‘He’s going to be dealt a bleedin’ hammering by the doctore and his gladiators, he is! Ha! I can’t fuckin’ wait to see it neither. Especially since I hear this mangy cur was some sort of war hero up there with his subhuman pack o’ savages in northern Gaul.’
‘That ‘e was, that ‘e was! Jupiter take my cock if ‘e wasn’t!’
‘Bah, these barbarian animals from the north come swaggerin’ around the arena sands, but it don’t matter none ‘ow many o’ their fellow savages they’ve hacked apart in their own battles – a trained gladiator will have them in pieces in three sword strokes, just three, I tell ya! This one is going to get bloodied up good today, he is!’
‘I … I can open eyes,’ Viridovix croaked, his hoarse voice barely clearing a whisper.
‘Can you then, precious? Well get up, up on your bleedin’ feet then! I’m not carryin’ you up there. Hurry up, you stinkin’ street mutt! We’ve got a good few flights of steps to ascend, so prepare your worthless legs an’ lungs.’
Viridovix tried to stand, but a sharp pain shot at once through his cramping limbs, and he cried out and fell to the floor. The guards laughed uproariously, slapping their thighs and howling with savage and unsympathetic amusement.
‘Like a bleedin’ geriatric, this one is! Do you need a walkin’ stick, grandpa?’ one of the guards mocked.
‘I’ll see your head on the end of a stick, Roman dog,’ Viridovix whispered under his breath, speaking in his native tongue; the hell of the subterranean cell had not managed to completely quell his rebelliousness and thirst for freedom.
‘Eh? What did you say? You’d best not be speaking that savage talk here. That’s not allowed, and you fucking know that, you dirty whore’s arsehole! I’ll kick your bleedin’ teeth out of your ugly mouth if I hear one more word of that barbarian talk! You understand, ya’ mangy slave?’
‘Yes,’ Viridovix muttered reluctantly.
The guard dealt him a vicious backhand slap that knocked him flat onto his back.
‘That’s “yes MASTER”, you filth! Say it, you smelly piece of shit, say it!’
‘Yes … master,’ Viridovix growled through gritted teeth.
The guards all laughed again.
‘I think we’ve broken him, boys! Well, almost, anyway! What the cell hasn’t finished, the gladiators and the doctore will! Ha!’
‘Get ‘im on his legs, move it. Gods but ‘e reeks, doesn’t ‘e? What a ball o’ stinkin’ dog shit ‘e is. Come on, come on, sunrise is almost upon us, lads, and we was supposed to bring this barbarian scum up to the dining hall ‘alf an hour ago.’
‘Right, dragging him it shall be,’ one of the guards grumbled.
Two of them hoisted Viridovix up by his arms, and then, supporting him by his shoulders, they began dragging him up the stairs at a brisk pace.
‘I will wreak my vengeance on all of you, on every last one of you. I swear this on the names of all of the gods of rock, tree, stream and sky,’ Viridovix whispered to himself as the excruciating pain spread from his joints through his whole body with the rapidity of spilled water on dry, thirsty linen.
***
Five Years Later
The thunderous adulation of the crowd tasted sweeter on his lips than any wine he had ever imbibed, and the reverberation of the thousands of screaming plebeians was more melodic a tune in his ears than any song he had ever heard.
The gaudily attired announcer strode around the edges of the sands with both thick hands raised to the heavens, bellowing enthusiastically in his booming, sonorous voice.
‘Here he is! The monster from the northern edges of the known world, the fiercest Gaul ever captured alive, slayer of all and any who dare to step onto these sands with him, rainer of blood upon the earth! Free citizens of Rome, I give you … VIRIDOVIX, THE BEAST OF THE NORTH!’
The masses erupted into a riotous cacophony of applause, cheers and crazed howls as Viridovix emerged from the darkness of the tunnels, stepping proudly out into the glaring sunlight and yellow sands of the Colosseum arena.
‘The Beast has arrived!’ the announcer roared.
Viridovix’s elaborate steel armour, burnished to a mirror-like sheen, gleamed glossily in the early afternoon sunshine. His exquisitely detailed armour had been fashioned by a grandmaster armourer, modelled on a bear theme; his full-face helm was a steel bear’s head – he looked out through its open mouth, staring past rows of white-painted fangs – and his pauldrons had been fashioned into the likenesses of huge bear paws. In addition, the articulated links of armour that covered the entirety of his left arm had been modelled on a bear arm, the metal intricately hammered, etched and beaten into a roughly textured surface that resembled shaggy fur. And to the end of this steel bear arm, as if it were the real thing, three razor-sharp ten-inch claws had been added – an extra set of weapons to complement the long Gallic sword that Viridovix wielded, this being the only original item that remained from the first set of armour and weapons Lucius had purchased for him five years prior.
Viridovix turned about slowly, taking a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the crowd that surrounded him, and then he raised his sword to the sky, drinking in the eruption of near-hysterical praise that this gesture brought as if the fervent cheering was the nectar of the gods themselves.
They worship me. I could be a god … Nay, I AM a god … a god of the arena!
‘Today, the Beast of the North will face not one, not two, but THREE opponents, all at once! This is bear baiting with a difference!’ the announcer cried.
The crowd cheered vociferously, maddened to a frenzy with bloodlust. They had just watched the execution of two men, criminals convicted of treason against the Republic, and many of them were already intoxicated on cheap wine … and all, drunk or sober, were lusting to see
