Persona Non Grata (31 page)

76

T
ILLA TRIED TO steady her breathing, but the stench of animals made her gasp. The row of smoky torches stretching down the tunnel ahead did little to lift the gloom, barely revealing the figures of slaves moving between arched recesses on either side. From somewhere deeper inside, beneath the middle of the arena, she heard a clang of metal, then the shout of an order and the squeak and grind of something being hoisted on a winch. An animal howl echoed down the tunnel. Tilla shuddered.

This must be where the creatures were kept before they were lifted up and thrust into the arena through trapdoors. As her eyes adjusted from the sunlight outside, she could make out the stripes of cage bars in some of the recesses.

She tightened the grip on her knife. There was no other way the man could have come. She was not far behind him, and if he had run away down that tunnel she would have seen him pass through the torchlight. He must have ducked into one of those black recesses. But even if she found him, what was she going to do?

It seemed nobody on the balcony except the Medicus had believed her. Nobody else had given chase when she ran after Stilo. She was sure the Medicus had been behind her, but even he had disappeared now. Whatever was down here, she was facing it alone.

Someone—not Stilo, it was the wrong height and gait— emerged from a side entrance hauling a trolley. As the slave approached, the eyes that glanced out of the filthy face suggested that she should not be here but that he did not dare tell her so. She said, “There is a sailor in there. He is wearing a green tunic and he has two fingers missing. Have you seen him?”

The slave’s expression did not change. “No, miss.” As he plodded past she tried not to look at the mangled and smeary creatures piled on the trolley.

She turned her head away from the source of the stench and took a deep breath. Then she murmured a prayer and ventured into the place where the spirits who lived under the ground were appeased with blood.

The stones beneath her boots were slippery and uneven. The first recess on each side was empty: She had been able to see that from the entrance.

Beyond them, she flattened her back to the wall, trying not to think of the filth that might be crusted on it, and crept sideways. Beneath the gloomy arch opposite, she could make out the poles of brooms and shovels. Nothing round enough to be human. Nothing moving.

The roar of the crowd echoed through the tunnel, sounding like another great animal.

She slid one hand farther along the wall. Her fingers rounded a corner stone with something cold set in it. Cage bars. Down at floor level she could make out pale wisps of straw. She waited, hardly breathing, but nothing moved. She checked the tunnel and then shifted farther along toward the next recess, moving away from the bars in case there was something behind them with claws and a long reach.

What happened next was over almost before she realized it. The hand clamping on her wrist. The hopeless struggle not to be dragged in between the bars. The pain of her shoulder rammed against the cage. The screech of metal on stone tangling with the echo of her own scream: the weight of the body pressing her against the cage and the shock as the knife was knocked out of her hand. Then the smack of something hitting flesh. The grunt of pain and the sudden release. The footsteps, the shouts of “Miss!” and “Let her go!” as the two silhouettes that were racing toward her from the outside world became the Medicus and another man, both asking if she was all right.

“I think so,” she said, shaking off the filth of the cage and rubbing the pain in her shoulder. The man handed her back her knife and said something about being sorry and having to go. The Medicus had already set off down the tunnel, dodging around a couple of slaves with trolleys. “Wait for me!” she shouted, running after him, ashamed to recognize it was because she wanted his protection, not because she wanted another fight with Stilo.

Beneath one of the far torches, the Medicus was shouting something at a slave carry ing buckets. She heard the slave try to tell him he shouldn’t be there, and the Medicus say, “Never mind. Did you see him?”

Tilla jumped over the stream of water the slave had just sloshed down the tunnel floor. “What did you just tell that man?”

The slave looked baffled. “I said the one he’s chasing run out the far end, miss.”

When Tilla caught up with him the Medicus had already emerged at the far end of the underground chambers and clambered up onto the end of a row of seats. He was standing with one hand shading his eyes, squinting out across the packed terraces. A couple of spectators were complaining and leaning around him to get a clear view of the arena. Tilla tried to get up onto the seating opposite. She glimpsed hundreds— thousands—of dark heads along the curving rows before a couple of men shouted at her and tried to push her off.

“Can you see him?”

The Medicus shook his head and jumped down to join her, wincing even though he landed on his good foot. “We’ve lost him. Are you sure you’re all right?”

She said, “Where will he go?”

“A long way from here. Put that knife away, you’re frightening everyone.”

She looked around and saw the approaching steward.

“It’s all right,” the Medicus explained, taking her by the arm and steering her firmly toward an exit. “She’s with me. She just got a bit overexcited. It’s her first time.”

The steward said, “Yes, sir.” He did not look surprised.

She said, “What will we do now?”

He took a left turn. “Go back to work.”

“But what about that Stilo?”

He steered her toward another staircase. “He’ll leave town. Maybe the senator will send somebody after him.”

And maybe not. All her effort had come to nothing. The man who had murdered Cass’s brother had escaped. The Medicus was right: He could be anywhere out there among thousands of people. They would never catch him now.

His hand tightened on her arm and she noticed for the first time how badly he was limping. “You should not be walking around on that foot.”

“You shouldn’t be chasing a man like Stilo on your own.”

She said, “Back in that . . .” She had no name for it. “Back down there. Did something hit Stilo?”

He said, “Damn. I forgot to pick it up.”

“What?”

“My lunch,” he said. “The army teaches you to throw stones, but I reckoned that at that distance an apple in the eye would stop him just as well.”

77

F
EROX! ” GASPED THE man, struggling to rise while Ruso’s blood-splattered assistants tried to hold him down on the table. “Where’s Ferox?”

Ruso, who dared not remove the wadding over the wound until his patient was still, said, “He’ll be in later. We need to deal with you first.”

“No, he’s worse! Where’s Ferox? What have they done with him? Let me go!”

A fist escaped and narrowly missed Ruso’s jaw.

“Somebody else is dealing with your friend,” said Ruso, seizing the flailing arm and glancing across at Gnostus, who looked up from washing the sand out of a nasty head wound and drew one finger across his throat.

Ruso turned back to the patient. “Lie still and let’s have a look at what’s going on here, shall we?”

The man continued to thrash around. “Let me go! I’ll find him. I’ll bring him in. He’s down. He needs help.”

“Somebody else will see to him.”

“You’re lying! You’re all lying to me!”

Ruso eyed the dirt-streaked face. At least the man’s lungs were in good order. “You’re right,” he said, too tired to lie anymore. “Ferox is dead. Fate chose to take him and not you. Lie still and let me look or you’ll be joining him.”

“You bastard, you filthy lying dog! He’s not dead!”

Ruso had already given the man as much mandrake as he dared, but it seemed to be having little effect.

“Ferox is with the gods,” a female voice assured him. A hand, smaller and cleaner than those that were trying to force him down, reached out to rest on his forehead. “I will pray for his soul,” promised Tilla, who until now had been standing in the shadows.

When she began to pray over the patient in British, Ruso was relieved. As long as nobody understood, she could— and no doubt would—rain down any number of curses on the politician who had paid for thousands of people to watch death as entertainment, and possibly on himself as well for joining in.

As the babble of British rose over the operating table, the man’s arching chest sank back down. His grimace relaxed. “Ferox!” he whispered to the stone vaulting above their heads. “There you are. I didn’t mean it, mate. I didn’t mean it.” His voice was growing sleepy. “You were supposed to go left. Up, down, left. Both left. I told you, mate, you got to . . . you got to pay . . . pay attention.”

Ruso lifted the wadding from the side of the chest and began to explore the injury.

He had patched up the wound and was giving orders for the patient to be kept poulticed and under observation when another fresh and whimpering load was maneuvered in from the corridor. The bearers rolled the occupant of the stretcher onto the table, announced, “Hamstrung, can’t stop it bleeding,” and retreated to their station.

Tilla cried, “That is him!” at the same moment Ruso recognized the filthy and blood-streaked figure curled up in front of him.

“Tertius? How did this happen?”

Tertius groped a hand toward his own. “Is that you, sir?”

“Yes,” said Ruso, lifting the dressing to peer at a gaping wound behind the lad’s left knee. He said, “Who did this?”

Tertius’s weak response was something between a laugh and a sob. “Sorry, sir. I wasted your money.”

“He came back,” said a voice from Gnostus’s side of the room. “Silly bugger came back to make up the numbers so his mate didn’t have to take on two men.”

Ruso shook his head in disbelief.

“How bad is it?” The voice was barely recognizable as the confident youth from earlier this afternoon.

“Nothing to worry about,” Ruso lied, directing the assistants to get him into a better position while he hunted for the main source of the bleeding. Tilla fetched a lamp from one of the brackets and held it close. He was finishing the first cautery when there was a commotion out in the corridor and a voice that should have been inaudible down here shrieked, “How dare you? He’s my fiancé! Let me in!”

Ruso winced as the door crashed open. “It’s me!” cried Marcia, rushing across to the table. “Tertius, don’t die! Get out of the way, Gaius!”

Instead of getting out of the way, Ruso placed another sponge in the wound and ordered one of the assistants to hold it there. Then he gripped his sister’s shoulders with bloodstained hands and said firmly in her ear, “If you want to help, shut up and wait outside. You’re embarrassing me and you aren’t helping him.”

“But he’s hurt! Oh, what did you sign up for, you stupid, stupid boy? What am I going to—ugh! Gaius, your hands are horrible, get them off!”

“Wait outside,” Ruso repeated, nodding to the other assistant who propelled her toward the door.

“You can’t throw me out, I—What’s she doing here? You said she ran away! Get off me! Gaius, tell him to let me go!”

“And while you’re out there,” Ruso called over his shoulder, “think about growing up. There’s a brave man lying here and he deserves better than this.”

78

T
HE GAMES WERE over. The rows of seats were practically deserted apart from the slaves gathering up litter and lost children. Already three had been corralled near the east exit, where a plump and jolly woman was consoling them for their lack of parents by feeding them sausage fritters. Outside there were still plenty of people milling about, buying food and haggling over the price of souvenirs. Ruso made the mistake of catching the eye of a vendor. The little terracotta shapes rattled in the tray as the vendor scuttled forward to block their path and suggested that the young lady might like a little memento of her trip to the city.

“I am trying to forget,” said Tilla.

No, they did not want a bronze model of a gladiator waving a sword. Nor did they want any of the terracotta portrayals of execution victims being done away with in various gruesome fashions, even if they were an absolute bargain and the man’s master would be furious when he found out he’d practically been giving the stock away.

“I’ve got my own reminder, thanks,” said Ruso, holding up his hands. He had pulled on a clean tunic to walk back to the gladiators’ barracks, but he had not had time for a thorough scrub. The vendor retreated with a look that mingled respect with alarm.

Tilla said, “I think I will see this place in bad dreams.”

Ruso put one arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“We should have caught that Stilo man.”

“Somebody will. Tell me what happened in Arelate.”

After a moment she slid a hand around his waist. It was not the sort of thing one would normally be able do in public.

“At least this wretched foot is a good excuse for something,” he observed, leaning on her to limp forward.

By the time they reached the gladiators’ barracks the usual crowd had dwindled to a few subdued young women, two of them clutching babies. To Ruso’s surprise, both gates swung open as they approached. The women rushed forward, pleading for information, only to be beaten off by the gatekeeper, who shouted, “No news! Clear the way there!” The opening of the gates was explained as the closed wagon in which Gnostus had traveled back with the wounded gladiators emerged. Ruso guessed it was returning to the amphitheater to collect their dead comrades.

“She’s with me,” he informed the gatekeeper, leading Tilla inside before the man had time to object, then ordering her to wait by the gate. She had seen enough: She did not deserve to be put through whatever might be waiting in Gnostus’s medical room.

To his surprise, all was quiet. Gnostus was busy unloading the wooden boxes of medical supplies that had been piled on the back of the wagon.

“Eight dead, seven badly wounded, five with minor injuries,” observed Gnostus, slapping down the lid on an empty box and kicking it out of sight under a bench. “What a way to earn a living.”

“Us, or them?” said Ruso, glancing across the exercise yard to where one of the assistants was helping a wounded fighter wash himself over the water trough. A slave emerged from the men’s quarters carry ing a chamberpot.

“Both,” said Gnostus. He indicated the drugged figure of Tertius, lying with his leg heavily bandaged on a bed in the side room. “Boss wants him out to night.”

“After what he did?” Ruso was incredulous. The boy had run back to don his kit after hearing the announcement that since one of the fighters had been unexpectedly withdrawn, the winner of the latest contest would stay in the arena to face the next opponent. No doubt that decision had been made by Fuscus. Ruso wondered how many people had noticed that a common gladiator had more moral sense than a magistrate.

Gnostus shrugged. “He’s a free man. He chose to fight. As far as the boss is concerned, the school doesn’t have to pay for his treatment. That’s up to the woman who bought him out.”

“What woman?”

“Just turned up, offered the boss a cash deal too good to refuse, and disappeared.”

“Yes, but who was she?”

“Dunno. Never seen her before. She didn’t look the type who’d need to pay for it. Not like some of the dogs we get making offers for the men.”

Ruso was relieved. After Marcia’s per for mance this afternoon there was no doubt that Gnostus would have recognized her. It had never occurred to him that she might have a rival. He suspected it had never occurred to Marcia, either. “So where’s this woman now?”

“Who knows? She probably won’t want him now he’s damaged.”

“I’ll take him home if she doesn’t turn up,” said Ruso. “But he shouldn’t travel to night.”

Gnostus glanced across to where Ruso was leaning against the wall with his aching foot resting on his sound one. “You’re not looking too good yourself. Want to bunk down here for the night?”

Ruso explained that he had to take somebody home. “Just give me something to help get me there, will you?”

By the time the gatekeeper let Ruso and Tilla out of the gladiators’ barracks, the supporters had dispersed. Two small boys armed with wooden swords were chasing each other in and out of the shadowed doorways while their parents strolled down the street behind them.

“Do be careful, boys!” called the mother.

“If you two don’t stop fighting,” put in the father, “I’ll take those swords away.”

Ruso waited for the family to pass, then planted the heels of the borrowed crutches on the worn stone surface and swung forward. The pain was still there, but somehow duller around the edges. Or perhaps it was his mind that was duller. Either way, Gnostus’s secret painkilling potion was doing its job.