Paul Doherty - The Song of the Gladiator

The small passageway beyond was empty, with no trace of her attacker. Claudia went into the peristyle garden and, for a while, sat on a bench, gulping in the fresh night air. She stared at the guard standing some distance away in the shadows, wondering if he had seen anything. She shrugged to herself. If he had, he would have come over.

Claudia washed her hands in the pool and made her way back to her chamber. Inside she found everything neat and tidy; a slave had lit the lamp on the table opposite her bed. She was too tired to wash and change, and she was about to blow out the lamp when she noticed the small purple chalice crudely painted on the wall above the lantern. She drew back. She didn’t extinguish the lamp, but climbed into bed staring at the drawing. She let her mind drift on all that had happened today, faces, scenes and words, and all the time she glared at that crude drawing as if confronting an enemy, refusing to give way. She was still staring when her eyes grew heavy and she fell into a deep sleep.

Claudia woke early the next morning, roused by the sunlight and noise from the villa pouring through the unshuttered window above her narrow bed. She punched the flock-filled mattress and lay back, one hand beneath her cheek, recalling the terrors of the previous night and contemplating that hideous little picture above the oil lamp shelf. Eventually she got out of bed and examined it more carefully, tracing the outline with her fingernail. The paint was hard, a purple dye used by women to henna their nails, but when she pressed it, a crack appeared. Claudia was tempted to scrape it off but changed her mind. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘you can stay there, a reminder to me, a goad to spur me on. I shall find who you are and deal with you.’

She sat on the edge of the bed, reflecting how the mysterious painter, whoever he was, had intended to taunt and frighten her. She remembered that gruesome figure in the cellar, masked, armed and advancing so slowly towards her. ‘That’s it,’ she whispered, ‘you weren’t trying to kill me, but terrify me!’ She glared at the painting of the purple chalice. ‘And you are trying to do the same now.’ The confrontation in the cellar had been frightening but perhaps not deadly. She had watched gladiators train and fight; true killers came as swiftly as panthers or they struck from afar with arrow, slingshot, javelin or throwing knife. Last night’s spectacle was intended to terrify Helena’s little mouse, to drive her off, make her scurry for safety.

Claudia stood up. Well, they would see. Nevertheless, although she summoned up her courage, she felt her stomach grumble with fear. ‘This time was to frighten me,’ she murmured, ‘but next time. .?’

She grabbed her napkin and small leather toilet bag from the panniers slung on the peg on the door, then left her quarters and walked quickly to the luxuriantly furnished latrines, built near the kitchens so as to use the water flushed from there to keep them clean. She sat on a marble bench and stared at the mosaic on the floor, a beautiful scene depicting silver dolphins leaping about a golden sea. Timothaeus came in. He was much the worse for drink and squatted opposite looking dolefully into the middle distance.

‘It’s my stomach, you see,’ he moaned. ‘I drink too much wine and eat the rich food of the court.’

Claudia tried to engage him in conversation, but the steward shook his head and muttered about the anger of the Augusta. Claudia concluded he had been the recipient of her tart tongue.

After she had washed and left the latrines and bathhouse, Claudia returned to her own chamber, finished her dressing and decided to eat. She had to cross a small garden, nothing more than a lawn ringed with box hedges and shaded by laurel leaves. The Empress Helena, in an exquisite white linen robe, a purple mantle about her shoulders, was standing on a gold-fringed stool, gesturing with one hand, a cane in the other. Before her on the grass knelt Burrus and the entire German mercenary corps; they crouched heads down, hands to their faces, sobbing like children as Helena berated them.

‘You are nothing but the scum of Germany,’ she rasped, ‘the filthy moss from your own dark forest, yet I have taken you and treated you like my children. I have clasped you to my heart and showered you with love and affection.’ She paused to allow her words to sink in. She must have glimpsed Claudia, who stood fascinated beneath a tree, but she did not turn or acknowledge her presence. ‘Have I not lavished upon you tasty food, comfortable quarters, as well as my protection and patronage? Have I not put up with your filthy ways and drunken singing?’ She climbed down from the stool and walked amongst the warriors, giving each of them a rap on their shoulders with her cane. Now and again she’d pause to ruffle their hair or pat someone gently on the cheek.

Her diatribe had the desired effect. Burrus, thought Claudia, would make a fine actor. He threw his hands up in the air in a gesture any Greek dramatist would envy and began to tear the gold bracelets from his wrist and the thick silver chain from about his neck. Grasping these in his hands, he rose and walked towards Helena, tears streaming down his face, then threw himself at the Empress’s feet.

‘You’ve all been naughty boys,’ Helena continued, digging her cane into Burrus’s back, ‘and yet, in my time, have I not praised you? Has not my son smiled on you and opened the hand of generosity to you? But what do you do? You repay my lavish kindness by becoming as drunk as sots and chasing every maid.’ The rest of the German corps now had their noses pressed against the grass. Helena turned swiftly, and smiled and winked at Claudia before returning to the attack. ‘You should have been more vigilant,’ she declared. ‘Dionysius should not have died, the House of Mourning should not have been burnt, but what cut my heart was the disappearance of the Holy Sword! I entrusted that to your care.’ The wailing from her bodyguard grew. Helena returned to stand on the stool and Burrus tried to follow her, but she yelled at him to keep his head down. ‘Nevertheless, you ungrateful scum,’ she continued, ‘I have decided to pardon you.’ Burrus sat back on his heels and smiled dazzlingly at this woman whom he worshipped and adored. ‘In my great kindness,’ Helena rested on the cane, ‘I have forgiven you.’

Claudia could no longer contain her own amusement. She hurried out of the garden and into the palace, where she stopped abruptly and glanced back. The Empress was an actress who kept that horde of ruffians in a grip of iron. The Germans worshipped the ground she trod on; they regarded it as the greatest honour to shed their blood for her. Helena knew that, so why berate them now?

Claudia sat down on a marble window seat and stared at a painting of Bacchus climbing a vine terrace to steal luscious grapes. Was Helena’s confrontation with the Germans for some other purpose? The Germans were loyal, warriors born and bred; they were also drunkards, lechers and, above all, great thieves. Had they stolen the sword? The mercenaries had a deep awe of anything religious, and Burrus had refused to go into the Sacred Place, yet Claudia wasn’t fooled by his slouching ways and uncouth appearance. Burrus was a highly intelligent man, sly and skilled. Had that been part of an act, a pretence to mislead people? Claudia recalled the cellar, the two guards outside, Burrus with the key. Timothaeus the steward was such a fusspot. Had the door been locked with two keys or only one? Had Timothaeus thought he had locked the door with his, but somehow been fooled by the Germans? If that was so, it would be easy for Burrus to unlock the door himself, take the sword, leave the cellar and relock the door. Timothaeus would come down. . Claudia paused. What would happen then? Had Burrus switched the keys, or had the lock been tampered with so Timothaeus thought his key was turning when really the door was already open?