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‘The walls stretch all around it. We head south through the city to the far side where the abbey is situated.’
    Once through the impressive gates, the odours of the city impinged on their senses. Fidelma and Eadulf were used to the countryside, and the towns of their own lands were little more than well-spaced villages without protective walls. Now the smells reawakened memories of Rome: the stench of sewerage, of rotting vegetables and unattended animal waste andoffal in the streets, combined with the sweat of people crowded into confined spaces.
    Fidelma shuddered, wondering how anyone could actually live in such a place.
    Brother Budnouen glanced at her and grinned. ‘It takes some getting used to, if you are country bred,’ he remarked.
    She did not respond, fearing the atmosphere would cause her to be nauseous. As they proceeded south along what seemed a principal street, women, whose dress announced them to be of some rank and wealth, passed by them, holding little bunches of flowers before their nostrils. It brought a faint smile to Fidelma’s lips. At least she was not the only one to react to the stink of what some called civilisation. She could not remember seeing such things in Rome but then, of course, the thoroughfares of Rome were much wider. This street was lined with little shops, even blacksmiths and all manner of vendors of goods. The cacophony of noise–the shouting of the traders, vying with one another to attract customers, and the haggling of customers over prices–oppressed her ears in a solid wall of sound.
    As they passed through a square, the crack of a whip nearby caused Fidelma to start nervously and peer around. In a corner of the square, she spotted a small platform on which were huddled half a dozen tiny figures. They were difficult to see, as a number of people were crowded before the platform. A tall man stood behind the figures, holding a whip. He was shouting but Fidelma had no idea what he was saying. Then her eyes widened as she saw that they were children, and that each child wore an iron collar about his or her neck. She drew a quick breath in horror.
    Brother Budnouen followed her gaze. ‘A slave auction,’ he explained nonchalantly. ‘There is quite a business done in the city. Many foreign merchants pass this way.’
    ‘It’s disgusting,’ Fidelma muttered.
    Brother Budnouen looked amused. ‘What–slavery? How would the world function without slaves?’
    ‘Easily enough,’ she replied spiritedly.
    The Gaul chuckled. ‘Come, do not try to tell me that your people have no slaves.’
    ‘Not in the sense you have them here,’ she replied.
    ‘In what sense then?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.
    ‘We do have a class whom you could call non-free, the fudir ,’ she admitted.
    ‘And how are they bought and sold?’
    ‘They are not commodities bought and sold for profit like sacks of flour. They are usually captives in battle or those criminals who have lost their rights to be part of the clan, the basis of our society. We call them daer-fudir –they have to serve the clan until they have atoned for their transgressions or done sufficient to gain freedom. They do not suffer the hopelessness of slaves that we see in other lands. The law of our land favours the eventual emancipation of the fudir class.’
    Brother Budnouen sniffed in disbelief. ‘I have heard that some merchants of the Angles and Saxons sell children to the Irish as servus and what is that but a slave?’
    ‘It is true that there is slavery among my people,’ Eadulf intervened, ‘especially among poor people who will sell their children or some other relative to merchants to raise money. I have seen these same merchants selling them in the ports of Hibernia and I hope the fashion will cease, for the Irish take them in innocence, not because of wanting slaves but thinking they are helping to rehabilitate dear-fudir , for the very word fudir , as I have heard it, means a remnant or someone who is