A Gladiator Dies Only Once by Steven Saylor Read Free Book Online

Hydra was a fourth, Eco’s one-eyed Cyclops.
    Well, well, I thought, getting to my feet. Sprinkling the plaster dust had been superfluous, after all. Or had it? If Bethesda wouldn’t own up to pilfering Eco’s figurines, the evidence of her footsteps in the dust, and of the dust adhering to soles of her shoes, would compel her to do so. I couldn’t help but smile, anticipating her chagrin. Or would she maintain her fiction that the figurines had walked off by themselves, with the curious goal, as it turned out, of congregating beneath our bed?
    Whistling an old Etruscan nursery tune and looking forward to a hearty breakfast, I strolled across the garden toward the dining room at the back of the house. Above my head, the magpies squawked in dissonant counterpoint to my whistling. Bast sat in a patch of sunlight, apparently oblivious of the birds, cleaning a forepaw with her tongue.
    No sooner had I settled myself on the dining couch than Eco came running out of his room, a look of confusion and alarm on his face. He ran up to me and waved his arms, making inchoate gestures.
    “I know, I know,” I said, raising one hand to calm him and gently restraining him with the other. “Don’t tell me—your Cyclops has gone missing.”
    Eco was briefly taken aback, then frowned and peered at me inquiringly.
    “How do I know? Well. . .”
    At that moment, Bethesda appeared from the kitchen, bearing a bowl of steaming porridge. I cleared my throat.
    “Bethesda,” I said, “it seems that another of Eco’s figurines has vanished. What do you say to that?”
    She put the bowl on a small tripod table and began to ladle porridge into three smaller bowls. “What would you have me say, Master?” She kept her eyes on her work. Her face was utterly expressionless, betraying not the least trace of guilt or guile.
    I sighed, almost regretting that she had forced me to expose her little charade. “Perhaps you could begin . . .” By apologizing to Eco, I was about to say—when I was abruptly interrupted by a sneeze.
    It was not Bethesda who sneezed. Nor was it Eco.
    It was the cat.
    Bethesda looked up. “Yes, Master? I could begin by saying . . . what?”
    My face turned hot. I cleared my throat. I pursed my lips.
    I stood up. “Eco, the first thing you must remember, if you ever wish to become a Finder like your father, is always to keep a cool head and never to jump to conclusions. Last night I laid a trap for our culprit. If we now examine the scene of the crime, I suspect we shall discover that she has left a clue behind.”
    Or several clues, as it turned out, if one wished to call each tiny, padded paw print in the fine plaster dust an individual clue. The paw prints led up to the niche; the paw prints led away. Following a barely discernible trail of dusted prints, Eco and I tracked the thief’s progress out of his room, around the colonnaded portico, and into the room I shared with Bethesda. The trail disappeared under the bed.
    I left it to Eco to discover the pilfered figurines for himself. He let out a grunt, scampered under the bed, and reemerged clutching the clay treasures in both hands, a look of mingled relief and triumph on his face.
    Greatly excited, he put down the figurines so that he could communicate. He pinched his forefingers and thumbs beneath his nose and drew them outward, making his sign for Bast by miming the cat’s long whiskers.
    “Yes,” I said. “It was Bast who took your figurines.”
    Eco made an exaggerated shrug with his palms held upright.
    “Why? That I can’t tell you. We Romans don’t yet know that much about cats. Not like the Egyptians, who’ve been living with them—and worshipping them—since the dawn of time. I suppose, like dogs and ferrets—and like magpies, for that matter—some cats display a tendency to pilfer small objects and hide them. One of those figurines would fit quite neatly between Bast’s jaws. I’m sure she meant no harm, as none of them seems to have