Furies (7 page)

Aculeo threaded his way through the market stalls in the Agora, mingling with the crowds. A wooden marionette jerked about in a funny dance near one of the stalls as the merchant pulled its cords. A little monkey leaped up onto the merchant’s arm, clambering up to sit on his shoulder. A pretty little girl, perhaps seven years old, stood nearby watching the monkey in fascination.

The merchant’s cart was stacked with marionettes, painted balls, hoops, tops and carved wooden soldiers. Aculeo watched as the girl slipped one of the colourful tops from the tray and tucked it under her belt when the merchant’s back was turned – clever little thief, he thought with a smile. She noticed Aculeo watching her and darted back to a nearby stall where two women, one with dark hair, the other fair, stood like exotic, beautiful birds as they examined bolts of gleaming Cosian silk. The women laughed and chatted with one another, pretending not to notice the countless men who watched them, captivated. Hetairai, Aculeo thought. The little girl attended to the dark-haired woman, holding a cloth parasol over her veiled head.

Aculeo picked up one of the soldiers from the cart. The horse was painted bright yellow and had thick brown horse hair for its mane. The soldier’s arm moved easily, lifting his little sword up and down, and a silver shield fixed across his chest. “Wonderful craftsmanship,” said the vendor. “Only three asses.” Aculeo felt a pang of loneliness well deep inside like a hollow drumbeat as he thought of Atellus.

He bought the toy. I’ll give it to you soon enough, he thought. I just need to find that cursed Iovinus and my troubles will be done with. He watched as the hetairai and the girl walked towards a litter and stepped within. The dark-haired one, gazing through the litter’s window, caught Aculeo’s eye for a moment, smiled, then the curtains closed and the enormous Nubian slaves lifted the litter and carried them away.

The attendant at the public latrine near the fabric makers macellum readily told Aculeo the name of the fullery that had contracted to buy their waste. There was stiff competition for the golden liquid, as fullers, dye-makers, fruit-growers, even gold and silversmiths all found good use for it in their busy little shops.

The fullery in question was only a few blocks away, tucked in the rear of a narrow alley off the main street. A painted owl stared down at him from the wooden plaque hanging over the doorway. The symbol of Minerva, Aculeo recalled, the fuller guild’s protective goddess. The fullery’s taberna was unattended so he walked down the short corridor into a bustling atrium. The fetid pong of ammonia mixed with rotting eggs was enough to make him cover his nose. Cone-shaped wooden drying frames wrapped with freshly laundered tunics and togas were set in rows about the fullery’s atrium, suspended over pits of smouldering sulphur fires to bleach the cloth. Clusters of slaves were hard at work in the nearby laundering pits.

A toothless crone with a sweat-stained cloth knotted about her head spotted him and approached, offering a subservient, gap-toothed smile. “Help you, sir?” she asked in broken Greek.

“I’m looking for a man named Pesach,” Aculeo said, gazing about the atrium, his eyes burning from the pungent air.

“A man?” the crone asked in puzzlement.

“A slave,” he said, the words curdling in his mouth even as he spoke them.

The woman nodded towards a slave walking carefully through the yard, barely balancing a broad wooden yoke with bulging skins of stale urine slung from either end across his bony shoulders. Aculeo would normally have ignored such a wretched creature, but he recognized Pesach’s familiar features beneath the scruff of whiskers and greasy, greying hair. He was decidedly small and weak for such an onerous task, staggering under the weight of the yoke, trying not to spill the skins as he shuffled barefoot towards a pair of slaves working the treading vat in the corner. The slaves unhitched the skins from the yoke and poured their contents into a nearby pot to boil. Pesach climbed wearily into the treading vat.

Aculeo threaded his way carefully around the drying hoops towards the slaves. “Pesach?” he called tentatively.

The slave looked up. His bushy grey eyebrows lifted in recognition, then his expression darkened into a scowl. “Aculeo. What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Well I’m clearly occupied here, aren’t I? It’s very exacting work you know – one wrong step and they make you start all over again.” Aculeo felt his skin crawl when he noticed the man’s red, scabrous hands and dead, yellowed eyes, his ribs in stark relief amidst the shadows of his cheap, soiled tunic.

“A minute alone. Please.”

Pesach considered him for a long moment, then glanced at his co-workers. “Is it alright with you gentlemen? I hate to leave our conversation just as things are getting interesting.”

“What’d he say?” the old slave asked. The other slave shrugged.

Pesach climbed out of the treading vat, feet dripping with urine, and walked barefoot across the atrium to a stuffy little storage area where a number of gleaming white tunics and togas had been hung, awaiting pickup. Aculeo took a closer look at the man, who scratched every few seconds at the raw pink patches of skin on his arms, bare shoulders and shins.

A fat, bearded man lay snoring on floor. “The master fuller,” Pesach explained. “He shouldn’t wake for another hour or two. Good man, keen eye for talent. He made me assistant velicus, you know. See, only eight weeks in and I’m already making my way back. You can’t keep a good Roman down for long.”

“What happened to you?”

“What do you think happened? I lost everything because of you and that asshole you called a partner. Well, that and a few unfortunate gambling debts, I suppose. I got in too deep to that moneylender Marcellus Cocksucking Gurculio and so here I am.”

“I’m sorry, Pesach …”

“You’re sorry?” Pesach sneered. “Well then, as long as you’re sorry! Did you know they sold me to this drunken boob for eight hundred sesterces? I’m a Roman fucking citizen! At least I was. I ran my own business, and a highly successful one I might add! At the very least he could have sold me to a decent place for ten thousand at the snap of a finger and covered my debt. But no, they went out of their way to sell me here at a loss. Just to fuck me over!”

The fuller gave a rumbling snore. Pesach placed his filthy, urine-stained toes on the man’s whiskered cheek and pushed, turning his face the other way. The man smacked his lips and belched but remained fast asleep.

“I’ll find a way to help you, Pesach, I give you my oath,” Aculeo said.

“Stick your oath up your festering hole and leave me be,” Pesach said, turning to leave.

“Wait, that’s not the only reason I came.”

“You didn’t come to borrow money I hope. I’m a little short right now.”

“You were friends with Iovinus,” Aculeo said.

“There’s another one. It’s a bit late for him though, isn’t it? He was lost at sea.”

“I thought so too, until I saw him at the Hippodrome this morning.”

“What?” Pesach said, looking at him in surprise. “Good swimmer is he? Survived the shipwreck and swam all the way back to Alexandria?”

“Apparently.”

“What was he doing alive and at the Hippodrome?”

“Good question,” said Aculeo.

Pesach’s face darkened, he shook his head in dismay. “Fuck. Fuck!”

“Any idea where I might find him?”

“Hm? Oh, how should I know? I was friendly enough with the man once upon a time but I’ve no idea where he lived.”

“He lived with Corvinus’ family,” Aculeo said. “They treated him like a son.”

“So much for filial loyalty,” Pesach said, scratching at his red, scaly legs and arms again, which began to bleed. Aculeo tried not to shudder. “He got himself involved with a porne a while back, I recall.”

“How involved?”

“He talked of buying her freedom outright, even marrying her. Fool that he was.”

“Do you remember her name?” Aculeo asked.

Pesach thought for a moment, itching his arms and shoulders. “Neaera, I think. She worked in a brothel in the Venus District. The Blue Bird I think it was called. Pricey little place but quite pleasant. Pretty young girls.”

The fuller started to stir. Pesach considered him for a moment, then horked loudly and spat a wad of phlegm on the man’s head. The fuller absently ran his fingers back through his hair, blinked up at the two men in vacant surprise, then closed his eyes and started snoring again.

“Ah well,” Pesach sighed, “enough fun for now. I’d better get back to work. I’ve many important responsibilities to take care of, you know.”

The Venus District lay in the western edge of the city tucked in behind the Gates of Selene near the Harbour of Kibotos. It was already late in the day by the time Aculeo finally stepped onto its narrow streets. A rank stench rose from the yellow-brown sludge that spilled into the Eunostos Canal from the nearby tanneries, swirling at the water’s edge. Ornate marble tombs and funerary monuments lined the main road that led out through the gates. The covered benches of the tombs, which by day provided shade and respite to mourning family members, served by night as relatively private meeting places for those in search of more carnal comforts. As long as the pornes and pimps continued paying the city their fees for use of the area however, no one troubled them much.

It was a dangerous time of day as the narrow laneways filled in with shadows, the day’s crowds had thinned, new groups emerged. What had been quaint, quiet corners by day had turned into sullen meeting places filled with grunts of passion from the couplings in the shadows. The she-wolves slinked along the city’s outer walls, their faces painted, pale breasts barely covered, calling to the men, chanting in singsong voices about the services they’d provide, no matter what the danger, he supposed, for who knew what their lovers had in mind for them? And the rent boys, scared, scruffy little fellows, their eyes devoid of any joy in life.

“Hey lover, where you headed?” a veiled porne called out. Aculeo looked up and saw her smile at him. Her dark brown eyes had a flinty prettiness to them.

“I’m looking for a brothel,” he said.

“Why pay extra to a harbour master when you can bring your great ship to port right here?” the porne said with a laugh.

Aculeo held out a brass coin. “It’s called the Blue Bird. Do you know of it?”

“I know a place we could go,” she said, appraising the coin with a scowl. “You’ll need more than that, though.”

“And worth every as, I’m sure, but I’m looking for the Blue Bird.”

“There’s a thousand birds in the sky, should I know each one by name?” she asked, pressing her body against him, her slender hand stroking his thigh, caressing him, smelling cloyingly of amber mixed with sweat and body odour. “You should see the things I’ll do to you for a single sesterce. Come on, let’s see your silver, lover.” Aculeo felt her fingers grasping for the purse tied about his neck and pushed her hand away. The porne thrust her knee up hard into his groin. Aculeo dropped to the pavement, writhing in agony.