The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  'Hello, Eugeni. Hello. Hello,' says the woman.

  ‘I am Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, citizen of Rome, servant of our divine Domitian, singing chastened praises to his name. Would that I could look upon his face again, cleansed of my sins.'

  They babble.

  'Hello. Hello. Hello, citizen of Rome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Hello,' says the barbarian woman with the dead white skin

  'And greetings to you,' I say 'How are you? How do you feel?'

  ‘I feel weak. It has been a long march. Is this a temple?' I say. 'No,' she says. 'This is not a temple. This is a place where people get well.'

  'A training area. I will be fit for training shortly.' I try to raise my body but can only lift my head. 1 clench my hands and curl my toes. I breathe. My reflexes are there, although quite diminished. And the right big toe barely moves.

  'We just want you to get well.'

  'What tribe do you belong to?’

  'Rest, Eugeni. There is much we have to talk about. Know you this, we are your friends, and we wish to give you comfort. My name is Olava. This is Lewus and this is Semyonus. We are your friends.'

  ‘Why?’

  'Because we want you to be well,' she says. 'Why?'

  'We have our reasons, which we shall tell to you at the times proper for such telling. You must eat and exercise and rest.'

  'I never get fat and tender no matter how much I eat,' I say. 'I am good for the arena.'

  She says this does not matter. She growls her dog-bark German to the two men, who leave. She stays with me, smiling and showing her big teeth. It is a horrid large head she has draped in black I am dizzy and I sleep.

  I awaken and she is there. It is night. She asks me if I wish food, and I say I do. She has a bowl for me and I pick a lump of meal in the darkness. Outside there are lights I see through draperies. But I cannot discern what they are. Their tribe may be camped there. There is a small piece of meat in the bowl, too. I ask what the meat is.

  'Liver,' she says.

  'Of what?' I ask.

  'Calf. Young cow. It is the liver of a young cow.’ My jaw hurts and swallowing feels like little knives ripping my throat. The room smells of strange bitter incense. The linen covering my very high couch feels well made. They weave here or know where they can capture cloth from civilized towns. Perhaps they trade for it.

  'I saw the sun earlier,' I say. 'Have I been carried far south?’ That depends where you were.' 'I was at the German Sea.'

  ‘No.'

  'Did you see the cohort ? There is a Roman cohort about. They are fierce, but I know things about them that can help you.'

  'We did not see the cohort,' she says.

  She is interested in my teeth and asks me what sort of care they had in Rome. I tell her the best, Egyptian. She asks what that is, and I tell her offending teeth are poisoned so that when they are pulled there is no great pain, although I never allowed that sort of drug to be used. I had two teeth pulled when they became poisoned of their own humours. Without drugs I had this done. She does not allow herself to smile freely. I lift my head and can sit. My thigh itches. I feel a wound but, strangely, someone has put thread into it. Olava explains it is a curing technique of her tribe, but she does not explain what her tribe is, or where we are.

  I sleep and eat and stretch each painful muscle. Lewus is a giant of a man, with fierce orange hair and maws for hands. They want me to wait. I wait. I am alive. I will find out what is happening.

  If I can move, I can escape. Greece or Syria must be south of here. From there to Jerusalem and Miriamne and Petronius. Or perhaps back into the empire at the Danubius. If it is summer, then there has been at least a year for Rome's passions to dissipate.

  But how could it be summer? I remember winter. Has something happened to my memory?

  Wait. I will wait. I will know everything if I wait and watch.

  The days come and the days go. I get out of this high iron bed. My legs collapse beneath me. There is great pain coming up my knees into my belly.

  Semyonus, the physician, hoists me back up, easily. But I force myself out again. It is good that pain is an old friend. Olava asks me about my daily life before the long march. How shrewd and cunning to have a seemingly innocent barbarian ask innocent questions.

  It is not the obvious thrust that kills, but the one that looks harmless.

  There is a gash in my right thigh. Olava assures me no one has eaten from it, that a machine did it, and she will explain later.

  Why does she wear black, I ask.

  She will answer that another time.

  There are so many questions she will answer another time.

  One morning, I feel strength come back to my legs. I exercise. Olava asks me where I learned my exercises. I tell her from the lanista who is famous because of me.

  'What is that one?'

  ‘You don't know?’

  'I ask,' she says. 'What is that gentle one with right hand going forward? It doesn't seem like an exercise.' 'It is a thrust.'

  'But the body isn't behind it. It looks strange as if it comes from nowhere. It is just there.'

  'You have never seen someone kill with a sword? Or do Germans still slash wildly? This is proper. This is right. Slashing is wrong. I can teach your tribe. I can make you famous.'

  But there is no answer.

  My flesh has burned off in places, and the skin at first did not bother me. When it tingles and burns Semyonus, who admits he has never even read a scroll by an Egyptian, tells me it means the skin is getting better.

  Lewus, the giant barbarian with red in his face and old wine on his breath, stays with me regularly before dawn. He says nothing. He reads things on strange papers, and hides them when Olava takes his place in the morning.

  Semyonus always comes early to be with Olava, who tells me Lewus and Semyonus do not understand my language. They will get me anything I want

  ‘I want to leave.'

  'Anything but that.'

  'I want to leave the room.’

  'Later. How do you feel?’

  'Do you care?'

  'I ask.'

  'I feel sad.'

  'Is that all?'

  That is nothing?'

  'It is important how you feel, of course, but how is your body? How are your pains?' 'My pains enjoy themselves immensely. I do not' 'Is there anything else?'

  'Yes, I would like to see an emissary from Domitian. I have information he can use.' 'We can't do that.' 'Why not?'

  'We will tell you later.'

  And the days pass, and through pain and will, I make my body mine again. How long these barbarians kept me until my senses returned I do not know. It could have been weeks. On that question, too, the answer I get is Mater'.

  'Is there nothing I get told now?'

  'What do you want to know?'

  'Why do you wear black?’

  'I am mourning a death.’

  ‘Whose?'

  'Later. We want you to make yourself fully well first, and when things are right, then you will know everything.'

  'Nobody knows everything. When what things are right?'

  'Your blood pressure, for instance. And by that, the force and frequency of your blood within your body which was very bad, even dangerously erratic. It is getting better. When it is fully better, we will tell you.'

  'How do you know what goes on inside my body?’

  'Later we will tell you.’

  My urine and excrement are saved. My spit is saved. My beard grows longer. For the first time in my life it grows. I let it, although there must be tonsores here because I see Lewus's and Semyonus's faces are clean.

  I sleep less and I exercise more. And the days pass without an explanation. Olava talks mysteriously.

  'Eugeni, the eye cannot look directly into the sun. But a little bit of light is necessary and good. You will know as much as you can know, and eventually you will know everything we know.'

  Already her speech improves as though she rapidly learns
from me. She is barbaric but she is cunning. I ask about the wound.

  'You were found in deep sleep, and a digging tool did that'

  'I did not feel it?' I ask.

  'Did you?' she asks.

  'I do not remember. What tribe do you belong to?’

  'Eugeni, a single thread of a garment can unravel the whole garment. And you are not ready to see what is underneath.'

  'Underneath garments is what is always underneath. Garments are worn to make one believe there is something special or unusual or of great hidden value underneath. But underneath is always the same.'

  In the morning Semyonus, who is supposed to be a physician, asks me questions through Sister Olava. I ask if he is German, and Sister Olava says he is not but sounds German.

  He has many questions about the poison that Macer gave me. I am told I spoke in my sleep. I tell him I was probably imagining that I had been given poison because the cold suddenly became warm. I tell them not one legionnaire spoke to me until my clothes were removed at the German Sea, and then I was told I was to fight the cold as I had fought Publius. They want to know who Publius is specifically.

  'He is a patrician. But dead by now.'

  At this, Sister Olava asks quite sharply why I say he is dead by now.

  'Because he was trying to commit suicide even before he tried to fall on his sword.' She asks about Miriamne. 'Who?'

  'Miriamne. She was your wife.’

  'Yes. I lost everything. Even the gold I had was in such quantity slaves could not count it all.'

  The physician Semyonus wants to know more about the officer's poison.

  'I remember no poison. Why poison?’

  If I am supposed to believe this, there is a pale-skinned physician, supposedly good, not a trace of Egyptian in him, asking me, very concerned, about how one of Domitian's men carried out his orders. It is like the man executed for my benefit by the praetorians back in the emperor's palace.

  Domitian has not given up.

  Of course. I know what this means. Domitian never found out Demosthenes was the key to my major wealth and knows there is more. Oh, how our divinity dances in his arena!

  Slaves here all wear white and are female. The physician Semyonus owns them. He is a physician of great renown, yet he has never studied in Egypt nor has he even been to Rome or Athens.

  By the afternoon I walk with good balance, and by next morning I push my pained body to better training regimens. In pain I build strength. They still do not tell me where I am or how long it has been since the cohort left me. Olava tells me only that it is a long time. Cunningly, they ask about Domitian, and, with the shield of innocence, I tell them he is a great man and a great emperor. And nothing more. I do not abandon my reason even among barbarians.

  The food is meats and fishes and vegetables with strange breads that are like cakes, and some are shaped as square as marble. Apparently, there are even more slaves here than in Rome, for who could fashion so many exact squares of bread? And it gives me thought. Who would want to?

  Yet the food is without spice or life, and tastes like slave gruel. Why do they deny me garum, if they have such good pale bread?

  Semyonus the physician visits often, and there is some contention between him and Olava. He wants her, says Olava, to ask me more questions. She says this will come later. She assures me I am not a slave or captive. She says there are no slaves here, but this is an absurd lie, for with my own eyes I see the white-capped slaves run here and there upon the bark of the physician, Semyonus. They do not even speak.

  I ask why the couch is so high, since people would fall off it during sleep. She says people do not do this.

  They have cleverly shielded with drapes the finest glass I have ever seen. Clear it is as water and uniform in squares like the bread. And then in the observation of the glass, I realize a shocking thing. These people in some way have mastered a uniformity either equal or superior to us in Rome.

  They are not barbarians. Somehow, for some reason, possibly known to Domitian himself, they have discovered a way to make their skins pale. Dyeing hair is easy. But how did Olava and Lewus achieve such barbaric noses ? Where were the doctors to do this ? I have yet to see an Egyptian. The Egyptians who perform these intricate operations must be kept somewhere else.

  But why so much trouble for me ? Perhaps it is not just for me ? Perhaps it is for others, also. A hidden Domitian weapon.

  But if this is a Roman place. I would have known of it. One does not keep such a fact uncirculated when at least five people know of it. Back in Rome I would have heard of such civilized barbarians. A legion outpost would have heard the tale from some German tribe it negotiated with, and it would get to Rome, especially something as exotic as this. How Publius would have loved the rumour, for he had a theory that all men were basically the same, and should a barbarian be raised in a Roman household, it would be Roman in mind. This, when wine had not convinced him that Roman blood came from the gods to rule lesser peoples.

  I eat, I rest I move my muscles, and slam breath into my lungs, and run around my room, and get strong. I live. I will find out where I am, get to know these barbarians, and then make my way safely from here to Athens and then to Judea and Miriamne.

  The cohort last left me at the German Sea. Men do not sustain themselves in the semi-death that I obviously suffered for more than five days. Seven days at the most, for the body needs water even in this forced rest.

  Yet they say they have fed me through the wounds in my arm, which is of course great medical magic. And this, swearing there is not an Egyptian within miles. They do it themselves, they say.

  In seven days at the most, during winter conditions, I could not have moved far. And I must still be outside the empire. The problem is the German tribes. I will have to go through them alone. I will have to wait for the beginning of spring, the first breaking of the ice, so that autumn will find me well south.

  Yet, If I endured the semi-death seven days, why do I catch glimpses of spring outside?

  And where is that cohort? The drink they gave me had some drug. Now if the drug put me to sleep, and they wrapped me in warm furs, then transported me to this prepared place, why is that a spring sun coming through the glass? And who puts a sleeping room next to an opening to the sun or valley or whatever is outside? If this is truly spring, then I must wait through the summer and their winter to start my journey. Being fortunate so far, I should not risk a winter travel through the Germans. It might even be summer now, and then for sure would I be trapped in the cold.

  If I knew where the cohort went, I would know where Domitian stands. The night torches outside may be their camp. If all this is Domitian, then he has not left me an open gate to walk through. It is a trap. It is a time for balance, not for lunging.

  Olava brings me dinner in my food bowl. For light, she uses hardened oil with a strand of cloth in it instead of normal oil with the wick floating in it She says the physician Semyonus finds me in good health and surprisingly good condition, that my exercises have produced truly amazing results. 'You wish to match me?'

  'We don't have arenas where men fight to the death. We are glad that you become strong so we can tell you something that we understand will be very hard for you to hear.’

  'What is that?'

  'In a few days, Eugeni.'

  I tell her the lamp with hardened oil is a fine product. She says she uses it because I am not ready to see a better product. I ask her if she is free or slave. She says she is most free. She has not known men.

  'You are a virgin then?'

  'Yes.'

  "Then where are the games?' 'We have no games.'

  "Then why do you bother with virginity if not to decide life or death? What is the name of your people?'

  'Norwegians,' she says, it is time to tell you more.'

  And then the terror begins. She takes a rod from her tight tunic, which she claims is a stylus, and on some incredibly uniform parchment, runs the rod, leaving a trail of thick
blue blood. The rod makes the form of a map. I see Rome. I see Latium. I see Gaul and the Helvetian lands. There is the blob of Britannia. With as much authority as she has outlined the world, she outlines the German Sea in the north place. She makes a circle in the northernmost part of the German wilds.

  'We are here,' she says.

  'The most northern Germans,' I say. How pale she is. How smooth is the skin. What flesh of child went into the grooming of her body? What mother's liver eaten raw gave her size and strength ? I smile politely. If I must eat human flesh to live among these people, I will eat human flesh. I have taken it with the sword to preserve myself, now I will take it with the spoon. I will live.

  The gentle of dusk comes and she talks about life and asks about the cohort and Domitian and the senate and where my house is in Rome. I am careful with her, saying that while I remember most things, my mind does not hold things perfectly, yet each day I remember more. She asks about a Jewish sect. As she asks about it again, she draws the fish with that rod. And just as she is completing the design, the room lights in flame. Bright bonfires of roaring intensity blind me. They are cooking me. That was the preparation. She screams in her howling bark. They cook her, too. The rooms burns. And just as suddenly as it burned, it becomes darker than it was before, the solid oil lamp giving less light.