'I think not,' said Jain. 'You are receiving a fine sum for your part in this… little tourney. The Lord Absicus made it very clear to me that there was to be no change to the contract.'
'Ah well,' said Persis, 'then what can I say?' He looked into Jain's dark eyes and saw the glint of triumph, and the barely masked contempt. Glancing up at the priest Persis gave a rueful smile. 'I am so sorry for wasting your time, sir.' Pushing himself to his feet he gathered up his cloak and walked towards the door.
'Where are you going?' asked Jain.
'To the bathhouse,' said Persis. 'I shall have a long soak and then a massage. Please convey my respects to the Lord Absicus.'
'You haven't signed the contract!'
Persis paused in the doorway. 'There is no contract,' he said. Then he left.
'Wait!' wailed Jain, rising from his chair so fast he knocked it backwards. He scurried after Persis, catching him in the outer corridor. 'Come, come,' he said, 'we are reasonable men. Let us negotiate.'
'There is nothing to negotiate,' said Persis. 'Either we walk back in, remove the clause and sign, or I leave.'
Jain leaned in close, and Persis could smell the perfume on his oiled hair. 'Let us be frank, sir. You are in debt and close to insolvency. This contract is a life-saver for you. You do not really want to see it fail.'
'Good-bye,' said Persis, pushing open the outer door, and stepping into the sunshine.
'I agree!' shouted Jain. 'The clause will be removed! Now let us conclude our business.'
Persis stood for a moment, then walked back inside.
Later, when all the visitors had departed, Norwin returned to the office. 'If you were as good at running a circus as you are at negotiating, we wouldn't have found ourselves in this position in the first place,' he said.
'That's teetering on the edge of being a compliment,' said Persis.
'Damn, it wasn't meant to be,' said Norwin. 'Perhaps I phrased it badly.'
Persis grinned at him. 'Tomorrow you will see that all our debts are paid, the longest to have interest added. We will need goodwill for next season.'
'We'll need more than goodwill,' said Norwin. 'With Rage dead there won't be a Circus Orises. What is wrong with you, Persis? You are a bright, intelligent man. You were a phenomenally successful merchant. Why can you not see that Orises is a doomed venture?'
'I can see it,' said Persis. 'But I can't help it. I love the circus, watching the crowd applaud, seeing the delight on their faces as the horses ride and the athletes compete. I get a greater thrill from this than any I ever experienced making profits. And I dream of seeing this stadium full of people – all cheering.'
Norwin pinched the bridge of his long, thin nose. 'Yes, yes,' he said, 'nice dream. But let us take a long, cool look at the reality. Goriasa is a conquered Keltoi city, inhabited largely by Gath tribesmen, who have little interest in the circus. Our people number less than three thousand. There are simply not enough Stone citizens to fill the stadium. And, as for watching the horses run, need I remind you that Palantes stole our horse-riding acrobats?'
Persis sat lost in thought. 'That's it!' he said suddenly.
'Horse acrobats?'
'No. Filling the stadium. We must put on shows for the Gath. Find something they would want to see.'
'Sheep-shagging springs to mind,' offered Norwin.
'Be serious, my friend,' chided Persis. 'The Keltoi are not the barbarians we pretend them to be. Their metalworking is exquisite, their culture older than ours.'
'I accept that,' said Norwin. 'However, think on this: they are a warrior race, but even when death bouts were common here the Gath did not come in any great numbers.'
'I know. They did not want to pay to watch men of Stone fighting one another. But would they pay to see one of their own fighting a man of Stone to the death?'
Norwin said nothing for a moment. 'Now that is something to consider,' he whispered.
Magistrate Hulius Marani was bored. Not that anyone in the court would notice, for his sharp, hooded eyes appeared to miss nothing, his heavy face holding a serious expression, as he listened – apparently intently – to every shred of evidence. His gaze only occasionally flickered towards the ornate hour-glass and its trickling sand.
He sat and pretended to concentrate on the case before him, where a young Gath farmer was arguing that his lands had been tricked from him by a Stone citizen. The case was well presented, but since the citizen had already paid a large bribe to Hulius the issue was not in doubt. The Gath was an idiot. Hulius had invited him to his home, giving him every opportunity to offer a larger bribe, but the man – like the rest of his barbarous tribe – had no understanding of the manner in which civilized people conducted disputes. He ranted on about justice and foul business practices – just as he was doing now.
Hulius waited for the man to finish his argument – which was only good manners – then found against him. The man shouted abuse, and Hulius ordered the Court Guardians to take him away, sentencing him to twenty lashes for his impertinence.
After the brief excitement boredom settled on him once more, like a shroud.
As Goriasa's First Magistrate – the recipient of one-fifth of all fines paid – Hulius Marani would already have been wealthy, even without the numerous bribes. He had ordered a shipment of fine marble from Turgony so that a suitable house could be constructed for him to the south of the port. He had a loyal wife, a beautiful Gath mistress, and was treated with respect and courtesy wherever he travelled. Which was a far cry from his days as a shipping clerk in Stone, where he had worked all day in a cramped office, earning one-quarter of a silver piece a day. Hulius had laboured for two years before discovering his route to high office and a measure of fame.
On difficult sea voyages some bales of cloth became damaged by salt water, and were thus rendered unsaleable. They were then unceremoniously dumped alongside the warehouses. One day Hulius cut into such a bale, green silk from the east, and found that only the outer layers had been seriously damaged. At the centre of the bale he found four of the twenty-five rolled lengths of silk were in perfect condition. These he sold, creating his first profit. As the months passed he amassed ten times his salary from such items, and in doing so made valuable contacts in the local industries. One day a ship's captain saw him, late in the evening, examining a damaged bale. The man called him aside and suggested a business partnership. All merchants accepted a small percentage of loss during sea travel.
For the right sum the captain would put aside good bales, and between them he and Hulius could label them damaged goods.
It had worked beautifully.
Within the year Hulius had put down a deposit on a piece of land and commissioned a house. His wife, Darnia, had been delighted at his growing wealth. Not so his employers, who descended one day with ten soldiers from the Watch, just as Hulius was overseeing the loading of a wagon with ten undamaged bales.
The captain was also taken. He was hanged four days later. But, then, he had no friends in high places. Hulius, on the other hand, had used some of his profits to fund the political career of his wife's cousin – a man who had now risen to rank in Jasaray's government. Thus an agreed sum was paid to the employer, and Hulius was offered the post of First Magistrate in Goriasa. And now he was close to becoming rich – despite a large part of the moneys made being sent back to Darnia's powerful relative.
Yet despite his wealth, and the ease of his lifestyle, Hulius was bored with Goriasa and the interminable petty cases brought before him: broken contracts, matrimonial disputes, and arguments over land rights and borders. He longed for the dining rooms and pleasure establishments of Stone's central district, the magnificently skilled whores, the musicians, and the beautifully prepared food, with recipes from a dozen different cultures.
Hulius glanced down at the list before him. One more hearing, and then he could visit his mistress.
Three men filed into the new courthouse, bowed before the dais on which Hulius sat in his white robe of justice, then took up their positions to the right of the two engraved wooden lecterns. Hulius recognized the gladiator Rage and the circus-owner Persis Albitane. Between them stood a Gath tribesman, a lean yet powerful young man, with golden hair and odd-coloured eyes. The door at the back of the room opened and a Crimson Priest strode in. He did not bow before the dais but walked immediately to stand to the left of the lecterns. Hulius noted the surprise on the face of Persis Albitane, and felt a small knot of tension begin in the pit of his stomach.
The magistrate stared down at the document before him, then spoke. 'The registration of the tribesman Bane
