Simon Scarrow - Arena

Cursor thrust himself forward and jabbed a finger at Macro. ‘You can’t talk to Hermes like that. He’s the champion of Rome and a freedman. Show him the proper respect.’

‘Champion my arse,’ Macro hissed. Cursor glowered at him with brutal intent. ‘Hermes is a six-foot-tall sack of shit who cuts down anyone the Emperor sticks in front of him for a few cheap laughs from the mob. Freedman or not, he’s lower than a fucking slave. By the look of him, I’d say his trainer is even lower.’

Cursor drew a lungful of air and launched himself at Macro. At the same time, Hermes dropped his shoulder to unleash a punch at Pavo. Reading the move, the young gladiator leaped at the champion, half mad with rage, filled with a manic desire to kill the man here on the street in full view of his adoring fans. But Hermes thrust out his arms and grabbed hold of him, lifting him off his feet. The champion let out a deep explosive grunt and hurled Pavo into a nearby market stall. A jarring pain shuddered down his spine as he fell on top of a row of trinkets. Statuettes and cheap bracelets scattered across the flagstones. The crowd parted around the two gladiators with shrill cries of alarm. Pavo struggled to rise from the shattered ruins of the stall, but Hermes was on him in a flash, kicking him in the side of his torso. Hot pain flared across his ribs.

‘Get away from him!’ Macro thundered as he threw off Cursor and rushed towards Hermes, tackling him to the ground with a savage roar. Temporarily stunned by the attack, Hermes writhed underneath the weight of the stocky soldier. At the same time Pavo scrambled clear of the debris and put a hand to his head, feeling something hot and sticky matting his hair. He pulled away his hand and saw blood smearing his palm. He looked up just in time to see Cursor charging at Macro, his eyes wide with hatred.

‘Macro, look out!’

As Macro glanced up, Cursor locked his arm round the soldier’s neck, wrenching him off Hermes. Gasping for breath, Macro kicked out at the gladiator trainer, slamming his foot back into the man’s groin. Cursor doubled up in agony, releasing Macro. The optio spun round and unleashed an uppercut that caught Cursor clean on the jaw. The gladiator trainer grunted. There was a dull crack as his jawbone shattered. His mouth went slack and his eyes rolled back. Without pausing for breath, Macro lowered his head and charged at his stricken opponent, burying him under a mad flurry of blows. In the meantime, Hermes had picked himself up. He spat out blood and set his piercing gaze on Pavo.

‘Got you now, traitor,’ he growled.

A sudden cry went up from somewhere in the crowd, distracting the two gladiators. Fighting back the burning pain on top of his skull, Pavo glanced past Hermes and saw a handful of men from the urban cohort barging through the crowd. They used their heavy wooden staves to clear a path and surrounded the gladiators and their trainers. A moment later the officer in charge of the cohort emerged from the heaving throng.

‘That’s enough!’ he fumed as his men hauled Macro off a bewildered Cursor whilst two more seized Hermes and dragged him away from Pavo. When the officer saw Hermes, he was speechless for a moment, staring in obvious admiration at the gladiator.

‘Why, I’ve seen you fight before … You’re Hermes!’ he exclaimed.

The gladiator nodded. ‘That’s me.’

‘I was in the crowd when you defeated that Illyrian scum Demetrius. Best swordsmanship I ever saw, that.’ Remembering his duties, the officer quickly composed his face and snapped his fingers at the two soldiers holding Hermes. ‘Release this man at once. That’s no way to treat a legend of the arena.’

His men did as ordered. Turning away from the gladiator, the officer searched for someone else to blame for the fracas and his eyes settled on Macro. ‘You. Take your gladiator and clear off to the imperial ludus. We don’t want your kind making trouble here.’

‘Get your hands off me!’ Macro boomed, pulling himself free of the men holding him. His nostrils flared with rage as he glowered at the officer. ‘These bastards waded in with their fists.’ He gestured at Hermes and Cursor. ‘The lad and I gave them what they deserved.’

‘Liar!’ a voice cried from the crowd. ‘The stout bastard started it.’

Other fans of Hermes shouted their agreement. The officer glanced at them before turning back to Macro and screwing up his face.

‘From where I’m standing, it appears that you’re the one who attacked first. As for the merchant, I’ll see to it that a bill for damages is drawn up. It’ll be docked from your pay.’

‘Hermes started it!’

‘I don’t give a shit,’ the officer retorted. ‘Now get out of here or I’ll have the pair of you thrown in the Mamertine and you can spend the night in that festering hole with the rats.’

Macro shuddered at the thought. Muttering curses to the gods under his breath, he brushed past Cursor and waved for his young charge to follow as the guards set about dispersing the crowd. Some spectators flocked to the nearby taverns built into the ground floor of the arcade to refill the jars of wine they had brought with them for the day. Others sought out bookmakers to place bets on rival teams ahead of the scheduled chariot races. Pavo tenderly placed a hand on his seeping head wound and winced with pain. As he made to follow Macro, Hermes stepped forward and blocked his path, contorting his snarl into a grotesque grin.

‘Do you remember what happened to your old man after I butchered him?’

Pavo gritted his teeth and made no reply. A sharp memory flashed before him as Hermes leaned in and dropped his voice to a scratched whisper.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten, boy?’ Hermes smirked. ‘Allow me to remind you. His head was piked on a stake and put on display in the Senate House, to serve as a warning to others of the perils of conspiring against Rome.’

There was a flash of anger in Pavo’s eyes. He clamped them shut and clenched his jaws. He had tried to forget the bitter memory of the day he had learned of the final indignity suffered by his father. Now a flood of rage ran through the young gladiator and every muscle in his body immediately tensed.

‘They left his head on display for days,’ Hermes went on. ‘Birds picked at it. Eventually the smell got so bad they had to take it away. I hear one of the imperial servants dumped it in the River Tiber.’

‘I will kill you,’ Pavo hissed, ‘for what you’ve done to my family, I swear to the gods.’

Hermes sneered at him. ‘I don’t think so, traitor. The gods always favour me. In two months’ time, the next head on a stake will be yours.’

‘Slow down, lad!’ Macro bellowed at training the following morning in the grounds of the imperial ludus. ‘You’re supposed to attack the palus. Not chop the fucking thing in half.’

Pavo appeared not to hear his mentor. He thrust his training sword manically at the wooden post, gripped by an uncontrollable rage as he mentally imposed the face of Hermes on top of it. There was a dull thwack as the tip of his sword struck the palus at the point of an imaginary neck. Beads of sweat flowed freely down his back. He had been hacking and stabbing aggressively at the palus since Macro arrived at the ludus at dawn to commence the day’s training. He’d worked up a fierce sweat despite the bleak winter chill. His muscles were still sore from participating in the group fight and the flesh wound on his chest had formed a lumpy scab. But the dull throb of his injuries was nothing compared to the leaden feeling in his guts. Pavo had not been able to sleep the previous evening, tossing and turning in his cell as he pictured his father’s severed head on a stake, mocked by his enemies. His desire for revenge had twisted into something darker, an unspeakable urge to maim Hermes. He did not merely want to kill the champion of Rome. He wanted to make him suffer, as he himself had suffered these past months. Snarling through his gritted teeth, he slammed the blade of his sword against the heavily scored palus, as if hacking through Hermes’s neck, his muscles tensed with rage. The sword splintered down the blade as it clattered into the training post. Macro immediately snatched it from Pavo’s grasp.