by B. L. Morgan
Of the other two, one was a young guy, looked to be in his late teens. He would be fast on his feet. He could be dangerous, if he could keep his head.
The other guy named Pugnax, had a sadistic attitude and the size and strength to make it work for him. He was somewhere around six foot two and weighed around two-twenty. He was the local equivalent of a boxer. This guy had scars all over him from previous battle wounds. Too bad one of those wounds hadn’t been fatal.
He started out by ordering the younger guy off his cot so he could claim it for his own. I think he did that just to let us know what he was about. This guy had the potential to be a problem.
After eating a little fruit, taking a dump in the correct bucket and talking for a few minutes we were all getting ready to settle down to some heavy sleep when the guards came for me.
* * *
Two guards came with the one who unlocked our cell. He stepped in and pointed at me with his sword. “You,” he said. “Come with us.”
They lead me through breezy torch lit hallways and when I asked where I was being taken I was told, “Silence!”
When we came to a row of cells similar to the one I’d been in the night before, we stopped in front of one of the doors and it was unlocked.
The door was swung open. I looked inside but could see nothing inside except blackness. A torch beside the door blinded me from seeing anything.
The guard who’d silenced me earlier now said, “You are given a gift for your showing against Paulino. You showed more than expected.” Then I was shoved into the room and the door was slammed shut and locked behind me.
All was darkness within. I could see nothing at all, not even my hand in front of my face. Where my cell the night before had at least a window and an opening overhead, this one had nothing.
I stepped forward slowly into the darkness, feeling my way. I didn’t want to walk into something in the pitch blackness.
I found the bed and sat down on it.
I’m being given a gift, I thought? Being thrown in a pitch black hole, these Romans are some fucked up people if this is their idea of a good time.
My eyes were adjusting gradually to what little light came in from under the door. I could make out vague shapes in the room I was in, the cot I was sitting on, the basket of fruit, the two buckets. And something in the far corner that was hunched over and making sniffling noises.
As my eyes adjusted further I could tell it was a small person. I went to the corner and saw that the person’s back was turned to me. It was a woman. She was trying her best to hide, in a place where there was nowhere to hide.
I went over to her and as softly as I could I said, “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.” I reached out and touched her back. She screamed in terror.
I went back to the bed and sat down as my ears throbbed from the echoes of her fright. From there I told her, “Look, I’ll just leave you alone. Nobody’s going to hurt you in here tonight.”
She stayed crouched down in the corner covering her head with her arms and sobbing. From the sound of her voice I could tell this was that skinny teenage girl that Flaccus bought with the rest of us.
I guess I was supposed to be a part of her training. I was supposed to rape her, to get her used to doing what she’s told, whether she likes it or not. I listened to her cry for a while. Little moans escaped her. She sounded like an injured puppy.
Well, I’m not one for rape. Never could understand how a guy could get off on hurting a woman. And besides, she was still a kid. These Romans are some fucked up people to be doing this kind of thing. I might be so horny that I could fuck a knot hole in a tree, but I could not rape a kid. Wrong is wrong. No matter where you are.
There were two blankets on the cot, so I took one to her. When I laid it over her shoulders, she screamed again.
“No one’s going to hurt you tonight,” I told her again and meant it.
I didn’t even want to think about what this kid had probably been through all day. And that boy that Paulino had eliminated from the ranks of the gladiators, for all I know he might have had it worse. I doubt they use Vaseline in the Roman Empire. That boy better learn how to suck a mean dick, otherwise he’s in for some rough rides.
I knew I’d better get some sleep so I stretched out on the cot. Even though I was tired as hell, sleep was not easy in coming. The extreme cruelty of what I was seeing was bothering even me.
I’d killed a lot of people, but I didn’t torture and rape and nail people to crosses. And I was getting the feeling that I was only touching the tip of the iceberg. I knew there was going to be a whole lot more ugliness to see before we left the good-ole Romans behind.
Just before I drifted off to sleep, there was movement on the cot beside me. There wasn’t much room but I slid over as far as I could and the kid cuddled up to me like the lost child that she was.
I wished there was something I could do to help her, but I knew there wasn’t.
CHAPTER 23
Who Makes the Glands Dance?
By the time I woke up the kid was gone. I must have been so tired that when the guards came in to take her, I just slept through it. It’s probably better that I was a sleep. One bad move from one of those guards and I might have started acting like a hero and try to protect the kid.
That would have only gotten me killed.
Fists, feet, knees and teeth against swords is not an even contest. Who was I to be thinking about protecting anyone? With the situation we were in, Johnny and me would be lucky to get out of this alive with all our limbs attached. We would have to be extremely lucky to get Sushi, Sherry, Terry and some of those others back to our own time and place. Trying to help anyone else was pure insanity.
So what? I’d been called fucking crazy before. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d done something really stupid.
* * *
We spent the better part of the next week just getting used to the training we were going through. After the first day, I had aches in places I’d forgotten existed. Over the next two days the soreness went away. Muscles I hadn’t used for a long time hardened. My wind got better. My reflexes became quicker.
They were feeding us three good meals a day of small game animals and fruits and vegetables. I was very surprised at how quickly my body was reacting to the good food, exercise and rest.
Even when I was a professional boxer I never took the training seriously, it was always just a way to make a buck. Here, I didn’t have a choice. There was no cutting this training camp and going chasing pussy all night. Here, you did what you were told when you were told to do it. There wasn’t no playing around with these trainers. These guys were serious.
When you didn’t do what you were told a whip was cracked across your back. One lick with that whip and you were ready to do anything they said.
Near the end of the first week the martial arts training that Johnny and me had received started to show. We were clearly better at defending ourselves than most of the guys who’d been brought in with us.
This really wasn’t all that surprising considering that most of these gladiator trainees were just farmers or thieves. They were starting from square one.
Torstan was the exception.
He was big and strong and mean as hell. He liked the heavy weapons. Anything that had some weight to it Torstan liked swinging at someone’s head.
There were some contradictions in our training.
Before we began our training, the day after we passed our tests, Miletus stood us against the wall and shouted at us, “While you are here you are never to strike with your weapons to cause injury. This is a place of learning. Not the place of combat.”
When we were sparring with the blunted swords or other weapons and a fight did break out, Miletus usually just stood back and let the two go at it until it got too serious for his liking. If he really didn’t want us injuring each other, he should have stopped those fights immediately.
In Johnny and me, he was dealing with two
guys who could end a fight and a man’s life in a split second. Him, waiting for a signal for us to look like we were going to hurt someone just wouldn’t work.
Near the end of that first week of training while having the midday meal, Johnny and me came to an agreement.
When no one was close to our table I told Johnny, “You know I don’t think it would be a good idea if we let Miletus and these other guys know just how much hurt we can put on them if we want to.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” he answered. “They might slap guards all over us and keep us in chains right up until they throw us in the Coliseum.”
“Let’s not show them all our tricks. OK?” I said.
“Fuck,” Johnny said. “I got tricks I don’t even know I knew. I just won’t let them see I can kick their ass any time I feel like it.”
“Until it makes a difference,” I said.
We shook hands.
“Yeah,” he said, “Until it makes a difference.”
* * *
Training became routine.
Get up, eat, stretch then work out with different weapons until Miletus chose you to specialize in one. Whatever you looked best at doing, whatever would make you worth more money, Miletus had you specialize in.
Miletus chose Johnny to be a retiarus, a fighter with a trident and a net. A retiarus didn’t wear much armor since his mobility was a key to his success. I think Miletus chose this type of combat for Johnny just to be able to show off his black skin. The word was given to the rest of us. If we sparred with Johnny, make sure you don’t hurt him. If you do, you’ll be nailed to a cross.
A black man in Rome cost too much to be wasted before a profit was made from his hide.
I was chosen to be a caestus fighter. Those are the guys who have their hands wrapped in bandages and punch the bags around and spar for their training. Here we would always wear padded gloves while sparring. In actual combat in the arena, leather straps studded with nails would be stretched over our knuckles.
After taking a few licks with those babies you get a serious case of the uglies for the rest of your life. Miletus probably chose this type of training for me because I’d been boxing for so long that throwing straight punches and short compact hooks was instinctive. Throwing a straight punch was something I could not force myself not to do.
I would rather have had my main training be with a sword but I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Sword training would be more valuable to me but not make me more profitable for Flaccus, and that’s what it was all about.
* * *
Days came and went with a swiftness that was hard to believe. The routine of training occupied most of our waking hours. We trained hard and every three days we were sent to the bath house where we were scrubbed down like the prized livestock that we were.
I lost all track of how many days went by while we were at Micea. One week, two weeks, a month, I’m not sure.
I only know that I continued to get stronger and quicker under the training we were going through. The thing was, at my age, I know I should have reached a certain level of fitness and not been able to surpass that. There should have been a wall I’d reach where my body would say, “That’s it, I can’t do any better than this.”
The other older guys reached their plateau after a few weeks. You could see it in their worried expressions when they watched the younger guys smoothly go through movements that they had to struggle with. It’s got to be a bad feeling to know you’re going into a fight to the death with less physical tools than your opponent.
I’m glad I didn’t have to have that on my mind.
It seemed like every day that I worked out on the bags or sparred or dodged the swinging poles from the training devices that more years were peeling away from my body. I was feeling younger every day. Never had I been this fit in my life.
I was feeling like if they threw me into a pit with a big black bear, I could rip his nuts off and shove them down his throat before he could do any damn thing about it.
When I mentioned this to Johnny he said, “I’ve been noticing the same thing, as far as feeling younger. I’m not sure what the hell caused it, but I know we went through some physical changes when we came through that portal.”
I told Johnny, “The life expectancy in these times is a lot shorter than our time. Maybe, whatever happened to us is compensating for that difference in life span.”
“I tell you something,” Johnny said and pointed at my left temple. “Back in our time, you were starting to turn gray. You don’t have a gray hair on your head now.”
“Your gray is gone too,” I told Johnny. “But you’re still as ugly as an old prune anyway.”
“Sushi calls that my rugged good looks,” Johnny said and smiled.
“You miss her very much?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he answered. “It’s like a part of me is gone. No offense Bro, but I could tell her things that I couldn’t tell anybody else, personal things.” His eyes had a faraway look, like he was seeing something that I couldn’t. It looked like any moment now he’d start crying.
I said, “You could tell her things like, get down there and suck my dick girl. Tube steak’s served for dinner tonight.”
Johnny looked at me hard for a second then burst out laughing.
“I’m gonna kick your ass for that someday,” he said.
“I didn’t need to have you going all misty on me,” I told him. “These Romans won’t give a shit about you nursing a heart ache. They'd use it to torture you.”
“I will tell you one thing though,” Johnny said. “I do miss Sushi for more than just the sex.”
“I know Bro,” I said.
“But that knob job that she could throw at you,” Johnny said. “Damn man, she could sure make my glands dance.”
CHAPTER 24
Party Time
After a hard day of training, at the evening meal, Miletus strode into the room and announced to all the hungry gladiators, “In honor of Venus, whose festival begins tomorrow, tomorrow will be a day of rest. Tonight we will celebrate.” Then he marched out.
Johnny and me looked at each other.
“What the hell do you think that means?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Knowing these assholes, they might want to torture each other and call that a good time.”
After we finished eating, we were marched to the bathing room where we got a good scrubbing a day ahead of schedule. Then they marched us across the courtyard and up a stairway to the third floor.
The other gladiators seemed to be happy about what was to come so I was kind of relaxing myself when we were directed through a large wooden door and into what looked like a Roman tavern.
There were probably a few hundred gladiators in this huge torch lit room where heavy wooden benches and tables were the main furnishings. Gladiators were sitting at the wooden benches drinking from large wooden mugs. Wooden kegs of different kinds of drink were scattered throughout the room.
In the center of the room was a huge long table where all kinds of foods were laid out. There were fruits, vegetables, cheeses, breads and different kinds of meats that I couldn’t identify. I took a closer look and some of the meat looked like big snails. On another plate they had something laid out that looked like stuffed mice. I might try some of the bird or rabbit looking stuff later but I was staying the hell away from those snails and mice.
Slave girls and boys were continually running between the kegs and the seated gladiators refilling mugs as they were emptied.
Guards were wandering among the gladiators. Some were sitting with the groups of gladiators on the benches, others just roaming around. They weren’t drinking. Although you could see some of them laughing with the gladiators, they knew what their jobs were. I even caught a glimpse of Miletus wandering around.
Near the center of the room there were two tables pushed together. Two men and a woman were standing on the tables playing musical instruments and
singing. Well, not really singing. It was more a loud harmonized moaning. The musical instruments, and these words popped in my head when I saw them because I’d never seen these things before, were a harp, a lute and a lyre.
The music they were making was slow and almost trance inducing.
I motioned toward them and told Johnny, “Check them out. I think I’ll stick to my Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.”
“Yeah,” Johnny answered. “Motown ain’t missing a goddamn thing by not signing them.”
We took a seat at a bench near the eastern wall of the room. As soon as we sat down two girls brought us some mugs full of a dark purplish liquid. They smiled at us and seemed to take an extra-long look at us.
I smiled back.
Johnny asked them, “What is this stuff?” He pointed at his mug.
I’d already taken a drink and the liquid had a bitter-sweet flavor that I couldn’t quite name. It burned the back of your throat while making your mouth water for more.
“Spiced wine with ground sea slugs added,” one of the serving girls told us, a doe eyed beauty with flowing black hair. “It is said to give the manhood of Hercules to all who drink it.” She blushed a bright red as she looked at Johnny then she glanced at the wall behind us where there was a long row of doorways that had cloth curtains over the openings.
We now saw that gladiators were going through the doorways towing serving girls by the hand behind them. It was obvious that this was a type of whore house and we were to do our fucking on the other side of those curtains.
“If you want anything at all,” The serving girl said blushing, “just let me know. I have always been curious about Nubians.”
Johnny smiled back. “Thanks for the offer,” he said. “I’ll consider it.”
Then those girls were off to serve someone else.
“Damn,” I told Johnny. “You should have jumped on her. Man, she practically laid that pussy on the table and yelled, Come and get it!”