Simon Scarrow - Gladiator

‘Find yourself some straw for bedding. You sleep in the cart.’

‘What about you?’ Marcus asked.

‘Me? I’ll get myself a bunk in the inn. After I’ve had a drink or two. You stay here. Don’t leave the yard.’

‘What shall I eat?’ Marcus was getting cross with the driver. ‘I’ve not had anything all day. You can’t let me starve.’

‘You’re a slave. I can do what I like.’

‘Yes, but I’m not your slave. You were told to look after me until we reach Rome.’

Brutus sniffed and then cuffed Marcus’s nose. ‘All right,’ he replied sourly. ‘I’ll send some food out to you, if I remember.’

Without another word he strolled away and entered the low door into the inn. Marcus glared after him briefly, then went to help himself to some straw from the stables and carried it to the cart. Once he had covered the floor of the cart he eased himself up and leaned back against the side.

‘Still a slave,’ he muttered to himself.

For a while he just sat and listened to the hubbub of the surrounding streets, pierced by the occasional braying of a mule or a shout or shriek of drunken laughter from the inn. As he was about to close his eyes and rest, he saw a man cautiously enter the yard. He wore a long cloak and held out a bowl. A faint chink of coins carried to Marcus as the man shook the bowl. Marcus remembered the beggar he had seen earlier on the road. He kept quiet as the beggar lowered the bowl once he saw that no one seemed to be about. Creeping into the middle of the yard, the man glanced around. Marcus could see only his chin, since the hood covered the rest of his features. The hidden face turned towards him and the beggar paused briefly before approaching the cart.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Marcus spoke out. ‘I don’t have any money to give you.’

‘Money?’ the beggar said quietly. ‘I don’t want money from you, Marcus.’

Marcus started. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘I know you well enough,’ the beggar replied. ‘Perhaps better than you know yourself.’

He approached the end of the cart, limping slightly, and, passing his staff across to his bowl hand, he drew back his hood to reveal his face.

‘Brixus…’ Marcus shook his head in wonder. ‘By the Gods, I hoped you had got away. What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve been waiting to speak with you, Marcus. I followed you all the way from Capua.’ Brixus looked round to make sure that they had the yard to themselves, then he climbed in and eased himself down opposite Marcus. ‘There’s something I need to tell you. Something very important. I had to speak with some others before I could tell you. Now they know what I know and they agree that I should tell it all to you. It is your right. Your destiny.’

Marcus was still getting over the shock of seeing his friend again and shook his head in bewilderment. ‘What are you talking about?’

Brixus stared at him with an intense expression. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you what I know, and some of what I have guessed. I must be quick, since I don’t know how much time I have before anyone comes.’

‘Brixus, you must go!’ Marcus replied in alarm. ‘If you are seen and recognized, then you’ll be caught. You won’t escape with that leg.’

Brixus smiled craftily. ‘It’s not as bad as it appears. I’ll be fine. Now, you just listen.’

Marcus opened his mouth to protest, but Brixus held up a hand to silence him and he nodded. Brixus tapped Marcus’s right shoulder.

‘It’s about that brand I saw. I recognized it at once, but it made no sense. Not at first, not until you told me about your mother. You said she was a slave, a follower of Spartacus.’

‘That’s right. Until she was captured and my father bought her.’

‘Marcus, I have to tell you: your mother was not a follower of Spartacus.’

‘Then what?’ Marcus leaned closer to Brixus. ‘Why would she say so? Why lie to me?’

‘It was not a lie. In some ways she was a follower. But she was more than that, far more. She was his lover. His wife, in so far as a slave can have a wife.’

‘Wife?’ Marcus felt his blood chill. ‘My mother… and Spartacus?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know this?’ Marcus asked suspiciously.

‘Because I was one of his chosen band. There were twenty of us, sworn to protect the life of Spartacus. We were marked, as he was, by a special brand. When one of us died, another was chosen and branded. Only we knew about the mark: the wolf of Rome impaled on the sword of a gladiator – no, the gladiator – Spartacus. It was he who designed the brand and had it made, and he who first bore the brand, and who in turn branded us. We were a brotherhood, Marcus. Your father and the rest of us. Only his woman shared in the knowledge of the secret symbol.’

Marcus swallowed nervously. ‘And it’s the same mark as I have on my shoulder?’

‘Yes. And mine. Look here.’

Brixus pulled the shoulder of his cloak and tunic down and twisted towards Marcus. A thin white line of scar tissue depicted the wolf’s head and the sword. He pulled his clothes back into place.

Marcus shook his head. ‘It can’t be right. It has to be a coincidence.’

‘Well, then you can imagine how surprised I was to see the brand on you. That’s why I had to discover more about it. That’s why I had to spare you from the gauntlet.’ Brixus paused and rubbed his forehead thoughtfully. ‘You see, after the final battle, when Spartacus was killed and his army defeated, his woman, Amaratis, disappeared.

‘Amaratis?’ Marcus cut in. ‘But my mother’s name is Livia.’

‘It is now.’ Brixus smiled briefly. ‘Anyway, she was with child and Spartacus had ordered her to escape if the battle was lost. But there was no escape. The armies of Crassus and Pompeius had us trapped. As you know, I was lying injured in the camp during the battle. I saw Amaratis. She told me she was taking all that was valuable to her and would try to find a way home to her people. That was the last time we spoke. I’m guessing now that she took the branding iron with her. She must have still had it when she was captured, and when the centurion became her master. And when her child was born, she branded him.’ Brixus gripped Marcus’s arm gently. ‘She branded you.’

‘But why?’

‘Because she wanted you to carry the sign of the rebellion with you. One day, I imagine, she intended to tell you the truth. The whole truth.’

‘What truth?’ asked Marcus, feeling a growing sense of nausea fill the pit of his stomach. ‘What truth?’

‘That you are not the centurion’s son. That she was expecting a child when she was taken and the father of that child was Spartacus himself.’

‘No… NO!’ Marcus shook his head. ‘It’s not true. I know who my father was. He was a centurion. A hero. I loved him.’ He felt his throat tighten as all the feelings he had ever felt for the man who had raised him as a son welled up inside. Marcus felt his heart swell with longing and grief.

‘Hush!’ Brixus urged him, glancing round anxiously. ‘Marcus, it’s a hard truth, but it is the truth. Believe me.’

‘No. I shan’t.’ Marcus brushed back the first tears. ‘It’s a lie.’

‘Then how do you explain the mark?’

‘I – I can’t.’

‘Think, Marcus. Think back to your childhood. Surely you must have sensed that your mother and Titus were hiding something from you?’

Marcus tried to clear his mind and remember. Almost unwillingly, he recalled his life on the farm, his mother and Titus, and the oddly formal nature of their relationship at times. And also how his mother had always told him that he would be more than the son of a farmer one day, far more.