Free Roman Games by Bruce MacBain

man alone, centurion,” Pliny snapped. “There’s no call for that.”
    He reminded Pliny of a Greek statue he had once seen of a boxer, not in triumph but in defeat: battered, scarred, sad-eyed and infinitely weary. This fellow could have posed for it. He looked to be in his late fifties, his hair and beard grizzled. His shoulders were huge, his big-knuckled hands hung at his sides, gnarled from years of being wrapped in the cruel iron-studded thongs that boxers fought with.
    “How did your father come to own this man?” Pliny asked Lucius.
    “He served in Judaea during the revolt; legate of the Fifth Macedonica under Vespasian. Pollux here was a Zealot fighter. Thousands of them were crucified, others sent to the mines. My father brought him home, trained him as a boxer, and used to hire him out for private shows. He’s been in our familia since before I was born. After some years he begged to stop fighting, lost his heart for it I suppose. My father made him his bedroom slave instead.”
    “Why would your father entrust his life to a former rebel?
    “Why do some people keep pet panthers? It’s the kind of man my father was.”
    “You speak Latin, man?” Pliny addressed Pollux.
    The slave inclined his head ever so slightly.
    “The night your master was killed when did you take up your post?”
    “Always at the fifth hour.”
    “And was your master already in the room?”
    The slave nodded.
    “Speak when I ask you a question!” Pliny felt unaccustomed anger rising in his chest. This turbulent race with their single god who refused to live peaceably within the Empire like everyone else. Surely, they deserved what had happened to them.
    “He was inside,” answered Pollux.
    Valens snarled at him, “You’ll address the vice prefect as ‘sir.’”
    “And you were outside the door all night,” Pliny continued, “and yet you heard nothing?”
    “Nothing.” A pause. “Sir.”
    “I can have you tortured, you know.” But there were slaves, Pliny knew, who would go to the rack before they would betray their master, and one look into that brutal, battle-scarred face told him that Pollux would not yield to torture, at least not to any degree of torture that Pliny had the stomach to inflict. Anger gave way to a feeling of helplessness.
    “Take him back, centurion. I’ll question him again later.”
    He turned back to Lucius. “What’s your opinion of Pollux’s loyalty?”
    Lucius gave his characteristic gesture of indifference. “My father saved the fellow from crucifixion and promised him his freedom one day in return for good service. And as far as I know, that’s what he got.”
    “Until now, that is,” said Valens. “I’ll have the truth out of that brute in short order—”
    “What are you saying?” Pliny turned on him. “That Pollux came in here, butchered his master, drew the candlestick on the wall, dropped the dagger by the bed—all making it plain that this was an act of Jewish vengeance—and then went back and calmly took up his post again outside the door until morning?” At last he’d scored a point against this overbearing soldier. Valens frowned at the floor and said nothing.
    There was a hint of a smile on Lucius’ lips.
    Pliny turned back to the young man. “Is there anything else here we’ve overlooked? Think carefully. Any other way into this room besides the door?”
    “Well, the window, but I hardly think… Wait, though, the shutters were open. Yes, I’m sure they were. And that wasn’t my father’s habit, even on the hottest nights. He dreaded night vapors.”
    The single window was barely a foot wide by two feet high. This part of the house was raised on a tier of columns, topped by a course of overhanging eaves that surrounded the garden at the rear. Pliny crossed to the window and peered out. Ivy grew thick around the window frame.
    “We’ll go down to the garden, centurion.”
    They all trooped downstairs and looked up at Verpa’s bedroom. Strands of ivy