stupid.'
'You do. That's the point. Try the sword.'
Rufus did as he was told and held the weapon in front of him.
'Wonderful. You look like a nobleman who has just been handed a turd. Wave the blade about a bit.'
Again Rufus did as he was asked. He was surprised to discover that when he swung the sword the blade quivered back and forth as if it had a life of its own.
'My armourer made it from a bad batch of iron,' Cupido explained. 'The edge is so dull it wouldn't hurt a fly. And when you try to stab something it will just bend back on itself. Go on, try it. Lunge at me.'
Cupido was wearing a polished iron breastplate and he insisted until Rufus could refuse no more.
'See, you couldn't pierce a piece of cheese. You might as well be waving a branch at me. Now, are you ready?'
Rufus removed the helmet and looked directly into the piercing grey eyes. He nodded.
'Yes, I'm ready.'
Cupido clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard. 'Then go and give the mob what they came for.'
The walk that brought Rufus to the trapdoor beneath the arena was the longest and loneliest he had ever made. The maze of tunnels seemed to go on for ever and, although he encountered several people he knew, they treated him as if he was invisible, turning their eyes away, as if to look at him was to share his fate.
Finally he stood on the wooden platform that would lift him directly into the centre of the arena. Above him, the roars of the crowd were magnified by the empty shaft. He stood, head bowed, waiting for the signal that would tell him the instant the mob's attention was on the climax of the gladiatorial battle.
It came, a huge shout from fifty throats in the same instant: ' Roma victor.' He nodded to the workman who operated the levers, and the platform began to rise a few inches at a time.
The brightness as he emerged slowly into the sunlight blinded him; then his vision cleared and he found himself in the loneliest place on earth.
He had been here before, when the stadium was empty, rehearsing for this day, but nothing had prepared him for the wall of screaming faces and the explosion of sound. For a moment the panic that had threatened to unman him in the depths of the arena returned, but then he heard Cupido's voice inside his head: 'Make them laugh and they will love you.'
Rufus the slave became Rufus the clown.
The crowd in the tiered stands saw a bewildered, childlike figure, small and lost in his oversized helmet, awkwardly holding a sword twice as long as a legionary's gladius. The helmet turned, slowly, taking in its strange surroundings. Why was it here? The helmet appeared to have a life of its own, which had little to do with the body beneath it. The helmet cocked to one side, searching the stands. Surely someone in this crowd of lords and ladies could give it a clue. What about you, sir? The helmet's eye slits looked directly at one of the toga-clad patrons in the expensive seats close to the edge of the arena.
By now, a few of the crowd were smiling, puzzled at this silent display, but others were becoming restless. Where was the action? What was this stupid game?
Suddenly, there was a gasp from the lower tiers and an ironic cheer from the upper stands. Rufus didn't hear the gate opening, but he knew he was now being stalked by Africanus. This was the game they had played during the long weeks of training.
But the helmet did not know and now the helmet was even more puzzled. Were they cheering it? Really, it? Oh, it was so undeserved. There was no need. The helmet acknowledged the acclaim with a wave of its unwieldy sword.
Africanus kept low to the ground, each deliberate movement of his huge paws taking him nearer the solitary, unsuspecting figure in the centre of the arena.
Still the helmet's vacant eyes remained fixed on the crowd. Ah, this was the only place to be, among the finest and most courtly people on earth. The helmet nodded its gratitude.
The suspense grew with each inch the lion moved closer to his victim. By now most of the mob was captivated by the heart-stopping hunt unfolding before them. They held their collective breath. But the helmet's eccentric vulnerability had endeared it to a few of the younger spectators and one could not help herself screaming out.
The helmet looked even more puzzled. Who? Where? What?
Rufus counted the seconds in his head. Now the voice had been joined by a hundred other shouts of warning. Africanus was crouched feet from his back. Three, two, one… Africanus was in the air, his hooked claws outstretched to tear the unsuspecting body in front of him.
Oh, look! The helmet had seen something glinting in the sand. It bent to pick it up.
Rufus felt the disturbed air as Africanus sailed across his back, missing him by less than the width of one of the loaves he had baked for Cerialis. He heard the roar of the crowd as the big lion rolled head over heels towards the edge of the arena.
The helmet turned towards the opposite side of the arena, shaking in wonder at all this undeserved attention. Oh! They liked him too?
The roars turned to laughter and applause.
Then the second lion snarled her presence.
Now the suspense of the hunt was replaced by the thrill of the chase.
The helmet ran this way and that, sometimes from the lions, sometimes towards one or the other, but always somehow missing the lethal claws and fangs by a matter of inches. The lions roared in frustration; the helmet waved his long sword in defiance.
But what was this? The helmet was tiring, his stride faltering. He stopped.
The lions stopped too.
The helmet bent at the middle, chest heaving as it pumped in great breaths of air.
The lions lay, tongues hanging from their mouths.
The helmet straightened. It looked at the lions. The lions looked back. Agreement was reached. The chase was on again.
Half the crowd was urging on the lions. The other half was cheering the fool in the giant helmet. Both were happy.
Somehow, the helmet found itself in an open-ended barrel. The lions pushed the barrel around the arena in a great circle. The mob cheered the lions.
Somehow, the helmet escaped the barrel and stood its ground, its unwieldy sword drooping impotently. The mob still cheered the lions.
Now was the time for blood. The fool in the helmet was dead.
The lions roared in triumph, but the sound was instantly drowned by a thunder of hooves more powerful than anything the crowd had heard before.
The monster had come.
This was the moment Rufus had spent hundreds of frustrating, muscle-aching hours practising. The rhinoceros was notoriously unpredictable, but he discovered he could judge her moods just enough to trust her for the few fleeting seconds he needed. As the slabsided grey bulk charged past him in a cloud of dust, he threw down the sword and helmet and sprang on to her broad back, somehow managing to keep his balance as the monster bucked and swayed beneath him and chased the lions from the arena.
Her job done, the great beast ambled to a halt in the centre of the arena with Rufus still crouched over her hindquarters. As the dust cleared, he slowly straightened, raised his arms to the skies and bowed low at the waist.
At first, there was a shocked silence. Then a buzz of puzzled conversation. The buzz grew louder as the seconds passed, and turned into an explosion… of laughter.
Rufus had won.
Cupido was the first to congratulate his young friend as he walked from the arena, quickly followed by an over-excited Fronto.
'We were wonderful,' the animal trader exulted, his face wreathed in smiles as his mind calculated the possibilities for future profit. 'I will organize the next performance for two weeks today. We will make it an
