Read Online Emperor: The Gates of Rome E#1 by Conn Iggulden - Free Book Online Page A

shopkeepers' carts carrying their wares around the city. These were packed with the poor, and beggars sat in doorways, blind and maimed, with their hands outstretched. The brick buildings loomed over them, five and six stories high, and once, Tubruk put a hand out to hold Marcus back as a bucket of slops was poured out of an open window into the street below.
Gaius's father looked grim, but walked on without stopping, his sense of direction bringing them through the dark maze back onto the main streets to the circus. The noise of the city intensified as they grew close, with the shouted cries of hot-food sellers competing with the hammering of coppersmiths and bawling, screaming children who hung, snot-nosed, on their mothers' hips.
On every street corner, jugglers and conjurors, clowns and snake charmers performed for thrown coins.
That day, the pickings were slim, despite the huge crowds. Why waste your money on things you can see every day when the amphitheater was open?
"Stay close to us," Tubruk said, bringing the boys' attention back from the colors, smells, and noise. He laughed at their wide-mouthed expressions. "I remember the first time I saw a circus—the Vespia, where I was to fight my first battle, untrained and slow, just a slave with a sword."
"You won, though," Julius replied, smiling as they walked.
"My stomach was playing me up, so I was in a terrible mood."
Both men laughed.
"I'd hate to face a lion," Tubruk continued. "I've seen a couple on the loose in Africa. They move like horses at the charge when they want to, but with fangs and claws like iron nails."
"They have a hundred of the beasts and two shows a day for five days, so we should see ten of them against a selection of fighters. I am looking forward to seeing these black spearmen in action. It will be interesting to see if they can match our javelin throwers for accuracy," Julius said.
They walked under the entrance arch and paused at a series of wooden tubs filled with water. For a small coin, they had the mud and smell scrubbed from their legs and sandals. It was good to be clean again. With the help of an attendant, they found the seats reserved for them by one of the estate slaves, who'd traveled in the previous evening to await their arrival. Once they were seated, the slave stood to walk the miles back to the estate. Tubruk passed him another coin to buy food for the journey, and the man smiled cheerfully, pleased to be away from the back-breaking labor of the fields for once.
All around them sat the members of the patrician families and their slaves. Although there were only three hundred representatives in the Senate, there must have been close to a thousand others in that section. Rome's lawmakers had taken the day off for the first battles of the five-day run. The sand was raked smooth in the vast pit; the wooden stands filled with thirty thousand of the classes of Rome. The morning heat built and built into a wall of discomfort, largely ignored by the people.
"Where are the fighters, Father?" Gaius asked, searching for signs of lions or cages.
"They are in that barn building over there. You see where the gates are? There."
He opened a folded program, purchased from a slave as they went in.
"The organizer of the games will welcome us and probably thank Cornelius Sulla. We will all cheer for Sulla's cleverness in making such a spectacle possible. Then there are four gladiatorial combats, to first blood only. One will follow that is to the death. Renius will give a demonstration of some sort and then the lions will roam 'the landscapes of their Africa,' whatever that means. Should be an impressive show."
"Have you ever seen a lion?"
"Once, in the zoo. I have never fought one, though. Tubruk says they are fearsome in battle."
The amphitheater fell quiet as the gates opened and a man walked out dressed in a toga so white it almost glowed.
"He looks like a god," Marcus whispered.
Tubruk leaned over to the boy. "Don't forget they bleach the