Miraculously, Protis managed to dodge the attack. He leaped aside as the aurochs flashed past him, flinging its horns into the empty air. In the blink of an eye it had swung round on its haunches, lowered its head again, and was driving forward at its target. This time Protis did not even attempt to flap his shirt at the onrushing beast. He was only yards from the high wooden wall of the arena. He dropped his shirt, turned, took two strides and leaped upward, reaching for a handhold on the upper edge. He succeeded and hung on, drawing up his legs so that the horns of the charging aurochs smashed into the timber just below him with a splintering crash that I could feel from where I stood.
The aurochs drew back, shook its head as if slightly stunned, and turned aside. Then it trotted away a few yards, wheeled about to face Protis, and waited. The young Greek was dangling with both hands and at the full extent of both arms. He looked over his shoulder at the monstrous beast. It was clear that the vengeful aurochs was waiting for him to drop.
Osric and I bolted for the front row of the spectator seats. Protis was twenty yards away. If we could reach him in time, we could grab his wrists and haul him up to safety. As I ran I flicked a desperate glance towards the doorway where I had last seen Walo. The door was closed. Somehow he had managed to turn the bears around and push them back. What had happened inside, I could only guess.
We were so close to Protis that we would have reached him in a couple more paces, when he lost his grip. Perhaps he tried to pull himself upward onto the balustrade and miscalculated, or the palms of his hands had become too sweaty and he had slipped. He dropped away from us just as Osric and I arrived at the point where we could have saved him. We looked over the edge, aghast. Beneath us Protis was scrambling back onto his feet and turning to face the aurochs. Even then he might have escaped the beast’s next attack if one of the dogs had not bumped into him. They had been circling hysterically, barking frenziedly the entire time. Now, as Protis stood up, one of them scurried behind him, brushing against the back of his knees, and threw him off balance. A heartbeat later the aurochs was coming forward and this time the vicious up-sweep of the horns caught Protis full in the stomach. He was flung high in the air. He cartwheeled and landed limp on the sand. The aurochs had already spun round and was on its victim in a flash. The horns hooked down.
Sick at heart, I watched the killing. It was like Vulfard’s death all over again. The aurochs tossed the broken body repeatedly, picking it up on its horns after each time Protis’s corpse flopped to the sand then flinging it up in the air. When the beast tired of that murderous treatment, it let the body lie where it fell, waited for a moment or two, then slowly and deliberately folded its fore legs and knelt and crushed the bloody remains of the young Greek into the sand. Finally the beast rose to its feet, looked around the arena as if satisfied and, ignoring the dogs, trotted away in the direction of its stall.
The door stood wide open. Walo must have succeeded in returning the bears to their enclosure and prepared a way for the aurochs to leave the arena. The hulking beast passed through the open doorway and headed for its stall of its own accord, for I saw it no more.
Numbed, I looked around the great empty bowl of the Colosseum looming over the gruesome death scene. The commotion had awoken people living in the other houses. A torch flame flickered in a window. My gaze travelled round the circle of the seats opposite me and my stomach gave a sudden lurch. In the dark shadow of a tier of seats slightly higher up, was a darker patch. It was difficult to be certain. Tucked in against one of the columns was what looked like the shape of a man. Someone was sitting there, watching. My spine crawled as I wondered if a spectator had been there the whole time, relishing the spectacle of Protis’s death.
Osric and I went down into the arena. Protis’s lifeless body was so badly mangled that Osric had to go back to our lodgings to fetch a blanket in which to wrap the corpse, so we could carry it away. As I waited for Osric to return, I looked up again at the spot where I thought I had seen a spectator. This time the place was empty.
*
A Greek priest from the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin came for Protis’s funeral. He conducted the service in the little chapel inside the Colosseum itself, and afterwards we buried Protis in the makeshift cemetery in the abandoned section of the arena. We placed a broken piece of marble to mark his grave. On the Nomenculator’s advice we claimed that Protis had been killed in an accident while the aurochs was exercising. Paul said that it was the only way to avoid an official investigation by the city magistrates. If they got involved, we would not be allowed to leave the city for months. Osric and I had already agreed between ourselves that we would stay silent on the even more delicate question of how all the animals had been set free that fatal evening. Neither of us wanted Walo to be blamed.