“And formidable foe,” Ilithyia countered. Uncharacteristically serious, she said, “Stand warned, Lucretia. Beneath dour countenance, Marcus Crassus is slippery creature.”
Though he cracked his whip and bellowed his familiar combination of instructions, insults and-now and again-words of encouragement, Oenomaus did not feel his usual ebullient self that day. More than ever, he felt listless, unable to concentrate, and from the shambolic display of the men in his charge he was not the only one thus afflicted.
Through what appeared to be willpower alone, Spartacus was putting on the best show, though even he seemed slow and tired, his body dripping with sweat from his exertions. Oenomaus had seen him blinking and puffing out his cheeks and palming sweat from his brow with a weary hand on several occasions when he thought himself unobserved. Eventually, while the men did positional and stance work in rotation against the thick wooden posts embedded in the sand of the training ground, he drew the Champion of Capua aside.
“Your exertions result in weary profile, beyond what is normal,” he said.
Spartacus eyed him impassively.
“We are all tired from the day.”
Oenomaus nodded grimly.
“Ashur’s words nest in mind.”
“Belief in evil spirits remains absent in mine,” Spartacus said with a half-smile.
“I don’t embrace the belief tightly. But I confess confusion at my own fatigue.”
“The heat, lack of sleep …”
“Not uncommon hardships.” Oenomaus paused. “But the feeling is different. And observing your training this day, I believe you feel as I do if you were to give it thought.”
“What marks it different?”
“Weight as though doubled. Feeling of feet clamped to ground. As though …” His voice tailed off, unsettled. “As though Ashur’s words stand truth.” Oenomaus took a deep breath. “As though deep force draws from below, to pull us through sand.”
Spartacus licked his lips.
“You speak of the underworld.”
“I did not say the word,” Oenomaus said quickly.
“You do not need to.” Spartacus paused. “What ails the men is mystery to me. But I put faith my wife’s beliefs, to consider all that happens does so for a reason.”
“This is beyond reason,” Oenomaus said.
Spartacus shrugged. “Perhaps. But perhaps lack of reason is reason in itself. Perhaps the gods decree that this is our fate.”
Oenomaus grunted and looked up at the sky, as though he half-expected the gods themselves to be looking down on him, relishing his current misfortune.
“Tell me,” he said, “what state are the men’s minds in?”
“You ask me to betray confidence to superior.”
“Only for the good of all, not for idle chatter.”
Spartacus nodded in understanding and looked around.
“They stand uneasy,” he said. “Some more than others. Ashur has kept to his own counsel, yet they are not fools. Tetraides speaks loud of Mantilus and rumor of other ludi fallen to spell. He fills the men’s heads with talk of sorcery, visions of dread and life sapped from limbs.”
“This cannot go on,” Oenomaus said angrily. “I would speak with him.”
“He is Greek, obstinant as bull yet also possessing fear of woodland deer. He will not listen.”
“Then I will cut out his tongue to feed to the birds,” Oenomaus snapped.
“Perhaps offer it to the gods for protection from evil spirits,” Spartacus remarked drily.
Oenomaus snorted a laugh, though there was little humor in it.
On the training ground one of the men, the bald-headed giant Thrimpus, suddenly keeled over, crashing to the ground. The other men would normally have laughed at this, as they laughed at any display of weakness, but today, having stopped what they were doing to look, the majority of them merely murmured uneasily and backed away, watching as a cloud of sand disturbed by the impact rose and then settled over the fallen man’s recumbent form. Oenomaus rolled his eyes and strode angrily forward, flicking out his whip as he did so.
“Did you hear order to cease training?” he bellowed. “Resume or learn lessen in the hole!”
Most of the men moved swiftly to comply, keen to avoid a stint in the hole. This was the cesspit into which all of the villa’s household waste was poured, and Spartacus himself, together with Varro, had endured far too many endless hours in its stinking confines during the early days and weeks of their training.
With a flick of his head, Oenomaus barked, “Duro, Felix, drag this creature away and douse with water until it stirs.”
As the two gladiators hurried to obey, Tetraides said mournfully, “Thrimpus holds no blame, Doctore. The touch of sorcery lies upon him-as it does upon all.”
“Did I ask for thoughts spilled from mouth! Speak out of turn again and see yourself to the hole!” Oenomaus roared, his eyes burning like fire. “Resume training!”
For an instant it seemed as if Tetraides was about to argue-and then he dropped his eyes and muttered, “Doctore.”
“Spartacus,” Oenomaus said, “spar with Tetraides. Test him with vigor and strike further speech from him.”
“Doctore,” Spartacus said with a nod, and moved forward, his face grim and his wooden training swords gripped firmly in his hands.
Fed and bathed, his muscles oiled in preparation for that evening’s banquet in the villa above, Spartacus was resting on his bunk. He lay still, preserving his energy, telling himself over and over again that the aching fatigue in his limbs was imaginary, that he felt no different now than he did every other day after training. And the strange thoughts and half-visions crowding his mind, like dreams attempting to break free from the realm of sleep, were nought but the result of a restive night and Ashur’s wild tales. All this talk of evil spirits and sorcery was nonsense, foolishness. Such things were the province of the gullible and the weak-willed, destructive only if given rein to be so.
He tried to turn his thoughts to more immediate matters, to prepare himself for his role at the night’s coming celebrations. As a proud Thracian warrior, he resented being paraded like a shank of prime beef for arrogant and overfed Romans to gape at and pore over. It was demeaning, humiliating, and it belied Batiatus’s often stirring pronouncements that gladiators were heroes to be envied and revered and lusted after, that theirs was a life defined by fame and glory.
Spartacus never felt more like a slave than he did under the supercilious scrutiny of his Roman captors. Even the women who wanted his hard cock between their legs regarded him as nothing but a plaything, an animal with which to gain pleasure by rutting, only to then cast aside. He felt more of a free man when he was locked in his cell, alone with his thoughts and his sweet memories of Sura. But in many ways his entire life, whatever it may bring, was nought but a cage now. He doubted he would be truly free until the day when he would be reunited with his beautiful wife upon the endless plains of the afterlife.
Sura was filling his thoughts, as she often did, when he heard footsteps halt outside his cell. As his door was unlocked and pushed open, he sat up, to see two of the house-guards staring in at him.
“You are summoned,” one of them said curtly.
Spartacus was surprised. “The celebrations begin at early hour?”
The guard who had spoken sneered, as though Spartacus had proved by his response to be so slow-witted as to be beneath contempt.
“It’s not your place to question. Rise and follow.”
Spartacus rose from his bunk and padded to the door. He was manacled and led upstairs. As he passed Tetraides’s cell he saw the Greek lying flat on his back, his breath a snuffling grunt through his broken nose. The
