The Implacable Hunter Read Online Free Page A

Lucius’s preposterous belly, Paulus replied: ‘Why waste labour and money? You have already stuffed Lucius more generously than Ptalep ever could.’ Everyone laughed; nobody liked Little Lucius.
    Soxias said: ‘Point of interest, Paulus – what would your god-in-the-box have to say to a stuffed Lucius?’
    Paulus had a certain boxer’s knack of turning an enemy’s tactics to his own advantage. He was a master of the feigned miscalculation. His retreat was circular – a calculated kind of attack; and he was a born adept in the delicate art of making an opponent underestimate him by letting it be felt that he was underestimating his opponent. So the other man would, apparently negligent, leave a vital spot unguarded for a moment, to invite a blow that must miss and lay Paulus open to a smashing right hand: he was always surprised to find that he had been playing Paulus’s game, that his counter-stroke missed, that he was caught on one foot, off-balance, and at the quicker man’s mercy.
    For this, among other good soldierly qualities, I had an affection for the man; and I said to myself: ‘Oho, Soxias! You have started the game, but I’ll wager a horse to a hen that I know who will finish it!’
    ‘Speak up, speak up,’ said Lucius.
    Paulus said: ‘Why, Soxias, there would be nothing to say to a stuffed Lucius. Let out the squeal and the guts, and what is Lucius? A hide. You deal in leather, Soxias, among other things. Sell Lucius to a cobbler.’ Before Soxias couldspeak, he added, quickly: ‘But all the world knows that Lucius has a skin, a very thick skin. The mystery is, where does he keep his bones?’
    A poor little joke, but young Paulus made it sound almost funny, he spoke with such earnestness, and looked about him with an air of shrewd inquiry. It was good enough to make Soxias laugh, and that was enough.
    Ambassador to an unknown kingdom, governor of a sullen and insecure province, general of a mutinous army: somewhere in Paulus slept the seed of a clever handler of men. I thought that he had danced like a bullfighter between the horns of a threatening conversation. (At my table, I ban religion and politics.)
    But Little Lucius, with honey in his voice and hate in his eyes, was at it again. ‘Soxias,’ he said, ‘I will write you a new song on a sacred theme – I have a Greek translation, from the Hebrew, of a delicious bit of erotica written by a Jewish king who fell in love with a black slut out of Africa. It is esteemed as holy by the Jews, my dear! I think I shall paraphrase it in Latin dactyls, like:
    Careful King Solomon numbered his concubines
    Counting the tits and dividing by two
    – or perhaps I shouldn’t? Paulus’s god might not like it, eh, Paulus?’
    Afranius said: ‘Leave the gods out of it.’
    ‘Eh, Paulus?’ Lucius persisted.
    Paulus raised a hand as if he was about to speak, but he said nothing; he simply gazed, unblinking, at Lucius. Awaiting his reply, we were silent, and this sudden silence was curiously oppressive: it was as if everyone was holding his breath.
    He rose, without haste – always gazing at Lucius – and went and stood over him. Then he stooped, and dipped a forefinger into Lucius’s cup. One lazy drop of the heavy darkwine hung at Paulus’s finger-tip. It seemed to hang there for a long time; Paulus’s hand was motionless, only the winedrop trembled and then fell with an inaudible splash on Lucius’s right wrist.
    In a strange voice, soft yet strong with authority, gentle but exactly incisive, so that his words seemed, as it were, to punch little holes in the air, Paulus said: ‘You will not write your paraphrase, Lucius. Tonight you will sleep, and tomorrow when you arise your right hand will be palsied.’ Then he returned to his seat.
    Lucius blinked, smiling crookedly, rubbing his wrist very hard with a napkin; and Melanion whispered to me, with a grim smile: ‘By the gods, Diomed, what a merchant they will make of this little Pharisee! And