Marcus nodded Roman fashion, tipping his head back slightly. "Yes. Many tourists come back sick from Rome. Especially boys who think they are men."
Kynan's sun-lined face twisted expressively as he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Yes. And Kynan Rhys Gower washes it."
Marcus clapped his shoulder. "I have done worse work, my friend."
The stranded Welshman-who had no hope at all of ever returning home, having stumbled into La-La Land through an unstable gate that had not opened again-met his gaze squarely. "Yes. Worse work. In Rome?"
Marcus didn't bother to hold in the shiver that caught his back. He couldn't have, had he tried. "Yes, in Rome." He was just about to speak again when a man dressed in an expensive tunic, wearing a gladius belted to his waist, stepped out from behind a vined portico and shot a tentative glance both ways before heading past them. Marcus blinked. He knew that face. Didn't he? He stared at the man's retreating back. Surely he was wrong. The face in his memory, the face that man wore, didn't belong to a tourist-it was someone he'd seen in Rome long ago, before his latest master had brought him to Time Terminal Eighty-Six then vanished uptime on his ever-mysterious business.
"Marcus?" Kynan asked quietly. "Something is wrong?"
"I-I'm not sure. I-" He shook his head. "No. It could not be. It is only a man who looked like someone I once saw. But that is impossible. All tourists look alike, anyway," he added with a feeble attempt at a grin.
Kynan laughed dourly. "Aye. Ugly and rude. I finish, yes? Then maybe you come to my room, we eat together?"
Marcus smiled. "I would like that. Yes. Call me on the telephone."
Kynan just groaned. Marcus laughed. Kynan Rhys Gower still called the telephone "Satan's trumpet-but he'd learned to use it and was beginning to enjoy its convenience. Marcus had no idea who "Satan" was supposed to be. He cared very little for the religious beliefs of others in La-La Land, figuring it was a man's own business what gods he worshipped.
Whoever this "Satan" was, Kynan feared him mightily. Marcus admired the courage it took the Welshman to use the telephone. He was hoping time would cement the tentative friendship growing between them. Marcus had many who called him "friend" but very few he could truly call on as friend when trouble struck.
"I will call," Kynan agreed, "when I wash this. And myself" His grimace was all too expressive. Kynan's disgust of tourists ran far deeper than Marcus', who found most of their baffling antics amusing more than maddening.
"Good." Marcus gave him a cheery smile, then headed in the direction of his own rooms in Residential to shower and change clothing and see what he might contribute to the joint meal out of the family's meager supplies-riches, compared to what Kynan Rhys Gower would have at his place, though. He wondered if Ianira might have left one of her famous cheesecakes in the refrigerator. He grinned, recalling the sign Arley Eisenstein had posted in the Delight's menu-holder the last time Ianira had sold him a recipe: "A Bite of History ... A Taste of Heaven." If she'd left any of their last one, he could raid a slice or two to contribute. Marcus' grin deepened as he recalled Ianira's astonishment over the serious discussions even important politicians and philosophers of Athens had held routinely on the merits of this or that type of cheesecake. He hadn't known the delicacy was so ancient.
Arley had paid her enough money that she'd been able to open that little stall he'd made for her in the Little Agora section of Commons, near the Philosophers' Gate, which was owned by the uptime government. Even Time Tours, the biggest company in the business, had to pay to send its tour groups through Philosophers' Gate. Tickets to ancient Athens were expensive. Several touring companies had even approached Ianira about guiding, for a fabulous salary and benefits. She'd turned them down in language they'd found shocking, but which Marcus understood in his bones.
He would not have set foot through the Porta Romae again for anything less than rescuing his family.
He was strolling toward her booth, to ask if she might like to join him at Kynan's place for dinner, when he spotted the man with the gladius again. Whoever the fellow was, he ducked furtively through a door which led to the storage rooms of Connie Logan's Clothes and Stuff shop.
Finding that peculiar, Marcus paused. Was the man on Connie's payroll? He knew the eccentric young outfitter constantly hired agents to travel downtime researching costumes, fabrics, utensils, and other assorted items used in daily life on the other side of La-La Land's many gates, but Marcus didn't know this man.
And there was still that odd tingle of near-recognition chilling his spine. It couldn't be ... could it? He decided to wait, settling down beside a shallow pond stocked with colorful fish, and watched the door. Brian Hendrickson strolled by, deep in conversation with a guide. They were speaking Latin. From the sound of it, Brian was in the middle of a language lesson, stressing the finer points of conversational Latin to the relatively new guide. Across the way, Connie's storeroom door opened again. The man Marcus was following stepped out into the open. A woman nearby started to giggle. Even Marcus gaped. Cowboy chaps over jeans, topped by a Victorian gentleman's evening jacket, finished off by a properly wrapped but ludicrous toga and stovepipe hat ...
For an instant, his gaze locked with the other man's.
A dark flush stained weathered cheeks. The man Marcus was positive he'd seen before ducked back into Connie's warehouse. The giggling tourist caught a friend's attention and hurried over to tell her what she'd just seen. The door opened again moments later; this time, his quarry emerged wearing only the jeans and chaps and a western-style shirt. Marcus noted that he still wore the gladius, however, hidden carefully beneath the leather chaps. That worried him. Should I report this?
Concealed weapons were against station rules. Openly carried weapons were fine. But only when stepping through a gate was one permitted to conceal one's personal weapons. Those were the rules and Marcus was careful to live by them. But he also knew it wasn't always a good idea to mix one's affairs with those of a stranger. Well, he could always report the fellow anonymously to Mike Benson or one of his security men through a message on one of the library computers.
Or he could simply ignore the whole thing and go take that shower. He had just about decided on the latter course of action when the stranger turned to glance back at him. Something in the movement, the set of the mouth and the dark light in those eyes, clicked in Marcus' memory. Shock washed through him like icy water. He gripped his seat until his hands ached. It wasn't possible ... yet he was certain. As certain as he had ever been about anything in his life. Sweat started under his shirt and dripped down his armpits.
Rome's Death Wolf, Lupus Mortiferus, had come to Shangri-La.
What purpose could the Circus's deadliest gladiator possibly have in coming here? Marcus the former slave didn't know-but he intended to find out. He owed the men and women who'd befriended him here that much. Heart in his throat, blood pounding in his ears, Marcus waited until the Wolf of Death turned his attention elsewhere, then cautiously eased from his seat and began to follow.
Skeeter Jackson, in heavy disguise, wheeled his cart toward a tourist near the Conquistadores Gate. The man was in the middle of a nasty harangue directed at a harried tour guide. Her face was flushed with anger, but her job prevented her from venting it. Skeeter stepped in with a smile.
"Sir, baggage check for leave-behind luggage?"
The man turned to note the other tagged suitcases on Skeeter's cart, each tag with the owner's name and hotel scrawled across it, with the tear-off stub missing. The tour guide's eyes met Skeeter's and widened in recognition. For a second, he thought he'd been blown for good. Then her eyes flashed briefly with unholy joy. She winked and fled, leaving Skeeter's quarry to his just deserts.