The barge was drawn up in normal fashion in one of the stone slips beneath the Portico of Aemilius, headquarters for the city's grain supply.
"Had to tow it like that the last three miles," said the foreman of the teamsters glumly. "Me on the steering oar, too, because the boys said Master could crucify them before they'd get aboard that barge. And you couldn't tell how bad it was, not really, till the sun come up after we'd docked."
The foreman was an Egyptian, but he spoke a dialect of common Greek that Lycon had no difficulty in understanding. The beastcatcher had no difficulty in understanding the teamster's fears, either.
There were now almost a hundred men standing on the levee, looking down on the barge slips in the Tiber. The numbers were nothing unusual for that was ordinarily the busiest part of the city—the lifeline by which was imported virtually all the food for a populace of uncertain hundreds of thousands. Slave gangs paced up and down the ramps from the levee to the slips. Each man carried a narrow pottery jar of wheat up to the measuring stations in front of the portico, then returned to the barges for another load.
The difference at this particular station was that the men were motionless and almost silent. The stevedores who would normally have been working the slips squatted on their haunches instead—naked except for loin cloths and, in rare instances, chain hobbles that permitted them to walk but not run. The heavily-armed Germans who glowered at the slaves and the surroundings in general might have dampened the normal enthusiasm of men released unexpectedly from work, but perhaps more of the reason lay in the closed palanquin that the Germans guarded. Lady Fortune, the only deity to whom Lycon still sacrificed, knew that the palanquin and the man it contained inspired such fear with good reason. The life of any or everyone here balanced upon the uncertain whim of lord and god Domitian.
Nonetheless, the men watching on the levee were in no way as silent as those sprawled upon the barge below.
"Let's go on down," Lycon said. "Yes, you too, dammit!" he added to the foreman, who had tried to edge away.
The barge had loaded grain at Portus from a North African freighter far too large to navigate the Tiber itself. The freighter would be refitting for several weeks, so a dozen of its crewmen had hitched a ride into Rome on the barge.
A yoke of oxen under the foreman and two subordinates drew the barge along the fifteen-mile towpath, while a helmsman guided it from the stern. Night had already fallen, but the process of feeding the city could not be interrupted by the cycles of the sun. One of the teamsters walked ahead with a rushlight—another firefly in the continuous chain of barges plodding toward Rome to be unloaded and then to drift back to Portus on sweeps and the current.
"They were singing," the foreman said. "The sailors were. There'd been some wine in the manifest too, you know." He glanced from Lycon to Vonones as they walked down the ramp to either side of him. The beastcatcher's face was impassive, the merchant's screwed up in an expression between distaste and nausea. Neither offered much sympathy for what the teamster thought of as his personal ordeal.
"Well, that stopped, the singing did, after a while, but that didn't mean much," the foreman continued. They were approaching the barge itself, and he had to keep talking to remind himself that it was daylight and he was alive.
"It looks easy enough," the foreman babbled on, "but it's a damned long trip, as you'd know if you ever followed a team of oxen. Usually some of the folks we give a lift to, they'll walk along part of the way and talk to us. Well, this lot didn't, but we had the escaped tiger and that African lizard-ape to talk about, me and the boys."
"Where did you hear about that?" snapped Vonones, who now understood how the authorities had known whose door to come knocking on.
"Why, wasn't it all over the towpath?" the teamster foreman replied in injured amazement. "There was a caravan of beasts pulled up not a quarter mile from the river, and the drivers with nothing else to do but come talk to us on the path. And don't you know how slow an ox walks, especially when one of the yoke's got a sore on his shoulder for that lazy bastard Nearchos in the stables not doing his job?"
Vonones swore. So much for loyalty—and the sanctity of a bribe. When he found out who had talked. . . . But first Vonones knew he would have to survive this day. He didn't like to think about the odds.
Lycon jumped onto the barge, balancing for a moment on the thick gunwale that acted as a fender while the vessel was being towed.
The foreman turned away. "We'd been talking, me and the boys," he went on, in a voice an octave higher than that of a moment before, "about what might have happened if they hadn't killed that tiger, and if it had gone for our team, you know? And what the Master'd do to us, no matter it wasn't any fault of ours, dear gods."
"You say there were a dozen sailors aboard when you left Portus?" Lycon interrupted.
"Something like that," the foreman agreed. He faced around again slowly, but he kept his eyes on Lycon's face rather than on the interior of the barge. "Can't really swear to it, you know. And there was Ursus on the steering oar."
"Can't really swear to it now," said Lycon grimly, as he walked along the gunwale.
There was no question in his mind as to what had caused the carnage. Nothing else could possibly have been quick enough. There were approximately six bodies in the bow, forward of the upright ranks of jars. Lycon was not sure that he could have duplicated their wounds with two hours and an axe, but these men had been killed before any of them could shout and alert the teamsters on the towpath. One man's chest had been hollowed out like a milkweed pod at summer's end. Another torso was untouched except for splashes of blood, but the head and all four limbs had been excised from it. The skin of the chest was smooth and an even tan—that of a healthy boy, perhaps no older than Alexandros.
For an instant, the thought of his son drove immediate concerns from Lycon's mind. Then the hunter glanced up toward the levee and the closed palanquin and the glowering guards. No, this couldn't wait.
The remains of three sailors lay amidships, sprawled over the upright grain jars. The ten-gallon containers were made as cheaply as possible, meant to be opened after their single use by having their necks struck off. Blood had soaked deeply into their unglazed surfaces, giving accents of darker color to the pinkish clay. One of the men looked completely uninjured, even peaceful. The body had stiffened, but when Lycon lifted it to search for a wound, the sailor's back and thighs showed only the usual post mortem extravasation.
"His ear," called Vonones unexpectedly from the slip where he stood. "The right ear. Those long claws. . . ."
Impassively Lycon shifted the body back. There was a trail of blackened blood from the ear canal, matting the hair on the sailor's temple. "It must see better in the dark," Lycon said, as he laid the corpse onto the jars again. "Better than they did, certainly. It must have taken part of them at a time, caught its breath, and—got some more."
He walked toward the stern, stepping again from the stoppered jars to the gunwale. The barge shifted a little under his weight, first fetched up by the stern line, and then quivering against the slip under the sluggish impetus of the Tiber's current. Lycon did not notice the motion in his preoccupied state. He had crossed gorges bridged by vines, more concerned for the load of brilliant, valuable birds he carried than he was for his own safety. After all, the real danger in this situation waited on the levee in a guarded palanquin.
The melange in the stern-hollow looked even more like meat for the stewpot than that in the bow had done. One of the things ripped during the night had been a skin of wine. Its contents had thinned and kept liquid the blood that pooled beneath the corpses.
"You!" Lycon called as he squinted down at the carnage. The stern wales were curved upward sharply. The hunter touched the steering oar with his left hand to steady himself. "Teamster! Come over here and tell me all you know about this."
Vonones gripped the teamster foreman by the elbow and thrust him toward Lycon. "Go on," he urged ungently. "Do you want to get us all crucified?"
"I called to Ursus," the foreman said, as if only by talking could he bring himself to step closer to the barge again. "I said, 'Give us another squeeze of wine,' you know, because we were out and I figured they had some aboard. And he didn't answer, so I got pissed off. I mean, he was senior man, but he could still be out stumbling along with the torch if I said so, Dis take him."
Lycon and Vonones were watching the foreman carefully. He kept his eyes fixed on the sternpost, as if oblivious both of his audience and of the present condition of the barge. "So I let the stern come abreast of me," the teamster continued, "and I shouted again. And I should've been able to see him at the tiller—there wasn't any moon what with the clouds, but still against the water beyond—and he wasn't there at the oar. Nobody was. And just then the barge ground hard against the bank—hard—and so I go and jump aboard . . ."
"Which one of these is Ursus?" Lycon interrupted. He gestured toward the heaped bodies.
The foreman did not lower his eyes. "He was about my height," he said to the sternpost. "He never wore sandals, in the boat, said he couldn't get a grip with . . ."
"Look at them, damn you, and tell me which one is the helmsman!" Lycon shouted.
"He had a beard!" the teamster shouted back. Tears were dripping from the man's eyes, and the veins on his neck stood out. "He wore a beard because of the scars on his chin from when a cable parted and slapped him when he was a lad!"
Lycon stepped into the barge, ignoring the sound his boots made. He began picking through the tumbled corpses. He'd seen worse. He'd done worse—across the Rhine, driving a village of Boii in panic through the woods at dawn. He didn't have enough troops to have surrounded the Germans or even to have beaten them had they stood and fought. But he could frighten them like deer into a pit trap, a covered trench filled with sharpened stakes, because the cohort commander wanted to show results without risking too many men in hostile territory.
Results that time had meant wagonloads of right hands. And the results had pleased the Governor and won praise for the cohort commander.
"I don't see anybody here with a beard," Lycon said, as he straightened and turned again to the teamster.
It didn't mean he enjoyed it, Lycon told himself; it meant that he did what he had to do. No matter what. "Are you sure," Lycon continued impassively, "that the barge was proceeding normally until just before you boarded her yourself?"
"It was," the foreman agreed quickly, bobbing his chin upward in a gesture of assent. "And I had to bring it in to dock then myself, even with all this here, because we couldn't block the towpath." He turned his back. The teamster had thrown away his sandals and washed his feet compulsively when dawn emphasized what the rushlight had only suggested. Seeing the state of Lycon's boots when the hunter stepped out of the barge recalled to the foreman what he prayed to forget.
"Then," Lycon said wearily, "I think we're ready to report. I suppose that's what he wants from us?" He raised an eyebrow, as much a gesture as he dared to indicate the Emperor's palanquin above.
"Yes," Vonones agreed without following the gesture even with his eyes. "He wants us to report directly to him. After that . . ."
The two men began walking down the slip toward the ramp. It took the teamster a moment to realize that he had been released from the nightmare. He ran after Lycon and Vonones. He was fleeing his memories more than the presence of the blood-spattered barge.
"It was reported to Domitian as soon as it was discovered," Vonones whispered to his friend in a hasty, hidden voice. "The Prefect of the Watch has orders about such things—things that our lord and god wants to know. He came out in person to view it.
"I was unloading the shipment in my compound this morning, when Lacerta and the emperor's personal guard came riding in. Well, Domitian wanted to know about the animals that escaped from my caravan. No, not the tiger, but the other beast—the lizard-ape thing he'd heard talked about. Where was it? Well, I offered to show them the skin of the tiger, and explained that you'd seen them fight to the death—seen the sauropithecus fall into the Tiber, where it doubtless died from its wounds or drowned, and was washed out to sea. Unfortunately, they had proof to the contrary . . ."
"I should have made certain it was dead," Lycon said bitterly. "I know better than to allow a wounded man-killer to slip off into the brush."
He more regretted his own loss of nerve that night than his mistake in ever allowing Vonones to involve him in this mess. Well, the merchant's neck was on the block more surely than his own, if that was any comfort.
The palanquin was of ebony inlaid with mother of pearl. In the sunlight it glowed without dazzling. Inlays—though the ebony was solid, not a veneer as Lycon had assumed at a distance—were sure to be knocked loose in the chaos of Rome's streets. However, in this case the way would be cleared for the palanquin not by staff-wielding slaves and retainers of lesser rank, but rather by men with long swords drawn and no reason to fear using them. The palanquin had the least patina of wear, but no sign at all of abuse or battering.
The litter bearers were Syrians, solid men in scarlet tunics. They squatted at a little distance from the palanquin instead of sitting on the poles as most bearers would have done when the litter was at rest. Their voices and their shifting weight might have disturbed their owner within. The Emperor could have no greater control over his slaves than the power of life and death, granted by law to any slave master. The normal realities of human society took precedence over the law in all but the rarest circumstances.
The eight litter bearers, sitting apart and even then silent, suggested how rare the present circumstances were.
Two slaves stood at the far end of the palanquin. One of them held a set of wax tablets with his stylus ready. The other was reading aloud from a well-produced scroll. The edges had been sanded smooth and dressed up with saffron stain. The subject of the book seemed to be astronomy, so far as Lycon could tell from its hexameter verses in a Greek that seemed to him to be less pure than absurdly stilted.
The reader continued to chant the verse as Lycon and Vonones approached. The eyes of both the reader and the secretary waiting to take notes began to track the newcomers over the top of the palanquin. The palace servants were obviously afraid to indicate Lycon and Vonones to their master, but afraid as well of what would happen to them if they did not do so.
There were six guards in the immediate vicinity of the palanquin as well. Their officer, an Italian shorter by eight inches than any of his German troops—that would be Lacerta, Lycon guessed—solved the reader's problem by shouting: "Halt right there, you!" when Lycon had come within six feet of the litter. The curtained window of the palanquin quivered as the occupant turned from one side to the other. The curtains were of black silk in several layers, opaque from the outside. Nonetheless, Lycon felt himself become the object of cold appraisal. A similar impression in the darkness had once kept him from climbing into a hammock in which lamps later revealed the coils of a green mamba. This time there was no option of turning away. The reader fell silent with evident relief.
"You will be the beastcatcher Lycon," said a voice from within the palanquin. It was high-pitched to be a man's, and it spoke Latin with a casual elegance that must be inbred rather than learned.
"Yes, my lord and god," Lycon said, as he knelt and bowed his forehead to the dust. He was a free citizen of Arcadia, but a hungry lion would not be impressed by that fact, nor would Domitian be if he decided to send Lycon to that beast. Vonones, lagging a pace behind his comrade, threw himself down as well.
"Rise," the voice said languidly. The door of the palanquin opened.
Lycon straightened, keeping his gaze carefully downcast, as the Emperor stepped out in full view before him. Lycon concentrated on his first close-up view of Domitian, and while he realized that a personal audience with the Emperor was a rare honor, Lycon almost would have traded places with one of those on the barge. They, at least, were already dead and beyond even Domitian's power.
Domitian was of a height considerable in any company save that of his German guards. He wore the simple outer garment of a conservative aristocrat, a woolen toga with a broad stripe of dark russet—"purple"—along one border. The undertunic was of silk, however, and more in keeping with the titles of "lord and god" which the Emperor had assumed in the recent past.
Words and titles did not matter to Lycon. What mattered was that Lycon faced a man whose capricious sadism and uncertain moods would have made him dangerous, even if he were not Titus Flavius Domitianus, Emperor, Lord and God to every land washed by the Mediterranean and many other lands beyond.
"And you've seen the sauropithecus that escaped," Domitian said. "You've seen it kill a tiger."
The Emperor bent his head slightly toward Lycon. The beastcatcher had seen such an attitude of anticipation often enough, as spectators pressed forward on their benches to drink in the slaughter being played for them on the floor of the arena. There was nothing about the faces on the ivory chairs in the first circle to differentiate them from the common mob in the higher tiers. There was no difference in this face, either.
Domitian was not an unpleasant man to look at. He was bald and ruddy enough to pass for a jovial man, the best sort of dinner companion. The bulk of the toga could have counterfeited powerful shoulders, but the thick wrists suggested that the shoulder muscles were real as well. The upper torso's appearance of health and strength was belied by a bulging belly and calves that would have been spindly on a man three decades older than the Emperor's forty years. Part of Lycon's mind wondered about disease and the possibility that sickness, like the festering wounds that can turn an ordinary predator into a man-eater, had affected Domitian's personality as well.
But that, like a storm at sea, was a danger to be accepted, since it was beyond present cure. Aloud Lycon said, "Lord and god, I did see the lizard-ape fight a tiger. It was very quick, even quicker than the tiger, and strong enough to endure the tiger's battering until it succeeded in ripping apart the tiger's throat. If your divine excellency wishes, I will set off at once for Africa to trap another one for your divine excellency's personal pleasure."
"Yes—and I and my agents will accompany this greatest of all beastcatchers," Vonones declared. "We will provide the kind of support that will give Lycon's genius full play."
"No, hunter," said Domitian. He licked his heavy lips and smiled. "I don't need another one, not just yet. I want you to catch this one for me. The one that killed the tiger. And those others." He gestured with two fingers, down toward the barge, and he licked his lips again.
Lycon raised his eyes slowly to meet the Emperor's. He licked his own lips as he let his gaze fall again. "Lord and god," he said, "I will gladly recapture the sauropithecus for you if it still lives. But this beast has been injured. Surely your divine excellency would prefer that I journey to Africa and return with a score of such beasts, all in the peak of condition and capable of hours of entertainment in the arena."
"Do you think it used only its claws to kill them?" the Emperor interrupted. He was beginning to tremble, and Lycon could not tell whether the cause was emotion or physical strain. Those legs looked very weak.
"I don't recall it biting when it fought the tiger, lord and god," Lycon said, temporizing. "Its attack was very sudden. But the sauropithecus has strong jaws and savage fangs—imagine a huge serpent's jaw, all set with razor-edged needles. Its appetite is ravenous, and several of the bodies on the barge have obviously been partially devoured. The lizard-ape seems to favor the lungs and large organs such as the liver, my lord and god. But beyond sating its physical appetites, the lizard-ape seems to kill for the pure love of slaughter. One man—and this can only be true, my lord and god—one man it must have held helpless while it searched his brain by piercing one long talon into his ear and through his skull!"
Lycon cleared his throat, watching Domitian close his eyes—the better to envision Lycon's description. Lycon was used to queasy voyeurism and gloating conversations of this sort, but normally the payoff was a tip in gold or silver from a noble once his memories had been sated with imagined blood. The potential here was for much higher stakes than money, but it was also necessary to steer the conversation toward a direction that would permit long-term safety—such as flight to Africa and beyond the limits of the empire.
"I consider it highly significant," Lycon ventured, "that the helmsman was no longer aboard the barge when we inspected the evidence of the slaughter there."
"What does it matter that one of the dogs went overboard?" asked Domitian, coming out of his reverie with some annoyance. The Emperor had fine prominent eyes. When he frowned, as he was doing now, the high forehead crumpled over them like a thunderhead with lightning at its core.
"Went overboard, yes, lord and god," Lycon spoke quickly. He restrained an impulse to kneel again. "Almost certainly with the sauropithecus clasped to him. It was badly wounded and in a killing rage. When it went overboard with the helmsman—well, the current is very strong there, where the Tiber channel has been narrowed by the north breakwater of Portus. And anyway, the sauropithecus looked as unlikely to swim as a frog would be to fly. I'm sure it's drowned and pickling in the sea already, excellency. Now, in Africa . . ."
"Don't be absurd," said the Emperor. The tone in his voice warned Lycon not to continue. "Of course it's alive. It killed a pack of Molossians, it killed a tiger, it killed that lot below—and you say, drowned in the Tiber! No more excuses. Catch it for me. But now, tell me more about the tiger again."
"Lord and god." Lycon's mouth was dry. Domitian's eyes glinted like those of a rutting boar.
"Yes, of course, it is as you say. Now then, the tiger. Never in my years on the frontiers of your divine excellency's domains have I ever seen such a battle! The lizard-ape lay in wait for the tiger—clearly eager to fight to the death with this, the most magnificent tiger I've ever had fortune to capture, and a proven man-killer as well. Vonones saved the pelt and will have it carefully tanned for you, my lord and god."
"And the sauropithecus!" Domitian demanded, only drooling eagerness now. "Describe it to me in full detail."
"The sauropithecus more closely resembles a small man than it does an ape, divine excellency." Lycon warmed to his task. "Instead of fur, it is covered entirely with fine blue scales. This skin must be as impenetrable as an armor linked from thousands upon thousands of sapphires, for the tiger's claws could scarcely rend it. Its talons draw back into its paws, just as a cat's do, only no cat ever grew claws so long and sharp as these."
"And it kills with those claws?" Domitian's ghoulish attention was unnerving.
"Indeed it does, lord and god. Consider that its forepaws are more properly hands than animal paws, and imagine razor-edged needles of diamond hardness that double the length of each finger when extended. Ten such deadly talons, divine excellency, coupled with the strength of a beast ten times the lizard-ape's size—tearing and slashing in murderous frenzy . . ."
"And thus it killed the tiger?"
"It hurled itself upon the tiger, divine excellency. Never have I seen any creature move so fast. Over and over they tumbled across the field—tearing at one another, the tiger foaming in rage. Blood seemed to spray everywhere, and most of it the tiger's. I thought that surely both beasts must die, but the sauropithecus proved too much for the tiger, and despite the terrible mauling it suffered, somehow it succeeded in virtually severing the tiger's head from its neck. After that, it retreated from my spear, fell into the Tiber—surely, I believed with every reason to do so, to die in its depths from the wounds it had suffered."
Domitian remained in reverie, then sighed and shivered. "Fortunately for you, beastcatcher, it did not die. Now you must catch it for me. I have many tigers, and I shall not rest until I have witnessed such a battle for myself."
He smiled good-naturedly at Lycon—much the same smile that a man bestows upon a whore who has just performed her arts well. "Lycon, you are called. I am told that you were a superb gladiator some years back, before you turned to hunting beasts for the arena. Now they say that you are a superb beastcatcher as well. I hope this is true. I like a man who shares my enthusiasm for arena sports, and I like you, Lycon."
The Emperor turned to his secretary. "Sosius!"
The secretary, still poised on the other side of the palanquin, twitched to full alertness. "Excellency?" he said.
"Give this man one thousand sesterces," Domitian commanded, then returned his smile upon Lycon.
"As you see, I am generous to those who are in my favor, Lycon. I am also swift to reward those who displease me. I am told that you have a family."
Lycon fought to hold his knees steady. "Lord and god, I thank you for your kindness. I shall recapture the sauropithecus and have it ready to perform in the arena with all possible haste."
"See that you don't waste time in doing so," Domitian warned. His manner was almost friendly. "And take care that the sauropithecus is in no way harmed. This merchant will assist you."
"At once, divine excellency!" Vonones almost fainted to learn that his life, too, had been spared for the moment. "All my men and equipment are at Lycon's command."
"Don't be too long about your task, then," Domitian advised, dismissing them.
The Emperor took much of his weight on his powerful arms as he lifted himself into the palanquin. The door slapped closed behind him, and the bearers sprang to their posts.
"Excellency, I . . ." Lycon began. He continued after a pause to allow Domitian to settle himself comfortably. "I may need official support as well, authority to levy beaters and net-bearers. Maybe military units too. I don't know what we're getting into—we may have to cordon off entire estates and search every hedgerow."
"Take care of it, Sosius," ordered the bored voice behind the black curtains. There was a rapping sound on the frame of the palanquin—the Emperor's fingernail or a stylus giving coded directions to the bearers. The sharp noise could be understood through the bustle of city crowds, as voice commands might not be. The closed litter was lifted in two stages to the shoulders of the bearers. The Syrians gave simultaneous controlled gasps at each pause. Then they strode off in unison while the mounted guards fell in around the palanquin.
Vonones and Lycon backed away to avoid being trampled by the litter bearers. The merchant dusted his palms against one another, then began to wring them unconsciously. "Well, Lycon. We're both still alive, and you're a wealthy man. My advice is to spend it quickly."
"Idiot!" Lycon snorted. "Don't you realize that if we don't produce that damned lizard-ape and quickly, Domitian will have not only us but our households as well feeding tigers in the arena!"
"Lycon," said Vonones earnestly, "I'm honestly sorry I ever got you involved in this mess. I know you were doing me a favor, but if I'd had any idea what this would lead you into . . ."
"Forget it," Lycon answered roughly. "I didn't enter into this blindly. We'll just have to catch the damned thing. That's my profession, after all—catching beasts."
The merchant licked his lips. "That's what we'll have to do," he said. "After all, the Numidians managed to catch it."
"Yes, in open country," Lycon reminded him sourly. "Who knows where the thing is hiding now—or how we'll catch it."
Vonones had a sudden thought. "I wonder who's going to cover all these expenses? Probably me. You noticed that our lord and god made no mention of payment for the sauropithecus."
"He damn well indicated what sort of reward awaits us if we don't catch it!" Lycon reminded him, as they walked toward Vonones' tethered horse. "The trouble is, it may well be that all we can do is just go through the motions of hunting the damned beast, and hope the Emperor loses interest."
"Do you really think the sauropithecus might have drowned in the Tiber, then?" Vonones asked. "I almost hope it did, even though that's the worse for us. I'd rather not have to see any more massacres like that, that mess on the barge."
"There's a good chance it went over the side in a struggle with the helmsman," Lycon said. "After all, it didn't attack the teamsters when it was finished on the barge. That's one good thing about the lizard-ape's savagery: if it's still alive, we'll know about it as soon as it makes its next kill. We shouldn't have long to wait."
The mount Lycon had ridden was that of one of the German guards who had remained with the Emperor when he summoned the beastcatcher. He had ridden off with the remainder of the troop once the audience was concluded, but Lycon had never needed more than his own legs to get him around. Dockworkers, released by the absence of the guards, were streaming down to the slips to get their own view of the bloody carnage. It was much closer than men of their class would ever be able to get at the amphitheater.
"The problem that bothers me," said Vonones as he clucked to his horse, "is that the barge made it as far as it did—without a helmsman."
Lycon nodded. His face was tight. The thought had occurred to him also.
"I don't think that would have been possible," Vonones continued. "The barge would have grounded, just as it eventually did when the teamster foreman boarded her. The current and the thrust of the towline both would have driven the bow into the bank without a hand on the tiller."
"That's true enough," Lycon agreed.
"Let's go back to my house," Vonones suggested. "We'll need to get organized on this right away, and we'll use my men." He looked for landmarks. They might do better to hire one of the City Watchmen as a guide through the unfamiliar streets between the grain docks and his house on the Caelian. But the merchant did not especially want anyone else present during their conversation.
"The lizard-ape had a couple of days to recover from its fight with the tiger, probably holed up under the river bank along there. Either it had escaped serious injuries, or else it heals exceptionally fast—perhaps both. We know it couldn't have been crippled or badly hurt to have killed all those men without causing an uproar. It may well be that there was an hour or more between the separate attacks, while it caught its breath and . . . ate its fill. And that means it didn't go into the river at Portus."
"All right," Lycon said grimly. "What else do you think it means?"
"I don't . . ." Vonones began, not liking the conclusion he had reached. "I don't see any reason to assume the beast went into the river at all. Lycon, on the tiller—I saw that you noticed it too—there were fresh notches cut into the wood. I don't believe it was from the helmsman whittling at the tiller with a knife just before he was killed. And I don't think you believe that either."
Lycon spoke, but he spoke so softly that Vonones could not hear him. A great derrick lay halfway across the street ahead. Its axle squealed as men paced within the winding cage, providing power to raise a twenty-foot beam to the building crew awaiting it on the third floor of an apartment under construction.
Instead of trying to force his way around the obstruction, Vonones reined in and dismounted. He put his arm around Lycon's shoulders and bent his ear to the other's voice.
"I said," repeated the hunter with finality, "that if the sauropithecus is still alive, we've got to get it, and quickly. I've seen it kill, my friend. If it was smart enough to steer a barge up the Tiber, then it's too dangerous to be alive, that's all."
"Too dangerous to be loose, at any rate," said the merchant.
"I mean exactly what I said, Vonones," Lycon shouted, more loudly than Vonones thought prudent. "I hope we find it dead. I really do. Because no matter what, it's going to be dead the next time I leave it. I'm not turning it over alive to anybody." His voice dropped to a whisper that Vonones understood only because he knew what the words would be even before they were spoken: "Especially not to our lord and god, the Emperor."
Vonones pulled himself onto his mount again, lifting his weight with one hand on either of the pair of forward pommels on his saddle. Under normal circumstances, a slave would have given him a leg-up, but he would not ask a friend for that service.
"We'll see when the time comes," Vonones agreed cautiously. "We'll see when we've actually found the sauropithecus."