Lucilia smiled reassuringly. ‘If it makes you feel better, just keep the slaves long enough to know that they’re good at the job and trustworthy, then give them their freedom along with room and board. But at least then they’ll be bound to you and more careful than those hirelings out there.’
‘I tell you what: five days, and you can come with me and help me choose.’
As the shouting intensified outside, he sighed, kissed his wife on the cheek and strolled off to find his fine Greek clothes to face the day as best he could.
* * * * *
Fronto lurched to the side as a burly Greek with a two-week beard, reeking of sour wine, pushed past him into the throng of the agora and on into the crowd, muttering something angrily. His grumbling was soon lost in the general chaos and din of arguing amateur philosophers, fishmongers, salesmen, beggars and madmen, though Masgava turned and shot the man the darkest of looks on principle.
The entrance and solid, otherwise-featureless rear wall of the theatre loomed on their right, seated at the foot of the green, rocky hill upon which sat one of the city’s three great temples. To the left, the narrow, disorganised tangle of streets cobwebbed off into the heart of the city, for Massilia’s agora was oddly offset at one end of the wide bay. Behind them the pandemonium of that public space raged and surged like a stormy sea of humanity, but the way ahead was little better. The wide thoroughfare from the agora to the northernmost jetties of the port was packed with life as merchants and teamsters hurried this way and that, carts bouncing and jolting on the cobbled ground, stray dogs winding in and out of the unheeding legs. Men haggled and argued, and the masts of ships were visible over their heads a tantalisingly short distance away. All this, and the sun was still barely over the horizon. On a busy day and with a clear sea, even in winter Massilia made Rome look sedate, calm and organised.
It had taken Fronto some time to get used to the utter bedlam that was the last free Greek city in the west. It had seemed to him that the place had no rules and no order, but long-term exposure was teaching him otherwise. Massilia had its rules and its order, but they were a far cry from the Pax Romana, and a foreigner could never hope to understand the workings of the city-state or the Hellene mind behind it in a year of market days.
Slowly, though, he was unburdening his soul of Roman canker. If only Massilia would stop resisting his acclimatisation…
‘If you would let us come with you armed and in force, you would not have to fight your way through the crowd,’ the huge ex-gladiator grunted.
‘And my almost non-existent popularity would disappear into the cracks between the cobbles, Masgava. It’s all a game.’
‘Other merchants have bodyguards.’ The Numidian threw out a finger and pointed at a man in a yellow chiton, dripping with gold and jewels, surrounded by a gang of burly Gauls in mail shirts, their fingers dancing on the pommels of their swords as they eyed the crowd suspiciously.
‘He’s a Greek. He can afford to stand out because people don’t hate him for what he is.’
Masgava eyed the ostentatious jewellery and snorted. ‘I hate him.’
‘But here and now, sadly, your opinion counts for about the same as mine, which is to say: not at all. Today is about trying to foster good relations with our Greek neighbours, not asserting our Roman-ness with red tunics and blades. Come on, that looks like Irenaeus’ ship.’
As the two men moved on through the crowd, pushing towards the port, Fronto kept his gaze intermittently on the tall mast, which he felt sure would be the friendly Greek’s ship. Very few of the port’s sailors would contemplate a black sail, for the ill luck associated with the colour, though Irenaeus allowed himself this little foible, since at the sail’s centre Apollo’s white raven theoretically overrode all misfortune.
Fronto’s heart sank as he emerged from the crowd with Masgava at his shoulder to see the ship’s owner busily haggling with a Levantine merchant with a beard like the ancient Cypriots or Sumerians, tightly curled, oiled and falling to twin points at his collar bones. Gods, but the sailor was early. It had been said that Irenaeus would be in Tauroentum, a little way along the coast, and would not arrive in Massilia until the middle of the morning. He was, instead, already part unloaded as the height of the ship riding in the water confirmed. He must have arrived before dawn and, since no sailor in their right mind would try the rocky coast of southern Gaul in the dark, he must have actually put in at Massilia late last night.
The Roman’s hopes of getting Irenaeus’ mark before any opposition got to him were almost shattered in that realisation. The only chance was that Hierocles and his fellow arseholes were equally unaware of the new arrival. And that the squint-eyed Levantine currently sealing a deal had not filled the hold with a proposed cargo already.
‘Make sure we’re not interrupted as soon as that Phoenician leaves, alright?’
Masgava nodded and flexed his muscles. A moment later, Fronto was standing a disrespectful three feet behind the intricately-bearded merchant, hovering and trying to catch the eye of Irenaeus. The Levantine had clearly finished his actual business and was now passing the time of day with the Greek captain, and Fronto’s impatience was rising at a dangerous rate. His business was urgent and, while he had no intention of further alienating himself from the city’s Greek populace, he had no trouble arguing with another foreigner who got in his way.
Noisily, he cleared his throat and the Levantine looked around in surprise. As he turned, his face creased into an angry scowl ready to unleash his feelings on Fronto, but the sight of Masgava, looming a foot taller than Fronto and more than a foot wider at the shoulders, all muscles and teeth gleaming in the sun, seemed to rip the invective from his tongue and leave him with a weak apologetic smile.
‘I shall be moving on, sirs. Good day to you captain, and to you, sir.’
Fronto nodded impatiently and waited for the man to be out of the way by only the narrowest of margins before stepping into his place.
‘Irenaeus, you’re early.’
‘Good winds for this time of year, my Roman friend. And your motherland has been almost as kind to me as Poseidon these past weeks.’
His tone was affable, but Fronto was enough of a student of humanity to spot the underlying tension. Something unsaid. Something disquieting. There was a faint troubled look to the man’s eyes, which kept flicking downward.
‘What’s the matter, Irenaeus? You’ve sold off the last of your hold space?’
The Greek’s eyelid twitched as he shook his head.
‘Good, ‘cause I have a shipment of Falernian costing me warehouse fees in Puteoli, and I need to get it here as soon as possible. Your next trip, yes?’
Again, there was a shifty discomfort in the Greek’s expression. ‘How big a shipment?’
‘Forty amphorae, roughly eighty talents in weight, all well-sealed and stamped by the producer. A good shipment, but small enough still to leave room in your hold.’
‘Can we agree on twenty deka?’
Fronto actually stepped back with a blink. Irenaeus had the decency to look rather embarrassed.
‘Two hundred drachma?’ Fronto gasped. ‘For a shipment of forty amphorae? Gods, man. That’s five drachma per jar. I could buy slaves to carry them back from Puteoli for about the same! That’s ridiculous.’ The Roman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Has Hierocles been sniffing around? Did he put you up to this?’
‘It’s the best I can do, Fronto.’
The former legate, seething, glanced down at the document still open on the rickety wooden desk. ‘Bet you can do better for Levantines, eh?’ But his roving eyes picked out what looked like an unreasonably high price on that agreement too and the fire died in the furnace of his anger. Irenaeus looked genuinely unhappy, and the same unreasonable terms had apparently been directed at the unknown easterner who had just left. ‘What’s this all about, Irenaeus? You and I are friends, aren’t we?’