MORITURI
by POLYBIOS
PART ONE - THE ARENA
So let us have some fighting now,
and no more speeches.
THE ILIAD
I.
This was Ostia, the center of Mediterranean commerce: one hundred and
sixty acres of moorings to which all the Empire's ships came, eager to cough up
their various loads. It was mid-morning, and the quays were already full of
people - workers still pouring in from the Via Ostiensis, mixing with clerks,
customs officers, owners of vessels and goods, all jostling on the jetties with
passengers and porters. Merchants, sailors, pimps and prostitutes thronged the
wine stores and waterfront taverns, exchanging gossip, bartering or just having
their pre-lunch drinks. Soldiers and marines forced their way through the crowd,
eagerly searching out the ladies of the town, while barkers at the booths and
stalls carried on their roaring trade.
It was a cloudy day on the Kalends of April, but now and then a ray of
sun slanted through the clouds, illuming the busy scenery, picking out a small
group of men in the middle of this waterfront turmoil. Flavius Autronius was
standing on one of the quaysides, accompanied by several attendants, waiting for
the owner of the ship that moored there. The Thetis, for that was the sturdy
little galley's name, had just arrived from Massilia where she had picked up his
precious load, and Flavius was visibly anxious to learn whether the goods would
come up to his expectations.
A stout little man emerged at the top of the gangway. "Flavius!" he
exclaimed with a broad smile, coming down the plank with his arms widely spread.
He was a merchant who knew how to ensnare his customers, but Flavius didn't let
himself be taken in by the man's professional affability. Being the owner of one
of the Empire's most famous fighting schools, Flavius was in constant need of
fresh recruits for the gladiatorial ring, and thus was one of the slave trader's
best customers.
"Balbinus," he returned the greeting in a reserved manner, ignoring the
man's eagerness to please. "Had a good trip? Everything right with my chattels?"
"Of course, of course," Balbinus hurried to appease his grim business
partner. "Things couldn't be better."
Flavius was a middle-aged man of solid build who had put on some weight,
too, but whereas Balbinus was merely fat, the muscles in Flavius' arms told
their own story. He was a former gladiator himself who had won more than one
hundred fights before he had been liberated by personal decree of the Emperor,
and his self-confident bearing bespoke every inch of his glorious fighting past.
His hair had whitened early due to the exhilarating thrill of battle, and the
generous girth which stretched the belt of his richly embroidered blue tunic,
along with his restlessly roving gaze suggested a man of ravenous appetites.
After his emancipation, he had decided to use his talents as a gladiators'
manager, and soon his fighters had become as notorious as he had been before he
had retired from his career in the ring.
"I'll show you the stock," Balbinus said and clapped his hands,
indicating to the sailors who still stood at the top of the gangway that it was
time to discharge. A small group of men, six in total, was marched along,
followed by a girl, and chains rattled over the planks as they all came down and
lined up at the quayside, ready for their new owner's inspection.
"This is Arminius," Balbinus introduced them, pointing at the first man
in the row, a brawny giant with short-cropped sandy hair. "A deserter. He served
in the auxiliaries of the Fourth Legion before he decided to change sides and
join his rebellious brothers on the other bank of the Rhine." He pointed towards
the three bearded, wild-eyed men next in the line who looked more like Teutonic
barbarians than the ex-legionary.
Flavius had expected something like that. Most of the recruited fighters
had been taken as prisoners of war, and the fierce Germans indeed showed good
promise of putting up brave fights in the amphitheatre.
"The two Numidians I bought from the salt mines of Carthage," Balbinus
continued, tilting his head at the two emaciated black men. "They'll certainly
meet your requirements."
Flavius regarded the malnourished Africans cautiously, before deciding
that the healthy fare he fed his recruits would soon restore their natural
vigour. Life in the mines was nasty, brutish and short, so any mine slave would
prefer anything to the hopelessness of knowing that only death would put an end
to his ceaseless toil. Life expectancy in the amphitheatres might be low, too,
but at least there was the small chance of being pardoned after several seasons
of bravery, and the two Africans looked determined enough to grasp that chance.
"No women?" Flavius asked, ignoring the dark-haired prisoner at the end
of the line, although he had noticed her supple body and beautiful features.
Since there had recently been a growing demand for new attractions, he had even
decided to train female combatants, but this one was so small and thin that it
seemed inconceivable that she could survive for long in the arena. She appeared
to be little more than a girl, but despite her seemingly youthful innocence
there was something depraved in her eyes.
"Oh, yes," Balbinus replied, irritated by Flavius' ignorance. "This one.
Selia, from Corduba." He seized the girl by the arm and compelled her to step
forward. "The local magistrate had sentenced her ad bestias for murdering her
master, so she's supposed to know how to kill."
"I'm intrigued," Flavius retorted disparagingly. Unlike the men, most of
the female fighters were recruited from the ranks of condemned criminals, whose
offenses ranged from murder to arson; but although this indicated a certain
wickedness, it didn't necessarily indicate fortitude. "She probably poisoned
his wine," he scoffed, giving the slender girl from Baetica, the Iberian
province north of the Pillars of Hercules, another interested glance. "She
wouldn't need to be much of a fighter to do that!"
"But isn't she beautiful?" The corpulent merchant exclaimed proudly.
"The men will love her!" Balbinus turned to the comely Spaniard and addressed
her crudely, "Well, show the great Flavius Autronius what you've got, girl! By
the trident of Neptune, I'll warrant that it won't be the first time a man's
seen that pretty body!"
Selia turned away from the coarse merchant as he tried to grasp her, but
it seemed to Flavius that she did so more in an effort to evade Balbinus'
groping paws than to preserve her modesty, because a moment later, she gave her
prospective master a rather brazen look and unashamedly opened her tunic
herself. Flavius drank in the sight of the alluring pair of breasts thus
revealed, which were not overly large, but beautifully dark-tipped and blessed
with the firmness of youth. But while he was not unsusceptible to the girl's
female charms, it was her awkward attempt to cast him a languorous glance that
settled it for him.
"What about it, my friend?" Balbinus asked with a possessive leer, as if
he were showing off a rich piece of brocade. "Lovely as a wood nymph, isn't she
- look at those slender legs!" he enthused. "You know me, Flavius - I sell
nothing but the choicest goods!"
"Lovely," Flavius commented, stressing the word the merchant had used in
mock fashion, but his voice could not conceal his disgust at the girl's
eagerness. "Has it occurred to you that I'm running a fighting school, not a
brothel?!"
Flavius was quite disappointed with the results of his search for female
recruits. He was forced once again to realize that candidates who combined the
indispensable qualities of youth, attractiveness, a hardy physique, and an
abundance of fighting spirit were as rare as underfed senators. But then his eye
fell on the bedraggled bunch of galley slaves who were being led down the
gangway.
"By Hades, what's that??!" he called out, pointing at the group - there
was one woman amongst the oarsmen, clearly too lightly built for this pursuit
and obviously not yet hardened to the bench. Like the others, she was all but
naked, wearing only a meagre beige-brown loin-cloth that was little more than a
shredded rag, rusted chains that led to wrist-chafing shackles, and hobbling
metal manacles that linked her slender ankles. "Since when do you use female
galley slaves?"
"Oh, actually she's no galley slave," Balbinus replied, obviously
embarrassed. "I bought her as a house slave, but she couldn't be more rebellious
if she were the daughter of Spartacus! I thought a tour of duty on the rowing
bench might teach her the proper respect."
"Interesting method to win a woman over," Flavius stated sarcastically.
"Do you mind allowing me a closer look at this troublesome slave?"
"If you like," Balbinus answered evasively. "But she's not for sale," he
added quickly and called to his men to bring her forth.
Flavius cast an appraising eye over the blonde girl who was pushed
before him, splendid in her exhaustion, the sweat of her back-breaking toil
fresh upon her. Stress and fatigue had left their marks in her beautiful face,
whose high cheekbones presaged the proud nature that must have brought her into
this predicament. Her long lank hair was tangled and fell in damp strands over
her big blue eyes, but despite her state of exhaustion, her demeanour was alert.
She met his gaze, neither hostile nor furious, but with an almost provocative
indifference.
Her body was seamlessly tanned as a result of her life on board ship,
and although she was slightly underweight from her prolonged toil, her leanness
hardly detracted from her fine physique. Flavius looked her well-proportioned
figure up and down, admiring her long, slender, nicely curved legs, the concave
curve of her bottom, lingering longest on her tempting breasts.
The young woman's stint at the oars had given her upper body a
marvellous muscle-tone, made even more appealing by the delicious support and
contrast it offered to the sublime softness of her breasts. Opulent for so
slender a torso, they rose gently toward rich, pinkish-brown nipples that
protruded pertly from their crinkled coronae, tempting Flavius to visualise
those luscious mounds in motion. He felt his manhood stir as he pictured the
blue-eyed beauty tugging at her oar, her muscles rippling, her sinews taut,
bending forward from the waist at each stroke - he could truly appreciate why
Balbinus was trying to withhold this magnificent specimen of womanhood!
"What's her name?" he asked Balbinus as if she weren't present, trying
to conceal the effect her female charms had on him, but the girl forestalled
Balbinus with her reply.
"The name is Taleena," she said in a firm, almost sharp tone. For a
slave, it was a sign of disrespect to speak without being asked, but Flavius let
that pass.
"So you understand Latin," he stated, now addressing her directly,
"where do you come from?"
"I'm Avernian," she said, and Flavius noticed the pride in her voice
when she spoke of her origin. "And yes, I speak your tongue," she announced
proudly. "When did one of you Romans ever bother to learn ours?"
Everyone could make out the reproach, but Flavius tended to take a
favourable view of the Gaul's bitter attitude; at least it was free of
self-pity.
"Let me see your back," he ordered, merely to test her reaction.
The Gaul hesitated for a moment before she obeyed, staring at him as if
to convey that she could have opposed him, but chose not to by her own volition.
Then she turned slowly, to the harsh accompaniment of jangling fetters,
presenting her slender and pliable back. The deep furrow along her spine
disclosed that she must have spent quite some time on the rowing bench, as did
the fresh welts that she bore upon her skin as a result of her recent journey.
Flavius was fascinated, by both her natural beauty and the
self-confidence in her bearing, the latter being all the more remarkable for a
woman wearing little more than chains. "She looks perfect," he stated, "why are
you trying to withhold her from me?"
"I'm not withholding her," Balbinus protested defiantly, "she's just not
for sale. I'm..."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Flavius cut him short. "You're a businessman -
let's do business! I'll pay you five thousand sesterces for this girl, plus the
price you had in mind for the others. I'll even take the other girl you tried to
fob me off with, as a courtesy - and you'd better not haggle about the price if
you want to maintain our business relationship!"
The heavy-set slave-trader shrugged his rounded shoulders in feigned
resignation. Flavius always drove a hard bargain, but the price he had offered
for the Gaul was generous - actually, it was far more than he himself had paid
for her. And since even the rowing bench had failed to make her drop her proud
pretence, let someone else be plagued with her recalcitrance! Besides, the price
he had had in mind for the others had just risen; he was a merchant, after all.
"Well, that would be twenty-nine-thousand sesterces, then," he said with
a glint in his eyes. "Have we a bargain?"
"Agreed," Flavius confirmed.
II.
The little wagon caravan passed through the town of Praeneste in the
early afternoon. Flavius rode on the front platform of the lead wagon whilst the
newly-purchased slaves sat crammed in the second, whose windows were lined with
bars on front, rear and both sides. A third wagon followed, filled with
provisions and other goods they had picked up at Ostia.
The caravan had left the Via Latina and rumbled over a stony country
road whose unpaved, uneven surface rendered the last stage of the journey quite
taxing for the fully-laden wagons. On one side of the road rolling hills dotted
with olive trees stretched into the distance, while the land on the other side
was flatter, more suitable for the vineyards which were the pride of the region.
After half an hour or so, the party found itself approaching the grand
complex of buildings that housed Flavius' fighting school. There were several
schools in the region, all of which competed with the more famous ludi
gladiatori around Capua, but Flavius had decided on Praeneste due to its
proximity to Rome. Supplying the games with his men had made him a prosperous
man with the means to buy the old, Etruscan estate everyone in the nearby town
simply knew as 'the arena'.
The most arresting feature of the outer perimeter of the walled estate
was the huge iron gate that marked the entrance. The two panels of the gate
were topped by facing images of Janus, the two-headed god of doorways and new
beginnings, whose stern faces welcomed the prospective gladiators to their new
life within.
The heavy barred gates had been unlocked and thrown open by the time
they arrived, and the wagons passed into a huge courtyard inside the walls which
opened into a quadrangle of nearly half an acre in size. The surrounding
buildings were constructed of ancient, rough-cut stone, and doves slept in the
mild April sun on red pantiled roofs. Everything about the place looked
well-kept and neat, yet the faded grandeur of the architecture exuded a slightly
morbid atmosphere.
Opposite the entrance gates lay the long wing of an L-shaped, two-story
villa whose main wing faced a grand, and much newer, bathhouse which smoke
wreathed skyward from some sort of interior furnace. Two other buildings
extended on either side of the imposing gates and completed the compound-like
structure of the place, the larger one to the right containing stables and
accommodations for the guards, the one to the right which adjoined the main wing
housing a smithy.
An oval cinder track within the yard enclosed an arena where a dozen
fighters were engaged in battle practice. One grim Phoenician was hurling
fist-sized stones at another equally fierce-looking man who parried them with a
small round shield, while others took turns lunging at each other with wooden
swords or other weapons. Two ginger-haired, Celtic girls, obviously twins,
sought to improve their swordplay by attacking a straw figure, and a tall and
wiry Nubian woman armed with a trident and a net practised the proper handling
of that peculiar weaponry.
House slaves began to unload the purchased goods while armed guards
supervised every move of the newcomers who climbed down from the slave wagon,
prodding them, grabbing their chains to pull them to the smithy in the left
corner of the compound. Those ground-level guards were armed with gladii, the
short, broad, double-edged swords that were used in the Roman army, while other
guards, stationed at half a dozen points on the roofs, had Syrian short bows
slung over their shoulders.
Only one individual was not swept up in this bustle of activity - a
pock-marked young man, no more than a boy, really, blue-garbed like his fellow
guards. The gangly youth lounged against a fence post, his leering eyes darting
back and forth between the new female recruits, until one of the senior guards
pushed him on the shoulder and told him roughly to lend a hand or get out of the
way.
The fighters in the arena had interrupted their training to watch the
newcomers being freed from their chains with hammer and chisel. After his
fetters were broken, each slave had to straddle the anvil to be branded on the
side of the right thigh, following which his wrist chains were also removed.
Muffled screams could be heard, and when the Spanish girl was branded, she
screeched frantically, and collapsed into the arms of the guards that held her
as she lost consciousness.
The fighters watched closely, rating the fortitude of the novices by
their reactions. Flavius, too, had taken a position on the balcony of the main
building, from which he could overlook the area below where the preparations
were going on apace. He was not surprised by the hysterical outburst of the
young Spaniard, but was particularly interested in the behaviour of the Gaul.
His two lanistae - trainers of swordsmanship - had joined him so that
they, too, could get a first impression of the new recruits. On his left stood
Calixtus, a bald man of stocky build with rolls of flesh rippling in his neck,
and a fierce-looking scar across the left side of his face. He was a veteran who
had served his duty in the Gemina Martia Victrix, the Fourteenth Legion whose
men had covered themselves in glory by beating off the Germans at Moguntiacum.
He had held the rank of centurion as a drill instructor, but since Rome failed
to provide more than a subsistence living to her meritorious veterans, Calixtus
had chosen to eke out his meagre pension. He had the intimidating demeanour of
a bully, and thus had found his ideal calling as a lanista in a fighting school.
The other lanista was Byrria, from Thrace. She had been brought to Rome
amongst other rebels after the Thracian revolt had been put down, first to be
paraded as a spectacle, then to be crucified at the Field of Mars as a ghastly
tribute to the Roman triumph. She had not hesitated, when she had been offered
the option of fighting for her life in the arena, to choose it.
Facially, Byrria resembled one of those Eastern princesses whose
beautiful, mysterious looks had seduced more than one Roman general, turning
their bloody campaigns of conquest into more friendly takeovers. Her dark eyes
were exotically almond-shaped, smouldering beneath boldly curved brows, and her
olive complexion was complemented by a mane of dark, wavy hair, worn tied back
in a ponytail except for two corkscrew strands which fell over the ears.
Like Calixtus, she was clad in a tunic of Flavian blue, hers tautly
stretched in diagonal folds across her ample bosom, tightly enclosed by a broad
belt around her slim waist, revealing her long and shapely legs.
Both lanistae carried daggers stuck in their belts, but those were not
their only weapons. Byrria carried a menacing crop while Calixtus had placed a
vitis, the vine cane which symbolized a centurion's command in the legion, under
his arm, to signify the trainers' right to inflict corporal punishment.
"Look at that Gaul," Flavius exclaimed, visibly proud of his bargain,
glancing down at the smithy where Taleena was due to receive her brand.
The blue-eyed Avernian had shouldered herself free of the guards who
were trying to hold her in position and now stood above the anvil in her skimpy
rower's costume, proud and tall and seemingly indifferent to the movements of
the stiff-legged blacksmith who slowly drew the white-hot iron out of the
brazier.
As he watched the blacksmith limp awkwardly toward the gorgeous,
bare-breasted Gaul, Flavius Autronius was reminded of Vulcan, god of fire and
forging, the lame and ugly son of Jupiter, who had unaccountably won Venus, the
most beautiful of goddesses, for his wife. The strange contrast between the
ill-featured smith and the lovely galley slave seemed to give the moment an
added intensity, and Flavius had to struggle to control his agitated breathing
as he watched the man with the white-hot brand approach his newest and most
enticing acquisition.
Down in the yard Taleena, too, strove to steady her racing pulse as she
felt the scorching heat of the branding iron inching closer to the soft skin of
her right thigh. She knew from her experience on the galley that captors and
comrades alike would judge her by this first impression, so she steeled herself
not to scream, no matter how excruciating the agony.
On the Thetis, galley slaves had always sought to prey upon those whom
they judged to be weak; nothing comforted those hapless wretches more than
shedding, however briefly, their own inferiority and exerting power over someone
even weaker. When the scum who constituted the crew of the ship had had their
opportunity to exploit her helplessness they had seized that opportunity with a
perverse and predatory ruthlessness that she would never forget. In this
ghastly place, it was possible that the hierarchy might be even more rigid than
at sea, and any frailty she might show could only make her new plight even
worse. She had been well aware of the lewd grins on the faces of the guards when
they had positioned her above the anvil, but she had ignored them, staring
across the yard at the villa, trying to concentrate on an oddly-shaped roof
tile, even though she could still feel their leering, lingering gaze on her
nearly nude body. She would show them what an Avernian was made of!
Taleena closed her blue eyes and braced herself a split-second before
the white-hot tip of the iron came in contact with her upper thigh, and then a
single frightful surge of pain coursed through her, dispelling every thought in
her mind and every sense in her body, replacing them with agony distilled to its
purest essence. Her head was thrown back and her body was jerked into a
dreadful rigidity by the sudden blinding pain. Her jaw clenched as she gritted
her teeth so tightly that her chin began to tremble while the acrid stench of
burnt flesh - her flesh - filled her nose. But by summoning courage from some
untapped reservoir, she managed to withhold the scream that wanted to burst from
her lips while the blacksmith counted slowly up to three before he withdrew the
iron. Even then the throbbing pang continued to grow, radiating outward from the
burnt spot, but the seemingly unimportant victory - that of suppressing her
scream - caused her heart to rejoice as her body slowly relaxed from its recent
rigidity.
Taleena could tell that the men who surrounded her were quite astonished
by her stoic display of fortitude that rivalled that of the most celebrated
heroes of Roman history. The ill-featured blacksmith stared in disbelief at the
branding iron in his hand, while the two guards were taken aback in awe for some
moments before they ordered her to kneel down so that they could remove her
wrist chains.
One of the guards was the loitering youth who had watched the female
newcomers with such undisguised interest a little earlier, but who had stepped
forward eagerly to help out when it had been the Baetican girl's turn to be held
fast while the blacksmith had performed his cruel task. He was two or three
years younger than Taleena, and when he shoved down on her hips, he furtively
slid his restless fingers over the puckering lines of the fresh scar on her
smooth thigh, as if to assure himself that the blacksmith's fiery tool had been
heated enough to mar her flesh. While his face remained impassive - no doubt for
the benefit of Flavius and his lanistae who watched from the balcony above - the
bulge under the youth's tunic revealed the nature of his thoughts more clearly
than a facial expression ever could. And there was an eerie glow in his eyes
that was of such intensity that it made Taleena shiver in spite of the heat that
radiated from the brazier.
The hiss of the flame had been heard up on the balcony, and Flavius
looked at his instructors to see whether they had taken note of this impressive
example of fortitude. Prominent lines of burnt skin were resplendent on the
brave Gaul's right thigh, just beneath her curvaceous hip, forming the small
purple lettering 'LF' that from this day forward would mark her as the property
of the Ludus Flavianus.
"Take care with her," he said gravely. "Her pride makes her strong, but
it also makes her unpredictable."
* * *
Supervised by the guards, whose beady eyes never left the newcomers, the
recruits lined up beneath the balcony to listen to Flavius' introductory speech.
They had been taken to the baths where they had been thoroughly scrubbed and
were now glistening with oil. The tonsores - slaves trained as barbers and
hairdressers - had cut and shaved their hair and trimmed the men's beards, and
they had been fitted out with their new, but sparse attire: All of them wore the
subligaculum, a plain white loin-cloth which was held around the hips by a broad
leathern belt, and while the men were naked to the waist, the women were also
allowed the strophium, a rough muslin strip worn to support the breasts.
"Morituri!" Flavius addressed the lined-up recruits. "Does anyone know
what that means?" Flavius looked from face to face in the audience, but when he
got no response continued "'those who are about to die' - the term gladiators
use for themselves when they salute the emperor." He examined the faces of the
future fighters, looking for any reaction, until his gaze came to rest on
Taleena. The tonsores had done their work well, for now her shoulder-length hair
had been washed and combed and braided into loose plaits which gave her austere
face a more girlish cast.
There she stood with her feet slightly apart, her long and slender legs
merging into womanly hips, tapering to a slim waist before gently broadening
into a pair of softly rounded shoulders, well-muscled from her recent stint as a
galley slave. Her bearing was proud and erect, thus thrusting the alluring
curves of her breasts into bold relief against the fabric of the strophium which
strained to contain their fullness - a fullness which contrasted so enticingly
with her lissom strength of limb that he almost had to tear himself away from
this erotic vision of loveliness, lest he should forget to proceed with his
speech.
"You're not gladiators yet," he continued then, "but those of you who
pass the forthcoming training soon will be. Your basic training will last six
weeks, which will be spent on developing your physical condition and teaching
you the basic knowledge of swordplay as it is performed in the gladiatorial
ring. Those who fail to meet the requirements will be sold as fodder for the
animal fights in the arena, so if you don't want your bones to be crushed in a
lion's jaws, I suggest that you attend to your lanistae closely and train each
day as if your life was at stake." The former champion gave the candidates a
meaningful stare before continuing. "For one day soon, it will be."
"Those who pass the basic training will then specialize in the specific
weaponry which they will use in their fights. The training methods here are
excellent, as are the food, hygiene, and medical care. You will benefit greatly
from these if you work hard and make the progress we expect you to make."
This was true. The bodily well-being of his fighters was a matter of
utmost importance to Flavius, for only a healthy fighter brought in the right
purses and, in their wake, pride and prestige to his school and its proprietor.
The food, therefore, was always that best suited to the development of strong
muscle and sinew. Flavius had a small staff of unctores who served under the
watchful eye of a renowned physician, who saw to it that the diet was strictly
observed and who tended to any wounds or injuries. Skilled masseurs were charged
with the task of moulding the fighters' flesh to a desirable firmness, for all
attention was directed toward one goal - the production of a superior fighting
animal who would provide good sport in the arena.
"But make no mistake," Flavius went on, raising his voice, "you'll
undergo the harshest drill in the beginning. If we can break you too easily,
you're of no use for our purposes. And break you to some extent we will!
Discipline will be rough, which means that you owe your instructors absolute
obedience. Every offence, every insubordination will be severely punished!"
He directed his two trainers to step forward. "This is Calixtus, your
chief-instructor, and this is Byrria, his assistant, who will take care of the
women. They will inform you of the rules and the details of the training process
in due course. Once you have completed your instruction, you will embark on your
careers in the ring. In all likelihood, yours will be a short life, but each of
you has the chance to make it a glorious one! The very few who have sufficient
strength and courage, and are blessed with the favour of the gods, may even
obtain their freedom one day!"
He paused a moment to let that magic word sink in to his audience. "But
speaking of freedom," he then continued with insistence, "your only route to
freedom is through death - your own, or those of the men you vanquish for the
pleasure of the crowd. There's no hope for an escape. Any such foolish attempt
will end at the cross!" He paused again, pointing towards the solid T-cross
which stood ominously in front of the staff building.
"The training will start tomorrow," Flavius finished his speech. "You
will be taken to your cells now. Use the coming hours to prepare yourselves for
the challenges ahead."
* * *
The recruits found accommodations in the basement of the staff building
where cells were aligned on both sides of a long corridor. Taleena's cell faced
the courtyard, and since the basement was not completely subterranean, a square
of light fell from the small, barred window at the ceiling onto the floor,
providing a small amount of illumination for the room.
The quarters were austere to the point of hardship, with no provision at
all being made for the occupant's comfort. Taleena's tiny room contained only a
plank bed covered with a thin blanket, a table and a chair, and yet it was a
luxury indeed for one who had spent most of the nights during the last three
months sleeping at an oar. If her day had taken its normal course, she would
have found herself amongst the other galley slaves, locked in some stinking
warehouse at the harbour, there to lie amidst filthy straw and try to sleep away
the rigours of the day.
As it was, she felt clean and refreshed by her bath - the first one she
had had for months apart from an occasional douse with sea water. Before the
bath the attendants had used powdered lime to scald away body lice and other
unwanted parasites, and when the cleansing had been done, the unctores had taken
great care to treat the minor injuries she had sustained on the galley -
callused hands and sore buttocks, feet bruised from the pressure of the pull,
back burning from the sting of the whip. The examination had been a shameful
procedure, though, and when the tonsores had shaved her armpits and trimmed her
pubic hair, she had hardly been able to cope with their offensive remarks.
Judging from their brightly-coloured garments and affected speech and gestures,
Taleena assumed that her femininity was of little interest to her attendants;
even so, however, their handling of her like meat at a butcher's, was hardly
better than the lewd remarks to which she had become accustomed in the galleys.
But at least, none of the men had tried to take advantage of her situation in
any way, and aside from the verbal abuse, there had been no indecent assaults.
After all, the soothing balms had done much to ease her pain and her
stiffness, and the fragrant oil that had been applied to her body made her feel
like a new woman, as did the fresh garments that she had put on to replace her
dirty rags
The pleasant feeling that rose within her was enhanced by the knowledge
that at last she was free of the chains that she had worn for so long. But this
realization was eclipsed by the still throbbing pain in her right thigh. She ran
a fingertip across the puckered relief of the branding that was emblazoned
there, and tears brimmed in her eyes at this blatant reminder her of her
unchanged status. She might have escaped the galley, but she was still a slave,
and the red-hot engraved lettering symbolized that in a most flagrant, permanent
way.
Taleena had been sold into slavery at the tender age of sixteen, but she
had never admitted to herself that this should render her - a virtuous, bright
girl, ambitious and sometimes determined to the point of obstinacy - a nonperson
without rights. And during the four years whilst she had served her socage as a
kitchen-maid in the household of a Roman senator, she had not felt like a slave.
She had been treated with respect by the members of the senatorial family, just
as any other diligent and sincere servant of the household, and she had even
profited from the patron's high belief in education. She had spent as much time
in the company of the senator's sons' tutor, a Greek named Eudocles, as their
duties had permitted, listening with rapt attention to the countless tales the
old man recounted of the divinities and heroes of Greece and Rome. Those had
been good times, Taleena thought wistfully, while a lump formed in her throat at
the thought of how the Fates had turned against her since then, allowing her to
fall into the loathsome grasp of Balbinus, who had stripped her of everything
she held dear.
She sat down on the bed, and as her eyes roved over her Spartan room she
tried to convince herself that her new situation was at least an improvement on
the most recent episode in her life. The rowing bench had been intended as a
temporary punishment to cure her of her recalcitrance, but it had turned out to
be a lasting measure when even the strain of fatigue and the anguish of torment
had failed to dent her bottomless contempt for Balbinus, who had sentenced her
to the galley because she had refused to submit to his obscene lust. The utter
hopelessness of her situation, the knowledge that there was no relief from the
back-breaking toil, the corporal and sexual abuse, unless she gave in, had
become hopelessly depressing, and while her gallant will did not desert her, the
monotony of the endless hours of rowing had begun to exert a blunting effect on
her mind. Even at rest she had caught herself going through the motions - an
unending dip, pull, clear, push forward, dip and pull again - and with the
passing of time this endless routine would have rendered her inevitably into
another one of those dull and mindless creatures that manned the oars, apathetic
to their destiny.
Her new situation at least offered a goal beyond mere survival. In his
speech to the recruits Flavius had mentioned that freedom itself was possible.
Taleena remembered the stone image of Janus which had welcomed the wagon caravan
at the entrance gate of the Flavian compound. To her it seemed as if one of the
god's faces looked back gravely at her dreadful recent past, while the other,
forward-looking face peered into the unknowable future, offering the prospect,
at least, that she might taste the freshness of freedom again one day, if she
could but survive long enough. That idea imbued her with new hope and for a
moment her heart was light - until she heard the cacophonous clanging of swords
in the courtyard which made her come to the sombre conclusion that she would
have to kill to secure her liberty. As she listened to the chilling sounds
outside, she realized that she would have no choice but to live up to the
barbaric code that Flavius had outlined in his address. She shivered inside at
the thought, but then pulled herself together. A caprice of the implacable Fates
had brought her to this fighting school, to the Ludus Flavianus whose initials
were so cruelly emblazoned on her skin; now it was up to her to meet the gods'
challenge.
A faint smile lit her face at the fond memory of Eudocles - the old man
had always seemed to her as if he were a fountain from whom useful maxims and
words of wisdom flowed as freely as the melting snow of springtime. "Fortes
fortuna juvat," he had counselled her many times while he recounted his exciting
tales of timeless heroes. "Fortune favours the brave." An apt motto, Taleena
thought, for one such as she - one whom the Fates had destined for the rigours
of the arena.
