“It’s not the same thing at all. The Sicilian troubles were”—Gellius looks to Crassus for help—“Sicilian troubles. Simple as that. Sicily will always be trouble. It’s got nothing to do with this business in Capua, though.”
“Then remember Vettius,” Varro says. “Titus Minucius Vettius. In no time at all he raised an army of nearly four thousand slaves. He took them from their owners right here in Italy! Organized them like a legion. You would know these things, Gellius, if you had studied history on occasion.”
Crassus cuts off Gellius’s response with “I know history as well as you, Varro. For that matter, so does my slave. Kaleb, inform Varro of the two salient flaws of his Vettius comparison to the present trouble.”
Kaleb sets his pen down and folds his hands over the wax tablet. He looks up, knowing what he looks like to these men. His face richly dark, reddish brown, with eyes hued the same color. He looks passively at the men, willing Umma to let her eyes touch on him. She doesn’t look, though. Instead, she lifts a prawn to Gellius’s mouth, offering it to him with one hand, the other cupped beneath it to catch drips of oil.
“Two things, dominus?” Kaleb begins. His voice surprises him, calm in a manner he does not feel. “One would be that Vettius was a Roman citizen.”
“True, he was.” Crassus claps a hand on bare knee.
“For some odd reason, he became enamored of a slave girl,” Kaleb continues. Here, he knows, he adds just the slightest hint of an edge to his voice. It’s a blade pressed at an angle to the skin, pressure on it, but not in the direction to cut. He knows not to do that. “She drove him senseless, it seems.”
“See, the dangers of slave-love,” Crassus says. “Just the point I was making earlier as regards Publius.”
Kaleb nods. “Though senseless and fully out of his mind—possessed by slave-love, as you say, dominus—Vettius was still a Roman, trained in the Roman way of war. The slaves following him thought themselves serving a new master. So it was a particular situation, one not likely to be repeated.”
“And?”
It takes Kaleb a half-beat to remember it, but he does. “The salient point: whoever leads the gladiators is no Vettius.”
“I doubt anyone leads them,” Crassus grumbles. “They’re no better than animals.”
Varro looks darkly at Kaleb. “I’m not sure I care to be lectured by—”
“I asked him to speak,” Crassus points out. “Continue, Kaleb. Flaw two. What is it?”
“The second thing,” Kaleb goes on after clearing his throat, “is that Vettius was put down in quick order. Lucius Licinius Lucullus, a praetor at the time, restored order without ever having to meet him fully on the field. A show of force and cunning was enough to conclude the matter. Most of them—including young Vettius—committed suicide.”
“How unthoughtful of them,” Gellius says.
“If that was true of defeating a Roman-led rabble of slaves,” Kaleb concludes, “surely it will be even easier to deal with these gladiators.”
“That’s your learned opinion, is it, slave?” Varro asks.
Kaleb bows his head. “I have no opinion, sir. My master asks that I study history and that I speak of it on occasion. I have no thoughts beyond stating the facts as I have been taught them.”
This doesn’t completely mollify Varro, but he looks away and lets his scowl fade.
“So what we need,” Gellius says, “is another Lucullus. A praetor of middling talents. Any names come to mind?”
Several do. For a time they debate them. Kaleb listens with a portion of his mind, but he thinks mainly of Umma. He needs to speak to her. Soon. Now. Gellius looks restless, eager to be done and gone to the baths. Good, Kaleb thinks, leave here for the baths. He calls for unwatered wine and seems annoyed that Umma rises to fetch it. He lets her go, though.
Good girl, Kaleb thinks. Go.
She’s back a moment later, but she circles around Gellius, depositing the pitcher in the serving boy’s hands. And then she goes, in her haste making it obvious she has work to attend to.
Yes, good, Kaleb thinks. Go.
“I like her,” Gellius admits. “She’s different from the girl with the rash. A fair-haired thing that one is, blue-eyed even. She’s slimmer than this one. And her breasts…little trinkets in comparison. I like the dark ringlets on this one, the fullness of her.”
“As I mentioned,” Crassus says, “she’s yours for a reasonable price. A friend price.”
Gellius laughs at this. He counters that Crassus has never in his life let friendship govern matters of commerce. He’s right, but this time Kaleb finds no humor in it. The men return to the subject of their meeting.
When Kaleb thinks the moment is right, he rises, head bowed, mumbling that he needs to relieve himself. Crassus points at the pot nearby for that purpose, but Kaleb gestures that it’s more substantial a relief he’s in need of. With his master’s permission, he leaves, heading down the winding stairs from the terrace. His sandals clap out his route toward the slave quarters. Once deeply enough in them, though, he takes the narrow, dark servants’ stairs back up to the main level. He winds with the back passage, a corridor of rough stone traversed only by slaves. At its mouth, it’s only a short walk across through the inner courtyard and into the kitchen.
Warmth. The crackle of the fire. The bustle of the cooks preparing the evening meal. The wet smell of the sea wafting from the bucket of fish spilled sideways onto the main cutting table. A few eyes touch on him and pass on. Only Aulus, the head cook, grunts in his direction, his way of asking if the master wants something. Kaleb shakes his head, and Aulus returns to sawing a fish’s head from its body.
Umma stands with her back to him. By the motion of her shoulders and the muscular flexion of her back, she’s kneading dough. Not a job she has to attend, but she does so anyway. To be helpful, she says. To make her arms stronger. “You like my arms, don’t you?” she’s asked him before. He does. So much he does. It’s unreasoning how much he likes her. Always, from the first day, she has been a pain in his chest. A longing that didn’t exist before and that makes him more miserable than happy. A fear where there hadn’t been fear before.
Kaleb approaches her. At her back, he whispers, “Do not please him.”
She answers without surprise, without even a hesitation in the motions of her kneading. “You know that I cannot displease him.”
She is right, of course. “Please him a little, then.” His fingers snatch up a clove of roasted garlic from the counter. He slips it into her mouth. “Please him only a little.” He starts to move away, knowing he’s drawing glances from the kitchen slaves. But he presses close to Umma and whispers into the curly mass of her black hair, “You are the heart in me.”
Umma exhales a breath. It takes a moment, but she responds. She slips her hand over his. She says, “Yes.” That’s how she always responds to his declarations. No matter how many words he uses to express his love, she has but one for him. At first, he felt slighted. Now, though, he knows. Yes, she says. What greater gift can she offer than a freely given yes?
—
“Caius Claudius Glaber,” Crassus declares, almost as if he were waiting for Kaleb’s return before producing the name.
“Who?” Varro asks.
“My point exactly.”
“How is that your point?”
Kaleb seats himself on his stool, picks up his tablet, and writes the name, Glaber. He tries to be interested in it. He listens, but his mind revolves around Umma. Maybe Gellius isn’t serious about her. Maybe he won’t ask Crassus to try her out, as he fears. Maybe he won’t buy her and nothing will change.
“A virtually unknown man,” Crassus says. “Young but no youth. Family of middling import. A praetor who has yet to make a mark on the world. He’s the man to send at the fugitive gladiators. What, Varro? You look aggrieved. You weren’t hoping I’d put your name forth, were you?”
“Of course not.” Varro frowns. “But some unknown?”
> “Exactly. Nobody with a decent name would have anything to do with this. Gladiators. Slaves. What honor is there in fighting them?”
“My understanding,” Gellius says wryly, “is that gladiators know a few things about killing men.”
Nothing changing is a thin hope, Kaleb knows. A daily misery. There are always other men. Friends. Guests. Business partners. There are the sons, both of them. Umma’s body isn’t Kaleb’s to have or to protect. It isn’t even hers. He tries to tell himself that it doesn’t matter.
“In the arena, yes,” Crassus is saying. “For our amusement, yes. Because they fear death and want every morsel we’re willing to throw at them, yes. Theirs is a sad lot, but it’s their lot. That’s all there is to it.” Crassus warms to his discourse. Kaleb knew he would. He’s heard this lecture already. He could recite it himself. “The true men among them know the only honorable course is to see through their fate. Not to run from it as these fugitives have. You give them too much credit, Varro. They aren’t to be feared. They’re to be despised. They’re cowards. Their actions prove it. I’m just surprised they’ve yet to disband and run into hiding. I’m not complaining. Better for us that they stay together in one place. Easier for us to slaughter them.”
Gellius smiles. “Perhaps you’re the man to do it, then?”
“No man of stature would want this assignment. I’d give it to Pompey if I could, but otherwise I’d not wish it on anyone. I’m not an ambitious man, friend, but even I care about my reputation. Defeating rogue slaves would do nothing for it.”
Kaleb knows better than anyone that Crassus is, in fact, an ambitious man. Wealth is not enough for him and never has been. He wants status, acclaim, political power. He has them, but mostly they derive from his wealth. He wants it to come from his worth as a Roman man. He wants a military victory, just not this one, apparently.
“No,” Crassus says, “Glaber or someone equally unspectacular should be named to this. Among other things, he’s unlikely to say no. I’ll put his name forth in the Senate myself. Will you back me?”
Varro sits up, arranging the folds of his toga as if he’s about to rise. “Who is this Glaber again? I can’t put a face to the name.”
“Narrow space between his eyes,” Crassus says. “He was close with my son Marcus for a time. That’s the only reason I have mind of him.” To Gellius he says, “Fine. You put him before the Senate. Perhaps I’ll have Marcus speak to him, prime him with notions of glory and such.”
“Are we done, then?” Gellius asks.
Varro rises. “I’m for the baths.”
Kaleb prays that Gellius is for the baths as well. He nearly praises the virtues of the baths, but that would be too much.
Crassus also stands to see the men out. Kaleb bows his head as they move away. His heart is thumping as quickly as if he were running. He thinks, He’s forgotten her.
He shouldn’t have thought that. The moment he does, he knows that the words slipped from his mind into the Roman’s. Gellius pauses, seems to remember something. He takes Crassus by the elbow. He leans in, grinning, and says something Kaleb can’t hear. He doesn’t need to, because he knows already. He hasn’t forgotten her. Of course not.
—
He sees none of what happens, of course. He knows that Gellius had an interview with Umma in one of the guest rooms. Half an hour, no more. Though he tries to, Kaleb doesn’t see him leave. He feels his departure because the house slaves relax slightly and the evening routine settles into its well-worn pattern, but he doesn’t get to see his face or measure his mood.
Because of it, he can’t help but seek out Umma. Normally he wouldn’t try to speak to her until late in the night, but he can’t help himself. He waits for her in an alcove along the corridor through which the slaves carry food to the terraces for the evening meal. He watches her pass with a platter in hand. When she returns, unburdened, he takes her by the wrist and pulls her in next to him.
He can’t help the things he wonders. Does she, even now, have Gellius’s seed inside her? Does it drip from her sex as she stands there with him? Is it in her belly? If so, does it upset her stomach? Or did he thrust himself into her from behind, as has been done to him as well? One of these, certainly, is the truth. For the thousandth time, he tries not to think about it. It annoys him that though he is a man of discipline, this one thing is so hard for him to box away and dispose of.
He asks, “Are you well?”
Umma looks at him, sharply enough to show her annoyance. Her mouth opens, but whatever quick words have formed on her tongue are reluctant to leave it. She doesn’t say yes. Or no. She says, “He doesn’t like garlic.”
Kaleb almost says, “Of course. I knew that.” Almost, but the way she spoke…she wasn’t stating a fact. She was making an accusation. He almost says, “That’s good. He would’ve bought you, Umma.” But her eyes tell him not to say that. They tell him that she will think him a fool and be angry with him if he says that. They tell him that the senator’s not liking garlic has had consequences for her. It means he knows how Gellius took her. She holds his gaze until she looks satisfied that he’s understood, and then she brushes past him, back to her work.
Watching her, he thinks the one thought that gives him comfort, One day he will free me. And I will free you.
Castus
“Do you think this will work?” the man beside Castus asks.
He’s a Celt, a man who had been new to the ludus, having arrived just weeks before they broke out. He has smeared his face with a charred stick, blackening it. It is meant to make him more frightening, and it works, Castus admits to himself. The Celt has somehow made his hair stand straight up on his head, which gives him the appearance of being taller. He may or may not be a formidable fighter, but at the moment he at least looks like one.
Castus doesn’t answer the man’s question. Why even ask such a thing? What will happen will happen. It’s fine to comment on it afterward but not before. If he isn’t alive afterward to voice his opinion, that will be answer enough. Castus stays at his tasks: checking his gear, composing his mind, willing his body to be loose and relaxed, swatting at the mosquitoes that, as far as he can tell, are pestering only him. He’s drunk his share of wine, but he barely feels its effects and wishes he’d had more. There are many ways to go into battle. Sober isn’t one of them.
Gannicus moves through the men, speaking Germani to his kinsmen, Latin to the others. He tells them to be ready. They’ll march any moment. He carries a pitcher, which he swigs from. He pauses before Castus. He wears his long blond hair pulled up in a topknot. Castus will do the same, if he lives long enough for his hair to gain sufficient length. A few weeks back, Vatia had Castus’s hair shorn short to control an outbreak of lice that Gannicus had somehow avoided. Beneath the bushy beard that marks Gannicus as royalty, a smile lifts one corner of his lips. His face and arms and back are pox-marked, but he’s no less jovial for it. They’re proof that he won, and that the illness lost its battle with him. In truth, he is too good-humored to be Germani.
Gannicus slaps Castus on the shoulder with one hand and thrusts the pitcher into his chest with the other. “You’re a sad sight. The All Father would laugh to see you. Good thing he knows you have courage, yes?”
He’s not wrong, and Castus knows it. It’s not his fault, though. At Spartacus’s suggestion, they made a point of sharing all arms and armor as equally as possible among all the fighters, regardless of clan or nationality. No one got enough, but all got something. That was supposed to make for a greater good. Castus isn’t sure. His “something” is an old short sword from the shipment of gladiator arms that the Roman had led them to. His blade is worn from years of sharpening. Rust dots it like age spots on an old man’s skin. He fears it might snap if it strikes bone at the wrong angle. He’s had to wrap the bare metal of the hilt with leather strips from an old pair of sandals. It isn’t a weapon to have much confidence in, but it is better than the sharpened stakes that some carry.
&
nbsp; For armor he has a single greave that he wears on his left ankle and an iron ring that he has fitted over his head atop a square of wool. That’s all. Even if he had more, that might have been all he was allowed to wear. Part of the Thracian’s plan requires stealth. Anything that clanks or creaks or might give them away is to be left on the mountain. He would be embarrassed to look as he does if others around him didn’t look far worse. Many stand naked or in simply a loincloth. Spartacus said that those who go tonight with the least will gain the most. If that is true, they are all soon to be rich men.
Castus looks into the pitcher. Wine, though it looks black. He wishes it were mead. That’s a man’s drink. In his homeland they say wine makes a man weak. But it’s what they have, and he’d rather drink it than not, so he does.
“Don’t worry,” Gannicus says. “By tomorrow we will have new arms courtesy of the Romans. Right? Right?” He directs the last two words at the men around them. They answer, though not with the full enthusiasm Gannicus likely wished for.
When Gannicus begins to move away, Castus stops him. He leans in. “Has Oenomaus not changed his mind? Will he really not fight?”
“I don’t know. Who can say with him? You heard him. He thinks this way is cowardly.”
“Only because it’s Spartacus’s idea. If anyone else had proposed it, he would be here among us. Why does he hate him so?”
“For the same reasons you love him so, I imagine.”
Castus brushes that aside. “I wish a council of matrons had sat.”
Gannicus shrugs. “We don’t have enough old ones for a council. It’s not the same as back home, brother. I would like as much as you to have the matrons take the divinations and bless this action. But we’re not at home with our people. So tonight we trust in Spartacus.” He remembers his wine pitcher. Reaches to take it back. “Push it from your mind. What matters now is the army we are going to destroy. The army you first saw. Your army.” He moves away, talking loudly again, reminding them to pray, naming the gods that shouldn’t be forgotten.
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