The Songs of Slaves (11 page)

             
But he had not counted on his destination being so far away from the city. As hours passed behind the unrelenting horses his weariness grew. The rhythm of his stride faltered, the tightening of his muscles shortened his gait. The leather shoes they had put on him protected his soles, but rubbed against the crease of his heals until they began to ooze blood, and stones
found their way into the small openings near the toes. Sweat stung his eyes and his wet hair hung limply in his face. Soon the thoughts of his escape slowed, dwindling under the numbness and pain of the road, until all he could do was concentrate on throwing one leg in front of the other, struggling to keep up with the beasts that dragged him. The slack in the tethers was gone. They bit into his flesh as the cart moved ever forward. Now Connor dared not take his eyes off the road, for as they got further from civilization the stonework decayed, leaving deep clefts that could turn his ankle or bring him crashing to the ground. His breath rasped in his seared lungs; his neck, shoulders, and back were fire, but his legs were ice as numbness and cramping consumed them. And in the height of the afternoon sun Connor began to stumble.

             
Connor recovered his stride as Lorentius appeared beside him. The young man steered his bay stallion dangerously close. Connor waited for the sting of leather, but there was nothing he could do to shield himself from it.

             
“Faster, wretch!”
Lorentius hissed. “The sun sets before long and we still have miles to go.”

             
Connor did not reply. He was already moving as fast as he could after so many hours on the road.

             
Lorentius looked ahead to where his father rode, making sure that the older man’s back was turned. He drew his sword. The blade of the
spatha
– the long arm of the Roman cavalryman – r
ang as it moved across the iron
mouth of the scabbard. The afternoon sun made the weapon appear as if it were blazing fire as Lorentius lowered it next to Connor’s face.

             
“Move, slave.
I do not choose to kill you, yet. But for my purpose you need only one ear to hear me. You need no tongue to speak
back to me. Of no use to me is
your nose, or your lips, or your balls. I will cut you into whatever suits me. Where are your sneers now? Where is your arrogance?”

             
Handling his horse with precision, Lorentius dropped back until he could press the point of the double-edged blade between Connor’s shoulders.

             
“Move, wretch.
Move.”

             
Long seconds passed before the Gaul tired of this game, but even as he withdrew the point of his sword, Connor knew that he had abandoned it in favor of better sport. Lorentius rose in the saddle as his horse high-stepped towards the head of the cart. He turned
back and smiled at Connor before he swatted one of the
draft
horses with the flat of his blade.

             
The horse rushed forward, but the other beside him had not felt the goad. The imbalance jerked the wagon violently. Connor fell hard, the tethers around his neck and wrists tight. The second horse also spooked as the harness bit into him. The driver cursed as he pulled back on the reigns, but both beasts broke into a run dragging Connor behind them. He struggled to get his grip on his collar rope, to take the pressure before it broke his neck. His head struck the stones once, then again, then a third time. The open sky was above him, the sun shining in his eyes. Then the cart stopped.

Connor lay on the ground, barely able t
o breath. He could hear Lucius’
voice behind him. The driver was cursing. Lorentius was no longer laughing.

             
“How can you be so careless with my money?” Lucius Montevarius demanded. There was hot anger in his voice, and Lorentius was silenced.

             
“He’s had enough,
Dominus
,” someone said. “He won’t be running now.”

             
Connor felt the pressure released from his neck. The tethers at his wrists were cut, but even as the air hit
his raw skin his arms were pinned behind him and rebound. Still he looked at the sky, tasting the dust of the road in his mouth and pulling in the air through his clenched teeth. He was lifted and dropped into the back of the cart. Again he felt the movement under him, and it seemed almost as if he was running once more. Then he remembered nothing else.

*
**

             
Everything was dark. Connor moved his hands to his eyes to be sure they were really open. He waited to adjust to the lowlight, but it never happened. Connor tried to sit up. His head throbbed and his muscles ached as if torn to shreds, but he moved. He had not broken any bones. Hunger in the pit of his belly screamed louder than the pain in his body, and his tongue was swollen and dry in his mouth. Tentatively he felt his way around. There was a wall behind him, and then another near where his head had lain. As he rolled to his knees and spread out his fingers to grope the darkness his hands met a small amphora. With a sweep he knocked off the lid and put his face to the mouth. The water within smelled of earth, but it was fresh. A stifled cry escaped his throat as he turned the jar up, spilling water down his face and neck in his eagerness. He
gulped it down until he could stomach no more, though still his body craved it. He sat back down, leaning against the wall. He did not have the strength to explore the darkness, to find the confines of this cave, or room, or cell. He sat there holding his water jar, now more than half empty. The hunger would return soon, the water had only delayed it; but for now he had at least this.

             
His mind started to race. Where was he? How long had he been here? How long would he stay? He had been unconscious for the latter part of the journey. Would he be able to find his escape now? His mind urged him to look for the door, to test it, to try to flee even now that they thought him asleep. But even as these thoughts came he knew they were useless. The door would be locked, and he was too weak to stand, too weak to walk much less run.

             
He worked to calm his mind. He started to pray, but even as he did he thought of his surroundings and how he had come to be here. The words trailed off, and God seemed to hear them no more than he had heard the cries of the suffering that morning so many months ago, or the screams of the mother in the slave market. If God cared – if God cared at all – then how could he
have let this happen? And if he had let even this happen, then how could Connor ask him for anything with any confidence of being heard or heeded? Connor’s upbringing, his training, told him that the question was wrong. He tried to suppress it. But even as he did it came screaming angrily back.

             
He tried to think of something else, to discipline his mind as Titus had taught him to do years before. But any attempt to apply his long-studied philosophy seemed to sputter and go out in the darkness.

He took another drink of water and thought of revenge. Woderic, the narrow-eyed man, and all the Jutes, the Angles who had bought him, Andopaxtes and his henchmen, the crowds, even the priests in the market – they all got their due in his mind’s eye. And then justice came to these men – his new captors – especially this vain and lusting Lorentius. Anger fueled him, warming and loosening his muscles. But in time the fire spent itself in the darkness, and the cold moved in. And he remembered his friends, dead and alive – Titus, Grania, Cumragh, Dania, Dervel, and all the others. His sorrow flared and his heart pounded in his chest until the tears broke. And when the tears reached
crescendo the screams came, tearing the darkness one after the other until even the dead must hear him.

But still no one came.

***

Connor awoke to the scrape of a key in the latch. He stood still, holding his breath, waiting for what might come. What new torture had they devised for him now? What new means of driving the desire for freedom from his soul? He could see the lesser dark of night past where the door must have been, and then there was a warm orange glow. The sight of the small flame drew Connor’s eyes, and for a second he forgot his fear. He smiled weakly at the first light he had seen in what seemed like an eternity.

A man moved carefully into the room, holding the lamp in one hand. In his other hand was a sturdy branch – a makeshift cudgel. So it was to be another beating, then, Connor thought as he sized up the visitor. He had expected more than that from the minds that had devised the run and the darkness. But the man did not move, once he had come in through the door. He only stared, with his small eyes blinking beneath his thick
brows, his round face thoughtful as his broad mouth frowned behind his black beard. He was no older than thirty, Connor thought, but even in the lamplight Connor could see that the man’s hair-covered body was wrinkled and deeply browned by long hours in this southern sun, the knuckles of his hands large and knotted from laboring with the earth.

The man finally took his eyes off Connor and spoke to someone outside.

“It is well. He seems calm.”

Only then did the man take a few steps inside the door, raising his cudgel to shoulder level and looking meaningfully from it to Connor. Behind him another man entered. He was older and of a much smaller build than the first. For a moment Connor thought he may be priest, for he was bald on the crown of his head; but he was clad in a simple white tunic, as the other man was. His hands were empty and folded in front of him, making him look as if they were bound together. His eyes were dark, his face almost grave as he stared at Connor, considering. The two men stopped and stood still, closer to the door than they were to Connor; as if he were a dog that might at any moment attack them.

The older man raised his right hand, suddenly assuming an absurd formality.

“Greetings,” he said, very loudly. “Welcome.”

Connor was silent, his back still to the wall.

“I am Philip. I am a friend,” the older man continued, enunciating each word as if talking to a deafened man. 

“He doesn’t understand you,” the round-faced man said.

“I have to start somewhere.”

“I speak Latin,” Connor muttered. 

“That is good news,” the older man said when his surprise faded. “Yes. That is very helpful. It will make everything so much easier. You are calm? We are friends, you see. We mean you no harm if you mean us no harm, you see.”

Connor nodded.

“But if you are trying to lure us into a trap you will find us ready for you,” the round-faced man said, tapping his club on the ground.

“I can hardly stand, much less fight,” Connor said. “Now please, if you have come to release me, please step away from the door so that I can crawl out. If you have come for any other purpose, I can be of
little sport to you. I have nothing for you to steal except this dirty shirt and these bloody shoes. If you want them, have them. I don’t care.”

“You do not understand us,” the older man said. “Melinda, I think it is alright for you to come in.”

A woman peaked tentatively around the door. She then straightened and entered. She was perhaps in her late twenties, with long brown curls hanging loosely past her sturdy shoulders. She was not beautiful, but a smile lifted her full cheeks, and her brown eyes were lit with the first hint of kindness Connor had seen since his capture. She walked past the men, right up to him, and knelt down to place a bundle at his side. She gave him another empathetic smile as she unfolded the corners, revealing half a loaf of bread, and a covered earthenware bowl.

“We saved this for you,” she said. “Eat it.”

Connor looked at her as he fought a lump in his throat, and for a moment she seemed more like an angel than a farmer in a dirty dress.

Connor tore into the bread.

“His water is empty,” Melinda said. “I will run and get more.”

With his mouth still full Connor removed the top off the bowl. It seemed to be a soup or stew of white beans and mushrooms. The woody smell of strange herbs met his nose as he lifted the bowl and gulped the contents down, barely stopping to chew. The two men watched him silently, until finally Connor slowed. His stomach just beginning to be filled again for the first time in days, Connor leaned back against the wall and slowly worked the crust of the dry bread.

“You will excuse our caution earlier,” Philip said. “We are here to welcome you, you see. Soon the
Dominus
will let you out of here. You are a heavy lifter, I understand, but until the
Dominus
needs you in that capacity you will be working with us. As I said, I am Philip. This here is Brontius. We work here.”

“You are slaves here,” Connor grunted.

“Yes,” Philip said, his shoulders stiffening slightly. “We are slaves here, like you.”

“So it would seem,” Connor breathed, letting his head drop back to the wall.

“Listen, my young friend, I understand that you have had a rough time of it. It is always hardest in the beginning. Now, my friend Brontius was born here, on this very estate. I myself did not come here until about
ten years ago, due to my circumstances. But you had it very hard, because I surmise you were taken in the wars. Am I right?”