“The time is right for the games to begin,” he mused. “The crowd arrives in all its questionable glory. We are mere moments away from the venatio: the great hunt itself. Who would miss the sight of beasts locked in battle? Where are the dignitaries? Why does the sacred chair of honors, the pulvinus itself, sit absent noble ass?”
He leaned, baffled, on the balustrade and scanned the crowd below. A woman in a veil seemed to be staring up at him, but turned away to gaze at the empty sands.
A gust of wind puffed a scrap of dirt into Batiatus’s eye, and he flinched, cursing.
Lucretia looked about for a slave to come to his aid. Seeing none, she shook her head in resignation and prepared to dab at her husband’s eye with a corner of her gown.
“This is most unwelcome,” Ilithyia said sourly. “The sun shines, and I fear I shall have to fan
Sailors called it the Afer Ventus, the wind out of Africa. Sometimes it brought warm rain out of the sky as it spent itself against the coast of Italia. Sometimes, it brought reddish dust, mingled with a storm as if the sky were bleeding. Sometimes it brought ships.
Household slaves cursed it for the scum it left on marble floors. Sailors blessed it for the ease with which it filled the sails of ships out of Sicilia. Tack a sail before the Afer Ventus, and there was a clear line straight to the western Latin ports-Ostia or Puteoli or Neapolis.
The ship had been a dot on the horizon, but steadily it grew in size, her sails appearing redder as the distance through the mist decreased. Soon, they were the color of wet terracotta or whipped skin, straining with the full force of the southwesterly wind. The dockside slave masters watched her with half an eye as she grew nearer. There was no need to take to the water in man-powered cutters too soon, no point in rowing out to meet a vessel that was already powering toward port under full sail. Instead, they waited until they saw small, crawling dots, like tenacious beetles, clambering up the masts to furl the sails.
Despite the pitching sea, the distant sailors clung on and drew in the vast sailcloths. To observers on the harbor watchtower, she did not visibly halt, although she stayed in place on the gently rolling waves, neither growing nor diminishing in size.
Now there were shouts from the crews of the cutters-three thin boats packed tightly with heavily muscled oarsmen, heaving against the waves and out toward the waiting vessel. Drenched already by the spray and spume, the cutter crews made swift work of the distance between the harbor and the newly arrived ship.
Sailors aboard the ship threw strong ropes to the cutters, who wound them swiftly about sturdy stern posts. Then, the rowers heaved once more back to shore, towing the sea-going vessel behind them, guiding it into port without the unpredictable winds. It helped that the ship rode with the tide, past the stone abutments of the outer sea wall of Neapolis, and into its calmer inner harbor.
He stood at the prow, lost in thought, watching as the quayside drew ever nearer. His eyes stared but somehow did not see the cluster of toga-wearing men who stood out in stark white contrast to the hempen clothes of the dock laborers. One of the dignitaries waved at him, but he did not acknowledge it, not even with a smile or grimace. It was as if he did not believe the attention of the crowd was directed at him.
He was not the first to descend. That honor lay with the several sailors who swung from ropes onto the harbor side, or who darted along the gangplank to check its purchase and safety. But he was the first of the passengers to touch the stones of the harbor, a tall man in his late thirties, his hair already receded and thinning, his lips pressed together in a grim stoicism.
He was well-fed but not fat, but for the merest beginnings of jowls at his jawline. His prominent nose had a shallow cleft in its tip, like the indentation in a chickpea. He was clad in a simple tunic, more suitable for shipboard life than an unwieldy toga. His left arm, however, jutted prominently from his side as if from force of habit, as if he were used to carrying cloth draped over it-this was a man fit for the Forum, a magistrate and civil servant. His youthful slave walked behind him, at a respectful distance.
The new arrival stared with some degree of suspicion at the committee on the quay, then looked away and began to walk toward the center of town. He only, truly, acknowledged their existence when a man bodily blocked his path, his arm raised half in hail, and half in entreaty.
“Marcus Tullius Cicero,” the man said. “You do us honor with your presence here in Neapolis.”
“An unexpected welcoming party,” Cicero replied. “If you wait expecting news from Rome, you will be much disappointed.” He paused, as if in thought, staring intently as if trying to remember something.
“Gaius Verres, sir,” the man introduced himself. “I am on my way to Sicilia to serve as its governor.”
“Verres, of course! I hope that in my own small way I have left part of the province all the more efficient, and ready to accept your rule.”
“I hope you have kept everyone honest.”
“Certainly, I have done my best.”
“Well then, I trust you have not tried too hard, or there will not be sufficient sums for me to make, eh!” With that, Verres nudged Cicero hard and laughed. Cicero did his best to smile, but only managed to stretch his lips along a thin and disapproving line.
“To what do I owe this… parade?” Cicero asked, glancing with thinly veiled disapproval at the well-draped dignitaries on the dockside. “My journey is of no great import.”
“Oh, but good Cicero, you hide the light of your lamp!” Gaius Verres said. “Your mission is surely of prime importance to the Republic, and we would have you rested.”
Cicero appeared decidedly unhappy to hear this, looking about him with some urgency.
“Are there no soldiers here to greet me?” he mused.
“Come,” Verres said reassuringly. “The House of Pelorus awaits. My slaves will bear your impediments to your quarters.”
“My presence is due elsewhere?” Cicero asked, in some confusion.
“The games commence,” Verres responded. “Let us move with haste.”
Cicero shrugged, noncommittally.
“The balcony offers prime view! The pulvinus yet reserved for you,” Verres said.
“Well then,” Cicero said, barely masking his lack of interest. “Fortune smiles upon us.”
Varro had been quiet all morning. Spartacus had not pressed the matter, and did not much care. But now he needed assistance, and the hulking blond Roman was the only candidate.
“The grating is level with the arena and faces the killing ground,” he said, standing on his tiptoes, peering at a scene that showed him little but the assembling crowd on the terraces.
“Then it is a shame that you are not the height of a Titan,” Varro said with a frown.
“I am not, Varro. But two of us may be if we stand together.”
“And who, I wonder, do you expect to stand the lower?”
“You are by far the stronger, my friend.”
“Stand on Barca’s shoulders. He is the tallest.”
“He awaits the primus in another cell. So it falls to you.”
“Very well,” Varro sighed in resignation. He climbed wearily to his feet, lacing his hands together to form an impromptu step.
Spartacus grasped Varro’s shoulders and hefted himself up so he was standing upon them in two swift steps. He grabbed onto the iron grille for purchase. Varro planted his feet firmly in the ground, snaking his own arms to steady Spartacus’s calves.
His eyes level with the floor of the arena, Spartacus gazed at a broad expanse of dust and sand. It was like any other arena, except for the center, which was occupied by a small cluster of what appeared to be grassy turf, festooned with fresh cabbages.
“Of what do you see?” Varro asked.
“I can see… a patch of vegetables,” Spartacus replied in bemusement.
“I want information of note, not more of your Thracian fever-dreams.”
“I speak only truth,” Spartacus insisted. “The center of the arena is occupied by a stand of greenery several paces wide.”
Four slaves entered the arena bearing a litter shaped like a long, square coffin. Each man was attired in a
