The mercenary turned to unleash a barrage of abuse on the person who shoved until he locked eyes with Euaristos and then stepped aside.
His commander threw a half-smile in Lysandra’s direction as the sea of bodies parted before them. ‘Privileges of command,’ he said airily.
Flanked by Cappa and Murco, Lysandra reached the front of the crowd and rested her forearms on the paddock fence, taking in the brawl. The fighters stood, two titans battling on a rather inglorious patch of mud and horse manure. As she watched the bout progress, Lysandra realised that it was a fitting setting. There was no skill to this, just brute force against brute force. It was bloody and, judging by the reaction of the crowd, entertaining. They were clearly not a sophisticated bunch, but she was surprised that the professional warriors thought this was something worth shouting about.
‘It is like they are taking it in turns,’ she commented to Murco as Thallo’s meaty fist smacked into the blacksmith’s cheek. The skin split and blood sluiced down into the bushy beard adding to its now soggy mass.
‘They’re not the fastest but they’re effective enough,’ was Murco’s diplomatic response as the blacksmith responded by landing a haymaker that staggered the mercenary. At this, the encouragement from the locals intensified.
‘It is about as effective as trying to put out Nero’s fire with a bucket of naphtha,’ Lysandra responded. ‘You could see that punch coming from the middle of last week…’ She winced as the blacksmith landed a vicious uppercut that sent Thallo to the earth. He tried to rise but slumped back, his glazed eyes looking up at the twilight sky. ‘If you hit anyone for long enough, they will go down,’ Lysandra shouted over the huge cheer. ‘But look at the Italian. He is a mess. The idea of unarmed combat is to hit without being hit. Frankly, I’m appalled.’As she said this last, there was a sudden lull in the noise. Euaristos shot her a glance.
‘ Appalled? ’ he repeated looking a little hurt. ‘It was close, but the blacksmith had more about him than anyone could guess.’
‘It is not as though he looks feeble,’ Lysandra replied as the victor took the applause of the locals, who had now begun to chant
‘ Cynocephalus, Cynocephalus!’
Cappa nudged her. ‘Good of them to remind you of that battle,’ he said. ‘We thrashed you Greeks at that one.’
‘ Macedonians,’ Lysandra corrected. ‘Sparta was allied to Rome at the time of the Dog’s Head battle – clearly Rome knew that it was better to ask the Spartans to fight with them as opposed to against them.
Most of Hellas was against Macedon once they saw that Sparta had allowed Rome to be her ally.’ She was cut off as a bloody and unsteady looking Thallo climbed over the fence and passed between them.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered as his fellows patted him on the shoulders and offered condolences – no doubt for the wounded fighter and their own purses.
‘There’s another bout now,’ Euaristos said as Thallo moved away, aware that Hellene pride was now at stake. ‘Ah,’ he smiled.
‘Galeopsis.’
Galeopsis was clean-shaven and lithe, with dark brown eyes that were too close together and a large yet thin nose. He grinned to reveal teeth that only added to his moniker: Galeopsis was Hellenic for ‘Weasel.’
The Italian locals opted – as was the Italian-Roman way – to go for blunt force. A tall, red-haired, lantern-jawed bruiser emerged from the throng and climbed into the ‘arena.’ Lysandra did not consider herself judgemental, but it was hard not to be so when looking at this specimen: his expression, his demeanour and the lack of spark in his eyes gave him the look of an idiot.
‘Galeopsis will take this fool,’ Euaristos informed her. ‘He’s a murderous cut-throat of the worse kind. A Cretan.’
Lysandra nodded. Everyone knew that Cretans were not to be trusted.
The Cretan took up a boxer’s stance whilst his opponent merely ducked into what he obviously considered was a fighting crouch.
Both men circled each other for some time and soon the crowd began to shout teasing abuse at their seeming lack of willingness to fight. Egged on, the Italian lunged forward and Lysandra was mildly impressed with Galeopsis’s speed as he evaded the attack. But his response to this opportunity only served to show he was as inept as Thallo: the fast punch to the bigger man’s exposed ribs would be sore but hardly a crippling blow.
‘The Italian was wide open,’ she informed Euaristos. ‘Galeopsis should have made him pay far more than he did with that little tap.’
The mercenary looked as though he wanted to retort but Lysandra was pleased that he did not. She knew he had seen her fight and as such knew well that she was more than qualified to comment on fighting technique.
The bout lasted much longer than the first one, the classic encounter between the big man and the little man. Despite herself, Lysandra was impressed with Galeopsis: as the Cretan warmed to the task, his attacks became steadily more vicious and telling. But the Italian was like a rock, seemingly able to take any amount of pain before coming back with his own volleys. His method was slow and brutal but, in the end, undeniably effective. As the battle wore on, Galeopsis began to tire and move with less fluidity. Eventually, this bout ended as did the last, with the Hellene mercenary out cold on the deck and a chorus of taunting derision from the locals.
So it was with the next match and the one after. The Hellenes were getting trounced and Lysandra was acutely embarrassed. Here, in microcosm, was what had happened in history: comparatively civilised and sophisticated Hellene soldiers being routed by uncouth, brawny Italians. It really was unendurable, and as the latest victor paraded around the arena, challenging ‘any Greek with the balls to face me’ to get over the fence, Lysandra made up her mind. Before the astonished Cappa and Murco could react, she vaulted over the fencing and landed with a soft thud on the paddock’s ground.
As the crowd realised that a woman had entered the combat area, they roared with laughter and began screaming unsavoury offers of what they would like to do with her – or, more accurately, to her.
She had heard the suggestions many times before in Halicarnassus: it was the opening verse of the gladiatrix’s song.
The Italian victor, realising he was no longer the centre of attention, rounded on her, his bruised eyes widening in surprise. ‘Are you my winnings?’ he leered in his provincial accent. ‘You’re a skinny streak,’ he appraised her, ‘but I’ll not complain when you’re greasing my pole!’ At this the crowd gave a loud cheer.
Lysandra studied him: by the look in his eyes, he was fired by overmuch booze – more than enough to make him belligerent and feel as though he was indestructible. She raised her own voice above the jeers. ‘I will grease your pole if you can beat me in a fair fight!’
The Italian roared with laughter thinking this a joke, but when Lysandra did not move, his thick eyebrows knitted in a frown and he advanced on her.
Lysandra dropped back into a fighting stance as the shouts of the crowd washed over her, and she realised in that moment that she had almost come home. As he advanced upon her, her eyes went flat and something inside her stirred. With a growl, the Italian attacked and the gladiatrix Achillia stepped in to meet him.
XXI
‘All right, shut up the lot of you!’
Valerian grinned as Settus took up his position at the head of the men. The two had been working on improving the rotas and shift patterns of the slaves and workers.
Well, Valerian had been working on improvements and the former optio was learning to repeat the instructions given him.
Benches scraped on the stone floor and conversation died down as Settus began to dole out the tasks for the forthcoming day. Despite Setttus’s damning indictment against the staff and slaves, Valerian had found most of them to be adequate for the menial labour at the Flavian: there were some fitness issues, he thought, for the ones who would be assigned to crowd control and he resolved to put them through their paces soon. That, he mused, probably wouldn’t go down too wel
l.
‘Now then…’ Settus was saying. ‘The animal cells below the arena are a fucking disgrace. They need to be mucked out more regularly than they are at the moment.’ Voices started to rise in protest, but Settus raised a warning hand. ‘Don’t give me any excuses about work-load on show days, or my favourite – the-animals-will-die-soon-so-there’s-no-point and all of that old bollocks. The whole hypogeum stinks of shit and piss. Shit means insects and insects mean diseases. You cunts won’t be too happy when you’ve got some gods-cursed illness because you were too fucking dainty to shovel shit.’
‘That said,’ Settus glanced at Valerian a little self-consciously,
‘I’ve come up with an idea.’
‘This should be good,’ one of the ex-gladiators commented to the amusement of all in the room.
‘Shut your face. Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Shovelling shit is an unpleasant but necessary task. Let’s face it, even the slaves hate doing it and you can only beat them so often – and even then, they’re not likely to work harder. So, I’ve negotiated a deal on your behalf – this is Rome, after all, and even shit is for sale.’ This got a laugh and Settus looked a little surer of himself because of it. ‘Fertilizer is big business: there’s plenty of gardens on the seven hills. Gardens need fertilizer and we’ve got more fertilizer than we know what to do with. So, whatever team is shovelling shit – and that includes both freedmen and slaves – will get a percentage of the transaction, minus my cut for thinking of the idea in the first place. Obviously, the main bulk of the profit goes back to the Flavian – but we all stand to make a few sesterces out of this. What do you reckon?’
The men nodded and made sounds of concurrence which pleased Valerian. Selling excrement was not how he had imagined that he would begin to make ends meet but necessity was the mother of invention. The meeting began to break up as the workers got ready to go about their tasks for the day. Valerian had found another excuse to make sure he was able to watch the fighters at their training – one in particular. The thought buoyed him and he made to shuffle out with Settus and the rest of the crews.
He was stopped as Laenus approached them.
‘Just you two,’ he indicated Settus and Valerian. ‘Back inside, boys,’ he said. ‘The rest of you, get on with your work.’
Valerian gave Settus a ‘what’s going on?’ look but the former optio could only shrug so he decided to just come out with it. ‘Laenus,’ he smiled. ‘What can we do for you?’
Laenus sat on a bench. ‘It’s what you’ve been doing for yourselves that I’ve come to talk to you about. This place is running smoother than ever before. Now, either Settus here has been suddenly touched by Minerva and given the gift of command, or you,’ he stabbed a finger at Valerian, ‘have been running things from behind the scenes. Which is it?’
‘I’m a religious man,’ Settus offered.
‘And I’m a Vestal.’
‘What’s this about, Laenus?’ Valerian interjected. He had a feeling that he and Settus were about to lose their percentages to the trainer and the galling thing was they could do nothing about it. ‘Things are running smoothly, you’ve said so yourself. If this is about offering the men a little incentive to work harder, I thought you and your superiors would have been more than happy about that. This operation was a fucking disgrace – sorry, Settus – before I arrived.’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ Settus complained. ‘You’ve only been here five minutes and you’re already acting like you’re the legate of the tenth.
We were doing all right before you arrived and don’t forget who got you the job in the first place.’
‘I’ve not forgotten,’ Valerian tried to sound placating but the whole situation was so upsetting. Here he had done his best to better not only his own circumstances but everyone else’s and now Laenus was going to flitch him out of his cut. ‘I’ve just made some improvements to your strategy,’ he said to Settus. ‘And let’s face it; you’ve benefitted financially – same money, much less work…’
‘Hey, hey…’ Laenus broke in. ‘You two sound like you’re married…’
Settus rounded on the trainer. ‘Are you calling me a fucking tunic-lifter, Laenus? I’ll have you, you bastard!’
Valerian could see that Laenus was a hard man, well used to holding his own in a brawl; he was bigger and stronger than Settus, but when the former optio was riled, he was more frightening than most men.
‘No, no! Fucking hell, Settus!’ the trainer exclaimed. ‘Don’t be so touchy – you don’t have to turn everything into a row.’
Valerian saw that Settus was about to pounce and, once started, there was only one way this would end. ‘Settus!’ he shouted, injecting the almost forgotten authority of a military tribune into his voice.
‘Stand to!’
Settus trembled with suppressed violence but years of ingrained discipline halted him. With a deep breath he stood back, the tension almost visibly draining out of him.
Laenus puffed out his cheeks. ‘Jupiter, Settus,’ he shook his head.
‘Give me a chance to finish here.’
‘Go on then,’ Settus muttered, sitting back down.
‘Maro’s noticed the improvements around here.’ He referred to the lanista of the Flavian. ‘He’s also noticed that the improvements started soon after New Boy here joined us,’ he gestured to Valerian.
Valerian could guess what was coming and it made him feel thoroughly wretched. He could not stand by and allow himself to super-sede his friend – the man to whom he owed much of his new start.
‘Laenus,’ he interjected. ‘Settus and I are a team – we’ve been working together.’
‘Yeah, well, of course.’ It was plain that Laenus found that hard to believe but plainer still that he was not going to provoke Settus again. ‘The thing is, with things working so well, Maro wants New Boy here promoted.’
‘The men won’t like that,’ Valerian said. ‘You keep calling me
“New Boy”, I’ve not been here long enough to have earned a promotion in their eyes.’
‘The men know the score,’ Laenus waved the protest away. ‘Besides, even if they did give a shit who’s giving them orders – which they don’t – Maro’s made his decision and that’s the end of it.’
‘Are you giving me the sack?’ Settus’s voice was strangled with grief and fury at the same time.
‘No, he’s not,’ Valerian answered before Laenus could speak.
‘We’re working on this together, Settus, just like before.’ He raised an eyebrow at the trainer. ‘Isn’t that right?’
‘Yeah, just like before,’ the trainer agreed with some reluctance.
‘Good,’ Settus was relieved. ‘You had me going there for a minute, you bastard. Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘It’ll be just like it was in the army, eh Valerian? You thinking up the plans and me making sure it all runs smoothly.’
‘Exactly,’ Valerian had not thought of using the military parallel to blind Settus to his demotion.
‘Good, it’s all sorted then,’ Laenus’s smile was forced and utterly unconvincing. ‘Good work, lads.’ He got up and made his way to the door.
‘Laenus!’ Settus called. ‘Sorry about losing my rag just then.’
‘Forget it – I’d get the hump too if I thought someone was calling me a fruit.’
‘I thought you were a fruit.’
‘Don’t push your luck, Settus,’ the trainer responded, and strolled into the sunlight.
As soon as he had gone, Settus turned to Valerian. ‘Fucking result,’ he enthused. ‘This’ll be great!’
‘Yes,’ Valerian agreed. ‘It will be. We’ll have to make sure we don’t tread on our own dicks, though.’
Settus waved a dismissive hand. ‘Don’t worry about all that,’ he said. ‘I’ll batter anyone who gets out of line – not that they will.’
He paused. ‘Thanks for speaking up though – I really thought Laenus was going to tell me to fuck off.’
Valerian grinned. ‘I’ll tel
l you to fuck off if you let us down on this one, Settus.’
The former optio laughed. ‘Then I’ll beat you so badly that all you’ll have left below the neck will be memories.’
There really was no answer to that.
Valerian felt like a new man as he strode out onto the palaestra.
Around him, the gladiators worked at their callisthenics or sparred with wooden swords, the clack of wood on wood seeming to beat a staccato rhythm to the training. It was much like an army camp, he mused. Strange that that could be a comfort after what he had experienced in Dacia.
Thinking of that gods-cursed place chilled him as the memories floated to the surface of his thoughts like bloated corpses.
‘Why so glum?’ A female voice snapped him from his melancholy.
‘Oh!’ he exclaimed. ‘Pyrrha.’ His heart quickened as he looked at the young gladiatrix. She had been working out, her dark, curly hair plastered to her forehead, her skin glowing with the sweat of exertion. Valerian was both pleased and embarrassed by the sudden stirring in his loins, something he had not felt – whilst sober at least – since Dacia. But Pyrrha had awakened desire in him again. They had been surreptitiously meeting each other when they could, exchanging kisses but nothing more. Still, he found that she dominated his thoughts whilst waking and asleep – it was she who made this place and his new life more than bearable – it was becoming pleasurable.
‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Pyrrha. What’s amiss, Valerian?’
She seemed to be full of fake bravado: he had seen a thousand times before when a legionary was trying to act large in front of a superior. Pyrrha had the same aura and despite her apparent geniality, he knew it was forced. ‘Nothing’s amiss,’ he said, a tad more shortly than he had intended. ‘I was just lost in thought.’ He turned to leave: that his past trauma had been so clearly written on his face was embarrassing and even if he had left his virtus in Dacia, he did not want her to think him less of a man.
‘What were you thinking about?’ she said to his back, halting him.
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