We reached the gym. I let Placida drag me across the crowded training-ground and push open the door of the office, where Daphnis was sitting at a desk to one side flicking beads on an abacus and making notes on a wax tablet.
‘Hi, Daphnis,’ I said. ‘How’s the lad?’
He looked round and did a double-take. ‘Corvinus! What — ?’
— which was all he had time for before Placida hit with both front paws and a tongue. Daphnis screamed and the abacus and tablets went flying.
‘She’s a big softie, really,’ I said.
‘Corvinus, you bastard! Get it off me!’
Fun was fun, but enough was enough. I pulled the slobbering dog away and took a firm grip of her collar. Daphnis picked himself up, dusted himself off and sat back down on his bench.
‘Where the hell did you get that thing?’ he said.
‘She’s on loan from a friend of Perilla’s.’
‘A friend? Jupiter!’ He retrieved the abacus and tablets. Yeah, welclass="underline" Daphnis never had been one for the old client-to-patron respectful approach. That, together with the permanent designer stubble and his habit of picking his nose when he was in a particularly thoughtful mood was part of the guy’s unique charm. ‘Now. You here to look over the accounts? Because I’m up to the eyeballs in work at present so you can bloody well forget it.’
‘In that case, purely pleasure, sunshine.’ I forced Placida down into crouch position. ‘Just a workout and a massage.’
He sniggered evilly. ‘The massage won’t be no pleasure. We’ve got a new guy on the staff with hands like rooftiles. Good masseur, mind.’
‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll risk it.’ There wasn’t no way I was going to back down in front of Daphnis. No way. And his technique couldn’t be any worse than Scylax’s had been. Ten minutes with Scylax and they’d had to peel me off the ceiling.
‘Great. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘I won’t. Promise. Is Publius around?’ Publius Avillius was the head trainer, an ex-legionary centurion who’d been taken on after Scylax died. He’d had a drink problem until his daughter locked up the wine-jars, but he was firmly on the wagon now, and although he wasn’t in Scylax’s league where teaching fighting dirty was concerned there wasn’t a better man with the short sword in Rome.
‘Yeah. He’s on his break in the privy, communing with nature. Give him ten minutes.’
‘Fine. I’m in no hurry.’ I leaned over and moved a couple of abacus balls along their wires. He pulled the machine out of reach. ‘So how are things? In general, that is?’
‘You must’ve seen for yourself when you came in. We’re bursting at the seams. Apropos of which, old Fannius in the potter’s shop next door is giving up business and moving to his daughter’s in Capua. I thought we might take over his yard and knock a hole through the wall if you’re agreeable. Expand into the women’s market.’
‘The women’s market?’
‘Yeah.’ Another evil grin. ‘Don’t tell me it’s never been done, I know that. Still, it might be interesting. Get a few retired female gladiators in as trainers, modify the programme a bit, target a young age-group. Lots of feisty girls out there who want more out of life than sitting at home doing crochet. As an idea, it could be a winner.’ He winked. ‘Especially since it’s a low wall.’
‘You pulling my string?’
‘Could be. You decide.’
I stood up; a little of Daphnis went a long way. Besides, he’d already picked up the stylus again in a not-so-gentle hint that I’d used enough of his valuable time. ‘Yes to buying the Fannius place,’ I said, ‘but as far as Amazon Annexe is concerned I don’t think Rome’s quite ready for female body-building classes, pal. You’d have both of us pegged out for the crows by irate male relatives inside of a month.’
He shrugged and reached for the wax tablet. ‘Suit yourself. But you’re passing up on a real goldmine.’
‘I’ll take that risk. Watch you don’t sprain your fingers on that abacus, Daphnis.’ I moved towards the door.
He set the tablet down. ‘Hey. What about the dog?’
‘Oh, she’ll be no trouble. She’s settled now.’ She was flat out, doing her random-pile-of-hair impression. ‘I’ll pick her up when I leave.’
‘Like hell you will! Corvinus! Corvinus!’
I went back out into the sunshine: the weather had cleared, and it was a beautiful October day, not too hot but without a cloud in the sky. There was a stone bench to one side, and I sat on it to watch the punters while I waited for Publius to come out of the latrine. Daphnis was right, the place was fulclass="underline" there were a good dozen of various ages and conditions hammering away at each other with wooden swords, some of them with assistant trainers looking on or giving one-to-one lessons. Daphnis got them from the gladiatorial schools — retired gladiators are fairly common in Rome, the ones who come out intact the other end have to be good to do it, and the sand’s in their blood — or from among the number of ex-squaddies who’d blown their discharge grant and needed a steady job to pay for the pulse porridge and sour wine. I watched as one of them, a single-lessoner, ducked under a roundhouse swipe from an obvious complete tyro and prodded him in the ribs with the tip of his dummy sword.
‘Not the bloody edge, sir,’ he said wearily. ‘You’re a swordsman, not a sodding lumberjack. How many times do I have to tell you? Use the point!’
I grinned to myself as he took the abashed kid — he can’t’ve been more than fourteen and looked a complete penpusher in embryo — through the motions of the legionary punching stab. Yeah, well, at least we were providing a valuable service here. The boy had a purple stripe on his tunic, and in two or three years’ time he could be out on the fringes of the empire doing this for real. I’d never been in that position, sure, but the lessons with Scylax had saved my life a dozen times. Especially the lessons they don’t teach you in the army. Knifemen in Rome are simple, direct souls; not a lot of them have read the military manual or even looked at the pictures, and when push comes to shove knowing when to plant a judicious knee in the balls or a fist in the throat can come in very handy.
I’d been sitting there for a good ten minutes when Publius limped out of the privy. He’d taken a German spear in the right leg nine years before, in the Frisian revolt, and it’d severed a tendon so he couldn’t bend the leg at the knee; which was why he’d been invalided out before his time and, incidentally, explained the drinking. Not that it cramped his style as a swordsman any. I’d made the mistake, the first time I fought him, of allowing for it and got a jab in the ribs that still gave me a twinge months afterwards.
He saw me, and came over, throwing a perfect military salute on the way.
‘Good to see you again, sir,’ he said. ‘You fighting today, or just visiting?’
‘Fighting,’ I said. ‘If you’ve got the time.’
‘Always got the time for you, sir.’ Yeah, well, it made a change from Daphnis. And the guy was no arse-licker, either: when he said ‘fighting’ he meant it. Witness that first stab. ‘There’s a clear space over there.’
We walked over to the edge of the group, picking up a couple of wooden swords from the pile on the way. He stopped and came on guard.
‘Any time you’re ready, sir.’
I took it nice and slow to start with. I needed to warm up, if he didn’t, and besides wading straight in with Publius was a bad, bad idea: it just meant you got clobbered barely a dozen moves into the bout, or he let you wear yourself out trying to get through his guard and then clobbered you. As it was, he didn’t even have to shift his feet: every stab of mine was deflected past his body with a wrench of the wrist that had me moving back and on guard again quickly before the point of his sword caught my ribs on the riposte. Five minutes later I was sweating, and Publius’s breathing hadn’t even quickened.
‘Not bad, sir,’ he said after a particularly savage parry-and-twist had almost taken the sword from my hand and he’d waved a pause. ‘You could do with coming down here a bit more often, though. You’re signalling far too much and your guard’s downright sloppy in places. I could’ve had you a dozen times over.’