“Your spiritual attendant, for lack of better description,” Batiatus muttered.
“Indeed. His ministrations most beneficial to me and my gladiators.”
Batiatus nodded curtly and called for water, more as a way of excusing himself from the conversation than because he really needed a drink. He could not deny, however, that his throat was dry and that he was sweating profusely, a condition that was more endemic of his present predicament than of the heat of the day.
So far his gladiators had lost five of the six bouts in which they had competed. His sole victors, and lucky ones at that, had been the German brothers, Agron and Duro, both of whom had sustained injuries that would see them under the care of the medicus for some time. The street prattle of Capua had been mostly true- Hieronymus’s men were savage, wild-eyed and often reckless-but under more normal circumstances Batiatus would still have been confident that the skill, speed and finesse of his own stable would have been more than a match for their raw ferocity. But as Batiatus had feared, the recent problems within his ludus had taken their toll, and like Solonius’s fighters before them, his men were badly out of sorts-lacking in strength, slow to react and unable to concentrate.
“Who stands eager to step to sands for next match?” Hieronymus asked as Spiculus’s remains were pierced with a large hook and dragged from the arena.
Batiatus watched as fresh sand was strewn over the blood that had gushed from the body of his defeated man.
“Tetraides,” he muttered glumly. “Who hails from same land as you, good Hieronymus. A Greek, fighting as provocator.”
Spartacus was lying on the desert sand, vultures wheeling overhead. The merciless white disk of the sun was baking his body, his skin a deep, angry red in the unbearable heat, but he couldn’t move. He tried stretching out a hand, but it was impossibly heavy, as though invisible weights were pressing down upon it. There was blood on his fingers, and when his gaze shifted (even the tiniest muscle-twitch needed to adjust his vision was an effort) he saw that there was blood on his body too-that his entire chest and stomach was coated with it.
It was oozing from a wound just beneath his breast bone, from the same wound, in fact, that had killed Sura. With one savage thrust the blade had pierced Sura’s flesh, grated against the bone of her rib cage, and punctured her heart. Spartacus understood that because Sura’s heart and his own were as one, the killing blow had ended not only her life, but his also. And though he yet breathed, he knew also that he was dead already, and that all he could do now was watch as his and Sura’s life, slick and red- so red that it hurt his eyes-pumped out of him.
Then his eyes shifted again and he saw her approaching across the sand, the sun at her back turning her into a shimmering silhouette. He watched her grow larger in his vision, and finally he blinked as she bent toward him, blocking out the sun.
“Spartacus,” she whispered, reaching out and shaking his shoulder.
He frowned, his lips barely moving.
She shook him again.
“Spartacus.”
Anger and distress leaped in him. He glared at her, betrayal in his eyes.
“-my name!”
It was cold, dark; the sun was gone. He jerked upright, the sound of the words he had just shouted still echoing in the air. He looked around, momentarily confused. Saw stone walls, and a stone floor strewn with reeds and sand. He could smell blood and sweat and oil. Someone was leaning over him-not Sura, but Varro.
Varro’s voice was soft in the dimness, his blond hair catching the light from the barred window overhead.
“You wake from dream, Spartacus,” he said. “It is nearly time. For the primus.” Varro’s hand was cool on his hot flesh. “Our moment of glory-or of death.”
Tetraides swung the short sword in his hand, a downward blow intended to slice through the visored helmet of his opponent and cleave his skull. The smaller, quicker gladiator, however, fighting as a thraex with a curved sica, flung up his shield, which bore the motif of an eagle battling a snake, and deflected Tetraides’s lumbering attack.
The broad-shouldered Greek, cumbersome in his heavy armor, staggered slightly as his sword skidded from the surface of the thraex’s shield. The thraex took advantage of the Greek’s momentary lack of balance to spin and strike upward with his sica. The blade sliced between the pectoral, protecting Tetraides’s chest, and the greave, protecting his left leg, finding the soft flesh just above his hip. Tetraides cried out as the sica parted the skin there in a neat slash, blood spraying from the wound and speckling the sand.
It was not a serious injury, but for a moment Tetraides’s vision grayed over. Already debilitated by the sickness sweeping through Batiatus’s ludus-a sickness which Tetraides still attributed to necromancy, despite dominus’s order to speak no more of the matter-the provocator’s armor that enclosed him felt constrictive and claustrophobic, limiting his movements. Usually he was grateful for the extra protection, particularly the visored helmet, which extended over his shoulders, but today he felt as though his head was encased in a bear trap, heavy and stifling, and stinking of hot iron and his own feverish sweat. Out in the baking heat of the arena, he felt as though he was gliding not through air, but wading through water. His opponent, by contrast, seemed to flit and buzz around him like a fly, stinging him at will.
Although it was a ludicrous notion, Tetraides would have liked nothing more at that moment than to sink to the ground and submit to the arms of Morpheus. He was so exhausted that he could barely keep his eyes open, and not even the knowledge that his life was at stake seemed to provide him with the extra boost of energy that he needed. Even so, he continued to lumber after his opponent, swinging his sword, only vaguely aware of how much the crowd was laughing and jeering at him. Their reaction was due to the fact that each time he lunged at the thraex, having pinned him in his sights, his blade would encounter only empty air, the thraex having subsequently leaped nimbly out of his way.
Occasionally the thraex would dart beneath his defenses and nick him with his sica, drawing blood. To the watching crowd it seemed as if the thraex could leap in and make the killing blow whenever he chose, but for now he seemed content to simply circle the big Greek, like a lethal predator tormenting prey that was double its size and weight, in the hope of gradually wearing it down.
Up in the pulvinus, Batiatus could hardly bear to watch. He used his hand to shade his eyes in embarrassment, flinching each time he heard a fresh burst of laughter from the massed hordes.
“I fear my thraex toys with your provocator for the merriment of the crowd,” Hieronymus said sympathetically. “I hope he ends torment soon. It would be unbecoming to draw out the contest to absurdity.”
“Your words travel to him,” Crassus muttered. “It appears he sets to the task.”
Wearily Batiatus raised his head, bracing himself for the inevitable.
Tetraides was so exhausted he could barely lift his sword. He lumbered in circles, his opponent now no more than a dark, fleeting shape in his peripheral vision. Sweat poured down his face inside his helmet, blinding him, and his breath echoed stertorously in his ears. Together with the pounding of his heart as it pumped blood through his veins, the sound drowned out the derision of the crowd-a small but tender mercy.
From the corner of his eye he saw a shadowy figure suddenly dart at him, and swung his sword toward it. As the blade swished once again through empty air, he became aware of a stinging sensation in his abdomen. Next moment the stinging became a sort of dragging, followed by the strange and altogether more unpleasant feeling of something thick and wet and slippery sliding down his legs. Tetraides looked down, and was astonished to see fat, pink-gray ropes of intestine, carried on a small waterfall of blood, surging from a wide rent in his belly. The intestines slipped over his sandaled feet and spilled across the sand, like a mass of blind snakes trying to escape from a box. As the last of his strength drained out of him and his head began to fill with dizzy, buzzing blackness, Tetraides dropped his sword and his shield, and toppled over backward on to the sand. He felt no pain.
