To Be Wolves, page 9
“That’s what I thought when I woke this morning to the sound of a guard pissing on my sandals. ‘Scorpus,’ I said to myself, ‘your life is too cushy.’”
Taurus shrugged unapologetically. “The boys get bored. After breakfast, go shave. You look like a savage Parthian with that hair on your face. I’m taking you to the amphitheater for a special appearance today, so try to look civilized.” Again, a dramatic wave. “Scorpus the Titan rides again!” Another crunch of his apple. “Just to keep you in the public eye. Ride around the arena a few times and scream like Jupiter stuck a lightning bolt up your ass. They’ll love it.”
“Soren agreed to that?”
“Sure, after I agreed to cut your housing fee in half for the next two months. So don’t expect your gruel to reach the edge of the plate for a while. You’re an expensive tenant.”
Taurus left and Scorpus did what he had to: shaved his face, polished his helmet, and cleaned his leathers. Soon afterward, the lanista and several guards loaded him and a number of gladiators into a caged horse-drawn cart for transport from the ludus to the massive amphitheater in the Campus Martius.
Scorpus crouched at the back of the cart, staring out the bars in an effort to avoid being noticed by the fighters around him. It was no use.
“Aren’t we blessed by holy Minerva herself,” said a man who was missing his left hand. “Here we are, packed balls to assholes in a slave cart with Scorpus the Titan!”
The other men laughed.
Scorpus offered a conciliatory grin. “Well, not to worry, friend. There’ll be a lot more room in here on the way back.”
The man’s smile melted, and he flicked an obscene finger gesture at Scorpus.
“I’d keep that hand close to the chest, if I were you,” Scorpus added. “You can’t afford to lose another one.”
The laughter shifted from Scorpus to the one-handed man, who angrily sat down and slid a piece of dirty straw he found on the floor of the cart between his teeth. He chewed at it dejectedly as the cart rolled on, and the mood within turned suddenly somber. After all, these men were about to fight each other to the death in the most grotesque ways the officials at the amphitheater could dream up. And they tended to dream big.
The streets of Rome did not impress Scorpus. The smell was intolerable, especially as the cart passed by sanitation crews who busied themselves unclogging drains and sweeping up the filth and excrement that hid in doorways and ran down the ruts in the road.
Despite the contagion that he had heard was ravaging the city, the streets seemed to be as packed as the caged cart he rode in. He spotted a meaty hornet clumsily making its way up one of the bars of the cart, and he crushed it with his palm, offering a silent prayer to Hades that the contagion would do a better job of clearing the Roman streets of Romans.
Finally, the cart packed with gladiators and one celebrity charioteer arrived in the area of the grand amphitheater. As he had done upon first seeing the Circus Maximus, Scorpus tried to be unimpressed by the scale of the structure that appeared before him. He tried not to look at the gleaming marble facade and multicolored columns—blue, red, and yellow—but the amphitheater was so large it intruded into his peripheral vision. He tried to ignore its impossible height and width and the huge banners that hung down heavy in the breezeless air, blood red and boasting the gold letters SPQR. Scorpus hated those letters.
As the cart drew closer to the amphitheater, he allowed himself a glance upward to blink at the elaborate cloth canopies that extended over the roof of the arena to shield spectators from the sun. He looked away just as quickly. He wouldn’t give whatever architect designed this beast the satisfaction of his awe.
The cart came to an abrupt halt next to a heavy wooden door that led to the lower levels of the arena. There, gladiators and other trained fighters were held alongside common criminals, the city’s unsightly homeless that needed culling, worn-out slaves sold as arena kill by owners who just wanted to get rid of them, and of course wild animals including bears and various exotic species of big cats.
What looked to be a full cohort of soldiers surrounded the cart as a guard unlocked and opened it. The gladiators jumped down one by one, passing through the wooden doorway toward whatever fate awaited them, be it victory or violent death. To Scorpus, they seemed relieved. The waiting was always the worst part. Too much time to think.
Only one of them needed to be persuaded to exit the cart. The youngest, who looked no more than sixteen or seventeen. Scorpus hadn’t even noticed him in the midst of the veteran gladiators. A guard pulled him out by his hair, holding him at arm’s length to avoid the boy’s urine-drenched tunica.
Scorpus stood up and steadied himself against the bars. A different guard, one with the Eagle tattooed on his forearm, pointed at him. “Are you the Titan?”
“I am.”
The guard did a quick check over his shoulder and then stuck his head in the cart. “Tell me honestly, did you throw the race at the Circus Maximus?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You tell me,” said the guard. “But like I said to my wife, if Scorpus lost that race, I’m Helen of Troy. He either threw it or those goat-screwing Reds sabotaged his chariot.”
“Should I come out of the cart?”
“Oh—yes. Come out.”
Scorpus lowered his head and turned sideways to squeeze out of the cart, and stepped—he didn’t have to jump—down onto the ground to stand at least a foot taller than the guard, who immediately called over three additional armed sentries. Just in case.
The four of them escorted the charioteer some hundred meters to a wider and higher entrance that led to a stable used to house horses until showtime.
Scorpus followed the men through the dusty stables toward a large sliding door that opened directly into the arena itself. The light of day shone through its metal bars, and the sound of the shouting, stomping spectators pulsated through.
A small Nubian man dressed in a tunica that seemed far too clean for the surroundings greeted Scorpus. His Latin was perfect, although spoken with a thick accent.
“Greetings, Scorpus,” he said. “The performance is a reenactment of your recent lo”—he stopped short of saying loss and continued—“appearance in the Circus Maximus. You will ride around the arena seven times. Keep the lead until the last lap, and then fall back . . . The other drivers have their instructions.”
The giant door to the arena slid open with a great groan, and the light stabbed at Scorpus’s eyes. The Nubian walked beside him, escorting him to a blue chariot drawn by four tired-looking horses.
The crowd erupted at the sight of the charioteer. His name echoed off the walls. “Scorpus! Scorpus! Scorpus!”
The Nubian shouted in his ear. “On the floor of your chariot, you will find a sword. When the race is over, you will take it and kill the driver of the red chariot.”
“When you say the other drivers have their instructions,” Scorpus shouted back, “does that include the red one?”
The Nubian raised his hands as if to say, “Who knows, who cares,” and Scorpus stepped up into the chariot, nudging the sword with his foot to make sure it was secure, and then positioned his feet, ready to ride. The Nubian pointed to the starting gates behind him. “The other drivers will emerge from back there after”—he rolled his eyes—“a brief opening performance.”
As the crowd continued to thunder and Scorpus gripped the reins to hold the horses steady, a chariot that looked to be made of solid gold emerged from the starting gate. It was pulled by four of the most beautiful white horses Scorpus had ever seen and was driven by a man who was nearly as beautiful: he was naked, wearing only a crown of gilded laurel leaves and a scarlet-red cloak.
The actor drove his golden chariot to the center of the arena and spoke in a voice that Scorpus felt certain would rattle the ears of every man in the stadium.
“It is I, the sun god Apollo, come on my golden chariot to witness the avenging race of my star charioteer”—at that, he opened his arms wide in the direction of Scorpus—“Scorpus the Titan! And you, dear Romans, are now as blessed as the sun god himself, for you, too, shall witness this speedy vengeance!”
Scorpus spat into the sand and did his best to ignore the sun god, instead doing a last-minute check of his leathers. After several more minutes of the naked thespian’s monologue, the actor drove his chariot around the arena in a dazzling lap and then disappeared through a doorway that was strategically recessed into the arena’s encircling wall.
A loud horn blew, and the starting gates behind Scorpus’s chariot flew open. He looked over his shoulder to see three chariots burst out—red, green, and white.
His eyes instantly locked on the outside black horse that pulled the red chariot.
Ferox.
He’d recognize the horse anywhere. He’d recognize him from the top bench in the arena. And he certainly recognized him as he ran past him only a chariot away.
His heart dropped, and a wave of dizziness struck. How was it possible? Ferox was his champion horse, the reason he had won race after race in Capua and been catapulted to stardom. Ferox was himself a star; however, no one in this filthy crowd would know that. They had no way of knowing that the limping, dirty horse pulling the red chariot was one of the most accomplished horses in the entire racing world. Why wasn’t he back in his stable in Capua, chewing fresh hay and sweet syrup? Mettius had agreed to retire him three years earlier, when the first signs of age had started to show. Ferox had earned it.
The sinking feeling in Scorpus’s heart was suddenly replaced by a rising rage. Soren.
As the red chariot pulled ahead, the driver whipped Ferox hard, too hard, and a rivulet of blood streamed down his flank. Scorpus drew in a chestful of air and charged after them. He didn’t know what he was going to do yet, how he was going to stop it, but he had to do something.
Scorpus pushed his weary horses until they ran alongside the red chariot. He shouted across to the driver, “Pull over!” But the red driver either didn’t hear him through the screams of the crowd and the clamor of the chariots, or he thought it was all part of the show. His face curled into an exaggerated sneer, and he whipped Ferox again.
Without thinking, Scorpus reached down to pull the sword from its fasteners on the floor of the chariot. He slammed the side of his chariot into the red driver’s so they were nearly within arm’s reach of each other and then, in one motion, swung the sword with all his strength at the driver’s neck. The man’s head flew into the air behind the chariot and landed in the sand with a solid thud.
The crowd exploded into a wild, collective cheer.
For a moment, it seemed to Scorpus that the worst was over. Ferox and the other three exhausted horses pulling the red chariot ran toward the relative safety of the arena’s center, avoiding the green and white chariots that raced by as if oblivious to what had just happened.
They began to slow somewhat as they reached the center—although not soon enough to avoid the trip rope that suddenly tightened before them.
Ferox stumbled first, dragging the other three horses down with him. All four animals crashed to the ground, their legs and necks seeming to blend into a single twisting, whining beast. The chariot flew into the air, breaking apart and sending shards of metal and wood into the closest spectators.
Scorpus leaped from his moving chariot and ran to the fallen Ferox. The champion horse was still alive, but one of his eyes bulged grotesquely from its socket and a white bone protruded from each of his forelegs.
Scorpus dropped to his knees and put his hands on the horse’s head. He leaned over and spoke into the animal’s ear, “Go in peace, my friend,” and then stood up, retrieved the sword he had dropped in the sand next to him, and stabbed Ferox through the skull.
He did the same for the other three horses, each of which was languishing in its own hopeless agony.
Without stopping, he moved methodically toward the men who had positioned the trip rope. Their jaws dropped as they realized he was serious, and they tried to run, but he quickly caught up to them and decapitated them both as smoothly as he had done to the red driver. The walls of the arena shook so hard with the shouts and stamping feet of nearly twenty thousand spectators that the sand at Scorpus’s feet began to vibrate.
He dropped the sword and leaned his head back on his shoulders to stare up into the sky. For the first time since learning of his previous master’s death, Scorpus really understood it. He felt it. His old life was over. Soren could do anything.
He could hear the man’s voice in his head. Your woman will be next.
The Nubian appeared before him, and Scorpus slowly realized the small man was speaking to him.
“Can you hear me, Scorpus?” The Nubian’s voice cracked with effort as he screeched to be heard over the crowd. “What a show! Come on, time to go. Leave them wanting more, you know?”
Without looking back at the body of Ferox, Scorpus kicked the sand at his feet and followed the Nubian out of the arena. He passed through the giant sliding door to join the same four guards who had led him through the stable. They escorted him back to the cart that would return him to the ludus. Scorpus stepped into it and sat down on the dirty, straw-covered floor.
The guard with the Eagle tattoo grinned and brought his face to the bars. “I didn’t get to see it,” he said. “Did you beat the Red?”
“I did.”
“Aha, of course you did!” The excitement made him cough, and he wiped the sputum off his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hey, my son is a big fan of yours, you know. He has a painting of you on the wall of his bedchamber.”
Scorpus removed one of the black leather cuffs he wore around his wrists and held it out to the guard. A drop of blood fell off the bracelet’s silver scorpion medallion and landed in the straw on the floor of the cart. “Tell your son that Scorpus the Titan says hello.”
* * *
Scorpus wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d drifted off into a hot, strange sleep as the horse-drawn cart moved down the cobblestone street back to the ludus. Something had jarred him back to his senses. He squeezed his eyes tightly to help clear his focus as the muttered obscenities of the guard with the Eagle tattoo filtered into his ears.
Although it now carried only a single occupant—the sole survivor of the day’s games—apparently the cart had borne too much weight over the years, and a neglected wheel had chosen this moment to break. Scorpus shaded his face from the relentless sun as the guards, red-faced and sweating from the heat, loudly debated what to do about it.
“That was Ferox, wasn’t it?”
Scorpus turned his head to see a man with a pockmarked chin peering through the bars of the lopsided cart. Despite his uncombed hair and the slightly crooked nose, despite the way he dragged his feet as he approached the cart, he was clearly patrician. You could always tell. It was more than the expensive toga; there was just something about the way they spoke.
“What did you say?” asked Scorpus.
“That was your horse Ferox in the arena. I saw you race him in Capua.” The man stared quizzically into the air. “Maybe seven or eight years ago? I can’t remember exactly. But that was him, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.”
The man took a momentary step back as one of the guards brushed by him to check the damage to the back of the cart, but then he came close again. “You didn’t know they were going to do that, did you?”
Scorpus stood up and sighed in irritation. “No, I didn’t.”
The man looked up at him. “It wasn’t right that they did that.”
Scorpus felt the man’s eyes move over him to survey his squalid conditions—cooking in a prison cart, covered in blood and sand, half-starved and obviously abused. His lash marks had opened yet again, and blood from his back and sides was snaking down his legs to pool in the straw around his ankles. The man seemed offended and looked judgmentally at the guards.
For their part, the guards took no notice. It was late in the day, and their shift was supposed to have already ended. The broken wheel was delaying supper. They stood at the front of the cart negotiating with a passing street carpenter who had offered to fix their problem, although for a price that the guards clearly felt was taking unfair advantage of their situation.
“What do you boys care?” asked the carpenter. “The boss will pay.”
“Do it,” said one of the guards. “And do it fast. I’m hungry, and it’s getting dark.”
The carpenter scratched his chin. “I don’t know if my hoist will lift it. You might have to get more men. Get that giant out of the back for starters. I’ll see how many blocks I have.” He disappeared into the back of his covered cart to retrieve the tools of his trade.
The guard with the Eagle tattoo exchanged frowns with his companions. The idea of removing the Titan from his cage did not appeal to any of them.
Nonetheless, they were all still very displeased to find that, while they were not looking, he had somehow removed himself.
Chapter X
Culpa Enim Illa, Bis ad Eundem, Vulgari Reprehensa Proverbio Est
Tripping twice over the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.
—Cicero
It was the oldest temple in the Roman Forum and the most important one. Centuries earlier, Romulus’s successor, King Numa, had built the first temple to Vesta, goddess of the home and hearth, goddess of the eternal flame that protected the Eternal City. That temple had been a simple round wooden one. Round, like the huts of Rome’s first homes. Round, like the life-giving sun and the earth. Round, like the stones that encircled the earliest fires of humankind. Numa had appointed a revered order of priestesses to care for the sacred fire and ensure it never went out, for Vesta’s flame was the red lifeblood of Rome.
