Free Arena by John Jakes Page A

she is. How did you guess that?”
    “Simple. You’ve made no mention of her.”
    Wine fogged my brains more and more, and I found drunken condemnation easy. “Why I became involved with her I’ll never know. She’s greedy and cheap, like all her sisters.”
    “Your change of heart makes our escapade at Sulla’s doubly profitable. So long as the Emperor doesn’t remember your face if he sees it in the arena, that is.”
    I sobered somewhat on that thought, not only out of fear of Nero, but because Syrax’s mask had slipped again. In one hasty, flashing look I’d seen his true coldness, and the certainty that he would abandon me if bad luck brought down the Emperor’s wrath. Still, I managed to laugh. He was no more ruthless than I would be from this point on. We simply had no illusions about one another any longer.
    “Pass me the wine,” I said, trying to stand without success. “I’m not worried about Nero.”
    “A splendid attitude under the circumstances.”
    He handed over the amphora. When the prime Falernian dribbled down my chin to my chest, I paid no mind, nor did he. The wine had worked quickly in bellies still growling after a slim night meal.
    Syrax waggled a finger. “I’m pleased by your luck with the two gentlemen. I’m even more pleased you’ve cast that painted wench aside. She’d take your mind off our purpose.”
    “Exactly,” I mumbled. “Another toast to our school.”
    “Nothing’s going to stand in our way, is it, Cassius? Women. Scruples. Nothing.”
    “Nothing,” I repeated dully. Then, more loudly, “Nothing. I vow that to you, Syrax.”
    With a tipsy chuckle he grabbed the amphora and we drank ourselves to oblivion.
    Wine is a debaser of words, rendering them worthless, easily spoken and quickly forgotten. How can I properly explain that what I said to Syrax was the truth and at the same time false?
    I fully intended to keep my promise to myself, and to those heartless patricians who baited me that first fateful day. I intended to rise to the eques rank, heedless of the cost. Yet I had not told the strange, devious man fate had chosen as my partner the entire truth. Despite all I knew about her, Acte remained a memory of sweetness and peace, a curious symbol of a life exactly the opposite of the one I now planned for myself.
    Was I wrong about her? I doubted it.
    Then why did some perverse part of me keep hungering for her? Remembering her? And loving her?
    The tempo of our days at the Bestiarii School soon made such gloomy thoughts impossible.
    The lanista’s whip cracked more and more frequently. We trained from early in the morning until late in the day, drilling until we dropped. Thirty of the school’s inmates were to appear in the Imperial games.
    One drowsy, heat-muffled afternoon, Fabius was putting us through our paces with a bull and a leopard roped together. A splendid retinue appeared in the stands. I paid little mind, ready to take my turn with the animals.
    The object of the lesson was practice in dodging the thrust of the bull’s horns. Each student darted in with a sharp wooden goad, jabbed at the bullock and the leopard lashed together until both began to leap and stamp angrily. Then the student rushed between them, avoiding both the leopard’s jaws and the bull’s tossing horns until Fabius called a halt.
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    When Fabius ordered me to the center of the training ring, I stepped forward eagerly. After the animals were suitably aroused by my goad, I sprang one way, then another, dodging their clumsy attacks with ease. Dust clogged my throat. Sweat trickled down my forehead. Soon I could see little but the glinting horns and the bared fangs.
    I dove under the bullock’s barrel to avoid the leopard. Then I lurched up, grasped the horns and leaped over his head, as legend said they’d once trained youths to do on the isle of Crete. The leopard snapped, not eager to kill, merely wanting to show his irritation by eating part of my leg.
    As I bound