learning_so

forced himself

forced himself to whisper humbly, "Yes, Domine."
"That's better. Proving even the stupidest of slaves can learn, under proper stimulation." The Lycian gave a short, hard bark of laughter before turning away. His guest grinned.
It would be so simple to break Xanthus' neck . . .
It took him fifteen minutes of cautious maneuvering through the villa to retrieve a coil of rope and a crude brush made of some kind of prickly plant fibers. He'd never been much of a botanist—hell, he'd never been much of anything, when it came to formal classroom learning—so he didn't have the slightest idea what it was made from. Whatever it was, it made a lousy scrub brush.
He hobbled out to the river again and lowered the bucket into it, then hauled it back up to the dock and used a lot of elbow grease to clean out the slime. What I'd give for a lousy bar of soap. . . . But soap—greasy stuff made from goat's fat and wood ashes in Pompeiian factories—was expensive. Slaves weren't allotted soap to scrub out shit buckets. When that chore was finally done,