The slaves marched in loose bands of varying size, and here and there amongst them the rays of the setting sun gleamed off burnished helmets, armour and weapons.
'There must be over twenty thousand of them, sir.' Macro spoke quietly so that his words would not be overheard by the nearest sentry. 'Maybe as many as thirty thousand.'
Sempronius puffed his cheeks out as he beheld the multitude settling around the city's walls. 'They would never believe this in Rome. An army of slaves? The idea is preposterous.'
'Yet there it is, sir.'
'Quite.'
As they watched the slaves fall out of their columns and begin to make camp, a sudden movement caught Macro's eye. He turned his head slightly to see a party of horsemen emerge from the slave host, trotting casually towards the city. Sempronius saw them a moment later and muttered, 'Ajax?'
'Who else?'
They watched as the party of riders reined in some distance beyond the range of any archers on the wall. A single man came forward. Thin and sinewy, he wore the scale armour vest of a Roman officer over a light blue tunic. One of the garrison's handful of archers casually strung an arrow and began to take aim.
'Lower that bow!' Macro bellowed at him.' No one is to shoot without orders!'
The rider slowed his horse to a walk a short distance away and turned it to make his way along the wall, one hand resting on his hip as he surveyed the faces of the defenders with haughty disdain.
Macro silently gave thanks that he had not yet given the order for the caltrops to be sown in the grass around the city. That was one surprise he most definitely wanted to save for the right moment.
'General Ajax sends his greetings to his former masters!' the rider called out in a clear, pleasant voice.
Sempronius turned to Macro with an amused expression. 'General Ajax? It seems the gladiator has aspirations.'
The slave called out to the defenders again.' The general wishes to speak with the man who calls himself the governor of the province, Senator Sempronius.'
Sempronius sniffed with irritation.
Macro smiled. 'And he's well informed. I wonder what he wants to discuss?'
There was a moment of silence before Sempronius gave a resigned shrug. 'There's only way to find out.'
He turned away from the parapet and made for the stairs that led down to the gates.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ajax, in the company of Kharim, watched the progress of his envoy carefully. Chilo had proved himself brave enough since he had joined the small band of fugitives that had attached themselves to Ajax since the first days of the revolt. But there was a certain carelessness to his bravery that Ajax had noted during the very first skirmish they had fought with a Roman patrol. It was almost as if Chilo had no fear of death, even as he loved his new life, free from the terrible constraints of slavery. In the ranks of Ajax's closest lieutenants, Chilo was clearly the most popular with the rest of the army. Chilo had been born free, the son of an Athe nian merchant. When his father's business partner disappeared with every last piece of silver just before the annual taxes were due to be paid, it had ruined the family. The tax collector, as was his right, had duly compelled the merchant to sell himself and his family into slavery. Chilo had been five at the time, and was separated from his family at the slave market when he was bought by a Roman official and sent to serve as a household slave on his estate in Crete.
All this Ajax had learned over the camp fire as he led his growing band of runaway slaves across the ruined province. But of his years of servitude Chilo had said little, and when he did speak of them his eyes burned with an intense hatred — a sentiment that Ajax could readily understand. He had long since come to understand the difference between men who were born slaves and those who had be come slaves. There was a degree of acceptance of their condition in the former. They had joined his army to be sure, and fought well enough, but the majority lacked the fanaticism of Chilo and the others who had borne slavery as a mark of shame. Every slight and injustice that they endured had burned its way into their souls. It was like a slow poison, Ajax had realised once, when reflecting on his own experience.
His father had commandeda small fleet of pirate ships that had defied the Roman navy for many years before they had finally been trapped and destroyed in a bay on the Illyrian coast. His father had paid the price for defying Rome by being crucified. Ajax and the others who had been captured were sold into slavery. It was ironic that he had been bought by the owner of a gladiator school and trained as a fighter, and now he was repaying his former masters for the skills he had learned in the arena by causing them as much suffering as possible. Every Roman he killed, every estate he sacked and every breath of free air that he drew slowly drained away the poison of slavery.
The only concern that troubled his mind was the uncertainty of the future. He had not remotely considered attempting to launch a revolt when he had made his escape from the governor's palace following the earthquake. There had been only the innate desire to run, to be free, to escape from Crete and find his way to some quiet corner of the world where the stain of slavery could gradually be erased. He had been with the governor's wife when the building began to tremble, amid the grumbling roar as Poseidon brought down his wrath on the island. They were in one of the storerooms off the back of the kitchens, where she had summoned him. Antonia had been leaning against the wall, with him inside her, while her long nails and bejewelled rings had raked the flesh of his back. As the walls shook, she screamed and thrust him away, and in that moment Ajax had resolved to be free. Free of her, free of the indignity of being her sexual play thing and free of slavery. One blow to her head had knocked her cold. Lifting her fleshy body into his arms, Ajax had left the collapsing palace, fleeing from the governor's compound into the streets, no one paying any attention to a man helping a stricken woman to safety.
Once he had escaped from the city, Ajax had been tempted to finish Antonia off. To strangle her, or crush her skull with a rock.
Then, as he considered his revenge, it occurred to him that she should suffer as he had suffered. She would come to know the shame of being a slave before she was allowed to die. So, hands bound, and a leather collar and lead fixed about her neck, the fat patrician woman had been dragged along with her captor as he sought refuge in the hills behind Gortyna. Ajax was far from the only slave seeking refuge. On the first night of his new-found freedom, he came across several ragged men and women who had escaped from one of the estates. They welcomed him to their fire, shared their food and within a day looked to him as their leader. They too had wanted to kill Antonia, and Ajax had been tempted to let them, but in the end decided that she had not suffered enough just yet.
Other slaves, singly and in groups and larger bands, swelled his ranks, bringing with them a handful of other men with gladiatorial experience, even a few ex-soldiers who had fallen on bad times or been condemned to slavery. These he set to work training the slaves to fight. Initially there had been few weapons, but they had improvised by tying knives to staves, using pitchforks and scythes, and eagerly snatching up any swords and spears that they came by in the estates and villages they had started to raid.
At first Ajax was content to lead the slaves only until he had satisfied his need for revenge, and then he would carry out his original plan to leave the island and find a home far from the eyes of his former masters. But the more the escaped slaves looked to him to lead them, and the more it be came clear that they were devoted to him, the less inclined he was to desert them. There was a bond of loyalty between them, he realised and accepted. A quality that he had not experienced in the years he had been a slave.