"Open your mouth," the governor said unexpectedly.
Casca did as he was told, and Crespas bent over close and looked inside. "The best way to check a man's health is to look at his teeth," the governor said, not so much in explanation as in the manner of a pedagogue lecturing scholars. "If the teeth are rotten, so is the man's health. And yours, my fine Hercules, are in excellent shape."
Minitre had by this time appeared and with the proper amount of bowing and scraping got the governor's attention. Crespas turned to him and asked: "Is this slave in your custody?" Minitre quickly affirmed that Casca was. Again Crespas walked around Casca, poking and prodding as if he were a horse he was contemplating buying.
"Good enough," he finally said. "Have him assigned to my household staff. I want him in new clothes and presented to me in my villa tomorrow evening. I have something interesting to propose to him. Enough. Take him and begone. Oh, by the way, have the local vigiles clean this carrion up before they start to stink."
When they were out of sight of the governor, Minitre grasped Casca's hand in joy. "We did it! He's going to set you free! Man, we have done it!"
Casca joined in the joy of the moment… but something dark in the caverns of his brain bothered him… he could not tell what it was.
Minitre did as the governor ordered, informed the vigiles where to pick up the bodies, and returned with Casca to the mines to prepare him for his audience.
THIRTEEN
"Lucius, do you think we did it? Will the governor set me free?"
Minitre smiled, content with the day's deeds. "Certainly, Casca. When you are presented to him tomorrow, he will most certainly give you freedom in recognition of your saving his precious hide and ridding his province of two desperate criminals."
Casca looked closely at the overseer. He had grown used to Minitre's liking for flowery speech, but it did seem that the man's answer had been just a little too long… almost as though he were trying to convince himself that there was no doubt.
"I don't know, Lucius. Did you see the way he looked me over? I think he has something else on his mind."
"What?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, don't worry about it. Just because he looked you over doesn't mean anything. Men like him think all the rest of the human race are cattle.
That's all there is to it." The contentment was genuine.
"Well, I don't know. Maybe you're right."
"Sure I'm right."
They made their way back to the quay where the rest of the slaves were involved with unloading supplies for the mines. Without being told, Casca joined in the job while Minitre played his role of supervisor. It was not that Casca was all that eager to work. The truth of it was that this was a good way to get his mind off the excitement of the possibility of freedom being so near.
The job was done in a couple of hours, and the slaves started back up the road to the mines. Casca and Minitre were silent, each lost in his own thoughts and interpretations of the day's events. Neither felt any remorse for the dead thieves.
They arrived in time for the evening meal. Each slave went to his assigned barracks, rinsed off, took his bowl and spoon, and ate from the communal pot. In his excitement, Casca tasted nothing that he ate and only vaguely acknowledged that his stomach had anything in it. When he went to his bunk and lay down, he fell asleep almost instantly, as if anxious for the coming dawn.
But his sleep was a troubled one. Several times that night he awoke, returning to a restless slumber that made the night seem longer than it was. Tomorrow would bring freedom. After all the years of being pushed around he was about to reap the reward of asserting himself, of setting in motion a chain of events that would change his destiny. He was tense, uptight. He didn't want to blow this one. The damn night would never end.
But the next day finally came. Casca was given a fresh tunic, ordered to clean up, and told to present himself at the governor's house. Now that the time for action was at hand, some of the tension left him. Besides, Minitre came and wished him luck. The man's round, cherubic face was aglow with pleasure.
"Vale, Casca. Fortune go with you this day…"
But once at the governor's villa, the uneasiness that had been hidden below the level of Casca's conscious mind surfaced. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something about the whole deal that didn't feel quite right. For one thing, the villa was a very imposing place. Crespa had managed to turn this portion of Greece into a miniature Rome and had established a proper Roman domus complete with running water piped in from the hillside. The atrium was handsomely laid out with marble benches and copies of several classic Greek statues. Obviously Crespas was a man who enjoyed the creature comforts… and he was a patrician.
A patrician. Damn it, maybe that was it. Casca had not had what you might call your standard buddy-buddy relationship with the patrician class. And the last patrician who had played a part in his destiny was the snot-nosed son of a bitch Tigelanius who had booted him out of the legion and thrown him into slavery. Tigelanius was long dead now. Casca hoped the worms that had eaten him had died, too, of indigestion.
Careful, though. This patrician, Crespas, held the key to his freedom. He could not let Crespas know he had any prejudice against patricians. Hell, he'd swear before the temple of every god in the Empire that he loved patricians-if that was what it took to get his freedom.
So he followed dutifully after the old slave to whom he had presented himself, Crespas's steward, a slight and meek elder who had served-he had told Casca-Crespas and his family for over forty years. There had been pride in the old man's voice then, but he was silent now as he brought Casca to Crespas's study. Casca could sense something more than deference in the old man. Fear?
It was obvious that Crespas was going over the progress reports from the mines and adjacent areas, probably for the last quarter, and apparently he knew exactly what he was doing. Casca decided that here was a man who knew how to turn a profit, and again the uneasiness haunted him. The study had an air of cold efficiency about it… inhumanity…
Following the steward's example, Casca stood with bowed head until Crespas motioned for him to approach closer to his desk. Reaching up, he took Casca's medallion from him and compared the number with a master list on the desk. When he found what he was looking for, he lifted cold eyes to Casca and studied him intently for an impossibly long moment. There was absolutely no expression on his face. To Casca, it seemed made of marble; the man's thoughts were as impossible to reach as those of a statue. But he had come this far for his freedom, and not even the gods themselves were going to make him back down. He returned the stone stare with one equally as impassive.
Still it bothered Casca. When he had taken the dead slave's medallion, he had not thought about the possibility of a master list. What if Crespas made something of it? He did not relish the possibility of being at the patrician's mercy.
But Crespas said nothing. Instead, he instructed the steward to go bring him certain files, and, while the old steward was out of the room, turned his attention to Casca.
"Your name, slave?"
The manner of speech immediately set Casca down off his anxiety high. The tone said, No freedom today. It brought up memory of the brutal efficiency Crespas had used in crushing the skull of the first thief with his cane. Casca let his voice become that of the typical slave:
"Casca, master."
"Well, Casca, yesterday you did me a service, and I may be of a mind to reward you for it. By the look of you I can tell you are one who is familiar with violence. Several of those cuts on your hide look to have come from bladed weapons. Am I correct?"