by Mark Morris
Batiatus shrugged. “Doubtless a vision plucked from fevered head. It is not uncommon to witness self-made phantoms when humors in the body burn and scorch.”
“A thing I considered as well, dominus. But Crixus assures his mind was banished of fever.”
Batiatus waggled his head from side to side as though weighing up the argument.
“Continue the telling.”
“Crixus called for medicus, who appeared after a moment, dazed with sleep. Crixus urged him to seek the intruder but he found none, the gate still locked.”
Batiatus’s eyes narrowed.
“The hour is late and I do not wish weary ear to hear claim that phantom passed through locked gate.”
Spartacus shook his head.
“That is not my belief, dominus.”
“What then?”
Despite the fact that they were alone, Spartacus dropped his voice.
“I believe Mantilus was aided in fiendish endeavors from within the villa. By someone who allowed access to the ludus.”
“Someone from within fucking house?” Batiatus exclaimed, and then a shrewd look crept across his face. “Hold a fucking moment. If Mantilus is not sorcerer, but mere man hampered by blindness how could he come to creep about unfamiliar house at night? The man can’t overcome restrictions of sight absent some manner of power.”
“Perhaps the man is not as blind as he appears,” Spartacus said. “Perhaps the man is not blind at all.”
Batiatus looked at him for a long moment.
“Truth could be found in what you say,” he admitted. “But suggestion remains of the creature aided by a holder of keys within my own villa.”
Spartacus nodded.
Batiatus frowned. “Only villa guards are entrusted with means to move freely about the ludus. Surely entire force of guards don’t plot against me.”
“One only, dominus,” Spartacus said hastily. “Perhaps tempted by glitter of Hieronymus’s coin.”
Batiatus’s jaw clenched.
“You realize nature of words that spill from mouth? You are the Champion of Capua, Spartacus, yet you remain slave. To cast suspicion on Hieronymus, elevated citizen of Capua, is to cast it all the way to Rome. You realize risk of flogging for such a thing, if not more dire punishment.”
“Yes, dominus,” Spartacus said earnestly. “I would not make such accusation with light manner.”
Batiatus stared at him for even longer this time, his expression suggesting that he was barely able to countenance the thought of treachery within his own household.
“To what purpose would Mantilus seek access to ludus?” he said eventually.
Spartacus’s reply was instant.
“To poison the food.”
Batiatus blinked.
“Poison?”
Nodding, Spartacus said, “Poison not to kill, but to rob sense and sap strength from limbs. My belief is that Mantilus entered ludus the night of festivities to taint food with noxious preparation. No doubt sacks of barley and lentils his targets. Some of the men were affected more than others, Felix falling the most infirm. A bare mouthful was sufficient to fill his head with dire vision, pushing him to nearly take leap to his death.”
He fell silent. Batiatus glared at him, as though uncertain whether to direct his fury at perpetrator or messenger. Finally he shook his head savagely.
“Bold theory lacking substance. This lethargy among the men was evident before Mantilus materialized within walls with disturbing presence.”
“An inconsistency which has occupied mind,” Spartacus admitted. “And to which I now bear solution.”
Batiatus raised his eyes to the ceiling, as though addressing the gods themselves. Half in jest and half in exasperation he said, “The Thracian tires mind with strain of thought when he should direct efforts to training and fighting.” Then he dropped his eyes and fixed Spartacus with a steely gaze. “Speak.”
“Where is the origin of the ludus’s water supply?” Spartacus asked.
“A pool serviced by spring further down the mountain, collected each new day-” Batiatus abruptly fell silent, his eyes widening, as he realized what Spartacus was suggesting.
“And the water that serves villa?”
Now Batiatus looked thoughtful. “We bathe in water that the men below drink, but drinking water supplied to villa is imported from particular source outside city walls.”
Spartacus nodded, clearly satisfied by Batiatus’s reply.
“This would provide explanation for why you have not suffered the same ill effects.”
“You think Mantilus was set to task by Hieronymus to taint stream?”
Spartacus nodded again.
“If true then that which sustains the lives of the men has instead been robbing us of it.”
Batiatus’s features twisted suddenly and he smashed his desk with a clenched fist.
“Fucking Greek cunt! I’ll have his bowels plucked out with fish hooks.” Then abruptly his rage vanished as a thought struck him. “What of the house slaves?”
“What of them?”
Batiatus barked a laugh.
“Do you suppose they drink fine Roman water? They imbibe from the same source as you, yet they display no affliction.”
Carefully Spartacus said, “Are you certain, dominus?”
Batiatus shrugged. “I detect no debility among them.”
“The illness is not so acute that it would keep them from duties,” Spartacus replied. “I hold doubt they would care to trouble their dominus with grievance of aching limbs and troubled sleep. A gladiator finds himself balanced between life and death in the arena. What could be irksome burden for house slaves to endure could be the push that sends a fighting man to his doom.”
Again Batiatus looked thoughtful. Then he called forward a slave, who appeared in the doorway. The portly African, stripped to the waist, moved across obediently.
“Dominus?” he enquired softly.
“Spill truth, Abbasi,” Batiatus said. “How do you fare?”
The slave, Abbasi, looked wary. His dark eyes flickered from Batiatus to Spartacus, and then back again.
“Dominus?” he said again, uncertain.
“It is a simple question the smallest of minds could provide answer for,” Batiatus said impatiently. “Are you well?”
Unconvincingly Abbasi said, “Quite well, dominus.”
“Your tone carries doubt-speak truth.”
Quietly Spartacus said to the man, “No fault will lie with you. Has there been illness among slaves in the house these past weeks?”
Abbasi hesitated a moment longer, and then reluctantly nodded.
“A little, dominus. But it will soon pass, without need of medicus.”
Batiatus waved him away.
“Carry on. Do not concern yourself with it.”
“Dominus,” Abbasi said with a short bow. With a last troubled glance at Spartacus, he backed away, resuming his position outside the door.
“The water is collected daily?” Spartacus asked.
Batiatus nodded.
“From a pool fed by stream in constant motion.”
“Mantilus must make frequent pilgrimage, lest the effects of poison swiftly fade.”
Baring his teeth like an animal, Batiatus said, “Then we will lie in wait and catch him at task. When his loathsome face appears we will slice it from fucking head and deliver to his master!”
Spartacus raised a hand. “Dominus?”
Batiatus’s face was a mask of fury.
“What is it?”
His own face calm, Spartacus paused, waiting until he had Batiatus’s full attention. Then he said softly, “With dominus’s permission, I would make proposal of different solution …”
XI
For the third time the unseen owl screeched as it plunged from the night sky on to its prey, and for the third time Ashur responded by almost vacating his shivering skin. He swore viciously under his breath, and placed a hand on his chest as if to soothe th
e wild pounding of his heart.
For what seemed like hours he had been sitting halfway down the mountain, concealed within a thicket of bushes. From here he was able to overlook the pool which supplied the ludus with water without being spotted. Each time he moved-which he did regularly to ease his aching back and prevent the muscles in his limbs from seizing up with cold-thorns snagged in his clothes and scratched at his tender flesh. Several times he had heard the rustling movement of animals somewhere out in the darkness, and he had frozen rigid, his mind full of images of beasts he had only ever seen in the arena-wolves and lions and bears.
Despite the relative freedom he was allowed by Batiatus, and the trust that was placed in him to undertake tasks in the city alone, at that moment Ashur cursed his privileged status, and envied his more restricted gladiatorial brethren. He imagined them all curled up in their warm cells right now-warm in comparison to his present location, at any rate-snoozing away the last few hours of darkness, and dreaming of glory within the arena. How he wished he could be there among them. But instead he was stuck here, with nothing but a thin cloak to protect him from the bone-aching cold, and wild animals prowling in the darkness, and-most terrifying of all- the prospect of encountering the creature he had been sent here to spy upon. Batiatus had told Ashur that he was certain that Mantilus would make an appearance at some time today, and that it was Ashur’s duty to observe what he did without being seen, and then to report his findings back to Batiatus.
Despite the almost unthinkable repercussions that would have followed had he refused the task, Ashur’s first instinct had been to do just that. The prospect of being out on this mountainside in the dark, waiting for Hieronymus’s creature to make an appearance, had turned his mouth bone-dry. Because in spite of what Batiatus had told him, Ashur still believed that Mantilus was an evil spirit, or at any rate something far more terrifying than a mere man. And as such, the scarred attendant was surely capable of inflicting terrible things upon a mortal man, things that Ashur hardly dared to contemplate, but which he felt sure would be infinitely worse than the simple finality of death.
The only reason Ashur had not refused Batiatus’s order in the end was not simply out of a sense of duty and loyalty, but also because, as usual, he had played the odds. If he said no to Batiatus then he would suffer for it, that much was certain. But at least by accepting the task, he was presented with certain choices and possibilities. One possibility was that Mantilus might not turn up at all; another was that the attendant might turn up, but that he might not detect Ashur’s presence; yet another was that, even if he did detect Ashur’s presence, he might consider him so paltry a threat that he would deem him unworthy of attention.
And if the worst came to the worst, then at least Ashur would still have the option to either run or fight-though sitting out here alone in the darkness that notion now seemed absurd.
Another possibility, of course, was that Ashur might freeze to death, and be found the next morning, his body rigid as stone, his blood frozen to red ice in his veins. In some ways that seemed almost desirable-it would stop him fretting at any rate, and place him beyond the clutches of the creature-though his sense of self-preservation still resulted in him rubbing his arms and legs vigorously at regular intervals in the hope of massaging some warmth into them.
This was precisely what he was doing when he saw a thin red horizontal line suddenly appear in front of his eyes, bisecting the darkness. His first instinct was to go rigid with fear, his heart leaping into his throat. He wondered whether he was about to witness a portal into the underworld splitting open before his very eyes, out of which Mantilus would climb like some grotesque newborn from its mother’s bleeding womb. Then he realized what the red line actually was, and he would have laughed out loud if he hadn’t been so fearful of drawing attention to himself.
It was the first glimmerings of the sun rising over the distant hills. Though the daylight was no guarantee of safety from harm-in fact, in some ways it was his enemy, for it would make him more visible-Ashur felt glad of it. At least the sun would warm the earth, and with it his bones and blood. And at least, with a landscape in which to anchor himself, he would not feel so isolated, nor so vulnerable.
He sat and watched as the sun climbed slowly above the horizon, and for the first time since being burdened with the task in hand, he felt almost peaceful. Although he was a man whose main concern in life was in securing profit and gain, a man who spent almost every waking moment attempting to turn each situation to his own advantage, even Ashur, for the moment, was entranced by the majestic artistry of the gods.
The red line which had first appeared slowly widened, the black sky around it growing gradually lighter as crimson light was forced outward into the world. First the blackness of the sky turned gray, and then purple, and then lilac. And then, finally, Apollo’s chariot of fiery horses erupted into being, obliterating the darkness completely and streaking the sky with pennants of pink and crimson and burning orange. Ashur basked in it, the sight soothing him so much that eventually he closed his tired eyes and watched the play of light over the insides of his eyelids. Already he felt warmer, though he suspected that that was merely illusion. Sleepily he opened his eyes again …
… to see a dark figure, like a mass of spindly black twigs given life, creeping across the jagged rocks of the mountainside toward him.
Panic seized him, and he almost leaped instinctively to his feet prior to running for his life. He might even have done so, immediately betraying his hiding place and undoing all of Batiatus’s carefully laid plans in a single stroke, if his limbs had not still been so stiff and unresponsive from the cold, and if he had not, a split-second later, realized that the black figure was not creeping toward him, as he had first thought, after all.
No, it was moving toward the pool, picking its way carefully across the brown, rubble-strewn rocks on the uneven slope that led to it. Edging the pool itself were bent, straggly trees and thick clumps of thorny bushes, like the one in which Ashur was currently hiding. With the sun behind it, the figure was in silhouette, but Ashur could see that it was lithe and scrawny, and dressed in a flowing garment that appeared to be fashioned from strips of rag. He had no doubt that it was Mantilus, and as such Ashur crouched, utterly rigid and motionless, like a rabbit which has caught the scent of a predator on the wind.
Mantilus came to a halt beside the pool and bent toward it. Only now did Ashur notice that he was holding two roundish objects, one in each hand. Peering hard, he realized what the objects were. They were wine skins, bulging with fluid.
Suddenly, as though sensing his presence, Mantilus’s head snapped up, and Ashur saw the light of the rising sun flash silvery-white in his sightless eyes. For an instant the scarred man seemed to be staring directly at him. Ashur felt every muscle in his body bunch and tighten in response, felt his heart begin to race once again, which in turn caused his cold limbs to tingle as blood was sent rushing through his veins.
Mantilus’s gaze held him for what seemed like minutes, and then to Ashur’s relief his white eyes flickered and moved on, raking the hillside, his head jerking like a bird’s. Finally the scarred man bent to his task again. Placing one of the wine skins on the ground by his feet, he used both hands to pull open the other and then stretched out his arms and upended the contents into the pool.
Most of what came out seemed to be liquid, but Ashur could see that it was thick and dark green, as though full of some kind of herb-or a concoction of herbs-which had been pulped almost to a paste. The stuff plopped into the pool, floated for a moment on its surface, spreading out like hair, and then sank without trace.
Picking up the second wine skin, Mantilus skirted around the edge of the pool to the other side. Here he did the same thing again-opening the wine skin and tipping an identical thick green substance into the water. When he was done, he picked up both of the skins and tucked them inside his robe, out of sight. Then, from some hidden pocket, he produced a smaller pouch, one wh
ich he held easily in his claw-like hand, and began to range about, as though searching for something. Eventually he scuttled across to a loose rock about the size of a human torso, and stuffed the pouch beneath it, out of sight. Picking up a smaller rock, he scratched a symbol on the larger one, the sound sharp and clear in the still morning air, and then, with what appeared to be a final glance around, he moved away from the pool and began to pick his way carefully back across the mountainside.
“Dominus … Dominus …”
Like thorns pushed into his skin, the words slowly penetrated Batiatus’s consciousness. He drifted up from the soothing caress of delicious sleep, prizing open one eye to see Ashur’s bearded face looming over him.
“What befalls me now that requires waking to your fucking face,” he muttered.
“Apologies, dominus. You instructed to awaken the instant of return.”
Batiatus struggled into a sitting position, blinking and rubbing his eyes.
“Is it fucking day or night?”
“Dawn, dominus. The birds begin morning song.”
“Fuck the fucking birds,” Batiatus said.
“Yes, dominus.”
“Wait in my study. I will fully open eyes and join you presently.”
A few minutes later, dressed but still red-eyed from sleep, Batiatus entered his study to find Ashur standing patiently, waiting for him.
“So,” Batiatus said, stifling a yawn. “You retrieve knowledge from scout?”
Ashur plumped himself up, clearly smug at the prospect of delivering good news to his master.
“Yes, dominus.”
“Mantilus appeared as expected I hope? Absent that, you should still be standing vigil as instructed.”
“He came, dominus. His actions indicated scheme you suspected.” Quickly Ashur described what he had seen.
Batiatus clenched his teeth in both outrage and triumph. Raising his right arm, he cupped the palm of his hand, fingers rigid and claw-like.
“With suspicion confirmed I have that little Greek fuck held tightly by the balls. Knowledge of his artifice ensures crushing of reputation and pitiful fucking excuse for ludus.”
