‘Okay, okay, just don’t hurt me master, please,’ the young man whimpered plaintively.
He lowered the satchel to the ground and then closed the door with trembling hands. After that he walked on shaky legs over to the corner and stood there, keeping his hands raised above his head. Lucius nodded, assuming a less aggressive stance, but he kept the crossbow aimed at the youth nonetheless.
‘All right boy, tell me why Batiatus sent you here. I’ve already said farewell to him, and I told him that I didn’t expect to ever see him again, not with my upcoming journey to the unknown lands of the Far East, whence I will not likely return. He knows I’m leaving, we’ve talked about it, and he was fine with it. So, what’s this all about then?’
‘He s-, says that you shouldn’t leave j-, just yet,’ the young man stuttered, his fright-widened eyes locked on the loaded crossbow. ‘He is having a great banquet in a few days, and r-, requests your presence there. Um, as, as a f-, final farewell.’
‘You’re not a particularly good messenger, are you? By the gods boy, try to speak without stuttering! I’ve already said that I’m not going to hurt you.’
The young man seemed unconvinced of this and remained skittish. Lucius saw that the young man’s eyes never once left the crossbow, so he set the weapon down on a table nearby, making sure that it was close enough to snatch up quickly if the need arose. Once the crossbow was out of Lucius’s hands, the messenger calmed down somewhat, although he remained rather jittery.
‘He, um, he says that if you come, you can, er, learn a great deal more about um, the Huntsmen.’
‘I’m not interested,’ Lucius said flatly. ‘You can tell him that. Now, if that’s all—’
‘P-, please wait master. He was very, very insistent that you attend.’
‘So?’ Lucius scoffed. ‘I’m not a slave, I’m a free man, and I can do whatever I want. Look, I’m all set to leave for the East tomorrow morning, and I have no desire to delay my plans for the sake of a damned banquet … as much as Batiatus is my friend.’
‘He s-, said that you would say that. That is why he has sent this g-, gift. If you come to the b-, banquet, he says that there’ll be a l-, lot more where this came from.’
Lucius raised an eyebrow and shot a sidelong glance at the satchel.
‘What is it then, gold, jewels? I have more than enough of those. No, I don’t think—’
‘Please just look in the bag. He made it very clear that I was not allowed to leave you until you at least l-, looked at the gift.’
Lucius rolled his eyes and sighed.
‘Fine.’ He strolled over to the satchel and bent down to examine it. ‘What’s this?’ he said as he picked it up. ‘It feels like there’s nothing in here!’ Opening it, he saw inside a single scroll, rolled up and sealed with Batiatus’s personal wax seal. Now his interest was piqued. ‘Well, well, well … what’s this now?’
He broke open the seal and unravelled the scroll. As he began perusing the contents, his jaw dropped open and his eyes widened with surprise – for what he was reading was a secret Huntsmen manifesto.
‘By all the gods … how in Hades did he manage to get his hands on this?!’
‘I don’t know—’
‘I wasn’t asking you, you idiot!’ he snapped, shooting a venomous glance at the youth. ‘It was a rhetorical question!’
‘As I said, sir, if you c-, come to the banquet, there will be a lot more of these.’
‘All of my travel arrangements have been made. This is very, very tempting but…’
Lucius paused here and stared at the scroll again. He couldn’t believe what he was reading, but unfortunately the information therein was only a scratch on the surface; at any rate though, these Huntsmen seemed to know way more about his own kind than he did. It seemed that there was a vast body of knowledge that existed on the topic of beastwalkers – and, quite alarmingly, it appeared that these Huntsmen had unrestricted access to all of it. Here were the answers he had been seeking for years, now so tantalisingly close. He had no desire, however, to go to Batiatus’s banquet, especially because it would be a highly risky undertaking, for the Huntsmen had ramped up their activity near Capua recently. A part of him was screaming out to merely decline the offer, as tempting as it was, and head East on the morrow as planned. Another part, however, was urging, pushing, and desperately stoking the fires of curiosity. Batiatus now held a key, a key to open a door that had been barred with frustrating persistence for so long now, and all that Lucius had to do to gain access to that key was to simply attend a banquet.
It seemed too good to be true. Was it, though? There was only one way to find out.
Lucius sighed and put the scroll down, and then looked up at the messenger.
‘Very well, boy,’ he grunted. ‘I’ll delay my plans and come to Batiatus’s banquet.’
***
Batiatus’s Ludus, outside Capua
‘Arishat!’
The serving girl looked up in surprise as she gathered up the last plates from a circle of gladiators, all of whom were seated in contented silence on the floor of the dining hall after a hearty dinner. She glanced at the new gladiator, Spartacus – the one who had chastised the guard for groping her a few days ago – and as their eyes met, he raised his index finger to his lips in a gesture for her to be silent. He subtly beckoned to her to come over to his circle of gladiators, who were still busy eating their grain and vegetable stew. Arishat peered nervously at the guards. Both of them were chewing loudly on apples and engaged in idle conversation, paying little attention to the
