The Gladiator Gambit

by Gavin Chappell

Grimly Flaminius wondered how long it would be before they found the rebel encampment.

  ‘Moor over there,’ Maccabeus said after an uneventful quarter of an hour. He was pointing at the far bank, a wilderness of papyrus reeds.

  Flaminius twisted round. ‘Moor?’ he asked. Sweat was pouring down his face but he had no wish for any delays.

  ‘Tie up the boat,’ Maccabeus said.

  ‘I know what “moor” means,’ Flaminius said. ‘I…’

  ‘Maccabeus is right, we should moor,’ said Camilla. ‘We can’t go on in this heat. Wait until it’s cooler.’

  ‘We should wait until nightfall,’ said Maccabeus. ‘Over there, it’s safe. The river patrols won’t come, they’re too afraid of attacks by the river horses. We can stay there until night then carry on under the cover of darkness.’

  Flaminius shook his head. ‘No more delays. We’ve lost enough time as it is. We keep going.’

  ‘Moor the boat on the far bank!’ Maccabeus demanded.

  ‘Where we’ll be safe from river patrols but not from river horses?’ Flaminius said.

  ‘He’s got a point,’ said Camilla. ‘But we can’t go on in this heat. We’ve got to find some shade.’

  ‘No,’ said Flaminius obstinately.

  ‘Do as you’re told,’ Maccabeus roared.

  ‘I’m paddling,’ said Flaminius grimly, ‘and I say we keep going.’

  They rounded a bend. A river patrol vessel was sailing downstream towards them. Seeing their cockleshell of a reed boat, it changed course and headed in their direction.

  ‘You fool, Tiro,’ said Maccabeus resignedly. ‘How will you talk our way out of this?’

  —22—

  The patrol ship weighed anchor alongside them, and two legionaries jumped down onto the reed boat, causing the deck to rock and sway. The men, weighed down by armour, were red faced and sweating, and they glared contemptuously at the semi-naked crew. Other legionaries watched from the side of the bigger vessel. A polybolos was positioned in the prow, trained on the reed boat.

  ‘Papers?’ barked the smaller of the two legionaries. ‘Identification, yes? Tjufy? Got ya tjufy, you Gyppo sods? Got ya tjufy? Got ya tjufy?’

  ‘The man wants your papers,’ said his bigger comrade. ‘Papyrus. Tjufyu. Tjufyu.’

  Tjufy was the Egyptian word for paper, tjufyu the plural. The bigger legionary had a better command of the native language than his friend—about as good as Flaminius.

  ‘We got no papers,’ said Maccabeus in broken Greek. ‘We lost em.’

  Flaminius scowled at him, then fished into the hold and produced a papyrus scroll. Shaking his head, he handed it to the smaller legionary.

  ‘Tjufyu,’ he said.

  The legionary snatched it off him, opened it out and peered at it, holding it upside down. Camilla looked at Flaminius, mouthing, ‘Papers?’ The bigger legionary struck her across the face. She tried to rise, but Flaminius seized her arm. The legionary growled at her, then grabbed the scroll from his comrade and read it slowly.

  ‘These papers aren’t in order,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to come aboard and speak to the centurion.’

  ‘Look here, now,’ said Flaminius in Latin.

  The legionary stared at him in surprise, then shook his head. He turned to shout up at the legionaries on deck. ‘Chuck a ladder down to us.’

  A rope ladder slithered down the side and the two legionaries gestured the three to climb it. ‘Move!’ the smaller one barked.

  Resigned, Flaminius began climbing. As he reached the gunwale where two more legionaries were ready to haul him aboard, there was a scuffle below. Camilla was on the lowest rung of the ladder, being encouraged by one legionary while Maccabeus was shaking the other by the neck. As Flaminius watched, the first legionary clubbed Maccabeus down with the hilt of his sword.

  ‘Get up here,’ growled a legionary from the deck above. As they dragged him onto the deck, Flaminius heard the thud of boots on flesh. He got up. The legionaries were helping Camilla aboard, but by no means in the chivalrous way Flaminius would have hoped from men under his own command. He tried to remonstrate and got a fist in his teeth.

  Maccabeus was dragged on deck, battered and bruised and wheezing for breath. The three were marched aft to a small cabin where a helmeted centurion sat in the shade.

  ‘Travelling without due authorisation, sir,’ a legionary barked. At the centurion’s gesture, he handed over the papers. The centurion read them lazily.

  Without looking up, he said, ‘Says you’re Egyptians. Nectanebo and… I can’t read the other one. Well, for starters, there’s three of you and one of you is a woman.’ He looked up and caught Flaminius’ gaze with his cold blue eyes. ‘The other two look Greek or Punic, but you, chum, you look like a Roman.’

  Flaminius shrugged. ‘My father was Roman,’ he said. The centurion rose to his feet and stared at Flaminius’ brow.

  ‘Take the other two for’ard,’ said the centurion, not taking his eyes away from Flaminius. ‘I’ll question this one in private.’

  Flaminius was ushered into the small cabin. He squatted down on the deck while the centurion lounged in his camp chair. ‘Wine?’ asked the centurion. ‘If that’s the right name for this satyr piss.’

  Flaminius was startled. ‘Thank you,’ he said hoarsely. The centurion unstoppered a small amphora and poured them both cups of Greek wine. The man drank deep, then wiped his mouth and pointed at Flaminius without meeting his eyes.

  ‘Reckon your mother was Roman too,’ he said.

  Flaminius said nothing. The wine was actually pretty decent. He’d not had anything this good back in Nicopolis; his host was a connoisseur. Flaminius noticed for the first time the dint between his brows where the centurion had been branded with the raven of Mithras.

  ‘Deserter?’ the centurion asked, still looking away. ‘Or is there a better reason a soldier like you is travelling with these runaways?’

  ‘How do you know they’re runaways?’

  The centurion shrugged. ‘If they were travelling legitimately, they’d have proper papers. Security’s tight in Egypt. Patrols are everywhere, travel is strictly limited. Informers and agents are everywhere, too.’ He looked straight at Flaminius as he said this.

  Flaminius gave a tight smile. ‘You’ve got me right, centurion,’ he said in a low voice. ‘No, I’m not a deserter. I’m with the commissary, travelling undercover. My companions don’t need to know that.’ He gave the man the correct password for the month.

  ‘If you’re with the commissary,’ said the centurion drily, ‘we’d better not keep you.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Flaminius. ‘It wouldn’t help your career.’

  The centurion produced a sheaf of papyrus. ‘Sign here,’ he said, handing Flaminius a reed pen and a small jar of ink. ‘Here, here, and here.’ Flaminius dipped the pen into the ink and gave three false signatures next to the centurion’s own.

  ‘Very well, Epimenides of Crete,’ said the centurion loudly, peering at the first signature, ‘if I’ve got your name right. Don’t let me catch you travelling without proper documentation again, and get yourself and your filthy barbarian friends off my nice clean patrol vessel.’

  Flaminius strode across the cluttered deck and gestured to Maccabeus and Camilla. ‘Quick,’ he said, waving the papyrus sheaf. ‘We’re moving.’

  Maccabeus scowled. ‘I’m not going until I’ve seen that one flogged!’ he shouted, pointing at the legionary who had beat him. ‘I’m a citizen of Carthage. I have rights!’

  Flaminius glanced across the deck. The centurion sat in his doorway, sipping at another cup of wine. Thin lipped, he shook his head. Flaminius turned to Maccabeus.

  ‘Get off the boat and don’t push your luck! Camilla, get down that ladder.’

  Camilla jumped down into the reed boat. Grumbling, Maccabeus climbed down the ladder. Flaminius followed, after a final nod of thanks to the centurion.

  Back in the boat, he shoved them away from the patro
l vessel and the other two paddled them towards the east bank.

  ‘What I want to know,’ Maccabeus grated, ‘is how did you get us out of that?’

  ‘I did what you told me to do,’ Flaminius told the gladiator, ‘and talked our way out of it.’ Unconsciously, he rubbed at the scar in his forehead.

  After his initiation in that cellar under the procurator’s palace in Londinium, he had seen the brand as a nothing more than a painful annoyance. Now it was starting to prove useful. Many Romans in the East had become Mithraists, particularly those in the legions, attracted by this Persian cult’s promise of salvation for those of proved valour.

  ‘And now we’ve got the documentation we need?’ Camilla leaned over to Flaminius and kissed him. ‘You’ve got a silver tongue and no mistake, Tiro!’

  Maccabeus grunted. ‘How do we know you didn’t do a deal with them? The Romans are the enemy, everyone knows that.’

  Camilla shook her head. ‘Tiro got us out of the mess he got us into by his own boyish naivety. But he got us out of it so well, we don’t need to paddle by night and sneak around anymore.’ She snatched the papyrus scroll and waved it around. ‘We’ve got ourselves the papers we need!’

  Maccabeus grunted. ‘What about the papers we already had? I don’t understand. Where did they come from?’

  ‘They were in the hold,’ said Flaminius. ‘They must have belonged to the legal owners of this boat. Camilla’s right; we can now go to our destination without all this subterfuge. Now you can tell us where we’re going.’

  Maccabeus kept paddling, and kept quiet.

  The big gladiator obviously suspected something. As he leaned in the stern, occasionally making a course correction with the big steering oar, Flaminius regretted the circumstances that had led to their encounter with the Romans. Although it had turned out better than expected, it might lead to problems.

  He had been shocked by the attitude of the legionaries to people they assumed to be natives. He had been undercover before, not to mention on the run, and had seen the Romans from the perspective of the peregrines, those people living within the empire who lacked the benefit of Roman citizenship, but he had not met such casual aggression from legionaries. If this was what native Egyptians experienced daily, no wonder so many chose to flee into the desert and take up the life of robbers. A man who could harness that wholly understandable hatred for the authorities would have a powerful weapon in his hands.

  The Canopic Branch grew busier as the sun descended. Flaminius was hard pressed to keep their small reed boat out of the path of larger vessels. Enough of a wind now stirred the waters that they could rely on the sail to keep them heading upstream, but Maccabeus and Camilla had to leave off their rowing and tend to the rigging. Some of the galleys they passed, whether transporting grain from Crocodilopolis, slaves from Memphis or wizards from Heliopolis, were truly massive; biremes if not triremes, more at home in the open ocean than the river, and Flaminius was a true novice as a helmsman. After a while, Maccabeus decided that he could do a better job of steering them through the busy waters, and Flaminius was sent to trim the sail alongside Camilla.

  ‘He likes you, you know,’ she said, as they both struggled to keep the linen sheet at the optimum angle.

  Flaminius almost let go in his surprise. ‘Who does?’ he said. ‘The old boar?’

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ she said playfully.

  Flaminius had never thought he could imagine a playful Amazon. He’d not understood what Theseus or Hercules had seen in such ladies, although of course he still intended to seek out the British warrior woman Drustica and tame her to Roman ways. But Camilla looked more the Amazon than Drustica, with her Punic looks and her bare bosom. Of course, Amazons seared one breast off to aid their archery, he remembered…

  ‘Trim that sail!’ Maccabeus roared from astern. ‘We’re in busy waters now, Tiro!’

  They were crossing a junction between one channel of the Nile and another; the Bolbitine, Camilla confided. Next they would be meeting the even busier Pelusiac Branch, whose traffic was as heavy as the Canopic. To Flaminius’ exhausted relief, the sun, huge and red, was beginning its descent into the underworld, and soon Maccabeus directed them towards a small island on the east bank.

  ‘Since we’ve made such good progress today,’ he said, ‘we can sleep tonight and go on in the morning.’

  Tired as he was from struggling with sail and rigging, and despite his determination to expose this conspiracy before Hadrian’s visit, Flaminius could only nod in weary agreement.

  He was glad to see that the fishermen from whom they had stolen this vessel had stocked the hold with provisions. Mainly lentils and beans, but Flaminius needed some sustenance after the journey.

  ‘We need a fire to cook with,’ he said.

  ‘Get some firewood then, Tiro.’ Maccabeus settled down by the steering oar and rested his face in his hand.

  Flaminius peered at the reed thickets. He turned to Camilla. ‘Coming ashore?’ he asked. ‘We need firewood.’

  He left not waiting for an answer. As he waded through the reeds and came ashore amid muck, he heard Camilla sloshing after him.

  ‘Wait there, Tiro,’ she complained. ‘We won’t find firewood here. Not in this flooded marshland. More likely find a crocodile.’

  ‘Well,’ said Flaminius, ‘a novice like me wouldn’t know that, would he?’

  He helped her up the bank. As soon as she was ashore, she seized his face and kissed him for a long time.

  ‘Well,’ said Flaminius, ‘that was unexpected.’

  She turned away. ‘You don’t like me. I’m too big.’

  ‘Of course I like you,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting a kiss, that’s all. Not a second one.’

  ‘You didn’t want the first one?’

  Flaminius tried to find firm footing. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  She followed him further ashore until at last they found solid ground. The stars wheeled overhead, shining above the sails of barges and galleys passing in the river. It was almost the fourth Day of Hadrian.

  Camilla slipped her hand into his. He had never met a woman as big as her. A woman who made a success out of a career as a gladiatrix would be no slip of a thing, but Camilla would make Artemis feel like Aphrodite the Virgin.

  ‘What did you want to talk about?’ she asked. ‘Don’t worry, Maccabeus is asleep. It’s been a hard day, and he’s an old man. Older than you, anyway, Tiro.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where we’re going?’

  She shrugged. ‘To join Arctos. That’s where all fugitive gladiators go these days, Tiro. After all, there was no future with Apuleius Victor.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’ She shrugged again at his question. ‘Do you know what we’ll be doing when we get there?’ he added.

  ‘Living,’ she said. ‘Living free. We don’t need the Romans. We can have our own kingdom. Just like in the old days.’ She slipped her arms round him.

  Flaminius broke free. ‘Is that what you really want?’ he asked again, hoarsely. ‘Do you think it’ll even…’ He broke off as his foot struck something, something that felt like wood. ‘I think I’ve found some kindling. That’s good,’ he added, bending down. ‘We can cook supper.’ He grabbed it but as he lifted it into the starlight, a cry escaped his lips.

  He was holding a human femur, its yellowing length stripped of flesh except for a few blackened fragments.

  Camilla’s voice was as hoarse as his own. ‘D-did crocodiles get them?’

  Flaminius shook his head darkly. ‘Look at these cuts.’ He pointed at the angular striations dimly visible on the bone. ‘This has been butchered.’ He looked up, his face pale. ‘By a man.’

  —23—

  Flaminius heard retching sounds. As he went to Camilla’s side his foot struck something heavy, like a rock, but spongy. It went bouncing off into the reeds. Ignoring the noise, he put his arm round her shoulders. They were standing in a circle of ashes and burnt timbers, he real
ised. It was a cooking pit.

  She pushed hair away from her face and straightened up. ‘I’m alright now,’ she muttered. ‘Disgusting.’

  ‘An anthropophagi feast?’ Flaminius said. ‘I’d say it’s disgusting! We’d better get back to the boat. They could still be round here.’

  ‘I meant my reaction,’ she said as she followed him down the bank. ‘I’m a gladiatrix, Juno curse it. Anthropophagi? I thought you got them south among the Ethiopians, not in civilised Egypt.’

  They came out onto the bank. The reed boat still bobbed there. Maccabeus sat by the bow, peering in their general direction.

  ‘There are rebels in the Thebaid who have been known to eat their victims,’ Flaminius was telling Camilla as they got into the boat.

  ‘Where’s the firewood?’ Maccabeus held to the sides as the deck tilted under the weight of the returning duo. ‘You were supposed to be gathering firewood, not picking irises to put in each other’s hair.’ He spat disgustedly into the water.

  ‘We found other blooms,’ said Flaminius.

  ‘Bones, stripped of flesh,’ said Camilla, ‘and butchered. Tiro says it’s the rebels.’

  ‘The rebels?’ Maccabeus asked angrily. ‘What does Tiro know about rebels? So you found some crocodile’s leavings and the lad started telling you horror stories? And now we’ve got no firewood.’

  ‘I don’t think this is a healthy place to moor,’ said Flaminius. ‘Where’s the nearest town? We should tie up there and go ashore, find beds for the night.’

  ‘Who’s going to pay for them?’ Maccabeus said. ‘Nearest town is Heliopolis, and even though no one lives there but its wizard priests, they charge high prices for board and lodgings. Besides, we’re supposed to be travelling in secret.’

  ‘News to me,’ said Flaminius, although it had been patently obvious. ‘Isn’t it about time you told us where we’re going?’

  ‘No!’ shouted Maccabeus. Flocks of ibis took flight among the night black reeds, crocodiles on sandbars dived into the deep water, and in Flaminius’ mind’s eye all the river patrols of the Delta looked up and listened to the echoes of the gladiator’s bellow. ‘No,’ Maccabeus said more quietly. ‘I don’t know if I can trust you yet.’