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fate sealing our bargain. With surprising skill, and another reminder that he had practiced for six months as a physician, since the law required no examinations or even any training for doctors, he shoved me over on my belly and began to apply the messy unguent. The stuff stung cruelly at first, but soon produced a soothing numbness. I fell into a drowsy state while he prattled on.
    Syrax elaborated on how we would found a successful competing school as the beast games increased in popularity; how his numerous contacts among the upper classes would help us locate the required financing; how I, by virtue of my size and strength, would be the lanista while he tended to the commercial side of our affairs. He was an accomplished improviser.
    “Who knows,” he said, finishing with the ointment and wiping his hands on his tunic, “perhaps we might even uncover a few real unicorns to increase our fame, not those clumsy rhinos they pass off in the Circus while the mob hoots in derision. Or we might learn the secret of training a beast to mount a woman.”
    “What?” I said angrily.
    “It’s never been done before, and I understand things like that appeal to Nero.”
    “If that sort of depravity is to be our stock in trade, I’ll have none of it.”
    “I thought you said you’d do anything —”
    “Except the unthinkable.”
    Quickly he put on a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, Cassius. A joke only.”
    “That’s better,” I growled. “What you suggest is an insult to a man’s nature, and our profession as well, low as it may be. At least on that point I agree with master Fabius.”
    “Fabius is behind the times,” he said under his breath. “Still, we can worry about it when we —
    What’s all that racket?”
    He peered out the curtain into the darkened hallway, then turned back, grinning. He extended his hand to clasp mine.
    “Best I hurry to my cell. They’re carting in the ladies for the weekly health session. I intend to indulge. Why don’t you? By way of celebration?”
    I felt nothing but an overpowering urge to sleep. “Celebration of what?”
    “Our pact, my friend. The only reason you’ve played your lone game this long is because you’ve never encountered a man with wits to match yours. Now you have. The two of us together —
    we’ll force Tigellinus and his kind to bow to us, one day.”
    He said it with such quiet force that I wondered what poverties and indignities had been his lot as a child. He was nakedly hungry behind his light, grinning manner. Thunder drummed across the Capitoline and the foundations of the building shook. With a laugh and a salute Syrax sped out the door.
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    He carried a greeting to the women trooping into the vestibule at the hall’s end. I turned my face to the wall, pretending to sleep. I was amused by what he had proposed, yet intrigued by it too.
    Master of the second beast school in Rome. Rich. Welcomed in the homes of the wealthy. It was a dream worth pondering. And who could foresee the strange turnings destiny might take in the years ahead?
    I was dozing off amid the squeals and gigglings of the women when a noisy altercation outside roused me again.
    “What’s wrong with a Greek?” a man was saying angrily.
    “Nothing, except that they stink and have rough hands!” came a feminine reply.
    “Fine talk for a whore,” the man grumbled.
    “Acte!” another woman chided. “Xenophon is already a famous fighter. Treat him with respect.”
    “Respect? His manners are crude as a hog’s. Look, he’s already torn my gown. I’ll take any other man in the school tonight, but not Xenophon.”
    The Greek’s reply was curt. “You’ll take me if I force you, dove.”
    Perverse anger pushed me to the door. The women brought in from the brothels along the Tiber were clustered in the stone corridor. They smelled warmly of Parthian musk and jingled with bangles and trinkets of copper. Talk stopped when I appeared, including the bawdy remarks of the