‘Can we visit these new premises?’
‘Of course. I’ll take you there this afternoon. I think you should get some more rest. You look like you last slept during the civil wars. In the meantime, go sort out your family business.’
‘What?’
‘The girl you keep looking at. It’ll do you no good to keep getting distracted from business by a pretty little backside.’
Fronto’s eyes widened and he risked a glimpse round the doorframe again before making shushing motions at his employee. ‘It’s not like that, man, and for the love of Minerva will you keep your voice down. You’ll have Lucilia down on me like a collapsing vault.’
‘Ah, calm yourself and unknot your underwear, man.’ Catháin grinned and made a rather suggestive motion before nudging Fronto and cackling.
‘Is that it?’ Fronto snapped frostily.
‘I’ve got a few other bits and pieces to discuss, but we can do that on the way to the new warehouse this afternoon – nothing urgent. I’ll come back after lunch. Now I need to go train Pamphilus and Clearchus in weights and volumes of amphorae. And on how to handle them without sacrificing every third jar to the god of floors, if you get my drift.’
‘Good luck with that. If you can train them just to hit the hole when they piss, I’ll consider it a win!’
Catháin grinned again as he rose and backed out of the room with a respectful nod in the direction of the ladies. Fronto leaned to look round the door and found both of them looking back at him with inscrutable expressions. Guilt ran through him like a tide for no reason, and he smiled weakly as he rose and moved out to the atrium to join them.
‘My dear.’
‘Marcus. I have decided that Andala here should be my personal attendant.’
Fronto felt a wave of uncertainty, but even through it he registered that Lucilia had called her a ‘personal attendant’ and not a ‘body slave’. That boded no good in any way.
‘Lucilia, she’s not trained in…’
‘She is perfectly well versed in everything she needs to know, and anything we come across that she doesn’t… well, she’s bright and will pick it up very quickly, I’m sure.’
‘Then why did she keep getting sold back to the slavers.’
‘Because she never found the right family.’
‘Owner, Lucilia. It’s called an owner, when you’re talking about slaves.’ He felt a touch of self-recrimination, considering his own stance on slaves, but there was something extremely unnerving about the apparent growing closeness between the two women. It was like watching two dangerous Gallic war bands combining their strength while he stood on the walls and waited for the inevitable assault.
‘On that count, Marcus, I have decided that she will earn two drachma a week. That way within the year she can buy her manumission and decide whether to stay with us as a friend or to go her own way.’
Fronto sighed. ‘Two drachma a week? That’s almost half what I was paying for the warehouse, for gods’ sake. Bocco only gets three obols a week and he’s indispensable.’
‘Didn’t Catháin just save you half the warehouse costs?’
Again nervous tension wracked Fronto. How had she heard that? He prayed to Fortuna that that was all she’d heard. He swallowed noisily. ‘Well, yes, but saving money doesn’t just mean we should spend it on something else.’
‘Oh don’t be so mean, Marcus. You spend plenty on wine and gambling. I only ask for a few overheads here and there.’
It occurred to Fronto momentarily to try and list the innumerable and very expensive overheads to which she was referring, when compared to the relatively small cost of a few nights on the wine. But experience had long taught him which arguments to avoid, and he capitulated with an air of equal surrender and bad grace.
‘Besides,’ she added pointedly, as if reading his mind, ‘how much are your two new pendants costing? I know you’re picking them up this afternoon. Try not to break them or lose them on the way home.’
‘Oh I won’t. And I’ll need them tomorrow when I speak to the council.’
‘Try not to lose your temper and alienate yourself further, Marcus.’
‘Lucilia…’
‘Yes, like that.’
Fronto sighed, registered the slightly knowing smile on Andala’s face with sour grace, and turned to go and find Masgava. It was not a scheduled training morning, but suddenly he felt the almost irrepressible urge to hit something.
* * * * *
Fronto adjusted his chiton and himation and tried to look as official and likeable as possible, but no matter how much he played with the two layers of clothing, they just didn’t sit in the same oratorical fashion as a toga. Not that he was particularly comfortable in a toga, mind, but at least the traditional Roman garb exuded an air of authority and serenity, while the Greek garments seemed as haphazard and variable as the Greeks themselves. They were garments clearly suited to sitting in the agora and expounding on the virtues and drawbacks of the circular nature of knowledge, not to making a rhetorical plea in a government environment.
He looked across at the shadow cast by the gnomon of Pytheas’ sundial. The time had come. The shadow touched the midday point on the wide paved square, and his eyes were drawn up to the agora beyond, with its own central square and numerous administrative offices and buildings. Specifically, the bouleuterion – the council chamber which was to Greek city states what the curia was to Rome.
‘You know what you’re doing?’
Fronto turned to Catháin and nodded. ‘For what they’re worth I have all my arguments marshalled.’
‘I’m more concerned about you losing your temper and messing it all up.’
‘Now you sound like Lucilia.’
‘That’s because we both know you well and neither of us will lie just to comfort you.’
‘Wish me luck.’ Fronto reached up and caressed the intricate gold figure of Fortuna hanging on the thong at his neck, feeling slightly more comfortable for her presence. With a last nod at Catháin, he paced off across the radiating lines of the ancient sundial towards the agora. He had not noticed the cold breeze due to his jangling nerves until he passed through the high arched doorway and into the colonnade of the public space, where the wind dropped and the temperature rose noticeably.
The central square of the agora was already filled with people whiling away their time in business deals and trades, argument and counter-proposition, public haranguing, or simply sitting with a loaf of fresh bread and a cup of wine enjoying the sun. Here, at the heart of Massilia’s public forum, the square was surrounded on all sides by the colonnaded walk and the buildings radiating off, and so, sheltered from the wintry wind, the sun filled the space and made it seem more like spring. It would have been a pleasant and relaxing place to be in other circumstances.
Fronto’s eyes fell upon the portico ahead. The paid guards of the city – a system Fronto couldn’t help but think Rome should adopt instead of relying on the private forces of the nobiles – stood to the sides of the grand entrance, not to prevent access, but to ensure there was no trouble. After all, Massilia was a democracy and theoretically more libertarian than Rome, and anyone had the right to attend council. In practice, Fronto had realised after only months in the city, a Greek democracy was about as fair to the people as the Roman republic. Rule was still effectively the province of the rich, no matter how much they espoused the equality of the demos.
And they were not keen on Romans.
Taking a deep breath and casting up a prayer to Fortuna, he stepped up to the columns and nodded a greeting to the guards as he passed. The portico building led through into a smaller colonnaded square, at the heart of which stood a grand altar to Poseidon, beloved of the Phocaeans who had founded this city, and so crucial to the sea-trade that made Massilia wealthy. Fronto nodded his respect to the altar as he passed. They could call him what they like, but at least he still looked like Neptune in the statues. He realised as he approached the unimpressive doorway opposite that his mind had wandered once more and he’d been lost in a mental comparison of divine images when he really needed to be concentrating on the task at hand. Was that due to his general sleep-deprived state, or more to nervousness over what he was doing?