The Songs of Slaves (22 page)

             
Connor approached Montevarius lead body servant
–
an old man with a permanent suspicious look
in his eyes. He pulled Aristotle’s work from his satchel and went to hand it to the man. But Connor realized that this slave could be just as likely to steal it or to mislay it as anyone else, and then the blame would still lay on him.

             
“Be certain to give this book to the
Dominus
,” Connor said loud enough so that the Master may hear him.

             
Apparently, he was louder than he had meant to be, for the entire table of guests took notice.

             
Montevarius looked at him, somewhat perturbed.

             
“Forgive my interruption,” Connor said with a perfunctory bow. “
Dominus
, I brought back your book.”

             
For a moment, Lucius Montevarius did not seem to remember the book; but then recollection dawned on him. He turned to his guests, who
–
Paulinus especially
–
seemed to be waiting for Connor to be thrashed.

             
“So some months ago, I went to the market in Massilia, where a stingy little Greek sold me a heavy lifter from Hibernia,” Montevarius said. “No sooner do I get him home then I find that he actually reads and writes Latin and Greek. Now it seems he borrows my
books.”

             
Connor colored as all eyes turned incredulously back to him.

             
“Really?”
Paulinus said. “Remarkable. Indeed, so much for the shrewdness of the Greeks if they sell a scholar as a lifter! But many of my clients
–
officers and executives of Constantine’s
, therefore
men who would know
–
say that the Hibernians are the most savage and untrainable of all barbarians.”

             
“He was raised by priests, it would seem”

             
“Well, God be praised!” Paulinus bellowed, raising his goblet. He commenced to another fit of derisive laughter.

             
“It seems that you are as lucky as you are credited to be,” another of the guests chimed in.

             
“Yes,” said Mercius; trying to tag along with the adults now that condescension was involved. “You purchased a monkey, only to find that it can already dance and perform tricks.”

             
“Perhaps I could borrow him for my next party;” Paulinus said “if he knows any Ovid at least.”

             
“Friends,” Montevarius said, rising to his feet. “The next course of our meal is not yet ready. Perhaps we should like some shade and some music.”

             
The guests rose, taking their goblets with them. Connor turned to see that
Lucia
had already disappeared. He turned to take leave of Montevarius, but the
Dominus’
attention was already elsewhere. As the crowd began to move for the shade of the ornamental arcades, Connor slipped away.

             
He trotted down the steps and across the greenway. His ears were hot, and his face red with the sting of the insults. His mind returned to the litany of anger against his captors
–
the scab again rubbed open by the disdain of these men whom God seemed to favor so. But his contempt failed to hold his own attention, for the rumors he had heard pushed forward in his head. So there was trouble. Trouble that was big enough
–
despite the flippant façade the men of business were putting up
–
to worry
everyone.
Upheaval.
That is why the slave traders had not been able to sell him for what they expected
–
in the brief time they were away, change had come. And more was coming, it would seem. And the ruling class was afraid. They were afraid for their peace, and their normalcy. Their commerce and their comfort were at high risk. But what did a slave have to
fear?
Nothing.
As the book asserted,
other men were making the decisions and other men were
taking the risks. What was the worst that could happen?
Death?
He had faced that enough. No. The worst that was likely to happen was to change hands. And was that not worth the risk just to see justice done?

             
But even as the scent of the summer lilacs wafted around him, and the lavender fields to the right of the path moved in the breeze, he could not feel that he wanted that. If justice was the coming of indiscriminant destruction, how could he desire it? This place was not about Lucius Montevarius. It was not about
Lucia
. It was not about Roman order. It was about all of them who lived there, all of them who worked to make it beautiful and who benefited from the bounty of the land. Let trouble come to the north or to the south
, but l
et this place remain untouched by it; for the desire of his people
–
of his fellow slaves
–
was to get the good out of each day. The strength of his people was to put one foot in front of the other, oblivious to troubles or tyrants.

             
Connor spit on the ground and cursed
–
he had been reading too much Aristotle. Best go make something of his afternoon off
–
to find one of the girls who would be hanging around, and get back home and get drunk.

             
Through the trees across the clearing, Connor spied Mercius, a good ways off. His boredom had gotten the better of him, and he had broken away from the others to amuse himself by abusing a slave old enough to be his grandfather.

             
“To Hell with that whelp,” Connor said under his breath, and moved on. 

             
He took a shortcut through a field of high grass and red poppies, between the avenue of trees and a copse of dense wood. He wove his way through a curtain of ivy, where several willow trees formed a near-perfect ring. The stream was not far, and he could follow that back.

             
He almost missed
Lucia
, sitting on the ground with her back against the far willow. Her knees were folded to her chest and her face was in her hands. Though she made no sound, Connor knew that she was crying.

             
The girl looked up angrily, perhaps thinking that the slave had come to summon her back to her father. Connor nodded his head, more in a greeting
–
as he would have done back home
–
than in a sign of submission. Realizing that her face must be giving her thoughts away,
Lucia
buried her head in arms.

             
Connor’s immediate response was to go and sit beside her, to try to comfort her. He realized at once that this was just the girl’s charm playing on him. Dervel and Cumragh used to always remark of his warm heart, but that heart had no place here. It was doubtful that the master’s daughter needed much comfort from a field slave.

             
“Excuse me,
Domina
,” Connor said. “Sorry to disturb you. I was just passing through.”

             
“Wait,”
Lucia
said.

             
Connor stopped and turned towards her. He could see that from her vantage point Mercius was visible off across the field.

             
At first,
Lucia
remained silent. She wiped her tears from her red eyes as she gazed at Connor.

             
“Sing for me,” she said.
“Like you sang when I saw you in the field
–
that sad, sad song.”

             
Connor walked over and sat beside her. He noticed
Lucia
recoil at his impertinence; and he realized that besides
acting very inappropriately,
after the morning of hard work in the heat he probably did not smell very good. But Connor did not care, and
Lucia
settled, even moving slightly closer to him.

             
“I will not sing,
Domina
,” Connor said.

             
“I am ordering you to. My father is
Dominus
here. You must obey me. I have never met a slave as rebellious as you. Your audacity is boundless.”

             
“To obey you I will open my mouth and sound will come out,” Connor said. “But the music you want comes from my heart. How can you think that you can force it from me? Your father imprisons me. Your kind purchased me from men who murdered and brutalized almost everyone I love. Now you want me to bare my soul to you on command, as if I were a puppet? Your audacity,
Domina
, is boundless.”

             
“You are a fool,”
Lucia
said. “And more fool
I
, for talking to you. You think you are the only one who suffers? You think you are the only one who cannot be free? Let me ask you this: If my father were to come right now and set you at liberty, would you even then be free? You talk to me like I am some spoiled child, like I know nothing of the world. But you have your losses, and I have mine. And you want your freedom, and I want mine.”

             
She looked away. Mercius was no longer in view, but she stared into the clearing as if watching him still.

             
“God took your mother because it was her
time,” Connor said, softening. “And your father wants what is best for you.”

             
“What’s best for him, you mean.
For the family.
That boy is to be my husband, and I already hate him. I hate him, and he shall rule over me.”

             
Connor nodded. Tears welled up in
Lucia
’s eyes again, but she did not cry.

             
“I thought about ways to get out of it,” she said, after some time in silence.

             
“Running away is no good,” Connor said. “You would wind up in a far worse state. Your life will not be that bad. He will be busy or away a lot. You can manipulate things to your advantage. You will see. It will be livable.
Better than being dead on the street, or worse.”

             
“I could ruin my virginity,”
Lucia
said. “Ruin it beyond question. Invite scandal upon myself. Paulinus Effacus would terminate the bargain then. I have not done it, but I have thought of it for a long time. I have prayed to the Mother about it. It would be easy. All I would need to do is give
myself
away
–
to one of my brother’s friends, or perhaps a big Germani slave, like you.”

             
Lucia
did not touch him. She did not need to.
Connor felt his face flush. His heart quickened and he sensed himself already growing with energy. His hands began to tremble with readiness. But as he looked at her beautiful, troubled face and the redness in her green eyes, he took a deep breath.

             
“Think of your family. Your father is not acting only in his own interests in this
–
though it may seem that way. He is trying to secure a future for you, so that your family can continue. What would this do to the love you share? Would you not escape Mercius, only to find that you have ruined so much of the good left in your life?”

             
“He has my brother.”

             
“Your brother –
” Connor began, but then bit off the slew of insults before they could erupt.

             
“Where is your brother when the barrels are transferred?” he said instead. “Where is he when the grapes are pruned? Where is he when the wine is checked? Or when it is mixed? Or loaded? Or when your father pours over his records and tallies? Will he even be there at harvest time?”

             
Lucia
said nothing.

             
“Look,
” Connor continued. “You are a beautiful young lady from a noble family. God has, it seems,
favored you. Maybe you are right
–
that we all suffer in different ways. But we all must respect ourselves, and those who love us. Do not do something you cannot undo, and be the reason for your own demise.”

             
He could not believe he was saying this to her. She had not exactly offered, but she had suggested. What a fool he was to turn her down, missing the chance to take her and take perfect revenge on her family all at once.
And for what?
Doubtlessly, some other mongrel would not
hesitate to act the next time Lucia’s
hopelessness got the better of her. But his heart warmed. He would not be untrue. And for some reason, he could extend no ill will to this girl.