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tears in my eyes as I closed my fingers around the rough-hewn wood. A splinter
slid into the flesh of my palm, a tiny pain, the sweetest pain on earth.
There in the sunlight and the thunder of voices, I was free of the school
forever. Moving upward, steadily upward, to the fame and wealth I d nearly
died to earn.
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Chapter VIII
OUR COMPANIONSfrom the Bestiarius School thronged around us in the tunnel.
They slapped dressings on the worst of our wounds, and bound them with linen.
Then they hoisted us to their shoulders, draped flower wreaths about our
necks, thrust pots of wine into our hands and carried us along the dim stone
passage leading to the outer arches. Even old Fabius was beside himself with
joy. Although he was losing two pupils, his reputation could not help but be
enhanced as a result of our victory.
Syrax and I shouted jokes at one another. We grew drunker by the minute from
the wine we gulped. Outside the tunnel entrance a crowd of several hundred had
collected. They broke into cheers as we were borne forth.
I cracked my head on the tunnel ceiling and tumbled to the ground, laughing
despite the soreness of my wounds.
 Watch my precious skull, you oxen! I bawled.  I want to live to enjoy my new
freedom. I want  
Words stuck in my throat. From among many sweated, screeching faces, one
leaped into prominence, unsmiling, streaked with tears. Acte s.
She thrust around a quarrelsome orange vendor who thought Syrax or I might be
in a mood to scatter some coppers his way. Above the caterwauling of hawkers
and the plaudits shouted by a cluster of small boys, she called,  Cassius?
Please let me speak to you a moment.
 Our plans? Syrax was shouting to the mob.  Confidential for the moment. But
you ll all be suitably impressed when  
 Let me through! I said, pushing.  Let me pass.
A great roar shook the arches as the next event commenced inside the Circus.
The sound faded from my mind. So did the pushings and jostlings of our
admirers. All I saw was Acte.
She was lovely as ever, high-piled dark hair lustrous in the shadows. She was
forced to speak loudly because of the racket,  I owe you an explanation for
the night at Sulla s.
 No. None s due, not any more.
I was shoved against her gowned breasts by the heave of the mob. I drew back,
remembering how I d been wounded that night, with a wound far more lasting
than any bothering me now. The wine and the wooden sword gave me the cruel
desire to injure her the same way.
 I understand perfectly that you had to play up to the Emperor and his rich
friends. What happened to us at the school happened because of my boredom and
your wish to amuse yourself at my expense.
Tears glimmered at the corners of her dark eyes.  They ve hardened you
already, haven t they? Made you greedy.
 Gods above! You have the gall to speak of greed!
She reached out to touch me.  Cassius, I love you. Please hear me out. Many
times I ve tried to  
A wiry little Libyan girl, no more than fifteen, thrust herself between us.
She was bare to the waist. She began fondling my chest while her painted mouth
repeated a catalog of the delights available to any man who d won the wooden
sword. For a price, naturally. Acte looked stunned when I laughed and slipped
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
my arm around the little whore s waist.
 What difference is there between you and this charming creature, Acte? None,
so far as I can tell. Oh, you re very adept at pretending otherwise. But your
game s too transparent. Now that the Emperor has granted me freedom, I ve
become a man with a future in your eyes. A man who might be of value to you
financially. I m sorry to say my future doesn t include you. Don t you have
enough clients already? I hardly see that you need one more.
  only a few sesterces, the Libyan girl was cooing.  For a handsome man like
the famous Cassius, a few sesterces would buy any and every act he wished
to  
 Enough talk, dove, I said. I turned my back on Acte, fondling the Libyan
girl s bare breasts.  Let s see whether the performance is as good as the
promise.
I shoved my way back to Syrax and the others. We went reeling off toward an
inn a few blocks from the Circus. There we drank the night away with Fabius
standing the entire cost and weeping drunken maudlin tears.
Acte was no more than a healed scar now. A memory of a lovely but false face,
of untrue words, of one night s deception.
The Libyan girl stuck to my side all night long. Before taking leave of the
crowd at the inn to go above stairs with her, I chanced to look closely at the
lanista. Fabius appeared wine-sotted and happy.
What would his reaction be when he discovered Syrax and I intended to
out-rival him with another beast school?
Promptly I put this selfless consideration aside. Had I perished in the arena
today, his remorse would have been professionally brief. So was mine.
I praised and thanked him. I followed the Libyan girl to some dim chamber
where we spent the rest of the night, Acte forgotten.
And Fabius and his coming failure, too.
In the months that followed, many changes were wrought in my life. All, so it
seemed, for the better.
Shortly after the end of the Imperial games, Syrax and I left the Bestiarius
School and took up quarters at a small hostelry, paying our way with the
modest purses presented by the Emperor s treasurers to every winner of a
wooden sword. I presented myself at the home of Serenus soon after. He had not
forgotten his obligation.
We went together to Seneca, and he accompanied us to the great banking house
of the Probi in the Via Sacra. Sextus Probus, the head of the firm, was a
wealthy and wily old eques. After considering the guarantees offered by
Serenus and the introduction provided by Seneca, not to mention my widespread
reputation, he agreed to loan initial funds for the construction of a beast
school upon property to be selected.
For help with that selection I turned to Locusta, whom I saw almost nightly.
The occult of the Earth Mother had vast interlocking holdings in Roman real
estate. Behind their smooth, sexless facades, the eunuch priests were skilled
in the ways of the marketplace. In a month Syrax and I had chosen an abandoned
tallow works on the Vicus Tuscus, a street in the industrial quarter leading
down to the Tiber. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]