by Tom Holt
Compared to that, wading about in cowplop is no big deal, trust me.
'Right,' the Sicilian said, and his blokes started to come towards me. Well, I know the drill, you stand still and don't try and fight or run, don't give them any reason to get unpleasant. The thing was, did they know the drill or were they just a bunch of amateurs? Before I could find out, though, someone right behind me at the foot of the stairs said, 'What's going on?'
Didn't have to look round to know it was Amyntas' voice. Oh dear, I thought, silly sod's going to try and intervene, which means they'll probably kick the shit out of him, and that made me feel bad. I mean, it wasn't exactly a priority in the pecking order of my emotions just then, but I spared a thought for him, even so. All he'd done was save my life, introduce me to his sister, and give me a whole lot of free medical treatment, and what was he about to get in return?
Pretty unfair, I thought, though it just went to show what I'd always thought: go through life being good and kind and unselfish and helping others, and you'll end up getting your arse kicked, along with us deadbeats.
But the Sicilian raised his hand, and the heavies stayed where they were. I couldn't read his face very well, but something was bothering him. 'Hello,' he said, and he must've been talking to Amyntas, because he'd already said hello to me.
'I asked you,' Amyntas' voice said behind me, 'what you think you're doing.'
And the Sicilian didn't say a word. He just stood there, like a war memorial or something.
'Well?' Amyntas said, 'I'm waiting for an explanation.'
Me too. What I wanted to know was, why was Amyntas still alive and in one piece?
Remember, I'd seen this Sicilian order his slaves to murder Roman soldiers, for no readily apparent reason. Someone who had the forged steel balls for something like that wasn't going to be scared of one solitary Egyptian doctor. Hell, even I wasn't scared of Amyntas, and every bloody thing terrifies me.
'I need to talk to this man,' the Sicilian said eventually (and his voice was all quiet and mumbly), 'It won't take a moment, if you'll excuse us.'
Amyntas pushed past me, stood between me and the Sicilian. 'I'm afraid I can't allow that,' he said. 'I'm this gentleman's doctor, and he needs his rest, he's not to be tired out with questions. If you want to talk to him, you'll have to come back later.'
The Sicilian looked at me, then at Amyntas. 'How much later?' he asked politely 'Oh, several days,' Amyntas replied. 'He's had a very nasty bump on the head.
Overtiring himself at this stage could be very serious indeed.'
I was still reeling at the shock of hearing myself referred to as this gentleman — thoughtless bloody thing to do, people have been known to die from laughing too much — so I wasn't even trying to figure out what was going on. Something obviously was. Mob-handed psychopaths don't tend to shrivel up with terror at the sight of small Egyptian doctors unless there's a hidden subplot. But I'm not one of those people who can't be confused and happy at the same time. Far from it. Give me food or money, or stop hitting me, and you can bewilder me as much as you like.
The Sicilian sighed. 'Fine,' he said. 'We'll come back in a few days' time, then. After all, if he's as sick as you say, he won't be going anywhere in a hurry, will he?'
Amyntas lifted his head. 'Not unless his condition deteriorates,' he replied.
'In that case, obviously, I may need to take him to one of my colleagues, someone with more expertise in this field than me.
'I see,' the Sicilian said quietly. 'Is that likely, do you think?'
'Oh, you never know,' Amyntas said. 'They can be the very devil, head injuries.'
For some reason, the Sicilian didn't like that, or else he didn't like the way Amyntas had said it. Anyhow, he pulled a grim face. 'Let's hope he makes a speedy recovery,' he said. 'After all, he's my very dear friend. Aren't you Galen?'
I swallowed something that appeared to be taking up valuable space in my throat.
'I'm sorry,' I said, 'but I honestly don't know who you are.
'Really? That's sad. Oh well, never mind. I'm sure with the doctor here taking care of you, it's only a matter of time.'
One of his heavies chuckled at that. Private joke, presumably. I hate those.
'Well,' the Sicilian said, 'we'd better be getting along, then.' He made a small gesture with his hand, and the heavies backed out of the doorway He treated Amyntas to an extra special stare, then followed after them, leaving me alone with Amyntas. He frowned at me, like I'd just farted in the middle of his dinner party.
'As for you,' he said, 'I think you ought to get back to bed.'
'Really,' I said.
'Really I don't want to worry you, but perhaps you don't realise just how serious your condition is.'
And that's no lie, I said to myself. 'Oh,' I replied. 'Well, in that case, I'll get back upstairs again.'
'Good idea. I'll come with you.'
'No, really I can manage.
'Are you sure?'
'Very sure, thanks.'
Soon as I was back in my room, I went to shoot the bolt, only there wasn't one.
There were six nail holes in the woodwork, and a discoloured patch just where a bolt ought to have been, but no bolt. If I'd been paranoid, I'd have said somebody had taken the bolt off the door, and quite recently, too. But who'd do a thing like that?
There was, however, a tripod. Call it a tripod, more like a watchman's brazier, but in Rome it'd be a tripod, and two coppers a night extra on the price of the room because of it. Wonderful people, the Romans. You can't buy a second-hand hat in Rome , only heirloom-quality collectable headgear.
Anyhow, it had three legs and it was sturdy enough to do some good wedged diagonally against the door so I jammed it in place, lay down on the bed and did something I don't do often and am not very good at. I thought.
Mostly I thought, shit, and, Oh bugger, what've I got myself into? and a load of stuff along those lines. In the gaps between that sort of thought, I tried to fit in something a bit more constructive. For example, down the stairs probably wasn't going to get me anywhere, but up the stairs would bring me onto the roof. Rome being the crowded place it is, the gap between rooftops is often small enough that you can jump it, if you happen to be an Olympic athlete. But I didn't feel up to that sort of thing. I knew me, I'd be bound to trip over my feet as I jumped and end up in the street below, looking all flat and boneless, the way people do when they fall off very tall buildings. Or, I thought, I could go down a couple more floors, into one of the other rooms, and jump out of the window from a safe height. That had a certain specious charm to it, but I decided not to. I'm not a born gambler, but I was prepared to bet money the Sicilian's boys were watching the building from a discreet distance just in case anything interesting dropped out of the windows. That, unfortunately, was about as constructive as I could get, under the prevailing conditions.
I was lying there, toying with a bloody stupid idea about starting a fire as a diversion, when something went thump outside my door, followed by a curse and some unrefined language, in Greek.
'Go away,' I said. 'I've got a sword.'
'Fuck you, Galen,' Lucius Domitius replied through the timberwork. 'And open this bloody door, will you?'
I jumped off the bed like a cat hit by an apple core and wrenched the tripod out of the way One of the legs came off, which tells you all you need to know about the furniture in Roman inns.
'What the hell are you doing, barricading yourself in like that?' Lucius Domitius grumbled as I opened the door. 'I walked straight into it, expecting it to open, and I've given my nose a hell of a crack.'
'Serves you right, for barging in. Listen—'
'No,' he interrupted impatiently, 'you listen for a change. You know who I've just seen, out of my window? That maniac of a Sicilian, that's who.'
'I know,' I said, and I told him what had just happened. 'So, you see—'
'Hold on.' He lifted one hand. 'Got your memory back, then, I see.
&nbs
p; 'What? Oh, yes, it was a miracle. Aesculapius came to me in a dream and cured me.'
'Handy, that.'
'Real stroke of luck,' I agreed. 'Listen, what're we going to do? We can't stay here. It's obvious now — we weren't rescued, we were captured. We just didn't know it.'
'Quite.' Lucius Domitius nodded. 'Actually, I'd pretty much figured that out for myself before I even saw the Sicilian. For one thing, whoever heard of a doctor who'd so much as look at you without money up front? I don't know Egypt , but if they've got doctors there who pay your inn bills for you, it's a weirder place than I ever imagined. And then there's the bird, the one who's been fawning over you like a lovesick dove. Obviously that can't be genuine.'
I didn't say anything. No point in getting uptight in the middle of a crisis.
'Whatever,' I said. 'The point is, how are we going to get out of this building?'
He frowned. 'We could try walking out through the door,' he said. 'I've tried it before, several times, and it works.'
'Sure,' I said. 'And even if Amyntas lets us go—'
'You think that overgrown vol-au-vent's going to stop us? Unlikely'
'Even if Amyntas lets us go,' I repeated, 'we'll be strolling right into the welcoming arms of the Sicilian and his charm-school graduates. Let's not do that.'
'Good point.' He sat down on my bed. 'How about the window?'
'Do me a favour, we're ten stories up.
'Oh. Roof?'
'Fuck the roof.'
He nodded. 'Yes, it's a stupid idea. We could always disguise ourselves as washerwomen and get past them that way'
I sighed. 'For crying out loud,' I said.
'All right, all right, I'm brainstorming. Just let me think aloud, can't you?'
'Go on, then.'
'Can't think of anything else. I know,' he added suddenly, 'how'd it be if we started a fire, as a diversion? Just a small one, enough to make lots of smoke, but no actual—'
'No thanks. Burning to death is a horrible way to go.
'True. Well, that more or less cleans me out of bright ideas. How about you?'
I sighed. 'Same here. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.'
Wish I hadn't said that. I'm not a religious man, God knows, but even I know that saying something like that is asking for trouble. It's like walking up to the biggest, meanest bloke in the village, spitting in his drink and betting him five drachmas he can't bust your nose with one punch.
At least, with the gods, you don't generally have to wait too long before they kick you in the nuts. I'd hardly said those very stupid words, when Lucius Domitius raised his hand to shut me up, and sniffed.
Excellent nose he had. Well, excellent for smelling with, it wasn't exactly a thing of beauty or anything like that. But he could smell army-issue harness oil on a soldier's sandal ten heartbeats before the soldier came at us out of a dark corner yelling, 'Hey, you!' (A talent that'd saved our skins on at least three occasions over the years.) So when it came to precision sniffing, I was prepared to trust his judgement. 'What?' I asked.
'Something's burning,' he replied. 'The building's on fire.'
'Are you sure?'
He looked at me. 'You think I don't know what burning buildings smell like? Me, of all people? Shut up, I'm trying to—'
And then someone down the passageway started yelling, 'Fire! Fire!' He gave me one of those smug told-you-so looks, then jumped up and yelped, 'Bloody hell, the inn's on fire.'
Well, that's the gods for you. Really sick sense of humour, if you ask me, but don't tell them I said so. 'Fuck,' I said. 'Now what do we do?'
'Leave,' said Lucius Domitius, hurrying to the door and tripping over the remains of the tripod.
So we left.
Outside in the passageway it was thick smoke. Hits you like someone punching you in the guts, smoke. Suddenly you can't breathe, and everything stops while you try and find a mouthful of air from somewhere. So there I was, gasping like a landed fish, and some lunatic running down the passageway crashes into me and knocks me backwards, right onto Lucius Domitius. He falls down, the way you do, and I land on top of him. Well, it jolted the smoke out of us all right, and down on the floor there seemed to be rather more air, so that wasn't so bad. We took on supplies, as they say in the navy, and started crawling on hands and knees towards the stairs. A couple of other blokes dashed past us, luckily not tripping over us. Down below, I thought I heard Amyntas' voice yelling something, but he was the least of my worries just then. What was bothering me most of all was the thought of the Fire Brigade. Famous Roman institution: soon as there's a fire, they send out these lunatics armed with hammers and big hooks on poles, and they start puffing down the burning building so the fire won't spread to the surrounding houses. Good idea, unless you happen to be inside while they're at it.
'For God's sake,' Lucius Domitius spluttered behind me, 'can't you crawl any faster? I don't want the last thing I see in this life to be your wiggling arse.'
I was going to reply, because there's never any call to be gratuitously offensive, when some blokes came running up behind us, dragged us to our feet by the scruff, and boosted us down the passageway at a brisk trot. Not the way I'd have gone about it. I misplaced my lungful of clean air while I was being hauled up off the deck and caught a whole bunch of smoke instead. But next thing we knew we were being shoved down the stairs, into the front room (which was full of fire) and out into the street and the fresh air. Now that was good, let me tell you and I was just about to turn round and say thank you very much when someone bashed me on the head.
I hate getting knocked out. The getting bashed isn't so bad. It only lasts a split second and then you're fast asleep. The bummer's when you wake up. It feels like a really, really bad hangover, but without the fun of the truly epic piss-up the night before. And I don't suppose for one moment that Amyntas would've approved of me getting clobbered, not while I was still recovering from the last lot.
But what the hell. I opened my eyes anyway, just to see if they still worked, and I saw that I was in what looked like the dining room of a big, grand house, only it was rather the worse for wear. On the walls were the remains of some cute frescos: a bunch of blokes with no clothes on chasing some girls across a flower-carpeted meadow Sadly, the panel where they caught up with them had suffered quite a bit from the damp, and all you could see was the tops of their heads and their feet. There were enough cobwebs up in the corners of the ceiling to patch up an army after a big battle, and the dust was thick on everything.
So much for the scenery, I thought, what about me? I tried to move, but found I couldn't. Well, I didn't like that at all. You can get seriously damaged, being bashed over the head. There was a bloke in our village who was stood under a tree when some clown was up in the branches doing some heavy pruning. A log fell on his head, and he was paralysed from the neck down for the rest of his life. I was just about to panic when I realised what the problem was: I was trussed up with rope, which was why I couldn't move my arms and legs. So that was all right.
Someone next to me groaned. I managed to turn my head enough to see who it was: Lucius Domitius, needless to say, all wound round with rope like a capstan on a ship. Bloody comical he looked too, though I suppose I was just the same.
'What's happening?' I asked.
He groaned again, and said, 'How the hell should I know? Where is this, anyway?'
And then he caught sight of the blokes-and-birds fresco and said, 'Hang on.
'What?'
'I know where we are. This is Cassius Longinus' house. I came to dinner here once.'
'Wonderful,' I said. 'Who's Cassius Longinus, and what're we doing in his house?'
'No idea. Only, it's not his house any more. He's dead.'
'You're sure of that, are you?'
'Positive. I ordered his execution.'
That wasn't what I wanted to hear. 'Well, it was his own fault,' Lucius Domitius gabbled on. 'He was plotting against me, absolutely no question a
bout it, I saw the evidence and it was clear as daylight. It was me or him, and—'
'Listen,' I said, 'I don't give a stuff about some dead Roman. I don't give a stuff why you had him killed. Just a pity you didn't kill the lot of 'em while you were at it, if you ask me. What I want to know is, did he have a large family? Lots of friends? Anybody who might bear a grudge?'
He thought about it for a moment. 'Probably,' he said. 'Very popular man, I suppose that's why they thought he'd be a good choice for someone to overthrow me. Oh, I see,' he added, 'you're thinking that whoever brought us here—'
For crying out loud, I thought, I've seen statues who were quicker on the uptake. 'That's right,' I said. 'Which is why I asked the bloody question.'
Long, awkward silence as both of us realised that, even if we had figured out who it was who'd nabbed us, there was very little we could do about it, trussed up like carpets. 'Well,' Lucius Domitius said eventually, 'at least we weren't burned to death in the fire.'
I'd forgotten about the fire. Straight up. Only a short time before, we'd been moments away from a horrible death trapped in a burning building, the kind of situation honest folk have nightmares about, and what with one thing and another it'd slipped my mind, like a second cousin's birthday It's what happens when you're having nasty adventures all the time. You get absentminded.
'Sure,' I said. 'It's like surrendering to the enemy and winding up getting fed to the lions. I mean,' I went on, 'if this Cassius person wants to see us dead, why didn't he just leave us in there to fry? Too much time on his hands, obviously'