“Fuck you. And fuck Fortuna.”
“Perhaps, Scaeva, you should have spent less coin on wine and whores, and more on saving for your manumission.”
“Mark that well, Varro,” Spartacus murmured quietly to his friend.
Varro frowned at him in confusion.
“There is no talk among them of the love of men,” Spartacus hissed. “Only of freedom freely purchased.”
Down the corridor, the insults still flew.
“I will show you how a gladiator fights.”
Timarchides turned away and strode purposefully back toward the arena steps, with the gladiators’ jeers pursuing him through the corridor.
“You were no fighter!”
“You were no gladiator!”
“Hoarder!”
“Thief!”
“Coward!”
As he passed Spartacus’s cell, Timarchides tried to turn away, his hand rising to his eyes in an attempt to brush away his tears.
The gladiators of the House of Batiatus walked out to the fanfare of a primus, a mismatched platoon of four, marching beneath the roars of the crowd. Spartacus bore two blades, each with a cruel curve near its point. Barca stood, half naked, swinging the great axe. Varro advanced with the almighty oval shield and crested helmet of a Greek warrior. Bebryx wore the heavy armor of a murmillo, his shield held a little too stiffly, clutched a little too close to his chest.
Their opponents were all attired exactly alike. Ten warriors clutched round shields painted with the two-horned symbol of House Pelorus. Ten hands clutched leaf-shaped swords, dirty and pitiless, each, too, bearing the twin-horned mark on its blade. Ten pairs of greaves, battered and worn, protected shins from low blows.
“So this is the last stand of the House of Pelorus,” Cicero mused.
“Their fate is sealed,” Verres said with a nod. “Though they were gladiators locked in their cells, they were slaves within the house of a master cruelly murdered. They will all die.”
“I confess myself surprised that they play along,” Cicero said.
“Your meaning?”
“Were I a slave, told I would die whatever my actions, I doubt that I would care to put effort into honoring my master.”
“What would you do?”
“Take my own life! Deprive them of opportunity to gain coin from my suffering!”
The other dignitaries chuckled at the thought.
“Spoken like a true Roman,” Verres said with a smile. “That, Cicero, is what separates us from the barbarians.”
“You dismiss matters intricate with too much ease,” Batiatus said. Lucretia shot him a warning look, but he ignored it.
“I would understand your meaning,” Cicero said.
“Gladiators suspected to harbor such self-murdering desires are watched with vigilance,” Batiatus explained. “Prevented from pissing without guard to hand, and absent items by which to harm themselves. A gladiator is stock of great value, and as slave, he has not right to damage what belongs to another. Including himself.”
“I am a free man, now,” Timarchides said with a wry smile. “But if Fortuna had been late with favor, I might find myself on sand.”
“Do not let us keep you!” Batiatus laughed. “I am sure a sword and shield can be procured!”
His joke, however, fell flat on an expressionless crowd.
“Quintus!” Lucretia said. “My husband merely jests.”
“I am quite used to it, my lady,” Timarchides said with a weak smile. “It takes true virtue to acknowledge it in another. Often it is the newest of men who have trouble accepting others to their ranks.”
“What is your implication-?” a red-faced Batiatus began, but Lucretia carefully blocked him with her back, pouring more wine for Timarchides as if her husband had ceased to exist. Batiatus stomped back to the dwindling supply of grapes and olives, cramming both into his mouth indiscriminately.
Cicero edged over to Batiatus.
“What is his meaning?” he whispered. Moving away from the refreshments, the two men leaned on the balcony, staring idly at the swirling pattern in the sands below.
“He imagines I despise him because he is newly freed.” Batiatus spat an olive pit down onto the pristine sand. “I despise him for being an oily little cunt. A true gladiator knows his place. A slave is already dead in the eyes of the law, a gladiator doubly so. There is nothing left but to fight well.”
“In hope of freedom?”
“A gladiator that wins his freedom is rare indeed. Fight well, and die well.”
“I struggle to conceive of that.”
“You do not live with death day by day, witnessing gladiators fight poorly in the arena, only to find redemption by manner of defeat, baring neck to slayer. If the gods are kind, we shall see such nobility today.”
Spartacus led the way, his swords at the ready, Barca and Varro looming at his flanks, Bebryx bringing up the rear, to best hide his wounds from their opponents. The doomed gladiators from the House of Pelorus stood, their shields up, their swords ready, standing in a wide “V,” its mouth facing their oncoming nemeses.
“They draw us in,” Varro said. “Their hope to surround us.”
“We are not fools,” Spartacus muttered, halting.
The two groups of men faced each other across the sands, while the crowd grew restless.
“Split up,” Barca said. “Two to each end of the ‘V.’”
“No,” Spartacus said. “That is what they want.”
“We charge,” Bebryx said. “Straight into the middle, and fuck them all if they think they can win by surrounding us.”
“No,” Spartacus said again. “That is also what they want.”
“I want to fight,” Varro said.
“I want to live,” Barca said.
His fellow gladiators turned to stare at him in surprise.
“I shall fight,” Barca said, scowling. “But let us not be fools. I wish to return to Capua absent injury, that I may buy my freedom.”
“Begin!” a familiar voice shouted from the balcony.
“Dominus instructs us,” Varro noted.
“I do not accept their will,” Spartacus said, nodding at the enemy gladiators. “Let us ruin their patterns.”
“How?” Varro and Barca chorused.
“We attack as one, on one point of the ‘V’ alone.” He gestured with one of his swords at the man closest to the balcony. “Let them break rank to come to his aid. Or stand still and see their advantage worn away.”
His fellow gladiators nodded gruffly, and without a further word, Spartacus turned and ran toward the man who stood furthest from the base of the ‘V,’ far out at the tip of its limb.
Spartacus leapt into the air as he approached, scything down with both his blades, barrelling into the man, the full force of his bodyweight crashing into the shield and pitching them both to the ground.
The man swiftly stood up, but made no attempt to riposte. He was still standing, unmoving, when Barca’s great axe hewed into the side of his helmet, hurling him through the air and toward the sands, still. Dead.
Varro and Spartacus exchanged startled glances, seeing the rest of the men remain still. Initial cheers from the crowd soon subsided into a quiet unease. Death alone was not enough.
This is not right,” Verres muttered. “Where is the resistance? Where is the fight? Where is the blood!”
“I fear,” Batiatus said, “that the men of the House of Pelorus seek to deny us entertainment.” He leaned over the balcony and yelled at the men whose shields bore the twin-horned mark of Pelorus. “Fight, you miserable bastards!” he shouted, a sentiment that met with cheers and jeers from the nearby crowd.
“They raised not a finger to save their master,” Ilithyia noted. “Absent such loyalty it does not surprise that their skills are limited, too”
“They were locked in cells below ground, while their master lost his life,” Cicero pointed out.