The Far Arena (34 page)

'This is the great Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, premier gladiator of all Rome,' announced the princeps to these women. He has come to loose his will on you. If you are lucky, he will ravish you. If you are unlucky, he will feed you to the lions he keeps in his house.'

Lions in the house ? Ravish ?

In a whisper, the praetorian told me to make my selection, starting on the right. Touch all the parts as though you are buying,' he said.
‘
I never touched parts,' I said.

'You owned slaves. You married one. Touch parts,' he said. 'I looked at slaves. I bought slaves. I didn't play with them. They are not toys.' 'Do
it.
’

‘
You do it.'

The princeps of the praetorians, the most prestigious officer in Rome, equalled only by the other princeps in military affairs, went to a matronly woman with hair only recently dishevelled, because it was still crusted with expensive lacquer, and he ripped off the rough tunic. The woman's breasts sagged like cheap wineskins. He played with them, squeezing here, poking there. The nipples rose hard. She liked it.

'Examine her vagina,' he told me.

'I'm not your vilicus,' I said.

So he did it, roughly poking his finger into the triangle of dark hair flecked with grey. 'Too old,' he said. 'You do the next.'

He took my hand in his oiled fingers, and I felt his calluses on his palm. He worked with a sword. He was still a praetorian. He placed my hand on the rump of a young woman. This supposed slave wore delicate cosmetics and jewelled rings.

'Squeeze,'
he said.

I removed the hand and turned in disgust. These were wealthy women who for some reason were playing slave in Domitian's palace - a state they would have worked their whole lives to forget if they ever had tasted the true dregs of the wine of it.

'Eugeni,' called the slave on the wheel. 'Don't run. Enjoy yourself.'

One of the praetorians had stripped a young woman in chains, and she writhed on the floor of a stall, moving her naked body as though a man had mounted her. He teased her with a finger. Another supposed slave helped.

'Harder,' moaned the woman on the floor, and then for spite they both stopped.

Touch me. Harder. Please,' she begged.

If they wanted to fondle themselves, they could do it in goatskins, for all I cared. Chains or goatskins were both confessions of lack. A ripe plum did not need gilt embroidery, nor did fresh bread need a heavy sauce. Neither did the clear, good water of the north country need wine to make it drinkable.

I had other business, even as a prisoner.

‘
Eugeni,' called out the slave on the wheel. Her feet were chalked with white gypsum, and her wrists were fastened with heavy chains, too heavy for a recalcitrant slave. If one were to believe all the chains and shackles abounding in this peristilium, this was the most rebellious lot of slaves since Spartacus. And not a whip mark or iron burn on a one of them.

'You used to do these things for money, Eugeni. Now that you are a traitor, are you too proud ?'

Most of the supposed slaves laughed.

I looked more closely at the slave on the wheel. Yellow German hair had been woven into her own - a fashion among the wealthy to imitate what they thought were their inferiors. The face was hard with a strong, proud nose, dark eyes, and contented flesh of forty years or more. The hands were smooth and delicate, the nails unchipped by labour. She had noble, thin lips. It was Domitia, Domitian's wife herself, which explained why a princeps of the praetorians was her servant.

'Empress,' I said. 'My respects to your divine husband.'

'You're such a bore,' squeaked Domitia. 'I told everyone you were really a bore, but no one believed me. They remember the games and that body of yours. They didn't believe your manhood lagged like a tired stew.'

'Now they know their empress never lies,' I said.

'I'm not your empress. I'm a dirty German slave girl. You can take me like the slave you married. I'm dirty. Our empress is a beautiful and fitting wife of our divine Domitian. I bed even with gladiators.'

Then buy some. I am but a traitor awaiting his end.'

'I'm a slave. I can't afford gladiators.'

'My respects to our divine Domitian,'
I said.

Of course, Domitia was not about to let her plaything escape. She had me brought to another room with pillows on inlaid marble floors and a small cool bath in the centre of it. Into this room she entered as empress, clothed in a delicate stola, her hair woven high and regal, her fingers jewelled, her neck hung with large diamonds set on small chains of gold. She came with the wind of Egyptian musk, and we were alone. The gypsum had been cleaned from her legs, and she wore sandals of cloth and silver.

She ordered me to pour her wine. I did, although I didn't know the proper portions of wine to water and took only water myself.

'I would like to thank you for the other day,' she said, sitting in a cathedra - a chair with a back which women favour. 'It was the most exciting thing in years. Years. The praetorians ran back from the arena, Domitian himself running with them. You should have seen him screaming himself into the palace. Eugeni, it was the greatest show ever.'

'What do you want ?'

'That,' she said, pointing to my loins.

'It seems to have an unwilling mind of its own,' I said.

'You could make it willing. You used to do it for a few coins.'

'But then I had a future. I have little need of money now.'

'I am so lonely, Eugeni. He keeps me here, and I cannot leave.'

'You seem to have adequate amusements.'

The same faces and same walls. Eugeni, I have such a hard life. I am a loving woman, but I have no place to give my love.' She placed a smooth palm on my wrist.

'There are three full praetorian cohorts,' I said.

'I must choose carefully. I am empress, I have just a few selected praetorians. Domitian would not allow wantonness to be known, for I am empress. Let me have your body. You are not using it anyhow. I will pay you gold. Domitian will not mind.'

'He is my emperor.'

'But he will not mind. He knows he has forfeited his rights to me.' 'I cannot believe that.'

'It is true. We are modern. He has accepted that he owes me what I owe him.'

'You have met another Domitian. All you see in the arena is not real.'

'No. He has a different problem. He is afraid. He keeps a sword under his couch for fear of assassination. Then he is afraid that while he sleeps I will take the sword and cut off his manhood, so he has not let me sleep with him for years.'

'Why is he afraid of that?
’
'All men are afraid of that, no ?
’

'It is a fatal wound, but so is the heart or head or upper belly.' 'What I want to know is why you would do it for a few coins when you were a slave, and not now ?'
‘
I
was buildin
g my peculium for my freedom.' ‘
You will still need money for the soldiers.'
‘
I
am given everything here.' ·But you won't be on your march.
’
‘
I
am going to be banished ?'

'Why should I give you anything? You give me nothing. You are selfish with your body.'

'Not so,' I said and placed a hand on her thigh.

She smiled like a little girl surprised by attention from a man. She claimed I only wanted her for the information she would give but did not really want her body. I protested. Of course I wanted her body, I said. I had always hungered for her, I said. I had dreamed of her. I had thought of her face when I slept with others. I had wanted only her since I had first seen her but was afraid to ask, I said. She also demanded that I mean what I said, and I begged the gods to drop fire on me if every word I said did not come from my heart. This accepted, she allowed herself to be serviced, and I found out that banishment was forced on Domitian by the praetorians as the only sensible solution to a bad. problem. They had all told him that he could not keep the praetorians and the urban cohorts and the vigiles fully armoured around the palace indefinitely, for then the people would realize the palace felt besieged and make the attack that was still only in Domitian's mind.

Domitian had suggested calling in a legion from Gaul, one from Iberia, and one from Africa. Both praetorian princeps said he would not be inviting his safety but three possible new emperors, reminding him how, when he had combined two legions several years before, they found they had a treasury sufficient for a rebellion. Since then no two legions could be combined. He was now suggesting that they bring in three. This was too dangerous.

So it was agreed I would be marched through the city and out of the empire, and the entire city would receive donatives, as though they were legionnaires, the bread dole would be increased and there would be games in a month. They had already been selling off my lands and slaves and could pay for this now.

'Under what law does he seize my property ?' I asked.

'Ah, your love of money. What passion!' said Domitia. She lay beneath, her wants met, her smooth, stocky body the polished product of years of care. Her bellybutton, however, was no different from Miriamne's, except Miriamne's was in the centre of a stomach behind which was Miriamne, and from which had come Petronius, and in which I had spent myself many good times, easily and with all the natural glory of a bud opening to a spring sun.

I had begun to think of life.

'I said your money is your real love, Eugeni,
’
said Domitia. 'Where is your mind ?'

'I did not fight because I liked to feel my sword in someone's throat.'

'Money is excrement,' said Domitia. She pouted. I stroked her cheeks.

'It is not easy being the wife of Domitian. It is not easy living plots, and plots against plots, and being accused as regularly as a harvest of conspiring against his divinity.'

'And I thought slaves had hard lives.'

'Not as hard as mine, Eugeni. Not as hard as mine. A slave considers a piece of fresh fruit a victory and celebrates. What is my victory? To become empress? I am empress. To find a lover? I have so many lovers I have to buy new ones like you. You don't love me, Eugeni.'

'Of course I do, Domitia.'

'No. The game is over,' she said and pulled up her stola, pushing me away with her shoulder 'You know Christians believe all life is a game, and the real life comes after this one, and it is always beautiful.'

'I am not that familiar with the Jews.'

'Your wife was a Jew.'

'Yes. I think so. Yes. Correct.'

'You never loved any woman, did you ?'

'You, Domitia.'

'Did your father really die trying to retrieve the lost eagles of Rome in Germany ?'

‘
No. That was what the mobs liked to believe.' 'He was Roman, wasn't he ?'

'Most Roman of them all, Domitia. Sold me and my mother into slavery to pay a gambling debt.'

'Dice or bones?' she said referring to games which required luck in the way square cubes or animal bones were thrown.'

'I do not know. I was the bet, not the bettor.'

'Were you old?'

'Eight.'

"They say you killed a man before you were ten ?' 'I was eight.'

'How did it happen ? You must have been very ferocious.' 'I was eight. It was a lucky stroke.' 'It must have been exciting. Tell me about it. Tell me.' I caressed her breast and kissed her neck, but she pushed me away.

'No, Eugeni. You want to make love to me to stop talking.'

'Yes. Slightly, but only slightly less odious.'

'Hah. Hah,' she said gleefully. 'I've hurt the great Eugeni. I've got through to you and I've hurt you.'

For servicing her, Domitia gave me fifteen gold coins with Domitian's head on one side and his triumphs in Germany on the other. She asked if they reminded me of something, and I told her they did not. She said that was the price I had charged when I was a young man. She said my body had not changed, but was even more beautiful now.

'I do not remember, Domitia.'

'And now you have returned the hurt, Eugeni. May the gods give you a happier life than mine,'

My sleep was stopped that night when I felt the cloth pulled from my mouth. A praetorian grabbed the gold, but got only thirteen pieces. I had kept two in my mouth. He did not see them, apparently. I was taken out of the palace. I was not good at judging numbers of men that accurately, but the cohorts must have been at half-strength during the dark night.