Auriane was sharply aware of how the swell of her breasts was flattened against his chest, of the fact that but two thin pieces of cloth separated their bodies. This is cruel past bearing, she thought miserably. A part of me wants to turn my back on all my labors, to steal off from this place and lie with him tonight.
He seemed to hear these thoughts, for he held her gaze firmly, and said, “I will find a way, some day soon, that we may pass at least one night together before we perish. I promise it.”
She shivered, feeling pleasantly vulnerable, gently paralyzed by the desire so evident in his eyes. Misery and joy surged up in her throat and choked off all words.
“All you have to do is stay alive,” he said with a playful smile that concealed a savage sadness beneath. “A small thing to ask, I think.”
He then saw Harpocras give the signal. “Nemesis. Go quickly!”
She held to his gaze as long as she dared; leaving him felt like tearing off a limb. “Forgive me what I do to you,” she said, and fled off down the passage.
CHAPTER XLVI
AURIANE WAS ROUSED BEFORE DAWN BY the remorseless pounding of a drum, resonant with dark urgency. Still half in dreams, she thought it the celebration drums of Eastre.
It is the morning of the Blessed One’s rising. Baldemar awaits on Marten Ridge—I need to hurry if we’re to watch together the lighting of the bonfires. Soon now, Thrusnelda will be climbing the hill of sacrifice with a live hare in a sack….
She saw a line of dancing children following a high wind ruffling the pines, marking the passage of Fria herself as Light Bearer, her fiery raiment creating the dawn as she led first the young children, then all her people to the place-of-no-sorrowing. The earth-quickening pulse of that drum was her great, compassionate heart.
Then Auriane was awake. With a lurch of terror, she remembered.
That drum meant death, not life. It accompanied the raising of the velarium, the vast awning of sailcloth that would shield the spectators of the Colosseum from the midday sun. To the beat of that drum, a thousand sailors drawn from the Roman fleet at Misenum turned engines that unrolled great strips of canvas onto the network of ropes that stretched over the seats of the amphitheater. The crowds who came to watch her people die would not be forced to squint in the sun.
As she arose and splashed her face with water from the wooden trough at the back of the cell, each throb of that drum seemed a blow from a hammer in the hands of their savage sun-god, pounding her into bloody mud, pushing her farther down into the lightless caverns of Hel.
She stopped her ears.
Sunia! Do you hear? Do you know I saved you from that drum, or do you despise me still?
She moved to the narrow window so she could see a strip of sky, and placed a hand over the runic sign of Tiwaz that scarred her arm, while striving to feel the fiery ghost of the war-god. But the sky was barren today. She fought against the first small pricklings of panic.
A guard loudly flung open the cell door. Motioning with his javelin, he ordered her to follow him. On this day the whole of the passage was lined with guards, most of whom were unfamiliar. She was taken to a vast holding cell by the school’s entrance and put in with two hundred and more novices. None spoke; all were locked into their private prisons of fear. After a few moments she found Coniaric and Thorgild in the murky, greenish gloom; they seemed distant, as if they still dreamed. When she saw Celadon, he refused to meet her gaze. Though yesterday he had seemed settled and confident, on this morning terror owned him, and it filled him with shame.
A dozen guards briskly searched them for sharp implements—a brooch, a stylus, or paring knife—to forestall the inconvenience of last-minute suicides.
As morning progressed, the whole of the Ludus Magnus began to awaken to life; Auriane observed it all from the holding cell’s barred window. Armory workers and assistants hurried past at a half run, carrying weapons and equipment. Shouts reverberated off stone as disputes erupted between trainers and physicians. Ceremonial chariots were drawn up and readied for the grand entrance of the highest-ranking men of the First Hall, who appeared shortly after, decked in purple robes and finely embossed helmets of gold affixed with peacock plumes. As the hours crept on, her tribesmen began to approach her singly or in twos, to put a hand on the amulet of sacred earth—all they had left of their home ground—while begging her to pray for them. Auriane stayed near Celadon, plying him with questions about all that passed, hoping to pull him out of the miasma that had settled over him. Thorgild seemed to find a store of strength at the last. But Celadon did not, for, as she learned, he believed he was matched with a better man.
The cell’s only sounds were murmurs, whimpers and prayers.
As dawn passed into hazy morning, the common people massed into the wide way that separated the Ludus Magnus from the Colosseum. Ruffians from the Subura pressed against perfumed nobles, Palace freedmen, cobblers and fishmongers, cabbage farmers from the country about Rome, workers in marble, keepers of shops, and travelers from places distant as Rhodes, Anatolia, or the banks of the Euphrates. Above this human sea swayed the occasional senatorial litter, seeming to float on it like some ivory and gold pleasure boat. Slaves were prohibited entry to the arena contests, but not a few infiltrated the throng anyway, hoping to steal in undetected and take a place in the top tier, where standing room could be purchased for two coppers.
Most made their way at once to the ticket stalls, where they secured tickets of flat round bone, on which was inscribed their seat and row. From here they crowded into the marble stairways located under every fourth arch of the amphitheater. Once inside, they were taken in hand by efficient attendants, who quickly seated them in the section and row reserved for their rank. Some paused by the stands built against the wooden barricade set up round the base of the Colosseum to help control the crowd; here they bought programs, rented cushions to soften the marble seats, or purchased sausages, meat pastries, boiled eggs and spiced wine so they could have their midday meal inside and miss none of the show. A knot of people pressed about the betting stalls, arguing the merits of the favorites as they placed their wagers. By the second hour, seventy thousand citizens had crowded into the Colosseum, for even though they had been denied Aristos, much interest was excited by the promised reenactment of the battles of the Chattian war. “What battles?” came the frequent objection around the betting stalls. Others insisted it would all prove worth it to witness the droll spectacle of Domitian attempting to transform a few skirmishes in the woods into the battle of Actium or the siege of Troy.
When the Emperor and his entourage were settled in the imperial box, a horn fanfare commanded silence, and the day of games began. As was the custom, the morning was given over to animal-baiting. The people were first given a contest between two elephants. The beasts were goaded with fire-darts until they attacked one another; their regal trumpeting could be heard beyond the city gates. The victorious elephant then kneeled before the imperial box as it had been carefully trained to do. This was followed by a pairing of a rhinoceros and a white bull with spikes affixed to its horns, then a battle of bears, tied together to make them more vicious. After this came an exhibition of mounted Thessalian bullfighters—thirty bulls were released into the arena, followed closely by a troop of horsemen, who galloped alongside the bulls, grasped their horns, then twisted their necks, bringing the beasts to the ground. The pace was never allowed to flag; before the last bull was brought down, the animal trainers drove in two dozen giraffes, to the delighted murmurs of the crowd. Then skilled archers entered the arena, and a swift slaughter began. Finally the officials of the games had to call a recess so Numidian slave boys could drag off the accumulating carcasses with iron hooks and ropes. When this uninspiring sight began to draw hisses and catcalls, a Mesopotamian lion was released to mollify the crowd, which grew quiet as the animal was slain by a brightly garbed Ethiopian woman armed only with a hunting spear.
By mid-morning the crowd had become impatient with t
his endless parade of beasts. But Domitian’s director of shows had not exhausted his supply: Next came a mock chariot race—the charioteers were monkeys, driving miniature cars. Then, to whet the appetite for what was to come, the people were given an exhibition of monkeys battling with small javelins. The crowd’s laughter was halfhearted. A low, cautious warning chant began to issue from the plebeian seats—“Give us Aristos!”
At the fifth hour, in the twilight of the holding cell the captives were brought bowls of barley gruel, which they ate listlessly under the guards’ probing stares. Auriane wondered, Do they think we will try to choke ourselves with the spoons?
At midday a brassy braying of trumpets signaled that the time had come for the contests between men. The guards returned and began conducting off the novices in groups of ten.
Celadon explained to Auriane that they would open with several unimportant individual bouts; then the first “stage set” battle would take place. All afternoon the single bouts would alternate with simulations of the battles of the war, to allow the architect-engineers’ assistants time to ready the scenery for the battle spectacles. Of the many facts Celadon related that day, one remained perversely illumined in Auriane’s mind: There were men settled outside this city whose sole task in life was to grow the trees for the scenery used in these mock battles. She was astonished anew by the peculiar habits of this race of men.
When the first bout began, she noticed at once how the sight of human blood transformed the crowd’s voice. During the animal-baitings their cries were softer and more scattered. Now they gave single, surging cries with a much harder edge—deep, hungry roars from the belly that seemed to issue from a single throat, punctuated by shrieks alive with eager malignity.
Time stalled; the throng’s cries became increasingly laden with dark discontent. When Coniaric and Thorgild were taken off, their departure was so swift and matter-of-fact, so empty of the glory she always associated with battle that they might have been setting out to drive cattle in from pasture. Auriane struggled to perform the Ritual of Fire in her mind, but the crowd’s growing agitation kept breaking into her silence. She knew well the sounds of a throng ready to riot; she had attempted to calm many such a crowd in her own country.
She listened to the guards’ talk, struggling to learn the fate of Coniaric and Thorgild. But she discovered only that the first exhibition of women—a dozen pairs of Sarmatians from the Claudian School who fought with javelins—had been greeted with a shower of rotted turnips.
When Celadon was taken off for his single bout, he surprised Auriane by embracing her with fierce warmth, lifting her off her feet. “If I don’t return, Auriane,” he said at the last, “go to Bargates when curiosity goads you. He was a fugitive from the kitchens of a great-house, and knows this city like fleas know a dog’s back. He’s of sanguine temperament and won’t be maddened by your constant questions.”
“Celadon…, live!” she said miserably as the guards prodded him off.
A quarter-hour passed. The guards returned and selected nine men—and Auriane.
Suddenly she felt like a skittish horse.
I am not ready. This throng is a ravening beast. They’re in a murderous humor today—they’ll spare no one. And what if I am victor and the crowd demands I kill? Celadon heard a tale that this man Perseus sold himself to the school to keep his family from starvation. I cannot slay an innocent man. I see no possible good end for this day.
They were brought to the equipment rooms alongside the armory. Two fierce-faced old women began to prepare her. One had watery eyes and hands pebbled with warts, the other, a mobile, toothless mouth; their dry hands scuttled over her body like crabs as they fastened the greave to her left leg, the arm guard to her right arm. One drew Auriane’s hair tightly back at the nape of her neck and twisted it into the smallest knot she could fashion. The hair must be kept well out of the way—should a stray strand be caught by the point of a sword, she could be scalped. Together they fastened onto her a tunic of layered leather. Then they placed on her shoulders a heavy wool cloak dyed a deep garnet red.
Behind her, assistants hurried in with carts bearing bloodied equipment plucked from the dead, but she scarcely heard the activity all about—the world of the living seemed to recede and grow small, and she felt faint and light, as though her soul had begun already to seek the sky.
Erato came in then, followed by a secretary and a recorder. At the sight of her he was struck to stillness. That severely drawn back hair gave her a stark, bold look; she seemed all determination and searching eyes. He reflected uneasily on the night when she had knocked him down, and once again he had the unsettling sense that this was no subject woman but some mortal emissary of the Fates, who would work their will and then vanish when her task was done. Impatiently he shook the feeling off—the spirit-realms were for the credulous rabble; he believed only in speed, courage and accuracy.
“Let me see your wrists,” he said with brisk impatience. “Good. Now, then, what is the meaning of this sign?” Quickly he went twice through the hand signals they had devised. Then he ordered his secretary and his recorder to leave him. She sensed a faint awkwardness in his manner, as though he’d committed some act that caused him to feel ashamed.
He came close and said in a low voice, “Auriane, there are people who think I’m a madman for the claims I’ve made for you.” He shrugged, then gave her a cautious, sheepish smile. “But some of them in important places have decided to believe me…and they’ve placed some rather extravagant bets on you, solely upon my word. My position and reputation are at stake today. Well, I might as well tell you, my life is at stake. One of them is that grasping pig of a Finance Minister, Musonius Geta, and he won’t hesitate to slit my throat if he loses his lousy million sesterces. Rescue me from this one, Auriane, and when it’s over, I’ll see that you get any reward it’s in my power to give.”
She regarded him with amused disbelief. He had succumbed to an obvious temptation—the selling of information. She would only be an unknown once, and the odds had been set against her at nine to one. But what was his purpose in telling her this? Did he not count her own desire to survive motivation enough? Worry is scrambling his wits, she thought.
“Any reward?” she said, suppressing a smile. “May I live to see you regret that promise.”
“Within reason, you minx. No hot and cold baths for every one of your tribesmen, or—”
“I know already what I will ask. Leave me now, before I catch your fretfulness like a pox.”
“Why are prodigies always so irksome?” he said, smiling with good humor. “At last look I was still director of this School, my testy princess. Now, march ahead of me to the armory, and watch that cloak, it’s too long…. None of us can afford it if you stumble and break your neck.”
Domitian’s box was a sumptuous chamber that offered most of the comforts of his own bedroom. It was set at the center of one of the long sides of the arena’s ellipse, right at the barrier. The Colosseum’s seating was planned so that a man’s view improved with his rank, and the Emperor’s view was beyond compare. To ensure that nothing whatever impeded it, one of the mast-poles for the awning had been removed, and it seemed to Domitian the dramas of life and death were played out for him alone. The imperial box was enclosed for privacy; two sets of curtains—the inner ones of gauzy silk, the outer of heavier silk threaded with gold—shielded him from the probing eyes of the populace. But on this day he had ordered them thrown open so the people might be treated to the sight of him—a generous gesture, he thought, given their churlishness on this day.
Domitian was sunk deeply into his overcushioned chair, a delicate masterwork of cedarwood and ivory fashioned by Egyptian craftsmen. His footstool rested on a floor of gleaming squares of porphyry set in a chequered pattern of sea-green and pale rose. Behind Domitian, Carinus stood guard near silver ewers of snow-cooled water and Falernian wine, watching fearfully for the slightest gesture of the Emperor’s heavily ringed hand. A t
roupe of musicians played panpipes and citharas, trying to imitate with their music the sounds of trickling water. Domitian had lately given up the struggle to maintain the appearance of one who eschews luxury; it no longer troubled him if the people thought him not as fit and battle-ready as his father. In these days he rarely walked if he could be carried, and his body had begun to thicken like an aging stallion’s after it is set out to pasture. He sat stiffly still with exaggerated dignity, but his gaze was ever restless, roaming like a truculent bull, always alert to signs of independence in the herd.
Curled at Domitian’s feet was the simpleminded boy the Emperor brought with him everywhere as though he were a lapdog; a child of seven born with a too-small head, he was pitiful in rich clothes that were too large for him. Domitian felt increasingly separated from his fellow men and this boy was a balm—he could be in a vile mood or a mild one and the child offered him the same unfettered devotion. The boy was massaging the Emperor’s feet with an expression of intense concentration on his benign face. Domitian paid him no mind—his senses were pricked to the temper of the crowd. Whenever they shouted “Throw Veiento to the panthers,” or “Match Veiento with Hyperion,” a deep flush sprang to his cheeks and spread to his thick neck, and his eyes became bull’s horns, casting about for someone to gore. Carinus would stop breathing and stand very still, hoping Domitian would forget he was there.
Below them on the sand a net-and-trident fighter warily circled a Thracian swordsman. Domitian scarcely watched; the next bout, Auriane’s, was the one that promised to lift him from his stale melancholy.
To Domitian’s left Montanus slouched in a humbler chair; a collection of petitions rested in the valley between his chest and the swell of his belly. Nervous perspiration beaded Montanus’ upper lip as he read from them in his high, immature voice. Veiento had been given leave not to attend, for fear that the mob, if they saw him, might try to rend him limb from limb, but also because Domitian had set Veiento at another task today—supervising the torture of every one of his agents to discover who had betrayed the truth of Gallus’ death.
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