Rufus gazed at the grey goliath standing alone in its paddock. The animal was about twice the size of a bull, with thick, leathery skin. Its head was large even compared to its body, but its legs were almost comically short. It had tiny eyes and from low on its wide, shovel nose projected two horns, one behind the other. The larger, at the front, was nine inches across at the base and tapered over about the length of two feet to a deadly point. The second was half the size, but looked even sharper.
'I don't know what to do with it. It looks dangerous, but it never seems to do anything except stand around. You can pat it like a dog. Why don't you give it a try?'
The eyes which studied Rufus brimmed with sincerity. Fronto wore the look of a man who had never done wrong in his life; a man who would go to his grave without a stain on his reputation. A man Rufus did not trust an inch.
Fronto was testing him, and he believed he knew why. The shrewd trader was giving him his opportunity to prove himself in front of the men who might one day call him master. He looked again at the monster, which seemed to have grown even larger. The question was, would he survive the test?
With more confidence than he felt, he grinned cheekily and said: 'Of course.'
Titus, one of the slaves who formed Fronto's welcoming party, held the gate open for him, then, as he shut it again, whispered: 'Watch his ears.'
Rufus walked slowly into the enclosure. The tension made his heart race, but the world seemed a clearer place and his stomach tightened with anticipation. He saw that the walls of this paddock, although built like the others of wooden planks about the height of a tall man, were strengthened by horizontal beams. In places, raw white patches stood out clearly as if the wood had recently been splintered.
The heat of the sun beat on his back like a hammer as he marched further into the enclosure. Where the monster waited.
After about twenty paces he noticed what might have been a flick of movement at the side of the animal's head. Yes, there it was again, an almost imperceptible twitch of the left ear.
Never taking his eyes off the beast, he subtly changed direction. Now, each step took him diagonally across its front, rather than directly towards it.
He couldn't believe something so big could move so fast. One moment the monster was motionless, its small eyes staring unseeing into the middle distance. The next its short legs were a blur of speed and it had covered half the distance between them with its head lowered and that lethal scimitar of a horn pointed directly at his groin.
To turn and run directly towards the fence was pointless. He would never outpace this animal. But his change of direction had taken him slightly out of its path and that gave him a fraction of a second to sidestep the charge.
He waited until he could have touched the lower horn with his outstretched hand before he dived low and to the right. With one movement he was on his feet again and his long legs flew as he sprinted towards the fence.
As he ran, he could hear the beast's thundering hooves close behind and knew it had turned its huge bulk in an instant and was pursuing him. He could see the gnarled knots in the wood of the fence and the rusty heads of the nails which held it together. Behind him, the explosions of breath from the animal's nostrils told him it was closer still.
One moment of hesitation and he was dead. He picked his spot on the fence, kicking up one leg and pushing with the other, so that for the final two paces before he hit it he was in the air. His front foot met one of the horizontal bars and he used every muscle he possessed to turn forward momentum into an upward leap that would carry him safely over. Another inch and he would have made it. Instead, the knee of his trailing leg smashed into the top plank, generating a fiery stab of pain and turning a controlled jump into an untidy, somersaulting flight. While he was airborne, he distinctly heard the thundering crash of something enormous and fast-moving hitting something even more solid and unyielding. Half a second later he landed with an impact that knocked the breath from his body, loosened several teeth and left him wondering how many bones he had broken.
He lay, stunned, with the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth and dust clogging his nose.
'You show a fair turn of pace for a baker, but your vault could have been more elegant.'
Rufus opened one eye. Fronto was standing over him, his bulk blocking the sunlight.
'Come on, get up and let's see what you've done to the poor old monster.' He gave Rufus his arm and pulled him to his feet.
Wincing with pain, the boy limped to the fence, which now sported a splintered hole the size of a man's fist. Rufus looked through the gap and flinched as he stared into the angry eye of the monster. It gave a shake of its head before trotting back towards the centre of the paddock.
'She'll have a bit of a headache, but she should be fine,' Fronto said proudly.
'What about me?' Rufus demanded. 'She could have killed me. You said I could pat her like a dog.'
'I may have exaggerated a little,' Fronto admitted. 'But that is lesson number one for you, boy. You've proved you're not frightened of animals, but you must learn to respect them. Next time you go into a paddock or a cage, study what is in it first. These animals are all dangerous in one way or another. Even the small antelopes will knock you into the middle of next week if they're protecting their young.'
He picked up a piece of dung that lay at his feet and held it up to Rufus's face.
'See? It's all about profit. It doesn't matter whether it stinks like shit or smells of perfume — if it makes a profit it smells sweet. Now, we'll start you at the bottom. Titus, show him how to muck out the wild pigs.'
II
The bottom made Rufus's previous existence seem a positive paradise.
Then, he had smelled fresh bread every day. Here, he was assaulted by a dozen different kinds of animal dung. But every moment he spent with the animals he learned.
He learned how to feed and water them. Each species had a carefully planned diet to ensure it was kept in the peak of condition. Too much meat and the cats would become fat and lazy. Too little and they would lose their great strength.
He learned to look for the symptoms that would tell him when an antelope was sick with one of the wasting diseases which plagued their kind. One sign of sores around the mouth or hooves and the entire herd might have to be slaughtered.
He learned to spot the slight swelling which showed that a doe was pregnant and needed to be moved from the paddock.
And he learned what happens to a man who gets careless in the company of lions. He would never forget the rags of torn flesh and splinters of bone that were all that was left of poor, slow-witted Titus after he failed to recognize a lion's growls of pain from a broken tooth. The other slaves did not hear his screams until it was too late and the overseer decided it was more economic to allow the animal to devour him — he was already dead — than to bury him. There was no question of killing the lion. Its value was ten times that of Titus and, as Fronto pointed out, its destiny was to kill men.
Day by day and week by week, his respect for Fronto grew. The animal trader had an unquenchable thirst for life that made even his competitors like him, and Rufus was sucked along on a tidal wave of enthusiasm which often left his head spinning. But when Fronto returned from his next trip to Africa to purchase stock to replenish the pens and paddocks, the grin that normally split his face was replaced by a weary frown.
'It's getting worse,' he complained, as they leaned together on a fence watching two gazelle bucks butting heads in a mock test of strength. 'Always our buyers look for something bigger, something better, something more spectacular, something more exotic, and each time I see my suppliers they claim that the animals are scarcer or the herds and the packs that feed on them have moved further south, and they put their prices higher. I'd say they were holding out on me but I know from other traders that it's the same wherever you go. The only consolation is, I can pass on the costs, but for how long, only Jupiter knows.'
'Can't you breed them?' Rufus asked.
'Breed them? I'm a trader, not a nursemaid. Buy cheap and sell at a profit. Anyway, most of them won't
