Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Nepos, who never went home now but spent day and night attending to his prisoners and rearranging groups for this and that atrocious butchery, made quite a confidant of Tros, invited him to share his hurried meals and grumbled to him about every countermanded order and new interference with his plans.

  “Why can’t they leave it to men who have done this kind of thing all their lives? Take your men, for instance. First, I was to send them in to fight Numidians. That would have been good; but, some fool thought it would be better to send them against Roman gladiators, who would finish them off and then slaughter the blacks — which would have been a sort of compliment to the ever-victorious Roman legions.

  “Well, that wouldn’t have been so bad, although it would have cost like Canna in expensive gladiators. But some other idiot remembered your men are criminals and not entitled to a fair chance. One man said I shouldn’t give them weapons. I had Hercules’ own labor to convince that stupid fool — he’s one of Pompey’s favorites and probably the man who agreed with Zeuxis to put you in trouble for sake of your pearls. — Did you have pearls? Did the wrong man get them from you? This job looks to me like spite.”

  “I have fifty, and a little money,” Tros said, looking keenly at him.

  “Well, you can’t buy me! If you get out of this you will need all — but I don’t believe that’s possible. If it’s a case of masks and hooks that cloak of yours shall hang on my wall. I will keep an eye on the men who drag you to the spoliarium.

  That fool argued that you and your men are criminals and should be torn by beasts; he tried to bribe me to have you trapped somehow and used on the bulls that Caesar sent here recently. When he sees you in the arena he’ll be surprised. He’ll expect me to claim that bribe. Maybe I will! Luckily for you Caesar’s agents wouldn’t let us have the bulls; Caesar expects to use them for his own show later on. I insisted you’re not regular criminals, not having been committed by a judge, and somebody might hold me liable if I should send you in unable to protect yourselves. Then they thought of a new notion — not a bad one either. Your men are to have the weapons they’re used to and fight lions; then Numidians; then, if they survive that, Roman gladiators. And now listen; I’m an old hand at this business. Since you’re going in with them they’ll have a leader, and that makes a big difference.

  “The longer you last the better the crowd will like you, unless they suspect you of stalling. On the other hand, you’ll have to use caution. If you’re too cautious the overseers will order out the whips and hot irons to inspire you. You must take a very careful middle course. If you overcome the Numidians too easily the populace will lust to see the tables turned on you and you’ll get no mercy when the gladiators lay you on the sand. But if you lose a few men to the lions, and some more to the Numidians, and then fight well against the gladiators, they’ll take pity on you from the benches. What do you say? Shall I promise a few pearls to Glaucus — he fights with the sword and buckler and has never been touched once — he’s in his prime — unbeatable. For half a dozen pearls he would run you through the thigh. And Glaucus is a decent fellow — good-natured — gallant — knows how to throw an attitude, and smile, with his foot on a man’s body, that persuades the crowd to spare his victim nearly every time.”

  Tros nodded.

  “Mind you, I can’t guarantee the populace,” said Nepos. “But if your man, Orwic, wins his race, and joins you, and plays leader against beasts and men; and if you fight capably, I think they will wave their handkerchiefs. If the applause is loud enough the Vestals are almost sure to add their verdict, and whether they order you released or not I can pretend I understood that. I should say you have a fifty to one chance, which is more than most men have who go in under my auspices!”

  Tros thanked him.

  “Don’t offer me money!” said Nepos. “I’m old and don’t need it. I’m devoted to justice, like Cato. I like to see the enemies of Rome die, but I prefer to give an honest man a chance. And by the way, remember about the lions. They’ll be half-starved, two to every one of you, and each will get a touch of hot iron as he comes out of the trap. Nine men out of ten get killed by striking at them too soon. Coax them, if you can, to spring. Then duck — don’t spring aside — and rip them up from under. The worst are those that don’t spring but lurk and then come running at you. Then what you chiefly need is luck, but the best plan is to run at them — meet them midway; sometimes then they flinch. Flinching costs life, man or beast; and mark you — never try to avoid them! Meet them head on. They can claw you sidewise quicker than a knife-stab.”

  Tros went to instruct his men and met less trouble than he feared. It thrilled the Northmen that their leader had preferred to share their fate, though they had walked into a trap like fools. Their own tradition, that a death in battle was a passport to the halls of everlasting revelry, was no half-hearted superstition; they regarded life as an exordium to death. They would have gloomed if left alone; with Tros to lead them they were jubilant.

  Tros borrowed a harp and set the skald to singing legends of Valhalla, until the Northmen roared the old familiar refrains and even the homesick Britons joined in, experts at a tune, although the vowel sounds they made instead of words were meaningless. So Nepos sent them wine, because their chanting cheered the other prisoners and it was half his battle to get men into the arena looking like men and not carcasses already three parts dead. The hot iron and the whip could work a semblance of rebellious indifference, but song, so rarely heard within those walls, made men again of tortured rift-raft, who were lucky — as Nepos tactfully assured them — not to have been crucified at crossroads with their entrails showing through the wounds made by the scourge.

  There was wine for all the prisoners the last three nights, because Tros persuaded Nepos to permit it and himself defrayed the cost, but the effect of that was largely offset by precautions against suicide; men fettered hand and foot watched by slaves with heated irons are not easily encouraged. There were cries from a few caught opening a vein against a fetter’s roughed edge or attempting to strangle each other. They were whipped for it, burned, then lashed to the pillars to keep them from trying again. The roaring of the beasts — beginning to be starved now — made night horrible, and there had been a grim rehearsal in the afternoon that left its impress on the prisoners’ minds. The picture was ineradicable — of the empty seats, where presently free Romans and their wives and daughters would lean gasping, lips parted, to gloat at the carnage.

  Nine elephants, tortured to make them dangerous, were trumpeting their indignation. Wolves, that were to tear their next meal from the throats of unarmed men, howled in melancholy chorus. Bulls bellowed; and a great rhinoceros — a rarity Rabirius had begged from Ptolemy the Piper — pounded his cage with a noise like a splintering ship. One whole cage full of leopards got loose in the night and wrought havoc before they were cornered with torches and netted. The torches set fire to the planks of the seats overhead, and when that was extinguished the carpenters came to rebuild, so that morning might find the arena undamaged — new-painted — agleam in the sun.

  It was under the din of the hammers, through the mingled stink and clamor of the beasts, that Tros heard a voice he thought he recognized. At first he mocked himself, believing he was dreaming. There were no lights, saving where the braziers glowed and where a guard or two moved phantom-like in gloom, occasionally pausing to insert a lamp between the bars and make sure that no prisoner should cheat the appetite of Rome by smothering himself. A shadow seemed to move within the shadow that lay slanting at the bars of Tros’s cage — Nepos had assigned him to the cage-of-honor, reserved for women as a rule, where a breath of air could enter through the bars whenever any one passed through the wooden door into the unroofed arena. But Tros thought he had imagined that. He even looked away, not liking that imagination should deceive him; it suggested that the horror of the situation had begun to undermine his self-control.

  But the voice spoke louder:

  “
Master! This is Conops! I am come from Ostia! I have three boats below the fish-wharf on the Tiber! Sigurdsen picked up a breeze off Corsica and now stands off and on before the harbor mouth, where two great triremes lie at anchor.”

  “How is it I had no word from you before this?” Tros demanded.

  “Master, when I got to Ostia I knew that was no place for me! There were women and wine — no sight of Sigurdsen — I couldn’t have resisted. So I stole a sail-boat and took with me a one-eyed slave, who called me brother. He wanted to escape to Corsica, where there are outlaws in the mountains, so he helped me to steal provisions from the stores behind the sheds where the imported slaves are quarantined, and we put to sea by night. I knew Sigurdsen would keep clear of the coast of Italy for fear of triremes. And I knew the pilot was a duffer who would want to sight land frequently. There was also food and water to consider; Sigurdsen would have to make some port of call before he dared put into Ostia with the chance of being chased away before he could reprovision; and besides, he would know you might want to put to sea at once, so he would fill the corn-bins and the water-butts at least. I picked him up the fourth day — saw his purple sails against the skyline.

  “There was not much mutiny aboard. Such as it was soon quieted when I climbed over the rail. I gave them news of you. I said the Roman senate had proclaimed you admiral! But master, master, what is this! What—”

  “Swiftly with your tale!” Tros ordered.

  “I returned with the ship, and when we sighted Ostia we had to put that Roman pilot in the fore-peak. He was up to mischief, trying to lay us on a sandbank where the trireme men could come and pick us clean in the name of salvage. We had brought along Bagoas, the slave. We shaved his head and I rubbed some stain on him, but he understood that the disguise wouldn’t help him if he didn’t act right. He was so afraid of being recognized and flogged to death for escaping that I had hard work to get him ashore.

  “I was for hurrying to Rome. But the first Roman I met after I reached shore stopped me and asked whether I was Conops. I couldn’t even talk Greek, naturally. I was from the western coast of Gaul and none too handy with any kind of speech, but quick-footed; and it was dark, so that was the last I saw of him. It seemed proper then to peel an eye before I cast off, so I sent Bagoas to a wine-shop to discover what was being said — you know the wineshop near the rope-walk, where the big fat Jewess sells charms against scurvy and all the freed men go to learn the shipping news? I didn’t give Bagoas enough money to get drunk, and pretty soon he overheard a loud-mouthed man who was looking for two lost gladiators. He was from Rome that hour. I had the news of you as soon as One-Eye had swallowed his quartarius.”

  “One-Eye wanted to be rid of me then, so I warned him I’d sell him to informers if he didn’t stand by, and I promised him a billet on the ship if he behaved himself. He was a stoker in the baths before he ran, so anything looked good to him. I sent him back to Sigurdsen that night with orders to send our longboat and a dozen Northmen with a week’s provisions. They were to row straight up-Tiber — there’s no tide worth mentioning, and the stream isn’t too swift, not for one of our boat’s crews. They were to wait for me where the barges lie anchored below the brick-kilns on the south side of the river. Then I hired two more boats — good ones — money down; and there was big fish, tons of it, all waiting to be boated up to Rome as soon as ever the slave-gangs came down stream. But something had delayed the slave-gangs and the fish was liable to rot, so I made a bargain to boat that fish to Rome at half price, they to load it and the merchant to give me a pass in writing in the name of Nicephorus of Crete. That made me right with any one who might ask questions. Then I ran up-river to the brick-kilns and fetched the Northmen; and what between rowing and towing, and they not knowing any human language so they couldn’t answer questions, we made Rome all right; and the man who paid me for delivering the fish agreed to give me a cargo of empty oil-jars if I’d cut the price and wait a week.”

  “I stipulated he should give my men a shed to sleep in, down there by the Tiber, and what with hinting I might do a bit of smuggling for him, and my not seeming to know the price of freightage on the Tiber, we struck up quite a friendship and the crew are as safe as weevils in a loaf of bread. They’re supposed to be Belgae, taken captive by Caesar and sold in Gaul. I told him I’d left the papers for them with a Roman in Ostia who lent me money on that security; so he won’t try any tricks; they’ll be there when we want them.

  “Then I went to Zeuxis’ house, and found Helene talking with him. Something’s up. They’re hatching something. But she said where you are, so I brought Bagoas and came here to apply for a job to rig the awnings over the spectators’ seats. That let me into the arena and the rest was easy. One of the guards here thinks I’m a slave belonging to the blacksmith who was fetched in a hurry to repair the hinges on the dungeon gate — the one that opens into the arena. That’s his sledge you hear.”

  “But now, master, what next? I’m only a seafaring man, and I’ve probably overlooked a lot of things, but you just say the word and I’ll do my best for you, by Heracles. I’ve left Bagoas out in the arena, where he’s chewing onions and waiting for the dawn to go on rigging. We can easily escape into the street. What then? I’m at the rope’s end. There are three boats waiting, and a good crew. We can row downstream like Hermes — in-a-hurry — but how get you out of here?”

  Tros reached an arm between the bars and gripped his shoulder.

  “Little man,” he said; and then, for a few heart-beats there was nothing he could say at all.

  “Go you back to Sigurdsen,” he ordered. “Bid him stand by in the offing five more days. Then, if I come not, divide the ship between you — he to be captain, you lieutenant, sharing profits equally. But I believe that I will come before the five days. Go you back to Sigurdsen and take Bagoas.”

  “Nay, I will not!” Conops answered. “I will stay here. You have been my master since I taught you how to splice a rope-end and—”

  “You shall obey me!” Tros retorted. “Go you and tell Sigurdsen I come in five days. Say nothing more to him — unless I come not — only bid him watch those triremes in the port of Ostia and show them his heels if they put to sea. But on the fourth day, or the fifth day after you reach Sigurdsen, if you should see our three boats putting out, stand in then with all three oar-banks manned and all sail ready to be shaken down. Stand by to pluck us out from right under the triremes’ noses if you must.”

  “But, master—”

  “Mutiny? In this pass? You are the man I have always trusted, Conops. Do as I bid you!”

  “Master, if we never meet again—”

  “By Heracles, if I could get out I would break your head for such dog’s whimpering! Obey! Step lively! Shall the gods come to the aid of men who drown good bravery with tears like pork in brine? Of what use is a sentimental lingerer by cell-doors? Do you think this is a brothel, that you dawdle in it? Off with you! Almighty Zeus! Have I neglected discipline, that my own man should flout me and defy me when I bid him—”

  “Nay, not Neptune would defy you in that mood, master. Farewell!”

  “Farewell, Conops. And expect me on the fifth day after you reach Sigurdsen — or sooner! Keep two good men at the masthead. Grease all blocks and reeve new running gear wherever needed. Serve out grease to all the rowers and don’t let them waste it on the oar-ports; watch them rub it on the leathers. If I find one speck of dirt above-deck or below there will be Zeus’s own reckoning to pay!”

  CHAPTER 94. Circus Maximus

  I know the virtue of a fight. Who knows it better than I? For I have fought against beasts and men, the elements, mutinous crews, treachery, and my own ill-humor. If wisdom, aye, or cunning, aye, or a moderate measure of yielding what is mine, can not preserve me from a fight then let my enemy look to his guard. Peace, bought at the price of cowardice, is too dear. I love a fight that I have done my utmost to avoid — aye, it may be not all my utmost. I am human. But I rate an animal m
ore highly than the man who gluts his eyes on cruelty, feeding his own foulness with the sight of boughten slaughter. The fish, that slay only what they need, are less contemptible.

  — from The Log of Tros of Samothrace

  AS the fungus grows on dunghills and the burned stump sends up shoots before it dies, life took a three day lease of hopeless men, and there were strange events within the dungeons while the chariot-racing lasted. No stone walls could shut out the blare of trumpets, the thunder of wheels and hoofs and the roar of the throng. Not a criminal down in the dark but knew the names of all the charioteers, and there was actually betting between cell and cell, men wagering their miserable pittances of bread, the doles of water or the questionable privilege of being last through the gate when the time came to face the arena. Last men usually got a taste of red-hot iron.

  Dungeon-keepers, thronging at the gate to watch the racing, had to take turns hurrying below to name the winner of each missus, as a seven-round race was called; and there were twenty on the first day, twenty on the second. If a dungeon-keeper carried the news tardily there was a clamor that set Nepos in a frenzy for his reputation; and it generally sent him to Tros in the end because he had formed a strange attachment to him and it calmed the old man’s overwrought nerves to talk frankly. His sinews stood like taut cords from the mental tension he was under.

  “I grow old, Tros, but I never lose the fascination of these last hours. I have seen so many die that you would think I should feel indifferent. I tell you, curiosity grips me harder now than when I first had charge of the slaves who lop the heads off prisoners of war after a triumph. When I trained the gladiators, it was always the same fascination — where do they go when they die? What do they think when their heads are cut off? Why is it that excitement seizes them when the time draws near? Races — that is only an excuse. If there were silence out there on the sand, they would find some other reason to act foolishly. Tros, I have seen men who have been tortured until hardly any flesh remained on arms and legs, laugh gaily on the last night — men so racked that they had to be carried in and staked in the arena for the beasts to maul. Why? What is it that so takes hold of them and makes them reckless of whip or anything?”