The Emperor's Knives (32 page)

Julianus nodded his agreement.

‘Ah, Flamma. Now there was a gladiator. Never vindictive in the arena, or at least not unless he was given good reason, and such an artist with a sword, big as a house and nimble as a dancer. And you can stop complaining; it took me enough gold to persuade you to come back for one more fight that a little nick like that was well bought and paid for! Add to that the fact that you were convalescing for long enough to travel to Greece and study for your priesthood in the temple of Nemesis.’

Sannitus smiled darkly.

‘And ideas like this one do a lot to convince me that I should have stayed there. You know they’re not ready.’

Julianus raised his hands in protest.

‘Not ready? All three of them bested Hermes without breaking sweat, and he’s
supposed
to be the third best man in the ludus. Why else do you think I went galloping over the hill to see their tribune and make sure they weren’t spinning us a story? What more do you think they need to be “ready”?’

The lanista raised his fingers, ticking off the points one at a time.

‘They don’t understand the rules …’

‘They’re bright boys, all three of them. They’ll learn quickly enough, especially with an experienced hand like you to talk them through it.’

Sannitus shook his head, his lips pursed disapprovingly.

‘They’re still soldiers. Unless we teach them what gladiators do and don’t do to each other in the arena then all they’re good for is hacking a bloody trail through whatever we put in front …’

He fell silent, looking at the man on the other side of the broad wooden desk with a fresh understanding. Julianus nodded.

‘Exactly. This emperor isn’t like his father, Sannitus. Marcus Aurelius used to insist that we made the most economical use of the lads, and that we turned as many of the prisoners we took in into long-termers as were capable of making the change and learning our ways. All his son wants to see is a series of good fights, ceaseless excitement from the first bout to the last, and above all plenty of blood. I’ve already been given very clear instructions from the palace to put on something that will make Commodus sit up and take notice, once we’ve got all the usual animal baiting and bestiality out of the way. Apparently the chamberlain has promised him that we’ll be starting this year’s Roman Games with a series of fights to make the plebs roar with delight, and you know what that means. Dead bodies, nothing more and nothing less.’

He took a sip of his own wine.

‘The Flavian’s procurator has promised me a batch of Dacian prisoners, prime men apparently and all still in good condition, and I was going to tell you to put Hermes and Nemo into the ring against them, but I see no reason to risk our better fighters against a bunch of unknowns. Let’s see what these centurions are capable of against men with nothing to lose, shall we?’

Sannitus shrugged.

‘If you put it like that it doesn’t sound as if we have much choice. Two prisoners apiece?’

Julianus inclined his head in gracious agreement.

‘You’re right, anything more would be pushing our new boys a little too hard the first time out. Two men apiece it is.’

‘Life in the ludus ain’t all as black as Sannitus likes to paint it.’ With the completion of their training for the day, the lanista’s assistant Edius was leading the three centurions to their accommodation, talking over his shoulder as he led them into the ludus’s maze of corridors. ‘Free men, slaves and even the men that scrape out the sewers may all call you scum when they think you’re not listening, but women, on the other hand, will see you as their best chance to get a decent portion of cock once their husbands’ dicks have shrivelled up and dropped off. And let me tell you from experience, having the nail hammered home by a body the likes of which their men could only dream of drives them wild!’

The school’s accommodation took the form of a series of corridors which were lined on both sides with cells barely large enough to accommodate two men, their front walls formed of narrowly spaced iron bars with heavy hinged doors to allow for both access and containment as the situation required. All along the corridor down which he led them, the doors were wide open, and men lounged around both in the cells and the walkway in various states of undress.

‘Not everyone in the ludus is quite as happy as you boys are to be here, but since this is the volunteer block we usually keep the doors unlocked. You two will be sharing this one …’

He pointed Marcus and Horatius at the doorway of a stone-walled room barely big enough for two straw-filled pallets, before turning back to point at another empty cell, gesturing to Dubnus.

‘And you, big man, since we have no one to share with you yet, you get this one to yourself for the time being. One of the slaves will be along with your food soon enough …’ He paused, looking pointedly at the other two, who had walked into their cell and were looking round the small enclosed space with bemused expressions. ‘And you both need to get as much of it down your necks as you can stomach, I’d say. We need to get some fat on you, so that you look like proper gladiators rather than the sad pair of skinny runts you are now, eh? There’s only your mate here that’s got the look of a fighter!’

The two centurions grinned at each other wryly, Marcus shrugging at his new comrade.

‘And there I was making the mistake of thinking that since two years of campaigning in Britannia, Germania and Dacia has left me without an ounce of fat on my body, I’m in perfect condition.’

Edius leaned into their cell with a serious look, wagging a finger at the two men.

‘You’ll learn better soon enough. If you’d not been so fast with your swords I reckon old Sannitus would have told you both to fuck off.’ He shook his head at their baffled expressions. ‘Not big fans of the games, are you?’

The two men nodded, Horatius leaning back against the cell’s stone wall.

‘I was too busy learning my trade to give a toss about a load of fixed fights. There’s not one in ten bouts where the outcome’s not already arranged before they step onto the sand, and after a while you get bored of watching the same fighters with the same tired moves dancing round each other and waiting for the moment when one of them goes down.’

Edius shook his head knowingly.

‘That might be the way where you come from sonny, but this is
Rome.
This ludus is one of the most famous schools in the empire, and our men are expected to put on a show that’ll have the plebs roaring and shouting for more. And that means men sometimes get killed, and more often than not even the victors get cut. Of course a decent swordsman can judge the cut just right, and make his opponent bleed like a stuck pig without actually maiming him, or making it so bad the poor bastard bleeds to death in the arena – not unless they’re really going for it or they hate each others’ guts – but for that to work the other fighter has to have a good layer of fat for him to cut into. See?’

He lifted his tunic, showing the pale lines of scars that criss-crossed his thighs.

‘You boys know as well as I do that one good thrust of a sword into a man’s upper leg’ll kill him inside half a dozen breaths, once you’ve opened the artery in the thigh, but the men I was fighting knew how to keep their cuts shallow. That way we always used to put on a good show, with plenty of blood, but without too many of us ending up face down. After all, nobody wants the cupboard to be empty when the big games like the ones that start tomorrow come round.’

Horatius started.

‘
Tomorrow?
’

The barrel-chested lanista nodded, cracking a wry smile at them.

‘I thought that might make you sit up and pay attention. Tomorrow, my lads, is the start of the Roman Games, the biggest series of games in the entire year as far as the major schools are concerned, with hundreds of fights to be staged between now and the end of the celebrations in two weeks’ time.’ He laughed at their expressions. ‘Don’t worry, no one’s going to throw a bunch of tyros like you into the arena without training you up first!’

Still chuckling, he turned away and left them to it. Marcus and Horatius looked at each other for a moment and then laughed at the same time.

‘A pair of skinny runts?’

Marcus shook his head at the other man’s incredulous tone.

‘It’s a label we may have to learn to love. Now I think about it, just about all of the other gladiators in this place are rather better upholstered than I was expecting. Perhaps we will need to fatten up a bit.’

‘Or perhaps you
won’t.
’ They turned, finding a tall, well-muscled man in a tunic of fine red wool standing in the cell’s doorway with his arms folded. ‘If you’ve got the speed and skill to keep other mens’ blades away from you, then you’ll never need to worry about all that padding that everyone else is carrying. They said the same thing to my brother and I when we walked through those gates, but neither of us ever found any need to stuff ourselves.’

He stood and waited for a response, a slight smile on his face, and Marcus looked back at him for a moment before the realisation of who the newcomer was dawned upon him, a snatched memory of a face seen in the light of torches in the city weeks before, the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

‘
Mortiferum?
’

The other man grinned back at him, shaking his head.

‘No, I’m his brother, as it happens.’

‘You’re Velox?’

The gladiator nodded.

‘You’ll have to forgive the rather bombastic nature of my arena name, but it’s so much easier than trying to persuade anyone to use my real name that I’ve more or less stopped trying.’

Horatius stepped forward and offered his hand to the gladiator, who clasped it and then reached out to repeat the greeting with Marcus, who realised that he was giving a good impression of being awestruck by the man’s presence, even if his main emotion was in reality simple hatred. He took the hand, looking into the other man’s eyes as they clasped.

‘Forgive me, it’s not often that a man gets to meet an arena legend.’

Velox shook his head.

‘We’ll have none of that nonsense in here. Within the ludus we have no adulation, whether contrived or not …’ He paused, looking at them both with a sombre expression. ‘After all, any of us might meet the other on the sand at some point. In here, my friends, we are brothers, from the youngest tyro to the most experienced and deadly man in the place.’

Marcus inclined his head in recognition of the generous sentiment, turning to introduce Dubnus only to find the big man staring over his shoulder down the corridor. Looking round to see what had caught his attention, he realised that a group of three men had gathered around a single woman at the far end of the run of cells. She was wiry, and as tall as the shortest of them.

‘Ah yes.’ Velox’s voice took on a sardonic note. ‘Those of us not disposed towards enjoying each others’ bodies have the choice of either taking a handful of grease and closing their eyes or forcing themselves on the slave girls, which is, after all, what they’re here for. Apparently.’

As they watched, it became clear that the gladiators gathered around the woman were playing with her as a prelude to something much more direct, taking advantage of the fact that she was carrying a bucket of meat stew with both hands and unable to prevent their lewd groping. Dubnus shook his head, his anger evident to Marcus in his narrowed eyes and tight lips.

‘Is that woman assigned to this corridor?’

Velox nodded, speculatively eying the hulking Briton.

‘She is. But if you fancy taking her for a ride you may find there’s something of a queue. You should—’

The Briton brushed past him, striding purposefully down the run of cells with a set in his shoulders that Marcus had seen before.

‘Excuse me brothers, I suspect that this is about to get nasty.’

He slipped past the champion gladiator with a nod, padding quietly after his friend who had stopped a few feet from the scene of the servant girl’s molestation.

‘Get your dirty fucking hands
off
her!’

His booming command silenced the hubbub in an instant, and the three men who were now dragging the woman towards a cell swivelled to face him, one of them the gladiator who had been bested by the three friends that morning. In an instant they were lined up across the corridor with their fists clenched. Hermes stepped forwards, raising his right hand to display his scarred knuckles in an unambiguous threat.

‘And who the fuck do you think you are,
tyro
?’

Dubnus straightened his back, folding his massive arms.

‘I think I’m the man who’s going to put his fist through your face so hard you’ll have to reach back to blow your nose, unless you back down and leave the woman alone.’

Hermes walked forward until he was within a foot of the Briton, who allowed his hands to fall to his sides.

‘Beating me with a
wooden
sword doesn’t give you any rights in here, Briton. Until the day I can meet you with iron and put you in your place, you’d better keep your head down, unless you want to get a quick reminder of just how far down the ladder you are from me. That woman is ours.
Mine.
I’ve fucked her before, and I’ll fuck her again, any time I like. She’s a slave, so I’m free to do whatever I want to her. And when I’m done, these other men will take their turn with her. We’re happy, ’cause we get to empty our balls, and the master’s happy because a happy gladiator is a quiet gladiator.’

‘And the woman?’

Ignoring the dangerous note in the Briton’s question, Hermes threw his arms out wide, turning his head to grin at his audience.

‘The woman? Well she doesn’t get a choice, does she boys? She just gets a regular load of our—’

He didn’t see the punch coming until it was way too late, a fast left-handed hook that smacked him full in the face and bounced him off the wall to his left. The gladiator tottered, groaned once, the long, slow moan of a man who was already no better than semi-conscious, then slumped gracelessly to the corridor’s floor. In the instant before violence erupted, while the men around him were still goggling at the speed and ferocity with which the Briton had put their comrade away, a bellow of command froze them in place.