‘Perhaps,’ he replied, his gaze locked on Spartacus as the Thracian hacked and stabbed and parried with his training sword. ‘I’ll give him this, he is determined. Viridovix has been beating him black and blue, and yet not once has he asked for mercy. Viridovix defeats him again and again, and yet this Thracian still attacks with the same vigour as ever … expecting a different outcome every time, presumably.’
Lucius grinned and cracked his knuckles, inwardly feeling a soothing wash of relief at the sudden dissipation of Batiatus’s tempestuous wrath.
‘See?’ he said. ‘Courage, my friend! This Spartacus is not lacking in it by any means, none whatsoever! It merely needs to be shaped and moulded and given a sense of direction, that is all.’
Batiatus set down his goblet and began drumming his thick sausage-fingers on the table as he contemplated his options.
‘Aye, and I think I know just how. A week in the underground cell should start to get this savage to appreciate the necessity of actually listening to what his doctore instructs him to do. Or perhaps we should look to Crixus as an example of how to handle this little rebel. Simply flog the defiance out of him, yes, drain the bad blood out of him with cuts from a whip until only a shell, obedient and demure, remains.’
Lucius was quick but carefully submissive in tone in his response to this suggestion.
‘Before resorting to such extremes,’ he said, ‘why don’t you consider trying something a little milder … just to see if it might work, of course.’
‘Like what?’ Batiatus scoffed haughtily. ‘Viridovix is my best fighter! If even he can’t get this foolish brute to learn something new, what’s the point of pairing him with a lesser gladiator?’
There was a subtle narrowing of Lucius’s eyes and a curving of the edges of his mouth into a sly smile as he replied.
‘It’s just a hunch I have. Humour me.’
Batiatus scratched at his granite-hewn chin and masticated on this suggestion for a while. He then nodded his head slowly.
‘Very well, I’ll give this Thracian one more chance.’
Batiatus stood up and beckoned to Maharbaal, the head doctore who oversaw all of the gladiators’ training.
‘Maharbaal! Come over here.’
Maharbaal, a tall Carthaginian with dreadlocked hair and tawny skin, whose body was ripped with sculpted muscle despite being well into middle age, came jogging over to the patch of dirt twelve feet beneath the stands where Batiatus and Lucius were seated. The doctore, a former champion of the arena, saluted Batiatus and stood to attention with a ramrod-straight back. The man’s powerful arms and torso were crisscrossed with scars and keloids; ineradicable evidence of the sixteen years he had survived – and triumphed – as one of Batiatus’s most prized gladiators. After Maharbaal had won his freedom, Batiatus had convinced him to stay on at the ludus as the head doctore, and now he was a well-paid employee instead of a slave, and, more importantly, one who could impart his combat skills to the newer gladiators. Maharbaal had lived a life of violence and depredation amongst the ruins of Carthage since before he could remember; fighting and brutality were all he had known his whole life, so he thought that he may as well stay on at the ludus and live comfortably while doing what he did best. He worked with undeniable vigour and enthusiasm, but also with unshakeable loyalty to his employer and former owner, Batiatus.
Batiatus leaned over the railing and spoke gruffly to the doctore.
‘Maharbaal, take that new recruit Spartacus and pair him with someone else. He’s being given too much of a battering by Viridovix.’
Maharbaal saluted and responded with rapid enthusiasm in his deep, gravelly voice.
‘Can do, boss! Is there any gladiator you think I should pair the fresh meat with?’
As an employee instead of a slave, Maharbaal no longer had to refer to Batiatus as ‘master’, but despite this, he had grown so accustomed to ending his sentences with an expression of deference that he had simply replaced ‘master’ with ‘boss’.
‘I don’t want him with any of the new recruits. He already knows how to fight, even if it is in the unimaginative and limiting style of the Roman Legion. I can’t pit him against my very top gladiators either, as he’ll just be trounced again.’
Maharbaal turned and scanned his vision across the sands, making a few quick mental calculations and estimations as he analysed the sparring pairs of gladiators. He turned back to face Batiatus, squinting his dark eyes against the morning light.
‘Stick ‘im with Oenomaus, boss. That’s what I think, I does. Oenomaus is fucking strong, but he’s nowhere near as fast and nimble as ol’ Viridovix, Crixus or the General there. I think that Spartacus rat might be able to give Oenomaus a run for ‘is money, instead of getting a fuckin’ batterin’ like the top lads would give ‘im. Just my ‘umble opinion, take it or leave it as you will, boss.’
Batiatus nodded and sipped slowly on his wine.
‘Yes, yes … What you say certainly does make sense. Very well, pair Spartacus with Oenomaus and we’ll see how he fares.’
Maharbaal saluted Batiatus again, every one of his muscles contracting tight and threatening to burst through the honey-coloured skin that covered his statuesque body.
‘Yes boss! I’ll get that scum right on it, I will!’
Maharbaal uncoiled the whip from his hip and cracked it in the air with a vicious thwack that resounded around the training ground. Crixus, his body a canvas of scars, shuddered as and cringed involuntarily when he heard the whip crack, but his face remained as blank and neutral as ever. The gladiators all stopped what they were doing to listen to Maharbaal.
‘All right you worthless sons of gutter whores!’ the doctore boomed. ‘Time to have a five-minute breather and switch sparring partners! Fucking get on a move on, ‘urry your lazy, good-for-nothing arses up! Go!’
In a single, unified manoeuvre the gladiators all moved into two opposing lines, with each man taking
