Gaius was sitting in his favorite tavern relaxing after a wonderful day making lots of money as one of the best merchants in Egypt, when one of the Central Roman Trading Company employees came in and sat down at the bar. This was very surprising since it was well known that the Paulslanders could not hold their liquor, but as Gaius looked closer at the man, he noticed the man was furious.

Rumors were already circling about Washington losing his temper at the coffee house early in the day. Gaius decided to find out what the problem was and perhaps get some trade secrets while he was at it.

Gaius compassionately said, “You look like you had a rough day. Why don’t I buy you a drink to help you relax? Barkeep, some wine for my friend.”

Gaius’s target relaxed and said, “Thank you,” and took a sip of wine as soon as the barkeeper handed it to him. “This helps.”

“You know what else helps? Telling someone what's wrong. Is everything okay?”

“Well, I don’t want to say anything, but I think Washington is wrong. He shouldn’t buy those slaves from the Himyarites. It's going to mess up everyone’s bonus.”

“I thought it was normal to buy slaves and send them back to your country to be freed.”

“Those slaves had skills that could be used to help Paulsland. These slaves were captured in Paulsland in some sort of raid. Washington wants to use our profits to buy them and return them to Paulsland. Every employee at the Central Roman Trading Company gets a bonus from profit, and this is going to wipe it away. I was depending on that money.”

Gaius nodded in understanding. If some Romans happened to get captured in some raid somewhere, he wouldn’t use his profits to buy them back. But this was an opportunity; every Paulslander knew things that were not known to the Romans. Some of it could be very profitable if he learned their secrets.

“It's too bad you’re losing your bonus. Those people are not part of your household, their fate does not concern you. Perhaps I could give you a bonus instead.”

“How would you give me a bonus?”

“Your people have knowledge of medicine we don’t have.”

“I can't help you with that. Our women spend years learning how to make medicine in school. The only thing I do is make perfume.”

When Gaius heard that he sucked wine down the wrong pipe and began coughing, but when he was finally stopped coughing, he incredulously asked, “You know how to make perfume?”

“Yes.”

“I would be willing to give you a very large bonus for the knowledge. “

The Paulslander looked conflicted for a while before asking, “How much?”

“Fifty small gold pieces.”

“One bottle of perfume sells for twenty small gold pieces. If I was careful, I could make more than fifty gold in a week by skimming off a few bottles of perfume and selling the excess.”

Gaius was thrilled. He threw the man a low-ball offer, and he complained about the price, not the offer. “How about fifty large pieces of gold?”

“You obviously have no idea how profitable our perfume is. The profit margins on it are enormous. If you give me a thousand large pieces of gold, I will give you the recipe, and I promise you, once you know how cheaply our perfume can be made, you will be satisfied.”

“Fine, but you need to come back with me to my house.”

“Of course.”

That evening the Paulslander happily told Gaius how to make perfume, and when he left, several men from the bar tried robbing him. Unfortunately for them, he was wearing his chainmail under his clothing, and he was a very good swordsman. He left their bodies without worrying about the few brass coins they carried. He had a few thousand more gold to make that night. After he cleaned his sword he went to another tavern, where another merchant consoled him with a drink and bought his secret.

After visiting every tavern in Myos Hormos, the employee dropped off his gold coins, minus a bonus, at the Central Roman Trading Company and went to Alexandria to “despondently sell his no good employer’s secret.” After all, the secret to their perfume was simply putting ambergris in alcohol for six months. If he did his job right, there would be so much perfume on the market they will be practically giving the stuff away in a year. By then, nobody will be buying Himyarite frankincense and myrrh, the cornerstone of their economy. It will take generations for their economy to recover.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Washington was furious as he waited for the Quaestor to finish looking over his people. He was glad that he had the Quaestor postpone this auction for three days; it gave Washington enough time to send a chariot to Alexander to bring back plenty of coins for this sale.

Normally a male slave went for five hundred denarii, the large silver coin, or twenty large gold coins, which amounted to nearly six ounces of gold. Female slaves went for four to twelve times as much, which meant the Paulsland women should be costing him between twenty-four ounces of gold to seventy-two ounces of gold each. Fortunately, Washington was able to bribe the Quaestor, so most of the slaves would be going for about half price, but there were several hundred slaves; even at half price, this was going to cost talents of gold.

There were various men waiting outside the first ship for the Quaestor to finish. Some were pimps, waiting to see the women they planned on adding to their brothels, others were slave dealers looking for a deal, so they could sell these people for a quick profit somewhere else. There were local construction bosses looking for skilled labor, mine owners looking for new workers, and stewards of houses looking for an expansion of their workforce or new people to add to their master's bed.

Most of the slave buyers were there with servants or slaves, but none of them came with as large a group as Washington. He brought two dozen employees, both male and female. He needed them to carry extra coins and baggage.

When the Quaestor was finished, he gave an announcement, “This is the worst group of slaves I have ever looked at. There will not be a guarantee on any of these slaves.”

When those words were announced, the Himyarite slavers were furious. But they had to hold in their fury. They waited for days for the Quaestor to check their slaves, and that cost them time, and time was money. They still had two more ships for the Quaestor to check. If they lost their temper now, they would just be hurting themselves. Besides, they knew how abused these slaves were before they got on the ship.

Most of the buyers lost interest when they heard there was no guarantee. Normally if there was a problem with their slave, they could come back to port when these ships returned and get a refund, but without the guarantee, it wasn’t worth it. It meant they couldn’t even get a year's work out of their slaves.

Even so, the slavers had to make the best of a bad situation, and they began bringing out the slaves one at a time. The slavers brought the slave down the gangplank naked as the day they were born. It was Roman law that when slaves were sold, they had to be naked so the seller could not hide any defects with the slave.

The first slave was a man, and the slaver said, “Look at the muscles on this man. He will be a fine worker at a farm, a mine, or just around an estate. I will start the bidding at five hundred denarii.”

Someone from the crowd yelled, “Who are you kidding. There is no guarantee. I will give you a hundred denarii for him, but no more.”

The slaver winced, looked around, and saw angry faces, so he said, “Fine, A hundred denarii. Can I get two hundred denarii?”

Washington yelled out, “A hundred and fifty denarii.”

Someone else called out, “A hundred and sixty.”

Washington waited like he was really contemplating as the slaver said, “A hundred and sixty going once, a hundred and sixty going twice. This is a really great deal for a strong slave. A hundred and…”

Washington yelled out, “A hundred and seventy denarii.”

“A hundred and seventy going once, a hundred and seventy going twice, don’t let this young master steal this slave for such a low price, a hundred and seventy going three times. SOLD for a hundred and seventy denarii.”

A guard roughly grabbed the slave and brought him over to Washington. Washington had one of his men pay the guard and give clothes to the man.

The next slave to come down the plank was a naked girl who couldn’t have been over twelve years old. She was clearly ashamed to show off her body to the world, and as she reached the slaver at the end of the gangplank, the slaver grabbed her arm and began pointing out every inch of her body. Washington was disgusted; twelve was too young for a girl to have sex. But the surrounding men didn’t care; several of the pimps thought this was the perfect age to buy a slave girl since girls this age were much more compliant than older slaves, and they could start selling them immediately. Any younger and men preferred boys over girls.

This time the slaver did things a little different; he asked, “Who wants to give me the first bid.”

A pimp yelled out, “Five hundred denarii.”

Another said, “A thousand.”

A third shouted, “FIFTEEN HUNDRED.”

Washington had to get in there and said, “Two thousand.”

At this point, the pimps had to do some math. Most of them charged a Quinarius or about half a denarii for each visit to their prostitutes. If they averaged thirty men a day, and it was a busy harbor, so that was not a difficult goal to achieve, it would take four to five months to get their money back from this girl. During her stay at their brothel, she would get venereal diseases, get pregnant, and get physically abused, all of which would make her less desirable. Honestly, it was at the sixth-month mark when they would start earning back money from her, and by then, she would be much less desirable, so was she worth the cost?

Washington was relieved when the pimps thought she wasn’t and let Washington have her for the low price of two thousand denarii, or eighty aureus, Roman large gold coins, or twenty-two ounces of gold. When the guard brought her over to Washington, the ladies in his group rushed over to her, wrapped clothing around her, and led her away as Washington paid the man.

Before the man was even paid, the next Paulslander was up for sale. About ten slaves in, and everyone figured out Washington was buying all the slaves, and so the prices started going up just to mess with Washington, but Washington could not burn these men by allowing them to buy one of his people at a steep price. In part because they were not raising prices to ludicrous heights and partly because he had a responsibility to these people.

Washington stayed out all day and bought every slave from each of the ships. The slavers were happy since it meant they could sell their slaves for slightly higher prices than otherwise, but nobody really tried to push boundaries too much. Rumor was that Washington was going to marry the governor’s daughter. If that happened, and Washington was holding a grudge, then at best, they would not be able to do business in Egypt; at worst, they would be crucified.

Once the slave auction was over, the Central Roman Trading Company was down several talents of gold, but they could afford it. Slavery just wasn’t as lucrative as the spice or perfume trade.

From there, the Central Roman Trading Company watched closely as the Himyarite slavers spent their coin. Most of it was spent on filling the holds of their ship with things they thought would sell well back in their nation. This irked Washington and the others from Paulsland as every coin spent was a coin they would not get back when they practiced piracy.

A few days later, the slavers took their three ships and began sailing away. They were followed by five Paulsland trimarans. Four that had been preparing for days, and with the last one showing up a day before the slavers left. The slavers were not going to get away.

Bahari led the small fleet of ships. His plan was very simple. First, they would follow the Himyarite ships for a full day and night, and when the coast was clear, they would capture the Himyarite ships. Their trimarans were faster and far more maneuverable than the Himyarite ships, so they were going to swarm the Himyarite ships one at a time. The Himyarite ships were a lot taller than his ships, so his men would have to use grappling hooks to climb onto their ships. Normally it would be pretty easy to cut the ropes off grappling hooks, but Bahari was going to send archers up to the top of the mast, to the beam that held their sail, called the lift. When getting shot at, it would be far more difficult to cut the grappling hook ropes, especially if they lucked out and no one in the merchant fleet had armor.

During the day, it was not hard to keep an eye on the enemy. They simply put a man on top of the mast with a telescope and watched them. If the Himyarites noticed the sails in the distance, they didn’t care, the Red Sea was narrow after all, so seeing other ships was normal.

While they followed, the archers climbed to the top of the mast and onto the lift and practiced shooting their bow. At first, they practiced without heads on their arrows until they got comfortable shooting from a swaying ship, with their legs wrapped around the lift.

After a day of practice, most of the men on the ship went off to bed while the night crew took over sailing. The next morning as the sun rose, everyone woke up, did their morning stretches, put on their armor, put on their swords, and got into position. The archers climbed the mast and spread out along the lift. Soldiers in armor remained hidden below deck. Sailors adjusted the sail so they could move as quickly as possible, and men in the crows nest looked for the Himyarite ships.

During the night, they lost sight of the three ships, but an hour after the sun rose, they found them, and they made their fastest speed toward them.

As the five ships made their way to the three Himyarite ships, Bahari signaled for his ships to take the one to the left, as it was trailing somewhat behind the other two. They probably had some greenhorns on their ship. Unfortunately for those greenhorns, they picked the wrong ship at the wrong time.

The trimarans grew closer and closer to the trailing ship, like a lion coming upon a sick gazelle. Seeing a couple of ships off in the distance was no concern. Five was slightly concerning but not too out of the ordinary. But those ships spending an hour in your wake drawing closer to your ship is very concerning. The slavers began taking notice and arming themselves as best as they could. They thought about tossing some of their cargo overboard, but the trimarans were far faster than them; it would only delay the inevitable.

When Bahari’s little fleet finally reached the first slave ship, he yelled out, “TRY TO WOUND THEM! KING PAUL WILL WANT TO CAST JUDGEMENT ON AS MANY AS WE CAN BRING BACK!”

With those words, the trimarans easily came alongside the larger ship. The Himyarites tried to maneuver their ship away or fire a couple of arrows, but the Paulsland archers on the lift made them go below deck after wounding several of their crewmembers.

Once the hooks were thrown over the side of the ship, and sixty Paulsland men, in chainmail, crawled onto the ship, the slavers surrendered without a fight. There were only thirteen on the first ship.

Bahari’s little fleet easily captured the next two ships. Ship two had twelve men, and ship three had fifteen. Normally, Paulsland merchant ships only had eight sailors, but today they had over a hundred and fifty Central Roman Trading Company employees spread out across their five trimarans. It made capturing these merchants, these slavers, easy.

Once the ships were captured, they loaded some cargo from the ships onto three of the trimarans, then put ninety men on them to go back to Rome. But the rest of the men stayed with their three new ships and prisoners, and they headed back to Paulsland with two trimarans serving as escort.