my daughter on your head!' 'Kill him!' 'Kill the bastard!'
The fighters clashed fiercely but cautiously, ducking and bobbing their heads right and left, performing half lunges with their swords, each testing the reflexes of the other, their eyes fixed only on each other's eyes, unblinking, focused with a concentration that blotted out all other sights around them.
Suddenly the Syrian launched himself forward, his shield held high in a tremendous lunge, landing with a crash on the Gaul's shield. The crowd's roar swelled as the two scuffled for an instant, their swords flailing and hammering, the Gaul suffering a glancing blow on his left shoulder that seemed to enrage him. Summoning all the force in his legs, he sprang forward against Leo, who was still bearing down upon him with his shield. The Syrian, overpowered by Vercingetorix' superior weight and strength, let the Gaul's momentum carry him forward, while he himself fell and rolled deftly on his back away from his opponent's rush. Vercingetorix, however, was too skilled to be fooled by such an old trick. He skidded to a stop and whirled just as Leo was again leaping to his feet. Disappointed that he had missed a chance to impale his enemy while he was down, Vercingetorix relaxed slightly to prepare for his next move, dropped his shield a few inches, and stole a glance at his bleeding shoulder.
That was the mistake the wily Syrian had been waiting for. During his entire roll and feint, Leo's eyes had never left those of Vercingetorix. Now, in that split second when he saw the Gaul glance away, when he detected the tiniest hint of distraction in his enemy's attention, he leaped.
The Gaul's glance shot back toward Leo, but it was too late. There was no time to brace himself for the assault, to set his stance and raise his shield to deflect the Syrian's outstretched sword. Startled, Vercingetorix momentarily lost his form, and had time only to take a clumsy step to one side to avoid his adversary's rush. This, however, was what Leo had anticipated. Rushing past him like a Spanish bull-leaper, his shoulder barely brushing the Gaul's, Leo reached behind with his sword arm as he passed, and with a single, clean stroke downward, he cleaved through the back of the Gaul's knee, severing the tendons that support the leg as easily as if they were taut tent strings. His lunge carried him forward, and he continued in an easy trot for several steps, waving his fist in a brief salute to the crowd, knowing from the frenzied roar that his plan had borne fruit.
I glanced over at Julian: he was transfixed, an expression of awe and fervor in his face as he surveyed the bloody sand of the arena. A strange light had come to his eye, an avid gleam almost of eagerness, a thirsting for violence seen only among men in the heat of battle, in the very act of killing. The Syrian champion slowly circled back to the center where the Gaul had sunk down onto his injured right knee, his left leg out in front of him bent at a right angle, a widening pool of black forming in the sand beneath him. Despite his desperate situation now, unable to move from his position, Vercingetorix seemed unperturbed: his massive shoulders were still erect, his huge chest barely moving. I saw beneath the leather mask that his mouth remained closed as he breathed easily through his nostrils. He gave his great mane of hair a shake to remove it from his shoulders and allow it to flow more neatly down his back — even then the man retained his vanity! — and slowly and deliberately he assumed the combat position with his shield and sword and awaited the Syrian's next move.
It was not long in coming. The Syrian circled Vercingetorix twice as he knelt in the sand, disdaining the easiest and most obvious maneuver of simply lunging at him from behind, whence the Gaul, unable to rotate quickly on his injured knee, could not defend himself. Instead he faced Vercingetorix full in front, his shield dropped at a lopsided angle, knowing that the Gaul would be unable to attack; and slowly, deliberately, he raised his own sword to aim directly at his opponent's chest, his long arm and weapon forming a single, straight, unified line of death. 'Almighty Zeus, strengthen my arm!' he shouted, and the crowd roared. His knees flexed as he prepared to make the special spring and pounce that had given him his nickname, 'the Lion.'
That was the last time the Lion's mighty right arm would raise a sword.
Unbelievably, just as the Syrian was about to lunge, Vercingetorix, using only his single good leg cocked before him, sprang forward with the lightness and agility of a cat, lifting the weight of his entire body on the strength of his huge left thigh, his hamstrung right leg trailing behind him like the flailing limb of a rag doll. Caught utterly by surprise, and in a stance set to leap forward rather than to step back out of harm's way, the Syrian stood dumbly for a split second with his shield dropped as the Gaul brought his heavy blade down in a stroke that severed Leo's right arm at the wrist joint as neatly as a piece of cheese. Vercingetorix planted himself again on his knee where he landed, a grin now visible on his face beneath the mask and mustaches, as Leo straightened and backed away from the Gaul's range, staring dumbly at the flat stump of his forearm, the tips of the ulna and radius bones showing brightly amongst the red tissue surrounding them, seemingly too surprised even to bleed.
The crowd went wild. 'Well washed! Well washed!' they cried, in their morbid twisting of the common bathhouse salutation, as the blood began cascading out of his severed limb onto his thighs. Those who had gone morose and silent with the hamstringing of the Gaul now erupted in an orgy of screaming and raving, of backslapping and gloating. The Syrian shuffled around the arena aimlessly, staring disconsolately at his severed arm, which was now spewing like a hose, his concentration gone as surely as was his life. A senator in a box adjacent to us slid down in his seat, holding his head in despair. 'No!' he moaned. 'No, no, no!' The senator's wager must have been sizable. Vercingetorix, in a mocking gesture, dragged himself on his left leg to where his opponent's severed hand lay in the sand, still gripping the sword. Seizing the white, bloodless fist in his own thick paw, he held it and the blade up in the air for all to see and appreciate, and then tossed them across the arena to the Syrian's feet, as if daring him to reattach the flesh and continue the combat.
The Syrian, visibly startled, looked down at the filthy, blood-spattered, and sand-encrusted weapon lying at his feet, and a light seemed to come into his eyes as his face regained a semblance of its earlier calm. Kneeling down, he quickly slipped the shield off his left forearm, and jammed the stump of his right arm into the strap instead. This was a struggle, for the strap had been set to fit comfortably around the much smaller muscle on his left limb, but after a few seconds of grimacing and awkwardness he succeeded in stretching the thick leather of the strap sufficiently as to stuff his right forearm in up to the elbow — and here I saw his genius. Now he would be able to bear the shield with his right arm, though only clumsily because he lacked a hand with which to hold the grip and pivot the shield around the fulcrum of the arm strap. But more important, the extreme tightness of the leather strap around his forearm served as a most perfect tourniquet. Indeed, as he raised the shield triumphantly to the crowd, I could see that the bleeding had slowed to a mere trickle. Leo bent slowly to pick up the sword lying nearby with his left hand, kicked his severed right fist carelessly out of the way, and then calmly, menacingly, strode to where Vercingetorix still knelt, dumbfounded.
A hush fell over the crowd, a silence all the more amazing and disquieting for the deafening roar of only seconds before. There would be no more feints and jabs, no more combinations and exchanges. The final blow would be struck in a moment, and all knew that one man, one of these of such tremendous strength and courage, would be dead.
This time, Leo had no patience for elegance in killing. He had lost a limb to that notion, and it would not happen again. Trotting directly to the front of the stricken Gaul, whose chest was now heaving in growing panic, he stopped and raised his sword deliberately, again pointing it at the Gaul's chest but prepared, this time, for the big man's leap. In this he was not disappointed, for he knew it was the Gaul's only defense. Springing forward on his left leg, Vercingetorix lunged desperately and clumsily at his opponent, who this time raised his shield deftly to ward off the blow and stepped neatly to one side as Vercingetorix landed off balance in front of him on his bad leg. Falling forward, the Gaul threw his shield down to catch himself, and at that moment the Syrian placed one hobnailed sandal in the small of his back, forcing the Gaul forward onto his belly, and balanced the tip of his sword firmly, but not fatally, on the back of the Gaul's neck, immobilizing him with pain. In this stance, the Syrian cautiously raised his eyes up from the trembling giant lying at his feet, and looked up to the Emperor's box.
In a case such as this, when one gladiator holds the life of another in his hands, it is the Emperor who decides the fallen gladiator's fate, which he pronounces in the form of a signal: if the fallen gladiator has fought bravely and valiantly, the Emperor may order his life to be spared by raising his thumb. Otherwise, the thumbs- down is given, and the fallen gladiator is dispatched.
Julian rose slowly from his seat, his face pale both from the shock of seeing such an extraordinary scene played out before him, and from the decision he was about to make. White handkerchiefs were raised around the stadium, and scattered shouts began to be heard: 'Spare him!' 'Kill the bastard Gaul!' 'Thumbs-up, Emperor!' 'Thumbs-down!'
The screaming multiplied, and within seconds the stadium had erupted into pandemonium, a roar of competing cries and oaths, indistinguishable one from the other. The Syrian stood motionless in the sand, staring patiently up at the Emperor, while the defeated Gaul lay prone and helpless, his right foot twitching uncontrollably from the excruciating pain of the severed tendons.
