Fireball (5 page)

No, it was better to wait and see what the future offered. It might be impossible to escape from the barracks, but they could not be kept in a barracks indefinitely. There must, at some stage, be contact with the outside world, and a reasonable chance of making a break for it. And by then he would have been able to get a hang of things; the world about him was at the moment almost totally strange but was bound to get more familiar and so easier to cope with.

It would be a help to pick up the language a bit; his three years of doing Latin should help there. He wondered, for the first time in hours, what had happened to Brad. Schools in America didn't do Latin, did they? Poor old Brad—he probably still had no idea where they were, or when. If he had survived, that was. The more Simon thought, the more he felt he had been lucky. Being plunged without warning into a barbarous past carried hazards he would never have guessed.

He wondered about what was happening at home,
too. Presumably there would have been a search party when they failed to get back; would they still be combing the wood, or had they abandoned it by now? He remembered reading somewhere that thousands of people disappeared every year without trace. How many of them might have done so through an experience like theirs? There would never have been any record, of course. Anyone who did find himself in the past would have to try to survive without talking about his origin. In any period a story like that would only land one in a bin.

No, the thing to do was lie doggo and play it by ear. He stretched out on the bed. The others from this dormitory were probably out exercising in the square. He remembered his first day at boarding school. He had arrived before anyone else, and there, too, he had been shown into an empty dormitory and left to wait. Not quite as spartan as this place—truckle beds were some improvement on concrete blocks, and there had been no bars on the windows—but fairly bleak compared with his bedroom at home. And full of the lurking hazards and threats of a totally new way of life. There were quite a few differences between being a new boy in an English boarding
school and being an unwilling recruit in the Roman imperial army, but enough resemblances to provide him with just the barest trace of badly needed confidence. It was cooler here than outside, but still very warm. He relaxed and stared up at the high whitewashed ceiling.

•  •  •

Simon was awakened abruptly from his doze by the clatter of feet and a surge of voices. He struggled to sit up and saw them pouring through the door in a flood. They sat down heavily on beds, pulled off boots and equipment, and stretched out, chattering. For the most part they were no more than medium height, but they all were strongly muscled and fit-looking. The majority, too, were dark and more or less swarthy; the tall red-haired man who was coming in now was an outstanding exception.

When he stopped at the end of the bed on which Simon was sitting, Simon thought it was because he had seen him staring and resented it. It was a bit late to look away, so he offered a smile instead. The redhead was not mollified. He mouthed a rush of Latin which was definitely not friendly. Simon put his hands up, gesturing noncomprehension. All that
provoked was another burst, equally venomous. Simon shook his head, still smiling to show his good intentions. The blotchy face beneath the red thatch scowled more ferociously; the next moment the stranger had taken a step forward and swung a sidewinder which caught Simon below the left jaw and sent him sprawling into the space between the beds.

The blow did not knock him out but dazed him considerably. As he lay there, he registered that the redhead had put one foot on the side of the bed, a fairly obvious indication of possession. He realized the probable reason for both the diatribe and the assault. Unwittingly he had taken the Celt's bed (he must be a Celt with that colouring), and his smile, following his failure to respond to the bawling out, had been taken for defiance rather than propitiation.

However unjustified the blow, there was no point in making an enemy, especially at this early stage. Simon scrambled to his feet, smiled again, and this time held his right hand out. The Celt ignored the hand. His face looked meaner than ever, if that was possible. He rapped out more Latin. It sounded like an order. Simon would have been very inclined to obey, whatever it demanded, had he only been able to
work out what was required. As it was, all he could do was go on smiling and hold both hands out, palms up, as a sign of helplessness.

He was never to know quite what he had done wrong. Perhaps the gesture he made resembled something derisory or obscene in the Celt's tribal background. What he
was
to learn was that Rufus (as the Celt was called) was permanently spoiling for a fight, the more so when the prospective opponent was smaller or weaker than himself. He leapt at Simon, bore him down against the next bed, and got his neck in a strangling armhold.

Propitiation having proved disastrous, there was nothing for it but to fight back. That was easier proposed than carried out, though. The Celt was several years older, taller and heavier and a lot more powerful. Simon plucked at the arm gripping his throat, but futilely. He tried to use his legs to get a purchase which would enable him to throw the Celt off, but they only thrashed helplessly. The band compressing his windpipe was like iron; he could not draw breath.

The Celt's face stared down into his, teeth showing in a wicked grin. The grip did not loosen. He
could not possibly, Simon thought, intend to kill him merely for usurping a bed and then failing to answer something. He felt his ears roaring and saw the grin, as unremitting as the grip. But it could happen, he realized incredulously; it
was
happening.

He made another convulsive effort to kick out with his feet. It failed, and he felt weakness spreading through his body; it was so much easier to let go than to struggle. He was aware of relaxing, giving up, and aware that the strangling arm still tightened. Then, in near blackness, he felt the impact of another heavy blow. Someone else was attacking him, and he wanted to tell him not to bother; it was all over anyway.

Simon came chokingly back to life. The Celt had loosed his hold; in fact, he now lay sprawled on the other side of the bed, with a figure bent over him, arm raised ready to strike if the Celt tried to get to his feet. The redhead did not look as though he felt keen on trying.

Getting slowly to his own feet, Simon took stock of his rescuer. He was old, forty at least, his black beard speckled with white. He was no taller than Simon, possibly an inch shorter, but his chest and
arms were enormous. He had a broad, ugly face, broken-nosed and deeply scarred on both the forehead and the right cheek. Under any other circumstances Simon would have reckoned him much more worth avoiding than the Celt. He was not even sure now, with that forbidding face apparently glaring at him, that the Celt had not just been smacked away because he had infringed this one's rights to do the killing around here.

The attempt to smile his way out of trouble had been a disastrous failure last time. Simon stood in front of the barrel-chested man trying not to show anything and trying to keep his knees from trembling. The stare was long and suspicious and only ended in an utterance that was part inquiry and part growl. Simon looked at him helplessly; at least he was not going to make the mistake of trying any more hand gestures.

To his astonishment the glare cracked into a broad grin, displaying broken and missing teeth. A hand tightened on his shoulder, but the grip was plainly friendly. The big man spoke again:
“Est mihi nomen Bos.”

That was amazing, too. For the first time since
they had been catapulted into the past he understood something clearly. “My name is Bos.” Smiling in return, Simon tapped his chest.

“Est mihi nomen Simonus.”

Bos nodded approvingly, repeated “Simonus,” and went on into a stream of growling Latin in which Simon was immediately lost. He had something tattooed on his chest: a fish? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that he had found, for the moment at least, an ally in this bewildering and frightening world.

O
VER THE NEXT FEW DAYS
Simon hardly stopped congratulating himself on his luck in meeting Bos and on the fact that for some reason Bos liked him. Under his protection Simon felt very safe; it was obvious that no one in the dormitory was going to tangle with Bos if he could possibly help it. The Celt in particular kept well out of his way, contenting himself with a silent vicious glare at Simon when Bos happened not to be looking.

Nor was it just protection; he got help and guidance from the big man, too. By sticking close to him,
Simon was able to pick up quickly the tricks and routines of barracks life. Even on the exercise ground Bos kept an eye on him, and the instructor, who spent a lot of time bawling out the other new recruit, gave Simon an easy time. He, too, though superior in rank, obviously did not want to run the risk of Bos's getting riled.

The advantages were manifold. Bos took him to get fitted with boots and tossed aside the first pair offered as unsatisfactory; the man issuing them was quick to produce another pair, over which Bos, after a close examination and some twisting of the leather with his powerful fingers, nodded satisfaction. And Simon noticed that when they queued for food, it was not only Bos who was given larger and better portions, but he as well.

Gradually he was picking up the language. Bos seemed to find his ignorance amusing. He willingly supplied the Latin name for things Simon pointed out and was patient in repetition. It was possible he felt flattered at being asked to help: Latin, as Simon was to learn, was not his native tongue, and while he was not at all stupid, his mental powers fell a long way short of matching his physical strength.

Towards the end of the second day on the exercise ground, while they were taking a short break, a supply cart rolled in through the main gate. Simon pointed to it, in inquiry. It was pulled by two white oxen, and he asked the name of the animals.

Bos grinned at him in an odd way.

“Boves,”
he growled.

Of course, Simon thought—how could he have forgotten that? He remembered old Gargoyle explaining the origin of the word
bovine.
From
bos, bovis
—an ox. Bos was still grinning with delight, and suddenly he got it. Bos! He pointed to the animal and then to the man.

“Tu—bos!”

Bos roared with laughter, slapping his hands on his huge chest. He was obviously proud of the name he had acquired.

The training was partly general physical exercising, partly weapon training. Simon was given a wooden sword and in the first instance had to wield it against a wooden dummy, called a
palus.
He slashed away enthusiastically but a bit aimlessly, and the instructor had to put him right as to the kind of
thrust or slash that was needed and the appropriate spots to aim at.

Simon for his part did his best to follow instructions. He realized that there was an ultimate objective—that the skills he was learning were meant to be applied in due course to blows not against a lump of man-shaped wood, but against a live human being. He did not let his mind dwell on that prospect. Before an army went into battle, it had to get to the place where the fighting was to take place, and once they were clear of the barracks, he would have a chance to slip away. The position after that was uncertain, but better than what might happen if he remained a soldier; and he was learning more and more as time went by.

Enough Latin, for instance, to be able to conduct a limited conversation with Bos. Bos, it appeared, came originally from the north and had been captured as a boy by a Roman raiding party. He told Simon his real name but, when Simon made a hash of repeating it, merely shrugged. Bos was good enough. Simon tried to find out what had happened to him between then and now, but communication
failed. He persisted: How was it that he had become a soldier—
miles Romanus
?

Bos was bewildered. His big face creased in total non-comprehension. Simon racked his mind and his limited Latin to get it over to him. Start at the simplest level. Soldiers—he gestured, indicating both the two of them and the rest—they were all soldiers, Roman soldiers.

“Milites?”
With understanding came amusement, starting as a slow grin but turning into belly-shaking laughter. When the paroxysm was over, Bos said something Simon did not follow, and then spoke more slowly and deliberately:
“Milites non sumus, Simonus. Gladiatores sumus!”

It was Simon's turn to be staggered, but when he did grasp it, there was no impulse to laugh. Barracks and military training meant army; he had taken that for granted. He had completely forgotten about the Roman gladiators, who also had lived in barracks and trained with weapons. So much for his notion of deserting once the legion abandoned barracks life for active service. This was a legion that went from its barracks to the circus—the circus where there were no clowns, but bloody hand-to-hand combat,
with loser left dying in the dust and winner gaining no more than a reprieve. He had got it wrong about the events that day in the forum. His little group had not been left behind to be press-ganged by the army; they had been sold as a block to the director of the local gladiatorial school.

Bos recognized his unhappiness and, though surprised by it, did his best to offer sympathy. Simon had the usual difficulty in making out what he was trying to convey, but repetition of the word
felix
made him realize Bos was telling him he was lucky. He showed his scepticism, and Bos ploughed on, in ponderous and barely intelligible explanation.

He was talking about Simon and the other who had arrived in the dormitory with him; they were lucky to have been picked for the school, to have been strong enough to train as gladiators. Especially Simon, who, although he was tall and not a weakling, was young to have gained acceptance. Because of that, he had a chance. He would have a sword, an opportunity to defend himself. Not like the others who had been marched to the barracks that day. He spat in the dust, a gesture indicating their fate.