Doctor Who_ The Romans - Donald Cotton [12]
I was thus under the necessity of paying for three rooms, et cetera, in order to redeem my lyre from the proprietress, who remarked nastily that she had met my sort before. I believe her to be mistaken in this, but was naturally in no position to argue, and I find the whole episode outrageous!
Should we meet the man again I shall certainly speak to him extremely sharply; and if he is unwilling to repay his debt to rne, then I must seriously consider reporting his behaviour to the Emperor, whose emissary he claims to be.
However, after many an irritating detour, we eventually achieved the Appian Way; and after this had little difficulty in reaching the City itself, except for that occasioned by dodging the racing wheels of several chariot squadrons, whose drivers appeared to have little or no road sense - or patience either, come to that, since they continually lashed out at each other with horse-whips in what seemed to me to be a thoroughly indisciplined manner, and with small regard for the convenience of pedestrians. Here is another circumstance which I must certainly bring to Nero’s attention at the earliest opportunity, for such behaviour can only have an adverse effect on the Empire’s reputation for ‘gravitas’.
But what of Rome itself? I am prepared to allow that it cannot have been built in a day, since there is such a lot of it; but feel that it will probably be improved by the lapse of a few more centuries, when the popular mellowing effect of Time may have reduced the somewhat Cyclopean modern architecture to a more picturesquely ruinous condition, compatible with a melancholy mourning for departed glories and vanished splendours. At the moment it is brash, to say the least!
High-rise temples, where priests ponder their impenetrable penetralia, impossibly jostle with unimaginably impractical palaces, fumbling for a foothold amongst a crawling sprawl of tenebrous tenements; inimical, I would say, to any proper sense of community in the populace, who seem for the most part an ill-kempt lot and ripe for revolution, if the Praetorian Guards were prepared to let them get on with it!
Wishing to purchase provisions for my importunate young protegée, I asked one of the latter if he could direct us to the market place; and having unscrambled his patronising ablative absolutes and plumbed his disgruntled gerundives, we came at length to an amenity area where some kind of an auction was about to begin. However, it soon became apparent that we were in the wrong department, for not a vegetable was on display: and, on consulting the auctioneer, a drunken functionary named Sevcheria, I quickly realised that we had unwittingly stumbled into the slave market. Not wishing Vicki to witness so degrading a spectacle, I was hustling her towards the exit - none too gently, I fear - when the slaves themselves, those wretched victims of an outworn social system, were paraded onto a platform, and the bidding started.
One of them, a really quite handsome but woebegone young woman, bore some slight resemblance to Barbara -
although the latter, I am sure, would never have consented to appear in public in so dishevelled a condition! However, the similarity was sufficient to give me further cause for self-congratulation that I had had the wisdom to leave Miss Wright at the villa, where she can come to no possible harm.
The slave-girl appeared to sense my interest, and waved at me frantically; but I nevertheless rejected Sevcheria’s insulting invitation to make him an offer for the poor woman; and before hurrying out after Vicki, I saw her purchased by a really ill-favoured fellow who gave his name as Tavius. I shudder to imagine what her future life will be like in the service of such a creature!
I have made a note to take up the case of all such unfortunates, as soon as I am alone with Nero...