by R. W. Peake
Vulso grinned. “Let’s see whether you know what you’re doing, boy.” Pointing to a stake, he said, “Show me your forms.”
When Titus squared himself on a post, he instantly recognized the value of the exercises that Vulso had put him through. Before leaving Siscia, it would have been a struggle for him to keep the tip of the rudis, the wooden sword used for training the Legions and gladiators that was also lined with strips of lead to make it even heavier, level and parallel to the ground. He had been able to do it, but his arm shook with the effort; now, he was amazed and pleased to see the tip not wavering at all. Going into a crouch, Titus pulled his arm back while turning his hips so that his right foot was behind his left a short distance, enabling him to use the extra power generated by his lower body when he twisted as part of his thrust. He held the position, knowing that Vulso would want to critique it, and the lanista did exactly that, walking up to the boy, hiding his smile at the sight of the scowl on Titus’ face as the boy tried to exude a fierce confidence. Circling the youth, Vulso stared down at Titus, grunting in a manner that didn’t inform Titus one way or another about his thoughts, but his only action was to kick Titus’ right foot a bit wider apart from his left. Apparently satisfied, he turned to walk back to a spot where he could observe, then something caught his eye. Staring down at the boy, his gaze was focused on Titus’ right hand, which was clutching the sword.
Pointing, Vulso asked, “What by Cerberus’ balls is that? Who taught you to hold a sword like that?”
Titus had expected this reaction, but his hand continued grasping the rudis the same way as he answered, “This is how my father holds his sword.” He gave a shrug. “It’s how all of his men hold their swords too.”
Vulso was about to open his mouth and tell the boy he didn’t care if Hercules had held a sword that way, it wasn’t the way he or the gladiators he trained held it, but his eye was caught by a motion from Gallus, who was standing nearby.
Walking over to Gallus, Vulso turned his back to Titus and moved close to hear Gallus whisper, “The boy’s telling you the truth, and furthermore, his father isn’t the one who started training that way. You know who did?”
Vulso shook his head.
“Titus Pullus,” Gallus said quietly. “Or at least, he’s the one who made the men of his Century fight that way. Then his Cohort when he became Pilus Prior, then the 10th Legion when he became Primus Pilus.”
“Who taught him?” Vulso asked, more out of curiosity than any real desire to know.
Gallus shrugged and replied, “I don’t know. I seem to recall hearing that he was in Gaius Crastinus’ Century when the 10th was raised.”
“Well, that’s not how I train my men.” Vulso spat on the ground, then scratched his chin, clearly thinking about it. Finally, he shrugged and said, “But I don’t really care if he wants to hold his sword that way as long as he can do his forms.”
As it turned out, Titus couldn’t, for the simple reason that his father had never taken the time to teach him all the things that came with the unorthodox grip. Although he had told the smith who crafted Titus’ sword to equip it with a slightly smaller handle, thereby allowing Titus to wrap his fingers around and on top of his thumb, rather than the other way around, he hadn’t explained to Titus that it would be awkward at first, even for a novice who had no experience with gripping a sword in the conventional manner. In fact, the reason Titus failed to impress Vulso when he demonstrated the thrusts and cuts the lanista demanded was because his hand and wrist lacked the strength to move laterally outward from his body, which was the one weakness of the grip. Titus Pullus had dubbed it the Vinician grip, because it had been his first Optio, Aulus Vinicius, who had trained every man of the First Century, Second Cohort of the 10th Legion, commanded by then-Pilus Prior Gaius Crastinus. Crastinus would go on to become the Primus Pilus of the 10th, falling at Pharsalus during the defeat of Pompeius Magnus, but earning everlasting glory and fame in doing so. However, at the ludus, Vulso wasn’t sufficiently impressed to allow Titus to continue holding his sword the way his father did. For the time he was in Arelate, and until his father finally did take the time to train him, young Titus gripped his sword the way almost every other man in the Legions and arena did.
Iras glared at her oldest son, seated at the table in the dining area of the villa in Arelate, but Titus kept his head bowed, refusing to look at his mother.
“First it was a black eye, now it’s this?” She pointed first at the huge, purplish bruise that ran from above Titus’ left elbow, all the way up and disappearing under his tunic, before her finger traveled to point accusingly at the boy’s head.
If it had just been that, Titus mused, he probably wouldn’t be sitting there at the table, but as hard as the bruise was to explain, the large gash on his scalp that had required an even dozen sutures, provided by the slave at the ludus who served much the same function as a camp physician assigned to a Legion did, was even more so. It was due to this obvious sign of injury that forced Titus to confess to his mother what he had been up to when he was a way from the villa and not with Ocelus. He felt slightly ridiculous with the huge white bandage wrapped around his head, although his bigger complaint was the splitting headache he was suffering. Having his mother yelling at him wasn’t helping it either, but he knew that there was no avoiding it, so he absorbed her words in silence. He didn’t even want to imagine her reaction when the bandage came off and she saw that part of his head had been shaved to keep the wound clean. His mother’s ire wasn’t reserved just for her son; seated next to him, with much the same hangdog expression, was Gallus.
“And you.” She turned to point at the bodyguard. “I trusted you with my boy, and this is what happens? Him,” she gestured to Titus, “I understand that he’s going to do something stupid. He’s just a boy…”
“I am not just a boy,” Titus interrupted, but this time Iras was too far gone in her anger to worry about soothing his feelings.
“Yes, you are,” she snapped right back. “And this proves it! What were you thinking? That you were going to learn how to be a…a…gladiator?”
Iras at her most scornful was a dish that neither her husband nor her children cared for at all, and Gallus was finding it just as bitter.
“The boy wasn’t training to be a gladiator, mistress,” Gallus put in. “He was only doing the same things that the boys in the Legions do. It’s true Vulso is a lanista, but he was in the Legions as well, and…”
“I don’t care if he was a Primus Pilus,” Iras cut him off. “He had no business letting a boy,” she shot a glance at Titus, daring him to object at the word, “do something as dangerous as fighting against a slave trained to kill in the arena!”
When put that way, Gallus found it hard to argue, so he didn’t try. The truth was that the opponent that Titus had faced could only charitably be classified as what Iras was describing. One of the relatively recent wrinkles added to gladiatorial games had been in exotic and unusual pairings. It was becoming the case that the audiences attending the games no longer appreciated the contests because of the skill involved between the pair, or pairs, battling on the sand. Along with the blood, the crowd clamored for variety, something unusual that they could then talk about as they left the arena to go soak themselves in wine and relive what they had just seen. A few months before Titus and his family arrived in Arelate, Vulso had taken delivery of one of those oddities that the lanista believed would titillate the crowd. Although the new arrival was fully grown, he was an inch or two shorter than Titus, but with the normal size head and torso of a fully grown man. The dwarf had been given the name Spartacus, a mocking tribute to the gladiator slave that had terrorized Rome a century before. The circumstances that saw Titus and Spartacus standing in a circle made of the other trainees and attendant slaves was completely on Titus’ shoulders. The boy did understand this truth, although it didn’t help much at this moment, with his mother howling like Cerberus. He had been pestering Vulso for days that he wa
s ready to face a real opponent instead of the stupid stakes, and while he wasn’t sure, Titus suspected that Vulso had finally relented just because he didn’t want to listen to him anymore. Earlier that afternoon, Titus had gotten his wish, yet while he wouldn’t admit it to anyone but himself, the dwarf Spartacus had soundly thrashed him. Much to his chagrin, and pain, Titus nevertheless learned a valuable lesson, that thrusting and slashing at a wooden stake had absolutely nothing in common with facing a living, breathing opponent. This was even more true when that opponent was seething with anger and humiliation at being matched with a child, no matter how overgrown that child was. As Titus sat there while his mother focused her anger on Gallus, he took consolation in the fact that he had managed to score his own damaging blows on Spartacus, but even he was forced to admit that he had lost the fight, long before the rudis cracked against his helmet, turning his world black. Fortunately, he hadn’t been unconscious long, so his next memory was of a ring of faces peering down at him, the expressions on each ranging from real concern to the kind of smirk that Titus had seen from his friend Marcus on the one occasion Marcus had managed to best him at wrestling. In fact, Titus’ thoughts after his defeat by Marcus and that moment lying on the sand of the training arena were remarkably similar; he would find a way to get even. Avenging his loss to Marcus had been easy; this time would be more problematic because of what came out of his mother’s mouth.
“You’re not to go anywhere near that place again,” she commanded.
Titus’ instant thought was how easy that would be to disobey, although looking over at Gallus, he recognized that the bodyguard was no longer an ally he could count on. However, his mother wasn’t through.
“That’s why you’re confined to the villa for the rest of the time we’re here.” Seeing Titus’ face go white, she did add, grudgingly, “You can still take Ocelus for your daily ride. But,” she pointed that cursed finger at him again, “you’re going with Libo, not Gallus.” She looked disdainfully at the bodyguard, who was finding something extraordinarily interesting on the floor at his feet. “We’ve seen how much he can be trusted to keep you out of trouble.”
Most children, particularly given the circumstances that found him wearing a bulky white turban about his head like those wild tribes from Africa were supposed to, with a raging headache, would have recognized that their opportunity for doing as they willed was over. All parents had a tone of voice that informed their offspring that they had officially reached the end of the tether that their respective parent allowed to give their children freedom, and Titus had recognized that tone immediately. But Titus Porcinianus Pullus wasn’t like other children, either in size or temperament, and while he had no way of knowing for sure, he instinctively knew that somehow his Avus would understand that he had no intention of obeying his mother, and would approve.
“Libo,” Titus pointed excitedly at something just off the trail, “what is that?”
The bodyguard, who Titus had come to learn wasn’t as much surly as he was just taciturn by nature, followed Titus’ finger, peering off into the vegetation that lined the Via Aurelia.
“I don’t see anything,” Libo muttered, cursing the fact that this boy’s vision was so sharp.
“It looks like a box of some sort. Don’t you see it?” Titus insisted. “It’s right there, at the base of that tree.”
If this had been the first time, Libo wouldn’t have been willing to indulge the boy, but Titus had proven to have extraordinarily sharp vision, and much to Libo’s chagrin, had proven to be right every other time he spied something. And if the truth were to be known, Libo found these rides otherwise excruciatingly boring, so he didn’t mind what had become something of a game he played with the boy, who he was extremely fond of, in his own way. Titus would point something out, and Libo would try and find whatever it was, while Titus provided hints until he determined what it was. If Libo was disposed to think about it, he would have found it somewhat amusing, in a sad sort of way, that his life had been reduced to finding excitement in a mundane game. Although Libo felt an attachment to Titus, going back to the days when he had marched in the ranks of Titus’ father’s first Century in the Seventh Cohort and had been one of the rankers who escorted the toddling Titus to give Ocelus his apple, he didn’t have children of his own. And, as anyone with children knew, they could try the patience of even the most devoted parents, and Libo was no parent. At least these rides with Titus were better than the endless chatter of the younger children when he drove the wagon to Arelate. Now he stared in the direction that Titus had pointed, squinting as he tried to see whatever it was that Titus had spotted.
Finally, he grunted in frustration, and said, “There’s nothing there. Your eyes are playing tricks on you.”
Titus laughed, but he continued to point.
“You’re just getting too old to see anything. It’s right there, just like that big nose on your face!”
“My nose isn’t that big,” Libo protested automatically, then caught himself.
You’re arguing with a child about your nose, he thought with equal parts disgust and amusement. This is what your life has been reduced to? Seeing that Titus wasn’t going to be swayed, Libo heaved a sigh.
“Fine. I’ll prove that there’s nothing there.”
Moving his horse a bit closer, Libo slid off the horse and began striding to the tree. He would tear those shrubs around the base out by the roots just to prove to the boy that he wasn’t always right. Libo was almost to the tree when he heard a surprisingly loud, sharp SMACK, followed by a sudden whinny of shock and pain. Whirling about, he was too late to stop it, but in time to watch his horse bolting up the Via Aurelia, heading away from Arelate, leaving a small cloud of dirt clods and dust in its wake.
“Sorry, Libo!” Titus shouted this even as he was kicking Ocelus in the ribs, causing the old horse to respond instantly with a huge, bounding leap, in the opposite direction of Libo’s horse. Calling over his shoulder, Titus shouted, “I promise I’ll tell Mama that I tricked you!”
Libo was too astonished to be angry, although that would certainly come over the third of a watch it took him to find his horse.
Titus had planned his escape well, even as he knew that the consequences would be dire. But as far as the boy was concerned, he had unfinished business that couldn’t wait, especially since his mother had announced that it was time to return to Siscia. They were scheduled to leave in just two days’ time, making this the last opportunity for Titus to exact his revenge. The fact that his sutures had only been removed a few days before, while the bruising was now a faded yellow, meant nothing to the boy. He was grimly determined to even the score with the dwarf Spartacus, and this would be his last and only chance to do so. Although he was set on this course, it wasn’t without considerable apprehension. He had prepared himself the best that he could, given the circumstances, but he knew that sneaking out of the room he shared with his siblings every night to go out into the courtyard to work on his forms wasn’t the best kind of training. His Avus had installed a set of stakes when he moved into the villa, in what turned out to be an ill-advised attempt to have Diocles, Agis, and Simeon join him in the exercises that he performed daily, without exception. In fact, when young Titus first set eyes on the stakes, Diocles had informed him that his Avus had done the exercises on the very last day of his life. But while Titus performed his own exercises next to the stakes, he made sure that he didn’t strike the stake, afraid that the noise would rouse unwanted attention. It was the best he could do under the circumstances; as he rode Ocelus at a fast trot back to Arelate, he hoped it would be enough.
Vulso was tempted not to let the boy into the ludus when he showed up on his big gray horse, but there was something in the boy’s eyes, a sort of fire that hinted at the chance for something interesting happening. Signaling to the guard, the grillwork iron gate was yanked open, and the boy urged his horse through the archway. Entering into the yard, a sudden change came over the gray horse,
his nostrils dilating and taking in the vast array of scent, but while Titus had no way of knowing, it was the sounds of men engaged in combat, even if it was just in training, that triggered Ocelus’ reaction. Without any warning, the horse suddenly reared in the air, front hooves rising high and lashing out. Titus felt himself falling backward, the reins jerked from his hand, although he just managed to catch a handful of mane before he slid off the back. Ocelus came back down, snorting, with his ears pricked forward, making a series of little hops as he was assailed by the sudden memories of when he had been younger, and the man was on his back. They had been a team then, striking down the enemies of the man, and Ocelus was just as much of a warrior as the man, with several kills to his credit. If there had been a smell of blood, thick and coppery in the air, it was very unlikely that Titus could have controlled the big horse at all. As it was, once he resumed his grip on the reins, it took several heartbeats before he had Ocelus under control.
“Looks like your horse is ready for a fight,” Vulso remarked, careful to give the gray a wide berth.
Titus didn’t answer for a moment, still trying to get Ocelus completely under control, and when he patted the horse’s neck in an effort to calm his mount, Titus could feel the quivering muscle under his hand. Vulso is right, Titus thought; Ocelus is ready for battle. Well, so am I.
Once Ocelus settled down, only then did Titus slide from the horse’s back, walking over to Vulso on knees that he desperately hoped weren’t shaking visibly. Stopping in front of Vulso, he was only slightly reassured by the fact that he didn’t have to tilt his head up very far to look the lanista in his one good eye.
