by Robert Low
When Praeclarum offered her calloused hand to assist the plump wife off her couch, the woman’s legs trembled so much Drust thought she would fall. It certainly made her lean closer and harder, and when Praeclarum smiled with her lips firmly together Drust thought the woman would faint entirely.
Attalus was the perfect host and drew Drust aside as everyone was leaving; Drust was not unduly concerned, since Attalus was presenting the Games and he expected some last-minute instructions or requests. When he realised they were alone and unseen in a small alcove, he grew more chilled.
‘Hear me,’ Attalus said and his voice made Drust’s flesh ruche and hackle. ‘I know you met with Uranius and Shayk Amjot. It would be beneficial to me – the State – if you revealed what passed between you.’
‘An hour,’ Drust replied, though his heart was thundering. ‘Perhaps two.’
Attalus narrowed his eyes. ‘This is a matter you are ill equipped to deal with,’ he said. ‘What do they want from you, that pair? And what do you want from them?’
Drust thought about it for a moment, then shrugged and pulled out the message, now folded so often that the creases had split. Attalus almost snatched it, read it and frowned, bewildered. Drust saw that he had noted the strange papyrus. It was a strip cut from a larger piece, no more than a finger wide and long. There were about a dozen words on it, no more; Drust thought there had been more, carefully cut off, and he saw that Attalus did as well, frowning as he turned the affair over in his fingers.
‘What is this?’
‘Two friends,’ Drust declared. ‘Sent east on an errand and believed lost. Now, it seems, they are not.’
‘An errand? What errand?’
So Drust told him that too – the last act of a deranged Emperor. Attalus appeared confused and incredulous, yet Drust had the idea he had known all about that first expedition and who had ordered it.
‘Am I to believe that you will go after these long-lost friends?’ Attalus demanded. ‘Out beyond the Red Serpent into the Land of No Return?’
‘That is not the name we were given,’ Drust admitted, ‘nor does it have a friendly sound – but yes, that is what we will do. For them and for beasts.’
Attalus was silent, chewing on a hangnail. ‘The Shayk and Uranius arranged this?’
Drust nodded, though the sweat was chill on him. He wants to know if the new Emperor is in this, he thought, and saw the moment the commander decided he wasn’t.
Attalus glared, his face mottled like a wax mummer’s mask left too long in the heat. ‘You must refuse.’
Drust simply stared until Attalus spoke again.
‘The lands of the Parthians are in turmoil thanks to these Sasan. They have forgotten us here, and the longer that remains, the better… I do not want some beast-stealers in the pay of a reprobate to kick up dust that leads to this gate.’
‘A caravan,’ Drust pointed out, ‘one of the many travelling up and down the trade routes…’
Attalus made a hissing sound, like air being let out of a dead sheep. ‘You are no fool. Five minutes after you quit the caravanserai the word will fly up the road ahead. Besides – the Shayk is full of plots.’
‘Plots?’ Drust repeated as if bemused, but it was only what he had already considered and he did not fool Attalus.
‘You know it. He is head-to-head in secret with Uranius, a man toppled from favour along with the Emperor he served – toppled by the one he now serves on this frontier. You must see… implications.’
Drust had long since seen that, but he frowned and then spread his palms. ‘I see you do not trust either of them – but I do not see why a line of camels and ourselves is a threat to the State.’
‘No,’ Attalus replied shortly. ‘But I do. And in the unlikely event you come back with a few cages of rare beasts, what do you think these new Parthians, the Sasan, will do? They also know the worth of those beasts – and will not like Romans going back and forth through their Wall into the lands of their enemies. Would Rome, if you did it in Britannia?’
We did do exactly that and Rome had not liked it, Drust recalled; he wondered if Attalus knew of that history, but the man gave no sign of it, simply hitched his toga, the sweat sheening his florid features.
‘You will refuse.’
Drust raised one eyebrow. Attalus leaned forward a little. ‘Your camels and all your men are in my grip. When I release it, I must be assured you travel west, back the way you came.’
Attalus knew Drust could not make an answer and he smiled, a thin affair that never crawled further north than his lips. Drust felt he had fallen in a chilled bowl of wine.
‘I mean you no harm,’ Attalus soothed. ‘Fulfil your contract here for the next three days, take the not unreasonable payment and go back to Antiochus and beyond. Or south, back where you came from – where was it? The City of Beaky Fishes?’
Drust’s mouth went dry, mainly over the phrase, ‘I mean you no harm’, which rang like a cracked bell; the soft words made him more afraid than before. Attalus leaned in even closer, until Drust could smell the wine on his breath and the perfume of his hair oil.
‘Be wise,’ he said, then turned into the farewells and the thanks. Kag saw Drust’s face and trooped after him, leading the rest out of the fetid light, creaking and clanking in their finery.
Outside in the cool dark, Kag blew out his cheeks. ‘That was worse than the harena. Remind me never to do such a thing again.’
It was what he always said, but still there was laughter, low and soft because they knew something was wrong and waited for Drust to tell them. Instead he said nothing and worried at it all night, at what they had stepped in and how they could leap out of it.
While the camp slept – aware that it was now a prison – Drust sought out Kisa Shem-Tov and gave him some instructions. When the man slid into the shadows, Drust turned and saw the sweat-gleamed face of Sib, his eyes penetrating as nails.
* * *
The amphitheatre was mostly finished and the scaffolding on the bit that wasn’t had been removed so as not to spoil the look. It was packed, mainly with legionaries in tunics and sandals and straw hats against the sun. Their tunics had originally been the colour of wine lees, but the sun had bleached them to a dusty pink and they formed a solid block of jeering and cheering.
There were others, the tan and stained-white robes and head-coverings of the traders and herders, packers and carters, but they were well outnumbered and segregated. This was an Army day; roses and their petals were everywhere and the solid ring of on-duty legionaries as crowd security all had garlands of the flowers.
Drust and the others formed up in the eastern part, where the Porta Libitina was still smelling of fresh wood and new stone. On the opposite side of the harena, the Gate of Death no doubt smelled the same, but that would not last long.
Drust and the others were last in the processional line, for all that they were the main event; in front were the musicians, the priests – and Attalus. Drust had seen other Exhibitors of the Games carried into the harena on chariots pulled by zebras or ostriches, on the backs of elephants and once, memorably, in a litter borne by young, naked girls – any silly outrage seemed acceptable when you were paying.
But Attalus was mounted and Drust elbowed through the throng to where the horse stood. Attalus looked down coldly.
‘There is no need for threat,’ Drust began and was instantly ashamed of how he sounded and stopped speaking even before Attalus waved a silencing hand. Horns blared; the procession was moving.
‘There is no threat. You will return west once this is done with and never return. Until then, you will remain under the protection of my garrison.’
‘Yes,’ Drust said – what else could he do? Attalus nodded and smiled, the horse edged nervously, and Drust put out a hand to fend it off, feeling the slick sweat of it.
‘Fortuna attend you this day,’ Attalus said and moved off, leaving Drust standing staring until the others caught up with him; Kag took him by t
he tunic and dragged him into the procession, then frowned.
‘Problem?’
Drust shook his head, then thought better of the lie and nodded, sickness rising in him like the roil of a rotten drain.
‘I think he may try and kill one of us. To make a point.’
Chapter Four
A hatch opens above, spilling light, bright as stars, to wash the ancient walls which are black with old blood. There is a flutter of shadows in it and the thump, the sickening crunch of bodies falling through.
A huge striped cat flops lifelessly on a man, a half-charred fox bounces and lolls – they had set fire to their tails and let them loose to run, crazed, through the wolves and bears and archers to add spice to the morning show.
The light flickers again, the hatch grinds and a horse is levered through, a heavy thump and clatter; dung sprays and the surgeon curses. The boy, dull with the stun of the place and the fatigue of trying to pull dead lions with his ten-year-old muscle, does not like the surgeon, who is a Greek. No one likes Greeks, who are altogether too superior – but Gennadios is in charge of the boy and so the boy is the slave of a slave. Is there any lower to go, the boy wonders?
A man thuds down and the light disappears, leaving it darker still. The boy hefts a cleaver and starts heaving one leg of the striped beast, but it is the biggest cat he has ever seen, he can’t pull the weight away, so he will start chopping it up; the paw is as big as his head. The man under it groans.
‘This one is alive,’ the boy calls, and Gennadios moves to join him.
‘Always one,’ he says. The man is clearer to see in the Greek’s torch, his dark hair matted and knotted, body slathered in blood. One arm is missing at the elbow; the boy looks, but there is no sign of it.
‘Help…’
‘What do we do?’ asks the boy.
‘… me.’
Gennadios hands the boy the torch and bends. A door cracks open somewhere, bringing the red glow of a new torch, and a voice hails them both.
‘Ho – don’t chop up that beast. Skin it first – that’s a Hyrcanian tiger. You will find teeth on a hen before you find another – the pelts are valuable, even if they are a little damaged. The Flavian must help pay for itself.’
‘Help… me,’ groans the man, his voice a husk.
The newcomer is cloaked and masked as Dis, but when he pulls off the mask he is a sweat-gleaming old face, lined and weary, who clutches a hammer and peers at the man the Greek is fussing over.
‘Ah, fuck – did I miss one? He must have been out cold when I smacked him – see, you can see the hammer mark on his skull. Never moved. Tough bastard to have survived that as well as everything else.’
‘Can he be saved?’ asks the boy, thinking about his mother and whether the Greek has powers to bring back the dead. The Greek frowns, then shakes his head.
‘With expense and care,’ he says and looks at the wizened old man. ‘I doubt if anyone will bother if Hermes’s Psychopompos here is any benchmark.’
The man, who does not like being given the Greek name, hawks and spits.
‘Fucking truth, right there,’ he says. ‘That’s Justus Felix, the Frisian Fox. Well, he ran out of lairs when he met that tiger and the handlers are furious – he put two arrows in their cat and killed it dead as old mutton just as it chewed his arm off. They’re upset – they may never find another cat like it. They won’t be helping Justus anytime soon.’
The Greek straightens, wipes his hands and takes back the torch.
‘Well,’ the old man says and solemnly draws down his mask with leaden finality, ‘stand back and I will help him across the Styx.’
‘No,’ Gennadios says and the boy looks stricken. The Greek, who is no Greek but a Sardinian, sees the look and has sympathy with it – but he is put to the task and has to obey, same as everyone else. Servillius Structus has ordered this boy to be educated and so that’s what will happen. Lesson one – the heart in the throat and how to find it…
‘In the arena you may,’ he says pointedly to Dis, ‘but you missed this one.’
Dis Pater looks horned and blank, but the boy knows the old man is scowling beneath it.
‘He is already dead,’ Gennadios says to the boy. ‘It remains only for you to remind him of it.’
The boy takes his knife; the one-armed man’s eyes roll and he is aware of nothing much. The Greek nods to the boy and then at the groaning man whose chest labours to suck in life.
‘Get it right this time,’ he says. ‘And do it slowly – I want to see the moment when your knife crosses him over.’
The boy has done this before and is still not ready for it. He puts the knife in the place allotted, the one the Greek calls the heart in the throat. Pushes, feeling that moment of resistance, then the sudden, slick slide. Blood pours and the man gasps and gugs; the boy pulls the knife out.
The Greek surgeon grunts with disappointment.
‘Too little, yet again,’ he says, taking the knife. ‘You fear it too much, at the end. Be firm – here, like this.’
He guides the boy’s hand and they push and slice. The man coughs, his heels kick and then he is gone. The Greek blows out his cheeks with exasperation.
‘Missed it,’ he says, as if he had lost sight of some rare bird.
The hatch grinds, the light floods, the bodies fall.
Drust follows the surgeon into the deep dark, trying to avoid the edges of the archways and failing – they smack him on the shoulder, time after time…
* * *
He woke at the slap on his shoulder, sat up so suddenly that his head spun and he had to blink a few times until the face coalesced into Praeclarum’s broad concern.
‘You were asleep,’ she said. There was wonder and accusation in equal measure as she handed him water in a clay bowl; it was warm as soup but balm to a mouth dry and thick with mucus. She had not been enough of a ring fighter, he thought, but would learn how easy it is to sleep in a charnel house buzzing with noises. He glanced after her, marvelling at how she had slotted in to them after only two months – or perhaps it was just him who felt that.
Drust moved slowly; he wore his dusty gear still and was crusted with a dried paste of sand and sweat. Around them whirled the noise and stink of the undercroft – not as great as the Flavian, Drust thought, but enough to release the latch of memory. The lunchtimers stumbled through the gate in their costumes – the horn-blowing chicken, the flute-playing bear; it was the same everywhere, it was noon and the mummers and caperers were out, sweating in the heat to try and entertain a garrison of mostly men and whores, who only wanted blood and naked death.
The others were there, sitting quietly, working at some small task or, in Ugo’s case, sitting with his hands on his knees, eyes closed, talking to his gods. They were all here, Drust saw, which is a blessing from that fickle cunt, Fortuna, blessings be upon her. Things had gone well and his own fight had been a decent enough dance, with just enough in it to make sure no one realised the rehearsals.
He was appalled at his own weakness, at how the heat and the exertion had made him nod off. The dream, he knew, was sent by Dis – the first time, the only one, he had seen a Hyrcanian tiger. The thought that it was a warning that he was too old for all of this came with a stab of fear; it was a thought he would never offer up to the others in any conversation.
Talk was muted and most of it was drowned by the babble of the venatores, who weren’t anything like those professional beast-killers. They were hunters and trappers and hauliers who had brought animals for the Games and been made up for the day. Smeared with the excitement and dazzle of something they had never done and would never do again if they were sensible, they were loud as a barnyard of cockerels. They’d survived and now it was lunchtime, when the novelty acts went out – if there were any.
‘Hares. More crucifixions,’ Kag muttered. ‘Attalus must be rounding up every suspect on a list. They only have crucifixions and hares and rustic farces from the local actors.’
> ‘Hares?’ demanded Ugo, frowning, and Drust recalled those animals had some meaning for the big man. Quintus squinted at the half-moon grill that let them look into the harena and jerked a thumb.
‘Take a look. Hares and hounds and bad acting – that won’t keep Army boots happy.’
The actors were aspirational Greeks who had expected to have the most of this new amphitheatre and put on the works of Terentius Afer or Plautus – if it had to be Roman – and Euripides, Philoctetes and the rest of the Greeks if they had their own way. If they had to sink to comedy, it would be Aristophanes or Susarion of Megara – not what they were now doing, which was running around the harena waving giant phalluses and pretending to fuck the arse of a fat Parthian in a turban.
Judging from the jeers and the red-faced, food-pelted Greeks who staggered into the undercroft, it was not going well; but the hares were worse and everyone jumped with surprise, then laughed, when a small brown shape scrabbled through the grill squares and ran around among them, before it subsided, panting and frozen. The hound chasing it smashed off the grill in a welter of bloody saliva and mournful howls.
‘Should have put Stercorinus out,’ Quintus said, picking up the hare, which was too petrified to move or resist. He grinned his big wide grin and looked at the man for a reaction but had none; the skinny brown sliver, naked save for a cloth round his hips, just leaned against a pillar and cradled his big sword, his eyes lurking somewhere beneath a matted shock of hair and beard.
‘At least look as if you are worried,’ Kag told him, scowling.
Stercorinus split his beard in a small smile. ‘Would it help?’
‘This would have been my time once,’ Praeclarum said. ‘Killing tiros and the condemned and blindfolded dwarves.’
Kag slapped her on one leather shoulder. ‘Would have been,’ he said, ‘but you are one of us now. And shush on that blindfold thing – don’t give anyone ideas.’
Praeclarum said nothing, but when the others made the ring and thrust their hands into it, palms down and knuckles up, she stood apart and shook her head when Drust looked expectantly at her.
