prime bait for what they offer—but if you want to indulge, why waste your time on such as these? There are three men I could name who would pay well for your company. Two knights and—’
‘Watch your tongue, Heraculis!’
‘—a senator,’ he continued blandly. ‘Once, when the tines almost speared you, I saw one wince. Of them all, he would be the most generous.’
‘As I will be,’ I snapped, ‘with a whip unless you learn to mind your manners.’
‘Master, I apologise.’ His bow was a mockery. ‘Beat my old bones if it pleases you—but will my blood wash away the truth? A fighter like yourself, as handsome as Apollo and with a body to match: are men stone that they do not appreciate what they see? One night with the senator and you could gain as much as you won in the arena today.’
With a fat commission for himself, no doubt. I stared at him where he stood, then broke into a smile. The man was incorrigible, and it was proof of his cunning that he had managed to live so long. Old, without physical strength, he had used his brains and shrewdness to survive. A trait I could appreciate.
‘You’d sell me like a hunk of meat, Heraculis. You should have been a pander.’
‘Once, in Syria, master, I was. There I learned how to gain from the vices of men. Of women too,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘But the gods did not see fit to give me natural advantages and, well, luck was against me.’
Bad fortune in the shape of the legions, the uprising they quelled, his being taken among the captives sold as slaves. A thing we had in common.
‘Master?’
‘No.’ Greek love had never appealed to me. ‘I’ll be at least an hour. Go to the house of Senontius Papirus and collect our things. Find a lodging in some tavern.’
‘We are leaving, master?’
‘The house, yes.’ I’d already made my farewells and sensed that, perhaps, I’d stayed too long. Too long in the sense that I had begun to feel a stranger, and the wedding had firmed my decision. Delia, understanding, had been gentle. Sentonius, gruff, had agreed that it was time for me to move on. And he had dropped a hint which had confirmed a growing suspicion.
‘Be careful, Atilus,’ he’d said. ‘Some lanistae aren’t to be wholly trusted, but I don’t have to tell you that. I’ve nothing against Arrius Clemens, but, well, maybe you’ve been with him too long.’
A warning which I intended to take.
Naked, my body coated with scented olive oil, I went into the caladarium where Arrius sat relaxing in the heat. The lanista was a big, bulky man now running to fat, his body seamed with ancient scars. Once a gladiator, he had almost died from a wound which had forced him to limp for the rest of his life. Unable to fight, he had gathered a troupe of gladiators and now moved around the provinces with his familia. I had joined him almost a year ago.
‘Atilus!’ He gestured at me through a cloud of steam. ‘Sit beside me and take some of the ache from your bones. I know how it is.’
I sat beside him, breathing deeply, letting the heated vapour enter my lungs. Sweat mingled with the oil on my body, smarting a little as it stung the shallow wound.
‘You fought well,’ said Arrius. ‘Leacus was a good man and deserved better than he got. But what do you expect in places like this? Skill means nothing, all they want is blood.’
‘Couldn’t something have been arranged?’
‘I tried, but you know how Leacus was. Overconfident and his lanista wouldn’t co-operate. The man is a fool.’
And the loser because of it. The prize could have been shared, the charonian whose task it was to check the fallen and make certain they were dead could have been bribed to restrain the hammer with which he crushed the skulls of the wounded. A surface cut which provided plenty of blood, but which would have done no real harm, would have deluded the crowd. Leacus would have lived to fight again.
Perhaps he had expected to live. I remembered his dying gasp, the expression in his eyes as my sword had plunged home. But if an arrangement had been made, I’d known nothing of it.
Arrius rubbed an old scar. It writhed over the upper part of his right thigh and up halfway across his stomach. The wound which had crippled him for life.
‘Did I ever tell you how I got this?’ He pressed on without waiting for my answer. ‘A mistake I made at Pompeii during the time of Emperor Claudius. The god Claudius, I should say, since he was deified by the Senate. It was about the time he invaded Britain, which would make it,’ he paused, ‘thirteen years ago now.’
‘Sixteen,’ I corrected.
‘As long ago as that?’ Arrius shrugged. ‘Well, time flies as they say, but are you sure?’
I had reason to remember.
When the Romans had invaded Britain under the personal command of Claudius, I had been a boy of ten. A child of the Iceni who had stood with his mother in the stronghold at Brentwood with the assembled forces under Caractacus. The legions had beaten us and made Britain with its treasures a province of Rome. My mother had been raped and murdered. I had been taken captive and sold into slavery. A servitude which had lasted eleven years. Which had ended only when, as a gladiator-slave, I had won the rudis, Nero himself handing me the symbolical wooden sword, together with my freedom.
‘A mistake,’ said Arrius, determined to tell his story. ‘The worst I ever made. Take my advice, Atilus and never forget to sacrifice to the gods before entering the arena. I didn’t and, each time I take a step now, I’m reminded of my negligence by the gods I ignored. The gods and Malcenus.’
Again he rubbed at his scar and I wondered why he was telling me this. Talk, to some men, is a mask, a means to hide their thoughts. To others it is a weapon, a way to lull and to delude. We had never been close and I was suspicious of his sudden friendliness.
‘Malcenus,’ said Arrius. ‘He was one of a pair of postulati fighting in full armour, armed with a sword and lead mace and willing to take on all-comers with the weapons of their choice. I was a retiarius then, though you wouldn’t think it to see me now, and I was confident I could take him. Well, Malcenus was clever and built like a stone tower. Heavy but fast with it, and he used a curved sword like a sica, but longer. Something he’d had made for him in Damascus, and he certainly knew how to use it. I tried to wear him down, then finally had to go in. I managed to get the net over his head and, when he started to move, I thought it was all over. But he fooled me. Instead of falling, he followed the pull of the net and used that sword of his to slash the mesh. I did my best with the trident, but it was like poking a crab with a needle. Then he cut the shaft and I was left with nothing but a shred of net, a stick, and a dagger.’
He fell silent, thinking, remembering, his hand caressing the scar. To him the heat of the room had become the warmth of the sun, the murmur of conversation from those around us the scrape of sandals against sand, the yells coming from the tepidarium outside, where someone was having the hairs plucked from his body in the cooler room, became the shouting of the crowd.
A moment I respected and then, as he shuddered, said, ‘He got you?’
‘He got me.’ Arrius was grim. ‘He almost cut me
