Chapter Twenty.
Polemos smashed Rufus a good one, the round house connecting nicely with his jaw and sending him flying across the sand to land in a heap. It wasn’t the first time. But he wasn’t bothered by that as much as the fact that it didn’t really hurt. Not much more than an ordinary bump anyway. That bothered him. He was being hit so hard and so often that he should be lying in an emergency room. But for some reason it didn’t seem to hurt him as much any more. And it wasn’t just a lack of pain either. He wasn’t being injured.
But that wasn’t what bothered Polemos.
“Better, but still you let your guard down. Remember. Block and punch, block and punch.” The big man came over and offered him a hand up, and as usual Rufus took it. He wasn’t really upset by being hit by him. At first it had scared him. He’d thought he was going to die. But as the days had gone by, long days of training until his arms felt like limp spaghetti and his breath was coming in gasps, and the sweat was pouring down over more sweat, soaking his clothes and the sand, and he reached complete exhaustion, it had simply become a part of his routine. If you wanted to learn how to fight, you had to learn to take a hit. That at least he was learning.
Polemos was right about that much.
“I know, I know.” And he did. Polemos had told him that again and again, and most times he remembered it. Just not all the time. Not that it would have helped. Polemos knew a million tricks and tactics, and what he was teaching Rufus were just the most basic of them. The most brutal basics.
Rufus didn’t fully understand how he was doing as much as he was doing. It seemed to him that day after day as he was punched, smashed, beaten and then forced to run marathons, swim lakes and climb like a monkey before more drills, that human beings weren’t supposed to be able to do these things. Especially not him. He was weak and quiet, with a slight build and no muscles to speak of. He’d never run a marathon in his life. But he was doing it. Every day.
As Polemos pushed him, urging him on, sometimes swatting him with a training stick when he was too slow or looked like giving up, he somehow kept finding that he could do it. All the things he had never been able to do. And so he could run a marathon, when he’d never run more than a few steps before. He could climb the huge wooden climbing frames and swing like Tarzan from the ropes. He could swim for miles in the small lake without either drowning or resorting to doggy paddle. And he could lift the huge sandbags that had to weigh as much as he did and carry them from one pile to the other. And he could also take a punch that should surely have killed him.
“Polemos, how is this possible?” He’d asked him before of course, many times. And he’d probably ask him again, many more times. And Polemos would tell him nothing. Nothing about where Di was. Nothing about where he was either. Nothing about how he was doing what he was doing. Or why he had to. The man loved to talk, often and loudly, but not it seemed, about anything that mattered.
Rufus still didn’t understand how he even got to the training arena each day. Polemos just picked him up his battered, very battered topless Landrover, and they drove down a few streets, took a couple of corners, and suddenly they were somewhere very different to the rest of town. A massive hall surrounded by a large tract of land for running, hunting and being hunted, playing with weapons like knives and spears, and on a really bad day, climbing through obstacle courses. He hated that. But he didn’t understand how this huge almost wilderness, not to mention the olive grove and the small lake, could be only a few streets away from the house, or that he couldn’t drive there himself. Each time he tried he simply got lost. Magic maybe?
He also didn’t really understand why he was being trained, save that someone called Moirae had asked Polemos to train him, and Polemos had told him in turn that if he wanted to see Di again he would have to do it. That and he seemed to have acquired a lot of enemies of late, and some training in fighting might help. Running fast might help more. Of course a gun might have helped most of all, but the big man just poured scorn on the idea and in any case Rufus had no idea where he could buy one. They simply weren’t available legally and he had no idea where a black market dealer might be. His family were the criminals, not him.
“What?” The big man smiled at him. He was a naturally happy man as Rufus had slowly learned. Happiest most of all when he was he was fighting. Then he was ecstatic. The big man lived for combat in all its myriad forms. “Take some water.” He pushed him over towards the table where the bucket was waiting for him as always. There were no taps with running hot and cold water here. Only a well outside which he had to pump every day.
“I mean how can I keep taking these punches? That last one should have broken my jaw.” It still hurt a bit, and he rubbed at it absentmindedly.
“Why? Did you want it to break your jaw?” Polemos seemed genuinely confused. But then he often didn’t seem to understand Rufus’ point of view. Some days it seemed, he didn’t really understand what it was to be a normal human being. He certainly didn’t understand what it was to know fear or weakness. Such things were completely alien to him.
“No, of course not.” Rufus grabbed the sponge and washed his face and arms down, before filling a rough clay mug with more of the cool water and gulping it down. “But it’s not normal. People don’t get hit like that and just walk away. They get taken away to hospital.”
“You don’t look hurt to me.”
“That’s the point. I’m not. It’s not normal.”
“It’s normal for you.” For once though, instead of pushing back into the middle of the arena and beginning his training again, the big man simply stood there and stared thoughtfully at him. It was a while before he spoke, but that was a good thing as Rufus was still cooling down. He might be able to take a punch and run a marathon, but he still got hot and tired. Besides, the fact that he was thinking meant he might actually be about to get an answer. Rufus waited patiently for him to say something, just in case.
“There are things I can’t tell you. Things that I’m not permitted to. But there are some things you need to know, and I don’t quite know which this falls into.”
“You are a warrior. You have the skills and instincts of our calling. But you have fear, and that fear is what holds you back. It has done so all your life. You have the heart to fight. You have the head to learn how to fight. You are gaining the strength in your body and the practice is teaching your body the moves. But always the fear is there, lurking within you.”
“There can be no fear. You are a fighter. For a fighter there is only the fight. You face your opponent, you attack him with everything you have, nothing held back, and you win or you lose. There is no fear.” He believed what he was saying. Rufus could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. And maybe he had a point. But he hadn’t walked in his shoes and Rufus felt the need to defend himself.
“I was raised in a house of violence. I was beaten often and hard. I was broken many times. -.”
“Stop!” Polemos held up his hand as though he was stopping traffic, his voice like thunder echoing around the great hall. “You are not a child, and those are only excuses. Children make excuses. Fighters make no excuses. You fight, you win or you lose. No excuses.” It was funny how certain he could be as he said it. A man who had never known fear in his life. And it was terrible how right Rufus knew he was. And how little it mattered. He was still afraid. He always would be. His fear had been well earned. But Polemos would never be able to hear that. It was time to change the subject. Again.
“It was Di wasn’t it? When she healed me, she did something to me. She made me stronger.” Of course it was. That was the only thing that made sense, though nothing really made a lot of sense these days.
“When she healed you? Or when she first found you and pulled you out of your shell? Did she change you or did she simply find what was buried there already, hidden deep within you?” Polemos stared at him, and Rufus knew he was serious. Maybe he was right too. Maybe it had been her very presence that had changed him. Why not? With just a smile she could leave him feeling weak at the knees. That was not normal. Was it?
But what was she? Who was she? How could she have done these things to him? And most important, where was she? Was she coming back? Naturally there were no answers. And Polemos wasn’t going to explain. He had said as much as he was going to. Still Rufus had to try.
“But -.”
“Enough talk.” The big man clapped his hands, a sound that even in such a large hall sounded like a thunderclap and ended the conversation. “We train.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. Polemos didn’t make suggestions. And Rufus made his way back to the arena. But halfway there he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
“Not wrestling, punching.” And even as he said it Rufus could see his assistant Alala pushing the huge punching bag over to the side of the room. How she could do that he wasn’t quite sure. She was so tiny, and the bag was huge, and the oak frame that held it firm, larger still. It had to be at least three times her size. But she did it each day, and never once had he seen her break into a sweat or heard her complain that it was too hard. And what sort of a name was Alala anyway? Still she didn’t speak a lot, at least not to him, so he’d never had the opportunity to ask.
They walked over to the massive punching bag and Alala made herself scarce as usual. She never stayed to watch the fighting, and he’d occasionally wondered if it was because he was simply so poor at it that it annoyed her. He probably was. But still he strapped on the funny leather gloves and faced the bag preparing to hit it.
“Hold.” Polemos stopped him before he could start, and then clapped his hands again. Perfectly on cue Alala came out of the side room where the training equipment was stored, carrying a roll of linen under her arm, and then handed it to Polemos. He in turn unrolled it and attached it to the top of the punching bag. He was the only one of the three of them tall enough to. Rufus would have needed something to stand on and Alala a step ladder to reach.
But none of that mattered when he saw what was printed on the linen. It was a picture of his father.
For a second, two seconds or more Rufus simply stared at it, shocked. If there was one man he never wanted to see again it was him. But then as he realised that the image was placed directly over the front of the bag, he understood the purpose. Polemos wanted him to punch him. He said nothing though, just stood beside him waiting patiently for him to begin, and Rufus did just that.
His first punch was poor. All his punches were poor. He simply didn’t seem to have the knack for hitting people. He didn’t want to hit people. At least though he’d finally learned not to have his thumbs balled up inside his fists when he punched. That was a painful mistake to learn from.
“Again.” As always Polemos ordered him to carry on and Rufus did just that. Smashing the bag with ever more enthusiasm. At first it was hard, seeing his father’s face and hitting it. He’d hated him for so long. And more than that as Polemos had said, he’d feared him. But it got easier. Each punch somehow made the next a little less frightening, and soon he was beating the crap out of his father’s face. It was a simple, primitive technique Polemos was using, and a part of Rufus recognised it as a crude device. But it didn’t matter as a larger part simply fell under its spell.
“Harder. This is the man who beat you. Are you going to let him get away with that?” Naturally Polemos was there, urging him on. That was what he did, and at least this time he wasn’t using that damned training stick. And Rufus did all he could to obey. Hitting the bag harder and faster, harder and faster, falling into a rhythm, dancing and punching on the forward lunge as he’d been taught, blocking on the return.
“Is that all? This man hit you when you were a child.” He was right of course, and the rage at the memories of what his father had done to him came flooding back. Behind the control, beneath even the fear there was anger, the same anger he’d always repressed, and the more he hit the bag, the more it seemed to flow.
“He is a monster, a child beater. He must be punished.” Rufus kept smashing his leather clad fists into the bag, over and over again, and somehow instead of becoming tired as he normally did, he seemed to be getting stronger.
“More! Hurt him as he hurt you!” Polemos was shouting by then, his voice echoing around the Palaestra, and strangely he could hear Alala as well. Her strident call echoing through him, sending fire through his blood. He was hitting the bag as hard and as fast as he could, sweat was pouring off him and his breath was coming in ragged gasps, and still he pushed harder, finding new depths of anger in him that he’d never known, and used them like fuel.