H. of Halicarnassus: Inspired by Some Things That Might Have Happened, Maybe - Episode 1

In which we meeteth H. and his Manslave - this being PIGRITES - Rude Awakening in Asur - The Haire and the Filth - Origine of the Manslave - Moors and their Paprika spice - Retiring to the Bath

BOOK ONE

1. H. awoke with a foul taste in his mouth. His head throbbed, his muscles felt useless. He opened his eyes, then shut them quickly again, dazzled by the dust-speckled light. It was already mid-market time, and the sounds of a Carian bazaar drifted through the high, narrow windows of his rustic accommodation: voices crying out for buyers and sellers, the bleating of sheep, the grunts of pack-oxen, the shuffle of sandals in the dust, the clink of half-obols and quarter-minas in the brass scales. He rolled over, into a pile of his own vomit, and lay still for a moment.
"Pigrites," he said, his voice phlegmy and hoarse.
Pigrites padded into the room delicately, carrying a large clay pitcher.
"You're awake."
H. hacked and spat on the hard-packed dirt floor.
"Pigrites," he said again, more firmly this time.
Pigrites bowed deeply, hands steepled.
"Yes, your grace," he intoned solemnly.
"That's better. I didn't pay fifty darics for insolence of this sort." He slowly sat up, cradling his head in his hands. "Or was it a hundred?"
"As I recall," said Pigrites, as he filled the washbasin with hot water, "Sir hired me from an Arabian spice merchant in Ephesus at a rate of two obols a day and never bothered to return me." He left and quickly returned with a tray bearing a decanter of wine, one of cool water, and a bronze cup. He poured out an equal measure of water and wine each into the cup and handed it to his master.
H. drank deeply, and began to pick absently at the chunks of vomit in his curly Grecian hair.
"Well, he was supposed to get me an audience with the tyrant here in Asur, but nothing ever came of it. Those damn shifty Arabs. As I see it, you're just a walking debt made good." He tossed aside a particularly large chunk of yesterday's dinner. "Did I ever tell you how Arabians get their paprika?"
"Oh yes, several times on the road from Ephesus, I think. Let's see: young men in Arabia on the cusp of adulthood are given a leather sack and are told they must venture three days into the desert, where they will find the den of a fire-breathing salamander. Such dens are easily found because salamanders sleep right outside their den during the day in order to absorb the sun's rays and thereby stoke the furnaces in their bellies; such creatures being thirty feet long and bright red, their den is hard to miss. By courage or cunning the youth makes his way past the sleeping giant and into his den, where he must negotiate treacherous stone paths laid over rivers of liquid flame. In the bowels of the den our young man, stout of heart as he is, finds endless caverns filled with fine red powder; this, we are told, is what remains of salamanders of ages past, whose bodies are slowly cremated by the intense heat. No doubt by then soaked in his own sweat, the plucky Arab gathers as much of this as possible into his sack and makes a hasty retreat, lest he raise the ire of the elder salamanders, who keep watch over their ancestral burial grounds. And that's why one can hire ten Egyptian mercenaries for a month with a single choenix of paprika."
H. nodded approvingly.
"That's not bad, but you forgot one thing: they have to scoop the powder with a little golden shovel, or else it loses all its flavour."
"Of course. How foolish of me to forget." Pigrites at last saw and smelled his master's unpresentable state. "Let's draw sir a bath."