The centurion slammed his staff down, put his helmet on and grasped the pommel of his sword. He scanned the room, his breathing harsh and quick. ‘Now then,’ he snarled. ‘Are we ready to play?’
He snapped his fingers and pointed at the nearest of three slaves standing against the wall holding trays, a tautly muscled, brown-skinned young man who looked Assyrian, his hair dark and curly and the wispy beginnings of a beard on his chin. The slave paused for a moment, uncertain what to do, and the centurion beckoned him forward. ‘Put down the tray,’ he growled. ‘Come over here.’ The slave did as he was told, and then the centurion fingered Scipio and Fabius. ‘Hold his arms,’ he said. Fabius took the slave’s left wrist, feeling the sinewy muscle in the forearm, and twisted it behind his back as he had been taught to do with prisoners in the arena; Scipio did the same on the other side. He could feel the slave tensing, expecting a beating. It would not be the first time the old centurion had used slaves to demonstrate a wrestling hold or knockout blow, an occupational hazard for slaves who had the unlucky lot of working in the Gladiator School.
The centurion drew his sword. It was a gladius, but with a more elongated leaf-shaped end than the usual Roman form, a shape they knew the centurion had ordered copied from the Iberian blades he had encountered in campaigns against the Carthaginians in Spain, before Hannibal had crossed the Alps into Italy. He held it up and put his forefinger on the tip, drawing blood, and then held the flat of the blade down on the palm of his hand, aiming the point at the slave’s upper abdomen. ‘Not to the heart,’ he said. ‘I want him to live long enough for you to see how the muscles of the body react to a blade pushed deep into it. This is how you learn.’
The slave had gone wide-eyed with terror, his mouth open and drooling. He cried something Fabius did not understand, words in his native tongue, and gazed imploringly at them. The centurion grunted, looked around and then snatched a scroll Polybius had been holding and ripped off the papyrus, thrusting the wooden spool sideways into the slave’s mouth to act as a gag. The man made a terrible noise and then retched, bringing up a dribble of vomit that sent a distasteful odour through the room. His head lolled forward, and the centurion gestured for Fabius and Scipio to grasp each end of the spool with their other hands to hold the slave’s head up. His knees were shaking and buckling, and Fabius felt the weight of his body. He saw a streak of brown drip down the man’s inner leg and smelt it, turning away and swallowing hard.
Gaius Paullus stood at the front, shorter and slighter than the others, looking barely old enough to be there, rooted to the floor and staring at the slave. The centurion pointed at him. ‘You. New boy,’ he snarled. ‘Don’t think I don’t know who you are: Gaius Aemilius Paullus, nephew of Lucius Aemilius Paullus, father of Scipio and the greatest living Roman general. I served under your father when he was a tribune. He began as a scrawny little wimp just like you, but we soon toughened him up. Let’s see if you’ve got the same mettle.’
He walked over, grasped Gaius Paullus’ right hand and put the sword hilt in it. He stood back, and the boy held the blade forward, the tip wobbling. For a moment he stood still, and all Fabius could hear was the rasping breathing of the slave, then coughing as he retched again. Gaius Paullus looked away from the slave’s terrified eyes, and then the centurion strode over and ripped open the man’s tunic, revealing the tensed muscles of his abdomen. He turned back to Gaius Paullus, leaning close to him, his face red and contorted. ‘Come on, man,’ he bellowed. ‘What are you waiting for? Drive it right through to the spine. That’ll kill him in a few seconds, but not as quickly as the heart.’
Gaius Paullus aimed the blade, and stepped forward. The slave struggled, his breathing coming hoarse and fast, and Fabius and Scipio held him upright. The tip of the blade touched the abdomen just above the navel, but the boy’s arm was extended too far forward to give the blade a good thrust; he needed to step closer, but seemed unable to do so. Gaius Paullus looked at Fabius, and in that split second he saw everything: the boy and the man, the fear and the resolve. The centurion snorted with impatience, clasped his right hand over the boy’s hand and pushed him forward, and together they thrust the blade deep into the slave’s body. The man gave a terrible groan and retched again, spattering blood and bile over the spool in his mouth. Gaius Paullus kept his nerve, thrusting harder until the bloody tip emerged from the slave’s back below the ribcage. The man’s legs slumped but his torso and arms remained rigid, as if his body were making a last attempt to resist, a final hold on life that Fabius knew would give way in moments to the throes of death.
The centurion looked at the others. ‘You see there is no blood yet from the entry wound?’ He turned to the boy. ‘Try to get the sword out.’ Gaius Paullus pulled hard, but was barely able to budge it. The centurion grunted. ‘So far this month I have taught you killer blows, thrusts to the throat and heart that bring instant death. But a thrust to the abdomen where there are walls of muscle is different. The muscles contract around the blade. If you are in battle, you need to be able to get the blade out quickly or you will be killed. You need to twist it, to use your foot. Watch me closely.’
He pushed Gaius Paullus aside, raised his right foot against the man’s abdomen, grasped the hilt of the sword and twisted it hard, then pulled it out in one clean stroke. Blood gushed from the wound and the slave’s body went limp, his jaws releasing the spool and his head arching backwards, his mouth and eyes wide open. Fabius and Scipio let go and the body fell into the slick of blood and bile that had pooled on the floor, the head hitting the stone hard and cracking open. The centurion clicked his fingers at the two remaining slaves, indicating the body, then pointed at Ennius and Gulussa. ‘You two clean up the mess here. I want this floor spotless when I return. That one wasn’t just a slave. He was a prisoner of war, a former mercenary, and his life was forfeit. All of the new batch of slaves working in the Gladiator School are like that. If any of the rest of you want to practise on one before having a go with the condemned criminals, you don’t need to ask me.’ He wiped his sword blade on the torn piece of the man’s tunic, sheathed it and looked at them. ‘We meet here again an hour before sundown. The prisoners due for execution this month include two young initiates for the Vestal Virgins caught in flagrante delicto with a slave. Gaius Paullus can bring his own sword and show us that he’s learned today’s lesson.’ He stomped off out of the room and down the corridor, the bang of his centurion’s staff receding into the gloom as he headed off towards the arena.
Gaius Paullus stood stock-still, his face and tunic spattered with the man’s blood, staring at what he had done. Scipio brought a bucket of water from by the door and a wet towel, which he tossed to him. ‘Clean yourself up. You and I need to be presentable for a temple dedication by the gens Aemilii in the Forum in an hour. And, by the way, welcome to the academy.’
3
At the appointed hour they stood waiting for the centurion to enter the room and lead them out into the arena, where Brutus had been training hard all afternoon. Scipio and Gaius Paullus were wearing the purple-hemmed tunics they had donned for the ceremony in the temple, but had removed the laurel garlands that marked them out as viris principes, young men within their gens who were nearly of age to lead the rituals themselves. Fabius looked over the balustrade and into the arena, a smaller, practice version of the oval arenas surrounded by raised wooden stands that were erected for gladiatorial contests in the Field of Mars. In the early days of Rome, fights had taken place on the Sacred Way in the Forum, even within the temple precincts — in any open space where spectators could assemble on surrounding walls and balconies. But as space in the Forum became constricted and the crowds grew larger, the contests had been held in the Circus Maximus and then in the temporary arenas on the Field of Mars, next to the military training ground. Neither venue was satisfactory, and there was even talk of building a permanent stone structure with tiered seating and underground holding pens, so the animals would no longer have to be dragged snarling though the streets and threaten the lives of spectators as much as the gladiators who fought them. But the idea had been scoffed at by the more conservative senators who controlled public works, those who thought that building a structure on that scale solely for the purpose of entertainment was a frivolous use of money and smacked of Greek effeminacy: they harked back to the time when their Etruscan and Latin ancestors had created the boundary of the arenas with their own bodies, and revelled in the sweat and blood of the contest. They said that a structure large enough to accommodate all of those who would attend the contests would destroy the majesty of Rome, dwarfing the temples of the Forum and making a mockery of the gods and the pietas and dignitas on which the city had been built.