The Risen

by David Anthony Durham

  “You have no choice in this,” Vatia said. “But you can have some hand in determining the quality of your death. You can be a coward, but cowards do not die well. Disobey me? Cause trouble? Do so, and you may die with a beast feasting on your guts. Not a man. Just food. Better that you die with honor. You know this. You people value that, don’t you? See? Your lives here need be no different than lives back in your homes. Except that you live by my leave. In all things this is true.”

  After that he took a wooden sword from one of the guards. He lectured about the ways to kill a man. There were good ways and bad ways, he claimed. Ways that won you glory in greater measure than others. He turned his attention to the youth still hanging, trembling, from the two posts. He circled the boy, explaining that the best way to learn was through a demonstration. He named and jabbed various locations on the boy’s body with the weighted tip of a wooden training sword. For each he described the depth of blade needed, the direction of thrust, obstacles such as spine or ribs and how they were to be navigated. A slave boy with a brush and bucket of black paint marked each spot the man touched. The hanging boy jerked as hard from the touch of the brush as he did from the point of the sword.

  Philon had wondered what the boy had done to be strung up like that. He knew it didn’t matter and he shouldn’t care. He didn’t know the boy. But he did know that he was somebody’s son. And he was still young enough that he was more somebody’s son than he was his own man. Because of that he thought this was distasteful. He might have been the only one who thought so. The veterans laughed each time the boy jerked. Some shouted encouragement to him. Others favored insults.

  The new meat just stood, watching.

  Vatia handed off his wooden sword and took a metal one from a guard. “Now, to demonstrate more fully…” He turned back to the boy, who immediately began jerking against his bonds, pleading in an incomprehensible tumult of words. Vatia tried to take aim, but the boy was moving too much. Face flashing with annoyance, Vatia grabbed his shoulder and plunged the blade in. It was an imprecise strike but forceful enough that the point of the blade burst through the boy’s back. That did much to lessen his squirming. Satisfied, Vatia continued his instruction, blade cutting as he spoke.

  Afterward Vatia vanished into the safe confines of his private quarters. Philon started to do the same, but the magister stopped him, saying he would be needed in a moment. That was why he was still looking down on the training ground when the veterans converged on the new meat. They moved in slowly, full of menace, saying low things that Philon couldn’t hear. Then they began to pummel the new arrivals. Fist and feet. Elbows and knees. They set about battering the chained men. Most of them went down beaten senseless. Most, but two did not. He didn’t know them by name then, but he learned them soon enough.

  Spartacus and Gaidres stayed on their feet. They both fought like wild animals. Teeth bared, growling like savages. Spartacus’s nose was broken that day. Blood ran down his chin and splattered on his chest. He fought despite the chains that limited the range of his hands. He grabbed men and pulled them in and smashed their faces against his forehead. He bit off a man’s ear and spat it, twirling, into the air. His muscles flexed and twitched as if each and every one of them were enraged. His eyes bulged and darted, looking out from behind a quarrel of brown-blond hair and a bloody beard of the same color.

  Eventually, the veterans drew back. Kastor pointed his finger at the two men and said, “Here are two that don’t fuck goats.”

  Philon had no idea what that meant, but he took it as a compliment of some sort. Kastor wasn’t wrong. Spartacus didn’t fuck goats. Gaidres neither.

  —

  Nor, Philon hopes, do they fuck Greek surgeons.

  “Do you have mind of me?” Spartacus repeats. His face has no madness in it now. His hair is short and his beard trimmed. Despite the times he has gone into the arena, he looks none the worse for it.

  Philon nods.

  “Then listen,” Spartacus says. “We have risen. We will cut down Vatia’s men. We will fly from here. We will have weapons soon, and then we will own the night. You have a choice. Come with us and serve us, tend our wounds as we need you to. In time, go your own way. Or stay.”

  “I—I can stay?” Philon asks.

  Spartacus draws back, and Gaidres continues. “Yes,” the older Thracian says. “We take no slaves with us. Only free men. You may recline right on your cot and never leave it. But if you do so, you are not one of us. If you are not one of us, you must be Vatia’s man. You will tend Vatia’s wounded. That would make you our enemy. So you may stay, but you may not stay and live. What do you choose?”

  So thin a line and presented to him so often. At least it makes his decision clearer. Philon asks, “Have I time to gather my instruments?”

  “No need to,” Spartacus says. “We have them here.”

  One of the others moves. The familiar, rattling weight of his physician’s satchel lands on his abdomen.

  Spartacus smiles. “Come with us, medicus. Otherwise I’ll forget all my Greek words.”

  —

  Not likely. Spartacus’s Greek was quite good. Back on the day he inspected his leg wound, Philon had asked him how he came to speak it.

  “I had to,” Spartacus had said, “if I was to learn of war.”

  “You learned war from Greeks?”

  “Thracians make war our own way. I learned that from my father, uncles, men of my tribe. What I mean is that, as a boy, it was Greek words that first made me dream of war. Without the dream of war, there would be no warriors. I first dreamed about the fall of Troy to the Achaeans.”

  Philon had motioned for Spartacus to stretch out on his belly on the table. He dipped his hands in warm oil and rubbed them together. When the Thracian was prone, he began with the tips of his fingers, pressing the flesh around the jagged scar of the wound. It was only the second time he’d been alone with Spartacus, but Philon felt at ease with him. He was the man who had taken all comers that first day, but too he was this man, quiet, calm in a way that made Philon calm as well. “So you had interest in Troy?”

  “Of course. Thracians fought for Troy under a king called Rhesos. He is named in the tale. Rhesos went to the plain of Troy with war chariots. He was a spear companion to the Amazons. He bedded their queen, and she would’ve had a child by him if she had not fallen in battle. And Rhesos would’ve had much glory if not for the treachery of Odysseus, who came upon their camp in the night and slaughtered them while they slept. We were at Troy, but it did not end well for us.”

  Philon began to work deeper into the muscle, being careful not to press too hard on the wound itself. Spartacus gave no indication he felt any pain. “Is this the Thracian version, or the Greek?”

  “Greek, of course. A poet of your land traveled among us, from tribe to tribe, hall to hall. A good life for him, I think. Food and drink. Women to bed. For a man who would not have been able to lift a sword, he was fortunate. He spoke Thracian well enough, but when it came to poetry, only Greek would do. So the youths learned it. I heard him first in Muccula’s hall during a winter gathering. Bodies were pressed close together with the smell of armpits and groins, furs and damp tunics. It was good, though. Outside the hall was a frozen land. Inside, stew bubbled. Men talked and laughed. Jugs of wine passed from hand to hand. Muccula tossed chunks of bread and meat around the room, telling people, ‘Eat! Eat!’ There were women and girls. The air hung heavy with hemp smoke. Good, strong stuff. It blurred the world in a way that might have been unpleasant, except that it was soothing instead. Can you picture it?”

  Philon thought he could, though he’d heard that what passed for a good night in a Thracian hall could be measured by how many died in drunken brawls and how many virgins were defiled and by how many men. That didn’t quite seem in keeping with the tone of Spartacus’s tale. He said only, “Yes. Quite clearly.”

  “There were many distractions, but we all hushed when this bard rose to speak of Troy. Befor
e long, my head swam with the names of heroes and their deeds and with images of battle and valor. Fleet-footed Achilles, smashing Trojans with his shield, thrusting and thrusting with his spear, his high-crested helm flashing in the sunlight. Godlike Agamemnon, he who takes from other men because he can. Menelaus of the mighty war cry, to whom a crime was done. Diomedes, breaker of horses. Sarpedon, lord of the Lykians. Shining Ajax…I saw spears thrown with savage force. Horses trampled men beneath their hooves. Arrows hissed in the air and thwacked home or fell useless at the whim of this or that god. Chariots scythed through the throng. I saw a man pierced in the neck with a spear as two chariots raced side by side. I saw a lion raging among bulls, and hawks diving from the sky, and bolts of lightning cast down upon the world and clouds grasping at Mount Olympus, hiding the gods that abide there from mortal eyes. All that first came to me from a Greek tongue.”

  Philon asked, “So who did you most want to be? Which hero of old?”

  “My friends talked of that constantly,” Spartacus said. “Skaris always claimed Achilles. Ziles, for some reason, chose Agamemnon. Pytros wanted to be Sarpedon. I understand that. Sarpedon died well. Drenis claimed that he would’ve been any one of the Amazons if it meant he could sleep with the spear maidens in one massive heap. That image gave us pause. Of course, we threw jibes at him for wanting to be a woman.”

  “Now I know about your companions. And you?”

  “I was for Hektor. Always Hektor.”

  “Why?” Philon asked, recalling the crimes done to his body by Achilles. Dragged behind a chariot. Mutilated and disrespected by that warrior’s rage. It seemed a strange choice.

  “Because none of what he faced was his fault,” the Thracian answered, “but he never complained of that. He did only what his honor demanded. Faultless.”

  “Perhaps he should’ve complained,” Philon said. “He should’ve thrown Helen to the Greeks and Paris with her. Paris and his folly. It caused such misery for so many.”

  “Hektor could only live his story, not theirs. Same as any of us.”

  Philon acknowledged the truth of that. It made him ask, “How did you come to be here?”

  Spartacus was slow to answer. He didn’t, in fact, answer, but he said, “Why do men always ask that? Do you think it matters? I’ve heard the question asked and answered a thousand times, but each time the story makes no sense of the thing. Fate, yes. Misfortune. Grief. It is, each and every time, a tale of suffering.”

  “It is good to know the fates of others are like your own.”

  “Because you would have company in misery?”

  “In a manner, yes. Not the way you are tilting it, though. It’s not to wish ill on others. It’s to share that ill. Maybe that way it is easier to bear.”

  “I’ll think on that,” Spartacus said. “Right now I think better that you ask how I am to be made free.”

  “Are you to be made free?”

  Though Philon was still working the thick muscle of his leg, Spartacus rolled over and sat up. He slid off the table and stood, suddenly towering over the Greek. “A good question,” he said. “When I know the answer, I will share it with you. I promise I will.”

  —

  Perhaps, Philon thinks, this is fulfillment of that promise.

  Once he has gathered up his few things, he follows Drenis—whom the others left to lead him—into the dark corridors, climbing the labyrinth of stairs leading up from the lower rooms on the slope at the north side of the ludus. His quarters were set apart from the gladiators, as he was a medicus and considered a danger to nobody except, on occasion, his patients.

  “What’s happening?” he asks.

  “They told you. We have a plan. We are rising and will break this place.”

  “Just you Thracians?”

  “No, there are many sworn to us.”

  Philon frowns, skeptical of that claim. “I didn’t swear.”

  “Shut up,” Drenis says.

  “Fine,” Philon responds, making the word an insult.

  They were some time in the dark, and then they climbed out into a lane that feeds into the main training grounds.

  Though it’s beyond strange to be following Drenis through the night, so far none of this is anything Philon couldn’t have done himself. He is never locked in a cell. He has not been chained since he arrived here. On occasion he has walked into the grounds at night, taking the air, whistling so that the guard on duty would know it was only him. He is free, even, to move about Capua in the day as he performs his medical duties. His is a slavery of a different sort than the gladiators face. It is odious to him in many ways, but he has never considered himself kin to them.

  That is part of the reason he stops in his tracks when he sees the figures moving across the training ground. Without a word passing between them, Drenis has also stopped. The two stand side by side, watching. Under the silver starlight, the figures look beastly, stooped and stealthy as they approach the balcony overlooking the grounds. Philon picks out Gaidres, but there are others with him as well, more than the handful who had been in his room. Gladiators, unchained and afoot as they never should be. They are in motion while the hunched bundle in the balcony is still. A guard sleeping, perhaps.

  The gladiators stay close to the wall, hiding from the balcony. When they reach it, one of them stands atop the knitted hands of another. Boosted, he climbs up the back and then the shoulder of a third man. He begins to scale the wall below the balcony. Beams protrude from it, providing irregular handholds. Across the distance, Philon hears the scuffing of the man’s feet on the mortar. Too loud, he thinks. He wonders if he could possibly explain his presence here to Vatia when whatever this is gets put down. Perhaps he should dive back inside, dash to his room and feign ignorance. He itches to do so. And yet he watches, wishing silence for the climbing man despite the chaos of his thoughts.

  The man’s foot dislodges a chunk of mortar. It falls, crashing on the stone tile below. The sound, which would be inconsequential in the light of day, is impossibly loud in the night. The guard jerks awake. He stands. Peers down and sees the climbing man, who is surging upward now, stealth forgotten. The guard begins to shout, but then remembers the trumpet hanging from his neck. He grabs the horn and slams the mouthpiece between his lips and blows. The sound is like a cow in agony, except louder and more discordant and sputtering. It can’t be taken back, and it may ruin everything.

  “Come!” Drenis tugs Philon into motion. Running, Philon imagines what he’ll say to Vatia. He’ll explain that he heard the horn and ran to see what was happening. Vatia would believe that. Why else would he be here, with gladiators free in the night?

  The climbing man, Philon realizes, is Dolmos. Another of Gaidres’s Thracians. He gets an arm over the balcony railing. The guard lets go of the horn and grabs his spear. Screaming, he stabs. He’s too eager, though, and misses, with the hard impact of metal on stone. He stabs again, and it looks as if Dolmos is pierced, but that’s not quite it. Dolmos has a grip on the spear shaft. The two struggle with it. Another gladiator leaps into the balcony. Kastor, the Galatian. Philon isn’t sure where he came from, but he’s there. He grabs the screaming man by the hair and yanks him back. He bashes his head on the balcony’s stone railing, ending his screaming. The next moment, the man is in the air. He lands awkwardly in the sand, taking the impact with his hands and crumpling, face-first, on top of them. Philon has stopped running, but he is near enough to hear bones crack. Those on the ground fall on the man, kicking him and stomping him. One slams his heel on the guard’s face until his jaw breaks.

  “What is this?” Philon asks. He is speaking only to himself, but he gets an answer of sorts.

  “He won’t need you, medicus!” Kastor bellows. There is laughter in words. “These men are treating him just as he deserves.”

  It’s not that Philon doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. He does. Some of the gladiators have escaped. They’ve gone mad. They’re going to kill and maim. They’ve chosen to die
tonight instead of someday or another in the arena. He has often wondered that they didn’t do so before this. Was life so precious that they all wished to go on suffering through it? Why not go mad? It wasn’t a matter of whether they were going to die. Just when, how, with how much suffering, and with honor or without. These ones have made their choice. He makes his as well. He isn’t one of them. No one will notice him if he turns to run back into his room, to hide his head beneath his sheets and hear nothing, know nothing.

  Before he moves, Gaidres steps in front of him. “Medicus, stay true to us, and you will be free this night. Drenis! Both of you take these.” He thrusts keys into each man’s hands. “Drenis, you know where the Celts are housed? Go to their wing. Open all the cells. Make sure to get Crixus, but open all the cells you can. Do it now!”

  Drenis darts away.

  “Medicus, I have a job for you,” Gaidres says. “The Germani. Get that bastard Oenomaus and all his people. You know where they stay. Get them all. You have the key for it.”

  Philon heard every word, but still he asks, “What?”

  “It’s in your hand,” Gaidres says. He looks at him quizzically for a moment, then pats him on the shoulder. “This is happening, medicus. Help us succeed, and you are free. Stay here and be killed. I know which you will choose. Now go!” And then he’s gone, bellowing for men to follow him.

  Philon stands. For a time, he’s the only motionless being in a swirl of running men. Already there are so many bodies moving in the starlight. Chaos, yes, but purpose too. Shouted orders. Gates clanging open. Things overturned. Wood splintering. There’s fighting. He can’t see it, but he hears it. Whatever is happening is more than madness. It’s more than a few free gladiators looking to die with their captor’s blood on their hands. They have keys! The proof of it is in his own hands. And if they have keys and can unlock the Celts, this won’t end quickly.