by J. P. Bowie
“Whatever happens here,” he said quietly, “you will be safe. You have my word on it.”
“I thank you for that.” I raised my eyes to meet his azure gaze. “In what manner can I help? I feel somewhat out of my depth.”
Spartacus fixed me with a look of such intensity that I felt my stomach turn over. Words alone would not appease this man. Promises of reparation, so easily broken, would never diffuse the rage that emanated from him. When he spoke, his voice was amazingly calm.
“Quintillus, the young gladiator who was beaten by the guards, and the cause of our unrest when last you came here, has been murdered by the same guard who instigated the beating in the first place.” He paused to gesture toward a tall scowling man standing nearby, his sword drawn. “That man, that coward, thinking himself above being reprimanded for his actions, took his revenge on young Quintillus. Our revered lanista,” he continued, with a sneer of contempt at Lentullus, “would prefer to look the other way and do nothing. We will not stand down until justice is done. The guard must die for his crime.”
“Will only his death appease you, Spartacus?” I asked, amid the angry murmurs from the assembled guards. “Would not a suitable flogging suffice?” I knew I was treading on dangerous ground here. The punishment for murder was death, and to offer less than that would equate with the general disdain with which slaves are regarded.
“Would a flogging suffice if the guard had killed a friend of yours?”
It was a fair question, and one that I could not evade. “Not if my friend were deliberately killed. But the guard claims it was an accident.”
Spartacus stared at me silently for a long moment before stepping aside to reveal a body lying on the ground behind him. “Look at him, Lucius. Does it appear an accident befell him?”
I walked slowly toward the body, and felt a shiver of horror ripple down my spine. The man, a boy really, had been brutally beaten, and his throat cut. I cursed softly under my breath, then turned to look at Spartacus.
“His death is tragic… And you are correct, this was no accident.” I paused. “Was there a fight? Could he have defended himself?”
Spartacus grimaced. “Had he been awake, yes he could have defended himself, but he was attacked as he lay asleep.”
“But why?” I looked back at Lentullus, and beckoned him nearer. With seeming great reluctance, the big man cautiously approached us. “Have you seen this man’s injuries? This was no accident, Lentullus. The guard who did this must be punished accordingly.”
Lentullus looked at me as though I had suddenly become the enemy. “The punishment for a slave’s death is, at most, a flogging,” he said, through clenched teeth.
“That’s not good enough,” Spartacus snapped.
“Lentullus…” I kept my voice low as I addressed the ludo owner. “You must show these men that you are a man of your word. To let this go unpunished will cause unrest, and you will once again have to cancel the scheduled fights in the arena.”
Inwardly fuming, he glared at me, obviously wishing that he had never asked me to intervene. “I will not be bullied,” he snarled at me. “By you, or by these slaves—”
“Then you had better leave.” Spartacus’ voice, though low and controlled was filled with a quiet venom that made my blood run cold. “You and your guards will leave this place, or die. The choice is yours.”
“Leave?” Lentullus all but screeched. “I am the master here!”
Spartacus smiled grimly. “You were the master here. Men, stand fast!”
I gasped as, seemingly from nowhere, carefully hidden swords and axes glinted in the hands of the gladiators. Lentullus stumbled back, seeking safety in the line of guards that faced the angry slaves. I felt my arm grabbed, and Callistus hauled me to one side.
“Am I your hostage?’ I asked.
“You will be safer here than with them,” he said, gripping my arm tighter.
I didn’t doubt that for a moment. The guards were easily outnumbered, and as the gladiators advanced on them, they turned and ran, Cassius and Lentullus leading the way. A well-aimed battleaxe buried itself in the back of one of the guards.
“The murderer,” Callistus said, with satisfaction. I stood at his side, enjoying the feel of his hand grasping my biceps.
“What now?” I looked up at him as the gates were slammed behind the last of the fleeing guards.
“They will be back with reinforcements before long, but we will be gone by then.”
“You had this planned all along?”
“Only if Lentullus refused to see reason.” He relaxed his grip on my arm. “You had better go now. You will be given safe passage.”
“But where are you going? The countryside will be no haven for you. Soldiers will search night and day until they have found all of you, and—”
“We know the risks, Lucius. Freedom is out there. Here is just a rotting existence.” He smiled, and squeezed my shoulder. “Go now.”
A kind of madness took hold of me. “I think I would rather stay with you,” I blurted. “You and I—I feel our destinies go hand in hand. Do you not also feel that?” I was babbling, tears stinging my eyes.
He shook his head. “Perhaps, if our lives had been different. But now, you must see it’s impossible. I must go with Spartacus and the men. You could not endure a lifetime of being hunted.”
With you I could, I thought, but he was already leading me toward the gates where Spartacus was waiting.
“I thank you for your efforts, Lucius.” Spartacus gave me his hand. “You will be safer at home than most.”
I frowned. “You mean to pillage the town?”
“We will need supplies, and recruits.” He smiled wryly. “There are hundreds of slaves ready and willing to join us.”
I looked at him with anxious eyes. “But innocent citizens?”
“They will not be harmed if they do not resist.”
I thought of Petronius and Turio. Of course, they would resist. Jupiter, I must warn them. I watched Spartacus as he walked away, leaving Callistus and I alone.
“Go now,” he said, softly.
I flung myself into his arms, and held him in a tight embrace. A sob of despair was torn from me as his arms held me against his hard body.
“I love you, Callistus. Please believe that I always will.”
He did not answer, but I felt a fleeting joy as his arms tightened around me, then just as quickly, released me. Without a word, he strode away. Despite my heavy heart, I ran like the wind to warn my friends of the approaching chaos.
CHAPTER EIGHT
One month later, it seemed as though the world had been turned upside down. As impossible as it seemed, Spartacus and his army of slaves had out-ran, out-maneuvered, then defeated the Roman legions sent against them. The country was in an uproar, for time and time again Spartacus had proven that he and his army were more than a match for Rome’s finest generals and soldiers. What everyone seemed to have forgotten was that Spartacus had been trained in the ranks of the Roman legions, and was therefore able to organize his forces under the same discipline and strategies as the men sent against him.
Word had just come in that, against all odds, his forces that were thought to be trapped on the slopes of Vesuvius had outwitted Claudius Glaber, the praetor sent to bring him in, and, to make matters worse, in the ensuing battle, Glaber, along with most of his soldiers, had been killed. Sometimes, as I would listen to the news of yet another Spartacus victory, I would feel like a traitor, for inwardly I would rejoice that the slaves had not been massacred, and that Callistus was most probably still alive.
Winter was fast approaching, and for a time all hostilities ceased. All I could learn was that Spartacus had bivouacked his men in the south. The spies had reported it was obvious that the slaves were preparing for a long struggle. They were busy, night and day, making weapons and training the hundreds of new recruits that flocked to them on a daily basis. Spartacus had been right when he told me that there were many, many
slaves ready to fight for their freedom.
In November, Petronius married Aurelia, the daughter of Claudius Cimber, and I felt as if yet another part of my life had been irrevocably changed. I would have been happy for him had I believed that he, himself, was happy about the arrangement. But I knew Petronius, perhaps even better than he knew himself. We had shared much more than just friendship, and in the throes of ecstatic intimacy one utters words that, oftentimes, show insight into a person’s mind and soul. I wondered if he would whisper those same words to his new wife.
My ardor for Callistus had not abated. If anything, it had grown stronger. Night after night, I would lie awake imagining what it would have been like if we’d had more time together, rather than those few seconds when he had held me in his arms and pressed his lips to mine. His kiss, his powerful, hard muscled body had evoked a promise of so much more, awakening in me a yearning so strong it could not be ignored. My mind would roam to the plains of southern Italy where the slaves’ encampment lay. I would envision him there, standing guard, alert, stalwart—magnificent.
But even more than the man’s physical allure, I had fallen under the spell of his honest philosophy. His words, brief as they had been, echoed in my thoughts, time and again.
‘All men should be free, Lucius’. I could hear his deep, warm voice so clearly in my mind. ‘Free to follow their own destiny —free to love whom they choose.’
Freedom. When one is born to it, it means nothing more than an accepted right, but if it were taken away—if say, I were thrown into bondage, and had to bow to the whims of other men, how would I deal with that? Would I not also rebel and fight to recover what I believed was my absolute right?
Rollus, my personal slave, interrupted my thoughts as he padded into my room where I sat at my desk preparing the next day’s lessons for my students.
“Your bath is ready, Master Lucius.”
“Thank you,” I said, rising from my desk.
“You seem sad, Master,” he murmured, helping me undress.
“Do I?” Of course, I was unwilling to share what was on my mind with him. How could he ever understand my longing for Callistus, a slave like himself? He would think me mad—or would he? Rollus had been with us since childhood. He was the same age as myself, yet in the selfish manner by which we treat our servants, I had, perhaps unconsciously, distanced myself from him, never regarding him as a confidant. Now, presumably because of my feelings for Callistus, my behavior toward him seemed churlish, and I began to wonder at my arrogance in not seeing him as more than a mere slave.
“Rollus…” I turned to him as we walked toward my bath. “What d’you make of this man, Spartacus?”
He looked at me, his eyes wide. “Spartacus, master?”
“Yes, you know, the gladiator who is leading the slave rebellion.”
“I don’t know, Master Lucius.”
“Oh, come now, you must have some opinion. I’m sure you and the others talk of it all the time. Such a daring thing has never been so successfully carried out before.”
“He is uh…very brave, I think,” Rollus finally replied, watching me slip into the bath water.
I sighed, and signaled that he should sit on the edge of the bath. “You are right. Brave, and it seems, a born leader.”
“He was a centurion in the Roman army, you know,” Rollus told me, opening up a little. “He was not born a slave.”
I gazed up at him, smiling at the earnest expression in his dark brown eyes. “Yes, I had heard that. He and his men mutinied, I understand.”
“That’s what they say, but I heard tell that the commanding officer was to blame.”
I steered the conversation to the person I was more interested in. “And Callistus, the Gaul—the one who made a name for himself in the arena… Do you know of him?”
“Indeed. It is rumored he was a man of importance in his own country.”
I looked up at him, surprised. “I thought he was a soldier in their army.”
“More than that, I think.”
I fell silent. Of course, that would account for his proud bearing and noble look. Majestic, I had thought him on first sight.
“Thank you, Rollus,” I said. “Your news is most interesting.” I patted his hand. “Go to bed now, you must be tired.”
If he was taken aback by my consideration for him, he did not show it. “Thank you, Master Lucius. Goodnight.”
For a long time, indeed until the bath water began to cool, I lay thinking of what Rollus had told me. So Callistus was not just some ordinary soldier captured in battle, but ‘a man of some importance.’ But what did that mean? Knowing very little of the Gallic class system, if indeed one actually existed, I could only guess at what his status might be. Perhaps he came from a noble family, or wealthy merchants. Perhaps he was a prince… To me, he most certainly looked the part.
My mind played out that fantasy. Callistus dressed in magnificent finery, astride a fine steed, the populace cheering as he rode by in triumph. I was to be presented to him at court as an ambassador, come to talk of peace and unity between our people. He would smile at me, that big wonderful smile of his, then he would ask me to dine with him—alone. We would sit together and talk, and I would listen, enthralled by his stories of battles and vanquished foes. As night fell, he would lead me into his private quarters. We would undress each other in a slow and sensuous manner, and he would hold me again as he had done that night at the ludo, only this time he would not let me go. The kiss I imagined he would bestow upon me was so real, that for a moment, I could swear he was actually there with me, and I shivered as the memory of his lips on mine came back to haunt and thrill me again.
Day after day, night after night, he filled my thoughts almost completely. Even when in class, listening to my students mumble their way through the essays I had assigned them, my mind would stray to him, to where he might be, or what he was doing at that precise moment. At night, alone in my bed, I would conjure up the vision of his handsome face. I would remember the thrill of being held in his strong embrace, and I longed for the sound of his voice and his touch.
On one such night, unable to sleep, my thoughts constantly going over the last time I had seen Callistus, I rose, determined that I must find him and tell him I could not live without him. Slave, gladiator, enemy soldier—whatever he was, I knew my life would not be complete without him. I left my mother a hastily scrawled note telling her of my departure, and that I would return as soon as I could. I left what money I had saved from my earnings for her, then taking a few winter clothes with me, and a knife for protection, I slipped out of the house.
This is madness, I thought, trudging through Capua’s cold, darkened streets. But it was the kind of madness that drives a man on, to take risks, to search for what he feels is missing from his life. If I fail, I can at least say I tried. Even if all this came to naught, if Callistus had found someone else only too willing to give him warmth and comfort on these harsh, cold nights, if he turned me away—
My mind faltered at that possibility, and I sent up a silent prayer to all the gods that it would not be so.
× × × × ×
I awoke to the sound of rough voices, and the prodding of a foot on my side.
For three days I had walked southward in the hope of reaching the slaves’ encampment, but the driving wind and snow had forced me into the shelter of some trees where I had fallen to the ground from sheer exhaustion. I must have drifted into unconsciousness, for how long I had lain there, I had no notion.
“Is he dead, d’you think?” someone asked, pulling on my cloak.
Another voice. “If he is, let’s take his clothes.”
“Take them anyway.”
“Look at his hands. He’s not a slave. Hasn’t done a day’s hard labor in his life.”
“He’s a pretty one, though…”
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the three faces that hovered over me. Two men and a woman.
“Are you with Spartac
us?” I asked, my voice weak to my ears.
One of them, the woman, leaned closer. “What d’you want with him? You’re not one of us.”
“I spoke with him before the rebellion.” I tried to sit up, but one of the men put his foot on my chest, pinning me down.
“Are you a Roman spy?” he hissed at me, pulling a knife from his belt.
“No, no, I’m not a spy! Take me to Spartacus. He knows who I am. My name is Lucius Tullius.”
“Kill the pretty spy, and be done with it,” the woman said. “I could use a good winter cloak.”
The man with his foot on my chest brought his knife to my throat. Oh Juno, I thought, envisioning my blood splattered on the snow beneath me. Is this how it will end? Without ever seeing Callistus, and telling him what he means to me? My fear gave me strength. I struggled under the man’s foot, grasping his leg and throwing him backwards. With a curse, he stumbled and fell, giving me time to rise, somewhat unsteadily, to my feet. I drew my own knife, and held them at bay.
“I am not a spy,” I repeated, breathing heavily, my eyes darting from one to the other, anticipating their attack. “Just let me speak to Spartacus.”
“Hold!” A shout from behind us stayed any action the three were contemplating. “What’s going on here?” Two men in military armor were striding quickly toward us.
“He’s a spy,” the woman yelled at them. “We caught him spying.”
“No, I’m not a spy.” I knew these men were now my only hope of survival. “They found me asleep, and were intent on killing and robbing me.”
“Who are you?” The spokesman, a tall red haired young man with a military bearing, stared at me from pale gray eyes.
“Lucius Tullius. I was the one who spoke with Spartacus before the rebellion.”
“I remember you,” the redhead’s companion said, pushing the woman to one side. “You were there when we sent old Lentullus running for his life.”