by Barry Sadler
Casca's owner, Crespas, sat in the preferred section near the imperial box. He was amusing himself with some of the writings of Cicero, the prim person who had been such a pain in the ass to the divine Julius. This Cicero did have a way with words. Even he approved the games of gladiatorial combat as a way to build character and courage. Here in front of Crespas was Cicero's very statement on the matter, and Crespas hoped to make a present of this document to Nero. It was well-known that the emperor fancied himself a patron of the arts and literature. The scroll was quite explicit. Crespas read it again, feeling a certain reluctance to part with it, even though to do so would advance him with Caesar. Cicero wrote:
Look at the gladiators, who are either ruined men or barbarians. See how men who have been well-trained prefer to receive a blow rather than avoid it. How frequently it is made evident that there is nothing they put higher than giving satisfaction to their owners or to the people.... What gladiator of ordinary merit has ever uttered a groan or changed countenance? Such is the force of training, practice, and habit.
Crespas sighed again. Tears of admiration came close to forming in his eyes. Such noble words! Cicero certainly knew his people – even if he was a republican...
The games master announced the Casca-Jubala fight as a grudge match between two champions of the same school. They had been kept apart until the time for their entrance. Now Corvu told the two to keep their distance from each other until they were given the signal to fight by the emperor. Jubala and Casca sized each other up, Jubala feeling pleased and confident of his victory, Casca feeling only dark black rage inside. Revenge. That's what I want, and that's what I'll have even if I have to tear this damned place down to get it.
The trumpets blared, and Corvu gave the signal to the new men to advance to the imperial box. Keeping a sideways eye on Jubala, Casca marched with him, but ten feet apart, to the position in front of Gaius Germanicus Nero. Once again they gave the salute: "Hail, Caesar! We who are about to die salute you." With raised swords they waited for the emperor's response.
Nero leaned over and looked closely at the two men. His light blond hair was crimped in the manner of the athletes he most admired, the charioteers. He was bull-necked, with a barrel chest and weak legs. The beginnings of a reddish-gold beard showed the inheritance from his father's side of the family, the Ahenobarbi. He had been adopted by Claudius and given the name of Nero at the adoption.
Running his eyes over the two protagonists, he smiled delicately. "You, Numidian. You are absolutely gorgeous. It would be a shame if you let this barbaric-looking person defeat you." He wagged his finger in warning. "Your emperor has wagered on you. Don't disappoint me." He sat back, straight in the curved chair and waved his handkerchief. "Go on with it."
Casca roared and threw himself on the black, his sword a blinding whirl of steel. He smashed with shield and struck with blade, beating the Numidian back and almost ending the fight in the first few seconds.
But Jubala regained his balance and locked shields and swords with Casca. Their helmeted heads rammed against each other, Jubala whispered in a voice that only Casca could hear: "Your little man Crysos died well enough for you. He told me nothing. But I still had the satisfaction of using him like a woman. In your name I told him I was doing it. He screamed like a woman, too."
A pain shot through Casca as he broke from the clinch and tried to hammer the Numidian down. Jubala slipped under the guard and sliced a thin red furrow along Casca's rib cage. "First blood to me, Roman dog," he sneered. "When I kill you, and they bury you, I am going to dig you up and eat your heart."
Casca lost all sense of reason and became a human whirlwind. The audience gasped in shock. They had never seen the likes of these two mad men leaping and whirling around each other as if in some insane danse macabre. Jubala was better than Casca would have believed. The Numidian took everything he could throw at him and came back for more. Casca knew that if he received a bad enough wound he would appear dead. The danger of being found out was greater for him than the fear of death was for Jubala. But Casca took another deeper cut along the outside of his thigh and went to his knee. The pain flashed... and settled into a throb. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiu in the stands, hands folded, a calm expression on his face. He was watching Casca intently as if trying to send him a message.
The teachings of Shiu Lao Tze came back to Casca.
Calmness returned. He rose from his knees and, using his shield like a hammer, beat Jubala back until he had some breathing room. The sweat from his helmet was almost blinding him. To the stunned surprise of the spectators, Casca took his helmet off, showing his face to the crowd. He threw the helmet at Jubala. It hit, bounced, and rang off the black's shield.
Then he threw his shield at the Numidian so hard it almost knocked Jubala to the sand. And finally he took his sword and presented it in a salute to the Roman audience. "For you!" he cried. "For you I dedicate this kill with my hands." And he threw the sword into the stands. The crowd went insane. Several women climaxed in their excitement and tried to throw themselves to the arena below. Only the prompt attentions of the guards prevented them from achieving their purpose. Jubala grinned beneath his helmet, and Casca matched it with a grin of his own. The massive Circus Maximus was silent. Even the emperor was leaning over the railing in concentrated study. Never had anything like this happened in the history of the games.
Casca went into the deep horse stance, hands positioned in knife and hammer positions. Jubala laughed and lunged. Casca wasn't there. As Jubala lunged, Casca whirled and gave the smashing reverse roundhouse kick with the heel of his right foot, striking Jubala between his shoulder blades and driving the wind out of him. A quick cry of surprise ran through the people in the stands. This was something new. Jubala whirled and tried to close, using his shield. Casca gave a forward snap kick that knocked the sword out of Jubala's grip and then grabbed the edge of the black's shield and, using it as a lever, grabbed the face guard of Jubala's crested helmet. Putting his right foot in the center of the Numidian's stomach, he rolled backward, throwing the black in an arc to land solidly on his back some ten feet behind him. Casca came up still holding the helmet. Jubala lay bleeding from his ears where the forcible breaking of the helmet's straps had almost torn his ears off.
As he tried to rise, Casca came up and gave a flying drop kick straight into his face, knocking him to the sand again. Jubala couldn't register what was going on. What had happened? Casca picked up the gladius Iberius and stood over Jubala. Grabbing the Numidian's right arm in a grip that locked the black's elbows immovable, Casca held him, giving a drawing motion that forced Jubala to his knees. The pointed teeth clenched in pain from the armlock. Casca said softly, "Open your mouth and say, ah." He kicked Jubala in the balls with enough force to completely smash the two testicles. Jubala opened his mouth to scream, and Casca placed the point of the sword in the gaping mouth, between the pointed teeth. "Die, you piece of shit, die!" He shoved, pushing the three-inch-wide blade out the back of the black's skull just above where the neck bones connected to the head. Jubala's eyes widened in terror. The blade stuck, and Casca began to twist it slowly back and forth in the bone to break it loose.
The last sound Jubala heard was the terrible squeaking sound of the bones in his head being torn apart. The bones themselves amplified the sound into a piercing crescendo that ran through his consciousness. With a superhuman effort he stood up in his death spasms and tore the grip from Casca's hand and stumbled wildly around the arena, trying to scream, the blade of the sword in his mouth and about ten inches of it sticking out the back of his head, the longer part of the sword waving up and down as if he were trying to signal for something. He fell to his knees. The darkness was coming. His gods were near, the terrible dark gods of the jungle.
Casca kicked him over onto his back and took the handle of the sword and twisted and jerked it out of Jubala's mouth. With a quick slice he removed Jubala's loin cloth. Another slice that merely bur
ned in a distant manner for the dying brain, and Casca put something warm and wet in the Numidian's mouth. "You son of a slut, I promised myself that I'd do this some day."
Jubala died in the sand while the mob screamed their approval. "The sword! The sword!" they screamed over and over, crying for the emperor to honor their hero. Grudgingly Nero gave in. It was not wise to offend the public when they were this worked up... even if he had lost a lot of money on the black.... Casca stood in front of the imperial box, the Praetorian Guard, gorgeous in their dress uniforms, flanking the emperor Nero. The emperor said: "Here is your freedom." He showed the wooden sword to the crowd first. They roared their approval. Nero graciously gave in and threw the piece of wood to the sand in front of Casca. "Take it. You are free."
Crespas sighed deeply. Well, well. He actually did it. So be it. I have made a nice profit on him, and nothing lasts forever. Piss on Nero, that Greek lover. I'll keep this book of Cicero's for myself. Nero really wouldn't understand it.
Casca raised the sword to the crowd. Money was brought to him on a silver platter, and coins rained down on him from the excited audience. Several rich ladies offered their homes and wealth to him if he would give them one night to lie in his arms. Never had Rome seen such a fight. Never had the arena been graced with the likes of this godling, this son of Mars, the avenger.
Casca was free. Shiu smiled secretly to himself and left.
Casca was free, but the bitterness was still there in his mouth. We made it, Crysos. Wherever you are, we made it. You are free from your world, but I have not yet finished with mine...
TWENTY-TWO
That night Casca wandered the streets of Rome, the hero of all. He drank and ate as a king might. There was nothing denied him. He spilled his seed into the bellies of faceless women as if trying to find something that could not be, and he thought the blind thoughts of futile rage and pain. Nor did he stop with that night. He stumbled through the streets, sleeping where he stopped. Two days. Then three. The pain would not leave... and all around the smiling faces of the mob... even worse, the degenerate nobility, those of the equus, the knighthood. Supposedly the honor of Rome rested with them. The thought came into his befuddled mind just at the fatal instant when he was standing before a bust of Nero.
He looked at the slack jawed head of the glory of Rome. The wine fumes were settled firmly in his brain, and good sense was not to be found. He had enough. He spoke to the bust:
"You, a god? You fat slug, I'm more a god than you are. You and Rome can't do anything to me. I will outlast all of you with your palaces and money anid fine clothes and simpering manners. You sick, pathetic imitations of men, at least I am a real man and a better one than you and your kind will ever be. This for your godlike power, Caesar!" Reaching down, he picked a wet, slimy handful of the gutter that ran along the street. Staggering, he went to Nero's bust and rubbed the loathsome excreta onto the face of the emperor of Rome and was still rubbing when the vigiles knocked him out with their staffs and dragged him to the dungeons.
The scene had been watched.
A noble witness had seen all this transpire and would testify against this blasphemer and traitor. After all, M. Decimus Crespas could do no more. Besides, there was always the chance that Casca might be sold on the block and he could repurchase him. If not, well, men like Casca were too dangerous to have running around loose anyway. Crespas did have certain duties and obligations to the Empire.
When Casca awoke, he had the feeling that a flock of diseased Egyptian vultures had spent the night nesting in the roof of his mouth. Rinsing his mouth at a convenient bucket after kicking several other occupants out of the way, he went over to a corner and sat, trying to figure out what had happened. Bit by bit, recollection returned. Oh, no, he mourned. They are going to put it to me now. Shiu was right. It seems as if everything goes full circle. I'm back again, but this time it's worse than when Tigelanius did it to me. This time I've insulted the emperor.
One of the inmates was busy scratching a symbol of some kind on the dungeon wall. Curiosity moved Casca over to look. "What the Hades do you think you are doing?"
The man turned and looked at Casca. His face was calm, his eyes almost blissful. The filth on him and the rags did not seem to bother him at all.
"I make the mark of my master, the Son of God."
Casca looked more closely at the scratchings on the wall.
"A cross? Is that your sign?"
The man looked up as though he could see through the ceiling of the dungeon to the heaven above. The aura of a fanatic surrounded him. "Yes, my lost brother. The sign of the cross upon which our Savior gave his life for us, the cross where He died that we might be saved."
"Oh, shit," came Casca's response. "That's all I need to make my day complete, another one of you Jew mad men." He started to turn away, but the man grasped his tunic. "Listen to me brother, for we are all brothers in the blood of the Lamb. Christ died for you, too. He died that you, too, might be freed from your sins. Has no one ever told you of our Jesus?"
"Who did you say?"
"Jesus."
"The crucified one?" Damn! This hangover was giving him hallucinations.
"The Crucified One! Do you know our Jesus, brother?"
"I have met him," Casca answered dryly.
"Then the Lord bless you, brother. Will you be permitted to join me and those of my brethren who are going to be martyred in the name of the Lamb?"
Casca looked at the damn fool. What he started to say he kept in his own mind: Personally, I would rather eat a lamb – in fact, I could eat at least two of them right now. But there was no point in saying anything to the old fanatic. He wrenched his way out of the soon-to-be-sainted one's hands and went back to his corner to wait whatever the fates might decree. Damn. I can't get away from the Jew, even here in Rome, in a jail. They have his so-called sign scratched on the walls. What's the big deal about him being crucified? You'd think he was the only one it ever happened to. I'm more concerned with what's going to happen to me.
He had not long to wait. A sharp-looking trooper of the imperial household guard appeared and told the jailer to bring forth the gladiator known as Casca. Taking Casca by the arm, he had him firmly re-manacled and even his legs chained. This trooper had seen Casca's last fight and had no illusions as to the dangers of the prisoner. As soon as they were outside Casca could see that it would soon be midday. The guard and another four Praetorians escorted him. They took him by way of the Clivus Victoriae, the victory ramp leading to the imperial buildings on the summit. There they made their way past disdainful and aristocratic looking senators and politicians. Casca's appearance was obviously not a welcome sight in these sanctified surroundings.
Two Praetorians stood at the arms ready position in front of a pair of ebony and gold doors that led to the inner sanctum of the empire, the personal quarters of the emperor Nero. The doors opened silently on well-oiled hinges, and Casca was immediately thrown to the ground, face first, before he could even get a good look around the place. But in the fleeting moment he had seen several faces that were vaguely familiar, and one he knew for sure – the wife of a senator. She had given him fifty gold denarii for one evening. She had garlic breath, but nice legs.
He was dragged to the foot of the couch upon which Nero reclined.
Raising a topaz lorgnette, the glory of Rome peered at Casca through one eye. Nero rose and went to the marble throne, adjusted the cushions to ease a sore spot where he had a pimple starting on the left cheek of his ass, settled himself as best he could, and lounged back, guarded by the great golden eagle mounted over the throne and by the Praetorian Guards. "Tigelanius," he called, "come here."
Tigelanius? Hell, he'd be dead by now, thought Casca. He dared to peer up and saw a gorgeously attired general approach. Yes, this Tigelanius did resemble his Tigelanius. Perhaps the one in Jerusalem had sired this one – or it could be his grandson. Anyway, they both have that same nasty look that means nothing good to me.
"Lord, here we have the one who spat upon the honor you were gracious enough to show him. The report is here in full and witnessed by no other than his former owner and the vigiles who apprehended him in his act of desecration and blasphemy."
Normally, Tigelanius would have handled something like this himself, but it made Nero feel as though he had control of things if occasionally he was permitted to pass down a judgment or two.
Nero stroked his sprouting beard with oiled, perfumed fingers. "Indeed?" he squeaked. His voice was too high to be effective. "What are the charges exactly? What did he do and say that he is brought before Rome itself?"
Tigelanius read the charges, telling of the desecration of the bust of Emperor Nero, and even worse – how Casca had claimed that he was more of a god than Nero and would outlast both Nero and Rome.
Oh, shit. They got me good, thought Casca.
Around the room the imperial toadies gasped at this blatant blasphemy. Nero had been leering at the form of Casca, stroking the head of a beautiful boy child beside the throne – to the obvious distaste of his wife sitting to the rear and reclining. When he heard the charges, Nero pulled a plug of hair out of the head of the young boy, stood up, kicked the boy away, then cursed because he had hurt his toe when he kicked the boy. He gave a short hop. His ingrown toenail made his eyes water. He turned on Casca.