The door of the cage rattled and Marcus looked up to see several burly men outside. Their leader was muscular with a scarred face, and a whip hung from a loop on his belt.
‘Murderers of Pindarus, on your feet!’
Marcus and Festus stood up as calmly as they could. Lupus edged away towards the back of the cage, his lips trembling. Marcus stood in front of him and spoke gently. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it, my dear friend. They have come for us. All that remains is to go with dignity. Come.’ He held out his hand. Lupus stared at it a moment before he grasped it. Marcus felt his friend’s flesh trembling as he helped him to his feet, but kept hold of his hand. Festus smiled at them and turned to lead them out of the cage.
‘May the Gods deliver a quick end!’ Epatus called after them.
The leader of the arena staff and his men marched them under the seating to the nearest gate leading on to the sand. Several stout posts were leaning against the side wall. The man pointed to them. ‘Off with your tunics and then pick up one of those each. Move it!’
They did as they were told, slipping out of their tunics and standing in their loin cloths. Once they had picked up their stakes and rested them across their shoulders the man peered out through a crack in between the doors, then he turned round. ‘Right, they’re ready for us. You’re on.’
He thrust the gates open and Marcus blinked as the dazzling sunlight flooded the entrance. He felt a hand push him roughly forward and he stumbled into the arena. As his eyes grew accustomed to the light he saw the sea of faces rising up on all sides, the hubbub of their conversation like a distant storm. There were dark stains on the sand and the heat of the sun reflected off the white sand, beating at Marcus’s exposed skin. Together with their escort they marched solemnly across the sand towards the box where the governor and his guests sat on cushioned chairs in the shade of an awning. Marcus could see the governor sharing a joke with one of his companions and he felt a seething, impotent rage as he saw that it was Decimus.
‘This’ll do,’ the arena official decided. ‘Down stakes.’
Marcus heaved his burden from his shoulder and let it drop on to the sand. He was dimly aware of Festus and Lupus on either side of him, but his attention was fixed on Decimus. The crew erected the stakes and drove them down into the sand using heavy mallets. When the official was satisfied that they would not budge he gave the order to tie the prisoners. Rough hands thrust Marcus back against the stake and he felt the wood smack against his spine. His hands were drawn back and tied at the wrists with leather thongs. More thongs bound his ankles to the stake and his waist and neck so that he could barely move. When all three had been prepared the official strode behind each of them to test the bindings. Marcus was last, and he felt the breath of the man as he leaned his head to inspect the thongs. He paused and Marcus felt a hand on his shoulder, where he had been branded as an infant with the secret mark of Spartacus.
‘What’s this?’ the official whispered. ‘Speak up, boy. Where did you get this mark?’
Marcus swallowed and replied defiantly. ‘From my father.’
‘Your father …’ the official wondered aloud. ‘I know this mark … I know it.’
‘Are you quite finished, man?’ Euraeus called out from the governor’s box.
The official straightened up. ‘Yes, sir. Nearly done.’
‘Then get on with it.’
The official moved round to face Marcus with a strange expression on his face. Then he turned and gestured to one of his men who was holding a bucket with a ladle. The man approached and took out the ladle, containing a dark red gloop, and threw it over Lupus’s chest.
‘Urghh!’ Lupus flinched and wrinkled his nose in disgust.
The man threw another ladle over his stomach and then did the same for Marcus and Festus. The stink of the blood and offal caught in Marcus’s throat as the man stepped back with a cold smile of satisfaction.
‘There. That’ll whet the beasts’ appetite nicely!’
The official in charge took a last look at Marcus before he waved his staff towards the entrance. ‘Let’s go! At the double!’
They ran across the sand and hurriedly closed the gate behind them. On the other side of the arena another member of the arena staff climbed over the opposite gate and began to wind it up.
‘What will it be?’ Lupus whimpered. ‘Bears? Wolves? Lions?’
‘Not lions,’ Festus replied. ‘Only Rome has the right to use lions.’
Marcus could see the paws of the animals that would be used to kill them beneath the bottom of the gate as it began to rise. An instant later there were other shapes there. Muzzles, the glint of bared teeth and furry bodies. With a squeal the gate continued to wind up and the first of the beasts squirmed through and bounded a short distance on to the sand.
Marcus swallowed. ‘Wild dogs then …’
18
Several dogs emerged from the holding cell behind the gate; large, shaggy beasts with slavering jaws. They looked around the arena and up at the crowds that bayed for the blood of the three prisoners tied to stakes in front of the governor’s box. The noise and the seething movement of the crowd agitated them and the dogs snarled and snapped, lips curling up to reveal yellowy white fangs. Marcus felt his blood go cold at the sight and to his side he heard Lupus muttering.
‘The Gods save me … Gods save me …’
Glancing at Lupus Marcus saw that his friend’s eyes were wide with terror as he writhed against the leather straps that bound him to the wooden post. His efforts were futile and his muscles strained as he gritted his teeth and struggled. Looking quickly the other way, Marcus saw that Festus stood stiffly, his face a mask of defiant contempt. Yet there was a telltale tremor in his cheek that revealed the fear that the bodyguard was fighting to conceal in his determination to die with as much dignity as the circumstances allowed. But Marcus could not imagine any dignity in a death that involved being torn apart by a pack of wild, half-starved dogs. There was only shame in that, given an edge by the prospect of the sick amusement it would provide to the mob. It would have been better to accept the mercy killing offered to them by Festus, but it was too late for that.
He turned his face back towards the dogs, no more than thirty paces away. Their initial nervousness at their surroundings had passed and now they had caught the scent of the blood and offal daubed down the fronts of Marcus and his friends. Heads down and fangs bared, they spread out and approached, pausing every few paces to sniff the air. One of the dogs was bigger than the rest with a huge head and a scar above one eye, which had left the skin bare around it. The animal seemed to be the pack leader, as it remained a short distance in front of the other dogs and they did not dare move ahead of it.
Marcus could understand why. It looked ferocious and had the body of a hunting dog — large, lean and powerful. Half of one ear seemed to have been bitten off and a thick leather collar with short iron spikes hung round its neck. Marcus guessed that it must have been used in fights with other animals before it had joined the beasts chosen for Governor Servillus’s games. It stopped when it was ten paces from its intended victims and raised its muzzle into the air, nose twitching. Another dog, thickset and dark, brushed past it, eyes fixed on Marcus as it crept forward. The large dog snarled and its companion flinched and dropped to its belly, small dagger-like ears swept back as it growled but did not quite dare to defy the larger animal. The rest of the dogs edged forward on each side, closing the gap towards the three stakes.