Furies Read Online Free PDF Page A

eating, drinking as they went.
    “I should have left you there to rot,” Aculeo said, his wounded arm bound in a makeshift, blood-stained bandage.
    “I’m surprised you didn’t,” Gellius said with a sniff. “You already stole our fortune, you thieving prick!”
    “I’ve told you a thousand times already, I didn’t steal anything from anyone.”
    “Say it a thousand more and I’ll still not believe you!”
    “Then don’t. Where are you living?”
    “The Little Eagle in Delta.”
    “A tavern?”
    “It’s just a temporary arrangement,” Gellius said.
    Aculeo made no reply. Before the shipwrecks, Gellius lived in a fabulous villa with his partner Trogus just outside the palace district in Beta, an elegant showcase of a home where they’d hosted countless spectacular affairs, bolstered by a cellar stocked with the finest wines. Now look at him, limping along the street, gaunt, broken, his cheeks wan and unshaven, dark shadows like thumbprints pressed beneath his eyes. His tunic was a fine weave but frayed and greasy with wear, and now further marred by bloodstains down the front. His nose had stopped leaking at least, though it was swollen and dark as a fig.
    “You there, sir,” a merchant cried, “yes that’s it, come in, come here. Tell me, have you ever seen such a beautiful carpet as this one? Straight from Babylon, not one of those Assyrian shitrags like they sell at the stalls down the way, I wouldn’t even let my wife’s mother wipe her buttocks with one of those. Look at this, look at the craftsmanship, I tell you there’s not another one like this in the world. Your wife would be the envy of her friends, believe me.”
    “Just got a fine selection of new slaves in, my dear sir, you’re in luck,” exhorted another merchant. “You’re the first to see them, so you get first pick. This one, she’s a Thrattian, not so pretty I agree, a bit old and yes her teeth are not the best but she’s a hard worker and if you bring her home then perhaps your wife would forgive you for buying this lovely little one over here as well …”
    “Fish?” another grinning vendor cried. “Come here. Look here, shark, tunny, oh, and Canopic eels – you’ll dine like Caesar himself. These were still swimming about in the sea this morning, they’ll be on your dinner plate tonight, come now, sir …”
    “I do miss eels,” Gellius said softly. “Our old cook used to wrap them in beet leaves, cook them over some coals, serve them with some Antylla wine, sweet as plums …”
    Aculeo’s own stomach ached at the memories of fine meals and evenings filled with wine and music and careless joy. Enough. “Let’s just get you home, alright?”
    “Fuck you, Aculeo,” Gellius snapped, though he let himself be helped all the same.

     
    A weathered sign painted with the image of a tattered birdlike creature swung over the door. This must be the Little Eagle, Aculeo mused. It was situated on a dingy little side street. It had a small dining area with a few mismatched tables and chairs and no place to recline – which was likely just as well, one wouldn’t want to get too comfortable here. Freedmen, pornes and clusters of sailors sat at the tables jabbering away in their foreign tongues, sizing up the new arrivals. Aculeo reluctantly followed Gellius inside.
    The owner, a bald, dark-skinned man with hooded eyes and damp circles staining the armpits of his tunic, stood sweating behind a long, scarred marble counter. The length of the counter was interrupted every few feet by the purple-stained mouth of a large clay wine jar set into its surface. At the end of it was a charcoal brazier that filled the little tavern with eye-stinging smoke. The grill sizzled with chunks of meat and a simmering pot of water, the wall behind it charred with soot. Overhead, an arbour tangled with a few withered grape vines provided scant shade.  
    “Ah, Silo,” Gellius called in a friendly manner to the capo. “Could I trouble you