Mark Morris: Spartacus: Morituri

Some of the men looked prepared to hear more, but Spartacus was quietly skeptical. “Did dominus’s wine cloud mind when this vision appeared before you?”

Ashur smiled thinly as a couple of the men chuckled.

“Senses were as sharp as your killing blade.”

He told his story-about how he had followed Albanus down to the banks of the Volturnus River, and about the small merchant vessel which had appeared from the darkness with its consignment of slaves. If nothing else, Ashur had a silver tongue, as Varro had declared, and he told his story well. He embellished it too, for maximum dramatic effect-in his account the merchant vessel cut through the black waters of the Volturnus without a sound, the lights burning on its deck suffused with an eerie green glow. When Mantilus himself appeared, he did so, according to Ashur, capering like some simian spirit, his sightless eyes flashing white like beacons, and the scars on his body writhing as if a nest of vipers moved beneath his skin.

“He sensed my presence in the instant he emerged from darkness, appearing as creature rising from underworld,” Ashur said, his voice hushed. “Though wrapped in blackest of night, he felt my eyes on him.”

“Or got whiff of rancid breath,” Varro said, eliciting another laugh from the men.

Ashur inclined his head. “Perhaps he did, with sharpened sense. His head moved like hawk hunting prey, possessed of faculties acute beyond those of man. And then …” His voice dropped lower. Instinctively the men leaned forward. In a blood-curdling whisper, Ashur said “…his eyes bore straight at me . I was cloaked and concealed such that no mortal could have detected. Yet this creature of clouded eyes turned them directly upon me.”

To Ashur’s satisfaction there were one or two low gasps and mutters.

“Continue the tale,” prodded the Gaul who had partnered Spartacus in training that morning, his nose still bearing the bloodied scar of the encounter.

Ashur knew he had his audience by the throat, and that it was time to give the ligature a final twist.

“He moved like a shade and floated toward me.”

While Spartacus continued to look skeptical, his reaction was the exception; most of the men gasped in superstitious dread.

Saucer-eyed, Tetraides asked, “What did you do?”

Ashur spread his hands. “I ran, I must confess. Ashur stands not proud but receives comfort from thought that any man here would have joined alongside.”

Tetraides was shaking his head slowly.

“I cannot speak against that, when mind envisions creature sent from underworld itself.”

“I would not run,” Duro boasted.

“No,” Varro remarked drily. “You would have shit and fainted like woman under sun.”

Before the banter could dissipate the effect of his story, Ashur said quickly, “Rumors hover that this creature Mantilus employs dark forces to aid Hieronymus’s new stock of gladiators. What they lack in skill and training they gain in application of sorcery, Mantilus weaving them about like cloak. It is said they fight with savagery, as if creatures from Hades wreaking vengeance against the living. Hieronymus names them Morituri -those who are about to die.”

The murmur of disquiet was palpable now. Oenomaus looked around the bath house, his eyes narrowed.

“Remember that you are all always about to die,” he muttered, his deep voice rumbling. “It is the way of the gladiator.”

“Death should be received in the arena from other mortal men, not from evil spirits of Hades,” Tetraides murmured fearfully. “It is said that if lemures claim you, then soul is lost forever.”

“I fear no such spirits,” Spartacus said. “And I fear stories of spirits even less. Our fears are of our own making, residing here-” He tapped his head. “-thoughts of dread waiting to strike at one’s own mind. If you believe the men of Hieronymus will defeat you then you are beaten before foot hits sand. I would enter arena with clear mind, eyes seeing not monsters and shades, but men-of flesh and bone, that can be cut and broken. Morituri. If they are about to die, then let them. If I find myself against them, I will gladly usher them on their way.”

Oenomaus nodded, eyeing Spartacus approvingly.

“Your champion speaks truth. Half the battle is played not on sand, but in mind. Put these dreams from head and rest your minds. Tomorrow is a new day.”

“One holding games that exclude the House of Batiatus,” Varro murmured sullenly.

“For now,” Oenomaus said. “But your day will come. And you must be ready.”

Batiatus smiled until his face ached, though behind the smile he was grinding his teeth. What he wouldn’t have given to have tipped that grinning rat Solonius over the balcony of the pulvinus, and then to have witnessed lions and bears released into the arena to tear him apart. How he would have laughed and clapped and cheered at the spectacle, even as he was spattered with the lanista’s blood.

Oh, that day was coming, he felt certain of it. But he would have to be patient. For now he must endure the pretense of licking the little fucker’s arsehole, of putting up with his jibes and his put-downs and his ogling of Lucretia’s tits as if such things were mere light banter between friends.

It was none of these things which galled him the most today, however. No, what really made him angry was the fact that Solonius had deliberately arranged the seating at the games in such a way that his opportunity to speak to Crassus had been rendered virtually non-existent. The Roman nobleman had been seated on the front row, beyond his friend Hieronymus, to Solonius’s right. Batiatus and Lucretia, despite their status as “honored guests,” had by contrast been seated on the second row to the far left. Ordinarily this would not have presented too much of a problem, but the pulvinus was uncommonly full today-vulgarly so, in fact. Solonius, of course, had turned the situation to his advantage, claiming that the interest in, and good feeling toward, Hieronymus’s new ludus and Capua’s esteemed visitor was so great that he had allowed his enthusiasm to run away with him, with the result that he had issued invitations to a greater number of Capua’s more influential citizens than he had originally intended.

“I hope you are not overwhelmed by surplus of hospitality,” Solonius had said smarmily to Hieronymus.

“On the contrary,” the merchant had replied, eyeing the minor dignitaries and their families cramming themselves into the pulvinus, and the extra chairs that were having to be found for them, with some alarm. “Generosity of spirit is well received, good Solonius. I’m certain that noble Marcus Crassus would agree?”

Crassus had merely grunted and taken his appointed place. He had resisted being drawn into any lengthy conversations, despite the efforts of several of Solonius’s guests to engage him in such.

Batiatus was wondering whether he would be presented with the opportunity to exchange even so much as a single word with the esteemed visitor. He and Lucretia were currently pinioned beyond a corpulent bore named Cassius Brocchus, his ever-chattering wife and their two obnoxious children.

Lucretia had kept up a pretense of conversation with the couple-which, as far as Batiatus could discern, had been mostly about Capua’s appalling sanitation system-but Batiatus himself, after an initial show of smiling politeness, had now descended into a brooding malaise. From his uncomfortable position he could only watch helplessly as Solonius ingratiated himself with the Sicel merchant and his guest, anointing them with his oily platitudes, his bejeweled fingers glinting as his gestures became ever more extravagant. There was scant consolation in the fact that Crassus seemed just as unresponsive to Solonius’s overtures as he had been to everyone else’s. Such taciturnity was not uncommon for a Roman dignitary, particularly one who hailed from such an exalted family as his.