Wagers of Sin

by Robert Asprin

  He had noticed a couple of wide-eyed beggar brats staring at him and paused to consider what use he might make of them.

  "Are you really Lupus Mortiferus?" the bolder of the two asked, eyes round with wonder and a glint approaching fear.

  "I am."

  Wide eyes went rounder.

  Lupus smiled coldly. "Want to earn some money?"

  Mouths dropped open. "How?"

  "See that man?" he pointed out the thief. "Follow him. Find out where he lives and tell me and I'll give you enough silver to buy slaves of your own."

  The boys gasped. "We'll follow him! But how can we let you know where he's gone?"

  Lupus sighed. Starvation left a man stupid and these boys looked like they hadn't eaten properly in years. "One of you stay wherever he's gone," Lupus said patiently. "The other of you, come find me. I'll be at the starting boxes, waiting."

  He gave each boy a couple of copper asses as incentive, showing them the silver in his purse as greater incentive, then headed grimly back toward the Circus. He had some fights to win. Given his mood, Lupus Mortiferus pitied his opponents today. The crowd ought to be very pleased with his performance. And afterward . . .

  Afterward, a certain foreign thief would learn the bite of Roman revenge.

  Agnes Fairchild's voice rose on a half-scream of hurt rage. "You used me, Skeeter Jackson! How . . . how dare you—"

  "Agnes—"

  "Don't touch me! My God, to think I gave you a ticket, money, slept with you! I hate you! All you wanted was a chance to sneak away and make a bunch of illegal bets!"

  "Now, Agnes—"

  "I could lose my job!" Tears in her eyes sparkled in the lamp light, but they were angry tears more than fear. "I can't believe you would do this to me." She hugged both arms around herself and refused to look him in the eye.

  "Look, kid, you're a nice girl. I happen to like you a lot. But business is business. Good God, Agnes, you take a bunch of bloodthirsty perverts to the arena to watch men butcher each other, you ferry around zipper jockeys so they can rape prostitutes in downtime brothels, and you don't bat an eyelash, but let a man make a little wager—"

  "Get out of my sight! I wish I'd never laid eyes on you, Skeeter Jackson! If I thought I could get away with it, I'd . . . I'd maroon you here! That'd be rich, leave you stuck in Rome with all the people whose money you swindled!"

  Skeeter gave up. He'd broken up with his share of women, although he rarely understood why, exactly, but he'd never had one react this violently. Well, there was the exception of Margo. She'd said a few choice things to him, after she'd found out he wasn't a time scout after all. And he hadn't even managed to get her into bed!

  All of which was useless to pursue. He would miss Agnes' company, particularly in the sack, but the amount of gold in the pouches at his belt was more than incentive to dismiss her serious overreaction. It'd only been one little day's wagering, for God's sake. Yesukai would've been singing his praises to the entire clan around the cookpots.

  Oh, well. Easy come, easy go. So much for this scheme. Guess I'll have to come up with something else that doesn't involve a downtime gate. Of course, with his winnings today, he could take all the time he wanted, deciding his next intrigue. He left Agnes sitting in her private room at the Time Tours Inn and rejoined the festivities in the dining room, aware that she was crying as he shut the door, aware of a pang of guilt down inside himself, but also aware that she'd brought most of her anguish on herself.

  Sheesh. One little bet.

  You'd have thought he'd stolen her heart or something. Women. Can't figure 'em, any way you look at it. When he got back to TT-86, he was going to march straight into the Down Time Bar & Grill and get roaring drunk. Hell, he'd buy drinks for everybody there and get well-and-truly Mongolian drunk with friends. After the fit she'd pitched, he deserved a little celebration.

  Maybe he'd even find someone willing to console him in the privacy of his apartment afterwards. Some sweet, soft-skinned tourist willing to assuage the sense of loss and loneliness he couldn't quite dismiss as he entered the raucous main room of the Time Tours Inn. Yeah, that was the ticket. Wine and women. Age-old cure for what ailed the heart.

  Skeeter put on his best smile and wondered how many pockets he might have the chance to pick before the Porta Romae Gate cycled a few hours hence.

  The thief had taken up lodgings at an inn situated pleasantly on the Aventine. It bustled with customers. Lupus paid both boys and watched them scamper off, then stepped into the crowded room. A few people gave him odd looks, but he was served with good food and better wine than he'd expected. The man he sought was in a far corner, all smiles and triumph, talking to a plain-looking slave girl who smiled at him the way a well-bedded woman smiles at a man who's tumbled her frequently. Lupus hid his own smile as they left for more private surroundings, then heard the beginnings of an argument through their closed door. It ended with the thief storming back into the main room, thunderclouds in his eyes, whereupon he struck up a lively discussion with the nearest girl.

  All does not go well, then, between master and concubine. He chuckled, finished his meal, and left the inn to wait for darkness. All he needed to do was wait until the guests bedded down for the night and the thief was his.

  He could have called for the city watch to arrest the man, but his reputation was already damaged. So far, only his closest friends knew of his foolish loss. Let the city watch discover it, and his name would become a laughingstock from the Janiculum to the Campus Martius. This was a score he intended to settle personally. To his great chagrin, however, a banquet or great party of some kind was being celebrated inside, with loud laughter and singing in some barbaric tongue he couldn't place. It went on until the night grew very late.

  "Will these colonial clods never bed down and sleep?"

  Carts and heavily laden wagons rumbled past in the darkness, casting lantern light on weary-faced drivers and dark, rutted paving stones. Another hour passed, then another, and still the party roared on. Hugging his impatience to his breast like a well-honed dagger, Lupus waited.

  What happened next surprised him beyond all belief.

  Every single one of the revellers left the inn in a packed group, led by lantern light and collared slaves through the wagon-jammed, dangerous streets. The man Lupus sought was there amongst them, grinning like a trained monkey. Lupus followed, one hand on the pommel of his sword. He trailed the group to a wine shop on the Via Appia. Judging from the positions of the stars, it must be nearly midnight, yet nearly forty people entered the dark, silent wineshop. Some were giggling, some reeling, while some looked like they might be ill at any moment.

  Lupus' prey entered without so much as a backward glance over his shoulder. An open door at the rear of the shop spilled lantern light into the now-empty shop front with its counters, stone benches, and tight-lidded amphorae of wine. Beyond was clearly a small warehouse where the shopkeeper stored his stock. Lupus slipped across the street and cautiously entered the public area just as someone closed the warehouse door. Darkness smothered him in an instant. He swore under his breath and waited for his night vision to return. He listened at the edge of the door, but could hear nothing.

  Then a strange buzzing began to vibrate the bones of his skull. There was no real sound, but he clapped hands over both ears, trying to shut out the unpleasant sensation. What manner of wine shop is this? Sweat started out on his brow. He wasn't afraid, exactly—

  The warehouse door opened again, unexpectedly.

  Lupus hurled himself into the shadows behind the counter.

  Some fifty people emerged from the warehouse room—but none of them were the ones who'd gone inside moments before. The last person through closed the door to the warehouse, leaving Lupus hidden in shadows while lanterns swung in the night and giggles and whispers in that same foreign tongue reached his ears. Lupus stared at the departing group, while the bones of his skull ached. Gradually the sound that wasn't a sound faded away. The men and
women who'd just left the warehouse disappeared around a street corner.

  Lupus emerged slowly from behind the humble limestone countertop, glancing from the closed warehouse door to the street corner and back. Then he tried the door. It wasn't locked. Someone had left a lamp burning; the shop owner must mean to return shortly, else he'd have blown out the lamp. Lupus searched the room thoroughly, if somewhat hastily, but found absolutely no trace of the forty-odd people who had entered this room moments earlier. Nor could he find a doorway or hidden trap in the floor. The room was absolutely empty, save for racks of dusty amphorae. The nearest of those, shaken gently, proved to be full.

  Standing in the center of the deserted room, Lupus Mortiferus felt an unaccustomed trickle of fear run up his spine. His quarry had vanished, apparently into thin air, taking Lupus' hard-won money with him. Lupus swore softly, then returned the amphora to its place in the rack, turned on his heel, and strode out again. He would discover the secret of that wine shop. The people who came and went from it had to come through somehow, as they were not spirits from the underworld, but flesh-and-blood men and women. And since Lupus—superstitious though he might be—did not believe in outright magic, he would find that way through. All he had to do was follow the next group more closely.

  And once through . . .

  Lupus Mortiferus, the "Wolf of Death" of Rome's great Circus, smiled cruelly in the starlight. "Soon," he promised the thief. "Soon, your belly will meet my blade. I think you will find little enough stomach for my revenge—but my steel will find more than enough of your stomach."

  Laughing darkly at his own joke, Lupus Mortiferus strode away into the night.

  Gate days always packed in the customers at the Down Time Bar & Grill. With the Porta Romae cycling, Marcus had all he could handle keeping up with drink tabs and calling sandwich orders to Molly. The clink of glassware and the smell of alcohol permeated the dim-lit interior as thickly as the roar of voices, some of them bragging about what they'd done/seen/heard downtime and others drowning whatever it was that had shaken them to the core and yet others denying that anything at all was bothering them.

  All in all, it was a pretty normal gate day. Marcus delivered a tray full of drinks to a table where Kit Carson and Malcolm Moore were sharing tall tales with Rachel Eisenstein. The time terminal's physician wasn't taken in by either man, but she was clearly having a good time pretending to believe the world's most famous time scout and La-La Land's most experienced freelance time guide. Marcus smiled, warmed more by their welcoming smiles than their more-than-generous tips, then moved on to the back room, shimmying skillfully between pool players intent on their games, to a corner where Goldie Morran was deeply involved in a high-stakes poker match with Brian Hendrickson.

  Marcus knew that look in Goldie's eyes. He held in a shiver. She must be losing—heavily. Brian Hendrickson's face gave away nothing, but the pile of money on his side of the table was a good bit larger than the pile on Goldie's. Several interested onlookers watched silently. Goldie (who somehow reminded Marcus unpleasantly of a certain haughty patrician lady a former master had visited on carefully arranged assignations), glanced from her hand to meet Brian's steady regard. Her lip curled slightly, sure of him. "Call."

  Hendrickson showed his cards.

  Goldie Morran swore in a manner Marcus still found shocking. More money travelled to the librarian's side of the table.

  "Your drinks," Marcus said quietly, placing them carefully to one side of cards, money, and outthrust elbows.

  Out in the main room, a familiar voice sang out, "Hey, Marcus! Where are you?"

  Skeeter Jackson was back in town. He hid a pleased grin.

  Marcus quietly collected empty glasses from the poker table, noted the lack of a tip from Goldie and the modest tip from the librarian, then hurried out and found his friend beaming at the entire roomful of patrons.

  "Drinks," he announced elaborately, "are on the house. A round for everyone on me!"

  Marcus gaped. "Skeeter? That is . . . that will be very expensive!" His friend never had that kind of money. And the Down Time was crowded tonight.

  "Yep! I scored big for a change. Really big!" His grin all but lit up the dark room. Then he produced a wallet full of money. "For the drinks!"

  "You won the bets?"

  Skeeter laughed. "Did I ever! Serve 'em up, Marcus." He winked and handed Marcus a heavy pouch, whispering, "Thanks. That's for your help." Then he sauntered over to a table, where he found himself the center of much attention, most of it from tourists. The pouch Skeeter had given him was very heavy. Marcus began to tremble. When he opened the drawstrings, the number—and color—of the coins inside made his head swim. There must be . . . He couldn't see properly to count the money. But if it wasn't enough to pay off his debt, it was close. Very, very close. His vision wavered.

  Skeeter had remembered.

  Marcus knew that in this world of uptimers and 'eighty-sixers, grown men did not weep, as Roman men did with such free abandon. So he blinked desperately, but his throat was so thick he couldn't have spoken to save his own life. Skeeter had remembered. And actually followed through on the promise. I won't forget, Marcus made a silent vow. I won't forget this, my true friend.

  He stuffed the money into a front jeans pocket, deep enough to keep it safe from pick pockets, then blinked fiercely again. He wished desperately he could leave the Down Time and share his news with Ianira now, but he had several hours left on his shift and she would be in the middle of a session with an uptime graduate student, one of many who consulted—and paid—her as a singular, primary source. She had told him once that some uptime schools did not allow students to use such recordings or notes, considering them faulty, if not downright fraudulent, sources. Anger had sparked like flint against pyrite in her eyes, that anyone would dare to question her honesty, her integrity.

  But a lot of other schools did accept such research as valid. Marcus discovered a deep, abiding joy that Ianira would no longer have to reduce herself to selling off little pieces of her life just to save money for Marcus' debt. He could tell her later of his good fortune, of their good friend and ally. Already he anticipated the joy in her dark eyes.

  Perhaps I can even support another child. A son, if the gods smile on us. Thus preoccupied with dreams, Marcus started taking the drink orders Skeeter's generosity had prompted. Skeeter plopped down enough cash to buy the drinks he'd promised and then some.

  Goldie Morran and Brian Hendrickson emerged from the back just then, evidently because Goldie had run out of either money or patience. Their admiring entourage followed like schooling fish.

  "What's this about drinks being on Skeeter?" Goldie demanded.

  Skeeter rose lazily from the seat he'd taken and gave her a mock bow. "You heard me right. And you know I've got the money." He winked at her this time.

  Ahh . . . Goldie had done the money changing for Skeeter's winnings. Goldie's expression deepened into lines of bitterness. "You call a couple of thousand money? Good God, Skeeter, I just dropped that much in one poker game. When are you ever going to graduate from the penny-ante stuff?"

  Skeeter froze, eyes going first wide then savagely narrow. He was the focal point of the entire room, tourists and 'eighty-sixers alike. A flush crept up his face, either of embarrassment or anger—with Skeeter, it was never easy to tell.

  "Penny-ante?" he repeated, with a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Yes, I suppose from your point of view, that's what I am, Goldie. Just Skeeter's penny-ante bullshit, same as always. Now, if I had your juicy situation, maybe I'd hit it big a little more often, too. You're no better than I am, Goldie, under all that fancy crap you hand your customers."

  A sewing needle dropped to the wooden floor would have sounded like an alarm klaxon in the silence that followed.

  "And just what do you mean by that?" Goldie was breathing just a touch too hard, nostrils pinched one moment, flaring the next, lips ash white.

  "Oh, come off it, Goldie. You can't con
me, we're too much alike, you and I. Everyone in La-La Land knows you scam any customer you can." Several tourists in the room started visibly and stared at Goldie with dawning suspicion. Skeeter shrugged. "If I had a fancy shop and the chance to snatch rare coins at a fraction of their worth, or had the kind of bankroll you've conned over the years, hell, I could drop a few thousand in a poker game, too, and not miss it.

  "Like I said, you're no better than I am. You scam, I scam, and everybody here calls us backstabbing cheats. If you didn't use all that fancy crap in your head about coins and gems, you couldn't scam half of what I do in a week. Frankly, coins and gems is all you know. Hell, I could probably top you two or three to one, if you had to make a living the way I do."

  Goldie's cheeks went slowly purple, nearly matching her hair.

  "Are you issuing a challenge to me?"

  Skeeter's jaw muscles clenched. Something in his eyes, a glint of steel harsh as the Mongolian desert skies, caused Marcus to shiver. Then Skeeter grinned, slowly, without a trace of mirth in those steely eyes.

  "Yeah. I think I am. A challenge. That's a good idea. What about it, Goldie? Shall we give it a week? Anything you make using knowledge of rare coins, gems, antiques and the like doesn't count. At the end of the week, the person with the most cash takes the whole pot. How about it? Do we have a bet?"

  The reek of tension and sweat filled the crowded room as every eye swivelled to Goldie Morran, the dowager con artist of La-La Land. She merely curled a lip. "That hardly seems like a stake worth bothering myself over, considering how little you manage to rake in during an average week." Her eyes narrowed and a smile came to thin lips. Marcus shivered. Walk carefully, my friend, she means to have blood. "I don't make fools' bets."

  Skeeter took a dangerous step forward, eyes flashing angrily in the dim light. "All right, how about we up the stakes a little, then? We'll make it a real bet. Let the wager run for three weeks—hell, let's make it one month, even. That'll take us right through the holidays. At the end, loser leaves TT-86, bag and baggage, and never comes back."