Pavo paced towards the wooden posts located in the middle of the training ground with a heavy heart. The posts were a short step from a sundial used to time the length of each exercise. Training like a common legionary, thought Pavo. His privileged life as a tribune in the Sixth Legion suddenly seemed a distant dream.
‘Not you, rich boy,’ the doctore ordered. Pavo stopped in his tracks and shot a puzzled look at Calamus.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘The lanista wants a word,’ Calamus replied.
CHAPTER FOUR
A household slave ushered Pavo down a wide passageway with a vaulted ceiling painted in bright colours. At the end the slave turned left and stopped outside a bronze-panelled door with posts sheathed in carved marble. An intricate mosaic on the floor depicted a gladiator combat between a pair of lightly-armoured fighters with whips.
At that moment the door swung open and Pavo lifted his eyes from the mosaic. The lanista stood in the doorway. Up close he looked even shorter and thinner than he had on the balcony, Pavo thought, as if he had shrivelled up. His arrogant demeanour had disappeared. Now a serious, dark expression was cast over his features.
‘Come in,’ Gurges said.
Pavo followed the lanista into an office with contrasting marble tiles covering the floor and richly decorated walls. The lanista eased himself onto a chair behind an oak desk and nodded to his slave.
‘Fetch more wine,’ Gurges said. ‘The Falernian. Not that piss I ply my guests with.’
The slave shuffled outside. Gurges leaned back in his chair. Pavo stood in front of the desk, his arms resting by his sides.
‘I am the lanista of the oldest and grandest ludus in Paestum,’ Gurges said. ‘Well, the oldest, though perhaps no longer the grandest. Fucking hard to make an honest living these days.’
Pavo said nothing, unsettled by the lanista’s loose tongue. He saw that Gurges’s eyes were glazed and it occurred to Pavo that this probably wasn’t the lanista’s first drink of the day. Gurges folded his arms behind the back of his head and pushed out his bottom lip.
‘The high priests might turn their noses up at my work, but when it comes to keeping the mob happy, they need people like me. Men who live and work among the lowest scum Rome has to offer, looking for a champion.’
The slave returned with a fresh goblet of wine. Like everything else in the lanista’s home, it appeared expensive and crass. Gurges admired the goblet for a moment. Then he said to the slave, ‘Fetch Calamus. I want an update on the injured gladiators.’
‘Yes, master,’ the slave replied and quickly departed from the study. Gurges took a gulp of wine, and set the cup down on the desk with a sharp rap. A few drops splashed over the oak. His eyes were wide and angry as they fixed on Pavo.
‘You can handle a sword, from what I hear.’
Pavo shrugged. ‘Well enough.’
‘Good. I trust you’re aware of the deal I cut with that slippery Greek?’
‘Pallas,’ Pavo muttered through clenched jaws. ‘The snake.’
‘You’re to die within the year, for twenty thousand of the Emperor’s sestertii. I’ll honour the deal, because I’m a man of my word. But there’s nothing from Pallas to dictate what I do with you in the interim. For one year you belong to me, body and soul. And for that year, you’ll fight. A lot. I intend to pitch you into the arena at every opportunity. And I expect you to win. I know what you posh lads are like, I’ve had a few pass through my ludus in my time. One boy, he shoved his head through the wheels of the cart on the way to a fight. Chose to snap his bloody neck in half rather than face the arena and left me out of pocket, the selfish prick.’
Pavo took a deep breath. ‘There’s only one man I want to face. The man who killed my father.’
Gurges stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘And who might that be?’
‘Hermes of Rhodes,’ said Pavo icily. ‘The Emperor ordered my father to fight him to the death in the arena. Hermes showed him no mercy or respect. Disembowelled him, then cut off his head and paraded it around the arena like a trophy. He disgraced my father and my family name in front of thousands. I will fight him, and I will have my revenge.’
Gurges steepled his fingers on the desk and studied the son of the legate in silence. ‘Hermes, eh?’ he said after a long pause. ‘That won’t be easy to arrange. Hermes is officially retired now. He only comes out into the arena for a hefty fee. We’re talking a hundred thousand sestertii.’
‘I don’t care,’ Pavo said. ‘I’ll find a way.’
Gurges picked at a morsel of food lodged in his teeth. Pulling his finger out of his mouth he rubbed the morsel between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Arrogant lad, aren’t you?’
‘No,’ Pavo said. ‘Just wronged.’
A chill gripped Pavo as an image flashed across his mind of Hermes lying prostrate on the arena floor, blood spilling from his slit throat. He burned with rage. His father had been humiliated in the arena. His family’s wealth had been seized by Claudius and pumped into the imperial coffers. Pavo’s infant son, Appius, had vanished and he feared the worst. The child could have been sold into slavery or butchered in some dark alley, joining his mother Sabina — who had died during childbirth — in the afterlife. Pavo had been stripped of his position as tribune and condemned to a barbaric death. He had nothing left to live for, except the prospect of killing Hermes.
‘Perhaps we can come to an arrangement,’ Gurges said. Calamus arrived and waited patiently by the study door. ‘If you earn me some good victories, I may be able to help you in your quest to fight Hermes.’
Pavo said nothing.
‘Give it some thought.’ Gurges continued, ‘In the meantime, watch your back. Some of the gladiators in this ludus are prisoners of war. One or two might have even been captured by your old man. As for the rest, well,’ he swept his arms across his desk as if clearing away imaginary clutter. ‘Let’s just say they don’t like high-born brats like you intruding on their ludus.’
Gurges reached for his wine cup and raised it to his lips, forgetting that he’d already emptied it. Frowning, he rose abruptly from his seat as Calamus brushed past Pavo. The doctore watched the recruit depart down the passageway. Once he was out of earshot he turned to the lanista.
‘He’s trouble, that one,’ Calamus grumbled. ‘We should just be rid of him.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Gurges replied, flattening out a slight crease in his tunic. ‘Times are hard. We haven’t had a champion since the great Proculus, seven bloody long years ago.’
Calamus made to reply, but Gurges levelled his eyes with the doctore and cut in before he could speak. ‘With his raw talent and the fame of his family name, crowds will flock to see Pavo. We’ll sell out the amphitheatre ten times over.’ He looked back down the passageway at Pavo’s shrinking figure. ‘He could save us. And gods know, we need a new champion. Either that or we go out of business. Now, tell me how those useless bastards in the hospital are faring. .’
Calamus stabbed at the sky, as if drawing blood from the bellies of the clouds.
‘This is a sword,’ the doctore said. ‘Look at it. Admire the blade. Consider the craftsmanship that has gone into making such a fine weapon.’ He smiled for a moment before making a thrusting motion at the recruits. ‘Now imagine the point puncturing your ribcage,’ he said. ‘Cutting through your flesh.’ He twisted the sword in his hand. ‘Carving up your vitals.’
He held the weapon outstretched and pointed the tip at Pavo, who stood at the end of the line. Pavo felt the other recruits’ eyes burning holes in him. In the shadows beneath the balcony he could see the veteran fighters occasionally throw angry stares at him between training exercises. Word of his privileged upbringing had spread quickly, Pavo realised. Since arriving in the ludus he had learned that most of the men in the gladiator school were prisoners of war, slaves or criminals. There was a sprinkling of freedmen volunteers, men of lowly status and desperate circumstances willing to accept the stain on their characters inflicted by becoming a gladiator in exchange for a chance of glory and money. But all the men were of a much lower social status than Pavo. He knew from long experience in the Sixth that nothing bred resentment like an upper-class accent. Still, Pavo had been at
