Arena

CHAPTER NINE

Britomaris towered over Pavo, jabbing his spear at the recruit’s upper chest. With his muscles screaming and the blood pounding in his ears, Pavo hefted his shield upwards. There was a nerve-jangling clang as the spear tip clattered into the centre of the shield, iron hammering into bronze. The barbarian howled a Celtic war cry. Then he unleashed a torrent of thrusts and slashes, forcing Pavo to shelter behind his shield. The force the barbarian summoned for each attack stunned Pavo. He gripped the handle for dear life and muttered a prayer to Fortuna to save him as a second thrust of the spear split through the leathered surface of the shield above the boss, showering splinters of wood at his face. Tugging back on the spear, Britomaris kicked the bottom of Pavo’s shield and wrenched his weapon free. The crowd roared in murderous expectation. Out of the corner of his eye Pavo could see the Emperor rising gawkily to his feet, his mouth agape. Pallas wrung his hands, shooting agitated glances across the Emperor to an older freedman sitting opposite.

Pavo was conscious of the spear tip plummeting towards his chest. A hot wave of anger flushed through him. His reflex was automatic, rolling his body to the right as the spear stabbed the sand. He looked up, saw Britomaris adjusting his aim and stabbing downwards again and desperately rolled to the left, his heart in his mouth as he felt the whoosh of the spear tip skating past his neck and the dull thwack of iron on the sand.

In the next instant Pavo arched his back up and to the left, driving his sword towards the barbarian in a whirl of motion. Britomaris was still lifting the spear out of the sand as Pavo’s blade pierced his flesh at a spot just below his elbow. The tip glanced off his lower ribs as Pavo wrenched the sword out. The spectators gasped as the barbarian let out a howl like a wolf being skinned alive before whirling towards Pavo and clattering the recruit on the head with the side of his shield. A shard of white light flashed in front of Pavo’s eyes as he dropped to his knees. Blood oozed out of his nostrils. He staggered away from Britomaris. The barbarian let out another animal roar. He cast aside his shield to staunch the blood pulsing from his own wound with his left hand. It landed with a heavy clunk. Britomaris was bleeding, but not heavily. His loincloth glistened as the crimson stain spread. Peeling his hand away from his side, he raised his blood-soaked palm to his face. The icy blue points of his eyes glowered at Pavo. He flashed his teeth at the young man and breathed heavily out of his nostrils. A tense silence hung over the spectators. Britomaris wiped his hand on his thigh and blind rage took over. Ignoring his discarded shield, holding his spear in a two-handed grip with his right hand wrapped under the throat of the oak shaft in front of his chest and his left hand gripping the base tucked close to his side, he charged at Pavo.

The recruit watched numbly as his opponent stampeded towards him in a lumbering gait, stunned by the way he had shaken off his injury. The horse tails at the back of Britomaris’s helmet flapped wildly. His legs wobbled. He almost lost his footing and stopped. He looked around in a daze at the crowd, as if noticing them for the first time. Growling as he tried to shake his head clear, the barbarian made a renewed charge towards Pavo. He dominated Pavo’s line of vision, blocking out the arena floor and the cries from the galleries baying for blood as the spear tip rushed at him. Drawing closer to Pavo now, the barbarian raised the spear over his head parallel to his right shoulder and prepared to make a final downward thrust with the iron spike attached to the base of the shaft. But his movements had become sluggish and uncoordinated. Slow enough for Pavo to read. The menacing spike snapped Pavo out of his shock. With a drop of his left shoulder he feinted a half-step to the right and then thrust his sword upwards. A crude look of horror briefly flashed across the face of the barbarian as he realised too late that by attacking overhead he had left his torso fatally exposed. He plunged his spear uselessly into the sand and Pavo struck him in the groin.

Britomaris froze. Pavo ripped the sword across, the weapon making a tearing sound as if splitting open a sack of grain. The blade diced up the barbarian’s bowels and severed his femoral artery. Blood fountained out of the wound as Pavo withdrew his sword and collapsed on the ground. Ten thousand people rose to their feet around the Julian plaza, watching Britomaris. The barbarian was rooted to the spot, looking down dumbly at the blood spraying his feet. He stood defiantly for a few moments longer, then ripped off his helmet, his eyes rolling into the backs of his sockets as he gasped for air. His face had turned pale, and he was shivering and foaming at the mouth. He looked feverish. His legs buckled. Then he collapsed on to the sand with a colossal thud.

Salty sweat dripped from Pavo’s brow into his eyes, blurring his vision. He tasted blood in his mouth. His heartbeat pulsed violently, the veins on his neck throbbing and echoing inside his head. He could hear the ghoulish whimpers coming from Britomaris as he bled out on the sand, his helmet by his feet, vomit oozing from his slackened mouth.

There was a moment’s silence. Then the crowd broke into rapturous cheers. Pavo picked himself off the ground. He was so weary it took every last ounce of strength to stand tall. He wiped the sweat from his eyes.

‘Pavo! Pavo!’ the crowd chanted, over and over. The same people who had been roundly booing him only a short while earlier, the recruit thought. Up in the podium a Praetorian Guard clumsily shuffled his way past the podgy imperial high priests and whispered something into Pallas’s ear. The Greek freedman furrowed his brow, then turned to Murena and muttered something. Abruptly the two men rose from their seats and followed the Praetorian out of the arena as the master of ceremonies handed Claudius a victory palm and a box of coins to present to the victor. The Emperor accepted the coins with a cold and distant expression in his greying eyes. He looked displeased. He scowled in disgust and glanced in Pavo’s direction with stony-faced contempt as the chanting of the victor’s name swelled in the plaza.

Pavo stared defiantly back at the Emperor. He barely noticed the officials dragging Britomaris away with a meat hook, just as they had dragged away Titus months before. They left a streak of blood stretching like a tongue from the arena entrance to the place where the barbarian had fallen. His limbs were the same pale colour as his face. The feverish look in the barbarian’s eyes, and the way he had foamed at the mouth, troubled Pavo.

Then the pair of officials who had been stationed at the arena entrance grabbed Pavo and hurried him away from the floor towards the corridor and a flight of stairs leading up to the podium, where the trainee would accept his prize from the Emperor in person. Pavo was still running his eyes over the galleries as the officials hauled him down the corridor, the hoarse cheers of the crowd echoing off the dank walls, the air stifled with hot dust and sweat, the crowd shrinking from view.

‘Where the hell did he disappear to?’ Pavo wondered aloud.

‘You mean your friend? The soldier?’ snarled the older official with the rotten teeth. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get to see him soon enough. In fact, we’re taking you to him as soon as you’ve collected your prize …’

Macro awoke with the din of the crowd buzzing in his ears. The optio shook his groggy head and acquainted himself with his surroundings. He was back in the small room on the western side of the plaza that he and Pavo had occupied in the build-up to the fight. But the two Praetorian Guards now blocked the doorway, and Macro’s young charge was nowhere to be seen. A dim image came back to the optio through the haze. He recalled stumbling across the surgeon’s counter, and witnessing the Praetorian dipping Britomaris’s spear tip into a bowl of poison.

The image forced Macro to shoot upright. He rushed towards the door but the Praetorians blocked his path. ‘What in Hades’ name is going on?’ the optio rasped.

The Praetorians said nothing. Both their expressions were tight and blank.

‘Did he win?’ Macro demanded.

‘Pavo? Oh, he won,’ a voice quivered from the corridor behind the guards. Macro’s joy was short-lived as the Praetorians stepped out of the way and four figures appeared from the shadows of the colonnades. Macro watched two stadium officials bundling an exhausted Pavo towards the room. Murena led the way, a stern expression plastered across his gaunt face. Pavo was too tired to try and wrench himself away. The freedman nodded at the guards as the officials slung Pavo into the room. The trainee dropped to his knees beside Macro, his exertion in the arena having drained his muscles and left him weary. In the background, Macro could hear the crowd roaring Pavo’s name. He flicked his eyes to Murena lingering in the doorway; the Greek smiled pityingly back at the optio.

‘You were going to poison Pavo,’ Macro growled.

‘Poison?’ Pavo whispered, a disbelieving look on his face.

The optio nodded grimly. He was conscious of blood flowing out of a wound at the back of his scalp, from when the second Praetorian had clobbered him earlier, matting his hair and dripping down his neck. ‘I caught these two fools in the act,’ he said, jerking his head furiously at the guards.

‘But I just saved the reputation of Rome,’ Pavo hissed as he glowered with rage at Murena. ‘The Emperor’s too. Not to mention your own and that of Pallas! And this is how you repay me?’

Murena chuckled weakly as he placed his hands behind his back. He kept his distance from Pavo, as if avoiding a rabid dog. ‘Our plan was simple,’ he said. ‘We needed to guarantee victory. Even with someone as skilled with a sword as you, however, nothing in life is guaranteed. We poisoned the tips of both your weapons. That way Britomaris would perish in the arena, thus restoring the glory of Rome.’ Murena chuckled. ‘Why on earth do you think our barbaric friend collapsed so easily at the end?’

‘But you were going to kill me too!’ Pavo roared, his face turning crimson with rage.

Murena knitted his wispy brow. ‘Two birds, one stone. Both Pallas and I knew that your victory, whilst necessary for his imperial majesty, would also make you a hero in the eyes of the mob. Listen to them,’ he grumbled scathingly as the crowd continued to roar in the background, ecstatic at the outcome of the fight. ‘They think you’re a legend, young man! We took a calculated risk in getting you to fight Britomaris. But we hoped to avoid the celebration of your name by arranging your death in the arena. There would have been some applause from the crowd for your efforts, of course. A few tawdry poems written to celebrate your feat. The odd inscription. But dead gladiators don’t live long in memory. By the following month you would have been forgotten.’ Murena sighed. ‘If only that idiot Britomaris had done his job, and stabbed you.’

Despite his ragged condition, Pavo mustered his precious last reserves of energy and lunged at Murena. The freedman took a frightened step back out of the doorway, his eyes wide with fear.

‘You tried to kill me, you bastard!’ Pavo roared.

The Praetorians jerked into action. One kicked Pavo in the midriff and sent him flying backwards, landing on the ground with a thud, while the other guard glared at Macro, who had balled his hands into tight fists. The guard began to unsheathe his sword. Macro got the message and reluctantly loosened his fists.

‘What about my son?’ Pavo seethed. ‘I was told he would be released after I won.’

‘Appius?’ Murena asked, wearing an expression of feigned ignorance. ‘You must be mistaken, young man. The Emperor was to release him upon your glorious death in the arena. Since you failed to stick to your side of the bargain and die, I’m afraid the deal is off. Appius will remain the possession of the imperial palace. He’ll grow up with the other slave children, and when he’s old enough he’ll fetch grapes and figs for those who control the Empire. Men like Pallas and me. In future generations the name of Valerius will be synonymous with slaves, not military heroes and victorious gladiators.’

Pavo fumed, his nostrils flaring with rage. ‘You can’t do this.’

‘Oh, but I can,’ Murena replied condescendingly. He began to turn away from the room. ‘I can do whatever I please. Your victory means that the Emperor is in debt to Pallas, and don’t forget that Pallas is my boss. It would’ve taken years for us to win the complete confidence of Claudius. You’ve helped us achieve it in a mere few months. Thank you, Pavo.’

Pavo simmered with rage. The freedman paused and rubbed his hands together, as if warming them on a cold winter’s night. ‘I suppose it’s all worked out rather well in the end,’ he went on. ‘All that remains is for me to take care of loose ends.’ He cast his eyes over Macro and Pavo in turn. ‘As I promised Pallas.’

‘What do you mean?’ Pavo snapped, narrowing his eyes at Murena.

‘The Emperor won’t tolerate the mob chanting the name of the son of a traitor.’ Murena barked at the Praetorians as he clicked his fingers: ‘Take him away.’

Pavo hung his head low as the guards hauled him to his feet, grabbing a weary arm each. The fight had dimmed in him, Macro noticed. Despair had doused the flames of rage burning inside his belly.

‘Appius … my boy …’ the trainee muttered under his breath, his dry lips cracking as the guards manhandled him out of the room and dragged him down the corridor. Away from the arena. Away from the noise and buzz of the crowd chanting his name.

‘Pavo was right,’ Macro growled at the smug Greek when they were left alone. ‘You are a bastard.’

Murena stroked his chin thoughtfully and smiled at Macro as if he had just given him a compliment.

‘What’s going to happen to him?’ the optio asked.

‘There’s a wagon waiting outside. He’s to return to the ludus in Paestum,’ Murena replied as he gazed down the corridor. ‘We’ll find another opponent for him to fight locally, in the more modest surroundings of Paestum’s amphitheatre. Someone with a poor reputation.’

Macro scoffed and folded his arms. ‘What for? Pavo’s a great fighter. Pair him with a low-ranking gladiator and he’ll carve up his opponent in a heartbeat. If you ask me, I say the lad’s been through enough.’

‘Pavo’s survival is an embarrassment to Claudius. He must die,’ Murena said icily. ‘He must die in disgrace, in a way that leaves his reputation in tatters. And you are going to help me achieve that.’

The optio shifted on the balls of his feet and felt his pulse quicken with fear. ‘Why the bloody hell would I do that? I’ve already honoured my end of the deal. I trained Pavo. He won. Now I’m due my promotion, as promised.’

Murena looked back at Macro.

‘It’s not that simple, Optio. You know our dirty little secret. And if the mob discover that Claudius tried to poison the new hero of the arena, well …’ Murena frowned at his feet, as if a snake was crawling up his leg. ‘Let’s just say they wouldn’t be too happy. Our problem is, can we trust you? Luckily for you, Pallas and I are giving you a chance to prove your loyalty to Claudius.’

‘How do you mean?’ Macro asked, his voice low and uncertain.

Murena grinned as the sound of the crowd slowly died away and the heavy drum roll of footsteps echoed through the plaza as people made their way to the exits and flooded out into the streets. The freedman said, ‘Since you appear to be a rather effective gladiator trainer, you’re going to train Pavo’s next opponent. You know the young man’s weaknesses. You will train your man to exploit them, so that the mob will see Pavo humiliated …’