Mark of the Gladiator

by Heidi Belleau

  That night, like the night before, he was barred from the common dinner and sent alone to his cell with food and drink: the same bland but hearty beans as always, but all he could picture as he ate was that his brothers were probably imagining him dining on meat and good wine.

  “Dominus told me to give you this new tunic,” the kitchen slave who’d brought his dinner said, laying it down beside the bowls. “But you’d better not put it on yet. You’re still bleeding a little.”

  “Am I?” His back was such a mess of pain and itching and scabbing, he couldn’t tell one discomfort from another.

  “Are you—” She looked ashamed, for a moment, but continued on. “Are you afraid of going? I haven’t changed hands for five years now. I don’t know if I could bear it again. What if your new master is cruel?”

  “Iunius remains my master. This new man is just paying for my services. Anyway, no, I’m not afraid. Iunius isn’t exactly kind himself, and anything’s better than the mines, don’t you think?”

  She didn’t reply.

  He slept on his stomach again and dreamed of riding to war with his kinsmen across the western desert. But the sand beneath their horses’ hooves turned to seafoam, and one by one, they foundered and were lost. The water closed above him and stole his last breath.

  In the morning, he woke gasping and realized with new dread that he hadn’t even gotten the chance to say good-bye to Gaius. Maybe never would, depending on how well Gaius fought over the coming months. So he did what he always did: prayed to the Romans’ god Mars and his own goddess Ifri that Gaius would win through safely. He couldn’t ask for more than that. Didn’t dare. Praying for freedom? Well.

  Iunius and two guards escorted him to the house of Marianus.

  He’d only ever walked the streets of Rome shackled and heavily guarded on his way to and from matches. This time, Iunius didn’t bother shackling him. Walking without the weight of his irons felt close to flying.

  He worked hard to keep his exhilaration and terror in check. There were too many strangers crossing his path. He caught himself calculating how best to kill them. Then he would blink his eyes and remind himself that this wasn’t the training ground or the arena. They’re fruit sellers. That’s a slave girl carrying water for her old mistress. A group of musicians. Bricklayers. Children. The world outside was so complicated, so rich and beautiful. The colors and the noises and the smells, oh gods, the smells: woodsmoke, roasting sausages, perfumed oil, spilled wine.

  No one looked at him twice. Once, for sure, because few stood above him. But little else caught their eye. There were other tattooed slaves walking these crowded streets. Even a yellow-haired man, likely a Gaul, with TMQF emblazoned on his forehead. Wearing street clothes, unarmed, without the paint of blood or glisten of oil on his skin, Anazâr was no different from any of them.

  Soon, the streets grew less crowded, the smells less pungent, the buildings lower, wider, richer.

  From the outside, the house of Marianus was an immaculately maintained domus, walls scrubbed free of the graffiti and stains that marred some of their neighbors’. The heavy, red front door was so well-polished, Anazâr probably could have seen his reflection in it, had he the time. As it was, the door immediately swung open, like they’d been expected with some measure of impatience or anxiety. Anazâr thought he’d be sent to a slave’s door, but Iunius beckoned him impatiently through the main entrance. He flinched as he passed the threshold, as though some invisible barrier would hold him back, or maybe it was a trick and he’d be punished for being so presumptuous, but nothing happened.

  He bent his head so as not to gape at his surroundings. They were standing in a vestibule, and even though they hadn’t yet been greeted or invited into the main area of the house, what he could see just here was extravagantly, ridiculously beautiful, as if he’d walked into a giant treasure chest, not a house inhabited by flesh and blood people. Pastoral mosaics assembled from pieces no larger than his smallest fingernail, the shining eyes of shepherds crafted from rare glittering minerals. A marble statue of a goddess, painted delicate pink and draped in gossamer indigo fabric. Gleaming candelabras—no doubt solid silver—flanked the entrance.

  “Marianus will see you now,” announced a well-groomed slave woman, opening the door to the inner house. When Anazâr caught her eye, he was momentarily stunned by how composed she was, the plaits of her hair speaking of delicate labor. Not like a slave at all, at least not the hardy kitchen women he’d grown to know and respect at the ludus. As beautiful as the house that kept her . . . and just as ornamental.

  Well, no fear of Anazâr coming to such a fate: with his grim face, so rough-hewn and perverted by the tattoo, he’d probably never see the inside of this house of beautiful things again. He was already anxious to leave.

  She led them through the atrium past a line of waiting men—lesser men, Anazâr understood at once—here to feed off of Marianus’s wealth, their presence as telling of that wealth as the lavishness of the house they stood in.

  Iunius, too, had his own clients, according to Roman custom. Hyenas, more like. Hangers-on. But then, here those roles were reversed and now Iunius himself played the client seeking nobler patronage, come to offer a prize gladiator as tribute.

  At least Iunius didn’t have to wait. They bypassed the line altogether and followed the beautiful slave into her master’s study, an open room that commanded both the atrium and an indoor garden beyond. Anazâr caught glimpses of green vines, fresh blooms, and more statues, before his gaze was arrested by Marianus.

  Eyes the same color and luster as the silver candelabras. That was the first thing Anazâr noticed, and also the last, because he forced himself to look down lest he cause offense. The floor tiles were immaculately clean; above, the sweep of Marianus’s toga included a narrow crimson-purple stripe that Iunius’s toga lacked.

  Anazâr barely followed their conversation, an elaborate Latin duel of formal greetings and pleasantries, other than to notice that Iunius took great care with the titles he gave Marianus.

  “So this is your man?”

  His cue. Anazâr lifted his head and pushed back his shoulders, staring off into that familiar middle distance. Not looking down like a wounded animal, not looking directly at his betters like he thought himself an equal.

  “Cyrenaicus,” said Iunius. “From Numidia, one of Antonius’s men in the Battle of Actium.” And now, following the usual script, he gestured to the tattoo. “Once a runaway, until he found his purpose on the sands. Every gladiator he’s met has begged submission or died under his sword. Now the glory of battle is all he lives for.”

  “Is it true?” asked Marianus with mild curiosity. Was it true that he’d killed many men, survived many battles he should have lost? Was it true that he moved like a bird of prey, striking and falling back, fighting with brutal grace? Was it true that now he’d tasted blood and heard the cheers of the audience, he would never deign to return to his rootless barbarian existence? “Is it true what your master says about you? You’ve no appetite for women?”

  “Speak,” Iunius ordered.

  Shame at the intimacy of the question made Anazâr’s throat close off, but he couldn’t let it go unanswered. “I will not touch your slaves,” he said, keeping his voice gruff and straightforward.

  Marianus smiled at that. His mouth was soft, its curve guarded, but not cruel. His lips had a color like they’d been stained by wine. He turned his attentions to Iunius, Fortune granting Anazâr a moment to compose himself. “And he’s not—”

  Iunius’s tone was defensive, quick-snap: “He’s virile, I assure you. A powerful fighter and a powerful man. Would a demonstration comfort you?”

  “Not necessary!” Marianus replied with an easy laugh. “Do you have a wife where you come from, slave? Is that it?”

  A wife, yes. Was that ‘it’? Not really. But Anazâr took Marianus’s question for what it was: a mercy, maybe even in some wild daydream an acknowledgment of his humanity. “Yes, Dominu
s,” he replied.

  “There, see? An honorable man. Sorely needed in certain parts of my household.”

  Again, not really, but Marianus’s kindness was a welcome thing. Anazâr had left without giving his wife sons, failing as a husband in the most basic way, but his final act had been to put her in the care of his brother, should he not return. He hoped that match had proven more fruitful for her, that he had at least succeeded for her in one single measurable way. In the end, it really didn’t matter: it was just a left-behind thing, an inconsequential concern from another man’s life.

  “He’s seasoned and trustworthy, despite the tattoo. Or perhaps because of it. Can I answer any other question regarding his abilities?”

  “I would try him in one of the most important regards: language. Cyrenaicus, speak a greeting and a comment on the weather in every language your master claims you know.” Marianus seemed more merchant than patrician in that moment, and Anazâr respected that.

  “Hello,” he said, “the sun shines brightly,” in his best Latin, then his poor Greek, then his strong but rough Egyptian. He swallowed uncomfortably before he repeated the words in the last language, though it was his first: his mother tongue.

  “So it is settled, then?” Iunius tried, a tinge of timid hesitance in his tone. So strange, to hear the all-powerful master in a place of inferiority. When his two months were over, could Anazâr go back, having seen it? Not worth thinking about. Two months was a long way away. A lifetime for a gladiator who saw regular combat.

  “I’ll take him. We can register the contract tomorrow.”

  He slept in the house of Marianus that night, deeply and without dreams, on a pallet on the cool cellar floor next to another slave. A Greek, he seemed to be, and Anazâr would have welcomed the chance to practice the language and discover more about the household, but the man was obviously scared of him. So Anazâr left him alone. There was always a sharp line separating gladiators from other slaves. His life was, paradoxically, valued much higher than theirs—more than many freedmen, even—and gladiators were known for violence both in and out of the arena.

  He wondered, as he rose in the morning, what it would be like for women to cross that line. What it would be like to show them how to cross it.

  The majordomo slave—another Greek, but elderly and without fear—allowed them out of the cellar and saw him fed. A pale, oblique morning light filtered down into the atrium as he sat by the wall and ate from a generous bowl of porridge. He was nervous surrounded by so much treasure, and the walls were crowded with painted scenes from epic stories that taunted him with hidden meaning, so he had little appetite, though he forced himself to eat anyway. A useful habit he’d learned in the auxiliary legion; it had stood him well as a gladiator.

  The majordomo led someone toward Anazâr. A large man, almost his own height, with a thick neck like a bull. “Lucius Marianus Ursus,” he announced. “A freedman of this house. Cyrenaicus, you will be under his escort.”

  “So you’re the Numidian. I’m taking you to the so-called ludus this morning.” Ursus spoke Latin like a native Roman, but his tunic was nowhere near as fine as the one the majordomo wore.

  “I’m ready,” Anazâr announced, for lack of anything else to say.

  The majordomo smiled, tilting a disbelieving eyebrow at him. “I don’t think you are,” he replied, but then shrugged and continued on before Anazâr had a chance to reply. “Ursus will walk you through the streets. Once there, you will have full authority, and direct him as your assistant. You will report to the dominus every evening. If this arrangement results in any squabbling, it will go badly for both of you. Best to resolve any disagreements before they reach the dominus.”

  Anazâr was taken aback, at first, that the majordomo would think he needed such a warning, but then Ursus snorted derisively and he understood.

  “Don’t step too far from my side,” warned Ursus as they walked through the red doors onto the quiet street. “You get stopped, you’ll need me to vouch for you. And I’ll follow your lead at the ludus, but don’t you forget I’m a free man. I’ll be going home every night to a wife I bought with my own damn money while you’ll be sleeping like a dog on the warehouse floor.”

  “Understood,” said Anazâr. As much time as he might spend trying to stay on Marianus’s good side, as much time as he might spend training the gladiatrices, he would spend the same tending to Ursus’s ego, tiptoeing around the shifting boundaries of freedman and slave. “I hope you won’t forget that I could kill you within two heartbeats, armed or not, and would do just that at the command of the dominus. Watch me as I train, and you’ll learn a thing or two yourself.”

  “Fair enough. I won’t cause problems. The house of Marianus has my full loyalty. They’re riding high on Fortune’s wheel, and I along with them. The old master won favor with Augustus in the war, got into the equestrian order, and married his son to a senator’s daughter before he died. The new master is just as good as a born eques and keeps a tight hand on the business, too. They say he has eyes like a wolf, you know, for the color, and because no one fools him. He’s a strong man.”

  “He struck me as such. But . . .”

  “But what? Don’t talk shit about your betters.”

  “But he’s over there, throwing up behind that pillar.”

  Ursus jerked his head in the direction Anazâr pointed, anger giving way to disgust. “By Hercules. That’s a Lucius Marianus all right, but not the master. It’s his brother Felix.”

  The same toga, but smudged with dirt and wine stains and a few other spots of more questionable origins. The same dark hair, short, but with an undeniable curl. Eyes of a wolf—of a very drunk wolf. But yes, now that Ursus had pointed it out, the man currently clutching at the pillar for support and wiping his mouth was younger, maybe even a decade or so, than the master. His face ruddy with drink but soft, with a fresher complexion uncarved by frown lines. Handsome, but without even an ounce of his brother’s dignity.

  “Should we help him home?”

  “We’re on important business, and the fool hasn’t seen us yet. Keep moving. He’ll stumble back there eventually.”

  No point in arguing. Anazâr cast one last look over his shoulder, saw that Felix was indeed already weaving his way in the general direction of the Marianus house, and resumed his pace.

  They walked down the Palatine Hill until the buildings grew higher and jostled each other chaotically. Vendors readied their carts for the day’s commerce and called to each other in a stew of languages.

  “What place is this?” Anazâr asked.

  “The southern Aventine Hill. Marianus owns a few warehouses here. Half of one of them was turned into the ludus.” Anazâr must have paused, or shown surprise, because Ursus waved a hand in circles, the gesture of a man looking for words of explanation. “He didn’t set out to do this. They were all left to him in a will. Personally, I don’t understand the appeal. I’ve seen women fight naked in a whorehouse, and that’s a shitload of fun, but the idea is for them to be serious at it. Perhaps even fight men and hope to win. Waste of good snatch, that’s what I think. The old trainer—contracted from a real ludus, like you—did what he could, but . . . well, you’ll see.”

  “Where were they bought?”

  “A batch from Gallia, all Gaul women except for three Germans. Two from a Bithynian trader: an Aethiopian and a Sarmatian. The last being the most expensive, for obvious reasons.”

  A Sarmatian. Maybe this wouldn’t be a lost cause, after all. “Good. But will she take orders? I’ve heard they—”

  “Eat testicles for breakfast, eh? Well, that’s your problem. Sometimes she will, sometimes she won’t. But if she was as savage as the rest, she wouldn’t have been taken alive. Anyway, that’s . . .” He looked down at his fingers, curling and straightening them seemingly at random. “Thirteen together. No, fourteen. That’s right. There’s one more, who wasn’t bought at all. A real Roman citizen who killed her husband. The evil bitch should have
been thrown to the beasts for a crime like that, but the magistrate sentenced her to slavery instead.”

  And now she was Anazâr’s problem.

  No. It would do him no good thinking like that. She was his ticket to freedom. They all were.

  They walked in silence for a while, until the acrid smells wafting from dye vats announced their arrival in the textile district.

  “It’s here,” said Ursus. “This warehouse. And that’s Quintus, the night guard. Wake up, Quintus, you lazy whoreson, the new trainer’s here!”

  “Go fuck yourself. I wasn’t sleeping. Was I sleeping?” Quintus, a man of massive build with a stubble of sandy hair and puffy eyes, shrugged his shoulders, then gestured at Anazâr. “Wait, he’s a slave.”

  Ursus spat to one side. “You figured it out! What possibly could have given him away? Of course he’s a slave, you fool, just like the old one. Unbar the door.”

  “Cyrenaicus the Numidian,” Anazâr said by way of introduction. Quintus grunted as he drew back the two massive black iron bolts that barred the warehouse door.

  “I’ve seen you fight before. A thraex—I remember now. Well, good luck.” Door unbarred, Quintus made as if to hand a key to Ursus, but jerked back at the last moment to slap it into Anazâr’s hand instead.

  It might be useful to remember that Ursus had poor reflexes, Anazâr decided as he closed his fist around the heavy, three-pronged key.

  Time slowed—doorways often had that magic about them. Ursus snarled. The thud as Quintus kicked the door open spurred Anazâr into action, and he stalked into the warehouse with no hesitation, leaving Ursus no choice but to bob along in his wake. The threshold: a fulcrum across which their balance of power tipped.

  In fact, the whole world seemed to go careening off balance.

  He bent one knee almost to the bricks while leaning aside. The missile went hurtling over his shoulder to clatter against the wall behind him.