‘Not that this was an easy island to grow fat on.’
‘You surprise me.’ Now how far had she got with that letter to Leonides? Had she covered that business with the banker yet?
‘Oh no. Augustus might have solved the language difficulty, but he created problems of an altogether different kind when he gave away prime tracts of arable land to his war veterans. That didn’t concern me, of course, I’d seen this coming, which is why I exchanged my grain fields for pasture.’
‘Had you?’ Yes, she’d covered the banker.
‘Then there was the tax situation. Five per cent on everything that comes in, five per cent on everything that comes out.’
‘Really?’ Ah, she was sacking the Parthian, that was it.
‘My biggest problems, though, came about when Augustus scrapped the tithe system in favour of stipends, because these were then assessed on landholdings.’
‘Terrible.’ No doubt the trouble was over a woman. That stupid Parthian couldn’t keep his dongler to himself if his life depended on it. Which in the case of the Iberian, it well might.
‘So we have to send cash instead of goods, and he’s levied a poll tax on top.’
‘Never!’ However, if Leonides kept his mouth shut about the reason behind the sale of the Parthian, it ought to raise five hundred sesterces.
‘Did I tell you Augustus came to Sicily eight years ago?’
The first stop on his tour of the Empire. ‘No.’
‘It was his first stop on a tour of the Empire…’ Faced with the prospect of liquidating five hundred lovely sesterces, Claudia switched Eugenius off completely. With a sum like that she could repay her most pressing debts, although it would be foolish not to set aside a hundred, because if she was back in time for the Victory Games she could double her investment. There was always a mock battle or two, and she’d never put her money on the wrong side yet. So if she kept, say, two hundred to one side…
‘…which nets me only 3 per cent, whereas you’ll be netting nearly 10 per cent, won’t you?’
Claudia was on the point of admitting she frankly had no idea of the profit margin, when what he was saying sank in. Seferius wine brought in an annual profit of 10 per cent.
Ten per cent.
Profit.
She would need an abacus to work out exactly what that meant in terms of bronze sesterces, but she didn’t need an abacus to know it meant a lot.
‘Eugenius!’ She jumped up from the bench, threw her arms round him and kissed his papery cheek. ‘Have I ever told you how wonderful you are?’
XIX
High in the hills, rain was falling as sleet and the man Melinno shivered under his cloak. He’d got a fire of sorts going but it didn’t throw out much heat, it was all he could do to keep the rain from dousing it. He clutched his pack to his stomach, for comfort as much as for warmth, and found neither.
He’d fucked up again. It was all he were bloody good at, fucking up. Fucking up and making baskets. Aye, he could weave a good basket, could Melinno. His father had made them for an olive grower, such good baskets that the merchant gave him his freedom. Aye, first generation freeborn and nimble with the withies was Melinno, and his da was real proud of him. They worked side by side until the wasting disease claimed him, then Melinno turned his hand to weaving mallow fibres as well. Howay, who’d have thought them fish baskets would sell so fast? Like iced wine in summer they went, just because they could drain the whey out of curdled milk and save buying a separate basket. Business was booming when he met Sulpica. They wed and everything was grand-until he killed her.
There’s no justice, Melinno thought, coughing into his hand, no fucking justice. That bastard’s still living the high life.
Melinno couldn’t believe the gods were not on his side-no, the problems he had right now were his own making. What with the weather and all, he’d been so busy watching out for them one-eyed giants that he’d completely missed the turn-off to the east. Trudged right round the Great Burning Mountain, he had, and it were only thanks to an old goatherd he’d missed Hadranum. Aye, that were a close call. That were the town where Vulcan’s sacred shrine stood guarded by a thousand slavering hounds from Hades. They welcomed pilgrims, the goatherd said, but sniffed out disbelievers and tore them to pieces. Melinno shuddered. What a way to go, eh? Well, he were certainly no pilgrim, and if he’d got any closer, they’d have sniffed him out and no mistake. Then who’d have avenged Sulpica?
Sulpica. The very name drove a pain through his belly like the rip of a knife. The Fire God had foreseen the murder of the Divine Julius, hadn’t he, and he’d spewed his flames ten miles into the air as a warning. That were nineteen summers back, the same time Sulpica’s mother had brought her into the world. Melinno scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
‘Fuck you, Vulcan!’ he shouted, but the Fire God wouldn’t be able to hear in this wind. As he well knew.
Once clear of the Lands of the Cyclops, he’d made better time, but it had taken him far too long just to reach Henna here-leastways, as close to it as he ever wanted to get. The navel of Sicily, they called it. Melinno thought that if Sicily ever got piles, Henna was where it would get them.
Perched like an eagle’s eyrie right up on the island’s highest point, all its buildings were of coarse and pitted tufa, making the town as grey and unwelcoming as any grave. Why, no, he were better off down here and he hadn’t much fancied mixing with them dour Sicilians neither. You couldn’t understand a word they spoke, so how could you trust them? He lifted his head and looked across the lake to the hilltops hidden by raincloud and spat. Janus, what he’d give to leave this hell-hole!
He spread his fingers over the fire in an effort to warm them, but the wood was green and he was in danger of choking long before. The outdoor life wasn’t for him. Basketmakers were townsmen, he were like a fish out of water up here. Waiting for this latest bout of coughing to subside, he counted the days. Three, now, since his sputum turned brown.
To take his mind off the ache in his chest, Melinno rummaged in his pack for that chunk of bread and sheep’s cheese. He’d been filling his canteen down in the river Chrysas, by chance hidden by one of them big, grey boulders when a shepherd strolls up. As luck would have it, the bloke got caught short, so while the poor sod squatted with his back turned, Melinno filched his lunch. He bit into the bread, but it tasted like sawdust and he shoved it back and re-sealed his pack.
It were odd, that. He’d not eaten for two days, yet he didn’t feel the least bit hungry. He just kept shivering all the time, and that were long before this fucking sleet set in. A wolf howled from the far side of the lake.
‘Sod off!’
Shouting don’t deter wolves, but it didn’t half make Melinno feel better. More in control.
He rested his head on his knees. In control, eh? That were a joke. He couldn’t control this shivering and shaking, he couldn’t control the tears which coursed down his cheeks. Or this bloody cough. It racked his bones and left his lungs peppery, and he wished it’d go away.
Janus, he was tired. It were all this travelling, he supposed. Mind, away from the slopes of the Cyclops, the terrain had got easier, the hills rolling and rounded rather than steep and savage, with streams and rivers and sweet, fresh pastures. You’d have thought he’d have felt less tired, wouldn’t you? That his legs would’ve not felt so wobbly and that, perhaps if he’d had more strength in them, he might have braved that hilltop town on a night like this.
Howay, it’d look better in the morning, after a kip. As the wolf howled again, he looked out across the lake, pockmarked with silver spots of driving sleet, then his ears picked up a scraping sound close by. His hand flew to his dagger.