by J M Hemmings
Lucius felt the spurs of pride pricking his argumentative nature, and he found it unbearable to remain diplomatic for a second longer. Annoyance gleamed in his eyes and he gripped the edge of the table tightly.
‘Surely you are being overly cautious here, Batiatus! I honestly cannot understand this! He is a slave, and he will be broken as surely as all the others have been broken. Remember how defiant Viridovix was when he first came here? Why, it seemed that breaking him would be nigh on impossible, yet there he now stands, champion of the arena and as loyal and trustworthy as any lapdog. Why are you suddenly so, so paranoid and obstinate? What on earth makes you think that Spartacus will not follow the same route?’
Batiatus glared at Lucius with white-hot rage for a few charged moments … but then seemed to decide against escalating the tension further, and instead shook his head, frowned deeply and crossed his arms over his chest.
‘I feel it in my bones, Lucius. There is something about that Thracian that I do not like, that I do not like in the least.’
‘Surely … surely you are not frightened—’
At this, Batiatus lunged across the table and gripped Lucius’s tunic with rage-quivering fists. His eyes bulged red and flecks of spittle flew from his mouth as he roared.
‘How dare you, you fucking cur! You would name me coward in my own ludus?! Nobody, and I mean nobody, not even fucking Jupiter himself accuses Batiatus of cowardice! You, you fucking slave shit! I ought to give you to Octavian and his Huntsmen, give you to them and let them flay you and tear your filthy entrails from your belly!’
Lucius raised his hands in a submissive gesture, his eyes wide with sudden fright as he tried to lean back in a retreat from the immediate proximity of Batiatus’s wrath-purple visage.
‘I meant no offence, my friend. It was not my intention—’ he began meekly, all traces of arrogant argumentativeness purged from his system.
‘Don’t you fucking ever call me a coward again, Lucius!’ Batiatus snarled as he eased his grip off Lucius’s tunic and shoved the smaller man roughly away from him. ‘Ever! Do you understand?! Do you fucking understand?!’
Lucius swallowed slowly.
‘I understand, old friend … I understand.’
***
‘You fought well today, little man,’ Oenomaus remarked as he, Spartacus, Viridovix and N’Jalabenadou sat and ate their bowls of porridge together on the rough-cobbled floor of the dining hall.
N’Jalabenadou nodded as he dipped a hunk of his bread into the communal bowl of porridge. Viridovix, seemingly jealous of the praise given to this haughty newcomer, merely huffed and looked away as he wolfed down his food, declining even to acknowledge Spartacus’s presence in their circle. The General noticed this and shook his head with quiet frustration and disapproval. He then looked up and flashed a toothy smile at the stony-faced Thracian before addressing him.
‘Oenomaus speaks the truth. You used your mind as a weapon in addition to the steel you carried, and this is the surest sign of an elite warrior in the making. Few here possess the raw talent that you have been blessed with, Spartacus.’
‘Thank you, General,’ Spartacus muttered, dabbing with stiff and unenthusiastic fingers at the lukewarm porridge with his hunk of bread. ‘I have no desire, however, to become any sort of “elite”, warrior or otherwise. I never have.’
The General masticated both on this sentiment and the mouthful of bread he was chewing, an expression of intense concentration coming over his visage as he stared with unabashed fascination at the newcomer.
‘Freedom is what you desire most. I see this. I know this.’
‘There won’t be no freedom for us gladiators,’ Oenomaus grunted. ‘We fight until that day comes that some faster, stronger or just plain luckier bastard gets the better of us in the arena. It’s a shit roll of the dice that the gods cast for us lot, but what else can we do but accept it?’
Spartacus shook his head sullenly and took a swig of water from his earthenware cup. He lifted the cup too quickly and bumped his swollen, freshly broken nose, causing him to yelp with pain and spit the water out onto the floor.
‘Sorry about the nose, friend,’ Oenomaus commented sheepishly. ‘Was just doing as I been trained to, see.’
Spartacus nodded, grimacing against the throbbing agony that was inching its way up his forehead.
‘You broke my nose,’ he growled through clenched teeth to Oenomaus.
‘I said I was sorry about—’
Spartacus held up a hand to silence the giant.
‘You didn’t let me finish. You broke my nose, why?’
‘Because, er, because, well, we was training, see.’
‘That’s right. Training for what?’
Oenomaus’s brow became furrowed with confusion.
‘Well, er, uh, to fight in the arena, what else?’
‘And why do we need to fight in the arena?’
‘Because we’re fucking gladiators!’ Viridovix roared, barging with sudden fury into the conversation. ‘The best gladiators in all of Rome are in this ludus! We fight to bring honour to the house of Batiatus, and for the glory of victory against any and all comers! That is why we fight, Thracian!’
Spartacus shook his head slowly, his countenance grim and severe.
‘No. That’s a lie, and nothing more. We fight because we’re slaves, because we have no other choice. We fight in the arena because we’re forced to by our master. We fight in the arena because if we don’t we’ll be thrown into that dungeon and left to rot, or worse, we’ll be crucified. And nobody will do anything about that because it’s the law in this vile land.’
‘You’re nothing but a coward,’ Viridovix snarled.
‘You believed in what he is saying Viridovix, once upon a time,’ N’Jalabenadou said softly. ‘Once, you said these exact same words yourself.’
‘Taking his side now are you?’ Viridovix snapped. ‘Bah! So much for friends! I’ll eat the rest of my meal alone!’
He snatched up his loaf of bread, stood up and stormed off. The General watched him go and shook his head, while Oenomaus merely shrugged and continued shovelling down his food.
‘He really was once like you, despite how he is now,’ the General said to Spartacus. ‘All he could talk of was freedom. Yet his successes in the arena have changed him, and not for the better, I fear. The master’s leash is fast around his neck, and the more he denies it the tighter it chokes him.’
‘He is the best fighter in this ludus, is he not?’ Spartacus asked, chewing slowly on a tough crust. ‘That’s what I know of his reputation, at least. And what I experienced in the training yard today, of course.’
‘You’re right, Spartacus. He and Crixus are the best fighters in this ludus … perhaps in all of the Roman Republic. Neither has yet met his match in any arena we have travelled to.’
Spartacus turned to stare across the dining hall at Crixus, who was sitting on the floor in the far corner, away from all the other gladiators, all by himself. The big Carthaginian’s scarred, ugly face was as blank and expressionless as ever, and he was shoving his bread and porridge mechanically into his mouth.
‘Look at him,’ Spartacus muttered. ‘You all say he’s one of the greatest warriors of Rome, but what is he really? He has had every last ounce of whatever once made him a man, whatever once made him human, thrashed and flogged out of him. What now remains? An empty machine capable of combat, yes, but nothing else. And your friend Viridovix, he is just the same as Crixus.’
‘They ain’t nothing alike,’ Oenomaus muttered. ‘I mean, Crixus don’t talk to nobody, like, but Viridovix you can have a good chat with, and—’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ Spartacus interjected. ‘What I mean is that neither possesses the essence of what makes a free man free any longer. Crixus had his humanity beaten out of him with a whip. Viridovix had it stolen away by the applause of the plebs, the cheers of the mob.’
‘But Viridovix is a bloody amazing fighter, he deser
ves them cheers,’ Oenomaus said.
Spartacus shrugged dismissively and dipped his bread once more in the porridge, driving it in deep to scoop up a big chunk of the glutinous goo.
‘It does not matter. He is a true slave, no matter his abilities with blade, spear or axe. Look how he laps up his master’s attention like a pathetic dog, how proud he is to wear his shackles.’
‘What else can we lot do? We’ve not got no other choice,’ Oenomaus rumbled. ‘I was a blacksmith, I was, many summers ago. It was a good life. I had my forge, my hammer, my anvil … I wasn’t no good at doing the complicated and detailed stuff, mind you, but for ploughs and hoes and spades I was your man, I was!’
‘Did you have a wife? A family?’ Spartacus asked.
Oenomaus nodded, and the corners of his wide mouth drooped with sudden sadness.
‘I had a wife. Big buxom redhead, she was! Gods, how her hair used to shine like fire in the autumn sun. We had us two lil’ brats too that managed to live beyond their first few years. Boys, both of ‘em. Good, strong boys. They were nowt but knee-high when the Romans came.’
‘And what happened to them?’
‘Dead,’ he murmured, his enormous shoulders slumping, his massive body seeming to curl in on itself. ‘All of ‘em. Most of my village, they was killed or taken slave by the Romans, they was.’
‘And that’s how you ended up here?’
Oenomaus nodded sadly.
‘That’s how.’
‘What about you, General?’ Spartacus said, turning to N’Jalabenadou.
The General’s face steeled over with a cold and sombre look.
‘My story opens too many wounds inside me to retell. I would rather not speak of it.’
‘Fair enough. I’ll not push you. Myself, I had a wife who I loved more than anything in the world, and I was a village headman in Thrace. The chieftain of our clan made an alliance pact with the Romans, and called us up to fight as auxiliaries to the Roman Army. We trusted our chieftain; indeed we trusted him far too blindly. It turned out that he had allied with the Romans against another tribe … a tribe who had been our closest allies for generations. We had kin in that tribe, all of us from the village. I found out that the chieftain, in his greed, wanted their fertile lands, and coveted the daughter of that tribe’s chieftain, who would not agree to her marrying our man. The Romans wanted the land too, so a secret deal was struck. When we were led into battle and we realised who we had been sent against, we turned coat and deserted the Roman Army, switching sides in order to help our kin fight against the Romans and the traitorous chief. It was all in vain though. We lost the battle and most of us were slaughtered. I was taken prisoner and sold into slavery for the crime of desertion.’
‘What about your wife, then?’ Oenomaus asked.
‘Taken by Rome,’ Spartacus croaked hoarsely, his voice cracking and his eyes tearing up as emotion surged through him. ‘Sold into slavery as a prostitute, raped, killed … I don’t know, and I don’t think I will ever find out. And that uncertainty about her fate is a thorn twisting its way through my entire body, every single minute of every single day. I have still not learned how to live with it yet, or to accept that … that I will never see her again. All I know is that our village was burned to the ground, and all our people taken as slaves, all to punish those men who had tried to stand up for justice, for what was right.’
‘Fuckin’ Romans,’ Oenomaus sighed in his booming growl.
‘A sad but all-too-common story,’ N’Jalabenadou commented grimly.
Spartacus shook his head and frowned deeply, his countenance twisted with a profound sense of helplessness and frustration.
‘And now here I am, trapped in a prison that seems to have not a single weak spot,’ he murmured.
‘Do not harbour dreams of escape, Spartacus,’ the General cautioned. ‘They will only cause heartache. Trust me on this. I too long for freedom, but I know that the only realistic means of achieving it will be to survive long enough for Batiatus to hand me the wooden sword.’
‘Bah!’ Spartacus spat. ‘What chance is there of that? How many gladiators live long enough to get that wooden sword? How many, tell me!’
The General folded his arms across his broad chest and clenched his jaw, turning his face away from the others and staring blankly at the ground. His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath, and it was only after he had held the air in his lungs for a good few moments of silence that he replied, murmuring in a barely audible tone that spoke of hope that had been shattered to the point of irreparability.
‘I have been here for seven years now. In that time I’ve seen … two gladiators survive long enough to get a wooden sword.’
Spartacus shook his head and whistled softly through his teeth.
‘Two. Two out of hundreds who have died in gladiatorial matches. Do those sound like promising odds to you?’
The General’s intense gaze came to rest on Spartacus’s face, and despite his crushed spirit, sparks of anger crackled and flared in his obsidian eyes.
‘They are not promising at all, no,’ he muttered. ‘But they are our only odds. There is no other way.’
Spartacus grimaced, clenching his fist with defiant determination.
‘I refuse to believe that. I refuse! It cannot be the only way! And you, what’s wrong with you, General? Just the other day you were talking about how I should train hard and learn my fighting skills well, as they’d best equip me for a chance at freedom, yet now you are cowing away from that possibility like a beaten cur! Tell me, are you like me, or are you more like that sad mute imbecile Crixus in the corner there?’
‘I … I was being foolish when I said those things,’ N’Jalabenadou croaked, his tone bordering on hopelessness and utter defeat. ‘Freedom is … it is … we should not…’
At that moment a pair of teenage serving girls entered the dining chamber, each carrying a platter of fruit. This time the girls, both of whom were slim, dark-haired and tawny-skinned, were more modestly clad than they had been on the training grounds, dressed now in simple rough-spun tunics. This did not stop one of the guards, stationed at the entrance to the dining hall, from leaning his spear against the wall to free a hand so that he could grab one of the girls by her arm as she walked by. Crixus, who was sitting nearby on his own, stopped eating to watch the situation unfold. He stared with unnerving intensity at the guards and the girl, but his expression did not change.
‘Set that platter down on the floor, love,’ the guard grunted in a rough voice.
‘But master, the kitchen master says—’ the girl said in a demure titter, her eyes downcast and her hands trembling with a gush of fear at the guard’s sweaty-handed grip.
‘I don’t give a fuck what the kitchen master says, sweet cheeks. You put that fucking platter down now, coz I fuckin’ say so.’
The girl set the platter down on the rough floor and stood quivering before the guard, a tall, chubby man in his late thirties with a pudgy face and a fast-receding hairline.
‘By Jupiter, you’re a pretty one, aren’t you?’ the guard said, leering through thickly lidded slit-eyes at the slave girl.
He wore armour similar to that of a Roman legionary, and along with the spear that he had just leaned against the wall he carried a shield and a gladius, sheathed at his hip.
‘Let’s ‘ave a feel of them ripe little melons then,’ he drawled with a salacious grin as he groped her breasts through her tunic. The guard on the other side of the entrance watched this and laughed uproariously. Crixus, meanwhile, simply continued to observe the scene in cool silence, picking up a crust of bread that he chewed on slowly.
‘What’ll your missus think about that, eh?’ the guard chuckled in a harsh voice.
‘I don’t give a fuck, she ain’t ‘alf the looker this lil’ thing is, that fuckin’ sag-titted, dried-up bag! Mm, by the gods these are some firm, tight tits! Just like two ripe apples, they are!’
The girl bit her lip and stared at
the ground, standing stock-still and trying to keep the tears at bay as the guard unabashedly squeezed and groped her breasts. He then reached down and slipped his hand under her tunic, seeking to extend his fondling to the slit between her legs. The girl gasped with shock, and her face crumpled into a twisting of disgust and anguish. Something flickered to life in Crixus’s dark eyes as he watched this heinous abuse unfolding mere feet from him, but his face remained a carven mask of neutrality.
‘Oh, by Jupiter and Mars and all the fuckin’ gods, there’s a tight lil’ hole down there!’ the guard roared with an obnoxious laugh.
‘Haha, wait until I’ve ‘ad a go at that hole, it won’t be so tight no more!’ the other guard rasped, his voice dripping with rapacious aggression.
‘Ha! With your cock? Not fucking likely, my friend. That little thing’s the size of my pinkie toe, it is.’
‘Fuck off, ya whore’s cunt!’
‘Oy, we want our fruit!’ Spartacus shouted, interrupting the guards’ banter – and their blatant and shameless molestation of the girl. ‘Bring it here now!’
Both guards’ eyes flared up with lightning veins of sudden rage at this interruption of their sordid amusement.
‘You! Fucking fresh meat, you’re dead!’ bellowed the guard who had been groping the girl. He shoved her away and grabbed his spear from the wall. ‘Pick up that platter you little slag, and feed these animals!’ he snarled, spittle flying from his mouth, with its thick crimson lips and crooked teeth.
‘Yes master,’ the girl replied demurely, her bottom lip quivering as she finally lost the battle against the flow of her tears, which began streaming liberally down her cheeks. Crixus focused his attention on her, staring at her with cool detachment as she picked up the platter, weeping softly.
‘You!’ the guard roared, pointing at Spartacus, ‘you’re sleeping in the fucking dungeon tonight, you are! Fucking cheeky son of a whore! You don’t never speak to us in that tone, you stupid Thracian fuck!’
