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Esca is the worst slave Marcus has ever owned.
At first, it is easiest to do nothing about it. He knows Esca does not want to be here. But Marcus can think of little else than his own pain, the agony of his leg, healing wrong, and then ripped open again by the surgeons. So if Esca glowers at him from across the room, or does not comport himself respectfully while he fetches endless cups of water, what can Marcus do? It is not as if he is capable enough to beat Esca himself -- and besides, Esca is not precisely disobeying him.
As he recovers, Esca's behavior worsens.
Marcus strikes Esca for the first time almost a month after he comes to own him, on the first day that Marcus can stand properly again and walk by himself.
It is not an impulsive decision, made lightly, the way a matron might slap a quarrelsome house-slave in the middle of a conversation. Nor is it exactly a thing he has intended to do; he has hardly set out whips and clubs to have within easy reach. It is merely a thing that happens. It is the only possible choice after the way Esca has acted, the culmination of a hundred little infractions that could not be set aside.
On that day, they are in Marcus' room, and looking forward to a stroll in the sunshine for the first time in half a month, he is ordering Esca to prepare his things. This is normal. This is natural. There is nothing objectionable about it.
"You'll get my boots, of course. I believe they're in the atrium."
After a very long pause, Esca nods. "Of course."
Then Marcus realizes what Esca didn't say. "Of course...?" With a hand, he motions for Esca to continue, to finish with a proper, respectful title.
"Of course I will bring your boots." Esca turns around; the last words are almost spat out of his mouth in contempt. This is not the answer.
"You call me master," Marcus says, quietly. "'Of course, master.' That's what you say."
It is not what he wants Esca to say at all. He wants Esca to smile at him, to be pleasant, to be the sort of man to whom Marcus could say I would rather you call me Marcus, so that Esca would know the trust Marcus places in him.
He doesn't even know why he wants to trust the man. He shouldn't. Esca certainly doesn't trust him.
He realizes that Esca has never called him master. Not once.
Esca's face is still. "I know the word."
"Then say it."
Esca says nothing.
"Say it, or I will beat you."
He doesn't want to do this. And surely Esca does not want to be beaten for something he could so easily correct.
One corner of Esca's mouth twitches. He remains silent.
Very well. Esca has forced him to do this. "Take off your tunic," he says, half-expecting Esca to protest, but to his surprise Esca does exactly as he says, pulling it over his head.
Esca stands in the middle of the small room, stripped to the waist. His eyes are focused on the wall opposite, and his chest rises and falls in great heaving breaths. Marcus wonders if he is afraid.
Marcus does not want to beat him very hard; there is no call to be cruel. Just enough to teach him better, the way they always did it in the army for some soldier's first offense. And at any rate, he is too weak still even if he had wanted to be forceful.
Esca does not cry out when the club strikes his skin. From the look of his back, this is not at all a new experience. There are years of scars there, whips and knives and staves alike. It puts him in mind of the way his own hideous leg looks. It will heal like this. Marcus wants to reach out, to run a hand over the jagged lines, to feel how they lie.
Instead, Marcus hits him. With all of the scarring, one could hardly tell he is doing anything at all. Esca's skin is a little redder, perhaps, but it will fade. He leaves no traces of his own.
It is over soon enough, and Esca is still panting, silent, not looking at him.
"I trust," Marcus says coolly, stepping about to face him head-on, "you've learned your lesson." He wishes he didn't have to do this. This is not how it was supposed to be between them. They should have been... he doesn't know. Something else. Not this.
And Esca -- surely he is a madman! -- smiles. "Of course I have."
He hasn't said it. Damn him, he still hasn't said it. "Of course, what?" He slaps the club against his open palm; it makes a stinging crack, the sort of sound that ought to be satisfyingly threatening, but it doesn't satisfy him, and it certainly doesn't seem to threaten Esca.
Esca's eyes do not track his motion. He does not jump at the noise. He is only standing there, as if he is the only man in the entire world, as if he hasn't heard any of it. He is still smiling. He looks somehow calm. At peace.
"Of course, master." Esca says it brightly, like a joke. He is humoring Marcus.
Say it and mean it, he wants to say, but he does not think he can have that from Esca. Not on account of one puny beating, at any rate.
"Put your tunic back on," he says, curtly. A queer dark feeling twists in his chest. He doesn't know what it is. Guilt, perhaps. There is nothing for him to be guilty about. He is in the right. "And go fetch my boots."
It occurs to him only after Esca has left that Esca did not say master as he acknowledged the order, that Esca did not say anything at all.
After that, Esca's manner becomes, if anything, even more egregious.
"Esca!" he calls out, for the third time. He feels helplessly annoyed, as though calling a disobedient dog.
There is no way Esca can have missed hearing him. He is certain Esca is still in the house, for it is not as if anyone sent him away. He has to know Marcus is looking for him. Why is he doing this?
Cursing under his breath, he pushes himself to his feet. He will just have to find Esca himself.
He happens upon him, thankfully not too far away, in the garden. Esca is stretched out lazily along one of the benches, like a lizard sunning itself. He does not even look up when Marcus approaches, and it is not until Marcus is standing over him, his shadow falling across Esca's body, that Esca deigns to look him in the face, to acknowledge his presence. Marcus stares incredulously. The man is a slave. Slaves do not act like this.
"Were you asleep?" he snaps.
Esca shades his eyes against the sun, squinting up at Marcus. "No," he says, finally.
"So you heard me when I called your name."
Esca gives a very small nod.
"And you did not think that perhaps you might want to consider coming to see what I wanted?" He knows he sounds irritated, arrogant, like the worst of the officers he has ever served under. He has always hated men like that. Why does Esca want to make him be that man?
The shrug is almost sullen. "No."
Once again, Esca has left him no choice. Why has he left him no choice?
"Go back inside," says Marcus, feeling the words echo oddly around his head, as if someone else is saying them, "and fetch my staff. You understand I'll have to beat you again."
"I understand."
Ironically, Esca is quicker to fetch the little staff than he is to do anything else Marcus has ever asked of him.
"Lie back down. On your stomach, this time. Tunic off."
He doesn't want to see Esca's face. Of course he's beaten slaves before. Why will Esca not just obey him?
Anger, hot and irrational, floods him, and he lashes out just after Esca has lain on the bench. He can hit harder now. Esca gives a soft, bitten-off noise, and Marcus watches Esca's hands flex on the wood of the bench, his fingers white with tension already. Good. Esca can feel, after all.
"Apologize!"
Esca gasps out a rasping breath and says nothing.
"Apologize, damn you."
His next blow is wild, heavy, harder than he meant, across Esca's shoulders where there is nothing to cushion the force of it. Esca whimpers, once, very quietly, then winces, as if he never intended to make the noise at all. The sound cuts through all Marcus' rage. How is he doing this? He is not one of those callous men who are cruel to their slaves! He is not. He will not do this.
"Very sorry," Esca breathes, and Marcus thanks all the gods that Esca's face is turned away from him now. He doesn't want to know what Esca's face looks like. "What was it you wanted?" The words are slow to come.
"Never mind. It doesn't matter now."
Marcus drops the staff on the ground and limps back inside, leaving Esca alone on the bench. When he looks back, Esca is still covering his face.
This was never supposed to happen.
The third time is the worst.
They are returning from a market-day in Calleva; it is his uncle's birthday tomorrow, and last month Marcus commissioned one of the local potters to paint a cup for him. He does not think his uncle even suspects he is giving him anything, and picturing the pleasure his uncle will surely derive -- ah, that is a thing to brighten any day. And the cup is so beautiful. The artist, though he is British, has done a fine job rendering the famous scene: Priam begs for Hector's body from Achilles.
They are nearing the house now, coming up past the stables. Marcus stops in the shade of the barn. "Here," he says to Esca, "let me see the cup again." Oh, he will see it tomorrow, but he wants to look upon it one more time in the light.
Esca is, of course, carrying all the purchases. He sets the bags at his feet and rummages through them until he finds the cup, wrapped carefully with cloth all round it, and he unwraps it and holds it out in both hands.
"Hold it there," says Marcus, grinning.
Esca is scowling.
"Is it not wonderful?" Marcus asks him.
Esca nods. His face is still twisted, an awful wretched hatred. And then he opens his hands.
The cup slips through his fingers, hits the ground, and shatters.
Marcus stares in disbelief. "You did that-- how could you? How could you, Esca?"
And Esca smiles. "Oh," he says, "it was easy."
There is a whip in Marcus' hand. He is not aware of grabbing it, but he knows that they keep them just there, in a box by the barn door, the shortest whips. That must have been where he got it from. It is in his hand, and he is lashing out, and Esca isn't even trying to shield himself from the blow--
The whip cracks, and Esca is sprawled in the dirt, a red line blossoming across his face, from his temple down to his jaw, swelling rapidly. The wound is less than an inch from his eye. Marcus stares at what he has wrought, in horror. Gods, he could have-- he could have taken out his eye, without thinking, all because Esca has made him do this, because Esca does so many awful things on purpose. He did not mean to do this. He did not even mean to hit Esca at all.
"Why do you do these things?" Marcus throws the whip to the ground and flings his arms out. He knows he is yelling. He doesn't care who hears. "I could have blinded you! Is that what you want? Is it?"
Esca, once again, says nothing.
"Clean the pieces up," Marcus says, hoarsely. "Come in when you're done."
He doesn't even look back this time.
Esca serves at dinner, balancing the heavy platters with ease, and he glares at Marcus with the side of his face that is not yet ruined.
His uncle stares at Esca, then at Marcus, rather pointedly. After Esca leaves to fetch the next course, his uncle clears his throat. "I know, Marcus, that he is your slave and you may discipline him however you see fit, but are you not being a little harsh with the boy?"
Marcus sighs. That is easy for him to say. Esca is not his body-slave. He does not have to deal with him, day in, day out, him and all his awful insolence. "I don't know what else to do with him, Uncle. His behavior is... appalling." He does not mention the ruined vase.
He does not want to sell Esca. Any other man would have been rid of him long ago, he is sure, but a disobedient slave who was a failure of a gladiator has nothing left but the mines. Marcus may be frustrated beyond belief with Esca's ways, but he will not condemn Esca to death. Besides, Esca's presence at least fills the emptiness of the days.
Marcus wonders what has become of him, that he could be clinging to an unruly slave who hates him as his only companion.
His uncle frowns. "You could be kind to him?"
"Kind?"
"Indeed!" A smile broadens his face. "Perhaps if you do not beat him so, he will be inclined to behave better. Is there not a famous philosopher who said that it was better not to fetter or ill-use your slaves when they were already unhappy, but instead to feed them, and so bind them with chains of food? Yes, that sounds wise to me." He squints. "I cannot remember who wrote that, though."
Marcus blinks. It sounds familiar, but... oh. "I think it was from that play, the funny one, about the twin brothers."
"Close enough to philosophy!" His uncle laughs. "You should try that. At least try not hitting him."
Well. It is worth a try.
Esca waits nearly two days before acting up again, and even so he manages to catch Marcus off-guard when, while bringing Marcus the wine he requested, he spills half of it on Marcus' tunic. Marcus' best tunic.
Marcus clenches his fists, the anger hot in him, and he only barely remembers what he had planned. He forces himself to take one breath, then another. He counts to ten.
"Well," he says finally, "it is a shame about the tunic, but these things happen."
Esca stares at him, surprised, and Marcus is glad to have gotten some reaction from him, even if it cost him his favorite tunic.
"You're not going to beat me?" He does not cringe, does not beg, does not act as any other slave might. He only sounds... curious.
Marcus makes himself smile. "I am certain it was an accident."
Esca nods and excuses himself, while Marcus helps himself to the inch of wine that made it into the cup.
He has no idea if that went well, but at least no one is bleeding in the dirt, so it has to be an improvement.
The next day someone -- Marcus has his suspicions -- has knocked over an ink-pot onto the correspondence, and when Marcus goes to find Esca to ask him about it, he discovers that his slave is a difficult man to find. Eventually he spies the familiar shape out in the paddock and frowns, confused. What business would Esca have with the horses?
Esca is... unlatching the gate. He watches as Esca, intent on the task, pushes it open and lets it swing wide. Then Esca, who still hasn't seen him, straightens up and starts walking along the path of the fence, having left the gate unbarred.
Marcus gapes. How much of an idiot is he? Does he want the mares to get out?
Clearly, the answer to that is yes, just as Esca has wanted to do every other reprehensible thing he has done. He wishes Esca would stop doing it. He wishes Esca would just do something understandable. And right now he especially wishes he could punch Esca in his stupid insolent face. He has tried, he has tried to be kind. It has gained him nothing.
"What is it you want from me?" he yells, and Esca stops dead. "Do you want me to sell you to the mines? Is that it?"
Esca is frozen, staring at him, watching as Marcus pulls the gate shut. At least the horses won't get out.
"I know you are not stupid." Marcus feels as though he's pleading now. It is ridiculous. Esca is his property. He shouldn't be begging his slave for anything. "But you cannot want to be a mine-slave. They will work you until you die, Esca. What do you want, acting like this? You are leaving me with no choice. I am not a cruel man--"
And Esca laughs. "No," he says, and he sounds almost sad as he speaks. "You are not."
"Then why?" Somehow he has stepped forward. He is bare inches from Esca, the anger hot in his veins. "Why do you test me?"
The smile on Esca's face is awful, and Marcus hopes never to see its like again. Esca looks strangely calm, composed. Each successive threat only stills him more. "I want you to beat me. Marcus."
He would have struck Esca for daring to speak to him thus, to use his name. It is only the rest of the words that prevent him. He cannot. It makes no sense. "What--?"
"I want you to beat me," Esca repeats. "I want you to hurt me. I want you to kill me."
Everything within Marcus recoils in horror. "How can you think I would--?"
And Esca smiles again. "You were a soldier, weren't you? You've killed men?" He lifts his head up and draws one long finger across his own throat. "It would be easy. I provoked you. Everyone knows how much I provoke you."
Marcus is still staring. He has heard none of the other words, with his mind still running round and round Esca's first statement. "How can-- why do you even want this?" It makes no sense. "I saved your life!"
"What exactly makes you think," asks Esca, "that I am grateful for that?" His eyes are wide, his jaw set, and his chin is still tilted up, in an awful kind of determination.
No. He can't mean this. Marcus remembers the arena. Esca had stood there, proud, staring up at all the spectators as if to say that he was not there to amuse them. Then he had thrown down his weapons. He had accepted his death bravely, of course. There had been no other option.
"You saw me in the arena," Esca presses. "Did I seem to you then like a man who particularly wanted to survive that fight?"
Marcus blinks. "You had no other choice--"
"I would have chosen it anyway!" Esca snarls. "I had been planning it, my one last chance at an honorable death. And then you came and stole it from me, and you think you have been kind? I have been a slave seven years. I cannot bear it any longer."
He had a knife. He had his damned knife all along. Why did he not do it himself long ago? "What, and you want me to kill you?"
Esca breathes sharply and very suddenly goes still. "If you would." He is polite now. It is a request.
What kind of man does Esca think he is? Marcus feels sick. He fumbles for his own knife at his belt. Esca's knife is in the house, safely tucked away, but surely this one will do well enough.
He holds out the knife, hilt-first. Esca's eyes follow the movement with a terrifying longing in them. "If you want it, then give yourself your death. I am not a monster." He does not want Esca to take it from him. It only occurs to him when his hand is outstretched that Esca could very well stab him, but all he knows is that he does not want Esca to accept his offer.
But Esca does not move to take it. "I cannot."
"Why?"
"It is... dishonorable." Esca's gaze falls away from his. "For a warrior to take his own life. And I owe a life-debt to you. It is for you to do."
How can Esca put all this on him? "So you thought, oh, you would vex me until I killed you?" Marcus has the presence of mind, barely, to take the knife back, to sheathe it, before either of them does something stupid. "Is that a warrior's noble death? Your gods, will they approve of that? Does it show your honor? Your courage?"
Esca blanches, chalk-white. And then he smiles an awful, slow smile and tilts his head up. "And you, Marcus, you should complain about that? When your father likely died begging for his life, like a coward? Do your gods welcome his rotting corpse, his unburied shade?"
Marcus punches him in the face.
Esca staggers but does not fall. His head snaps back with the force of the blow. Marcus, horrified, looks down at his own hands.
"Like that, yes," Esca murmurs. "Only try it again with the dagger."
Marcus has looked up at Esca's face and now cannot look away. Esca grins and spits; when he opens his mouth, blood outlines his teeth.
"No. Just please--"
He doesn't know what to say. Stop that? Don't do this? Esca would not obey him. Esca would never obey him.
"You are the worst slave," he says, finally, and something mad within him wants to laugh as he says it.
Esca stares back, somberly. "I will tell you something, Marcus."
He has not called him master. Marcus is not sure if he ever will.
"Yes?"
"I do not think you understand what it is like to be a slave. Can you picture it? If I asked, could you imagine being a slave? Imagine it for me."
He nods. "What about it do you want me to imagine?" It is hard to imagine, true, but Esca has asked, and so he will try.
Esca looks at him for a long while. "I don't think you are imagining it. You can conceive of it, perhaps, for a moment or two, but then you think, 'Ah, I am Roman, and so that would never happen to me.' You know you are only thinking of it. You are safe."
He cannot deny that his thoughts were tending in that direction. "And so?"
"Think of never being free," Esca says. "Think of always being controlled, commanded. Think of being beaten if you have displeased your master."
Marcus has to laugh at that. "You know I was a soldier, yes?" Does Esca think he has never been beaten, in the army?
Esca's stare is icy. "And you chose that. I never sold myself into slavery."
He has a point. "What was it you wanted to tell me?"
Marcus watches as Esca licks his lips. "Only that it was as unthinkable for me then as it is for you now. I am no verna. I was born Cunoval's son, and I was raised knowing -- knowing, Marcus -- that I was to be chieftain after his death. Five hundred warriors would bow down before me. Compared to me, Marcus Aquila, you are nothing and no one."
Marcus hisses through his teeth. If he hadn't already hit Esca just now, he would have for that. Harder.
"And I should have died when your people fought mine. I am no slave."
He fumbles for words. "You don't have to-- no one has to be a slave forever." Everyone knows some freedman who has made a grand fortune, whose sons are citizens, whom everyone regards with respect. "If you had given your masters cause to treat you well--"
Esca laughs bitterly. "I should kneel, like a good slave? Tell me, could you? Could you, Marcus?"
He does not have to answer. Esca sees his face well enough.
"When my first master beat me, for the first time, I fell ill from the wounds. I was sick for days with the fever. And I saw my family, pleading with me, asking why I had not joined them. And then I woke and found that I was alive again." Esca looks away. "I want nothing to do with Rome. I want nothing to do with anything."
"I wish," Marcus tries, "I wish you would not be so awful." It is not quite what he means to say. He does not know what he means to say. It is a poor threat, impotently delivered.
Esca almost smirks at him. "Better men than you have tried to break me. And you're not even trying."
He will die before he breaks. Anyone can see that. Marcus stares in frustration. "I wish you liked me!"
He did not even know it was a thing he thought. To hear the words from his own mouth is horrifying.
And Esca begins chuckling, then folding in on himself with great spasms of laughter. He looks pained, tortured; Marcus is fixed in a kind of frozen embarrassment as he watches.
"Oh, you are an idiot," he says, finally, and his face is wet with hysterical tears. And then: "Free me."
"What? No."
He doesn't even have to think about it. Esca has done nothing, nothing that would merit that sort of reward.
Esca shrugs, and then without saying another word, he turns and walks away, bounded by the fences.
If he freed Esca, he thinks, he would never be troubled by him again. But it is too late to make the offer, even if he wanted to. The moment is past.
And it will not make Esca like him.
The next time he sees Esca is the next morning, and he half-expects that he will not see him at all, that Esca will be found with a knife through his heart, or fled entirely.
But Esca is here, at his bedside, holding out his toga as if yesterday had never happened.
"Fine day, isn't it?" Marcus forces a smile.
"No."
Esca does not call him master, and Marcus knows he never will.