Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate

by S. J. A. Turney

  Fronto shrugged. "I expect she'll be happy to stay in the company of your wife and my sister. The three of them are as tight as the Vestal sisterhood now." He glanced across to the three women who were talking in conspiratorial tones and occasionally issuing a burst of laughter. As far as he was aware not one of the women had even looked at the arena in an hour of bouts. Such a waste of good entertainment. Galronus had managed somehow, after an initial exchange of pleasantries, to slip away to find Galba, leaving Fronto with the statesman.

  "Ah," Pompey said with a self-satisfied smile, gesturing at the temporary arena on the theatre floor. "This should be a good one. I do like to watch a dark-skin in action. They seem so much more lithe and energetic than the rest of us."

  Fronto turned his attention to the stage once more to see two more gladiators being lowered down to the orchestra on the wooden platform suspended by ropes.

  On the right, an unusual sight: a scisor gladiator. His pale skin spoke of a Gallic or Germanic origin, though little of it could be seen. His torso was encased in a mail shirt, his head in an egg-shaped bronze helm, undecorated apart from two circular eye-holes. His arms were covered with padded leather sheathes and his legs protected by bronze greaves. But the speciality of the scisor lay in his weapons. A short, straight blade in his right hand was paired with a fearsome engine on his left. His forearm was encased in a steel tube, at the end of which, instead of a hand, was a wide, fan-like semi-circular blade, glinting evilly in the sun.

  On the left, paying him no attention, stood a dark-skinned Numidian equipped as a Murmillo. Along with a heavy, ridged and decorated crested helm that bore a grilled face-guard, his only defences were a ridged leather protector on the arm that bore his short sword, and a rectangular shield on the other. His chest was bare, as were his legs. It appeared a hopeless match.

  Pompey and Fronto looked at one another and both spoke at once.

  "Five on the Murmillo."

  "The Numidian for six."

  They paused and shrugged. "You care not to wager for the scisor?" Fronto hazarded.

  "I like a Numidian in a fight, as I said. And you?"

  "Your Numidian's going to win. The scisor's an unknown, but the Murmillo hardly seems bothered by his presence. That kind of confidence wins fights."

  Pompey nodded slowly. "I agree. It looks an unexciting match."

  Standing, he motioned to the stage. A trumpet rang out and the wooden platform jerked to a stop halfway down.

  "Let the Murmillo face a pair" he announced. Give them someone fresh... the crupellarius."

  The crowd bayed their approval of this bloodthirsty largesse, as a man almost entirely encased in iron was urged forward until he stepped over the edge and dropped to the platform with a heavy, weighty crash, causing it to sway a little. The man was so heavily armoured that not a morsel of flesh showed on his person.

  "A more even match?" Pompey asked slyly.

  "Perhaps a little too far the other way now."

  "Then you will take my bet?"

  Fronto blinked. "Six? On the one Numidian against two of the heaviest men there, including a bloody crupellarius? Yes I'll take your bet. Confidence only goes so far. Might as well set him against a lion and an elephant."

  The two spectators smiled and turned back to the arena just as the platform hit the sand, sending up a small cloud of dust. The three fighters stepped from it, two of them bending their knees and stretching their arms in preparation for the coming trial, the crupellarius unable to do so due to the sheer weight of inflexible iron that covered him.

  Pompey stood and waited for the crowd to gradually subside, the three gladiators separating and walking to equidistant places in the arena as the wooden platform was raised to the stage once more. Finally, everything was quiet.

  "A special bout in honour of my beautiful wife and the child she bears. I will donate a bag of gold coins to the winners. Begin!"

  The crowd surged to a roar once more and then fell to an expectant, hushed quiet as the three men took their first steps towards one another. The scisor and the crupellarius looked at one another and then nodded, sharing some unheard plan. As the latter stomped inexorably forward like a living statue, his iron cuirass and laminated arm guards clanking and screeching, his chain breeches, apron of protective strops and iron greaves groaning, the scisor scraped his curved fan-blade down his sword edge, drawing a spray of sparks and sending out a noise that cut through the nerves like an audible wound.

  The Numidian murmillo flexed his arms and walked half a dozen steps forward, stopping and standing in a relaxed fashion, as though waiting to be served in a bar. Fronto frowned, starting to suspect that Pompey knew something he didn't. One man could not be that good.

  As the Numidian's opponents approached, they began to spread out, forcing the murmillo to turn his head back and forth to keep an eye on them both.

  "See how they flank him" Fronto pointed.

  "Note how slowly the iron giant moves" Pompey countered. "He will have an age to deal with the scisor first before having to turn his attention to the other."

  "Perhaps," Fronto conceded, "but they're both heavier armed and armoured than him. He'll have to be a champion to get out of this intact."

  Pompey shrugged. "Intact is immaterial, so long as he lives."

  "I doubt he feels that way."

  Fronto forewent any further conversation as he turned his attention to the action in front of him. Sure enough, as Pompey had pointed out, the weight was slowing the crupellarius, and he approached at around half the pace of his companion. The Numidian glanced once more at him to make sure he was as slow as expected, and then stepped across into the line of attack of the scisor, who once more scraped his weapons together to create the sparks and the ear-splitting shriek of tortured metal. How the Numidian could stand it, Fronto couldn't imagine. It was making his head ache this far away.

  And then, finally, judged just right to put the crowd at their most tense and expectant, the two gladiators were within fighting range. The scisor began to swing his sword and his razor-fan in figure-eight motions, creating a whirling web of death. Fronto grinned.

  "He's better than I expected. Not just a showman. He knows killing too. Your man's bollocksed."

  "My man's agile" Pompey noted quietly.

  As Fronto watched, the dark-skinned Murmillo ducked and weaved, thrusting his sword to try and create an opening, but always, while failing, nipping back, swaying and dodging out of the way of the swinging web of sharp steel. Still, he was gradually being forced backwards towards the edge of the arena by the pressure. Soon he would run out of space to dodge.

  The crupellarius was approaching now, slowly, but with infinite menace, a clanking statue of deadly, impervious iron.

  Fronto shook his head. The Numidian was good, but he was nearly penned in. Soon, he would be minced meat.

  Even as he watched, Fronto felt a thrill that began in his purse as the Numidian lunged with his blade and had it caught by the spinning web which sent it hurtling out across the sand to land half-way across the arena. The unarmed murmillo leapt back out of the way, throwing up his shield, which was steadily, methodically shredded into strips by the spinning blades. He was almost at the wall now.

  At a last, desperate moment, the Numidian lifted his tiny remnant of shield - now little more than a boss with a hand-grip - and tossed it away.

  Fronto realised that he was gripping the edge of the seat and forced himself to relax. He was not a ten year old at his first match. Prat!

  As he focussed, his jaw twitching with the excitement, everything changed in the blink of an eye. The desperate Numidian, devoid of weapon or shield, had shrunk back, his arms coming up to cover his face. The scisor, sensing victory, had moved in to deliver a crippling blow - enough to end the match without an instant, unworthy kill.

  But his victim was no longer there.

  The Numidian had continued back from his shrinking in apparent fear and had fallen flat to the floor, pron
e but apparently intentionally so. Fronto wondered what the hell the man was planning.

  The scisor's spinning web of horror passed over the prone form as the attacker staggered forward, unable to halt his momentum quick enough. In half a heartbeat, he was standing over the prone Numidian, one leg on either side, the spinning blades starting to swing down towards the target. As the sharp steel approached the prone man, the Numidian reached up with his free hands, pulling aside the man's loincloth, and grabbed the testicles, wrenching them from his body with a single, muscular move.

  The screech of the brutally castrated gladiator echoed across the great theatre, stilling the crowd into a shocked silence. Even the impervious crupellarius faltered in his step at the horrifying cry of pain. The stricken fighter, still standing, cut himself twice as his sword stopped spinning and fell away to the earth, forgotten, the other hanging deadly but useless in its razor-ended metal case. A huge splash of blood washed across the dark-skinned gladiator beneath him and, even as the unfortunate man's free hand came down to try and find his missing manhood, the Numidian was already out from beneath him, coming up behind.

  Leaving the ruined scisor screaming and probing between his own legs with an armoured hand, the Numidian almost casually strode across to the fallen sword and picked it up before sauntering jauntily across the arena and collecting his own discarded blade.

  The crowd exploded in applause and cries of excitement as the blood-slicked Numidian murmillo, now armed with a sword in each hand, strode back towards the iron monstrosity, ignoring the howling eunuch he had created, who seemed unable to move, groping his own ruined parts.

  The crupellarius turned to face the approaching Numidian, whose small square shield was raised, despite the fact that it was largely pointless, given his full-body coating of iron. His long, narrow sword came up, the dangling apron of metal strops that protected his groin jingling against the chain breeches as a reminder that his opponent would be unlikely to pull the same manoeuvre here.

  The Numidian strolled towards him calmly.

  Observing from the stands, unable to ignore the excited air of anticipation emanating from Pompey, Fronto began to feel the money he had envisaged tipping into his purse evaporate before his very eyes. The murmillo couldn't be that good. But clearly he was.

  The crupellarius stomped two steps forward and then braced to meet the approaching dark-skinned gladiator who paused, just out of sword reach, and let go of both his own blades, reversing his grip as he caught the falling hilts, now holding them face downwards as though for an overhand stabbing motion.

  Taking one more step to bring the fight to a conclusion, the crupellarius thrust his shield forward to take any stabbing, raking blows from the two swords, drawing back his own blade to strike as soon as the opening came, sure in the knowledge that he was all-but impervious to blades and could withstand even a couple of direct strikes if necessary, waiting for his best moment.

  In the most unexpected, unlikely move, the Numidian dropped to his knees, right beneath the crupellarius' shield edge. Fronto frowned, wondering what use being that close would be, particularly now that he was on his knees, a position in combat which almost universally led to defeat. Yet somehow he knew that the man would win. The crupellarius had every advantage but Fortuna and Mars sat on the Numidian's shoulders, watching over him. Despite the damage being done to his purse, Fronto found himself rooting for the kneeling warrior.

  It was beautiful. A stroke of genius. Fronto watched with impressed admiration as the Numidian murmillo completed his intended manoeuvre. From his kneeling position, both swords reversed and held downwards, he jammed the blades behind the knee-top edge of the iron giant's greaves, one each side, driving down the blades inside the man's armour in the tiniest gap possible, so that both swords brought sparks from the greaves' edges as the blades scythed down the man's shins inside, the points driving through the bones of the crupellarius' feet, almost severing them, all inside the man's impervious plating.

  The iron man screamed at the dual crippling blows and wavered for a moment before toppling backwards to the earth, the weight ripping the hilt of both jammed swords from the Numidian's grip as he fell.

  Again with the casualness of a man at a quiet dinner, the dark-skinned murmillo rose to his feet, unstrapping his helmet and pulling it away in one hand to allow his sweating, shiny face the blessed breath of air. Fronto was surprised. The man was clearly older then he himself. It was exceedingly rare for gladiators to last that long. After half a dozen years they were either dead or freed and rich - invariably the former.

  Fronto stared as Pompey rose and began to applaud, the entire arena joining in, raising an uproar of approval. The man's two victims stood and lay where they had been crippled, bleeding and screaming. Neither would die if they were tended quickly, but whether they would ever fight again was a different matter.

  "Who is he?" Fronto asked Pompey, certain that he had somehow been duped and this astonishing fighter was one of the world's greatest champions sneaked in among the group - a freed hero who fancied another bout for the money and the fun.

  Pompey shrugged. "His name is Masgava, if I remember correctly. Impressive, isn't he?"

  Fronto shook his head. "What is he? Some kind of ringer? A freedman? A provincial champion?"

  "No. He's a genuine ordinary slave gladiator - not even that expensive. Apparently he has a habit of being disobedient and forward, so he keeps getting sold on. More trouble than he's worth, so to speak. A good warrior though."

  Fronto stared at the grinning Numidian. That, he most certainly was!

  * * * * *

  "I still cannot get over it. That was, without a doubt, the best fight I've seen in any arena."

  Pompey nodded. "I told you, always watch the dark-skins. They're simply always better."

  "Where are we going?" Fronto asked as he strode alongside the former general, his knee sending him urgent messages to sit down at the earliest opportunity. They had strolled eastwards from the theatre following the final bout of the day. The three ladies had waved them off, returning to Pompey's house close by with a well-muscled escort, while Pompey elected to walk, leading Fronto and Galronus away with only half a dozen men around them. The ladies would await their return.

  Now, some distance from the theatre, they were passing close to the Temple of Juno that towered over the Capitoline.

  "To the carcer, my dear Fronto. To the carcer."

  Fronto frowned and looked across to Galronus expecting to share a surprised and unspoken question, but the Gaul's own frown spoke only of complete incomprehension.

  "Carcer?" The big man repeated, rolling the unfamiliar word around his tongue.

  "It's…" Fronto said, trying to explain as best he could. "It's where convicted criminals and prisoners are held before they're killed."

  "A prison?"

  "Not as such. No one stays there very long. In fact most of its visitors come out on their back within days."

  Galronus nodded sagely. "Among the Remi, such punishments are carried out when judgement is made. It is the way."

  Pompey gave a half-smile. "Among the Romans we like to wait for a big occasion to celebrate to get the best value from our corpses. Stranglings always go down well on a festival day. There's nothing like a seafood fricassee and a cup of rich mulsum accompanied by a state execution, eh? The kids love it."

  Fronto glanced up at the undecorated brick façade just ahead that fronted the most fearful, infamous place in the centre of the city. A single door of heavy oak stood in the wall, no sign to announce what lay behind it. Fronto had visited the carcer only once, as a boy, when his grandfather had taken him to show him what happened to the enemies of the state, expecting Fronto to seek a career in the city. At the time, he had shivered at the awful place; at the four men who had waited there for the time of their execution.

  A shiver ran up Fronto's spine at the sight of the building.

  "Why in the name of Jove's balls are we going to t
he carcer?"

  Pompey pursed his lips. "As I told you earlier, I seek your opinion on a personal matter."

  Fronto frowned as they approached the door. The three visitors stood in the street as one of their accompanying guard knocked on the door and spoke to the single-minded public servant who maintained the security of the carcer's main doorway. As Pompey's hireling stood aside and motioned to the open door, the general strode inside without pause. Fronto took a deep breath and swallowed a last lungful of good air before entering. Galronus followed up with an air of inquisitive interest.

  The half dozen Pompeian men waited outside the building, and Fronto found himself in the front chamber of the complex, where three guards sat sharpening swords. They were three of the very few people allowed to bear a weapon within the city's sacred bounds, given the nature of the chambers they watched over. Galronus looked around with interest and nodded a greeting at the guards, who pointedly ignored the odd foreigner, despite his Romanised dress sense.

  "Let us through" Pompey demanded of the three men. "We need no escort and shall only be a quarter of an hour at most."

  The guards looked for a moment as though they might argue, but one quickly crossed the room and unlocked the heavy door to the next room. "We cannot let you enter unescorted, general."

  Pompey fixed him with a look. "Think hard to whom you speak."

  The man actually held Pompey's eye for a moment, and then bowed and stepped back. The general waited for him to swing the door open and stepped through, Fronto and Galronus following on. Beyond the door a large trapezoidal chamber, some twenty feet across, sat in subdued gloom. Fronto was immediately chilled to the bone and deeper still - a chill that had nothing to do with cold. In fact, it was curiously warm and damp - sweaty even - inside. The room, constructed of heavy stone blocks, was faintly greened with age and mould, strange shadows flittering around the rough-hewn stones in a dim glow cast by the three oil lamps that lit the chamber. In the floor's centre, a circular opening gaped like the maw of Hades itself. Ahead, a passageway led off into the rock beneath the Capitoline hill.