“That so? Dwarf?”

“The gods give all dwarves extra inches below the belt,” Hercules intoned, “to make up for the extra inches we’re missing above.”

Arius smiled. “So if I’m Neptune for this sea battle, what are you?”

“A tadpole. And tadpoles, my savage friend, live to swim away while all the big fish get eaten up.”

“Mmm.”

“Maybe it’s your time to get eaten up,” said the dwarf cheerfully.

“The crowd’s certainly panting for it. The only thing you haven’t done for them by now is die.”

“Mmm.” Arius’s dog came hopping up, curling neatly by his feet and chewing on his sandal laces.

“Useless thing,” Hercules said. “She gnawed my good gauntlets to bits yesterday. Can I kick her?”

“Would the Hercules of legend kick dogs?”

“I’m not him, and good thing. He was a bonehead, by all accounts. But it does make a good performance name, doesn’t it? What was your name before you were Arius the Barbarian?”

Arius smiled. “Eurig.”

“Eurig?”

“Eurig.”

“Arius is better,” Hercules said. “Eurig. Gods, that’s unkind.”

“Can’t hardly remember it.”

“Good thing, too, Eurig.” Hercules chortled, polishing off the last of his wine. “This wine’s terrible. Let’s go to the Blue Mermaid and get drunk there.”

“Maybe you’ll find a whore who’ll believe that story about dwarves and their extra inches.”

“You want to compare, Barbarian? You just whip out your sword and I’ll whip out mine . . .”

Fifteen

LEPIDA

WHAT a bore.

I didn’t want to see the Barbarian star in the naumachia, but the Saeculares games were the event of the season, so go I did. In white silk with a collar of fabulously worked Egyptian gold about my neck, carrying a peacock feather fan with a quartet of Moroccan slaves at my back. The day had dawned clear and hot, and the Colosseum was packed to the sky. The plebs cheered the victorious legionnaires, they cheered the German prisoners, they cheered the sacrifices of the white bulls to Jupiter and the black bulls to the gods of the underworld. The Emperor, with his new Praetorian Prefect riding in splendor at his right hand, received a huge ovation. Paulinus had the place of honor at the Emperor’s right hand in the Imperial box, and I looked at him speculatively. Nearly a year and a half since I’d last seen him; he’d been busy in Germania mopping up the mess after Saturninus’s rebellion. Over a year but he hadn’t forgotten me, judging from the torrent of stiff letters that ranged from the slavish to the enraged. Today I might be watching the games from the box of the Sulpicii (three or four of them were my lovers) but by the next festival, I’d be seated beside Paulinus in the Imperial box.

The cheer that greeted the Emperor had been full of excitement. But nothing—nothing matched the madness with which the crowd greeted the Barbarian as he tore into the galleys and gave them their blood.

“Sink it! Sink it!” the plebs were shrieking, and Arius was busy obliging them. Four galleys had begun the naumachia, two blue-sailed for the Spartans, and two red-sailed for the Athenians. One of the red-masted Athenian ships was burning merrily. The Barbarian was climbing above the fire, watching as his enemies below scrambled with buckets.