Caligula (2 page)

As he ran, he could hear the beast's thundering hooves close behind and knew it had turned its huge bulk in an instant and was pursuing him. He could see the gnarled knots in the wood of the fence and the rusty heads of the nails which held it together. Behind him, the explosions of breath from the animal's nostrils told him it was closer still.

One moment of hesitation and he was dead. He picked his spot on the fence, kicking up one leg and pushing with the other, so that for the final two paces before he hit it he was in the air. His front foot met one of the horizontal bars and he used every muscle he possessed to turn forward momentum into an upward leap that would carry him safely over. Another inch and he would have made it. Instead, the knee of his trailing leg smashed into the top plank, generating a fiery stab of pain and turning a controlled jump into an untidy, somersaulting flight. While he was airborne, he distinctly heard the thundering crash of something enormous and fast-moving hitting something even more solid and unyielding. Half a second later he landed with an impact that knocked the breath from his body, loosened several teeth and left him wondering how many bones he had broken.

He lay, stunned, with the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth and dust clogging his nose.

'You show a fair turn of pace for a baker, but your vault could have been more elegant.'

Rufus opened one eye. Fronto was standing over him, his bulk blocking the sunlight.

'Come on, get up and let's see what you've done to the poor old monster.' He gave Rufus his arm and pulled him to his feet.

Wincing with pain, the boy limped to the fence, which now sported a splintered hole the size of a man's fist. Rufus looked through the gap and flinched as he stared into the angry eye of the monster. It gave a shake of its head before trotting back towards the centre of the paddock.

'She'll have a bit of a headache, but she should be fine,' Fronto said proudly.

'What about me?' Rufus demanded. 'She could have killed me. You said I could pat her like a dog.'

'I may have exaggerated a little,' Fronto admitted. 'But that is lesson number one for you, boy. You've proved you're not frightened of animals, but you must learn to respect them. Next time you go into a paddock or a cage, study what is in it first. These animals are all dangerous in one way or another. Even the small antelopes will knock you into the middle of next week if they're protecting their young.'

He picked up a piece of dung that lay at his feet and held it up to Rufus's face.

'See? It's all about profit. It doesn't matter whether it stinks like shit or smells of perfume – if it makes a profit it smells sweet. Now, we'll start you at the bottom. Titus, show him how to muck out the wild pigs.'

II

The bottom made Rufus's previous existence seem a positive paradise.

Then, he had smelled fresh bread every day. Here, he was assaulted by a dozen different kinds of animal dung. But every moment he spent with the animals he learned.

He learned how to feed and water them. Each species had a carefully planned diet to ensure it was kept in the peak of condition. Too much meat and the cats would become fat and lazy. Too little and they would lose their great strength.

He learned to look for the symptoms that would tell him when an antelope was sick with one of the wasting diseases which plagued their kind. One sign of sores around the mouth or hooves and the entire herd might have to be slaughtered.

He learned to spot the slight swelling which showed that a doe was pregnant and needed to be moved from the paddock.

And he learned what happens to a man who gets careless in the company of lions. He would never forget the rags of torn flesh and splinters of bone that were all that was left of poor, slow-witted Titus after he failed to recognize a lion's growls of pain from a broken tooth. The other slaves did not hear his screams until it was too late and the overseer decided it was more economic to allow the animal to devour him – he was already dead – than to bury him. There was no question of killing the lion. Its value was ten times that of Titus and, as Fronto pointed out, its destiny was to kill men.

Day by day and week by week, his respect for Fronto grew. The animal trader had an unquenchable thirst for life that made even his competitors like him, and Rufus was sucked along on a tidal wave of enthusiasm which often left his head spinning. But when Fronto returned from his next trip to Africa to purchase stock to replenish the pens and paddocks, the grin that normally split his face was replaced by a weary frown.

'It's getting worse,' he complained, as they leaned together on a fence watching two gazelle bucks butting heads in a mock test of strength. 'Always our buyers look for something bigger, something better, something more spectacular, something more exotic, and each time I see my suppliers they claim that the animals are scarcer or the herds and the packs that feed on them have moved further south, and they put their prices higher. I'd say they were holding out on me but I know from other traders that it's the same wherever you go. The only consolation is, I can pass on the costs, but for how long, only Jupiter knows.'

'Can't you breed them?' Rufus asked.

'Breed them? I'm a trader, not a nursemaid. Buy cheap and sell at a profit. Anyway, most of them won't breed. It's been tried. You can do it with the antelope if you're careful and give them a bit of space and peace and quiet. But the rare ones, the ones where the real profit is? Never. Those big cats? In their own territory they breed like rats. No predators apart from their own kind. But put them in a cage and it's as if they forget how it's done. Come with me.'

Rufus followed Fronto as he marched purposefully towards one of the far pens. 'They tell me you learn fast, boy. That's good.' He unchained the gate. 'This one arrived today, from Africa. From now on she is your responsibility. Feed her. Understand her. Win her trust. Gain her respect.'

Rufus had his own leopard.

The cat was about six months old, the spots already showing on her flanks through the fading down of her cub fur.

'Her mother died on the passage from Africa. If I put her in a pen with a family of older leopards she'll be torn apart.'

As yet, she had none of the pent-up violence and hatred of humans that characterized an adult leopard. Instead, she exuded a kitten-like playfulness as she wrestled and toyed with anything moveable. To watch her in her innocent pleasure gave Rufus a feeling of joy such as he had never experienced.

He called her Circe.

Circe was the first thing of value Rufus had ever owned and he vowed to form a bond with the cat which would never be broken. As Fronto conceded, he had learned quickly and learned well from the other animal handlers. He knew when to approach and when to leave well alone, when to pet and when to punish. He would tame the cub, turn her to his will.

He didn't notice the sly smiles of his workmates as they watched him with the cat.

A month later, when Fronto next returned, he looked at the leopard lying at Rufus's feet and slowly shook his head.

'Come. It's time you visited the arena.'

The animal trader dressed in his finest for the occasion, and master and slave travelled to the capital in a one-horse cart.

'What are you gaping at, boy?'

Rufus knew this journey well, but the approach to Rome never failed to awe him. At first, the world's greatest city was a gigantic mirage of orange and white shimmering in the heat, but, as they moved closer, the images took on structure and shape, and finally – unbelievably – solidity.

The city rose before him, ridge after ridge like the craggy foothills of a mountain. Yet there was nothing natural about this magnificence. Every part of it had been created by human hands. There were buildings of such vast scale and splendour that they could only be the palaces of gods. Rows of huge pillars held up massive triangular roofs; great curved walls of stone rose like cliffs. And such colours: oranges and reds, silver and gold. The whole city glowed in the afternoon sunshine as if it was on fire.

Rufus's errands between the bakery and the baker's villa had allowed him to explore the crowded alleys and wide avenues. He was fascinated by the great triumphal arches and pillared, monumental buildings. He looked enviously at the inscriptions. Of course he could not read them, but he knew they were dedicated to the great heroes of the past: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Crassus and Pompey. The vast palace complex on the Palatine Hill, which he studied from the Sacer Clivus, drew him like a moth to a flame. He never dared to approach the narrow stairway which would have taken him to its centre, but he knew in his heart that here was a paradise fit for Jupiter himself.

And, as he explored, he made an important discovery. Rome was a slave city.

It was true. Slaves outnumbered Roman citizens by a margin of ten to one and if the Romans ruled Rome, slaves ran it. Slaves or former slaves were doctors, lawyers and moneylenders. They managed businesses for their masters. They made things, bought things and sold things. Many slaves were enormously rich and many more were trying to be. It was rumoured that slaves even had the ear of the Emperor.

Rome would be nothing without its slaves.

At the city gates, Rufus and Fronto were forced to dismount from the cart, for only wagons carrying imperial couriers or transporting goods to the markets were allowed within the walls during daylight. The animal trader hired a curtained sedan chair carried by four muscular Syrians and directed them to the great Amphitheatre Taurus. They set off at a steady trot with Rufus running alongside, battling his way through the crowds.

The babble of noise that accompanied the frenzied comings and goings in the city was an assault on the ears. Every Roman seemed to be talking at once and not all of them in the same language. Vendors shouted their wares from myriad stalls lining the street. The variety was mind-boggling. Within a few yards you could buy shoes, the leather they were made from and the knife you would use to cut it. In front of a spice shop, the air would be filled with the scent of cinnamon, pepper and frankincense. Mutilated beggars called for offerings of food from the entrances to narrow side streets while next door fat shopkeepers offered honeyed almonds at exorbitant prices.

The Taurus was close to the Campus Martius, on the northern side of the city. Only its lower storeys were made of stone, while the upper part was wooden, unlike the monumental Circus Maximus and the crumbling but still impressive Magnum, the 30,000-seat theatre of Pompey.

Taurus had been gifted to the city fifty years before. Now, it was showing its age like an old whore whose best days are behind her. Tiberius was rumoured to have plans for a new and even greater arena, but a building on such a scale would take many years to construct, if the notoriously frugal Emperor ever sanctioned the cost at all.

The amphitheatre had forty entrances for the paying public, but Fronto led Rufus to a small, unmarked door which opened on to a narrow, torchlit wooden stairway descending into the bowels of the complex. As he followed his master, Rufus felt the same excitement he experienced when he entered the monster's paddock. Fronto led the way through a labyrinth of passages, large and small rooms, and animal cages, all cloaked in a fetid atmosphere that was rank with the odours of stale sweat, urine and excrement, animal and human. There was also another smell, which overwhelmed the others and made his nostrils twitch. It puzzled him, until he was struck by a vision of the white bone and scraps of red meat which were all that was left of Titus after the lion had killed him. The smell was blood.

The realization of where he was sent a flutter through his chest. During his years in the bakery Rufus had dreamed of the moment when he would sit in the stands above and cheer on the favourites whose names and careers he knew by heart.

'When will we see the gladiators?' he asked, his voice betraying his excitement. Fronto turned to him, and Rufus was surprised at the intensity of his gaze.

'You will see them in the arena and not before. Men – and women – pay good money to share their quarters with them before they enter the theatre of combat. There is an atmosphere, a tension, in that room, Rufus, unknown in any other place on this earth. I have seen couples with some of the finest bloodlines in Rome so overpowered by the stink of raw fear and excitement that they rutted on the earth floor before them.'

He breathed heavily from his nose, as if he had just finished some hard physical labour.

'Do you know what those men on the verge of their deaths did? They turned their eyes away and looked at the walls. There is more dignity and honour in the meanest condemned slave than in such socalled nobles.'

They took a stairway leading upwards and came to a door that opened directly on to the killing ground. Rufus gazed across a flat earth-covered surface ringed with smooth planks to twice the height of a man. Whoever entered this trap would not escape by climbing its walls.

'What you see here is nothing,' Fronto whispered, his voice suddenly cold, and Rufus felt a faint shiver run down his spine. 'This is an appetizer for the poor and the bored who have no money or nothing better to do. Remember. It is nothing.'

From behind them came the distinctive clank of metal upon metal. Rufus turned to see three terrifying figures.

III

At first glance, they did not appear human. The leader wore a bronze helmet which covered his entire head, with slits for eyes and mouth, and strands of hair delicately woven in metal across the scalp. Otherwise he was clad only in a loincloth and a wide belt which cut diagonally across his left shoulder before running round his waist. In his right hand he carried a short-handled, wide-bladed axe, with a second in a loop attached to the belt.

Behind him stood a giant, bigger than any man Rufus had seen. His features were hidden behind a full-face visor dotted with a pattern of small holes. His wide-brimmed iron helmet was crowned with a knife-edged comb, as if he were some kind of enormous fighting cock. Mesh armour protected his left side from shoulder to waist and he was armed with a trident in one hand and a net the size of a small blanket in the other.

The third gladiator was the smallest of the three, but his presence outshone his companions. His face was also hidden, but this time by a golden helmet moulded in the handsome features of a young god, and the magnificence of the mask was mirrored in the immaculately sculpted torso of the man who wore it. The oiled muscles of his biceps bulged and the veins stood out upon them like a pattern of tree roots.

He fought without armour, the better to allow the crowd to feast on his beauty, and he carried a long straight sword comfortably in his left hand. His right held a small, rounded shield with an intricate gilt boss decorated with the image of the war god Mars.

Fronto and Rufus stepped aside to allow the gladiators access to the doorway. They stood silently, waiting, but each seemed to have a pattern of small movements designed to keep their bodies from tightening. They swayed from one foot to the other, stretching first one set of muscles then the next, or rolled their heads in an arc, working neck and shoulder joints. Their bodies gleamed and Rufus could smell the not unpleasant scent of some sort of oil or balm that coated their flesh.

From within the arena he heard a murmur as the crowd noticed movement which was hidden from the group in the doorway. Rufus sidled forward, keeping as far from the intimidating figures of the gladiators as he could in the narrow passageway. Through a crack in the doors he saw a mixed herd of antelope and deer erupt from the centre of the arena floor, driven from the pens below.

As they emerged from the darkness, the terrified beasts were met with a solid wall of light and sound which drove them to panic and made them instinctively seek any avenue of escape. They charged round the walls in a group, eyes white with fear, nostrils flaring, and the sound of their flashing hooves, magnified by the wooden boards beneath the few inches of packed earth, echoed like thunder around the arena. The larger animals used their bulk to force their way past the smaller and weaker, but their efforts gained them nothing. There was no way out.

Eventually, the panic-stricken gallop slowed to a trot, then a walk. Finally the herd halted, confused and exhausted. A panting, nervous mass, their flanks gleamed with sweat and steam rose from their bodies in clouds.

Rufus too was panting, caught up in the excitement and terror of the animals. The noise in the arena had softened, but the very air seemed to crackle with the pent-up energy of a gathering storm.

Suddenly a roar erupted, and the animals exploded into movement. Rufus saw a light brown blur flash across the arena. A lion leapt on to the back of one of the smaller antelopes and hooked its claws into the squealing beast's flanks. From the far corner of the ring came the roar of another lion, and then Rufus felt a thrill of excitement shiver down his spine as he heard the unmistakable harsh, sawing cough of the leopard. His leopard.

The slaughter had begun.

In the wild, antelope use their speed, agility and numbers to outwit their hunters. In the arena their instincts counted for nothing. The big cats killed at leisure, each attack drawing louder cheers from the crowd as claws sank into flesh and then teeth closed on windpipes, bringing death by slow suffocation.

The smell of blood drove the antelope and deer into an ever greater frenzy. Some now ran awkwardly, having smashed their legs as they tried to climb and even leap the amphitheatre walls in their desperation to survive. The audience bayed for more.

But Fronto knew it would not last. He had seen it before. The lions and the leopard would become bored with killing and would settle down to feast on the carcasses of their victims. The antelope would reach a point where they could run no further, lungs bursting and hearts close to exploding in their chests. So the promoters of the arena had found an answer.

The hunters would become the hunted.

Rufus had watched with pride as Circe had killed first one and then a second antelope. He had become so engrossed in the entertainment that he was surprised when the double doors opened in front of him and the three gladiators marched past him into the centre of the arena, raising the noise of the crowd to an even greater pitch.

The two lions raised their heads from their prey and roared defiance at the threat. The leopard flattened herself down behind her last victim and waited. Only now, as each gladiator lined himself up with one of the big cats, did Rufus fully understand what was about to happen.

'Lesson number two, Rufus,' Fronto whispered into his ear. 'Never get too close to your work. The leopard could have made me a lot of money, but you ruined it. You turned it into a pet. Pets don't fight well in the ring. Look at it. It's confused and fearful. It doesn't know what's happening. But the lions have learned that man is a danger to them. Watch them. They will fight. The leopard will only die.'

But Fronto was wrong. The two lions did fight, but so did Circe.

The first move was made by the huge gladiator in the cockscomb helmet.

'He is known as Sabatis,' explained Fronto. 'And he is a veteran of the arena. He will be the first of the
venatores
, the hunters.'

Sabatis raised his trident to acknowledge the crowd's acclaim before he approached his lion, the big spear held steadily in front of him. At first, his chosen victim only snarled her defiance and tried to protect her feast. She had learned to fear humans, but hoped this one would go away and leave her in peace. As the armoured figure came closer the lion was forced into a decision. She charged.

'Watch how quick he is,' Fronto said.

Sabatis waited until the lion was within three paces before he stooped low, one knee on the ground. The cat's leap should have taken him full in the body, but its hooked claws went inches over his head as he speared upward with the trident, the three barbed points sinking deep into the female's unprotected belly. The lion squealed in agony as her momentum took her above and past the gladiator, threatening to tear the trident from his grasp. But Sabatis tightened his grip on the triple-headed spear and twisted, ripping it clear of the animal's flesh in a spray of blood and leaving her trailing feet of intestine from the terrible gash in her stomach.

The lioness landed in a cloud of dust and rolled over half a dozen times before slowly regaining her feet. Her whole body shook as the pain coursed through her and she licked pathetically at the huge wound in her belly. Her strength was ebbing from her along with the great gouts of arterial blood that stained the earth. She was mortally wounded, but she was also angry and at her most dangerous.

This time there was no precipitous attack. She painstakingly manoeuvred into position for the leap that would take her great fangs to the gladiator's throat. But her movements were difficult and every breath drove the pain deeper into her body. What she thought was a deadly leap was nothing more than a lurch which bared her chest to Sabatis, who thrust forward with the trident, forcing two of the prongs deep into her heart. Blood poured from her mouth as she died with a shudder and toppled to the ground the spear still in her.

The crowd screamed in adulation and roared the second gladiator to his task.

'This fellow hasn't quite got Sabatis's style,' Fronto murmured.

The axe man had been impressed by the speed of the lioness's initial attack on Sabatis. He had intended to show his skill with the razor-edged hatchet, but now the crowd could sense his uncertainty.

He walked back to the edge of the ring and returned with a long spear in each hand. The tips of the spears were wide-bladed, narrowing to a needle point, with a crosspiece set a foot from the blade so that the charging lion could not fight its way down the shaft and tear at its attacker even in its death throes.

The mood in the tiered wooden stands changed as the crowd saw the spears. They had anticipated a more equal, more dangerous contest and they registered their displeasure with boos and hisses.

Already nervous, the gladiator misjudged his initial thrust at the dark-maned male lion and only succeeded in ripping the muscles of its shoulder, hurting it but leaving its movements unaffected. His second attempt was equally clumsy. The spear bit deep into the lion's belly cavity, but failed to find any of its vital organs. Worse, the axe man lost his grip on the weapon and in his panic dropped the second spear as well.

If the gladiator had stood his ground, the lion might have been content to lick its wounds. But, armed only with a dagger, he decided to put as much distance between himself and his nemesis as possible. Its hunting instinct aroused, the lion charged.

Now the roars of the crowd were roars of laughter. In his fear, the gladiator lost all sense of direction and ran in circles, scattering antelope as he went, with the lion gaining on him at every stride. The laughter grew hysterical when he looked over his shoulder, tore off his bronze mask and soiled his loincloth all in the same instant. Then the lion was on him, pinning the screaming man face down, shaking its head and working its great jaws at his shoulder. The screams grew louder as the lion bit through leather and into skin, but the thick shoulder strap saved the gladiator from greater damage for a few vital seconds.

Rufus watched with horrified fascination, unable to tear his eyes away from the doomed fighter. He barely noticed the slim figure who danced lightly across the arena to stand over the lion and its victim.

'This should be good,' Fronto said to him.

The man in the golden mask could have killed the lion with a single thrust, but he gauged the crowd's humour with the same precision he employed to calculate the damage the lion was doing his fellow performer.

Instead of striking instantly, he mimicked indecision with the mischievous confidence of an accomplished actor. The lifeless eyes of the young god mask merely added to the comic appeal. Should he strike? No, perhaps not. Was this his friend lying here on the ground in the process of being devoured? Perhaps yes. But the poor lion had to eat, didn't it? Well then, I'll leave the decision up to you, the audience.

Most would have been happy to see the lion's victim die. But when the young gladiator forced his blade home into the base of the animal's neck, killing it instantly, the blow was received with universal approval.

Now he had his own performance to complete, and it was a piece of theatre that broke Rufus's heart.

Circe fought because the young gladiator left her no other choice. She lay behind the carcass of her final kill, ears flat against her head, and watched suspiciously as he advanced. Even when he was close enough to touch her with his sword, she stayed motionless, unable to decide whether the strange apparition was harmless or something altogether different.

Rufus felt bile rising in his throat. He understood there was only one outcome to the contest, but he could not stop himself from calling out to the leopard.

'Attack, Circe. Kill him, or you're going to die. Please, do something . . .' His anguished cry tailed into silence as Fronto gripped him by the arm. He turned to bury his head in the folds of the animal trader's cloak, but Fronto's strong hands forced his face upward and turned him to watch the spectacle unfold.

Circe did not die a brave death, or even a dignified one. She was butchered, slowly, one piece at a time, for the entertainment of the crowd.

With a barely perceptible flick of his wrist, the golden-masked figure drew the tip of his sword across the tender flesh of the leopard's nose, drawing blood and making the animal scream with pain as she retreated backwards from the protection of the antelope corpse. Still she did not attack, and the gladiator marched relentlessly forward with a measured pace that gave the spotted cat no time to consider her next move.

The sword flicked again, slicing away part of Circe's ear and leaving her half blinded by a flood of red which covered her face mask. Now the pain was unbearable and the cat launched itself at her tormentor, a spring-heeled, snarling, yellow and black harbinger of hell, whose needle-pointed claws raked at the soft, vulnerable skin of his stomach.

But the gladiator had been waiting for just such an attempt.

To the mesmerized crowd in the tiered stands, it was as if his whole being flowed in the same instant from one spot on the arena floor to another a few feet away. To the cat it was as if she was attacking one of the insubstantial white strips of cloud which scarred the azure sky above them. One moment he was there, so close she could almost feel her claws sinking into his flesh, the next he was gone and the rear of her body went rigid with shock and turned into a searing ball of unbelievable agony.

The crowd shrieked with amazement and Fronto shouted with them.

'
Di omnes
. Will you look at that?'

As he melted away from the cat's attack, the gladiator had positioned himself to deliver a single sweep of the long sword which severed her tail an inch from the root.

Circe spun in circles, almost insane with pain, squealing pathetically and trying without success to lick the stump of her tail. Eventually she came to a shambling halt and turned again to face her torturer.

Rufus watched Circe's suffering in an agony of torment. Even at the risk of his own life, he would have rushed into the centre of the arena to stand between her and her executioner, but Fronto's vice grip on his shoulder held him where he was. Gradually the horror of what he was witnessing became too much, and it was replaced by a great emptiness. He willed the gladiator with the god's face to bring the uneven contest to a merciful end, but knew he would not. Every cut of the fighter's sword drove the crowd to new heights of ecstasy and each blow turned the once-proud animal into a shambling, bleeding mass of raw meat.