Read Online Arena by John Jakes - Free Book Online Page A

him in turn, I thought bitterly. Why, I wondered, had she used me?
    The gray-haired Prefect of the watch studied my expression, then coughed loudly. I must have appeared embarrassed, for he certainly did. The very fact that he was concerned at all over the feelings of a man of my station warmed me toward him. Rather gruffly, he said, “Truth to tell, Cassius, I like Acte a good deal. It’s only the role I’m forced to play that’s so damnable. I’m no more of a hot young lover than Seneca. But to prevent scandal it’s my duty to cavort like one. If it will assuage your poorly concealed bitterness any, I should report that I’ve talked with Acte enough to know she cares nothing for the Emperor. She’s merely patronizing him, trying to —”
    “Please spare me further details, sir,” I said miserably. “I know what she’s trying to do.”
    The learned philosopher rose to pace back and forth. He changed the subject. “So you’re in training as a bestiarius, eh?”
    “That’s right, sir. I aim to win the wooden sword one day.”
    Seneca looked dour. “I won’t bore you with too many personal opinions of your profession, except to say that there is no sportsmanship left in it. Barbarous punishment of criminals should not be turned into a spectacle. The games have also killed the art of conversation. No one today can talk of anything except the skill of various charioteers, the quality of the teams, or the details of some lewd exhibit held at a private circus.”
    Waving his wine up, Serenus added, “Nero isn’t helping matters any. Have you heard some of his proposals for clever acts? Sheer filth.”
    After a pause indicating tacit agreement, Seneca said to the Prefect, “I assume we owe this young man an appropriate reward for helping you.”
    “Definitely,” was the reply. I grew tense. “To have been picked up by one of my own vigiles —
    Well, I’d have been laughed out of Rome.”
    “And therefore totally useless as a moderating influence upon the Emperor. Cassius? Name your reward.”
    A wild, unreasonable gamble took shape in my head as he spoke. What had I to lose? This morning — warm, the sun falling into the atrium’s light well, sifting through the tablinium hangings — I had tasted the sweet bread of nobility. And only last night I had come dangerously close to forgetting my vow to be an eques.
    I said carefully, “Honored gentlemen, any reward I claim would do me no good, since I escaped the school to go on my little errand of the flesh, and can’t get back in.”
    My heart leaped when Serenus waved. “Don’t let that concern you. We’ll think of some way around that.”
    I was skirting the edge of a precipice now, and unable to turn back. “Then I ask nothing for the present. I’ll take my reward in the future. One day, when I win the wooden sword, I mean to found a second beast school in Rome. One which will restore the good name of the profession. I have the ambition to do it, but certain obstacles block me.”
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    With a gentle smile Seneca said, “You have ambition and a measure of honor both, it appears.
    Continue.”
    “No doubt I’m far too presumptuous in asking this. Yet my highest reward would not be money, but words. I know both you gentlemen must be intimate with influential people in the banking world. I’ll need funds for the school. An introduction, a helpful word — that would be enough. If you gentlemen could open certain doors that might otherwise be closed to one born as I was, I would be forever grateful.”
    For a considerable time neither spoke. Distantly through the house rang the voices of the slaves, preparing the morning meal and doing menial chores. The silence of the two men I took to mean refusal, the rejection of an upstart who had asked for too costly a prize.
    Then Serenus chuckled.
    “This Cassius is a find. There’s a certain wolfish greed shining in his eyes. But unlike so many in Rome, he looks like he has the wit and muscle to