'And you, Cupido, have you won the Emperor's favour?'
Cupido shrugged. 'He can find someone else to kill the greybeards and the boys barely ready for the toga. There are plenty of people willing to do it for him.'
'Fronto says you are a fool to play games with this Emperor.'
'What does a fat swindler who stinks like a buffalo know of the arena?' Cupido replied evenly. 'I, and every one of my kind, face death each time we go through these doors. Those of us who survive do so on our own merit. Does he think anyone but the gods can make the arena a more dangerous place than it is now?'
'Perhaps you are right and he is wrong, Cupido,' Rufus admitted. 'But have you not always told me the best way to survive is to keep risk to a minimum wherever you can control that risk? Pleasing the Emperor is within your power, so at least consider it.'
The gladiator shook his head. 'Sometimes a man's pride, even a slave's pride, must decide between what he should do and what he must do. In the past, I had to fight to survive, because the men I faced were all capable of killing me. Since the passing of Tiberius I have become less a fighter and more an executioner. When I enter the arena today I will have a choice, and I will only make that choice when I see my opponents. I will live with that decision and so must the Emperor.'
As he checked the ramps and gateways later, Rufus became aware of movement in the pens holding the captive criminals. Guards separated five or six prisoners at a time and sent them in batches towards the arena floor. The shackled men prayed or pleaded for mercy. Rufus watched an overseer lash out with a spiked club, drawing a howl of agony from his wounded charge. Many of the prisoners were already injured, with blood flowing from open wounds. As the first batch of men were marched away, the order came to release the lions.
The screams were unbearable, even deep in the bowels of the arena.
Rufus had seen and heard men die, but the sound that reached him now was like nothing that had ever emerged from a human throat. It was not just the volume, which spoke of unbearable pain and unimaginable horror, but the duration of that agony which clutched like an iron fist at his heart. It seemed impossible that anyone could maintain such a sound for so long.
An hour later, his senses stunned, the piercing shrieks of men dying in unspeakable agony still rang in his ears. The selection from the cages continued, but now there was no more weeping. No more pleading. These were men without hope. They knew what awaited them, but they made no move to escape. It was as if their numbed minds could not come to terms with what lay ahead and had shut them off from the world.
But there was no sanctuary for Rufus. His mind would not shut out the screams and he truly believed he would go mad if he did not get out of the darkness. He could take no more of it. He stumbled up the stairs and the passageways to the doorway where he had earlier stood with Cupido. The sight that met his eyes was one he would never forget.
The arena resembled an abattoir.
A dozen lions, leopards and cheetah feasted on the carcasses of their prey, but Rufus could see that they were close to being sated by their human banquet. Their movements were lethargic and they chewed at the flesh and bones mechanically, as if more by habit than desire.
He turned away while the last of the terrified prisoners were led towards their fate, but his eyes were drawn to the purple-clad figure lounging on a throne surrounded by his guards in the stands. Even from the opposite side of the arena Rufus recognized that Caligula was an imposing figure, taller by half a head than anyone in the throng surrounding him. He also sensed something that astonished him: this man, who had watched a hundred condemned captives being torn apart by wild animals at his whim, was bored. There was no mistaking it. The young Emperor yawned. He looked at his manicured fingers. He made small talk to the senator seated to his left. Even when the screams resumed he barely glanced up to see what was happening.
But the entertainment had the opposite effect on the crowds surrounding him. They gasped as bones cracked. Howled in delight as flesh tore. Laughed as screams reached a greater pitch than before. In Tiberius's time these enthusiasts had seen dozens die in the arena, in single combat, or even in great battles. But this Emperor had given them something even they had never witnessed: human sacrifice on a grand scale.
Finally, the screaming stopped. The beasts were herded from the arena and, white-faced, Rufus joined the other workers in the gruesome task of clearing the arena of its human carrion. He breathed through his mouth in an attempt to avoid the sewer stink of a hundred eviscerated bowels, but his throat filled with burning liquid as he imagined he could taste the foulness that filled the air around him. He averted his eyes from the scattered remains, but his unwilling mind identified every piece of inanimate flesh that defiled his fingers.
When the job was completed, fresh sand was thrown across the blood pooled in the dirt, not to disguise what had taken place, but to ensure that the next actors in the gory drama which had been devised for the Emperor had firm footing to show all their deadly skills.
The gladiators.
Rufus listed the men of Cupido's school as they trotted into the arena. Buffalo-shouldered Sabatis with his distinctive mesh body guard, face hidden behind a murmillo 's fishtail-crested helmet; Flamma, the Syrian spearman, veteran of a score of contests, who fought in an unvisored bronze helmet of a style which had gone out of fashion a decade before; little Niger, the retiarius, net in one hand and trident in the other; and finally the golden one himself.
Cupido was magnificent. If he felt the weight of expectation, it was hidden behind the golden mask and no trace of weariness showed as he loped across the heavily sanded floor. He fought without armour, but the harsh sunlight reflecting from his oiled muscles gave him a more martial appearance than any of the others in their brightly polished metalwork. He halted in the centre of the arena, head held erect behind the golden mask, the long sword steady in his left hand. He looked what he was. A killing machine.
But, Rufus wondered, would he kill today?
X
From a doorway directly opposite Rufus, a phalanx of perfectly matched gladiators jogged into the arena and turned to face the Emperor. Rufus counted them with disbelief: eight, ten, finally fourteen… Cupido and his fighters were hugely outnumbered.
Dressed in the leather greaves and griffin-crested helmets of Thracian light infantry, the enemy were matched physically in height and build as if they had been chosen for some human chariot team. As one, they knelt on a knee and roared: ' Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant.'
Cupido's group stood silent, the only sound the chink of metal as Sabatis adjusted the chain armour which protected his shoulder.
Caligula should have been offended by this show of defiance, but he gave a thin smile and waved a limp hand towards the editor, who proclaimed loudly: 'Let the combat begin.'
Unknown to the crowd, their Emperor had decided this would be no normal display of arms. A message had been sent to Menander, the Thracian leader, in the arming room: 'Strike every blow to cause the greatest pain and disfigurement. Cupido will pay for his insults to the Emperor, or you will.'
There would be no quick deaths today.
The two lines of Thracians moved smoothly to form a single ring round their opponents, but as the minutes passed it became obvious that Menander's strategy would be more difficult to execute than he had anticipated. Cupido's gladiators fought back to back, each covering the other's weakest side. Any attempt to split them by feint attacks or outflanking manoeuvres only made them move closer.