Lucius thought about that… then dodged and scampered up the busy Forum, right to the far end of the plaza and a largish stall hung with all kinds and sizes of cages. At the sight of him, the stallholder, a fat lady in a big stained yellow palla, came straight out to chase him off. But Lucius knew what to do. He held up his coin and waited till she saw it.
“Won’t get much for that,” the woman said.
“Don’t need much,” Lucius pointed at one of the smallest cages.
The woman sniffed and unhooked it from the cord where it hung. “One sestercius…”
“How much…?” said Lucius, appalled. Then he shrugged. If the goddess had seen fit to get him a whole denarius, then this was her fair cut. He handed it over. The stallholder dropped the coin on her little scale and watched suspiciously until the pans leveled out before giving him the caged, squawking sparrow.
Lucius took it and ran past the end of the Forum, up the steps of Venus’s temple. Leaning against one of the big open doors was a slightly pear-shaped priestess in white frock and rose-colored palla, with a jauntily skewed garland of somewhat wilted roses on her head.
Lucius handed her the cage. The priestess took it and looked inside. “With prayer, or without?” she said.
“With, please,” Lucius said. “A thank-offering.”
“Ten minae,” the priestess said, and smiled crookedly. “Aren’t you a little young to be thanking Her for favors?”
“Not when I owe Her one,” Lucius said, and passed over the money.
The priestess pocketed it. “Whatever. Thank you Lady Venus Queen of the Loves and Passions of Men for Gracious Kindness shown to this your Servant who by this Token thanks Thee,” she said, and pulled the cage door open. The sparrow shot out, pooping on the priestess as it went, and fluttered straight back toward the marketplace. The priestess rolled her eyes and walked off, resignedly wiping herself with her sleeve.
Lucius headed back into the shadows of the Colosseum. In the evening there was more work to do, but everything went by more quickly than he could have believed, because of what was waiting in his sleep-space. When he finally got there, the building had gone quiet around him, all the spectators gone, the restaurants emptying, the brothels operating with their doors shut. Lucius knelt by the bedroll, put down his lamp—refilled with oil at Delia’s—and unrolled his blanket.
There was the murmillo, just as he had left him. Lucius piled up the blanket against his doorway in such a way that it shut most of the lamp’s light in. And then, on the hard stone floor, he played. Hardly above a whisper, Lucius made all the sounds of a day’s Games: the crowd’s roar, the cries of the bookies, the repeaters’ announcements, the stats of the champion and the challenger.
Then the featured fight began, and he worked the murmillo’s sword arm up and down more times than he could count, beating the iron of the sword against imagination’s armor until the inside of his mind rang with it. On hands and knees, grinning in triumph, he made the murmillo chase the unfortunate challenger—some poor five-fight Thracian—up and down the length of a shadowy sleep-space which had become the sunlit arena oval. Lucius played until he could barely see, until he started falling asleep where he sat. Then ever so carefully he laid the action figure down, wrapped in a fold of his blanket, and then got ready to say his prayers.
No Roman would have called a place home without his household gods. Lucius had only two, carved clumsily from scrap wood he’d found. One was Mars—that made sense since the Colosseum was His house—though Lucius didn’t pray to him too often, since he was reported to have a temper and you wouldn’t want to get on His nerves. The other was a Venus that a Gaulish slave had made for him a year or so ago, a little woman-shape like Milla the cloth-seller, one-third bosom and two-thirds hips, but still strangely graceful. “The Lady of the Caves,” the Gaul had called her: “the Lady of the tunnels and holes and dark places underneath: Venus Cloacina…”
Carefully Lucius put the lamp down in front of the little figures, and he raised his hands to pray. “Thanks again,” he said. “This is the best thing I’ve ever had. Please take care of the nice lady who gave me the money. I’ll take good care of the murmillo. I promise.”
Then Lucius lay down and rolled himself in the rest of the blanket, and blew out the lamp. He put a hand out to the rolled-up murmillo, let out a breath, and, smiling, fell asleep.
*
So, he heard someone say in the night: probably someone going home late from the nearby brothel. Do I win?
You win, said another voice, more amused than annoyed. I admit it.
And…? said the first voice.
Oh, stop that. You know I’ll pay the debt. What do I owe him?
The usual. A day of heart’s desire.
And if he can’t cope?
A long, slow smile began to underlie the darkness. Are you betting he can’t?
Lucius turned over and slept again.
*
A second later, it seemed, he awoke in the dark. It was dawn again. Lucius reached out his hand, knowing that between him and the brick would be—
...nothing?!
Lucius sat up and just missed banging his head against the ceiling. He swore under his breath. Catharis! he thought, feeling around, and not finding the murmillo anywhere. He actually came in here and took it! I’ll kill him!—
He knew where Catharis slept—in an underhang over by the door the gladiators used to go into the arena and he didn’t need a light to find his way. Lucius headed around the curve of the inmost aisle, toward the Fighter’s Gate, the way the gladiators went into the ring. Off to the right was the place where Catharis would be sleeping. Lucius stalked down the aisle, not even trying to be quiet. But then an oblong of light in front of him distracted him and he slowed to stare at it—pale light, very early morning light, seeping in. The Fighter’s Gate was ajar. Silently Lucius crept forward to look out into the arena.
That pale strange light of morning twilight turned everything—sand, stands, shadow—all one shade of indefinite blue. High up, the sky was still dark; but above the rim of the arena, hanging like a watching eye, was the morning star. And out on the sand, in the empty silence of the arena, a single murmillo was working out. In better light, his crest might have been red with two tall plumes, and the shadows around his helmet a garland of roses, a design calculated to please the ladies.
Lucius stepped out through the Fighter’s Gate and moved slowly across the twilit sand. The murmillo just kept going through his basic drill, a flowing sequence of techniques with sword and shield. The sand, dry after being raked and left to rest for the night, squeaked under his footsteps.
Ten paces away, Lucius stopped to watch. The murmillo had that same easy grace that Hilarus did, the gift for making it look simple. Though his moves were less showy, their precision was just as crisp. When he finished, the murmillo turned, swinging his sword and working one shoulder as if it bothered him. That was when he saw Lucius and strode over to him, towering above the boy’s head.
What happened next took Lucius’s breath away. The gladiator saluted, then gravely went down on one knee. “Sir,” he said. “I am your gladiator.” He took his helmet off.
For an instant Lucius was afraid there would be only daubs of ink inside, but the face was normal enough, though rough-hewn and blocky as if genuinely carved from wood. The eyes were no darker than any other Roman. Lucius lowered his own eyes from that direct stare, astonishingly childlike in a full-grown man. And then he saw, above the greave on the left leg, a dimple in the flesh. Not a scar. Just a place where the carver’s knife had slipped….
“There’s a message, sir,” he said. “She says, ‘You have a day: dawn to dawn’.”
“‘She?’” said Lucius, blushing and not knowing why. He was able to accept the magic far more easily than the words. Even in dreams nobody had ever called him Sir. He was just a slave, he’d never had real responsibility before. But now he was responsible for the murmillo.
And I
have to take care of him. How do I do that—?
Back in the depths of the building, a door creaked open and Lucius flinched.
“What’s the matter, sir?”
“We’ve got to get away from here. Gladiators don’t work out by themselves this early, they—”
“Hey, you!” Lucius half-turned, saw who was speaking, and felt icy sweat pop out all over him. “Yes, you two! What’s going on?”
This can not be happening! Lucius thought desperately. Dark-skinned, massive, standing in the shadows of the Fighter’s Gate, was the Master of the Games, principal officer of the Colosseum, answering directly to the Emperor; the man responsible for every denarius and sestercius spent here, and therefore Lucius’s true master. In the comfy brown tunic he must have slept in, he looked like a casual laborer, but there was nothing casual about his expression. “Well?”
Lucius instantly understood that the only possible response was to lie outrageously, and bowed the way he’d done to the patrician lady yesterday. “Sir,” he said, “my master sent him over to work out with the Neronians.”
It was Hilarus’s school, the best—and the only one with a direct connection to the Colosseum through the tunnel under the plaza. That explained how a gladiator could get here without passing any gates. The Master raised his eyebrows. “He’s a little early.”
“My master wanted him to check the sand.”
The Master looked resigned. “Doesn’t everybody? All right…five more minutes. Then the ground crew comes in.” He turned and vanished into the darkness under the gate. Lucius nearly collapsed with relief, then heard the squeaking behind him as the murmillo went back to his practice.
“Didn’t you hear him? We have five minutes!”
“Five minutes is long enough to win a fight.” The murmillo began proving that on the empty air.
Lucius watched him with a thousand questions going through his head. What do I do now? How do I hide him? What do I do with him? “When you’re finished,” he said, “follow me. I’ll find you somewhere to hi— To stay while we figure out what to do.”
“Only until afternoon,” the murmillo said without breaking his rhythm.
“What? Why?”
“Because I fight this afternoon.”
“You what??”
“I fight. In the freestyles.”
“Are you crazy? Who put your name on the schedule?”
“That’s my owner’s job. You would have taken care of that. Wouldn’t you?” He went back to cutting the air.
Lucius shivered; the swish of the sword was starting to get to him. That’s how it’ll sound when they find I lied about him, and chop my head off… Then, slowly, his panic began to fade. But wait a minute. What if he does fight? This happens every week. Documentation goes missing, some new guy turns up, nobody’s sure what he’s doing but he knows, and the fight goes ahead—
It all started to fall into place. If he’s going to show up to fight anyway, then we’ll go ahead and act like he’s for real. It could work, for the same reason that it had worked just now with the Master. With six thousand employees in this one facility alone, he couldn’t know them all by sight. “Listen,” he said. “Just come along with me, and whenever I say ‘Isn’t that right?’, you just nod and agree. And if I ask you to do some fighting moves—”
“That’s what I live for,” said the murmillo. He slashed his sword up and down, then winced slightly. “I think I overdid the exercises.”
Lucius remembered how long he had played with his toy gladiator, and felt guilty. “We’ll take you down to the trainers’ bay,” he said. “They massage gladiators all day: no way they’ll care that they don’t recognize you. A rubdown, then a hot bath…”
He headed off, thinking fast, then saw the very last thing he needed—Catharis, looking first sleepy, then surprised. Lucius paid no heed, but didn’t miss the familiar nasty smile. Oh well, what’s one more problem? He turned to the murmillo to ask him the first of a thousand questions, then stopped. “What’re you called?”
“Whatever my master chooses.”
Lucius swore under his breath, but as they passed the equipment stall where kit was dropped off for repair, he caught sight of several pairs of caesti, bronze-knuckled boxing gloves. Hmm. “Cestinius,” he said. “‘Lil’ Knucks.’ How does that sound?”
“Like my name,” said the murmillo, as if there’d never been any doubt.
“Oh, good.”
They reached the massage and bath area, and Lucius stuck his head around the door. “Hey, Arcisius! You in here?”
In a waft of steam, a bathman in a linen kilt emerged from the hot-pool area, wringing out a sodden towel. “Here’s a new guy from the Neronian,” Lucius said. “His trainer’s not here yet, and somebody thought it’d be funny to send him all the way over here for his bath.”
“Why am I surprised?” said the bathman. “They’re getting back at us for last week, when we sent all those people over to them.” Arcisius peered at the murmillo. “And they made him suit up, too? What a laugh. Go through there, fella; racks for the armor on the left…”
Lucius watched him go, then said under his breath, “Keep an eye on him, all right? He got a bang on his head a while back; he might seem like he’s not all there…” He slipped a mina into Arcisius’s unresisting hand.
Arcisius stared at it. “Where’d you get this?”
“He’s got a patron, and the patron needed an agent. Me. Don’t mention this to anyone, all right? But… This guy’s a good bet for later today.”
“Freestyles, huh? Got it. Can I mention that to a couple other of the lads? Thanks…”
He vanished into the bath area. Lucius got back to the beast pens as fast as he could, but Catharis was already there with Mancipuer’s breakfast rolls, looking virtuous as he whispered in the overseer’s ear.
“You’re late,” Mancipuer said. Ignoring the rolls, he headed for Lucius. Catharis was already grinning. Lucius let the distance close until he could speak quietly, then said, “Sir, my apologies. Someone wanted to… borrow my services.” He did his best to make it sound mysterious.
“Oh, they did, did they? Well, you can just tell them—”
Lucius caught his overseer’s hand, pulled it down out of sight of the other slaves and pressed a sestercius into it. If I can cut Lady Venus in, I can cut him in too. Especially considering how much trouble he could make for me otherwise….
Mancipuer glanced at his hand, then at the other slaves. His other hand grabbed Lucius by the tunic.
“You were late yesterday, too. The rest of you, back to work! We need to have a little chat.” The other smirked and moved away: that phrase was known code for a serious hiding. Mancipuer dragged him out of sight behind one of the nearby columns, then whispered, “What’s this about?” He slapped the column noisily. “But first, yell!”
“Ow! Ow! Master, no!”
“Keep me waiting, will you? I’ll have your hide off first! Maybe this’ll help you remember!”
The pantomime went on for a couple of minutes before Mancipuer paused, flapping his hand to ease the sting. “This had better be good,” he said in a low voice, “or it won’t be the column next time.”
“It is good, sir! The fix is in! This senator, crimson a hand deep on his toga, he stopped me in the Forum and said he needed an agent no one would suspect. He’s putting a new gladiator into the freestyles today, behind his trainer’s back—he’s got too many contacts, and this new man’s a ringer. The senator bought him in from Pompeii or somewhere; name’s Cestinius. Betting’s already started. Anybody in the know will clean up—”
“How much is in it for us?”
“A lot,” Lucius said, desperately hoping that this was true. “The guy’s rated as a tyro, but he’s not. I saw him warming up this morning…”
Mancipuer thought for a moment. “All right. After that ‘beating’ you’re no good for anything today. And Catharis needs to learn how much work I expect from my senior slave.” H
is smile was nasty: Lucius was glad it wasn’t directed at him. “But I want half of whatever’s going.”
“Oh, all of it, sir!”
“No lies, just half.” Mancipuer raised his voice again. “Next time it’ll be worse!” he roared. “Get out of my sight!” Then, quietly, “And get fixing.”
Lucius got, trailed by a chorus of jeering laughter. He remembered to groan and hobble until he was out of sight, but was already starting to work at how to get Cestinius onto the lists for this afternoon. Everything hung on that. There were other problems, too. The bath had been easy, but his man needed food, drink, and somewhere to rest until fight time…
But as he went from snack bar to lounge to equipment area and back again, Lucius realized something: the system could be beaten, and it wasn’t hard to do. The sheer size of it was an advantage. Five hundred beast-handlers in this place, two thousand gladiatorial support staff, a thousand ground crew—rakers, cleaners, wheel-greasers, gods knew what else—dressers, trainers, all the rest: the Colosseum was a small city within the City. And as in any city, people constantly got fired, got hired, got married, got sick, sometimes got killed. The population was always changing. All that mattered was to avoid people who knew him too well to be taken in by his cover story. Nor did it matter that Lucius was poorly dressed. Plenty of rich owners left their slaves dressed badly because it never occurred to them to think about their clothes. Lucius’s rags didn’t make much difference.
But though food and baths and armor-polishing weren’t so much of a problem for Lucius to arrange, what he still couldn’t work out was how to get Cestinius onto the freestyle lists. Those came down from arena management, from the Master’s office. Lucius briefly considered sneaking up there, stealing in, grabbing a list and… Then what? He could read a bit, but couldn’t write a word.
Cestinius remained cheerfully unconcerned. Lucius stopped in on him any number of times between morning and noon-meal to find he’d been adopted as the bathmen’s pet celebrity: they weren’t used to gladiators who so enjoyed listening to everything they had to say. Yet another masseur was rubbing him down and chatting with Lucius when somebody yelled, “Hey you, get over here!”