Paul Doherty - The Song of the Gladiator

‘I was frightened,’ he pleaded. ‘Those orators coming to visit the corpse. . I never expected that. I took a jug of beer and drank too deeply. When I woke up, the fire. .’ He sprang to his feet. ‘I’ve got duties. .’

‘No you haven’t, Narcissus. You are no longer a slave, but a free man.’ She grasped him by the wrist. ‘I have other questions for you, but for the time being, they will wait. Don’t run off.’

Claudia basked in the sunshine reflecting on what Narcissus had said. Slowly but surely she was collecting the pieces. She started up at the clash of weapons. Burrus and a group of his mercenaries came swaggering across, bringing with them a young man. His hair was tousled, and he was dressed in a dark tunic bound round the middle by a cord. Burrus was treating him gently, his great paw on his shoulder, but the young man was clearly terrified, and if the German had taken his hand away he would have bolted like a hare.

‘We found it!’ The Germans ringed Claudia, and the young man they’d escorted fell to his knees before her.

‘Found what?’ Claudia squinted up at them.

‘Traces of camp fires, about two or three men camping out in the woods for some time. A water bottle, scraps of food and clothing.’

‘And who’s he?’

The young man knelt, teeth chattering, eyes all startled.

‘Speak.’ Burrus clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Tell the mistress what you saw.’

The young man gabbled in a dialect Claudia found difficult to follow; she had to ask him to slow down and repeat what he had said. However, he was still distracted by fear, and only when Claudia offered a coin did he begin to talk more slowly. She established that he was a farm worker from a nearby estate who had fled when the attack had been launched on his master’s house. He had come in from the field, glimpsed figures leave the tree-line and race towards the main door of the farm. He had stood terrified as he heard the clash of weapons, the muted screams.

Burrus punched him on the shoulder. ‘No, not that. Tell the mistress what you saw!’

The young man declared how, on the night the House of Mourning had been burned, he had been out in the fields hoping to catch some game. He gave an accurate description of the field Claudia had visited: lonely, lying fallow under the moonlight and ringed by trees. He had been about to cross it when, through the dark, he glimpsed a fire burning. He’d sat and watched it flare, then decided to withdraw and tell his master, but all they found the next morning were burnt embers so they dismissed it as the work of poachers or people hiding out in the woods.

Claudia thanked the young man, gave him the coin and dismissed him. She expected Burrus to move away, but the German stood staring around.

‘Where’s he gone?’ he asked abruptly. ‘The one who walks so quietly?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Claudia replied testily.

‘Gaius,’ Burrus explained. ‘I want to apologise.’ He peered down at Claudia. ‘Gaius is a good soldier, but he is deeply upset that the Empress didn’t trust him. I’ve got to explain.’ He snapped his fingers and left to continue his search.

Claudia stood up, stretched and decided to go back to the villa. She was approaching a side entrance when she heard her name called. Sylvester stood in a portico, beckoning her over.

‘I was hoping I would meet you.’

Claudia leaned against a pillar, aware of its coolness.

‘How do you feel?’ Sylvester sounded solicitous. ‘I mean, about Meleager. Don’t be frightened of him, Claudia. God’s justice is like a hound, it always finds its prey. You’re amongst friends here. Anyway, Meleager has gone, he’s left for Rome.’

Claudia felt herself relax, taking a deep breath. She was dreading meeting that gladiator again.

‘So many unexpected things have happened.’ Sylvester shook his head.

‘Did you plan all this?’ Claudia asked wearily.

‘How could I plan such chaos?’ Sylvester replied, staring over her shoulder. She turned and glimpsed Justin hurrying by.

‘Well?’ She turned back. ‘We have all the people here: Timothaeus, Narcissus, Athanasius.’

‘I never thought murder would join us,’ Sylvester replied, ‘or treason.’

‘Why did you arrange this?’ Claudia asked. ‘Why ask orators from Capua, why not from some other city? There are similar schools in towns all over Italy.’

‘Capua was chosen for two reasons. First, Athanasius is, perhaps, our greatest orator. Secondly. .’ Sylvester caught her by the arm and led her deep into the shadows, ‘Militiades, the Bishop of Rome, had relatives, blood kin, who were caught up in the last persecution. They too came from Capua. He thought the debate might bring the matters to the fore, information might surface, some clarification of what happened so many years ago. So many people died in Capua, Claudia, but that’s in the past.’ Sylvester sighed. ‘Militiades believes we will win the argument. I suppose,’ he added, ‘my Bishop hoped that this debate would show that the Arian party were the House of Traitors and Betrayers, but of course, life is not so simple. I did warn him about that. The persecution is over, but the blood feuds continue.’

‘I know Narcissus is one of yours. The same is true of Timothaeus?’

‘Of course. A good man, very devout. Timothaeus even questions whether he should serve in a pagan household.’

‘You don’t really care, do you?’ Claudia retorted. ‘You and Militiades, you brought people together whose lives are full of shadows and ghosts. You must have known that those shadows would surface. All the rivalry, all the grudges.’

‘I do care,’ Sylvester replied. ‘A purging, a cleansing is very good. The Faith, our religion, must triumph. I said there were two reasons why this debate took place. In truth, there is a third, the cause and origin of it all.’ He curled his fingers into a fist. ‘We have Helena, the Augusta, and soon we shall have her son. Can’t you see, Claudia, the real reason for this debate? We actually rejoice in the divisions, the acrimony, the rivalry. We want it like that. We want the Augusta to intervene, to become one of us, to support the Bishop of Rome. It’s not just enough that Helena supports the Christian faith. Look, there are more divisions amongst Christians than there are fleas on a dog, but Rome holds everything together. One day we want people to see that an attack upon the Church is an attack upon the Empire, whilst an attack on the Empire is an attack upon us.’

Claudia stared at this clever priest who hid a cunning brain behind his gentle face and kind eyes.

‘That’s what it’s all about,’ she whispered. ‘You want Helena to support the Bishop of Rome, right or wrong; you see yourselves as co-Caesars, the spiritual arm of the Empire. Helena will rule in favour of Militiades, and what the Empress says has the force of law. The Bishop of Rome and the Emperor will become indistinguishable. Christianity will be a state religion and Militiades its high priest. Some day you will anoint the Emperor, but you won’t stop there, will you, Sylvester? Everything will come full circle; perhaps one day it will be the Bishop of Rome who decides who wears the purple, who dons the diadem.’

‘Dreams,’ Sylvester smiled, ‘dreams of glory, Claudia, of God’s kingdom being established on Earth. Helena has reached an understanding with us. We want a conclusion that will bind us together. We want her to rule in our favour so our teaching becomes an imperial edict. Now,’ he continued briskly, ‘one thing that certainly wasn’t planned, or expected, was that attack. What have you learned?’

Claudia glanced up at a carving of a face at the top of a pillar, a cherub with pursed lips and full-blown cheeks, its head surrounded by vine leaves. Idly she wondered how many in the villa fully realised what Sylvester was plotting.