He sniffed. Better, he allowed cautiously. The odor was still there, faintly, but at least he could breathe without half-choking on the smell. He finished up his latrine duties by checking the chamber pot in Adflicta's private sleeping chamber, taking care not to disturb the domina as her maidservants prepared her for bed. She was saying bitterly, "It's bad enough he works, but to sell slaves to that superstitious libertine, Publius Bericus..."
Charlie got the hell out. When Mistress was in that mood, she was nearly as dangerous as Master. She'd once had a hairdresser crucified for tugging too hard on a tendril of hair. At least she hated Publius Bericus as much as Charlie did. For any Roman to call another Roman "superstitious" was the height of insult. Calling him libertine paled by comparison. Many a Roman's conduct earned him the name libertine. But no public man wanted to be known as someone so superstitious, he'd tremble before the gods like a slave before his master.
Charlie emptied the chamber pot, which was no longer needed, put it away with the brush and coil of rope, and got busy with his main evening chore: feeding those slaves valuable enough to be kept at Xanthus' home while awaiting sale. They were housed in the west wing, in tiny, dark rooms barred from the outside. Their doors opened onto an interior portico that bordered a pleasant peristyle garden, which made viewing by potential customers both simple and pleasant. Because they were valuable stock, Xanthus included cut-up figs in the wheat gruel which comprised the standard slave diet.
Before his crippling injury and sale to Xanthus, Charlie had eaten figs in his gruel, too, although back then it had been barley gruel, not wheat. The school which had owned him had wanted a man at top fighting form—but without the independent will to rebel. So they'd given him figs with his barley, a diet believed to give gladiators strength. Meat, of course, had been strictly forbidden. Rome still remembered Spartacus' rebellion as vividly as Charlie remembered the movie—and its ending. The school's barracks masters had talked of Spartacus often enough when beating him and the other gladiators into submission.
Charlie shivered and thrust aside memory of those tiny, windowless little rooms; of the cold-eyed, alert soldiers on guard during practice sessions; the whips and brands and chains and men driven to suicide...
Better to think of food. Memory of two years in that hell wouldn't keep him alive. Food—and thinking up new ways to get it—would. Charlie hadn't believed it would be possible to miss a handful of half-rotten figs so desperately. After a few months with Xanthus, he'd grown so desperate for a more balanced diet, he'd started setting snares for rats. Not only had he eaten them—raw—he'd been glad for the solid protein. A seemingly endless supply wandered into Charlie's snares along the river, which also hid the debris from his illicit meals.
But catching rats wasn't the only way to sneak food. Charlie entered the peristyle garden, empty at this hour, and pushed his cart toward the west wing, then paused in the darkness to bolt down five dipperfuls of fig-laden gruel as fast as he could swallow, not bothering even to chew. Food eased the hollow in his belly and the trembling in his limbs, enough that he could continue working, anyway. Charlie risked another quick couple of dipperfuls, then busied himself feeding his master's most valuable for-sale stock.
He stopped at each room in turn, made certain the occupant of each cell had water to drink, then dished out gruel from the bucket the cook had given him. None of the slaves ever offered to escape. Most seemed deeply grateful for the twice-a-day visits he made.
Most of what Charlie had learned about his new "home" he had learned from other slaves eager to talk to someone. Even gladiators trained to fight to the death had wanted someone to talk to on long, empty nights. Many of Xanthus' slaves openly pitied him. Charlie cordially hated them all. That didn't stop him from using them to improve his understanding of Latin. Learning the language of his masters was better than dwelling on the miracles of surgery which remained nearly two thousand years beyond his grasp.
The last door on the right was open. Lamplight flickered inside. Charlie frowned. That room had been empty for weeks. He limped to the doorway and found Sextus busily engaged bathing the new girl. Charlie glanced hastily away and retraced his steps. If Xanthus had Sextus watching her, she must be a virgin. She hadn't looked young enough. He was betting she hadn't seen her twelfth birthday for at least three years. But if Sextus were involved...
Charlie shivered and felt the icy hatred in his soul tighten down another notch. Xanthus and that other trader were going to sell that poor, untouched kid to Publius Bericus. Not only did they have no pity, clearly they had no souls.
Charlie returned the empty gruel bucket to the kitchen, then found his broom and a flint and pyrite. He lit lamps and torches in the garden so he could see what he was doing, then got busy sweeping the peristyle portico, a chore he was not permitted to shirk no matter how late other chores kept this one waiting. Dust coated the tile floor, along with leaves, twigs, and flower petals blown in from the garden by stray breezes.
He loathed the broom itself, which was difficult to use without propping his crutch against the wall, but the job was just about the least strenuous of his major daily tasks. Charlie took full advantage of his slowness of foot to stretch that job as long as humanly possible—without risking punishment, of course. Usually, he had the peristyle garden to himself.
He enjoyed the silence. Starlight fell across statuary that reminded Charlie of a trip his grade-school class had made into the City, to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Even there, however, his new reality jarred unpleasantly with his old life. Unlike the museum statues, these had been painted in lifelike tints, which only underscored the differentness of the world into which he'd been dumped.
Charlie thrust away all memories of his former life and concentrated on the scent of the flowers and the splash of the courtyard fountain. Charlie enjoyed this garden more than anything else in his new life. It was very nearly the sole pleasure he managed to wring from his existence, which left him deeply jealous of the time he spent here. Thoughts of other fleeting pleasures brought a tremble to his torso.
Publius Bericus, not Xanthus, had possession of Charlie's only surviving, born-healthy-and-normal child, sired on a woman newly brought in from the frontier, where lead had not yet had its chance to creep into her blood. Charlie halted in the middle of a row of tiles, wondering with a helpless ache in his soul if Bericus had abused his little girl yet. Surely not?
Little Lucania wasn't even a year old, the very first child he'd been essentially forced into siring on a sweet but unfortunate slave girl who didn't particularly want to become pregnant with a killer's child. Surely Bericus hadn't hurt Lucania yet? Not even Bericus could be such a monstrous libertine as that. Could he?
Charlie closed his eyes as hurt throbbed through him. He wondered what his one surviving little girl looked like. He would probably never know. He doubted Bericus would keep a girl who couldn't fight in the Circus Maximus. Not unless he really were into child rape.
Enough Romans were—he'd seen the girls on the auction blocks, sold into brothels—Charlie closed his hands on the wooden handle of his broom until his palms burned against rough wood. Charlie wanted to hurt Publius Bericus and Xanthus Imbros Brutus as desperately as they'd hurt him—and knew there would never be a way to do it. Not and survive. Not and protect Lucania's life, too.