Skaris concludes, “We have not rested. Not for a moment.”
Crixus looks at him as if he doesn’t know him. He says, “We each prepare in our way.”
Castus clears his throat. His blue eyes move back to Spartacus, furtively. “You mention the things to come. Are we decided on what that means?”
“The Allobroges are decided,” Crixus declares. “We want to raid from here all up the long stretch of Italy. Late summer, we go over the mountains and back to our country. Rich. Dragging women and slaves. We’ll return to our people heroes, and none of us will ever return to Rome. One more summer, and I’m done with this puckered ass of a country. We should all be done with this place. Let one more glorious summer be ours, and then we part ways.”
Gannicus runs a finger, absently, over his pox-marked cheek, until he reaches his mustache, which he tugs on. “I would love to see the Rhine again. To be home. To speak only German and hear only German and to know that my gods hear me when I call to them. Each day in my mind I call to Wodanaz, to Donar and Frikko and others. When I was a boy, they would answer me, saying things I heard in my head. Here they don’t speak to me.” He exhales through his lean nose. “The pull of home is strong, Spartacus.”
Crixus grunts. He swigs again, asks, “Are we to be at odds, Spartacus? Tell me, because I don’t know what you are doing here. So many join us, but what good does that do us? Women and children. Shepherd boys. They come to us with mouths to feed, thinking we will fight for them, keep them safe and free. I never agreed to that. I never asked them to come. You may have, but not I. So? Are you still resolved to stay in this country?”
Spartacus reaches for a pitcher of wine. He pours a portion into a cup and sets the pitcher back. “I have a more ambitious goal than you have considered. Astera, who speaks for the gods—”
“Your gods,” Ullio, one of Crixus’s lieutenants, points out.
“Astera says they want from us more than that we escape to our homes. They want something that will make us great in their eyes and famous for all time. I think we should give it to them.” Spartacus sips his wine. “Do you know of Rufius Baebia?”
Crixus scoffs. “The Roman you should have killed instead of freed? What of him?”
“I’ll tell you,” Spartacus says.
—
Baebia was short in stature, but one could forget this when seated across from him at a low table, as Spartacus was. The Roman had dark, curly hair, a nose that had been broken more than once, eyes of a murky brown color. His lips had a meanness to them, as if they, more than any of his other features, wished to convey that they thought little of the world. His hands were still bound, weeks out of Nola.
Skaris also sat in the tent with them. Silent but there, lest Baebia spoke a lie known to him.
Spartacus had questions for the Roman. Where had he served? Under whom? For how long? In what battles? What had he done to shame himself so much that he was sentenced to be a gladiator? On this last Baebia was unequivocal; he had not shamed himself. The shame was on the general above him who blamed a defeat on him, who tarnished him with claims of his gross cowardice. Anyone could see, he said, that he was not a coward. He’d proved that on the sands of the arena thirteen times. Thirteen matches as the Persian. Thirteen deaths. None of them his own.
“When will you free my hands?” Baebia asked. He took a sip from the small mug of watered, spiced wine that had been poured for him. The gesture highlighted the chains that bound him.
“I’m not thinking of releasing you,” Spartacus said. “Whether to kill you is closer to the mark.”
“Release me. You will find me of value.”
“How?”
“I told you already!” Baebia looked from Spartacus to Skaris and back again. “Who better to teach your army to fight Romans than a Roman?”
That was the very thing that had prompted Spartacus to bring him from Nola still breathing. He wanted to learn everything he could during these cold months, as he tried to form a vision of the coming season in his mind. He felt that vision roiling in his head, defying any particular shape, reluctant to form until he knew more.
Baebia continued. “You haven’t fought a real Roman legion yet. In the new year you will. Believe it. You think your army of slaves and shepherds will be ready to stand before the ordered ranks of a legion? You people like to shout and bang your shields and urinate and do whatever you like. Quite a show, but nothing compared to the blood-freezing, silent order of a Roman legion. The maniples spaced in their orderly squares. The velites hurling their javelins in waves. Shields tight. Swords darting. Troops rotating so that they’re ever fresh. The veterans held, always, in reserve, for when they’re needed most. We Romans know how to kill. Most of your troops will have faced nothing like it.”
“So why would you align yourself with a lost cause? Against your own people at that.”
“My people?” Baebia’s lips twisted with derision. “I have no people. There are two types of people for me now. I have those I care nothing for. I have those I hate. I number ‘my people’ among the ones I hate.” He leaned forward, warming to the topic. “I have a list in my mind of the men I despise. It’s a long list. The names at the top of it are Roman. Lucius Gellius—the one who ruined me. Titus Acilia—the man who took my wife. Mettius Tarpeia. He claimed my farm. Quintus Caepio. He knew I was blameless but shut his mouth and said nothing. Marcus Billius…”
It was a long list. The names meant nothing to Spartacus, but the hatred was encouraging. He sipped his water and looked uninterested until Baebia said, casually, something that set a hook in his interest. He raised a hand. “Say that again.”
Baebia thought for a moment, as if he were considering which of several things Spartacus wished repeated. He found the one with the first attempt. “I said, ‘Yours is not a lost cause.’ ”
“Why do you say that?”
“You couldn’t have chosen a better moment for your uprising. Fortune favors you. You don’t think that the armies that have come against you so far have been the best Rome has to offer, do you? No. Rome has sent boys against you instead of men. They disdain you. You are slaves. Servile. Low. There’s no honor in destroying you, only grim work that might taint the victor more than raise him.”
“You want us to believe that Rome would let so many die out of pride?” Skaris asked. “They would allow us the South because fighting us is beneath them? I don’t believe that.”
Baebia kept his eyes on Spartacus. “Disdain is one thing. Reality is another. The reality is that Rome has no champion in place to face you. They are all elsewhere. Sertorius. He is a Roman general, but they can’t call on him because he’s a general in revolt against his country. He’s made Spain his own and thinks he can be king of the place. Pompey. He’s the one the Senate would call on to destroy you if they could. But instead he’s in Spain fighting Sertorius. Our two best generals, both out of this fight. Not to mention the legions with them. And to the east there’s Mithridates. That one won’t go away either. How many legions have we thrown at him? Now Lucius Lucullus is taking him on. Another general abroad. And there’s another Lucullus, Marcus Lucullus—I’m sure these names confuse you—fighting Thracians over in your homeland. A man in Thurii said the Bessi were causing trouble. Are they your people?”
“No,” Spartacus said.
“In any event, Rome’s armies, you see, are occupied by things other than renegade gladiators. There are perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand Roman soldiers—all of them from Italy—fighting in the provinces right now. Even the navy has its hands full with hunting the Cretan pirates. The expense of those campaigns…the resources shipped overseas…” Baebia smiled, though without actual humor. “A good moment for you. A good moment for me as well, I think.” He held his wrist chains up and drew his arms apart until the chains went taut. “But I’ll need my hands free to truly aid you.”
—
“So?” Crixus asks. “Good for us. Italy is ours. Let’s scour it and be
gone before those bastards come back. Maybe it’s not a bad thing you kept this Baebia alive. Trust no Roman. But use him. What else can he tell us?”
“Many things, as he’s already doing,” Gaidres answers, his voice as soothing as Crixus’s is blunt. “But I believe Spartacus has more to say.”
Given the stage again, Spartacus continues. “You know the woman Vectia? She’s of your people, though she’s been in this country so long she can’t speak your language.”
“I know her.”
“You didn’t trust her when she said she could lead us into the hills outside Nola unseen, but she was right. She did it.”
Crixus looks annoyed. “Why should I have trusted her? She’s a withered sack of a woman. I don’t even know that she’s truly an Allobroges.”
“She was accurate in everything she claimed about the lay of this land and the routes through it,” Spartacus says. “Think how many times she took us to river crossings, or advised us to send forward parties to secure ferries. She gave us feet to run across rivers. That’s no small thing. And she knows more than just the land and the rivers.”
—
On the morning he speaks of, Spartacus awoke with the dawn. Astera was not next to him. The moment he sat up, a wrap of pain crawled across his head, pounding his skull as it went. He recalled the things that had happened last night. The rites to Zagreus. That was why his thoughts were groggy and his mouth tainted with wine stink and his groin sore. Wincing, he searched the bedding for a water skin. He found a skin and drank, realizing too late it was not water but wine. A goaty wine at that. Zagreus. God of the vines. Bringer of wine and abundance. Apparently, Spartacus was being asked to worship him still. So be it. He drank.
Before last night, he had thought Astera devoted only to Kotys. The goddess with the great ax. She who embodied the rage Astera felt toward those who had enslaved her. Freedom had only increased his lover’s rage. Is it any wonder Kotys found a home in her heart? But last night was for Zagreus, to thank him for the bounty they had reaped over the summer, to ask for his blessing on their new winter camp, and to please him until the season warmed again, so that crops would thrive and come into their hands yet again. And Spartacus suspected, it was for Zagreus because he was a god many of the non-Thracians could understand. They knew nothing of Kotys. Or of Sabazios. The horseman and sky father. Or of Darzalas. The god-hero. But Zagreus they knew by another name. Dionysus. Him they could worship without hesitation, in ways they already knew.
So they drank the drink the god had bestowed on humans. Large vats of bloodred wine slowly heated over low fires, infused with herbs and honey and, Spartacus suspected, other potions to free the mind from its normal confines. Some rites were private affairs. Some attended only by women. Or only by Astera and her chosen few. This one, though, was for any and all, out in the open, stretched out across the rolling hills of the encampment. A bacchanal to be seen and heard from the heavens. Large fires fought back the black of night. Flutes announced the coming frenzy. Hands clapped rhythms and cymbals clanged on dancing girls’ fingers. Singers lifted their voices, calling to Zagreus through song. Cerzula’s voice rose above the others, sweet and deep and filled with yearning. She stood singing as Astera and Sura writhed around her, touched her and each other, with hands and mouths. They wore only thin ribbons of clothing, hiding nothing of their bodies.
By the time Spartacus rose to do his part, the sight of them had rendered his penis tumescent. Though he was naked, he didn’t care. Why hide the state of his body? If Astera was correct, his body wasn’t just his anyway. This night it was to belong to the god as well. He walked with unsteady steps. A pleasant unsteadiness, as if the world were a playful creature shifting beneath his feet. It made him laugh. Zagreus was a god of laughter, of ecstasy and excess and carnal things. Laughter was tribute, so Spartacus laughed.
When he brought a cleaver down on the neck of the sacrificial bull, he nearly took the creature’s head off with the first blow. The fountain of blood splashed him, thick and warm and metallic. He cupped handfuls of it and smeared it on his face and chest and torso, loving the cries of passion from those watching. Standing there, naked and blood-smeared, with cleaver in one hand and dying beast at his feet, he felt the god swell inside him. The song brought him down. The chanting and the bells and the dancing pulled him down. The death of the bull drew him, for what god ignores blood sacrifice? And also Spartacus drew him because he stood at the center of this mass worship. The eyes on him saw the god inside his flesh, and now that he was seen the god swelled. Tumescence long gone; he was erect now.
Spartacus heard Astera chanting his name.
“Zagreus, Zagreus, Zagreus…”
He dropped the cleaver and went to the women where they danced.
For a moment Sura had her hand on his penis. Her grip was firm, slick with warm oil, her face close to his, asking what he thought of her boldness. She released him only to grab him by the neck. She hoisted herself up on him, scaling him with the taut muscles of her thighs. She licked the blood from his chest and bit his skin, hungry to taste the god. For a moment, Spartacus was sensible enough to cast about for Astera. She had never shared him before or even suggested it was possible. He saw her dancing, watching him, then looking away. He was not himself, he realized, but the god. Astera did not claim Zagreus as only hers. She was too caught up in spinning and chanting, touching anyone who came near enough. Gods, she was beautiful. She always had been, but normally she was fierce, anger restrained in a slim vessel. This moment, though, there was no anger. Just her beauty. Her body, in motion, had a grace that seemed divine. As did Cerzula and Epta. The two of them writhed with each other like lovers, and that was good. Let them be lovers. Let them all be lovers.
He would’ve joined them, but Sura was there hanging on him. She guided his penis inside her. She slid onto it, gasping in his ear as she did so. That got him. He took her right there, standing, as she bit his lip and licked him and said his name. Though which name he wasn’t sure afterward.
Yes, he thought in his tent the morning after, that happened. That really did happen.
And not just that. There was another woman, too. Black-haired, him behind her and her arms stretched as she embraced the ground. Who was she? He didn’t know. The image seemed sordid, but the moment hadn’t been. In the moment, everything was admissible. That was what being a god meant. Had there been others? He thought so. Not Cerzula, thankfully. Not Epta. Even as engorged Zagreus, he knew to be gentle with her. Even as Zagreus, it wouldn’t have seemed right to be with them. Why Sura, then? Because her hunger for him was stronger than any prudence. Because she made it happen, while the others did not. In any event, it was a long night, and the god was tireless. Likely, he’d forgotten more things than he remembered.
What, he wondered, would the aftermath be? In the light of day would there be anger between the women? Or were things done with a god sacred enough to preclude that? If any of them found a child inside them, would it be his or the god’s? Questions. Too many for a mind as muddled as his.
He rose, thinking he would walk naked to the stream and lower himself into it. Cold to shock his body back to vigor. Cold to tighten his skin on his flesh again. He’d pee right in the water, for he needed to do that as well. He didn’t make it any farther than the flap of the tent.
Astera and the old Celtic woman sat together near the fire beside the tent. Seeing him, Vectia jumped to her feet, spilling the warm drink she’d had cupped in her palms. Swearing, she gave up the cup and let it fall to the ground. She bowed her head, tented her hands to her lips as if she were before royalty of some sort.
Astera didn’t rise. Her red-hued hair was wild, and her face sat perfectly composed inside it. She looked Spartacus over critically and said, “I see the god has left you. I hope he enjoyed himself through you.” She indicated Vectia with a nod toward her. “This one has things to tell you.”
Spartacus took a half-step away, thinking of the river, of burying his b
ody and face in it and drinking deep.
“You should hear her,” Astera said.
Looking toward the valley in which the river lay, he asked, “What is it you have to tell me? Something more about the land? A way to march north hidden from the Romans? I would like to hear of such things. If it’s that, perhaps it can wait for another time. After last night I need to—”
Astera cut in, sharp and crisp. “This is because of last night. She saw you with the god inside you. She knows what she saw. Zagreus, working through you. She decided then that you were chosen for a purpose bigger than you know. Sit still and listen to her.” She waved a hand at his nudity. “But get something to wrap yourself first. The woman won’t be able to think with you standing there like that.”
Spartacus nearly walked away. But if whatever Vectia had to say was prompted by what had happened the evening before, it might be worth listening to. He relieved himself, then sat in audience with the two women.
“The goddess led you to a good place,” Vectia began, when she could hesitate no longer. Her voice was tremulous, hesitant. But she went on, and he listened, with growing interest.
—
In the council tent with the other generals, Spartacus leaves out the details of his night as Zagreus. Some of them witnessed it anyway. But the import of what Vectia told him that morning, he shares.
“She was here in this territory not twenty years ago. With her master she traveled from city to city and found the same thing in each of them. Hatred for Rome. It swelled until town after town rose up against Rome. Did you know this? So recently as twenty years ago.” He pauses to let them answer. They don’t, which is answer enough. “And do you know what? Rome could not put them down. Instead of crush them, it bought them. Gave them all Roman citizenship. That’s how the unrest was quieted.
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