by Nick Morris
“Well, Dertosa. Do you think that you can do something with this Spaniard?” Belua asked the taller of the trainers. “I’ve been told by that ass-hole Luba that he’s had some experience with the short sword. He’s too stocky and short in the arm for the net and trident, but the Thracian sword may suit him? What do you think?”
The light-skinned Dertosa was Belgae, from the far north. With powerful shoulders and lean muscular arms, he was now an instructor of the sword. He’d acquired a reputation as a skilful and ruthless adversary in the arena, and was cold, uncompromising, like his home-land.
Dertosa stepped forward and slowly circled the Spaniard before replying, “He has the depth of chest. If he has the wind to match and some speed, I may be able to do something with him.”
“Well?” Belua queried, prompting a definite answer.
“I’ll take him.”
Belua addressed the second instructor, who hailed from the eastern province of Cilicia, and who had a lean, whip-lash quality. Coarse, black hair was pulled back from his face and tied in a tight plait at his nape. His eyes were just as dark, and a full-lipped mouth betokened a relaxed yet unflinching nature.
“Prudes, I’m afraid the shortest straw goes to you.” He grinned wryly. “These Gauls look like dog shit and probably have the ability to match, although I’m sure the bastards will be able to run. After all, it’s in their blood.”
The young trainer of net-men smiled in response to Belua’s remarks, and his well-known contempt for Gauls, stating, “The scrapings of the barrel again. They have the look of frightened rabbits, and will probably hang themselves before the week is out. I’ll do what I can with them, but tonight’s wine is on you.”
“As always, your pocket is as long as your tongue,” Belua jibed, smiling. “Very well, it’s settled.”
“What about him?” Prudes asked, indicating the giant of the group. “A German by the size of him, and with fire in his eyes. Now, he’s one I could do something with!”
“Put it out of your mind. He’s mine. You could say we’ve picked each other. He will train in the myrmillo style.” He turned to Dertosa. “Can you speak his tongue?”
“He’ll be able to understand me.”
“Good,” Belua said. “Then you can help me train him.”
Dertosa responded with a slight dip of his head.
“Are you sure about this?” Prudes asked, persisting.
“I am. Be satisfied with your Gauls, because he’s not for you. Understood?”
“Understood,” Prudes confirmed, still scrutinizing the German. “This one hates you Belua. You can see it in his eyes and smell it on him. Just watch your back my friend,” he warned, resignedly slapping the head trainer on the shoulder.
“If his hate strengthens his sword arm and his will to win, then all the better. But, if it blinds his ability to learn, it will be a different matter.” Belua rubbed his hands briskly together in a business-like fashion. “Now, on to their names and the oath.”
He placed his vine-stick deliberately onto the shoulder of each novice, each tiro, repeating their Roman’ names aloud. The two Gauls – Bolanus, Felix, and the Spaniard – Ellios.
“And, a special name for you,” he spoke lastly to the scowling German. “A slayer of legionaries, and me too if given the chance. You will be Caetes...the Death Bringer.”
The tiros were prompted to repeat their names back to Belua, with no little encouragement from the sting of his vine-stick. Next came the mandatory oath sworn by every new gladiator. “Right, you heathen bastards! Just mouth these words after me – ‘To endure burning with fire, shackling with chains, to be whipped with rods and killed with steel.’”
In time-worn fashion Belua repeated the oath once in full and then in parts, enticing the tiros to parrot the pledge that ratified their slavish status. Completed roughly to Belua’s satisfaction, they were marched to a waiting brazier, where a hot iron bearing the boar symbol of Ludus Gordeo was applied to the bare flesh of each man’s heel. Belua watched, impassive, as they gasped in pain, his nostrils flaring with the stench of seared flesh. A guard applied a sprinkling of finely ground salt to each raw wound.
The German was the last to be branded, and two of the guards had to pin him down, ready for the iron. Belua looked into his eyes as he was pinned, and he saw that Prudes was right – the German wanted him dead. Yet, Belua enjoyed a challenge like the German most of all, and he would turn all of that hate to good use.
The branding complete, Belua ordered that they were given water to drink. Unshackled, they were then led to their cells.
Belau watched the German disappear into his cell, flanked by two armed guards, pondering if he’d progress beyond tiro.
I hope so, he thought. If I don’t have to kill him first.
* * *
Chapter VI
WAY OF THE GLADIATOR
“Begin, be bold and venture to be wise.”
Horace
The guards’ torches sent shadows dancing across the cell’s walls, and Guntram recoiled, seeing that his new home measured no more than three strides by five. His tongue flicked over his top lip, tasting salty sweat despite the coolness of the evening.
A bundle of clothes sat in one corner of the cell and the guard gestured for him to strip. He stepped out from the rags that barely covered his private parts and was quickly shown how to attach his loin cloth. Once fitted, he donned a coarse, woollen tunic that fell loosely to mid-thigh. A poncho–like outer garment doubled as a sleeping cover, and thickly soled sandals, laced to above the ankles, completed his scanty wardrobe.
The hard, metal click of a key signified the guard locking the door behind him. He fought down the urge to retch, breathing deeply.
As the nausea subsided he looked around the cell. His eyes adjusting to the gloom, he realized the walls were covered by faint etchings. He traced the gouged out-lines with his fingers, recognising sketches of men fighting and training, and others of men and women engaged in lewd coupling acts. What appeared to be names were scratched alongside them. Past guests, he thought grimly.
He moved to the iron door, bent, then looked out of the small aperture that provided his sole view of the outside world. Peering between the nearby stone columns he scrutinised the dimly lit grassy area a few meters away. It was bordered on all four sides by a two–storied tiled colonnade, and guards lounged around a coal brazier on its opposite side, near to the barred entrance.
Weary, he turned away from the door to lie on the straw-filled mattress that served as both bed and chair.
His loved ones soon came to him, and as each scene of their lives together slipped by, he was stung by a deep sense of loss. Then the hurt collided with something else; an itching to do violence, to do anything that would chase away the powerlessness.
Shaking, he curled up, and drawing his cover over his body, settled to wonder on what the new dawn would bring.
*
At sun-rise, Guntram’s door was thrown open with a resonant clang. He recognised some of the guard’s gruff words of command, “Slave...Move...Quickly.”
His sleep had been broken, and his heel ached badly. He remembered the searing pain when the metal was pressed to his flesh, and that bastard – Belua he was called, watching, when he’d been branded like a goat.
Guntram blinked some clarity into his eyes, before ducking out of his cell to join others emerging from similar quarters bordering the grassy square. He was roughly prodded into a line, and then ushered towards a building that ran along the school’s eastern flank.
They entered a large ground floor room and were handed two clay bowls; one for drinking, the other for food. Two attendants situated at the entrance dispensed fresh water and a large portion of barley porridge to each of them. They were then directed to low benches set around a heavy wooden table that ran the length of the room.
Not knowing when his next meal would come, Guntram wolfishly shovelled the porridge into his mouth. His Gaulish travelling companion
s and the grinning Spaniard were seated opposite him, and attacked the gruel with equal relish. The food was good, the best he’d had since leaving his village. He recalled his home, his mother, and the food she’d cooked him. Food, he realized bitterly, that he’d never taste again.
Meal consumed, they were quickly assembled on the training area, the palaestra, watched by the ever present armed guards. There were twelve of them, and Guntram’s group was separated and herded to a section of the palaestra where a line of six foot posts waited, set permanently into the hard surface. Each man was positioned in front of a post and issued with a heavy, wooden sword.
Guntram felt his hackles rise as Scar appeared, accompanied by his two companions of the previous night. Scar, equipped with a wooden sword, demonstrated two sword attacks, striking out at one of the posts. Firstly, an underhand thrust to the mid-section, the disembowelling strike, and secondly, an overhand downward thrust at an opponent’s upper chest and throat. Then, without preamble, the tiros were directed to practice these strokes by repeatedly attacking their wooden quarries.
An hour passed and sweat streaked Guntram’s face, and his arm and shoulder burned from the continuous assault on his post. He clenched his teeth, forcing the pain aside. His three companions had earlier briefly halted their practice, appearing exhausted. A barrage of vicious strokes from Scar’s stick had galvanised them into renewed action and left them sporting a brace of painful wheals across the backs of their legs.
The Spaniard spoke to him between rasping gulps of air, and Guntram recognised his new name...Cae...Caetes. He bridled at its sound. He glared back in return, spitting on the ground at his feet, before turning his attention back to the training post. Each blow was struck with venom, as if driven deep into Scar’s flesh.
Then Scar’s voice rang out, bringing all talk to an end.
The sun was on its way up into a flawless blue, when Guntram noted the advent of a new group onto the palaestra. He watched with interest as they practised with an array of metal weapons, noticing that although these gladiators practised vigorously, they spoke to one another and with their trainers, laughing easily and exchanging shouts of encouragement, as well as taking intermittent breaks from their practice. Their air of camaraderie contrasted markedly with his own grinding practice.
The drill continued unabated until mid-day, with the trainers signalling a break in the practice and a return to the refectory. After prising the wooden practice sword from the raw flesh of his palm, Guntram followed his fellows into the welcome shade of the dining area once more. The meal comprised of a stew filled with vegetables and chunks of dark meat, a wedge of coarse brownish bread and plenty of water. Guntram ate it all.
Fed, the company was shepherded out onto the training field, although the trainers were now noticeable by their absence. The mid-day heat rendered vigorous training impractical, and the men were permitted to rest awhile in the shade of the school’s porticoes, being able to recuperate from the rigours of the morning.
Guntram sat in the shade of the colonnade, his back against the cool stone. His attention was drawn to the lofty mountain that loomed majestically in the near distance. Clouds escaped its peak to blot out the sun’s rays. Like a giant of legend it towered over the bay. A fly tickled his right hand and he looked down, noticing that it no longer shook.
With a drop in temperature the trainers reappeared, Scar’s distinctive bark shattering the temporary calm of the palaestra. The tiros were spurred into action, mechanically repeating the morning’s drills.
Eventually, the afternoon tipped towards evening and Guntram’s practice at the posts was called to a halt. His vision swam and his right arm was on fire. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that his fellow trainees staggered as if drunk. After surrendering his wooden blade to one of the beckoning guards, he saw that his hand, sticky with fresh blood, was shaking again.
The guards wasted no time in providing him with a battered pail of cold water and a bundle of clean rags. Paired with the Spaniard – the newly named Ellios – Guntram doused his body down before briskly rubbing himself dry. He quickly redressed, his flesh quivering under the coarse woollen tunic. Joining the now familiar queue of gladiators, he headed once more in the direction of the refectory. It would be his last meal of the day.
Afterwards, sitting in the shadowed gloom of the palaestra, he winced as he straightened his right arm. He cradled it against his chest. I feel so tired, he thought. Too tired to even think. He closed his eyes, it seemed only for a moment, and then Scar’s voice rang out, and he knew that it was time to return to his cell.
*
He watched the dim twilight fade, the narrow band of light from the door’s aperture retreating slowly across the stone floor. There was no skylight, nor any means of communication with the cells on either side or above, and Guntram was soon enveloped in darkness. To one such as he, who’d lived his life amongst the vast, open forests of Germania, it was the worst type of prison.
His gut an aching hollow, he mulled over his fate. This place was training him to fight, but who? He’d noticed the strange armour worn by some of the warriors who trained with real weapons, and who wielded swords and spears that were both familiar and strange. He’d even seen one warrior practising a fighting style using a fishing net and harpoon. And, he knew that Rome had its own warriors, its iron legions, to fight their enemies. Whose blood was he then being trained to spill? The questions like lost sheep ran circles in his mind, until baffled, he forced himself to think of happier times, before the death of his family.
He remembered the night last summer when he and Jenell had slipped out of the village at just gone midnight. Two dark silhouettes, they left the settlement perimeter to silently blend into the surrounding forest. Like two ghosts, whispering and holding hands, they hurried towards a secret place in the nearby wooded hills.
A narrow hill valley led them steeply upward through a belt of trees, where they followed a stream flowing through a meadow. On either side of the valley, peaks tottered overhead as if yearning to touch across the sky. The land dropped off at the meadow’s edge, the stream water-falling off into a pool in a sheltered hollow. The summer air was warm, heavy with the scent of pine, and a half moon washed the pool with pale light. They descended to the pool’s side, and wasting no time discarded their clothes and entered the water. Jenell had never looked more beautiful.
He remembered the shock of the cool water and the feel of goose-bumps on Jenell’s arms as he pulled her close. Her lustrous hair, unbraided, fanned across the pool’s surface and he covered her mouth with his own.
He’d placed a bear rug on the grass, and this was where they moved to; warm in each other’s arms after the chill of the water. Their love-making was tender, unhurried, and afterwards Jenell cradled his head in her lap and crooned a song of a hawk who became a prince. Much later, when they dressed to leave, he watched her as she stood straight, wringing the water from her hair – the tilt of her head, the soft curve of her lips. After, she spoke to him in quiet tones, as if the world listened. “My love, this private place will always be ours, and will always have a place inside me.” She touched her heart.
He mouthed Jenell’s words, clear in his mind, and had to swallow hard, damming back the moisture in his eyes. Easing back onto his mattress, he studied the night’s stillness for a while. His tired lids closed and sleep came, and with it the slipping away of all he had seen.
* * *
Chapter VII
A DEATH IN CAMPANIA
“The soul becomes dyed
with the colour of its thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius
Servannus watched the young slave boy refill his guests’ wine cups as they reclined beneath the villa’s make-shift awning. The day was hot and their thirst seemed insatiable. Other slaves cleaned blood-stains from a close by grassy area where the gladiator matches had been fought.
As the new master of the estate, he’d ruled that every bout was fought to the death; t
he occasion being the funeral rites of his father, the late Marcus Tullius Titus. Heir to Titus’s considerable holdings, Servannus spared no cost in purchasing six gladiators of above average skill. The paired contests were over relatively quickly but had nevertheless pleased him.
“A satisfactory display,” Servannus addressed his two drunken companions. His statement was geared to elicit a predictable response.
“E...excellent, tr...truly excellent Servannus,” responded Marius, a well known socialite. His slurred words were quickly echoed by his companion, Gallio.
Servannus gave a short laugh, aware that his guests knew little of the gladiator’s trade. Rather, they simply agreed with anyone who was likely to fill their cups, and kept refilling them. It was the price he paid for company.
None of his father’s friends and associates had come to the villa at Herculaneum. They said their farewells at the family tomb at Pompeii earlier in the day when the old man was interred, and then left. He knew they had no time for him, with some doubtless suspecting that he’d played a part in old Titus’s sudden death. The suspicions were unfounded, with him being away kicking his heels on the empire’s northern borders. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. He’d just never had the nerve to attempt it. The old noble died in his sleep, with his physician diagnosing that his heart had simply given out. Servannus had wasted no time returning home on his receipt of the tragic news and he was now a very wealthy young man.
He was his father’s sole heir, his mother succumbing to the lung fever when he was barely old enough to walk. His father over-indulged him as a boy but they were never close. Servannus recalled the scoldings he received when his father learned of his mistreatment of a slave or household’ animal. But, the reprimands only succeeded in teaching him to use cunning and veiled threats to conceal his misdemeanours. He knew that his father had hoped he would outgrow his meanness, and that military service might engender a sense of camaraderie in him. It didn’t, and he returned home, unchanged.