Uptown Local and Other Interventions (2 page)

Near the ox’s head stood a boy several years older than Lucius; tall, thin, dark, he frowned more easily than he smiled. Catharis had worked with Mancipuer for two years less than Lucius, but he equated age with seniority and never lost a chance to try to bully Lucius into thinking so. As Lucius came in, Catharis scowled. Lucius ignored him, slipping in behind the four other slaves straining at ropes in an effort to keep the ox in one place. It  bellowed, answered deafeningly by the other two oxen tied to a railing nearby.

“That my breakfast?” shouted Mancipuer over the noise, barely glancing up from his work.

“Yes, sir,” Lucius said. He stopped just out of arm’s reach. The overseer’s temper was always uncertain early in the morning.

“You’re late. I’d beat you, but I haven’t the time. Get me the horn bags.” He passed the brush to another of the slaves and held his hand out to Lucius for the roll.

“Is it hot, master?” Catharis said.

Lucius glowered at him as he went to get the muslin bags used to protect the newly gilded horns. Mancipuer bit off a chunk of roll and sausage. “Hot enough,” he said through the mouthful. “Delia ask you about the sticks again?”

“Yes, sir.” Lucius handed the bags to Mancipuer.

“I’ll get them when we’re done here. Drop them off on your way to the draper’s. I need some cheap silk for the lunchtime routine with the lion.”

“Yes, sir,” Lucius said. He stood aside while the ox was led away and a second one brought in. “What routine?”

“Joke execution.” Mancipuer finished his roll. “False-front cage; lion in back, chicken in front.” He shrugged. “And thirty ells of silk to hide the chicken. Wicked waste, if you ask me. But what the Master wants…”

“He gets.” The Master of the Games wasn’t about to come down and explain his reasoning to
them
. “What color silk, sir?”

 “They want crimson. Small chance, this time of year. But see how close you can get. Milla had some pinkish stuff.” He turned his attention to the new ox. “Catharis, give Lucius the gold leaf. You breathe too hard, it goes all over the place. Go pull a rope.”

Furious at the reprimand, Catharis managed to kick Lucius’s leg as he went by. Lucius just gritted his teeth and ignored it. As usual, gilding the whole ox-team seemed to take forever and it was mid-morning before they were done. The arcaded central ring was starting to fill as people made for the bookies or the wine shops, did some early shopping, or visited the baths to freshen up before the games began.

Mancipuer straightened and eased the kinks from his back. “Lucius, those tallies are on the second shelf,” he said. “Drop them off with Delia, then get that silk.”

“Yes, sir!” Lucius snatched up the tally-sticks and ran from the gilding-pen, glad of the excuse to get away. He dropped the tallies at the bakery and then went through the tunnel toward the outermost ring.

Here the better class of snack bars and shops were located—ones with higher ceilings and arched doors, all faced in marble to match the paving of the outer plaza and the stairs that accessed the stands. Patrons in tunics and togas were already leaning over the tables of the stand-up wine bars, intently studying parchments written with the day’s fight schedule, and arguing over handicaps and betting systems. Lucius wondered how it must feel to have so much money that you could afford to bet it and not get it back. Then he sighed and turned right toward gate twenty-three, bursting out into the bright hot sun of morning.

Even this early the heat was brutal, and the light was blinding. Lucius turned his back on the Sun and rubbed his eyes, looking up at the white-shining mass of the Colosseum, as immense and bright as a snow-mountain. It was hard sometimes to connect the external white-and-gold glory to the dark life under the stands, a life lived in caves and tunnels, scurrying around under the pavement like frantic ants in service of this hot, bright world astir with excitement and light and color. Very soon now the bowl of the Colosseum would fill with spectators, and the sound of their voices would overflow the edges like a huge beast’s roar. The place would come alive, and the music would start, and the men who made it all happen, the fighters, would parade in. They would give everyone who sat in the place a single purpose: to be part of the fight, part of the glory, by backing a winner.

Lucius turned away and headed across the hot plaza toward the Forum. Work left him little time to see the games, though he lived to hear every scrap of news about them, and could recite the stats of nearly every first-string fighter who walked out on the sand. He’d stolen time enough to see perhaps twenty fights since he started paying attention to them three years ago. It was annoying to be at liberty right now, because there would be no major fights until after the lunch break, when the crowds had had time to get enough wine in them to improve the bookies’ odds. There were three fights this afternoon that he’d have liked to see: two pairs of professionals who hadn’t fought since early spring, and the third—

A shadow flickered over him and Lucius looked up, expecting to see a bird. Instead a strange twisting shape came floating slowly down: something red. It was a veil.

Probably somebody up there dropped it,
he thought, glancing back up at the Colosseum. A breeze pushed the veil slightly sideways as it fell, and Lucius realized it was going to land on the eternally muddy road where the animal-carts came up. Lucius could tell from the sheen and gleam of the veil as it turned in the hot sun that it wasn’t the cheap kind of silk that he’d been sent for, but something expensive, blown off of some rich lady up there.

Rich people weren’t anything Lucius cared about one way or another…but still, the silk was really beautiful. It drifted lower, blowing toward the wet claggy mud of the cart path. Lucius went after it as the breeze gusted around the building, leaping up to catch one end just before it landed in the mire. Then he stared at it.

Now what? How do I find out whose this is?
There could be ten thousand women up there, freeborn, slave or noble, and probably all of them would say it was theirs. Lucius stood there irresolute, trying to decide what to do.

He turned to look at the first-floor gates, and from Gate Twenty-Four came a subdued glow that resolved into a glitter of golden armor, a white tunic, a kilt of white and gold, high-laced white leather sandals as their wearer strode out into the sunlight. The big burly red-haired man stood there for a moment, craning his neck to see around or over the crowd that was starting to gather around him.

Then he saw Lucius with the veil, and headed straight toward him.

Lucius stopped breathing. Some of the crowd that had come out after the man were still following him. He turned as he walked, waving them away, laughing, and the sun glanced off the polished helmet under his arm with a blinding flash like a star fallen to earth.

It can’t be,
Lucius thought. But he knew the white ostrich-feather wings on that helmet’s griffin crest, and the multiple bands of white enamel just above the broad brim. Everybody who followed the Games knew the trademarks of the Neronian gladiator school’s most famous superstar.
But what’s he coming at
me
for? Unless... The veil! Did I do something wrong? But what—?

Lucius stared at his face.
It really
is
him!
There was the scar from last year, one of the very few he’d ever gotten: he was
that
good. “Boy,” the man said as he got closer, “where’d you find that?”

 “It fell from the top level, sir,” Lucius managed to say, and then instantly blushed hot. He was in a sports fan’s dream, but had no idea how to act or even speak to a top-level gladiator if one spoke to you.

The gladiator looked over at the mud of the nearby cart-track and his eyes widened a little. All Lucius’s worries vanished when he saw how broadly the man grinned at him. “You saved it from landing in that mess? Nice catch.”

Lucius swallowed, overwhelmed by the compliment, and held out the veil. But the resplendent figure just glanced over his shoulder then waved it away. “Hang onto it for a moment longer,” he said. “We’re waiting for someone. What’s your name, son?”

“Lucius.”

“I’m Hilarus.”

“I know.”

“A fan, eh?”

Lucius put his head up, emboldened, and grinned back. “I work here,” he said. “I follow the business.”

“Aha…a fellow professional. Don’t tell me: you want to be a gladiator someday.”

Lucius shook his head. “No. A coach.”

“Smart kid,” Hilarus said. “There’s money in that, if you can learn what you need to. And you don’t have to be a gladiator to learn.” Hilarus glanced quickly over his shoulder again. “So how do you like today’s card?”

  Lucius had been thinking about little else. “If I was a betting man,” he said, “I’d have something on the third fight.”

Now Hilarus laughed out loud. “
‘If?’
Everyone bets in Rome. The question is, which way?”

“You’re fourteen for fourteen, with thirteen crowns for technical merit,” Lucius said. “The other guy’s two for six, and none. Looks obvious to me.”

“To a lot of people,” Hilarus said. “And today, I wouldn’t argue. But if the fix was in—” He looked over his shoulder again and his grin moderated itself. “Here she comes. Make me look good…”

A flurry of rose and white came out of Gate Twenty-Four, a silken
palla
-robe stirred to a flutter by the breeze that blew around the base of the building. The woman wrapped in it wore no veil, but scurrying behind her came a gaggle of high-end slaves burdened with parasols and cushions and feathery fans and picnic hampers. They all paused as the woman did, looking around. Hilarus caught her eye and raised a hand. Behind his back, the gladiator’s other hand made a fist at Lucius, then stuck out two fingers in the
Help me out here!
gesture. Lucius looked at it for a moment, then put one end of the veil in that fist as it opened. He didn’t let go of the other end.

The whole brightly-dressed crowd moved toward them, the lady foremost. Lucius bowed deeply: and Hilarus extended the hand holding his end of the veil.

“You have it!” she said. “I thought it would be floating in Father Tiber by now.”

“No, madam,” Hilarus said, and bowed again. “But someone should have told you that it wouldn’t go into the arena from where you threw it. This time of day, the wind’s from the west. Anything this light goes up under the east-side awnings and out. I’ve seen a hundred veils go that way…”

“I dare say you have,” she said, giving him a wicked look. “But I’m glad not to have lost this to anyone I didn’t know.” She smiled at Hilarus, and took the veil. “And the small one helped you? You must have run very quickly!”

“We both ran for it, Great Lady,” Lucius said, eyeing the width of the golden border on her robe. It was heavy bullion wire, and he didn’t think his honorific was going too far. “But he caught the other end, that would have gone in the mud.”

 “And I missed such a chase!” the lady said, with an attractive  pout. “Better sport than anything in the arena—especially after you ran out.” She gave Hilarus an amused look. “You should have seen the Emperor’s face.”

“Normally his commands are my first concern,” Hilarus said, bowing slightly. “But some of us owe other allegiances: such as the one to Queen Venus.”

The lady smiled again. “We should go back,” she said to Hilarus, “before Titus starts wondering too much. I’ll find a way to show my gratitude… Later. But as for you, young sir—”

She smiled at Lucius, bending down to meet his eyes more closely, and reached out to take his hand. All his calculating and rather mercenary thoughts of reward left Lucius’s head in a rush, drowned in the darkness of her hair and eyes. Up close, she smelled wonderful, like roses. Then he felt something cool and heavy against his palm. It wasn’t easy to look away from her, but when he did he goggled at a glinting disc—a whole
denarius
—with the Emperor’s head on it, round and thick-necked and bald.

“Lady…” he said. “Thank you!”

“Her, certainly,” Hilarus said, with a smile at the lady. “But perhaps you should thank Queen Venus too. Any wise man is glad to be in
her
debt.”

The lady straightened up, draped the rosy veil over her head and drew it down in a gesture of amused modesty that hid nothing. “Only the wise ones?” she said, and gave the gladiator a look that Lucius had seen often enough on the girls up in the stands….

Even overwhelmed as he was, Lucius had the presence of mind to bow again, to both of them. Then, blinded by the absolute wonder of the moment, he hurried back toward the Colosseum gates, his fist clenched around the coin.

As if by some evil magic, a tall thin form stepped out of the shadows and straight-armed him. Lucius staggered, caught his balance again, and found himself staring at Catharis.
“You’re
gonna
get
it,” the bigger boy sang softly, smiling his usual nasty smile.
“You’re
gonna
get
it…”

“I wouldn’t get anything if
you
weren’t opening your big yap all the time.”

Catharis snickered. “Master says, where’s the silk he sent you for?”

“I haven’t been to Milla’s yet. I’m going now.”

“So where’ve you been?”

Lucius scowled. “None of your business, you squatsponge!”

Catharis’s eyes went narrow. “You can’t talk to me like that! I’ll tell Master—”

“Tell him whatever you want,” Lucius said, and ran off in the direction of the Forum. Just this once he was completely unmoved by the threat.
I don’t have to take this squat. Five minutes ago I was talking to
Hilarus!
And that great lady, like some kind of foreign queen!

 “You come back here!” Catharis yelled, but Lucius ignored him.
He’ll go right back and tattle to Mancipuer.
So let him. I’ll take my beating. I’ve got something to make up for it!
As he ran, Lucius reached inside his tunic, pulled out the little amulet-bag that hung hidden around his neck, and hid the
denarius
in it.

He made his way through the Forum to the arcaded side alley where Milla the cloth-seller had her stall. It was a multicolored forest of bolts of cloth, mostly standing on end, some stacked up like cordwood, and usually one or two rolled out on the marble of the streetside slab. As Lucius approached he saw with astonishment that the slab was covered with thin crimson-colored silk. That was when he started thinking he might not get beaten after all. “Milla—how much of this have you got?”