Freed

The master hobbled with his walking stick to the small clay hut. It had been built for slaves, the only luxury they were afforded. The sun was furiously beating everyone caught in its rays with heat. As soon as the master reached the open entryway of the hut, he felt the cool air blow past him. He was ashamed to admit it was actually cooler in here than his mansion. He opened his mouth to speak but the man lying on the hard slab of clay interrupted, “I’m awake.” He lazily flopped on the ground and groaned as he hauled himself up. While getting up from the floor he asked, “What’s with the visit? You’re gonna see me tilling the fields in a few minutes, are you that excited to see me?”

On any other day he would have exchanged some choice insults, but he simply replied, “Come with me.”

The master hobbled away and his guards hidden behind the wall followed in tow. He was heading for his small marble table atop the hill the mansion sat on. The slave walked out and without thinking turned right, towards the farm. He blinked a few times and rubbed his head. As he walked to the foot of the hill, he took in some of the sights he didn’t see in his normal beeline to the farm. The ornate stone half-wall that surrounded the property, the paths that led off into nowhere, and the stone road marker that was so slanted it might as well have been held up by magic.

This hill is so steep. Es mundus excrementi! The slave thought, it had been a while since he walked up any kind of elevation.

He arrived, huffing and puffing, to a very much not exhausted master. He was sitting back in his chair and rhythmically tapping the table, “Aha!” The master shouted, throwing his hands up, “Nice of you to finally show up!”

The slave opened his mouth to tell his master exactly what part of a dog he came out of, but he needed air. The master motioned to the chair opposite him, and the slave plopped himself down. He looked up and was greeted with a face full of stone wall, “I hope you don’t mind the lack of a view, but I’m going to appreciate these rolling hills a lot more than you would. After many years living here I am still enthralled by the beauty of it all.”

“Did you call me up for a monologue about nature? If so I might just leave and let you execute me.”

The master smiled, “You did not have such a mouth on you twenty years ago. Twenty years ago you were but a babe, suckling at the teet of my slave.”

“I prefer to call her my mum but if you want to be weird about it then go ahead.”

“Di Immortales! How did I let you get away with this arguing for so this many years. I should have had you beheaded long ago,” he said, laughing. The sun was really blasting heat on everyone now. Droplets of sweat were gathering on the elderly master and regularly falling wherever they pleased. “I have gotten away from why I called you here: I am dying.”

The slave did a double take. The master had said it with such candour he didn’t know if it was a joke or not. “What? Did I have too much wine and start having happy hallucinations?”

“I am seventy seven years old. I have seen it written in the stars, my time on this world is over.” The slave was still waiting for the punchline. The master continued to talk about this with such calm, like he was going to die right then and there. “Oh, uh…I’m sorry about that,” The slave stammered out.

“Do not feel sorrow for me, that is for myself to do. Seventy seven years, no family, no aspirations beyond be exactly where I am now. I paid for guards, I paid for sex, the only person around here I haven’t paid to be in my company,” He pointed his staff, “Is you.” He said, laughing again, but this time in a much more forced way.

He reached down, picked up a cloth next to his chair and wiped away the ocean that was accumulating on his face, “And do you know what?” he asked, leaning in, “I wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.”

He leaned back and slammed his fist against the table, snapping the slave out of his stunned silence. “Uh, so when you pass on what happens to this place? And what happens to me?”

“Well, probably my property will be seized and you will be put up for auction. Bit of a boring end but, that’s life I suppose,” he said, before looking away, “But don’t worry, you aren’t going to the auction house.”

The master had taken on a tone that the slave had never heard before. He nodded to the two guards by the door and they began walking over to the table.

The slave looked around: two guards by the door, two guards by the front entrance, two guards making their way pretty quickly towards him. Hopping the fence would be impossible to do without tripping. Actually getting down the hill without slipping is going to be an issue in and of itself, but one I will hopefully solve in the next few seconds.

The master rose to his feet, “Before you go I just want you to know that you have always been a pain in my ass.” He raised his staff in the air and the slave gripped the table, ready to kick the chair away and run at a moment’s notice. The master brought his staff down and tapped the slave on the head.

“Right then, as of right now you have two choices: You may stay with me and I will continue to feed and house you as long as I can. Or, you can leave and do with your life as you please.”

The slave was still there, dumbfounded as he rubbed his head. It didn’t even hurt he was just in a pit of confusion, “I’m confused. Aren’t you going to kill me?”

“Oh, I wish. But right now you are a freedman, and prison is not the place for me.”

As soon as he heard those words, the slave let a massive smile wash across his face and in a fit of excitement he slapped the table, “Are you telling me I’m not a slave!?”

“I do believe that’s what I said,” he looked at the guard, “That is what I said, right?”

The slave interrupted, “So that means I can go anywhere I want?”

“Yes.”

“And I can hurl as many insults at you as I want?”

“Don’t make me regret this.”

Both men could feel the others’ excitement at this moment. A guard plopped a toga on the ex-slave’s head and he excitedly scrambled it into something that resembled clothing. He didn’t care, he didn’t care about the toga and he didn’t care about the heat. It was clothing that wasn’t a loincloth.

The two got up and walked down the hill. The master was talking about something but the ex-slave wasn’t listening. He was thinking about all of the different places in the republic he could go, or even beyond. They reached the end of the property and stood next to the leaning street stone, “Where do you want to go?”

The ex-slave looked out at the rolling hills, a view he was denied minutes ago. Now that he was free he could see the beauty of it all, “Rome. I want to finally see Rome.”

“Then it’s been nice knowing you,” the master said with a wave.

The ex-slave bent over to read the stone’s inscriptions, and took a step Romewards. He looked back and asked, “Why did you free me?”

“I could never curse someone with such a terrible slave,” he said, grinning like a fool.