Lost Republic (13 page)

All was noise and confusion. Sylvia Alumna appeared in the center of the barracks, beating a brass cymbal and calling, “Rise, rise! Sol has risen, and so must you!”

Men in short skirted tunics were in the hall, pushing wheeled carts along the aisle between the cots. The children and teens roused slowly, grumbling and rubbing their eyes against intrusive daylight. A few, like Julie Morrison, covered their heads with their blankets to keep out the light and noise. It didn't help. Men from the carts snatched the blankets away.

Linh pried her eyes open. She wasn't across the hall with the girls, but curled up on a narrow cot with someone else. Brushing long hair from her face, she saw François Martin, still dozing, about two inches from her face.

Linh jumped up, almost losing her balance. Sitting up on the next cot, Hans Bachmann said calmly, “Hello. Get cold last night?”

Linh put hands to her flaming cheeks.

“Y-yes,” she stammered, and fled to other side of the room.

France stirred. He looked around for Linh and, not finding her, sat up scrubbing his face. Bristles of beard scratched his hands. Normally, France took the usual depilatories for facial hair, but those had gone down with the ship. At this rate he'd have a beard in a month or two.

The cart-pushers turned out to be slaves whose job it was to feed everyone. With the manner of college lecture, Emile explained that in some eras of ancient Rome, slaves had to wear headbands or collars that marked them as slaves. The cart-pushers all wore brass collars around their necks.

In the carts were clay cauldrons of steaming white stuff they ladled into wooden bowls and shoved at the children. Jenny got a bowl and a wooden spoon. She tried the food. White beans, stewed with reddish shreds of meat—probably bacon. It was scalding, but didn't taste too bad.

Leigh sniffed his bowl. He thought it was oatmeal until he tasted it. Peas porridge hot, he mused.

Behind the food carts came other slaves bearing armfuls of cloth. This proved to be Republic style clothing—sleeveless shifts for the girls, tunics and short kilts for the boys. When the bowls of porridge were empty, the teens and children were forced to stand by their cots, disrobe, and don the new garments. For the first time in days, the broad group of
Carleton
survivors resisted. Julie spoke for the girls when she flatly refused to give up her modern outfit for a shapeless shift, beaded thong belt, sandals, and no underwear.

Sylvia Alumna faced Julie. “You will change out of those barbarian rags at once,” she said calmly. “Or I shall summon the guard to do it for you.”

Outside the barracks there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of tough legionnaires. No one doubted for a minute Sylvia Alumna would do exactly what she promised—no one but Julie Morrison.

She glared right back at the older woman.

“Listen up, sweetheart,” she said. “I'm not dressing in that crap. This ain't Mardi Gras, and I'm not pledging your stupid sorority!”

Leigh started to intervene. A grizzled slave put out an arm to stop him.

Sylvia turned to one of the slaves and told him to fetch the centurion of the watch. Leigh tried to stop him, but he was held fast by two strong slaves.

No one moved. No one spoke. A few of the young children started undressing. France heard sobbing from that end of the hall.

A perfectly massive Latin soldier returned with the slave. His crest was sideways, indicating he was a centurion. His broad shoulders looked like they would burst through his armor, and his arms were covered with tufts of rusty red hair.

“Where's the trouble?” he said. His voice sounded like a piece of heavy furniture falling down stairs.

“That one.” Sylvia Alumna pointed at Julie. Without another warning, the centurion seized her by the wrist and twisted her arm behind her back. Leigh shouted for him to stop. Two more slaves grabbed him and threw him to the floor.

Julie yelped in pain, adding some sharp comments about the centurion's ancestors. Quite casually, he slapped her, and with the same hand tore the New York DeZiner blouse off her with one powerful yank.

As one, the other teens moved as if to help their comrade. The slaves paired off against them. Three circled Jenny, as she was a head taller than any of them.

With no effort or emotion, the centurion stripped Julie. She collapsed to the floor, angry and ashamed. The soldier tossed the Latin clothing on her saying, “There. Get dressed.”

He strode out. Sylvia Alumna looked at the frightened faces around her and said, “Does anyone else require help?”

France turned his back on the room and undressed. The male outfit at least had an undergarment, a kind of diaperlike cloth wrapped around the waist and between the thighs. He pulled on the kilt and tunic, then squatted to fit the sandals on his feet. By the time he stood up, most everyone was dressed. Leigh had tears shining on his face. France glanced at Julie. She was tying the sash around her waist. Her left arm was scarlet from being wrenched. She knotted the belt with a savage tug and stood, arms folded, staring at the floor.

The slaves gathered up the modern clothing. Hans fingered the hem of his skirt. It was some kind of thick homespun, too coarse for linen and too light for wool. It struck him as he looked at his new clothes and sandals how well it all fit. A quick check of the others showed that their outfits all fit, too. He would expect somebody to have gotten sandals too small or shift too large, especially in a group as mixed in size as theirs, but everyone was neatly dressed.

All their accessories were taken—PDDs and Info-Coaches (which didn't work anyway), watches, rings, even earrings.

“You will follow me,” Sylvia said. “We are going to the Forum Diluculo.”

“Are we to be slaves?” Jenny demanded.

“Be quiet and no harm will come to you.” She turned and walked out. The slaves stood back, waiting for the teens and children to go.

Leigh tried to put an arm around his sister's waist. She pushed him away with a snarl.

France found himself walking between Hans and Linh. She was distant, embarrassed no doubt. Hans limped on his bad knee and talked steadily in a low, confidential tone.

“We mustn't forget this experience is real,” he said. “Strange or ridiculous as it might seem, it is real and very dangerous.”

“We're going to be slaves,” France said darkly.

“Maybe not.”

“What else would they want us for?”

“I'm not sure,” Hans said. “We've been treated too well to end up as slaves.”

“You think this is good treatment?” asked Linh.

“In the context of ancient Roman culture, yes. There's more in store for us than simple slavery.”

That scared Linh more than thoughts of cruel servitude. Were they to be killed or sacrificed in some horrible way? She had vague memories of her middle-school history class reading about how in some ancient societies sacrificial victims were treated gently up to the moment they had their hearts cut out . . .

They left the military camp and crossed a green, parklike area in brilliant sunshine. The sun was warm. Beyond the park, buildings resumed, but they were larger and more individualistic. There were names chiseled into marble pylons out front of these mansions: CALLIDVS, OPVLENS, GNARVS, PRISCVS, PERICVLOSVS. At one point, Emile wandered off from the group to finger the gold inlaid letters of the name PRISCVS, only to be guided back into line by one of the escorting slaves.

The mansions faced a grand square. This was Forum Diluculo, one of the main squares in Eternus Urbs. Though the hour was early—only an hour or so past dawn—the square was rapidly filling with the people.

Jenny was alert, but quite calm. She was used to wearing light clothing while running, though the lack of underclothes was kind of disturbing. The crowd of people around them thickened. It was a more diverse crowd, too. Many people were dressed like them, in simple homespun, but there were others more richly dressed in well-colored gowns or bright white togas. She saw farmers and merchants, white-haired old folks and handsome young people. The air was alive with chatter.

“A denarius is too much for a dozen chickens—!”

“Wine is good today; try the red!”

“Bread, bread, bread—”

“I heard she left her husband for that charioteer in the circus—!”

“—Not a speck more! Half a denarius is all I will pay!”

Things were so lively and natural, Jenny almost forgot how impossible it all was. It was the twenty-first century, not 200
b.c
. She glanced to either side at Eleanor and Linh, who were also taking in the market square with wonder. Traders and shoppers jostled past them without a second glance. In their bland Roman clothing, they already fit in, at least outwardly.

In the southwest corner of the forum stood an elaborate stone platform. About three feet high, it was about fifteen feet on each side and faced with false half-columns. A wide set of steps led up to an open, empty stage.

Seeing Sylvia Alumna was leading them there, Leigh knew they were walking into a slave auction. He would never be a slave, never serve a master and be beaten, abused. He craned his neck searching for Julie. Still subdued from her rough treatment at the barracks, she was a few steps behind, next to the weird Belgian kid, Emile.

A middle-aged man in a finely made toga climbed onto the platform, followed by a man carrying a long brass horn. At a signal, a man with the horn blew a long, wavering note that quieted the crowd—at least that part of the crowd nearest the stage.

The horn blower put aside his instrument and unrolled a short scroll. In a loud but clear voice he shouted, “Citizens! Pray give silence! By order of the Senate and First Citizen of the Republic of Latium, a party of newcomers will be offered for claims. The usual laws of Year Twenty-six of the First Citizen shall apply in all cases! Heed the words of the honorable quaestor, Publius Marcus!”

The herald said “quaestor,” but the
Carleton
people understood him to mean an official secretary or clerk.

A fair degree of calm came over the forum crowd. Leigh could see pairs of soldiers here and there, none close by. He doubted he could escape. If he bolted, citizens of the Republic around him would seize him before he got away.

Sylvia Alumna gestured to the first of the young
Carleton
survivors, François Martin. Haltingly, France climbed the stone steps. Publius Marcus waved him forward impatiently. France walked slowly forward, stopping between Marcus and the herald.

“Here we have a young man of sixteen years,” Marcus declaimed in a booming, theatrical voice. (How does he know my age? France wondered.) “Educated, literate, and intelligent, yet strong and healthy. Who wishes to claim him?”

France stood there feeling like a horse at a livestock auction. The people closest to the stage were obviously sizing him up. He wondered what the going rate for a slave was.

Two men in the crowd some yards apart disputed over him. As they were shouting at each other and not at the platform, France couldn't quite follow what they were saying, but they didn't seem to be bidding on him. It sounded more like they were arguing who had the greater need for a young man of his sort.

Publius Marcus held up both hands, halting the argument. “I award this youth to Antoninus Arius Falco, builder!”

No mention was made of money. Falco, a broad-shouldered man with just a fringe of gray hair and shaggy eyebrows, stomped up the steps to claim France.

In clipped words he said, “Come, boy. You will learn the builder's trade.”

“I know nothing about building,” France protested.

“You have some wits, gods willing. You will learn. Come.”

When France found he couldn't make his feet move, Falco and the herald took him by the arms and propelled him to the steps. Before France could say good-bye or anything else to his companions, he was marched off into the crowd.

Summoned by the quaestor, Hans limped on stage.

“Don't let his lameness fool you!” Marcus said. “His injury will heal! This boy of seventeen is very well educated and has a wide knowledge of the world.”

Up in front of the curious crowd, Hans shifted from his good leg to his bad and back again. Like France, he didn't understand how anyone here knew his age or his abilities.

In short order, the man who lost out on France claimed him. His name was Gaius Aemilius Piso, and he was a public scrivener—a maker and copier of books and documents.

“Have I no say in what becomes of me?” Hans managed to say. Publius Marcus acted as if he hadn't heard him speak at all. Piso waited at the bottom of the steps for him. He hung a wooden docket around Hans's neck.

“Can you read that?” he said. He was a tall man, stooped at the shoulders though he wasn't very old.

Hans lifted the strip of wood and read aloud: “Piso's Books and Documents. Fine Calligraphy, Best & Blackest Ink. By the Chiron Fountain, in the Street of the Paper-Makers.”

“That's my address, in case you get lost.” Piso hitched up his patched toga and loped away, leaving Hans to catch up.

No one forced him to follow Piso. Hans watched the bent figure of Piso wind through the forum crowd. Hans called out, “Am I a slave now?” Piso kept going without answering.

In the meantime, Jenny Hopkins had gone up and was claimed by priestesses of the Temple of Ceres. They were three austere-looking women in dark, earthy gowns, with scarves on their heads. Again, no money was mentioned. The priestesses simply claimed Jenny as a new acolyte, and she was expected to go with them. Leader of the trio was Scipina, who looked to be in her early thirties. She had a dark complexion and black hair, but she did not appear to be of African ancestry, like Jenny. Scipina looked more East Indian.

“What if I don't go with you?” Jenny said.

“Then you will be considered a barbarian and driven out of the city,” Scipina replied. In the Republic, if a person was not a citizen, he was a barbarian. As a barbarian, he had no protection, no rights, and could not be paid for work. He couldn't even be a slave; slaves had certain rights under the laws of the Republic. Barbarians had none.