CHAPTER FOUR
I’m careful to disguise myself before I go out looking for answers.
I’m easily recognized in the city, and while the adulation of the people and the authority that comes from being a senator are mostly good things, neither will help me here.
If people know who I am, then they’ll also know that I’m against the violence and corruption of the games.
No one will trust me with the location of the death bouts.
I need to become someone they will trust. I dye my hair a deep red and apply makeup so that people will need to look closely to realize who I am.
I consider my choice of clothes carefully, finally selecting poorer clothes that might be better suited to a servant.
I wrap a cloak around myself, then slip out of the palace again.
I head into the merchant district, making my way to its seedier edges, where it and the entertainment district mingle, and there are paths out into the slums through the walls, paths that shouldn’t exist, but do.
I use the eyes of animals around me as I walk, watching for danger, but also keeping track of the guards.
I don’t know how they’ll react to me wandering around in disguise.
Even with Domitian imprisoned, I don’t know how many of them might be in the pockets of corrupt senators. It’s better to keep my distance.
And maybe that adds to my disguise. The kind of person I’m pretending to be, a servant sent to get information for her employer, would be furtive and careful, worried about being spotted by the guards and careful to keep her cloak in place around her.
"I'm looking for Barthus," I say to a tough-looking man on a street corner. I slip him a couple of coins as he looks me over.
"And why does a pretty thing like you want a used-up old man like Barthus?" the man says. "I can show you a much better time."
He reaches out for me, and it would be so easy to take him down, to break his arm or just knock him out.
But doing something like that would make it clear I’m not just a simple servant.
Taking down some street tough is something Lyra, the champion of the colosseum, could do, not something some serving woman might manage.
I need to do this another way. I let fear show on my face, and it’s not all feigned, because I’m afraid of what could happen if I don’t handle this properly.
“My lady would not be happy if I stayed here too long,” I say. “She’s commanded me to come here and place bets with Barthus. With a noble like her, I can’t afford to waste time.”
There’s a threat couched in my words, the threat of some noble employer who it’s better not to cross. The man looks me over one more time, as if trying to decide whether I’m worth the risk of crossing an unknown noble, then shrugs.
“Barthus is in the Three Coins,” he says. “Up that way.”
I go in the direction he indicates, up a street where performers throng.
A man is juggling with fire, not with flaming torches, just with fire.
A woman contorts herself into seemingly impossible shapes, her flesh shifting and stretching as she does it beyond any human limits.
Magic is as much a part of the entertainments here as it is a part of every other aspect of the city.
“I can get you whatever you want,” a man calls from the shadows. “Drugs and poisons, whatever you need.”
I keep moving, making sure my cloak is still pulled tightly around me.
“Why not come inside?” a woman calls down from the balcony of one of the buildings. “Experience the pleasures of your house. Men, women, whatever you prefer.”
The street is filled with offers for all the least salubrious of the entertainment district’s diversions.
I can see dangers too, with a couple of gang members here, watching me as if wondering if I might be prey for them.
The gangs are a rarer sight within the walls of the city, rather than out in the slums, but it’s obvious the surrounding establishments are connected to them.
I watch for danger through the eyes of surrounding animals, but they show me more of the problems of this area within the entertainment district.
I see two men fighting in a back alley over a bottle of wine.
I see a couple of rigged gambling games.
I see a pickpocket sneaking up on me, moving almost in silence.
I spin, my hand clamping onto his wrist. He’s just a boy of about ten, dirty in a way that suggests he lives on the streets. He looks up at me with shock.
“You should be more careful,” I say. “If the guards catch you, it won’t go well for you.”
“What else am I meant to do?” the urchin asks.
I don’t have a good answer to him. I give him a few coins, probably more than he would have managed to steal by himself. He runs off, giving me a look that makes it clear he thinks I’m a fool for doing it.
I keep going, and now I can see the sign of the Three Coins ahead. The door is protected by a burly guard, who stares at me before stepping back to let me enter. The moment I step inside, the stink of cheap incense and wine hit me.
The place appears to have started life as an inn, and servants still rush here and there with wine or food, but mostly, it seems to have become a gambling establishment.
There are people throwing dice and playing cards, cursing their luck.
There are a couple of oiled young men wrestling, while spectators jeer and call out, betting on which will pin the other first. There’s a spot where two men are throwing knives, and people are betting on which will get closer to the center of a target.
I'm grateful I opted for my disguise as a servant rather than something wealthier.
The majority of the clientele in this place seem to be lower class: workers from the docks or the merchant district, people from the slums who've made it into the city for the entertainments offered here.
If I'd dressed as a noble, it would have attracted far too much attention.
There’s a space towards the back of the room where an older man sits behind a desk, taking bets on the activities in the room, while a board behind him shows carefully chalked odds on other events.
There are chariot races up there, a foot race around the perimeter of the city, but also odds on which of three gang members will take over the Red and Greens in some internal conflict, and which way a vote in the senate will go.
The man is simply but expensively dressed, in a dark tunic and golden wrist bands.
He has a bronze torc around his neck, while his white hair is receding rapidly.
This must be Barthus. He’s flanked by guards, who don’t look like enforcers recruited from the gangs, but instead are more like the personal guards the nobles sometimes employ.
In fact, something seems off about this whole place.
It has the look of one of the seedy dens that I might find in the slums, but no one here seems to be wearing gang colors, even if I spotted a couple of gang members in the district beyond.
The servants seem surprisingly upmarket for a place like this, too.
Is there more than just a gang's money behind all this?
There's a strange symbol on the guards' armor, and on brooches, the servants wear: a single droplet of blood set against the curving sail of a ship.
I haven't seen it before, but it looks less like a gang sign than some noble or merchant house's symbol.
I move to Barthus, taking out a small pouch of coins as he looks up at me.
“Yes?” he says. “What do you want to bet on, and how much?”
I lower my voice carefully, as if afraid of being overheard. I glance around nervously, trying my best to look like the servant I’m pretending to be, afraid to be in this place but equally afraid of disappointing her employer.
“My mistress has bid me to bet on the next death bouts,” I say. “She told me you were the man to go to.”
“Who do you want to bet on?” Barthus asks.
That's a problem because I don't know who's fighting.
I don't know anything about the fights, even if his response confirms that they're happening.
Just learning that much makes my heart beat faster in my chest, tension running through me.
I try to think of a way around the question, preferably something that will let me get closer to my goal of finding a location for the fights.
“Honestly, I’m not sure it matters much to her,” I say. “What are the options?”
Barthus looks at me with surprise. “You were sent here without knowing the name of the person you’re meant to wager on?”
His tone is filled with disbelief, and I know I'm drawing far too much suspicion, but I press ahead anyway.
“As I say, the exact details don't matter to her very much. It's more that she would like to attend the fights, and sees this bet as an investment.”
“Are you trying to bribe me into telling you where the fights are taking place?” Barthus asks.
“That's such a direct way of putting it,” I reply. “My mistress merely wishes to spectate, and would like to purchase access to the fights suitable for someone of her station.”
Barthus laughs. “So, your employer sent you to me to place a bet on a fight that doesn't exist just to get information about how to get into the fights?
It occurs to me that if she doesn't know where they are or when, she probably doesn't need to know. My backers have been very determined about that.”
He's being stubborn about this. I try to think of anything else that will persuade him.
“I think your backers would be interested in my mistress attending,” I say. I lean closer to him, conspiratorially. “I'm not meant to say this part, but from what I understand, she's looking to invest in the matches. She wants to see what she's buying into before she makes any offers.”
“My employers have plenty of money already,” Barthus says.
His employers, which means that this gambling operation and presumably others around the city are connected more strongly to the death bouts than I initially assumed.
I came here thinking that this bookmaker would simply know where they were.
Now, it seems he's part of a broader network.
The way he's talking about it suggests that he has noble backing. The gangs don't have enough money or control for this kind of thing, not within the main city. If the fights were all happening out in the slums, it might be a different matter but here? No, it doesn't make sense.
“Enough that they can turn down the opportunity of more?” I say. “How do you think they'll react when they find out that you turned me away?”
Barthus looks thoughtful. He's also looking at me strangely as if he can't quite place me. Perhaps my disguise isn't working as well as I'd like.
“Go and enjoy the rest of the gaming here,” he says. “I need to think about this.”
I could argue, but arguing it doesn't fit with the character I’m portraying.
Instead, I nod and step back into the crowd, watching Barthus as he sits there pondering.
He whispers something to a servant who runs off, presumably to check with his employers.
Desperately, I stretch out my powers, trying to look through the eyes of any animals close by to follow the young man.
But I can't find anything close enough, and by the time I reach out for one of the birds above, it's impossible to pick him out from the crowd outside the gambling establishment.
I stand and wait, pretending to watch the wrestling while making sure I still have a clear view of the spot where Barthus is waiting.
He glances my way occasionally, looking at me with suspicion. I feel certain there's some part of him that's recognized me. He whispers something to the guards beside him, and there is at least a rat close enough to him that I can hear through its ears.
“…not happy about all this. Someone coming out of the blue like this? I don't trust it. I don't trust her. Who is this mistress she claims to have? I think it's better if we ask her a few more questions pointedly, and if we don't like the answers, maybe she can disappear.”
I realize that not only am I not going to get answers here, I'm in danger.
I don't want to have to fight my way out of here, so as the guards make their way towards me, I slip into the crowd, keeping moving.
I push one man from behind, spilling his drink and keeping moving as he rounds on the man behind him.
The sounds of the argument start to cover my escape and block the route of the guards.
I make my way outside quickly. I'm convinced Barthus doesn't know exactly who I am, but he's suspicious nonetheless.
It's clear I'm not going to get the information I want here so I hurry away from the gambling establishment, keeping the hood of my cloak up and trying to lose myself in the streets of the city.
I curse myself for not learning more, but at least I have confirmation of what Thalia told me: that there truly are death matches taking place in the city. I still need to find them, though, and I need to work out exactly what they have to do with the disappearance of three gladiators so far.
If I don't find answers, I have the feeling that there's worse dangers waiting. This is clearly part of something bigger, and I need to find out what before it affects the whole city.