to twist out of the iron grip only to feel it tighten until he thought the bones would snap. Years on the galleys of Rome had given Casca a grip few in the world could equal. The pressure increased…
'Enough. Go back to your seat and we'll buy you another round.'
Before the short man could voice his agreement, a stool smashed across Casca's back and spun him over a table to meet with a boot in the mouth. He felt his lip split, letting the warm salt taste of blood into his mouth.
So much for trying to be reasonable, thought Casca. With a bellow, he dived into the legs of the large sailor and drove him over three tables and onto the tavern floor. Quickly he was swarmed by half a dozen sailors, raining blows on him with everything from wine pots to table legs. His head ringing, he grabbed a table leg for himself and began swinging, roaring out, 'Odin,' a habit he had picked up in the northlands, and began to crack skulls and ribs, ignoring returning blows. He cleared an area around himself and Ortius who had now come to his senses and was bellowing in glee, begging Casca to let him at them. The stubby balding man had no lack of guts and threw himself into the center of the remaining sailors and was just as quickly knocked out and thrown back like an unwanted fish. The remaining three sailors rushed Casca and buried him beneath them, pounding and pummeling with their hands and feet. The tall one made the mistake of trying to grapple with Casca on the floor and came up screaming in agony. Casca had reached under his tunic and given the sailor's balls one long strong squeeze that ended all thoughts of further hostilities in the fellow's mind and also any idea he might have had about love making for the next couple of weeks. Jumping up, Casca made short work of the two remaining sailors with a snap kick to the throat of one and back knuckle to the temple of the other that dropped him like he was pole-axed.
Gathering Ortius up, he tossed him over his shoulder and backed his way out of the tavern and into the dark where he quickly lost himself in the maze of streets. Finally finding his way back to their rooms, he set about waking Ortius with a combination of wet rags and gentle slaps. The Sicilian came to swinging and nailed Casca a good shot in the eye which immediately swelled shut.
'Where are they?' he cried. 'I'll teach them to mess with Ortius, the terror of the Saxon coast.'
Another gentle slap put Ortius back into the land of Nod and Casca just looked at him, touched his sore eye and said piss on it. He hit the sack, but felt good. It had been a great fight and dear Paetius, he felt sure, would have approved of the love squeeze he had given the sailor's balls.
Yes, indeed, Paetius would have envied him that moment.
Leaving Ortius to nurse his sore ear, the next day Casca told him he was going to Rome for awhile and that if he didn't get back before he sailed, then Hale and Farewell. The road had been good. Ortius was too sore and hung over to more than voice a feeble protest at his abandonment, but wished him well saying they sailed in two weeks for Byzantium if the weather permitted.
Casca left him holding his head between his hands vowing to forsake the worship of Dionysius and his grapes and devote himself to a life of piety and devotion. Paying his two coppers fare, Casca caught a ride in the morning on one of the wagons that hauled tourists and visitors to the capitol. It was early afternoon when they reached the outskirts of the city. Casca got off to walk the short distance to the school of the Galli where he had worn the armor of the Mirmillone and trained for the arena.
The walls were overgrown with vines and signs of decay were obvious from a distance. Pushing open the gate, the rusted squeaking hinges welcomed him. Gone. All were gone. Only ghosts of the hundreds who learned the fine art of slaughter were left. Open doors and litter left by bands of beggars who occasionally stopped and lived for awhile in the school of slaughter were all that remained.
The chopping posts were still there, gouged and scarred from the endless line of men who chopped them for hours to strengthen their sword arms and as a light wind blew small whirlwinds of dust, Casca thought he could hear Corvu again cursing and correcting, calling to low strike for the gut, try it again; over and over, the dust whirled and in it he saw familiar faces. Crysos who had died for him and Jubala, the insane savage black from Numidia, who feasted on his victims. All were gone and only dust remained. Casca. The only one left.
His sword felt heavy on his belt, weighing more than he knew. Perhaps it was heavy with the lives of the men he sent to their gods and ancestors. Entering the small arena where private shows were held for the rich, he noted that weeds now grew in thick clumps in the remaining sand. Perhaps the blood of those who had fallen here gave them sustenance. Kicking a patch of weeds, melancholy swept over him with the wind in this sanctuary of death.
'I have lived so long with the stench of death that sometimes I cannot tell it from my own breath… or are they the same?'
Climbing the steps to the box where the rich would sit eating while the men below died for their pleasure, he could even hear the whisper of the roar of the crowd in the great arena of Rome.
“Jugular! Go for the jugular! Give it to him!'
Below, the forms of men swirled in his mind as they fought, a wounded Thraces, his winged helmet slashed open held up a finger to the crowd asking for mercy which was seldom given. Useless, useless. What purpose did it all serve? But there was an excitement. Perhaps it's the animal that lives in all of us. We know what we do is wrong but still when lust comes on us, we revel in our ability to triumph over one another, even though it serves no purpose in the end. Man, the fighter, the killer of his own kind as no other beast on the face of this world is. Sighing, Casca rose to make his way out of the haunted mausoleum.
We are what we are. He left the school and walked to the gates that would let him into the city of the Caesars.
Five
Casca's steps led him through the same paths that he had taken to fight against Jubala in the arena of the Circus Maximus. Guards at the gateway gave him no more than a cursory glance as he melted into the flow of humanity. The sounds and smells were the same as he remembered, a babble of all the tongues of the empire merged into one distinct sound.
Dark closed over the City of the Caesars. The poor and the workers were in their homes behind shuttered doors. Over a million people crowded into the warrens of the city, driven here by the constant raids of the barbarians to the north or the free dole of grain. The odor of crowded humanity was intense and the smell brought the aura of fear… a fear that comes when the unknown walks the streets outside your home. Thieves and murderers owned the night. Only in the sections reserved for the wealthy merchants and highborn could a man or woman leave his home in the night with any semblance of safety and even here, the vultures waited and would strike and fade back into the crowded tenements and alleys.
In doorways and under the arches of the city, young people grappled and sweated, making frantic love, trying to find a moment's release from the fears of the day and the struggle to survive. Hot and eager for anything that could give them relief, they coupled, oblivious of the stares of the passersby. Only the streets which catered to the tastes of those who had money to spend were lighted and patrolled by guards. The guards were made available through payoffs to the Commander of the Roman Garrison.
Whores of both sexes did a flourishing business. No sexual fantasy or deviation could not be satisfied if one could pay.
Casca ignored the pleas of whores and pimps, touts for taverns and others who offered the sickest of pleasures. Rome was rotting-the guts and pride of those who had made her great were being absorbed by leeches and parasites who fed on her weakened body.
'I may yet outlive the Empire.”
All that night Casca walked through the city; it had changed some since the burning. They used more brick but it was basically as before, just more crowded. He could see flickering flames of altar fires of the priests on the terraced, well-tended hills. The gods needed constant attention and Colosseum, built after he had been sent to the galleys. A monument to depravity and brutality.
The Colosseum was a huge oval, covering six acres with eighty entrances of precious marble facings. In it 40,000 people could indulge their senses in the meaningless slaughter of the helpless. The games had deteriorated to nothing more than that. There was no time for expert fighters to compete against each other; only a few
