Spartacus: Morituri

XV

It was almost time. Spartacus and Varro sat side by side, silent now, each enmeshed in his own thoughts. Both men were well aware that in less than an hour they would either be revered heroes, the crowd stamping their feet and chanting their names, or utterly forgotten, their broken bodies tipped into the stinking charnel house of the spoliarium, their blood mingling with that not only of other slaves and gladiators, but also of criminals and beasts.

As ever, Spartacus thought of Sura, and more specifically of her utter reliance on the quirks and vagaries of fate, on an existence determined wholly by the gods despite the earthly illusion of choice and free will. Having given himself over to her philosophy, he fought without fear or rancor; he fought purely because he was required to fight-because Sura would have claimed that the gods had decreed it so-and as such, he did it with concentration and a grim determination, concerned more for the welfare of his partner and friend than for himself.

Varro, too, thought of his wife-of Aurelia and also their young son-but his motivation came from a determination to survive, in order to earn enough coin not only to pay off his gambling debts, but to cater for his family’s daily needs, to keep them fed and clothed and safe from harm. Like Spartacus, Varro cared little for the laurels of the crowd. He was happy to leave dreams of glory to those who had nothing else to dream about- to the likes of Crixus, who wanted nothing more on this earth than to march out on to the sands with a sword in his hand once again, the plaudits of his admirers ringing in his ears.

At a signal from a guard the men rose to their feet. They glanced briefly at one another, their faces grim, and then Varro gave a single short nod and they began the long walk through the underground passages toward the tunnel that led to the huge gates, through which they would ultimately step out into the blazing daylight and riotous clamor of the arena.

Many of the cells they passed were empty, though some contained those of Batiatus’s men who had emerged victorious from earlier bouts. These men were now resting, or sluicing off the grime and blood of combat, or nursing wounds inflicted upon them by their opponents. Some of the men simply watched them silently as they passed by, whereas others wished them luck, or even- with grim humor-bid them a final farewell.

Spartacus and Varro ignored them all. Their faces were set, their minds focused purely on the task ahead. As ever, Spartacus was unencumbered by heavy armor, a curved sword clenched in each hand. Varro was dressed as a murmillo, his head encased in a large visored helmet with a high crest, each side of which was decorated with an elaborate relief design of a gorgon’s head, its mouth and eyes agape, its hair a mass of writhing snakes. In one hand Varro carried a large, curved shield, and in the other he held a gladius-a short, stabbing sword. Both men were oiled so that the impressive musculature of their bodies would gleam in the sun. They made a good contrast, Spartacus lean and lithe, his chest covered in a wiry stubble of dark hair, Varro big and burly and broadshouldered, his own chest, arms and back shaved as smooth as a woman’s skin.

Leaving the cells behind, they began to walk up the tunnel toward the gates. Already they could hear the noise of the crowd rising in volume, a rumble of speculative chatter, laced with an almost palpable sense of excitement for the main event of the day. As yet the gates were nothing but a distant blur of diffuse light, but as they neared the arena’s entrance, the light became both brighter and more distinctive, the thick crosshatched mesh of the gates acquiring a vast and forbidding solidity. Spartacus saw Oenomaus standing against the wall to the right of the gates, waiting for them. His tall, lean, long-limbed frame was as straight-backed as ever, and his face a mask of dignity, pride, icy focus and grim determination, as if it was he, and not the men he had trained with such dedication, who was about to step out once more on to the sands.

On Doctore’s opposite side, standing against the left-hand wall like his evil reflection, was Mantilus. Spartacus stared at him, stony-faced. Though not an essential element of dominus’s preparations for the day, they had all been hoping that the grim creature would assume his position by the gates, just as he had done during the previous games. Yellow light filtered through the diamond-shaped gaps between the criss-crossing strips of iron mesh, fell across his scarred body, giving his skin a scaly, lizard-like texture. Indeed, with his milky-white eyes he looked like some nocturnal animal-a reptile or an insect-which had crawled out from between the dank, dark cracks in the stone walls and was now poised, motionless, waiting for a time when it would either pounce upon passing prey or slither back into hiding.

With absolute deliberation, Spartacus walked up to Mantilus and stood before him, their faces no more than a few inches apart. He stared, unblinking, into Mantilus’s white eyes, just as he had done on the night when Batiatus and Lucretia had staged a celebration at their villa to welcome Hieronymus and Crassus to Capua.

Several moments passed in utter silence, Spartacus unflinching in his appraisal of the man indirectly responsible for the deaths of several of Batiatus’s gladiators in the previous games, Mantilus unresponsive, as if unaware of Spartacus’s presence.

“Do you see me, sorcerer?” Spartacus whispered with derision. “Do you observe eyes gazing into soul?”

Mantilus said nothing, did not even so much as twitch a facial muscle in response, and after a moment Oenomaus said quietly, “Spartacus.”

Spartacus turned away from Mantilus and stood shoulder to shoulder with Varro before the gates.

“You have no need of my words,” Oenomaus rumbled. “You both know what must be done.”

Varro nodded, but, like Mantilus, Spartacus offered no response. He simply stood, a sword hanging loosely in each hand, his eyes looking straight ahead.

As the curved horns sounded their fanfare, two Roman soldiers stepped forward, and, with all due ceremony, hauled the massive iron gates slowly open. Spartacus and Varro paused a moment, waiting for Solonius, up in the pulvinus, to complete his introductions, and then they strode out on to the sands. From the way the crowd greeted them, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, and bellowing out Spartacus’s name over and over, until it became a single chanting voice that boomed echoingly around the entire stadium, it seemed that the popularity of Capua’s champion had been affected not at all by his previous lackluster victory in the arena, despite rumors to the contrary. But as usual Spartacus seemed utterly unmoved by the laurels heaped upon his head. From the look in his diamond-chip eyes, it was as if the crowd might not even have been there at all.

Once the gladiators were out on the sands, the soldiers who had opened the gates pushed them slowly and creakingly closed again. They left just enough of a gap to slip through, and then they stepped into the tunnel and pulled on the gates until they met with a resounding clang of metal. One of the soldiers then stepped forward with a huge key and locked the gate, after which the two of them sauntered away up the tunnel-though not before the one with the key had first given Oenomaus a dismissive and disdainful glance.

Once they had gone, Mantilus pushed himself away from the wall like a living shadow and drifted silently up to the gate again. He hooked his fingers through the mesh as before and resumed his silent vigil, his lips moving constantly and silently.

Oenomaus waited until he was in position and then he too stepped forward. This time, however, instead of standing next to the scarred attendant, with the tip of his nose almost touching the metal of the gate to afford him the best possible view of proceedings in the arena, he quietly and deliberately stood a couple of paces behind him, legs slightly apart, hands hanging loosely at his sides.

Spartacus and Varro walked a third of the way into the arena, their strides long and easy, their demeanor deceptively casual. Eventually they came to a halt and looked, with equal indifference, around them. To their left, perhaps forty paces away, were Solonius’s men, a hoplomachus, with his spear and his short sword, and a thraex, clutching a sica and a short rectangular shield, his visored, wide-brimmed helmet crested with the head of a griffin. Directly facing them, again around forty paces away, were Hieronymus’s gladiators-a retiarius, with his net and trident, and a secutor, who compensated for the limited range of vision through the round eye holes in his egg-shaped helmet by having a large rectangular shield with which to protect himself, and a longer than average stabbing sword.

For several seemingly interminable seconds all six gladiators in their three pairs regarded one another, standing as if on the points of a large invisible triangle. The crowd, quietening a little now, watched expectantly, waiting to see who would make the first move.

With an almost lazy turn of the head, Spartacus looked at Solonius’s gladiators, who looked back at him with no apparent malice, their shields only half-raised, their weapons pointing toward the ground. If they gave any kind of signal, it was not immediately obvious to those looking down from above-but suddenly Spartacus raised both his swords and began to run toward Hieronymus’s men, slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed as he covered the distance between them.

When he was around twenty paces away, he let loose a blood-curdling battle cry, full of rage and venom, which was immediately taken up by the crowd. Both Hieronymus’s men-belying their supposed status as savage and fearless Morituri-took a stumbling step back, clearly unnerved by the sheer ferocity of his lone attack.

As he closed with them, the retiarius rallied slightly, adopting a fighting stance and casting his net with one sweep of his arm, hoping to ensnare Spartacus within its barbed mesh. Spartacus, however, was far too quick for him. As the net first billowed through the air toward him, and then began to sink back down to earth, he crossed his swords in front of his chest and dived into a forward roll, his body passing completely beneath the descending net.

Before the retiarius even seemed to realize what had happened, Spartacus had closed the remaining distance between them. Springing back to his feet, he uncrossed his arms in a single blur of movement, the swords in his hands slashing out in a double-arc of sun-white metal. His right-handed blade cut the Retiarius’s legs from under him-literally-whereas the one in his left went a little higher, opening a long slash across his opponent’s unprotected stomach.

The retiarius didn’t even have time to scream before he was falling, his legs, hacked off just beneath the knees, flying one way, and his body the other. As he hit the ground with a heavy thud, his slashed belly burst open like a paper bag and blood and slippery internal organs gushed out of him.

His partner, the secutor, meanwhile, simply stood and gaped, his reflexes far too slow to match the sheer speed and agility of Spartacus’s assault. He had barely raised his shield before Spartacus, his momentum continuing to carry him forward, was upon him too, his twin swords a whirling blur of lethal metal.

Desperately the secutor brought up his own sword in defense, only to find less than a second later that his hand, with the sword still clutched in it, was flying across the arena, trailing blood, having been severed neatly at the wrist. The gladiator hadn’t even reacted to the pain before Spartacus’s other sword was flashing up and across, unerringly finding the narrow gap between the top of the secutor’s shield and the bottom of his helmet, and severing his head with one blow.

As the helmeted head landed on the sand with a heavy thud, the secutor’s body, blood spurting from the stump of the neck, folded at the knees and waist and crumpled to the ground.

Spartacus rose slowly from his half-crouch, the blades of his swords dripping blood on to the sand, and glanced round briefly at the screaming, leaping, delirious crowd. Then, without even raising a single sword in acknowledgement, he turned and trudged casually back to where Varro was standing waiting for him, the hacked, bleeding remains of Hieronymus’s gladiators already attracting flies on the sand in his wake.

Varro nodded, and Spartacus nodded back, and then the two of them turned to face Solonius’s men.

“Now that unworthy dogs are despatched, we can fight like true gladiators,” the thraex growled, his voice muffled beneath his helmet. “Prepare to die, Thracian.”

Marcus Crassus lowered his head briefly, his hand rising from his lap at the same moment to cradle it. His thumb and middle finger gently massaged each side of his temple for a few seconds, and then he lifted his head slowly once more and glared at Hieronymus.

The Greek merchant was sitting and shivering on the floor of the pulvinus, out of sight of the crowd, his back pressed against the inside edge of the balcony. He had drawn his knees up to his chin and was now pawing at his lips with his hands, as if in an attempt to drag coherent words from his unresponsive mouth. His black eyes, wide and staring, darted this way and that, as if they were witnessing unimaginable terrors bearing down on him from every direction. Since accusing Batiatus of poisoning him, he had withdrawn into himself, muttering and gibbering, resisting all attempts to draw him out of his shell. Brutilius’s wife had tried for a while, but Hieronymus had flinched as though he thought she meant him harm, and in the end she had given up. Then it had been time for Solonius to announce the primus, since when all eyes had been on the arena.

Now that Spartacus had perfunctorily, even contemptuously, despatched Hieronymus’s gladiators, however (men selected especially for the primus, and therefore, theoretically, the best that his ludus had to offer), Crassus, his professional interest in the contest effectively over, turned his withering attention back to Hieronymus.

“I have invested considerable coin in venture, and will have explanation for this disgrace,” he muttered, spitting out his words like cherry pits. “Speak, Grecian, or prepare to be dragged back to Rome behind my horses and see truth torn from body.”

Hieronymus looked up at him, his mouth opening and closing silently for a moment. Then finally, in a harsh and tortured whisper, he said, “Water.”

The expression on Crassus’s face was less than encouraging.

“What of it?” he snapped.

Hieronymus raised a finger and pointed it waveringly at Solonius and then at Batiatus.

“They …” he gulped, his eyes rolling. “They have … poisoned me.”

Crassus’s dark gaze swept across the faces of the two lanistae.

“Is there truth in his babbling?”

Batiatus smiled, seemingly unruffled.

“I don’t endeavor to speak for the man. Let him offer explanation for belief in such a thing.”

Crassus’s attention snapped back to Hieronymus.

“Yes. Do as he suggests and make clear your meaning.”

“I …” Hieronymus had the wretched look of a man who had a number of paths from which to choose, but who suspected that whatever decision he made would ultimately lead to nothing but his own damnation.

Finally, pointing at Batiatus, he said, “The deception lies with him. He … he claims to provide me with water from Rome. But the water he offers … is not Roman.”

Crassus glared at Hieronymus, and as he did so Batiatus in turn watched Crassus’s face closely. He was mightily relieved to see that, unless the Roman nobleman was an excellent actor, he clearly had no idea what Hieronymus was talking about.

As if to confirm the fact, Crassus threw up his hands and barked, “Babble continues to flow as if water itself. Gather thoughts and sharpen point.”

Hieronymus shook his head and clapped his hands over his face.

“I cannot…” he all but wept. “I cannot.”

Crassus’s eyes blazed, though his voice was dangerously soft. Leaning forward, he said, “You can and will, or suffer consequences.”

Still Hieronymus wept, his hands clapped over his face. Brutilius tore his eyes from the action below for a moment and looked down on him with evident distaste.

“The man appears deranged,” he said. “One remembers that the Greeks are renowned for displays of vulgar emotion. Consequence of imbalance of humors in mongrel blood.”

Crassus shot him a look scathing enough to make the portly nobleman turn pale and promptly close his mouth. Then he turned again to Batiatus.

“Do you understand what the man implies by speaking nonsense of Roman water?”

Calmly Batiatus inclined his head.

“I confess to the grasping of it.”

“Then I demand explanation.”

Batiatus gestured at the jugs of water on the table at the back of the balcony.

“I made arrangement to serve Hieronymus water from the stream that until these several weeks past had supplied my ludus.”

“I would receive reason for it,” Crassus narrowed his eyes. “Does Hieronymus speak truth of this water running with poison?”

“Yes,” Batiatus said bluntly. “But not added by my hand. Nor by good Solonius’s. The stream which runs behind his own ludus was similarly sullied.”

“Whose hand has done it then?”

This time it was Solonius who answered.

“Hieronymus’s himself.”

There was suspicion and incredulity in Crassus’s voice. “Hieronymus poisons himself?”

Batiatus nodded. “Indeed. Though precise reckoning points to Mantilus’s hand, moved at bidding of Hieronymus.”

Crassus looked more exasperated than ever.

“I ask again for its reason.”

“For victory in the arena,” Solonius said.

“Victory absent honor,” Batiatus added.

Crassus scowled at the both of them-and then understanding slowly began to dawn on his face.

“Hieronymus sought advantage with the act in lieu of his men’s prowess?”

Again Batiatus nodded.

“Our ludii laid low by illness at his hand.”

“Batiatus discovered truth of it, and we joined to avenge slight upon our good names-as was our right,” Solonius said.

“We hesitated to resort to public exposure of his deed-for fear that noble name of Crassus would be sullied by proximity,” Batiatus said. “We simply allowed Hieronymus belief that upper hand was still his to enjoy, that affliction upon both of us still held sway.”

“Whereas in truth strength of warriors was secretly restored?” Crassus said.

Solonius nodded. “To stand ready upon the sands for contest and exposure of Hieronymus’s folly.”

Crassus smiled grimly. “Such base behavior deserves nothing less. I confess to thoughts of pitching him over balcony to deserved death and bloody spectacle for crowd.”

“It would be fitting end,” Batiatus agreed, “but not one to your advantage perhaps.”

This time Crassus didn’t just smile, but gave a short, barking laugh. He looked at Batiatus and Solonius thoughtfully for a moment, clearly regarding each of them with a new respect.

“Gratitude for delicacy of touch in this ugly matter. Yours has been honorable solution to grievous problem…” he smirked and added, “…one handled with diplomacy of true politicians.” And with that he reached out to grasp first Batiatus’s wrist, and then Solonius’s, before turning once again to regard Hieronymus, still curled up and shivering like a whipped dog.

“As for you Hieronymus,” he said, his voice and face instantly hardening, “you do nothing but bring shame to the arena.” He leaned forward, his voice a hiss of malice in Hieronymus’s ear. “Hear this, Grecian. My patronage comes to end, and your name and status with it. Fortunes will sink like overweighted ships at sea-I will see to it.”

He straightened up, tugging his toga back into shape- and then to everyone’s surprise, and not a little delight, he drew back his foot and kicked Hieronymus hard in the ribs.

There was a crack, and Hieronymus squealed like a stuck pig before toppling on to his side. As if nothing had happened, his manner that of the dignified and imposing statesman once more, Crassus turned and said, “I take leave to return to Rome immediately. Good fortune on both your houses.”

While a battle of words was raging in the pulvinus above them, Spartacus and Varro were engaged in an altogether more physical battle on the sands below. Solonius’s men, for all Batiatus’s frequently disparaging remarks about them, were skilled, highly trained warriors, and those he had selected for today’s primus were, in addition, hard-bitten and experienced, their fierce intent, now that Hieronymus’s jackals had been despatched, to kill the current Champion of Capua and wrest the too-long-held advantage back from the House of Batiatus.

For this reason the fight so far had been cagey, tactical, neither side wishing to be overly reckless and thus make a potentially lethal mistake. The two pairs of gladiators had been circling one another cautiously for a while now, only occasionally feinting left or right in an attempt to gain positional advantage over their opponents, or in the hope of finding an opening.

There had been a number of minor skirmishes to incite the crowd, one or two flurries of action to set backsides rising from seats and pulses momentarily racing, but nothing serious. Most of the slashes and thrusts from swords and spear had clanged harmlessly against raised shields, though blood had been drawn once-that of Varro’s, the hoplomachus’s spear having sneaked briefly around his defenses and taken a flap of skin from just beneath his armpit, before he was able to leap aside and prevent the weapon from doing further damage by batting it away with his shield.

Blood from the wound, which would sting and itch like a scorpion’s kiss later, if Varro was lucky enough to survive the day, was now trickling down his ribs and into his waistband, the flow made more copious by the sweat and oil oozing from the pores of his skin. It was a reminder that he needed to remain constantly alert-and a timely one too, because if Varro did have a weakness in the arena it was that he was a man of action, and therefore occasionally prone to impatience or frustration if an opponent was being particularly defensive. In training, Oenomaus was constantly telling him to concentrate, or admonishing him for being too eager to end the contest. Time and again he had reprimanded Varro for lunging forward and thus leaving himself vulnerable to the counter-attack.

For this reason, having Spartacus as a partner worked hugely to Varro’s advantage. The Thracian was an intelligent and versatile fighter. He could be patient when he needed to be, but was swift and merciless when the opportunity to gain advantage over an opponent presented itself. Although he and Varro were very different in their fighting styles, Varro was intelligent and modest enough to realize that there was much he could learn from his friend, the Champion of Capua. He welcomed his tutelage, and in the absence of Oenomaus and his whip, he listened closely to his advice when they were paired together out on the sand. Spartacus often used the “quiet” moments in the arena to mutter instructions to Varro. Knowing of the Roman’s propensity to go on the attack, he would persistently urge caution, or would remind him to concentrate at all times — sometimes by voicing the brutal fact that if Varro should make a mistake, then not only would he suffer the consequences of it, but his wife and son would too.

Today Spartacus had more reason than ever to communicate with his friend. The evening before, on Batiatus’s instructions, Oenomaus had drawn Varro and Spartacus together and discussed the strategy for the following day’s primus with them at length. He had admitted that for dominus’s plan to come fully to fruition would require not only tactical understanding and split-second timing, but also a great deal of luck. “If the gods bestow favor upon us,” he had said, “there stands no reason why we should not prevail.”

Now they were putting those tactics into practice, by either retreating or pushing forward as they circled their opponents, with the result that they were herding them almost surreptitiously to the far side of the arena. In this way, little by little, all four gladiators were drawing closer and closer to the huge iron gates which Spartacus and Varro had passed through some minutes before-and behind which currently stood Oenomaus and Mantilus, their dark forms just visible through the thick, cross-hatched strips of iron.

When they were within ten paces of the gates, and had circled round so that the vast metal structures were at their backs, Spartacus and Varro began to retreat more rapidly, at the same time drawing closer together, as if menaced by a pack of wild dogs that were closing in on them from all sides.

Encouraged by this, their opponents surged forward- and as they did so, Spartacus, as if momentarily wrongfooted by their sudden advance, stumbled and dropped to one knee.

Sensing an advantage, the thraex immediately broke formation and raced forward, raising his sica for a slashing blow. Instantly Spartacus leaped to his feet, whereupon the thraex hesitated, realizing-too late-that his opponent’s apparent stumble had been nothing but a ruse. As his attention was fully focused on engaging with Capua’s Champion, who was now moving forward with purpose, his swords raised to slash down in a straight-armed pincer movement, he was blind-sided by Varro, who, raising his shield to ward off a potential attack by the hoplomachus, took a step to his right and slashed his sword with brutal force across the thraex’s exposed back.

Blood flew like a curling red streamer as the thraex screamed and staggered forward. Even as he peddled his feet in a desperate attempt to stop his knees from crumbling beneath him, Spartacus took a step to his right to avoid the man’s hopeless lunge with his sword, and brought his own sword up in an arc, hacking through the thraex’s ribs and into his chest.

The thraex, his torso now gushing blood from hideous wounds at both front and back, dropped his shield and sword and crashed face-first to the ground. As he lay, whimpering with agony, his shaking body lathered in a thick red coating of his own blood, he managed to weakly lift one arm and raise his fingers in the time-honored gesture of submission.

By this time, however, knowing that the man was too severely wounded to be any more of a threat, Spartacus had already moved on. Jumping over the thraex’s prone body, he stepped up beside Varro, and together the two of them moved forward as one to engage the hoplomachus.

With his partner out of action, the hoplomachus now had only two courses of action available to him. The less honorable option was to turn and run, in the sure and certain knowledge that eventually he would be caught, and-no doubt with the jeers of the crowd ringing in his ears — slaughtered on the sands like a suckling pig intended for the roast.

His second option, and that which he chose to employ, as any true gladiator would, was to take the fight to his opponents, in the hope that, with luck or skill or simply the sheer ferocity of his attack, he could put one of them out of action and thus even up the odds once again.

Roaring like an enraged bull, he ran forward, the spear in his right hand held parallel to the ground at waist height. The point of the spear was aimed at Varro’s belly, and it was clear he was focusing on the bigger man because he considered him the larger and slower-moving of the two targets.

That was his mistake. Because despite his size, Varro’s reflexes were surprisingly acute. As the hoplomachus lunged at him, he sidestepped and spun, grabbing the shaft of the spear as it passed through empty air and yanking it so hard that his opponent was jerked toward him.

Caught off-balance, the hoplomachus staggered forward, whereupon Varro raised his shield and smashed it into the man’s face. There was an almighty clash of impact as the heavier, thicker shield bent and mangled the hoplomachus’s metal helmet, crushing it inwards with such force that the man’s nose burst like a plum beneath a boot, and his lips were instantly shredded against his upper teeth, which in turn were smashed to jagged splinters of bone.

The hoplomachus dropped his spear and spun away, limbs pinwheeling wildly, giving him the look of someone who was comically, hopelessly drunk. Blood poured from beneath the rim of his crumpled helmet in thick loops and candles, collecting on his chest and running down his body like a red, tasseled bib.

Closing the gap between them, Varro ran forward and gave the man an almighty shove. His intention was not to knock his reeling opponent off his feet, however, but to direct him toward the nearby gate, which he promptly crashed into with a clanging impact that reverberated around the entire arena. Shaking his head, an action which caused droplets of blood to fly in all directions and spatter the sand like red rain, the hoplomachus leaned back against the gate for a moment, breathing heavily through his broken nose. It was a testament to his courage and experience that as Spartacus and Varro came at him again, pressing forward their advantage, he raised his shield and snatched at the sword in his belt, instinctively preparing to fight back.

His helmet was bent so out of shape that he was almost blind, but he tried to defend himself regardless, taking mighty swings with his sword. His desperate survival attempt proved to be sadly in vain, however. Eyeing the wildly swooping sword, Spartacus chose his moment, then leaped forward, raising and bringing his own sword down with speed and deadly accuracy.

The hoplomachus merely grunted, like a man punched in the gut, as his sword arm was all but sliced completely through at the elbow. It dangled grotesquely on a thread of skin and sinew, the sword dropping from the nerveless fingers, as blood gushed from the severed arteries and veins like water from a pump, turning the sand red.

Groaning, his exposed flesh turning a grayish-white, the hoplomachus began to slide slowly down the gate as his knees folded beneath him. Instantly Spartacus leaped forward, grabbed the man by the throat and forced him upright again. With the hoplomachus’s blood spattering his body, he turned and gave Varro a short, grim nod.

“Now,” he said.

On the other side of the gate, Mantilus jerked back as the hoplomachus’s body crashed against it. Before he could take another step, however, Oenomaus, standing behind him, stepped forward, reaching out with his long arms. He grabbed handfuls of the scarred man’s loose-fitting robe in two places-at the scruff of his neck and at the base of his spine. Lips curling back from his teeth in a silent snarl, Oenomaus then slammed Mantilus back up against the gate, directly behind the wounded hoplomachus.

Like a fish on a riverbank, Mantilus immediately began to squirm and wriggle, his white eyes bulging, his mouth opening wide and his forked tongue flickering out. He began to squeal like a child, his body so thin and light that Oenomaus couldn’t help but think that perhaps he was a child, a child aged far beyond his years by some hideous enchantment.

Yet, although he grimaced with distaste, utterly repelled by the feeble struggles of the bony creature within his grip, Oenomaus held on, crushing his captive against the bars, his arms clamped tight, his muscles like iron. As a bead of sweat trickled down the front of his bald head and into his eyebrow, he silently urged Spartacus and Varro to make haste.

The crowd had seen blood and mutilation and death aplenty today, yet still they bayed for more. With their excited shrieks ringing around him, Varro bent and picked up the hoplomachus’s discarded spear. Straightening up, he looked directly ahead of him, at the huge iron gates, and at the hoplomachus’s ruined body slumped against them, held upright only by Spartacus’s hand around his throat. Underpinning the exhortations of the crowd, at a lower level, he thought he could hear another sound-a sustained, high-pitched squeal, like a rat caught in a trap.

Bile, born of hatred and revulsion, rose in his throat at what that sound must be, and raising the spear like a lance, the point aimed directly at the hoplomachus’s heart, he began to run forward. There wasn’t a great distance to cover, fifteen paces at the most, yet by the time the spear found its mark it was moving with more than enough pace not only to penetrate flesh and muscle and even bone, but to pass right through the hoplomachus’s body, with devastating force.

Oenomaus held on grimly as the point of the spear erupted out of the center of Mantilus’s back in a gush of blood that in the shadowy stone-walled tunnel looked almost black. Though Mantilus’s mouth stretched almost to splitting point, and his white eyes bulged from his head so alarmingly that they seemed in danger of popping out on to his cheeks, his squeal was abruptly cut off, to be replaced by an almost-silent hiss of excruciating agony. With a spasm so sudden and violent that Oenomaus felt it snap through his wrist and down his forearm in a needle-thin bolt of pain, the scarred man’s body abruptly arched like a bow, as if his every sinew was as stretched and taut as a lyre-string. There he hung, suspended, like a letter C, for several seconds-and then, with manic vigor, he began to scream and thrash anew, so violently this time that Oenomaus was forced to release him and step back, for fear of having his face slashed open by the long nails on the fingers of the man’s flailing hands.

Mantilus did not die easily. Oenomaus watched grimly as he hung there, his death-throes continuing, frantic and uncontrolled at first, and then gradually less frenziedly, for the next few minutes. Froth and blood boiled from his mouth, and shit and piss slid down his legs, joining with his blood to form a thin gruel of his life-fluids beneath his mortally wounded body.

At last, however, it was over, the child-like body winding down, the bald head lolling, the scarred face and limbs going slack. Then with a last few shudders, the poisoner was still, and the only sound in the tunnel- aside from the distant cheers of the crowd beyond the gates-was the steady, slow drip-drip-drip of Mantilus’s blood on the stone floor.

Oenomaus stepped closer, and stared grimly into the man’s glazed white eyes and slack, dead face.

“Not a creature of Hades, but merely a man, like the rest of us,” he murmured. His gaze shifted to the pool of stinking fluids by his feet. “Filled not with dust, but blood, shit and piss, as it should be.” He nodded, as though satisfied, and said it again. “As it should be.”