Mary Reed - Four for a Boy

“It’s started,” Felix observed grimly. “It wasn’t a Blue who tossed those stones, I’ll wager, but one of the Gourd’s men. It’s always best to have even a miserable excuse when you intend to murder the innocent.”

Felix’s fingers dug into John’s arm. The excubitor’s shaggy hair brushed his face as he shouted into John’s ear, in order to be heard above the din now rending the air with the thunderous clatter of hoofs and nail-studded boot soles and echoing screams of terror and agony.

“Come with me!” Felix ordered. “I’m not going to see you killed and be blamed for not protecting you. We’ll lie low in a shop until things quiet down. The Gourd doesn’t need my assistance in a slaughterhouse, anyway.” The disgust in his tone was withering.

They quickly slipped into the small forum, where men were already dying, ducked under the nearest portico, and leapt into the first alcove of a shop. Peering from its shield of darkness, they could pick out little detail from the frenzy of shadows and struggling men. Already, here and there, dark shapes lay crumpled.

A running figure erupted from the melee. From its dress and hairstyle it was obviously a Blue. Three men gave chase. The first to catch up with the fleeing man grabbed the victim’s long hair, yanked his head back, and cut his throat. The second completed the job by putting his sword into their victim’s back. The straggler had to content himself with kicking a corpse.

The massacre was soon over. The tumult faded. Finally there was only an occasional high-pitched shriek as the wounded were dispatched to oblivion. The Gourd was nothing if not thorough, John acknowledged to himself.

He stepped back from the doorway and was suddenly prodded on his shoulder from behind. He whirled, startled, as Felix stifled a bitter laugh.

Then John saw the cause of his companion’s strange humor.

What had nudged his back dangled from a iron hook in the ceiling. It was the skinned carcass of a monstrous pig, the biggest John had ever seen. They had taken refuge in a butcher’s shop. He pushed the corpse away. It swung ponderously to and fro from its hook.

“A strange place to find shelter from a slaughter,” observed Felix.

“Fortuna is said to have a cruel sense of humor.” John turned back to the door.

The continuing search for survivors was a terrible sight. Several men strolled around the forum, casually thrusting blades into motionless bodies. Others had begun to search the surrounding shops, vanishing into darkened cavities to emerge in one instance with a struggling figure which was soon stilled, but increasingly with shadowy handfuls of whatever goods had taken their fancy.

“It’s one thing for a soldier to take the reward he’s earned from honorably defeating an enemy, but only a thief robs his fellow citizens!” Felix averted his head and spit sideways in disgust.

“Ugh!”

It was a reflexive cry of distress.

John bent down and looked behind the pile of baskets sitting under the butcher’s scarred chopping table. A young boy crouched there, wiping his face. He looked up in terror but made no attempt to escape, frozen in fear like a rabbit. Felix dragged him out.

The boy couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve and small for his age at that. Nonetheless he was dressed as a Blue, with a splendid cloak and his hair shaved high in the front.

“Stole your father’s razor, didn’t you?” Felix gave the boy a rough shake. “Not for that beardless face but to shave your hair. You did a good job, boy. Too good. You look enough like a Blue to get your belly sliced open.”

The boy began to sob. “My tutor said I had to memorize Homer. I thought fighting would be more heroic! I was going to write verse about it. We weren’t hurting anybody. Don’t let them kill me!”

Felix muttered words that weren’t fit for the boy’s ears, not as a response to the lad’s confession, but rather because he had just seen several men working their way down the line of shops.

From what could already be seen and heard, their search was extremely thorough. Furniture was knocked over, crates smashed, sacks torn open and their contents tossed out into the forum.

“He looks enough like a Blue to get all our bellies sliced open if we’re caught hiding him,” John pointed out. “There’s only one solution. Give me your sword!”

Felix regarded John with a sneer. “What, is it anything to save your own skin?” The boy in his grip squirmed convulsively, but had the presence of mind not to begin yelling for help.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt him. Just don’t forget the lesson you learned tonight, young man. Life’s rarely poetic.”

From much too close by came the sound of shattering pottery.

“Give me your sword, Felix. Quickly!” John demanded again.

Felix hesitated for a heartbeat, then complied. John ducked behind the enormous hanging pig carcass and swiftly hacked at the opening made by the butcher to extract its offal.

Raised voices could be heard from a shop only an alcove or two away. Amphorae smashed on the ground, followed by raucous laughter.

Understanding dawned and Felix picked up the boy and thrust him inside the huge bloody carcass. “Don’t make a sound!” he cautioned.

Two men appeared at the shop’s doorway.

John kicked a stool savagely against a wall. “You ignorant fool! You’re stupider than a fish that’s been lying on the dock for days! We’re wasting our time! There’s no one in here!” he shouted at Felix.

The men outside were featureless shadows. Their heads moved in John’s direction. He was obviously not one they sought, not to mention ordering about a man immediately identifiable as an excubitor by his clothing.

The pair set to work to finish the search John had feigned beginning.

They looked under the chopping table, opened a chest and scattered its contents on the floor. Felix helped the searchers overturn a large vat filled with layers of salted meat.

Apparently satisfied, the two men turned to go. One paused suddenly. He looked up at the huge gutted pig hanging from its hook.

His companion let out a bark of laughter. “Forget taking that as well! You can’t hide it under your tunic!”

“That wasn’t what I was thinking.” The man raised his sword and took a step toward the carcass. His blade descended swiftly and in an instant a hefty slice of pig flesh was clutched in his fist.

“Dinner!” he announced, shoving it into his tunic. “And speaking of dinner, as a little thank you I’ll give the butcher’s customers some sauce for theirs…”

He urinated on the pig and then the pair left, laughing.

The dead swine swung wildly as the boy emerged, speckled in gore and scraps of offal. He was shaking. John removed his cloak, folded it, and draped it across the boy’s narrow shoulders.

Felix peered out. “They’re dragging bodies away now. We’ll be able to leave shortly. And where do you live, boy?”

Too busy wiping pig’s blood from his face, the would-be Blue didn’t answer.

“No point in setting you loose to get yourself killed now.” Felix smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you safely home.”

“I can get home by myself!” The boy darted forward.

Felix casually stuck out his foot, sending the lad sprawling.

“Let me go home!” the boy pleaded.

“Do you even have a proper home to go to? Maybe we should turn you over to the Prefect?” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes and ran down his face, leaving meandering streaks on his dirty, blood-smeared cheeks.

“Anatolius,” he said. “That’s my name. But please don’t tell my father what I did!”

Felix snorted. “Afraid of the thrashing you deserve? And what will your mother say to see your curls sacrificed for such a stupid reason? They’ll realize what you’ve been up to as soon as they see your new hairstyle. Unless you propose to wear a wig for a while?”