by David Drake
"I don't think there will be any difficulty, lord and god," N'Sumu responded smoothly, as the Emperor's attention returned to his arrow and to the frightened steward still with his arms back against the beech. "I gather that your man Lycon is competent enough in the ordinary way. He simply lacks experience with sauropitheci; but then I am certainly the only hunter on this shore of the Mediterranean who has such experience. Lycon and the support system he has developed will be very useful to me in my operations—so long as he cooperates."
Domitian shot and reloaded, shot and reloaded again. "As you wish, Egyptian," he said without concern. The crack of iron arrowheads striking hard wood had been damped somewhat this time, because the most recent pair of arrows had pinned the steward's wrists to the tree. The man's mouth opened and closed like that of an ornamental carp sucking air at the surface of a pond. Because of the shock, both physical and mental, the steward was not making a sound. He was pinned as neatly as if he were being crucified; the arrows, like the supporting nails on the crossbar, were driven beneath the wrist joint. The flesh of the victim's hands would not have enough strength to support the body's weight.
"Only I want you to remember," the Emperor went on as he drew the third arrow that the loader had handed him, "that I do expect success. I don't like it when people fail me. Remember that."
Domitian loosed. This time the steward screamed. The last arrow had been one of the sickle-headed missiles intended for birds.
"Oops," said Domitian, daintily covering his lips to hide the amused giggle.
As his giggle became a high-pitched cackle, the onlookers joined in on his jest. "Bravo! Magnificent! Exquisite!"
Chapter Nine
Formion was nodding his way from pleasant reverie and into dream, when Dulicius shook him out of the warmth of the Gallic wench's body and back to the cold reality of the filthy alleyway in which the two lay in wait. The Greek boxer scowled for a moment into the darkness, wreathed with smoke and mist from the Tiber nearby. Formion did not utter a sound, despite relinquishing his dream. This was a familiar reality into which he returned, and if his partner's judgment proved sound as usual, there would be more visits to the blonde-haired whore whose favors defined pleasure to the full extent of the Greek's imaginings.
"Where?" It was more a sigh of breath than speech, as Formion unfolded to full height and alertness.
"There," Dulicius whispered, pointing toward the river. The full moon gave barely enough light to make out the moving silhouette. Once the figure glided into the shadow of surrounding buildings, it would be invisible.
"I've seen her before, I think," Dulicius confided. From its short stature, he had evidently decided the dimly seen figure was that of a woman—the tail of her mantle pulled over her head.
"Someone dressed like a Gaul with that hood," Formion advised. "We don't know who it is."
"Look again," sneered his partner. "Only a woman can move like that. I tell you, I've seen her here before. I ask you, why is she out at this hour of night?"
"Doesn't mean she has anything worth taking," Formion argued. He was cold from dozing against the wall, and his thick bunches of muscle seemed to grate together as he flexed them.
"Ass," Dulicius chided. "Any woman has something worth taking. Besides, it's growing late, and I'm near frozen."
"True enough," Formion acknowledged. Maybe it would be the blonde Gallic woman of his dream. He stretched his stiff muscles, glided outward into the fog behind Dulicius.
The two footpads had a simple routine, and it had always worked—at least, always worked when their mark was alone and more likely than not dull from drink and the late hour. Dulicius, a ferret of a man, approached directly—just another ragged beggar whining for a handout. Formion, moving quite silently for a man of his size, crept up from behind, choosing his moment to throw an armlock about the throat or to swing his weighted cudgel, as the situation required. If that situation required anything further, Dulicius could move very quickly with his knife he carried in one ragged sleeve, and that knife could pierce ribs or slit a throat with equal suddenness and finality.
"A cold night," Dulicius greeted the cloaked figure.
She had seemed to pause an instant before she could have been aware of his smiling approach, and that only confirmed his impression of tonight's victim. Coin or no, they would have a moment of pleasure, and then the Tiber awaited. In truth, she seemed hunched and thin within her cloak. Well, as was said . . .
Formion arose instantly from the darkness behind her—his strong right arm hinging across her throat, his left hand clamping over her face, doubly to stifle any outcry. Her feet lifted from the paving as the Greek drew back—she was smaller than her billowing cloak had indicated—and Dulicius glided in with his knife, to prove to her the sure outcome of any resistance.
The Greek's muscular forearm closed upon empty air and an emptier hood. His free hand only bunched her cloak together stupidly, as Formion's mouth opened impossibly wide and the big man stumbled backward. He sat abruptly down on the damp paving—damper now from the blood and fluids that spilled from his belly. He folded his hands over the tumble of intestines that rolled onto the paving. His eyes, as they focused dully upon his partner, were accusing.
He had never seen the backward kick of the spurred heel that had gutted him.
Dulicius had been expecting a short hopeless struggle, a leisurely rape, then all evidence into the Tiber. He and Formion had done it so often that any break from routine seemed unfair to him.
Whatever the cloak had enclosed—and he only had the briefest impression of blue-limbed nightmare leaping forth from the enveloping cloth—Dulicius would never see, for its talons closed upon his face in the same instant that the footpad knew something was dreadfully wrong. Needles dipped into his eyeballs, flipping out their lenses, as long talons expertly pierced his larynx and robbed from him the breath he needed to scream. A moment later the same probing talons searched the base of his spine, and then only consciousness—blind, mute, and helpless, but consciousness nonetheless—remained to Dulicius.
For a space he vaguely sensed that he was being carried.
He never knew how long it took Formion to die, but very shortly he would envy his partner that by far more merciful death.
Chapter Ten
It was raining again, and that only seemed to force the stench and the smoke of Rome downward onto the city. Still, Lycon gave thanks for a solid roof and a dry place to sit. After a week or more in the field, of chasing shadows and rumors along the banks of the Tiber, it was a welcome relief to rest here in Vonones' office. He had returned to the merchant's compound ostensibly for fresh supplies and additional men; in point of fact Lycon was more interested in seeing his family and enjoying one last night of good food, a soft bed, and Zoe's warm embrace.
The search for the lizard-ape had drawn a total blank—as Lycon had rather suspected and indeed hoped that it would. Vonones had gone to Crispinus with their latest report of failure, and Lycon no longer very much cared whether tomorrow would find him back in the field or hanging from a cross. Perhaps Domitian would order them to Africa; if there were no lizard-apes to be found there, Lycon knew of places where an exile might find a haven beyond the reach of the Emperor's wrath. For now the hunter only knew that he was tired, apathetic, and would cheerfully die tomorrow for one quiet night with his family.
Lycon grunted and massaged the old wound on his thigh. How many years had he carried that now? Too many.
He heard the din of Vonones' return. The entrance of the litter and its bearers inevitably set every animal in the compound into an uproar, but today the disturbance seemed more frenzied than usual. Lycon put it down to nerves. At least it wasn't Domitian's soldiers coming to arrest him.
He was expecting Vonones, but the merchant was the second person to enter the office. Pushing through in front of him was a tall bronzed man—towering easily over Vonones and his servants, and as self-possessed as an Eastern potentate entering his own pal
ace.
"You are Lycon, son of Amphiction," the stranger said as he stepped toward the hunter. He bowed. His torso hinged higher than Lycon would have expected, and the bulges beneath the pair of linen tunics did not seem to be hip bones at all. "I am N'Sumu, an Egyptian hunter from Nubia. I will help you capture the sauropithecus."
"What?" Lycon glanced questioningly toward Vonones, then quickly back again to N'Sumu.
"His orders don't exactly say that, Lycon," said Vonones hurriedly. Lycon had to realize immediately what their relative positions had now become. Otherwise he might react in a fashion that would mean the cross—or the arena—for them both. "His orders say that our lord and god puts him in charge of the hunt, and that all subjects of the Empire, free and slave, will cooperate or face divine displeasure."
"What?" repeated Lycon. He must have fallen asleep.
"My only interest," said N'Sumu smoothly, "is to capture the sauropithecus. The credit, so far as I am concerned, will be yours."
He was speaking Greek. While Lycon had no trouble understanding the Egyptian, the effect was unnerving because N'Sumu's vocabulary and elocution were those of the classic stage. Even his elisions were those of metrical drama rather than of the sliding, careless Common Tongue that was the language of trade throughout even the Latin-speaking West of the Empire.
"Where in Hades did you learn that Greek?" Lycon wondered, dazed and focusing on the immediate puzzle before he moved on to greater ones.
"You prefer Latin?" N'Sumu said in that language. Even his voice was different, and his accent could not have been told from that of a Spaniard on the coast of Ocean.
"Yes, I think I do," Lycon said. "But that doesn't answer my question." He probably would awaken from this dream in another moment, find himself lying in the rain beneath a hedgerow.
"In Tipasa," N'Sumu said nonchalantly. He showed no sign of irritation at either the question or the dumbfounded tone in which it was asked.
His answer was true, as well. A touring company had been performing a series of the plays of Euripides in the theater in Tipasa when N'Sumu reached the city. The chorus master had provided the emissary with an expert if idiosyncratic knowledge of Greek during three hours in a private room. The Greek had a very different memory of what had gone on during that time, but it explained in an acceptable fashion the way his head and muscles ached the next day.
A Spanish trader, met in the same North African port, had provided him with his Latin. It appeared that N'Sumu should refine that, refine both apparently, due to regional peculiarities. It pleased him, for all the additional effort, that he found it necessary to supplement the store of native languages provided him by the all-knowing Cora, who had programmed his communications nodes with North African tribal dialects. This evidence of their less-than-perfect intelligence of this planet's culture held promise for the emissary's personal intentions here.
"Gods," Lycon muttered. He rubbed the skin of his face with scarred, knobby fingers. "Where did Domitian ever find you?"
"I think we'd do best to get to a restaurant," suggested Vonones smoothly. "To determine how we best can support you, N'Sumu, and do the will of our god and master. Crispinus made it quite clear, Lycon, that the Emperor has complete confidence in N'Sumu's abilities."
N'Sumu smiled. "We can better discuss the things which are necessary in other surroundings, yes. You will lead us to what you think suitable."
His smile, thought Vonones, was wrong—but everything was horribly wrong, and if this N'Sumu were the creature of Ahriman, then Ahriman was clearly taking his turn on top as the Wheel turned and Ormadz the Light descended. "Yes," Vonones said aloud. "There's a nice place just down the street. Many a deal I've closed there."
It was only after the three men set out in company that Vonones remembered the deal he had most recently closed in that particular shop. It was for the shipment that had included the sauropithecus.
* * *
The restaurant's owner was tasting the soup in one of the stone urns set into the sales counter. He had a critical look on his face and was already beginning to shout: "Hieron! How many peppers did you . . . !"
At sight of Vonones and his companions approaching the counter, which was open to the street along its full length, the man broke off. "Service!" he called toward the back. "A table in the garden for Master Claudius Vonones and his friends? Master Lycon, is it not, sir? And your other companion? Or would you prefer the enclosed dining area, Master Vonones?"
"No, no—the arbor's fine," said the Armenian absently. "Unless N'Sumu would rather . . . ?"
"By all means make whatever arrangements you prefer," said N'Sumu easily. "After all, I am a stranger here."
To get to the door that opened onto the back, they walked around the sales counter. Its top was covered with a mosaic of the beasts of the sea savaging one another. The centerpiece between two of the warming urns was a pair of octopuses dismembering a spiny lobster. It was balanced on the other side of the middle urn by sharks tearing a hapless sailor, while moray eels squirmed in for their share of the fragments.
"The fish stew here is excellent," said Lycon, tapping the countertop with the sharks as he passed.
The frescoes in the courtyard had, unlike the counter mosaics, been recently redone. Pride of place on the wall facing the door was a fresco of a chariot race—not in the Circus, built for the purpose with long straightaways, but in the Amphitheater itself. The nearly circular course meant that only the inside track had a prayer of winning. It also meant that when the gates opened and six four-horse chariots leaped for that inside track, there was an absolute certainty of a multiple collision.
The fresco artist had caught several of the high points of such novelty races in his panorama. In one, the driver for the Green Association was whipping his horses literally over the piled-up chariots, horses, and drivers of the other five associations. The painting showed the Green driver lashing at his Gold-tuniced opponent, who was trying to hold himself clear of the wheels by a grip on the frame of the Green chariot.
Further along the same wall, the artist focused on an individual rather than on a general collision. Philodamas, a Blue Association driver with an impressive series of wins, had been thrown forward when a wheel-bearing froze. Normally that would have meant that the driver was pulled along by the reins laced to his left forearm. In this case, however, the reins had gotten looped around the driver's neck. Philodamas had been decapitated spectacularly to the cheers of the crowd, and given such immortality as this fresco could provide.
The table toward which the waiter was leading them was in a grape arbor. A customer was already relaxing there, waiting for his food to be brought. He was moved out with scarcely more ceremony than that with which an additional stool was snatched from another table and set beneath this one.
"How much do you pay these people?" Lycon asked, as he took the seat farthest within the arbor and against the back wall. He did not fear men, particularly, but he had never been comfortable in an arbor since the night a leopard clawed him through a blind of woven brush. The four parallel scars on his buttocks were still quite obvious, ten years after the event. The scars on his mind showed only in situations like this one, and then only to those who, like Vonones, knew him very well.
"I don't expect the service my business requires to come cheaply," Vonones said airily. "After all, I pay enough for my animals so that the beastcatchers who contract with me always see to it that I have my pick of the healthiest ones." He sighed and let his mind concentrate on dining—thank the gods, civilized dining once again.
"And your pick of the exceptional ones as well," Lycon said pointedly. Vonones had told him of his ill-advised purchase here.
"Your orders, gentlemen?" the owner of the shop interjected from the mouth of the arbor. "Will we have a meal today, or merely something from our selection of fine wines?"
Vonones blinked. Lycon had almost ruined his appetite. The merchant grimaced and returned to his best professional mood. Th
is was going to be expensive—always worth the expense to create the proper impression, of course—and he wasn't going to let the bad business of the lizard-ape sour his digestion.
Lycon was already ordering for himself. "Rhodian," he said. "One to two with water." As much to himself as to his companions, he added: "You can get it anywhere, and with the resin and seawater blended to help it travel, it's always just the same. Right now I don't need any surprises." He rubbed a sore toe against the nearest of the three table legs. They were cast bronze, shaggy, and had feet like those of a goat or satyr.
"The Caecuban, I think—mulled," said Vonones. He was no more a connoisseur of wines than the beastcatcher was. Therefore he accepted as the height of sophistication what the literary snobs told him—despite the fact that the vineyards of Southern Latium had decayed to a shadow of their former quality during the century following Horace's enthusiastic remarks. It didn't really matter since Vonones—as with Lycon—would really have preferred the taste of resined wine with which he had lived for decades in the field.
Now he turned with a smile, he hoped, of quiet sophistication to the Egyptian and said: "Master N'Sumu, may I recommend the Caecuban? Urbicius, the owner here, lays in a stock for me personally."
Lycon had relaxed enough that he had to smother a snort. That was a laugh—still, let Vonones impress upon this Egyptian, the Emperor's chosen sauropithecus stalker, that he and Lycon were themselves men of the world.
N'Sumu looked at the merchant without interest and said, "Water for me. Only water." The filters implanted in his esophagus would keep most of the local foodstuffs from playing hell with his digestive processes, but that did not mean that he intended to press his luck. Nourishment prepared in private from local raw substances would sustain life for as long as he had to remain here. Certainly the notion of actually eating alongside these animals was more unpleasant than the food itself was likely to be.