"Farlus, welcome! Come in, come in."
"Your hospitality is gracious, Lucius Honorius Galba. Congratulations, by the way, on your election to curule aedileship."
Tremors set in, chattering his teeth. Lucius Honorius Galba had been elected curule aedile? As powerful as his hated first master had been, Galba was a thousand times more so. Escape this man? Impossible. Galba glanced down at him.
"This?' the man said, disdain dripping from his voice. "This cowering fool is the valuable scribe you offered for my collection?"
Farley jerked on the rope. "Get up, slave." He said to Galba, "He didn't wish to be sold from my household. And he doubtless knows your illustrious reputation very well." The smile Farley gave Marcus was cool as a lizard's. "I assure you, he knows his job well. I purchased him some years back when the estate of one of the plebeian. aediles was being disposed of due to the man's death. As to the terror, his desire to make a good impression has left him shaking like a virgin."
Galba chuckled. "Come, boy, there's nothing to fear. I'm a fair man. Get up. I have need of a new scribe and your master, here, has offered a fine trade, a very fine trade. Come, let's see a demonstration of your skills."
Marcus, hands trembling as Farley unlocked the chains, wet his lips, then took the stylus and wax tablet handed him.
"Now," Galba said with a slight smile, "let's see if you can take this down properly."
The stylus jittered against the soft wax, but he did his best to take the dictation, which ranged from a partial letter to a business partner to household accounts to cargoes and trade sums earned at interest. Galba nodded approvingly over the result.
"Not bad," he allowed, "for a man trembling in terror. Not bad at all. In what capacity did you serve your plebeian aedile, boy?"
Marcus' voice shook as badly as the rest of him. "I kept records ... of the races, at the Circus, the inventories of the wild beasts for the bestiary hunts, and the records of gladiators who won victories and those who did not ... ."
Memory closed in, harsh and immediate despite the time elapsed since those days. He heard Galba say,
I do believe you've brought me a boy who'll settle in nicely. Very well. The bargain is agreed upon."
They retired to a small room off the atrium and its splashing fountain. Chuck Farley and his new master bent over papers, signing their names and exchanging coins for Marcus' life. A moment later, his new owner had called for the steward of his house.
"See to it the new boy is made comfortable, but confined. I want to be certain he doesn't run at the first opportunity. Now, about the pieces you wanted in trade..."
Dismissed entirely from the man's awareness, Marcus stumbled dazedly between a burly steward and another thickset man who guided him toward the back of the house. The room they put him in was small and windowless, lit with a lamp dangling from the ceiling. A shout from the steward brought a collared slave girl running with a tray of food and rink. Marcus had to hold back a semi-hysterical laugh. If they thought he could possibly eat now without being sick.. .
They left him and the untouched meal alone in his cell, locking the door from the outside. Marcus sank onto the only piece of furniture, a bed, and closed his hands into the thin mattress until his fingers ached. The blur of the alcohol Farley had plied him with was beginning to wear off, leaving him colder with every passing moment. Light from the oil lamp gleamed against the sweat on his arms. He felt like screaming, cursing, battering down the door with the bed .... Instead, with as much calm as he could dredge up from the depths of his soul, Marcus forced himself to eat and drink what he'd been given.
He would need to keep up his strength.
Marcus was aware that it would be ridiculously easy, in a few weeks' time, to simply slip away and run for the Time Tours wine shop on the Via Appia. Everything in him screamed to do just that. Everything except his honor.
And that honor-the only bit of his parents, his family, his whole village and the proud tribe of the Taurusates, kinsmen to the great Aquitani themselves, left to him-demanded he repay the debt of coin his new "master" had paid for him. Somehow, someday, he would find his way back through the Porta Romae and hold Ianira in his arms again. It would take years of work to repay his purchase price and he had no guarantee that beautiful Ianira would wait. Perhaps he could send a message, somehow, with a Time Tours employee? How, he didn't have the faintest idea. But he would. And he would get back to her, somehow. Or die trying.
Kit Carson was on his way to a business luncheon he'd rather have avoided-he hated the monthly business meeting of TT-86 hoteliers-which was scheduled to take place at the Neo Edo's expensive and excellent restaurant this month. 'Eighty-sixers and tourists alike appreciated Kit's kitchen. But these stupid monthly meetings, where everyone talked, no one did anything, and Kit invariably sat through, silently fuming ... he'd accomplish nothing except the loss in revenue to the Neo Edo from a group of men and women more interested in the delicacies of his kitchen than they were in Guild business.
Thank God the meetings rotated from one hotel to another, so Kit didn't suffer too often. He was nearly to the doorway of the Kaiko no Kemushi, the Silkworm Caterpillar--any form of bug, particularly caterpillars, elicited greater disgust from japanese than even cockroaches did for Americans, so most of his japanese customers found the restaurant's name hysterically funny Then it happened. The miracle he'd been hoping would rescue him from this interminable luncheon.
His skull began to buzz in the old, familiar way, but he was constitutionally certain that no gate was due to open today. He grinned suddenly, transforming in a blink from serious businessman to imp of mischief ready for some fun.
"Unstable gate!" he crowed, racing into the Commons, even as warning klaxons blared. What would it be this time? Another peek into the late Mesozoic? No, the buzzing of his skull bones wasn't intense enough for a gate that big. The eerie, nonsound told him that this would be a smallish gate, open for who knew how long? Would it cycle several times, then vanish, or set up a steady, long-term pattern? Where? Kit wondered, having seen everything from giant pterodactyls to murderous Welsh bowmen stumble through unstable gates.
Kit arrived a few instants earlier than Pest Control, with their innocuous grey uniforms and staunch faces, discontinuity detectors sweeping the whole area. They also carried rifles, shotguns, and capture nets to be ready for whatever roared through. Mike Benson and several of his security men raced up next, followed by a puffing Bull Morgan. Mike looked terrible-eyes bloodshot, bags under them so dark a purple they looked nearly black, jawline unshaven. Bull looked sharply at his Chief of Security as well, then snapped out, "Any ideas?"
Pest Control's chief, Sue Fritchey, always had a quiet, almost demure air about her-and it often fooled people. Sue was twice as strong and at least four times as smart as she generally looked. Kit chuckled silently. There she stood, looking exactly like a carbon copy of all the other Pest Control agents. You'd never guess to look at her that she held doctorates in biological/ ecological sciences, nematological/entomological sciences, had large- and small-animal veterinary and zoo degrees, and a paleontological science Ph.D to boot: in both flora and fauna. With a master's in virology thrown in for good measure.
Sue Fritchey was very good at her job.
A shimmering in the air opened ten feet above Time Tours' Porta Romae gate platform-and about four feet to one side of it. The air shimmered through a whole doppler range of colors and indescribable motion, then the dark, ever-shifting edges of an unstable gate slid open. Little yellow-brown things fell through it, all the way to the concrete floor below, where they smacked with a bone-cracking sound. A flood followed them, a tidal wave. Kit widened his eyes when he realized what it was. He laughed aloud. "Lemmings!"