Gladiator: Vengeance

Начало книги

‘Ready?’ asked Festus.

Marcus nodded and then glanced round the marketplace of Chalcis, a small port on the coast of the Gulf of Corinth. Below the market the ground sloped down to the sea, brilliant blue beneath the clear sky and the glare of early afternoon sun. They had reached the town after a morning’s walk along the coastal road, then stopped for a simple meal of stew in a chop house to one side of the market. A fair-sized crowd was still milling around the stalls and the usual gangs of youths clustered about the fountain, presenting easy pickings to Marcus’s practised eye.

‘Do we have to do this?’ asked Lupus, the boy sitting next to Marcus. He was seventeen, four years older than Marcus, but they often passed for the same age. Whereas Lupus was short and thin, Marcus was tall for his years. The hard training he had endured at a gladiator school, and later in the charge of Festus when they had both served Julius Caesar in Rome, had given him a muscular physique.

Читать дальше →