Caligula

by Douglas Jackson

  At last, the lanista handed the gladiator his tunic and walked off. Cupido joined Rufus in the shade. He sat back against the wall with his eyes closed and sipped from a flask of tepid water.

  'So, you have come to join us, Rufus? You would like to fight beside me in the next games?'

  Rufus laughed. They both knew his tenure in the arena would be shorter than an Egyptian snowstorm.

  'No. I came because I enjoy seeing you suffer, but also because your baby face cannot hide the fact that you are wise beyond your years and I am in desperate need of some wisdom.'

  Cupido looked at him curiously. 'Very well, but let us walk. I cannot allow my muscles to stiffen.'

  Saying farewell to Sabatis, they walked out into the city. Rufus loved the thronging narrow streets and it was clear that Cupido shared his pleasure. Beneath one awning was fine, shiny cloth in all the colours of the rainbow, which Cupido assured him came from a country in the east where the sun was so bright that people lived with their eyes permanently shut. The fruit stalls sold soft, ripe peaches of scarlet and gold, velvet-skinned apricots and squat, ugly pomegranates.

  They found themselves on the street close to Cerialis's largest bakery and Rufus saw a face he knew in the booth outside the shop.

  'Corvo! Are you still giving blind old Atticus the runaround?'

  'Not me, Rufus. Now I am Corvo the dedicated. Work, work, work and then, maybe, just a little play.' The curly-haired vendor's face beamed with pleasure as he recognized his former workmate.

  'But, more important, do you still bake the best bread in Rome?'

  'Certainly,' Corvo agreed. 'Atticus may have the eyesight of a mole, but he grinds the best flour and I bake the best loaves.' He looked around and whispered: 'And we still keep a little under the counter for old friends.'

  He reached below the cloth covering the table that held his stock of bread and brought out five separate sections of broken loaf, the largest of which was a half-circle with a distinctive line across its crust.

  'Try them. See what you think.'

  Rufus insisted that Cupido take first honour. He watched as the gladiator bit into a coarse loaf, the centre of which was a deep brown colour. 'It's good,' he said, mouth full. 'But I think you should get rid of these.' He spat a grit-hard grain of barley into his hand.

  Corvo laughed. 'Panis rusticus – peasant bread. So are those, sordidus, castrensis and plebeius, but a bit more refined. Now try that one.' He pointed at the largest portion, which was a deep golden brown. 'Panis siligineus. Finest bread we make.'

  Cupido bit through the crust of the loaf to the soft dough within. Slightly chewy in texture, it was pale cream in colour and had a clean, fresh flavour that only improved the longer he had it in his mouth. At last, he swallowed, reluctant to let the moment go.

  'Not bad,' he said, trying without success to sound unimpressed, and Rufus joined in Corvo's disbelieving laughter as they left the baker and continued onwards in the direction of the Palatine. Many of the houses they passed had sheer frontages six storeys high, studded with dozens of windows, and Rufus told Cupido about the first time he had seen them.

  'I thought the people in them must be very rich to live so near the clouds. Then I discovered it was just the opposite. This is where the poorest live; at least, the poorest who can afford a roof over their heads at all. The people who build them are thieves and the people who own them are gangsters. If you don't die when they fall down on your head, you burn to death when they catch fire.'

  As they walked, he told Cupido enthusiastically about the big cats and how their training was progressing, but he was eventually forced to admit that he didn't know what his next step should be.

  'I have discussed it with Fronto, but every idea we consider is worse than the last. We have only a single throw of the dice – if it fails, the lions will die and so, probably, will we.'

  Cupido thought for a moment, his pewter eyes staring into the middle distance. 'The moods of the crowd are anything but certain,' he said eventually. 'But perhaps you have already seen the way to win them. Do you remember our first meeting?'

  'How could I forget it?'

  'Yes, but poor foolish Serpentius?'

  'The gladiator who ran from the lion? Yes, I remember. He looked so pathetic running around the arena. What happened to him?'

  'His next fight – his first proper fight – was his last. He was not really equipped for the arena.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'Why? You didn't know him. He was just another slave. Just another piece of meat thrown to the mob. But look back. Remember their reaction when he ran. What did they do?'

  'It was sad. They ridiculed the poor man.'

  'No, it wasn't sad and they did not ridicule him. They thought it was funny and they laughed at him. Now do you see?'

  Rufus looked puzzled for a moment, then the light of understanding sparked in his eyes, and a thrill of trepidation sent a shiver down his spine.

  It was his time to enter the ring.

  VII

  If the past few weeks had been intensive, those which followed were doubly so. From dawn to dusk he worked with the lions in a paddock which was similar in size and shape to the arena.

  Each evening when he lay back on his cot his muscles ached and the scratches on his skin stung beneath the salve Fronto had provided against the poison from a lion's claws, which could make any wound swell up and turn first red, then black, and lead to an agonizing death. But each day he learned more and taught more, and each day he became more confident that he could actually succeed.

  It took a visit from Cupido to bring his soaring ego back down to earth.

  'Yes, yes, the lions are very good,' he said. 'But it is not enough. If you are to convince the mob you must be able to show them something special, something they have never seen before. Think. What else is there? What can you do that will entertain a senator who has become bored watching two men trying to chop each other to pieces?'

  Rufus shook his head, close to despair. 'I don't know. We've tried everything. Maybe I should just give up.'

  'If you give up, you are as good as dead,' Cupido told him. 'And so are your animals. Come with me.' He marched across the packed dirt past the antelope enclosures, with Rufus at his heels. 'There, Rufus, there is your answer.'

  Rufus stared. His heart seemed to have stopped. 'No,' he said, his voice faltering. 'No. I cannot.'

  'You must,' Cupido said quietly. 'There is no other way. But tell no one, not even Fronto.'

  Fronto monitored Rufus's progress with the lions and was secretly impressed by what he saw, but Rufus took Cupido's advice and there were certain aspects of the training that the trader didn't see. He still found it difficult to believe that the young man would succeed, but as he watched him work he felt himself drawn into the plan.

  'I thought you were supposed to be making people laugh,' he complained helpfully. 'I've been watching you for an hour and all I feel like doing is crying.'

  'If you think it's so easy why don't you try it?' Rufus replied wearily.

  Fronto grinned. 'Fortunately, I'm too old and too fat. You are the young pup with the lust for fame and fortune.'

  'Yes, but if I succeed it will only be fame. You'll be the one with the fortune.'

  'Perhaps, but that is only fair. I am the one who's supplying all the livestock. Even you. Now get back to work.'

  'Can you get me some wooden barrels?'

  'If you need something to drink, drink water. Wine will only slow you down.'

  'Empty barrels, about so big.' Rufus held his hand at waist height.

  Fronto scratched his beard. 'It won't be easy. You're talking about a beer barrel and only barbarians drink beer. But I know someone who might have some to spare.'

  Two days later, Fronto was back at the side of the paddock, looking pleased with himself.

  Rufus was practising the most difficult part of his routine when the animal trader arrived. Things had been going well and he couldn't resist the tem
ptation to show off. But in his efforts to impress, he lost concentration and missed his timing. What should have been an elegant landing ended with him rolling in the dust with the two lions, who looked at him with undisguised disapproval.

  He picked himself up, patted Africanus on the back and limped slowly across to where Fronto stood. 'I hope you haven't come to gloat again,' he grunted.

  'On the contrary,' Fronto said grandly. 'I have come to allow my newest entertainer to show me his work in all its perfection, though it seems I may have arrived at the wrong moment.'

  Rufus's mood lightened and he smiled. 'You missed the best part.' 'I do hope so. Because in two weeks I will be sharing the experience with several thousand of my fellow citizens, and they may not be quite so forgiving.'

  Rufus felt his stomach lurch. 'Two weeks? I can't be ready in two weeks.'

  'I'm afraid you must, Rufus. The audience is invited. The ring is ready. The whispers already spread about this new phenomenon. It is much too late to turn back now. Besides, I spent all morning painting the posters.'

  'But –'

  'No buts. The deed is done. Now get back among your hairy friends and make me laugh.'

  Fronto persuaded Cupido's lanista to give his less experienced gladiators the opportunity to perform in a bloodless contest before an audience who wouldn't demand their deaths if they were not properly entertained.

  Rufus and his animals would provide the climax to the event. At least that was the plan.

  Two weeks later, he sat alone in the darkness beneath the Taurus. Above him, he could hear the thunder of feet on the floor of the amphitheatre and the clash of iron as Cupido directed his gladiators in a mock battle of such terrifying reality that the mob roared their approval, despite the lack of gore. He had never been so scared in his life.

  Twice he had emptied his bowels in the latrina which served the performers, and once he vomited bile from a stomach which burned and twitched with nerves. His hands shook so hard he could barely hold the short legionary sword he had been clutching convulsively for the last hour.

  Everything was going to go wrong.

  He tried to run through the details of the act in his mind, but all he could think of was the consequence of failure. The humiliation and the shame. How could he face Fronto and Cupido after the faith they had placed in him? How could he have had the audacity, the stupidity, to think he was capable of this?

  Five thousand people were out there beyond the darkness, waiting. Waiting for him. Rufus. Rufus the slave. Rufus, the slave who had never achieved anything in his life. Rufus the slave who would soon be standing frozen in the sunlight as the great mob bayed with laughter and howled for him to be dragged out of their sight and replaced with a true entertainer.

  He could not do it. He would not do it.

  He stood up, legs shaking uncontrollably, and began to stagger to the door, away from the terror that gnawed and tore at him as if he was already a victim of the arena.

  Then the lions roared.

  They roared with excitement. They roared because for the last week they had listened to these same sounds of battle in their enclosures beneath the ring. They roared because they were ready.

  Rufus stopped, frozen in the act of reaching for the door. The lions roared again. And the sound echoing through the dark chambers returned to him the courage he feared had deserted him for ever.

  His head, which had been filled with nothing but panic, cleared, and it was as if he had been blind and could suddenly see again. His hand stole to his throat and the lion's tooth charm that never left him. He took a deep breath, and his body was shaken by one last convulsive spasm.

  He turned to find himself looking directly into two eyes still filled with the light of battle. Cupido removed his helmet and his hair was plastered to his head like a crown of molten gold. How long had he been there?

  But the gladiator, if he had seen anything, was careful to say nothing.

  'Five minutes, Rufus. My fellows are just going through their final set pieces. Here. Use this instead of the gladius.'

  Rufus looked curiously at the cloth-wrapped bundle he was being offered.

  'Take it.'

  He took the parcel from the gladiator's outstretched hands and unwrapped it. He was left holding a sword so long it could almost have been a spear and an outsize gladiator's helmet of the type used by the murmillones. Both objects looked as if they should be incredibly heavy, but Rufus discovered they were surprisingly light.

  'Try them,' urged Cupido.

  Rufus handed Cupido the sword and with two hands placed the helmet over his head. It was so big it covered his whole head and sat on his shoulders, but the eye holes were cunningly placed so that, although it looked from the outside as if he should be unable to see anything, his vision was hardly more impaired than if he had been wearing a normal helmet.

  'Do I have to wear this?' he demanded, his voice muffled by the allenveloping headgear. 'I must look stupid.'

  'You do. That's the point. Try the sword.'

  Rufus did as he was told and held the weapon in front of him.

  'Wonderful. You look like a nobleman who has just been handed a turd. Wave the blade about a bit.'

  Again Rufus did as he was asked. He was surprised to discover that when he swung the sword the blade quivered back and forth as if it had a life of its own.

  'My armourer made it from a bad batch of iron,' Cupido explained. 'The edge is so dull it wouldn't hurt a fly. And when you try to stab something it will just bend back on itself. Go on, try it. Lunge at me.'

  Cupido was wearing a polished iron breastplate and he insisted until Rufus could refuse no more.

  'See, you couldn't pierce a piece of cheese. You might as well be waving a branch at me. Now, are you ready?'

  Rufus removed the helmet and looked directly into the piercing grey eyes. He nodded.

  'Yes, I'm ready.'

  Cupido clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard. 'Then go and give the mob what they came for.'

  The walk that brought Rufus to the trapdoor beneath the arena was the longest and loneliest he had ever made. The maze of tunnels seemed to go on for ever and, although he encountered several people he knew, they treated him as if he was invisible, turning their eyes away, as if to look at him was to share his fate.

  Finally he stood on the wooden platform that would lift him directly into the centre of the arena. Above him, the roars of the crowd were magnified by the empty shaft. He stood, head bowed, waiting for the signal that would tell him the instant the mob's attention was on the climax of the gladiatorial battle.

  It came, a huge shout from fifty throats in the same instant: 'Roma victor.' He nodded to the workman who operated the levers, and the platform began to rise a few inches at a time.

  The brightness as he emerged slowly into the sunlight blinded him; then his vision cleared and he found himself in the loneliest place on earth.

  He had been here before, when the stadium was empty, rehearsing for this day, but nothing had prepared him for the wall of screaming faces and the explosion of sound. For a moment the panic that had threatened to unman him in the depths of the arena returned, but then he heard Cupido's voice inside his head: 'Make them laugh and they will love you.'

  Rufus the slave became Rufus the clown.

  The crowd in the tiered stands saw a bewildered, childlike figure, small and lost in his oversized helmet, awkwardly holding a sword twice as long as a legionary's gladius. The helmet turned, slowly, taking in its strange surroundings. Why was it here? The helmet appeared to have a life of its own, which had little to do with the body beneath it. The helmet cocked to one side, searching the stands. Surely someone in this crowd of lords and ladies could give it a clue. What about you, sir? The helmet's eye slits looked directly at one of the toga-clad patrons in the expensive seats close to the edge of the arena.

  By now, a few of the crowd were smiling, puzzled at this silent display, but others were becoming restless. Where
was the action? What was this stupid game?

  Suddenly, there was a gasp from the lower tiers and an ironic cheer from the upper stands. Rufus didn't hear the gate opening, but he knew he was now being stalked by Africanus. This was the game they had played during the long weeks of training.

  But the helmet did not know and now the helmet was even more puzzled. Were they cheering it? Really, it? Oh, it was so undeserved. There was no need. The helmet acknowledged the acclaim with a wave of its unwieldy sword.

  Africanus kept low to the ground, each deliberate movement of his huge paws taking him nearer the solitary, unsuspecting figure in the centre of the arena.

  Still the helmet's vacant eyes remained fixed on the crowd. Ah, this was the only place to be, among the finest and most courtly people on earth. The helmet nodded its gratitude.

  The suspense grew with each inch the lion moved closer to his victim. By now most of the mob was captivated by the heart-stopping hunt unfolding before them. They held their collective breath. But the helmet's eccentric vulnerability had endeared it to a few of the younger spectators and one could not help herself screaming out.

  The helmet looked even more puzzled. Who? Where? What?

  Rufus counted the seconds in his head. Now the voice had been joined by a hundred other shouts of warning. Africanus was crouched feet from his back. Three, two, one . . . Africanus was in the air, his hooked claws outstretched to tear the unsuspecting body in front of him.

  Oh, look! The helmet had seen something glinting in the sand. It bent to pick it up.

  Rufus felt the disturbed air as Africanus sailed across his back, missing him by less than the width of one of the loaves he had baked for Cerialis. He heard the roar of the crowd as the big lion rolled head over heels towards the edge of the arena.