“Here you are,” she said, and handed the contract to Livia Plurabella. The matron read it, then signed both copies.
She gave one back to Amanda and kept the other. “I'll send a slave with the payment,” she said, as she had before. “And if a cannonball doesn't squash him to jelly coming or going, I'll have a fine new hour-reckoner.” She laughed. “One thing-with the Lietuvans outside the city, I don't have to worry that he'll run off with the money.”
“Er-no,” Amanda said uncomfortably.
Livia Plurabella wagged a finger at her. “That's right. You're the one who doesn't approve of slaves. Well, my dear, if you like working like a slave yourself, that's your affair. But believe you me, the better sort of people don't.” She got to her feet and swept out of the house. All by herself, she made a parade.
“The better sort of people.” Amanda spat out the words. Then she spat for real, on the dirt in the courtyard herb garden. The idea of slavery disgusted her. Having to put up with it here disgusted her more.
If she were a slave and her mistress gave her that much money to buy something, what would she do? I'd be gone so fast, her head would spin, she thought. But it wasn't that simple. Agrippan Rome had slavecatchers, just like the American South before the Civil War. Whenever you went into a town, you had to show who you were and what your business was.
The records would go into a file. That made things easier for anyone who came after you.
You couldn't even run across the border to Lietuva, not in peacetime. The Lietuvans gave back runaway slaves from the Roman Empire. That way, the Romans gave back runaway slaves from Lietuva. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And the poor slaves who wanted nothing but the chance to live their own lives? Too bad for them.
There were bandits in the mountains. Some of them were runaways. But that was no life, not really. Few lasted long at it. Army patrols did their best to keep banditry down. And crucifixion had never gone out of style in Agrippan Rome. Amanda shivered. It was an ugly way to die.
Another cannonball crashed into Polisso. Somebody shrieked. Amanda shivered again. Were there any ways to die that weren't ugly? She didn't think so.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Before the siege of Polisso started, Jeremy would have said the big iron knocker on the front door made noises like gunshots. He knew better now. The only thing that sounded like a gunshot was another gunshot.
He went to the door and opened it. The man standing there wasn't someone he knew. “Yes?” he said. “May I help you?”
“You are Ieremeo Soltero, called Alto?” The stranger was somewhere in his thirties. He was lean and dapper, and had a sly look that said he knew all sorts of strange things. By the way one dark eyebrow kept jumping, some of the things he knew were either funny or none of his business.
“Yes, that's me,” Jeremy answered. “Who are you?”
“Iulio Balbo, called Pavo,” he said. He didn't look like a peacock, but he might be proud as one. He went on, “I have the honor to be one of Sesto Capurnio's secretaries. The most illustrious city prefect sent me here to remind you that your official report is due in two days' time.”
“Did he?” Jeremy said tonelessly.
“He certainly did.” The secretary smirked. He enjoyed seeing other people in trouble.
“Doesn't the city prefect have more important things to worry about right now?” Jeremy asked. “Will he read the official report while the Lietuvans knock down the walls and break into the city? Will he take it with him when they drag him away to the slave market?”
That wiped the smirk off Iulio Balbo's face. “If you are trying to be funny, Ieremeo Soltero-”
“Funny?” Jeremy broke in. “I'm not trying to be funny. I'm only trying to find out whether the city prefect cares more about keeping Polisso safe or about making sure all the forms get filled out at the right time.” There was a lot of bureaucratic foolishness in the home timeline. He'd seen that. No one who went to a public school could help seeing it. But here in Agrippan Rome bureaucracy wasn't just foolish. It was downright idiotic. And the people who ran things didn't seem to notice.
Iulio Balbo's eyebrows rose. No matter how sly he was, he was a gear in this ponderous bureaucratic machine. He wasn't likely to see any humor in it, and he didn't. In a voice like winter, he said, “The report is due. It is expected. It is required. If you do not submit it on or before the due date, you will suffer the penalties the laws on the subject lay down. Do you understand this formal notice?”
“Oh, yes, I understand it,” Jeremy answered. “Do you understand you're liable to go off to the Lietuvan slave market along with the most illustrious city prefect?”
“Defeatism is a crime,” Iulio Balbo said. “Defeatism in time of declared war is a worse crime. Defeatism while besieged is a still worse crime.” As usual, the locals had precise distinctions between one degree of what they thought crime and another.
Jeremy was too angry to care. “I am not being defeatist. The city prefect is. He is paying attention to these things that are not important when he ought to be doing nothing but defending the city. If you asked the garrison commandant about it, what would he say?”
Maybe Annio Basso and Sesto Capurnio were working well in harness. If they were, Iulio Balbo would just laugh at that crack. But he didn't laugh. He scowled and turned red. “Do not try to stir up quarrels between the prefect and the commandant,” he warned. “That is also an offense.”
What isn't an offense here? Jeremy wondered. “I'm not trying to stir up anything,” he said. “I asked a reasonable question, and you didn't give me an answer. Or maybe you did.”
“You may be as clever as you please. You may quibble with words however you please. The official report is still due in two days. Remember that. Obey the law.” Iulio Balbo's bow was a small masterpiece of sarcasm. He stalked away like a cat with ruffled fur.
Muttering, Jeremy closed the door. He was the sort who usually put schoolwork off till the last minute. Without a deadline, he couldn't get interested in what he was supposed to do. Well, he had a deadline now. This was work of a different kind from what he got in school. There, he had to show off how much he knew. Here, he would have to disguise most of what he knew.
He sat down with pen and ink and paper and got to work. He set out to make the report as confusing as he could. To do that, he started by writing it in classical Latin, not neoLatin. The old language was made for bending back on itself until someone reading it wasn't quite sure exactly what it said. Maybe that hadn't been true when classical Latin was the Roman Empire's usual spoken language. Jeremy wouldn't even have bet on that. Now, though, one of the things officials here used it for was confusing one another. Jeremy intended to use it the same way.
He tried to make his answers to the questions the locals had asked him contradict one another. He had to be careful with that. If he was too obvious about it, he would get himself in trouble. But if he made his classical Latin fancy enough, nothing was obvious.
As soon as he figured that out, the official report stopped being a nuisance. It stopped being something he had to do. It turned into something that was fun to do. When he'd finished the first few sections, he showed Amanda what he'd written. “What do you think?” he asked.
She started working her way through it. She hadn't got very far before she looked up and crossed her eyes. “What are you talking about here?” she said. “It sounds like it ought to mean something, but I don't think it does.”
“Oh, good,” he said. “That's what I was trying to do.”
“Will the city prefect let you get away with it?” she asked.
“I hope so,” Jeremy answered. “The first thing he'll do is make sure we did turn in an official report by the due date.