Good, Spartacus thinks. Good.
Eventually Oenomaus quiets, and Gaidres continues. “Returning to the circle of men who gathered before his tent, bearing gifts, Desakenthos could say in truth that he had ridden hard and fast, and that the infant had not cried out even once. He proclaimed that the boy knew the music of horses’ hooves already and that he had shown no fear and that the God Hero had blessed him with large hands so that they would know that he would become a warrior of great stature. They already awaited him in the next world. And it was they who whispered the name Spartacus so that it carried on the wind. You see? It was a large name, one that challenged the child to grow into it. A name not for the boy that was but for the man who now is.”
—
These days Spartacus mostly hears Desakenthos’s words in Gaidres’s voice, but there were times when he and his father had actually talked, just the two of them, back when Desakenthos was still among the living. Once he and his father sat on a stone on a hillside, the mountains called Rhodopes at their backs, the plains before them. Desakenthos wanted the boy to see far and to know that his people’s lands went on beyond what could be seen. The day was cold, still early in the spring, but the father had him sit beside him, the stone chilly beneath his bare legs.
“This is where we live,” Desakenthos said. “Where the mountains meet the plains. This place has everything for us. On the plain we grow wheat and barley, millet and bulgur, chickpeas and broad beans. We pull radishes and carrots from the ground. The grasses feed our flocks of sheep and goats and cows. From them we get cheese and yogurt. We sacrifice unblemished calves to the various gods. White bulls to Darzalas. On the plains we hunt antelope, and above here, in the Rhodopes, the men spear boar and deer and bring them back to roast above fires. With the rain that falls from the heavens, we water our vines and have berries to eat and grapes to turn into wine. We make hardaliye, which is the finest drink, one of wine fermented with mustard seeds and sour cherry leaves. This fills men with life and vigor. All these things Darzalas allows us, and that must mean we are his chosen people. My son, can you think of a better place to have been born and to live?”
Spartacus could not, and he said so.
Desakenthos grunted. “But listen, we must be worthy of these gifts or they will be withdrawn from us. There is an order to creation. If you are wise, you may see it, and seeing it you may know the right way to live. From what god were the tribes of Thrace descended?”
“Ares, father,” Spartacus said. Every boy knew this to be true.
“Yes, our people are beloved of Ares, the god of war. His son, Thrax, heard from his father’s mouth what great warriors we were, how Rhesos fought with Hector at Troy, how Lycurgus faced the Amazons, single-handed, with an ax, slaying so many that they submitted and let him bed them. Thrax came to see Thrace for himself. Seeing us, he said, ‘What finer warriors walk the earth than these men? None. What more skilled horsemen? None. Let them be my people, then, and bear my name.’ So he came among us and fought and drank and laughed with us. Through Thrax, Ares is in our hearts. We crave the clatter of weapons and know we are most alive when we hold our enemies’ severed heads in our hands.”
—
Another time Desakenthos said, “I will tell you of a time long ago. Listen, and you will know.”
He told of a time in the early days of the Thracian tribes, when they were still flush with squabbling among themselves. A beast came to the mountains and plains, attracted by the commotion. A dragon with three heads, it devoured the bands of men who stood against it and took their women and imprisoned them in a cave. He could not be surprised or approached, as one of the three heads was ever vigilant.
For days and days it went like this. Men died. Women suffered and wailed. Children went hungry and knew misery. But then a stranger came. He arrived riding a mighty horse, black as night. All who beheld him were stunned. He was taller than any man they had seen. He wore glimmering bronze armor, chest plates, and greaves, and a helmet with fixed cheek pieces. From a strap slung over his back hung a long length of blade, swordlike but not a sword, with a bone-covered handle nearly as long as the blade. None had seen such a weapon before this day. But it was not these things that truly amazed the people.
Desakenthos leaned close to his son and said, as if it shouldn’t be spoken too loudly, “He had three heads. But he was no beast of chaos. Not this one. A hero, one born three-headed so that he might accomplish the things other men could not.”
The three-headed man sought out the dragon. He called him from his cave and challenged him. The dragon, seeing him, knew fear for the first time. But rage lived in his breast, and it heated him. His three heads rose on their long necks and he attacked. The man held his strange sword with both his hands, his grip widely spaced. When he moved, he did so with speed to make the gods envious. With his three heads and six eyes, the man saw all and could not be surprised. He sliced the first head clean off at the neck. He cut the tongue out of the second. He blinded the last by slicing across both of its eyes. The creature thrashed and bellowed and fountained blood. The three-headed man sank the whole long length of the blade into the dragon’s chest, finding its heart and stilling it. The dragon fell dead.
The women were freed and ran to the three-headed man and brushed his feet with their long hair. The men hailed him as their king and gave him gifts. They asked after his sword, and he named it, calling it a rhomphaia. He showed them the skills to forge the blade. The Maedi have taken rhomphaia to war ever since.
“It is our weapon. Alone in all the world, only the tribes of Thrace have mastery of it. With it, we drive our enemies to their knees. You will take a rhomphaia to war, Spartacus, a blade you have hammered into shape with your own hands.”
“When?”
“Soon. Do not rush to it. War comes to all men soon enough, my son. Never doubt that.”
“The three-headed man, was he the God Hero?”
“Yes. He was and still yet is. Darzalas. See him, for now he is there.”
The father pointed toward the sun, low in the sky and starting to go crimson. Spartacus had long since stopped wondering how one being can take on so many forms, none of which are anything like the other. Darzalas was sometimes the three-headed hero. He was sometimes the Great Horseman and had only one head. Sometimes he seemed to wear the skin and name of Ares, but other times Ares was another god entirely. He lived with the ancestors and did battle and had hunts. And yet he also hung in the sky and burned so bright his form couldn’t even be seen clearly. Spartacus tried once, but only earned himself a strange burned spot in his vision, one that was slow to go away. Gods, he decided, would not be gods if men could understand them entirely.
Desakenthos pinched the skin of the boy’s arm in his fingers. “This life we have now, in this flesh, is temporary. Our bodies die. They always die. But we are not our bodies. Zalmoxis taught us that we are the spirit within our bodies. You know of Zalmoxis. What did he do?”
“He is the king who became a god,” Spartacus said. “He killed the boar that had eaten all the world except for the Great Tree.”
“Yes, Zalmoxis killed that beast, and for it he became a god. He teaches that death frees us to join the others who have gone before, all the many others. With them we fight great battles, and slay monsters, and feast and drink and tell tales of the things we did as men. I will see my father again. I will ride with my brothers. In time you will join us, and you will know the entirety of the Maedi. All your ancestors from ages past. All the new generations in their time. That is why you must live the best life you can, so that you have nothing to be ashamed of. This life and whatever joys or suffering it brings are temporary, but the things we do here echo throughout eternity. Do you understand?”
Spartacus said, “In everything I must be brave.”
“Yes.”
“I must have no fear of death.”
“Never. Your life is sacred. Do not defile it, and yet do not fear the day it ends.”
Desakenthos smiled then. “Exactly so. Do that in this world, and in the next you will know joy beyond anything this life provides you. I promise you this.”
—
That promise is one of the reasons why Spartacus lies among the trees atop a mountain called Vesuvius, listening to Dolmos tell of how he fought against the Odomanti. It’s why the Etruscan, Thresu, names the men Spartacus killed in the arena one after another. And why still another voice speaks of the slaughter he led them to at the villa, destroying the Roman band sent out after them. All this, because Spartacus wants to feast with his father and Zalmoxis and all the rest. That’s a prize worthy of any suffering.
His turn to speak comes. He brings it about by rising, stretching, drinking from a skin of water. He wraps a band of cloth around his waist and then strolls into the gathering of people clustered in among the tents and lean-tos. Oenomaus leaves, trailing his long-haired kin behind him. Others fill their space. The crowd waits, hushed now that he’s up and moving among them. He knows what they expect: to hear of his glory from his own lips. But that’s not what he wants to say. Others have done that for him. He will say something they haven’t heard yet.
“Do you want to know me?” Spartacus asks. He speaks Latin, a language he had once been eager to learn. A language he hates now but that binds them all here in this land. A few turn to whisper translations to those beside them. Spartacus raises his voice and, speaking slowly, repeats, “Do you want to know me? I hope you do, because I want there to be nothing but truth between us. I want you to know that you have more in common with me, and with each other, than you have ever thought. I want you to know that it doesn’t matter that your languages of birth may be different, or the customs dearest to you. No matter that your place of birth is far north in Germania, or west in Iberia, south in Africa, east as far as…where? Galatia?”
“That’s the place!” Kastor bellows. “The land of enormous cocks!”
Spartacus grins. “Yes, Galatia. Land of enormous cocks.”
A boy offers that his mother was born in Cappadocia. That’s to the east, he says uncertainly. “Colchis!” another pipes. “Do you know that place?” And still others begin to name the countries they call home. Or that their parents or grandparents did.
Spartacus holds up a hand, gentling them. “Yes, many different places. And if we had our choice, each of us would be home with our people, loved ones close beside us, safe with us. But we aren’t at home. Many of us are far from it. And why is that?”
“Because of the bloody Roman donkey fuckers,” Crixus offers. For a time others add their own insults. All agree, though. It’s the bloody Roman donkey fuckers who are responsible. Spartacus lets them banter for a time, then brings them in with a motion of his hands, his open fingers catching them and drawing them to his chest.
“I am Maedi,” he says. “I was raised a certain way, to believe certain things. One thing I knew early was that, though I was of the Thracian tribes, the tribes were not all of me. Only Maedi are Maedi. Dii are not Maedi. They live not on the plains beside the Rhodopes but in the mountains. They stigma their sword hands red, so that they will never be surprised by the sight of blood upon it. My hand is not red, though it is bloodied often enough. A brave people, but they were not us.”
Spartacus begins to pace as he talks. He feels mirthful and knows it shows on his face. He smiles as he meets people’s eyes. “I learned that I wasn’t of the Getai.” He lifts a thumb. “They are only barely Thracian, as they like the ways of the Scythians. That is all that need be said about them. I was not Thyni, those fighters who come in the night, who kill silently.” He straightens a finger, holding his hand up to display the count. “They may be deadly, but what man prefers night killers’ blades to the rhomphaia? You see? To define who I was, I was told again and again who I was not. I wasn’t Odrysai or Paeonian. Triballi? No, they are barbarians, loud in battle, with evil eyes that can kill just by touching on you. The chieftain of the Triballi gilds the skulls of the men he’s killed and drinks from them. My companions dreamed of wiping them from the earth. Didn’t we?”
Answering grunts confirm it.
He drops the count. “At gatherings that mixed tribes, we were always keen to take insult. If a man of another tribe bumped you in walking, it was reason enough to fight to the death. I never questioned this. It was just the way of things.” He pauses, drops his arms limp at his side, lets the mirth fall from his face. “Now it seems a foolish way. Listen, and I will tell you why.”
He has their silence, but he holds it to let it deepen. He wants them to be like thirsty plants and drink what he has to say. He holds until the silence becomes a tension in and of itself. A hawk screeches somewhere, and he sees that some take that as a sign. There is a god listening. He commands, through the hawk, that Spartacus speak. He does.
“Foolish because we allowed an enemy to use our divided ways against us. The Romans, they were smarter than us. When the Romans wanted Thrace, they didn’t arrive and say, ‘We want all of Thrace, and we will fight you for it!’ No, instead they said to one tribe, ‘Look at what this other tribe is doing. They’re stealing from you. We don’t like them. Fight them with us, and you’ll be better off for it.’ And we, stupidly, did as they suggested. We didn’t realize that they did the same another year, setting different tribes against each other. Every time Thrace grew weaker, Rome stronger. They must have laughed on returning home. They must’ve said, ‘The fools! They are killing themselves for us, and they don’t even know it!’ Tell me this isn’t the same thing that happened in your country. You see it? We were playing games, fighting because of petty insults, while they were conquering us all. We thought we had a thousand enemies. But in truth we only had one. Rome.
“Tell me,” he says, changing his tone and beginning to move through the crowd again, “what would’ve happened if every warrior in Thrace had united under one banner and faced the full might of Rome?” For a moment no one responds. “Tell me. All the hundreds of thousands of warriors of Thrace gathered in one mighty army. Think of that. All of us mounted on horses, big-hoofed and hungry for battle. We could have blanketed the world from horizon to horizon. How would any legion of Rome have fared against that?”
It’s Gaidres who answers, speaking Thracian first, and then repeating it in Latin, “We would’ve crushed them.”
“Of course we would’ve! There was no more numerous people on the earth than us. But we didn’t do that, and so I am here, called a slave in this country. If you are Celt, ask yourself, What if all your many tribes had fought as one? Could you have been beaten?” More than one voice answers in the negative. “And Iberia? If there had been one Iberia?” The same chorus of no’s. “If African peoples had fought as one?” Again, the answer is clear. Some shout it. Others mouth the words. For some, the answer is in the look of dawning comprehension on their faces.
Spartacus lets the commotion build. They are seeing it, he thinks. What could’ve been. Now he wants them to see what can yet be.
“When we had armies in our own lands, we didn’t unite and use our strength. The same is true now. There is an army in Italy. An innumerable host of Rome’s enemies. Right here in Italy. You know this, right?” The youth he asks looks terrified. Spartacus asks others the same question. Few of them have the light of understanding in their eyes yet, but he sees they want it. “The biggest army Rome has ever faced, and it’s here. It’s invaded already. Haven’t you heard? There are soldiers in every field in this country. In each villa, in each city and port, on the galleys along the coasts, up in the hills. Everywhere. They have knives to Roman throats. Teeth around Roman cocks. They hold Roman babes in their arms. It’s an amazing thing, and the Romans don’t even see it.”
He’s been speaking with growing emotion, passion slowly pushing out the humor with which he began. Now he abruptly straightens, a
troubled expression creasing his forehead. “The only problem is this one thing: this army, it doesn’t know it exists. Can you believe that? A force that could crush Rome in a day, but it doesn’t have eyes to see itself. If only it did…” His voice trails off, blown away by a sigh. He looks to be searching for a place to sit, as if he were finished talking.
“Tell them what army you speak of, Spartacus,” Gaidres says.
Spartacus pauses, half-lowered. “Are you sure they wish to know?”
“They do,” the older Thracian answers.
“But if they know, they will be changed.”
“They want to be changed,” Gaidres insists. “Tell them.”
Grudgingly, Spartacus straightens. He takes in the people gathered around him. “Think of a villa. A family of Roman nobles. Some of you will know these people. Maybe you worked in their houses or in their fields. If you didn’t, the person beside you did. In this villa I’m thinking of, there is the father. His wife. Perhaps two daughters. A son. A grandmother who lives with them and…an old man, a family friend, let’s say, that they have taken on. Seven souls. But they have a big villa, and they are not alone. There are cooks, who are slaves, of course. There is one woman who looks over the other house women. So her, and three others. And one more each assigned to the children. A tutor for the boy. There is another girl whom the master likes to screw. Maybe a good-looking masseur that both master and matron like to screw. Behind closed doors, who knows what goes on? Still more who guard the doors. A handful work the grounds, tend the plants, mend things that break. A few youths in the stables. And more still who work the fields or construction or in the mines—whatever labor it is that feeds the family’s fortune. Have you lost count? I have. The point of it is this: the slaves outnumber their masters. The seven live in privilege; the many are slaves to their every whim. Each of them thinks themselves trapped. If a stable boy jumps atop a horse and rides away, what will happen? The boy he left behind, fearing the beating he will receive, runs and tells his master. The boy on the horse is captured by day’s end. If that masseur grows tired of being screwed from both sides and steals a knife, what happens? He has to hide it not only from his master but from every other slave in the house. They all know that if one of them kills his master, they will all—all—be put to death. And many slaves are just petty. Many will work against their fellow slaves to win their master’s favor.
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