A Gladiator Dies Only Once Read online

  “Did you get a racing card?” Lucius held up a wooden tablet. Many in the stands were using them to fan themselves; all around the red-and-white checkered stadium, I saw the flutter of racing cards.

  “No?” said Lucius. “Never mind, you can refer to mine. Let’s see, first race of the day … ” The cards listed each charioteer, his color, and the name of the lead horse in his team of four. “Principal Red: Musclosus, racing Ajax—a hero of a horse, to be sure! Second-string Red: Epaphroditus, racing a five-year-old called Spots—a new horse to me. For the Whites: Thallus, racing Suspicion, and his colleague Teres, racing Snowy. Now there’s a silly name for a horse, don’t you think, even if it is pure white. More suitable for a puppy, I should think—by Hercules, is that the starting trumpet?”

  The four chariots leaped out of their traps and onto the track. Once past the white line, they furiously vied for the inner position alongside the spine that ran down the middle. Clouds of dust billowed behind them. Whips slithered and cracked as they made the first tight turn around the post at the end of the spine and headed back. The Reds were in the lead, with Epaphroditus the second-stringer successfully blocking the principal White to give his colleague a clear field, while the second-string White trailed badly, unable to assist. But in seven laps, a great deal could happen.

  Lucius jumped up and down on his pillow. All around us, spectators began to place wagers with one another on the outcome.

  “I’m for Snowy!” shouted the man across the aisle from Lucius.

  A man several rows down turned and shouted back. “The second-string White? Are you mad? I’ll wager you ten to one against Snowy winning. How much?”

  Such is the Roman way of gambling at the races: inspired by a flash of intuition and done on the spur of the moment, usually with a stranger sitting nearby. I smiled at Lucius, whose susceptibility to such spontaneous wagering was a running joke between us. “Care to join that wager, Lucius?”

  “Uh . .. no,” he answered, peering down at the track. Under his breath, I heard him mutter, “Come on, Ajax! Come on!”

  But Ajax did not win. Nor did the long-shot Snowy. By the final lap, it was Suspicion, the principal White, who had pulled into the lead, with no help from the second-string White, who remained far in the rear. It was a stunning upset. Even the Red partisans in the crowd cheered such a marvelous display of Fortune’s favor.

  “A good thing you didn’t bet on Ajax,” I said to Lucius. He only grunted in reply and peered at his racing card.

  As race followed race, it seemed to me that I had never seen Lucius so horse-mad, jumping up in excitement at each starting trumpet, cheering jubilantly when his favored horse won, but more often sulking when his horse lost, and yet never once placing a bet with anyone around us. He repeatedly turned his racing card over and scribbled figures on the back with a piece of chalk, muttering and shaking his head.

  I was distracted by my friend’s fidgeting, and even more by the statuelike demeanor of Decimus Brutus, who sat stiffly beside his colleague in the consular box. He was so still that I wondered if he had gone to sleep; with such poor eyesight, it was no wonder he had no interest in watching the races. Surely, I thought, no assassin would be so bold as to make an attempt on the life of a consul in broad daylight, with dozens of bodyguards and thousands of witnesses all around. Still, I was uneasy, and kept scanning the crowd for any signs of something untoward.

  With so much on my mind, along with a persistent headache from the previous night’s wine, I paid only passing attention to the races. As each winner was announced, the names of the horses barely registered in my ears: Lightning, Straight Arrow, Bright Eyes.

  At last, it was time for the final race, in which Diocles would compete. A cheer went up as he drove his chariot toward the starting traps.

  His horses were arrayed in splendid red trappings. A gold-plumed crest atop her head marked his lead horse, Sparrow, a tawny beauty with magnificent flanks. Diocles himself was outfitted entirely in red, except for a necklace of white. I squinted. “Lucius, why should Diocles be wearing a scrap of anything white?”

  “Is he?”

  “Look, around his neck. Your eyes are as sharp as mine …” “Pearls,” declared Lucius. “Looks like a string of pearls. Rather precious for a charioteer.”

  I nodded. Diocles had not been wearing them in the opening procession. It was the sort of thing a charioteer might put on for luck just before his race—a token from his lover .. .

  Down in his box, Decimus Brutus sat as stiffly as ever, displaying no reaction. With his eyesight, there was little chance that he had noticed the necklace.

  The trumpet blared. The chariots sprang forward. Diocles took the lead at once. The crowd roared. Diocles was their favorite; even the Whites loved him. I could see why. He was magnificent to watch. He never once used his whip, which stayed tucked into his belt the whole time, alongside his emergency dagger. There was magic in Diocles that day. Man and horses seemed to share a single will; his chariot was not a contraption but a creature, a synthesis of human control and equine speed. As he held and lengthened his lead lap after lap, the crowd’s excitement grew to an almost intolerable pitch. When he thundered across the finish line there was not a spectator sitting. Women wept. Men screamed without sound, hoarse from so much shouting.

  “Extraordinary!” declared Lucius.

  “Yes,” I said, and felt a sudden flash of intuition, a moment of godsent insight such as gamblers crave. “Diocles is a magnificent racer. What a pity he should have fallen into such a scheme.”

  “What? What’s that you say?” Lucius cupped his ear against the roar of the crowd.

  “Diocles has everything: skill, riches, the love of the crowd. He has no need to cheat.” I shook my head. “Only love could have drawn him into such a plot.”

  “A plot? What are you saying, Gordianus? What is it you see?”

  “I see the pearls around his neck—look, he reaches up to touch them while he makes his victory lap. How he must love her. What man can blame him for that! But to be used by her in such a way … “

  “The plot? Deci! Is Deci in danger?” Lucius peered down at the consular box. Even Decimus Brutus, ever the ingratiating politician, had risen to his feet to applaud Diocles along with the rest of the crowd.

  “I think your friend Decimus Brutus need not fear for his life. Unless the humiliation might kill him.”

  “Gordianus, what are you talking about?”

  “Tell me, Lucius, why have you not wagered even once today? And what are those numbers you keep figuring on the back of your racing card?”

  His florid face blushed even redder. “Well, if you must know, Gordianus, I… I’m afraid I.. . I’ve lost rather a lot of money today.”

  “How?”

  “Something … something new. A betting circle … set up by perfectly respectable people.” “You wagered ahead of time?”

  “I put a little something on each race. Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? If you know the horses, and you place your bet on the best team ahead of time, with a cool head, rather than during the heat of the race …”

  “Yet you’ve lost over and over today, far more often than you’ve won.”

  “Fortune is fickle.”

  I shook my head. “How many others are in this ‘betting circle’?”

  He shrugged. “Everyone I know. Well, everyone who is anyone. Only the best people—you know what I mean.”

  “Only the richest people. How much money did the organizers of this betting scheme take in today, I wonder? And how much will they actually have to pay out?”

  “Gordianus, what are you getting at?”

  “Lucius, consult your racing card. You’ve noted all the winners with a chalk mark. Read them off to me—not the color or the driver, just the horses’ names.”

  “Suspicion—that was the first race. Then Lightning… Straight Arrow … Bright Eyes. .. Golden Dagger .. . Partridge … Oh! By Hercules! Gordianus, you don’t think—that
item in the Daily …”

  I quoted from memory. ” ‘The bookworm pokes his head outside tomorrow. Easy prey for the sparrow, but partridges go hungry. Bright-eyed Sappho says: Be suspicious! A dagger strikes faster than lightning. Better yet: an arrow. Let Venus conquer all!’ From ‘Sappho’ to ‘Sparrow,’ a list of horses—and every one a winner.”

  “But how could that be?”

  “I know this much: Fortune had nothing to do with it.”

  I left the crowded stadium and hurried through the empty streets. Decimus Brutus would be detained by the closing ceremonies. I had perhaps an hour before he would arrive home.

  The slave at the door recognized me. He frowned. “The master—”

  “—is still at the Circus Maximus. I’ll wait for him. In the meantime .. . please tell your mistress she has a visitor.”

  The slave raised an eyebrow but showed me into a reception room off the central garden. Lowering sunlight on the fountain splashing in the courtyard outside sent reflected lozenges of light dancing across the ceiling.

  I did not have long to wait. Sempronia stepped into the room alone, without even a handmaiden. She was not smiling.

  “The door slave announced you as Gordianus the Finder.”

  “Yes. We met… briefly … this morning.”

  “I remember. You’re the fellow who went snooping for Deci last night, poking about at the Senian Baths and those awful places around the circus. Oh yes, word got back to me. I have my own informants. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m trying to decide what I should tell your husband.”

  She gave me an appraising look. “What is it, exactly, that you think you know?”

  “Decimus Brutus thinks that you and the charioteer Diocles are lovers.”

  “And what do you think, Finder?”

  “I think he’s right. But I have no proof.”

  She nodded. “Is that all?”

  “You husband thinks you and Diocles were plotting to kill him today.”

  Sempronia laughed out loud. “Dear old bookworm!” She sighed. “Marrying Deci was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m the consul’s wife! Why in Hades would I want to kill him?”

  I shrugged. “He misunderstood that blind item you put into the Daily Acts.”

  “Which .. . blind item?”

  “There’s been more than one? Of course. That makes sense. What better way to communicate with Diocles, since you’ve been confined here and he’s been banned from your house. What I don’t understand is how you ever convinced Diocles to fix today’s races.”

  She crossed her arms and gave me a long, calculating look. “Diocles loves me; more than I love him, I’m afraid, but when was Venus ever fair? He did it for love, I suppose; and for money. Diocles stands to make a tremendous amount of money today, as do all the racers who took part in the fix. You can’t imagine how much money. Millions. We worked on the scheme for months. Setting up the betting circle, bribing the racers…”

  “‘We’? Do you mean your whole circle was in on it?”

  “Some of them. But mostly it was Diocles and myself.” She frowned. “And then Deci had to throw his jealous fit. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, with the races less than a month away. I had to have some way to communicate with Diocles. The Daily was the answer.”

  “You must have extraordinary powers of …”

  “Persuasion?”

  “Organization, I was going to say.” “Like a man?” She laughed.

  “One thing puzzles me still. What will you do with millions of sesterces, Sempronia? You can’t possibly hide that much money from your husband. He’d want to know where such a windfall came from.”

  She peered at me keenly. “What do you think I intend to do with the money?”

  “I think you intend to … get rid of it.”

  “How?”

  “I think you mean to … send it abroad.”

  “Where?”

  “To Spain. To Quintus Sertorius, the rebel general.” Her face became as pale as the pearls in her hair. “How much do you want, Gordianus?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t come here to blackmail you.”

  “No? That’s what Scorpus wanted.”

  “Your husband’s man? Did he discover the truth?” “Only about the racing scheme. He seemed to think that entitled him to a portion of the takings.”

  “There must be plenty to go around.”

  She shook her head. “Scorpus would never have stopped wanting more.”

  “So he was drowned.”

  “Diocles arranged it. There are men around the circus who’ll do that sort of job for next to nothing, especially for a fellow like Diocles. Blackmailers deserve nothing better.”

  “Is that a threat, Sempronia?”

  “That depends. What do you want, Finder?”

  I shrugged. “The truth. It’s the only thing that ever seems to satisfy me. Why Sertorius? Why risk so much—everything—to help his rebellion in Spain? Do you have a family tie? A loved one who’s thrown his lot with the rebels? Or is it that you and Sertorius are .”

  “Lovers?” She laughed without mirth. “Is that all you can think, that being a woman, I must be driven by passion? Can you not imagine that a woman might have her own politics, her own convictions, her own agenda, quite separate from a husband or a lover? I don’t have to justify myself to you, Gordianus.”

  I nodded. Feeling her eyes on me, I paced the room. The sun was sinking. Flashes of warm sunlight reflected from the fountain outside caressed my face. Decimus Brutus would return home at any moment. What would I tell him?

  I made up my mind. “You asked me what I want from you, Sempronia. Actually, there is the matter of a refund, which I think you must admit is only proper, given the circumstances… “

  At noon the next day, I sat beside Lucius Claudius in his garden, sharing the sunlight and a cup of wine. His interest in that morning’s Daily Acts had been eclipsed by the bags of coins I brought with me. Scooping the little scrolls off the table, he emptied the bags and collected the sesterces into heaping piles, gleefully counting and recounting them.

  “All here!” he announced, clapping his hands. “Every single sesterce I lost yesterday on the races. But Gordianus, how did you get my money back?”

  “That, Lucius, must forever remain a secret.”

  “If you insist. But this has something to do with Sempronia and that charioteer, doesn’t it?”

  “A secret is a secret, Lucius.”

  He sighed. “Your discretion is exasperating, Gordianus. But I’ve learned my lesson. I shall never again be drawn into a betting scheme like that!”

  “I only wish I could have arranged for every person who was cheated yesterday to get his money back,” I said. “Alas, their lessons shall be more costly than yours. I don’t think this particular set of plotters will attempt to pull off such a scheme a second time. Hopefully, Roman racing can return to its pristine innocence.”

  Lucius nodded. “The important thing is, Deci is safe and out of danger.”

  “He was always safe; never in danger.”

  “Rude of him, though, not to pay you the balance of your fee.”

  I shrugged. “When I saw him at his house yesterday evening, after the races, I had nothing more to report to him. He hired me to uncover a plot against his life. I failed to do so.”

  And what, I thought, if I had reported everything to the consul—Sempronia’s adultery, the racing fix, the betting scheme, Scorpus’s attempted blackmail and his murder, Sempronia’s seditious support of Sertorius? Terrified of scandal, Decimus Brutus would merely have hushed it all up. Sempronia would have been no more faithful to him than before, and no one’s wagers would have been returned. No, I had been hired to save the consul’s life, discreetly; and as far as I was concerned, my duty to Decimus Brutus ended when I discovered there was no plot against his life after all. My discretion would continue.

  “Still, Gordianus, it was niggardly of
Deci not to pay you … “

  Discretion forbade me from telling Lucius that the other half of my fee had indeed been paid—by Sempronia. It was the only way I could see to save my own neck. I had convinced her that by paying the fee for my investigation she purchased my discretion. Thus I avoided the same fate as Scorpus.

  At the same time, I had requested a refund of Lucius’s wagers, which seemed only fair.

  Lucius cupped his hands around a pile of coins, as if they emitted a warming glow. He smiled ruefully. “I tell you what, Gordianus—as commission for recouping my gambling losses, what if I give you .. . five percent of the total?”

  I sucked in a breath and eyed the coins on the table. Bethesda would be greatly pleased to see the household coffer filled to overflowing. I smiled at Lucius and raised an eyebrow.

  “Gordianus, don’t give me that look!”

  “What look?”

  “Oh, very well! I shall give you ten percent. But not a sesterce more.

  IF A CYCLOPS COULD VANISH IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE

  Eco was incensed. That was all I could tell at first—that he was angry and frustrated almost to the point of tears. At such a time, I felt acutely aware of his muteness. He was usually quite skilled at expressing himself with gestures and signals, but not when he was flustered.

  “Calm down,” I said quietly, placing my hands on his shoulders. He was at that age when boys shoot up like beanstalks. It seemed to me that not long ago, placing my hands at the same height, I would have been patting his head. “Now,” I said, “what is the problem?”

  My adopted son took a deep breath and composed himself, then seized my hand and led me across the overgrown garden at the center of the house, under the portico, through a curtained doorway and into his room. By the bright morning light from the small window I surveyed the few furnishings—a narrow sleeping cot, a wooden folding chair, and a small trunk.

  It was not to these that Eco directed my attention, but to a long niche about knee-high in the plastered wall across from his bed. The last time I had ventured into the room, a hodgepodge of toys had been shoved into the niche—little boats made of wood, a leather ball for playing trigon, pebbles of colored glass for Egyptian board games. Now the space had been neatly cleared—the cast-off toys put away in the trunk along with his spare tunic, I presumed—and occupying the shelf were a number of tiny figurines made of fired clay, each representing some monster of legend with a horrible visage. There was a Medusa with snakes for hair, a Cyclops with one eye, a Nemean lion, and numerous others.