Free Outcast by Rosemary Sutcliff

and he stretched out a hand to it. It sniffed his fingers, fawned for an instant with flattened ears under his
touch, and then slunk away. There was one thing he had to be thankful for, anyway, he thought, watching it out of sight: that he had not had Gelert with him that night. What would have become of Gelert, left alone in a strange town—always supposing that he had not been knifed by the slavers? At the thought of Gelert a wave of blinding misery swept over Beric. His Tribe, his father and mother, even Cathlan, he had shut away from him; but his dog, that was another matter.
    There was a sudden stir around him. A pretty, bold-looking girl, with a crimson edge to her tunic and a gold chain round her neck, had come up and was speaking to Ben Malachi, who had abandoned his column and come forward, smiling hopefully and rubbing his hands together, to receive her orders.
    ‘My mistress, the Lady Julia,’ said the girl, with a gesture of her head towards a richly curtained litter carried on the shoulders of six men, which had halted a few paces off, ‘needs a replacement for one of her Gaulish litter-bearers. Have you anything that might do? It must be something good; only the best will serve for my Lady.’
    Beric, who had picked up a good many words of Latin by now (though he no longer thought of it as the tongue of his own people), understood what she said well enough, but paid no heed, since he was not Gaulish, and therefore it could have nothing to do with him.
    But Ben Malachi was not one to let slip the chance of a sale for so small a matter as that. ‘I have the very slave to suit the Lady Julia, the best—oh, yes, indeed; would I think for one moment, my dear, of trying to sell anything but the best to so great a lady?’ He made a quick gesture to his slave-driver, a slant-eyed Syrian, who promptly kicked Beric with a nailed sandal.
    ‘Up, you.’
    Beric stumbled to his feet without protest; he was well used to kicks by now, and followed Ben Malachi and the girl towards the curtained litter.
    The curtain was drawn back a little now, and the lady
inside was talking to a tall man with the purple stripe of a senator down his tunic, who had just paused to greet her. ‘He took to brawling, so of course I had to sell him, and put Philo in his place for the present,’ Beric heard a clear, musical voice saying. ‘But you may see for yourself that it completely ruins my matched team.’ Then as the little group came up: ‘Ah, Ben Malachi, have you brought me something?’
    The curtain was drawn back farther, and Beric found himself looking at the woman within. A beautiful woman, but cold, so cold. She looked him over with careless eyes that never noticed that he was human, and scarcely seemed to listen to Ben Malachi’s list of his good points. Then she shook her head. ‘No, no, he will not do. I must have a Gaul.’
    ‘This one is British, my Lady; the same stock——’ the slave merchant began, bowing; but she cut him short.
    ‘He is too dark and too red. I must have a golden Gaul, or spoil my team.’
    ‘As to the colour of his hair, noble lady’—Ben Malachi was bending almost double—‘might I suggest a few lime-washes, a very few——’
    This time it was the man with the Senator’s stripe on his tunic who cut in, saying lazily: ‘Julia, you cannot do that! Percol! It would be like faking a chestnut to make a matched chariot team with bays.’
    ‘My dear Hirpinius, you may make your mind easy: I have no intention of doing it,’ said the Lady Julia with bored amusement, then to Ben Malachi, ‘unless you can show me something else, I must leave the matter for now, or try elsewhere.’
    ‘In a few days, but three at the most, I shall have some fresh stock.’ Ben Malachi bowed again, his thin grey beard flapping up and down on the breast of his black robe. ‘Very fine stock! If the most gracious lady permits, I will send along any that seem suitable for her inspection before anyone else sees