by Nhys Glover
She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. It was shocking how much like a boy she now looked.
“I said I would keep your secret, and I will. Stop worrying about me and start worrying about how you are going to survive until the master gets rid of Lucullus.”
“You just focus on keeping your word and not getting caught. It seems you are a bit too cocky for your own good. How many beatings have you had in your life, little girl?” I snapped at her.
“How many beatings? Why would I get a beating? I never do anything wrong. Why, how many have you had?” she threw back breezily, clearly assuming I was being overly dramatic.
I did a rough count in my head. “Three bad ones.”
“W...What is a bad one?” Her big eyes were wide now.
“Ones that leave scars,” Asterius answered gruffly.
He’d never had a beating like that, but he’d had to watch me getting all three of mine. It had hurt him as much as it hurt me.
“W...What did you do?”
I wished I’d never brought it up. I didn’t want her sympathy. I didn’t want to see the pain in her eyes. It was bad enough seeing it in my brother’s eyes. After the last time I’d sworn I’d try to cage my anger so I didn’t have to get another beating. Not for me, but for him.
I shrugged and looked away into the shadowy night. Even the last of my honey treat no longer appealed.
“He doesn’t like to follow orders. And if it’s a stupid order, then he tells whoever is giving it just what he thinks of it. He’s an idiot like that.” Orion was growling more than speaking as he described my actions.
He was right. I was an idiot. But it was hard to remember consequences when someone with authority was giving orders that make no sense.
“You haven’t been beaten over Lucullus, have you?” she demanded anxiously.
I shook my head. I had come close a time or two, but because of Asterius I had contained myself. It had been the hardest thing I’d ever done, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could continue.
A couple of the older boys had already felt his wrath. And Lucullus didn’t just give a beating, he doled out punishments that made Nero’s exploits seem tame. One boy was still in the infirmary after two weeks. He might never walk again. If the physician had written about him, then the master would have to act, wouldn’t he?
“Is that what happened to one of the boys? I saw... I saw on the list that one had the bottoms of his feet beaten so badly he still cannot walk.” Accalia sounded as if she wanted to cry.
“That was Lucullus,” growled out Orion.
Accalia flew over to me and grabbed my hands. She looked up at me with such pleading I could barely stand it.
“Do not let him do that to you. Do not give him a reason... Do you hear me? Until I can get something done...” Her voice petered out as she realised how she must appear to us.
She let go of my hands and drew away. “I am sorry. I meant until the Mistress can get something done. Of course I cannot get anything done. I am just a... nobody.”
I didn’t understand why she cared as much as she did. Of all of us, I had treated her the worst. And yet she cared enough to beg or demand that I don’t get myself beaten. My heart, which only had room for my foster mother and my pack, expanded just enough to include this strange girl.
I patted her head and enjoyed the feel of her soft, clean hair under my hands. “Don’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t get beatings any more. But if you tell anyone about us here... We’ll get more than a beating to the soles of our feet. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I will not tell a soul, I promise you. As long as you promise to put up with Lucullus for a few more weeks.”
I nodded my agreement. I’d already given myself this lecture more than once. But now, with not just Asterius’ happiness on the line but Accalia’s too, I had even more reason to control myself.
How had this stupid girl got under my skin so fast? I didn’t even like her.
We put the fire out early and returned to the barracks, too tired to even remove our tunics before we hit our pallets. The last thought I had as I drifted off to sleep was of big soulful eyes that seemed to look right into the core of me, asking ... no begging me not to get beaten.
We always rose before dawn, ate a meagre meal of barley stew to break our fast, and filed out for morning training on the field just as the first rays of sunlight breached the horizon. This training involved physical fitness, which included running and wrestling, followed by weapons training and sparring. It would normally all be over by mid-morning and we would then go to the bath house to get clean, before beginning our other activities.
But, over the weeks since the Master had been gone, the mid-morning end of our training had stretched into the entire morning, and our other studies had suffered. To make up for that, we had been forced to work later into the evening. By the time we were given our last meal of the day, our eyes were so heavy we could barely see the food in front of us, and we fell asleep immediately after. Or, in some cases, during the meal. The kitchen slaves were already complaining about us being too tired to eat. A previously unheard of event, especially as we needed more food to meet the increased physical demands placed on us.
The unrest was getting more extreme, and there was talk of the seniors staging a revolt. I wanted to join that revolt with every particle of my being, but the memory of those big, soulful eyes begging me to just hold on, kept me toeing the line.
And I did, until two days later, when Talos lost it.
As always, it was over someone in need of protecting. In this case, a new boy who looked a lot like our Accalia.
We always started the day with laps around the field. Normally the new boys ran the field once, the second years ran it twice. With each additional year another lap was added. But we had all had to increase our laps by one, at Lucullus’ insistence, which was hardest on the eight year olds. They literally had to double their distance. It was a lot to expect of babes who had only just left their mothers’ laps.
One of those babes had fallen into a heap half way through his second lap. Lucullus had stormed over to the lad and started yelling at him to get up. The child had cowered and cried, but had been unable to rise.
Talos, who had already completed his second lap, came alongside the boy as Lucullus waved his rod at him.
“Get up, you good-for-nothing! If you think you’re in pain now, you’ll soon know different. Get up and keep running!” The rod came down on the boy’s back and he yelped in pain.
Without a word, Talos leaned down, looped the lad’s arm over his shoulder, and began running on with him.
Lucullus, momentarily shocked by the action, took time to recover. When he did, he charged after Talos, planted himself in his path, legs apart, hands on hips and began spitting fire.
Lucullus was not a tall man, but he made up for it with an impressively broad-chest and heavy muscles, especially for someone in his middle years. His head was shaved bald and there were tattoos over much of his exposed skin. He had a beaked nose and beady little eyes that looked fevered and red most of the time.
Talos, who was almost as tall as the doctores, though he was not quite thirteen summers old, stared up at him unrepentantly.
“Put that boy down and mind your own business. You know the rule. Depend only on yourself. Everyone else is an opponent, a competitor,” Lucullus yelled at him.
“This boy will be no one’s competition if you don’t let him rest. Look at him. He’s only been away from his mother for a few weeks. He’s a baby!” Talos yelled back.
“Then if he’s a baby, carry him! Do your laps while you carry him for every one!” came the furious response everyone on the field could hear.
“Fuck you!”
The silence that fell over the training field was complete. Even the birds seemed to have stopped singing in that moment. I know I was holding my breath, waiting to see what happened next. Gods! We had promised Accalia we would t
ry to hold out until the Master sent word. Now this had happened!
“What. Did. You. Say. To. Me?” Lucullus breathed out in little more than a whisper, his face bright red with rage. But because the field was so silent everyone still heard every clearly spoken word.
“You heard him!” Orion said, coming to stand at his pack-mate’s side.
Gods, this was not good. I couldn’t stand by and let them do this alone. No matter what I had promised Accalia. I began walking over to join my brothers. Asterius was already there. We exchanged haunted looks but stood tall at our pack-mates’ sides.
“Ah, the Wolf Pack, is it? I’ve heard you get special treatment around here. I don’t see what’s so special about you, though,” Lucullus spat at us, spittle hitting each of us in the face as he spun to yell abuse at us.
“The Master values us. I’d be really careful what you do to us,” Orion said, his voice a low warning growl.
“Do you see the Master here, boy?”
“No, but he keeps his eye on everything that goes on,” Orion answered more evenly now. “Surely you know that. Surely you know that he’s going to hear what you’re doing to his perfect training program and... Well, the last time someone went against his orders like this, the bastard was crucified, his cock cut off and stuck in his mouth for good measure. Taking apart his life’s work as you’re doing... I’d expect even worse, if I were you.”
“Don’t threaten me, boy!” Lucullus’ face had gone from red to purple.
One of the assistants, Bedalus, had run out onto the field to try to ease the situation. He was a gangling man in his mid-twenties who had failed to make the grade as a gladiator. Though it must have chaffed to be surrounded by others who were succeeding where he hadn’t, he seemed happy enough with his lot. Or he had until recently. In this moment he looked haunted.
“He’s right, sir. The Master may appear to be an easy sort, but we all saw what he did to that gladiator. He was lucky to die as quickly as he did,” the assistant said, siding with us.
“I don’t fucking care what happened to some other bastard. This is my training field and no one gives orders but me!”
The man was clearly mad. Up until this moment I had thought him just a brainless bully. But to say he was in charge, when we all knew it was the Master who was ultimately in charge of every facet of the training, could only be a sign of madness.
My heart started beating faster than ever. I was panting like a dog, and sweat was pouring down my forehead and into my eyes. It stung, but I fought the urge to wipe it away. Now was not the time to show weakness. And even wiping stinging sweat away could be seen as a weakness to someone as insane as the bastard in front of us.
“You four!” he pointed at us. “Over to the posts.”
This wasn’t good. The posts were used for sword practice but were also where beatings took place. I didn’t think we were being directed to them so we could start our practise early.
With heads up, the four of us strode over to the posts. There was a rumble of unease from the other boys. They could anticipate what was coming as well as we could, and they weren’t happy.
The training field was a dusty rectangular stretch of ground that sat in the centre of the stone complex. The junior barracks was on one side of it, the senior barracks on the other. It was open to the sky, much as an atrium was, and it provided the only light to the narrow corridor, which ran the perimeter of the field and linked dormitories to classrooms and kitchens.
It was used by the juniors in the morning and seniors in the afternoon. But as we strode toward the site of our punishment, which would be extreme and agonising I knew, the seniors started flooding onto the field to join us. And from the look of them, they weren’t here for training.
Lucullus saw them approaching, and he went from purple to white in an instant.
“Get the guards,” he ordered the assistant.
After a quick look around, Bedalus took to his heels, although I thought he was more likely escaping what was to come rather than doing the doctores’ will.
“You boys, keep running!” Lucullus ordered, pointing at the line of juniors who now had our backs.
“Lucullus!” Ariaratus called from the seniors’ entrance to the training field. His voice was mild, though loud enough to reach all who now stood in the morning sunshine.
Lucullus turned in the physician’s direction and began trotting over to him, ignoring the milling boys. It looked as if there were nearly sixty of us on the field now, ages ranging from eight to almost eighteen.
“I need to speak to you on a private matter. Maybe you could let the boys go early today,” Ariaratus said, loud enough for all of us to hear.
Lucullus glanced over his shoulder at the seething mob ready to revolt. Realising he was outnumbered, his good sense finally kicked in.
“Yes, right you are, Physician. Boys, finish your laps and then rest. You older boys, I will see you here at midday.”
With that he made his hasty exit.
For a long time we all stood staring at each other. Never in the time I had been at the ludus had I seen us all stand together like this. It was a powerful moment. A frightening moment.
But no one was fool enough to think this was a victory. Or that it ended here. Until Lucullus was removed, things were only going to go from bad to worse. We all knew it.
Chapter Seven
ACCALIA
The day after I sent the missive, I dressed in my boy’s garb and escaped the villa, telling Minerva not to worry about me. I was determined to find Ariaratus and state my case. From pieces of gossip I had heard, I knew the physician had his own hut away from the rest of the field slaves, where he researched and slept when he was not needed.
I made my way to the hut as the sun was making its warm presence felt. Beads of sweat had already begun to form on my forehead from its heat and the exertion. I was not a child who did much that was physical. Yet in the last two weeks I had begun to do just that with regularity. I was nowhere near as fit as boys my age, but I would get better. I was determined to get better.
When I came upon a large hut secluded in the woods half way between the field-slaves’ quarters and the villa, I knew I had the right place. Outside hung row upon row of drying herbs, all hanging upside down in bunches. I had no idea what sort they were, as I was ignorant of even the basics of herb lore, but I knew enough to understand what was happening. They were being dried for preservation.
Hurriedly, I trotted up to the door and knocked loudly. I had never had to knock in my life. I knew it was what people did as a way to seek entrance to a private place, but I had never experienced a private place before. My father’s bed chamber was probably the only place I might have used the knock, except that I never went to him there. When he sent for me, it was always to his study or the terrace at the side of the villa that I went.
After a long time, when I started to think no one was home, I heard footsteps and the door was thrown open. An untidy version of the physician I knew stood in the doorway staring down at me.
“What do you want, lad? Unless someone is gravely ill indeed, come back later. I was up most of the night at the barracks,” he grumbled.
A slow smile formed on my lips. He didn’t recognise me. Oh, this was delicious!
“Master Ariaratus, I’ve come to work as your assistant,” I announced, trying not to speak as properly as I normally did. Slave boys do not speak proper latin like patricians. They used the common speech, sermo vulgaris, which I knew was spoken all over the civilized world.
The man’s bleary eyes blinked several times, whether from the brightness of the sun behind me or my words. “Assistant? The Master has approved an assistant?”
“You need me, don’t you? I hear your workload has doubled in recent times,” I said, avoiding answering the question.
He grinned then, “I certainly do! And you can start by removing the leaves from the dried branches out there and placing each into a distinct pouch.”
For a moment he disappeared, and then reappeared with a collection of leather pouches, each with a different coloured cord at its mouth. “These are all new so it doesn’t matter into which pouch you put each herb. I will assign the right cord to them when I explain to you what each is used for. Right now I am going back to bed. Do not wake me before midday unless there is an emergency.”
He handed me the pouches and then closed the door on me. I stood staring at the rough wood for a long time after it closed.
So, I had won without a battle. How disappointing. All my arguments. All my plans of attack. Not needed. The physician did not even recognise me.
Sighing happily, I turned to the drying bunches. There were clumps of five distinct varieties. I took down the first and put it on the wooden bench beside me. After smelling it, I decided it was some kind of mint. With careful precision, I began plucking dried leaves from the branches and depositing them into the first pouch. They crushed to dust in my hands if I wasn’t careful.
The sun was well up by the time I finished with the mint. I was feeling thirsty, so I went in search of a well. I found one at the back of the property. After a little trial and error, I was able to send the bucket down into the hole and bring it up again, filled with water. When I tasted its cool freshness, I let out a sigh of satisfaction. So much better than any water I normally drank. In fact, I rarely drank water. It was usually herbal tea, fruit juice—most often grape—or watered wine. The tasteless nature of water surprised and pleased me. It was like drinking cold nothingness.
As the sun began to beat more fiercely down on me, I moved my activities to the shade. This time I was less content with my lot. I was faced with nettles, their stinging spines painful to the touch. After plucking some from their branches, my hands became red and inflamed. The pain was intense. As tears welled, I looked around for relief. Could putting my hands in cold water help?
“Oh, lad, what have you done?” A loud, concerned voice drew me from my pain. I looked up through blurry eyes to see what I thought was Ariaratus standing over me.
