The Far Arena (52 page)

'Greek games,' I said.

'Yes,' said Olava.

'My mother was Greek, but I don't know Greek games.' Semyonus, through Olava, said that if I would make a respectable showing there might be a reward for me. He could assure me of a sizeable reward. Sizeable, as he described it, would not even buy the metal wing of one of the machines. I spat.

Through Olava, Lewus explained he was conducting this exhibition for the benefit of Semyonus and Olava and myself. I smiled up at him when I heard this. As far as he was concerned, I was not who I said I was. But because of his nobility and love for us all, he was allowing me to stage a free exhibition for him.

I spat.

Olava refused to translate what Lewus said. Lewus picked up a weapon as though strangling it, then poked it around the air. He handed it to me pommel first. I let it drop. Semyonus did the same, despite some words with Olava. I would not take the weapon. He offered me the machine on his wrist that could tell what time it was, day or night. I knew it was of little value because so many people here had them.

He pleaded with the man in white who came forward. He touched the blunted weapon to my stomach. He touched it to my face. He gave me a short slap across the face.

For some reason he did this without protecting his testicles. I dropped him with a kick, and this supposed modern gladiator rolled on the ground in pain, and thus did Lewus's match end in farce - a match that might have made all of us famous if pursued properly.

Olava was disconsolate. She said there was much work we had to do in remembering. She was worried what would happen to me. I told her that I was always very lucky, and there
was nothing to fear in this wor
ld, especially since there was no crucifixion or slavery.

'No one starves here, so why should I ?'

'It is not that you will starve, it is that you will not be believed. If you thought these questions and tests were difficult, there will be others. And in truth you should have more freedom than that.'

'But your god did not have freedom,' I said. 'And he is the greatest of all gods, greater than Rome itself.' He had to be, in their minds of course, because years were numbered from his supposed birth until recently, the years being called 'Before Christ, BC and then after his birth, 'Anno Domini, AD', until the god Science, which did not like to be called a god, was given homage by calling years BCE and CE, meaning Before Christian Era, and Christian Era. And by that it meant you did not have to believe Olava's cult had produced the single god when you counted years. We were in the twentieth century. Domitian's reign being in the first century from here, but in our seventh century because we dated everything from the founding of the city, the city being Rome, of course.

My attempts to comfort her brought her to tears. She told me how good her god was, and that often he was so mysteriously good, we could not perceive how good he was. Basically, he knew what was better for us than we did ourselves.

'As you said, good woman. So do not grieve for me, but grieve for those who are not under the protection of the great god.' And truly great he was, for he had survived Mithras and Juno and Mars and all the other gods. How could there be any worry with a great god like this?

'You do not believe that. You only say that because you are so good. You are a good person, Eugeni. I know that. A better person than many who sing songs of love. You have goodness in your heart.'

Again, she confused me greatly for this god was supposed to reward those who had goodness and, if I were to be rewarded, what was the worry ? At this she wept.

We talked through the morning and afternoon, and she asked me about my early life, not as someone recording, but as a friend. So I told her. But I told her a lie because she was already so overwrought. I told her of the good of my mother and father and how, while slavery was a poor way to exist, there was much love and always food. For why would a master deny food to those who served him?

I even told her why I did not slay Publius. When he mentioned the name of the Jewish god. I knew then that this man's blood should be spared because her god was greater than the empire itself.

'I went to Oxford, not Saint Tweedledum's,' she said in a new assault of weeping. 'You are beautiful, blessed, good-hearted, and you are a liar, Eugeni.'

'I am not a liar, good woman. If you are my friend, you would not call me that.'

In explanation she said Oxford was a school of great discipline and Saint Tweedledum's was not a school, but represented a somewhat overly pleasant and simplified view of the world, the sort of school her cult sometimes supported.

'But I tell you, Eugeni, my God shines brightest and most glorious in the blood of His cross, true and painful He is beyond pain and is truth, and while at first. He may seem to be discredited by the truth, yet the full truth shows Him more glorious than any schoolgirl wish. This know you, when you said He is stronger than Rome, as but comfort for me, you said true. And don't patronize me, Eugeni.'

'If you want the truth, Olava, let me ask you why so fine a person as you wastes her learned life in that slave religion? True friend, you abstain from men, but what is your reward? You do not dress as well as a proper virgin should, for our vestal virgins dressed with jewels and splendid whiteness, even the slaves who did their hair cost more than all the garments you ever wore.'

And this made her happy, for she liked combat of wits. We were too late to be served food, and we went to the food-preparing area, called a 'kitchen' in this Germanic language. It was on the lowest floor of the building. It had large boards for cutting and storage boxes which preserved things through cold, and when I saw the knives hanging above the wooden workbench, I laughed.

Olava wanted to know what was funny, and I climbed on the bench to reach a blade, which, barring the thin, smooth pommel, was one of the best designed short swords I had ever seen. Well pointed for thrust and sharp for blocking slash, if that should be open, and solid for a block. I pressed the point into the wood. Flexible, too. Beyond belief. One would not find oneself holding a useless pommel with one's life ended at the crack of the blade. Not this one. And it was strong.

'Eugeni, are you sure you were a gladiator?' Olava asked. She prepared fruit and bread and cheese herself.

'Yes, why do you ask now ?'

'The way you handle that knife. You seemed unable to stick it far into the wood. You seemed, well, slow and weak. Have you lost your strength ?'

'I would say I am almost up to my peak, not far off it.
’
'But you moved so slowly with so little force.'

I
put the blade horizontally into the wood.

'Yes, that's it. It seems so slow and lacking in force. There is no force in it. It looks like no movement at all.'

'It is deceiving, Olava. Come. Mark where the blade went in.'

'Eugeni, sometimes the mind plays tricks
. Perhaps you wished
to be a gladiator, and after so many
years in the ice, I don't know
what happens to the mind, but
perhaps you adopted some way of
life that would be appealing to yo
u. You were in a comatose state
for a long while here in this hospital And you are not all that muscular, in truth.'

I looked at the blade. How did I know she was not right ? I did not even know the difference between today and tomorrow and yesterday and centuries before. The thrust seemed good to me.
I
pulled out the blade.

'But I remember the training,' I said. 'Even my muscles remember. How could I remember the training? The training was harder than the others. Much harder. I was a murderer at eight. They didn't care if I survived. I remember the training, Olava, and have scars from fights.'

'Do you, Eugeni?'

‘
I remember remembering.'

'Do you, Eugeni?'

'Yes.'

'Are
you sure?'

'I think so,' I said, and what a grand time it was to doubt myself, for suddenly I faced a man who wanted to kill me with a blade. Olava had thoroughly stripped me in that instant of the armour of my mind. The large man I had kicked to the ground had entered the culina, called kitchen, and approached with the tip of his thrusting blade without its blunted tip. Lewus and Semyonus, trying to restrain him, but at a distance. Suddenly his movements seemed incredibly fast, he was formidable in his rage. He threw me a weapon. I almost picked it up for defence, thinking he knew bett
er. I backed away quickly from h
is rage, tripping on the weapon he had thrown.

I tried to keep one of the backed chairs between him and me. He was going to kill me. I knew it. I had but a meat knife in my hand.

And then he drew blood from my cheek. And where my mind had failed, my muscles remembered. One does not survive the arena without some skills as deep as bone.

Lew McCardle stumbled into his hotel suite, his shirt front covered with vomit, his body trembling. James Houghton Laurie was talking to three subordinates around the large coffee table in the sitting room of the suite.

McCardle told the subordinates to get out. There were things they weren't supposed to hear. He took a drink out of one of their hands and gulped it himself.

'Move!' he yelled at them. 'Get the fuck out of here.' To Laurie he raised a hand for silence. Then he took Laurie's drink. The speckled sausage skin on Laurie's face sagged. He stood up. McCardle signalled him to sit McCardle got a bottle of bourbon from the bar and poured his glass half-f. It had just contained gin before.

'Everything's going to be all right OK,' said McCardle. 'Get out of the country, and don't phone me again. It's my trouble.'

'Lew, I thought everything was in a nice, safe seal. We were going to celebrate. I only came because you had said in your message that, quote, "the egg is in the shell and will be in the country for months." Did I misinterpret ?'

'No. Something happened. Terrible. I miscalculated. Goddamn I never want to see that again. I've seen men killed. I've seen death Jesus, I've seen the state troopers pick up pieces off the railway tracks. Those were accidents. Oh, God! God. It was awful!'

'What happened?'

'You don't
want to know. You're not involved,' said McCardle. 'Just go.'

'So I'll have to lie on some witness stand somewhere. I won't remember a word you say.' 'You don't have to know this, Mr Laurie.' 'I want to,' said Laurie,
‘I
wouldn't
^:
f I were you.' 'You're not me.'

When McCardle told Laurie the revived patient had said he was a gladiator, Laurie looked up as though presented a giant Chris mas present.

'Really,' he said and demanded all details. General information would not do. How big was he, how did he move, did he have any unusual sizes to anything? This, from the chairman of the board of Houghton.

'Eugenianus is small by our standards.'

‘
In ever
ything ?' asked Laurie.

‘
I don't know. I don't remember.'

'Well, what happened, Lew? Just settle down.'

Lew tried to explain. His eyes blinked uncontrollably. He kept focusing on nowhere.

There was sufficient data to indicate he was not a gladiator and, in order to get him and the Russian doctor and the nun out of the hospital where rumours were growing, I staged an exhibition, and one thing led to another, and we have a mutilated body on our hands. I had to try to get them the hell out of that hospital because publicity would ultimately compromise our bidding atmosphere. I thought it would work.'

Laurie wanted to know more about the mutilated body, exactly how it happened, who did what to whom, where Lew was standing, was the nun there, what did she do ? Sometimes women went sexually crazy at the sight of blood.

'Mr Laurie. Please get out of here. I ran here myself. Jesus, get out of here.'

'You should have phoned. It would have been faster,' said Laurie. 'You worry a great lot, boy.'

The red-crease smile appeared on the tan blotched face. James Houghton Laurie wanted to hear everything, now.

Lew sat on a couch near the table. He had staged a match with an Olympic fencer against the subject. The subject refused to fight and kicked the fencer, who took it to heart and later found the subject in the hospital kitchen. The fencer had a known temper. Lew and the doctor had tried to stop the fencer, who had sharpened a foil. The fencer was dead now. There was massive readjusting to do now. And that was it.

'From what ah know, Lewellyn McCardle, Jr, a boy from North Springs ain't about to puke up his clothes from seeing a fatal sticking.'