Rufus had heard rumours that it was not always the crowd who decided who lived and who died in the arena. Cupido seemed to be confirming this, but the gladiator clearly felt he had revealed enough and Rufus decided not to delve further. Instead, as they walked among the animal cages under the arena floor, he asked Cupido about his unusual name.
The fighter shrugged. 'That is my ring name. My true name is of no significance now. The person who owned that name is gone for ever. I was a prince of my people, but when the men of my father's tribe rose against the Romans and were defeated, I became a slave like all the others. The Romans put me on a farm. Not a healthy place. Many of us died in the quarries. They would have worked me to death if I'd stayed there.'
'How did you come to escape?'
'Escape? I didn't escape. The overseer was a man who used his whip and his feet too freely. He used them on me only once,' Cupido said, his tone proud. 'I took the whip from him and beat him until he screamed for mercy and the skin was stripped from his backbone.
Perhaps I should have killed him. When he recovered he would surely have killed me. I was fortunate. The local magistrate gave me the choice of the cross or the ring. I chose the ring.'
The sad smile touched his lips. 'Now great men treat me like a prince again. One senator pays me to be his bodyguard, to impress his friends and as a warning to his enemies. He knows I despise him and all his kind, but still I must teach his children to use the sword and to defend themselves, and he showers me with gifts. Last week, another rich knight sent me a beautiful woman because I had won him money. She seemed disappointed when I sent her away unused.'
Rufus was astonished that Cupido could take so little satisfaction from his achievements. He himself had often wondered what it would be like to experience the acclaim of a huge crowd in the arena. Sometimes, he dreamed he was in Cupido's place, his blade singing as he scythed down opponents, but there always came an awful moment when the sword point wavered and he woke up sweating in the certain knowledge that the next victim would have been himself.
'You have a wonderful talent, a great name and the acclaim of half of Rome. On a good day I work as a clerk and on a bad one I might wipe a hippopotamus's backside. Which life would you choose?'
The fighter turned to him with a flash of irritation. 'Yes, I have acclaim, but for what? One day the blood spilled in the arena will be mine. Then what good will all the past cheers of the mob do? I will be just another punctured bag of guts and bones to be dragged from the arena and fed to your lions. And yes, you are right, I do have a talent. A talent to take life and make it look easy. But such a talent comes at a price. Some of the men I would call my friends take pleasure from the kill. They live for that split second of another man's death. They savour the feeling as the blade pierces skin and the flesh closes round it and embraces it like a welcoming host. Nothing in life gives them greater satisfaction.
'And me? I despise myself, because killing is so easy. It's as if they offer themselves to me. In the arena there are only two types of men: the quick and the dead. The men who face me on the dirt are already dead. It is as if they fight with their feet trapped in mud. They wait until I have positioned myself for the thrust. They place themselves where I will them to be. Their weapons flash, but they are made of air, they cannot touch me. Then I kill them. Does a butcher have talent? Does a slaughterman? Then yes, I have talent.'
He turned and walked off, leaving Rufus utterly bemused.
V
In Rome, a rumour could pass from the Palatine to the Aventine quicker than a dog's bark. But the latest one turned out to be true. Tiberius was not the same man who had led his legions across the Rhine to conquer Germany. The Emperor took his ease now on the island of Capri, where there were stories of debauchery that would make even the most broad-minded Roman blanch. The ageing ruler had bested every rival for over twenty years and was secure in his power. He did not need to court the popularity of the mob and he was shrewd enough to take advantage of the fact. He refused to sponsor any further games.
Rufus thought Fronto would be concerned about the fall-off in trade, but where others saw a crisis the trader perceived opportunity.
'Don't worry, boy, the games will be back. They say the youngster Tiberius has chosen as his heir can't get enough of the spectacle. Meanwhile, we are given the opportunity to improve our stock.'
Cupido, interested to learn more about the beasts being readied for the arena, became a regular visitor to Fronto's enclosures. Dressed in his white tunic, he might have been any other handsome young slave of average height and build, but there was a fierceness of spirit in him, a tension and an awareness, that made other men shy away.
He assessed the farm's stock with a professional eye, commenting on the hardiness of one antelope and the stamina or nimbleness of the next. They stopped at the stockade containing what Rufus now knew as the rhinoceros. Cupido laughed aloud when the young slave explained how Fronto had introduced him to the massive animal, which eyed them curiously as they stood by the fence.
'She must be much faster than she appears,' said the gladiator appreciatively. 'And that skin looks as tough as thrice-tanned leather. I wouldn't like to take her with only a sword: it would just bounce off. I think her horns are as much to frighten as to kill, but she'd crush a light infantryman, even a hoplomachus, without any trouble. Perhaps it would take a double team of a netsman and a heavily armoured murmillo like Sabatis to best her?'
Cupido commented on the many empty cages and stockades at the farm. Rufus explained that Fronto was on another trip to Africa to buy fresh stock and assured him they would be full again in a few weeks' time. A shadow clouded the gladiator's eyes.
'Do you think there are enough creatures in the world to keep the Romans amused? Look at them. They are as beautiful as they are wild. Each one has a purpose and a place, from the fiercest of the cats to the most docile of the antelopes. Do they not deserve life?'
'That is a curious point of view for someone who does what you do.'
'When I enter the arena, I leave my feelings in the arming room,' Cupido replied. 'Afterwards, when the blood-letting is finished, it is different. Every life I take, be it animal or man, weighs heavy on my mind. Each individual adds to the burden I carry. I know one day that burden will crush me. But do not be sad for me, Rufus. My fate was decided from the first moment I entered the arena. The rudis is not for me. Give me a clean death and a quick one and I will be satisfied.'
Rufus was surprised at his friend's fatalism. The rudis was the carved wooden sword presented to a gladiator on the day he won his freedom.
'But you are the most celebrated fighter in all Rome. The crowd loves you. Great men seek you out and reward you with gifts and money. The day will surely come when that gift is a wooden sword?'
Cupido shook his head and changed the subject.
'I remember the first day we met, when you cried for the leopard. Soon there will be no more leopards, or antelopes, or rhinoceros. They will all be gone, fed into the insatiable maw of the games. What will you do then?'
'Fronto knows what he is doing. He will find more animals for us,' Rufus said with more confidence than he felt.
'This time perhaps, and the next time. But there will come a day when he cannot. Think on that, Rufus. Think on a means of providing entertainment without blood. I have studied the mob. They don't come only for blood. If you can give them something different, something they have never seen before, perhaps they will be satisfied with a little less of it.'
It was a weary and disheartened Fronto who returned from his mission. The animal dealers at the trading camps on the coast all told the same story. They had few animals to sell and those they did possess were low in quality and high in price. He had hired guides and made the arduous trek into the mountains, but the news was the same. The game either was hunted out or had fled south, and the predators that lived off it had followed. He was venting his frustrations on Rufus by the menagerie gate when they were interrupted by a shout.