“They are starved,” one of the slaves hissed, fear and panic raw in his voice. “Starved and hungry.”
“They are,” Medea said. “And untrained. Lions to be sacrificed to catervarii the moment we are dead. They may have never before hunted human prey.”
“There is no point,” another one of the slaves said, sinking heavily onto the sand. “Perhaps we should kill each other? To lessen the pain.”
“No!” Medea declared angrily. “We are already dead. What life yet remains to us should be devoted to spiting the Romans that oppress us!”
“We barely dented their armor in our attempted escape,” the slave protested.
“And yet for those moments we were free. And we may yet be free again,” she urged.
Another companion unfastened his loincloth, to howls of delight from the crowd. The other slaves stared at him in confusion.
“The Thracian in the cells spoke true,” he said. “Anything can be a weapon.”
He scooped handfuls of sand into the loincloth, fashioning it into a crude cosh.
“That against lions?” lamented the man sitting in the dust.
“Us against lions!” Medea shouted, her voice full of defiance.
The men needed no further urging. They, too, stripped off, filling their loincloths with sand from the arena floor. The crowd began to crow in appreciation.
“Hopeless,” Verres laughed from the balcony.
“Do you think so?” Cicero asked.
“I would sooner wager coin on the white rabbits,” Ilithyia said.
“Not so, my friends, not so,” Batiatus said, smiling.
“They will die!” Verres cried.
“They will die like gladiators!” Batiatus said. “Counting for all in the arena. Their sentence, punitively, denies them opportunity to die with swords in hand. But even so, they prepare to make stand in the arena. That will earn respect of the crowd.”
Cicero watched as the victims in the arena tore off their clothes to fashion makeshift coshes and slings. There were cries of appreciation from the crowd at the sight of their naked forms, particularly the woman. As she tore off her tunic to fashion crude bracers on her arms, she revealed in the process intricate tattoos and scarring that crept across half her body. Cicero leaned in closer, squinting at the distant figures, unsure of what he saw.
“Verres, Batiatus,” he murmured, his eyes locked on the arena, “I thought you said that all the household slaves were dead.”
“Indeed,” Batiatus said. “They are.”
“Then who is the painted woman who stands now upon the sands?”
“The ringleader,” Verres said carefully. “The very instigator of the uprising.”
“That little thing?” Cicero was surprised. “A gladiator?”
“A vicious, conspiring, murderous bitch,” Verres said. “I fought her myself during the struggle.”
“That is her!” Cicero declared suddenly. “The Getae witch yet lives! Stop the games! I want her spared.”
Batiatus and Verres looked at each other and laughed louder than they had all day.
“I order you, with the authority of the Senate and People of Rome, to halt these games!” Cicero insisted angrily.
“You cannot stop the games!” Batiatus said. “Justice will be done, in the name of the gods themselves. Would you defy them…?” He pointed at the sky. And then he pointed all around at the yelling crowd. “Or them?”
Cicero’s fists clenched in rage, and he leaned forward in his seat, willing the painted woman to fight.
The doomed men huddled around Medea in the arena. About them, in a ragged circle, patrolled the group of lions, their heads held high, their eyes watching for any break in the human herd they stalked.
“Make a weapon!” Medea urged one man who stared fixedly at the hunters. “As we do.”
But he seemed not to hear her. Instead, without warning, he bolted from the group.
“Do not!” Medea shouted. “It is what they want!”
But he was already running, straight for the exit gate.
The bulk of the lions maintained their pacing near the huddle of fighters. Two of the animals, however, peeled off from the main pride, and bounded quickly toward the lone figure.
“A denarius on the male!” Verres shouted.
“On the female!” Ilithyia cried, clutching his hand in excitement. It was all they had time to say before the two lions were neck and neck at the fugitive’s heels.
As one they sprang, their competition forcing neither into a strong position. Instead, both snatched at the runner’s shoulders, each sinking its fangs deep into an arm. The man remained upright for an instant, before tumbling to the sand at the foot of the balcony, wordless, noiseless, his body was hidden beneath two powerful, tawny beasts.
“Was that a draw?” Batiatus asked innocently.
“The lioness was first!” Ilithyia protested.
“Neither yet claims victim for itself,” Verres pointed out. As one, the dignitaries peered over the balcony at the prey’s last, desperate struggle.
The fallen man had had time to draw breath, and he let it out in a prolonged, tortured scream, as the pair of lions tugged on his arms. The male snatched for purchase with its claws, raking deep ribbons of red through flesh and down to bone. The female matched him, somehow finding better purchase with her fangs in the shoulder, the teeth disappearing from view, buried in soft human tissue.
“Still nothing in it,” Batiatus commented.
“They will rip him apart,” Ilithyia said hopefully.
“Then perhaps we shall declare the victor to be the one with the lion’s share!” Verres said with a grin.
Ilithyia and Lucretia tittered obligingly.
“A literary reference,” Cicero said. “Unlikely in such a venue.”
“It is?” Batiatus said.
“Aesop’s Fables,” Cicero explained. “Surely, as a child, you must have-?”
“Long, long ago,” Batiatus laughed with a wave of his hand. “See how I am re-educated, even amid the rabble!”
“Come on, vicious one!” Ilithyia yelled, still fixated on her lion. “Attack!”
“Ten denarii says she cannot,” Verres said.
“Only ten?” Ilithyia taunted him.
The subject of their betting screamed anew, his voice reaching high-pitched animalistic shrieks of pain. His legs flailed impotently, trying, and failing to kick at the lions. The noise of their struggle attracted the interest of the rest of the pride-with lions drifting away in ones and twos to investigate the tussle over still-living meat.
“Follow them,” Medea said.
“Surely you jest?” one of the gladiators said.
“Let them be distracted in the fight over him,” she said. “Let us become the hunters.” She started forward, beckoning the rest to follow her lead.
Carefully, with unhurried steps, the slaves began to creep toward the balcony end, keeping together, their gaze not leaving the cluster of animals as they fought over their prey.
A dark-maned male lion lurched closer to the fighting pair, snatching one of the still-thrashing human legs, and attempting to drag the feebly protesting prey in a third direction.
“The nature of such wild beasts makes their actions in the arena unpredictable,” Verres sighed, watching from above.
“I think not,” Batiatus said. “Rather, I think this behavior entirely predictable.”
“Only a moment ago you spoke of grandstanding, and beasts playing to the crowd!”
“Trained beasts. Experienced beasts. These are simply hungry. Starvation enough will turn even lions into jackals.”
“I see,” Verres said. “I was mistaken, it is clear.”
“Your suppliers should have raised awareness of the issue,” Batiatus said. “A good editor seeks to avoid such uncertainties.”
“I understand, Batiatus,” Verres bellowed in sudden anger. “Apologies if these games do not reach your high Capuan standards!”