the boy shouted proudly, his head shaking for emphasis, his arms springing up again into the air.
“Domina,” I whispered in her ear, “the boy is what we in Greece call an ‘idiot.’ He is malformed in both mind and body. Let me put a coin in his bowl so that we may depart.” I dropped an as, then another into the wooden bowl and was taken aback by the boy’s reaction. His attention, which had been riveted to the kind smile on my lady’s face, whipped from her visage to mine; his jaw dropped, his eyes widened, and he yelped with what I was to learn was his unflappable state of ear-splitting enthusiasm. His squeal of gratitude, and now his outstretched arms were directly squarely at me. That others were witnessing a communication between myself and this unfortunate…well, I was discomfited. I thought to reply with a curt word of comfort or a nod of my head, but I could only stand with my hands at my sides, pinned by his idiot grin.
“Are you the father of this child?” Tertulla asked, her blue eyes narrowed ever so slightly. She had not yet condemned him, but she was close.
“I am not,” he answered. His tone was enough to cause a second guard to take hold of his other arm. “But we took him in, and fed him, and kept him alive, which is more than most would have done.”
“What do you mean, ‘we took him in?’”
“My wife found him, in the woods near Norba. He’d been left for the wolves.”
“Where is your wife?”
“Dead. Died birthing. Took the baby with her, too. Been two years now. ‘Couldn’t keep the farm up without her, so me and the boy moved to town.”
“I see,” Tertulla said. What she saw was much more than what this scrofulous miscreant was saying. Remembering my first days of enslavement, thrall to eight legionaries in the hidebound misery they called a tent, I wondered what else the child had suffered at his hands. “Despicable,” she spat. “You couldn’t find work, or maybe didn’t even look. Why bother, when you had the child? Was not the poor boy sympathetic enough with all his fingers?”
“I done no such thing!” His eyes darted about, looking for an escape he would not find. “I never hurt him.” His wild eyes told a different tale. The child could not help the subhuman condition of his birth; as distasteful as it was to look upon him, I might at least pity him. For his ‘caretaker,’ I felt nothing but revulsion.
At that moment, Crassus, mounted and glorious, came into the thick of us. Eurysaces (sired by Ajax, now put to pasture) bent his ink black head and to the delight of the boy nuzzled his cheek. One dumb creature recognizing another.
“What mischief are you up to, columba?” my lord asked.
Domina told him. Crassus thought a moment, then, from a height loftier than even that afforded by his horse, handed down his judgment. “You will accompany my men,” he said, pointing at the boy’s soon-to-be former caretaker. “Tomorrow, we will go to the courts and for the sum of 500 sesterces you will relinquish any and all claims upon this child…to me. Is that clear?”
“Really, dominus, is that necessary?” I said. “I’m sure we can find the boy a suitable home.”
“I just did,” Crassus said. “Clean him up. Tend to him. Make your mistress happy, atriensis.” There was no brooking that tone.
Domina reached up and squeezed her husband’s hand. A look passed between them, of gratitude and something more.
As the guards dispersed the crowd that had gathered, I sighed and held out my hand to the boy. He made to pick up his begging bowl. “Leave that,” I snapped.
Using his thumb, he pointed to the coins and said, “Yours.” To my surprise, his pronunciation of this difficult word was acceptable.
“No, yours. I’ll keep them for you.” I bent down to collect the money, then offered my free hand to him. He took it in both of his. The feel of those four bony hooks clinging to the soft meat of my palm made my bile rise. I helped him stand, and as soon as he got to his feet he threw his arms around me with such ferocity I was compelled to take a step backward to keep my balance. Oh, the stench! If I could not wriggle free of him, I would have to burn my tunic. I would most certainly incinerate his.
“Thank you, thank you,