Caligula

VII

If the past few weeks had been intensive, those which followed were doubly so. From dawn to dusk he worked with the lions in a paddock which was similar in size and shape to the arena.

Each evening when he lay back on his cot his muscles ached and the scratches on his skin stung beneath the salve Fronto had provided against the poison from a lion's claws, which could make any wound swell up and turn first red, then black, and lead to an agonizing death. But each day he learned more and taught more, and each day he became more confident that he could actually succeed.

It took a visit from Cupido to bring his soaring ego back down to earth.

'Yes, yes, the lions are very good,' he said. 'But it is not enough. If you are to convince the mob you must be able to show them something special, something they have never seen before. Think. What else is there? What can you do that will entertain a senator who has become bored watching two men trying to chop each other to pieces?'

Rufus shook his head, close to despair. 'I don't know. We've tried everything. Maybe I should just give up.'

'If you give up, you are as good as dead,' Cupido told him. 'And so are your animals. Come with me.' He marched across the packed dirt past the antelope enclosures, with Rufus at his heels. 'There, Rufus, there is your answer.'

Rufus stared. His heart seemed to have stopped. 'No,' he said, his voice faltering. 'No. I cannot.'

'You must,' Cupido said quietly. 'There is no other way. But tell no one, not even Fronto.'

Fronto monitored Rufus's progress with the lions and was secretly impressed by what he saw, but Rufus took Cupido's advice and there were certain aspects of the training that the trader didn't see. He still found it difficult to believe that the young man would succeed, but as he watched him work he felt himself drawn into the plan.

'I thought you were supposed to be making people laugh,' he complained helpfully. 'I've been watching you for an hour and all I feel like doing is crying.'

'If you think it's so easy why don't you try it?' Rufus replied wearily.

Fronto grinned. 'Fortunately, I'm too old and too fat. You are the young pup with the lust for fame and fortune.'

'Yes, but if I succeed it will only be fame. You'll be the one with the fortune.'

'Perhaps, but that is only fair. I am the one who's supplying all the livestock. Even you. Now get back to work.'

'Can you get me some wooden barrels?'

'If you need something to drink, drink water. Wine will only slow you down.'

'Empty barrels, about so big.' Rufus held his hand at waist height.

Fronto scratched his beard. 'It won't be easy. You're talking about a beer barrel and only barbarians drink beer. But I know someone who might have some to spare.'

Two days later, Fronto was back at the side of the paddock, looking pleased with himself.

Rufus was practising the most difficult part of his routine when the animal trader arrived. Things had been going well and he couldn't resist the temptation to show off. But in his efforts to impress, he lost concentration and missed his timing. What should have been an elegant landing ended with him rolling in the dust with the two lions, who looked at him with undisguised disapproval.

He picked himself up, patted Africanus on the back and limped slowly across to where Fronto stood. 'I hope you haven't come to gloat again,' he grunted.

'On the contrary,' Fronto said grandly. 'I have come to allow my newest entertainer to show me his work in all its perfection, though it seems I may have arrived at the wrong moment.'

Rufus's mood lightened and he smiled. 'You missed the best part.' 'I do hope so. Because in two weeks I will be sharing the experience with several thousand of my fellow citizens, and they may not be quite so forgiving.'

Rufus felt his stomach lurch. 'Two weeks? I can't be ready in two weeks.'

'I'm afraid you must, Rufus. The audience is invited. The ring is ready. The whispers already spread about this new phenomenon. It is much too late to turn back now. Besides, I spent all morning painting the posters.'

'But — '

'No buts. The deed is done. Now get back among your hairy friends and make me laugh.'

Fronto persuaded Cupido's lanista to give his less experienced gladiators the opportunity to perform in a bloodless contest before an audience who wouldn't demand their deaths if they were not properly entertained.

Rufus and his animals would provide the climax to the event. At least that was the plan.

Two weeks later, he sat alone in the darkness beneath the Taurus. Above him, he could hear the thunder of feet on the floor of the amphitheatre and the clash of iron as Cupido directed his gladiators in a mock battle of such terrifying reality that the mob roared their approval, despite the lack of gore. He had never been so scared in his life.

Twice he had emptied his bowels in the latrina which served the performers, and once he vomited bile from a stomach which burned and twitched with nerves. His hands shook so hard he could barely hold the short legionary sword he had been clutching convulsively for the last hour.

Everything was going to go wrong.

He tried to run through the details of the act in his mind, but all he could think of was the consequence of failure. The humiliation and the shame. How could he face Fronto and Cupido after the faith they had placed in him? How could he have had the audacity, the stupidity, to think he was capable of this?

Five thousand people were out there beyond the darkness, waiting. Waiting for him. Rufus. Rufus the slave. Rufus, the slave who had never achieved anything in his life. Rufus the slave who would soon be standing frozen in the sunlight as the great mob bayed with laughter and howled for him to be dragged out of their sight and replaced with a true entertainer.

He could not do it. He would not do it.

He stood up, legs shaking uncontrollably, and began to stagger to the door, away from the terror that gnawed and tore at him as if he was already a victim of the arena.

Then the lions roared.

They roared with excitement. They roared because for the last week they had listened to these same sounds of battle in their enclosures beneath the ring. They roared because they were ready.

Rufus stopped, frozen in the act of reaching for the door. The lions roared again. And the sound echoing through the dark chambers returned to him the courage he feared had deserted him for ever.

His head, which had been filled with nothing but panic, cleared, and it was as if he had been blind and could suddenly see again. His hand stole to his throat and the lion's tooth charm that never left him. He took a deep breath, and his body was shaken by one last convulsive spasm.

He turned to find himself looking directly into two eyes still filled with the light of battle. Cupido removed his helmet and his hair was plastered to his head like a crown of molten gold. How long had he been there?

But the gladiator, if he had seen anything, was careful to say nothing.

'Five minutes, Rufus. My fellows are just going through their final set pieces. Here. Use this instead of the gladius.'

Rufus looked curiously at the cloth-wrapped bundle he was being offered.

'Take it.'

He took the parcel from the gladiator's outstretched hands and unwrapped it. He was left holding a sword so long it could almost have been a spear and an outsize gladiator's helmet of the type used by the murmillones. Both objects looked as if they should be incredibly heavy, but Rufus discovered they were surprisingly light.

'Try them,' urged Cupido.

Rufus handed Cupido the sword and with two hands placed the helmet over his head. It was so big it covered his whole head and sat on his shoulders, but the eye holes were cunningly placed so that, although it looked from the outside as if he should be unable to see anything, his vision was hardly more impaired than if he had been wearing a normal helmet.

'Do I have to wear this?' he demanded, his voice muffled by the allenveloping headgear. 'I must look stupid.'

'You do. That's the point. Try the sword.'

Rufus did as he was told and held the weapon in front of him.

'Wonderful. You look like a nobleman who has just been handed a turd. Wave the blade about a bit.'

Again Rufus did as he was asked. He was surprised to discover that when he swung the sword the blade quivered back and forth as if it had a life of its own.

'My armourer made it from a bad batch of iron,' Cupido explained. 'The edge is so dull it wouldn't hurt a fly. And when you try to stab something it will just bend back on itself. Go on, try it. Lunge at me.'

Cupido was wearing a polished iron breastplate and he insisted until Rufus could refuse no more.

'See, you couldn't pierce a piece of cheese. You might as well be waving a branch at me. Now, are you ready?'

Rufus removed the helmet and looked directly into the piercing grey eyes. He nodded.

'Yes, I'm ready.'

Cupido clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard. 'Then go and give the mob what they came for.'

The walk that brought Rufus to the trapdoor beneath the arena was the longest and loneliest he had ever made. The maze of tunnels seemed to go on for ever and, although he encountered several people he knew, they treated him as if he was invisible, turning their eyes away, as if to look at him was to share his fate.

Finally he stood on the wooden platform that would lift him directly into the centre of the arena. Above him, the roars of the crowd were magnified by the empty shaft. He stood, head bowed, waiting for the signal that would tell him the instant the mob's attention was on the climax of the gladiatorial battle.

It came, a huge shout from fifty throats in the same instant: ' Roma victor.' He nodded to the workman who operated the levers, and the platform began to rise a few inches at a time.

The brightness as he emerged slowly into the sunlight blinded him; then his vision cleared and he found himself in the loneliest place on earth.

He had been here before, when the stadium was empty, rehearsing for this day, but nothing had prepared him for the wall of screaming faces and the explosion of sound. For a moment the panic that had threatened to unman him in the depths of the arena returned, but then he heard Cupido's voice inside his head: 'Make them laugh and they will love you.'

Rufus the slave became Rufus the clown.

The crowd in the tiered stands saw a bewildered, childlike figure, small and lost in his oversized helmet, awkwardly holding a sword twice as long as a legionary's gladius. The helmet turned, slowly, taking in its strange surroundings. Why was it here? The helmet appeared to have a life of its own, which had little to do with the body beneath it. The helmet cocked to one side, searching the stands. Surely someone in this crowd of lords and ladies could give it a clue. What about you, sir? The helmet's eye slits looked directly at one of the toga-clad patrons in the expensive seats close to the edge of the arena.

By now, a few of the crowd were smiling, puzzled at this silent display, but others were becoming restless. Where was the action? What was this stupid game?

Suddenly, there was a gasp from the lower tiers and an ironic cheer from the upper stands. Rufus didn't hear the gate opening, but he knew he was now being stalked by Africanus. This was the game they had played during the long weeks of training.

But the helmet did not know and now the helmet was even more puzzled. Were they cheering it? Really, it? Oh, it was so undeserved. There was no need. The helmet acknowledged the acclaim with a wave of its unwieldy sword.

Africanus kept low to the ground, each deliberate movement of his huge paws taking him nearer the solitary, unsuspecting figure in the centre of the arena.

Still the helmet's vacant eyes remained fixed on the crowd. Ah, this was the only place to be, among the finest and most courtly people on earth. The helmet nodded its gratitude.

The suspense grew with each inch the lion moved closer to his victim. By now most of the mob was captivated by the heart-stopping hunt unfolding before them. They held their collective breath. But the helmet's eccentric vulnerability had endeared it to a few of the younger spectators and one could not help herself screaming out.

The helmet looked even more puzzled. Who? Where? What?

Rufus counted the seconds in his head. Now the voice had been joined by a hundred other shouts of warning. Africanus was crouched feet from his back. Three, two, one… Africanus was in the air, his hooked claws outstretched to tear the unsuspecting body in front of him.

Oh, look! The helmet had seen something glinting in the sand. It bent to pick it up.

Rufus felt the disturbed air as Africanus sailed across his back, missing him by less than the width of one of the loaves he had baked for Cerialis. He heard the roar of the crowd as the big lion rolled head over heels towards the edge of the arena.

The helmet turned towards the opposite side of the arena, shaking in wonder at all this undeserved attention. Oh! They liked him too?

The roars turned to laughter and applause.

Then the second lion snarled her presence.

Now the suspense of the hunt was replaced by the thrill of the chase.

The helmet ran this way and that, sometimes from the lions, sometimes towards one or the other, but always somehow missing the lethal claws and fangs by a matter of inches. The lions roared in frustration; the helmet waved his long sword in defiance.

But what was this? The helmet was tiring, his stride faltering. He stopped.

The lions stopped too.

The helmet bent at the middle, chest heaving as it pumped in great breaths of air.

The lions lay, tongues hanging from their mouths.

The helmet straightened. It looked at the lions. The lions looked back. Agreement was reached. The chase was on again.

Half the crowd was urging on the lions. The other half was cheering the fool in the giant helmet. Both were happy.

Somehow, the helmet found itself in an open-ended barrel. The lions pushed the barrel around the arena in a great circle. The mob cheered the lions.

Somehow, the helmet escaped the barrel and stood its ground, its unwieldy sword drooping impotently. The mob still cheered the lions.

Now was the time for blood. The fool in the helmet was dead.

The lions roared in triumph, but the sound was instantly drowned by a thunder of hooves more powerful than anything the crowd had heard before.

The monster had come.

This was the moment Rufus had spent hundreds of frustrating, muscle-aching hours practising. The rhinoceros was notoriously unpredictable, but he discovered he could judge her moods just enough to trust her for the few fleeting seconds he needed. As the slabsided grey bulk charged past him in a cloud of dust, he threw down the sword and helmet and sprang on to her broad back, somehow managing to keep his balance as the monster bucked and swayed beneath him and chased the lions from the arena.

Her job done, the great beast ambled to a halt in the centre of the arena with Rufus still crouched over her hindquarters. As the dust cleared, he slowly straightened, raised his arms to the skies and bowed low at the waist.

At first, there was a shocked silence. Then a buzz of puzzled conversation. The buzz grew louder as the seconds passed, and turned into an explosion… of laughter.

Rufus had won.

Cupido was the first to congratulate his young friend as he walked from the arena, quickly followed by an over-excited Fronto.

'We were wonderful,' the animal trader exulted, his face wreathed in smiles as his mind calculated the possibilities for future profit. 'I will organize the next performance for two weeks today. We will make it an appetizer for the main event. After all, the mob is going to want to see real blood at some point. We will play every arena in Rome, and when everyone in the city has seen us, we'll go on tour. I can just see it — '

'I'm not going out there again.'

Fronto gaped. 'But the crowds, the money, the… But…' He stuttered to a halt.

Rufus turned to Cupido. 'I can't go out there again.'

Cupido nodded gently. He, of all men, understood what Rufus was saying. For some, the cheers of the crowd were a drug. The waves of acclaim that flowed down from the stands mesmerized them, and when they strutted from the arena they lived only for their next performance, even though they knew it might be their last. But for others, the wall of sound chilled the blood and shattered the nerves. If these men were gladiators they died, reactions slowed by the same power that gave others incredible speed. If, like Rufus, they were given a choice, they never returned. He had used every ounce of his courage to perform before the mob. He had nothing left to give them.

Rufus turned to Fronto, who still stood with his mouth open. 'I won't go back,' he repeated. 'But I can train men who will.'

'What?' The word came out as a strangled croak and Fronto grasped dramatically at his chest. 'Are you trying to kill me, boy?'

'I'll train our animals to work with athletes and clowns who know how to please a crowd better than I ever could. And you're right, we should go on tour. When the Romans think they have seen everything we have to offer we will come back with a bigger and better performance. We can use other animals, other combinations. We cannot fail.'

Tears ran down Fronto's cheeks into his beard. He hugged Rufus to his chest. 'You are like a son to me. I always knew I could put my faith in you. Come, we will discuss this further over some wine.'

They walked away, leaving Cupido in the darkness. What might have been a smile touched his lips.

Rufus was proved right. Their initial celebrity proved a powerful attraction and entertainers flocked to the menagerie asking for work. Rufus trained man and beast hard and anyone who did not make the grade was quickly weeded out. The lions were soon joined in the arena by the other big cats, even bears, but it was the rhinoceros that always drew most cheers. Only the bravest would take to her broad back to escape the teeth and claws of the hunters.

They were successful, but their fame never matched that of Cupido, whose reputation grew with every kill he made. And he made many, particularly in the great games held in memory of the Emperor Tiberius, who died that year, the twenty-third of his reign. The games were sponsored by his joint heirs, his great-nephew Gaius and his grandson and namesake Tiberius Gemellus.