Free Most Wanted by Kate Thompson

Chapter One
    I t was early afternoon on a cold February day. I had just finished my deliveries and was making my way home across the city with my handcart. The streets were quiet, as they usually were at that time of day, so I had no trouble hearing the horse when it came trotting up behind me, and I moved aside with my cart to let it pass.
    But it didn’t. The young man who was leading it stopped beside me, and when I turned to look at him, I was astonished by what I saw.
    He was a slave, and I might have been struck by how well dressed he was if I hadn’t noticed that the horse was dressed even better. It wore a blanket of royal purple and its head collar was decorated with precious stones that sparkled in rainbow colors. Its lead rope was a chain of solid gold. I stood with my mouth open, astonished. I ought to have known immediately what horse this was, for everyone in the city knew about Incitatus, but sometimes my mind doesn’t work very quickly, especially when it comes up against the impossible.
    â€œThere is a rumor going around,” the slave boy said. “Terrible news.”
    He was panting hard and gasping out the words, and he had a strong English accent as well, so it wasn’t easy for me to understand what he was saying.
    â€œNews?” I said.
    â€œBut it can’t be true,” he said. “I have to go and find out.”
    â€œFind out what?” I said.
    â€œHere,” he said, thrusting the golden chain into my hand. “Take care of him. I’ll find out the truth and come straight back.”
    And before I could object, he was gone, running down the street the way he had come. The nerve of him! A slave telling me what to do! I couldn’t hold his horse for him, no matter how smartly it was dressed. I called out after him, but if he heard me, he paid no attention. At the end of the street he hesitated and looked up and down. Then he slipped around the corner and was gone.
    My brother needed the handcart to collect flour from the mill, and I had to get home. If I was late, I would be in serious trouble. I had been out on my round since before dawn, and I needed to get something to eat and go to bed for a few hours because my whole family had to work through the night to have fresh bread ready for the morning. On a good day I got about five hours’ sleep in the evening. On a good day my mother and father got three.
    It hadn’t always been like that. Life was a whole lot easier for all of us before the emperor, Gaius, took our horses and the best of our slaves. They say he sold the slaves and used the horses to transport Rome’s treasures to Gaul, so he could sell them, because he never had enough money for all his mad and extravagant projects.
    I don’t know if it’s true, and I don’t really care. The end result was the same for us. Our lives became a long, hard, circular grind of baking and loading and delivering and sleeping and getting up and baking again. And I didn’t have time to be standing around holding horses, no matter how glamorous they were.
    And he really was glamorous. A racing horse, I was sure, from the look of his light bones and his fine, shiny coat. He tossed his head and looked around him with wild, fiery eyes, and he sniffed warily at my empty cart as though he expected it to jump up and bite him. You’d have guessed by now, I’m sure, because everyone—even people from out of town like yourself—had heard about Emperor Gaius and the things his madness caused him to do, but I still hadn’t worked out whose horse it was that I was taking care of.
    While I was trying to decide what to do, a man came along the street: a wealthy man, from the shape of his belly and the cut of his toga. He stopped in front of the horse and, to my amazement, gave a bow.
    â€œHow nice to see you out and about, Consul Incitatus,” he said. “Taking a little exercise, are you? Getting to know your