The Songs of Slaves (14 page)

The
Dominus
was mounted. Connor was nearly to the end of the row. He slowed, trying to time it perfectly. He would reach the end of his row just as Lucius did.

But as Connor watched, Lucius turned his horse the other way – east towards the
crest of the hill. Connor swallowed a scream
as the men began to ride away from him. His trap had unraveled. Blinded by rage Connor began to run. The first movement was all that was needed to alert the bodyguard, who turned in his saddle to look at him. The man moved for his sword as he turned his horse, blocking the trail even as the
Dominus
moved further away.

“Done with your half-row before anybody, I see,” Philip chimed, coming around the last vine. The sound of his voice caught Connor like a trip line – a piece of solid reality piercing into the chaos of his mind. Connor stopped running mid-stride. Lucius and the other rider had reached the top of the hill and were continuing down the other side. The bodyguard still stared at him, his hand on his sword, uncertain as to what was happening. Philip stood before him. His thin frame would not stop Connor. He could just barrel him over as he ran past. He could fight him off easily if he attacked him from behind as he ran for his victim. But for some reason, what Connor – the momentum of his vengeance broken
–
could not do was get past the shock, the anger, the actual pain in Philip’s eyes as the
slave looked past him to the ruined grapes that littered the ground at the base of every vine.

Connor looked back to the crest of the hill, but Lucius was gone. Connor fell to his knees and pushed his face into the ground, clawing the dirt and stone with wild fingers. But he could not cry out. He was too broken. He heard the sound of the bodyguard’s horse moving on, but Philip was still riveted into place.

The slave moved before Connor looked up. He bent down and picked up a handful of the ruined fruit and let it fall out of his hands again.

“Connor.”

Connor stood up. His eyes were dry. His face was again impassive. Philip came near him. The anger was gone from the slave’s eyes, but the pain remained.

“Connor, maybe I cannot explain it, or maybe you just cannot understand it; but our work on this land is not just something we do for our master.”

He turned his back and walked away, crossing the trail to the other side of his row.

Connor fell to his knees and buried his face into the ground. Silent tears rushed from his eyes as his body began to shake. His vision blurred as his tears mixed in the dirt.

“Leave him,” he heard Philip say.

“If they find him lying down like this it will go hard on all of us,” Brontius protested.

“Leave him,” Philip repeated. “We will pick him up when we circle back.”

And once again, for Connor time seemed to cease its rhythm.
He lay on the ground weeping, but no sound could escape his throat. His thoughts were a torrent as every organ of his body quaked with the flood of nameless emotion that coursed through him.

Then slowly he was able to bring himself back up to his knees. He could not see the others, as he wiped the grime from his face. It was perhaps mere curiosity that brought him up to his feet, where he could see the slaves working along the vines more than a hundred meters away. Too dazed to even wonder what purpose could still move him, Connor crossed the path and again took the hard, unripe fruit in his hand. A tremor of anger
spasmed
through his fingers, but he made no motion. Instead his right hand swept the leaves away.

He moved on to the next bunch, and the next, until he moved
to the next vine. The work passed
quickly. His feelings were scorched and his mind empty
as his fingers found their task. Without realizing it, his eyes focused on the vines before him, perceiving their organic symmetry, and slowly he began to feel the life in them – and to sense what should be done. He touched them as he may have touched a stranger, his blank mind peering at them, trying to understand. The work began to stream by – always the same, but each task subtly different.

Connor was still unaware of the measure of time, but he could feel the sun burning down on him – first at the top of his head, and then neck as it crept towards his back. He could sense the air grow warmer as the subtle current moved through the leaves. Connor looked down from his work to find himself on the far side of the hill, well away from where he had begun. The sound of rustling leaves and voices further pulled him out of his silent world. Philip was moving towards him, cleaning the vines as he went. The slave was moving quickly, and his motions seemed almost reckless to Connor now.

“Let us catch up. The others are moving ahead to the next rows. We are making progress.”

Philip tried to make eye contact with Connor as they met in the middle, but Connor would not.

“This way then, my friend.
We cannot let the day get away from us.”

Connor followed him, and soon he was on another row, moving the opposite direction with the monotonous task. But the monotony had now receded, replaced by a meditative receptiveness. For the first time since his capture Connor was thinking of nothing. He was neither living nor reliving the cold or the cruelty. There was only his task and the living thing before him. The beginning was far behind him as the hot sun climbed the sky, and the vineyard seemed endless. The occasional chatter of his companions mixed with the songs of the birds, and all of Connor’s desperation was lulled into an exhausted slumber.

***

“You’re burned,” Brontius’s voice cut in. “You’re redder than a whore’s cloak.”

Connor looked up. The sun was high overhead.

“We’ll work on some covering for you after lunch. Some use mud on their arms, but I don’t like that because it pulls on my hairs. Let’s go get some food.
Hurry.
Hurry.
It is a long walk.”    

Connor followed Brontius as he entered the path, just behind the others. Sergius was delivering a story, that Connor had half missed and had no interest in following; but he could see that the stocky slave’s words were aggravating Philip for some reason.  Reaching the bottom of the hill, they followed the stream until they could cross on the walking bridge. Connor could see and hear the other teams of slaves, moving off their lines at various places in the estate, all apparently heading home. Their noise was subdued, but Connor’s group was moving much more quickly than they had that morning. The work may have been easy that day, as Philip had said,
but the sun was hot and the
air
close
. His feet were sore from standing and his water skin had long since run out.

The men exchanged waves and salutations as other groups of slaves passed by. Sergius catcalled at a small group of women, with Quintus aping him a split second late. Rather than taking any offense, most of the women shouted back and a few giggled as they passed by.

Ahead, protected on either side by the hills, several small cottages were strewn like discarded dice. They were interspersed with vegetable gardens and
behind them more vineyards grew – shaggy and less ordered than those on the hillsides. It was low ground, and probably flooded in the spring, but the air here seemed c
ooler and the sun’s wrath
more restrained.

“Home is where the heart is,” Philip chimed, pointing to one of the cottages in the center. A rooster mocked a greeting from the wooden pen by the low door. An ancient dog with a long nose and gray spots raised its head, but could not be bothered to rise or to bark.

The slaves ducked their heads as they entered through the open doorway. Philip stopped to invite Connor with a grand gesture, as if he were about to enter the mead hall of the High King.

Connor blinked as he entered, for despite the open windows the single roomed dwelling seemed impossibly dark. As his eyes adjusted he discerned a large fireplace of clay lined with stone that seemed to double as an oven. There was a table with two rough-hewn benches. Low beds lined the walls. In the middle of the dirt floor sat a child – perhaps eight years old. As the boy looked up at them Connor noticed the broad face, slack mouth, and round eyes of one born simple. After a moment’s pause the child dropped his gaze back
down to the ground, and went back to tracing arcs with his chubby, wide-spread fingers.

“Food ready yet?” Claudius demanded.

“Almost, almost,”
creaked
a voice. A thin, crooked man stepped out of the shadows at the side of the fireplace.

“Get the table set, and it will be ready by the time you are.”

Philip moved to the window sill and poured some water from a jar onto his hands, then wiped them clean with a towel. He offered the jar to Connor, who accepted, but the others ignored it.

“This is Corl,” Philip said of the old man. “He has a barbarian name, like you. Say hello, Corl.”

“Hello, Corl,” the old man said, and then cackled a toothless, absurd laugh that ended as abruptly as it had begun.

“He is obviously less sound than this boy,” Philip said. “This is Maximus. His mother died in labor shortly after his father died in an accident. The managers try to put him to work, but he always winds up right back here, as you see him. But we do not mind. He is actually a great help to us, when he decides to be.”

Quintus was placing more loaves of the same course bread on the table, beside a large bowl of green and black olives. Claudius set a deep dish of yellow-green oil in front of Sergius, who sat by with his arms folded.

“Come and sit,” Brontius said to Connor. “Here is an open spot for you.”

Connor did as he was instructed. Philip sat down beside him.

“That over there is your bed,” Philip said. “The man who used to sleep there put a great deal of care into making it, and Brontius’s woman brought by some fresh herbs just yesterday so that you will not have to deal with the fleas.
Very hospitable of her.
Do not worry. The man died, but he did not die in that bed and he did not die of fever, so you should be alright.”

“Maybe some strange dreams, now and then,” Corl said as he brought a tray with six pigeons – dressed with sage and roasted golden – to the table. It was strange fare, but Connor’s stomach was empty and his body drained. He filled his water cup and drank it before Sergius could fill his own cup with wine.

“Corl, there are only six birds,” Philip said. “I told you we were to have a seventh from now on.”

“I’m sorry. I did not know that you were the
Dominus
now and that I was to listen to all the prattle that comes from your mouth. Do I make pigeons fall from the sky? No, the boy caught six and so we have six. Nothing I can do about it. I’m sure the young fellow here can go without one more day.”

Philip pulled a thigh from the bird on his plate and placed it on Connor’s. Brontius did the same.

“Here you go, fellow,” Sergius said, placing a small wing beside the pieces.

Claudius and Octavian rose and brought thighs over.

“Can’t have you wasting away on us,” Claudius said.

“Have some wine,” Sergius offered.  

With an exaggerated display of hospitality, Sergius poured the dark red liquid into a clay cup and slid it over to Connor. Sergius lifted his own cup in toast and then drank deeply.

Connor put the cup to his lips. He had wine before, back home- usually at communion or on strange occasions. But the liquid that met his tongue was not what he remembered – it was dry, dry as the hot day they had been working in. He caught an aroma that
reminded him of plums and blackberries, but there was an undercurrent of vinegar and dust in the thin drink, before it gave way to a sense of herbs and soil, and then an acrid bite.

“Ah! You like it?” Philip said. “This is what we do. This is what we make here. Now, you see, this is from our vineyards – these vines you see outside the window. The
Dominus
is gracious enough to help us with it. He deigns to
oversee our efforts, but it can
not be truly considered a wine of Montevarius. No, it does not earn that distinction.”

Connor took another sip. It was hard to believe. It was hard to believe that all of his suffering and all of his trials had brought him to this – that his life was now to be devoted to this, so ordinary a thing.

“Now, I did have my fill of true Montevarius wine once,” Philip continued. “I was free then, in business. I was at a client’s villa – a very rich client. My partner was there too, and our wives. There was food – such food.
And dancing and music.
And then our client took us aside and poured our goblets full of the deepest, heaviest red wine that you have ever beheld. I remember thinking – this is what Jove’s wine must be like. I wasn’t even a Pagan. But that’s what was on my
mind you see. It hit me like a weight, and I could not stop drinking it. Before I knew it my client and my partner seemed to be speaking a strange language. I remember a girl dancing to a lyre and Egyptian frame drums. The rest of the night is all a haze.
Forgotten I guess.”

“Sounds like a good night, though,” Sergius said. “No matter how many times I hear the story.”