Tales of Ancient Rome by S. J. A. Turney Read Free Book Online

weak and sympathetic people. The estate made more than enough for a nobleman to live a comfortable life, but Marcus knew it could be better still. Working the figures himself, he passed them before a friend who had worked in the treasury and who was a genius with an abacus. The simple fact was that, though the latifundium had made a fortune, it could easily have made twice as much with a little less softness and sympathy.
    His nose itched, but that would go away in its own time. An itchy nose was a sign of something, he remembered hearing tell. Was it that he was coming into money? Hopefully, it would take him that inch closer to his dream of actually rolling in golden coins. He smiled.
    Rubus had been the main cutback. Not the only one, but the main one. The middle-aged Gaul had begun as a slave on the farm, freed by his grandfather toward the end of his life and installed as the overseer for the estate. His grandfather and father both had prized the Gaul for his knowledge and efficiency, but they had paid him a small fortune for his work.
    Stupid, given that they were both present permanently at the villa and knew damn well how to run things themselves. What a waste of money. Totting up how much money he’d saved in the five years since he drove Rubus from the estate made his palm tingle. Enough to buy a new caravan of wagons, or to perhaps put down a payment on a barge; all things that would expand the growing empire of Pacutus.
    Personal attention had changed everything. The money had started to pile up so rapidly he couldn’t have spent it if he’d tried. He didn’t, of course. He was too busy making the money to spend any of it.
    Of course, there were days when the work was harder than others, such as today. Some days the slaves were especially lazy and stupid and he had to expend precious energy with the whip, or even use his own, soft, white hands to labour on the estate. After all, it was better to do some things oneself than to rely on unreliable wasters like the Numidian carpenter or the other slaves that had been given the task of building the arbour across the patio outside the villa.
    It would be lovely when complete. The beautiful, decorative patio claimed an unrivalled view of the estate with its rolling slopes, and of the majestic peaks that towered over it. He smiled as he took it in once again. It was nice now, but when he could look at it from this very spot shaded by the timber structure with vines growing across it, laden with succulent grapes.
    He would have to start thinking about a wife soon. He would need a son, of course, to pass the estate to. It certainly wasn’t going to that soft, podgy cousin of his that talked endlessly of the new Jewish religion that Nero had forbidden and urged him at every social engagement to free his slaves and hire free workers. The moron.
    No. A son it would have to be. Then his son could sit on this very patio under the arbour, surrounded by the finest grapes in central Italia and watching his slaves work.
    No sign of the slaves now, though, as the sun began to descend. His arms ached, but then they would, after such a day. He sighed as he scanned the vineyards once more from the patio viewpoint.
    He wondered whether he’d spent more of the afternoon beating the damn wastrels or hammering the nails himself? Probably beating. He did seem to have beaten them a lot today; more than usual, and he would be the first to admit that he beat them a lot anyway.
    But they were slaves. More slaves could always be found cheaply. They didn’t have to be clever or powerful to dig a hole or pick grapes. Slaves were worth less than the soil they worked. Beating them was natural; the very order of things.
    That, of course, was why it had come as such a shock when they had turned on him. The Judean girl had been the first to use the whip. He’d been so surprised at the turn of events while the two Numidians held him down, that he’d barely noticed the pain as they flayed the skin