Mark of the Gladiator

by Heidi Belleau

  Felix gestured to Anazâr to sit beside him. “I heard you fought at the Battle of Actium. I won’t pretend not to be curious about it. Did you see Marcus Antonius?”

  More questions about before. His life, separated into distinct periods, two existences and two men that could never touch but somehow did. A paradox, like a storm, raging in the heart of him. At least this question was so common that his answer felt more like a poetry recital.

  “Yes. He appeared often to speak before his troops. But at the time, I knew almost no Latin.” The scrape of the strigil against Felix’s back lent his words measure and rhythm. A welcome relief. “He seemed a strong man and a capable general. Of course, when the fleet was lost and he ran back to Egypt, our opinion altered.”

  “And Cleopatra?”

  “She gave speeches too, sometimes. I understood them. Whatever loyalty we had was more toward her. Our prince was from the old royal Numidian family, and her ally. He gambled us, and lost. I would curse his bad judgment, but Octavianus—I mean, the Emperor and son of the Divine Caesar—ordered him executed shortly after the surrender, so he paid his price.”

  “Here I was thinking you’d give me the clang and clash of battle, and instead . . . politics.”

  “Once encamped at Actium, our lives were not interesting. We tended our horses, and waited, and talked of home. They sent us on sorties. We would kill some men with javelins, and some of us were killed in return. And then we waited some more.” He felt himself wishing he could tell the truth, that once you lived battle the poetry quickly fled. That raucous clang and clash was an observer’s game.

  He remembered the historical re-enactment that had brought him here. Already it felt as if it were a lifetime ago, his time as a soldier a lifetime more. His time as a husband even farther removed. He’d have enough lives to give a phoenix envy when his time on this world was finally done. But he couldn’t say any of that, could he? Not even to his most-trusted brother—Gaius, did he yet live? And if he couldn’t tell Gaius, he especially couldn’t reveal it to a slippery Roman like Felix.

  It was Anazâr’s turn, now, to receive the ministrations of the strigil. He welcomed its rasping touch—the scraping away of everything old, dead—and the sensation of freshness that followed.

  “I think I misjudged you,” Felix admitted. “There’s more to you underneath, isn’t there? I can see by the look on your face that you have depths I’ll never know.” He tilted his head in study as Anazâr hurriedly tried to close off his expression again, but didn’t comment on the change. “The women like you; they say you stood up to Ursus. You’re no brute, after all.”

  “If you thought me a brute, you didn’t know me at all,” Anazâr commented, no hurt in it. “Any half-wit who follows the games would know it’s cowardice and dishonor, not blood, that brought me to your brother’s house.” He wished immediately that he’d kept silent. Had he just called an eques a half-wit?

  “You’re right. I don’t follow the games. I tell everyone I faint at the sight of blood. As to being a half-wit, I’ll have you know I prefer to be thought of as half a man.” He smiled, the expression full of sudden and surprising good-humored humility. He was actually waiting for Anazâr to speak. Not questioning: waiting without expectation. This wasn’t an interrogation, it was a conversation.

  Anazâr could say . . . almost anything. The words swirled around in his head like leaves caught in a river eddy. So many things. Questions. Statements. Little pointless thoughts that served no master’s purpose and thus never found voice anymore, like This bath is so much larger on the inside than it appears on the outside.

  He could even say nothing at all—not because he’d been told to stay silent, or because the circumstances demanded it, but because he didn’t desire to say anything, and that was a freedom in and of itself. But the temptation to speak freely was overwhelming, here in this place where the markings of rank were set aside, so just for a moment he tricked himself into thinking they spoke as equals.

  A moment was all it took. “Why do you hate your brother?”

  “He promised he’d pay for my tavern bill on my birthday, then slipped out the back. I’m a grudgeful man.” So Felix kept secrets, too. Well, that was fair. “I meant some of what I said at that dinner, by the way. Why does he quail you so?”

  Gods. The astounding ignorance of that question. Equals? The gap between them had never yawned larger.

  “Slaves have a special saying, when we curse at one other. It was one of the first Latin curses I learned: ‘to the cross with you.’ Have you ever seen a man crucified? A woman or child? Fainting at the sight of blood, I suppose not.” Maybe I could have been the kind of man who fainted at the sight of blood, had I the chance. The strigiller finished the last scraping strokes against Anazâr’s shins, but his muscles failed to loosen in response. “A man in my profession can’t fear death, but there are worse things than death, especially for a slave. Things your brother can do. You said I treated him as a demigod. Who is your god? You—” He caught himself, choked off the words, begged the river to run dry.

  Felix stood up and stalked away.

  Anazâr sighed and rubbed at his forehead, remembering there were some marks that could never be erased.

  He’d have to follow Felix into the tepidarium. Reversing the circuit would draw unwelcome attention. And if Felix was feeling as jilted as he looked—craving, like so many Romans, to bask in the martial glamor of an Actium veteran and gladiator, and receiving only an impolitic rebuff—then leaving Felix’s side would give the petty Roman ass the perfect excuse to punish him. If Anazâr’s outburst on its own hadn’t already earned one, that was. No help for it. What was done was done. A familiar sense of resignation washed over him, carrying him to his feet and through the doorway to the next room.

  The ceiling was much higher here, and the high walls held many windows of thick, colored glass. Warm, rich, syrupy light poured into the vast columned room. Anazâr forced his gaze downward from that vault of ethereal beauty into the lower realm of squalling human chaos. Vendors circled the blue-green central pool, crying their wares: depilation, massage, the ubiquitous pastries. Swimmers splashed. Knots of men stood waist-deep in water; their arguments or agreements wove into an unceasing Latin roar that was bordered, here and there, with bright threads of other languages.

  Felix was obscured somewhere in the crowd.

  Anazâr made a slow circuit of the pool, keeping an eye out for knots of young patrician men. Even naked, they must have a way of carrying themselves, he imagined. He did spot a likely group at the edge of the pool, but on closer approach, the extravagance of their motions and traces of makeup around their sharp-darting eyes marked them as cinaedi. Well, perhaps Felix was one of those, as well. The thought made his cock swell embarrassingly, until he remembered Felix’s question and that sense of purposeless frustration took over again.

  One of the cinaedi arched an eyebrow plucked razor thin in Anazâr’s direction and smiled.

  Anazâr walked by. He needed to find Felix.

  Under other circumstances . . .

  Best not to think of that. Bathhouse liaisons were held between free men, which he, of course, was not. But maybe someday, if he could just find a way to please Marianus despite Felix’s perversities and capers, he could return as a freedman and fully enjoy every comfort the baths had to offer.

  He found Felix at the other end of the tepidarium, leaning against a column, engaged in animated discussion with someone who did not look like a patrician.

  An instinct to interrupt, to call Felix away and scold him, rose in Anazâr’s mind. He reminded himself he wasn’t here as Felix’s chaperone. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  The large man—he was about half a head taller than Felix, just like Anazâr—oh. Oh.

  Subtly catching Anazâr’s eyes, Felix touched the man’s elbow, a casual motion that trailed off quickly, gracefully. The man’s eyes narrowed and went heavy-lidded. He had the tanned complexion and heavy build of so
meone who carried weight for a living, but his body was unbranded.

  Perhaps Felix liked that.

  Or perhaps he’d chosen the man specifically because of how it would best goad Anazâr.

  His fucking outburst. Not only had it been disrespectful of a citizen and dangerous to his relationship with his dominus and thus his chance for freedom, but it had revealed deep-buried resentment to a man intent on causing as much havoc as possible. Felix and the goddess of discord were obviously thick as thieves, and he called her power down on anyone who irked him. Anazâr was fucking doomed.

  Felix spoke. Though Anazâr stood only a few body lengths away, the words were incomprehensible under the echoes of wavelets, the roar of voices.

  Their destination obviously decided, the pair walked away from the pool, through an open doorway, and into a semi-private room lined with low, cushioned benches.

  Don’t look, he told himself. He knows where you are. Stand stock still for as long as he takes to fuck the mule driver. Or more likely, be fucked by him. Cinaedus. Shameless. Born a master of the city at the center of the world, and he throws off his manhood and pisses on the honor of his house. The curses he silently hurled at Felix helped distract from the shame at his own lack of control, his impolitic and wanton words.

  He wished he were here with Marianus, instead.

  The room was dim, probably on purpose, but the light from the tepidarium windows still stretched into it. He could see Felix bend forward over the bench and arch his back, one lean leg stretching out behind him for balance.

  Felix looked back over his shoulder, a pose that should have been awkward but instead took on a taut, athletic appeal, like the form of a gymnast skillfully captured in marble.

  Felix . . . winked at him.

  Gods. Look away.

  He didn’t.

  Mercifully, the mule driver blocked much of the view. As Anazâr watched, he used one column-thick leg to edge into Felix’s angled form, shifting the tableau. Something beautiful became something animal.

  Felix broke eye contact as his face went slack with pleasure. No lines of tension, no lifted eyebrow. He seemed so young, now that unguarded honesty left no room for a trickster’s calculations.

  The mule driver took hold of his hips and began to ride him hard.

  Anazâr dared to imagine how it would feel to fuck his master’s brother. To bear down into him, to use him like a whore and know that Felix would love every single moment of such use. To hold that body in his hands, knowing that, slave or no, he had the power to—

  “Hey, you, slave. You’ll poke someone’s eye out with that thing. Calm down or take it into the side room.”

  The bath slave shook his broom at Anazâr and quickly moved on, muttering to himself as he swept.

  More humiliation. He sat down carefully on the tiled floor so the evidence of his arousal was obscured, looked up at the ceiling and thought of the many unpleasant scenes he’d witnessed over the course of his eventful life. Every time he managed to conjure up a suitably withering image, though, the sound of a pleased gasp or grunt seemed to reach his ears, bringing him right back to the unique tortures of the present.

  To the cross with Felix. To Hades. Anywhere but here.

  He waited as long as he could to look again. This time all he saw were the soles of Felix’s feet, flexed up so he stood on his toes, and the other man’s feet planted between them, his stance so strong Anazâr had a strange fleeting wish the Sarmatian was here, that he might point it out to her.

  Shameful, he reminded himself, for a free Roman to surrender to such a thing. Marianus would never. Marianus would take his slaves, or take other men without honor, maintaining the harmonious alignment of desire and station that the act represented. And Anazâr would submit. He hadn’t yet, Marianus seemingly preferring to use his mouth, but if it did come to that, there’d be no shame. No pleasure either, really, not in the way Felix obviously found pleasure in the act, but no shame.

  Or at least, no more shame than anything else Anazâr did as a slave. Like sitting on the floor waiting for his master’s brother to get buggered by some ox-like freedman.

  “Now that was refreshing. The cock, I mean,” clarified Felix, not from the alcove but from the direction of the lockers. Had Anazâr been so lost in thought he hadn’t noticed him leave? Another chance for punishment, but Felix didn’t take it. He walked past Anazâr, heading toward the pool, then spun around for a moment, the sardonic expression fully returned to his face. “Buy us some pastries for when I get back from my laps in the pool. A man can’t live on a belly full of cum alone, but I suppose you already know that.”

  He tossed a denarius, and Anazâr was too bewildered and taken aback to do anything but silently catch it in both hands. Which was probably for the best, considering today’s record.

  Buy us, Felix had said. Anazâr would take him at his word. A vendor at the other end of the tepidarium cried out specials piled on mixed earthenware platters, and Anazâr spent half the coin on one of those. Then he settled by the wall to wait while the smell of freshly baked bread filled his nose.

  “Is that your dominus?” a man still wet from the pool asked.

  A Greek, he seemed to be, so Anazâr addressed him in that tongue. “I’m contracted to his house. It’s complicated.”

  “He’s notorious in literary circles, you know. The life of the party, but never lend him money, they say. Got any good gossip?”

  “I just saw a mule driver bending him over a couch.”

  “Everybody already knows he takes it up the ass.” The Greek looked disappointed as he squeezed the water out of his shoulder-length hair. “Sextus Propertius even wrote a nasty verse about him, but they’re still friends.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar. “Should I know who that is?”

  “Oh, you’re . . . well. Propertius is a famous poet. The mentor of my dominus, who aspires to be the same. Hey, even though you look like a rough sort, I’m no snob when there’s gossip to be had. Just try to keep up, eh? You must have heard of Cornelius Gallus, at least. No? This isn’t some filthy gutter poet I’m talking about here. The governor of Egypt, man! Well, former governor of Egypt, that is. He’s gotten himself into a spot of trouble involving . . .”

  The Greek got halfway through the account of a brothel orgy involving two young widows of the senatorial class before he was called away. Just in time, it seemed, because right then Felix returned, wet and flushed with exertion. With no word of greeting, he snatched one of the pastries from Anazâr’s tray and stuffed his face with it. When Anazâr didn’t immediately follow suit, Felix rolled his eyes, grunting out, “Oh, just eat, gladiator. You don’t need my permission. I’m not my fucking brother.”

  No, that you are not, Anazâr thought bitterly, and mutely followed him to the calidarium.

  Immeasurable time passed as he shadowed Felix. The long, hot bath in the calidarium pool would have been more enjoyable if he’d known what time he was supposed to rejoin Quintus and the women. He was determined not to speak again unless spoken to; he’d let Felix take the responsibility for his tardiness.

  There was a mime show at a gallery next to the calidarium that Felix had to watch. Then a long chat with a group of Egyptian grain merchants concerning musical entertainments and the latest news from Alexandria. Anazâr let his attention slip until he heard the name of Cyrenaica, and then, of course, listened with the greatest of interest. By their account, Augustus had ordered that his pet Numidian king, Juba II, be engaged to Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius. The pair would rule together over a vast stretch of Roman Africa.

  The news stunned him for a moment. The Divine Caesar had killed Juba and taken his throne; now Augustus had restored the throne to Juba’s son. By the grace and mercy and shrewdness of the Son of the Divine Caesar, Juba II was now married to the daughter of Augustus’s two greatest enemies. The Romans struck out with one hand and folded their victims close with the other.

  Fo
rtune willing, perhaps that progression would serve as model for his own life’s course.

  When the Egyptians left, Felix continued on to the frigidarium. Then he passed back through the calidarium and again to the tepidarium. Rooms upon rooms upon rooms upon rooms, and Anazâr helplessly tagging along through them all, silent and pensive.

  By the time Felix decided to leave, and they dressed, Quintus and the women were long gone.

  “I’ll walk you back to the house,” Felix said. His tone was unapologetic, but at least it wasn’t mocking.

  Out on the street, the sun had sunk behind the vast, sprawling bathhouse. A crowd of men—cleansed, marks of rank freshly resumed—poured out from the main gate on their way home to fine mansions or modest shacks or rickety insulae or slave barracks.

  They set out for the Palatine Hill through the twilight streets. Thin plumes of smoke began to rise from chimneys, further darkening the skies.

  “I hope my brother doesn’t press about your tardiness,” Felix said when Anazâr’s silence had dragged on too long. Some tone of remorse, maybe, if Anazâr was being generous to Felix’s character, but still not an apology. “I know you don’t think so, but I was trying to reward you for your service. You’ve far surpassed your predecessor, and I should never have painted you with the same brush.” Felix turned onto a narrow street that led up the Palatine Hill; Anazâr followed several paces behind. “The gladiatrices say you’re a strict teacher, but that you haven’t raped any among them.”

  Rather a low bar as far as standards of behavior went, but then, he hadn’t exactly phrased it as a compliment, either. Anazâr remembered the meeting between Marianus and Iunius. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m not a eunuch. I just don’t fuck anyone without their permission.” He couldn’t help his slightly accusatory tone.

  His hit didn’t land, because Felix replied casually, “Well then, neither do I. Although back when I had elegist pretensions, I’d write poems threatening to rape my rivals all the time. It was expected, you see. The fashion’s finally dying down now, thank the gods. Do you have any idea how unnerving it is to attend a dinner party where some snot-nosed little senator’s son stands up and recites a verse about sodomizing you with a radish? Wait, don’t answer that question, I just realized it’s highly insulting.”