The Beast of Verona: Book I of the Decimus Trilogy

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  In a rash act of benevolence, Decimus knelt down, withdrew his dagger and tossed it to the side. He quickly flicked open the faceplate of the Scissores. His face was covered in the blood from his broken nose. Decimus reached out and checked for any sign of life.

  He saw the Scissores’ eyelids twitch and nostrils flair. He lived.

  Suddenly aware of his surroundings, Decimus’s head snapped to the side just as the Dimachaerus ran up from behind.

  He felt the cold blade sink into his body just below his ribs.

  He gasped and shuddered at the flood of pain.

  Decimus squeezed his eyes shut and waited.

  The crowd screamed and as if she were next to him, Decimus could distinguish the cries of Caprasia. Surely they all thought this was his deathblow.

  The beast would not die so easily.

  Decimus let out a deafening roar and vaulted onto the Dimachaerus. The blade slid out from his flesh, releasing a torrent of blood into the sand as Decimus turned on his opponent.

  Dropping his trident, Decimus fought with his bare hands. Wrenching the arm of the Dimachaerus, he swiftly disarmed him and snapped it backwards at his elbow. Decimus rammed his fist into the Dimachaerus’s chest and he could feel the bones snap under the force of his knuckles.

  The mob cheered for him, their shouts filling his ears, coaxing him to kill the Dimachaerus. But he wouldn’t. He refused to lose control again.

  Decimus sent his knee into his opponent’s groin and punching repeatedly at his helmet faceplate until his knuckles were bloody and fractured, and the metal was dented inwards.

  Grappling the Dimachaerus by the shoulders, Decimus swept his leg up from behind and knocked his opponent to the ground.

  The Dimachaerus fell backwards and didn’t move. Decimus could still hear his heart beat strong and racing, but the gladiator wasn’t getting up anytime soon.

  Decimus turned and could feel the thick layers of blood caked upon his back and all over his lower garments. He felt the tingling sensation of the oozing liquid over his calves and thighs. His shoulder had healed, but the deep wound in his back was slow to close. He could still feel fresh blood flowing out of him from numerous places.

  He turned slowly and walked through the field of wounded gladiators to retrieve the small shield of the Thracian and his own trident from the sand. The last opponent was the Murmillo, a foe he had faced often in the arena.

  The stench of fear met his senses as the Murmillo shiftily edged closer to Decimus. He eyed his new opponent with his golden eyes as lips curled up in a sinister growl. He felt weak and tired, mostly from the wound in his side, but he was one fight away from freedom. Giving up was not an option.

  The Murmillo gathered the last of his strength and launched himself forward. Decimus raised his shield as the Murmillo bashed his gladius down upon him repeatedly.

  It didn’t take long before the weak wood of the shield began to splinter.

  Decimus rammed his trident down onto the foot of the Murmillo, the middle prong pinning him to the ground.

  The Murmillo groaned.

  Decimus used his shield as an offensive weapon and pounded down upon the Murmillo who was much larger than him. He battered his opponent’s shield and helmet until both were heavily dented.

  Decimus kicked the Murmillo’s knee sideways, breaking it before punching him in the chest. A gasp issued from the Murmillo’s decorative faceplate.

  Decimus slammed the edge of his shield down on his foe’s wrist and wrenched his shield off is arm. A few more blows and the Murmillo was on the ground with his foot still pinned in place.

  He saw his opponent try to stand, Decimus dislodged the trident, freeing the Murmillo’s foot.

  Raising the trident up, the prongs pointed towards his opponent’s chest, he froze. For a moment, he was ready to kill the Murmillo and send the sharp, barely used tips of his weapon into his enemy.

  He stopped himself and spun the weapon around to use the blunt end instead. Decimus jabbed the shaft into the Murmillo’s ribs, making them snap into pieces.

  The Murmillo wheezed, moaned, and coughed, but was unwilling to rise.

  Decimus tossed away his trident and staggered backwards from the mass scene of carnage before him.

  Five men lay unconscious or immobile at his feet. Blood soaked the floor of the arena. Decimus could feel the wound in his back begin to close up, but the pain was not finished with him yet.

  The spectators were on their feet, cheering and applauding the gladiator who managed to defeat all his opponents in a matter of mere moments. He lifted his eyes to look out over the cheerful faces. They got their sport and he kept his humanity. But what of his freedom?

  He turned to the sponsor’s seat of honor and saw the look of utter bafflement. Did the senator not think he would walk away with such a deal as to not have to pay any death compensation fees at all? Every man in this arena was still breathing, if not barely.

  Or perhaps it was the fact that Decimus did not kill when he had so many chances? Or that he should be lying dead right now and he wasn’t? Would he make good on the arrangement he had made with Quintus?

  Decimus waited, his core alive with anxiety. He’d been waiting two long years for this. If he didn’t get his freedom now, he never would.

  The senator rose to his feet and looked to the crowd for his verdict, though it was obvious. He raised his hands and granted Decimus his life. Then, he turned and made his way down to the arena floor, accompanied by guards.

  In his hands were the rudis, the wooden gladius of freedom he had been waiting for.

  Decimus walked forward, every movement sending jolts of agonizing pain through his body. He approached the senator and knelt down on one knee, keeping his head down to conceal his golden beast eyes.

  “I award you, Lupus, the rudis. You are freed from your servitude as a gladiator as witnessed by all these spectators and myself.”

  He offered out the handle to Lupus and he took it with a trembling hand.

  Overwhelmed by pain and relief, he didn’t rise immediately. He basked in the first taste of freedom since he left his home in the north. It was more satisfying than he had ever imagined.

  13

  Museo della Civiltà Romana, Rome Italy, 2015

  Marina steeled herself as she stood in front of the file room door, feeling embarrassed beyond comprehension. When she went in the room a couple of hours ago, she babbled on and on nervously, holding Howard’s take out box in her hand.

  He seemed patient enough to wait until she handed him the food, but for a moment she was terrified that he would chew into her for taking his food hostage like that. She couldn’t help it. She rambled when she was anxious.

  And then the way she was so expressive before leaving for the restaurant. When he offered to buy her dinner, she was blown away and petrified at the same time. She shouldn’t have been. It meant nothing. Just a repaying of debts, she told herself. He already made it clear back at her apartment that he wasn’t interested.

  But then there was the way he looked at her, like she was the only one in the world. He made her feel so important. Needed. It was a good feeling that didn’t cross her path often. To have those green eyes gaze at her with such calm, such serenity was heart stopping. Marina could scarcely breathe when they were in the same room.

  Balancing the two mugs in her open hand, she knocked with the other. As soon as she did, she realized how silly that was. This was her domain, her workplace. Why should she knock to request permission to enter?

  “Yeah?” she heard his voice rumble through.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. Papers were scattered across the table, scribbled with red pen markings and balled up notebook paper between them. It reminded her of an artist’s workstation, a nice battle zone of chaos with the hint that something was accomplished.

  “How’s it coming?” Marina asked, careful to keep her tone even as she approached Howard, despite her racing pulse.

  He
was hunched over one particular photo copy page and over his shoulder she immediately spotted the word “Lupus”, spelt as if it were a name rather than a politician talking about a local wolf.

  Howard ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “It’s coming,” he replied. Glancing to one corner of the table, she saw the empty take out box.

  “Did you like the food?”

  “Yes, very much. Thank you for getting it for me.” Howard sat up straight and looked to her, his eyes rimmed in the pink color of exhaustion. “I’m sorry, what did you have again? I know you said it earlier.”

  Marina smiled, knowing she had never mentioned it, but glad that he asked now. “Just a pasta dish I like of theirs.”

  Before she could stop herself, she began rambling again. “I really like that restaurant. Their food is always amazing and the staff is friendly. My coworkers send me there often to get them lunch when they’re too busy to go get it for themselves. The hostess over there knows me by name and so does the cook because one of my coworkers has an allergy to seafood so I have to make sure they know to wash the cookware before making his meal. They’re pretty cooperative when it comes to that sort of thing. One time another coworker got her order mixed up with another, so I had to go back and have them prepare it again. They were very nice about it and compensated her for the charge.”

  A small smile crept across Howard’s face as he listened to her about the restaurant. Realizing she had let herself carelessly jabber on about something he obviously wasn’t interested in, Marina stopped and blushed a deep red.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she muttered. “You probably didn’t want to hear about all that. Please stop me when I start to do that because I’ll keep going until you die of boredom.”

  Howard laughed and shook his head, looking at her with sparkling, laughing eyes. “You’re fine. It’s a welcome break from this mess,” he said gesturing out over the tabletop.

  Marina then remembered why she was there in the first place. The bottom of the mug warmed her palm until she felt her skin become slick with sweat. “I brought you some hot tea. I would have made you some coffee, but I remember you said you didn’t like coffee and I had a few tea bags left in my desk drawer from this one time – “

  Howard flashed her that amused smile, pearly white teeth glinting at her in the florescent light. Marina bit her lips shut and set the steaming mug down on the tabletop a good distance away from the photocopies so there was no risk of a spill that would distort the images. She learned that from an unfortunate experience involving a late report and cup of hot peach tea.

  As she released the handle, her eyes snagged on a particular sentence he had translated. Marina picked up the page and her brows furrowed.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “These words aren’t right. I thought you said you knew Latin?”

  Marina hated to be the stingy historian, but the linguist part of her despised careless errors.

  “I do. Or at least, I mostly do.”

  “Ancient Latin or modern?”

  The pause of silence told that the answer was the later rather than the former. She slid a glance his way and then picked up the red pen. She circled the two misinterpreted words and set the paper down in front of him.

  “This word means ‘daughter’ and that one is ‘feast’,” she instructed, pointing with the tip of the pen.

  Howard let out an unpleasant growl and smacked his forehead with his palm. “Those words showed up everywhere in these photo copies.”

  Marina couldn’t help but grin and pity him. She also knew the agony of being half way through a project and realizing it was all done wrong.

  With a daring breath she offered, “I can stay and help if you’d like. I know a good bit of Ancient Latin. With our combined knowledge, we could figure this out.”

  Howard sighed and shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to take you away from your job.”

  “It’s no trouble. I’m basically done anyway. We can finish quicker together too.”

  They locked eyes and Marina felt her heart seize with excitement as she watched the golden flakes in his eyes glitter in the light of the file room. He was so perfect. That phrase had never left her thoughts, even after hours spent every day trying to convince herself there was nothing there; that they were just acquaintances in this funny search of his. All resolve fled her in that intense moment. The rest of the world didn’t exist outside of that file room.

  And she could see it in him too; his own doubt melting away. Replacing it was hope and warmth that spread through both of them. She could feel the bond slowly forge into something Marina could only identify as a mutual attraction. Maybe there was something there after all, despite what he said before.

  The rub in all of this was the haunting fact that Howard wasn’t staying. He would find what he was looking for and leave Italy. He’d go home to his family, probably a girlfriend, and totally forget about her. She couldn’t stand the idea of being forgotten again. Especially not by him. She had to make him remember her somehow, whether it was being the instrument in finding his gladiator or the Italian girl that he shared a late evening with and laughed over silly stories.

  “Well, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d love to have your help again.”

  The way the word rolled off his tongue sent skitters down her spine. Love. Could such a word be hers some day? It was foolish to think so, but Marina was never that wise.

  “Great. Do you know which page you started with?” Marina tore her eyes away to look over the photocopies. She couldn’t remember if they were numbered at all.

  “Um…” Howard’s head jerked around the table, eyes searching. “I swear, I’ve got a system set up here. Just give me a minute to figure it out again.”

  Marina giggled and took a sip of her scalding coffee as she watched him scramble to get the pages back in order again.

  Villa of Quintus Marius Strabo, 71 AD

  Decimus lay still on the bed, the course bandages wrapped around his chest and torso becoming more uncomfortable as time passed.

  It’d been two days since his final battle in the arena. When he limped off the field, Quintus ushered him aside. He could still envision the horrified look of the old politician when he beheld his blood soaked skin and clothes. The politician insisted that Decimus spend his days recovering in his villa.

  Two days he had laid in this bed, a supposed invalid waited on by servants and fed with all the delicacies that were common to Quintus and Caprasia, but so foreign to his own pallet. The wounds had long healed, but the rest was much appreciated. Never had he been so comfortable in his life. Not even in the north did there exist a more comfortable bed than this one he laid upon.

  No one disturbed him, but he could hear the constant traffic of the household. Slaves cooking and gossiping in the kitchen, Quintus meeting with citizens to hear their grievances, Caprasia humming as she whittled away the boring hours in her chamber across the villa. It was a soothing melody to his ears, much better than the clanging of swords and grunts of gladiators from the training field.

  As Decimus rested, he also dreamed. For the first time in a long time, he dreamed. He dreamed of home and a life of fresh air and forests. The beast in him rejoiced as well, glad to be out of that cramped cell. But there was still the matter of getting home or building a home here in Roman society.

  One late morning, Decimus awoke to the unerring knowledge that someone was near. With his eyes closed, he inhaled Caprasia’s fragrance. Then he could feel her light frame sit down on the corner of his bed. How long would she stay there if he continued to feign sleep?

  Decimus let his eyes crack open. The morning light that streamed through the upper window illuminated the room. He first saw the painted frescos on the wall, scenes of vineyards and dancing maidens. Then he turned his head to include Caprasia in his view.

  In this light, she looked even younger than she said she was. It was the innocence that bled from her skin that made her so yout
hful. If it weren’t for the melancholy frown on her lips, she would have looked even prettier than she already was.

  “Father tells me you’ll be leaving us soon,” she said, her words breathy and laced with sadness.

  “Not until my strength returns.”

  Caprasia snorted cynically. “There is nothing wrong with you. If you were truly injured, you’d still be passed out from the pain.” She turned away as the memories replayed in her mind. “I saw you get stabbed. If you were any other man, it would have killed you. We haven’t changed your bandages since you arrived.”

  Decimus never took her for a fool, but he hoped that she hadn’t been so sharp. “I told your father I could dress my own wounds.”

  “I asked the slaves and they haven’t taken any old bandages from your room. You haven’t changed them.” Caprasia looked back to Decimus with the sparkle of tears in her eyes. “When will you tell me the truth? You promised me.”

  Decimus hoped that she would have forgotten the vow he made that night in the cell. He didn’t want to tell her. He’d never had to tell anyone. Marcus figured it out for himself and that was all. Decimus didn’t even know how to begin to explain why he could heal so quickly, how his eyes changed color and his senses were keener than any animal’s.

  With no difficulty, he sat up on the bed, the bandages crinkling and shifting against his skin. He watched a lone tear streak down Caprasia’s cheek. He reached out to brush it away, but she jerked back from his hand with a gasp.

  Recoiling his hand, he realized that she was afraid. In the cell, she had been afraid, but she was still eager to kiss him. Now, seeing him at his worst in the arena, she couldn’t stand his touch. What she must have thought of him.

  “I won’t hurt you, Caprasia,” he whispered. He didn’t need her acceptance, didn’t care for her advances, but he wouldn’t tolerate her tears.

  “Tell me who you really are,” she quietly demanded, her body tense and rigid.

  Decimus sighed and let his eyes fall on the fresco behind her, searching the skillful brushstrokes and brilliant colors for an answer, anything to tell her to quench her undying curiosity. But, where to begin with such a story?