Calvus bowed and began, ‘Magistrates, ladies …’ He cleared his throat. ‘I came to Gaul on the orders of the cousin of Magistrate Gabinius Fuscus, Senator Gabinius Valerius — ’
‘You are a liar!’ shouted Tilla, squealing as the guard grabbed her and flung her over his shoulder.
Before Ruso could intervene the other guard seized his arm and wrenched it up parallel with his spine. As he was dragged further away from Fuscus he was aware of Tilla yelling, ‘You are both liars!’ as she was carried away.
‘Mad bitch!’ shouted Stilo as the words ‘You murdered Justinus!’ echoed back up the steps.
‘She’s telling the truth,’ Ruso gasped as the guard forced his wrist up between his shoulder-blades. He hoped Tilla had not made a terrible mistake.
Fuscus drained his wine in one gulp. ‘You’d better have a good reason for this performance, Ruso.’
‘You need to know. They’re swindlers and murderers. They killed my brother-in-law. They might have killed Severus as well.’
Fuscus turned back to Calvus for an answer, but whatever denial Calvus was about to make was interrupted by Stilo’s ‘Your honours don’t want to listen to them lies. That barbarian’s protecting him.’
The row of dignified heads was now turning frantically in an effort to take in Calvus and Stilo at one end of the balcony, Ruso at the other end and Fuscus lumbering to his feet in the middle, calling for order as if this were an unruly council meeting. The roar of the crowd said something was happening in the arena, but nobody on the balcony was watching.
‘It was him what done it!’ announced Stilo, pointing at Ruso. ‘The doctor and the wife, in the kitchen with the honey. We know about the red hair and the pink shoes!’ He turned to Calvus for confirmation, but Calvus was gone. The commotion in the crowd beyond the balcony marked the point where he had leaped over the side and was now forcing his way along a row of bewildered spectators.
Stilo glanced down, thought better of it and made a lunge for the nearest serving-girl. Her tray crashed to the floor as he pulled her back against him, and a knife appeared at her throat.
Fuscus and a couple of the dignitaries clutched at the nearest women. The dignitaries appeared to be trying to protect their wives, Fuscus to use his as a shield. The guards backed away as Stilo dragged the terrified serving-girl back towards the exit.
‘Don’t just stand there!’ cried Fuscus, knocking the fan from the hand of the nearest slave. ‘Defend us!’
The grip on Ruso’s arm fell away. Stilo reached the exit, flung the girl into the arms of the approaching guard and clattered away down the steps.
The guard who had evicted Tilla from the balcony was returning up the steps as Ruso stumbled down. ‘You’re welcome to her, mate. Little cow nearly had my ear off.’
By the time Ruso reached the corridor neither Tilla nor Stilo was in sight, but the direction of one or both was marked by a series of complaining spectators who had been shoved aside. Forcing himself to ignore the stabbing pain in the side of his foot, Ruso followed the trail up the steps, swerved round a furious vendor and narrowly missed slipping on a scattering of pastries the man was trying to pick up. As he raced along the upper corridor he realized none of Fuscus’ men was with him. He was not even sure who he was chasing. All he knew was that if Stilo decided to take on Tilla, she was in serious trouble.
An usher was trying to block his path, shouting something and holding up one hand in a ‘stop’ sign. Ruso charged straight for him, yelling, ‘Where did they go?’ The man faltered, leaped aside and flapped the hand to send Ruso straight on.
Ahead, the curve of the gallery was almost empty. To his right, the open archways offered a fine view of the town, but it would be a brave man or woman who would risk the leap down to the sunlit street. To his left, on the inside of the curve, shadowy flights of steps rose and fell from the gallery every few paces.
‘Where did they go?’ he yelled to an old man squatting in the shade of a pillar.
The man pointed a skinny finger towards the next flight up. Ruso hopped towards it, grabbing at his injured foot. The brief massage made no difference: every step up was a fresh wave of pain.
‘Tilla!’ he shouted, knowing his voice would not reach her over the sound of the crowd. ‘Tilla, wait for me!’
Emerging into a narrower corridor, he gasped to the usher, ‘I’m looking for a blonde woman!’
‘Aren’t we all?’
‘Which way?’
The usher, still grinning, pointed to his left.
‘Is there a man with her?’
‘No, he’s in front.’
The upper corridor was a lame man’s nightmare: barely a few yards level at a time before more steps down into a dip, a junction with another gloomy stairway that Tilla or Stilo might have descended, and more steps back up the other side. By the third or fourth dip Ruso was beginning to feel exhausted. All those weeks of limping about had left him seriously out of condition.
‘Tilla!’ he yelled, forcing himself to keep going. By the next dip he knew he was never going to catch up with her. She might not even be ahead of him any more. She might have followed Stilo down any of the exit routes he had hurried past. They might have gone into the cheap seats above, with the slaves and the sailors who operated the awnings. They might have gone around to the women’s area. He glanced down, and up, and ahead, and back, and did not know which way to run. Finally he leaned back against the wall, feeling his heart pounding and his breath rasping in his chest. Wherever Tilla was, he could not help her. Surely any passers-by would defend a lone woman against a male attacker? Even if she was obviously a barbarian? Of course, whether they would defend a female barbarian who seemed to be attacking a local man was another matter entirely.
Outside, the crowd held its collective breath and then burst into wild cheering. Alone in the cool gloom that smelled of urine and fried food, Ruso curled up one leg and nursed his foot, trying to think past the pain. It was a moment before he registered the voice saying, ‘Doctor Gaius Petreius, sir?’
He looked up. ‘Tertius?’ The youth who should have been arming himself with net and trident in the gladiators’ cells was trotting up the steps towards him in military boots and a sweat-stained tunic. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Instead of replying, Tertius seized him by both shoulders. ‘Thank you, sir! I never thought you’d do it, but thank you! I won’t let you down, I promise!’
‘Do what?’
‘Find the money! I can’t believe it!’
‘Nor can I,’ said Ruso, too breathless to argue.
‘Are you all right, sir?’
Ruso gesticulated vaguely around him. ‘There’s a blonde woman — ’
‘Dressed in blue, chasing a man in a green tunic?’ Tertius pointed back the way he had come. ‘They went down towards the animal cages.’
Ruso was already racing down the steps as the words ‘Sir, what’s going on?’ echoed around him.
76
Tilla tried to steady her breathing, but the stench of animals made her gasp. The row of smoky torches stretching down the tunnel ahead did little to lift the gloom, barely revealing the figures of slaves moving about between arched recesses on either side. From somewhere deeper inside, beneath the middle of the arena, she heard a clang of metal, then the shout of an order and the squeak and grind of something being hoisted on a winch. An animal howl echoed down the tunnel. Tilla shuddered.
This must be where the creatures were kept before they were lifted up and thrust into the arena through trapdoors. As her eyes adjusted from the sunlight outside, she could make out the stripes of cage bars in some of the recesses.
She tightened the grip on her knife. There was no other way the man could have come. She was not far behind him, and if he had run away down that tunnel she would have seen him pass through the torchlight. He must have ducked into one of those black recesses. But even if she found him, what was she going to do?