‘Her name is Calistra. And I’m going to free her.’
‘Now that’s impressive.’ Both of them turned to Horatius, who was shaking his head in new-found respect. ‘She’s only done the love thing to him, and all in the space of one quick bunk up. She must come like a fully wound bolt thrower …’
Once the gladiators slated for that day’s entertainment had returned, most of them dressed in what seemed to be more or less the standard fighting equipment for the ludus, the lanista looked about him with a hint of approval in his faint smile. The gladiators were equipped for the most part in wide-brimmed helmets adorned with griffons or crests, each with a face mask perforated by holes large enough to allow clear vision. Their sword arms were wrapped in heavy padding beneath sleeves of segmented metal of the type worn by legionaries on the Danubius frontier, and each man’s leading leg was protected by a metal greave strapped over heavy padding to protect their ankles from the harsh bite of the metal shin guard’s edges.
‘Very nice, gentlemen, you almost look like gladiators! Swords and shields will be issued in the arena, just to make sure nobody decides to start the fighting early, or looks to use their weapons in some desperate bid for freedom! And for those of you who are here as condemned men, let me remind you that the guards accompanying us will beat the blood-stained piss out of you if you so much as look like making a run for it. Come along then!’
The lanista led the group down a stairway and into a sloping tunnel lit at intervals by freshly set torches. Velox laughed at the look of bemusement on Dubnus’s face.
‘You didn’t think we were going to stroll over to the Flavian through the sort of crowd that will already have gathered, did you? We’d be mobbed the second we set foot outside the gates, and it’d take an age to push our way through. This is much quicker …’
The tunnel ran downhill at a slight gradient for fifty paces before joining another, larger underground corridor, and Marcus realised that they had reached a junction of several such concealed walkways.
‘This is where the tunnels from all of the schools meet. It’s not far from here to the arena.’
The group marched on in a direction that Marcus judged to be eastward, and after a moment’s walking the dim light ahead of them resolved itself into a stairway leading upwards into the morning sunlight, while the dimly lit tunnel ran on to the west and, he presumed, into the bowels of the arena itself. At the top of the stairs they stepped out into a crowded space filled with gladiators of all types, the city folk kept at a respectful distance on all sides by a ring of arena guards, and Sannitus raised his voice as he pushed his way into the crowd.
‘Now then you Gauls, you beast men, you fighters of the Great School, make way for the greatest gladiators in the world! Make way for the men of the Dacian Ludus!’
A barrage of ribaldry and foul language met his apparent bombast, but Marcus could see that most of it was good natured despite the obvious nerves on display among the men that would fight and possibly die that day. Another man of roughly the same age as the veteran lanista stepped forward, a giant of a man with a bald head whose scalp was scarred as if by the claws of some vicious beast, and with one eye socket concealed by a patch. He wrapped the Dacian lanista in a bearlike hug, lifting Sannitus clean off his feet with a growl of welcome, and two more men crowded in to make their greetings, mutual respect evident on the faces of all four.
‘We’re not too late then?’
The one-eyed man laughed.
‘With this lot organising the parade? Not likely.’
Sticking together in their tight group, the Dacians looked around them with the understandable curiosity of men who might well be looking upon either their victims or their killers to be. One or two of the more experienced veterans recognised previous opponents, and stepped out of the huddle to make the clasp and enjoy a moment of conversation with men who, mortal enemies though they might briefly have been, were now simply fellow professionals, subject to the same hopes and doubts with which they themselves were struggling.
‘Gladiators!’ A strong voice rang out over the throng, snapping heads round as the fighters anticipated the command to move. ‘Follow the usual path to the starting point please …’
The three friends went along with their group, most of whom clearly knew where they were going, walking around the towering arena past the eastern gate.
‘That’s the Gate of Life.’ Velox hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Win your bout, or lose well enough to avoid a fatal wound and win the emperor’s favour, and you’ll make it back to the ludus even if they have to carry you back.’ They walked on around the amphitheatre’s curved walls, and at length he pointed forward at the gate in the amphitheatre’s western side. ‘On the other hand, if you die, or lose so badly that you have to receive the mercy stroke, or simply incur the big man’s wrath for not fighting hard enough, then you’ll be carried out through that gate. The Gate of Death.’
He was silent for a moment, as the straggling procession passed under the infamous arch in silence.
‘There, see?’ He pointed to a tunnel opening close to the gate. ‘From here that tunnel runs back to the east, under the arena all the way from here to the spolarium on the far side of the Morning School. If you die in the arena, then the staff take your corpse in there to be stripped of its weapons and armour, and to keep the poor sods that weren’t good enough or fast enough from putting off the lads that haven’t fought yet. And here’s the worst part of it …’ He pointed to the crowds gathered about the gate. ‘They’ve been waiting there most of the night, making sure they get the prime spots, and get to see the dead men as they’re carried out.’
‘Fucking ghouls.’
A fighter walking before them in the smooth egg-shaped, full-face helmet of a secutor spat the words over his shoulder, and Velox laughed in response to the venom in his voice.
‘Ghouls they are, that’s true enough. But if you couldn’t take a joke then you shouldn’t have joined!’
The anonymous gladiator laughed bitterly, his face hidden by the helmet’s smooth iron face and his eyes invisible in the holes cut into the mask to allow him some limited vision.
‘As if I had any choice in the matter.’
‘Ah yes, that was true for the first few years, wasn’t it Glaucus, but it’s not quite the case these days. You’re no longer the bankrupt who was forced into the arena to pay off your creditors, are you? How much did it take to tempt you into the games this time round?’
Glaucus, who Marcus supposed was easy enough to identify despite the anonymity of his enclosed helmet given the absence of the little finger of his sword hand, turned his head to be better heard, a wry note in his muffled voice.
‘Not as much as they’re paying to see you, eh “Master of Carnage”?’
Velox grinned back at him.
‘Probably not, but I’ll bet good money that getting a nice big payment isn’t all the attraction, is it? Some of them may be ghouls, but there’s something about their adulation that just hooks us back into the game, isn’t there, even though we know we might end up leaving the arena feet first that last time?’
The gladiators marched through the Arch of Titus and down into the Forum, through crowds gathered on either side of the road behind a barrier of praetorians. In the shadow of the Capitoline Hill, the remainder of the procession was gathered awaiting the order to march.
‘Acrobats, dancing girls, musicians, gladiators, dwarfs pretending to be gladiators … Fuck me!’ What in the name of Cocidius are those?!’
Velox smirked at Dubnus’s stunned reaction.
‘Elephants. They come from far to the south of Africa. Big bastards, aren’t they? Imagine facing a dozen of those on the battlefield.’
The Tungrian stared up at the closest of the beasts as they walked past, grimacing at the sizeable heap of dung that had accumulated beneath its hind quarters.
‘I reckon a few hundred well-thrown spears would give them something to think about.�
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Velox raised an eyebrow.
‘And I reckon all you’d do with your spears would be to get them angry. Do you really think you’d want to see something that big angry at close quarters?’
Dubnus shrugged.
‘I’ll worry about it when I have to deal with it.’ He looked up and down the parade. ‘They do this for every day of the games?’
‘Every day. It gives the public a chance to see the gladiators, to prove that they’re in good condition for the fight and to see what’s in each man’s face. Does he look ready to fight for his life, and to kill, or does he just look like a victim? That and the elephants. Everybody loves elephants …’
Dubnus shook his head in wonder, then noticed something else that made him frown.
‘And the big man with the hammer? Is he going to fight with that?’
The gladiator smiled.
‘That’s Charun, or at least it’s the man who plays his part. If you die in the arena, then before you’re carried away to be stripped that bastard gives your head a sharp tap with the hammer and stoves in your skull, just enough to make sure you really are dead. I suppose it’s the quickest way of making sure that no one’s faking it, and to put anyone that’s still breathing out of their misery, but even so …’
They joined the tail end of the parade, watching as a group of a dozen lictors pushed their way through to the front with the customary bundles of fasces resting on their shoulders. Marcus saw his friend’s baffled look and explained their function, while Velox accepted the plaudits of those members of the crowd who had realised who he was.
‘They’re a sort of state bodyguard, although the twelve men assigned to escort Commodus when he goes out and about are really there to look after the emperor’s dignity rather than act as bodyguards. The bundles of rods they’re carrying represent their right to beat some respect into anyone who’s stupid enough to get in their way and by association impede the great man’s progress, and they’re here to make sure that the parade progresses to schedule, once he’s entered the arena. It’s not just the emperor that gets them, most senior public officials have a few to make sure that nobody gets away with showing them any disrespect. Even a Vestal Virgin will have a lictor to escort her to a ceremony, if her attendance is requested—’
‘Although that’s more to safeguard the men of the city than to prevent her from being ravished!’
They laughed at the old joke and Glaucus bowed, clearly enjoying himself behind the faceless helmet.
A moment later the distant arena erupted in a roar of approval, and Glaucus turned to hail Velox, who was chatting with several excitable-looking matrons at the crowd’s edge.
‘That’s the emperor’s arse in his seat then! Come on Velox, stop trying to make the women wet! It’s time to go walkies again! And make sure you don’t step in any elephant shit, that stuff’s three-feet deep!’
8
Once the parade of the gladiators was complete, the procession having made its way through the Forum to the Gate of Death, and onward into the amphitheatre for the ritual circuit of the fighting surface, the day’s combatants were dismissed back to their schools while the beast fighters took their turn in the sun. Sannitus summoned his men to him, pointing towards the Gate of Life.
‘Come on then, let’s have you back down the tunnel, you can channel all that frustration from marching behind the dancing girls into some serious practice for a change!’
Velox walked over to him and bent to whisper in his ear, tipping his head at the three centurions, and after a moment the lanista nodded and came across to them.
‘Your new best friend here thinks he ought to give you a tour of the arena, show how it all works so that it’s a bit less of a shock this afternoon when the time comes to fight. Behave yourselves, and remember that you’ve signed your lives over to the ludus. If you run, then when we catch you we’ll crucify you over the gate as a lesson for others. And you …’
He pointed at the champion gladiator.
‘Don’t go pushing your luck with the arena staff. You may be golden bollocks at the moment, but there’ll be a few of them who’d happily screw you over, especially if they’re still nursing their losses from that fight with the net man last month. Right, I’m off to find the procurator and make sure that we know exactly what it is that those three will be fighting later on. Edius, you’re in charge, get the rest of them back to the ludus without anyone getting any clever ideas about taking the rest of the day off, eh?’
He turned away and led his men away towards the Gate of Life, and Velox grinned at them with the look of a man excused duties for the day.
‘Come on then, let’s get off the sand before the beast fighting starts.’
‘Greetings, Tribune. I had not thought to see you again so soon, given your preoccupation with the pursuit of the Emperor’s Knives?’
Scaurus bowed to Sigilis, the men behind him copying the gesture as they had been instructed. The Senator had received them without any delay, despite the unannounced nature of their visit, and looking about himself Scaurus noted that his vestibule was empty of any clients despite the relatively early hour.
‘You are my first guests of the day, Tribune, you and your men. My usual constant flow of clients has dried up to nothing, now that the word is out as to my pending fate, it seems. Nobody wants to associate with a man under threat of death, do they? You and your people are welcome visitors, to break up the monotony of an otherwise empty day.’
The tribune had once again been accompanied by the same trio of barbarians and his first spear, the latter accompanied by a pair of soldiers.
‘I thought you might appreciate a little news on that very subject, Senator. After all, I suspect that you’ve seen little of your erstwhile informant in the last few days?’
Sigilis nodded, gesturing for the tribune’s party to follow him.
‘Indeed. I take it as yet another sign that the throne’s fingers are tightening around what’s left of my allotted lifespan. My people are followed whenever they leave the domus, and men watch the house around the clock. This morning both of my supposedly hidden exits from this property were found to have been broken in, with armed guards set to prevent their use. I do not have long left, I suspect. Anyway, tell me your news, Tribune, and hopefully bring a little pleasure to these grey days.’
Scaurus inclined his head respectfully.
‘I believe that my tidings would be best delivered in a setting that would ensure privacy, Senator. Might we perhaps repair to your garden, as we did the last time I came to visit?’
‘Well now, Julianus, here’s a cup of wine for you. It’s the Sicilian, the one you enjoyed so much the last time, and it’s already watered.’
The procurator accepted the drink from the servant who had approached him at his host’s signal, took a sip and nodded his approval.
‘Delicious! Every bit as good as the last time I tasted it, if not even better!’
He waved a hand at the packed and buzzing arena that rose high above their place on the first floor, adjacent to the imperial box. The emperor himself was relaxing at the far end of the area reserved for his court, a pair of young women vying to feed him from the table of delicacies laid out before them, while his chamberlain Cleander was standing not far from the party of senior gladiatorial officials which Julianus had joined, looking about him with his usual expression of calculation.
‘And am I to take this apparent state of relaxation as a sign that all is as it should be for the first day of the games?’
His host, the man responsible for the arena’s operation, shook his head dismissively.
‘As it should be? I very much doubt it, but then what else does a man have staff for? They’ll be running around like men whose backsides have been stung by hornets at this very minute.’ The men standing around the table laughed appreciatively at the affected insouciance in his aristocratic drawl. ‘Just as you procurators have your lanistas, I have a small number of very capable a
nd in one or two cases ruthless individuals whose specialisation is the art of making things happen, no matter what it takes. So the show, gentlemen, will go more or less to schedule, and nobody not intimately familiar with the way in which the organisation that runs this arena operates will ever know the difference. Let us just hope that your gladiators will be able to live up to the magnificence of the setting, shall we?’
‘There’s no fear of anything else!’ Novius, procurator of the Gallic Ludus, raised his cup to point at Julianus. ‘We’ve raised a fine crop of fighters this year, hard as nails all the way down to the tenth rank and not, as some schools seem to be, dependent on a few big names to carry their reputation.’
He sniffed loudly, and the other procurators sniggered at the barb, sinking it even deeper into Julianus’s thin skin.
‘There’s more to the Dacian Ludus than Velox and Mortiferum!’
‘Is there?’ His counterpart raised a disbelieving eyebrow. ‘Who do you have in the third rank? I hear the name Hermes, although I hear little to encourage a belief that he’ll give my own third-rank man a decent workout. Face it, Julianus, once we’re past your admittedly lethal one and two, the rest of your ranking is decidedly ordinary.’
Julianus bristled at the slur, waving his rival’s words away with an extravagant sweep of his hand.
‘Which shows how little your sources within my school really know. I’d advise you to stay for the mid-afternoon livener, colleague, rather than sloping off to your favourite brothel after the first bout of the afternoon as seems to be your usual habit. You might see something from which you’ll learn a thing or two about the finer arts of finding good fighting men.’
Novius narrowed his eyes, turning to the arena’s procurator with a questioning look, and the administrator waved a languid arm at Julianus.
‘Procurator Julianus has entered a new team of commoners for the last non-ranking fight of the day, something to get the crowd shouting again before we send in the big names. We’re going to match them with an appropriate number of Dacian prisoners of war and see if they’re as good as he makes out.’
The Emperor's Knives: Empire VII (Empire 7) Page 27
