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Slave Girl 2: Chapter 50
🕑 Added 2023-03-30 15:37:00 +0000 UTCThe two men enter the shop and Aristocles quickly shuts and locks the door behind them followed by shuttering the front window.
“Max, Cal, this here is Quin.” He says. “He’s the wanna be hero who got me into this mess.”
Setting down the figurine of my mother I turn and raise to greet them. To my surprise they greet me with honest hearty handshakes and warm smiles.
“I was a few tables away when you kicked those guys asses.” Maximilian says as he pats my shoulder. “About damn time somebody put those two in their place.”
“Past time.” Cal adds. “Good to meet you Quin.”
“Yeah.” I say. “Likewise.”
I look the pair of mismatched men up and down, both of whom looked to be in their mid to late twenties, and see that Aristocles’ statement that they were ‘not really fighters’ looked to be accurate. Maximilian was, as my mom used to put it, well fed. Though average in height the portly, ruddy-faced man easily outweighed me by 70 pounds or more. I felt by the callouses on his thick hands and I could see by the dense muscle of his forearms that he did some sort of honest work for a living but his sheer excess mass would slow him down in a fight and cause him to tire quickly. Calogerus, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more different. He was tall. Very tall. One of the few men I’d met in awhile that could look me eye to eye. But for all that height he was as spindly as a stalk of wheat. And judging by his permanent squint I don’t think he saw that well.
“My neighbor’s a leather worker.” Max says. “He had this happen to him. Was forced to pay them off eventually. It’s donkey shit.”
“Everybody’s so damned scared to rile up Regula’s supporters that they’re getting their way by default.” Cal says. “Nobody ever worries about riling us up.”
“Things are changing under Trajan.” Aristocles says as he returns to his seat to continue his work.
“Not fast enough.” Grumbles Max. “Hey!” His eyes light up as he sees what was on the counter. Snatching up the goblin figurine he studies it closely. “It’s Collywaddle! Ha!”
“Like her?” Aristocles asks.
“Oh my God. So hot.” He says. “I want one of these.”
“I’m making a set.”
“I’ll take’em all. And who is this babe looking all innocent?” He says as he takes up the other figure in his other hand. “Let me guess. Another series. Vestal virgin turned wanton harlot. I hope she’s got a nice hairy cunt. Ha ha ha!”
I take the object from his hand. “That’s my Mom!”
“Your mom!” As Max’s face turns even redder his buddy Cal is behind him busting a gut. “Oh geez. Sorry Quin. I didn’t know.”
“Or I think it is.” I say as I inspect it again. “My uncle had it made.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Yeah.” I say as I set the figure down again and turn it to face Aristocles. “This is real.”
“Mmm?”
“You said the only thing we can know for sure is sensation.” I say. “But this is real. Whatever inspired my uncle to have this made be it love or admiration or homesickness, it was as as real as any stubbed toe. In fact, whatever he felt for her…” I stroke a finger down the back of it. “…it was more real to him than even his five senses.”
“Pah!”
“It’s true.” I say. “Before I met my Rosa I might have agreed with you Aristocles. But…” I shake my head. “…there’s a deeper truth out there my friend. Once you feel it there is no denying it.”
“Such a romantic.” He rolls his eyes.
“A realist.” I counter. “That little goblin you’re carving right there, she is crazy about you. She brags you up every chance she gets. She likes you Aristocles, you and your…foibles. And she would be here now to fight by your side if you would have let her.”
His sculpting tool pauses. “Mmm.”
“Our hypocrite friend telling you about the Cyrenaics was he?” Cal grins knowingly.
“Yeah.”
“I’m not a hypocrite!”
“Donkey shit.” Max says. “Ari’s just as smitten with Colly as she is with him. He’s been glowing ever since he met her.”
“Shut up Max.”
“Cupid’s arrow has gone and pierced his heart.” Max teases with big batting eyes. “The skeptic has become a believer.”
“She sucks a good dick.” He says, his words full of stubbornness but no conviction. “That’s real enough.”
My father once told me that wars are seldom won all at once. That most great victories come from the many small ones that went before it. Though he would never admit it I had one this little battle of ideas. I could hear it in his voice and see it in the way he now looked at the miniature Collywaddle. Dad also told me to know that once a point was made it didn’t do anybody any good to harp on it. Leaving Aristocles to his thoughts I turn to the other two.
“So what do you two do?”
“We’re in metal too.” Max says. “Copper mostly. I run a little recasting smelter and forge at the East end. Bring me your unwanted metals and I’ll buy’em. Make’em into something useful.”
“And I do polishing, restoring, tinkering and etchings.” Cal says. “I do a very good business in mirrors. If you’ve seen any around here an ivy motif around the border it’s probably mine.”
“Sounds like good work.”
“No complaints.” Smiles Max. “And what do you do Quin? Besides busting skulls.”
“I don’t bust skulls!” I chuckle. “I’m a farmer. I inherited some land out of town. No good for farming but I’ve found some work with a neighbor.”
As Aristocles works by dim lantern light we three sit along the counter on the floor and chat awhile, keeping our voice low so as not to be heard even for an ear pressed to the door. I find the pair to be a really affable duo. They might be ‘city folk’ but they had none of the arrogance and ‘better than you’ attitude that I had come to associate with urbanites. An hour later and we are talking like old friends.
“Gods.” I mutter during a lull. “I hope this happens soon.”
“Can’t wait to kick some ass?”
“No! I have work in the morning and a long walk home.”
Not long after that Aristocles puts his work away and joins us on the floor. Passing out some cups he fills them with wine. We clink mugs and each take a swig and carry on getting to know each other. I learn that Aristocles was from a well to do family of merchants in Heraclea. Like me he had been gifted this property and moved to Grumentum on his own, though with him it was on condition that he run this shop which was one small part of his family’s larger mercantile empire. He was only interested in crafting and creating but he was committed by blood to running this shop. He insisted that he was ill-suited for the life of a shop keeper. “I’m no good with money.” He confessed. “I do things like buy little green slaves on a whim.” Yet his family would accept nobody else but one of their own clan to run one of their shops, no matter how poorly he ran it.
I learn that Max and Cal were locals and longtime best friends whose upbringing was almost the opposite of Aristocles’. They’d met as orphaned children working in the mines but had gradually worked their way up the metal system from mining to processing to transport to smelting and forging and now to their current attached businesses. The pair weren’t educated or blessed with connections or family wealth but they were smart, hard working, disciplined, and ambitious. They were as close as any brothers I’d ever seen and were the closest thing each other had to a family.
Each of their stories, the rich kid trapped in a life he did not want and the hard struggle of two child laborers up from nothing, made me appreciate what I had all the more.
As I swirl the last bit of my wine in my cup and enjoy the alcohol smell a realization strikes me. I was in a room with three copper workers and three businessmen. There was a wealth of expertise here at my fingertips.
“Hey, question for you all.” I say as I stare down into the dark liquid swirling in my cup. “I had this…idea. Something I would like made.”
Max, his nose now as red as his cheeks from just two small cups of wine, leans forward in interest. “Oh?”
“A sort of…great vase or urn, made from sheets of copper.”
“Okay.” Cal says, already doing some mental calculations. “What would it hold?”
“Liquid.” I say. “Liquid to be heated.” From there I go on to describe the ‘still’ item that was detailed in the Atlantean codex I had gotten from the Harpy’s lair. They were particularly fascinated when I tell them about how the top must be tapered and angled down and away from the body of the object.
“Now what would you need something like that for?” Aristocles asks.
“Like I said, just an idea.”
“You’ve got interesting ideas.” Cal says. “You’re set on it being that big? That’s a fair bit of copper you’re talking about there.”
“That’s the size I’d want.”
“Getting the bottom as thin as you’d like would be a challenge.”
“Not to mention the riveting.” Max says. “Keeping the steam from escaping will be a bitch.”
“Might seal the joints with pewter.” Aristocles offers.
“Maybe.” He says. “The steam will just shoot out the end anyway though. Why do you want to direct the steam Quin?”
“To collect and cool.”
“What?” Cal laughs. “You’ll end up with what you started with!”
“Or just water.” Max chuckles. “We’ve got perfectly good wells and rivers here you know.”
“Just think about it.” I say. “If you all think you can do it let me know. And give me an estimate. I might be able to manage it.”
“I mean, it’s your money.” Max says. “We’ll give it some…”
“Shh!” Aristocles holds a hand up. His eyes wide he cocks his head.
We all fall quiet and Cal hides the lamp’s already feeble light. After a few dark and silent moment…there comes a clunk at the front of the building followed by a low hissing voice. The unwelcome visitors that we’d been waiting for had arrived.
