Laughing Wolf (11 page)

The crowd was ecstatic.

“How far will they go?” Carolyn asked.

“It's up to Pompey to decide.”

“You've got to be kidding.”

“I told you not to watch.”

The crowd's cheers and the sight of blood stirred the young man's zeal. With a bull-like roar he charged the
murmillo
and a dozen times his spear groped for his flesh, missing its target by no more than a hair. The mob was urging him on. “Skewer him!” cried a matronly woman near Felix. “Stab him like a chicken!” And his spear
was
poised for a final blow when the
murmillo
lashed out with his leg and swept the young man's feet from under him. In the process the latter dropped his shield. He flailed wildly with his spear, but the contest was over. Knocking the heavy spear aside, the older man stabbed down and pierced his rival's thigh.

The crowd was standing and shouting itself hoarse. “Celadus! Celadus!” they screamed — the
murmillo
's name. For his part, the
hoplomachus
had rolled over on his side and was facing Pompey with his thumb upraised.

“Ask your sister if I should spare him,” Pompey told Felix.

“I beg your pardon?”

“She has won me twelve gold pieces. She will decide if this man lives.”

With a pang of horror, Felix translated Pompey's words. Carolyn was shocked when she heard his proposition.

“You mean to say, this man could be murdered in public?”

“I'm afraid so. Only this crowd doesn't think of it as murder. Instead it has a religious meaning.”

“There you have it! Religion again! Still, my choice is simple. I'll let the man live.”

“You can't. I mean, you're not allowed to decide.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have to think about the butterfly effect. If you let him live, when he would otherwise die, you might substantially alter the future.”

The blood drained from Carolyn's face. She knew he was right and she could not intervene, but a man would possibly die as a result. With a look of pain and utter disgust, she covered her eyes and ears with her
palla
.

“She seems upset,” Pompey commented. “She can't make up her mind?”

“Our traditions don't allow us to meddle in life and death affairs,” Felix explained, concealing the catch in his voice. “It is part of our Druidic way.”

“All right,” Pompey said, in an agreeable tone: like any good Roman he respected other people's customs. “I'll decide myself.”

He stood and surveyed the mob in the stands. They were watching him in silence now, some with their thumbs upraised, a sign they wished the man to live, but the majority with their thumbs downturned. With a pitying glance at the figure in the sand, Pompey motioned downwards with his thumb. Murmuring parting words to his opponent, and stroking him with something close to affection, the
murmillo
stabbed him in the neck and killed him instantly.

The crowd almost choked on its excitement. Felix had to struggle hard to keep himself from vomiting.

“Is he dead?” Carolyn asked from under her
palla
.

“Yes,” Felix croaked. “You were wise not to watch.”

“There's religion for you,” she sneered.

“Yes. But it will be religion that brings an end to this barbarity.”

By now two new gladiators were squaring off with each other, a
thraex
and a
retiarius
. Aware that Felix was new to this game, Pompey began explaining the techniques of the
retiarius
, and how it took colossal skill to make good use of his net. Halfway through his explanation, someone called his name. Glancing round, Felix spied Cicero approaching; he was dragging an older man in his wake. The fiery glint in his eye stirred Felix's discomfort.

“See whom I have found,” Cicero spoke, when he and his companion were standing beside Pompey.

“This is indeed a pleasure,” Pompey exclaimed, clasping the old man's arm with his hand.

“
Adulescens
,” Cicero continued, addressing Felix this time “Surely you recognize our friend?”

“No,
domine
.”

“You don't?” Pompey asked, “How's that possible?”

“And how about you, Sextus? Do you recognize this foreigner?”

“I have never laid eyes on him,” the older man spoke, “Are you sure he claims …?”

“Yes,” Cicero announced. “He claims to be your adopted son.”

Felix felt his limbs stiffen to ice. There had always been a chance that his story would be seen through, but the odds had seemed incredibly remote. Now he was confronted by a group of angry noblemen who knew that they'd been lied to and were insisting that he explain himself. Indeed, the slave Flaccus had seized his arm and was forcing it backwards, to prevent him from escaping and to make him talk. Sensing a threat, Carolyn had bared her head.

“Tell me who you are,” Pompey demanded. “Quickly and without subterfuge.”

“I am Felix, son of Belenus. I am from Prytan. My father is a Druid.”

“Where did you learn your Latin?”

“And how did you know my name?” Aceticus asked.

“I have read your book,
magister
.”

“I am working on a book, but it is only half completed.”

“Who are you?” Pompey repeated, as Flaccus slapped Felix on the side of his head.

“Perhaps he's a slave,” Crassus suggested. “That would explain his hateful comments last night.”

“And it would explain why he asked me to conduct him south, into the thick of Spartacus's lair. Are you spying for that gladiator scum?”

Flaccus was poised to strike Felix again. As he lifted his hand, Carolyn caught it, twisted it down and forced him to his knees. Crassus grabbed at her, but she pivoted and tossed him on his back. Pompey seized her wrist and tried to slap her, but she performed a backwards flip, freeing herself and knocking him sideways. A nearby group witnessed the scene and applauded her for this show of gymnastics.

“Let's go,” she told Felix, tugging at his toga. She didn't notice Flaccus: he'd drawn a dagger and was bearing down on her. Felix intervened. As he pushed Carolyn sideways, the blade plunged into him.

It struck him in his left side, just below his ribs. He gasped. The pain was instantaneous and like nothing he had ever felt: it was as if he were being pummeled by an unending series of halo balls. He glanced down. He was bleeding profusely.

“I'm hit,” he said, as the sky seemed to brighten and grow more remote.

“Bloody cutthroats!” he heard Carolyn swear. She kicked Flaccus in the stomach and knocked him flat on his face. Crassus was about to throw a punch, but she shoved him into Pompey, who was looming up on her right. Using his toga as a sling, she bundled Felix on her back.

“Hang on tight,” she gasped. “We have to leave this building.”

With that said, she hopped onto a nearby stranger. Even as he crumpled beneath their weight, she vaulted from him onto a second pair of shoulders, then to a third, a fourth, a line of others, with such speed and precision that no one could respond to her movements. From behind they heard Pompey ordering them to stop. Felix was clinging to Carolyn's back, and flinching every time she twisted: he was drenched with blood and trembling with cold.

She was running toward an arch at the back that would lead directly to the building's exit. Five guards were standing idly about. At the sight of her onrush, and the sound of Pompey's shouts to stop the pair, the legionnaires formed a line to block her. But they weren't fast enough. Feinting left, she knocked one soldier down, who crashed into his buddy and threw the rest of them off balance. A few seconds later they had escaped the building.

“What now?” Carolyn gasped. “Felix! Stay with me!”

“We're on the building's south side,” he groaned. “Look in front of you. You should see a temple, not too far from us ….”

The fire in his side cut his breathing short. By now his toga was horribly stained and he could barely keep his eyes from closing. But he was alert enough to hear the angry cries behind them.

“There they are!” Pompey was yelling. “They're heading for Mercury's Temple! We'll trap them there!”

A furious chase ensued. Carolyn was starting to tire — Felix could hear her gasping for breath, even as she tightened her grip on the toga to compensate for his own slackening hold. His head lolled. Behind them he saw six men closing in. They were fifteen metres off, ten, eight, six…. One of them was smiling, like a predator about to sink his teeth into his prey.

And then they were climbing a flight of marble steps. They had reached the temple precinct. Almost sobbing with the effort, Carolyn cleared the steps and approached the
cella
's door. It clattered as she shoved it open — and struck their lead pursuer in the nose. She leaped inside and slammed the door behind them. The dark encompassed them like a suit of armour.

A moment later their pursuers appeared. Although they did not dare to enter the
cella
— it was a space reserved for priests alone — they scoured the inner chamber for traces of their quarry. Confusion took the place of rage: apart from a trail of blood on the floor, there was no sign whatsoever of the mysterious siblings.

Chapter Ten

A
lthough the process was uncomfortable, Felix was glad when the TPM engaged and hurled him into the distant future. One moment he could see his pursuers by the door; the next he was being stretched like putty toward a world in which these people had been dead two thousand years. For an instant, too, his pain subsided, only to resurface as his limbs snapped back to normal.

But wait. Was something off …?

He was on the floor and staring up at a ceiling. Instead of totalium, it was built of panelled stone. Beside him was the statue from Mercury's temple, but there were many other sculptures, too, from Greco-Roman times. The TPM team was nowhere to be seen; a crowd was milling about instead, dressed in the strangest clothes and conversing in a language that wasn't Common Speak.

“Felix? Can you hear me?” Carolyn spoke. She was standing nearby and panting still, “We're not in our time. I think your wound affected our trajectory….”

Her words were cut off by a piercing scream. By now a woman had spotted them; in particular, she had seen the blood-soaked toga. Her cries attracted other people's notice, and a horrified crowd took shape around the pair.

“What are they saying?” Carolyn asked.

“They're speaking English,” Felix gasped. “And I recognize this space. It's a famous museum in New York City; it's called the Metropolitan.”

He couldn't speak any more. His wound was bleeding, the world was spinning, and the light around him was growing dimmer.

“Hang on,” Carolyn whispered. “Help is on the way.” Sure enough, a guard approached, followed by paramedics and three armed guards. They were speaking into clumsy looking gadgets, and one man was trying to wave her back. She grasped Felix's hand — to signal that she wouldn't be parted from her friend.

The crowd was eyeing her with suspicion — her Roman garments didn't help. She ignored them and stuck like glue to Felix, even when the paramedics wheeled him off on a gurney. When an armed man tried to hold her in place, she vaulted over him and made the spectators gasp. And as the paramedics steered the gurney down a hallway, past an exit to a vehicle that was backed up on a sidewalk, she was right beside it and clutching onto Felix. A man tried to block her from entering the ambulance, but she brushed him off and took a seat inside.

The vehicle moved off. Under different circumstances she might have enjoyed herself: she'd heard about cars but never dreamed she would ride in one. She'd never imagined either that she would see a city filled with such machines, all of them exhaling fumes into the air — an unthinkable act of rudeness in her era. At the same time, she observed the pedestrians' fashions: how quaint and out-of-date they were, consisting of fabrics like wool and cotton, instead of carbon-fibres and moulded plastics. Was this real or was it a simulation of a bygone age?

She glanced at Felix, who was attached to an IV. Carolyn had studied the history of medicine and recognized this old equipment. A mask was on his mouth and a monitor tracked his heart rate. Human beings, not drones, were supervising these procedures. She found this very odd and … worrying.

“You saved my life,” she whispered. “Please don't die.”

The ambulance came to a stop. Two men swiftly unloaded the stretcher and wheeled it past a sliding door into a hall that was full of uniformed people. It also contained outdated equipment, wheelchairs, defibrillators, ECG scans, and ungainly computers: Carolyn guessed this was a health facility.

Three people huddled around Felix and probed his wounds. Carolyn was wondering when they would place him in a life-pod, to stabilize his heart rate and metabolic levels. They could then inject him with recombinative tissue, let him sleep a few hours, and send him packing. Instead, they wheeled him into an operating theatre, cutting at his toga and tunic as they moved. When Carolyn tried to follow, a sturdy nurse blocked her path. Kind but insistent, she steered her to a seat in the nearby waiting room.

An hour passed with depressing slowness. Patients kept appearing in droves, some stooped over, some wailing in pain, and some dripping blood all over. Was the entire population sick, she wondered? To distract herself from this circus show, she glanced at a newspaper that was lying on the seat beside her. She studied it with interest. She had heard of newspapers, but never handled one before. Flipping through its pages, she found the use of so much paper wasteful. And it would take several hours to absorb this writing, as opposed to downloading it through a cortical implant.

Although the text escaped her, she did discover one fact. No sooner had it registered than two men in uniforms sidled near. They started asking questions, which she couldn't answer, not even when one of them spoke in a language he called
Español
. They wrote something down using paper and pencils — how primitive these people were — then motioned her to sit again and await their return.