It took twelve days, travel time, time to gather the ransom, and repair time. Twelve days and the tel'tac was back in the pasture by the front gates of the Villa. And in those twelve days Cletus had handed over the care of Villa Fecunda to Crassus. And Crassus took the reins tightly in his hammy fists. He wanted to alter everything, make it over to his own liking but even he couldn't argue with success. Instead he took all his aggression out on Jack. Jack could do nothing right , nothing fast enough, nothing to Crassus satisfaction. If someone incurred Crassus wrath and Jack was closer, Jack felt his wrath. Crassus refused to take the chains from Jack's wrists and ankles; he worked, ate, and slept shackled hand and foot. Well worked, yes but even if it disrupted Crassus life Jack rarely slept a night through and never got to finish a meal.
Crassus finally pushed Jack too far and he struck back. Leda made the unforgivable error of serving Jack before Crassus and Crassus struck her, not with an open hand but he struck the old woman with a closed fist and dropped her to the floor. If he hadn't been exhausted from lack of sleep and half starved, if he hadn't felt so dismally forgotten and abandoned, if he hadn't been shackled he would have killed Crassus. He had gotten the chains just about around Crassus' throat ready to choke the life out of him. Crassus barely escaped Jack's grasp, but escape he did and he beat him senseless. Then to make an object lesson of him and to satisfy him sadistic tendencies he took Jack out to a field and hung him by the chain that ran from wrist to wrist from a post. He hoisted Jack up until his feet barely touched the ground. And there he hung for almost two days, and there he would hang until Crassus got tired of looking at his rotting corpse but fate intervened. Jacob arrived.