the Beast dodged. A path of blood streaked across the Beast’s chest. ‘First blood to the Ox!’ someone shouted. A smattering of cheers. The changing of coins.
The Beast was bleeding. Arria had never seen such a terrible gash. It began at the tip of his shoulder and split his muscled chest diagonally, concluding at the thick arc of muscle at the top of his hip.
Arria was not the only one stunned by the wound. The Beast himself appeared utterly perplexed by it, as if he had never suffered a single wound in all his life. He stared in wonderment as blood leaked out and began to trickle down his rippling stomach. He appeared to laugh. In that instant, the Ox charged forward. Arria saw her father nod.
The Ox, then, thought Arria. I must pray for the Ox.
But the Beast dived to the ground and rolled over himself and the Ox’s blade missed its target. In a blur of motion, the Beast jumped to his feet and sliced off the Ox’s head.
It rolled to the edge of the ring, hitting the stone wall without a sound.
‘The Beast has won!’ shouted the ringmaster.
The crowd roared. Arria placed her hand over her mouth, willing herself not to vomit.
The slaves emerged from the tunnel and dragged away the Ox’s convulsing corpse. The Beast made no gesture of triumph. He dropped his sword into the bloodstained sand and spat, then stormed past the ringmaster back through the iron gate.
Arria braved a glance at her father. His face ashen, he reached beneath the folds of his toga and produced Arria’s red-leather coin purse.
As her father handed the purse to his companion, Arria pictured its contents: seventy-six beautiful, shiny denarii. She had earned the precious coins from the sale of four carpets—four Herculean efforts of knots and wool, which had required an entire year and nearly all her waking hours to weave.
Her father’s betting companion leaned backwards into the shadows, tucking the purse in a pouch beneath his bulging stomach. He gave her father a friendly clap on the back. Would you like another bet? he appeared to ask.
No, he would not, Arria thought bitterly, for he is utterly ruined.
But her father nodded vigorously and reached beneath his toga once again.
Impossible. Her father was perennially poor. He was a sand scratcher, a circus rat, a man who lingered outside the arenas begging better men for loans. But a glint of gold caught the light and Arria watched in horror as her father held out her mother’s golden ichthys.
It was the most sacred object her mother owned, a gilded fish, a symbol of her strange faith. The fish had once belonged to a Jewish man named Paul who had come to Ephesus many years before to spread something called the good news. He had secretly converted many Ephesians to his new religion, including Arria’s late grandparents.
The golden fish had been her mother’s inheritance and only comfort. She kept it near her bed and each evening she rubbed it lovingly as she mouthed prayers to her singular god and his son, Jesus.
Now the fat man cradled the fish in his palm, measuring its weight. Arria thought of her own mother’s palms, red and chapped from having to take in other people’s laundry. The man lifted the fish to his mouth and tested it with his teeth, one of which, Arria observed, was made of gold itself.
He gave a satisfied nod.
No, no, no. Arria opened her mouth to scream, then bit her tongue. Out of the corner of her eye, the governor’s ghostly toga came into focus. There he was—not a dozen paces away—on the very same side of the pit where she now stood.
She sank back into the crowd. He had not noticed her, thank the gods, for his attention had been fixed on the dozens of coin purses changing hands beneath his gaze.
Arria pushed backwards against the press of bodies, determined to reach her father before the next bout.
But she was once again thrust forward as the men behind her moved towards the ringmaster’s voice. ‘Behold your champion,’ he announced, holding the Beast’s arm aloft, ‘for he is also your next competitor!’ The crowd howled at the unexpected change of rules. ‘Will this champion survive a second bout?’
‘By Jove’s cock he will!’ someone slurred.
‘Two denarii says he pays the boatman.’
‘I’ll wager five,’ shouted another. ‘The man is losing blood!’
And he was. Blood was still seeping from the long diagonal wound that traversed his chest. It had mixed with his blue body paint to produce a sickening shade of green, which had smeared across his ribs like fetid mud.
Blood. There was too much blood. It pooled at the top of his loincloth and streaked across his furry kilt. It dribbled down his giant legs like paint on pillars. It had even smeared atop his bald head.
He gazed up at the crazed spectators in a kind of wonder. If he were not breathing so hard, and bleeding so terribly, he might have been a statue—some splendid, towering ode to the male form. Or he might have been the figure of an ancient god standing there in the sand. A great spirit brought low—cut down by the ugly world.
An aching sadness overtook Arria. The blood. If only she could staunch the flow of it, or somehow wash it all away.
Instinctively, she pulled her handkerchief from her belt. As if such a small piece of cloth could possibly help this man, or any of the gladiators. They were slaves, criminals, captives of war. Their deaths had not been spared, only delayed for the entertainment of the bloodthirsty mob.
‘I give you the Beast’s next foe,’ announced the ringmaster. ‘The Wrath of Syria!’
The man who emerged through the iron gate was shorter than the Beast, but twice his width, with fat arms and legs like twin logs. The Wrath held a tall trident spear, but was without the net that usually accompanied such a weapon. Across his broad forehead were the large tattooed letters of a field slave.
‘Romans, place your bets.’
She watched in resignation as her father gripped the gold-toothed man’s arm, sealing the next bet. Her mother’s ichthys had been staked.
‘Die well, gladiators!’ said the ringmaster.
The Beast circled the Wrath, who was thrashing his trident about wildly, as if he had no idea of how to use it. In a single swing of his sword, the Beast knocked the weapon away. Incredibly, the Wrath did not even attempt to retrieve it. He simply dropped to his knees and awaited the final blow.
The Beast held his blade to the Wrath’s neck and gazed up at the governor, awaiting his command of mercy. But the governor was not even watching. His head was bent over a collection of coins.
‘Iugula!’ someone shouted. Kill him!
Without looking up, the governor drew his finger across his neck. No mercy.
Arria turned away. She hated them—all of them—the ringmaster, the governor, the spectators, the Roman Empire itself. This was not entertainment. This was Roman conquest writ small.
There
