Infames

I

"Twenty denarii, and that's it," said the stout greengrocer, punctuating his words with a loud sniff as he lifted a crate of peaches from the table, before setting it on the cobblestone behind him. The evening sun cast a warm, orange glow across the Forum Holitorium as the fruit and vegetable vendors began to pack away their wares and produce, to retire to their homes before the night descended. Gulls cried overhead, circling before following the Tiber back out to sea, while children played in the streets, which wove between the tuff and concrete buildings. Soon their mothers would call them inside, their games abandoned as a different side to the city was beginning to stir.

Gaizaz folded his arms across his broad chest, furrowing his brow at the greengrocer as he let out a long, exhausted sigh. Hearing that number made his pouch feel a little too light.

"There has to be another way I can pay you," he bargained, his voice low and calm. "Perhaps some business you need taken care of."

The greengrocer wiped his sticky hands on his pulp-stained tunica as he eyed the man in front of him up and down. After all, there was no doubt that Gaizaz stood out here: when he was stood, he towered above every crowd; when he was seated, his long, honey blonde hair betrayed him. His complexion, at least, was fairly similar. Now, however, it seemed that his other attributes were coming into the older man's consideration, namely his strong build and the sword hanging at his hip.

The greengrocer hummed in thought, then replied, "Well, there may be one thing that I can think of."

"Spit it out then," Gaizaz rumbled, but there was no malice in his words. "I haven't got all day."

"Of course, of course." The man scratched at his white chin-hairs. "See, my son came into some debt recently. Stupid boy kept wasting his money away at this one brothel, absolutely besotted with one of the whores, and now that he's finally realised that his actions have consequences, he has been looking to me to pay off his creditors." The greengrocer huffed. "By Jove, I sell fruit for a living, what does this boy expect me to do?!"

Gaizaz tilted his head. "And you need me to..."

"Right, yes. I need you to go over to that brothel and get his money back."

The mercenary drew his lips into a thin line, dreading the answer that came next. "How much?"

"Oh, well..." The man's cheeks went as red as the strawberries he was selling.

"Seven hundred sestertii."

Gaizaz's eyebrows shot up and his mouth dropped open.

"Seven hundred?" That was almost as much as a soldier made in a year. Suddenly he could understand why the man had tried to charge him so much in the first place.

"It's humiliating," the greengrocer grumbled, shaking his head. "But if you can get that back for us, without giving away who we are, you have my word that I will tell you everything I know."

The mercenary subdued his rising frustration with a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he mulled it over in head. That was a lot of money to just walk in and demand, but he had come all this way...

"Fine," he agreed, teeth grinding together. "You're lucky I'm desperate."

A cascade of gratitude and jubilation fell from the fruit vendor's mouth, praising the gods as he relayed his thanks over and over again. He quickly afterwards gave Gaizaz directions to the brothel, located in the Campus Martius, and the mercenary supposed he would arrive there by nightfall if he left now; this distance was nothing compared to some of the lengths he had walked in the past. Leaving the greengrocer to finish packing away his stall, Gaizaz took off in the direction shown to him, squinting as the fires of the westward sun illuminated the side of his face.

Rome was not a city that he ever thought he would visit; he frankly would have been perfectly content never visiting at all. Firstly, there were too many people. The deep plains of Thracia or the rolling hills of Macedonia were more than enough for him, finding solace in their simplicity. Everything here was just too busy. Then it was a case of assimilation. Gaizaz thought of his father, a tradesman hailing from beyond the Germanic tribes of the north, as was evident even from his son's appearance. The mercenary recalled watching how the man had struggled to acclimatise to the world of the Mare Internum. He had brought his own culture and customs with him, so there had always been the odd moment where a behaviour needed to be unlearned in order to fit in. For his son, the line between civis and barbarus had always been thin. With Rome, however, Gaizaz needed a whole new rule book.

He was here now, however, but hopefully not for too long. That in itself was big ask.

As he walked past shops and businesses that were closing for the day, he noted to himself that he ought to pick up a job while here. The journey, by both land and sea, to the heart of the Empire had not been kind to his money pouch at all, and now his funds were dwindling. There was still food and boarding to consider as well.

An afterthought, Gaizaz told himself. There were many more important things to consider presently.

Twilight had settled by the time he passed between the Circus Agonalis and the Baths of Nero, the latter of which looked as if it had seen better days, but he had to admit that, even though this city was not the place for him, the architecture was mightily impressive. In a way it reminded him of Pergamon (a city that he actually found quite tolerable), but taken to the extreme. Looking up at the stadium, Gaizaz wondered if it was worth going to watch the games, either here or elsewhere in the city. He quickly banished the thought after that: he was not here for leisure.

The sound of snickering dragged him back to the present, and he glanced over to see a group of adolescent boys loitering in one of the stadium's alcoves, looking in his direction curiously as they whispered to and nudged at each other.

"Hey, barbarian!" one of them—tall and lanky with a shit-eating grin on his face—called out when he noticed Gaizaz looking towards them. "Are you lost? The nearest ludus is that way."

His friends erupted into fits of laughter, but Gaizaz simply kept walking. He would let them have their fun. There was no point in confrontation, especially not with children who looked like they needed a warm meal and a new pair of sandals each. Leaving their taunts behind him, the mercenary heard an older voice in the distance shout something about cleaning and laziness, before the sounds of amusement dissipated into the evening air.

It was dark when Gaizaz found himself standing before the brothel. It was a tall, red brick insula, slotted narrowly between the surrounding buildings, with drape-covered windows and a small lamp burning in a holder beside the door, which was wide open, like a dark mouth ready to consume. Two women stood outside, sharing a pomegranate as they leaned against the wall, gossiping about something or the other. They were each clothed in loose togae, their legs and shoulders exposed to the slight chill in the air, and wore no shoes on their slight feet. Engrossed in their conversation, they paid Gaizaz no attention.

The mercenary rolled his shoulders back as he inspected the building one last time, his jaw tight as he formulated his approach. The last thing he wanted to do was scare the workers, let alone make enemies, but it seemed that that was his lot in life; the cards the gods had handed him. He could easily back out now, but that would be admitting defeat, he felt. So, before he could change his mind, Gaizaz stepped inside.