Cutter's Island

by Panella, Vincent

  “My fear that ‘something special’ was being cooked up was replaced by more immediate fears. I was fighting for my life, and killed my man each time, coming ever closer to the promise of freedom, which would come after fifty victories, or with luck, by some exemplary behavior before the Master of the Games.

  “Then came the games in honor of Pompey’s triumph for Spain and Libya. Pompey was loved as no other general, and this was a long-awaited day for your city. It began with drumming in the streets, then the parade horns joined in with stirring music. The procession was led by ranks of haughty legionaries in polished iron helmets, followed by lion-headed aquilifers holding their Eagles high, cohort and legion pennants rippling in the breeze. Then came the marching ranks of centurions with their oak staffs, cavalry from Gaul and Africa, long-haired men, men of all colors, people you’ve also enslaved or coerced to take your side, and the main attraction, carts of prisoners caged like animals, suffering the obscene taunting of the crowd, who throw rotten fruit or make foul gestures. These poor wretches will be marched into the Temple of Jupiter and have their throats slit in the ancient dungeon while Pompey prays to your god of gods.

  “Then Jupiter himself—our Pompey—the Great Man’s face daubed with red chalk. Solemn and terrible in his demeanor, he barely acknowledges the crowd and grips the rails of a chariot drawn by the sacred white horses, prancing, muscular beasts so hot-blooded that their flared nostrils seem to spout fire.

  “Add to this spectacle the food served to the mob, meals for thousands on Mars Field, meat, wine, bread, fruits from all over the known world! And then the games, over one hundred contests to the death. Such days are feasts of blood as well!

  “We marched in that parade behind a banner emblazoned with our school motto—Non Missio—and the crowd cheered us well. Later we waited in the arena’s dark chambers while workers raked the sand on which we would sacrifice our lives. Above us we heard the steady footfalls of the crowd, the food hawkers crying out, the random outbursts of trumpets and drums as the musicians practiced, the slow but inexorable building of anticipation as the crowd filled the arena.

  “While arming ourselves we heard the pre-contest ceremonies, consisting mostly of praise for Pompey’s accomplishments, which included an accounting of how much gold and treasure he’d added to your state. We tried to ignore the wrestling matches and mock battles which followed, for they were the prelude to that all-too-familiar combination of trumpet notes signalling our contest. When these came we formed ranks and, simultaneous with fighters from the rival school, we marched into the arena’s blinding light.

  “There is nothing like that shock of emerging from quiet, cool darkness into the heat and light of an arena filled with a crowd hungry for blood, men and even your women, yes, women, screaming so frantically that their showers of spittle glinted in the sun. These were people so starved for the spectacle of death and maiming that we were almost crushed by their pressure. My knees buckled, and a few men in our ranks began to keen for their impending deaths.

  “‘Be strong,’ we told each other. ‘Be strong!’

  “Such was my state of mind that I forgot about that ‘something special’ Pompey might have cooked up for me. He was that day’s Master of the Games, and I saw him from the corner of my eye —dressed in royal purple with a laurel crown buried in his thick hair.

  We were already sweat-soaked when the trumpets blew for the inspection of arms. With great fanfare the game officials checked our weapons, running their thumbs along the cutting edges of our swords and the tips of our tridents. When this was announced satisfactory, more trumpet blasts. The mob’s appetite was whetted now, and they began to cheer and call out to individual fighters.

  “Next came the drawing of lots. This was my chance to warm up, to show off with knee bends, stretches, shadow swordplay. All the while I would glance at the fighters from the rival school and wonder which one would be my opponent.

  “Small men like myself always fight first. I’d drawn an opponent a head taller, well built, and outfitted as a Thra cian. His left arm, like mine, was encased in padded leather. No sooner had the trumpet blown for combat when I threw myself at him, fighting with all my fury, not caring whether I spent myself, pushing my large, heavier shield on him like a wall. I knocked him over by the abandon of my surprise attack.

  “I’d pricked the crowd into wildness because death was to be delivered so quickly. But some cried out that I hadn’t given the man a chance. This group won Pompey over, and he signalled for the fight to stop and begin again.

  “So, both of us out of breath, we saluted him and readied ourselves. My opponent was blue-eyed, with a straight, narrow nose and full lips. The few words he’d spoken during our encounter were incomprehensible to me. Now we fell on each other with equal force. He pounded my shield with his sword, and each blow drove into the laminated wood. I realized that before long he’d hack my protection to slivers.

  “Then I counterattacked, using my short sword to cut and thrust, its point and double edge looking to suck at any open place, as though blood were water and my sword a thirsty animal. That was how I saw it and how they taught me, using a trick of my mind to bring something about. Twice I cut into his leather armpiece, twice he knocked my sword aside with his own longer one, all the while maintaining the pressure with his shield.

  “So we attacked and counterattacked, taking turns, as these battles usually go. One man attacks until he can barely hold up his weapon, the other defends and rests. I don’t know how many times we did this, because when you fight there’s an incredible focus. Yet images seep in. Later I remembered the red capes of the grandstand guards, the helmets and feathered plumes, the gold necklace around a woman’s neck, all distinguished from the mass of humanity, fifty thousand people screaming for my blood.

  “I then used an old trick. On the Gaul’s next attack I crouched down, came up under his scimitar with my shield rim, and drove my sword up into his armpit, just above the place where the leather sleeve ends. I struck a junction of muscle and artery, for his arm suddenly became immobile, suspended in the air like a ship’s boom. Blood gushed from his armpit with the regularity of a beating heart. His weapon fell to the sand and I kicked it away.

  “I rammed him again with my shield, this time pushing him to the wall where the squealing crowd packed itself tighter to get a look. Now, in a change of heart, they were begging me to finish him off.

  “He was praying in his own tongue then, for there was a blank look in his eye and his lip movements had the rhythm of a recitation. He spoke as he bled, in rhythmic spurts. Then he lifted the buckler over his face, and when it came away I saw that he’d removed his helmet, exposing his neck to the killing blow—which the rules demanded. He wore a tore around his neck; he had a spear of quicklime on his hair—something men of the north do when they go to war. He looked at me, then his eyes went blank. Death had entered his room.

  “Later, days later, when I looked through my infirmary window at the stars, the white sparks of souls, I thought of the vanquished and felt sorry for them. But at that moment there was time only for work, and I knew how to make it fast and get away from the crowd. But when I looked at Pompey for approval, his thumb was up.

  “His verdict spread through the stadium, and the crowd now began to hiss at me, crying that my victory was unfair. Pompey had swayed them. The Gaul was carried out, alive. I saluted the crowd, then Pompey himself, who barely acknowledged it. Then it struck me. This was it! This was all! This deprivation of victory was the ‘something special’ he’d spoken of. I couldn’t wait for my weak legs to carry me to the exit gate. The crowd grew quiet, then broke into an anticipatory buzz, which I assumed was related to the next contest. But I was wrong. The exit was locked, and behind it, the director barked, ‘Leave your weapons and go back. Pompey has something special for you.’

  “So there it was. I heard stomping feet, peals of laughter, then a roar that travelled around the arena like an ocean wave. The crowd was
crying out, ‘Serves you right!” One man tried to wiggle down through the barriers to get at me but the guardsmen caught his feet and pulled him back. I looked around, seeing everything but what I was supposed to see. I thought of the wild beasts let loose in the arena, at first curious and puzzled by the raucous crowd, not yet seeing the mechanism of their doom. I headed for Pompey.

  “He was facing me with his hands on his hips, and perhaps for the first time—the distance was great so I couldn’t be sure—there was a spark in his eye, a glint of humor. He beckoned me closer and I came forward.

  “The crowd stood up, cheering for Pompey, who raised one hand. They sat down immediately. Silence fell over all. I heard the breeze. I heard people coughing. Pompey motioned me closer, then called down to me.

  “‘Do you remember when we met? You hit me with a stone at Sucro. But you couldn’t knock me down!’

  “He raised both arms triumphantly, and the mob rose to its feet, screaming, stomping, calling Pompey’s name in unison. Still, at that point, I thought this public humiliation was the extent of Pompey’s revenge. After all, what had I done but my duty in battle?

  “But later, again during those long infirmary days, I thought of something else, and conceded that even in the heat of battle, Pompey saw me as a particular threat. I’d called out to him in his own tongue, knowing that a Latin voice coming from a crowd of Libyans would get his attention. For a non-Roman to presume not only to call his name, but to call it in his own language, was to deliver an ultimate insult. This was why Pompey could remember me from the tens of thousands who wanted to kill him that day.

  “A trumpet blew, and I turned to see a fighter coming toward me, a bright orange feather atop his helmet. He could have been my twin for he was small, dark, and hairy as a monkey. He advanced on me confidently, hefting a dagger in his right hand and a short sword in his left. Pompey had found my equal.

  “I was given a new sword and a dagger, exactly like his. We saluted, then engaged, sword to sword and dagger to dagger, a game of cut, thrust, and dodge. Before long we were nicked all over, and the sharp weapons had mangled the protective leather on our arms. I’d cut him just below one eye and blood ran down over his mouth, so that he sucked blood when he inhaled, and sprayed it when he breathed out.

  “We broke for a moment, breathing heavily. Our fatigue was such that we desperately needed to lower our arms to rest, yet knew that when one’s guard is down, an attack follows. I was too tired even to taunt this opponent, who, so far, hadn’t spoken one word, thus giving me no sign of his identity. During this brief moment I took a better look at what I could see of his face. He was beetle-browed, and his deep-set eyes were in shadow. It was impossible to know where he was looking. He gestured toward my dagger arm, which by reflex I used as a shield. It leaked a steady flow of blood onto the sand.

  “The crowd, so much against me when I fought the Gaul, was now hushed at the skill of our combat. To a degree I’d redeemed myself, and maybe—it pains me to admit this — they would favor me again. So there we were, our shadows fixed on the sand, where one of us had stepped in a small puddle of blood—leaving a red sandal print. Was it his or mine?

  ‘That look to the sand, that tiny speculation about whose footprint it might be, was my undoing. I awoke to his cut. The sound came first, like the swish of a dart. Then the blunt ‘knock’—like a log being split for firewood.

  “Despite all this, I thought I’d eluded the blow, and that the collective gasp of the crowd acknowledged my deft maneuver. But then, raising my dagger hand, I saw the stump spurting blood. But where was my right hand? So powerful is the mind that my first thought was of some defect in my vision, or even some elaborate trick. But with the first surge of pain came the reality, then the panic. Death was breathing in my ear, and Pompey would have his way.

  “Holding the arm aloft to slow the blood loss, I attacked recklessly, willing to pay the price of my wounds, willing to die fighting rather than admit defeat and grant Pompey control over my life.

  ‘These moments, as brief as the flap of a sparrow’s wings, were filled with images of my life. The night before, at the dinner, when we gladiators took public supper with spectators drawn by lot, I had spoken with a man who lived for the munis, for the spectacle. He knew the names of gladiators from generations past, their statistics, whether they fought as Thracian, Samnite, or Net Man, how many they killed, whether they were wounded, how they were killed, whether gladiators were becoming better with time, and all the other silly considerations which occupy these worshippers of sport.

  “This was a seedy, unshaven man with a wild look in his eye, who spoke as if these fighters were members of his family, who spoke as if he knew their motives and desires: This one wants to retire in Campania, that one wants to start his own school. With no life of his own, the man knew as much about me as I knew about myself, knew my past as a Cilician pirate, even as a slinger for Sertorius—his secret hero.

  “So there my life reeled before me, the docks of Miletus, the bloody welts on my Egyptian’s body, Sertorius’ white fawn, the blooded horses pulling Pompey’s chariot, their nostrils spouting fire. Simultaneous with these images, I saw my right hand lying on the sand, clutching and unclutching the dagger in its last pulsations. I died to that last sight, and briefly surrendered, satisfied to see the death’s black curtain drop over my eyes as the crowd noise faded to silence. As I fell to the sand my eyes captured the gold and purple trim on a toga, a limp pennant, and finally, before he faded to black, Pompey on his feet, waving to me in farewell.

  “I awoke with screams in my ears and visions of the shaded dead, convinced that I’d arrived in some underworld and joined the collective swoon, grouped with lives cut short before their time. I blacked out again, but my next awakening was quiet. From my bed the full moon looked like a luminous buckler embossed with maps of cities. I could barely move. My right arm was too weak to lift, and ended in a ball of blood-soaked bandages. On a nearby table sat a bowl of stinking liquid which the physician had been pouring down my throat to keep me alive.

  “I learned that my opponent had been eager to deal the killing blow, but the crowd took my side, screaming for my life. Pompey, to his credit, set me free with a small stipend. I took a trader back to Miletus. The long sea journey gave me time to mull over my life, and to think of how to get even with your people, who were there at every turn to undo me.”

  Cutter and I are brothers in history, children of the same sea. This great lake touching so many civilizations—beyond which the world stretches into unimagined monstrosity—is the common stage of our lives.

  Like Cutter, I was in the city for Pompey’s triumph. I didn’t parade in the great man’s train as Cutter did, but watched it from a safe distance. Sulla had pardoned me, but a prohibition against death wouldn’t preclude a good clubbing from Sulla’s thugs, whose appetite for violence knew no bounds. My litter was ringed with bodyguards.

  Pompey appeared as a blazing white jewel, the sun pouring its blessing on him. And he sent its gleaming rays out to all. He stood immobile in the chariot, more like a golden statue than a living creature, and the crowd—so typically frenzied in hatred for the city’s enemies—loved him even more for his coldness. They supplied the heat. Old campaigners, their eyes wet with tears, raised their arms in salute, women bared their breasts for him to admire, vowing to suckle more warriors for our legions. Even this failed to turn the great man’s head.

  Envy kept me from the games later in the day, or I would have witnessed Cutter’s mishap, and taken better measure of the man. But who could stomach another reiteration of Pompey’s achievements—lands conquered, cities drained of their gold, prisoners taken, slaves added to our households, weapons and holy relics of other tribes now part of the national wealth. I was six years younger than the great man, yet such was my disposition that I lamented my birth. I’d come at the wrong time, when too many young men shared my ambitions.

  The only balm for my soul was Servilia, whose
litter stopped alongside mine just long enough for her to beckon me to follow her home. There I pulled the cotton shift down over her shoulders, and like a cat, rubbed my cheek against her back, travelling over the shoulder blades as though they were smooth hills, and kissing those beauty moles representing Italian cities: Mediolanum at the top of her spine, Rome near the rib cage, Brindusium at the coccyx.

  “They told me you were home again,” she said.

  “Is it safe?”

  “Probably. Sulla is dying.”

  Then her hands were all over me, under my garments, feeling my arms, chest, legs, feet, every part she could reach, almost frantic, like a merchant searching for lost goods.

  “Everything’s here,” I said.

  “For me?”

  “Yes, for you.”

  “Do you love me?”

  She held my eyes, looking for the truth. She liked this little play. Did I love her? Did I love those knife-blade lips, and even more, her way of understanding me?

  “You think like a man, and that’s why I love you.”

  “How is that?”

  “You never ask the wrong questions.”

  “Which means?”

  “You know that there is love, and love.”

  “No, there’s love, and there’s politics. We love each other for mutual strength. This is why you can love me and still have your marriage.”

  On the pier at Miletus the masts of traders sway with the tide, and stevedores unload goods from every city in our world, bending the gangplanks under the weight of ebony and ivory. Anyone disembarking from these ships must endure a gauntlet of sharks and pickpockets, crowds of starving boys, or clusters of surly, rotten-toothed men in pointed boots whose object is to steer the unsuspecting toward a nearby maze of buildings and narrow alleys containing nothing but taverns, brothels, and sites for attack.

  This confluence of treachery makes Cutter nostalgic for his old life. We no sooner step off his flagship—to the governor’s commissioner, who supervises the exchange— when he leaves me for a gang of boys who spend their time accosting sailors. He speaks to them in rapid, animated Cilician, and they’re all ears, for as he did when young, they admire anyone who enriches himself with such apparent ease.