.’ The moaning, for all the muffling, was loud and increasingly frequent, then came the first of a series of stifled cries and deep-throat groans. ‘If Nicos, the overseer, catches them, he will be furious.’
‘Why?’
‘Slaves are not allowed to mate without permission.’
‘Mate?’ Aquila said, forgetting to whisper, which had the girl putting a finger to her lips. ‘Is that what they are doing?’
‘What else would they do?’
Feeling slightly foolish, Aquila looked up and smiled, realising, as he looked at the girl, that she seemed pretty, that she had a nice smile and that her eyes had a gentle quality that he found pleasant. Those thoughts were washed away by what seemed a racket, as the grunts and cries melded in one final outburst, which had Aquila back at the corner of the building once more searching the courtyard.
‘No one will come,’ Sosia hissed. ‘The master is not at home, so everyone does as they please. The shepherd will tell you it is different when Cassius Barbinus is here. He would never dare come near the slave quarters then.’
‘Are you a slave too?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, in a way that implied it was obvious.
‘I’m not,’ Aquila boasted. ‘I’m free-born.’
A frown crossed her face, as though the notion of anyone not being a slave was strange to her. ‘I don’t think I have ever met anyone free-born, except my master and those he has as guests. If the shepherd comes again, why don’t you knock on my shutter?’
‘Why?’
That threw her slightly and she paused before replying. ‘It’s nice to talk to someone who is not a slave.’ The slight creak of a moving shutter alerted Aquila to the fact that Gadoric was exiting, and he made to move away, followed by a slightly plaintive plea. ‘You will knock next time, won’t you?’
It was two weeks before Gadoric paid another visit to the slave quarters, weeks in which the boy thought a lot about the girl. This time Aquila asked no questions and as soon as the Celt disappeared into Nona’s cubicle he made for Sosia’s shutter. On that occasion the two youngsters just talked, but the third time they touched hands, which created a strange sensation for Aquila, one he had never experienced before, a sort of pleasant ache that ran down his arm then through his whole body.
‘You must be careful, Aquila. We have been told to prepare for Barbinus coming from Rome. When he is here your shepherd knows not to come, and neither should you.’
‘I’m not afraid of Barbinus,’ he said. ‘According to my mama he is a fat slug.’
‘If he is here the male slaves act as proper guards.’
The idea of not meeting Sosia because of Fat Barbinus was, to the boy, ridiculous. ‘Is there not a place we could meet?’
The speed of her reply told Aquila that she had thought about this; that it was no sudden inspiration and he wondered why she had obliged him to pose the question. ‘Where the washing is hung out to dry beyond the barns. It is close to the woods, and far enough from the villa and the slave quarters to be unobserved.’
‘I’ll look out for you.’
‘Be careful.’
That became a regular feature of Aquila’s days; he still hunted with Gadoric, still learnt his skills and his tongue but now it was with one eye cast elsewhere. In the evening, instead of staying with the shepherd, he would dash back to his family hut, Minca at his running heels, to wash off the dirt of the day, before making his way through the woods to the lines of drying washing. Seeing her for the first time in daylight and standing was a pleasant surprise. She had a willowy figure and her hair, tied up during the day, hung long and light brown down to the middle of her back when released. Her face was smooth and unblemished and the smile was even more pleasant when it was lit by the dying rays of the sun.
It was only a few days spent together, time for Aquila to tell her his stories; of his legionary papa, of his mother and the arrangement with Dabo that gave him so much freedom plus the luck of having Gadoric for a friend. She had little to say to match that; born to the Barbinus household she knew no other life, yet she insisted it had been an agreeable upbringing. There were more than enough slaves to carry out the needed tasks, she was never overworked and had only been beaten twice in her life. Her father had been sent away to another property as soon as she was born, lest he neglect his duties, her mother some time later, but the females of the household had raised her as if she was their own.
‘How can you be happy when you are a slave?’
‘I know no other life, Aquila.’
Sosia and Aquila never exchanged anything other than a chaste kiss, but they did hold hands and, despite the obstacles, they talked of a future that could never be. She was a slave and he was free; Sosia belonged to Fat Barbinus, and unless Aquila had the funds to buy and free her, then that’s the way it would stay. The girl adored Minca, whose nose and tongue tended, if they got too close, to come between their faces.
Fulmina sat down heavily on the side of the wooden tub; the washing would have to wait till she had more energy. Perhaps she could card some wool, anything, just to stay sitting for a bit. The ache in her lower belly was getting worse and she seemed to have less strength each day. At first she had put the pain down to some smelly pork that Dabo had delivered, months before, as part of his bond.
‘Typical,’ she said out loud, rubbing her belly, thinking once more it was possibly true. ‘The richer he gets, the meaner he becomes.’
Dabo might not be getting richer but he was certainly acquiring more land. He had taken advantage of the call-up to buy, at rock bottom prices, the farms of other men who had gone off to war. There was much mumbling from the womenfolk about his ability to avoid serving in the legions, as well as the way he used his ‘phantom’ dilectus to avoid paying taxes — if he was not here, if he was serving in the legions, he was not liable. The men moaned too, but while most guessed what had happened, they did not let on, it being a bad idea to inform anyone in authority about anything, because once they started poking their noses in to people’s lives, you never knew what they would turn up. And really, anyone who could get one over on those in power, unless they happened to be a miserable sod like Dabo, was openly admired rather than condemned.
She looked out of the door of the hut. It was getting late and she spoke again, softly. ‘Where is that boy.’
Aquila was rarely home, up at the crack of dawn and off to the woods. He had told Fulmina the day they met about his new friend, though not about his way of behaving like an old man and, at first, she had felt inclined to forbid him to see this Gadoric. After all, there were some undesirable folk about and those jokes the men made about shepherds were not always misplaced. Yet it soon became obvious that such a course was impossible unless she found something else for the boy to do, and in her more sanguine moments she was grateful; the slave/shepherd had, these last two seasons, given him an interest in things. That had stopped the boy moaning about the lack of friends to play and hunt with, Aquila quite forgetting, or not caring, that they did not have his freedom. The notion that he should work was never considered; having toiled all her life, Fulmina was not going to see her precious Aquila, bent over, doing the kind of back-breaking labour a boy his age would be consigned to by the likes of Dabo. He was destined for greater things.
But she could not keep him at home all day, so, if he went to the woods, even if he sometimes stayed out most of the night, she just had to trust him, with the help of the gods, to look after himself, something he was going to have to do anyway if this pain got any worse. She just wished he would give up bringing that huge dog
