The Art of War

Chapter 41

Rome, November, AD 69

Trabo

I didn’t much like Pantera, and I certainly didn’t trust him, but he had courage, you have to give him that. He led Lucius a merry dance into the ghetto, using himself as bait, and given what Lucius had planned for him, I’m not sure I could have done that.

It happened the day the emperor rode back into the city. Pantera came to us in the middle of the morning, out of the blue, dressed as a slave-buyer with his three personal ‘slaves’ in tow. The story was that he had bought Borros and wanted to see if he could become a gladiator. You know what he’s like; everyone was right for their part.

Borros himself could easily have been a fighter. He was washed and oiled and had some bull’s-leather armour of a kind that went out of use in Rome when I was about three years old, but was probably still worn in the provinces. He had a great-sword that looked as if it might have genuinely been British, and a small round shield.

Julius fussed around the big oaf like a bear round a cub, insisted he wrapped his blade in thick, soft leather and his fists likewise, that he wear greaves to protect his shins, that kind of rubbish. He had pitted him against the Drake, a little Thessalyan with blue-black hair who was wickedly fast with a trident and a net, a retiarius who had survived the tendency for all of his kind to die fast in the arena.

Years ago, Claudius passed a law that any retiarius who was beaten in his bout should be slaughtered on the spot and never given a second chance, but then Claudius, more than any other emperor, liked the sight of other men’s pain. Nero, who was easily the most squeamish of his family, revoked the ruling, but still, the retiarii had a noticeably short lifespan and the Drake was one of the few who had beaten the odds.

We had a good crowd for the audience: all one thousand of Lucius’ fighting men, sworn to the emperor; men who had seen the chance to escape from the arena and get into the legions. They couldn’t believe their luck, I tell you. Claudianus had had a dozen volunteers trying for every place. He’d had the luxury of weeding out the weak, the soft, the unintelligent, or the too-intelligent, and by the time he’d finished he had a thousand near-fanatics who would follow his commands to the letter.

They had all gathered to watch the bout between Borros and the Drake, which was fine, until a runner came panting from the palace and it turned out that the new ‘cohort’ was required to put on a parade for Lucius.

Pantera made his excuses and left, but not before he’d had a quiet word with Claudianus. He couldn’t afford to be seen, of course; Geminus was one of the few men in the tight little clique around Lucius who could actually identify him, but I watched him leave and he didn’t go far, just ducked into the ironsmith’s down the road where they made the weapons for the arena. I doubt very much if he’d gone in to order a sword.

I was called inside to make a midday meal for Lucius, but he didn’t eat it. I didn’t see what made him leave, but he was gone as if a thousand harpies were on his tail, dragging an unhappy Geminus along for the ride: I hadn’t let Geminus see me, you needn’t think that. I’m not stupid.

What exactly happened to Pantera? I’ve no idea. You’d have to ask one of the others.

I do know that when Julius’ cohort of gladiators marched out a few days later, I marched with them. Nobody asked me, but nobody told me not to. Jocasta hadn’t been to see me in half a month and I was sick of wondering what she was doing. I thought it would be easier to live without her if I was away from Rome.

Of course it wasn’t, but a man can dream, can’t he?