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!"