by Mark Morris
Spartacus knew the game was changing when he saw Hieronymus’s men turn and nod to one another. Next moment they attacked again, but this time they switched, the secutor leaping forward to engage Spartacus, the hoplomachus targeting Varro.
Spartacus, without a shield, backed away rapidly as the secutor slashed and stabbed at him with his sword. Gritting his teeth against the ache in his muscles, Spartacus forced his arms to work quickly, the paths of the two swords he was clenching crossing and counter-crossing to create a defensive barrier as effective as any shield.
He knew he could only keep this up for so long, though. He couldn’t backpedal permanently-eventually he would have to go on the attack, and that would leave him vulnerable.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something flash through the air. He glanced to his left, and saw the hoplomachus’s spear arcing toward Varro. For a hoplomachus to release his most valuable weapon at such a stage of a contest usually meant one of only two things: either he was tiring and therefore taking a gamble, or he was inexperienced and had allowed his impatience to get the better of him.
Spartacus thought that in this case it was probably a little bit of both. As long as the spear did not find its target, then this latest development could only be to his and Varro’s advantage.
But then Varro cried out, and Spartacus’s heart clenched. However, he was unable to check on his friend’s condition immediately-he was too busy fighting off the secutor, who after a short pause had moved in for a fresh attack. The other gladiator was bolder this time, close enough for Spartacus to smell his rank breath, even through his helmet. Clearly Hieronymus’s man was sensing victory, and eager to close the contest.
Too eager.
Spartacus coaxed him in, chose his moment-and then, gritting his teeth and drawing on every ounce of strength in his beleaguered body, slashed upward with the sword in his left hand. Immediately, instinctively, the secutor lowered his shield to block the blow-which gave Spartacus just enough room and time to pick his spot, then ram his righthanded sword, point first, up into the gap between the secutor’s throat and the rim of his helmet.
The blade traveled up through the bottom of the secutor’s jaw, sliced his tongue in two and punctured his soft palate. Barely impeded by these obstacles, it continued up between his startled eyes and skewered his brain. Finally it forced its way out through the roof of his skull, splintering it like a clay pot as it did so, and slammed into the underside of the gladiator’s helmet with such force that it flew from his head and landed with a heavy thump on the sand more than ten feet away. As the legs of the already-dead secutor crumpled beneath him, Spartacus jerked back, pulling his sword from the man’s head in a geyser of blood and brain matter.
Once again Batiatus’s response up in the pulvinus was one of unrestrained joy. Leaping from his seat, he rushed to the edge of the balcony and leaned over it, cheering as loudly as any in the crowd. When he turned to Hieronymus and Crassus, his eyes were shining with savage glee.
“Note the speed and instinct of a true champion!” he bellowed gloatingly. “My Thracian a wonder, without equal! One would find it hard to deny that he is blessed by the gods.”
Crassus regarded him without expression.
“The bout is not yet over,” he remarked drily.
“In minutes its end will arrive,” Batiatus scoffed, forgetting himself in his excitement and relief. “Spartacus will see it hastened.”
“I fear your celebrations premature,” Hieronymus said, his smile fixed and his voice dripping with sympathy. “Your man is down.”
Batiatus’s look of triumph was replaced by one of alarm and he turned his eyes once again towards the arena.
What Hieronymus had said was true. Batiatus’s man was down. However, it was not Spartacus he had been referring to, but Varro. The cheers of the crowd were still echoing around Spartacus, but he barely heard them. Exhausted, but powered by the anxiety he felt for his friend, he spun round, fearful of what he might see. Varro was on his back on the sand thirty feet away, blood gushing from a deep wound in his left bicep. He had dropped his shield, and was desperately defending himself against his bulky opponent, who was standing over him, hacking down at him with the short, heavy sword he had pulled from his belt. For the moment Varro was fending him off with his own sword, but he was clearly tiring, his teeth clenched and his body lathered in blood and sweat. The killing blow was only moments away. With a roar that, rather than draining his energy, propelled him forward, Spartacus ran toward the two fighters.
He had hoped that his yell might give the hoplomachus pause, even distract him for a moment, but the big gladiator continued his bludgeoning attack as though oblivious to everything but the wounded man at his feet. Spartacus heard Varro let out a further grunt of pain as the Roman parried another hacking blow, only for his opponent’s sword to slide down the length of his own and pierce his leg. Again it was not a serious wound, but Spartacus knew that the more blood his friend lost the weaker he would become. Sensing victory, the hoplomachus stepped back and raised his sword above his head in both hands to deliver the killing stroke. Varro could do nothing but lie there, his own sword raised ineffectually in his rapidly weakening grip, as Hieronymus’s man made ready to split his skull.
Drawing back his own arm to its full extent, Spartacus hurled the sword in his right hand like a javelin. He had hoped that the tactic might buy him just a few more seconds, but in fact it proved infinitely more effective than that. The sword flashed through the air like a streak of light, its blood-smeared blade reflecting the sun, and buried itself deep in the hoplomachus’s back. His spine severed, the gladiator staggered for a moment, and then his legs simply gave way and he crashed to the ground in a billowing cloud of sand.
Ignoring Lucretia’s muttered urgings to show restraint, Batiatus threw back his head and let loose a peal of almost maniacal laughter. He knew it would win him no favor with his illustrious opponents, but he couldn’t help himself. Thanks to Spartacus, his house was saved, his fortune and honor retained.
Raising her voice above her husband’s less than gracious reaction to what was effectively the culmination of the bout, Lucretia said smoothly, “Please forgive husband. His passion is both strength and weakness. He means no offense by it.”
Though Hieronymus was still smiling, his face had stiffened into a rictus mask.
“Be assured, good Lucretia, none is taken. Gratitude to the House of Batiatus for a fine contest.”
Crassus crooked an eyebrow.
“I suppose your Thracian fought well,” he murmured.
Lucretia bowed her head modestly, accepting the halfhearted plaudits on her husband’s behalf.
Still grinning, Batiatus nodded too.
“Well enough to remain Champion of Capua. A title which he shall not easily relinquish.” He gestured expansively towards the arena. “And now let us watch him put final end to contest.”
Varro looked up at Spartacus in amazement. Spartacus caught his eye and gave him a single brief nod. Instantly understanding the meaning behind the gesture, Varro clambered painfully to his feet and limped over to the prone Thracian giant. The man was not moaning in fear or pain, as many gladiators who were staring mortality in the face would have been doing, but snorting and growling like an angry boar. Even now he was trying in vain to heave himself to his feet, his huge hands, empty of sword and shield, clenching and unclenching.
Without preamble, Varro raised his sword in both hands and rammed it down into the center of the hoplomachus’s chest. Bright red blood-heart blood- spurted up in an arc, spattering his face and his blond hair. The dying gladiator gave a final, convulsive heave, and then slumped back, his right foot jittering for a moment before becoming still. Varro stumbled backward, and might have fallen if Spartacus had not been there to grab his hand and raise it skyward.
The crowd bellowed its approval, the men jumping up and down and punching the air, the women screeching and shaking their bared breasts. After a momen
t the crowd took up a chant, more and more people joining in until it was booming around the amphitheater:
“SPAR-TA-CUS! SPAR-TA-CUS! SPAR-TA-CUS!”
Though Varro looked on the point of unconsciousness, his face broke into a smile.
“I may be mistaken, but I think they favor you,” he said drily.
X
As the medicus applied a herb poultice to the deep gash in Varro’s arm, the big Roman winced. Lying on the slab on the other side of the room, Crixus let out a contemptuous snort.
“Does Crixus have something to share?” Varro asked pointedly.
“A true gladiator does not whimper at pain, like infant with grazed knee. He bears it proudly, embraces it,” Crixus replied.
“Do you embrace yours while howling like wolf at night’s moon, keeping us all from sleep?”
Sitting on the stone ledge that ran along the back wall, Agron, the elder of the two German brothers, sniggered. His body had been slashed in a dozen places, the skin swollen and purple around the coarse black stitches that had been used to seal the wounds. His right hand was a fat white glove, his three middle fingers, which had been stamped on and broken by his opponent during the games, bound tightly together. He had numerous other cuts and bruises on his body-but his injuries were minor in comparison to his brother’s.
Like Crixus, Duro was stretched out on a slab. However, the younger and smaller of the two brothers was unconscious, which for the moment was undoubtedly a mercy. He had been stabbed twice in the groin, once in the thigh, and once in the shoulder. He had lost a great deal of blood, and for an hour or two his life had hung in the balance. But the medicus had staunched and stitched his wounds, and fed him beef broth to restore his blood and a concoction of healing herbs in hot water. Now his previously irregular heart had resumed its normal rhythm and he was sleeping peacefully.
Crixus narrowed his eyes at the German, and then at Varro.
“I hold no account of sounds made while in the grip of fever. If you stood as injured from battle in the arena you too would find world between waking and sleep one absent reason.”
“Fortunate I do not stand as such. This ludus could not endure both of us shrieking as women.”
This time Agron laughed out loud, and then instantly seemed to regret it, his bandaged hand going to a particularly long and ragged wound in his belly as his face twisted into a moue of pain.
The medicus, who was grinding various herbs into a paste using a mortar and pestle, looked round at him with a sour expression.
“Keep to yourself idiot, lest you wish to undo good tending already done.”
Agron acknowledged the scrawny man with a wave and a grimace, and then settled back against the wall with a deep groaning sigh.
Crixus glanced at him, and with a less combative tone to his voice, he muttered, “It fills heart with sorrow to see the brotherhood reduced. To state the truth of it.”
“It is always difficult to witness a brother’s fall,” Doctore said, entering the room with Spartacus close behind, “but the few victories gained today provide proof that the gladiators favored by the scarred fiend Mantilus are not absent weaknesses.”
Crixus frowned.
“Mantilus is the man Tetraides believed creature of Hades?”
Spartacus nodded.
“Not only Tetraides believes it.”
“And what does the new Champion of Capua believe?” There was a challenge to Crixus’s voice, as there almost always was when he spoke to Spartacus.
Spartacus glanced at him. He was here to be examined by the medicus, one of whose tasks it was to ensure that any cuts or grazes picked up in the arena were clean of dirt and free from inflammation. The Thracian sat on a stone bench as the medicus hovered around him, applying a white paste from his pestle to one or two minor wounds.
“In things other than evil spirits,” Spartacus said.
“You have laid eyes on this Mantilus?”
Spartacus nodded.
“Once. His attempt to unsettle was not successful.”
“This was at the games?” Crixus said.
“In the villa.”
Crixus looked surprised.
“He has been here?”
“He accompanied Hieronymus to feast honoring Crassus’s arrival in Capua,” Varro explained. “Lurking by his master’s side like shadow.”
“A shadow,” Crixus murmured, looking thoughtful.
“Like the apparition your eyes claimed to see in this ludus on that very night,” the medicus cackled.
Crixus scowled at him.
Narrowing his eyes at the medicus, Oenomaus said, “Of what do you speak?”
With undisguised relish the medicus replied, “Crixus roused me from slumber to claim witnessing of shadow moving past doorway.”
“It was no shadow,” Crixus growled. “It was a man. As real as you or I.”
“Yet I could find no such intruder,” the medicus said. “And the gate was locked, as always.”
“Why did you not speak of it before?” Oenomaus asked Crixus.
Crixus glared at the medicus.
“Could I have, absent ridicule upon the hearing of it? I lie feverish of late, senses absent. The gods fill head with all manner of visions. You would have called this another such.”
“Perhaps it was,” Spartacus suggested.
“No,” Crixus barked. “Mind was sound and thoughts clear.”
“And yet the gate was locked,” Varro said, and shrugged. “A deception of light perhaps?”
Crixus shook his head stubbornly.
“I am certain of what I saw.”
Spartacus lay on his bunk, unmoving, staring up at the ceiling. Yellow light lapped the rough stone, giving the illusion that it was drawing in air and breathing it out again, like something alive. However, it was not this that he was staring at. His thoughts were turned inward, mulling over the events of the past few weeks. Suddenly he sat up and crossed to the door.
“Doctore,” he shouted, pounding on the thick, coarsely hewn wood. “Doctore.”
There was the clump of hobnails on the other side of the door, and the snarling voice of a house-guard.
“Silence.”
Spartacus ignored him.
“Doctore,” he shouted again.
“Still your tongue or-”
“You will do nothing,” interrupted Oenomaus’s rich, deep voice. “Open door.”
There was a moment’s pause, in which Spartacus imagined the guard staring in defiance, and Doctore staring back, his eyes like chips of ice, his gaze implacable. Then there was a muttered curse and the jangle of keys, followed by a scrape of metal in the lock. Next moment the door swung open and Oenomaus stepped into the cell.
He glanced quickly left and right, as if half-expecting an ambush.
“What plagues you?”
“I desire audience with dominus.”
Oenomaus’s eyes narrowed.
“Impossible. The hour is late. Ask again tomorrow.”
“I prefer to ask now,” Spartacus insisted.
Still Oenomaus regarded him suspiciously.
“What is urgent that cannot wait till morning?”
Spartacus took a deep breath.
“I have given thought to Crixus’s words. I believe I possess solution to recent difficulties.”
The villa was quiet and dimly lit. Spartacus was escorted to Batiatus’s study and shown inside.
Batiatus was sitting at his desk, studying scrolls which Spartacus guessed from his dour expression were household accounts. However, his face brightened when Spartacus entered the room. He stood, extending his arms in greeting.
“How fares my champion?”
“I am well, dominus.”
“You fought well today. Like a lion choosing moment to strike.”
“A tactic born of necessity, dominus. I fear it less pleasing to a crowd seeking spectacle.”
“Fuck the crowd,” Batiatus said dismissively. “Perhaps it was not single most g
lorious day for the House of Batiatus, but your performance averted disaster. I am grateful, Spartacus.”
“Well received, dominus,” Spartacus muttered with a curt nod.
Batiatus beamed, and took a moment to regard his champion, looking on him with the same acquisitive smugness that a man might regard a prized possession-a rare jewel or a much-revered piece of statuary. Then he waved his hand in a flourish, indicating that Spartacus should speak.
“Doctore informs that you desire audience for discussion of recent afflictions.”
“Yes, dominus. The men are reduced by weakness and illness, as you saw evident in today’s games.”
A frown appeared on Batiatus’s face, briefly darkening his good humor.
“It does plague mind and cast cloud over future. Is there still talk of sorcery among the men?”
Spartacus hesitated and then shook his head.
“They do not speak of it openly. But the notion may yet reside in thoughts. And if the mystery lingers …”
“It will fester like open wound,” Batiatus said darkly.
Spartacus nodded.
“You come with proposal?” Batiatus said. “Break open head and share thoughts.”
“The truth of it stands difficult to embrace,” Spartacus replied.
“Arrive at it before the night is over.”
“I have extended thought on this, and come to one conclusion.”
Batiatus’s face was grim.
“I wager it is one that will put sour taste upon palate.”
“I fear so, dominus.”
Batiatus rolled his eyes wearily.
“Spill unpleasant words. The absence of other recourse demands it.”
Spartacus took a deep breath.
“The night Crassus and Hieronymus were honored in your house, as your gladiators labored to entertain guests in the villa, Crixus spied intruder in the ludus.”
“What kind of intruder?”
“He glimpsed figure but momentarily. A dark shape, he said. Moving past door of infirmary. Crixus called out, thinking it the medicus, but received no reply.”