Chapter 11

That was the obvious end of the party, and I helped Atrina resume her gown, or what was left of it. Claudius turned to a female slave and said, "Go to my wife's quarters and choose a suitable garment for the lady. If anybody tries to stop you, tell them that I sent you, and they can expect a visit from my guards if they hinder or harm you. Now go!"

The slave left at a dead run. Obviously, the threat of attention from the praetorian guards was enough to get swift action from anyone. The slave returned very soon with a gown that was absolutely spectacular in its beauty. Well, it really made no difference, Messalina and we were mortal enemies from this day forward even without the addition of the dress. From now on, I was going to beef up our bodyguards, and Atrina and I would never go anywhere without plenty of muscle on our side.

I helped Atrina don the gown, and we thanked Claudius. He nodded and gestured for us to follow him to his private quarters. Damn, I sure would not want to attack this place! There was a guard every 15 feet, and there were four of them at every junction of hallways. An assassin would have to be impossibly lucky to get through here. I knew that there had been several failed assassination attempts, and it was easy to see why they had failed.

We entered a chamber that was remarkably comfortable for such an ornate palace and were invited to sit down. Slaves brought wine and sweets and were waved out of the room. There were now only five of us in the room: Claudius, two bodyguards (the injured one had been replaced), Atrina, and me.

Claudius opened the conversation. "My wife is not only a notorious whore, but she is also as vindictive as they come. She would be gone from my life were it not for her being the mother of two children whom I dearly love. In any case, you two must be very careful of you personal safety from now on, as I am sure that you realize. My personal bodyguards will escort you home when the time comes for you to leave, but you will have to look out after yourselves after that."

"Thank you, cousin. My consort and I were totally surprised at what happened tonight."

"I was truly amazed at how well Conan was able to take care of the bully that Messalina has used for years to intimidate people. What kind of fighting was that?"

"That, Caesar, was what my people call kung fu. It is a method of fighting which involves simple or no weapons. It is not easy to learn, but it is very helpful in tight situations. I also know of another method of fighting in which I use a wooden stick. With it, I can defeat a man armed like your bodyguards."

"Indeed, that I would love to see. Perhaps you could demonstrate this fighting method sometime in the near future."

"Sir, you have but to call on me at your convenience. That type of fighting is relatively easy to learn, though it does take practice to master it."

"Very well, I will try to arrange some time for your demonstration. I am looking forward to it.

"Now, as to your idea for cleaning up the city. Would you like to take charge of the project and become the prime contractor? It would be easy to arrange for you to handle the swine under my protection. Once you are set up, we can work out the details for the payment so that you would not lose money by taking the job."

"Caesar, you honor me. I would be delighted to take on the management of the project. Do you wish for me to start immediately?"

"Yes, please get started as soon as possible. I suppose that the greatest problem is finding enough swine and a place to keep them. Here, take this ring. It is known to be mine, and it will get you the cooperation you need from other city employees."

"Thank you, Caesar. I'll get started on the project first thing tomorrow."

"Very good. Now, it is getting late and you two do have to get home. A troop of guards will meet you at your palanquin to escort you home. I don't expect trouble from Messalina until she gets back from her brothel visit, but I have arranged for four guards to escort you to your palanquin. Thank you for coming to visit me tonight, and I hope to see you again soon."

Wow, not only was Claudius a nice man, but he was shrewd. I would hate like hell to get on his wrong side. We made it home without incident, but I can't imagine anybody being stupid enough to pick a fight with 40 praetorian guards.

The next morning, I called all of the bodyguards together and told them that we were now under a state of siege. I told them of Messalina's enmity and that we might be attacked at any time. I told them that I planned to triple the size of the bodyguard staff, so if they knew of anybody they could recommend for the job, to please let me know. Meanwhile, I wanted a full state of readiness at all times. We could back off a little once we had more men, but we were vulnerable right now and had to be very careful. All of the men reacted as I expected and looked very grim. Those men were steadfast in protecting Atrina, and me if they didn't have to choose, so anybody who attacked us had better have all of the gods on their side!

Once that was done, I called Lucius and Atrina's steward to a meeting to try to figure out where we could get enough pigs and men to handle them. I pointed out that we also needed a place to keep the pigs. The steward, Julius, started looking after a source of pigs and freedmen to work them, while Lucius started looking for a place to house them.

My plan was to divide Rome into sectors and to have the pigs scour a sector each day. Since I didn't know how fast the pigs would work, we would be feeling our way to some extent as we learned the things we needed to know. I figured that the pigs would work pretty fast if we did not feed them while they were in the pen. I figured that water and mud wallows would keep the pigs happy when they were not working. I also wondered just how many pigs a man could keep up with.

I figured to start out with 10 men and 60 pigs and make adjustments from there. I had no personal experience with pigs, but I had the idea that they could be a handful if they were not watched closely. I had no idea if one man could handle six pigs, but we would start there and see what happened.

Lucius found a place for our pig pen just outside of Rome, so that was our starting point. It automatically selected the first area we were going to try to clean up, since we would obviously work close to home when we started out.

Atrina came with me, along with all of the bodyguards on our first day of testing my idea. At first, we did not enter the town, but ran an experiment on the grounds near the pig pen. I sent some slaves with a cart around to several of the nearby homes to request any garbage they might be throwing away. There was some suspicion from the people who wanted to know why we wanted their garbage. The reason was explained, and it didn't take long for the slaves to gather all of the garbage that we would need for our first few tests. They also gathered a number of spectators who wanted to see this great experiment as it unfolded.

OK, we had a field with some garbage lying on it and we had some hungry hogs. One of the herders was told to select six pigs from the lot and to drive them the few dozen feet to where the garbage was distributed. There was no driving involved!

The hungry pigs smelled the garbage and ran as straight as possible to the site of the mess. It took them less than 10 minutes to wipe the place clean of the various vegetables that had been scattered around. I was amazed. I had figured that it would take half an hour, at least, for the pigs to eat what we had distributed.

That's when we ran into trouble. The hogs scattered as they looked for more juicy tidbits that they could stuff into their bellies. The sight of the poor man who was trying to herd the pigs back to the pen was one of the funniest sights that I had ever seen. The pigs simply would not be herded. There was food out here and none in the pen, so the pigs had no intention of leaving where they were. The poor man finally had to resort to tackling a pig and lifting it off the ground to be carried back to the pen.