Mark Morris: Spartacus: Morituri

Varro was seated at the back of the room, his skin glistening with sweat, playing a game of tabula with the big, bearded Greek, Tetraides. Within the hubbub, Spartacus could hear Varro’s easy laughter and the click of bone counters on the board.

A moment later, however, the gentle click of the gaming counters became a tinkling rattle not of one, but of many counters falling to the stone floor and scattering in all directions. This was followed by a more hefty clatter as what was almost certainly the wooden board crashed to the floor, too. Palming water from his face, Spartacus turned, expecting to see one of the two players throwing up his hands in despair at the clumsiness of the other in knocking the game off its stone perch. However, when his eyes came into focus what he saw was Tetraides leaping to his feet, while Varro, who remained seated, looked up at his opponent with a startled expression on his face.

As other men turned toward the source of the commotion, Spartacus saw Varro spread his hands.

“What crawls up ass, Tetraides?” he asked, baffled.

Tetraides was staring down at the counters scattered across the floor, his dark eyes wide with alarm.

“Did you not see it?” he said.

Still Varro looked baffled. “See what, you dense fuck?”

Tetraides did not answer. Instead he staggered, as though wounded and about to collapse, bringing up a hand to cradle his forehead.

From across the room came a bark of laughter. Tetraides’s head snapped up. The perpetrator was a young Syrian, lean and quick with a sly, fox-like face. He was a new recruit to the Brotherhood; so new, in fact, that Varro did not yet even know his name. Tetraides glared at him, his features twisted in fear and loathing. Then, with a bestial roar, he lurched across the room, towards the young Syrian, snatching up a discarded strigil as he did so.

The Syrian leaped to his feet, face hardening in readiness to fight. As Tetraides lunged at him, he ducked beneath the Greek’s swinging arm, his own clenched fist flashing up and crunching into Tetraides’s ribs.

The big Greek, however, seemed to not even feel the blow-he was like a man possessed. He roared again, and then with a speed that clearly surprised the Syrian, he brought up the arm with the strigil and rammed the curved metal end deep into the younger man’s eye. The Syrian screamed as his eyeball burst like a softly boiled egg, spilling down his cheek in a viscous stream of jelly and blood. Teeth clenched, Tetraides rammed the strigil deeper into the socket, causing the man to judder and spasm as the metal implement penetrated his brain.

It had all happened so quickly that the Syrian was sliding dead to the floor before anyone had time to react. Most of the men were still shouting out in shock and protest when Tetraides dropped the gore-streaked strigil to the floor and tottered on his heels.

“I feel…” he muttered, and then his legs went from under him and he crumpled to the floor.

Varro, who by now had leaped up from his seat, was the first to reach him. He squatted by Tetraides’s side. Spartacus moved across to join him.

“What causes the man to act as enraged beast?” Spartacus said.

Varro looked shocked and baffled.

“It’s fucking mystery to me. One moment we play game, the next he jumps as though struck by cobra.”

“His eyes pin back in his head,” Spartacus said. “Help me remove him to cooler air of his cell.”

He pushed his arms beneath Tetraides’s armpits, bent his elbows and hauled the unconscious Greek up into a sitting position. Varro grabbed the man’s ankles, and between them they carried the big, bearded gladiator from the room, the shocked babble of the rest of the men echoing around them.

They carried Tetraides into his cell and propped him up against the wall. Spartacus then went back to the bathhouse and filled the patera he had been using with cold water. He returned to the cell and poured it unceremoniously over the Greek’s head. Tetraides shuddered and coughed, and then his rolling eyes steadied and cleared.

“What is this place?” he said, looking around. “Do I find myself in Hades?”

Varro’s face was grim.

“Not far off the mark. But it is your cell. Tetraides, you were…” he hesitated, “…overcome by heat in the bath. What does your mind last recall?”

Tetraides blinked at him. “Not heat. No. It was …” his voice trailed off.

“What did you see?” Spartacus asked.

Tetraides reached out a trembling hand.

“A vision,” he said. “One that I would not care to see again.”

Varro glanced at Spartacus, a disturbed expression on his face.

“What kind of vision?”

“The counters,” Tetraides muttered. His whole body trembled now, and his eyes were avid. “The game counters. Darkness leaking from them. Darkness and death … and then …” his eyes widened.

“Speak,” Spartacus muttered.

“A shade,” Tetraides whispered. “Harbinger of doom.” He looked at them fearfully. “I felt urge to send it back to Hades from whence it came. Did I succeed? Tell me what I did …”

“You look low of spirit,” Crixus said as Oenomaus entered the medicus’s bay. The big Gaul, former Champion of Capua, was flat on his back swathed in bandages, and beside him the slave-girl Naevia sat spooning porridge into his mouth.

Crixus was the only man in the care of the medicus at present, for there had been no important bouts or festivals, or even a munus, since he and Spartacus had fought Theokoles and the rains had come. The Gaul had been slashed apart in that epic contest and was a long, slow time healing. A lesser man would have surely died.

Oenomaus pulled up a stool and sat down beside Crixus.

“Needless death falls upon ludus this day. Novice gladiator killed by the hand of the Greek, Tetraides.”

Crixus absorbed the news with a shrug.

“Training carries risk. If it were not so, a quick end would come in the arena instead.”

“This was not result of training.” Quickly Oenomaus told Crixus what had happened.

Again Crixus shrugged.

“The Greek will be punished.”

Oenomaus shook his head.

“Batiatus will not satisfy his rage with Tetraides’s life. The Greek will pay through coin won in the arena.”

“And if Tetraides falls before debt is paid?”

Oenomaus smiled grimly and made a rare joke.

“I hold no doubt that dominus will find profit in it. Even if left with Tetraides’s carcass to proffer meat for dogs at market.”

Crixus laughed, and Oenomaus’s grin widened, his teeth flashing white in the lamplit gloom of the infirmary.

“It soothes troubled mind to see strength and spirits return,” the doctore said. He glanced at Naevia, the beautiful slave girl, who had been administering to Crixus’s needs. “Surely aided by dutiful attendants.”

Blushing, Naevia stood up.

“Domina does not like me to linger. I must go.”

Crixus caught her arm, his meaty fist engulfing it.

“I would have you stay longer yet.”

“Work in the villa awaits me. And additional company stands by your side.” She hesitated and smiled down on him. “I will return tomorrow.”

The Gaul’s eyes followed her all of the way out of the chamber. When she had disappeared, he stared at the beams of the ceiling and some light seemed to go out of him.

“Her attention appears to deliver mending,” Oenomaus said, gentle amusement in his eyes.

Crixus’s good humor, however, seemed to have evaporated with Naevia’s departure.

“Only to see me awaken to world of shit. The Thracian fuck standing atop it, my victories earned in the arena forgotten by all.”

“Not by all,” Doctore replied quietly. “They hold fast in my memory.”