Chapter XXIII: The Major Domus
The tarn beside Villa Servi is a typical alpine splash, its airless depths never mingling with the surface water, yet Lady Vita insists it shimmers like the Adriatic when the sun is just right.
Welletrix the Veragros knows nothing of the sea, let alone one named Adriatic, but he’s seen his share of lifeless lakes.
Caeso and Optio laze on the front porch until he disrupts their tranquility with an authoritative bark. The house cats laying with them are immune, their laziness forgiven after nightly patrolling for mice—and he prefers them over Delphine, the rat-eating python in the villa granary.
A coach arrives, and its new driver is not much younger than the departed Sulla. He unfastens the reins of both beasts as a lively child appears and barrels into the villa as if his asshole’s on fire.
“Slow down,” yells Welle, following him inside.
His meticulous gaze scans the foyer’s vibrant red floor tiles for smudges. Thanks to the large potted plants, dust is nowhere to be found. Their long green leaves, driven by a need for sunlight, lean towards the room’s center pool, its rainwater slurry home to a pair of turtles and the occasional frog.
Welle draws back the curtains, allowing the atrium’s light to flood the study. Rays of sun crawl over russet floor tiles, where alternating motifs of apples and pears speak of the family business.
His finger drags along the wall’s sturdy timber chest, its long, narrow compartments full of vellum, each blank page a potential season of bountiful harvests. An open rack of rhombus-shaped cubbies sits on top, each slot packed with scrolls, a testament to this family’s insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Warmth beckons from the peristyle, a tranquil colonnaded yard that forms the heart of the home.
A stone pine grows out of the portico walk, its broad crown providing enough shade to keep the white sands of this serene oasis cool in summer. Like the yard’s evergreen shrubs, it maintains its verdant allure long after the cavaedium gets covered for the winter.
The sunken fountain pool, a constant source of life, rumbles from spring to autumn with a water pillar that churns high enough to mist the overlook railings. In warm months, the waterscape becomes a vibrant canvas, with a riot of blooming flowers that draw butterflies and tiny birds that leave their mark on the yard’s lone bench.
Welle finds the child here, as he is every morning with a wicker paddle spoon, his sole task to mine cat shit and piss clumps from the garden sands. Happy with the tyke’s boundless enthusiasm, Welle sends him to Niko for breakfast before examining the triclinium.
He enters the dining chamber, made airy by its high ceiling. On the walls is a mesmerizing undersea tableau, where the laws of nature gracefully yield to the whims of imagination.
Here, glowing jellyfish float among schooling tangs. Sea turtles, their shells adorned with brilliant corals, carry trays of land-grown fruits on their backs, while eels, shimmering in a myriad of colors, curl their long bodies around flasks of wine.
Deep within the cerulean depths, among tendrils of leafy seaweed, the majestic Neptune, his hair a radiant crimson and his beard intricately woven, holds court at a table crafted from the remnants of a sunken ship. A myriad of Mermen, each a unique kaleidoscope of sizes and colors, partake in the feast with distinguished guest Minerva, who, in her rascal wisdom, covertly feeds olives to her uncle’s most loyal hippocamp.
Pomona, a bright vision of youth crowned with a sapling, stands atop the fish-tailed horse, joyfully releasing apples to the high walls, where playful dolphins deftly catch them with their long mouths. Along indigo ledges sit black iron lamps, the holes in their panels casting luminescent bubbles on the ceiling, where a giant yellow octopus plays a symphony of musical instruments with its tentacles.
Villa Servi boasts lovelier frescoes, yet Welle fancies this benthic scene, for his knowledge of the sea comes solely from Illyrian scrolls.
Before departing, the alpine Celt scours all three couches for remnants of last night’s meal. Marilla, the chamber’s maid, scrubs these cushions daily, but sometimes, she lazily turns them over to hide stains. After finding crumbs beneath the marble table, he drags his knuckles over the pearlescent spirals of the fireplace’s nautilus shell mantle and wonders at the ashy remnants in its hearth.
House matron Flora burns scented wood only in colder months, employing the corner braziers throughout autumn. Yet before he can ask after the mystery, Lord Skipio’s deep tenor resonates from the study.
“Why are these reports written in green?”
“They’re projections,” Vita’s airy voice replies. “Not actual data,”
Welle enters and finds them on separate couches, their moods calmer since this morning’s strife.
Skipio’s green eyes rise from the scroll. “Bushel earnings are rather low in these forecasts.”
“Raw fruit prices will plummet in the next few years.” She then explains when his stare commands it. “Overproduction.”
“Rome proper lacks orchard lands,” he counters. “No barrel yields are coming from Gaul,”
“I know, brother.” Vita pours wine into their cups as she explains. “After most of Pompey’s men got their land parcels, Caesar’s war slaves began showing up.”
“Only patrician farmers can afford slaves,” says Skipio.
“Yes,” she says, “And they’ve displaced nearly every paid farmhand south of Rome,”
Skipio leans back, his legs stretching under the table. “These farmhands have come to the Emilia-Romagna?”
“Scores of them.” Vita hands him a cup. “Not only do they know what they’re doing, they’re forming cooperatives with Pompey’s yeoman farmers,”
Scipio runs a hand over his shorn head. “Purchasing land and working it together,”
“These co-ops are just part of the problem,” she adds over her cup. “Wealthy speculators are buying up lands north of Mediolanum,”
“Patrician vintners?” he asks.
“They’ve started cultivating every stretch of dirt throughout Transpadana,” she says, sipping her wine. “The senate took control of the Lucurae aqueduct, and now they’re selling water to these plantations at a high cost,”
“That explains so many temporary garrisons on the road here,” he says.
“Orchards and vineyards will cover the countryside in the next ten years,” she warns. “Water rights will get tricky. Senate will come for the Triangle next,”
“They aren’t getting a drop the Laurio,” he declares, his mind turning. “I saw massive tilling’s with established trees,”
“Mature replants from the south.” Vita watches him empty his cup. “If the weather favors, those trees will produce in three seasons, and their owners will have little overhead if using slaves,”
“We cannot expand,” he decides as Vita refills his cup. “I refuse to purchase slaves,”
“Slavery is an ugly business,” she agrees.
Welle holds his tongue at his circumstance while Vita unrolls her most crucial scroll.
“The only way we survive the next decade is by eliminating our reliance on barrel sales.” She points out her calculations. “We cannot compete with slave-run orchards in the raw fruit market, but we can remain profitable if we transition to producing specific delicacies.”
“You want to cater exclusively to the patrician marketplace?” he asks.
“That’s where the coin will be,” she assures.
“Vita, the wealthy are conservative with their funds. It’s why they’re wealthy.” He releases both ends of the scroll, closing it. “That’s why we’re wealthy,”
“A new kind of patrician looms on the horizon, brother.” She sits beside him on the couch. “The more slaves and goods pour into Rome, the more coin finds its way to the plebes via merchantry.”
“A lessor class of patrician?”
“Exactly,” she says. “One that spends liberally,”
“You think, unlike old money,” he says, two fingers dipping at the scroll, “this new lot will spend their coin on frivolous shit?”
“I know they will, brother,” she says, eyes bright. “I’ve watched families in our village purchase nonsense just to outspend each other,”
Skipio laughs, “Remember when the village women returned from Mediolanum with those massive hens? The men had a contest to see which hen produced the largest chicks,”
Welle frowns; that’s why Niko’s roasters are the size of juvenile canines.
“It’s the nature of too much coin in a working-class hand,” she says with a smile.
Skipio regards her with admiration before draping an arm around her shoulders. “From this day on, Vita, you will make all the business decisions.”
Welle smiles at her fortune.
Vita wiggles free of her brother and stands with an uneasy look.
“The supervisors in Comum believe that Father’s been sending orders from Gaul,” she blurts out, hands wringing.
Welle reproves her confession with his mouth ajar.
“I know, so did father.” Skipio stands. “I will address the supervisors next week—No, WE will address them.” He pulls his tunic over his head and tosses it on the floor. “If they can’t abide by my decision to place you in charge, they can seek new opportunities outside of Servio Poma et Pira,”
“Do you mean that?” she asks.
“It’s not generosity, Vita,” the strapping man moves alongside Welle, who ignores that hairless chest. “You’re far more qualified than I am when it comes to this shit, and I won’t have time for it while dealing with Comum’s rebuild.”
Welle displays his ‘I told you so’ face.
“I have a prospectus ready for our transition,” she says, tying up her scroll.
“There is one proviso attached to whatever surplus you require for this market move,” he warns. “No new farmhands outside the usual harvest migrants,”
“I’ll draw up a new prospectus without an increase in farm labor,” she agrees, her mind turning elsewhere. “Brother, I must warn you about the hydraulics on the mill and winery siphons,”
Skipio pauses from undoing his loincloth.
“They’ve weakened these last few seasons,” she reveals. “Silvio patches them up at harvest time, but the delays get worse every year,”
“I’ll look at both systems,” he says. “Alerus may need to replace the fittings,”
Welle collects the wine cups and puts them on the tray.
“If the siphons need a complete rebuild,” he warns, “you may lose a significant portion of your transition budget,”
“I’ll manage. You’re making triple pay these days,” Vita says. “Your wages will finance the household without my needing to use profits from the business,”
“Speaking on our shared disdain for slavery,” his arms fold over his chest. “Welletrix must be paid for his labors,”
Vita turns a joyous eye to Welle.
“You were never meant to be our slave.” Skipio stands before him. “I sent you back as such because of the rules governing citizenship,”
Vita comes between them.
“Yes, and since Comum isn’t a province anymore—”
“—It will be again when Caesar returns,” he stops her and then addresses Welle. “You’ll be paid, though you cannot live as a freedman. Not yet.”
“I understand, Lord Skipio,” Welle says, tray in hands.
“I meant to discuss this last night,” he says, eyes shifting to Vita. “But you were sleeping when I got home, and then you decided to drown yourself in the fountain—”
“—I’ve no issue paying him for past labor.” She hooks her arm into Welle’s. “I don’t know what I would do without you,”
“About that,” he takes hold of Welle’s opposite arm and gently pulls him from Vita’s grasp. “I’m making him my manservant,”
“Skipio, you can’t,” she pouts, hugging his arm tighter.
Another pull, this one not as gentle. “I need a manservant,”
“Then get a boy from the village,” she protests, tugging Welle back.
“Kids warm toilets seats and clean cat shit from the peristyle,” Skipio contends, trapping Welle between them. “They do not look after a man,”
“I thought men looked after themselves,” she counters as Welle slips out from between them.
“I’ll be spending three nights a week in Comum,” Skipio addresses him, the matter settled. “You’ll maintain my wardrobe, my meals, and keep me on schedule,”
Welle avoids her adamant eyes by fixating on her brother’s handsome face.
“Thank you for the opportunity, Lord Skipio.”
Vita’s mouth drops at Welle’s infidelity while her brother struts to the wet porch, untying his loincloth.
“How am I supposed to oversee this house, and run the business?” she demands, following him.
“Niko can run the household staff,”
“Niko doesn’t speak.” She swats away the garment when he flings it at her. “Besides, his only care is the kitchen, and he’s expensive enough at that,”
“You pay him more than we paid his father?”
“Damn right,” she says. “Others have come to our door with offers, but Niko remains loyal,”
“He should,” says Welle, collecting the tunic and loincloth off the floor. “He’s got a huge apartment over the kitchens,”
Skipio points to him in agreement.
“Please,” she whines. “You cannot take Welle,”
“You’re the mistress of the villa now, Vita,” he says, taking deep breaths in preparation for a swim. “Hire a new housekeeper,”
“So, if I’m keeping the house and running the business,” she wonders. “What do you do exactly, Skipio?”
“I make more coin than our father ever did.” Naked on the deck’s edge, he jerks the tension from his arms, jolting his long flaccid cock. “As you pointed out, my pay is enough to fund this household and keep you in fine clothes,”
“In that case,” she says. “As head of house, we need to discuss the—”
“-don’t push it, Vita.” He warns with a steely gaze. “I’m giving you more freedom than any woman owns, but my business with the druid is my business,”
She pads onto the wet porch, kicking up water.
“He cannot remain the larder,”
“She’s right, Lord Skipio,” Welle’s voice captures his attention. “It’s unsanitary,”
“Niko hangs butchered meat down there, then has Hostia douse the slab clean with water.” The man shrugs. “Just have her douse the druid,”
Vita shakes her head. “He’s not an anim—”
“—That thing needs more than a bucket of water,” Welle yells. “He reeks of foul foreskin, his teeth are browner than shit, and there’s enough dirt under those sloth nails of his to start a garden,”
Both reward his outburst with silence.
“I’ll take him to the baths,” she says softly.
“Absolutely not,” Welle says hotly. “That druid is lice-ridden, and he belongs in the granary with Delphine,”
“When are the dogs due for a tick bath?” asks Skipio.
“Midday,” he answers. “Italus’ sons are cleaning the kennels now,”
“Wash him with the dogs.” Skipio grins. “That’ll be your last duty as head of the house,”
“Today’s water is icy cold,” Vita watches him tuck into a diving position. “Try not to lose your dangly bits to the chill,”
“My dangly bits survived Britannia,” he says. “They can survive anything,”
“You can’t treat the druid like—”
“-When are you getting married, Vita?”
She growls at her brother before marching back inside.
Welle clears his throat. “Will you be spending the sixth hour on the grounds?”
“I’ll be lunching with Silvio and Trajan,”
“I’ll have Niko prepare a good supper,”
Skipio turns his attention forward.
“You’ll eat with us tonight,” says his master, that pale hairless body entering the water like a knife cleaves butter.
Welle departs the porch, ambivalent.
Equality by word alone is suspect when given by those responsible for your servitude.