The musicians complained loudly, while the partygoers stared in blank amazement at the ferocious naked woman in their midst. The flickering firelight danced on her skin, making her alien pigments seem to writhe in sinuous whirls. The decorations on her face slid into shadows made by the curls of her hair, making it impossible to tell where the hair stopped and the skin began, as the shadows moved like snakes across her skull.
“Do you come to entertain?” Marcus Porcius asked, slapping his woman’s behind. Medea punched him in the eye.
Several diners laughed at the sight, but not Pelorus. He shoved his wigless couch-mate to the ground, stumbling to his feet.
“Who allowed her to go free?” he yelled, as the freed slaves began to pour from the same door that had permitted Medea’s entry.
“Guards! Guards!” Pelorus called, before Medea leapt right at him, propelling him to the ground. She snatched up his discarded fruit knife and plunged it into his neck. It caught on something, and Medea wrenched it free with a spray of blood. Pelorus clutched his hand to his throat, desperately trying to staunch the flow, as the gore-soaked Medea upended the nearby dining table into the pond.
Behind her came a platoon of men in loincloths, wielding what meager weapons they had managed to snatch from the house. One held a goblet in each hand. He punched with the metal cups, etching deep red welts into the head of Marcus Porcius. The other freed slaves, armed with fence posts and statuettes, clubbed their way through the dinner party in a scene of terrifying chaos.
Then the slaves came face to face with Timarchides, a towering well-muscled Greek, his skin criss-crossed with the thin white lines of forgotten battles. He stared back at them in shock and surprise, a hurt look on his face, as if they had wounded him more deeply than Pelorus.
For the briefest of moments, the escaped slaves and Timarchides stared into each other’s eyes, separated by an insurmountable gulf of liberty. But then the deadlock evaporated in a flurry of limbs, shouts and screams, as the slaves hurled themselves into the fray.
Timarchides dodged a blow from a man swearing at him in Egyptian, who was brandishing a statuette. The snatched deity whisked past Timarchides’s head, missing by mere inches. Timarchides leapt forward and grappled with both arms, forcing his assailant backward into the churning waters of the atrium pond. The man’s head met the marble poolside with a crack, and Timarchides felt the straining arms relax in his grip.
Dark-clad armored figures poured into the room-the guards from the villa’s outer grounds, their numbers increased by members of the nightwatch. With swords and clubs, they swiftly dragged the remaining slaves away from their opponents, cornering them against the far wall of the garden: three bleeding, dishevelled men, and one defiant woman. A guard flung the fifth, unconscious slave at their feet.
Timarchides willed the throbbing in his head to go away. He covered one eye with his hand in an attempt to stop seeing double. But Pelorus lay dead on the floor, surrounded by the wreckage of his last party, his throat torn open like a second mouth, his life’s blood swirling into the oily surface of the pond, flowing across the water toward the drain at the far end.
“Dozens of slaves occupy the cells below,” Timarchides said, addressing the man from the east as if he were their leader. “And yet, you five alone bring death to them all. ”
The man from the east stared back, uncomprehending, at Timarchides.
“Vhat?” he said. “No.”
“‘Vhat’ indeed,” Timarchides said. “You bray as if a fucking horse. Do you not know what you have done?”
The slave simply stared back at him.
“You repay your master’s kindness with the greatest price. His life and your own. And all other slaves in this house.”
“Command and I shall strike the blow,” the lead guard declared.
“No,” Timarchides said. “The death must be answered publicly, as Pelorus must be mourned.”
“We can kill them now,” insisted the guard, glancing anxiously at his men.
“Lock them all away,” Timarchides ordered curtly. “They shall die a slave’s death. And all shall see it.”
II
JUPITER PLUVIUS
“It looks like rain,” golden-haired Varro said grimly.
Spartacus looked at him and smiled. He shifted his feet experimentally in the sand of the training ground, still damp from the previous day’s shower.
“For a change?” he asked.
“Back inside, Rain Bringer,” Varro said. “I do not wish to fight in rusty armor.”
But Spartacus waited, ready, his wooden training sword and battered shield at the ready. The training space referred to simply as “the square” resounded with the clonks and smacks of wooden swords on wooden shields.
“Look to the heavens,” Varro continued. “They will soon break open.”
“As will your head,” Spartacus responded, “before it has chance to get wet.”
Varro turned pleadingly to Oenomaus, the towering African trainer who frowned down upon them like an irritated god.
“Doctore, I beg you,” he pleaded.
But the black man shook his head and stood with his arms folded, his whip twitching in his hand.
“A gladiator,” Oenomaus said quietly, “has no fear of water.”
The other fighters laughed uneasily.
“A gladiator,” Oenomaus said, his voice rising in volume, his annoyance now more apparent, “does not fear a little rain.”
Oenomaus addressed not merely the truculent Varro, but the whole gathering of warriors. The few practice fights that had been already underway had swiftly ground to a halt as the assembled fighters took the hint to stop and listen.
Oenomaus stood, his hands on his hips, at the cliff’s edge that formed one side of the ludus training ground, a vast open expanse of tantalizing freedom-at least to any man who could imitate Icarus and fashion his own wings. To mere mortals, it was a wall by another name, an empty space above a drop to certain death, and the distant vista of the Campanian hills, wreathed with clouds and glimmers of faraway storms.
“The best arenas have sailcloths drawn across the stands,” Oenomaus bellowed, “to protect the noble public from the sun’s excesses. If the weather is bad, the awnings will hold the rain from the faces of the crowd. Therefore the editor of the games, who has invested a year’s coin in their preparation, need not cancel merely for the sake of some water falling from the sky. The sailcloths do not extend over the arena itself!”
“Doctore,” Varro said humbly.
But Oenomaus was not finished.
“A gladiator fights in all weathers. He must be ready for all conditions, at the editor’s whim.” Oenomaus allowed his voice its full potential to boom. “If the editor demands that you fight on stilts, you fight on stilts. If the editor elects to clad you in the costumes of gods or heroes, you will wear those costumes and play your parts. If the editor wishes to hold games in winter on a mountainside, you will fight on ice and in snow. Is that understood?”
“Doctore!” the men chorused.
“The editor seeks new thrills and spectacles. He demands weapons and mismatched opponents. The House of Batiatus does not arrange the games. The House of Batiatus rents your flesh to any editor that will pay the price, and prepares you for victory. The gladiator is prepared for all circumstances, because if he is not, he will die without honor. Is that understood?”
“Doctore!”
“Then fight!” Oenomaus cracked his whip for emphasis, its leather tip snapping through the air scant inches from Varro’s blond curls. The noise of wood clattering on wood recommenced all around them, and Spartacus waited impassively.
Varro snarled and charged toward him. Spartacus waited calmly as the burly Roman advanced.
But then the Thracian charged in another direction, slanting away from the Roman, charging and stabbing at an invisible opponent. His lunge presented his shield arm against the charging Varro; his sword thrust outward at thin air, at the place
where an opponent might be.
Varro was unable to veer to the left: such a move would have thrown him straight onto his opponent’s sword-point. Instead, he faltered, slamming obliquely into the Thracian’s shield as Spartacus wheeled and lifted his arm.
Varro was sent flying, landing heavily on his back, wheezing, the breath knocked out of him.
Spartacus lurched forward, the tip of his sword suspended a thumb’s width from Varro’s throat. The fight was over before it had even begun.
Laughing, Varro raised two fingers in supplication, and the two men waited for an imaginary signal from an absent audience. They glanced up at the balcony, where a lone figure stood motionless, her robes fluttering in the breeze.
On a better day, Lucretia, wife of Batiatus, might have played along and given the signal for manumission. But although she stared right at the two men, she saw nothing. Her mind was elsewhere.
Lucretia watched from the balcony through eyes reddened by weeping, her expression unreadable. She did not smile at Varro’s protestations of Thracian cheating, nor did she stay to watch as the Roman clambered to his feet for a rematch. She turned slowly and walked back inside the house, her ears deaf to the continued din of wooden swords on wooden shields. She swept down a long corridor lined with the busts of former gladiators, stone memories of days past.
“Good news after bad!” Quintus Lentulus Batiatus cried, brandishing a scrap of damp papyrus.
Lucretia did not even acknowledge her husband’s excitement, breezing past him into the shrine of the household gods. Too late, she realized there was no other exit. She was cornered.
She turned to meet her husband, straining to smile.
“Word sent that Pelorus does not require us for the Neapolis games,” Batiatus continued.
“After such preparations-” Lucretia began.
“For a gubernatorial celebration, yes. Plans have been revised.”
“We do not bend to change like Macedonian whores.”
“Events beyond the control of good Pelorus.”
“What events-?”
“That of death. Death of our good friend Pelorus himself at the hands of his own slaves,” Batiatus said with a grin.
For a moment, the house was silent, but for the tinkling of a distant fountain, and the muffled footsteps of a slave going about her duties. Lucretia blinked.
“I can see the loss grieves you,” she said eventually.
“My heart breaks,” Batiatus smirked, “at the loss of coin.”
“The Neapolis games were our last booking this month. And our Prince of Mars lies wounded…”
“And yet I proclaimed good news, as well.”
“How can you jest when our best gladiator fights for his life?”
“Crixus?” Batiatus said. “It is Spartacus who is the Champion of-”
“Crixus will soon rise to reclaim what he has lost!” Lucretia shouted, louder than she had expected.
Batiatus shuffled uneasily.
“My heart is touched,” he said, “that you are moved to such concern for our business and our slaves.”
“And where is this good of which you spoke,” Lucretia muttered, fussing with some of the smaller statuettes among the Batiatus household gods. She picked up the figure of her late father-in-law and gazed at it, her fingers tracing the face of the small metal token. She then carefully set it back down among the other imagines, facing away from its companions, as if lost or addled.
“There will be funeral games, Lucretia,” Batiatus said. “And the editorship requires gladiators beyond the limits of the town.”
“For what reason?”
“The House of Pelorus is finished. Those slaves will suffer execution. And then even the killers will be killed.”
“A terrible thing, to be betrayed by ones so trusted,” Lucretia said, sucking in air through her teeth.
She stepped from the shrine back to the green-walled atrium, her husband scurrying to keep up with her. She looked around for some sign of her slave Naevia, hoping to busy herself on some ladies’ business that Batiatus would find tedious.
“A terrible thing for Pelorus, but a thing of opportunity for us!” Batiatus protested, slapping the papyrus for emphasis. “We only need send a few gladiators, and the very nature of the event assures them all of victory.”
“Do you not think this one last insult from Pelorus? To force you to make haste across Campania on some pointless enterprise of maintenance, little better than sweeping up behind horse? Has that man not cost you enough time?”
“We have but time to waste, beloved. All Capua is in mourning for the… tragic death of Ovidius. Preventing indulgence in the celebration of our recent victory until nine long days have passed.”
“And you would pass day in other town, until our own offers warmer clime?”
“My thought exact. Let Spartacus, Barca and a few promising recruits take to the sun, far from the cloud of Ovidius and the pale of his death.”
“All to scrape coin?”
“A much needed infusion. And, of course, the chance to bid proper farewell to good Pelorus.”
“And what of it to you, if his funeral passes without remark?”
“I care not a shit for his departure from this world,” Batiatus said. “But let us show decorum befitting of this noble house and lend grace to his disgraced house.”
“Quintus, must we?”
“We were mutual hospes! His threshold was as our own, should we ever have crossed it.”
“An opportunity of which we seldom availed ourselves. Nor he with us.”
“He shall surely be laid to rest before the calends of October, but three days’ hence!”
“Then you had best depart immediately. Lest he be set aflame before you arrive.”
“Lucretia, please!”
“He resides in Neapolis, Quintus! Or had you forgotten?”
“Since when do you not care for Neapolis? And the opportunity it allows to part with coin? To say nothing of the sea air,” he protested.
“It smells of rotten eggs.”
“The friendly local citizens?” Batiatus suggested.
“Quarreling Greek refugees and fishwives.”
Something flashed in the sky, like the glint of a sword in the sun. Batiatus paid it no heed, his eyes locked on his wife, entreating Lucretia to offer some iota of spousal support.
“The broad sweep of the bay. Those sparkling waters,” he pleaded.
“Muggy in summer. Choppy in winter.”
“And here we are, swiftly approaching harvest and equinox! An auspicious occasion to visit.”
Batiatus paused, a broad, winning smile on his face begging his wife to acknowledgment. As if to spite him, there was a distant rumble of thunder on the Capuan hills. A drip of errant drizzle dashed against his cheek, then another.
Lucretia held out her hand inquisitively, craning her head out into the open space of the atrium. She stared up at the low, gray clouds overhead.
“Is that rain?” she mused.
“Impossible,” Batiatus replied.
Behind him, the waters of the atrium pond showed dots of activity. Points of water flecked on the previously calm surface, the impact of unseen raindrops. Across the courtyard, Lucretia saw silent flecks of rain dashing against the upper walls, freckling the brown clay plaster into a deeper shade of red.
There was another flash of lightning, and a crackle of thunder almost immediately after it.
Batiatus glanced behind him in annoyance, in time to see the drizzle shift to a downpour, churning the waters of the atrium pond into a rough sea, spattering the green inner walls a murky dark gray. Batiatus shivered involuntarily, and realized that the lower hem of his toga was already drenched.
“Jupiter’s cock!” he shouted, snatching his robe from its puddle.
Lucretia turned from the rain’s chill, gliding back toward the antechambers of the house.
“Jupiter Pluvius, the divine bringer of rain, himself counsels a roof ov
er your head, Quintus,” she called, not looking back at her husband.
“All summer I prayed only for rain,” admitted Batiatus. “Now I tire of it.”
“Then rest indoors and wait for such storms to pass.”
“This storm? It is but trifle,” Batiatus declared.
“As is all unwelcome change. Be it by men or gods.”
Their upraised voices echoed through the house, but did not travel to the outer gardens. The rain saw to that, pelting onto the Capuan clifftop with increasing volume, until it drowned out all other sounds in a relentless rattle. It pattered on the leaves of the formerly parched trees. It drummed on the cracked ground. It tapped an irritating, unceasing tempo on the waxed tarpaulin of the litter that approached the house of Batiatus.
The four bearers, one shouldering each end of the two carrying poles, struggled with each step to maintain their footing. Feet used to the reliable, measured flagstones of the Appian Way scraped and slipped on treacherous dips and uncleared tree-roots. Three of the slaves did not even look up, crouching their heads beneath their sodden hoods and concentrating merely on putting one foot in front of the other. Only the lead bearer, standing at front-right, exposed his head to the rain, squinting through the storm in case of oncoming traffic.
The litter and its bearers had no other company on the remote track. They plodded on through the rain, their pace picking up as the welcoming lights loomed nearer. The cargo was light, barely noticeable to accomplished porters, such that when the leader called halt, the litter was raised off their shoulders and lowered to the ground with ease.
Within the courtyard of the Batiatus villa, shadowy figures scurried to the portal. The occupant of the litter stirred, placing a foot gingerly on the damp ground. A figure substantially smaller than the vast man’s cloak that wrapped it scampered through the storm toward the entrance of the house itself, and the indistinct sound of a couple in the middle of an argument.
Spartacus: Swords and Ashes Page 2