Fire in the East Read Online Free PDF Page B

where the Concordia was bound.
    He had seen it only once, and that had been five years ago, but he would never forget the Agora of the Italians. He had been stripped and bathed - the goods had to look their best - then led to the block. There he had been the model of a docile slave, the threat of a beating or worse in his ears. He could smell crowded humanity under a pitiless Mediterranean sun. The auctioneer had done his spiel - ‘well educated... would make a good secretary or accountant’. Fragments of the coarse comments of rough men floated up - ‘Educated arsehole, I would say’ ... ‘Well used if Turpilius has owned him.’ A brisk bidding, and the deal was done. Remembering, Demetrius felt his face burn and his eyes prickle with unshed tears of rage.
    Demetrius tried never to think of the Agora of the Italians. For him, it was a low point in three years of darkness after the soft spring light of the previous time. He did not talk about either; he let it be understood that he had been born into slavery.
     
    The theatre quarter of the old town of Delos was a jumble of narrow winding lanes overhung by the leaning walls of shabby houses. Sunlight had difficulty getting in here at the best of times. Now, with the sun setting over the island of Rheneia, it was nearly pitch dark. The frumentarii had not thought to bring a torch or hire a torch-bearer.
    ‘Shit,’ said the Spaniard.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Shit. I have just stepped in a great pile of shit.’ Now that he mentioned it, the other two noticed how the alley stank.
    ‘There. A sign to guide the shailor to port,’ said the North African. Sculpted at eye level was a large phallus. Its bell-end sported a smiling face. The spies set off in the direction it indicated, the Spaniard stopping now and then to scrape his sandal.
    After a short walk in the gathering darkness they came to a door flanked by two carved phalluses. A large brute of a doorman admitted them, then they were led to a bench at a table by an unimaginably hideous crone. She asked for money upfront before she brought them their drink: two parts of wine to five water. The only other customers were two elderly locals deep in conversation.
    ‘Perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect,’ said the spy from the Subura. If anything, the smell was worse in here than outside. Stale wine fumes and ancient sweat joined the prevailing odour of damp and decay, piss and shit. ‘How come you two get to be well-paid, well-respected scribes on the Dux’s staff while a native-born Roman, one of Romulus’s own, like me, has to play the role of a mere messenger?’
    ‘Is it our fault you write so badly?’ said the Spaniard.
    ‘Bollocks to you, Sertorius.’ The nickname came from a famous Roman rebel who had been based in Spain. ‘Rome is nothing more than a stepmother to you and Hannibal here.’
    ‘Yesh, it must be wonderful to be born in Romulus’ cesspit,’ said the North African.
    They stopped bickering as they were served by an elderly prostitute wearing a great deal of make-up, a very short tunic and a bracelet with a range of amulets: a phallus, the club of Heracles, an axe, a hammer and an image of three-faced Hecate.
    ‘If she needs that lot to deflect envy, imagine what the others look like.’
    They all drank. ‘There is another imperial trireme in the harbour,’ said the Spaniard. ‘It is carrying an imperial procurator from the province of Lycia to Rome. Maybe the Dux has arranged to meet him here?’
    ‘Except he has not gone to meet him yet,’ replied the one so proud of his birth in the city of Rome.
    ‘That might be all the more suspicious.’
    ‘Bollocks. Our barbarian Dux came here because he heard there was a consignment of Persian slaves for sale and he wanted to buy a new piece of arse; a Persian with a bottom like a peach to replace that worn-out Greek boy.’
    ‘I was talking to Demetrius, the accenshush. He thinks that it is all some type of political statement. Apparently, a