The man was led off the stage to a small pen where a scribe noted the details of the sale on a waxed tablet and collected payment from the buyer. The second Nubian went for a similar price and then the two teenage boys were bought for much less by a tall thin man with neatly oiled hair and kohl around his eyes. The auctioneer mopped his brow with a rag and then indicated Marcus and his mother.
‘The final lot in this morning’s sale, honoured ladies and gentlemen. A mother and son. The woman is not yet thirty. She can cook and weave and should be fertile enough to breed for some years yet. The boy is ten and in good health. He has been taught to read, write and count. With a little training he could be useful in a trade.’
Marcus lowered his head in shame. To hear himself and his mother described in this way made him feel no better than an animal.
‘I am sure you’ll agree, they make a fine deal together,’ the auctioneer continued. ‘Of course, any buyer with a shrewd eye for a bargain might consider selling the boy on when he is a little older. And if the woman is productive, who knows what profits she might yield from breeding?’
‘No!’ Marcus yelled out. ‘You can’t do this! We were kidnapped!’
The auctioneer nodded quickly to the guard, who slapped Marcus hard about the face, knocking him down on to the stage. The crowd roared with laughter. The guard clenched his fist in Marcus’s hair and pulled him back on to his feet, hissing into his ear, ‘One more word from you and it’ll be your mother I hurt, not you. Understand?’
Marcus nodded, trying not to cry as his scalp burned with pain. The guard held him by the hair a moment longer before releasing him.
‘The boy just needs a firm hand, as you can see,’ the auctioneer said, grinning falsely. ‘So who will open the bidding?’
There was a brief pause as the audience considered the two desperate-looking figures and then a large man with a cruel face started to raise his hand. Before he could speak, there was a shout from near the back of the crowd.
‘Stop there! They are not for sale!’
The auctioneer and the crowd turned towards the voice. Marcus, too, tried to see who had spoken, as a faint hope kindled in his breast. Perhaps this was it. The moment he had prayed for. Perhaps they were saved.
A figure pushed through the crowd and, as the man approached the stage, Marcus recognized him, and his heart sank like a stone.
Thermon.
He climbed on to the stage as the auctioneer regarded him crossly, arms on his fleshy hips. ‘What is the meaning of this? What do you mean, they’re not for sale?’
‘I speak for Decimus. I am his steward,’ Thermon replied haughtily. ‘My master says that these two will not be sold after all.’
‘Not sold?’ The auctioneer raised his eyebrows. ‘Why ever not?’
‘I don’t need to explain the reason to you. It is the will of my master. Understand?’
The auctioneer nodded. ‘As you wish.’ He turned to the guard. ‘Remove them. Back to the cell.’
As the crowd fell to mumbling at the surprise turn of events, Thermon approached Marcus and his mother.
‘Decimus has changed his mind.’ He smiled coldly and Marcus felt the hairs tingle on the back of his neck as Thermon continued, ‘He’s got something else in mind for you two.’
7
Soon after they were returned to their cell, a man entered the courtyard. He was slightly built and tall, and his narrow face made him look taller still. Except for a fringe of silvery hair he was completely bald and his scalp gleamed as if it had been polished. Marcus noticed that he walked with a limp that he tried to conceal as far as he could by walking slowly. He wore a silk tunic with pale leather boots and there was a gold torc around each of his wrists.
The man smiled thinly as he approached the bars of the cell. ‘The delightful wife of Centurion Titus and his young boy, if I am not mistaken. I imagine that you can guess who I am.’
Marcus’s mother kept her expression fixed as she regarded the man. He shrugged and tilted his head slightly to one side. ‘Well, I am disappointed. I had hoped that the wife of one of General Pompeius’s finest centurions would be more polite. Never mind. So, then, I am Decimus. Town father of Stratos and a duly appointed tax collector of Graecia.’ He bowed his head in a mock greeting. He regarded them for a moment in silence before his expression turned into a sneer. ‘Not so high and mighty now, are you? Neither you, nor that fool Titus. Arrogant as ever, thinking that he could ignore his debt and send my men packing. It’s been a long time coming, but now I have paid him back, in his own coin as it were.’
He suddenly pretended to look surprised and clicked his fingers. ‘Oh! But I imagine that you didn’t know that your husband and I were old friends. Perhaps not friends, but certainly comrades.’
Marcus looked up at his mother, but she still refused to speak.
‘We served in the glorious Sixteenth Legion in Spain. Under Pompeius. We were optios. Do you know what that means? We were the men waiting for the chance to be promoted to centurion. Then the chance came. One of the centurions was killed in a skirmish and good old Titus and I were waiting to see which of us would get the promotion. It should have been me. I was the better soldier, without a doubt. Everyone knew it. Anyway, the day before the General made his choice, Titus and I had a little drink. Then another, and one thing led to the next, and then he suggested we have a little mock swordplay, to prove who was the better swordsman. Just for fun, you understand. Only it wasn’t just for fun. Titus wasn’t even drunk, he was pretending to be. We feinted and parried and then he seemed to slip, tripping forward, and his sword tore through my thigh.’
Decimus moved closer to the bars. He seemed to have forgotten Marcus’s mother and was now looking intensely at Marcus. ‘An accident, you see? So I didn’t tell on him.’ Decimus smiled bitterly. ‘The wound was bad enough for the legion to discharge me. There I was, out on my ear, and Titus got the promotion. He always claimed it was an accident, of course. Wait, I’ll show you.’
Decimus lifted the corner of his tunic and raised it to reveal his right thigh. Marcus sucked in his breath as he saw a thick, white, knotted length of scar tissue stretching up from the knee.
‘Quite a scar, isn’t it, my boy?’ Decimus lowered the tunic. ‘I suppose your father did me a favour in a way. If I had stayed in the army, I would have ended up on a miserable little farm on the side of some obscure island, just like him. As it was, I made my fortune in supplying grain to the legions. I bribed the right people and won the contract for tax collection in this province. You can imagine my surprise, and then my joy, when Titus approached me for a loan. I expect he thought that “time was a great healer”. Not for me it wasn’t. So I loaned him some money, on easy terms – easy enough to encourage him to borrow more, and before too long he was deeply in debt and I had a legal right to take my revenge.’ He held up his hands. ‘You know the rest of the story.’
Marcus’s mother cleared her throat and spoke firmly. ‘You may have had the legal right to recover your debt, but not to murder Titus and enslave his family.’
‘Really? I merely sent my men to collect what was owed to me. The fact that your husband resisted violently and unfortunately died as a consequence is not my fault. As any court in this town would agree.’
‘I wonder if General Pompeius will agree when he hears of this outrage?’
‘General Pompeius will never find out. I am not a fool, Livia. If word ever got to Pompeius that one of his veterans had suffered such a fate, he would visit his anger on the man responsible, sure enough. That’s why you were pulled out of the auction.’ Decimus smiled. ‘That was just a little performance for my benefit, so that I could wring another drop of revenge out of the situation. I could never afford to let you be bought by someone who might well listen to your story and believe that you had been wronged.’