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Xanthus slipped on a patch of moss.
"Rufus!"
Charlie's insides cringed. "Yes, Master?"
The trader had regained his balance, but his face had flushed dangerously under a swarthy complexion. "A week ago, I told you to scrub this dock clean! What if my guest had slipped and fallen on this mess?"
Charlie tried to explain. "Master, your steward has kept me so busy—"
"I don't care what orders my steward left! I'm your master, boy. Never forget that. And I ordered this dock scrubbed."
"Yes, Master, I know that, Master, but Lucius—"
The Lycian Roman grabbed Charlie's shapeless tunic and jerked him off balance. Charlie went down hard, banging both knees on the stone dock. His crutch skittered away. He clenched his jaw shut and bit back any sound, waiting on his knees for his master to pronounce judgment.
Xanthus gazed at him silently for a long moment, evidently waiting for any sign of rebellion. Charlie offered none. His master finally spoke, in a deceptively soft voice Charlie had come to dread. "For two years, Rufus, you thrilled all Rome with your victories. But all through the next two years, you have done nothing but disappoint me again and again. You flout my authority, force me to punish you more harshly than I have wanted. How many times must I say it? Forget what you were. You are no longer Rufus the Champion. No longer a free barbarian, at liberty to do whatever you please. You are a slave, my slave. I had hoped you would prove valuable. You had a duty, boy, and you have failed in it every single time you have been put to the test."
Charlie bristled silently. It was not his fault that lead poisoning had done its work on nearly every child he'd been forced to sire, but lead-linked birth defects were simply unheard of in this time.
So Charlie's master blamed him, not the lead levels of the women they kept bringing to be bred. The one time Charlie had tried to explain, Xanthus had called him several filthy words and beaten him nearly senseless for blatantly attempting to foist off falsehoods as excuses. After all, who had ever heard of such a thing—simple water turning babies into monsters that must be exposed immediately to die.
Charlie knew how to hate, how to bide his time, but some days it was harder than others, knowing yet another child of his had been deliberately allowed to die.
Xanthus spoke again, soft-spoken voice a mockery of a concerned man who actually gave a damn about anything but the number of coins in his money chests. "It was my fondest hope to coddle and pamper you. Instead, you offer me treachery, laziness, constant disobedience. Do you prefer to be beaten into submission?"
Charlie, forced to huddle at his master's feet by the grip on his tunic—and by sure knowledge of the consequences of rebellion—remained silent.
"Answer me!"
Hating himself, Charlie whispered, "I do not, Domine."
"Then tell me, slave, what am I to do when you fail me in something as simple as cleaning the moss off my dock? Must I beat you yet again, in front of guests? Would that make you give me the respect and adoration I am owed as father of the household to which you now belong?"
Not goddamned likely, you pompous little bastard.
Evidently the answer, silent as it remained, was clearly visible even in his downturned face.
Xanthus sighed, a shade too theatrically. "I try to be a fair master. Really, I do. But you would try Jupiter's patience, boy, and mine is not nearly so great." The beating was mild, comparatively. All Xanthus did was bruise a few aching muscles with a folded-up bit of rope. Charlie compressed his lips and stood it. When it was over, Xanthus said, "I want every bit of moss gone from this dock by sunset. Is that clear?"
Charlie didn't point out that not enough daylight remained to complete the job by the deadline. He merely whispered, "Yes, Master," and crawled the hell out of Xanthus' way. He'd been lucky, this time. Xanthus hadn't wanted to seem too harsh a master in front of company—company which, ironically, had forced Xanthus to do something to punish dereliction of duty.
Charlie's back throbbed where the rope had thudded against old bruises and half-healed welts. He closed his hand around the fallen crutch, wishing bitterly it were a javelin. Xanthus' guest brushed past as though he didn't exist—which, in the eyes of any freeborn man, he didn't. The sailor followed, carrying Aelia.
Achivus, Xanthus' personal secretary, strolled off the phaseli's shaded deck, holding a cylindrical leather case that would contain important business papers. Achivus' tunic was richer than most freedmen's. As the secretary disembarked, a boy of about ten came skipping hastily down the steps from the house, breathless from his run.
"Master," he cried, "they said you'd come back!"
Achivus handed the boy his leather case. "Be very certain you don't drop these, boy. Take them to Dominus Xanthus. Then be sure to have a basin of hot water ready for me. I reek of travel."
"Yes, Master!"
Achivus' slave ran ahead, leaving his master to follow at his leisure. Himself a collared slave, Achivus was not only well educated, he received a large enough monthly allowance to purchase slaves of his own to wait on him. Charlie's disgust ran all the deeper because of it, but Achivus was only one of many thousands of slaves who owned other human beings.
Over the last couple of years, with greater access to slaves who knew more than how to fight and kill, Charlie had managed to acquire a basic understanding of more of the seemingly endless insane situations life here provided. Thanks to the enormous influx of war captives and the lucrative kidnapping trade throughout the Empire—not to mention thousands of unwanted babies exposed on garbage heaps, free for the taking—most slaves were so cheap even extremely poor families owned a few. Not possessing even one slave was the mark of abject poverty.
Charlie—who'd once been popular in a way he tried desperately to forget—was universally looked down on by Xanthus' household for yet another reason: he'd never acquired slaves of his own, even when he could have. "Silly barbarian," people had said of him. "He'll come to no good in the end, just you see."
Well, it ain't over till the fat lady yodels. I might be down... but not completely out. Not of hope (or, at the very least), fighting spirit. Just now they amounted to the same thing—or as close as it came for accounting purposes. Achivus, who endured far less abuse in a month than Charlie did in the course of the average day, moved directly toward him. Charlie braced himself for the inevitable and wasn't disappointed.
"How's your back, gladiator? The welts were very bad when we left."
The question—and Achivus' dark eyes—were filled with genuine concern that only made Achivus seem more alien than ever. More alien, even, than Xanthus, and Charlie hadn't completely figured him out in a whole two years. Both men were as incomprehensible as any alien species in any science fiction movie he'd ever watched—and if Charlie Fly
Whenever he had wrangled off-duty time, he'd spent some of that leisure on getting women into bed—but mostly he watched movies. Any movies. Old, new, tragic, hilarious, musical, violent action-adventure, mystery: whatever it was, Charlie'd watch it, with rare exception, just to put out of mind for a few hours what he did for a living.
When Achivus reached out to pull aside the neckline of Charlie's loose tunic, Charlie shrugged out of his grip without putting either thought or effort into it. Nobody touched Charlie except Xanthus—the only man who gave him no opportunity to avoid unwanted physical contact—or anyone Xanthus ordered to touch him.