Killer

Having quite forgotten her after the business of the lizard-ape, Vonones was not thinking of anything but bed when he walked into the bedchamber, stiff with dust and fatigue. She was waiting with one hand poised on the inlaid headboard and the other arm raised to balance the curve of the first. Light from the twelve-wick oil lamp glittered on a headdress of silk and sapphires-the only garment the woman wore. She had also donned a set of long false fingernails and dusted her limbs with lapis lazuli, thinking the blue shadowing would increase her exotic air.

Vonones screamed and ran.

Sleep had been long in coming that night, and the equally startled Egyptian-Vonones had summarily ordered his servants to wash and scrub her till her skin was a shade lighter than when he bought her-decided she would never understand the eccentric ways of Armenian merchants.

When Vonones' litter stopped in front of his office, his staff were in the midst of the job of unloading. The wagons had been brought into the courtyard by the main gate. It would remain closed until the last of the beasts had been transferred to their holding cells. Any other technique chanced the escape of a predator and bloody chaos in the streets of the neighboring Ceronian District. The dealer wanted no more such escapes, not even of a peacock. At the moment, a hundred or so ostriches that made up a major part of this shipment were being transferred to the corral in a flurry of wings and curses.

The deputy compound manager swirled toward Vonones with an entourage of clerks poised over waxed tablets of accounts. "Excellency," the deputy called, "there's a serious discrepancy here! A tiger, according to the bill of lading…"

"Yes, I know about the damned tiger. Cross it off," Vonones said with a scowl. "And the other one too-the sauropithecus. They both died in transit."

"The what?" said the deputy. Clerks flipped pages to find the unfamiliar term.

"Pollux, give me a moment to look the compound over before you bother me with the accounts," Vonones snapped to change the subject.

The ostriches had been bundled for transport with their legs, beaks, and wings tied shut. A nearby slave had cocked his head to listen to Vonones, intent on learning further details of the events that had sparked so many rumors. When he cut the twist of papyrus rope holding the bird's legs, he nicked a leg as well.

The bird squirmed instantly upright. It kicked sideways with its right leg, even as the handler turned his attention back to his work. The clawed toes ripped across the man's belly too suddenly for the victim to cry out.

Vonones swore bitterly. The clerks and deputy scattered like quail from the eight-foot apparition with bloody claws. The injured handler writhed on the ground with his hands pressed against his torn abdomen. His fellows sprang up from their own duties. One ran for a net.

Vonones uncoiled his whip in a fluid arc behind him. The ostrich cocked its right leg again. It stood sideways to Vonones, but one black eye glittered at him with cold purpose.

The lash snaked out and around the bird's left ankle. Setting himself, Vonones yanked back on the whipstaff. He might no longer have the shoulder muscles of his younger days, but the weight he had put on was finally an advantage to him. The ostrich flopped back onto the ground. Handlers leaped onto it from three sides.

Vonones dropped the whip when he was sure the bird had been immobilized. He backed away, breathing hard and dusting his hands. A pair of litter bearers belatedly stepped between their master and the commotion that had been a threat moments before.

"That's all right," Vonones muttered, thankful that he was still good enough to make such bodyguards superfluous. "That's all right." He felt better for the incident. It had given him an opportunity to exorcise the helpless terror caused by the lizard-ape's escape. It was uncertainty that melted a man's nerves, not simply danger. It was a relief to return to familiar tasks and familiar dangers. He turned to where his men were seeing to the injured slave's wounds. More expense…

The main gate of the compound began to swing open. The deputy manager ran toward it, shouting. Vonones himself snarled toward the gatekeepers: "Not while we're unloading a shipment, damn you! I'll have you all fed to the crocodiles if so much as a rabbit escapes!"

A column of horsemen in glittering armor rode through the gateway four abreast. The deputy dodged out of their way, but the newcomers made no attempt on their part to avoid him.

There were twenty horsemen in the troop. All but their tribune were huge men whose hair was red or blond where it spilled from beneath their helmets. They dismounted. Every fourth man acted as horseholder while the remainder kept their hands on their weapons.