A Gladiator Dies Only Once Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 god-sent 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,