"Come to seek your services," he added, "on the recommendation of-" "Of the household of the most esteemed Marcus Tullius Cicero," he added, pausing with a slight inclination of his head to see if I recognized the name. No grub from the stables, then, but clearly the educated and pampered servant of a fond master. His Latin was impeccable (better than mine), and the voice that delivered it was as beautifully modulated as a flute. He had a quiet manner that was respectful but far from groveling-the politeness one expects from any young man addressing another man ten years his elder. The slave who stood at my door on this particular morning, however, was very clean and meticulously groomed. I take no offense-so long as my accounts are paid on time and in full. It's as if I were a leper, or the priest of some unclean Oriental cult. It's a kind of formality when one seeks out the services of Gordianus the Finder, one keeps a certain distance and restraint. Usually, when a client sends for me, the messenger is a slave from the very lowest rung of the household-a grub, a cripple, a half-wit boy from the stables stinking of dung and sneezing from the bits of straw in his hair. The slave who came to fetch me on that unseasonably warm spring morning was a young man, hardly more than twenty.
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