Dark Horse

Twenty-Three

Words could not describe the effect on the island.

It was like the aftershock of an earthquake. So terrible, so devastating, that it could only find expression in silence. People were paralysed physically as well as emotionally. Incapable of moving. Of speaking. Even of thinking.

If Jason could sneak back under the noses of a score of armed guards and slaughter the most powerful man on a hundred and twenty square miles of island, what hope for the rest of them?

They had always been on their guard against pirates, but the barbarism of the killing stunned everyone. That Leo had been murdered was horrendous. That he had been impaled made the crime as horrific as anything they had ever heard of.

In the past, the people of Cressia made no secret of their dislike of their overlord. They'd resented his high-handed Roman ways, the way he strutted around as though he owned every inch of the island, dispensing justice when a crime had been committed, ensuring taxes were paid to the Collector once a year. Every time they saw one of his slaves in their bright-yellow livery and watched how many sacks were unloaded from the trade ships for just one villa, and every time they counted the timbers shipped to him from the mainland, the bales of bright cloth, amphorae of wine, the barrels full of lemons from Africa, Damascan plums, Egyptian melons or ridiculously priced spices from India, the islanders' resentment grew fiercer. It reinforced their own poverty, the usurping of traditional Cressian ways. In Leo's wealth and ostentatiousness, their noses were rubbed into the footprint of Rome.

Oh, but what would they give to have Leo throwing his weight around once again! To return to the safety and security of Rome at their back. The islanders were too shocked to weep at their misfortune, but already they realized they'd taken Leo for granted, and without his protection, their chickens had come home to roost.

At the Villa Arcadia, the end result was the same, even if the process was different. Here, spunk from the slaves had drained away slowly, like water from a cracked bowl. A slave is a chattel, an object to be bought and sold at the auction block, at least, that's the theory. In practice, most rich men's slaves lived better than freemen. They were guaranteed food in their bellies, good food at that. They were housed and clothed well, their children educated and taught a trade. They earned money from the work that they did, and this bought them fancy clothes, jewels, concubines and, best of all, they did not have to pay tax. Even the lowliest labourer lived well. Prudent slaves put their salaries aside to save for businesses of their own — usually a shop — and they often owned slaves of their own. It wasn't a bad life, considering, and many chose to remain enslaved rather than purchase their freedom. They lived better that way. Got fat quicker.

Providing their master was alive to look after them.

Now Leo was dead, brutally murdered, who would protect them when the pirates came back? Even in the unlikely event that Rome came to their aid in time, families would surely be broken up as the estate was sold off. Where would they go? Who would buy them? Would their new masters beat them?

In killing Leo, hundreds of other lives had also been wrecked.

And still the birds sang and the butterflies danced, and a lone dolphin made silvery arcs in the water.