Vibulenus tried to push himself upright with his left hand, but his shield was in the way. His frog body strained upward with terrified bellows, and the strap across his back tugged him down again with identical force.
Falco squirmed into a kneeling position. He had lost his ceramic buckler and held his spear with both hands as he poised with foam dribbling out the corners of his mouth. Vibulenus batted sideways with his own spear, but the shaft was light and an inadequate weapon even if swung with greater force than his exhausted muscles could manage.
The mouse struck back too hastily to rise to his feet first. The blow was clumsy and the spearpoint less sharp than the shimmering glaze had made it seem but the combination sufficed to drive the weapon a hand-breadth into Vibulenus’ chest.
It didn’t hurt although he could feel the point grate through bones. Vibulenus realized this was all a game. Then his frog body toppled flat in sudden weakness and pain blazed through him with the brilliance of the sun coming from behind a cloud.
Vibulenus was still fully conscious, but the only muscles he could move were those which focused his eyes. The world was wrapped in a pulsing white glow through which the mouse warrior withdrew his weapon and struggled to his feet. Falco must be exhausted also. It was not effort, really, not work done that was so draining. Rather, it was the tension of battle, the emotional tautness that kept every muscle keyed against possible use like a top spinning in place.
Until you collapsed, or you died.
“You’ve bought it now, dog-spittle!” the mouse wheezed through slobbering jaws, and he drove his spear down at Vibulenus’ right eye. The pain stopped, and the universe snuffed all its lights.
The Battle of Frogs and Mice had proceeded considerably since Vibulenus’ previously birdseye view of the struggle. The Frogs had their backs to a steep-banked pond, not the barrier to them that it would have been to a human army; but under pressure from the Mice, the green line was disintegrating as its members hurled away their equipment and plunged into the water.
Gaius Vibulenus screamed and jumped to his feet. The mythic battle dissolved instantly, sound and view together. The tribune stumbled and fell crosswise over Clodius Afer on the couch next to his.
The file-closer lurched upright, giving a shout and a display of muscles toughened by daily training with equipment weighted to make the real thing seem light. He relaxed at once, calmed by the change of mental scenery even before he recognized Vibulenus.
Clodius swung to his feet, permitting both men to pretend that the grip with which he had started to crush the tribune’s ribs like a breadloaf was simply help in recovering the younger man’s balance. “You okay, sir?” he asked solicitously, stepping away with his arms firmly clasped to his sides.
“Gnaeus,” said the tribune when he had recovered enough from the grip of panic and the file-closer to speak. “I was down there.” He glanced toward the pit, but there was nothing to be seen but rings of couches — more of them filled than before, though some legionaries were beginning to leave the hall. “Down there!”
“Right,” said the file-closer. “Me too. Till you, you know, shook me out of it.”
Vibulenus started to speak but paused instead with his mouth open, wondering how he could explain to the veteran that he had been a participant in the fantasy struggle, not merely a disembodied viewpoint.
Before he could find the words, Clodius Afer had said, “I was a mouse, myself. Were you? I’ve always hated slimy frogs. And look, wasn’t there a poem about this, the Frogs versus the Mice? I swear I heard some old bastard bellowing it out in the public baths years ago, ’cause he liked what the echo off the tiles did to his voice.”
“Let’s. . . ,” said the tribune before he lost his train of thought while his eyes drifted across the figures reclining in rapt attention on something which did not really hang in the middle of the amphitheater. What would he do if he spotted Falco? He already had his knuckle and his memory to regret from the last time.