Sons of Taranis by S. J. A. Turney Page B

Glykon together then began to set upon the task of finding Fronto some new workers. As they discussed the property on offer, moving from cell to cell, Fronto started to look at the markers on the walls. The script was in a particularly jagged form of Greek and he had to concentrate to translate the words. The names of the various traders were universally Greek: Anatolios . Nikomachos . Tychon . His eyes widened as he read the text on the signs below the merchants’ names. The traders themselves may be Greek, but the supplier name was also given for transparency of business, and Kaísaras appeared on four of every five cells. It seemed too much of a coincidence for there to be more than one man of that name supplying slaves.
    ‘Lucilia, these slaves are almost all from Caesar. They’ve come down from the fights last year. I probably saw a bunch of these faces at Alesia.’
    ‘Do stop worrying, Marcus. It is only natural that many of Caesar’s slaves would end up here. He has to spread the captives about. Sending them all to Rome would simply ruin the market altogether. You’re supposed to have a head for business now.’
    ‘I don’t like it.’
    He peered into Tychon’s pen at the denizens and his helpful imagination dressed them in bronze and mail and put blades in their hands. Suddenly he was right back at the desperate fight for the gate at Mons Rea. In fact, he could swear that the one currently glaring at him with wide blue eyes actually threw a spear at him back there. He shuddered and turned away from the pen, opening his mouth to speak. But as he stepped away, a stray desperate hand caught the edge of his pale green chiton and the darker green himation worn above it, and he felt his clothes ripped away as he moved. He was jerked to a halt as the material held tight around his middle, leaving him naked to the waist. Turning, he yanked on his clothing, jerking it out of the slave’s hands. The functionary, who had been following them around at a respectful distance, rushed over with a thin wand of wood, smacking the errant slave on the hands and eliciting a howl.
    ‘Many apologies, Kupios, but I must really advise you not to get too close to the goods. If you wish a closer viewing, we have guards to keep things under control.’
    Fronto grunted as he struggled to separate the two tangled garments.
    ‘Roman!’
    The five of them turned at the call and Fronto frowned.
    ‘Roman officer,’ added the husky female voice. ‘From Bellovaci war, yes?’
    ‘What in the name of Juno…?’
    A solitary figure stood in an otherwise empty cell, gripping the bars. She was dirty, but her stance was not one of a broken slave. Straight-backed, she laughed.
    ‘Naked again, Roman. But not so small this time, eh?’
    Fronto’s blood chilled and he turned to Lucilia to see that her own questioning look had fallen upon him.
    ‘Gods, it cannot be.’
    ‘Marcus, who is this woman who seems to know you?’
    ‘She… err. She was a Bellovaci woman who almost gutted me in a river in Belgae lands – what? – six years ago now? Seven? How in the name of Fortuna did she end up here?’
    He gave up trying to disentangle the clothes and simply wrapped them round himself and over his shoulder as he strode over to the cell. She was older, perhaps thirty summers now, and wearing rags, and his memory was not what it once was, but there could be no mistaking those eyes. It was the woman who had grabbed his blade while he bathed in a cold river and who had latched on to him like a puppy seeking a home until he’d managed to palm her off on Crispus.
    ‘Why is she in her own cell?’ he asked the functionary.
    ‘She’s trouble, that one, Kupios. She looks good, but she keeps going out and coming back. No one wants to keep her. Some have beaten her, but they say it makes her all the more defiant. She seems impervious to pain. Sethos the trader loves her. He keeps selling her for a good profit, and she comes back to him cheap to sell