Spartacus: Morituri

by Mark Morris

  Without preamble, both Solonius’s men and Batiatus’s men turned toward Hieronymus’s provocators and, as though working as a foursome, simply ran at them at full speed. Taken by surprise, the pair of heavily armed but slow-moving gladiators barely had time to raise their weapons and shields in defense before the quartet were upon them.

  Solonius’s retiarius darted in quickly, throwing his net over one of the giants and yanking him off his feet. As the provocator stumbled to his knees, already tangled so tightly in the net that his arms were pinned uselessly to his body, the secutor sprang forward with his stabbing sword, jabbing viciously through the net at any patches of exposed flesh that he could reach.

  He was joined a moment later by his retiarius partner wielding his trident, and within seconds the provocator lay all but dead and gushing blood, his trussed body slashed and pierced in more than a dozen places.

  Meanwhile Hieronymus’s other provocator was faring no better. Moving with efficiency and understanding, Batiatus’s men ran either side of the giant, the chain that linked them clashing against the greave protecting his left leg and the unprotected shin of his right. Before he had time to realize what his opponents were doing, they swapped positions behind him, looping round so that the chain encircled his legs completely. Then, in unison, they reached down and yanked up savagely on the chain, flipping the man up and over on to his back.

  As soon as he was down they were on him like a pair of wild dogs. The hoplomachus leaped forward first, pinning the provocator’s sword arm to the sand with his spear as though impaling a fish on a river bed.

  Even as blood arced from the wound and the man was opening his mouth to scream, Batiatus’s secutor was springing forward to smash the provocator’s visored helmet up and off his head with the edge of his shield. As soon as his face and neck were exposed, the secutor brought his sword down, point first, into the provocator’s throat, the blow so savage that it severed not only the man’s jugular vein but his spinal column before burying itself in the sand beneath.

  Up in the pulvinus, Hieronymus gaped in stunned disbelief as blood fountained up from the provocator’s neck with such force that it cleared the secutor’s head by a good three feet. He watched the body of his gladiator kick and judder wildly for a moment, and then lie still. As the crowd, initially shocked, began to leap up and down, roaring their approval, some of them even pointing at Hieronymus and laughing at him, Brutilius gave a snort of disappointment.

  “A poor defense,” he sniffed. “I confess, good Hieronymus, I expected more from these Morituri of yours.”

  “A most unfortunate start,” Batiatus agreed mildly. “But do not lose heart, good Brutilius. I am certain stable of esteemed friend contains more than mere carthorses, his stallions merely yet to be unleashed. Is that not so, Hieronymus?”

  Hieronymus turned to look at him. His dark eyes seemed a little dazed, unfocused. His lips moved, but at first no sound came out.

  “Are you unwell, Hieronymus?” Lucretia asked, her voice dripping with sympathy.

  “I … I …” Hieronymus blinked and swallowed. “I confess to feeling a little … faint.”

  “The insufferable heat,” Lucretia said.

  “Coupled with flush of loss,” Solonius murmured with an empathetic shrug.

  Lucretia gestured to Athenais behind her.

  “Quickly, more water for Hieronymus.” As the girl hurried to do her bidding, Lucretia smiled sweetly at the Greek merchant. “Rest easy,” she said. “We will care for any need.”

  As ever, Oenomaus was standing in his appointed place, watching the contest through the cross-hatched bars of the gate. This time when he sensed a presence behind him, he was unable to prevent a grim smile from twitching across his lips.

  By the time he turned his head toward the newcomer, however, his face was once again as impassive as stone. With hooded eyes he watched Mantilus approach along the corridor, the scrawny, scarred attendant emerging from the shadows like the dark spirit of the underworld some had initially supposed him to be.

  “Greetings, Mantilus,” Oenomaus rumbled. “You have come to view contest.” Then he made a brief correcting murmur, as though admonishing himself. “Forgive my offense. You move with such ease that one finds it simple to forget you are unable to see. Your employment of remaining senses to judge what surrounds you is most impressive.”

  Mantilus paused, tilting his head to one side, like a bird. Even now that Oenomaus’s over-riding emotion toward the man was one of restrained fury, such that he itched to put a sword between his ribs for the dishonorable way he had gone about trying to gain advantage for the gladiators in his master’s ludus, he could not deny that Hieronymus’s attendant remained an unsettling presence. The veteran gladiator was a pragmatic man, a man of such focus and iron self-discipline that he had long ago eradicated fear and doubt from his system. Nevertheless, deep in the unreachable part of his brain where instinctive primal urges still lurked, he could not deny that there remained the tiniest flutter of unease, the minutest fragment of uncertainty. What if he should put a sword through Mantilus, only to discover that it was not blood that spilled from his carcass, but centuries-old dust? Or worse, what if it was darkness that spewed from the wound? A living darkness that devoured all that it touched?

  Clenching his jaw at his own foolishness, he stepped to his right, making space beside him.

  “Come,” he said, “stand by my side. Let us enjoy spectacle of games shoulder to shoulder.”

  Mantilus hesitated a moment, as if sensing foul intent, and then he began to move again, ghosting forward, his feet so light that they made no sound on the stone floor. When he was within touching distance, Oenomaus said, “You are within arm’s reach of gate. But I suppose you do not need me to tell you that. Do you feel the heat of sun? Hear collision of weapon and clamor of crowd? Smell odor of fresh spilled blood?”

  He didn’t expect a response, and he didn’t get one. Instead, as before, Mantilus curled his long brown fingers through the thick iron mesh, pressed his face to one of the diamond-shaped gaps of the gate and began to whisper.

  Oenomaus eyed him silently. He thought how easy it would be to break the man’s spine over his knee, or to snap his neck with one swift and savage blow. Then he thought again of pushing a sword between Mantilus’s ribs and of nothing but gray dust spilling out over his fingers, and he suppressed a shudder of revulsion.

  The day wore on, the sun moving slowly across the sky. In the arena each bout was greeted with shrieks and cheers and claps from the excitable, air-punching crowd. In between times, as spilled innards and severed limbs were collected in sacks, fresh sand strewn over the larger pools of blood, and bodies dragged out through the Porta Libitinensis, the spectators, their previous aggression now spent, sat quietly to conserve their energy-fanning themselves, drinking water and wine, and munching on refreshments bought from food vendors: fruit and bread and sausages, fried mice and barbecued chicken.

  Although the citizens of Capua were thoroughly enjoying their day out in the sun, the same could not be said of Hieronymus. Time and again, bout after bout, he saw his men fall in the arena, often within minutes, or sometimes even seconds, of taking to the sands. By comparison to the warriors that belonged to both Batiatus and Solonius, his own gladiators seemed naive, lethargic, badly organized. Yet it should have been the other way round. The herbs which Mantilus had daily been adding to the water supplies of both his rivals’ ludii should have reduced their gladiators to little more than shambling wrecks. He blinked and rubbed his face, unable to comprehend what had gone wrong. He felt unaccountably dazed by it all, oddly distanced, almost as if he was subconsciously trying to deny what was taking place before his very eyes, or as if his mind was trying to convince him that the whole appalling experience was nothing but a terrible dream.

  He looked around. His surroundings seemed thick and soupy, the very air seeming to shimmer and coil like oil in water. He had the odd sense that he was moving in slow motion. Per
haps he had absorbed too much sun? He reached for his water cup and gulped at it greedily. Surprised to find it empty, he held it out for more. It was refilled by Athenais, the Greek slave he had bought as a gift for his friend, Crassus. He caught her eye, and saw that she was looking at him intently. He had a feeling he should have known what that look meant, or at least been able to guess, but his thoughts felt too heavy, too vague, like dark shapes rendered indefinable by swirling mist. He heard a roar from the crowd-a muzzy, dragging, nightmarish sound in his ears. He looked down into the arena, trying to focus. Another bout had begun. He hadn’t even heard the announcement. It was as if events were melting together, blending into one.

  He tried to concentrate on the moving shapes, to make sense of the blur of action, the clash of swords and shields. He blinked and rubbed at his face again. He was alarmed to find that he could not even discern which men belonged to him, and which to his rivals. He saw a gladiator fall, cut almost in half by a helmeted man with an ax. He was half-aware of Brutilius and Batiatus leaping to their feet, a cry of triumph erupting from Batiatus’s lips. He rubbed at his limbs, which felt hollow and full of aches and shivers. Perhaps he was coming down with a fever. He took another gulp of water and turned to Crassus.

  “What gladiator falls?” he asked. There was no reply, and he wondered whether he had spoken the words too quietly. He tried again. “What gladiator falls?”

  This time his voice was too loud. It seemed to boom not just in his ears, but around the arena. Suddenly Hieronymus felt that all eyes were on him. Paranoid, he looked down at his sandaled feet, barely able to suppress the feverish shudders that were now rippling through his body. He heard Crassus’s voice, full of spite and sharp edges, each word like a separate knife blade dragged across his prickly, tender flesh.

  “You ask who falls?”

  “I … I did not see,” Hieronymus said. He gestured vaguely above him. His arm felt weightless and far too heavy, both at the same time. “The sun … my eyes …”

  “You do not recognize despoiled wretch who bears your own mark?” Crassus’s voice dripped with contempt. “Yet one more in a long line to fall within moments of setting foot upon sands. Your men embarrass you this day, Hieronymus. As you do me by association in the supplying of cattle in guise of gladiators. To call oneself lanista beyond these games would take great courage. Tattered whores from the streets could make more competent show at the task.”

  “I … I …” Hieronymus said weakly, but whatever words he wanted to express lay stillborn. He looked down at his feet again, in an effort to concentrate, but he quite simply could not connect the blundering thoughts in his mind.

  “Have decency enough to face me when addressed,” Crassus snapped.

  Hieronymus raised his head to do as Crassus had asked, the action making him dizzy. He blinked at his friend, but at first the Roman’s imperious features were nothing but a dark blur, framed by the sun. Then Crassus shifted slightly, blocking the sun, and his face sharpened into crystal clarity …

  Hieronymus screamed.

  The sound was girlish, high-pitched, attracting startled looks from Brutilius and his wife, and stares and laughter from the crowd. But the merchant didn’t care. All that concerned him at that moment was getting away from the creature that was sitting beside him. Because it was not his friend Marcus Crassus who was looming over him, but a snarling wolf wearing the toga of a Roman nobleman. The fact that the wolf had human hands was of no comfort whatsoever. In fact, it seemed to make the whole thing much worse somehow.

  The wolf opened its mouth to speak, and Hieronymus saw long yellow teeth slick with drool. The breath of the creature was rank, a hellish stench of rotting meat. Whimpering, the Greek merchant tried to scramble away from it, and succeeded only in tumbling from his chair, and sprawling on the floor at the feet of Brutilius and his wife. Flailing wildly, his hand slapped down on, and then grabbed, Brutilius’s wife’s leg, prompting her to release a little squeal of alarm.

  The wolf snarled and snapped at him again, its eyes rolling in fury. A guttural, distorted voice came from deep within its throat: “Have you not disgraced yourself enough? Do you seek to lower status yet further with such antics?”

  As the wolf reached for him, long curved claws springing from the ends of its human fingers, as if to rend and tear at his flesh, Hieronymus screamed again and scrambled away. He crawled over the feet of his fellow guests within the pulvinus, and over their lunch debris: bones, olive stones, half-eaten pieces of fruit and discarded chunks of bread.

  Now other creatures were leaning down toward him- not his fellow lanistae and their guests, but the evil spirits which had replaced them, and which he felt certain were preparing to feast on his flesh. He gibbered and curled into a ball as one of them spoke.

  “Hieronymus is unwell,” a voice said.

  “An imbalance of humors, distress of his humiliation the cause perhaps,” another suggested.

  Now a third shade spoke, its voice softer, but laced with a delicious glee at his misfortune.

  “Perhaps sun is to blame, its heat roasting skull and scrambling thought.” There was a pause, and then, as though calling forth all the tortures of Tartarus, the same soft-voiced shade said, “Bring more water for Hieronymus. Quickly.”

  Water. It was something about the manner in which the shade gave the order-with such sadistic relish, with such a knowing sense of cruelty-that finally penetrated the fug of thoughts in the merchant’s beleaguered mind. The realization came slowly, but unmistakably. He thought of how swift and agile the gladiators of his rival lanistae had been today, and of how Batiatus’s wife, Lucretia, had plied him with water-Water from Rome, she had said. And he thought too of the strangely intense, almost savage look bestowed upon him by the girl, Athenais, as she had refilled his cup.

  “Water,” he croaked in horror.

  The soothing voice of the shade came again.

  “Patience, dear Hieronymus. Did I not tell you we would cater to every need? If you desire water, then you shall have it.”

  Before he knew what was happening, Hieronymus felt a hard edge-the rim of a cup-being pressed to his lips and cold liquid splashing into his mouth and running down his face. He recoiled, lurching away with such force that the back of his head cracked against something hard. Through the sudden, unexpected pain he heard cries of alarm intermingled with soothing words. He spat what he could of the foul liquid from his mouth, but some had already trickled down his throat, making him splutter and cough. As the cup was pressed against his mouth for a second time he dashed it away, to more cries of protest and alarm.

  “The water,” he said again. “You … you have poisoned me!”

  A face came close to his. He recognized it as belonging to Batiatus, though it was stretching and twisting constantly before his sight. Eyes alight with glee, the face grinned, displaying far too many teeth.

  “Poison, good Hieronymus?” it laughed. “Surely you are in grip of delusion. All I supply is kindness, with provision of water from mountain stream supplying my ludus. It flows with the utmost purity. One could not imagine such stream running afoul. Could one?”

  XV

  It was almost time. Spartacus and Varro sat side by side, silent now, each enmeshed in his own thoughts. Both men were well aware that in less than an hour they would either be revered heroes, the crowd stamping their feet and chanting their names, or utterly forgotten, their broken bodies tipped into the stinking charnel house of the spoliarium, their blood mingling with that not only of other slaves and gladiators, but also of criminals and beasts.

  As ever, Spartacus thought of Sura, and more specifically of her utter reliance on the quirks and vagaries of fate, on an existence determined wholly by the gods despite the earthly illusion of choice and free will. Having given himself over to her philosophy, he fought without fear or rancor; he fought purely because he was required to fight-because Sura would have claimed that the gods had decreed it so-and as such, he did it with concentrati
on and a grim determination, concerned more for the welfare of his partner and friend than for himself.

  Varro, too, thought of his wife-of Aurelia and also their young son-but his motivation came from a determination to survive, in order to earn enough coin not only to pay off his gambling debts, but to cater for his family’s daily needs, to keep them fed and clothed and safe from harm. Like Spartacus, Varro cared little for the laurels of the crowd. He was happy to leave dreams of glory to those who had nothing else to dream about- to the likes of Crixus, who wanted nothing more on this earth than to march out on to the sands with a sword in his hand once again, the plaudits of his admirers ringing in his ears.

  At a signal from a guard the men rose to their feet. They glanced briefly at one another, their faces grim, and then Varro gave a single short nod and they began the long walk through the underground passages toward the tunnel that led to the huge gates, through which they would ultimately step out into the blazing daylight and riotous clamor of the arena.

  Many of the cells they passed were empty, though some contained those of Batiatus’s men who had emerged victorious from earlier bouts. These men were now resting, or sluicing off the grime and blood of combat, or nursing wounds inflicted upon them by their opponents. Some of the men simply watched them silently as they passed by, whereas others wished them luck, or even- with grim humor-bid them a final farewell.

  Spartacus and Varro ignored them all. Their faces were set, their minds focused purely on the task ahead. As ever, Spartacus was unencumbered by heavy armor, a curved sword clenched in each hand. Varro was dressed as a murmillo, his head encased in a large visored helmet with a high crest, each side of which was decorated with an elaborate relief design of a gorgon’s head, its mouth and eyes agape, its hair a mass of writhing snakes. In one hand Varro carried a large, curved shield, and in the other he held a gladius-a short, stabbing sword. Both men were oiled so that the impressive musculature of their bodies would gleam in the sun. They made a good contrast, Spartacus lean and lithe, his chest covered in a wiry stubble of dark hair, Varro big and burly and broadshouldered, his own chest, arms and back shaved as smooth as a woman’s skin.