Forbidden To The Gladiator

He gazed up at the crazed spectators in a kind of wonder. If he were not breathing so hard, and bleeding so terribly, he might have been a statue—some splendid, towering ode to the male form. Or he might have been the figure of an ancient god standing there in the sand. A great spirit brought low—cut down by the ugly world.

An aching sadness overtook Arria. The blood. If only she could staunch the flow of it, or somehow wash it all away.

Instinctively, she pulled her handkerchief from her belt. As if such a small piece of cloth could possibly help this man, or any of the gladiators. They were slaves, criminals, captives of war. Their deaths had not been spared, only delayed for the entertainment of the bloodthirsty mob.

‘I give you the Beast’s next foe,’ announced the ringmaster. ‘The Wrath of Syria!’

The man who emerged through the iron gate was shorter than the Beast, but twice his width, with fat arms and legs like twin logs. The Wrath held a tall trident spear, but was without the net that usually accompanied such a weapon. Across his broad forehead were the large tattooed letters of a field slave.

‘Romans, place your bets.’

She watched in resignation as her father gripped the gold-toothed man’s arm, sealing the next bet. Her mother’s ichthys had been staked.

‘Die well, gladiators!’ said the ringmaster.

The Beast circled the Wrath, who was thrashing his trident about wildly, as if he had no idea of how to use it. In a single swing of his sword, the Beast knocked the weapon away. Incredibly, the Wrath did not even attempt to retrieve it. He simply dropped to his knees and awaited the final blow.

The Beast held his blade to the Wrath’s neck and gazed up at the governor, awaiting his command of mercy. But the governor was not even watching. His head was bent over a collection of coins.

‘Iugula!’ someone shouted. Kill him!

Without looking up, the governor drew his finger across his neck. No mercy.

Arria turned away. She hated them—all of them—the ringmaster, the governor, the spectators, the Roman Empire itself. This was not entertainment. This was Roman conquest writ small.

There was a collective groan, and when she returned her gaze to the arena she saw that the Wrath of Syria had been granted a merciful death. He lay face down in the sand, blood pooling where his throat had been slit. She saw her father bury his head in his hands.

Which meant he had bet on the Wrath.

Her father’s companion patted him on the shoulders consolingly, gently relieving him of her mother’s golden fish. Her father stared down at his empty hand. When he finally looked up, his eyes locked with Arria’s.

He flashed her a smile of recognition, followed by an odd frown. Arria made a gesture of departure. Come now, Father, she mouthed, pointing towards the exit. It is time to go.

But her father’s attention was distracted once again by the ringmaster, who stepped forward holding the Beast’s arm in the air. ‘The Beast of Britannia will fight a final bout!’

The crowd cheered with fresh abandon. The exhausted Beast raised his sword and his gaze found Arria’s once again. Her chest squeezed. His eyes were no longer green, but black, like the darkest part of Hades. She remembered what he had done—the cool indifference with which he had removed the German’s head and the terrifying efficiency with which he had killed the Syrian.

It was no wonder she felt so weak beneath his gaze. So completely exposed. He was a killer of men—a kind of monster. She hugged her arms around her chest, feeling the heat of fear burn in her stomach. The heat could not be contained. It was spreading to her limbs. She could feel it colonising her very cheeks.

‘Gloria!’ someone shouted.

Straight away, a man half the Beast’s size skipped through the gate. He wore a comical goat’s tail and sandals shaped like hooves. ‘Romans, prepare yourselves for a battle that only the Great Jupiter could conceive.’ The ringmaster gazed reverently at the heavens, then returned his attention to the crowd and flashed a wicked grin. ‘I give you the Beast of Britannia versus…Felix the Satyr!’ The crowd disintegrated into laughter.

Now the mockery was complete. The goat-man scuffed his hoof-like sandals in the sand, bleating and bobbing to a cacophony of jeers. Arria assumed he was mad, though his ropy muscles and fast movements suggested an ability to fight.

She returned her attention to the Beast. He was still looking at her assessingly. It was as if he were some terrible predator trying to decide if she was worth the effort to hunt. Or perhaps he had already decided. She swallowed hard.

‘Romans, place your bets!’

Her father and the gold-toothed man were speaking together fervently now and she wondered what they might be saying. Were they haggling over some promised credit? Impossible. Her father was not credit worthy and he had nothing left to bet. At length her father raised his finger. He was pointing across the ring.

At Arria.

Chapter Two (#u0da4ebb0-04cf-5d50-8d9f-ad872c2b14ee)

The air around Arria acquired a strange weight. It pressed down upon her so hard that she could not lift her feet, or her arms, or even her head, which slumped along with her shoulders in a reflection of her father’s own miserable posture.

She watched beneath heavy lids as her father and the gold-toothed man discussed their wager. Soon they were met by a third man—a scribe. The sober old documentarian scratched hastily upon a scroll, then offered the men his quill. Her father signed the scroll and gripped the gold-toothed man’s arm for a third time.

The bet had been made. Arria had been staked.

She felt tears falling unbidden down her cheeks. There were too many tears. Her handkerchief was not big enough to absorb them all.

‘Die well, gladiators!’ said the ringmaster.

Who was she supposed to pray for now?

Surely the Beast, for only a fool would have bet on the little man with the swinging tail. Even now, the howling Satyr was retreating from the Beast, kicking up sand and scratching at the arena walls. When the two finally engaged, the Beast quickly knocked the sword from the goat-man’s hand.

‘Kill the Satyr! Kill the Satyr!’ the crowd chanted.

It appeared that her father was chanting along with them.

Thank the gods—he had bet on the Beast. For once he had made a sound judgement. Perhaps he even stood to regain what he had lost. Arria could only send a prayer to Fortuna to make it so.

The Beast had the Satyr pinned to the wall and Arria could already feel the weight of the air beginning to lift. She glanced at her father. His eyebrows arched hopefully and his wrinkled old mouth was bowed up into a grin.

Strangely, the gold-toothed man was smiling, too.

That was when Satyr thrust his finger into the Beast’s chest wound. The Beast stumbled to the ground in howling agony and released his sword. The Satyr placed his hoof upon the Beast’s bloody chest, pausing above him for the death blow.

Stunned, the spectators fell silent. The champion was about to lose, right before their eyes. Arria strained to believe her own. Something was not right. The Beast would never have lost control of his sword as he had done. Even Arria could see that he was too experienced to make such an error.

The Beast raised two fingers—the traditional entreaty for mercy.

Was it obvious to no one but her? The Beast had deliberately lost.

‘Mitte! Mitte!’ the crowd thundered. Spare him! All eyes turned to the governor, who gave a simple bow of the head. Mercy. His chest wound still leaking blood, the Beast lumbered to his feet and Arria found herself searching for his gaze. But he kept his head bowed as the ringmaster raised the Satyr’s hand into the air. ‘Romans, I give you Felix the Satyr, your winner.’

Arria should have been relieved. The Beast’s life had been spared. For once this terrible night, mercy had triumphed over bloodlust. But injustice had triumphed, too, for the Beast had deliberately succumbed to the Satyr and Arria had been sold into slavery as a result.

She gazed across the ring. Her new owner was already assessing her. His eyes scraped over her: her hair, her breasts, her arms. He was regarding her physical form just as the bettors had regarded the gladiators’. No, no, no. This could not be.

Desperation seized her. ‘The Beast deliberately relinquished the fight!’ she shouted without thinking. ‘Did nobody see it? The outcome was fixed before the act! You have all been cheated! Robbed!’

Now it was not just the gold-toothed man’s eyes on her. It seemed that every single man gathered around the Chasm of Death had turned his attention to Arria—including the governor.

Oh, gods, what had she done? The governor gave a tight-lipped command, and soon his guards were pushing towards her from the left edge of the arena. From the right, her father and her new master were nearing, as well. The pit sprawled below her. The distance to the ground appeared to be three body lengths or more. There was only one direction in which she could flee—back into the bustling crowd.