The Mark of the Horse Lord Read Online Free PDF

The very words they – and it wasn’t
true
! They jus’ di’n’ –
didn’t
like our faces. You don’ like our faces either, do you?’
    ‘I’ve seen ones I’ve liked better.’
    ‘Our money’s good ’nough, though.’ Quintus flung down a scatter of coins and thrust a suddenly darkening face into that of the ex-Legionary. ‘An’ tha’s all that matters t’you, isn’t it? Now we’ll have some wine. Me an’ my frien’s, we’ll
all
have some wine.’
    ‘Not here, you won’t.’ The man pushed the money back at him. ‘Now pick up this lot, and get off to bed, the pack of you.’
    The rest of the party had begun crowding closer, and there was an ugly murmur. Phaedrus, with his beautiful prancing mood suddenly checked, aware once more, through the bright haze of the Falernian, of the grey, flat future that he had thought successfully drowned, had a strong desire to fight somebody. It did not much matter whom. He elbowed his way to the forefront of the group beside Quintus. ‘And supposing there’s no wish in us for bed? Suppose we feel like a cup of wine all round, and nothing else in the world?’
    The mood of the whole band was turning ugly; he felt the ugliness growing and gathering strength behind him, and saw the recognition of it in the ex-Legionary’s suddenly alerted gaze. Legionary of the Eagles that he, Phaedrus, was not good enough to join! For the moment it seemed to him that he had actually gone up to the Depot, and been turned away.
    ‘Then you’ll have to try another booth, gladiator.
I’m shutting up for the night!
’ The man raised his voice abruptly to a parade-ground bellow, as he clattered horn cups into a basket that a boy behind him had dragged out from under the trestles. Out of the tail of his eye, Phaedrus was aware of several other men moving up; the wine-booth owners were mostly old Legionaries, and held together when there was trouble.
    ‘Right! Then we’ll help you!’ Quintus shouted, and kicked over the biggest wine-jar; and in the same instant, even as the booth keeper lunged into battle like a bull with a gad-fly on his tail, Phaedrus seized one end of the trestle board and heaved it up, sending everything on it to the pavement with a deeply satisfying crash. On the instant a free fight was milling round the wreckage, and the raw-red Sabine wine running like blood between the cobbles. The lamp had gone over with the rest, and little rivulets of burning oil mingled with the wine. Then someone shouted, ‘Look out! It’s the Watch!’ And the thing that had begun as little more than a savage jest tipped over into nightmare.
    Somebody – in the confusion Phaedrus did not know who it was – drew a knife. He caught the flash of it in the flickering light of the burning oil about their feet; somebody shouted, ‘Don’t be a fool! For the Gods’ sake—’ and a Legionary of the Watch went down with a sharp bitten-off cry.
    One of the little runnels of fire had caught the dry timber of a shop-front near by; a wavering tongue of flame licked up as though tasting it and then the fire was roaring up the shutter, and in the red flare of it, Phaedrus saw the crested helmet and mailed shoulders of the officer of the Watch-patrol lowered to charge, and more men thrusting grimly behind him. The little band of revellers was scattering, melting away at panic speed. Phaedrus sprang back into the shadows and turned to run. But some time in the fighting he had caught a kick on the half-healed wound, and now suddenly his knee gave under him.
    He heard a shout and the pounding of feet and even as he struggled up from his headlong fall, two of the Watch had flung themselves upon him. ‘Here’s one of them, anyhow!’ a voice shouted, and merciless hands dragged him to his feet and back into the light of the blazing shop-front, where others of the patrol were already getting to work with water from the Forum fountain. He caught a brief glimpse of the officer’s crest, tall and