Killer

The breath caught in Vonones' throat. The German holding him spun the animal dealer around and pushed him, hard, in the opposite direction from the retreating guard troop. The crowd had thinned enough that Vonones had no one to grip to prevent him from falling over one of the corpses lying ten feet away.

Vonones staggered back to his feet, forcing down panic. He had to remain calm if he were to save himself, much less Lycon.

N'Sumu smiled at him like a hungry shark.

Chapter Twenty-two

It was probably mid-morning, but light in the cellars of the Flavian Amphitheater depended on lamps, not the sun.

They had talked a little after Lycon's family was brought in, dragged in, and locked two cells away so that eight feet and a double set of bars separated the beastcatcher from them. Zoe quieted the children almost immediately, however. She had long experience of her husband in his present state: the utter torpor that followed total immersion, mental as well as physical, in a project until he had nothing left to give. Every night after he had played for the blood-mad crowds in the arena, he had collapsed this way… and Zoe knew he had done the same more recently in the field after the days he survived but only just. She could forget about that, however, because she had not seen him as she saw him now…

Lycon rolled abruptly, bringing himself to full alertness though he still lay on the floor of the cell where he had been dropped. The concrete surface was slimy with various grades of filth, but the beastcatcher had been in worse places-and he had more important things on his mind, now, anyway.

A single-wick lamp sat beside Zoe, lighting the left half of her face which was suffused with enough concern for the whole. Lycon smiled mechanically, falsely-but the wish to reassure her was not false, and that counted for much at this juncture. "I-" he tried to say, but he croaked instead with the phlegm clogging his mouth.

"Daddy's awake!" Perses squealed. "He's awake, Alexandros!"

"We almost had that thing, my love," Lycon said in a normal voice and with a normal expression on his face-the face itself normal, because it was normal enough for it to be scratched and bruised in any of the lines of work Lycon had followed during his life. "We could have tracked it from there-and then that bastard N'Sumu screwed it up or… something."

Zoe heard the words, but she could not fathom her husband's meaning. There was no need for her to understand the story, of course: the real point of it was that something had gone wrong but that he was all right, lucid now and healthy enough to discuss events without screaming in pain. The way he lay, ostensibly relaxed now but at full length on the concrete, his torso lifted by his left elbow and flat palm, belied the impression he was trying to give of being in reasonable condition.

Aloud, Zoe said, "Alexandros has been reciting the Iliad to me, darling. It was so very clever of him to bring the volumes with him. Would-" the plump woman reached beside her without looking; her hand caught that of her older son and the two stepped together, side to side, as they both kept their eyes on Lycon "-would you like him to read to you, too? Because he does it so well."

"Are we going to leave now, Daddy?" Perses demanded.

"Not quite yet," the beastcatcher said with the touch of wry humor that made the truth speakable, "unless things are even worse than I think they are." He reached out with the hand that had braced him on the floor and caught one of the bars. "Up we go," he coaxed himself in an undertone, and it wasn't too bad. Herakles, he'd be fit for another try tonight just like the last one, if they could only find the lizard-ape again.

And if they let him out on his own feet instead of being dragged from the arena through the Gate of Death by his heels.

Lycon let his face shape itself into normal human lines from the mask into which it had drawn itself to hide the pain that might have accompanied movement. It hadn't been too bad, though it might be a while before he wanted to eat again, especially the sort of food he could expect to be offered here.

If Zoe and the kids were offered slops this time around, there were a lot of people who'd better pray Lycon did leave the Amphitheater by his heels.

"Right, ah," the beastcatcher repeated, remembering to smile at his family. The baby was still asleep, thank the gods, and Perses was clutching the side of his mother opposite his elder brother. Lycon did not reach toward them. Eight feet was too far for the gesture to be other than pathetic or absurd, and they didn't need either of those things. "I'd like to hear you recite, Alexandros. Good way to pass the time, and good for you too."