No, he wouldn't be talking to the Station Manager or anyone else about this one. Skeeter managed to gain his feet, then slid dizzily back to the floor and spent several miserable minutes bringing up the contents of his stomach. He was still coughing and wishing for a glass of water to rinse his mouth when hasty footsteps ran lightly his way.
"Skeeter?" a female voice said anxiously.
He looked up, wondering who she was. He didn't remember seeing her before.
"Skeeter, you are ill! Oh, Ianira will be so upset! Here, let me help you."
Her accent pegged her as a downtimer, probably Greek. Legs so wobbly he could barely stand unaided, he let her guide him through the back corridors to his own apartment, where she levered him expertly into the shower, stripped him down, and sluiced lukewarm water over his shivering body to clean up the mess. He leaned against the tiles, groaning, and pressed gingerly at the swelling on the back of his head.
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 you 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 hideously across camera lens and body, the photographer's face, 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 signalled. 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.
"Please, Julius, ask our guest to sit beside me."
Julius didn't particularly get along well with the plebeian parents who'd raised him—he found them clinging and mindless—but he thanked all the gods for having landed them here. He absorbed more in one day in La-La Land than he'd ever learned from his adoptive parents. They didn't want to adjust (Jupiter forgive them if they attempted something new and radical, like flipping on a lightswitch rather than filling the apartment with smoke from candles and lanterns scattered here and there, too dim to see much of anything except shadows dancing on the wall).
Goldie Morran drew him out of deep thought. "Julius, would you be so kind as to explain to this man the location of the enemy he seeks?"
Julius grinned. Then turned to the big man beside him and started speaking rapidly in Latin.
Chapter Fourteen
Marcus turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving the gladiator to gape after him. He was aware that Lupus tried to follow, so he dodged through Victoria Station, only half aware when Julius' Lost and Found Gang hijacked Lupus Mortiferus' for Goldie Morran, of all people. By the time he returned to the Neo Edo, Skeeter had abandoned his attempt at theft and had long since gone. Marcus took the stairs, pounding angrily so the noise echoed up and down the stairwell, and emerged on the third floor, his meticulously kept records and depleted money box tucked under one arm.
"Curse him!" Marcus spat to the empty corridor.
He pounded on the door to room 3027 with a closed fist and wondered what he would say to the man whose debt he could not now pay. The door opened with alacrity. Marcus swallowed hard and faced down the man who'd bought him out of a filthy, stinking slave pen and brought him, fainting with terror, to La-La Land.
"Marcus," the man said with a tiny smile. "Come in."
He didn't want to go into that room.
But he stepped across the threshold, fingers white around the metal money box, and waited. The click of the door closing reached him, then a tinkle of ice against glass came in the silence. Liquid splashed. Marcus recognized the label. His one-time master had a taste for expensive liquor. He did not, Marcus noted, offer a second glass to him. Cold and angry, Marcus waited while the man sipped and studied him.
"You've changed." The Latin rolled off his tongue as neatly as it had that day in Rome.
"That is your doing," Marcus replied in English.
One brow rose toward a greying hairline. "Oh?"
Marcus shrugged in that Gallic gesture which had survived the centuries. "You brought me here. I have listened and learned. I know the laws which forbid slavery and the laws which forbid you to bring men like me into this world."
Dark eyes narrowed.
"I owe you money," Marcus went on doggedly, "for repayment of the coin you spent for my purchase. But your slave I am not. This is La-La Land. Not Rome."
He dropped the record books on the bed. "There are the notes you sought. Men who travelled with the zipper jockeys to the brothels of Greece and Rome. Men who returned with the art you seek. Men who did business with Robert Li when they returned and men who did not."
He thrust out the money box. "Here is most of what I owe you. In another few seven-days, I will have earned the rest. If you would tell me your name," he allowed sarcasm to creep into his voice, "I will have it sent to you uptime."
His former master stood very still for a very long time, just watching him. Then, slowly, he accepted the money box and set it aside, unopened. "We'll discuss this later, Marcus. As for my name," a brief smile touched mobile lips without reaching dark, watchful eyes, "it's Chuck. Chuck Farley. At least," he chuckled hollowly, "it is today. Tomorrow . . ." He shrugged. "Let's see those records of yours, shall we?"
He held out a hand for them.
Marcus, torn between the desire to stand his ground and the hope that his one-time master understood and would be reasonable about the arrangements for the rest of the money, hesitated. Then slowly picked up the record books and handed them over.
"Ahh . . ." Chuck Farley settled into a chair and flipped on a light, sipping whiskey and poring over Marcus' notations, making occasional comments that meant nothing to Marcus. "Very interesting. Hmm, now I wonder—of course." And he laughed, darkly. Marcus fought a shiver. Farley read through each book before glancing up again. "You've done very well, Marcus. I am impressed by your eye for detail and the thoroughness of your notes." He gestured with the glass toward the ledger books. Ice cubes tinkled like bones against the glass. "Now, as for the other matter, let's just see how much you have left to pay off, shall we?"
He opened the money box at last and counted out everything Marcus owned—and almost every bit of what Ianira had earned. They'd kept back just enough to buy food for the children.
Farley whistled softly. "You managed to save all this while keeping a roof over your head on the terminal? I'm impressed again." His glance was full of smiles this time. Marcus repressed a shiver. "Here." He shoved the metal box aside and found another glass, poured whiskey for them both, this time. "We'll celebrate, shall we? Your emancipation. Yes, we'll drink to your emancipation. You should be able to earn the balance in no time."
Marcus accepted the glass automatically. In truth, he felt a little numb, unsure what to think or believe.
"In fact, you could discharge the rest of that debt in one little job, tonight."
Whiskey untouched, Marcus just waited.
Farley smiled. "Drink. This is a celebration."
He drank. The whiskey burned his throat. He managed—just barely—not to cough. Whiskey, of any kind, was not something his palate was accustomed to, despite the amount of it he dispensed to others in the course of a week.
Chuck Farley—or whoever he really was—was speaking. He tried to pay full attention, despite the heat and disconcerting dizziness spreading rapidly through him.
"Now. I'm heading through the Porta Romae tonight to do some art collecting. I have quite a bit of baggage with me and I don't want to leave it behind. Things always manage to get stolen from luggage left in the care of a hotel." His smile sent a shiver down Marcus' overheated back. "Hmm . . . I'll tell you what we'll do. Act as my porter tonight, help me get all that baggage to the inn, and we'll call the debt even. I know downtimers work as porters all the time. I'd save myself a good bit of money, if you agree, and you'd be out of debt." His eyes twinkled, but darkly, like black diamonds.
Farley was smiling, now, while the whiskey sank into Marcus' veins. Farley refilled his glass. "Drink up, Marcus! We're celebrating, remember?"
He drank, feeling the burning heat sink into his belly and spread like dizzy fire through his whole body. His head whirled. Return to Rome? The very thought terrified him so badly his hand, unsteady around the glass, sloshed expensive liquor onto even more expensive carpet. He drank just to empty the full glass and spare Kit Carson's cleaning bill.
Actually return to Rome? But it would be a quick, simple way to discharge the remainder of his debt.
Carry a few bags through the Porta Romae, then return free of debt to the woman he loved and the children they had made together. It sounded so simple. Farley was smiling and chatting easily, now, refilling his glass, urging him to sit down, drawing him out about the men in his dry, factual notes. Marcus found himself talking about them, about the sexual art they had smuggled through for rich, uptime collectors greedy for rare, explicitly sexual items in pottery, stone, and ivory. Frankly, Marcus didn't understand the fuss. He'd grown up with so much of it around him, it was like walking past Connie Logan
's and seeing the familiar figure in wildly mismatched clothes she was trying on for fit.
With Farley drawing him out, he talked and drank and through a haze of whiskey, heard himself agree to the bargain over his debt. Porter for a trip to Roma for complete freedom of debt. His honor was satisfied. But he couldn't help wondering if he'd made a bargain with the gods of the underworld themselves.
"Good! Very good." Farley glanced at his watch. "Just another hour, or so, and the gate will be cycling. We'd better get into costume, eh? I'll expect you back here in, say, fifteen minutes?"
Marcus found himself nodding dumbly, then stumbled into the hall and made his unsteady way down and down still farther to his empty apartment. He still had the tunic and sandals of his first days on the station, tucked away in a box at the back of the closet. They felt alien against his skin. He left the fringed shirt Ianira had given him sprawled across the bed, along with a note in an unsteady hand, leaving word of where he was going and why, then—garbed as a Roman of the poorest, most abused classes—returned resolutely to the Neo Edo.
In an hour, he would be free of all debt and obligation to the man calling himself Chuck Farley. He knocked on the door to Room 3027 and quietly collected the man's bags, following silently to the brightly lit Commons and the crowded waiting area surrounding the great Porta Romae.
"Wait here," Farley told him. "I have some money to exchange."
Marcus just nodded, standing guard over the bags as told. He wondered where Ianira was, wished he could tell her everything was turning out fine, after all, then noticed that Farley'd disappeared in the direction of Goldie Morran's shop. He considered warning the man against her, then shrugged. Farley clearly knew what he was doing. Exhausted, head still befuddled from the whiskey he'd swallowed, Marcus simply waited for Farley's return and the end of the coming ordeal.
Chuck Farley wasn't his real name, but it was admirably suited to his line of work—and sense of humor. Chuck was close enough.
Wagers of Sin Page 25
