Calgaich the Swordsman (37 page)

“Calgaich?” Lutorius queried.

“I don’t like the thought of killing a man who is not an enemy of mine, for no other reason than for the enjoyment of these bloodthirsty leeches of Romans.”

Lutorius shrugged. “You’ll have to get rid of that feeling in this business. Your opponent will not think that way of you.”

“But, if he knows that I am not to be killed?”

Lutorius shook his head. “He won’t know that.” “Suppose they pick you to fight me? You know these damned Romans. From what I’ve seen of them these past months, they’d like nothing better than to set two comrades against each other.”

There was a haunted look on the battered features of Lutorius. He looked about himself.

“There is no escape, Lutorius. The only escape from here is into the arena, and hopes for continual victories or a quick death. You’ve said so yourself.”

Lutorius shook his head. “The Oak Tree won’t allow it.” “Wrong,
calo.
He will do it if he is ordered to do it.” Ostorius cracked his lethal whip. “Bottle Emptier! To practice! Barbarian, to the baths!
Jump,
damn you!” Lutorius picked up his blunt, lead-weighted sword, and began to hack away at a thick pole, almost as if he were back in the ranks of the Fifteenth Apollinaria or the Twentieth Valeria Victrix.

Later Calgaich came from the baths and walked toward the headquarters building. The great gates creaked open to admit a series of litters filled with laughing men and a few women. Calgaich looked back over his shoulder. The practice arena was empty of students. Slaves were removing some of the equipment while others raked the arena and spread fresh sand where needed. Still other slaves were laying out food and wine on low tables covered with snow-white cloths.

A woman laughed as the litters passed behind Calgaich. He did not turn. He had no need to. He knew the flowing, musical trilling of Morar's voice.

Calgaich was admitted to the chambers of Quintus Gaius. The gladiator master was seated behind his desk. A flask of wine and two cups were on the desk. Quintus was studying a scabbarded sword that lay before him. Quintus looked up. “You know this sword, barbarian?” Calgaich nodded. “Yes, sir. It is mine.”

“It was sent here by Quaestor Lucius Sextillius for your use this day.”

“I thank him for that, sir,” Calgaich said dryly.

Quintus studied the emotionless features of Calgaich, seeking for guile on the scarred face. “I don't approve of these long-bladed stickers, barbarian.”

“As you wish, master.”

Quintus leaned back. “It is said that you're a master with this weapon.”

“I have my native skill, sir.”

Quintus nodded. “You will use it this day in the practice arena. I sent for several of your types of shields. Luckily they had some in the vaults at the Flavian Amphitheatre. They had been there for years, or so they told me, gathering dust, along with other trophies of war. Look behind you there.”

Calgaich turned. Three lime-whitened wooden shields rested against the wall. He nodded. “They will do, sir.” “I have had the leather arm-loops replaced in our armory, and any repairs that were necessary have been done. You will need a helmet.”

“I have never worn one, sir.”

"You will this day.”

”1 do not need it, sir.”

"You will wear one. That is final.”

Quintus drew the magnificent sword from its scabbard and handed it to Calgaich. "Get the feel of it again.” Their eyes met as Calgaich gripped the familiar hilt. Calgaich smiled. "I would not try it, sir,” he said quietly.

"I was not testing you, Calgaich. Even if you killed me, where would you go? You see?” He filled two cups with the wine. He shoved one of the cups closer to Calgaich. "I am anxious to see how you use that toothpick of yours.”

"Why are you doing this?”

Quintus shrugged. He downed his wine and quickly refilled his cup. "Aemilius Valens wished it so. His word is law in such matters. He’s always anxious to make himself look good.” He looked up at Calgaich. "The yellow-haired woman will be in the group. Both Lutorius and you have already told me that she was once your betrothed.”

"That is so, master.”

"And she is to marry Lucius Sextillius?”

"That is what they say.”

"This means nothing to you?”

Calgaich shrugged. "I am a prisoner. A student in the Great School of Rome. Destined for the arena, where death is to be my business.” His voice had a mechanical sound to it, as though he had memorized his little speech but cared nothing for the meaning of it. Besides, it was another yellow-haired woman, Bronwyn, who occupied his mind when he allowed himself to remember the past. "You learn well, barbarian.”

Calgaich drank the good Cyprian wine. He shook his head as the gladiator master reached over to fill the cup. "The sun will be too hot this day to have wine drugging me, sir.”

Quintus Gaius leaned back in his chair. "I have fought hundreds of men while in the legions and in the arena. I have trained thousands to fight and die in the arena. There are two kinds of men we send there. Those who are eager to go, to gain fame and fortune. Those who are afraid to go and will not fight until forced to do so. You are neither one of these, Calgaich. How do you really think?”

"I am a prisoner,” Calgaich parroted. "A student,
tiro,

in the Great School of Rome. Destined for the arena, where death is to be my business.”

Quintus nodded. “I see. So be it.” He stood up. “Crates!” he roared.

A gray-haired slave came into the room. “Yes, master?”

“Take this sword, the shields and the helmet to the arena.”

Quintus waited until the burdened slave had left the room. “I could not trust you to carry them yourself. Supposing the quaestor Lucius Sextillius, or the golden woman he took from you, might stray a little close to that long-bladed toothpick?” His eyes searched Calgaich’s face in vain for any sign of emotion. There was none.

The gladiator master left the room followed by Calgaich. The sun was brilliant in a clear blue sky. The sound of laughter came from beneath the colored awning at the arena podium. Hundreds of students were walking toward the sunlit common seats of the arena. There were to be no classes that afternoon.

Calgaich looked up at those gathered under the awning as he stopped in front of the podium seats. They were all there—Lucius Sextillius, Aemilius Valens and Tribune Ulpius Claudius, as well as Morar, wearing a sky-blue gown of diaphanous material that hardly concealed her full womanhood. She had taken readily to the daring styles of the patrician ladies of Rome.

Calgaich's eyes caught those of Fomoire, who was seated in the last row of seats behind the highborn audience. The Druid had been taken from the school some weeks earlier, to serve in the villa of Lucius Sextillius. There was no expression on his thin, ascetic face. Calgaich wondered idly what his experiences had been.

The seats across from the party of Aemilius Valens were filled with trainers, instructors and students, both
tirones
and
veteran.
Guidd was there with Lutorius, Niall, Chilo, Loam, Girich and Conaid. Thank the gods that he would not have to fight them, at least. He did not see Lexus, and some of the others, but the seats were filled with hundreds of the school members, and they might be among them. Quintus Gaius had not allowed many of the Dirty Fifty, as he called them, to remain together. It might have been a dangerous policy.

"Gaius!” Valens called out. "We are ready for the performance.”

The gladiator master stood in front of the podium. "Your excellencies, I have arranged a match between this barbarian, Calgaich, and several of our school members, as an exhibition of the Britannic style of swordplay, as opposed to our more formal and stylized types of gladiatorial combat.”

"With wooden swords?” a young Roman called out. He laughed and looked about himself as though pleased with his witticism.

There was no expression on the scarred face of the gladiator master. "The school members will fight with the regulation weapons of the gladiatorial types of combat. The barbarian will be armed with his own native weapons, long-bladed sword and dagger, shield and helmet.”

"How long do you think hell last against one of our Roman boys?” another viewer called out.

"We’ll have to wait and see, sir, won't we?” Quintus replied. "Bastard,” he added beneath his breath.

"To the death?” Ulpius Claudius called out.

"These are valuable men, sir,” Quintus replied.

A tall, middle-aged woman, sitting between Ulpius and a paunchy little man, leaned forward. "That is not an answer, gladiator master!” Her voice was hard and cold.

Quintus looked at Valens. The procurator nodded. "It will be to the death then, Lady Antonia.”

"If this barbarian is as good as he's said to be, it should be no trouble for him!” she called out.

Calgaich looked at Lady Antonia. The words of Lutorius flashed through his mind.
The family money is said to be controlled by the quaestor's elder sister, that is, the Lady Antonia. She is the mother of that pouter pigeon, Tribune Ulpius Claudius. She financed the senatorship of her husband, Mucius Claudius, a spineless jellyfish, so that she could get herself a mouthpiece in the Senate
.
It was she who got Ulpius Claudius his appointment as tribune, on the long chance that he could work his way up to tribune
legatus legionis. The paunchy little man beside her must be the "spineless jellyfish” to whom Lutorius had referred.

"Don't send any of your
tirones
in against him, Oak Tree!” a man shouted. He was already half-drunk.

Crates brought Calgaich’s sword, shield and helmet to him. Calgaich placed the helmet on his head and thrust his left arm through the loops behind the shield. The shield was almost identical in shape and weight with those to which he was accustomed.

“The Oak Tree said you were to drink this, barbarian.” Crates said.

He handed Calgaich a cup of dirty-looking water. Calgaich shrugged. He downed the liquid and made
a
wry face.

“To fall in the arena is to die,” Crates said in a low voice. “This is a charm used by charioteers against such a happening. It is the ashes of boar shit mixed with water. It never fails.” Crates stepped to one side, still holding Calgaich's scabbarded sword.

“What the hell is holding you back, barbarian?” one of the spectators yelled. “Get on with getting spitted like a goose.”

Calgaich looked up at him. “Nothing's holding
me
back, Roman. What's holding
you
back from coming out here to get spitted?”

“Why, damn you!”

The rest of the audience laughed at Calgaich’s quick return, surprised at his command of Latin; but Quintus Gaius was not amused. “Watch your tongue,” he warned.

“Let him watch his own tongue!”

Quintus raised a big fist.

Calgaich smiled a little. “Not out here, Oak Tree.”

Their eyes clashed, and then Quintus almost seemed to smile; a sort of a ghostly thing.

Two men approached the podium. One of them was an instructor, a
doctor retiarius,
or master of the net and trident school of fighting. The man with him was unknown to Calgaich. He was helmetless and carried a net and trident.

“Rodan,” Crates said quietly, looking at Calgaich. “A
veteranus retiarius.
Twelve victories. How many victories do you have, barbarian?”

Calgaich shrugged. “I never counted them.”

Quintus Gaius drew a line on the smooth sand. Calgaich stood on one side and Rodan on the other. The
retiarius
looked impersonally at Calgaich. He was not a big man, but he was tall and of a wiry build, with the look of speed and agility. He wore no armor.

Quintus held up his arms. “A contest,” he called out, “between Rodan,
retiarius,
with twelve victories, and Calgaich, swordsman, and a barbarian. To the death!”

Rodan stepped back from the line and spread his legs apart, balancing easily on the balls of his feet, with his eyes on those of Calgaich. Calgaich reached for his sword. He drew it from the scabbard with a crisp hissing of metal against metal, and then stepped back from the line and raised his shield. He had seen the tactics of the
retiarii
in practice during the weeks he had been at the school.
Retiarii
were usually matched against
secutores,
or gladiators called Gauls, from their type of armor and weaponry. The Gauls were helmeted and wore a light breastplate. They wore a
greave,
or shield of armor, on their left legs, and a metal-linked sleeve on their right arms.

“Three to five on the netter!” one of the spectators called out.

“The barbarian hasn't got a chance,” Valens sneered.

“Fifty to one on the netter then!”

There were no takers.

Quintus walked to one side. He folded his arms across his chest, then nodded at two instructors who stood one on each side of the combat area. They both carried whips.

“To the death!” Quintus cried.

Rodan moved forward, waving
his
trident and heavy net, while he sang the formalized song of the netter:

“I see not you, I seek a fish.

Why do you flee from me, O Gaul?”

Calgaich grinned. “Come closer, fisherman, where you can see that I'm no damned Gaul!”

They circled slowly, never taking their eyes off each other. Rodan leaped forward, and flung out his net. The leaden weights that fringed it opened it out into a perfect circle aimed to settle over Calgaich's head. But Calgaich was not there. The net landed on the sand. Calgaich had leaped aside. He closed in. Rodan retreated, running swiftly while he dragged the net behind him. Suddenly he stopped and whirled, casting out the net low and sideways toward Calgaich’s legs. Calgaich leaped high over the net and landed lightly on the sand. The trident drove in toward his unprotected throat. His sword flashed in the sunlight, parrying the trident.

Rodan leaped backward and drew his net toward himself. As Calgaich charged, he dropped to one knee and thrust the trident upward toward Calgaich's crotch. Calgaich leaped sideways and slapped the trident aside with his sword.