The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  Petrovitch nodded. He saw Lew's finger pressed white from the pressure on the door. He already knew what he would hear.

  'Semyon, for the first time in I don't know how many centuries, we have found the Roman on the other side of the door. And that's what I told her, knowing she had heard the same thing in her first class as I had in mine. I told her simply, "We have found the Roman on the other side of the door." And when she heard him, she knew what we said was true. And she knew what it meant. And she knew it all at once.'

  'John Carter is more than a body, more than a medical breakthrough. Is that what you are saying, Lew?' asked Semyon, his voice hushed.

  'I think so,' said Lew McCardle.

  Fourteen

  Tenth Day - Petrovitch Report

  Condition fair. All support systems removed, except intravenous feedings. According to Olav report, patient apparently living through period in life, estimated time, late first century. Confirm on cardiovascular system of athlete.

  Armour rustled in the tunnels. Animals bleated from the deep rock cages beneath the seats. Someone in a high tier dropped a metal cup, which banged down marble steps on this great, hot day. It was as though the centre of the world stopped breathing. One hundred and fifty thousand people were quiet. I had never heard total silence in the arena before.

  The pommel of my spatha quivered upright in the sand, and I was running. I could not go back and kill Publius without Rome descending on me anyhow, and 1 kept running. Through the portal I had entered, past the new master of the games, who was as still as though 1 had clubbed his skull, past unarmed legionnaires, from the urban cohort who only watched, through the tunnels, and past my chambers. I unsheathed a slave from his brown tunic in a single yank, leaving the stunned man as nude as I had been. I covered myself and ran. Usually, someone running in a slave's tunic would be stopped by someone with a weapon, under the assumption the runner is fleeing his master or someone he had stolen something from. But the silence seemed to still everyone I passed. I was out into the streets and still running when the silence ended with a roar as though the earth had rent.

  And I was laughing. Running and laughing and shrieking a lifetime of discipline away, imagining Domitian fleeing under praetorian shields. Our divinity might not live out the day. The thought of Romans erupting on themselves for a second riot at games being held to soothe the passions of the first left me stumbling, giggling, helpless in these streets, like a baby. Prisoners would run, the urban cohorts would run, and the vigiles would run the fastest.

  It was not even a choice I made, running through the quiet back streets without a light-coloured tunic in sight, only slaves lazing about their duties because their masters were at the games. I knew I could not save either my fortune or my life. But I could save those jewels of my peristilium: Miriamne and Petronius. I always knew I had loved them, but only while running behind the vacant marble baths of Agrippa, forced to make a choice, did I realize they were the only things I had loved.

  A few slaves tried to stop me, thinking I fled a master and that they might return me for a reward. They hardly required a break in stride. I had exercised every day of my life since I was nine and the run home proved no obstacle. Yet the coming revenge of Rome showed itself in the empty temples and the quiet forums I dashed through. I had never seen the forums without the hum and clang of business and rhetoric. On the days of the games, I had always been at my home or on the sand.

  It was as though some plague had removed all the patricians and freedmen and equestrians from the workings of the empire and had left only the slaves, who did not realize fully that their masters were gone. A pair of slaves, for some reason, were fornicating at the gates of the House of the Vestal Virgins, while armoured slaves looked on.

  Fortunately, living in the arena and through the arena, I had prepared for a possible eruption of the arena. It was a sword I had always known could someday turn against me. I had not realized I would grab the pommel and do it myself.

  As I reached the first high houses of the warren of houses that made the complex of my fortifications, some of my slaves, seeing my dusty, brown tunic, tried to stop me. But when I ordered them to prepare for riot, they realized who I was. There was always a chance they would join a mob, these gatherings excluding no one but its victims. I had prepared for that, too, with all the strategies and tunnels and only I knew them all. In my vestibule I found my armoured slaves lounging and drinking wine, which they tried to hide when they saw me, all the while apologizing to me for fear of a beating.

  'Riot,' I said and they ran to their positions. A slave of accounts sat behind my expensive citrus-wood table as though he were the master and fell off the sella when I ran in.

  'Riot,' I yelled. 'All slaves to the walls.' Miriamne, her gentle face confused, ran out to the atrium and saw me sweating in the heavy arena oils and wearing the slave tunic. 'Eugeni, what happened?'

  I touched her fine white stola, tugging her gently with me into the peristilium as slaves ran yelling, some with sticks, some with swords, and some with spears, through the passageways of the house towards the positions for which they had been prepared for so many years. Miriamne stumbled and I pushed her upright.

  'Petronius,' I called out. 'Petronius.'

  A slave ran into Miriamne and I threw him against a wall.

  'Petronius, Petronius,' I yelled.

  'He is here,' said Miriamne. I looked behind me and Petronius was following, his cheeks pale, his eyes teary, his white boy's tunic grey with sweat. He was sobbing.

  'What happened to you ?' I asked.

  'I saw, I saw,' he said.

  'Mars's ass. You were there?'

  'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I saw you take off your clothes, and I ran. I'm sorry, father.'

  It was a blessing that he had left at the beginning of the match, for he never could have made the run in my time. He had no more stamina than a patrician of his age. I grabbed a bunch of his tunic in my fist and dragged him to the cubicle of Mars. In both hands I took the heavy marble statue and lifted it above my head bringing it down on the seventh tile, diagonally from the north corner. The flooring cracked, and the head sheared along some hidden flaw into two parts. I ripped at the ground with hands becoming bloody until I found the edge of a blackened, heavily oiled cloth. I dug around it and eased it out of its burial place along with a dagger that was underneath it, a precaution. For who knew when I would want to give death, not jewels, while I pretended to get jewels. It struck me that I had taken precautions against almost everything and everyone but myself.

  As I showed the jewels to Miriamne, who still appeared not to understand, and to Petronius, flushed with his run, his tender young cheeks so red from so strange an exercise to him, I told them I had failed to kill Publius, and all Rome would be down on us. This did not mean that we could not escape, but it meant that from this moment forth everyone would have to think coldly and logically, and do exactly what I said.

  'We will be slaves,' cried Petronius. ‘I had a dream. We were all slaves and Publius owned us.'

  I slapped Petronius across the face to bring him to the problem at hand.

  "That is a patrician fear. You cannot afford those things now. There is enough to fear without creating more things. You will not be a slave if you think and act with cunning. People do not easily become slaves, and there are different kinds of slaves, and there are worse things.'

  Petronius said he had a dagger and showed me a jewelled pin no more useful than the one Miriamne used to hold her stola in place. I gave him a teak one with a solid blade.

  'Hold it. Not that way,' I said seeing him caress the pommel. 'Hard, like you want to strangle it. When you strike, thrust. Never slash. Thrust and do not stop thrusting. People do not die as easily as young boys think.'

  He nodded.

  'Always hide it and do not show it unless you will use it. Once that blade shows, you must kill. It ends all negotiations. Do not threaten with it. You have no friends but your mother. I want her
alive. If you lose her, I will kill you. The world is not small enough for you to hide from me.'

  'Do not say that, Eugeni,' said Miriamne. 'You cannot kill your Petronius.'

  I slapped her face. I had never done that before. She was more surprised than hurt. I showed her the contents of the purse. It contained coins of gold and silver and several jewels, a large ruby being the most valuable. I told her she was a Roman citizen from Judea, named Gor. It sounded Hebrew. Most importantly it would sound Hebrew to Romans. She was to board a vessel at the port here, Ostius. To Athens, then to Jerusalem where her own people were. Petronius would be her Roman cousin. They were not to be mother and son. If she felt she needed legal protection, she should marry a weak man and use his name.The empire was descending on us like a great timber upon three small grapes. I could manoeuvre better knowing she and Petronius were safe.

  Two going one way and one going another had a good chance.

  'Should I sleep with him?' Miriamne asked. She rubbed her face.

  'Who?'

  ‘The man I marry to use,' she said. 'Of course,' I said.

  'You would have me give my body to him?' 'I would have you alive for me when I get to you. I would have you alive. I love you. I love Petronius. I most love you.' 'You never told me that, Eugeni.' ‘I am telling you now, ignoramus.'

  Over this she cried. It was very difficult giving instructions for I cried also. I kissed her where I had slapped her and kissed Petronius where I had slapped him and told him I could not kill him but was lost for what else to tell him to make sure he protected his mother.

  'I love mother, too,' said Petronius, and there we were as the sounds of the mob far off came to us in the cubicle. We embraced, and I told them how proud I was of them both, and of Petronius, not for his Romanness, but for bis good mind and courage, for being his mother's son, and mine.

  'You love me?' asked Miriamne.

  'Of course I love you. I freed you. I married you legally and put it in the records of Rome.' 'But you never said you loved me.'

  'I am saying it. I am saying it. I love you, ignorant house slave. Quiet. I must explain the difference in the jewels.'

  'I know, father. The ruby is the most valuable.'

  'But as valuable as it is, you cannot spend it easily.'

  'Of course, the value fluctuates,' said Petronius. 'We will use the coins and the other jewels to keep us until we can sell the ruby at a propitious price. The ruby itself is a fortune. I know that. What do you think you sired, a latifundium slave?'

  I kissed Petronius again. We entered one of the passageways that bore us under the ground towards the outer perimeter of houses. Petronius carried a small oil lamp, shielding it with his hands from going out.

  Miriamne had a question.

  'Maybe there will be no trouble, Eugeni? What laws have you broken ? The Romans are famous for their love of laws. You have broken no laws by refusing to slay Publius. They may just never match you again, which I would love. You must break a law in Rome to be punished.'

  Petronius answered better than I. He laughed.

  "There will be a law,' I said. 'One will be found. Rome needs one. I have robbed Rome of a fond myth. This thievery is one that is always punished.'

  We climbed up rock stairs by the little dodging yellow light of the lamp and entered through a storage room of an ironworker's shop - one of the many merchants to whom Demosthenes rented the periphery of my buildings, cheaper to them because they also served as gatekeepers to the area.

  We startled the large ironworker, whose shoulders were like boulders, his face sweaty and black from his forge. I think he was a freedman. His face was as dirty as the leather apron he wore. He put a hand on an iron bar, but when he recognized us, he fell down kissing my hands.

  'Go,' I said and embraced Miriamne and Petronius a final time.

  'Good-bye,' said Petronius. 'Good-bye forever and hello. I know you now, and never have before.' He whispered that he knew I was going to my death.

  'Maybe not,' I said. "There are ways. But you are a smart, smart lad. Smarter than I thought. Remember always your father thinks of you as a blessing.'

  He tugged crying Miriamne into the street, and, seeing some exhausted people, obviously crazed with mob fever, he pointed in the direction of our house behind him.

  The ironworker vowed upon his household gods that he would never say what he had seen this day. He also mentioned that he was a very poor man, and his silence was a very important thing he was doing.

  'I understand,' I said.

  There must be people willing to pay me five thousand sesterces for saying what I have seen. But I will never talk.'

  'I know,' I said and had my hands to his throat before he even saw them move, and I squeezed his voice into eternal loyalty. It was the second murder of my life, the first sentencing me to a life in the arena, the last after I had left the sand forever.

  I found a sharp cursi - a vicious little knife - in his shop and ran out into the street with it. I only needed the dagger long enough for Rome to capture me alive.

  Petronius had wisely known that I had no intention of escaping. I brought no wealth with me, and he had seen that. It was not the most secure of all plans, but I had neither the time nor the certain influence to build a better one. I would not know for a while if anyone would remain loyal.

  And all my allies with any sense would be running themselves as soon as they heard the news. Until Rome found me, there would be a hunt of such magnitude that Miriamne and Petronius would surely be caught.But having found me.Rome would hardly hinder a woman and her young Roman cousin from sailing safely to their destination within the empire. Once Rome had what it wanted, it would not be poking into every purse and bale and bag to see if Eugeni was there.

  It was not a bad plan. There was an invincible limit to what Rome could do to me, and when that was reached I would be free. I had seen too many men mutilated and dragged around the arena to worry. Nothing hurt them after death, no order from the mobs of Rome was loud enough to bother dead ears, or flames to burn once-burned limbs, or rods to whip flesh that had been whipped enough. The greatest horror was in the mind. Living men suffered more.

  When I saw large groups of people, I joined them - the most dangerous thing in the face of a mob was not being a part of it. I ran, I walked, I hid at times, but street by street made my way to the most likely place to be captured. There were several people I could go to: Tullius, Galbas, many. I chose the home and counting-house of Demosthenes. Domitian and his praetorians would most certainly look there for me, under the assumption that I would attempt to save my fortune.

  The door to his vestibule was open, a good sign. I ran into the house waving my cursi, calling his name. A frightened slave said Demosthenes had left. Neither the urban cohorts nor the praetorians had arrived yet. If Demosthenes had stayed, they surely would have had him over the coals or under the whip until his paining body made his tongue disclose the last copper.

  I loudly accused Demosthenes of being a wily Greek, untrustworthy in a crisis. I went through the account rooms. I went to a storage room. There was the six million sesterces bagged for Domitian and little else. Good. Demosthenes had cleaned the house of any massive wealth. Smoke came from the kitchen. Piles of scrolls were burning. Good for you. Demosthenes, I thought.

  'Wily Greeks. You cannot trust them,' I yelled and assisted a few scrolls, that had failed to catch, towards the embers and blew them into flame

  'Wily Greek,' I yelled again and returned to the account rooms. Many scrolls remained, and I thought briefly of lighting them, but if Demosthenes had left them, he probably wanted them left. Perhaps enough to fill Domitian's mouth and stay that appetite for wealth from finding the greater fortunes. Perhaps to confuse Domitian more.

  The emperor would get most of the known lands, but it would take him much time, and I was now sure Demosthenes had left exactly what would delay our divine Domitian most, while giving him the least. The jewels and gold he probably would nev
er get. The shares in my Egyptian wealth could be sold, even to Domitian himself, without his knowing to whom they belonged. Such is great wealth, so big and so vast that it is harder to find than a small gold coin in a field. I not only had properties in most of the civilized world, but offices as well that stretched from Alexandria to the northenmost boundaries of pacified Britannia.

  I was not completely helpless. There might be something worked out. It was not as though I had stolen a cloak because I was cold, where simple justice would punish me without fail. I had breached a contract which, because it involved the most politically sensitive arena games in Rome, now threatened the empire's stability. It was, in truth, a form of treason against Domitian himself. But punishments are meted out not for the severity of the crime but for the helplessness of the criminal. Yet Domitian might himself be helpless not to punish me, for this was public crime.

  I sat down to think in the room I had teased Demosthenes in just days before. If the praetorians or urban cohorts were not here yet, then Domitian had either been assassinated, or he did not know how important Demosthenes was to me. The longer they looked for me, the greater danger that Miriamne and

  Petronius would be captured. Frightened slaves brought me drink while I waited to be captured.

  I did not wish to think. For then I would have to say to myself that I had ruined my own life and sent Miriamne and Petronius into flight for something no sane Greek would ever do.- My mother Phaedra, was not here to appreciate the honour, and even if she had been in the arena earlier in the day, she would not have liked it. My mother would have said live, Eugeni. That is what my mother would have said. Defiance for some passing thought and the risk of welfare for that thought was not only a Roman thing but a patrician one