The Oath Keeper

by Alaric Longward

  One slave, a pig-eyed man with barely any chin, was leaning on the cages, leering down at some maidens. “Come to Pig, lovelies! Let them pass! Surely you do not need to shield us from them?” he called out.

  “Shut up,” said his companion, a lanky Dacian, judging by his tattoos of wolf and dragons.

  “Oh, Blaesus,” the man called Pig sighed. “We go to deaths virgins, then. And we just met last week. Our love has not yet blossomed”

  They both spoke Latin, horribly broken Latin, but nonetheless, and I guessed they had met in some slave market after being captured in battle. I decided the other one was a Celt. Probably from Gaul.

  The Pig sat back down and nudged his morose friend. “So. We fight together?”

  “Of course,” Blaesus sighed. “The rest are scum. Some are too old. We let them—”

  “You two,” I told them in Latin, “had best treat your elders with respect. Or I’ll herd you before all of the others like a pair of cows.”

  The men, in their thirties, blinked as they watched me. Then the Pig grinned. “Know your sword?”

  I nodded.

  He squinted, if possible with such terrible pig’s eyes, and nudged Blaesus.

  Blaesus sighed. “Look. Pig.”

  His name was proper.

  The man went on. “We will die. They will make sure. We just fight, all right? Then we die. Doesn’t matter what we do.”

  “It does matter,” I said. “I fought for Armin.”

  And at that, they all looked at me. Many, I guessed, knew Latin. All knew the name.

  I rubbed my neck. “It matters. No matter what they have waiting for us, we should fight together. We use our wits, and we will win. We give up now, and they will feast tonight, back in their damned ludus. They don’t deserve it.”

  Blaesus flipped his fair hair aside, his blue eyes burning. “Do they not? Do you know what I am?”

  “Dacian,” I said. “Proud—”

  “I was King Decibalus’s cousin, and his envoy. I have seen Roman armies in battle. I spent years with them. Fairness is not a concept they know about. No, they will not let us win. They do not play like that. They will butcher us out there,” he snarled. “There will be no prisoners or fair battle. It has all been designed for us to lose. I see you have seen battle. I have too. You know—”

  I snarled and spat. He went quiet. “We held twenty thousand legionnaires in the last battle. We held them, and they went home. No, they did not play fair. Armin—”

  “Armin died,” Blaesus said. “Did you know? Last month?”

  I had not known. I looked down.

  “He is gone,” Blaesus whispered. “My cousin will be, and we shall all be. We go there, we fight well, and then our prize is death.”

  The others settled down, and I cursed the bastard for being a fool.

  I would have to try to salvage what was left of their confidence.

  “Just,” I said, making him look my way, “leave their leader to me.”

  He laughed softly and rubbed his face. “You may have him. Oh! We are here.”

  The Circus Maximus rose high next to Palatine, and on the slopes of the Palatine, the white and red roofs and buildings looked like they were surrounded by people streaming for the Circus.

  “Sixty fighters,” said a man outside, not far. “So far, sixty. Beasts, and they have been killing them for hours. Tigers and lions, mainly. The bestiarii lost some of theirs to a lioness that wasn’t as weak as they though she should be.”

  He was cheered wildly by his fellow scum.

  I cursed the lot of them.

  I watched the Circus and, indeed, heard the roars of animals, both two-legged in the stands and the four-legged in the sands.

  Animals, the lot of them.

  “We’ll go in through there,” the Pig said, staring at the gates end of the Circus, not far. From there, the chariots usually burst out to race, but now there were hundreds of slavers, lanista, guards, and suppliers milling in the area.

  Due to its oval shape, the Circus was not ideal for the sport. It was, however, increasingly in use for such games thanks to a dreadful accident with the make-shift seating a year past in the Forum, where, some say, thousands of spectators had died.

  “Ready yourselves,” said the Dacian, grinning with a sad face. “We will miss the rest of the day, and all the rest of our lives.” He nodded at a heaving mass of filthy, ragged men, straight from Helheim, it seemed, standing before one gate, holding clubs, naked and afraid. “Noxii. Criminals. They’ll butcher noxii at noon, and then it is our turn, before the real show begins.”

  “We’ll show them a show,” the Pig claimed.

  It was true we were but a distraction. Rome appreciated matched, skillful pairs of fighters. Fish against fisherman. Heavy shield and armor against light-armored speed. The idea was to have a weakness and a strength, and they would bet on the skills of using or exploiting such ruthlessly.

  Ours would be a play of past glories.

  It would be a battle or a re-enactment, where Rome wins.

  We would be the barbarians. Scum. Armed and armored, but lightly and badly.

  I grunted.

  Live or die, I would know soon. Dead Mars gladiators would be rudely surprised. It mattered little.

  In a way, I was relieved Gochan would not be there.

  I would also be relieved to have him there, but I knew Tiberius was right. The crowds might demand only one survive. In there, no matter if Tiberius oversaw the games from his seat, anything might happen.

  And Gochan was best with Gernot.

  He would also try to find Thusnelda. I gave him time to do it. Or, rather, all his life, if I died.

  He would find her. He would strangle Sigimer. He would look on father.

  But Thusnelda, she bothered me. What if he found her?

  Why had I asked him for that?

  Did I truly care, or just wanted to know she was well?

  I was not sure what I would do with that bit of information. For some reason, I simply wanted to know. Now that Armin was dead, it felt foolish. Where would she go? They would kill her son in Germania.

  But Gernot thought it was the most important thing in the world for me, rather than what I was doing just then, and I couldn’t see it. I just couldn’t.

  Ulrich had to die. Livia too.

  I shook away my gloom and shrugged.

  I would decide later what to do with Thusnelda.

  I watched the wagon making its way for the area where the noxii milled, making ready for the next shows. Praetorians and slavers, owners and bet-takers were pushed aside; merchants in makeshift stands were shouting offers, and then the gates were opened, and guards pushed the criminals to the battle.

  The crowds roared. Men were announcing the fight.

  The wagons stopped, and there was a rattle as the cages were being opened, and the slaves were turning, their wrists shackled.

  “We need to fight together,” said the ugly Gaul. “Together.”

  “What does it matter?” the Dacian said. “They’ll see us dead anyway.”

  The man of Macro opened the cage and nodded us out. I went first and jumped out of the wagon, watching the gates.

  The man whispered. “Cassius Chaerea, that’s my name. Centurion.”

  He was young, and a bit too pretty to be a man. “Centurion.”

  “We go in there, and you join a band of other criminals,” he said. “Win, and I am waiting in the guts of the building. I will tell Varro he does not own you. I’ll explain it well.”

  Despite his pretty face, he seemed to know how to get things done.

  He pushed me towards the building, and the guards began yelling at the others.

  “It will be hard, if you win,” he said. “You sure you have a chance?”

  “I will,” I snarled. “There is no man I cannot kill with a sword.”

  He stopped and seemed to mouth my words. There was an odd, determined look in his eyes, and a bloodthirsty one.

/>   He was clearly tempted to test my boast. He was one of those men who took great pride in their skill with blade.

  “If you win,” he said, “the deal is that Varro gets what is left. But we shall quiet him. See the doorways inside the building? The right one. That’s Varro.”

  They were gates where the horses and chariots would start the races, the best entertainment of Rome, but there were tunnels under the seats, and small doorways that led inside the structure, and there, I saw a sandy haired, old man with a black tunic and knee-high boots. With him, stood another like him, his brother, but afar, armed, and armored, and that one held a whip.

  “Ares,” he said. “The head trainer of his ludus. Usually, the trainers are slaves, but this one leads all the trainers, and most are freedmen.”

  I grunted and made my way there, and the centurion followed.

  I stood before Varro and the centurion began to speak to a harried official, and Varro leaned in, whispering comments.

  Then, Varro nodded, shook hands with our centurion, and turned to us. “Take them to the others.”

  One of the guards with Varro grinned at us and pulled us along. “Come, ye Gauls. That is what you shall be. Aye, you be ferocious Gauls, about to meet your doom. In here. Come!”

  He grasped a chain, and deftly the other guards of Varro chained us all together. The ten of us were then unceremoniously escorted to the cold bowels of Circus Maximus, to the land of shadows and flickering torches and oil lamps, to the Helheim of sweat, growling beasts, mad laughter, and utter hopelessness. We were pulled forward, while outside, we heard officials announcing the events, and it appeared they were having the noxii kill each other in small duels.

  I let the guard pull me down a corridor, then another, until finally he stopped us before a great, barred doorway and nodded us inside.

  There, we were taken over by a huge, fat guard, and with a nod, he adopted our orphan souls to join the party of fifteen sitting slaves. We shuffled in until we stood around the sitting men. The guards were opening our chains and heaping them on the corner. The fat man eyed us critically. “Same useless scum, save for perhaps some of you. Who has fought before?”

  Varro entered with Ares and Ares pushed forward.

  Then he stood before us.

  “Same question,” he said. “You damned women, speak.”

  Ares, thick and bulky, snapped the whip on the floor.

  Most all raised fingers, and all were scowling at the insult.

  He sneered. “There it is. Scratch a dying wolf, and it bares its fangs. Aye, scum, the lot of you. You will get a fine ending. Better than you deserve, mind you. It awaits you out there. Now. You shall be dressed into finery beyond your station. Loincloths made of blue wool, cingulum belts, fancy and long. You will get a scutum, and a sword each. Excellent quality, both. No toys, these swords, boys, but proper tools for butchery. Aye.” He toed a man’s bare foot. “Sandals you shall not get. Your bare, dirty feet will have to do. Cannot afford full kit. Oh, you’ll get helmets, closed ones, like the secutor use, and then you look like a proper party of cattle-raping foreign bastards.”

  He crossed his hands behind his back.

  Varro stepped to his side. “I am Varro. You face my boys out there. You will face my new fighters, see. The Dead Mars ludus considers killing you an honor. If some of you survive, and missione is granted, and you are worthy, you will join the boys. Be kind to them. They are ordinarii, fine gladiators. Some are veterans of many fights. Fifteen of them, twenty-five of you. Sounds fair? It’s not.”

  Varro was Ulrich’s lanista.

  I begged to Woden the bastard was actually out there. It would be a pitiful turn of events, if Ulrich had bowed out.

  “What,” I asked him, “is the fight like?”

  He gave me a quick, pitying look. “Grandfather’s the only one who makes the proper questions, eh? Preparing? Have seen a scrap or dozen before? A good question. A good one. You will take a hill. You will take a hill, and you are the Gaulish horde trying to push back dictator Marcus Furius something or the other, and you must climb a pyramid of wooden levels, and there, you will die. If you refuse to try, they will get out a hot iron and tickle your arse with it. They will make sport of you, and the Syrian archers will make you sorry you did not at least try. Fight well. All yours.” He nodded at Ares, who stood tall.

  He scowled at us and then slapped the whip across us. It tore at ten men, then others, and I felt my chest burning with pain.

  He grunted. “To make you properly mad, shits. Here.”

  He whipped us for a few more times, grinning like a fiend, and then he froze, for he heard noise outside. He hesitated and put away the whip.

  “Your gear,” he said with a bloodthirsty voice.

  Pig nudged me. “I wonder if they had been late, would we have been raw pieces of mutton in here, eh?”

  I shrugged. “A pig doesn’t turn into mutton.”

  “Good point,” he grunted like his namesake. “What did the guard speak to you about?” he asked, his pig eyes squinting.

  Blaesus sighed. “Leave the bastard be.”

  The Pig turned away as the door opened, and there was suddenly an influx of slaves carrying helmets, heaps of loincloths, shields, swords, and belts. We stared at the procession, dumbfounded, until I stepped forward and grasped gear from their hands. I pulled out a large loincloth, blue and with ribbons, a thick, very wide belt, and a shield that was particularly sturdy. I found a spatha sword, exactly the right for my hand, well sharpened and balanced, little used, and a helmet, closely sculpted to fit a head, with gray and white side crest. I pulled them aside as the others moved to find their gear, suddenly aware their lives would depend on finding the best one. The room was suddenly a beehive of desperate activity, and I dressed to the side, wondering at the odd calm I felt.

  I felt nothing. I felt no anger, no rage.

  It worried me. I needed to be angry. I needed Woden’s rage.

  The battle was inevitable.

  It would inescapably be unfair.

  It would have to kill men left and right, and Varro’s men would have all the advantages.

  I needed the anger.

  The calls of the people, their screams echoing on top, and a thrumming sound of feet striking the stone above made me miss a heartbeat.

  I held the sword and watched its steel, wondering at the sight of the desperate scum before me.

  Warriors once, other prisoners, like Blaesus, most lost and defeated once, they would whet Saturn’s thirst for blood in the name of Tiberius.

  I pulled on the helmet—a skull-like full face helmet of the secutor—and felt the heat around my head. The noise echoed oddly inside the metal.

  A raucous scream echoed across the entire structure and chanting split the air.

  Men dressed.

  Then, suddenly, near silence. Ares turned his head.

  The doors opened, and I got up. Guards were entering, and I walked to them, and they flinched, as I stood there, ready. Ares’s eyes looked at me suspiciously. Then he grinned. “If only you were young. I would make you a proper killer. You look the part. March on. Follow me.”

  We followed him along the corridors, the sounds of the Romans screaming echoed above and around us, and men in the tunnels saluted us with nods and nervous smiles. Twenty-five doomed men were walking forward in the semidarkness, their heavy breaths steaming in the moldy tunnels, men stumbling with the lack of sight. I passed cells and saw Lucius in one of them, his eye patched.

  It made me feel better to see the bastard maimed.

  Then clearer air invaded out nostrils.

  We turned to follow Ares, who walked up a side tunnel, and at the end of it, men were opening doorways. Varro was waiting there, leaning on a bar.

  I walked there, and Varro stopped me at the doorway with an outstretched arm. The others bunched behind me.

  We stared at the sight.

  I had seen Circus Maximus before.

  Now, there were
no horses or chariots. There were noxii—unwanted, criminal scum—fighting against each other. Pairs of naked or semi naked men were pummeling each other across the arena. Wounded men were crawling on the sand, weeping. Judges, holding long spears, were walking near them, their tunics bloodied, and delivering stabs with spears to silence them. Some guards were herding shaken survivors of the noxii towards the next fight. Savage, bitter, and deadly, the men were killed, one by one.

  “That’s the place,” said Pig. “Where we win.”

  I grunted. I saw a six-foot-tall, wide platform in the middle of the sand, and it was made of sturdy planks and wood. There were three wide levels, and the top one could only hold one man. Blood had spattered it.

  I looked at the high rows of seats around us.

  Half blocked from sight by the huge central structures which was also filled with onlookers, sat Tiberius and, with him, sat his court. Dozens of nobles, senators and his own blood were around him, speaking under a wide canvas that shielded them from Sunna. Food and drink were being served to them, and praetorians were all over the masses of crowds, and around gates, as well as archers.

  There, under and near Tiberius and on the sand, were two men and ten servants with lavishly decorated carts.

  Varro grinned. “The gods await.”

  I said nothing.

  One man was dressed what I thought would be Dis Pater, a man of the underworld. He had a mask of horns, and robes of red blood. Then there was god Mercury, in a black, fully dark mask, brooding and silent.

  I watched the last of the noxii killing each other.

  Two, nay, three of them, pummeling each other with clubs, were weeping, howling, and making a mess of the sand near the platform. It went on, until one fell, unconscious and shivering, and the other one, a burly man hammered his club on the last one standing so hard, the arm was broken.

  His last foe crumbled to the sand, gasping for air.