A Gladiator's Tale

by Ashley Gardner

  The lantern light vanished, and darkness fell like a shroud. A gladiator lay here with me, but one in many pieces.

  Chapter 3

  I barreled out of the lane, shoved my way into the nearest lupinarius, snatched up the first lamp I found, and was out again before any could ask me a question.

  In spite of my agitation, no one followed me. They did not want to know what I was chasing in the darkness. In the Subura, it was not healthy to be too curious.

  I flashed my light over the floor of the passageway—a small space between two buildings that narrowed into a wedge shape, ending at a building on the street behind it.

  The gladiator who lay at my feet was Ajax. I recognized the large round scar on the inside of his right arm, put there by a retiarius’ spear.

  His body had been cut into precise pieces—arms, legs, head, torso. Those were not strewn haphazardly but had been laid neatly in the small space. His head, encased in its helmet, rested next to what had once been a man’s body.

  I stood transfixed, staring down at what remained of Ajax.

  In my career, I’d witnessed gruesome deaths. Part of the games involved executions, where criminals were sent off in creative ways. Professional gladiators could be hacked to pieces in their fights, and animal hunters mauled by the wild beasts they stalked. Bodies and parts of bodies were dragged from the arena all day long, blood drying on the sand.

  There was not much blood here, and the pieces had been laid tidily like bones in a charnel house.

  I should have been accustomed to the many ways a person could become a body. But for some reason, the food I’d had for lunch roiled in my stomach. I turned away and retched it onto the stones.

  I remained in the lane a long time, my arm heavily on the wall, until the oil lamp flickered out, its fuel spent.

  Ajax was dead. Not only dead but carefully dismembered. Someone had then brought him to this place and laid him out. No blood coated the stones, which told me he’d not been killed or cut up here.

  Why? And why bring him here? If a person wanted to cover up a crime, they’d throw the body into the river or cart him a long way into the countryside and bury him. Not leave him neatly in the Subura for an unlucky person to stumble over him.

  I stood up, an ache pounding behind my eyes. No one passing glanced into the alley, none wondered why I waited here. Safer to keep one’s gaze forward and notice nothing.

  What to do? If I called out, drew attention, someone would run for the vigiles. I knew one of the vigiles for this district, a lad called Avitus. He might aid me.

  No, he would have to report this to his watch captain. I’d be questioned. Aemil would be as well. Perhaps all the gladiators, including the new man, Praxus, would be suspects—the magistrates might claim the men wanted to eliminate an opponent they’d never beat. Or Aemil might be forced to close the ludus, the gladiators dispersed to other schools. One or more could be executed, the magistrates needing someone to pay for the crime. Gladiators might be famous and lauded, but their lives were forfeit in the end.

  Trash lay in the lane, discarded and broken pottery vessels and a cloth so dirty and tattered even the rag men didn’t want it.

  I snatched up the cloth and draped it the best I could over Ajax’s body. I moved shards of pottery with my foot, building up a pile that would hide him from the street.

  Only when I was satisfied that nothing could be seen in the darkness did I quit the lane. I strode back into the lupinarius to return the lamp and then I set off for the ludus.

  My journey this time was quicker, as the streets were more deserted. Most people were indoors for safety, though the wine bars and dining shops overflowed. The delivery wagons hadn’t yet descended on the city for the night, but they would soon.

  Septimius was still at his post. “Back already, Leonidas?” he began, but he trailed off when he noted my grim expression.

  “I need to see Aemil. Let me in.”

  Septimius did so without argument, peering at me in curiosity.

  Aemil was taking his evening meal in his office with Marcianus. He’d shoved aside ledgers and tablets to make space for the bowls of greens, savory meat, beans, and apricots.

  “I found Ajax,” I said without preliminary. “He’s in the Subura.”

  Marcianus froze in the act of lifting an apricot to his mouth, honey dripping across his fingers. Aemil scowled.

  “Is he? In what brothel? I’ll drag him out—after I’ve finished my supper.”

  “He’s dead,” I said. “I found his body.” I turned and started out of the room. “You’ll need a cart.”

  Aemil spewed colorful language both in street Latin and whatever Gallic dialect he used as he stooped over Ajax’s body, the light from Marcianus’s lamp flickering across the scene.

  I’d pulled the cloth from Ajax and then positioned myself at the end of the lane to hide what we did from the main street. Again, any passers-by simply scuttled on, not wanting to know.

  “You are right that he was killed elsewhere,” Marcianus said softly. “No blood at all. He was washed as well. I’d say the greaves and helmet were put on after death, but I’d have to examine him to be certain.”

  Aemil continued his cursing, lending nothing to the discussion.

  Marcianus spoke in clear, calm tones, as he always did, even when dealing with the most serious wounds or while easing the pain of gladiators as they died. His face, however, held shock, which mine must have done when I’d burst in on his meal.

  Aemil at last rose, a grimness in his eyes I’d never seen before. Aemil was a hard man, but I realized he tempered a ruthlessness he chose not to unleash.

  “We take him back.” Aemil, the same height as I was, glared straight into my eyes. “Discover who did this, Leonidas, and bring him to me.”

  I hesitated. I had no business hunting murderers, especially one as mad as whoever had done this to Ajax, but I nodded. I did not like that a killer wandered Rome who could bring down a fighter as skilled as Ajax.

  “And find the rest of my be-damned gladiators,” Aemil snarled.

  He marched past us to the street, leaving Marcianus and me to place Ajax’s body into the cart, covering him again with the tattered cloth plus another Marcianus had brought.

  “He’s been dead at least a day,” Marcianus said to me. “By the feel of his limbs. Again, I can be more certain when I look at him.”

  “He was at a lupinarius down the street last night, so the woman who runs it said.”

  “Well, that narrows things down.” Marcianus turned to Aemil, who waited at the mouth of the passageway. “Are you sure you want him at the ludus, Aemil?”

  Aemil’s scowl grew harsher. “Where else would we take him?”

  “My office? I have more instruments there and can examine him more thoroughly.”

  “What good will that do?” Aemil snapped.

  Marcianus met his belligerence with his usual clear-headedness. “I might ascertain how he was killed and what was used to cut him apart. Whether he was in this garb when he died, or someone dressed his corpse. All useful information.”

  Aemil only growled and spun away.

  “Marcia still lives with you,” I said in a low voice. Marcia was a young woman Marcianus had taken in out of pity, and who had since become his assistant. “She shouldn’t see this.”

  “Marcia is resilient and is a very efficient helper,” Marcianus said, unbothered. “She can also be discreet.”

  Meaning she wouldn’t scream and run for a cohort when she beheld a dismembered corpse.

  Marcianus went on. “My house is also closer, and we won’t have to cross the river or go through a gate.” Guards could stop us at either place and inquire about our business, or worse, look under the cloth.

  Aemil grunted. “Fine. We’ll go.”

  He conceded to heft one side of the hand cart while I took the other. We followed Marcianus as he stepped lightly down the street in the direction of the Aventine.

  We re
ached Marcianus’s small house where he ran his practice without mishap. Once we’d carried the wrapped parts of Ajax’s body to his back room, Marcianus instructed me and Aemil to go away.

  “Nothing more you can do,” he said briskly. “I will let you know how I get on.”

  Aemil gave another of his grunts and walked out.

  Marcia, as Marcianus had predicted, while she blenched when she saw what was under the tarp, proceeded to lay out Marcianus’s tools on a side table and fill a basin with water from a jar without a word. In her plain ankle-length tunic, her hair scraped into a bun, she looked like a young housemaid rather than the brothel girl she’d been.

  I could think of nothing to say to either her or Marcianus, so I left them and strode after Aemil.

  “You ruined my supper.” Aemil barely slowed his steps as I caught up to him, then he suddenly halted. Beside us, a fountain with three bronze fish spewed water into a bowl in a quiet trickle. “Hercules defend us, Leonidas. Who would do such a thing?”

  I studied the corroded green bronze of one fish’s mouth. “Someone who hates gladiators?”

  “Well, I hate magistrates.” Aemil glanced behind him through the darkness to the light in Marcianus’s window. “But I wouldn’t murder one, chop him up, and dress him in a toga.”

  “Someone who hated Ajax in particular,” I suggested, for something to say.

  “Well, find him. Use that slave of yours who writes everything down. And find Rufus and Herakles. And Regulus. He’s now beetled off too.”

  “I watched him leave. He said he had permission.”

  “Well, he’s a liar.” Aemil let out a sigh. “True, I give Regulus a loose rein when there are no games on. He usually just goes to a popina near the ludus, but he hadn’t returned by the time Septimius locked the gates.”

  “I’ll search for him,” I promised.

  “I know you two have become sworn enemies.” Aemil’s lip curled. “But bring him back without bruising him too much. He’s valuable, my biggest draw now, may the gods help me.”

  Aemil looked me up and down as though he wanted to blame me for Regulus’s bad temper, but then he shook his head.

  “Good night, Leonidas.” Aemil strode off into the darkness, his boots crunching over loose pebbles on the street.

  I watched him until his tunic faded into a pale smudge, then I turned my steps toward the forums and the road to the apartment I now called home.

  Cassia had set out stew and bread by the time I reached the room above the wine shop. A cool breeze flowed in from the balcony, but the shutters had not been closed, as they were too heavy for Cassia to lift.

  Cassia sat at the table, bent over her tablets, waiting for me before she ate. Her hair was neat and in place, curls tamed on her forehead, her pale linen tunic without stain. She glanced up as I entered, after making a careful note of the time of my return.

  I halted in the doorway and gazed without interest at the food.

  “Did you find out anything useful?” The avidness in Cassia’s voice at any other time would have amused me. Her stylus hovered, she ready to transcribe anything I had to say.

  “I found Ajax.” My voice was heavy, falling numbly into the room. A mule and cart clattered to a halt in the street below, the drover calling out to the wine merchant.

  “So soon?” Cassia rose, her eagerness fading as she beheld my expression. “What happened?”

  I told her. All of it, sparing no detail. The color drained from her cheeks as I spoke, and she slowly resumed her seat.

  Murder was not unusual in Rome. The dark streets could teem with brigands who would knife a man for a few sestertii—robberies that turned violent accounted for many deaths. Likewise, quarreling men in the popinae could strike each other down in drunken rages.

  This had been very different. A deliberate killing, almost like a sacrifice.

  When my words trailed off, Cassia quickly poured wine from a jug into a cup and pushed it at me.

  I dropped onto my stool across the table from her and drained the cup in one go. I barely tasted the wine, which then lay in a heavy pool in my stomach.

  “Horrible.” Cassia’s voice was barely a whisper.

  I seized the jug and poured myself more wine. “Ajax deserved better. It was as if he was being mocked.”

  “Tell me about him.” Cassia quietly lifted her stylus. “I mean, was Ajax a proficient gladiator? Would someone have been able to kill him easily?”

  “No, they would not.” I sipped the wine this time instead of gulping it and carefully set down the cup. “He was one of Aemil’s best. In order, after Regulus, it’s Rufus, Ajax, and then Herakles. Ajax has only lost a few bouts, and even then he wasn’t badly injured. A skilled fighter.”

  “Who would be able to kill a skilled fighter?”

  “Another skilled fighter.” My mouth flattened to a hard line. “A gladiator, or a soldier, one very good at hand-to-hand combat.”

  “Like one of the Praetorian Guard?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t like the direction of her thoughts. “Are you saying he was invited to fight, as in an exhibition? Paired with an experienced Praetorian to see what would happen? Up on the Palatine?”

  The princeps of Rome, Nero, adopted son of Claudius, might think such a battle was a grand diversion. He would not stop the exhibition from ending in death if he did not choose to.

  “Possibly.” Cassia regained some of her composure. “Though the princeps likely would have sent Ajax’s body back to the ludus, perhaps with a note or a gift to make up for killing one of Aemil’s best fighters. Even if Nero didn’t think of that, his majordomo would. I was speculating that it was a private matter gone wrong. But Marcianus believes the fighting gear was put on him after he died?”

  I recalled Marcianus muttering something about that. “He thought so. He will be sure once he looks Ajax over.”

  “The poor man.” Cassia did not specify whether she meant Ajax or Marcianus. “Ajax must have been taken unawares. Or plied with drink beforehand.”

  I’d lifted my cup for another gulp but set it down abruptly. “Why would someone get Ajax drunk, or slip him herbs to make him sleep, and then kill him? And then …” I waved my hand so I wouldn’t have to describe it again.

  “Yes, it is very odd.” Cassia began marking her tablet, the stylus making little noise on the soft wax.

  “What are you writing?” I asked in mild irritation.

  “A list of possibilities. None are more probable than the others at this point.” Cassia raised her head, the end of her stylus at her lower lip. “Did you find any hint of where the other two gladiators are? Herakles and Rufus?”

  “And now Regulus. Aemil thinks he has gone missing too, though I doubt it. Regulus will keep himself away to be annoying. I haven’t had time to look for the others. Herakles has a highborn lover on the west bank of the Tiber, and Rufus has a wife and apparently mistresses. They should be safe enough with them.” So I hoped. “Ajax had been visiting various lupinari for days. He might have met someone there who lured him out to kill him.”

  “Or he might have been killed in one of the lupinari.”

  I thought back on my encounter with the ladies inside the two I’d visited and shook my head. “The women would have been far more nervous about my questions. They were annoyed at my interruption but not worried over where Ajax had gone.”

  Cassia returned to her notations. “Then we will assume he met someone either in one of the houses or as he departed the last one. Someone who took him elsewhere.”

  “Invited him elsewhere,” I suggested. “And he went willingly. If he’d resisted, there would have been a fight, and people would have remembered.”

  “A good observation.” Cassia wrote this down, approval in her tone.

  “Aemil has instructed me to find his killer. He doesn’t want the cohorts involved.”

  “No? What will he do with the culprit when we find him?”

  I noticed she said when, not if. I also note
d the we. “I don’t know. Give him to the magistrates himself, maybe.”

  “That would rather depend on who this murderer turns out to be.”

  True. If the killer was a bandit or brigand, Aemil would simply execute the man himself and toss the body in the river. Magistrates would frown on Aemil taking matters into his own hands but not care too much. No one had much sympathy for bandits, who preyed on any they could.

  But if this murderous madman was a highborn person, or even of the Equestrian class, the situation would be very different. A patrician or Equestrian would have family, money, and advocates on their side.

  But why would a patrician or Equestrian murder a gladiator and leave him in pieces in a back lane in the Subura? Carefully redressed in his gladiator gear?

  “It makes no sense,” I said, coming out of my thoughts.

  “I agree with you.” Cassia’s nod was decided.

  “Gladiators always fight as warriors,” I mused, half to myself. “Legendary ones. Thracian, myrmillo, provacatur. The retiarius is a fisherman, or sometimes Poseidon, who hunts the secutor. During the Republic, gladiators were dressed as people the Roman army had conquered—the Thracians are from that time. So Marcianus has told me.” I ran my fingers across the scarred tabletop. “We are real fighters, but everything about the battles is staged. The costumes, our names, our combat style. We fight in an arena, before an audience, not on a battlefield.” I paused again, trying to decide what I wanted to say. “Ajax’s body was like that. Staged. Unreal.”

  “But all too real at the same time,” Cassia said softly.

  She understood, to my relief.

  The speech had made me thirsty, and I drank my wine. Swallowing two cups in quick succession added to my drowsiness—my refuge from too much shock was sleep.

  I was also hungry. As shaken as I was about the death, my body, used to taking strain after strain and then getting on with things, nudged me to eat.