Night of the Wolf (38 page)

“Gladiator or beastiarius? Which one is he?” Philo asked. “There is a distinction, you know. One fights men, the other animals.”

“If there’s a distinction, it’s lost on me, Philo. Every one I’ve ever seen is big, murderous, frightening, and unpleasantly agile. And that description fits not only the men, but the animals they fight also. At times it’s difficult to tell the difference. Should I wake
him?”

“Yes,” Philo said. “If Caesar is coming, he might feel the head of the household should be present, for propriety’s sake if nothing else. Our little mistress has to be oh so careful of her reputation.”

Octus noted his face was stiff with disgust. “I’ll get him now.”

“Don’t worry if he . . .”

Octus shook his head. “No, he’s never gotten angry with me, never shown even the slightest impatience with me over anything.”

Philo nodded. He knew why—Lucius felt abominably guilty about Octus. The loyalty he’d shown to Silvia should have been better rewarded, but Lucius had been doing his military service in Gaul when his mother died and he hadn’t given much thought to the fate of her servants.

While Octus went to wake Lucius, Philo went to the armory and picked up a bundle of clothing, mail, and spears. The slave in the armory handed them to him without comment.

The sky was bright now, the sun only just rising. Philo balanced the spears against the wall and the bundle on his arm while he pulled his mantle more tightly around himself. It was cold. From nearby he heard squealing and roaring. He knew they must be torturing the boar to drive him into a frenzy so the creature would make an interesting fight of it. He shivered a little, remembering some of the things Antony’s men had inflicted on him.

Wild boars were the most savage of killers, so he saved his sympathy for the man. One misstep around such a creature might find him struggling in agony on the sand.

Philo knew both the gladiators and the beastiarii well, and he wasn’t afraid of any of them. In fact, he found them the most grateful of his patients. They were the most wretched individuals he’d ever known, war prisoners or criminals both. The war prisoners were those who weren’t considered worth selling as slaves, and the criminals were drawn from the most impoverished classes of Roman society. Most, not all to be sure, were extravagantly grateful for the smallest kindness. The few who hated everyone who came near them didn’t survive long.

Certainly not this one. He appeared rather small, sitting in silence, looking through the grating into the arena. The slender figure was in deep shadow. There was a big guard posted at the barred door. He opened it for Philo. At the clash of iron, the person on the bench turned toward him, and Philo realized he was looking at a woman.

Lucius was awakened by Octus, who told him his sister had returned last night.

“I’m sorry I missed her,” Lucius said.

“Yes,” Octus answered, and prepared to shave him.

“Oh, no,” Lucius moaned, moving back toward the warm bed.

“Caesar is coming,” Octus said.

Lucius stumbled into the courtyard. He sat down in a chair out past the columned porch. The light was good. Octus shaved him. Alia brought his toga and woolen tunic.

“What am I doing that I need to dress in wool?” Lucius asked.

“Attending a munera with Caesar, Cleopatra, Antony, and your sister. She brought him a new gladiator from Gaul.”

Lucius whispered something obscene under his breath, then in a still lower voice coupled Caesar and Antony with it, suggesting they do it to each other, take turns.

Octus drew back, razor in hand. “Sir . . .” he began.

“I know, I know,” Lucius said. “I won’t talk and I’ll keep my face still.”

Octus began again. Lucius noticed with some alarm that his servant’s hand was trembling, but true to form, tremor or not, he had Lucius planed off within a few moments, hair combed, pomaded, and dressed in a few more, with purple-striped toga on and properly draped. Lucius noted that when the ill-fated Castor and Pollux had put the toga—a hellishly difficult garment to wear—on him, it slipped and slid, but Octus had the knack of vesting him in such a way as to keep the thing in position even in a high wind.

Thus sartorially correct, he was shepherded by Octus to the atrium. He was accompanied by Cut Ear, laconic as usual. The Gaul said, “Must see fight.”

Caesar and Antony arrived, Antony cursing under his breath. When he saw Lucius he asked, “That Greek doctor of yours holding a grudge? Because if he is, I know a sure cure for grudges among slaves.”

“Philo’s not a slave,” Lucius said.

“No,” Caesar said. “Philo is a Roman citizen, as entitled to wear the toga as you are, Marcus Antonious, and he can vote in the assemblies.”

Antony looked sour and then annoyed. “I didn’t know you’d done that already.”

“I have.” Caesar smiled at Antony.

“Well,” Antony rumbled, “I suppose I’ll have to pay him then, but wherever he is, bring him on. I have the worst hangover since Zeus popped Athena out of his head. My tongue feels like it’s been lying in a tanning vat for twenty years. My eyeballs are on stalks like a crayfish. I swear on my father’s grave they’re sticking out two or three inches. If not Philo, someone, someone have pity on me. Bring me a drink.”

Octus bowed to Lucius and spoke to him in a low voice. “Philo is with the new gladiator, but if you wish, I know where the physician keeps most of his drugs. I can bring the gentleman a bit of what he—”

“Yes, yes,” Antony said. “Even if you make a mistake, bring me something that will kill me outright. Better death than a lingering demise; I’m seared by the daylight. Seared, I tell you.”

Cleopatra arrived, looking dewy-eyed and fresh. When she saw Antony, she snickered.

Fulvia arrived, on her best behavior. She ostentatiously kissed Lucius on the cheek and embraced Caesar. “My dear friend, you must see what I have for you.” Then she exchanged kisses with Cleopatra.

Octus returned with a cup. He handed it to Lucius, bowed, and left. Lucius glanced at the contents. Yes, it had the same look and odor as Philo’s hangover cure. He handed it to Antony.

“Come,” Fulvia said. “See my new practice arena.”

Philo’s eyes were riveted on the woman.

She walked toward him and he handed her the three spears. She studied them critically. They were all of different shapes. She put one aside at once. Even Philo could see the head was loose. She brought the other two into the light. One she found satisfactory, the other she pronounced “Blunt,” but she undertook to raise an edge using the stone bench. The metal, high carbon steel, sharpened quickly. When she was finished, she tested the edge cautiously with her thumb. “You wouldn’t want to shave with it, but good enough. What is it, human or animal?” she asked Philo.

“A wild boar, I think.”

“Fine, a wild boar. She doesn’t want much, does she? Three spears, one with a loose blade, completely untrustworthy. The other two with no cross guards.”

“Cross guards?” he repeated, even he thought a bit densely.

“Yes,” she said. “A wild boar will walk up a spear and take the man holding it, or woman as the case may be.” Her lips twitched in what might have been a small smile. Then she added, “Close your mouth or something might fly into it. What else have you there, any armor?”

He handed her the subligaculum and the mail.

She held up the mail and studied it against the light. It was rather beautiful, silver made with small rings. The neck and the hem that came to just below the breasts were decorated with large, glittering stones.

“Beautiful,” she pronounced it, “and wouldn’t stop a hangnail. If it is a boar and he gets me down, that pig’s tusks will be in me before I can hiccup. And what is this?”

The subligaculum was scarlet silk. It was slightly more complicated than a loincloth. It had a belt of chain—big, flat links in gold. The silk came down across the buttocks, pretty well covering them, and then was drawn up between the legs, covered the stomach, and had fastenings to hold it to the thick chain belt and an end to pull down in front.

“Looks like she spent some money here,” Dryas commented cynically.

“I’ll go see if I can find you a better spear,” Philo said. He hurried to the door and found it locked, the guard gone. He turned to Dryas, a look of utter dismay on his face. “We’re locked in.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Try not to look so much like you’d rather be locked in with a lioness.”

He stammered . . . something. He didn’t remember what it was afterward.

She laughed, then examined the portcullis. “Raised from the outside?”

Philo nodded.

“The spectators?” she asked, pointing to the box across the arena.

“Yes,” Philo said. He recognized Fulvia, Antony, Lucius, Cleopatra, Caesar, and Cut Ear.

There was plenty of light. There was an awning over the box, but it was rolled back. The sun was up and the right-hand seats and the sand glowed with a quarter circle of yellow light.

“Turn your back,” she commanded.

Philo began backing away slowly, keeping his eye on her. “The door is locked,” he said. “I can’t leave. I would if I could.”

She said “Boo!”

He jumped two paces.

She said slowly, clearly, and distinctly, “Turn-your-back-I-want-to-dress.”

“Oh, oh, ooh.” The last was a sigh of relief. He turned and faced the side wall. He heard rustling noises behind him.

Across the arena, he heard snuffling, snorting noises, a loud thud, then the sound of hooves on the clay under the sand, then a loud crash against the portcullis behind him. He spun around.

The boar slammed snout and tusks against the iron grating for a second time. Immortal gods, the thing was big and it stank of blood, because the attendants had been baiting it, and pig piss. Its caretakers were afraid of it and kept it for long periods without cleaning the cage.

As Philo watched, the creature opened a big muzzle and he saw the teeth, worse than the ivory tusks on either side of the snout, long, yellow, and vicious. It gave vent to a grunting roar and slammed its tusks into the portcullis gate again. Its skin was black with bristles alongside the snout; they rose and formed a ridge along the back.

Dryas, watching it calmly, prodded one of its flanks with a spear. It lunged again, squealing and roaring; and, for a second, Philo thought the iron grate would give way.

Then he and Dryas heard shouts from above and small missiles rained down around the animal to drive it away from the portcullis.

Philo was horrified. “That thing, that thing will kill you.” Belatedly he noticed that Dryas was dressed.

She smiled at him, a beautiful, curving, gentle smile.

Now out of the clumsy tunic, she was beautiful, and a picture of her smile and her body’s grace in the abbreviated chain mail and loincloth impressed itself on his mind forever. Long, slim legs—they made most women’s look stubby—muscular at the calf, narrowing at the knee, rising to powerful thighs. Slender hips, virginal almost, flat stomach ridged with muscle under a velvet surface. High, cone-shaped breasts, generous enough to hold the silver mail away from her abdomen. Arms, beautifully formed, like the legs well proportioned to her body, but strong, not bulky—rather the way the cables on a pulley give the impression of indomitable strength though they don’t knot, but glide.

The boar was making a circuit of the arena and he arrived at the gate again. The portcullis began to rise. Shouts from above drove the animal back toward the center of the circle.

Dryas held a spear in either hand. The portcullis was going up, faster and faster.

“No!” Philo said. “No!”

“I’d better,” she said softly, “or he’ll get in here and kill both of us.” Then, like lightning, she ducked under the gate and confronted the boar.

It charged. Dryas was alone now and a silence surrounded her. She ran right so the animal was charging directly at her. For a second, she lost it in the sun dazzle as the daystar rose over the eastern wall of the arena. When she saw it, the creature was almost upon her. She felt a tusk scratch her ankle and she drove the spear in her right hand into the boar’s flank. It grunted, but wasn’t even slowed. It turned; she clung to the spear, taking momentum from the creature’s turning body, then abruptly let go, leaving the spear dragging from the boar’s bloody side.

Now the sun was in its eyes. Dryas tossed the spear from her left hand to her right.

In the box, Lucius was still absorbing the fact that he was watching a woman. When the woman and boar were hidden for a second by a cloud of sand as it lowered its head and tried to drive its tusks in, he rose to his feet, an outcry forming in his throat.

Next to him, he heard Caesar say, “So soon. Too bad. I’d hoped for more of a fight.”

Then he saw the spear enter the boar’s body as she confidently skipped aside.

She was almost directly below the box.

Antony yelled, “By Bacchus, a woman! A hundred in gold on the boar.”

“I’ll take that!” Lucius yelled.

“So will I,” Caesar shouted.

This time the boar lost Dryas in the sun dazzle, but her spear skidded across his ribs and fell into the sand, leaving her unarmed.

The boar paused for a moment, flanks heaving. Blood spurted from the wound in front of the hip. The spear still trailed behind him and Dryas noted that the foam-flecked jaws were red. Her second thrust, though seemingly ineffectual, must have nicked a lung.

But this killer was far from finished. It charged. Again, Dryas jinked left, he followed, then right. The creature seemed to anticipate her movements.

Dryas leaped like a tumbler, coming down on her hands just behind the beast’s tail, somersaulted in the air, and landed on her feet in the center of the arena.

The boar turned with almost unbelievable agility, much more like a stoat or weasel than a pig, and came for her again.

In the box, Lucius heard Antony give an awed gasp. Caesar laughed. But the boar was a murderous adversary and Lucius found himself frightened for her. He leaned over the spiked railing, fists clenched on the iron pickets.

Dryas snatched up the spear and, to Lucius’ horror, went to one knee before the charging animal. He knew what she was doing. He’d handled the sow in this way, so long ago when his own sword was driven into his back.