Jack Comes Back

Chapter 11 part 1 - The Castoff: A Dog of Rome

The Castoff: A Dog of Rome - part 1

Rome: The year of the XIVth Consulship of Imperator Caesar Domitianus Augustus, Dominus et Deus, and the consulship of Lucius Minicius Rufus, 840 years after the founding of the city

"Hoi, Lucius. Get yer weight on it, boy." The largest of three men grumbled from behind an enormous two-wheeled cart. In it were stacked bodies of dead animals, parts of dead people-a leg, a hand, a dog, some unrecognizably mangled flesh.  

Thump...Plop...Thump...Scrape...Thud...Squeak...Thump 

The cart was the unfinished dream of an evil child: parts missing all over, leaning crazily to one side. The men moved slowly around it, sorting, picking up, casting in. After a small area was cleared, the big man in the back kicked out the rear bracing board while the other two heaved on the pole that protruded at an odd angle from the front. Then they pushed, pulled, and shoved the cart to the next pile of broken body parts. The wagon teetered erratically, threatening to dump all their work back onto the stained sand of the Flavian Amphitheater. 

"Push up yourself, cowbreath. We're holding our end." A reply grunted from in front of the cart. 

The vehicle tilted far enough that the last body tossed in slid out over the top of the blood-greased pile. It was a dog. An enormous war mastiff with most of a wicked-looking, iron-studded collar still on its tawny neck. The body hit the sand with a soft thud, shifting the balance enough that the cart righted itself. The dog lay unnoticed as the three men wrestled the wain along fifty feet to the middle of another pile of bodies and the day's fading rosy light lit the empty marble tiers that surrounded them. 

Pain. DOG ground. Man? No fight. Pain. 

After a few minutes of stacking, Baractes, the biggest man, threw in a dark severed arm, wiped the sweat from his small, black eyes with a forearm suited to a bear, and regarded his crew. 

"Drop the grue and get over here," he began, "Time for a dump, boys." 

The other two men continued tossing dead human detritus into the wagon. 

"There's just this bit to do, Horse-Mouth. Leave off and we'll finish." A balding, thickset blonde worker replied over his shoulder. 

"Leave off yourself, Pox-Nose. It's already too heavy. If your wits were as large as your stomach, Titus, you'd..." Baractes began. 

"...I'd not be in this line of work-particularly with a surly Illyrian like you, Stone-Head." Titus finished. 

"You're lucky to have the wage and you know it. Your mother..." 

The discussion escalated as Baractes and Titus argued about whether to pull the load down to the Spoliarium and dump the remnants into the abattoir that led to the Grand Cloaca, the largest sewer in Rome. 

Lucius, the youngest and smallest of the three, looked forward to these arguments as opportunities for breaks from the filthy, hard labor. He barely heard either man when they went off like this. When he did give them a thought, he tacked up the animosity of their exchanges to familial feeling. Baractes-who was, indeed, from somewhere in Illyria-won Titus' sister after winning freedom in this same arena. Lucius had seen that sister and suffered the barbs delivered by her well-honed tongue, so his sympathies tended to fall on Baractes' side. On the other hand, Baractes had persuaded his brother-in-law into this despicable job. Further, Baractes was an evil bastard. 

Mostly, Lucius took these interludes as moments to dream of returning to his grandfather's land in Picenum, raising cattle and grapes, and writing poetry. Many generations ago his family had owned their land, but the famously greedy Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo had taken title with some trumped up charge of tributus familiaris and they'd been tenants now for a hundred and fifty years. Their landlord, Marcellus Pompeius-also known as Strabo because he'd inherited his ancestor's crossed-eyes-was a current favorite of the Emperor's.