Colosseum (26 page)

Domitian lets his brother speak, glances one last time at the scale model of the Amphitheater, then takes his leave with the excuse that he must prepare himself for the dinner awaiting him.

The Emperor is left alone once more.

The sand in the wooden arena is no longer wet. A dry wind blows from the south, promising fire and flame.

Heavy thoughts weigh on the monarch's heart, but every time he looks at his creation, even more than that in flesh and blood, every moment he loses himself in gazing adoringly upon the stones carved into the wood, he senses a sweet aroma in his mouth.

Love and sex pass. So do life and death. But glory sculpted in marble, well, that lasts forever.

Titus smiles one last time, a smile nobody sees.

The future, at it must be said, is a sweet fruit indeed.

The cart bumps along, as it has ever since they left. Priscus tries to make himself comfortable on the wooden bench, but his bones ache. Whatever position he sits in, the cage is always too small.

The journey to Capua is almost over, the imperial cobblestones clatter beneath the iron-rimmed wheels, punishing his spine and interrupting his sleep. Almost ninety leagues non-stop: the merchant who bought him is eager to do business. His name is Lucius. He has the beady eyes of a professional trader, a man who knows how to cut a deal. He is also kind, in his own way. Every now and then he turns around to ask Priscus if he is still alive. Priscus does not answer, and Lucius shakes his head, pointing to the covered bowl that he has left hanging from the bars of the traveling prison.

“Drink, drink, I mean it! The road is long and the sun a curse!”

Priscus allows himself a small sip every ten miles. He does not want to risk running out. He knows that Lucius does not intend to stop: when he needs to urinate, he simply cocks his leg and relieves himself straight from the driver's seat. He looks like a hunting dog taking a piss.

Priscus does not know quite how he feels right now. He imagined that to leave everything behind would be a relief. It is not.

When Lucius turned up early one morning at the school looking for fresh arms for the Ludus Tridensin Capua, the gladiator pricked up his ears. He quickly realized that his chance had come to get out of Rome. He earned notice by fighting with honor and lunging at the pole with added vigor, while making sure that he spent a minute or two singing Capua's praises to his companions, loudly enough that the merchant would hear him.

“Down there they really fight! That's where the strongest warriors come from! Nobody survives a run-in with the titans of Capua!”

Ircius observed the Gaul puzzled, until the Gaul approached him and expressed his desire to leave. Ircius is no fool—he knows what is going on in his own home. He knows all about the turmoil that the Emperor's daughter has sown among his best men and, although he has absolutely no wish to disappoint or embarrass the imperial family, he would very much like to sort out the mess. Experience has also taught him that an unhappy gladiator is almost always a weak gladiator. Or a dead one.

Still, it is not good business.

But Ircius is not made of stone; he has a good heart. He knows he owes a lot to both Verus and Priscus. Their help in putting the Ludus Argentumback on its feet after the plague had devastated Rome was proof enough of their unquestioning loyalty. Who else would give up their own liberty, which they had had the good fortune to win back, only to go back to being a servant and risking their lives at every fight?

Decius Ircius is in the Gaul's debt, and the Briton's as well: they basically saved his skin.

“My lord,” began Priscus, getting straight to the point. “This is not my place. I have served you as best I can, but the time has come to bid farewell. I ask you on my knees, let me go.”

“Always remember, my friend, that in this house you need never kneel to speak your mind,” replied the lanista. “I owe you a great deal, Priscus. But I am still a businessman. So let me talk to the merchant and negotiate a price worthy of the Eternal City, for the greatest Nordic warrior of the Ludus Argentum.”

The two clasped arms up to the elbow, then Ircius went over to Lucius and the negotiations began. Later on, the merchant of men had left again with his new acquisition for the Tridens, pockets almost empty and a prayer to Mercury on his lips, protector of thieves and travelers, that he might grant them a smooth journey home.

Meanwhile the cart slows. Priscus has almost arrived.

Finally, the house is in sight.

Capua is very different to Rome.

Right from the start, the Gaul is intoxicated by the breeze blowing from the west. The sea lies some ten leagues away or more, but the air smells of salt and fresh seafood nonetheless.

On the streets the pace of life seems less frenetic, the faces of the people crowding through the shellfish market more relaxed. Even the slaves trotting along behind the noblewomen, loaded up like donkeys, look more relaxed than their Roman counterparts.

Priscus feels relieved that the journey is almost over but confusion reigns in his heart. For the first time in his life, he has made a decision on the spur of the moment: to leave, escape, disappear. It is not like him—the ice-man does not make rash choices—and yet the fire of a companion he had never looked for, and who he loves all the same, has overwhelmed him. In the long, moonlit nights, sleepless and yet not wakeful, he has thought long about his feelings for the Briton, picking the petals from his tortured heart until he reached the plain truth about himself:
he is in love with Verus
. He tried to hate him for Sergius's death, to distance himself, but he cannot quell his feelings. Nobody else, in all his ridiculous, miserable servant's life, has ever made him feel so important. Priscus has spent his whole existence on the defensive, guarding against the kicks that life has always dealt him with such predictability. Soldier, bandit, servant, gladiator: never the time to catch his breath. Watching his own back was always his priority, until…until the arrival of Verus. With his big, warm-hearted smile and his stubbornness, the Briton seemed to know instinctively how to respect his fellow gladiator, to support him and learn from him, lend him a hand when times were hard, lend him an ear when evening fell. Their bond had been based on the sort of intimacy that can only grow between men—women are different, they cannot understand. The rich ones lead lives of perpetual expectation and boredom, the poor ones lives of hard work and too little sleep. They have no time for words, for exploring the depths of their hearts. And perhaps they prefer not to. The poets relate that a woman's life lies within, while a man's is without; that when a woman falls in love she dreams that they are beginning a journey, while a man lying in the arms of his beloved has found a safe haven. Nonsense, all of it. Priscus has known enough females to know how they really think. Everyone likes fucking—and that includes women. But while sometimes a man cannot go without it, a woman can wait. And that is the damned difference: she who can allow herself to spend her life waiting, like Penelope on Ithaca, does not need
real
love.

Only those who
burn
can truly love.

And he who burns, dies.

Until now the ice-man Priscus had always thought himself immune. But the fire of love eventually reached him. There is no eluding its flames, they invariably find you in the end. Verus had worked his way into the Gaul's heart a little at a time, like water dripping on ancient rock. Unbeknownst even to himself, he had been patient and insidious, calm and understanding.

In time, he gradually overwhelmed Priscus, took possession of him, smothered him like a river-bed in a flash flood. And since the day they met, Priscus's heart has never been the same.

Julia was a bolt from the blue, she complicated things. Julia, that spoilt, crazy, little harlot.

That is what women are like: they do not care who you are or what you want. They turn up, cause chaos, love and make themselves loved, break hearts, and then disappear. Leaving behind them a desert, and you to pick up the pieces. The thought of all the sleepless nights he has spent trying to untangle the emotional wreckage weighing on his heart is enough to drive Priscus crazy. But he would bet his life that Julia did not lose even a minute of her sleep in all these months of his suffering.

Verus,
his
Verus, lost his head.

First Priscus felt only anger, then senseless jealousy. Then came the distance, the rift. And finally, Sergius's death. It was one screw-up after another, a whole life gone to the dogs.

Priscus senses that to talk about it with Verus would only ruin things further. The sorrow his friend would feel would be even worse than the pain caused by their distance. This was why he decided to leave: after weighing up his feelings, he came to the conclusion that it would be easier if Verus hated him.

Gone, without saying goodbye. Disappeared, forgotten.

Farewell forever.

The sun is gentle, and the stones of Capua sparkle silently, only slightly marked by mud and moss.

Priscus feels the pain in his chest start to lose its hold. He breathes in the salt air, and relishes his entrance into the Ludus Tridens.

The structure itself is sober in style, and not particularly remarkable: a wooden gate and a modest arena. Lucius's cart passes through unhindered. Awaiting the merchant is a middle-aged man with a long beard, prominent belly and the disheveled hair of somebody who has no time to waste styling it like a girl. He is the master of the house, the lanista, the man with the gruesome grin that everyone calls Daimon. But there is something in that toothless welcome that wins over the gladiator nonetheless.

Or so it seems to Priscus as Lucius carries out the formalities and pockets the money he has made from the sale. Throughout the brief transaction, Daimon does not stop throwing interested glances towards Priscus, interspersed with that senile smile. There is no change to the expression of the man accompanying Daimon, though; or rather, if there is, there is no way of seeing it, as the
andabata
is suited and helmeted for the arena. Leather and rag greaves and
manicae
, an enormous, semi-circular, wrought-iron shield, standard throat armor and a gigantic, blinded helmet on his head. No eyeholes, grates or visors; a single sheet of robust metal completely depriving the warrior of his sight.

In the world of gladiators, the
andabata
may well be the ill-starred figure of all. The warrior faces only identical opponents, just as “blind” as him. Their fights are truly terrifying: the two contenders risk their lives among the manic shrieks of the baying crowd, unable to rely on the most useful of their five senses. In the blackness, thrusts can arrive from nowhere. Sweat drenches the gladiator's face inside the helmet, sounds are muffled. Between slashes and lunges, he spends his time striking at ghosts and hoping to dodge the deadly blow. And the enemy is in the same boat, forced to grope around ferociously, deprived of any points of reference, homing in on a heartbeat.

Some warriors become so specialized in this art of sightlessness that, once they win their freedom, they take up thieving as a profession. Nothing can teach you about the ways of the night like the sad and wretched life of an
andabata
.

Daimon's eyeless gladiator waits at his master's side,
gladius
held tightly in his right hand. Priscus does not understand what this useless and terrifying man is there for, standing at the entrance of the
ludus
. But the lanista does not grant him the time to wonder for long. He approaches and opens the cage with a smile still on his face, and at this point Priscus smiles too. It is a strange situation, but for a moment he feels like he is among family.

Daimon does not say a thing. He slaps the gladiator on the shoulder and his grin turns into laughter. Deep, contagious laughter. The Gaul begins to laugh as well, encouraged by the master of the school who laughs louder and louder, continuing to slap him on the shoulders, chest and back.

Powerful, explosive guffaws, like those from a tavern on Saturn's day. So loud he has to hang on to his belly, so heartfelt his eyes fill with tears.

They grin and cry together, Daimon and the slave. The only one to remain impassive is the iron-headed
andabata
. But all of a sudden the hairy Daimon stops laughing. From one moment to the next he turns serious, for no apparent reason. His fiery eyes stare into those of the newly arrived warrior, and he says formally: “Your name is Priscus, correct?”

The Gaul struggles to wipe away the last traces of laughter. Cheeks reddened and wet with hot tears from the excess of good cheer, belly light as air, he responds: “Yes, my lord!” in a clear voice.

Daimon turns toward the
andabata
and places a hand on his head.

The order is barely audible, but the slave does not hesitate to obey it. He lands a head-butt on Priscus's nose with all the force he has in his body.

Priscus collapses, his head spinning.

Daimon looks him up and down: “Welcome to Capua, dogturd!”

The attack is pitiless.

Instinct tells him to react, but Priscus does not have time. Daimon raises thumb and middle finger to his mouth and lets out a whistle, at which point two other giants come out of nowhere. Their arms are covered with black symbols. Painted serpents coil round their muscles from shoulder to wrist, ready to swallow up anyone who dares approach. Each carries a whip in his right hand. They rain down kicks on Priscus, making him roll around the inside the
ludus
, before beginning to lay into him with the whips. The
andabata
, in the meantime, roams blindly in search of his prey, for a whiff of scent or a sound. The call of flesh torn by leather is unmistakable. The tattooed giants really go at it, as though their arms still burned from the pain inflicted with blade and ash. Across North Africa, the art of writing on the skin dates back almost as far as that of writing on papyrus. The dark-skinned masters create authentic masterpieces, capable of depicting entire epochs on the bravest men.