I’d known that would come at a price. Apart from the financial district across the river, the Caelian was now the only decent part of Rome to live in. All the best people were there or trying to buy their way in. Most of the few habitable buildings that came on the market were being snapped up long before they got to auction.
I’d been glad enough when the agent had found me this place. It had needed new floors throughout and much new plastering, but had been sound in its externals. So why were those swindling beasts putting in bills for new roof tiles? Indeed, bearing in mind the perfectly good tiles that could be harvested for free from the derelict properties at the foot of the hill, why charge at all for the things?
‘I suppose they think I was born yesterday,’ I sneered to myself. The more money you have, I can tell you, the more careful you become about giving it away. I took up a stylus and scratched through that part of the bill. There was room enough at the foot of the waxed tablet for some nasty comment. I looked up and tried to think of something cutting but simple enough for the owner of the building company to understand.
My slave Authari knocked and put his head round the door. ‘The Lady Marcella and her man of law beg to be received,’ he said in the pompous manner he’d got from his last owner.
‘Do then show them in,’ I said, rising from my desk. ‘And do send in wine and cakes,’ I added. ‘We have important business to transact.’
He stepped fully through the door. ‘Begging your pardon, Master,’ he said, ‘but the good wine is all spoiled.’
He stood in a late ray of sunlight that slanted through the overhead window. Except that the battle scar on his face shone more livid than usual, his expression remained as bland as the Dispensator’s. As I opened my mouth to speak, Marcella came into the room. She wore a confection of silk that might have harmonised with the fresh blackness of her hair, but for the green tinge she’d taken of late to adding to the lead paste that covered her wrinkles.
‘Well, young Alaric,’ she said, not waiting for the formal greeting. ‘You’ve certainly brought this place on. My dear husband – the Senator, you know, or would have been had God spared him – couldn’t have done no better himself.’
‘Dearest Marcella,’ said I, ‘you are always welcome in my house – just as I was in yours. If you are no longer my landlady, I rejoice daily in your friendship.’
I settled her into a chair and sat down opposite. The lawyer began fussing with his satchel. He wasn’t the jolly little man who’d drafted the terms of the agreement, but someone new – a big creature with a mass of brown hair and with bags under his cold, glittering eyes.
Another slave entered carrying a tray. The wine was an embarrassment but, served in those nice glass cups the builders had dug out of the basement, no one had any right to notice.
‘The provisional agreement’, said the lawyer, still on his feet, ‘was made on the Kalends of May between the Lady Marcella, relict of the sub-Clarissimus Porcinus, official in the Imperial Service, and Alaric, citizen from the presently alienated Province of Britain. The citizen Alaric, believing himself to have got with child one Gretel, a slave in the household of the Lady Marcella, has offered a price to be agreed by further negotiation for the sale of the said Gretel. He has further offered to continue paying rent on his suite in the house of the Lady Marcella until such time as the said Gretel shall have been transferred to his ownership and until such time as his own house shall be ready to receive…’
And on and on the man droned, going through all the formalities of the sale. I thought back to that winter afternoon when the first upper rooms in the house had been ready for occupation and I’d sent off with an excuse to get Gretel to come over. She’d said to be careful as I ripped at her clothes and pulled her on to the new bed. But I’d been too drunk on unmixed wine and self-love to pay attention. Sure enough, my seed fell on good ground and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased. As I watched her belly take on a firm roundness, my joy and excitement had passed into a fixed intention.
The droning came to an end and I pulled myself back to the present.
‘So,’ I said, ‘we need to agree the price, and then we can sign the contract. I believe the practice is to name an arbitrator in case of disagreement – though I hardly think that will be necessary.’
I leaned forward and poured another two cups of wine.
A look flashed between the lawyer and Marcella. Before anything could register in my mind, I could feel the sweat breaking out on my upper back. I sat up and looked properly at her in the fading light. She wasn’t quite her normal self.
‘I apologise if I have not made myself plain,’ the lawyer took up again. ‘Allow me to explain further. The provisional agreement was that you were buying the slave Gretel for the purpose of marrying her and acknowledging her child as your own. We have, however, received information that you are already married – to a barbarian woman in the Province of Britain, on whom you fathered a son before settling in Rome.’
For the second time that day, my mouth fell open. That Edwina had given birth to a son was more news than I’d been able to get out of Canterbury. My repeated letters to Bishop Lawrence had either gone unanswered or received evasive replies.
And married to Edwina? Well, if Ethelbert, that murderous royal shitbag, had confirmed my noble status and let me marry the girl, I’d never have had to leave Kent.
What was going on? I closed my eyes and commanded the winey clouds to disperse.
‘The Lady Marcella must be aware’, I said, ‘that I am not married, in Britain or anywhere else. I am prepared to swear to that in any church she cares to name. She is misinformed.’
‘I must insist’, the lawyer replied, ‘that My Lady has her information from an unimpeachable source. She cannot possibly consent to a sale that would enable fornication. In a word, the contract is void, on the grounds of fundamental immorality in its subject matter. Such I am instructed to argue for my client in any legal proceedings.’
‘That’s right, young Alaric,’ the old witch broke in. ‘That Gretel is a right hot-arsed prick-teaser – if you’ll pardon my Greek. You don’t know that trash in her belly is yours. You just forget her and send for that nice girl you left behind in Britain. I’m told she’s very well-born, even if a barbarian. And she must be fair pining for you after such a long time away. As for that tramp Gretel, I curse the day I let her bring you washing water.
‘Tomorrow morning, first thing, I’m selling her to the brothel I shouldn’t never have saved her from when she was brung to market from the Lombards.’
I ignored Marcella. I turned in my chair and spoke directly to the lawyer.
‘You will inform your client, or at least the Lady Marcella,’ I said coldly, ‘that whatever information may have arrived from Britain is false. I am not, nor ever have been, married. I have negotiated in good faith for the sale of Gretel. It is my intention to marry her the moment I have freed her.
‘One way or another, the agreed transfer will go ahead. It may be by friendly consent. It may be on the judgement of the Prefect. It may be following some other process. Until such time as that happens, the Lady Marcella will retain Gretel in her own household and will continue to allow her all the indulgences we agreed when her pregnancy was confirmed. Do I make myself clear?’
Marcella glanced away from me. She looked suddenly a good fifty years older than the eighty I’d always taken her for. The lawyer looked back at me, unimpressed.
‘I understand the slave’s child is due in October,’ he said. ‘You will be aware, I have no doubt, of the great length that legal proceedings can often reach. You will equally be aware that, unless the mother is freed at any time between conception and birth, the child will also be a slave. Even if subsequently freed, the child will suffer certain disabilities. This might not count much in the case of a girl. Boys, however-’