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.

"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, an 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 Lang. Not Rome."

He dropped the record books on the bed. "There are the notes you sought. Men who traveled 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 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.