Requiem for a Slave

Начало книги

I was hurrying back to my mosaic workshop in the town, my mind on the important customer I had arranged to meet, when I stopped short on the street. I had caught sight of something which should not have been there. A street-vendor’s tray! It was leaning against a pile of sorted stones outside my door. I heaved a heavy sigh. Not only was it likely to mark my precious stock — it was not so much a tray as a greasy piece of wood with an even greasier leather strap to hold it round the neck — but I was uncomfortably aware of what its presence meant. Lucius the pie-seller was at my shop again.

It was the fourth time in as many days, and no amount of hinting seemed to warn him off. My own fault, of course. I’d been too soft with him the first time he called, when I not only purchased one of his appalling pies but gave him a worn-out tunic out of pity for his plight.

I should have known better, especially about the pie. I had tasted Lucius’s wares before, but I persuaded myself that they could not be as bad as I recalled. This ‘example’ was worse, if anything, clearly fashioned, as usual, from whatever ingredients he could rustle up for a few quadrans when the market stalls closed down: the questionable leavings from the butchers’ blocks, a few squashed turnip leaves and the final sweepings from the miller’s stones, more grit than flour — and those were only the things I could identify. The result was horrible. Even the dogs I fed it to when he had gone refused to finish it.

Читать дальше →