by Nick Morris
“You’re a funny man,” said Maccalus, his words heavy with sarcasm. He turned his attention back to the column of slaves. A slave near the tail had stumbled to his knees. It was one of the Gauls and a recent arrival. Maccalus thought the man looked more dead than alive, but he had his job to do.
He flexed his fingers on the handle of his punishment rod. Three foot long it was cut from hard wood, but was not heavy enough to break bones. As a result, its use didn’t stop the victim from working; rather the thick switch was supple with its tip split. When used on the slaves, the tip would expand on contact and then rip away flesh when withdrawn. Maccalus used the rod with little restraint, and admired its ability to get a slave to his feet without damaging him so badly that he couldn’t carry on working.
“The work must go on at all costs,” the words had been drummed into him when he’d been first posted to the mines, because Rome must have its sulphur, vital for its bleaching qualities and its use as fertilizer and medicine.” Maccalus cared little for its uses, but he understood what his job demanded. The slaves were to be steadily worked till they died. There were no burials in the mines, and corpses were either thrown out with the slag or dropped into the mine’s lower reaches, where the rats would make short work of the bodies.
Maccalus brought the rod down heavily on the kneeling slave’s back, causing a great wheel to blossom across the bowed spine. The slave emitted a muffled grunt then collapsed onto his face.
“Get up you dog!” Maccalus shouted, striking the prone slave a second and third time, the blows much harder. Bits of ragged flesh dangled in strips from the end of the rod but the slave did not move. Maccalus raised his arm again. “I’ll teach you to obey me, you filth. I’ll fucking strip you to the bone!”
“The Gaul’s dead,” the words were spoken slowly, the Latin heavily accented. Maccalus lowered his hand and turned to face the slave who spoke. It was the Dacian.
Maccallus recognised him immediately. Big, although stooped from his time in the cramped mines, and he stood out from the other wretches. His long hair was black beneath the stone dust, hacked straight above heavy brows. His dark eyes were deep set above a flat broken nose and high cheek bones, and framed by tattooed shapes that looked like beasts. A heavy jaw was framed by a thick tangled beard. He’d lowered his face rag in order to speak.
The Dacian was renowned throughout the mining community as an exception, having survived in the sulphurous hole in the earth for three years when slaves rarely survived longer than one. Maccalus and his fellow guards had often puzzled how the Dacian had maintained his vigour when others had withered and died around him, the mine’s brutal regime breaking even the strongest. An unflinching worker, his brutish strength and vicious temper had dissuaded even the most evil tempered of the mine’s convicted killers and rogues from provoking him. Just prior to the recent Parilia Festival a notorious felon from Capua had been found dead one morning. His throat had been crushed. The Dacian was the only suspect, but even when the other miners’ meagre rations were temporarily stopped, no one dared identify the killer, so great was their fear.
“You dare to speak,” Maccalus spat out the words. His rod still raised he gauged the distance to strike the insolent Dacian.
The blow was never delivered. The fire in the Dacian’s eyes and the tightly balled fists at his side told Maccalus that the Dacian would not meekly accept the rod. He hesitated, feeling his bowels churn. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Canio had risen to his feet, hand on his sword hilt. Both of them knew that the Dacian was a killer.
Tense moments passed and then Maccalus pointed with his rod, firstly towards the Dacian and then to the unmoving Gaul, instructing, “Get rid of this filth down the shaft.” Not taking his eyes off the Dacian he bent and unfastened the Gaul’s iron collar. Wary, he took a step back.
Without hesitation the Dacian hefted the Gaul’s body onto his broad shoulder. Striding to the end of the tunnel, he shrugged off the body into the shaft’s gaping darkness. He fell back in line.
Maccalus breathed out, relieved. “Get moving to the face,” he barked the order.
Watching the slaves shuffle into the awaiting gallery, he sensed Canio at his side.
“More food for the rats,” said Canio, in an attempt to ease the tension of the encounter. “The mine has grown some large bastards by the size of the wounds on the bodies that have turned up.” He shivered as he spoke, his revulsion obvious when he referred to the mine’s ever present vermin.
“So I’ve heard,” said Maccalus, his voice tight, eyes still focused on the back of the Dacian as he disappeared into the gloom.
“Forget the bastard,” Canio advised, nudging him on the arm. “The mine will eventually finish him off…it always does. The gods only know how that evil bastard has lasted this long. Come, let’s get a drink, my throat’s as dry as a camel’s arse.”
Maccalus nodded, accepting his companion’s advice, feeling his anger drain away, and his fear too.
Drilgisa leaned back against the tunnel wall, feeling a dull pain where the back of his head touched the stone. He reached back and rubbed the thick scar beneath the hair – a token of his first battle and a reminder of the accuracy of Rome’s sling men.
He wiped the fine layer of stone dust from the rind of bread in his hand. Everything was covered in the dust from the yellow crystals that they cut from the rock deep in the earth’s bowels. Drilgisa believed that it was the dust that killed them as much as the brutal, unending labour. He viewed the bread, satisfied that he could take a bite.
He dipped the crust into his bowl. This was his main meal of the day and his bowl contained a salty fish sauce. Their only other sustenance was a cup of posca at dawn just before they started work. The vinegary drink would make the miners a little drunk and they were fed enough to get them up and moving, but not enough for them to put up any resistance. They were also given pales of water twice a day to keep them going. The water helped, but not much. The awful heat and the dust ridden air was a terrible killer. Despite the narrow air-shafts that ran to the surface alongside the low tunnels, there was a constant struggle to suck in enough air to keep working, to keep swinging their iron picks to dislodge the yellow sulphur crystals from the gallery’ walls.
He’d witnessed hundreds of slaves succumb to the awful conditions, had watched them grow steadily weaker before discarding their face cloths as they gave up hope. He’d seen them spit out their lungs in bloody bits, the flesh withering from their bones. Few had lasted for longer than one turn of the seasons.
Drilgisa had never given up hope. To do so would have been to surrender, and he did not have it in him. He told himself the one thing that would keep him going: that one day he would have a chance to escape this place. He did not know how, but he believed such a day would come. He had to, in order to go on.
He took another bite of the sopped bread. As he ate his thoughts went to the dead Gaul, and his mouth began to water. He smiled wryly. What a waste, he thought. His mind tracked back to his early days in the mine. As he lost weight he knew that the food he was given would not sustain him for long. He’d watched other strong and durable men wither and eventually die, and he came to realize that the strongest amongst them were given the harshest tasks. In addition to his own work at the mine face, on regular occasions he’d been herded to the surface at night. There, he’d been give the heaviest of jobs at the smelting works, and close by where the clay was separated from the yellow crystals and shaped into tiles. He knew he needed meat to survive. And, there was only once source of meat that was available to him – those that died every few days.
The decision had not been an easy one, but he understood that there was no other choice. He remembered the first day when he’d laid down for the night next to the corpse of a young thief, a Syrian younger than himself. The body was still fresh and he knew that the guards would have the body disposed of in the morning. With a stone he had scratched to a sharp edge, he’d scraped away the skin on th
e body’s buttocks and then sawed free a piece of flesh. He remembered how he’d gagged on the first mouthful and but had eventually succeed in swallowing it. He’d been able to consume a further three or four more pieces, swallowing without chewing. When finished, he covered over the eaten area with the boy’s loin cloth. The following morning the guards removed the body without suspicion, and if the wounds had been discovered later it would have been blamed on the work of the rats.
Afterwards, he’d found feeding on man-flesh easier. He’d discovered where the most tender parts on the body were, and after a time the practice became less difficult, the flesh more palatable. It kept him strong.
Drilgisa had never been found out by the guards, but he suspected that some of the other miners were aware of what he practised in the nights. He’d catch them staring at him when he was swinging his iron pick at the rock wall, saw the fear and revulsion written clearly on their gaunt faces. Fear was good, their deep fear of what he might do to them keeping them quiet.
His mind drifted back over the thousand days he had lived beneath the ground. He’d kept count by scratching a mark for each day’s work on a patch of the tunnel wall. Sometimes, he thought that he must be mad to do so, because each day was like the next, most days anyway. Picturing the face of young Mensah, the days rolled back to the first night they met…
Mensah had been one of the carusi, the mine’s boy slaves. While the work of digging out the yellow sulphur crystals was carried out by the men, the drudgery of carrying the rubble to the surface was done by these boys. Some of them had seen as few as six summers. Drilgisa had witnessed the frequent beatings that they were given, and Mensah later told him that the guards would often burn the backs of their calves with fire, to get them back to their feet after they’d collapsed with exhaustion. Some tried to run. When they were caught, as they always were, they were badly beaten, often killed. Those who survived would have the backs of their heels cut with iron pinchers. After, they’d not run very far. The guards and some workers also roughly used them like women when the opportunity arose. It was on such an occasion that they first met.
Drilgisa had been digging in one of the above workings. Taking a much needed drink, he’d heard a commotion from the shadows of an adjacent gallery. A young voice cried out in pain. Familiar with such noises he paid little attention, at first. The cries continued, accompanied by the sound of heavy blows. A pitiful crying began. He’d shuffled towards the sound, dragging three of his workers with him, their neck’ shackles making it impossible for them to resist.
The crying drew him into the thick shadows. Before him he saw the slim figure of a carusi, held down by a miner who sat across his shoulders. Another miner was entering him from behind. The boy continued to cry; an awful, wrenching sound that cut into him. Rage filled him, and he swooped down on the two miners.
He later found out that one of the miners had died of his injuries two days later. His companion had never recovered from having his arm badly broken, and unable to work was led away by the guards. He did not return.
A hundred days had passed since that day, but he still clearly recalled venting his anger upon the two men; the sound of skin splitting, bones cracking as he beat upon them with his iron fists. He remembered something else too. He remembered feeling puzzled by his actions for just a boy, a stranger. He had thought about it many times since, as he lay down in the dark pit at night. In the end, he believed that it was his own childhood that had stirred him up – the years without love after his real mother died, and the cruel treatment at the hands of his father. Treatment that only ended when he’d slit his throat while on a hunting trip together. He’d buried the bastard deep, blanketed in heavy stone so the beasts of the forest could not retrieve him.
The day after the beating the youth had approached him. Looking very nervous he’d thanked him. He told him that his name was Mensah, meaning ‘third born, ’ and that he was Egyptian.
At first inspection Mensah had appeared more girl than boy. His black curly hair fell to his shoulders, which were narrow and ill-suited to hard labour. His eyes were large, clear, like chips of black stone. Full lips gave him a sensual look, and Drilgisa understood why he’d attracted the attention of his fellow miners, and doubtless the guards too. He was instantly attracted to him.
During the days that followed Mensah came to him whenever he was given the chance. They became lovers. None of the miners bothered the young Egyptian afterwards, and Drilgisa did not ask about the guards, and Mensah said nothing.
When they first coupled Drilgisa had been surprised at the young Egyptian’s skills in ways to give men pleasure.
Mensah told him that his family had been poor, and, when his father who was a fisherman was drowned in a great storm at sea, his mother had sold him to a house of whores in a city named Alexandria after a great conqueror. Following his father’s death, his mother had been unable to feed her three sons, and Mensah was the youngest. He was twelve summers old when he entered the house of whores, and he was quick to learn the skills that pleased some men. Later, the owner had later fallen on hard times and sold off all his whores to the highest bidder. The following spring he’d arrived on Roman shores. Unfortunately for Mensah, his company of slaves were sold as one group to the sulphur mines at Solfatara.
Their time together had been special to Drilgisa. The awful reality of complete isolation from the outside world was softened by Mensah’s nearness and their ability to talk to each other. Mensah taught him many things about the Roman world and the Romans themselves. It was the first time that Drilgisa had cared for another person in any way since his mother died, and even those early memories were muddied by the cruel years that followed under his father’s brutal hand.
He’d known early on that Mensah was weak and that he’d not last long without sustenance, without meat. He clearly remembered the times that he’d coaxed the youth to sample small pieces of flesh. Mensah was unable to do it.
He recalled how later Mensah had tried to hide from him the blood he wretched up, but the signs were clear to Drilgisa, he’d seen them so often. The little weight he carried fell from him, and his dark eyes sank deep into his head. His once olive skin took on a grey pallor, and towards the end he could barely lift his sack of rubble onto his back.
Then one morning Mensah did not come and Drilgisa knew that he would not see him again. Mensah’s death left him with an aching sense of loss, an empty feeling that sat alongside the cold bitterness that already lived in his heart.
Letting out a great sigh, Drilgisa took out the sharpened stone from his loin cloth. Twisting his body half around he scratched a fresh mark on the wall below the forest of marks already there.
The sun was a hazy, red orb in the sky, just setting as Drilgisa viewed the horizon.
Not used to the light he squinted at his surroundings. He’d not viewed the world in sun-light since his arrival at the mines, with his trips to the surface always being at night. His eyes rebelled, squeezing out moisture that ran down his face. He licked his cracked lips welcoming the tears, tasting the saltiness and the dirt. He looked all around.
For many leagues in every direction the vegetation had been was killed off by the poisonous smoke and vapours from the mine’s smelters, and the whole countryside was blotched and scabrous. To Drilgisa it appeared as if the land itself was diseased and dying. It was the forbidding place of bad dreams.
The guard who’d escorted him to the surface unfastened his hand irons. A second guard drew near and briskly ordered him to strip and wash his body, using a clean pale of water and a stiff horse brush. Already puzzled by his trip to the surface, he began to feel increasingly perturbed as he went about his ablutions.
The encrusted grime came away in grey lumps as he scrubbed his body. When he began to scrub his face one of the guards waved him to stop. With a small, sharp blade the guard proceeded to cut the beard from his face. He felt the blade cut his flesh as the guard yanked away stiff clumps, before hacking off his lo
ng matted hair in a similar manner. He shivered in the evening air, savouring each breath that was so different to the stifling filth he breathed under the earth.
Trimming complete, the guard dosed his head and shoulders with the water left in the pale. He was then handed a coarse rag to dry himself, and a fairly clean loin-cloth to change into. A cold breeze washed over him as he changed, causing little bumps to rise up on his balls. It felt good.
On inspecting his body he was surprised by the stark whiteness of his skin, flushed with blood in places that the coarse brush had scoured to the surface.
“You will be inspected by a guest of Centurion Auila,” said one of the guards, lifting Drilgisa’s head up with his bunched fist. “The guest is a well-respected official who buys slaves to train as gladiators. Do you know what a gladiator is?”
Drilgisa nodded that he did. He’d been chained alongside such men, men who’d retired from the arena and had committed crimes that delivered them here. He’d listened to their many stories: about their fights, the feasts, and the women.
“Good,” said the guard, re-attaching Drilgisa’s hand irons. “Just remember to speak only if you are asked a question, and to do whatever you’re instructed. Clear?”
“Yes, it’s clear,” replied Drilgisa, his voice a gritty rasp, the Latin words awkward.
The sun had almost set and darkness was falling quickly. He stretched his eyes wider, testing the light. The creeping gloom felt more comfortable.
There was a drone of voices from the direction of the guards’ billet and Drilgisa turned to see two men approaching. One was the centurion Auila, who he knew commanded the camp. He was wearing his full body armour and a shining helmet capped by a wide plume the colour of blood. His short sword was sheathed at his hip. The man with him was fat and dressed in a billowing garment the colour of a summer sky, and a cloak of dark green draped over his shoulders. A gold clasp glistened at his throat.