“When’s the next race coming up’?”
“As a matter of fact. I’ve got several teams entered in onetomorrow.-
“Will Antony be there?”
“He never misses a race if he can help it.”
“Good. What are the chances of putting in a fix?”
“You want me to fix a chariot race?” said Marshall with disbelief.You realize I could get the death penalty for that’?”
“Only if you got caught,” said Steiger.
Marshall sighed. “Hell. I suppose it could be arranged.”
Steiger smiled. “You haven’t changed much, either, have you?”
“A man does what he can. You’re planning to take Antony?”
“For a bundle.” Steiger said. “What better way to get toknow a man than to have him owe you money?”
4
“I hadn’t expected it to look so beautiful,” said Andre asthey approached the city. Andell drove the coach, while Castelli rode ahead ofthem, with Corwin and Drummond mounted on their horses, bringing up the rear.Travers had clocked back to his villa in the city, to await their arrival
“It looks better from a distance. First time in Rome. eh?” Andellsaid.
“I’ve served a hitch in Rome before,” said Lucas, ‘but forFinn and Andre. I think it’s the first time. Still. Rome was very differentthen.”
“Oh. yeah? When did you pull a tour here?”
“Second Punic War.” said Lucas. “I was with Scipio in thewar against Hannibal.”
“No shit. really? The old arbitration wars. I was there.too.”
“You’re kidding,” Lucas said. “Which cohort?”
“Wrong army,” Andell said with a grin. “I was with Hannibal.”
Lucas frowned. You were with Hannibal? How can thatbe? The U.S. Temporal Corps contingent was infiltrated into Roman forces duringthat Time War.”
“I wasn’t with the U.S. Temporal Corps,” Andell said. “I wasfighting for the Nippon Conglomerate Empire back then. Freelance mercenary.”
“That explains it.” said Delaney. “I was wondering why someoneyour age was still a sergeant. “
“Yeah. Big black mark on my record.” Andell said. “Ex-mercenariesare scum of the earth, far as TAC-HQ is concerned.”
“But you’re American. aren’t you?” said Lucas. “So you hadto start out regular Corps before you went merc. What happened?”
“I caught a real bad tour that made me want out in a bigway,” said Andell. “I served a hitch in the War Between the States. I was withthe Union troops at Shiloh.”
Delaney whistled. “That must’ve been a rough one.”
“Tell me about it. It made the Punic Wars seem like a cakewalk.I got shot up pretty had and wound up just lying there on the damn battlefield,wondering if I was going to die or if the damn hogs were going to get to mefirst. There was a bunch of ’em rutting around the corpses. And some of themweren’t even corpses yet. Not too far off from me, this huge pig was chewing ona guy’s exposed intestines and he was still alive. I can still hear the poor bastardscreaming.
“My God.” said Andre.
“It gets worse,” Andell said. “Somehow, I. got the strengthup to crawl away and get into the woods. Packed my wounds with mud and thenstarted trying to limp back to our lines. Only a rebel patrol found me first. Iwound up in Andersonville.”