I wondered whether he had more urgent business than attending to the formalities. I asked where he was. Gone home, very upset, apparently. At least that gave us a breathing space.

"Tell me," I mused, "what do you know about the other night? When Rumex had to kill that lion?" Snatched glances passed between his two friends. "It can't matter anymore," I said.

"The boss won't like us talking."

"I won't tell him."

"He has a way of finding out."

"All right; I won't push you. But whatever occurred, it seems to have done for Rumex!"

At that they looked anxiously towards the door. Anacrites smoothly closed it.

In a low, rapid voice the first gladiator said, "It was that magistrate. He kept nagging the boss to do him a show at his house. Saturninus offered to take our leopardess, but he was set on a lion."

"Saturninus doesn't own one?" prompted Anacrites.

"His were all used and killed in the last Games; he's waiting for new stock. He tried to get one a few months ago, but Calliopus sneaked off to Puteoli and pipped him."

"Draco?" I asked.

"Right."

"I've seen Draco. He's a handsome beast with great spirit-and I know other people who would have liked to be the purchaser." Thalia had told me she fancied him for her troupe. "So Saturninus lost out, but he bribed a keeper at Calliopus' menagerie to let him borrow Draco for a night? Do you know about that?"

"Our folks went there and thought they'd picked him up all right. Afterwards we reckoned it was the wrong lion, of course. But they only saw one; the other must have been hidden away."

"What was Saturninus planning to do with him?"

"A show with the lion tethered in a harness. No real blood; only noise and drama. Not as frightening as it would look. Our keepers would control the lion, while Rumex dressed up in his gear and pretended to fight him. Just a display so the magistrate could get his girlfriend all hotted up."

"The totsy? Scilla, isn't it? She's juicy stuff? A lively girl?"

"She's a tough one," our informant agreed. His companion laughed lewdly.

"I follow-so what went wrong that night at Urtica's house? Did they hold the display as planned?"

"Never got started. Our keepers opened up the cage and were meaning to get the harness round the lion-"

"Sounds a tricky maneuver."

"They do it all the time. They use a piece of meat as bait."

"Sooner them than me. What if the lion or leopard decides today's choice from the cats' caupona will be human arm?"

"We end up with a one-handed keeper," grinned the second man, the one who hardly spoke. The cultured, sensitive one.

"Nice! And was Rumex used to fighting animals? He wasn't a bestiarius, surely? I thought he normally played a Samnite and was conventionally paired?"

"Right. He didn't want the job, and that's a fact. The boss leaned on him."

"How?"

"Who knows?" Once again, a shifty look passed between the two gladiators. They knew how. The old phrase "nothing to do with us, legate" went unsaid, but its implied customary addition "we could tell you things, all right!" hung in the air. They shared an unspoken pact that they would not tell me. I would put the whole conversation at risk by pushing it.

"We'll have to ask your boss then," Anacrites said. They deliberately made no comment, as if daring us.

"Let's go back to the ex-praetor's house," I suggested. "The lion's cage was opened up, and then what?"

"The keepers wanted to prepare everything quietly but the damned magistrate came on the scene, wetting himself with excitement. He grabbed one of those straw dummies they use to excite the beasts. He started to wave it about. The lion roared and crashed out past the keepers. It was terrible. He leapt straight at Urtica."

Anacrites gulped. "Dear gods. Was he hurt?"

The two men said nothing. He must have been. I could find out. That afternoon when I had tried to see him at his Pincian mansion, perhaps Pomponius Urtica had been groaning indoors, recovering from a mauling. At least I knew now what had befallen the torn straw man I had discovered in the workshops at the Calliopus barracks.

"It must have been an awful scene," Anacrites joined in again.

"Urtica was down, his girlfriend was screaming, none of our team could handle it."

"Rumex just grabbed a spear and did his best?"

His two friends were silent. Their attitudes seemed different. One had said his piece while the other listened with a slightly sardonic expression. It could be that the second man disapproved of him telling me the tale. Or it could be something else. He might just possibly disagree with the story as it had just been told.

"Then they had to decide what to do with the dead lion?" suggested Anacrites. Again, nothing from them.

"Well," I countered, "you can't just shove a Circus lion behind a bush in Caesar's Gardens and hope the men who trim the lawns will just collect him in their clippings cart."

"So they put him back where he had come from?"

"Obvious thing to do."

Anacrites and I were doing the talking because the friends of Rumex were apparently no longer prepared to give. I pushed for one last query: "What caused the trouble originally between Saturninus and Calliopus?"

It seemed a neutral subject, a change of topic, and they agreed to speak again. "I heard it was an old row about a tally in the sparsio, " the first one told the other. The sparsio was the free-for-all when vouchers for prizes and even gifts in kind were hurled at the arena crowds as a bounty.

"Back in the old days." Even the second became less reticent. Only slightly, however.

"Nero stirred up trouble on purpose," I prompted. "He liked to watch the public fighting over the tickets. There was as much blood and broken bones up in the terraces as down on the sand."

"Calliopus and Saturninus had been partners, hadn't they?" Anacrites said. "So were they watching the Games together? Then did they fall out over a voucher in the scrum?"

"Saturninus grabbed the voucher first, but Calliopus trod on him and snatched it-"

The lottery had always caused havoc around the arena. Nero had enjoyed stirring up those wonderful human talents: greed, hatred, and misery. People used to place huge bets too, gambling on the chance of winning a prize, only to lose everything if they failed to grab a ticket. When the tickets were thrown by attendants or launched from the spitting voucher machine, chaos ensued. Holding on to a ticket was the first lottery; getting one for a worthwhile prize was the second game of chance. You could win three fleas, ten gourds-or a fully laden sailing ship. The only drawback was that if you bagged the day's big prize you were compelled to meet the Emperor.

"What was the controversial win?" I asked.

"The special."

"In cash?"

"Better."

"The galleon?"

"The villa."

"Oho! That must be how Calliopus acquired his desirable cliff-top gem at Surrentum."

"No wonder they fell out then," said Anacrites. "Saturninus must have been very unhappy at losing that." Ever the master of the banal. He and I knew exactly what that villa at Surrentum was now worth. Losing it, Saturninus had been screwed. It lent an extra dimension to Euphrasia's sarcastic interest in why Calliopus had sent his own wife Artemisia there now.

"They've been feuding ever since," said the chubby gladiator. "They hate each other's guts."

"A lesson to all who work in partnership," I murmured piously, aiming to worry Anacrites.

Unaware of the undercurrents, our informant went on: "We reckon they would kill one another, if they had the chance."

I smiled at Anacrites. That was going too far. I would never kill him. Not even though we both knew he had once tried to arrange a fatal accident for me.