Of Merchants & Heros Read Online Free

heard the sound of men’s laughter echoing along the colonnade. They were still at their wine.
    My uncle Caecilius was reclining on a dining-couch, propped up on one elbow in the Greek style, balancing a great embossed silver wine-cup in his hand. It was clear he was got up for some grand party. He wore a long robe of fine-combed wool dyed light green, scarlet doeskin sandals buckled with golden clasps, and, on his head, a great bushing wreath of spring flowers. His hair was jet-black, but his face was pale and going to fat. Beside him reclined a young woman, scantily dressed, with her hair bound up in elaborate plaits.
    She stared at me through painted eyes. Even I, with my country naivety, could see she was no wife.
    ‘Ah, Marcus,’ he cried, a little too loudly. ‘We thought you were dead. If you had been a little earlier you could have joined us; but tell the slave to give you something from the kitchen. Still, I expect you will have a cup of wine?’ He fluttered his hand at a slave in the corner, who began ladling wine into a cup from the krater.
    I said, ‘I am alive, sir, but my father is dead. We were taken by pirates.’ I had already poured all this out to the steward, and had supposed he would have told my uncle.
    And so he had. For then he said with an unsteady swing of his wine-cup, ‘Yes, it really is very unfortunate, and it will be an unwelcome surprise for your mother. Still, we can discuss this another time . . . But tell me, how is she?’
    I looked at him and thought, He is drunk; he does not comprehend. I glanced at the other guests. They were all middle- aged men like my uncle, each with a young female companion. They were gazing at me with shining eyes and expressions of frozen merriment, and I had the sudden sense that I was an embarrassment.
    My uncle was still looking up at me, his mouth half open, and I realized he was waiting for me to answer. I managed to tell him something or other, but all the while I was thinking, as I had already reflected many times before, of what I should say to my mother, of how I could explain that I had brought about my father’s death.
    A wave of tiredness like nausea swept over me. I glanced down, at a loss, and my eyes rested on the girl. Her fingers and toes were painted bright red, and she was wearing a dress of thinnest silk, through which I could see her breasts and painted nipples. She was pouting and looking at me with bright vacant eyes.
    I ignored her, and looked back at my uncle. ‘Thank you, sir, for your hospitality, and for these clean clothes,’ I said, pulling myself together. ‘But I am very tired, and should like to go and sleep.’
    For a moment he frowned at me. But then, waving away the boy who had come with the wine, he cried, ‘Yes, yes, go and sleep then.
    The slave will show you a room.’
    Even before I had left the courtyard I heard the laughter resume, and the clank of the wine ladle as the cups were refilled.
    I was given a room on the upper floor, with a window that looked down the hill towards the harbour. I told myself next day, when I had eaten and slept, that I must have interrupted some important gathering of my uncle’s, that today his mood would be different.
    It was not until nearly noon that the slave came to fetch me.
    Caecilius was in his workroom, seated behind a large desk topped with green onyx, upon which were strewn scrolls and tablets of accounts. His face looked puffy and grey. A flask of wine and a half- empty cup stood by his arm.
    He motioned for me to sit, and, after a pause, he set his papers aside and looked at me. Then he began to ask questions about our farm – the crops and buildings, the number of slaves, the yield, the livestock, and the arrangement of the land.
    I answered as best I could, wondering what concern it was of his.
    As I answered he nodded to himself, and now and again made notes on a wax tablet. He seemed to be considering something; but whatever it was he did not say, and at length he