Читать книгу Atilus the Lanista - E. C. Tubb - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

The Circus Maximus was shaped like a long U, the flat end containing the processional gate and the starting stall for the chariots. As the trumpets sounded, the four teams dashed from their waiting positions. A gasp rose from the crowd as they saw the Green chariot. It was covered with gold and studded with gems; even the metal rims of the wheels were gilded and the extended axles, set with bands of gold, had knobs of silver. The horses were equally mag­nificent; their harness gilded, their manes braided with bright ribbons.

Nero himself matched the extravagant splendor of the display, dressed in leather, gilded and set with gems. The round hat on his head was a gleaming ball of gold, broken only by the tall, thick plume of horsehair dyed a bright green. Like Apollo himself, he caught and reflected the sun so that he moved in a glimmering nimbus of light.

His team, selected thoroughbreds from Libya noted for their staying power, raced into the lead and headed for the inner position. It was too great a lead and, normally, the judge would have declared a false start, but he was not a fool, and the rope stretched from the end of the Spine to where he sat was lowered long before Nero reached it.

Like a blazing thunderbolt, the golden chariot streaked down the track well ahead of the others.

As a display it was magnificent, but as a race it was a foregone conclusion. Even so, Nero handled his team well, cutting sharply around the curves, swaying back to tighten the reins lashed around his waist, leaning forward to give the animals their heads.

After him came the others. For them the second place would determine the real victor, and each did his best to gain it. As I’d guessed, the Blue team was unsettled by the drag of the reins. Accustomed to going all-out, they were thrown off stride, swinging too far out, heads tossing and teeth bared as they fought the restriction. Ferdo did his best to control them, but he had been trained to win and, like the team, he was unsettled.

Swinging back toward the Spine, he blocked the White chariot which, coming too close, was suddenly wreathed in flying splinters from its locked wheel. Red, seeing his chance, sent his team lunging toward the gap formed on the inside, a space barely wide enough to pass through, his offside horse slamming against the inner horse of the White team. For a moment it looked as if all three chariots would end in a pile of wreckage and then, suddenly, Red was clear.

The roar of the crowd rose from all sides.

“Belens! Belens! Belens for the Reds!”

Nero might be the first across the finishing line, but the spectators had no doubt as to who was the real winner.

As the gold chariot slowed, I rose and shouted, “Lucius! Lucius for the Greens! Lucius!”

A shout that reached the ears of Nero who turned and looked up at me.

“To the Greens!” I yelled again. “Lucius for the Greens!”

The colors were more than just identifying marks for the stables; they were representative of warring political fac­tions, and my shouts had stirred the appropriate loyalties. Within seconds others had joined in, Belens’s name was drowned out as every Green supporter strained his throat.

“Lucius! Lucius for the Greens! Lucius!”

Flushed, happy, Nero accepted the laurels of victory; then sent his team slowly around the track, one hand lifted as if he were a god dispensing favors. In a sense, he was. As he finally left the circuit and headed toward the stalls, a crowd of slaves ran over the sand. From baskets they hurled ivory tokens into the stands; each token entitled the holder to a gift of some kind.

“So he did it,” mused Aquilia. “The Emperor of Rome lowered himself to the level of a common charioteer. Competing with slaves for an empty victory.”

“Aquilia!”

“I know. Be careful. His spies and informers are every­where and a loose word can lead to torture. But, Atilus, why did he do it?”

A question I couldn’t answer. Nero was governed by whims and look a delight in outraging established opinion, but this seemed to be going too far. The Fathers of the City would never forgive the insult to their class. The Senate would be outraged. The great families would feel degraded. If Nero wanted to turn them against him, he could have chosen no better way.

But he was not a simpering fool who knew no better and neither was he insane, as Caligula had been. Willful, yes, with a child’s unthinking cruelty, but his upbringing was responsible for that. Even so—why had he done it?

A question I dismissed as the trumpets sounded for the next race.

An hour later we left the Circus. Chariot racing had its devotees, but I was not among them, and Aquilia, conscious of her skin, had no desire to ruin its whiteness by too long an exposure to the sun.

Escorting her home and leaving with a promise of re­turning later, I made straight for the house I had bought on the slopes of Esquiline. It was large, luxurious, a home fit for a senator with vast estates or a merchant with many profitable interests, and I had filled it with rich furnishings and items of value. Attached to the house was a walled garden filled with a variety of trees and shrubs. Fountains filled the air with a soft tinkling, a sound now acting as an accompaniment to the harsher ringing of steel.

“In, boy, in! You have to be faster than that!”

Agonestes was dressed as if for the arena; the boy, if he was that, was wearing the equipment of a secutor.

“We’ll try again,” said the Greek, tiredly. “Now, as I lift the net, try and anticipate where it will fall. Use the shield to block it, but remember that I’ve got the trident and will drive it into you if you give me the chance. Ready? Now!”

As training it was useless, but I could appreciate Ago­nestes’s difficulty. It was like teaching a person to read; you first had to explain the characters. Now, slowly, he shifted the net, lifting it, casting it with a flick of his wrist, opening the mesh that fell in a filmy cloud over the other’s helmet.

As the boy lifted his shield too high and too late, the trident darted in to rest blunted points against his chest.

“You’re dead!” I called. “That blow would have killed you.”

“Atilus!” Agonestes turned. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“And I didn’t expect to see you. How are things in Ca­pua?”

“Later.” He glanced at the boy. “You’ve come in good time. Felicio, this is Atilus Cindras. Atilus, meet Felicio Dillius.” He added casually, “His father is high in the trea­sury.”

A position which explained why the Greek was taking trouble with his son.

“This is an honor.” The boy removed his helmet as he greeted me. “To have actually met the famous Atilus! I have heard my father speak of you.”

“Nothing bad, I hope?”

“No. He considers you to be the finest gladiator of our time. Certainly the one with most style. He’s often talked about those women you trained for the arena.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“I know. Four years.”

In the arena that could be a lifetime. And the incident with the women was one I did not wish to remember.

Lifting my hand I said, “See that post? The one covered with straw? Go over there and hit it. Use the full weight of your back and shoulders and make the chaff fly. Send that sword against it as if you were cutting down an enemy of Rome.”

“This?” He looked dubiously at the heavy, blunted weapon in his hand.

“That. If you want to build up your sword arm, that’s the way to do it. Keep at it until you’re told to stop. Now, Felicio, move!”

Jerking my head at Agonestes, I led the way into the house. Inside it was cool and a slave brought us wine. “How long are you stuck with the boy?” I asked Agonestes.

“Until this evening, when a slave will come to escort him back home. Then, again, tomorrow, and after that, maybe until he gets bored.”

“Why bother? So his father’s rich, but what is that to you?”

Agonestes said dryly, “As you said, Atilus, his father is rich. He’s crazed on the arena and would have undergone training as a gladiator if it hadn’t been for a twisted spine. He might even have fought as a volunteer, and could even have won a few bouts and got it out of his system. It’s happened.”

But not often. Many volunteered to fight, and among them were the sons of patricians who were either bored or disinherited; but the devotees of the games either remained away from the sand or, if lured to participate, quickly died or found the lure irresistible.

“And the boy?”

“Felicio?” Agonestes shrugged. “I think his father’s trying to live through him. Certainty he interested him in the arena when he was young enough to be taken to see the games and now, I think, he wants to see him fight and win in some small engagement. Not yet, of course, but when he’s ready. As he’s willing to pay for the trouble, I’m taking I can’t object.”

“His own son? The man must be mad!”

“He’s a Roman and sometimes I think all Romans are mad. Do you think the boy is any good?”

“No.” His body was too slight, his bones too frail, and despite his interest he lacked an inner fire, a determination to win, without which no fighter could survive. It could be instilled, given time, but how to take the son of a rich pa­trician and treat him as a slave? “Not as a swordsman,” I amended. “With the net, perhaps, but his father wouldn’t go for that and, in any case, I wouldn’t bet on him.”

“And me?”

I met his eyes and saw the question, the one each man carried within himself and could never escape. The clock measured a fighter’s life. Agonestes was almost forty, an old age for many, too old for the normal gladiator. Yet he was my friend.

“On you, yes.”

“If you bet on me you’d be a fool,” he said flatly. “I haven’t been in the arena for years and you know it. Not since we took out those women—and I wasn’t fighting then. Time gets us all, Atilus. I’m no exception.”

“You’d fight and you’d win.” I finished my wine. “What do a few years matter? You’ve kept in condition and you are still as good as the best. A little older, perhaps, but what of that? You could take on any of a dozen I’ve seen lately, and have them downed before they knew what hit them.”

It wasn’t wholly a lie and I could see that he was pleased.

“Anyway,” I added, “what does it matter? You’re not going to fight again.”

“What else?” His eyes darkened. “Live on your charity?”

“You have money.”

“I had money,” he corrected. “It’s gone. Some bad investments and, well, other things.”

Young men and, maybe, a few boys. I thought of the boy outside, but he was a true Roman, and would not yield him­self to another man. For him, even if he’d had the inclina­tion, it would have been easy to choose. For others it was not so easy. Looking at Agonestes, I felt a quick sympathy. Once so eagerly chased by wealthy patricians, it wasn’t pleasant for him to have to do the chasing.

“You don’t have to worry,” I said. “This house is your home—use it as such.” And before he could object I added, “When my ship comes home we’ll all be rich.”

“Your ship—any word as yet?”

It was the biggest investment and almost the biggest gamble I had ever undertaken. Nothing could beat the gamble of life itself, but this came close. I’d taken a half-share in a trading venture, paying hard-won gold for both vessel and cargo bound for the East. It would trade the goods of Rome for rare and exotic spices, silk, dyes, valu­able animals, and anything else the captain decided would bring a profit. The cost had been high, but the potential profit was enormous.

“There were storms in the Aegean,” said Agonestes quietly. “Sabinianus had word of them from a courier traveling from Ravenna to Miscenum. The seas were too rough for him to take passage. Your vessel may have had to run before the wind and taken shelter somewhere.”

“Perhaps.”

“Or—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Never mind. Your argosy will arrive in its own good time. But I can’t depend on you forever.”

“We’ll be partners. Rome is full of opportunities and I’ll stake you to a venture. We can speculate in land, buy some tenements and add a few extra floors, and there is always the animal trade in beasts for the arena. Look at Ofonius Tigellinus! Once he was a Sicilian horse-trader and now he is Prefect of the Praetorians.”

“I know,” said Agonestes. “Poor old Burrus was barely cold when the Emperor filled his shoes with that crawling sycophant.”

“But he got the position,” I reminded. “Never mind how he climbed, he reached the top. And if a stinking dealer in horses could rise to command the Praetorians, then just think of how high a trained gladiator could rise if he put his mind to it. Don’t look so glum, man. You’ll never starve.”

“No.” He set down his wine. “I know you well enough for that, Atilus, but there is more to life than bread.”

“And you’ll have more,” I promised. “Much more. We both will. Now let me hear no more about you getting old. Listening to you turns my hair gray.”

“If it does, Atilus, there is always dye.”

“And short-sighted women?”

“You’ll never want for those, short-sighted or otherwise. You have the gift, Atilus. The face of a god and a body to match. Rome is covered with inscriptions from young girls who long for your embrace.” Lifting the goblet, he spilled a few drops of wine on the floor. “That for the gods and the rest”—he drank—“to you. Now I’d better see how Feli­cio is getting on.”

Satisfied, I moved through the house as Agonestes headed toward the garden, his face more relaxed now, his mood brighter because of my reassurance. Inside, Heraculis straightened from his examination of the sword I had brought from Aquilia’s house and the bag of gold lying be­side it.

“Take the one,” I said, “and I’ll cut off your hands with the other.”

“And hang them around my neck with a cord? Master, we aren’t in the degenerate East but in Rome.”

“That won’t stop me.”

“Did I say that it would? But, master, it is against the law to subject your slaves to cruel and unnatural punish­ments.”

“You aren’t a slave now and haven’t been for years. Are there any messages?”

“Three.” He lifted the fingers of one hand. “The Lady Amilia would like you to attend her on a journey she in­tends to make shortly to Narbonese Gaul. The fee for your protective services has not yet been settled.”

“It won’t be. Gaul is too far and the lady too ugly.”

He lowered one finger. “Grassus Paciaecus extends an invitation for you to stay with him for a few days at—”

“No. I’m not keen on supplying what he wants. What else?”

“An invitation from the Great School for you to attend the banquet to be held in honor of Gallus Caecina on the occasion of his retirement.”

“Gallus retiring?”

“So the message stated. It is by his own wish, I under­stand. It isn’t for a while as yet, but I said that you would be there.”

“You did right. Gallus retiring!” I shook my head; it seemed incredible. Another proof of the insidious passage of time. He had seemed as solid as the stones of the school itself—as well entrenched as the power of Rome. “I must send him a gift. Look for something both suitable and use­ful. And be generous.”

“Of course, master. How about the sword the woman gave you? But, no, that would hardly do—she will probably expect you to use it soon.”

I said flatly, “One day, Heraculis, I’m going to grab hold of your insolent tongue and tear it from your mouth. Now order the servants to prepare my bath.”

The bath was of marble, set into the floor, warmed by air heated in a furnace. An expensive luxury, but one which I enjoyed. Now, wallowing in the steaming water, I felt myself relax. Even the momentary irritation caused by Heraculis’s play on words turned to a wry amusement. The man took chances and, one day, he would probably take one too many, but he had little to fear from me and he knew it. As long as I didn’t catch him cheating too heavily on the household accounts, I would tolerate his insolence—and none could better the ex-slave at the suggestive look and implied insult. Even when I had granted him his freedom after Verdalia had died, he had asked, with mock af­front, how he was to live.

Leaning back, eyes closed, I could see his wrinkled face.

“You grant me freedom, master,” he had said. “Freedom to do what? To starve? How am I to live at my age? Who will employ me? What shall I do?”

I solved the problem by simply paying him a wage and allowing him to continue as before, but now with greater authority.

But other problems remained. Agonestes had worried me with his talk of storms. The ship on which my fortune de­pended was long overdue. Storms could account for it; a wise captain would have sought shelter, and Massa Longi­nus was skilled at his trade, but there were other dangers. Illyrian pirates hunted the seas like famished wolves, un­charted reefs could rip out a bottom, brigands could swoop down from the hills and plunder a crippled vessel that had put into shore for repairs. And always there was the threat of sudden, unpredictable squalls, mutinies, and sickness.

Risks that could not be avoided, but that justified the high profits to be gained from the business.

Tomorrow, I decided, I would make sacrifice to the ap­propriate gods: Fortunata, Neptune, Jupiter Stator himself. It would do no harm and the priests would be glad of the offerings.

A touch on my shoulder jerked me awake. I looked up into a round, moon-like face.

Heraculis had bought a new slave from Etruria, more for his own comfort, I suspected, than for mine. She was a well-built girl with massive breasts and hips and buttocks to match. Her best feature was the mane of thick, lustrous hair, which rippled like an ebon waterfall to her waist.

“What is it, Fabia?”

She touched me again as if I were fragile glass. “Master, Heraculis told me to attend you.”

He had dressed her for the part. She wore a short, loose robe, which fell just below her hips and gaped at the top to reveal the smooth curves of her naked flesh.

“What did that old goat tell you to do?”

“Simply to attend you, master.” She added, quickly, “I am skilled at massage.”

I doubted it. Her hands, broad, the fingers spatulate, looked more fitted to milk a cow, yet it would do no harm to let her try. I dried and lay on a couch and watched as she filled her palm with warm, scented oil. Deftly she be­gan to rub it on me and then, as her confidence increased, her fingers gently massaged my muscles. Her skill surprised me.

“Where did you learn to do this, Fabia?”

“My old master at the farm used to suffer from cramps and he taught me how to ease them.” Her hands lingered in the region of my hips. “But his body wasn’t as nice as yours.”

“No?”

“No, master. Yours is hard and firm and nice, even if it is scarred.”

My scars didn’t seem to bother her. I felt her hands on my back and shoulders. Heraculis had done well even if unintentionally. The girl had assets and I would see that she developed them. Trained, groomed, and taught a few graces, she would fetch a good price from the owner of a bath that catered to a select clientele—one that would appreciate both her skill at massage and her femininity.

“Master.” She was breathing heavily, her fingers pressing hard. “If you would turn over and let me finish your stom­ach?”

It wouldn’t stop at that and we both knew it. As if by accident, her breasts touched my shoulder and I could feel their soft invitation. Turning, I looked up at her; her mane of hair fell about my face, enveloping me in a gossamer cloud. The breasts bulging from her robe were like oiled bladders suspended above my mouth.

“Master!” Heraculis called from beyond the door, his voice urgent. Suddenly he burst into the room. “Master, a tribune of the Praetorians has arrived and demands your immediate attention!”