away. Unless they wanted to give up all advantage — and, if they were thick enough to jump in as well, even Martin could make for safety — that was where, calling out encouragement, they’d have to stay.
The man came forward a couple of feet and slashed at me. I dropped under the water and jumped back out of reach. When I came up, he’d come forward again, the water now reaching to his upper chest.
‘How does it feel, having to squat down for a piss?’ I sneered again. ‘Can you still come if you stick a bloody great dildo up your arse?’
I don’t know if he understood my rapid Greek. But he raised his sword for another go at me. As the sword splashed into the water just a few inches from the obscene gesture I’d made with my outstretched left hand, I bent my knees and went right under. As my belly touched the rough tiles, I made a great sweeping movement with both arms and swam diagonally in his direction. I avoided the clumsy attempt at skewering me and got both his legs. How he’d got this deep in all that clothing was a credit to his stupidity. But I now had him fast.
I pulled him straight into the middle depths of the pool. I breathed out a stream of shining bubbles and got him briefly about the waist. I pulled myself further up his body and took hold of both his wrists, pulling his arms wide apart. He struggled with feeble desperation, and I felt his wrist flex as he tried to do something with his sword. But he had all my size and weight against him. So long as I kept that grip on him, the sword was useless. I shut my eyes and twisted down to head-butt him in his upper belly. I hit him again and again until I felt him sinking deeper, now under his own weight. I opened my eyes and looked at the stream of bubbles coming from all about the mask. I dug my fingernails into the gap between the bones in his sword wrist. I tightened and tightened my grip until I felt his hand open. I heard the sword land with a dull clatter eight feet or so below us. Still holding both his wrists, I pulled away from the man and curled into a ball. With all the force I could manage, I kicked him in the chest and let go of him.
I swam down and picked up the sword. I paid him no further attention as I passed him on the way back to the surface, and he continued his slow and silent descent.
I broke the surface with a great gasp and then a shout of joy. The other two men were now running up and down the sides. I reared up and waved my sword with another shout of triumph. I stopped myself from going under again, and swam towards Martin. Now standing with my upper chest out of the water, I shouted more obscenities and tested the weight and balance of this decidedly trashy sword.
It was one down. But, if I now had a weapon, and there’d be no other straightforward attack, we were still trapped in the pool. Even if it was just two left, was I supposed to stand up to my neck with Martin as the sky turned first red and then to darkness?
But I now heard a familiar laugh behind me. ‘Oh, dear — oh dear, dear me!’ Priscus chortled. ‘If it isn’t Cupid and fucking Silenus!’
I turned. He was standing just by the entrance to the courtyard, with nothing on but a folded sheet about his waist. I looked at him briefly. If Martin was troubling me, it seemed that Priscus was growing smaller by the day. He’d padded himself out when clothed with layer after layer of black. But, now he’d decided on an evening dip, I could see the bony chest and the shrivelled folds of his belly. He’d taken his left arm out of its sling, and removed the dressing. If his wound was no longer bleeding, I couldn’t see what good he was planning to do himself by getting it wet.
But, even as I looked, the two surviving attackers lifted their weapons and moved to close in on him. I pointed at my clothes heaped up on the stone bench. ‘My sword’s over there,’ I shouted.
Priscus looked at the bench and smiled at the two killers. Before they could join each other at the end of the pool and turn on him, he’d already walked easily over and unsheathed my sword. He shook it and laughed again.
‘Well, come on, then, my lovelies,’ he called cheerfully. He walked round to the easiest point of escape from the courtyard and took up a fighting pose. I’d not have held out much chance for him. Without his clothes, he really was just a collection of bones, held in with wasted flesh and joined by a few sinews and scraps of muscle. His left arm hung useless. But he laughed again and stepped forward at the first of the killers to reach him.
I’ll admit that my own advantage in any fight — at least until I’d reached extreme old age — lay always in superior size and weight. I only made it to extreme old age because I never had to face anyone bigger or heavier who possessed an ounce of intelligence or luck. I can’t say that I recall any movement at all from Priscus. One moment, he was still testing the balance of my sword. The next, six inches of shining steel were projecting from the man’s back.
Without any change from his easy tone, Priscus laughed again and pulled my sword out of the dead body. He raised it again and stepped forward. Then he stopped and went rigid. He sat down in a coughing fit that didn’t look as if it would have an end.
But I’d now reached the side of the pool. Still holding the sword, I pulled myself out with my left arm and jumped to my feet. His own sword raised over his head, the one surviving killer was hurrying forward to go at Priscus. I swung with all my strength and got him just below the wrist. My own sword would have sliced the hand off as if it had been the end of a celery stick. This one might have been an iron bar for all its cutting force. Even so, you don’t hit out with my strength and not feel at least the smashing of bones. The man screamed and dropped his sword. Nursing his ruined hand under his left arm, he darted back from me. I bent and recovered my own sword and stood in his path. To get away, he’d have to get past me. Or he’d have to run all round the pool. If he tried that, however, it was a matter for me of stepping back four or five yards, and I’d still be blocking his escape.
When attacked on the Piraeus road, I’d barely had time to draw breath and put every effort into fighting for my life. Here, I’d had plenty of time to gather my wits, and was still pleased with a very easy kill. I grinned and stepped forward a few paces. I swung at the man with an easy motion and crippled his left arm at the elbow. There’d be no stabbing now, of himself or anyone else. I stepped back and kept my sword outstretched. ‘We’ll start with a few easy questions,’ I said lightly. ‘If I don’t like the answers, we’ll see what the Lord Priscus can do to loosen that tongue of yours.’
Still coughing, Priscus was back on his feet. Holding one of the other swords, he moved forward and stood beside me. ‘Get him on his back, dear boy,’ he wheezed in Latin. ‘I’ll show you what miracles of pain can be achieved with just one good hand.’
But the man jumped back from me. He raised his face to the sky and laughed. He paid no attention as I jabbed him in the side. Instead, he let out something too rapid for me to catch, but that might have been a prayer. He turned his back to me, and put his head down. Like an enraged bull, he charged at the wall that divided pool from main courtyard. I heard the bright smack of bone on marble plating as he threw himself forward. I saw the dark patch that he left in the fading light, and the faint smear that followed his descent to a still, black huddle at the foot of the wall.
I looked at Martin, who’d managed to heave himself out of the pool, and had now covered his face with horror. Feeling less jaunty than I had, I took a step forward.
Priscus got there first. ‘Not dead,’ he said as he kicked the body over again. ‘But he might as well be for all we’ll get out of him.’ He bent happily down and fiddled with the lower clothing. ‘We really aren’t having much luck in our interrogations are we?’ he asked. If he was about to add another gold ring to his collection, he didn’t get it. Instead, he gasped as another spasm of pain took hold, and he clutched at his side.
I just managed, before he pulled his sheet higher, to see the lump on his right hip. It had about the bigness of a bowl the doctors use for cupping blood. I saw it for barely an instant. But the tight and dappled skin told me all I needed.
Priscus laughed to draw off my attention. ‘But what have we here?’ he gloated with a finger pointed at the remains of my stiffy. ‘If I’d known your real feelings for our tub of Celtic lard, I’d not have gone to such extremes to trick you into Egypt to get him back.’ He laughed again and coughed. He did look set for another laugh, but had to stop and clutch at the right side of his chest.
I hadn’t seen him in pain there before, I noted as I went through the motions of glaring at him. And, if its purpose hadn’t been so clear, I’d have had excellent reason for sneering back at him. Anyone who can’t tell the difference between lust and the excitement of a good kill has no right to call himself a man.
But Priscus now got proper control of himself. ‘Get dressed,’ he said with quiet urgency. ‘If there’re three of them, there might be more.’
I shivered slightly in the decided cool of an autumn evening as I hurried over to where I’d left my clothes. Without bothering to dab off the water that hadn’t already dried, I pulled on my under tunic and my shoes.
‘Bring a sword with you,’ I said to Martin when I’d finished nagging him into his own clothes. ‘Be ready to
