“You knew me.”
Lugo sipped. The wine was Falernian, sweet on his tongue. “I knew of you,” he said. “Rumors had reached me. That’s natural. I keep track of what’s going on. I have my agents. Nothing to frighten you, no secret informers. But street urchins, for example, who earn a coin by bringing me word of anything interesting. I determined to seek you out and learn more. It’s lucky for you that that chanced to be exactly when and where I could snatch you from your fellow sons of toil.”
The question soughed through him: How many chances had he missed, by what slender margins, throughout all the years? He did not share the widespread present-day faith in astrology. It seemed likeliest to him that sheer accident ruled the world. Perhaps today the dice had been due to roll in his favor.
//the game was real, //anyone like him existed, had ever existed, anywhere under the sky.
Rufus’ head thrust forward from the heavy shoulders. “Why did you?” he grated. “What the dung be you after?”
He needed calming down. Lugo check-reined the eagerness within himself, that was half fear. “Drink your wine,” he said. “Listen, and I’ll explain.
“This house may have led you to think I’m a curial, or a mildly prosperous shopkeeper, or something of that kind. I’m not.” Had not been for a long while. Diocletian’s decree had supposedly frozen everybody into the status to which they were born, including the middle classes. But rather than be crushed, grain by grain, between the stones of taxation, regulation, worthless currency, moribund trade, more and more were fleeing. They slipped off, changed their names, became serfs or outright slaves, illegal itinerant la- borers and mountebanks; some joined the Bacaudae whose bandit gangs terrorized the rural outback, some actually sought to the barbarians. Lugo had made better arrangements for himself, well in advance of need. He was accustomed to looking ahead.
“Fm currently in the pay of one Aurelian, a senator in this city,” he went on.
Hostility sparked. “I heard about him.”
Lugo shrugged again. “So he bribed his way into that rank, and even among his colleagues is monumentally corrupt. What of it? He’s an able man and understands that it’s wise to be loyal to those who serve him. Senators aren’t allowed to engage in commerce, you may know, but he has varied interests. That calls for intermediaries who are not mere figureheads. I come and go for him, to and fro, sniffing out dangers and possibilities, bearing messages, executing tasks that require discretion, giving advice when appropriate. There are worse stations in life. In fact, there are less honorable ones.”
“What’s Aurelian want with me?” Rufus asked uneasily.
“Nothing. He’s never heard of you. Fate willing, he never shall. I sought you out on my own account. We may be of very great value to each other.” Lugo sharpened his tone. “I make no threats. If we cannot work together but you have done your best to cooperate with me, I can at least get you smuggled out of Burdigala to someplace where you can start over. Remember, you owe me your life. If I abandon you, you’re a dead man.”
Sullenness and the gesture of the fig: “They’ll know you hid me here.”
“Why, I’ll tell them myself,” Lugo declared coolly. “As a solid citizen, I did not want you unlawfully slaughtered, but I did feel it incumbent on me to interview you in private, draw you out—Hold!” He had set his cup on the ground as he talked, expecting Rufus might lunge. Now he gripped the staff in both hands. “Stay right on that stool, boy. You’re sturdy, but you’ve seen what I can do with this.”
Rufus crouched back.
Lugo laughed. “That’s better. Don’t be so damned edgy. I really don’t want to cause you any harm. Let me repeat, if you’ll be honest with me and do as I say, the worst that will happen to you is that you leave Burdigala in disguise. Aurelian owns a huge latifundium; it can doubtless use an extra workman, if I put in a good word, and the senator will cover up any little irregularities for me. At best—well, I don’t yet know, and therefore won’t make any promises, but it could be glorious beyond your highest-flying childhood dreams, Rufus.”