Arena (25 page)

In one of the narrow dormitory cells guarded by two spearmen, I met the young man in question. He had long dark hair, height that nearly matched mine, and a tough, blunt jaw. His eyes were dark and tranquil. No god occupied the niche above the pallet where he stretched out, gazing into space.

I adjusted my toga and coughed. He glanced up. I had expected defiance. I was greeted by calm deference.

“Marcus?”

“The name they have given me is Eros,” he said bitterly. “To please their false gods, I suppose.”

“I am Cassius Flamma, part owner of this establishment. I understand you refuse to take the training we’re obliged to give as part of your sentence.”

“Sentence! That sentence was a joke.” He turned. Above his clout, ugly suppurating lash marks stood out. “Because I refuse to renounce what I believe, I’m whipped, then starved. Well, if you’ve come to change my mind, it won’t work.”

Undoubtedly he deserved another whipping for his quiet insolence. But I rather liked the boldness of his stare. Very few in Rome these days believed in anything more than the value of endless gratification of the senses. Sitting down, I tried to speak moderately.

“Marcus, I understand how you feel.”

“How can you, in this profession?”

“I like to feel I have a little sensitivity left. Anyway, I think you do yourself a disservice by refusing to fight. One way or another, you will go to the arena eventually. You’ll be dragged there in chains if you won’t walk under your own power. Why surrender your life uselessly?”

He said in a quiet voice, “Jesus surrendered his life in Judea. I can do no less.”

“Oh, yes, Jesus. Your prophet. I’ve heard of him.”

He replied firmly, “He was more than a prophet. He was God’s own son.”

“Come now. To which god do you refer? The pantheon’s so crowded, it’s hard to tell one from another.”

“I mean the only one. The one who rules all of us, whether we recognize His power in our lives or not.”

I squirmed uncomfortably under his penetrating stare. “I was born a poor man, Marcus. What education I have, I’ve picked up along the way. I’m not conversant with theological matters.

Let’s approach the problem from the practical side. Your life will be at stake when you enter the arena. Learn to defend yourself. Others of your cult —”

“Christianity is not a cult. It’s a way of life.”

I sighed. “Very well. Others of your kind sentenced here have accepted the opportunity to win their freedom. And even made a modest amount of money if they’re lucky.”

“I’m not interested in freedom or money,” he told me. He was not boasting. He merely stated a fact.

“Why are you so stubborn? The rest of your brethren —”

“Yes, they bow down,” he cut in quickly. “They accept a sword and they go into the arena to kill animals or each other. But they don’t understand what Jesus taught. In return for cruelty, give love. In return for hate, friendship.” He lifted one shoulder, an eloquent gesture somehow.

“What you do to me doesn’t matter. I believe what I believe. Revile me. Starve me. Beat me to death. It makes no difference. The man from Judea was not a man but the son of God. I won’t
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worship your bronze statues alongside Him. If dying unarmed in the circus is the price of faith, I’m ready to pay it.”

“Then you’ll surely die!” I said, irritated. I rose. “And sooner than you think. Good day.”

When I reported my failure to Syrax, he cursed violently and ordered another whipping for the Christian.

I left the school hurriedly. I was disturbed over my anger at the prisoner’s behavior. When I thought about it, I realized I’d grown angry because I was embarrassed by the man’s conviction.

I didn’t care a whit for the teachings of his Judean prophet. But the difference between his quiet steadfastness and my own lack of belief in anything except the state of my finances was painfully clear.

Wanting only complete separation from problems of the kind raised by a man like Marcus, I retired to my house and tried to put him out of my mind. I failed. His face appeared in troubled dreams. And as if an unkind fate were deliberately trying to draw me back into trouble, less than a week after my fruitless interview, I became entangled with the Christians again.

I was down on the school wharf late one afternoon at the request of the lanista Ramor. He wanted my opinion on a barge load of leopards newly arrived on approval. He wished to select only the prime ones to train as man-eaters.

While I was pointing out likely specimens, Syrax appeared.

“Ah, Cassius. I heard you were on the premises. There’s another of those miserable Christian cultists asking for you.”

“You take care of him. I want nothing to do with them.”

“I defer to you,” Syrax sneered, “since this bearded fool asked for the owner Cassius Flamma.

Apparently he considers my station too lowly.”

I was sure the slight hadn’t been intentional. Because of my record in the arena, I suppose I was more widely known than Syrax. But the jealous way he leaped on the chance remark made me pause. His dark eyes shone unpleasantly as I said, “Who is the man?”

“One of the leading lights of the cult. A rabble-rouser from the provincial city of Tarsus. He’s already been in trouble with the authorities. His name’s Paulus.”

“Where will I find him?”

“In the amphitheater stands.”

I nodded and started up the wharf. Syrax got in a last jibe.

“Be careful, partner. Don’t get a reputation for sympathizing with these cultists. People will say you’ve gone soft. But maybe that’s not so far wrong. Eh, Cassius?”

I stared back at him sharply. He masked his feelings with the old, meaningless smile, and turned away.

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ICLIMBED into the stands, empty now that the day’s practice was finished. The sand was deserted, whorled by the chill wind of late spring. Against the lowering gray sky a strong, broad-shouldered man was silhouetted, waiting for me. He had long hair shot with gray, and a flowing beard. He wore a simply draped woolen tunic. I judged him to be something more than forty years.

On the upper tier of the stand where he stood quietly, he saluted me, then said in a polite but not obsequious voice, “Ave,Splendidi. I am Paulus, a free citizen of Rome.”

“What do you want?”

“I’ve come on a mission of mercy.”

I replied sharply, “I’m a busy man, Paulus. Speak plainer. If it has something to do with your cult, I have no time for sermons.”

He smiled disarmingly. “Neither does Rome, it seems. Yet I persist.”

“Please get to the point of your visit,” I said, as rudely as I knew how.

Rudeness did no good. His reply was temperate. “I have come to ask freedom for the young
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man whom someone has named Eros. His true name is Marcus.”

“I know his true name,” I retorted. “Also that he is a criminal. Freedom indeed!”

“Isn’t it within your power, as an owner of this school, to grant it?”

“You’re wasting your time. He was sentenced here, and here he stays.”

“Then he’ll certainly die,” Paulus returned softly. “He’ll never fight in the arena. Splendidi, the citizens say you’re a man of honor in a profession which is without honor. Do you want Marcus’

blood on your hands?”

“All at once I’m the guilty party!” I exclaimed. “I’m not the keeper of those slaves, nor are they mine. I live my life and obey the laws of Rome. The law says Marcus must remain.”

Zealous fire blazed in his eye suddenly. He shook a finger at me. “There’s the error in your thinking, Splendidi. Youare my keeper. I am yours. So is each man to the other. The Master taught that. I regret I never heard Him. They nailed Him up long before I had my visions and left my government post in Tarsus to spread His truth, even here to sinful Rome.”

I snorted in derision. “Sinful! I’ve heard about your Christian rites. How men and women mingle together in catacombs near the aqueducts. I understand your chief rite consists of slaying a newborn babe and drinking its blood. I don’t see that Marcus would be any worse off in the Circus of Nero than participating in such debased rituals.”

Paulus smiled sadly. “Those stories are only that — stories. Tales spread by the Emperor’s courtiers. Nero fears us, few and poor though we are.” He looked straight into my face, his earnestness making me uneasy. “We will shake the world, Splendidi. Through love and faith, we will topple cruelty and evil and bring His kingdom.”

“Enough theology! I dislike your arrogance. Good day.”

Gray clouds loomed above us, darkening the noisy streets. Paulus waited a moment more, then shook his head. “Alas, I was told I’d get a different sort of reception from you.”

“Then you were misinformed. I’m just like any other Roman.”

“Despite what you say, I think otherwise. Your words are harsh, but I wonder if you mean them.

One of our number, a slave in the house of the teacher Seneca, told me he’d seen you in conversation with his master long ago, and heard the philosopher speak of you after you’d gone.

Seneca said —” A brief, simple gesture that somehow shamed me. “— he said you were a good man.”

“Perhaps others have more faith in my nature than I do.”

“Perhaps so,” Paulus agreed, ignoring my jeering tone. “Will you hear me a moment longer?”

Against my better judgment, I said gruffly that I would. We sat down on the hard stadium benches, with the spring dusk gathering. He described something of the teachings of the Judean, Jesus, whom a Roman procurator named Pilate had crucified between thieves. I remembered details of the story from my childhood. Paulus went on to tell about his strange visions years ago, in which it was revealed to him that there was but one true God, apparently discovered by the Jews but holding sway over Romans and other non-Jews as well. The crucified Jesus, he said, was God’s son come to earth. Afire with this truth, Paulus had journeyed to Jerusalem as a missionary, where he had been arrested.

Wryly he told me, “When the people denounced me as a troublemaker, a revolutionary, and demanded my death, I immediately pleaded my Roman citizenship. The procurator Festus was powerless to execute me. I demanded my rights — passage to Rome, to stand trial here for sedition and inciting riots. Which, of course, I did not do. No doubt I put the Empire to great expense and trouble. But I reached Rome, as I wanted. The charges I mentioned were finally dismissed. New ones have been brought against me. I only pray to God I’ll have time to preach the truth of Christ here, as I have elsewhere, before the court lawyers get my head on the execution block.”

Shivering, I asked, “Facing possible death, you still stay here?”

The man unnerved me with his steady, purposeful manner. He gestured out over the graying hills and squalid tenements. “Here above all is where God is needed most.”

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“Paulus, if the stories about underground orgies are false, designed to stir popular sentiment against you, tell me the true nature of what you believe.”

He did so, though I confess much of his discourse went over my head, including his references to events in the life of his Christus and to a band of twelve men who were apparently the Judean’s cohorts. When he concluded I said, “Much of what you say seems similar to the beliefs of the philosopher Seneca.”

Paulus shook his head. “No, I can’t see there’s any connection. He worships the gods of Rome.”

“But he lived his life even as you live yours, putting aside personal wants to serve Rome. Until the Emperor dismissed him, that is.”

“Then in that sense,” Paulus agreed, “he follows the spirit of the Master. As you would be doing, Splendidi, if you saw fit to grant my request and release Marcus into my custody.”

A moment of crucial choice had come while we sat talking high up in the gloomy, wind-blown stands. A great black bloodstain showed on the training sand below. I stared and stared at it.

Finally I said, “That is my choice, then? Release Marcus or, in your words, accept responsibility for his death? Take his blood on my own hands?”

“Depending on what sort of man you really are, Splendidi, you already know the answer.”

I felt a great and deep rage, directed not so much at the itinerant preacher as against my own ill-luck at falling into this trap. I stood up.

“Very well. I may be many things, but I’m no murderer. Go to the barracks and take him, on my authority.”

The bearded man gripped my hand. “You’ve done a fine thing, Splendidi.”

“Not because I understand or have any sympathy with your cause, mind you.”

“No, but your heart is good. Marcus and I will not forget your generosity.”

Gruffly I answered, “Have him out of here promptly. And please don’t spread tales about my so-called generosity, or I’ll become a laughingstock. I’ll have trouble enough explaining to my partners the loss of a prime fighter. Not to mention the handsome profits he’d have brought us.”

At the bottom of the steps Paulus turned. Again those burning eyes reached out to me. “You have gained far more than you have lost, Splendidi. I know it. I think you do too. Farewell.”

I watched him vault the balustrade of the amphitheater and hurry across the sand to the barracks, displaying more agility and muscle than the Christians were ever credited with by the public. Perhaps what had undone me was his straightforward, honest manliness. Paulus was no weakling, no whining wretch who turned to religion to make up for his own weakness and failure. I suspected he could crack heads with the best, if he ever chose to try.

At once I left for the street gate, walking quickly. I wanted to be gone before my rather rash act was discovered. In a way I was pleased and satisfied by what I had done. I was also refreshingly free of guilt, which astonished me. Just as I neared the outer gate a voice yelled, “Cassius! Wait there! Do you hear?Wait! ”

Swinging around, I saw Syrax hurrying along a dark gallery. His cheeks were mottled from exertion. His expression was unpleasant.

“I have come from the dormitory,” he said angrily. “A guard called me to report your latest order.”