TWENTY
Corinium is primarily a
market town, of course, not a colonia like Glevum – no streets of
retired legionaries or heavy garrison – and at this time of the
morning it was abuzz with trade and noise. Even the small street
outside the house, which had seemed so quiet and secluded last
night in the dark, was now full of street-sellers and people plying
wares outside their homes. A man and his four children sat outside
their door, weaving osiers into eel-traps, and an enterprising
cobbler who had set up a small last, paused in his hammering to
hail me as we passed.
He spat out the hobnails he was holding in his
teeth. ‘New sandals, citizen? A special price for you. I’ll take an
outline now and have them finished by tonight?’ He indicated the
leather where I should put my foot so he could scratch a pattern
from my sole. ‘Guaranteed best quality.’ He clutched at my toga but
I eluded him. ‘Make it two pairs, citizen, and I’ll add spare
laces, free.’
I was about to refuse and say I had no purse with
me, but Priscilla took my elbow and steered me straight ahead. ‘Pay
no attention, citizen. You stop and talk to one of them, they’ll
all be after you. You come along with me!’ And she strode
purposefully on.
She was quite right, of course. I was dressed in a
toga and a stranger to the place, and every dealer tried to wheedle
me to buy. There was much to tempt a purchaser: the stalls and
shops sold almost everything from fine imported silver to mended
copper pans; in every doorway there were trays of leather belts,
used clothes, brass ornaments, and pots of eye-ointment, heaped up
on trestle tables and spilling out into the street while the
hawkers invited me to ‘come and look inside’.
Even the pedestrians had dubious offerings: boys
with handcarts hawked firewood, turnips, reed mats and cabbages;
pie-sellers and bakers’ slaves came jostling by, balancing trays of
steaming food upon their heads, and a man with a pair of yoked
pails around his neck accosted me, offering a drink of milk or
fermented whey from a battered metal cup he carried on a chain.
Priscilla waved them all imperiously aside.
As we neared the forum, though, I paused and tugged
her arm. I could see an amanuensis sitting by the wall, among the
moneylenders who were busy at their trade. ‘Is
that . . . ?’ I shouted, doubting she would
hear over the general hubbub of the town.
She shook her head. ‘That’s not the one we used the
other day. It was a young man we hadn’t seen before. Now – you go
down there, and find the slave-market, and I’ll go and see if I can
locate the donkey-boy for you.’ She gestured in the direction I
should take and turned away.
I followed her instructions and was soon in the
square behind the forum, where the butchers had their stalls. It
was also the area where the livestock market was, where all kinds
of domestic animals, including slaves, were sold. The noise and
smell was indescribable. I declined an offer to purchase fresh fish
from a pool or make a choice from buckets full of squirming eels
and, edging round a ragged urchin with a pail (who was scavenging
manure from the road to sell), I spotted the slave trader at the
far end of the square.
He was a swarthy fellow – probably a Greek – and
clearly prosperous. His coloured tunic was of many hues, his cloak
was of expensive scarlet wool and the clasp on his heavy leather
belt appeared to be of gold. When I approached he was already
offering the last lot of the day, a pair of dusky females chained
together by the feet; either he’d had a busy morning or he’d not
had much to sell. He saw me coming over and he called to me at
once.
‘What do you bid me for this pair of slaves?
Guaranteed disease-free and no rotting teeth. Direct from the
Province in North Africa. Not virgins, but they have years of
service left. Come on, citizen, you know you can’t resist.’
I could resist quite easily; I shook my head at
him.
He turned his attention back to the small crowd of
spectators. ‘Well, what am I offered, gentlemen?’ But there was no
response. I could imagine why. Both girls were plain and scrawny,
unwashed and sullen-faced, although I could hardly blame them for
their scowls. I have been offered at a slave-market myself, and I
know the degradation of being just a ‘thing’, to be handled and
inspected by prospective customers who want to feel your muscles
and inspect your teeth. And for females, of course, it was a great
deal worse.
There was a balding, greasy, paunchy fellow in a
toga now, stepping forward and demanding to ‘see the merchandise’.
The girls were stripped naked, and made to turn around while he
examined and prodded every part of them.
‘They will do, I suppose.’ He took the straw that
he was chewing from between his teeth, and made an offer so low it
made me gasp.
The trader shook his head. ‘Cost me more than that
for each of them!’
‘Then you were cheated. Half as much again, and
that’s my final offer.’
There were no other bids forthcoming, it appeared,
and after a little more haggling the females had changed hands.
Their new master seemed reluctant to allow them to be clothed, but
they were put back in their tunics and led away, still chained,
while he casually pinched and fondled any part that he could reach.
I almost wished I had a purse so I could have rescued them from
this, but I had no money and certainly I did not need two extra
mouths to feed.
The small crowd that had gathered began to drift
away, now that there was nothing more to see. The slave trader
slipped his takings into his leather pouch and sauntered over to
speak to me.
‘You wanted something, citizen? You were too late,
I fear. I had quite a good selection a little earlier. Next moon,
perhaps, when I’m this way again. Were you looking for something in
particular?’
‘I believe you know a certain Paulinus, who has a
farm a little way from here? You sold him a mute slave-woman to
tend his child, I think?’
He leaned back on his heels and gave me a strange
leer. ‘It will cost you extra if you have special tastes. It’s very
hard to find a slave that doesn’t speak. Why would you want one
anyway? Different for that Paulinus, he has a deaf-mute child. If
you want a girl that can’t protest, just put a gag on her. Now, if
you want something special, I shall have a girl next week—’
I cut him off before he imagined any worse of me.
‘I do not want a girl of any kind. I have all the slaves I want. I
am interested in information about Paulinus, that’s all.’
The leer transmuted to a crafty look. ‘With
respect, citizen, why should I give you that? I deal in slaves, not
information about my customers. Unless of
course . . .’ He rubbed his thumb against his first
two fingers in the time-honoured signal that he wanted to be
paid.
I shook my head. ‘I haven’t any money that I can
offer you. It is on my patron’s orders that I am asking you.’ That
was true, in a circuitous sort of way. ‘Marcus Aurelius Septimus.
Perhaps you know the name?’ Marcus, of course, had a substantial
residence in this town. I could be cunning, in my fashion,
too.
It worked. The slave trader’s expression changed
like quicksilver. ‘Why did you not say so when you first arrived?
Of course I have had dealings with His Excellence. I’ve sold him
several slaves – though he often prefers to have the more expensive
ones the specialists bring in. So, how can I help you? What is it
about Paulinus that you want to know?’
‘Have you known him long?’
He seemed to contemplate. ‘Eight years or so, I
suppose. We first met when I found him a house-slave when he
married first, but when his wife died he sold that servant on.
Wanted to use the money to help that girl of his, but how he
managed in the house without a slave I don’t know. So when I heard
about the mute I sent him word at once and he sent back agreeing to
the price, and saying he would pick her up as soon as
possible.’
‘And that is what he did?’
He nodded. ‘He seems to be extremely pleased with
her – and she could hardly believe her own good luck. After she’d
had that injury and lost the power of speech, her owners didn’t
want her, they thought she was a freak. They were going to cast her
out – they actually approached me to find a substitute, but I
thought of Paulinus and purchased her myself. The moment that he
bought her, she bent and kissed his feet – she had feared that she
would end up as a beggar at the tombs. So everyone was happy. I
made a profit, too.’
‘So you’ve known Paulinus for some little time?’ I
said.
He frowned at me. ‘Have I not just said so,
citizen?’
‘And you can confirm it was the same man that came
here yesterday?’
‘Of course I can. You could not mistake him, he is
very tall and thin, gentle, anxious-looking, with an air of mild
bewilderment at fate. I don’t know why it is important, citizen,
but it was definitely Paulinus in the market yesterday – though of
course, I hadn’t seen that brand-new wife of his before. Not that I
had very much to do with her. She was buying something from the
garment stall. It was Paulinus who came to talk about the
mute.’
‘And he also bought a little page from you? Though
not a very trained one, from what I hear of it.’
He shook his head. ‘Not me, citizen. I don’t deal
in children very much. More trouble than they’re worth. You have to
feed and train them before they’re fit to sell, and even then you
can be undercut by amateurs – peasants wanting to sell one child so
they can afford to feed the rest. If Paulinus bought a pageboy
yesterday, then it was not from me. More likely from one of those
peasant families. In fact I think I saw him talk to one of them.
You’ll find them over there – in the corner by the
fish-market.’
‘I’ll go and ask,’ I said. ‘I would like to talk to
the family of that lad.’
He stuck his fat thumbs into his leather belt. ‘I
shouldn’t bother, citizen. You won’t find that family now. These
paupers only ever bring a single child to sell – and that
reluctantly. Once they’ve got the money they go back home again and
try to scratch a living for another year – until they end up
starving, and have to sell another one. It’s usually a boy, they
bring a better price. Sometimes, especially if the winter’s bad,
children are the only saleable asset that they have.’
I tried to envisage how my adopted son would feel
if he was forced to sell his own beloved child to keep the rest of
the family alive, but my imagination failed me. I shook my head.
‘Then I will try to find Paulinus at his farm and see if he can
tell what I want to know. You have been most helpful. Thank you
very much.’
He gave me that sideways look again. ‘Perhaps
you’ll tell your patron if I have been of use? But you look as if
my information was not quite what you had hoped.’
I gave a rueful smile. ‘It seems to disprove a
theory that I had, that’s all. There is a mystery surrounding his
family yesterday and now I’ll have to find another explanation of
events.’
‘Is this about that Vestal Virgin who was here? She
was some relation, wasn’t she?’ He caught sight of my face. ‘It is
no “mystery” how I came to know that, citizen – he was so proud of
it, he told me she was coming the last time that we met.’
So there was yet another way in which the Druids
could have learned the news! I sighed. ‘Well, there’s nothing else
to do but go out to the farm and try and talk to Paulinus himself.
He and his family might have noticed something, I suppose.’ I
glanced up and saw Priscilla striding through the square,
accompanied by an urchin with a donkey on a string. ‘And here, I
hope, is someone who is going to guide me there.’
The slave trader flashed his pointed teeth at me.
‘Well, remember, citizen, I’m here three days each moon. If you
ever need a slave-girl or a manservant – indoors or outdoors – I
always have a range.’ He winked. ‘And – in future – since you’re
the protégé of His Excellence, I’m sure I can manage a special rate
for you.’
I thanked him and turned away to greet Priscilla
and the boy.