Slave Girl 2: Chapter 59 (Patreon)

“Ahem!”  I clear my throat.  “Yeah.”  Looking for something, anything, to change or at least escape the conversation I catch sight of Horatius chuckling along with the rest.  Breakfast in hand I walk swiftly up to him.  “Sir, could we talk a moment?”

“Of course.”  He says, his eyes twinkling just like I’d seen his daughter’s do.  He nods downward.  “If it’s to do with that I’m afraid I got no experience.  I got an old stud stallion you might talk to though.”

There are more laughs at my expense.  I laugh along with them.  This was going to be a thing now until it wasn’t.  Trying to buck it would only make it worse.

“No sir.”  I say.  “Afraid it’s a bit more serious.”

He waves me to follow.  “Come on young fella.”

We step around the building and away from the gathered men.  He leads me on to the wood pile and motions for me to sit down on the chopping block, which I do.  Standing back from me he finds another decently sized log and sets it upright to sit on himself.  Crossing his arms he says.  “What’s on your mind Quintus?”

“Well…”  I raise the plate of food and mug.  “…first off, thanks for hospitality and…just everything.”

“Sure.”  He quickly swats away my attempt at small talk by cutting right back to the issue.  “You wanted to talk?”

“Yeah.”  I set the dish on my leg.  “Before you hear it from someone else I, uh, I just wanted to let you know I saw a bit of trouble last night.”

His face hardens, his eyes narrow.  “Oh?”

“That trouble we talked about before.”  I say.  “Those two loose ends that needed tying off.”

“Quintus…”

“I didn’t go looking for a fight Sir but they were messing with my friends.”  I interject to explain the situation before he started judging.  “Folks that only got caught up in it because they were friends of mine.  Good people.  I couldn’t stand by.”

“Mmm.”  His stern eyes look me up and down.  “And?”

“And as far as I know it’s finished.”  I say.  “Rasmus and Pero are in prison this morning.  Officer Amphion swore they’d see a praetor.”

He cocks a brow.  I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or surprised.  “I see.”

“I’m a law abiding man sir.  I didn’t want you getting any other ideas.”  I say.  “All I want is to work hard and look after my…um…”

“Slave?”

“Family.”

His gaze staring hard into mine he searches for falsehood or weakness.  I stare right back into his eyes to await my judgment.  “Fair enough.”  He says, his stony expression softening.  “Appreciate you letting me know.”  He stands and I stand too.  Continuing to look up at me he gives a slow nod.  “I wished I coulda met your Pa.”

“You would have liked him.”

“I think I would.”  He says.  “Get on with ya.  Go eat with your men.”

“My men?”

“I told ya you were supervising a team.”  He says.  “You’ll be heading up the team with Lucas.  Find him and you’ll find them.  He’ll tell ya your section.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t worry.  He knows whose in charge.”  He slaps my shoulder.  “Hoping you might show him a thing or two.  He’s…err…”

“Stubborn?”

He smirks.  “Stubborn, sure.”

My conscience clean I head off to eat with my fellow laborers.  When I return I notice that the larger gathering was loosely separated into smaller groups of five and six.  I don’t even have to look for Lucas as he was already waving me his way as I rounded the corner.  I weave through the other teams, a few friendly hellos along the way, and come to sit in the grass with the five others that I’d be supervising.  Besides Lucas and I there were two other freemen, a native Italian and a wiry African who had the darkest skin I had ever seen, and two slaves who were both from Hispania if their heavy, lisping accents were anything to judge by.  All of them were young, right around my own age with Lucas being the eldest of us.

“Morning.”  I say as I sit down among them.  Setting down my food and drink I reach around to give each of them a shake of the arm.  Each in turn greets me except for Lucas who tries to set out how things are right away.

“So I hear you’re an old hand.”  Lucas says, as if in charge.  “I thought I’d get you to…”  As his sister had done I knuckle Lucas on one of the sore knots on his dome.  “OW!”

“I already talked to your Dad numb skull.”  I say in a tone that told that I’d have none of his bullshit.

Grumbling he sinks down and rubs his head.  He might have taken a pop at me but he already knew from our first go round how that ended.  The other four were all smiles.

Munching down my hearty breakfast I talk with each worker to assess their skills and experience.  To my complete surprise the local freeman and both slaves were total novices to farm work.  They’d never even held a sickle before!  And the African only had a couple of harvests under his belt.  Normally these large groups of seasonal labor were old hands at this.  Not only did I have the youngest crew, they were also the greenest by far.  In the grizzled group beside ours there was more experience in any one of those men than our whole gang put together.  More and more I was getting the sense that there was a method to old Horatius’ decisions.  A test for the new neighbor looking to woo his daughter perhaps?  Or maybe he wanted to humble his hot-headed son Lucas by putting him among the greenhorns to force him to step up.  Or it could have been simply that we were the dregs.  I had shown up a complete stranger without references at the very last minute after all.  Whatever the thinking was I would see to it that our crew held our own.

“Alright.”  I say as I finish off my meal.  “We’ll work in pairs.  One cuts, one stacks and bundles.  When the cutter tires we switch.”

“That’s not how we do it here.”  Lucas protests.

“It’s how we’re doing it today.”  I shoot back.  “At least until we all have a handle on things.”  I pair each novice up with a more experienced worker, the African and I matching with the two slaves and Lucas with the local.  “Watch and learn.  Tell me if you tire.  Speak when you need to.  Ask if you don’t know.”  I give them an encouraging look.  “This ain’t difficult, just hard.”

Given such firm and decisive directions I sense a palpable feeling of relief settle into my team.  There was nothing so calming as the kindly confidence of a more experienced leader, a lesson I had learned well from my Lady.

After breakfast the whole group gathers to witness the sacrifice to Ceres and give prayers that she watch over a bountiful harvest.  Giving proper prayer to my goddess out here among her fields felt so darn good and right to this old farm boy.  I gather my team and we collect our sickles before Lucas leads us out to the section that we’d be responsible for.  I had hoped we would be near the cool shadow of my forest but that area is reserved for the grayer heads.  Ours was at the completely opposite end of Horatius’ land on the crown of rolling hill, not a lick of shade in sight.  I didn’t care though.  Being here with the soil beneath my sandals and the wheat brushing my calves was all I needed.

After a quick primer on cutting and tying to those that needed it we walk to the very edge of the field and set to work.

It is tough going at first.  The two slaves end up cutting as many weeds as grains until they are shown how to use their sickle to be more discerning in directing their cuts.  But with patience and perseverance I actually manage to get them working at a respectable rate.  Like an older brother I guide them, praise them, and correct them as best as I can.  Again with Rosa as my ideal I never belittle them or tear them down, I only build them up.  And the returns are impressive.  By the time the lunch wagon rolls around we had done probably two-thirds of what the teams to either side of us had done, which I felt was pretty damn good considering.  It is actually the most experienced of the team that proves to be the biggest challenge.

Lucas, son of the owner, not only felt that this common work was beneath him but he was also terrible at it.  He cut without a care in the world and his piss-poor binding left his bundles laying in loose piles.  It definitely didn’t help that he felt insulted by having to take direction from me too.  When he wasn’t complaining about the work he was bitching about my every decision.  Once more I keep my demon Mistress close to mind.  Every chance I get I try to build bridges with him as best I can.  Every time he pushes too far I push back harder, wait a few minutes, then reach out again.  With the help of the other men I slowly gain at least some bit of camaraderie with him.  It isn’t until later in the day though that I truly unlock his potential.

Remembering his interest in fighting I bring up the scuffle I’d had the night before and introduce the subject of pankration.  The man’s eyes light up like the sun.  With passion in his belly he asks me question after question, and as he does so I notice his cutting arm pulling quicker and quicker.  If I couldn’t get him working better at least I could get him working faster.  It was something.  While he’d never officially trained I find Lucas to be quite a wealth of knowledge on the martial disciplines.  For the remainder of the day the group of us talk battles, soldiery, combat, heroic myths and share stories of the various tussles we’d each been in.  The stories turn into a bit of competitive oneupmanship and before long some of the tales go from unlikely to downright ridiculous.  We could all hear the fibs from the real ones though and a good laugh is had by all.

As the sun lowers in the West and the end of work bell rings from the distant house we stand together dirty, tired, and truly feeling like a unit.  We hadn’t done as much as the others but we’d done good.  Damn good.  And we would only get better.  It was a weird thing for me to think about men my own age but…I was proud of them.

Chapter 60