by J. G. Willem
The bull continued to stare, enraged and equally frozen.
Far away, a crowd was cheering.
Belbus squinted as the darkness bled away, but hung around the edges. He blinked. His peripherals stayed hazy and dim. The room came into focus around him. Around the bull. It was no stable, he realised, but the same room he’d previously been pacing in.
Only now, the doors were closed.
And there were men present. A lot of them.
And there was a bronze statue of a bull standing five feet tall at the shoulder right in front of him. The horns as smooth and shiny as goblets as it stooped to gore his flesh. The bulging neck and shoulder muscles rendered exquisitely in bronze, rippling through the metal. It caught the sunlight slanting in through the dust and glowed.
The crowd continued to roar; the noise like thunder in his ears.
Belbus frowned as he stared at the bull, wondering if perhaps he was dreaming. If he was imagining things. Seeing things. Maybe this was Elysium. Maybe he was dead.
One of the men stepped forward and crouched down beside the bull, patting it behind the ears with a bandaged hand. He smiled at the creature, then looked down at Belbus. Belbus recognised him.
“Hello, Pistrus,” he croaked.
“Hello, Belbus.” The charioteer gave a sigh, like this was an unfortunate circumstance they found themselves in and he really didn’t want to be doing what he was doing.
Belbus blinked. Lifted his head a little. Felt a spike of pain drive through his skull. Groaned.
“Yes, sorry about the chair. It was necessary, I’m afraid. You are one slippery little worm. We couldn’t take any chances.”
Through the blinding pain, Belbus saw Ursa alongside him. She was sitting up, cross-legged. Woozy, but with a few more of her wits about her. Ursa had been conscious for longer than he had. She’d had more time to absorb the situation in all its futility.
Her eyes were wet, acting as mirrors for the light. They shone, and seemed to vibrate in their sockets.
There was nothing he could do. No help he could offer. No hope he could give. He barely had enough for himself.
Ursa’s hands were bound behind her back. When he tried to move, he discovered his were too. Blood had dried in her hair where the chair had splintered. He wondered if he was bleeding. He couldn’t feel a crust or any dampness, but it certainly hurt like hell. Whenever he moved his head, a fresh paroxysm rendered him momentarily blind. The solution he quickly arrived at was to move his head as little as possible. Not at all, if he could.
“All I need you to do is tell me where she is,” Pistrus said, clapping his hands together. “The race is about to start. In a few moments, I will have to leave. You tell me where she is, I win the race, you run away with your slave bride, your partner here takes over your operation, you retire in luxury in the countryside with a sum of your choosing... and we don’t have to resort to what we have planned here.”
Belbus’ good eye drifted to the brazen bull behind Pistrus. To the men behind the bull. They were standing in a row - twenty of them, maybe more - and they were glaring at him. One of them was Auribus. Auribus wasn’t glaring. He seemed, incongruously, forlorn.
“See, the fellas behind me... they don’t want you to tell me where the girl is. You’ve killed a lot of their friends in the past week. A lot of mine, too, but I can forgive. I’m still prepared to let you go. Your partner as well. These guys don’t forgive.”
Auribus was still wearing his necklace of ears.
“These guys would rather you keep your mouth shut, because that means we have to use the bull. You don’t want us to have to use the bull. Trust me. These guys want to use the bull. Before we got here, they were practically begging me to use the bull. And I will... if I have to. Am I going to have to use the bull, Belbus?”
The bookie swallowed, partly to lubricate his mouth, partly to delay asking a question he didn’t want the answer to.
“What’s the bull?” His voice was hoarse. Dry.
Pistrus cleared his throat. “Well... it’s an ingenious little thing, really.”
He got up and went around to the side of the statue, pulling open a door in the animal’s side.
“It’s hollow...”
He reached inside to prove that this was, indeed, the case.
“Large enough to fit a full-grown man.”
Belbus didn’t like where this was going.
Pistrus smiled, showing his teeth. He began a slow compass of the bull, running his bandaged hand along its smooth, shining flank.
“It was designed seven hundred years ago by Perillos of Athens for Phalaris, who was tyrant of Sicily at the time. Phalaris truly lived up to that title, gave it the bad name we associate with it today. Among his many cruelties was an appetite for human flesh. An appetite he happily and frequently indulged. Specifically, the flesh of babies still suckling at their mothers’ tit. To please such a monster, Perillos of Athens created this.”
He gestured to the brazen bull.
“A man goes inside, a fire is lit underneath, and the man is slowly roasted to death.”
Belbus felt his stomach drop.
“But that’s not even the best part,” Pistrus said, giddy as a schoolboy. “Inside are a system of tubes and stops that convert the screams of the dying man into the bellows of a bull. Can you believe that?” He shook his head, amazed at the ingenuity. “I have seen the Colosseum and the Senate House and I have ridden in the Circus Maximus above our heads. But this may be the greatest testament to man’s ingenuity I have seen yet. It is a beautiful brutality, isn’t it?”
Belbus said nothing. He realised his breathing had quickened, grown shallow in his nostrils. He could almost hear the heart hammering against his ribcage.
“I will only ask you one more time,” said Pistrus, still facing the bull. “Where is my daughter?”
“Just throw the race,” Belbus said, exhaling the words more than speaking them. “You risk your daughter’s life and your political career for... for what? For your legacy?”
“Oh, Belbus. You poor, sweet, naive child. Don’t you understand? It is not your place to say, “Yes, I can do this” or, “No, I can’t have that.” You don’t have that power over me. No man does. I do not need to choose between things. I can have it all, and I will. No matter the cost.”
“Sounds familiar,” Ursa muttered.
Belbus went to look at her, knowing she was right, but Pistrus grabbed his jaw, keeping him facing the charioteer. The light had gone out in his eyes now.
“I will not be told what to do or what not to do. I will have no avenue shut to me, no road forbidden. I will not be made to restrain myself in any way because I am no man’s slave, least of all yours. I am a patrician. I will only go up. Never down, and never staying in the same place. Stagnation is death. Decline is death. I will only keep climbing until I reach the top, and not you or your attack dogs or your cunt of a partner will stop me.”
Belbus felt Ursa burning a hole in the side of Pistrus’ face with her glare. The charioteer stayed locked on Belbus.
“Where is she?”
“I thought you were only going to ask me one more time.”
Pistrus’ vice-like grip tightened on the bookie’s jaw. Belbus closed his eyes, forcing himself not to imagine the lower half of his face hanging loose like a broken gate, tongue lolling out through the broken bones and teeth and drooping skin.
“Clever,” the charioteer said. “Very clever. Too clever for your own good. I haven’t told you what’s going to happen to your partner yet, have I?”
At this, the bookie’s eyes snapped open.
“It won’t be the bull for her. Oh, no. Well, not the animal kind anyway.”
Belbus saw the soldiers in a row behind the charioteer. Behind the bull. The human bulls. Maybe two dozen in all. Lined up and ready to go. Some of them smiling. Others with eyes of stone.
“They’ll take their turn one by one - or all together, we didn’t discuss specifi
cs - and they’ll do it right here before your lone remaining eye...”
Belbus turned in Pistrus’ grasp to see Ursa. He saw the hope bleeding out of her eyes, the fear pouring in to fill the void. The desperation that begged him to relent and the despair that knew he wouldn’t.
“She’ll die with every orifice crammed full and bleeding. They might even have to carve a few new holes to make room for everyone.” Pistrus gave a hideous, wet cackle. “There are a lot of them, and they’re not a patient lot. I realise it’s overkill, but I had to get your attention.”
Pistrus turned Belbus forcefully back to himself. He was still laughing.
“I had to get your attention.”
Through mushed lips, Belbus said, “How is that any different from what will happen to your daughter?”
The charioteer knit his brows a moment, then his face relaxed with dawning realisation.
“You’ve gotten attached to her, haven’t you?” Another laugh, this one of surprise. “It’s not just about the slave girl or the money or getting your revenge anymore, is it? Goddamn it, why did I have to go running my yap about Agnina’s beau-to-be?” He shook his head. “That was foolish. I admit it. Foolish. It would be wise of you to disregard what I said. In the grand scheme of things, it’s nothing. A drop in the ocean. She’s one of thousands who will suffer the same fate in Rome this very year. It is, regrettably, the destiny of most women: to serve the designs of men. You despise the institution of human slavery? Do something about it. Run for office. It won’t happen while I’m in the Senate, I assure you, but saving just one girl from her fate is proportionally the same as doing nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” said Belbus. “She’ll get to grow up, have a childhood. She’ll get to fall in love, and marry on her own terms if she wants. She’ll get to live...”
Pistrus had had enough. He pushed Belbus backwards so hard his skull cracked against the stone and light exploded behind his eyes. The charioteer came over the top of him, straddling his body and holding the bookie’s jaw firm in his hand like the reins of a horse, or a team of horses. His eyes bulged. His face turned red. The veins ran taut like ship-ropes in his neck and across his forehead. He clenched his bandaged hand into a fist and pointed a trembling forefinger between the bookie’s eyes.
“And you’ll die screaming in an oven as the skin peels from your body onto the inside of the bull! You’ll suffocate on the smell of your own roasting flesh while your partner is raped to death just outside. You’re no fucking hero, Belbus!” He was screaming now, grinding Belbus’ head into the floor, every word accompanied by flecks of spittle. “Don’t pretend for a second you’re willing to endure this or subject your partner to it for the sake of a girl whose fate was already sealed when you met her. Her fate has been decided. Yours has yet to be. Take your slave bride. Take your partner. Take your riches. Just give me back my bargaining chip!”
Belbus shut his eyes. Not only because of the spittle raining down upon him from the charioteer’s snarling lips, but because he could not confront the mirror of another human face. Because he could not contend with the decision he had already made; the decision that would haunt him forever. Because he had never hated himself more than he did in that moment. Because Pistrus was right.
“Via Valeria,” said Belbus, as a tear bled down the side of his face. “Number forty four.”
“Is that a house or a building?”
“It’s a house.”
“Who’s there?”
“Just her, my guys, and the owner.”
“Who’s the owner?”
“A man who owes me a favour. An old man. Mostly blind. He’s not a threat.”
“And your guys?”
“They are.”
“How many of them?”
“Two.”
When he opened his eyes again, he saw Pistrus closing his. Relief. Ecstasy. The look a man gets on his face shortly after climaxing. He got what he wanted. He had won.
“Thank you, Belbus,” he said. “Thank you.”
Still straddling the bookie, he turned to his men. “You heard him. Numidius, take half and go get her. The rest of you, stay here with them until she’s in your custody. He could be lying, after all.”
Numidius nodded. He tapped half the soldiers on the back as he passed them and they followed him out the door.
The charioteer turned back to Belbus. “Although I wouldn’t want to be you if you’re lying.”
Belbus held his gaze from his floor.
Above, the crowd began to boo. A long, low jeer like the bellow of a cow.
Pistrus smiled, cupping his free hand to his ear. “You hear that, Belbus? They do not approve of your man. They know he doesn’t belong here. In the arena, they would cheer him. Not here. Here, they want me.”
As if on cue, the booing slowly transformed into a chant:
“Pis-trus! Pis-trus! Pis-trus!”
The charioteer’s icy blue eyes sparkled with delight. He released Belbus and rose, face turned skyward, eyes shut, breathing in deeply through his nostrils. Like the flower that traces the parabola of the sun, stretching for it, yearning for it, the roar of the crowd was feeding him, filling him up. They wanted him, and he them, and they fed off one another as the crocodile holds its mouth open for a bird to eat the leeches, and the crocodile is made clean and the bird made safe and satisfied.
“Pis-trus,” he whispered, in time with the crowd. “Pis-trus. Pis-trus.”
Pistrus lowered his head, eyes opening clear like a man reborn.
He re-addressed his captives. “Alas, I must leave you. The race is beginning. I am being summoned to walk with the gods. They wait for me, but they will not wait forever. For your sake, I hope you weren’t lying.”
“For the girl’s sake,” Belbus said, “I hope I was.”
The charioteer’s smile vanished. “You couldn’t harm a hair on her head even if I didn’t throw the race. Your threat is null and void, and you, sir, are a coward. Not just a coward, but a liar and a thief and a charlatan. You talk the talk, Belbus, but you cannot walk the walk. I have seen the truth of it here, right in your lone remaining eye. You care about the girl. That is a mistake. To care about someone, let alone to care about them more than yourself, is an error in judgement. You place yourself at a disadvantage, leave yourself open to attack. And for what? For nothing. Now, you have nothing. Less than nothing.”
Belbus propped himself up onto his elbow, coughing. “You said...”
“Forget what I said.”
He watched the bookie with those cold, steely eyes. Something was happening in his mind. Gears were turning. Belbus could see it. His lip twitched with a sadistic eagerness.
“Forget what I said,” he repeated, this time to Auribus. “Kill them both.”
Belbus felt his heart stop.
He turned to Ursa. Her eyes had grown to twice their normal size.
“Belbus...” she said, her voice scarcely a whisper.
“But, sire...” Auribus began. “What if he’s lying?”
“He isn’t. He won’t kill the girl.”
“Even so, if he was lying, we still won’t have her to present to the senator. We’ll need to start over, search the city top to bottom.”
Pistrus leaned closer to him, annoyed by what he perceived as either laziness or impudence. “Then that’s what you’ll do. I won’t be able to race properly unless I know these two troublemakers are dead. Kill them. And not quickly. The bull, and the bulls. When you have Agnina in your custody, send me confirmation.”
Then he left, slamming the door behind him.
In the silence that followed his departure, a lot of looks crossed the room.
The soldiers looked to Auribus, for confirmation.
Auribus looked to Belbus, wavering.
Belbus looked to Ursa, terrified.
Ursa returned the look, also terrified.
She looked at the dozen soldiers remaining, and her terror only deepened.
Belbus lo
oked at the bull, and his followed suit.
“Leave us,” Auribus said to his men. “Wait outside.”
They hesitated for a moment in their confusion, but did as they were told; some visibly disappointed they weren’t getting down to it right away.
Above, the chanting continued: “Pis-trus! Pis-trus! Pis-trus!”
Then...
An almighty cheer seemed to shake the very room. A hundred and fifty thousand people shouting in unison. Their champion had arrived. The god who walked among them.
Pistrus.
When the door was closed, Auribus stepped forward, and with a heavy heart, he said, “Again, I’m really sorry about...”
He gestured to the bookie’s eyepatch.
“...and also about the chair. And the bull. And to you, miss, for... well...”
“You can’t apologise for something you haven’t done,” Ursa said. “Just don’t do it.”
“I wish it were that simple, miss. I do. I don’t want to do this. I don’t think you deserve it. Frankly, I don’t think anyone does.”
“Maybe you should just cut our ears off instead,” she said derisively.
Auribus looked down at his necklace of ears. He snorted.
“I bought these off a travelling merchant in Germania. I’ve never cut an ear from someone’s head in my life, dead or alive. I haven’t the stomach for it. Nor this occupation anymore, I’m realising.”
“Then quit,” she said. “And take us with you.”
He chuckled at that. “Maybe I should. Taking a guard job, I thought the bulk of my worries would be a sore back. Stiff knees. I certainly didn’t envision this.”
Belbus watched him, sensing movement. Hoping....
“But if I disobey Pistrus, I’ll be liable to end up the same as you, let alone trying to find employment in the city.”
“I hear the country’s nice,” said Ursa.
But Auribus wasn’t listening anymore. He was staring at the ground, as if before him openessssd a vast chasm into which he might fall and keep falling. Belbus saw the fear of it in his still-bruised eyes, and the equal fear of the trail he would need to blaze alone. There were no good options here, only bad ones. No good choices, only the best bad choice.