Lindsey Davis - Three Hands in The Fountain

'Did you kill him?'

'That's for next time.' The terror tactic. Make it hurt, then give the victim days or weeks to think about death coming for him.

They were co-ordinated. The pack had spread; now they were creeping down on two sides to encircle me. I edged backwards slowly. The flight of steps from the gym was steep; I wanted them away from there. I glanced quickly behind me, ready for the off.

When they rushed me, I was looking at one, but I jumped another. Springing forward into the pack, I dived low, and hit him around the knees. It brought him down. I rolled over him and threw myself up a few steps. I got an arm around the neck of a different lump of muscle and bodily dragged him with me back towards the gym, fighting to put him between me and some of the others. I clung on, using my feet to deter the rest as they weighed in. If they had had knives I would have been done for, but these lads were physical. They were stamping too. I was dodging furiously.

For a few moments I was heading for a short walk to Hades. I took some heavy blows and kicks, but then there was a racket from above us. Help at last.

I lost my man, but managed to squeeze his neck so hard I damn near killed him. As he crouched coughing at my feet I sent him down the steps with a flying kick. Someone behind me cheered raucously. Out came Glaucus, followed by a herd of his clients. Some had been weight-lifting; they were in loincloths with wristbands. Some had been at swordplay with Glaucus himself and were armed with wooden practice swords – blunt, but good for vicious whacks. A couple of generous souls had even left their baths. Naked and glistening with oil, they rushed out to help – useless for grappling opponents, but themselves impossible to catch hold of. It added wildly to the confusion as we launched ourselves into a fierce streetfight.

'I waste my time, Falco!' Glaucus snarled as we both worked over a couple of nut-headed thugs.

'Right! You haven't taught me anything useful -'

The clients at Glaucus' gym usually honed their bodies discreetly, hardly speaking to each other. We went there for exercise, cleanliness, and the fierce hands of the Cilician masseur, not chat. Now I saw a man who I happened to know was a rising barrister digging his fingers into someone's eyes as viciously as if he had been born in the Suburra slums. An engineer tried to break another thug's neck, clearly enjoying the experience. The prized masseur was keeping his hands out of trouble, but that did not prevent him from using his feet for wholly unacceptable purposes.

'How could you get trapped right on the damned doorstep?' Glaucus grunted, fielding a punch then slamming in a rapid set of four.

'They were holed up in your sweetmeat shop -' His man was out of it, so I threw him mine to hold while I battered him. 'Must have had a complaint. I keep telling you the cinnamon mice are stale -'

'Behind!' I spun, in time to knee the next bastard as he leapt at me. 'Talk less and watch your guard,' Glaucus advised.

I trapped a wrestler about to put a fatal lock on his neck. 'Take your own orders,' I grinned. Glaucus screwed the grappler's nose around until it snapped. 'Nice trick. Requires a calm temperament,' I smiled at the blood-stained victim. 'And very strong hands.'

All down the street there was action. It was a friendly commercial alley. Pausing only to remove their goods from the danger zone, the shopkeepers had come out to help Glaucus, who was a popular neighbour. Passers-by who felt left out started throwing punches; if they were hopeless at that they lobbed apples instead. Dogs barked. Women hung out of upstairs windows, yelling a mixture of encouragement and abuse, then emptied buckets of whoknows-what on fighters' heads for the fun of it. Washing was caught on the practice swords and came down, tangling around frantically tussling figures. Weightlifters were showing off their pectorals carrying horizontal human weights. A startled donkey skidded on the road, tipping wineskins off his back so that they burst and doused his furious driver, making a slippery patch on the paving which claimed several victims who crashed to the ground and were painfully trampled.

Then some idiot fetched the vigiles.

A whistle alerted us.

As the red tunics rushed into the alley, order reimposed itself in seconds. All they saw was a normal street scene. The Florius gang, with the skill of long practice, had melted away. Two feet stuck out from behind a barrel of salt fish – evidently somebody sleeping it off. Something that looked like red tunic dye was being sluiced along with a bucket of water and swept down a drain by a girl who was loudly singing a rude song. Groups of men sized up fruit on stalls, making studied comparisons. Women leant out of windows adjusting pulleys on the drying lines above the alley. Dogs lay grinning on their backs and waggling their bodies madly as passers-by tickled their turns. I was pointing out to Glaucus how the gable on his bathhouse was capped by an excellent acroterion of truly classic design, while he thanked me for my generous praise of his fine Gorgon-featured antefix.

The sky was blue. The sun was hot. Two fellows walking up the steps of the gymnasium discussing the Senate had no clothes on for some reason, but otherwise there was nobody the guardians of the law could arrest.

When I reached Fountain Court, returning by a roundabout route for safety, Petronius was being carried out feet first. Lenia and some of her staff must have found him. They had seen Florius' heavies rushing off in suspicious haste. Not for the first time I wished Lenia could be as good at spotting trouble when it arrived as she was at noticing it leave.

I had run up the back lane, past the lamp-black ovens, the midden and the poultry yard. I hopped over the work in progress in the ropewalk, leapt the cesstrench and barged into the laundry through its rear entrance. In the yard wet clothes slapped me in the face and woodsmoke choked me, then indoors I nearly skidded and upended myself on the wet floor. As I was flailing a girl with a wash-paddle shoved me upright. I skated past the office and flew to a halt in the colonnade.

Petro was lying on a rough stretcher people had made from clothes rails and a customer's toga.

'Stand back; here's his heartbroken boyfriend!'

'Enough of your biting wit, Lenia – Is he dead?'

'I wouldn't be joking.' No, she had some standards. He was alive. His condition was sad, though.

If he was conscious he was in too much pain to show a reaction even when I turned up. Torn bandages covered much of his head and face, his left arm, and his right hand. His legs were badly cut and grazed. 'Petro!' There was no response.

They were dragging him to a litter. 'He's going to his auntie's.'

'What auntie?'

'Sedina, the one with the flower stall. She was fetched over, but you know how fat she is; she'd have died if we'd let her struggle all the way upstairs. Anyway, I didn't want the poor duck to see him until I'd cleaned him up a bit. She's toddled home to get the bed ready. She'll look after him.' Lenia must have patched him up and made all the arrangements.

'Good thinking. He'll be safer than here.'

'Well, he's all right, old Petro.'

'Thanks, Lenia.'

'It was a gang of street rubbish,' she told me.

'I met them myself.'

'You were luckier, then.'

'I had help.'

'Falco, why's he safer at Sedina's?'

'They promised me they'd be coming back for him.' 'Olympus! Is this about that silly little skirt of his?' 'Message from her husband, I was told. Clear, but will he listen?'

'He'll be out of it for days. Where does it leave you, Falco?'

'I'll manage.'

As the litter lurched off, I sent a runner to the vigiles begging for Scythax, their doctor, to attend Petronius at his aunt's house. I asked Lenia whether anyone had told Silvia; before he collapsed Petro had refused to have his wife involved. Well, you could see why. 'And what does he want done about dear little Milvia?' I enquired.