Spartacus: Swords and Ashes

“I am not accustomed to paying attention to the furniture. Are we safe?” Verres asked, inclining his head at the old slave with the butcher knife.

“From him?” Timarchides said. “I am surprised he has not wounded himself. Fear him not. But watch anyone else with a knife!”

“Even I feel wary in the presence of gladiators tonight,” Verres admitted.

“We are only exhibiting stock from House Batiatus,” Timarchides said. “They are sure to be docile.”

“Particularly after the whipping you dealt them this morning,” Verres laughed.

“After viewing of the gladiators, other delights will entertain,” Timarchides added, ignoring Verres’s last words.

Verres shrugged.

“Whatever pleases the guests. Let us begin the viewing.”

He glanced around him.

“Where is Batiatus? The responsibility lays with him.”

Timarchides peered around the atrium in his turn but saw only the table piled high with meats and fruits, and the revelers clustered like fussing bees around the slaves with flagons of wine. Then he spied two figures hunched in the shadows. Timarchides squinted in the half-light, thinking perhaps he bore witness to a lovers’ tryst. But the heads jerked and gestures twitched with the animation of harsh words. Not lovers, he mused, a married couple.

“Patience, Lucretia,” Batiatus hissed. “Put it from mind, all will be well.”

“Will you buy and train new gladiators before tomorrow’s games?”

“That will not be necessary.”

“Will you raise Cycnus from the dead? Will you brand your mark upon our porters and see them elevated? Will you heal Bebryx with powerful herbs?”

“Lucretia, calm yourself. Think of the imagines!”

“From the funeral? Have the gods deprived you of your senses?”

“A mask changes identity. We command as many gladiators as there are masks.”

Lucretia stared at her husband with eyes sharper than a sword.

“They need only be bare-headed in the primus,” Batiatus said hastily. “When they chase lions on horseback, their helmets will serve to conceal their identity!”

“And what of their strength?”

“Was such a question asked of the three hundred Spartans? Was it asked of Alexander? Of Horatius? These men are warriors. They can fight all day and all night if I command it.”

“I see no problem then,” Lucretia said, flatly.

As was her habit, she declared the conversation over by walking away from it-though Batiatus had other ideas.

“Admittedly, beloved,” he protested, scampering to keep up with her, “the situation is far from being ideal. But we must work within the possible.”

Lucretia stopped suddenly and turned to address her husband.

“You stand at the edge of a precipice,” she hissed. “You gamble with our livelihood. Is it not enough that Crixus lies bleeding back in Capua?”

“Spartacus is up to the task.”

“Let us hope, Quintus.”

They strode into the light of the party, the gathering illuminated by multiple torches in front of burnished bronze mirrors.

“There you are,” Verres said to them, beaming. “It is time for you to unleash your beasts!”

Caged in another part of the house, the “beasts” sat around a small fire in a brazier.

Bebryx gulped from a flask of wine, found it empty, and cast it across the room, all one-handed-his other arm was in a sling. He reached for another wine from the dwindling pile.

“You drink beyond your own entitlement,” Varro said.

“And you not of yours at all,” Bebryx pointed out sourly.

“I am not drinking of it yet,” Varro replied calmly.

“Varro does not wish to be caught off-guard,” Spartacus explained. “Unexpected action may be demanded of us at the cena libera.”

“Not my concern,” Bebryx said with a shrug, nursing the bandages on his shoulder.

“Indeed,” Barca put in. “You have already been caught off-guard today!”

The other gladiators chuckled. Bebryx glared at them with a look that said he willed them all to be struck by lightning.

“To Cycnus,” the injured gladiator mumbled eventually, raising a flask that was surely Varro’s. Varro made as if to get up, but Spartacus stayed his friend.

“Let him have mine,” he said.

“I see not fight avoided,” Varro grumbled, “but fight postponed.”

Bebryx smacked his lips and smirked.

“The day you cannot take a one-armed man,” Barca said, “there will be no more fighting for you.” He speared a sausage onto a stick, and held it carefully above the glowing embers. Varro and Spartacus followed suit. The ever drunker Bebryx looked at them and shook his head in revulsion.

“You Romans-” he began.

“I am not a Roman,” Spartacus and Barca chorused.

“You Romans and you Roman slaves,” Bebryx continued, ignoring their protest. “Look at you.”

The other three exchanged baffled glances.

“Roasting your masters’ table-scraps over the fire.”

Varro laughed.

“You look upon sausage, Bebryx,” he said. “What grievance can you have with sausage?”

“Lips and offal, skin and organs,” Bebryx replied. “Minced and forced into intestines.”

“I know what a sausage is,” Varro said. “A rare luxury for a slave.”

“Where I come from,” Bebryx muttered, “the warriors receive the best cuts. The hunters take the haunches and the steaks. Such relics are the dishes of women and dogs.”

“Victorious warriors?” Varro asked innocently, glancing at Bebryx’s bandage.

“An animal!” Bebryx slurred, bellicose. “A beast of burden flayed, and slain, and shoved up its own ass.”

“More for us, if you do not want your share,” Barca said.

“I had more distasteful food as a freeman,” Varro agreed.

“Better to starve free,” Bebryx sneered, “than bend to a master’s will.”

The sausages began to spit and whine in the heat, their outer skins popping and scorching. Sloshing wine from his purloined flask, Bebryx caught his fingers in some of his elaborate braids, accidentally unraveling part of them. Beads dropped and scattered on the straw-strewn floor. Bebryx cursed in the language of Numidia, using a term close enough to Carthaginian for Barca to smile in recognition.

“Too much trouble,” Varro said.

“What?” Bebryx mumbled, not quite focusing on the golden-haired Roman.

“Your hair is too much trouble,” Varro continued. “A gladiator should not fuss over his looks like a preening woman.”

“You know nothing,” Bebryx said. “I suppose you would have me close-cropped and anonymous like the Thracian.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of Spartacus, who said nothing, munching slowly on his food. “Or shave my head entirely?” the drunken gladiator added.

“There is a middle ground,” Barca said, his mouth full.

“A shaven head is the mark of a prisoner of war,” Varro said in agreement. “Unkempt hair, the mark of a barbarian. A gladiator must find some middle ground. He must decide if he wishes to look like a presentable, neatly trimmed, Roman.”