Mistress of Rome (24 page)

In a few clipped words he told me. “I’m so sorry, Dominus,” I said in low tones. “It won’t happen again.”

“You’ve said that before, Thea. It always happens again.”

“I’ll be more careful this time, Dominus. I promise.”

“I’ve lost a good deal of money. And it’s more than money.”

“I know.” He’d never been so angry before. I winced.

“You know how rare Assyrian double pipes are?” Larcius glared. “I had to import them all the way from Thebes! Bought from the most tightfisted old haggler of an Arab the world has ever seen! And where are my Assyrian double pipes now? Smashed to smithereens by that ghastly child of yours!”

“He was playing gladiator,” I said weakly.

“He’s gladiating me out of house and home,” Larcius said darkly.

“And it’s not just the pipes. He gave one of my choirboys a bloody nose yesterday.”

“He was just roughhousing. It’s just—well, he plays hard.”
He loves me hard . . .
I turned the thought away. “He’s waiting to apologize now, Dominus. He’s very sorry.”

My son came in on cue. His hair was plastered flat with water, he reeked of soap, and he wore the least destroyed of his tunics. He didn’t really look meek, as I’d hoped, but he had achieved a sort of foreboding silence. “Vercingetorix.” I prodded him to stand in front of Larcius. “You have something to say to our master.”

Vix scuffed a hard bare foot along the mosaics. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Poking him again.

“Dunno.”

“The pipes!”

“I said I was sorry.”

“And the fight with the choirboy?” I prompted.

“Weepy whiny pussy,” he said scornfully. “I’m not sorry for that.”

“Vercingetorix—”
I hissed.

“I see,” said Larcius. “Go away, you horrid child, and try not to break anything for the rest of the day.”

My son scuffed out scowling. “I’m sorry, Dominus,” I sighed. “I promise I’ll beat him.”

“I’ve never seen it do a bit of good, but feel free. He’s reducing your inheritance, you know.”

“My—inheritance?”

A smile broke through Larcius’s frown, and he waved me to a stool before the couch. “That was the other reason I wanted to see you, child. I’ve changed my will to include you.”

“You have?”

“You’ll come into some money when I die. Your money—did you really think I would keep all your earnings? I’ve invested them for you. Except the amounts I’ve deducted for young Vix’s breakages. He’ll be freed along with you,” Larcius added a little dubiously, “when I’m dead. And I’m glad I won’t be around to see the havoc he’ll unleash on the civilized world.” He smiled as I flung myself forward and pressed my cheek against his plump hand.

“Thank you! Thank you, thank you—you’re the kindest master, Dominus—”

“Yes, yes. Go beat that dreadful child of yours, and then practice your scales. I still want to hear a smoother line on the last verse of ‘Silver Sea.’ ”

“Yes. Yes, I’ll practice.” I bowed and all but danced out of the atrium. Free after he died! Larcius would live a long time, please God—but someday, by the time Vix was grown, we’d both be free. With a little money to start a life of our own. I could work for myself for a change—sing the music that I wanted, turn down the clients I didn’t like, stay home if I didn’t feel like performing . . .

The house was a cheerful racket of people: Larcius’s slaves, his famed choirboys, his flute players, his lyre players, all herded into some kind of order by Penelope, the plain freedwoman who loved him like a wife. She seized my arm as I floated past, her curls vibrating with exasperation. “Thea, Vix was caught in the courtyard playing dice with beggars again—”

Vix yowled as I took him by the ear and dragged him back to my cozy little room on the first floor. “OW! I wasn’t doing nothing! He was an old legionnaire, and he said if I won a round of dice he’d show me his sword! You know that kind of sword’s called a
gladius
? Can I—”

“No, you cannot have a
gladius
!” I smacked him, and he bounded ahead of me down the hall, stabbing and feinting at each statue as he passed it. I reeled him in again. “And that was a dreadful apology to Larcius, Vix. He’d be within his rights to
sell
you.”

“Think he’d sell me to a gladiator school?” Vix socked one scarred fist against the other. “Then I’ll learn how to cut ’em! I’ll take ’em apart! I’ll—”

“You’re going to my room, not a gladiator school.” I twisted my hand into his russet hair and dragged him down the hall. He tried out a few new curses culled from the docks, and I smacked him a little wearily as I hauled him into my room. He’d decided this year that he was too big to sleep with his mother and had moved out to sleep in the choirboy loft. I doubted the choirboys thought it an improvement. My son was big for seven years old, and his hard little sunburned body already had a lot of scars: from a battle with a local bully, from a game of Julius Caesar and the Gauls, from a tavernkeeper who’d beaten him for stealing beer. My son Vix, short for Vercingetorix. I’d thought of naming him—well, naming him something else—but the name hurt my throat. So he was Vix.

I wouldn’t have been able to keep him if Larcius hadn’t bought me from the waterfront brothel. Whores didn’t get to keep their children. My pimp would have ordered him left out on the hills to starve with all the other unwanted babies, no matter what I might have had to say about it. My son, left to die on an abandoned hillside when he was only days old. The thought of that still made me shiver.

“You gonna thrash me?” He caught the momentary softness in my eye.

“Not today. But you’ll stay here the rest of the day. And no dinner.”

He flopped down on my bed, grinning. He didn’t know who his father was, of course—few slave children had legitimate fathers. Vix never dreamed that his was Rome’s greatest gladiator. He would have loved that, my son who dreamed of ringside glory and gravitated toward weapons like a moth toward a candle. Brundisium had no arena, thank God, and this my son regretted deeply. If I told Vix his father was Arius the Barbarian, he’d get to the Colosseum if he had to crawl every step of the way. And that I wouldn’t do to Arius. Let him think it ended with us. Never let him know that, two hundred miles away, he had a seven-year-old son growing up into a tough little russet-haired copy of himself. Never let him know, because it’s the knowing that kills.

A
naumachia!” Gallus drew eager figures on his account slates. “A sea battle for the Saeculares games! Oh, won’t that draw the crowds. Ever seen a naumachia, boy? They flood the Colosseum with water pumped out of the Tiber, and bring in warships manned with gladiators. Can you swim?”

Arius drained the last drop of wine from his mug. “Yes.”

“Good, good. I’ve seen quite a few good gladiators get knocked into the water and simply sink. Pity if that were to happen to you.”

Arius hurled a toneless obscenity and swung out.

“You’d better be going to practice!” Gallus’s voice followed him down the hall: “You’re not so young anymore, you know. You can’t afford to get complacent!”

In the new training courtyard that had been built with his prize money, Arius fought four practice bouts. By the end he was winded and panting. No, he wasn’t so young anymore. Thirty-three? Thirty-five? Old enough to wake up every morning feeling so exhausted, so crippled and abused to the core of his bones, that he could barely hobble out of bed. Thirty-five years or so, eight of those years spent in the arena. A long career; three times the length of most gladiators. His fights were scheduled months in advance, his fortune—Gallus’s—had been made several times over. He was feted and cheered wherever he went, he dined at all the great patrician houses, his name was a household word among fighters and spectators alike. They said he was the greatest gladiator Rome had ever known.

Eight years
, he thought dully.
Eight years
.

“Another bout?” the trainer asked, respectful.

“No.”

“You wouldn’t last another bout, you flabby savage,” came a hoarse little voice from the sidelines. “You’re getting old, Barbarian.”

“Not too old to heave you over the wall, dwarf.”

“Better a dwarf than a numbskull.” Hercules made a rude gesture. Blue-eyed, bearded, audacious, and three feet tall, he fought comic preludes in the arena to Arius’s fights.

Arius snagged a towel and swiped his forehead. Hercules eyed him disapprovingly. “You’re breathing much too hard.”

“I’m drunk.”

“You’re always drunk. You’re a sieve. Here, have some more. Thin as piss, but it’s got a good kick.”

They drank sour wine in amiable silence: Arius slouched against the wall, eyes closed to the sun; Hercules with an absurd sunshade over his head and his feet dangling high off the ground. An odd sight, but too familiar to attract second glances. Everyone knew that the Barbarian and the dwarf were inseparable.

“Hello there,” Hercules had introduced himself a year ago in his odd hoarse voice. “I’m new. You must be the meat.”

Arius had blinked. “The what?”

“The meat. The crowd’s main meal. Me, I’m an appetizer.”

A mutter of warning drifted over from the next table: “Better watch who you’re callin’ meat, little man.”

“That’s what he is,” Hercules said coolly.

“You’ve got a mouth,” Arius growled.

“I’ve worked freak shows, arenas, and provincial fairs,” said the dwarf. “The gigs are all the same: make people laugh, and try not to get your teeth kicked in. I’m good enough at the first, but not the second. As you say, I’ve got a mouth. So if a dwarf is going to get beaten up”—an elaborate bow toward Arius—“why not get beaten up by the best?”

Arius had found himself smiling. Rustily, but still smiling. He pushed his wine jug across the table at the dwarf. “Want to get drunk?” And they’d gotten drunk.

Hercules peered out from under his sunshade. “So what’s this I hear about a sea battle? I suppose you’ll be cast as Neptune the Almighty and I’ll be cast as you. They always cast me as you, now. I’m much prettier, but I’ve got that sour scowl down pat. Plus,” he added, “my cock is bigger than yours.”

“That so? Dwarf?”

“The gods give all dwarves extra inches below the belt,” Hercules intoned, “to make up for the extra inches we’re missing above.”

Arius smiled. “So if I’m Neptune for this sea battle, what are you?”

“A tadpole. And tadpoles, my savage friend, live to swim away while all the big fish get eaten up.”

“Mmm.”

“Maybe it’s your time to get eaten up,” said the dwarf cheerfully.

“The crowd’s certainly panting for it. The only thing you haven’t done for them by now is die.”

“Mmm.” Arius’s dog came hopping up, curling neatly by his feet and chewing on his sandal laces.

“Useless thing,” Hercules said. “She gnawed my good gauntlets to bits yesterday. Can I kick her?”

“Would the Hercules of legend kick dogs?”

“I’m not him, and good thing. He was a bonehead, by all accounts. But it does make a good performance name, doesn’t it? What was your name before you were Arius the Barbarian?”

Arius smiled. “Eurig.”

“
Eurig
?”

“Eurig.”

“Arius is better,” Hercules said. “
Eurig.
Gods, that’s unkind.”

“Can’t hardly remember it.”

“Good thing, too, Eurig.” Hercules chortled, polishing off the last of his wine. “This wine’s terrible. Let’s go to the Blue Mermaid and get drunk there.”

“Maybe you’ll find a whore who’ll believe that story about dwarves and their extra inches.”

“You want to compare, Barbarian? You just whip out your sword and I’ll whip out mine . . .”

W
HAT a bore.

I didn’t want to see the Barbarian star in the naumachia, but the Saeculares games were
the
event of the season, so go I did. In white silk with a collar of fabulously worked Egyptian gold about my neck, carrying a peacock feather fan with a quartet of Moroccan slaves at my back. The day had dawned clear and hot, and the Colosseum was packed to the sky. The plebs cheered the victorious legionnaires, they cheered the German prisoners, they cheered the sacrifices of the white bulls to Jupiter and the black bulls to the gods of the underworld. The Emperor, with his new Praetorian Prefect riding in splendor at his right hand, received a huge ovation. Paulinus had the place of honor at the Emperor’s right hand in the Imperial box, and I looked at him speculatively. Nearly a year and a half since I’d last seen him; he’d been busy in Germania mopping up the mess after Saturninus’s rebellion. Over a year but he hadn’t forgotten me, judging from the torrent of stiff letters that ranged from the slavish to the enraged. Today I might be watching the games from the box of the Sulpicii (three or four of them were my lovers) but by the next festival, I’d be seated beside Paulinus in the Imperial box.

The cheer that greeted the Emperor had been full of excitement. But nothing—nothing matched the madness with which the crowd greeted the Barbarian as he tore into the galleys and gave them their blood.

“Sink it! Sink it!” the plebs were shrieking, and Arius was busy obliging them. Four galleys had begun the naumachia, two blue-sailed for the Spartans, and two red-sailed for the Athenians. One of the red-masted Athenian ships was burning merrily. The Barbarian was climbing above the fire, watching as his enemies below scrambled with buckets.

“Watch out!” Publius Sulpicius shouted at my side, forgetting all about me for once as the Athenian galley heeled over, but Arius regained his balance on the mast and rode the topmost spar down, ropes doubled around one fist and his sword ready in the other.
“That’s it! That’s it!”

He was good. Gods, he was good. I went to the circus now more than I went to the games, not liking to see a man cheered who had once sheared me bald and walked away living. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” I said loudly as the Barbarian dived headfirst off the sinking mast into the manmade sea, but no one was listening to me and anyway I
did
see what all the fuss was about.