Arena (12 page)

She paused to let this sink in. Then she added, “Isn’t that the way you operate, Cassius? Or did I misinterpret what you told me earlier? How you want to be an eques regardless of the price?”

For a moment I tried to search beyond the surfaces of those laughing, old-and-young green eyes.

I hunted for the truth of this woman. Was she a witch? The cleverest of goddesses? Or an unholy combination of both? The answer eluded me.

But not the realization that she was infinitely dangerous and devious. The rewards of her favor could be great, and I must never forget that. I would never care to have her as my enemy, though. At length I said, “You heard rightly, Locusta. I’d prefer to kill the Sicilian because he had me scourged. But I suppose I can tolerate him if it serves a purpose.”

She stroked my cheek, whispering, “It will, it will. The purpose of keeping you alive, and close to me.”

I drew back. “Tell me, Locusta. What advantage do I really represent to you?”

She brought up her mouth for a long, lingering kiss. The moist warmth of her lips lighted fires in
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my body again.

“The advantage of having a man of strength and wit give me pleasure. A man whose body is strong but whose ambition is even stronger. Pour wine for me, Cassius. I want to drink to our alliance.”

Somewhere far off, perhaps in a mean upper room, I heard the abused Thracian girl sobbing in blind pain. Locusta had not seen to her injuries, so far as I knew. But that was not my affair, I reminded myself. I splashed wine into cups and handed her one.

“May the nameless gods preserve me, Locusta, but I’m caught.”

Changeable as weather, she lifted the silken gown above her waist and gave a lewd laugh.

“And the prisoner’s fairer than any you’ve ever known. True, Beast-man?”

Fairer than all but one, I thought. I said nothing, fumbling to embrace her.

This time I abandoned myself wholly to the arts she knew so well. The night wagons rumbled on through Rome, and the stars turned around the earth, watching in some mystic way the destinies of us all. Through the night we were drunk on the taste of each other’s flesh as much as on wine.

Shortly before dawn she sent me away with a last drowsy, sated kiss. I ached in every joint.

Outside the forbidding wall of the Temple the dozing guards shivered and snored in the chill. I jostled them awake.

The guard in command passed off one or two rough jokes about my night. I did not answer him.

Somehow, what had transpired in Locusta’s house did not seem decent enough to talk about in daylight.

Fourteen of the inmates of the school returned to the Circus Maximus on the afternoon of the fourth day of the games.

Xenophon was not in the company. He lost the privilege because of his poor performance in the first hunt. Naturally this did nothing to lessen his hatred of me.

Today we would go against the man-eaters. We arrived in our tunnel, removed our tunics and amulets and pulled on our codpieces. We took swords from the handlers while a loud ovation shook the stands. Returning from the sunlit tunnel mouth, one of the handlers commented, “The Greens took the chariot race. They’re releasing the pigeons with leg ribbons to inform the gamblers on the coast. Guess who was the featured Green driver.”

He tapped his knuckle against a charcoal-scrawled board spiked to the wall. The board listed the program for the day. Representing the Green racing corporation was one L. Domitius Ahenobarbus.

That accounted for the extra cheers the winner received. The program also reported that the Green team was composed of prize Arabians bred and trained by O. Tigellinus. In truth, what chance did I stand with an enemy like the Sicilian who pandered to the Emperor’s whims and provided him with victorious teams?

The cheering gradually ebbed away. The between-acts performance commenced. According to the program, a simulated boulder was to be wheeled into the arena. To the fake rock a criminal was chained, representing Prometheus. Down the tunnel drifted yells of the rakers and perfume-sprinklers who were freshening the sand to mask the stench of blood left over from the morning’s gladiatorial contest, fifty hoplites versus fifty secutores. Suddenly the chaffering of the arena workers was broken by a shrill, unearthly scream of agony.

Syrax, adjusting his codpiece, smiled. “The trained eagles must be making fast work of that criminal’s body. Excellent. It’ll put the crowd in a bloodthirsty mood. Ready to condemn us if we make a mistake, but ready to reward us if we’re victorious.”

Laughter from thousands of throats obscured the criminal’s cries. I was thankful I did not have to watch the birds claw and break away his entrails. Fabius hurried back from the tunnel mouth.

His face was slicked with perspiration.

“The stakes are high today, lads. Nothing less than your lives. I’ve just seen the animals. Prime killers. Fight well. If not for me, then for yourselves.”

There was sadness, almost a regret in his little farewell address, as though he wanted to protest
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the carefully staged slaughter, and missed the old days when a bestiarius could win the wooden sword with a single skillful toss of a rope loop around the legs of a running ostrich. Killing was what they demanded now, those screaming multitudes who howled their blood lust as the trumpets blared the call to the next event. Even Syrax’s sword hand shook a little as he filed out ahead of me into the blazing sunlight.

Perfumed fountains sprayed rainbows into the air along the Spine. Though the sand had been carefully raked, dark stains were still visible beneath the sparkling surface. Sunlight scalded my bare back. My chest ran with salty sweat.

We made our way to the Imperial box and saluted. Young Nero, his lips working wetly at a peach, dismissed us with hardly a glance. We fanned out in a long line as a timber barrier was rolled away from the mouth of another tunnel. Slaves scurried out of the way. Pitchy smoke curled from the black opening.

All at once the lions and leopards burst forth, growling and snapping. Other slaves pursued them down the tunnel, hurling bundles of burning faggots to make them run.

The big males and lionesses scattered, scenting the human flesh to which they’d become accustomed in training. A lioness and a leopard closed on the nearest bestiarius, a slim, shy auctorati. He made a misstep and died almost at once. The lioness’ fangs bit through his breastbone.

Dust clouded up. On my left Syrax took a couple of cuts at a racing leopard. He chopped off its left forepaw with a lucky stroke. Meantime, I had my eye on a bushy-maned brute who slowed his run when he saw me.

He stood wrinkling his damp nose, breathing soft through his fangs. Screams rose, followed by the crunch and bump of some man and animal tumbling over and over. The sandy dust grew even thicker.

I watched my lion’s throat for the ripple of the growl that would precede the leap. I controlled my shaking sword hand and let my fear work for me by tightening every nerve. Behind me, I heard Syrax cursing as he feinted at his snapping leopard.

The lion unleashed his yellow might, clearing the ground with all four paws to smash me down and kill.

I hacked and ran to the right simultaneously. My sword hewed a bloody channel down the lion’s flank as he bolted past. He trumpeted in anger because I was not where I had been a moment before.

He swung his maned head, searching. He saw me and leaped for my legs, eyes hell-yellow with hate. The mob cheered senselessly.

I braced my right leg behind me, intending to stand fast and strike down for his throat. The leg bumped something. Syrax cried out behind me, “Cassius, you fool, don’t knock me over when this bitch leopard is —”

His warning turned to a roar of anger. His back collided with mine. The impact bowled me forward so that the point of my sword burrowed into the sand as the lion hurled through the air.

I pulled the sword loose just as the lion was on me, knocking me flat.

The snapping jaws grazed my arm. The beast writhed on top of me. I had a distorted view of Syrax prone on his back, one hand at his leopard’s throat while the other rammed the sword in and out through its ribs. My lion kicked, its claws opening bad wounds on my thighs and chest.

In a space of a breath I swung my sword arm over, blade foremost. I struck the lion’s neck from above. The slash, not anywhere fatal, made it leap again, claws digging long channels in my leg.

But I managed to roll from under and totter up.

The lion turned and came racing at me again, gore streaking its mane and gushing from the deep cut in its neck. Maddened with the hurt, it bunched on its haunches, a yellow streak that lifted from the ground. For an instant its underbelly was exposed.

I dropped the sword and wrenched my palm around hard edge foremost. The hand whipped over to my left armpit, then flew outward in the killing trick, aimed for the lion’s vitals.

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With all the force I could muster I smashed my hand between the legs of the beast as he loomed over me, cracking flesh and genitals. The lion seemed to roll over in mid-air. He dropped with a loud thud on the sand.

Back to back with me, Syrax grunted ferociously as he finished the leopard. I heard a lioness growl somewhere in the blowing dust. I paid no heed, snatching up my sword. Blood rivered from claw marks all over me.

I leaped in as the crippled lion floundered. I opened his throat with one stroke.

Moving off again, I wasn’t fast enough to avoid the spasmodic lashing of his left foreclaw. The talons snagged in my calf and brought a shriek of pain to my mouth. A great gob of calf muscle remained impaled on the lion’s claw as he gave a rough sob and died, his bowels spilling on the sand.

Weakness and nausea overwhelmed me. Slowly, as if in a nightmare, I felt my clawed leg buckle.

A thunderous ovation rang from the stands. The faces of spectators were like phantoms behind the roiling dust. I got the breath knocked out of me when I sprawled on the sand.

Dully I blinked into the hazy blue sky. Some vague voice was trying to draw my attention.

“Cassius, the maneless bitch is — Cassius, jump up!Jump up before she —”

The lioness hit from behind, leaping over my head and landing full on me. Her head dropped to chew away my hips and crotch. Her weight, her animal stink, brought a whirling sense of death close by. Then, abruptly, her yellow body went rigid.

I summoned the last strength in my arms and heaved upward. Her carcass rolled off, stabbed through from right to left by a sword that burned white in the sunlight. The blade was warm red where the tip had protruded.

Staggering, his body a spiderweb of cuts and clawings, his codpiece hanging by a thread, Syrax jerked and pulled until his sword came free of the dead lioness.

“Never let it be said that your partner failed you, Cassius,” he panted.

Choking, I could not reply. After a moment I was able to stand on my own feet. I retrieved my sword and hacked off the forepaw of the killer I’d slain with the hand trick. While I sawed through the bone I became aware of a peculiar tickling on my back.

Bright petals drifted down in the sand before me. I rose with the dripping paw. At last the chant in the stands made sense.

“Cassius! Cassius! Cassius! Cassius!”

I turned, feebly acknowledging the cheers with a nod of my head. Syrax peered toward the boxes. He threw me a disgruntled smile. With a savage motion he chopped off the leopard’s paw, then the lioness’.

“You’ve won favor with that showy hand stunt, it seems, while all I did was save your life.” He forced a grin. “Well, I’ll just make the best of it. To the box, eh?”

He spun on his heel and trotted off. I hurried after him. Four other bestiarii converged from various parts of the arena. Syrax was the only one with two kills, but because of the way I’d slain the lion, mine was the name the crowd chanted as I stumbled along in the dust.

I counted human bodies. Fragments of thoughts swirled through my mind. Six alive, eight dead, to provide the mob with gossip and diversion.

“Cassius! Cassius! Cassius!”

A Senator and his mistress fondled one another wildly, gripped by the mass hysteria that frequently transformed arena crowds into mindless exhibitionists.

“Cassius! Cassius! Cassius!”

One rank of legionnaires marched down either side of the Spine, shields locked, spears thrust ahead to form a pointed wall that drove back the lions and leopards still living. Behind the soldiers, handlers with flails waited to catch any beasts breaking through.

The soldiers parted to let me pass. One called, “Brave performance, Cassius! Make the Emperor pay for it!”

I walked on, following Syrax, drowning in the cheers that roared off the walls. Others on the far
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side of the Spine who could not possibly have seen me fight took up the chant.

“Cassius! Cassius! Cassius!”

A girl bared her breasts and held them out to me. Suddenly, in spite of the redness dripping like a slime from my wounds, I felt drunk. Wildly drunk on the wine of fame, and the breathless release of having lived through such an ordeal. True, Syrax had saved me from the lioness. But I had killed one lion with my bare hand. Why shouldn’t I claim the fruits of winning?

I lifted my head, smiling and bowing blearily as I neared the Imperial box. Far up in the stands someone cried, “The wooden sword! Let’s have the wooden sword for valiant Cassius!”

More voices picked up the cry. Miracle of miracles — the wave of victory was cresting a second time.

The Emperor was on his feet. He bowed formally to the six of us clustered below his box. His cherry-colored cheeks puckered into an insincere smile as he reached for the garlands.

A petulant frown erased his smile. He heard the mob’s roar.

“The wooden sword!The wooden sword for Cassius! ”

So thick were the showering flower petals, I barely saw the Emperor hesitate, then turn to a slave. The dull pine gleam of a carved toy suddenly appeared in his hands.

Before he could throw it down, fingers closed on my arm. Standing close, Syrax stared at me, white teeth broken into a grin but his eyes cold, demanding.