The crowd had seen blood and mutilation and death aplenty today, yet still they bayed for more. With their excited shrieks ringing around him, Varro bent and picked up the hoplomachus’s discarded spear. Straightening up, he looked directly ahead of him, at the huge iron gates, and at the hoplomachus’s ruined body slumped against them, held upright only by Spartacus’s hand around his throat. Underpinning the exhortations of the crowd, at a lower level, he thought he could hear another sound-a sustained, high-pitched squeal, like a rat caught in a trap.
Bile, born of hatred and revulsion, rose in his throat at what that sound must be, and raising the spear like a lance, the point aimed directly at the hoplomachus’s heart, he began to run forward. There wasn’t a great distance to cover, fifteen paces at the most, yet by the time the spear found its mark it was moving with more than enough pace not only to penetrate flesh and muscle and even bone, but to pass right through the hoplomachus’s body, with devastating force.
Oenomaus held on grimly as the point of the spear erupted out of the center of Mantilus’s back in a gush of blood that in the shadowy stone-walled tunnel looked almost black. Though Mantilus’s mouth stretched almost to splitting point, and his white eyes bulged from his head so alarmingly that they seemed in danger of popping out on to his cheeks, his squeal was abruptly cut off, to be replaced by an almost-silent hiss of excruciating agony. With a spasm so sudden and violent that Oenomaus felt it snap through his wrist and down his forearm in a needle-thin bolt of pain, the scarred man’s body abruptly arched like a bow, as if his every sinew was as stretched and taut as a lyre-string. There he hung, suspended, like a letter C, for several seconds-and then, with manic vigor, he began to scream and thrash anew, so violently this time that Oenomaus was forced to release him and step back, for fear of having his face slashed open by the long nails on the fingers of the man’s flailing hands.
Mantilus did not die easily. Oenomaus watched grimly as he hung there, his death-throes continuing, frantic and uncontrolled at first, and then gradually less frenziedly, for the next few minutes. Froth and blood boiled from his mouth, and shit and piss slid down his legs, joining with his blood to form a thin gruel of his life-fluids beneath his mortally wounded body.
At last, however, it was over, the child-like body winding down, the bald head lolling, the scarred face and limbs going slack. Then with a last few shudders, the poisoner was still, and the only sound in the tunnel- aside from the distant cheers of the crowd beyond the gates-was the steady, slow drip-drip-drip of Mantilus’s blood on the stone floor.
Oenomaus stepped closer, and stared grimly into the man’s glazed white eyes and slack, dead face.
“Not a creature of Hades, but merely a man, like the rest of us,” he murmured. His gaze shifted to the pool of stinking fluids by his feet. “Filled not with dust, but blood, shit and piss, as it should be.” He nodded, as though satisfied, and said it again. “As it should be.”
XVI
Varro found Spartacus in his cell, sitting on his bunk, deep in thought. Beyond the open door could be heard the sounds of celebration-a hubbub of noise, interspersed with shouts of laughter of both men and women.
Varro held out a cup toward his friend.
“I have brought wine, whether you wish for it or not. I insist you drink in celebration of victory today.”
Spartacus eyed the proffered cup wryly for a moment, and then eventually reached out and took it.
“We celebrate with wine from dominus, fit only for slaves. Grape so bitter that morning greeting weary head provides worse blow than hilt of sword.”
Varro laughed. “True that Batiatus expends little coin in gratitude.” He held up his own cup, his shining eyes and slight clumsiness as the wine slopped over his hand indicative of the fact that he had already drunk more than his fill. “But I offer exception. Smooth grape, pleasing to palate.”
Spartacus took a sip and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Batiatus is in rare humor to offer cup overflowing with appreciation.”
“How could he not? His own slaves increase his status and improve fortune. His champion providing means of Hieronymus’s unmasking and subsequent favor of Crassus.”
Spartacus took another sip of wine, humor dancing in his eyes.
“Are the whores provided of equal vintage?”
Varro looked pained.
“Your enquiry elicits offense. Throw such question at another.”
The two friends laughed together. They each took another sip of wine, then Varro clapped Spartacus on the shoulder.
“Join festivities. Play dice.” He raised his hand and looked solemn. “Merely for diversion, not coin of course.”
Spartacus shrugged.
“I don’t find mood for it.”
“It was great victory, now worthy of celebration. ”
“There is little meaning in it for me.”
Varro looked momentarily somber.
“Your enduring pain saddens, brother. Divert thoughts from it, even if for one night.”
Spartacus nodded slowly.
“Your concern is appreciated. Perhaps I will join later after pressing task.”
Together he and Varro walked through the stone corridors of the ludus, passing cells where naked couples heaved and rutted with grunts and shrieks, sweat streaming down their bodies. Most of the brotherhood, and the Capuan whores that Batiatus had ordered Ashur to round up and transport from the city, had congregated in the mess hall, however. Even here some were fucking openly, one ramming his whore from behind, while a circle of onlookers clapped and cheered. The wine was flowing freely, and banter and raucous laughter echoed off the walls.
When Spartacus and Varro entered the room there was a momentary pause in proceedings as the two heroes were toasted with raised cups and good-humored declarations that they should enjoy their victory now, while they still had heads and limbs with which to do so.
Varro made his way over to a corner table, where several men were rolling bone dice, roaring and banging their cups on the wooden surface at each successive outcome. Spartacus skirted a couple of men who were wrestling, their bodies shining with oil, and politely waved away the ministrations of a pretty whore, who pressed her breasts against him.
The long tables of the mess hall had been pushed back against the wall and lined with jugs of wine from which the men could help themselves. Spartacus topped up his own cup and filled another, then made his way carefully through the celebrating throng, taking care not to spill a drop even as he was jostled and continually clapped on the back.
Eventually he made it to the far side of the room and slipped out into the quieter, cooler corridor. Edging past a couple who were fucking up against a wall, the woman seemingly oblivious to the fact that her back was scraping against the rough stone with each thrust, he headed to the infirmary.
All was quiet here, the medicus himself celebrating with the men in the refectory. Duro, who was still recovering from the grievous wounds sustained in the previous games against the men of Hieronymus’s now decimated ludus, was asleep and snoring quietly.
The bay’s only other occupant turned his head and regarded Spartacus. This was Crixus, and he looked less than pleased to see his Thracian brother.
“What takes you from drunken revelry?” he muttered.
“Expression of gratitude,” Spartacus replied.
Crixus all but sneered.
“Gratitude? For lying in infirmary like slab of meat while you receive laurels that should be mine?”
Spartacus ignored the jibe.
“Gratitude for prompting thoughts which saved this ludus from ruin. Without your words the House of Batiatus would be no more, and we would all be slaves of Hieronymus.”