Whoever she was, she reappeared with a towel and helped him out of the shower, dried him expertly, and got him into a comfortable robe, then assisted him across the short stretch of floor to his bed. He couldn't have made the walk unaided. She disappeared again, returning with a glass of liquid.
"Here. Sip this. It will settle your stomach and ease the pain in your head."
He sipped. It didn't taste as bad as he'd expected. Skeeter finished the glassful, then groaned softly and leaned back into the pillows. She pulled the covers up over him, switched off the lights, and settled into a nearby chair to watch over him.
"Hey," Skeeter mumbled, "thanks."
"Sleep," she urged. "You have been hurt. Sleep will heal."
Unable to argue with either her logic or the heaviness stealing across him, Skeeter closed his eyes and slept.
Marcus found Lupus Mortiferus in Urbs Romae, skulking near the entrance to the Epicurean Delight. The gladiator's eyes widened when Marcus charged right toward his place of concealment. He thrust his hand into the box of money he'd so carefully saved up and yanked out a fistful of coins from a bag that matched the amount Skeeter had given him.
"Here. This is yours."
Lupus took the wad of heavy pouch without comment, just staring at him. He glanced down at the money, then back at Marcus. "What has happened?"
Marcus laughed, a bitter sound that widened Lupus' eyes. "I have discovered an ugly truth, friend. I am a very great fool. The man who stole from you gave me that money. I thought he had won it fairly, betting at the Circus. Why I thought that, when he has never done an honest day's work in his life ... "
Lupus caught him by the shirt. "Who is he? Where is he?"
For just an instant, Marcus almost answered. Then he jerked loose. "Where?" The laughter was even more bitter than before. "I don't know. And I don't care. Probably out trying to steal from someone else gullible enough to call him friend. As to who he is ... I have given hospitality. My woman and my children are in hiding and now I do not have enough money to repay the debt of my purchase price to the man who brought me here. And thief and scoundrel though he may be, I have called him friend. You mean to kill him. You will have to discover him yourself, Wolf."
Goldie's network of contacts paid off. Specifically, a brilliant, impudent downtimer aged about fifteen, known to everyone in La-La Land as simply "Julius" had been the one to hit paydirt. Goldie sat down on a bench in Victoria Station, where the Britannia Gate would be cycling soon. According to Julius, all she had to do was wait. People strolled past three and four times as they explored the brilliantly decorated Holiday La-La Land-and Victoria Station had pulled out the stops in the annual competition, hoping to regain respect again after that enormous raptor of some sort had crashed through and fallen five stories, only to land with smashing force on cobblestones, wrought-iron benches, even smashing over a dainty street lamp with etched glass in its multiple panes. She hoped they took the prize money with a thousand points between them and their nearest competitor.
Goldie shook off too many memories and watched intently the tourists taking in the exuberant display, complete with a Victorian kid-sized railroad that began at Victoria Station and quickly picked up steam to circle the entire, lavishly decorated Commons. Many parents had vidcams with them to record junior or their darling little miss, eyes aglow and their laughter sparkling like Christmas bells.
Goldie snorted under her breath. Truth was, she hated children as much as she hated that tinkle-winkle noise of thinly silver-plated brass bells.
Goldie shrugged. She couldn't help being cynical. She'd seen it all before, year in and year out, as relatively poor uptimers with their big families took advantage of the special "one-cycle-pass" tickets to step through Primary and absorb as much of the holiday spirit as possible in the Wonderland of La-La Land before the Primary cycled again. But she'd put up a few requisite lights and bows around her shop and counted it time wasted. And speaking of time wasted...
Where was Skeeter's Nemesis?
Ordering herself to remain patient and seem the very picture of innocence, she sat regally on her bench in Victoria station, watching the crowds surge past, many pausing to take pictures of overhead decorations. Goldie noted they were tattered a bit in places by the prehistoric birds and pterosaurs that tended to roost in the girders.
One camera-bedecked geek got more than he had bargained for. An offering from one of the leather-winger screechers above splattered hideous across camera lens and body, the photographer's , the eye not on the eyepiece, both cheeks, mouth and chin, never mind the mess running down into his hair. Laughter, most of it sympathetic, with the delighted, devilish kind coming from the kids in their mothers' tow, broke out across Victoria Station.
Goldie, chuckling along with everyone else, almost missed him. A pair of cow-chaps caught her attention. Her field of visual acuity narrowed as she looked this man over. Someone staying in the Wild West section, out to see the rest of the station's gilt offerings. Oddly enough, he wasn't laughing with the rest. Then he turned and Goldie looked straight into his face. Ahh ... yes, that was him, all right. The dark scowl, the shock of short-cut reddish hair, the play of muscles as he moved, all confirmed the identity of the man with the knife. Just where he was sleeping was not immediately obvious; he looked tired, like a man who hasn't eaten enough in the past few days, and somehow frustrated. She didn't know his name yet-but this very much the worse-for-wear gladiator was going to solve all of Goldie's problems and rid Time Terminal 86 of that weasel Skeeter Jackson forever.
With a wave of her hand, Goldie signaled. Two very large, very muscular downtimers in her employ casually moved in, then grasped the astonished gladiator's arms-pinning them behind him (probably a career record for sudden, brutal defeat)-then steered him over to Goldie. A moment later, a young lad slid across the cobblestones on in-line skates, sending showers of sparks as he moved on the sides of his wheels rather than the bottoms. He did an impressive sliding stop on the bench rail, earning admiring looks from uptime kids on a tighter leash.
Born showman, Goldie thought. It was a very good thing that he'd ended up adopted by that downtimer couple Goldie'd run into. The pair had been running from taxes they couldn't pay and, in their terrified flight from slavers, accidentally ran straight through the Porta Romae into La-La Land. They'd had coins she'd been able to "help" them with.
"That him?" he asked.
"Yes," Goldie said, ginger-honey in her voice. `Would you please tell him that all I want is to talk to him about what he wants most. Tell him if he will make a promise not to run, I will deliver his enemy into his hands."
Young Julius spoke, his Latin pure and flawless, in a quiet, dignified manner that would have pleased even Claudius himself. (Goldie suspected Imperial Blood in him, because he hadn't been left on the city's heap of dung to be taken into adoption or, far more often-slavery, but had been exposed, instead, outside the gates of the Imperial palace, with a little placard around his neck that read, "So all shall know, this is Julius, son of a concubine who has died in childbirth. It is fit that her issue die also.") Goldie watched the gladiator's face as Julius translated her offer. His expression changed drastically in the space of five seconds. First, incredulity, closely followed by suspicious disbelief, then his glance darted this way and that, searching for nonexistent station security squads, from that to puzzlement, and finally very cautious acceptance of the truly odd situation in which fate had placed him.