“To become partners with you?” Zanos sneered. “Hah! I don’t know what you did to Clavius to make him lose that match and his life, but-”
“I did nothing to him, Zanos,” Vortius said, trying unsuccessfully to sound righteously indignant. “I didn’t have to. Clavius did it to himself. Against your training rules, he sneaked off to a bordello last night.”
Zanos’ eyes widened. “You’re lying!”
“Haifa dozen people saw him at Morella’s!” Vortius threw back at him. “You’re a fool, Zanos, if you think you can impose your impotence on your men. It’s a wonder Clavius could stand up today, let alone fight- with Morella’s hellcats, I doubt he got much sleep!”
“And when you found out about it, you decided to help me not by warning me, but by betting against Clavius?”
Vortius shrugged. “I’m a businessman, Zanos, first and always.” He shifted the sack of coins from one hand to the other. “If you and I had been partners yesterday, I could have seen that Clavius didn’t violate your rules. My men would’ve kept him in his quarters.”
Zanos let out a sound of disgust and walked away from Vortius, through Loser’s Gate and down the tunnel. Vortius shouted after him, “He wasn’t the only one of your men disobeying you, Zanos! You need my help to keep them in line, or you’ll lose a lot more!”
“Aren’t you finished picking over his bones yet, Reader?”
The stretcher-bearer’s surly question brought Astra back to herself. She glared at him as Zanos swept into the room like a windstorm, radiating anger. The other men backed wordlessly away from the examining table as he stalked to it, demanding, “Why is Clavius’ body still here?”
Astra stood her ground, but hesitated in her response. Even from the other side of the table, he towered over her like a giant. “Well, Reader?” he pressed.
“You are the owner of this gladiator?” she asked formally.
“Yes,” he said curtly, “and I want his body decently buried before nightfall. What is the delay?”
“This man died from a sword thrust, all right, ” she replied, “but he shouldn’t have lost that match. I Read traces of white lotus in his-”
“White lotus?” he echoed. “The dream drug? That’s impossible! I don’t let my fighters use drugs! Besides, white lotus isn’t a stimulant-it’s slow poison!”
“Indeed,” Astra nodded. Of all the deadly, habit-forming drugs to be found in the Aventine Empire, white lotus was the most insidious. She knew some of the idle rich played with this flavorless powder by putting it in wine and drinking their way to wild, “happy” dreams… and eventually forgot all else in life. The most severe cases ended up at the Gaeta hospital, where Master Readers used all their skills against the damage done to minds as well as bodies- for the substance also made the user highly susceptible to suggestion. Officially, the drug was illegal, but like many other illegal or unjust things, it flourished in the empire, especially in Tiberium.
“There is no way Clavius could have obtained white lotus!” Zanos insisted. “Morella’s women might give themselves to a gladiator for the pleasure of it, but no one provides a slave with such an expensive drug-nor a gladiator he plans to bet on with such a dangerous one. I don’t know what game you’re playing, Reader, but you’d better forget it-and tell the same to your Masters!” This one’s just as corrupt as the others.
Astra turned away from Zanos as he ordered the bearers to remove the body. His thought had struck her like a physical blow, but it was a kind of assault she’d grown used to. When the young Reader was upset or frightened, it was impossible for her not to Read the thoughts of others.
Something about this Zanos-besides his anger- frightened her very much. She couldn’t argue with him-he must be very stupid not to realize that a debilitating drug that was very difficult to detect was exactly what one might give a gladiator one meant to bet against. Yes-dullness combined with great strength was a very dangerous and frightening mixture.
Metrius’ trainer brought the victorious gladiator in just after Zanos left, and for a time Astra was occupied with cleaning and bandaging his wound. He would be fine-and after today’s victory, with the winter to recover, would probably be a great favorite in the games next spring.
Then Astra was alone in the room again. Alone, as she had been for most of her life. Alone with the powers too strong for her to control, despite her years of training at the empire’s finest Academy. The teachers had called her their finest pupil, but none of them could show her how to fully stop Reading, to completely shut out the world as even the least sensitive Reader could do.
She waited until the stadium and nearby streets were nearly empty before starting back to the Academy.
The mental “noise” of a crowd was more than she could stand in her emotional exhaustion.
As the late-afternoon sun turned the streets crimson, Astra pulled her robe tighter against the chill autumn wind. There was some consolation in the knowledge that even if she received another punishment assignment, for the next few months it could not be to suffer the carnage of the games. Todays blood-sport matches had been the last of the season. In a week or so, the stadium’s underground chambers would be open for wrestling matches-entertainment exclusively for the social elite and wealthy gamblers.
People like Vortius.
Her stomach tightened in anger. Vortius was responsible-albeit indirectly-for the ordeal she had endured today. Astra had passed him yesterday in the hallway as she was entering Portia’s office. She had not Read him, nor Portia-but the old Master’s face had betrayed annoyance, and Astra had asked sympathetically, “What was Vortius doing here? Trying to trick Readers into some nasty plot again?”
Reading other people’s thoughts for personal profit was against the Reader’s Code, but people like Vortius would do anything to get Readers into their power. There had been a huge scandal some six or seven years ago, when some Readers from the Path of the Dark Moon had been bribed or threatened to make them spy on other men’s business.
Astra had expected Portia either to comment on Vortius’ audacity in approaching the Master of Masters or to tell her to mind her own business. Instead, Portia had demanded, “What are you doing here?”
Before Astra could protest that Portia had sent for her, the old woman had flown into a rage, accusing her of spying. “Since you don’t know what to do with your powers, I’ll give you something to occupy them!” And Portia had assigned her to medical duty at the gladiatorial games.
It wasn’t fair! Portia ruled the girls and women of her Academy with an iron hand, but that hand squeezed Astra much tighter than it did the others. No matter what the young Magister did, or how well she did it, she could never gain Portia’s approval, or even a word of praise.
I’m held responsible for my mothers wrongdoing, punished for the shame she brought on the Academy, Astra thought sourly. / thought once I became a Magister I’d proved myself. But nothing has changed. The Masters and the other Magisters still treat me as if I’m the one who violated the Readers Oath.
As she approached the Academy’s iron gate, the place seemed more like a prison than her home, a place where she was-
– — just as corrupt as the others-
Zanos’ stinging thought came back to her, unbidden. The remark was not really surprising, for there was indeed corruption in the Reader system. Unguarded thoughts and unwanted bits of gossip had impinged on Astra all her life, but in recent years she had pieced together from them a picture of something sinister that began even within the Council of Masters, and spread throughout the empire.
That “something” involved Vortius, which explained why he was visiting Portia. Did the man dare attempt to apply his filthy pressures even on the Master of Masters? No wonder Portia had been upset.