by Vox Day
What sort of fighting man could not be bought by man or elf?
Magnus reached over, took the bell from the table, and shook it. The bronze clang had barely stopped when a servant came rushing into the room and nearly collided with him, taken by surprise at his presence out of his recliner.
“Find Lucipor,” he commanded. “I want him now. And bring that fool of a son of mine too. He may be useful for once, as hard as that is to imagine.”
The slave bowed and ran off.
He did not, Magnus noted with mild irritation, seem to feel any need to inquire as to which of his sons the senator required.
• • •
Marcus awoke with a start. He sat up on his sweat-damped pallet. The sun was already risen, and a few rays of morning lightened the shadows cast by the thick walls of the domus. Looking around, he discovered that he was alone in the cubiculum, though he did not know if Marcipor had risen before him or, as seemed more likely, had not returned to the Valerian compound last night.
One of the house slaves brought him a bowl of water upon request. After he washed his face and hands, he determined to go to the baths as soon as he’d broken his fast. It might well be his last opportunity to do so in quite some time.
He found Sextus already in the triclinium, sprawled in front of a low table laden with fruit, bread, and meat left over from the night before. He was idly feeding his dog, a curly-tailed mongrel he’d acquired off the streets the year before. “You’re up late,” Sextus commented as he popped a piece of orange into his mouth.
“Yes.” Marcus wasn’t hungry, he realized. He’d eaten rather a lot after speaking with his uncle and his mother.
“How did Aunt Julia take the news of your departure?”
“Placidly.” Marcus ignored the accusatory tone, somewhat surprised that Magnus had seen fit to inform Sextus of his upcoming travels. “Her eyes were dry.”
“Another Aelia, she is,” Sextus said wryly, then laughed. “You don’t understand the benefit of a father gone campaigning and a mother uninterested in your affairs, Marcus. I wish Magnus would leave me alone like that. He’s even forbidden me to ride out with you, although I suppose you’ll have that sorry excuse of a slave to keep you company.”
Marcus flicked a grape at his cousin. “You can’t honestly tell me that you’d abandon Amorr for a long ride through the wilds of Merithaim, Sextus. You do realize that I’m part of an official Church embassy. There won’t be any gambling or girl-chasing, and I don’t recall ecclesiastical debate being one of your favorite pastimes.”
“Chance is everywhere, my dear boy. And wherever there are guards, there you will find men who roll the bones. As for girls, I daresay that Elebrion is full of them!” Sextus’s eyes gleamed wickedly. “Elven girls. I’ve only seen one or two, but they were lovely. Gorgeous! Tall, slender, skin like milk. If you look past the pointy ears and the haughty attitude, why, they might be Vargeyar maidens, and there’s no harm in that!”
“No harm? You wouldn’t survive your first day there. You’d make love to the first sorceress you saw and find yourself turned into a toad before nightfall.”
Sextus paid him no heed. “Perhaps I shall marry two of them, no, three, actually, and found a new Pannonia. It’s a pity there aren’t more half-elves around these days. Why did we kill them all, do you happen to remember?”
“To spare their women your unseemly lusts,” Marcus said dryly. He removed a piece of meat from the table, examined it, and tossed it to Sextus’s dog. The ugly beast snapped the morsel down with noisy relish. “I have in mind to go to the baths today, since I don’t think I’ll find one along the Malkanway. Care to join me?”
“Gladly.” Sextus raised a small pouch from under his couch. “We can do that after we take care of this. I have orders to drag you off to the Arena. Believe it or not, that’s what got me out of aiding with the sportulae today. No fights, unfortunately, but since Magnus has correctly ascertained that you and Marce are able to defend yourselves about as well as a pair of declawed kittens, I’ve orders to take you to the stables and buy you a bodyguard capable of protecting your virtue from those hot-blooded elven slatterns.”
“The Arena? A bodyguard … Do you mean a gladiator?”
“Uh, yes. I know you’ve never been, but you do know what they are, right? Big, bloody-minded brutes, usually knock about trying to kill each other?”
“Why would I need a bodyguard? If the Sanctiff sent six Redeemed to bring me home last night, I’m sure he will ensure that his ambassadors are well guarded in our travels.”
“That’s the problem. I think Magnus wants to make sure there’s someone who couldn’t care less about the perfumed princes of the Church and will remember to keep an eye on the embassy’s most junior member.”
Marcus shrugged. That made sense, he supposed, although he found it hard to believe that he could possibly be in any real danger. Except, of course, from the elven king. But if High King Mael decided to attack the embassy, one more bodyguard would hardly make a difference.
• • •
By the time they reached the gladiator stables in the shadow of the Colosseo, Marcus was pleased to step into the dark, low-ceilinged building just to get out of the sun.
His pleasure lasted only a moment; the smell of sweat, leather, and blood was so strong it almost made him reel as he looked around the interior of the wooden structure. Plaques and weapons adorned the walls, separated by the occasional rude shelf holding bronze and silver cups that Marcus supposed were trophies.
Seated at a makeshift desk was a big man laboriously attempting to write numbers on ascroll. They soon learned this was the training master working at his accounts. While the big man raised his eyebrows at Sextus’s request to purchase a gladiator, he was clearly annoyed when Sextus asked to see only dwarves, and only those dwarves fighting under the aegis of the Red faction.
The time it took to summon them seemed like an eternity in that dark and odorous place, but finally the master begrudgingly presented nine of the stocky, broad-shouldered creatures. Marcus quickly realized the man’s attitude derived from his correct notion that a quick sale was not in order. None of the nine would make for a good travel companion. These dwarves were bitter, angry individuals, degraded into a near-bestial state by the harsh oppression of their slavery.
“Perhaps one of the other factions might have dwarves as well?” Marcus suggested hopefully as the last of the sneering, scowling gladiators was escorted back to the factional cells.
“Not a one,” said the training master. He was a tall, powerfully built man with a terrible scar across the left side of his face. “Whites don’t take breeds. Greens do, but they usually go in for orcs and gobbos, and those don’t mix real well with dwarves. Blues had twelve until last week, but they all got killed in the re-creation of the IronMountain siege.”
“I saw that!” Sextus said. “It was incredible. Especially that catapult they built—for a moment there I thought they were going to turn it on the crowd! Say, why do you shave their beards?”
“Reminds ’em where they are. Reminds ’em what they are.” The training master looked appraisingly at Marcus and Sextus, possibly wondering what these two wealthy young masters would want with dwarves in the first place. “They forget sometimes, else.”
“Are these all you’ve got?” Marcus said. He was doing his best to keep the distaste off his face. Not for the dwarves, for whom he only felt pity, but for the training master. “Isn’t there anyone else?”
The training master shrugged. “There’s two more up in the infirmary. I don’t know what you want with a dwarf, but neither one is up to putting up much of a fight. Unless that’s what you want, of course.”
Marcus stared at the man in disbelief. Fortunately, Sextus grabbed his arm and squeezed it before he could open his mouth. What did the man think they were, a pair of decadent thrill killers?
But then, this was Amorr, after all, and not even its public dedication to the Lord God Almighty
enabled it to escape man’s fallen nature. For every saint, there were ten sinners, and for every man genuinely devoted to faith, good works, and charity, there were three given over to the worst forms of depravity and sadistic decadence. No doubt this man, laboring as he did in this terrible place, saw the evil side of man far more often than its reverse.
“Take ’em back,” the training master said to an overmuscled pair of assistants. Then he beckoned toward Marcus and Sextus. “Follow me. I’ll take you to the ones in the infirmary. They’re both good fighters, but one was lamed in the last spectacle, and the other one took a pretty good stick in the ribs.”
They followed him up the stairs and into what could easily have passed for one of the lower circles of hell.
The one-room infirmary was dark. It stank of disease and decades of blood dripping from the wounded and dying to soak into the wood of the floor. Marcus was appalled, and he saw even Sextus swallow hard at the olfactory assault on their senses. There were forty beds. A third of them were full, attended by only one slack-jawed attendant who appeared half-witted, at best.
“We keep them alive if we can,” the training master said, not blind to the reaction of his visitors. “Doesn’t pay to let them die before their time, you know. And it’s not every stable that puts poppy seed in the wine to take the edge off the pain.”
Marcus resisted the urge to point out that the man was in the business of sending these poor creatures out to die. Still, it was true: there was none of the moaning and thrashing that Marcus would have expected from such a sad collection of maimed and maltreated individuals. Most were unconscious. The two or three who were not seemed to be lost in a dreamy state that left them blessedly unaware of their surroundings. Marcus did his best to avoid looking directly at any of the ghastly injuries, but even so he saw far more than he would have wished.
The training master stopped at the bedside of a grim-faced dwarf with deep-set eyes, orange-red hair, and a somber mien. He blinked in apparent surprise at being approached.
“This here’s Lodi,” the training master said. “He took a goblin spear in the side six days ago. But he’s a tough old wardog. Took down four or five goblins and two orcs by hisself, just in that one fight alone. He’s left-handed, likes a warhammer—no surprise—but he’s not too shabby with a blade, neither. Not all that quick, but he’s patient and makes for a mean counterfighter. What do you have, Lodi, eighteen wins?”
“Twenty-three,” the dwarf answered in a deep, cracked voice. It sounded as if he had not spoken in days, which was quite possibly the case considering the level of neglect here. His eyes were glazed with either exhaustion or poppy seed, but he was coherent. “What do you want?”
“A bodyguard,” Marcus answered, stepping forward and meeting the dwarf’s eyes.
Those eyes were dark with suffering, yet contained none of the hatred or helpless fury that so indelibly marked the rest of his kin. There was a week’s growth of reddish stubble covering his face, but it was clear that not even being clean-shaven had caused this dwarf to forget that he had once been free. Blood had seeped through the dirty bandage on his side, some time ago from the dark, crusted look of it, and there was no sign of green or yellow discharge.
“Can you ride with that?”
“Won’t make for much of a bodyguard, I’d say,” Sextus commented.
The dwarf’s eyes narrowed. “A bodyguard?”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “I’m going on a journey and will require one.”
“Will that get me out of here?” the dwarf asked, glancing at the training master, who nodded. “You’ll have to tie me to the beast, I think, but you’ll hear no complaints from me, even if it chafes me raw.”
“Or you bleed to death?”
The dwarf turned his head toward Sextus. “It takes more than a scratch from an orc to kill a dwarf. I’ll live, and I’ll keep your friend alive too.”
Sextus glanced at Marcus and shrugged. If nothing else, the dwarf was certainly tough, and it was hard not to admire his determination.
“How much?” Marcus asked the training master.
“And we’ll expect a discount, of course,” Sextus said. “You have to admit, he’s not quite in what you’d call prime condition.”
IA Q. VII A. I ARG. II
Praeterea, homines in imagine Dei et ad similitudinem Dei creati sunt. Aelvi in imagine Dei et ad similitudinem Dei non creati sunt. Ergo aelvi habent animae naturaliter sibi unita.
THE SUN HAD not yet risen, but Marcus was amazed by the number of clients that were already waiting in the courtyard of the Valerian house. On a normal morning there were perhaps twenty-five or thirty men of quality gathered to perform their daily ritual of paying homage to the great man and collecting their daily benefice. But today there appeared to be twice that number, even discounting the numerous household and stable slaves who were busily arranging saddlebags, checking horseshoes, and otherwise preparing Barat and the other three horses that he, Marcipor, and Lodi would take on their long journey to Elebrion.
Magnus himself had not yet appeared, but the collection of clients, some important, some insignificant, stirred nevertheless at Marcus’s approach.
One elderly man, a senator judging by the broad red stripe that marked his black tunic, was the first to greet him as the others fell back in honor of his rank, pressing a small leather bag into his hand. “We shall pray without ceasing for your mission, Marcus Valerius. Take this. It shall stand you in good stead, and may the hand of the Purified be upon you!”
“Thank you, Senator,” Marcus bowed to the nobleman and stared quizzically at the bag.
“It is the knucklebone of Saint Ansfrid of Tolanon. It is said to be a powerful rebuke to the elvish sorceries. I hardly think it likely to be of much use here in Amorr, but perhaps you may find it otherwise.”
Marcus, surprised, thanked the senator warmly, but before he could even inquire as to his name, the quiet murmuring of the waiting men abruptly rose to a hail of shouted greetings as Magnus at last deigned to grace his clients with his presence.
The great man was flanked by his three favorites as well as Lautus, his chief purser. All four slaves were carrying a quantity of velvet purses that Marcus assumed held the morning’s sportula. His uncle held up a hand, though, and the crowd fell quickly silent, although one wag in a threadbare tunic drew some chuckles when he cried out, “You’re too late, Magnus—we’re here to pay our respects to the young dominus!”
Magnus smiled thinly, visibly unamused. He gestured at Dompor, who placed one of the red purses he was carrying into Magnus’s hand. There was a clink of coins as Magnus flicked his wrist and the importunate client just managed to catch the small bag with both hands before it struck him in the face.
Amidst the laughter of his fellows, the man weighed the bag with an expression of surprise on his face, then he bowed deeply to Magnus as those around him realized that he’d been rewarded for his cheek instead of scorned. They cheered Magnus for his generosity.
“It’s a pity you don’t have the wisdom to accompany your wit, Gaius Trachalas,” Magnus admonished him. “Now, do buy yourself a cloak and a new tunic. I should be extremely disappointed to hear that you managed to lose everything at the arena before nightfall.”
“I hear and obey, dominus!”
The crowd of clients laughed. Clearly Gaius Trachalas was not unpopular despite his poverty.
Magnus did not allow them to greet him as was the usual custom. Instead he beckoned Marcus to join him, then as Marcus hastened to obey, he slipped a meaty arm around Marcus’s shoulders and gestured toward the center of the city as he addressed the throng.
“Today, my friends, I ask that you do me the honor of accompanying my nephew and I to the Quadratus Albus, where the Sanctiff will be offering a public mass on behalf of an embassy to Elebrion, which departs this morning. You need not greet me now, but do join us, and one of my men shall be sure to attend to you as we walk.”
As his clients noisily compet
ed to be the most enthusiastic about the morning’s departure from the ordinary routine, Magnus pressed Marcus forward. The men, senators and artisans alike, parted like the waves of a black sea before a twin-hulled vessel.
The gates were already open, and a pair of armored slaves waiting there smoothly wheeled and took their places at the front of the unruly formation, each bearing a long wooden stave for use in clearing out a path for Magnus lest the crowds around the Quadratus obstruct his way. Many of Amorr’s nobles used litters borne by six, eight, or sometimes even twelve slaves, but despite his girth, Magnus, being long accustomed to all-day marches with the legions, preferred to walk.
“Gaius Trachalas’s gibes notwithstanding, it is you they honor today, lad.”
“Me?” Marcus was confused. He had little to his name, and certainly nothing worth giving an already wealthy client.
“Our house, if you prefer. I am House Valerius today, Marcus. Your father, perhaps, tomorrow. But in the weeks and years to come, it may well be the young pup who has already drawn the attention of Amorr’s mighty that shall be the dominus to whom they apply for their supper. And then, of course, they are curious.”
“Do you know, uncle, a senator gave me a saint’s relic before you appeared. A bald man, of some years.”
“Did he? Ah, that would be Publius Hosidius. A wise man, and quite right to be concerned for your health. That’s why I wished to speak with you now, as there will be no opportunity after the mass. Now listen to me. You’ll find a letter in your saddlebags that Lucipor wrote out. There’s more detail in it, but what you must understand above all is that there is a very good opportunity that you will be in danger once you reach Elebrion.”
“In danger? Me?”
“Yes, that’s why I bought you the gladiator. The dwarf. I’d have preferred to send more along with you, but that would have attracted too much attention.”
“From whom, the elves?”