Arena (11 page)

“No. I was born a freedman. I bound myself over.”

I proceeded to tell her a bit of my history. During the time, she sat beside me on the bench, a good five hands’ breadths away, but sufficiently close for me to catch the scent of her skin and the subtle warmth of her body. Another jot of wine and I talked more freely still.

The blind Thracian girl slipped in and deposited a platter of steamed fowl. The fare went untasted as I talked on, growing less gruff with every drink. Through the veil of wine the telltale signs of Locusta’s age softened. All at once I realized I was gazing at her, but seeing Acte.

Painfully I forced the girl from my mind. But her image returned over and over, strangely sorrowful. I finished my account with difficulty.

“A grim life,” Locusta murmured. “But listening to you describe your ambition, I can almost believe you’ll realize it someday. You’re strong. You have an imposing face. No, don’t bother to reply. I am not in a position that requires me to flatter a man like you.”

“Of that I’m sure. It’s said you have the Emperor’s favor.”

Once again green devils danced in her eyes. “Yes. I felt we’d get round to that.”

“The tales of poison are common gossip in the streets, Locusta. How can you escape them?”

“Why, I don’t try,” she said merrily. “You, though, Cassius. What do you think of such tales?”

“Whether they’re true? I never concerned myself over them before. Should I?”

She touched my face. “That depends on how long our mutual interest lasts. As yet, I’ve had no indication except from watching you fight. Seeing your body work smoothly and well. How can I be sure either of us will want to see the other again after tonight? Perhaps I won’t even know after tonight is over,” she finished. Her meaning was unmistakable.

I threw back her stare. “I think you’ll know.”

She clapped her hands in delight. “Good! I warn you, though, Cassius. I meet many men. Some are fools. Some aren’t worthy of the name. The carrion normally found in the arena are good examples of the former. The filthy creatures who guard the Temple are good examples of the second. If it turns out you’re either of those types, I might as well send you back to Fabius.”

I caught my breath at the way her round breasts strained. “I’m not the second. I’m sure I can prove that to your satisfaction.”

“Time enough for that. We were discussing poison.”

“What sort of poison? The kind that killed Claudius and his son Brittanicus, Nero’s rival?”

“Those kinds will do. Well?”

“I have no opinion on the rumors, Locusta. That’s because they are rumors, nothing more.”

“What if I confirmed the rumors? Told you that I, a single woman, really do enjoy a considerable amount of favor with that petulant boy who rules us? Would you wonder how on earth I came into such lucky circumstances?”

“Naturally.”

“So if I admit I enjoy favors from Nero, do I strengthen your opinion about the rumors?”

Annoyed at her teasing, I shook my head. “Opinions don’t matter. If, however, you told me everything yourself —”

“That,” she broke in quickly, “a lady of discretion would never do.”

There was a kind of hellish joy glittering in her eyes now, a depraved pleasure that ought to have warned me off. For she was admitting with her glance that she had worked with Agrippina and her son Nero, perhaps secured poisons with the aid of agents of her cult in the East. She was admitting she had killed men, and showing amusement over it.

Would she kill again? I wondered with a chill. I supposed she would, if it served a purpose. But I
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reminded myself that she was comfortably settled, and all she wanted, it seemed, was a lover who suited her. I would be content in that role.

Locusta indicated the impressive array of dishes set out.

“Don’t you care for dinner?”

“I was fed at the school.” I smiled slowly. “And the stars up there above the roof are moving all the time. Why should I waste one night of freedom on gluttony?”

Suddenly she moved against me. Her firm nakedness burned through the silken gown and the thin cloth of my tunic. Her jade eyes lifted, fired with the same lust that must have smoldered in them when she danced before the Earth Mother. She placed her arms around my neck, teasing my lips with a quick kiss.

“Cassius, there are different sorts of gluttony.”

“Yes, Locusta.” I gazed down at her thrusting breasts. “Yes, there are.”

Again she gave me her moist, painted mouth. But briefly, saying, “Another good sign. You’ve no idea how long I’ve searched for a man who combines a little wit with a little strength. An ordinary peasant from the arena wouldn’t begin to understand that simple-minded joke I just made. Are you sure you understand —?”

Tired of her teasing, I proved I did, pulling her tight, my arms around her back. She kissed me fiercely, using her open mouth like a weapon to bruise mine. There was a wildness in her caresses that excited me, turned me rough when she drew me to one of the Spartan sleeping rooms off the peristyle.

Dim lamps flickered through the hangings, touching her coppery hair with fire. Greenish eyes wide, she pulled my head down to kiss her full, pink-ended and shaking breasts.

Fiercely her fingers crawled along my back. She dragged me into an embrace that was not gentle but more like an attack, an angry, violent wrenching and straining.

Her back, her thighs moved and trembled with enjoyment as I bedded her there in the whispering dark of the Earth Mother’s house. My senses reeled when she bit my lips and moaned, louder and louder, crying strange savage words in Greek until at last, with one piercing cry, she sank her teeth into my shoulder while our bodies shuddered away to quiet.

Little love or joy had gone into the union. I knew it as I lay in the dark with Locusta’s hair spread on my shoulder and her mouth murmuring sleepily near my ear about my proficiency as a lover.

I felt strangely spent and hollow, as though what we’d done was entirely without significance.

“Cassius, my dear? If I continue to find you appealing, there’s almost no limit to the honors I can help you attain. For one, how would you like to be invited to perform not for the rabble but for the Emperor himself?”

“Of course I’d like that.”

“Well, as you must know, Nero stagesludi privati quite often. To be selected as feature performer at such private games would be a higher step than you might manage for yourself in years of trying. I can —”

The scream came from the peristyle.

“No! You may not enter! My mistress says —”

“What your mistress says is of no damned importance, wench,” a rough voice yelled.

“Knock the blind pig out of the way!” another, oddly familiar voice bawled.

Locusta leaped up. She flung her gown around her. There was cold rage on her face, turning her old suddenly. She stormed into the peristyle.

“That sickening voice has sounded in my ear once too often!”

I grabbed my tunic and stumbled after her. I blundered into the peristyle as the blind Thracian girl’s screams dwindled to helpless sobs. Three good-sized slaves, all armed with short swords, waited on the far side of the pool. Another was just delivering a vicious kick to the belly of the fallen blind girl. Out in the Temple garden the Galli set up a frightened row in their squeaking voices. Then, from a clot of shadow behind the strange slaves, lurched the Sicilian horse-breeder.

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His toga was wine-spotted, his eyes ugly. “I had to thrash a few of those simpering priests to get in here, Locusta,” Tigellinus said. “But thrash them I did. I heard you were entertaining a lover tonight. You conniving, red-haired bitch!”

“Horse-breeder, you’re drunk. Disgustingly drunk,” Locusta exclaimed. But rather than flying at him in anger, she was abruptly calm. She hurried to his side. “Haven’t I told you that when the time is right, I’ll invite you here in style? Tonight is not the night. I realize I may have led you on a little at the games this afternoon —”

“Led me on!” Tigellinus snorted. “You were far more explicit than that. Yet the moment I try to make any arrangements, you shy away. You — never mind. I didn’t come here to argue with you.” He brushed her aside, stumbled toward the pool and upset a bench. “Where’s your lover?

Let’s see the kind of man you prefer over me.”

Tense and angry, I stepped from the shadow of a colonnade. “Here, Tigellinus.”

The Sicilian’s eyes focused with difficulty. He swiped a hand across his lips, blinking and muttering to himself. “What’s this? A slave, from all appearances. Somehow I’m sure I’ve seen — Ye gods! The arrogant pup from the Bestiarius School! And he was in the arena today, wasn’t he? By heaven, I thought I recognized —” Tigellinus stopped, chuckling. “Well. Well, well. My young friend, I remember how you cost me a lot of money on Horus the Egyptian. I’m sorry to say your career has just come to an inglorious end. No magistrate in Rome will punish me for killing you.”

With a skewering motion of his finger he signaled for his quartet of slaves to do their work.

Like inhuman things they all began to walk forward at once. Their short swords shone. Before they had taken five steps, I moved.

I closed my hands on a bronze salver and sailed it through the air. The edge caught the first slave in the side of the head. He stumbled, cursing.

“Attack him!” Tigellinus shrieked. “Attack him, you dung, or I’ll flay the hide off you!”

Cold in my belly, I grabbed the next handy object, a wine jar. I threw it square at the head of the second slave. He fended it with a clang of his sword. Locusta grasped Tigellinus’ arm with one hand and slapped his cheek smartly with the other.

“That’s enough, you ill-tempered fool! I won’t tolerate hired assassins in my house! Meddle any further in my affairs, and you’ll lose any chance you ever had of getting what you want!”

Over her shoulder the Sicilian glowered at me. The slaves waited. Tigellinus began, “Remember, woman, I have influence —”

“Care to test yours against mine?” Locusta countered.

“You’re bluffing,” Tigellinus snarled.

“Am I? Shall we go to the Palatine this moment? Waken the Emperor? Have him settle this dispute?”

Tigellinus chewed his lip and changed his tack. “Locusta, I won’t stand for being humiliated by a common criminal from the arena!”

“You’ll be more than humiliated,” I shouted at him, my temper out of bounds. “You’ll be killed, bug-eyes.”

Locusta whirled on me. “Be quiet! Don’t make matters worse.”

Tigellinus laughed, or more properly, snorted. The sound broke the tension of the moment.

The slaves picked themselves up. One threw me a half-grin, as if to say it was nothing personal.

Locusta treated Tigellinus to a slow, bedazzling smile, the same kind of smile that had gleamed up at me while we made love. Politely, but firmly she tugged the Sicilian’s arm.

“Come with me, Tigellinus. Bring your man. This way, into the atrium.”

“I don’t see why you constantly put me off, Locusta. I am a man of position, wealth —”

“Let’s discuss it where there are not so many ears to hear,” she wheedled.

My anger quickened again. Her glance at me as she left indicated I was not worth bothering about. Firmly she directed Tigellinus out of the peristyle, coaxing, laughing low. The slaves followed.

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Restlessly I paced beside the pool. I swigged more wine. After what seemed an interminable time, the voices in the atrium faded. An outer door slammed. Locusta appeared, looking pleased.

“Why the black glare, Cassius? I got rid of him, didn’t I?”

“Do you always make arrangements with your next lover in front of your current one?”

She pressed against me. “Cassius, Cassius! What an idiot you are! Do you really think I could bear to have that overweight frog touch me? I didn’t want his men to kill you on the spot. I gave him some vague promises about visiting me later, to persuade him to leave. But I think he means to settle with you,” she added gloomily. “Be careful of him, Cassius. He’s dangerous, in the way only stupid men can be.”

“Why do you flatter such a wretch?” I demanded.

Her expression grew surprised, then cold. “Look here. He’s one of the most important men in Rome today.”

“According to whom? Himself?”

“No, you simpleton. The Emperor.”

“You dared him to go before the Emperor, didn’t you?”

“Wild bluff and he knew it. He chose to give in in the hope that I may one day — ah — do the same.” Her maliciously triumphant smile faded out. “Frankly, I wouldn’t care to match my power against his. I might win, but I might lose. I prefer to use other methods to get my way.”

“Like promising yourself to him?”

In exasperation she sat down and pulled me to a place beside her. “One thing you’ll have to learn, Cassius, beast-man. That is the location of power in the society you intend to invade. The power lies not with the Senators, for all their impassioned oratory about liberty for the mob. It lies with the army. More specifically, with the Praetorian Guard. Tigellinus’ good and faithful friend Gaius Julius —”

“The tribune,” I interrupted wearily. “Yes, I’ve encountered him too.”

“So Tigellinus said. Julius commands the most powerful of all the Praetorian cohorts, the one quartered on the Palatine. In theory the Senate raises an Emperor to the throne. But the Palatine Praetorians really hold the key. They can remove an Emperor with the cut of a sword in the night. They can hold the Palatine Hill against all attackers if they wish, until they get a new Princeps who suits them. It’s common knowledge that Nero chafes under the restraints placed on him by the current Praetorian Prefect, Burrus. Should the path be suddenly — let’s say cleared — Tigellinus and his faction, including the tribune Julius, might become the most powerful men in Rome overnight.”

“And that’s why you’d take Tigellinus for a lover?”

“Of course. Pleasure with a man is one thing. Maintaining my position is another. Luckily I have one means to reach both ends. I wheedled Tigellinus out of his drunken rage simply because I believe in playing all possible sides against one another to best advantage.”