He takes a step forward, but Crassus speaks again, stopping him.
“I trust you listened carefully to what I said. Umma is still my property. You know Roman law, of course. If a slave—one deranged by lust, for example—were to kill me, then all my slaves will be put to death. That extends to Umma as well. Anyway, such an act would be rash on this deranged slave’s part. Who can say what the future holds? Maybe someday a slave wench who was sent away will return. I wouldn’t say it’ll never happen. I will, though, say that it will happen only when the slave’s master permits it. What do you have to say to that, Kaleb?”
Kaleb stands stunned at the depths of his hatred and amazed that Crassus has caged it. He has rage but nothing to do with it. He has love but nothing to shape that love into other than a yawning hunger that may or may not end. A love that birthed the rage but that also makes it impossible. He thinks, Umma, I will always love only you.
And what a misery that is.
He thinks, Umma, I will wait for you. I will serve him and keep him pleased, and you’ll come back and then we can be together.
And what a misery that is.
But he has to speak, not just think. So he does. He says, “Master, I am sorry to displease you. You are right on all things.”
Crassus makes a sound low in his throat. “Yes, I am. Go now, Kaleb.”
Kaleb does go. He walks around the desk, past Crassus, the other slaves following his every move. He pushes the tent flap to the side and steps outside, into an afternoon just turning toward dusk. Walking briskly, meeting no one’s gaze, aiming only for the shelter he sleeps in and the private misery it offers, he hears Baebia’s words. He hears, You could’ve ridden to Spartacus and told him what Crassus intends. A man like him, with that information, would have turned it on Crassus. You could’ve done that, but you didn’t. Why not?
He has no answer. No answer at all.
Spartacus
There’s so much frustration. Sometimes it’s almost too much for Spartacus to bear. Inside him, there’s another Spartacus, one who rages beneath his skin, one who writhes and trembles, who lashes out in aggravation. This Spartacus wants to snatch up a bow and send missiles into heaven’s underbelly. He wants to shout down the gods and make them explain what he’s done to displease them. No matter the setbacks he’s suffered, he’s made himself return to strength, to purpose. What more do they ask of him?
There’s frustration, but that’s not the only emotion. There’s also the pain of loss. Inside him, another Spartacus would curl in a ball and lie on his side and cry for all those lost in this war. He doesn’t understand why this emotion is so strong. He knows the bravest of them are with the gods and heroes even now. He should be envious of them. He is, but he also grieves that they are not still with him in life. He so wishes they were here to help him see the goals they’d dreamed of achieving. And knowing that they are with the gods doesn’t rid him of the feeling that they are nearer than that. They’re so often in his mind. Thoughts of them come to him at random times, like something whispered too softly for him to hear, yet just loud enough to remind him of those who’ve been lost.
Though he feels the frustration and the pain, he makes sure never to show it. He keeps his face calm, no matter the news that’s brought to him. He’s tried to meet every setback like this, and it’s what he does when the first of the Germani survivors ride into camp, bearing with them news of tragedy. He listens as they tell how they met a small company of Romans, just a few thousand. They turned and fled, making it seem as if they’d been surprised and were fearful. It was too amusing a sight to resist. Gannicus remembered the way the Romans attacked them near Paestum, and he thought that here he could repay them for it. He ordered a pursuit. Cavalry first, with the infantry running behind them.
The Romans led them up a wide valley, drawing them away from the women and the baggage train. They took them past an adjoining valley. Amusing still, until the fleeing Romans joined a waiting force that had been out of sight behind a rise. The Romans turned to make their stand, and even then the Germani had enough heart to wish for the fight. But they didn’t know all of it. The Romans’ true force wasn’t before them. It was behind them, pouring out of that adjoining valley, in far greater numbers. They attacked the Germani from both sides.
Spartacus hears all this but gives no outward indication of how it affects him. Astera stands across from him. She’s listening to the messenger, but Spartacus knows she’s watching him, requiring that he be strong. Keeping his voice matter-of-fact, he asks, “Did they fight well?” He makes it sound like that’s all that matters in such a situation, for it is, but sometimes men need to be reminded.
The answer he gets is that the men fought bravely, none of them running, none stabbed in the back, each of them screaming and ferocious, all of them, together, making a spectacle that surely drew Wodanaz’s approving eye. They fought like Germani, many leaping from their horses to end their lives on foot, some stripping off their tunics and pounding their chests, flexing their muscles, baring their teeth, and attacking with wild, sweeping arcs of their swords.
None of this, Spartacus knows, is the right way to defeat Roman discipline and organization. It is, however, a triumphant way for a warrior to exit life. He says, “Good. They died well, then. We should all be as fortunate.”
It’s not only the men who perished. The women did as well. Another detachment of Roman cavalry fell on the women and noncombatants, slaughtering many. To their honor, the women refused to be captured. They fought. When all was lost, they turned their knives on themselves and so denied the Romans either their bodies or the taking of their lives.
Spartacus gives the orders he needs to. He meets with his generals and with other leaders, making sure they understand that it’s for them to go to their people, to be truthful with them, but to model calmness and to keep them from despair and panic. He sends riders to scout for the Romans, their positions, their current actions, and he deploys others to search for any survivors who might be straggling toward them. There will not, he knows, be many of these. He orders the Risen pulled in, tightened up, foraging parties recalled so that they are at full strength, ready in case the Romans follow up their victory with a fresh attack. He gives no sign that he’s thinking of anything other than these practical things, no indication that the death of so many Germani warriors is an incomprehensible loss or that it takes all his control to form and say the words he does with an even voice.
When all that needs to be done has been, and a little more after that, he retires to his tent. He throws himself on the mat he shares with Astera. She’s not there, as she’s gone to offer sacrifices to Kotys. He curls himself into a ball, just as the child inside him would do, one of those other Spartacuses. But he’s not a child. He sheds no tears. He put away tears long ago, and he doubts any misery life can offer will pull moisture from his eyes again. He just lies there and thinks about the dead, the thousands upon thousands of them. He marvels that, just by listening to a survivor tell a tale, he’s had a quarter of his army cut away. What living thing—as an army is—can have a quarter of its body hacked away and still live on? None that he knows of.
Lying there, he sees Castus’s face as it was when they’d last parted. He wore a grin that was a great improvement on the dour look of worry he’d had since the failure to get to Sicily. Spartacus had said, “Ride well, my Patroclus, and bring your brothers back to us.”
Castus grinned all the wider. “So you think yourself an Achilles now?”
“Not yet,” Spartacus had said, “but soon maybe I will be.”
Why had he said that? Why had he thought that? He who had declared as a boy that he liked Hektor best of the ancient heroes? Maybe that was a vanity too far, one that had poisoned some god against him.
He even thought of the messenger who reached him just a few days before. A nervous youth who had brought instructions for how he could escape Italy, if ever he chose to. A particular spot at which he’d find himself abl
e to put this accursed land behind him and never touch it again. At the time, he scoffed at the idea and made it clear to any who had overheard that he would never run to save himself. He’d believed that. It was a coward’s way out, an abandonment of everything he’d worked these years to achieve. Leave, just when he’d set his sights on Rome? No, never. Never. And yet there, curled on his side, he finds himself thinking about it, remembering the claims made by the boy and the name of the person he spoke for.
He is still circling around this when Astera returns. He unfurls his body, straightening it and stretching out to his full length. She carries a lamp, as it’s night now. She sets it down, and then she slips in and presses her body against his back. Her thin arm slides up and drapes over his muscular one. He inhales the scent of her hair. It’s her, the oils that have always seemed musky and fragrant, never perfumed, but like the scent of a good place in the woods. It’s a smell like moss. It’s always reminded him of the high valleys of the Rhodopes Mountains. How her hair can smell like mountains he can’t say, but it does. He presses his nose closer to her and inhales slow and deep. Mixed with her normal scent is something else. Hints of smoke.
She says, “What thoughts you must have.”
“All of them foul. This is a blow, Astera. I don’t know that we can recover. The people have been nervous, scared. You know that. This will make them even more so. I don’t see the way forward.”
“You’ll find it.”
“We’re not like we were. There is no way anymore. I think we are near the end.”
Astera is quiet for a moment, then says, “Yes, I think so too.”
Hearing her affirmation, something inside him sinks. He would rather she had said anything than that. “What of Kotys? Does she not love us still?”
“Don’t be greedy,” Astera says, swiping at his chin with a finger. “She loves us. She has been generous, hasn’t she? Nothing lasts forever, though. We may be near the end, but you don’t fear that, do you? There was always going to be an end. We’ve done wonders with the time we’ve had. If the end is coming for us, be glad of it and know that what matters is how we face it.”
Astera pulls on his shoulder, rolling him toward her as she slides half onto his chest. Her face close to his, her green eyes so light and perfect in the lamplight, gems in her delicate face, framed by hair like fire, she asks, “Who is this man I’m lying with?” For a moment he doesn’t think she means for him to answer, but she stays there, staring. “Tell me, who is this man who was once an infant born where the plains meet the Rhodopes Mountains? The boy whose father took him on horseback to show to the gods and who heard the child’s name whispered by them. Remember that name? It’s a large name. The father said it was not a name for the child who was but for the man who would be.” She pinches his chest hair in her fingers. “Tell me, who are you? Just say it.”
So he does. Just a whisper, heard only by her ears. “I am Spartacus.”
Her lips ease into the barest indication of a smile. She lowers herself onto him, nuzzling her head against his neck and breathing warmth onto his skin. “Yes, you are. You are the man who led a great host in my dream. You’ve been glorious so far and will yet be, won’t you, my love? You are Spartacus, and that means the way forward is yours to write. But don’t worry. You’re not alone. I’ll help you, and others will as well.”
—
That solace, though, is only temporary. The next day Spartacus returns to himself. It takes an effort of will, but he does it. He doesn’t dispute that Astera knows the will of her goddess better than he. And he knows it’s the strength in her that made her look to the end with anticipation, but he is not ready to do the same, not if there is any possibility that the Risen can yet rise higher. That is what he puts his mind to. He resolves to put them on yet another new course.
Before the close of the day, he’s set a new target: Samnium, that mountainous interior territory of one of Rome’s most ancient foes. He’d been through the region the summer previous, had sent messages to all the major cities, seeking an allegiance. He hadn’t received any, but neither had he given up hope. He knew the Samnites had always hated Roman overlordship. They were a proud people, many of them landlocked in high mountains, thick with woodlands and wild game. They were independent of spirit, as they had shown by being the last to hold out against Rome in the rebellious wars of only fifteen or so years ago. They, who had once defeated a Roman army and made them walk under the yoke, still simmered with hatred. Surely, they want Rome yoked yet again. Many had come out to meet with Spartacus, expressing their private admiration of his victories, and the hope that he would humble Rome even further. In Bovianum and Maleventum there was so much Spartacus-supporting graffiti that new laws were passed with harsh sentences for any caught spreading propaganda.
If they could win entry into one of the cities of the region, the Risen would gain reprieve enough to recover their full strength. They could attract new recruits to their cause. If no city granted them refuge, there were the mountains themselves. One, called Mount Vulture, was a volcano to rival Vesuvius. Why not take it and camp on high again, as they’d done in the wonderful early days of the uprising? They could hunt the forests and raid into Campania and Apulia as the country bloomed into summer. It would give Spartacus time to win the Samnites as allies. He’s sure it can be accomplished, so long as he shows them the Risen’s virtues, does them no harm, and forages from their neighbors’ lands instead of theirs.
While the Romans are still busy cleaning up from their victory over the Germani, Spartacus rouses the Risen and presses them into motion. They’re being watched by Roman cavalry units, not by the whole army, but by enough eyes that they need to deceive them. To do so, they leave in the dead of night. They stoke the fires so that the camp seems as normal, and then the whole body of them moves silently away. Some of the soldiers and cavalry are sent out in different directions, stepping heavy on the earth to make it seem like the Risen have broken up and headed off in different directions. False leads to confuse the Romans. And more, to trap them. Each lead includes small groups deployed at choice spots to ambush them, to kill them or drive them back. Either way, Spartacus intends for the ambushes to gain them time to move away, to press hard and lose the Romans in the hills.
They head to the west and climb up into the tablelands of the Alburnus Mountains. Above them the cloud-heavy sky of spring, days of showers and sun, growing milder. They stay tightly together, foraging cautiously. They’re as they were during the early days, unencumbered by the great hoard of baggage they’d accumulated during the high times. They travel leanly, on foot or horseback, walking the sheep and cattle and goats they pluck from the land until it’s time to slaughter and roast them. Without wagons, more territory is open to them. They choose routes that avoid the larger settlements, keeping to the woods and the higher slopes of the hills, using the land’s contours to hide them. They cook over small fires, and they don’t set property or fields ablaze, as nothing gives away a moving army more than smoke in the skies. For two days they see no Romans at all. That seems a blessing. They, who had offered Crassus battle before and scorned him for not engaging, now want motion and refuge, not the clash of arms. There’s a danger in feeling thus, but there it is.
Just keep them moving, Spartacus thinks. Right now that’s what matters.
Some fall away as they march. Many are too weak from illness or wounds or have grown too frail and thin to trudge so relentlessly. The old suffer, as they always do. Sometimes the young suffer with them. It’s harsh, but it’s always been that way. The Risen may be more than just an army in fact, but in practice they must still be an army first. An army must do what’s necessary to stay alive. Above all, an army must march.
Spartacus can’t lead those who can no longer follow, but he can be there for those who can. He makes a point of showing himself to the people all throughout the days, riding from one part of the marching column to another, urging them on. This is their time to show their courag
e, he claims. He tells them that he knows they’re fatigued. They are thin. They are ragged. Many have been lost. Some still cough with the chest-clogging illnesses of the mountains. Much of the treasure they’d accumulated has been left behind. He knows all this, but he says, “To be great, one must be challenged out of all proportion to others. Do you wish to be great? Then you have to say, Look at this that’s asked of me. Has anyone ever faced such a hardship? If the answer is no, then do that thing and be great because of it.”
He instructs all his officers to likewise show themselves to the people and model confidence and resolve, but he does it more demonstratively than any of them. It’s good too. In the moments that the words are in his mouth, he believes. In action, he finds purpose. While looking men and women in the face and encouraging them, he forgets the doubts that whisper to him during quiet moments. He keeps the Risen flowing over the land, up and down the hills, making for Samnium, which is not so far away, not compared to the vast distances they’ve already traveled.
The fourth morning of the march, in the saddle of a ridgeline, Spartacus takes in a beauty of a view. A valley stretches out before them, a low mist pooling in it. Layer upon layer of hills fold into it, all forested lushly green. Each successive ridge grows lighter and lighter with distance. Beyond, a bold ridgeline juts through the vapor and rises clear above it. Spartacus sits his horse there a long time, taking it in. It is, in image if not yet in reality, exactly what he wishes for them.
He says to passersby, “See this? This is a sign of what awaits us in Samnium.”
He says, “Beyond that ridgeline there are more mountains like this, but even higher. Those mountains will be our home.”
The Risen Page 49
