The hysteria erupted again, and the two gladiators once more raised their arms to acknowledge their respective supporters.
‘Fighting for the Dacian Ludus, the current champion gladiator, a man with the proud record of never having been wounded in all his career!’ The announcer paused portentously, allowing the fact of Velox’s apparent invincibility to sink in. ‘The master of carnage! The fastest man with two swords in the city of Rome and with nineteen victorious fights to his record and no draws or defeats! Citizens, I give you … Velox!’
The crowd went wild, and looking around the arena Marcus realised that a good three-quarters of them were on their feet and waving their fists in support of the champion. Velox stepped forward and raised his hands for a third time, turning a circle to salute every side of the packed stadium before stepping back and lowering them to his sides, close to the hilts of his swords.
‘The Champion’s opponent this afternoon needs little introduction! A hero of the recent past, the greatest gladiator of our time, with the record of thirty-eight victories and one draw …’
‘And that was a fix!’
The anonymous shout from the crowd drew a gale of laughter, and Flamma bowed to the side of the arena from which the interjection had been thrown, his face clearly fixed in a broad grin.
‘He looks rather more happy than I’d expect from a man facing his end.’
Scaurus turned to look at the chamberlain, seeing the calculation in his expression.
‘You’d be surprised, Chamberlain. Sometimes it’s easier for a man to accept certain death than to strive for life in the face of overwhelming odds.’
If Cleander had been minded to reply, the announcer beat him to it.
‘Citizens, welcome back to the Flavian Arena, an old favourite … Flamma the Great!’
The eruption of noise was little less violent than that which had echoed from the arena’s high walls a moment before, the crowd clearly expressing a genuine fondness for the veteran gladiator, who turned a swift circle with one hand in the air to acknowledge their sentiment. Waiting until the applause had died down to a gentle roar, the referee stepped forward, waving away the customary escort of his hulking bodyguard and the slaves who usually flanked him with hot iron to encourage the fighters to commence their brutal entertainment, as Velox and Flamma unsheathed their weapons.
‘Quite right too!’ The Tungrians and Cleander looked over to where the emperor had been lounging on his couch to find him up on his feet and leaning over the balcony, clearly brimming with enthusiasm. ‘These two men don’t need to be driven to fight!’ The two gladiators bowed to the emperor, each of them spontaneously raising his swords in salute, and Commodus turned to address his court. ‘The two most talented dimachieri in living history are about to fight to the death for my entertainment! How thrilling!’
Cleander shared a wry smile with Scaurus.
‘As I said, he’s rather enthusiastic about the whole thing.’
They watched as the referee spoke to the two fighters briefly, Velox bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet as he stared at Flamma with a deadly intent that was evident even at fifty paces. With an exaggerated gesture for the fight to begin, the official stepped backwards, and with a lunge the younger man went for his opponent, his swords flashing in the sunlight as he set about his assault. For a moment it seemed that not even the Flamma of Marcus’s memory could resist the terrible speed and purpose in the younger man’s attack. That Flamma would have danced away from his opponent’s swords so lightly that he would have appeared to float across the sand, ready to turn his fleeting retreat into a vicious scything counter-attack, but the intervening years had evidently gnawed hard on his body. Marcus winced in anticipation as Velox slapped aside the sword that the older man had raised to parry his strike, stabbing forward with an audacity born of his apparent supreme confidence. The crowd held its collective breath for a moment, then gasped in amazement.
‘How the fuck did he do that?!’
The emperor was on his feet again, pointing in amazement at Velox, suddenly wrong-footed as his veteran opponent summoned whatever measure of his massive strength that still remained and hit the thrusting sword so hard with his other blade that it was smashed to the ground. While Velox’s defence was still open, he threw a looping punch with his left fist, fingers still wrapped around the hilt of his other sword, the blow connecting squarely with Velox’s temple and sending him reeling away on legs suddenly robbed of their strength. The crowd were on their feet, half of them howling indignation at the tactic while the remainder were jubilant at Flamma’s escape from what had looked like certain death a moment before. Scaurus shook his head.
‘He’s shown his hand too early, if his plan is to overwhelm the man with brute strength, because he won’t get that close again. Velox will just stand off, and cut Flamma to ribbons.’
The younger fighter was indeed suddenly giving a good deal more respect to his opponent, intent on taking the time he needed to recover from the enervating blow he’d taken a moment before. As if he knew that his opportunity would be a fleeting one, the veteran stamped forward to attack, moving faster than the champion could retreat in his momentarily shocked state. Some hint of the fleetness of foot that had combined with his bestial strength to make the veteran fighter invincible in the days of his pomp still remained, and he covered the distance between them in half a dozen swift steps to attack with a furious purpose of his own. Velox retreated in the face of his fury, his swords flicking out to punish the big man for his assault with first one cut to his thigh and then another, but Flamma was too quick and wary to allow a killing blow to open the femoral arteries, which his opponent was aiming for, and as the younger man tarried an instant too long to make the second cut he seized his chance and lunged forward on one bleeding leg, punching Velox between his eyes so hard that the champion flew backwards to land full length on the sand.
‘Can you see what he’s doing? He can’t kill Velox if he’s to keep his word, but he’s damned if he’s going to allow the man to best him.’
Scaurus nodded agreement with Marcus’s words, his gaze riveted on the bloodied veteran as he stood waiting for his opponent to rise, his chest heaving from exertions that would barely have troubled him five years before. While the disoriented champion climbed to his feet, the older man bowed ironically to his crestfallen opponent, wringing a chorus of laughter from the fascinated crowd who were now silent for the most part, recognising that they were watching arena history being made.
The younger man shook his head, taking a moment to steady himself before he attacked again, driven forward by his pride, and Marcus shot a glance to where Julianus was watching, his face aghast as his most valuable asset moved back into sword reach one heavy step at a time, where previously he would have stepped lightly forwards. As if he recognised that Flamma could not kill him without impugning his own honour, the champion threw himself into one last frenzied attack, his swords swinging almost incoherently as he stepped forward. And then, as Velox made his final attempt to win the bout, the man Marcus had known throughout his youth surfaced in what was left of Flamma in one last glorious, fleeting display of the almost divine gifts that had seemed routine in the big man’s heyday. Strutting forward with the same grin that had advertised his apparent immortality to the crowds who had roared him on over the years of his glory, he parried half a dozen wild sword strokes, any of them enough to tear out his life as the champion’s blades raged wildly at his defence, indifferent to their deadly threat as he closed remorselessly in on the younger man. Parrying one last desperate lunge aside, he flicked his blades aside in a trick he’d taught to Marcus years before, snapping out his left hand to grip Velox’s tunic and drag him bodily into close range. Once, twice, three times he twisted at the waist to sink his massive right fist into the helpless gladiator’s stomach, then stepped back as the younger man bent double, gasping for air with his lungs brutally emptied, smashing one last titanic back-fisted blow into the side of
Velox’s head to send his opponent spinning senseless to the ground.
A stunned silence reigned for a long moment before the crowd found its collective voice, a cacophony as they screamed and bellowed their conflicting pleasure and rage at the result. Marcus looked over at Commodus who was holding on to the balcony rail, his knuckles white with the force of his grip. Before the emperor had chance to even begin to consider the verdict the crowd was howling for, Flamma bent to pick up one of his swords, raising it over his head and waiting until the hubbub had reduced to a puzzled hush in reaction to the unprecedented nature of the bout’s end.
‘People of Rome!’ The hush became silence, as the sixty thousand men packed into the arena strained their ears to hear what the former champion had to say. ‘I came here today not to fight, but to die! My strength is used up …’
Voices rang out begging their idol to deny his own words.
‘It’s true! I have an affliction that I would wish upon no man, not even this murderer lying at my feet devoid of any honour.’
Commodus stirred himself from his amazement.
‘Archers!’
Cleander was at his master’s side in an instant.
‘It might look bad, my Caesar, were you to have one of the greatest champions of the Roman arena that has ever been known shot down like a dog in the moment of his victory. Riots have begun over less, and the flames of public unrest are so much easier to ignite than to quell. And if you were to allow Flamma a moment more, I suspect there’ll be no need …’
Flamma looked up at the imperial box, as if he knew where to find the man he had trained to fight while still a boy. Marcus looked back at him through his grief-stricken tears, the big man’s words of the previous evening still echoing in his mind, the answer to the horrified question he’d blurted out when his mentor had agreed to give Cleander one last fatal day in the arena.
‘Why? Because, my lad, there’s a crab gnawing at my bones.’
Marcus had frowned, shaking his head.
‘A crab?’
‘I’ve paid the doctors the best part of a year’s winnings to understand what’s happening to me. If I were to take off this tunic you’d be revolted by the growth on my back, black and lumpy …’ He shook his head. ‘It was the last man I consulted, a man called Galen, who treats the emperor and takes the occasional case on the side when they’re “interesting”, that made my blood run cold. He told me that I am afflicted by what he calls “the Crab”, our translation of the Greek word “Carcinos”. He tells me that the growth will kill me inside half a year, and that I will die in agony as it invades my organs and destroys them. I can feel it eating me sometimes, a hot pain deep in my chest. My last fight is already lost, Marcus. The only question is whether I go out on my feet, or on my knees in supplication to the pain that grows stronger every day. Would you deny me a swift death, and a glorious exit from this life?’
He’d stared at his former pupil imploringly, and at length Marcus had nodded his understanding, his eyes wet with tears.
‘Good lad. And promise me one thing? Will you see to it that I’m buried with honour? Have a nice stone carved in my memory, so that my name will live on?’
As the former champion stared up at him, Marcus nodded slowly, raising a hand in salute. Flamma nodded to himself, turning back to address the now silent crowd.
‘And now, my friends, my time to leave this life is upon me! Remember me with kindness, if you will!’ His voice lowered, and the words barely carried to Marcus’s ears. ‘For a while you were all the life I ever wanted.’
Lifting the sword he placed its point upon his chest and tensed, then rammed the blade through the thin mail whose only purpose had been to disguise his ailment, pushing the point between his ribs and deep into his body, his agonised grunt the only sound in the awestruck arena as he tensed himself for one last effort. Cupping his hands around the weapon’s hilt he drew one last long whooping breath with blood pouring from his open mouth, bellowing an incoherent cry of pain, anger and, to Marcus’s ear, release from torment that echoed around the silent arena. Then, his body jerking in its death throes, he pulled the blade towards him until its hilt rested against his chest, the weapon’s point first tenting the thin mail that lay across his back and then ripping through it, a stream of blood running from the point to paint a haphazard pattern on the sand at his heels. Swaying on his feet for a moment, gazing around the arena with a silent rictus, Flamma the Great tottered and then fell face down, his body twitching.
Utter silence reigned in the arena, and Marcus clearly heard the chamberlain’s voice as he leaned forward to mutter in Commodus’s ear.
‘A little applause would set the right tone, my Caesar. A magnanimous gesture from the city’s foremost patron of the gladiatorial art?’
To his evident relief the emperor rose, clapping his hands together and looking about him at the crowd with an expectant expression, and the arena erupted into wild applause as their ruler’s gesture broke the spell that Flamma’s suicide had momentarily cast over them. Cleander turned to the Tungrians, his hands clapping in an imitation of the emperor’s gesture.
‘Well then, who could have predicted such a thing? It seems that at least one of our associates has exposed himself to such a result rather more than might have been deemed wise.’ Marcus and Scaurus looked round at a surprisingly sanguine Cleander, who was in turn looking with amusement at Julianus’s white face and twitching fingers. ‘My father taught me at an early age never to risk money I couldn’t afford to lose on any gamble where I couldn’t be quite sure of the outcome, but clearly the procurator there failed to heed any such advice.’
Scaurus smiled, nodding his head in reluctant respect.
‘You didn’t bet on a victory for Velox, did you, Chamberlain?’
Cleander smiled mirthlessly back at him.
‘Of course not. I’ve been waiting for Flamma to surface from wherever it was that he buried himself after the Knives took down his patron Senator Aquila, and in the meantime I’ve made it my duty to know everything I can about the man. Of course, it helped that the emperor’s physician had just diagnosed him with an incurable disease, a fact that inevitably came to my attention through one of his assistants who serves to keep me informed of the physician’s movements. Men who know they’re dying are capable of great self-sacrifice, and once Flamma knew that he had the chance to meet the senator’s killer in the arena, it wasn’t hard to guess what he had in mind. Velox may have escaped with his life, but his career as a gladiator is over, in Rome at least. And, since you ask, half of the throne’s money went on a Flamma victory while the other half was wagered on Flamma dying in the arena today – regardless of the result.’
‘The throne wins.’
The chamberlain smiled again.
‘In my experience, Tribune, the throne always wins in the end. And now, with that valuable lesson imparted for you to do with as you please, I think it’s time for you both to leave, before Commodus recovers from his upset sufficiently to recognise you, Rutilius Scaurus. He still talks about the tribune who had the gall to interrupt him in his own throne room, and were he to realise that you were here I wouldn’t put it past him to whip out that knife he carries everywhere and renew the discussion. And today is not your day to die. Perhaps tomorrow …’
Cotta met the two men at the bottom of the stairs that led from the imperial box to ground level, his eyes shining with unshed tears. Marcus paused, looking towards the Forum to the arena’s west.
‘Excuse me Tribune, I promised Flamma an honourable burial.’
Scaurus nodded.
‘He’s earned it.’ He looked at Arminus, who nodded briskly in reply to his unspoken question. ‘We’ll come with you. For once there may be some small value to be had from our inevitable escort of barbarians other than their entertainment value every time we see a working girl.’
Marcus led them to the Gate of Death, stopping at the cordon which restricted access to the tunnel leading to the sp
olarium. The arena guards moved to block their path, and Scaurus raised a hand to forestall any conflict.
‘I am Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, and I am here on the orders of imperial chamberlain Cleander to provide the body of Flamma the Great with a decent Roman burial.’
The leading man shook his head, his voice appropriately respectful but firm nonetheless.
‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m forbidden to allow any unauthorised access to the spolarium. You’d be amazed at the number of people who try to—’ He fell silent, having caught a glimpse of Marcus standing behind Scaurus. ‘Here, you … you’re Corvus, aren’t you? The gladiator who put on such a good show in the arena the day before last?’
Marcus nodded, smiling wanly.
‘I was.’
The guard’s face split in an unexpected smile.
‘I thought I recognised you! I was on duty when you came down here before your fight. My mates on duty in the arena said you put on quite a show! Did you know Flamma?’
Marcus nodded, a tight smile touching his lips at the thought of all the hot afternoons he’d spent having his sword skills drummed into him by the big man.
‘I knew him. He trained me to fight.’
The guard looked about him, his expression turning conspiratorial.
‘In that case, since you’re one of the family, so to speak, I’ll allow you and your friends to pass this once. Flamma was one of the old school, if you know what I mean, a true gentleman for all the years he was champion, and he deserves better than the nameless grave he’ll get here without anyone to look after him.’
‘And you’re sure that they’ll be coming this way?’
Excingus nodded, pointing down the hill past the Great Circus to where the Flavian Arena’s brightly painted walls caught the afternoon sun’s rays.
‘My spies saw Scaurus and Aquila walk down there earlier with no more escort than a few of Centurion Cotta’s men and a handful of hairy barbarians, none of them armed with anything more dangerous than whatever they can conceal under their tunics. It seems pretty certain that they’ll be coming back up the hill at some point, and when they do …’
The Emperor's Knives: Empire VII (Empire 7) Page 35
