The Sign of The Blood Read online

  She knew what he meant about her last chance. She’d never walk again through the drifts of cherry blossoms that fell along the dusty path to the villa in the spring or take slow evening walks through the sweet pine forests nearby, when the work of being a house slave was done.

  She pulled at her hair, wishing it longer. It had been cropped short when she'd first arrived. Ever since, they had made her keep it that way, forcing her to cut it every week with a shearing tool. Juliana had never been told why. But she could guess. The master’s wife, Hera, had probably ordered it to ensure young slave girls did not easily attract the attention of her husband. Hera deserved to lose her husband. Anyone who found fault with everything some slaves did, deserved it turned right back on her.

  Then a wonderful thought came. Perhaps her father would see her in the city. Her mother had always said he'd know her by her face, it so clearly resembled her own. Juliana held on tight to that possibility.

  She'd been given to a foster mother when she first came to the estate, though she’d felt a little old for that. But the woman was childless and doted on Juliana as if she were her own, saving scraps of food for her and altering her best tunic as a gift at Saturnalia a year before.

  No one else could have a foster mother as wonderful as hers. She felt an ache of emptiness. She remembered her foster mother crying when the slave master spoke to them both the day before. She’d understood his many threats were at last to be made good.

  “This one is too mean to be useful and too ugly to make a wife, even for a slave. She will get her last chance soon,” were the words he’d used, and he went on pointing at her. “You'll learn how fortunate you were to be on an officer’s estate, with an overseer who protected you and asked little in return.”

  The words her foster mother had said after the overseer had gone came back to her.

  “Promise me,” she’d pleaded. “That you'll keep yourself pure.” She’d smiled at Juliana, stroked her face, as she’d done a hundred times before every time Juliana was troubled.

  She always nodded when her foster mother had talked like this, and anyway, the story she’d told her about an infant being discarded in a rubbish pit at the bathhouses by an unmarried girl had sickened her. Though sometimes she’d wondered if the story had been her foster mother’s.

  “I will,” she always replied. Even after he’d started calling for her.

  Now she had only the wind to keep her company. And the years she’d spent on the estate were like waves that rolled away into memory. She sank slowly into a troubled sleep, trembling awake many times as the never-ending fears surfaced about what was coming for her, and only regaining sleep after long periods of shaking.

  The following morning, when Juliana and the slave master reached the cobbled roadway that circled the bay of Nicomedia, the sun was well above the horizon. The wooded valley they'd come from was far behind now and the snow-covered Libon Mountains were at their back. Ahead across the small bay she could see their destination, the Roman city of Nicomedia, capital of the Eastern provinces.

  Its gray brick city walls and red tiled roofs were, from this distance, no more than a jumble of shapes, but she could make out galleys and fishing boats by the stone dock, and above the city, columns of smoke drifting up toward a blanket of silver-gray winter clouds.

  They'd set off before daylight and already she was hungry. All she'd been given before they departed was a cup of milk and some stale bread. She shivered. The thin, faded red woolen cloak she'd been given provided little protection from the wind.

  Juliana twisted her face, trying to turn from the wind. Being tied to the back of the cart by the rope around her waist meant she walked, but the fear of falling and being dragged forward never left her.

  She'd been off the estate before, since she’d been brought here, but not like this. And to add to it all, it had been raining on and off, and the cobbles were slippery. As the cart rumbled on the rain began again, soaking her through.

  “Look girl. The palace of Nicomedia.” The slave master turned to her. The clouds had broken over the city and rays of light lit up the roofs.

  “When you end up in a village whorehouse, girl, with your eyes on the ceiling all day long, you’ll remember this sight, before you pass away from the wormy pestilence.” He cupped a hand to his ear. “Oh, listen, I think I can hear the screams from the slave market.” He laughed.

  But all she heard was the wind blowing in from the sea that stretched away to the left, wave-filled, dark and frightening. It was the biggest stretch of water she had ever seen. Who knew what monsters lurked there. She turned away from it. Straight ahead, across the bay, a sparkle of gilded rooftops stood out against the horizon. She looked down. What were palaces to her?

  To her right, the land was parceled into fields and orchards and crisscrossed with watercourses and small bucket-chain waterwheels. This land looked prosperous, like their valley. She felt a pang of separation. Lime washed villas, just like her master’s, with gently sloping red-slated roofs, could be glimpsed through the cypress trees that surrounded them.

  “The new emperor has moved into his palace.” The slave master turned to look at her. “I heard they go through slaves like an olive press goes though olives. Maybe that's where you'll end up, girl, keeping some under-gardener's bed warm ’till he passes you to the kitchen boys.”

  “At least I will be away from you,” she said, softly.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing, master.”

  He flicked his whip at her, though he didn’t hit her. “Come on, run faster. You’ll soon wish you'd treated me different, when your new master breaks you in.”

  He winked at her. “I'd like to watch that. Perhaps I'll make it a condition of your sale.” He laughed, exposing blackened teeth. Then he cracked his whip over the slowing horses.

  Juliana shivered, cursed him as a dung eater, letting the words slip out slowly, then she bent forward as she ran. Everything she'd grown to rely on was disappearing behind her, as if it had never existed. Her chest heaved. She fought the feelings away. She would not weaken any further. She had been saved for something. She’d heard another slave saying it and as soon as she had, Juliana knew it applied to her, with all she’d been through, not to that house slave who’d never experienced anything worse than a passage of the moon with little to eat.

  The cart rumbled on.

  But who would buy her? Would she be lucky in that?

  Soon, the walls of the city loomed. She’d been to Nicomedia only once before, helping out on a trip to purchase spices. They’d had no reason to go to the slave market that day, but she'd heard about the crowds, the public examinations of naked slaves, the awful waiting and the salivating men. It was always men. Many of them old and half broken. Men who went there to take their pick of whatever woman, boy or girl they saw. Every taste could be indulged at the slave market.

  “Don't forget, girl, if you run and they find you, and your new owner demands his money back, your life is mine to do what I will with it.” The slave master made a fist, as if he was looking forward to that.

  She didn't reply. Soon it wouldn't matter. Someone else would own her.

  She gazed for a while at an aqueduct that strode across the fields toward the city, a giant Roman arm reaching out across the sullen winter landscape. The might of the empire made visible for all to see.

  They joined a queue of carts waiting to pay the tax at the main gate of the city. The mules pulling the cart behind nuzzled close to her. One looked straight at her with big brown eyes gazing out from a dirt-encrusted face. Its hot stinking breath warmed her, but its gaze was sorrowful. She held up her hand, but before she could pat it the mule’s teeth shot toward her, snapping shut just short of her fingers.

  She jerked her hand away just in time. It was hungry. She held her arms crossed close to her chest. The animal looked dolefully at her, as if she’d taken away its lunch. She moved away from it until the cart pressed up against her back.
r />   Shouts rang out and with a jolt the cart rolled forward. The stream of people walking past grew as they neared the gate. Slaves of all races passed, legionaries off duty and on, motherly matrons, dignified old men and plump children. Many of the slaves had thick cloaks or fur-lined tunics. They made her feel even colder just looking at them. If anyone looked at her, it was with disdain, as if they were repulsed. She saw some faces that seemed kind, but they never saw her.

  The wall of the city towered above them now. Helmeted guards looked down from the ramparts, watching as the line of carts edged toward the gate. Today was market day. Most of the carts would be on their way to a traders’ stalls or to the shops around the Forum. A slave girl walked past with a kind looking mistress. She yearned with a painful longing to be that slave girl, to have all this over, to find a kind master or mistress.

  Someone laughed. It echoed from the high gate as the press of bodies and carts eased forward. A wave of conversation swelled around her. She wanted to go home. Or to run.

  But she couldn’t.

  Two raggedy boys slipped in and out among the carts. They screamed when a driver sent his whip cracking toward them. They didn’t see her as they dodged past, their gaze firmly fixed ahead.

  A hawker, selling finger-length fried silverfish, stood to the side, his tray in front of him. Her mouth watered. Next to him a man sold flat bread, round and speckled with sesame seeds. She was ravenous. Her stomach twisted as the smell of the bread reached her. She looked away, closed her eyes, forced herself to think of something else. In her mouth was the taste of dust. In the air the hum of anticipation grew, like the noise bees make around a hive.

  High, iron-studded gates stood open on either side of the road. A forbidding stone arch blocked the sky. It seemed to her that at any moment they might be closed to repel attackers, and anyone unlucky to be left outside the city would be forgotten.

  Polished bronze symbols of the radiant sun, “Sol Invictus”, were affixed to the center of each door. Two guards in dull iron breastplates and high red-tufted helmets stood to attention on each side, restricting the flow of people through the gate. An official in a red tunic stopped every cart. His assistant poked about in each of them.

  When it came to their turn, the slave master handed over something and bobbed his head. The official looked Juliana up and down and gave a quick glance at the empty cart.

  Beyond the gate they were engulfed in a wave of noise. The whistling of flutes, horns being blown, and chanting added to the clamor.

  Juliana got an urge to run away into the crowd.

  “Does no one clear a path for priests these days?” a man called out in a high-pitched voice. “Clear a passage, clear the gate. The priests of the sun are coming.”

  Juliana craned her neck to see through the crowd. A group of shaven headed, ash-smeared devotees moved toward her. Two small golden statues were being held high in the air behind them. Further back, a golden and radiant symbol of the sun swayed as the procession made its way toward the gate. The road cleared in front of them, people crowding onto the high pavement on each side, carts disappearing down side alleys.

  At the front of the procession, young female flute players and timbrel janglers danced in short sea-green robes, which stopped well above their knees. Their heads were adorned with laurel wreaths. Their long legs attracted glances from all the men around as they swayed by.

  The slave master cracked his whip and trundled the cart down a lane to their left, beyond the stone guardhouse and before the first row of colonnaded tavernas and shops. He stopped and turned to leer at the procession still passing.

  “It’s the reopening of the seas,” he said, his expression gleeful. “There'll be plenty of traders in the market. You'll be best bought by some oily Egyptian who'll ship you off to his Kushite brothel. They're desperate for pale skins there. I heard a well-endowed Kushite can split a little girl in two.” He grinned in anticipation.

  At the tail of the procession, aged and dirt-encrusted beggars, emboldened by the festival, were appealing for alms. They pushed cupped and shaking palms at every onlooker. Few gave, but the beggars simply mumbled something and moved on. Dogs barked, and street children pointed and jeered, delighting in the misfortune of the beggars.

  Juliana looked to the sky. Everything felt different in the city. There was too much going on. They moved down the narrow alley way until it turned out into another crowded street.

  The slave master got down now and led the cart onward with a hand on the horse’s mane. At every street corner the taverns were busy. Young serving girls stationed outside the larger taverns urged people to enter with them, to taste the house delicacies, stuffed olives or the best herb cheeses in the empire, or the wine of the gods.

  Some shouted invitations to men to sample the tavern’s girls, who they said were all guaranteed to be fresh from the country. At one window, they passed a crowd that had gathered. When it parted briefly, she saw a bed and on it a young man lying naked on top of an older looking giant of a woman, his bare ass rising and falling. The crowd laughed.

  Ahead, the high marble pillared front wall of the Forum came into view. As they neared it the crowd thickened even more and there were lots more slaves. But she saw only two others tied to a cart like her. Most simply walked obediently a few steps behind their masters. Shouts of recognition rang out further up the street, followed by laughter. Many of the slaves looked apprehensive, as their masters marched forward on some mysterious mission.

  Groups of men in twos and threes were standing on each side now. They were eyeing the slaves as they passed. Most of the men were gray haired, worn looking. A few might have been traders, from god-only-knew-where. She looked around. A group of young men with excited eyes whispered and smirked together, staring at her.

  Juliana’s head felt as if it was being squeezed. Some of the men looked cruel. They had the wide-eyed expression she’d seen in slave boys who liked to drown kittens or pluck the wings of butterflies.

  A wizened old man in a filthy tunic, his hair matted, his face a mess of scars, followed a blond-haired slave boy no more than ten years old. The boy wore a short tunic exposing spindly white legs. She wondered why he was so thin. Then she looked at her own legs. They weren’t much different.

  She looked behind. No one followed them.

  But to her left, outside a tavern, a young man in the cleanest toga she’d ever seen was staring at her. A moment later, on the periphery of her vision, she saw him turn to one of his drinking companions. The other man jerked around, spilling his goblet of wine but, without paying any attention to the shouts of others at the table, he beamed delightedly at Juliana.

  “It’s that girl you whipped to death last summer, come back to haunt you,” the first man shouted.

  The other young men at their table turned to stare. Juliana stuck her tongue out. The slave master turned, looked at her, flicked his whip in her direction. She flinched away from it. He stopped the cart, jumped down, and walked back to the tavern.

  “Did you want a price, young masters?” He gestured to Juliana. “Perhaps you boys might share her. A virgin is worth a lot these days. Follow me and we'll have the papers made out before you know it. I’d sell her to you now, only I have to follow regulations with this one.” He leaned over the table, toward the boy who'd spilled his wine.

  “She was won in the great Persian campaign, you see. Booty of the Divine Galerius himself. I’ve been waiting weeks for permission to sell her, but now you can have her. In her prime she is. I’d say she’ll buck the first time, but she’ll give you a bit of fun.”

  A man leading a cart behind shouted at them to get going.

  Juliana looked at the young man who'd made the comment, then quickly dropped her gaze. He said something to his companion that had made them both laugh. A tavern girl in a short tunic appeared with a bucket of scummy looking water. She flung it on the tiled floor beneath their table. Then she leant over in front of the young men, her breasts almost p
opping out. She looked at Juliana and scowled. The slave master muttered something to the men and then went back to the cart. Juliana didn't look back as they moved on, but she was sure she heard laughter directed at her. She didn’t care.

  They arrived at the slave trader's street. A group of female slaves were on display at the first colonnaded shop and, despite the cold, some were naked. Others wore only a loin cloth. A few wore short tunics. Most had their name and origin painted in red on a small rough board around their necks. Her head felt light.

  The thought of being naked in public sent waves of embarrassment burning through her. Memories of what had happened to her as a child came roaring back. Visions that lived in her dreams, making her wake in a sweat occasionally when she thought they’d been forgotten. She’d been told that only barbarian slaves were stripped when they were sold. She’d hoped and hoped that meant she’d escape the humiliation.

  Almost none of the slaves on display seemed to care about who stared at them, indeed some seemed to enjoy it, smiling lustily at the men around them, but a few of the naked girls looked timid and childlike as they turned away from the gawking men. The display of nakedness made Juliana’s mouth dry up as they moved up the street. Don’t let them strip me.

  Now she knew. A good master would never buy her. Why would he, when he had such a choice? Further up the street, some of the traders had only two or three young girls tied up outside, others had more. Some had young men as well. They too were nearly all naked and she couldn't stop herself staring. One brown skinned boy grinned at her and made a swaying motion with his hips, shaking his long penis. A passer-by laughed. She overheard someone ask, “Would you eat that?” Another older man made an oohing noise at the still gesturing boy.

  Juliana’s ears tingled.

  Another shop had three svelte, black skinned girls who jostled each other and jiggled their breasts and smooth hairless bodies at any man who looked at them. They laughed uproariously at the reactions they received.