Free The Songs of Slaves by David Rodgers Page A

another ship, along with many other male and female slaves who spoke a recognizable but strange-sounding dialect. They were Britons, whose lands were falling under the advance of the Germani invaders. Their famed Roman garrisons had not been there to help them.
    The ship left the harbor and set sail for the mainland, but instead of being bound as before, Connor was chained to one of the oars, along with some of the Britons. The other slaves were confined, and abuses continued, but not as relentlessly as before. There was bread and water at dawn and dusk.
    When they landed on the rocky coast of Amorica, the westernmost fringe of Gaul, they were traded again, to the Greek merchants who held them now. These men had sailed them from port to port, selling some and taking on others, in their business of trafficking souls.
                  Many days and many miles lay behind them, and as Connor stood chained once more to the post, he wondered if he could even find his way home, even if he was to break free.
    Connor winced as he felt a hand on his back. A wealthy woman was inspecting him closely. The two slaves that accompanied her were expressionless, but dressed in clean, well-made tunics. The older woman stared at Connor as she brushed the dyed locks out of her eyes. Almost instantly Andopaxtes, Connor’s trader, swooped in. The diminutive Greek flashed his toothy smile between his bursts of well-practiced pleasantries, assertions, and offers. His animated gesticulations were punctuated by the nervous ringing of his long-fingered hands. His gray- streaked curls were oiled; and he wore a robe and toga well above his station, clean, pressed and smelling of myrrh, though he spent most of his nights aboard a ship. He was a master of his craft. And yet the rich woman folded her arms, her arrogant brow impervious to the Greek’s assault of words. Connor had seen it before, in almost every port they had stopped at throughout Gaul. He pieced it together from what he saw, and inferred from both the grumbling of his captors and their prospective buyers. The market was not as welcoming to the traders of foreign slaves as it may have once been. It was not only the swelling numbers of the debtors and dispossessed providing a cheap source of slaves, but it seemed to Connor that despite the arrogance of the people that came to the markets and the appearance of fabulous wealth that was everywhere, there was care and tightened purse strings. Like all the others, this wealthy woman talked to Andopaxtes as if she were by far his social superior and when money was mentioned she spoke as if she had the wealth of Egypt; but Connor could see her holding back, se e the familiar self-concern behind her proud gaze. Back in his homeland a bad crop could cause such worry and caution. But what could cause it in these people, who purchased even their grain from markets that gave access to the entire world, trading the coins of the Imperium for whatever they might need or want?
                  Connor looked away and scanned the growing crowd. He had no further interest in the bargaining over his life that was taking place. Andopaxtes would not have his sale because he was asking too much. Woderic had sold him at a high price, and the Angles had passed that on to these traders, who had paid it because when they had gone to sea the market must have been better. Now, Andopaxtes was too stubborn to take a loss, and so Connor and Dania, along with some of the Britons, toured the slave markets of Gaul.
                  Connor glanced over to Dania. She was chained only a few yards away, her red hair hanging down, obscuring her face. Connor had grown accustomed to the sight of her naked form, but always found himself gazing on her. She was his last link to home, to the past. The rest were gone. But sharing this misery with her made it more painful, to see her humiliation was more agonizing than bearing his own . Whenever Connor could