Luke Devenish - Nest of vipers

'Move forward, Lygdus!' I yelled. 'I think I can see the Thracians up ahead!' Indeed, I could just see a glimmer of the Balkan warriors' gilt crowns.

The noise around us was like the pits of Hades as we forged forward. The gladiators stuffed themselves as if reclining on Olympus. Still, the crowd's din was nothing to the noise they would make tomorrow when the same idols would be let loose upon each other for the games. The gladiators would savour hell tomorrow, and the mob's turn would come to sit high above and watch the spectacle of death. But neither Lygdus nor I gave a fig for the games. Like most slaves, we found the idea of fellow men of servitude going to such bloody deaths repellent. And today's traditional 'last feast' we thought equally as vile. We were only among them at all because I clung to such a slim hope.

'I'm dying!' cried Lygdus from somewhere behind me. 'Iphicles!'

I turned and managed to locate him. He was poking the eyes of a youth he was gripping by the throat. 'You're not dying,' I yelled. 'You're showing him who's boss!'

The youth tore himself from Lygdus's hands and managed to lurch away. Lygdus struggled through the seething mass of men and women to reach me.

'Can you see the gladiators?' he shouted above the din.

We strained to see above the heads in front of us and caught a clear view of a table of Thracian fighters, and behind them a group of Celts, all gorging on platters of food.

'How will they fight tomorrow with their bellies so full?' Lygdus wanted to know.

'We need to get on those platforms,' I yelled at him.

'Where the dining couches are? The gladiators will do you in for it!'

'I'll pretend I'm a serving slave.'

'They'll kill you, Iphicles.'

'I have to be able to see the whole crowd,' I insisted. 'We've waited months for the Ludi Romani to begin. She loves them too much to resist returning to Rome.'

'I still don't understand. Just who is this "she"?'

'I told you.'

'Not very well,' Lygdus muttered.

I stared at the massive Thracians. Lygdus was right. They would kill me if I dared to mount their platform. 'There are other platforms, further forward,' I shouted, 'with different men — not so fierce.'

Lygdus was doubtful. 'This woman you seek — why do we need her at all?'

'For what she can give us. Now follow me.'

'But what about the stuff you've got for Livia? Can't some of that be spared?'

'No, it cannot!' I cried. 'She's a threat enough already. I need every last smear. What we need for our new plan is a very different kind of poison. One that doesn't just incapacitate — we need one that kills.'

Progress became easier once we made it closer to the dining platforms. The gladiators were protected by bodyguards, and the presence of so many armed men — the gladiators included — made the spectators with the clearest view of the feast suppress their violence. The brawls were confined only to the middle and the back.

We wove through the tightly packed youths and women who ogled their idols with such unwholesome glee. I heard an offer of marriage made by a widow — and the acceptance of it given by a laughing gladiator, should he survive tomorrow's butchery. Among the gladiators were groups of free men, 'volunteers' who had sold themselves into fighting at the games because of hard times. We saw one of them freeing his own household slaves in a theatrical act of manumission.

'He'll regret that if he wins,' Lygdus proclaimed.

I saw a familiar face weaving through the crowd in front of us and let out a cry of surprise. Lygdus saw who it was. 'It's the dominus..'

Castor was approaching, flanked by the stoutest men of his retinue.

'We'll be caught!' Lygdus wailed.

'We're doing nothing wrong,' I hissed in his ear. 'Half of this rabble are slaves just like us.'

'Do you want him to see us?' Lygdus asked, incredulous.

In truth, I didn't. 'Duck down,' I spat. We dropped like stones as Castor and his friends passed perilously close to where we hid. They were heading for the gladiators' platforms. Crouching in the dust gave the crowd around us license to kick and stamp upon us. We didn't dare cry out. After several minutes of this torment I struggled to my feet again, delivering blows to the worst of the jokers. My body was bruised and aching.

'Can you see him?' Lygdus croaked from the ground.

I was staring Castor directly in the face.

'Iphicles?' said Castor in surprise.

Guilt made me tremble like a kitten.

'You're a follower of the gladiators too, are you?'

'Yes, domine,' I stammered, 'when permission is given for me to attend the games.' I prayed to the Great Mother that he wouldn't ask whose permission I had sought today, given I hadn't sought it from anyone.

'Who is attending my grandmother?'

I felt Lygdus quaking at my feet. 'The eunuch,' I lied. 'He is more than capable, domine. And he has come to love her too.'

Lygdus buried his face into my sandals in terror that Castor would see him. But the crowd around us was so thick that Castor couldn't see anything below my shoulders. Yet, he sensed that something was being hidden from him. I tried to summon a smile of reassuring innocence as a trickle of urine ran down my leg. A man from his retinue caught his attention.

'They await you on the platform.'

A path had been cleared through the throng for him.

Castor shot me a warning look and then moved on. I gave a sigh of profound relief, and then realised that Lygdus was lapping the pooled urine from between my toes. 'Stop it,' I said, pulling my feet from his grip.

'Is he gone?' Lygdus simpered.

'Yes — get up.'

He heaved his bulk upright as Castor shouted words of enthusiasm to the same gladiator who had been freeing household slaves.

'We've got to move further on,' I said, propelling Lygdus in front of me. 'We'll go where Castor can't see us but where we can see everyone.'

We took a different route through the stinking mass of street scum, attempting to skirt Castor and his men. All around us the beggars, pickpockets, prostitutes and mercenaries yelled in united devotion to men who would be dead before tomorrow's nightfall.

'Don't they see how doomed this all is?' Lygdus shouted above the din. 'Their love is so wasted.'

'They live in hope,' I replied. 'Everyone believes their favourite will survive, beating all the others to fight another day.'

'And when their favourites don't? Aren't they broken by it?'

'No, they simply find a new favourite. No one takes it as seriously as you think, Lygdus.'

Lygdus covered his ears to the hysteria, finding this hard to believe.

We neared another platform, where a group of Greek fighters were making emotional farewells to their friends. 'I hate all this killing!' Lygdus screamed at those around us, without a breath of irony. I didn't remind him that we were here so that we could obtain the very means to kill.

I saw the platform I needed. A wretched group of men, sickly and weak, were slumped on ill-cushioned couches without a canopy to protect them from the sun. These were the condemned men, criminals from the equestrian class to be put to the slaughter in the opening minutes of the games. Badly armed and little trained, their purpose was to provide quick and easy deaths at the hands of the favourites in order to raise the crowd's excitement for blood. If they'd been born of the lowest orders, they would have been fed to the beasts. But as knights it was considered fitting that they be given a chance to save themselves from execution by fighting for it. This was another of Rome's shams. They were as doomed as the guiltiest slaves thrown to the jackals. The faces of these men were stark and haunted by their imminent deaths. The food sat untouched before them. Their mouths and bellies were empty with fear. There was only one bodyguard assigned to these accursed men and his attention was elsewhere.