Colosseum (2 page)

The boy is up now, and he plunges his face into the barrel of ice water. He watches the sun in the east, at the start of its passage across the sky. He sniffs the air, and knows it will be a lot warmer in a few hours' time. For the moment though, he relishes the crisp morning and places two generous slices of goat's cheese on a hand-hammered metal plate. Then he rummages through the empty barrels until he finds the one he is looking for. He pulls out the stopper and fills a couple of bowls with lukewarm ale. Easy on the froth, the old man hates it.

Cormac opens his eyes and greets the new day with a powerful fart. This is his way of bringing himself back to the world of the living, Calgacos is used to it. And like every morning, he waits for the old man to go down to the stream and come back up again before serving him his breakfast.

They eat and drink with appetite, in silence.

Every so often, Cormac shows his appreciation with a sonorous belch. He is the kind of man who has seen too much ever to lose his cool. Or maybe he is just happy to be alive, who knows.

He certainly does not lose his cool when the girl shows up—that is Calgacos's job.

Sparkling eyes and hair like fire; faintingly beautiful.

Her name is Adraste, meaning “invincible”—as if there could be any doubt.

Her parents are shepherds and so is she, may the gods protect her.

And that is Adraste. In her emerald green dress, faded apron struggling vainly to cover her knees. Barefoot, and teeth as white as snow. Calgacos is jumpy, as always when he runs into her. And he runs into her often, as the girl hangs around those parts more than she needs to: she must have a crush on him. Sometimes she drops by to hear about how far along they are with the iron stakes for the pen, yesterday she brought some cheese for the boy and the old man, today some dried meat, but these are all excuses: from the moment she wakes up in the morning to when she beds down after sunset, she thinks only of the young blacksmith's tender gaze.

Adraste smiles. In silence, a couple of kid goats stumble along behind her on inexpert hooves, with the curious, dewy eyes of those who are eager to discover the world around them.

“So, how's breakfast?”

Her smile is a dagger in the heart of poor Calgacos.

“Delicious!” he says hastily, thanking the Goddess of Victory for having banished the stammer that takes hold of him every time he finds himself face to face with his beloved.

But old Cormac is lying in wait, straggly, boiled wool cap pulled down over his head and beard smeared with white. He spits a phlegm-ball on the ground and then raises an eyebrow in the boy's direction: “Really?”

Calgacos is lost. This is not a rare occurrence, it has to be said; he is no genius.

“Y-y-yes, why?” He shrugs, resigned to regurgitating his words. The gods are merciful, but rarely twice in one day.

Cormac settles himself into his seat, clasps his hands together under his chin and stares straight at the boy out of his pig-like eyes: “So what did it taste like? Let's hear you…”

The young blacksmith is confused and begins to scratch his head as though an army of hungry fleas were attacking his scalp.

“L-like ch-cheese?”

At this point, verbal blackout is inevitable.

Cormac slaps his knees with force, cleans his hands against his filthy pants and gives his mouth a wipe as well, just to make sure the dirt is smeared everywhere. He turns his gaze on the girl, but his words are still aimed at the apprentice: “Well then, you're lucky. The stuff I ate tasted like dog shit.”

Suddenly, the sky shatters.

Nature, that sweet-natured big sister, must have noticed the situation: to save the boy's embarrassment she unleashes a roll of thunder strong enough to flay the skin off a demon.

Adraste's face goes from red to violet to cobalt blue.

Calgacos would like to say something, but old man Cormac calmly gets to his feet and claps a hand on the boy's shoulder, just as the fiery-haired maiden gathers up her goat kids and heads back to where she came from.

“Women…” mutters the old man between coughs. “The day they learn to take a joke is the day it rains blood—take it from someone who knows!” Then he goes back into the shack to stoke the embers in the furnace.

Calgacos sits stock still, staring into nothingness as the mother of all storms rages over his bare head, transforming the village into a pool of mud.

Rise and shine, boy.

The start of another splendid day.

The hours race by, there is a lot of work to be done. Especially because Cormac is not much help: he is nearly always sitting next to the fire, quaffing lukewarm ale and, every now and then, dealing a couple of hammer blows to a bent spear-head. Above all though, he likes giving orders: “Damn it, boy! Where's Brogan's ax gone? He'll have your head, that one, if you don't get it back to him! It was supposed to be ready yesterday!”

Pity it was Cormac's job to get it ready.

Pity that yesterday Cormac got drunk and a couple of hours before sunset he was already unconscious.

It happens.

It keeps happening.

Calgacos barely notices. He slips out to the storeroom round the back, rummaging through the scrap iron that has just been delivered, and pulls out the double bit in question. A remarkable tool: expert hands have decorated the double-edged bronze head with engravings of runes and scenes from the story of Sucellus, the hammer-wielding god. This weapon has been on some travels; it must have crossed the sea. Whomever it once belonged to must have been loath to part with it. Who would part with a tool like that of his own free will?

Brogan has never mentioned anything about it. He simply turned up in the village one September evening, hugging the weapon to his chest like a hunting trophy. Perhaps he bought it from some passing merchant. Perhaps blood was spilled over who got to keep it.

Calgacos knows nothing about it, but it is impossible not to wonder as he turns the piece over in his hands.

His expert eyes immediately spot the cracks in the bronze, the weakness at the edge of the blade, the wear and tear. He fixes it to the anvil with some leather straps and starts to hammer. With patience and skill, he works over the damaged parts of the blade for hours on end. The heat spreads, the pressure heals, the freezing water from the bucket tempers.

And then he starts again, blow after blow, one stroke after another.

Until exhaustion gets the best of him. But he has still not managed to return the gleaming weapon to perfection.

A lick of animal fat to polish the engravings, a little grease on the matted cord wound around the haft. The job is done.

It is evening when Brogan drops by to pick up the ax, and the results astonish him. He pays Calgacos and asks to speak with Cormac: he wants to compliment him on his work.

But the blacksmith is not in. Or rather, he is not presentable. Drunk again, he has dragged himself to the foot of the furnace, falling asleep instantly in the warmth of the dying embers. It will be hard to speak to him any sooner than tomorrow morning.

Calgacos accepts the payment and the compliments that his master does not deserve.

Then, at last, he takes a breather and sits down on the cool grass.

He sips the dregs from a bowl of ale overlooked by the old man, and watches the sun dip behind the hills. Another day dies, and the boy feels reborn.

As soon as it is dark, he checks that Cormac is fast asleep, snatches up the leather sack he hides at the back of the workshop and slips away, headed straight for the woods.

The clearing is a thousand paces or so from the village. He found it by accident, one afternoon spent spying on Adraste and her mother as they bathed in the river. Calgacos had climbed a tree to get a better look; he could hardly bear to wait. He was dying to find out what women looked like without their clothes on. Just at the best moment, though, right when Adraste had slipped her dress over her head and was about to get into the water, the branch had snapped and the boy had fallen ass-first to the ground, in the middle of the woods. The commotion immediately sent flocks of every kind of bird skyward, spooking the two already nervous women and causing them to beat a hasty retreat.

Calgacos, massaging his wounded behind, glanced around himself and realized he was standing in the middle of something remarkable. The enormous, circular clearing had the form of an eye, or rather a mouth, agape with wonder, amid the dense woodland. No trails led to that unnatural space; someone had created the magical site where others would not find it. In the middle stood a lone trunk, sole survivor of the purge. Taller than a grown man, two branches like monstrous arms extend from either side, ready to strike. The boy took a look at the trunk and found it was scarred by hundreds of gashes. Running his sweaty palm across the wood, he felt the ancient wounds, where savage lunges had left their mark.

Calgacos did not believe in destiny. In all honesty, he did not know if there was really something or someone out there, steering the lives of men. Often, in the silence of the night, with Cormac snoring so loudly that not even milk of the poppy would have been enough to send him to sleep, Calgacos had even doubted the gods. But faced with that exquisite hole in the forest, damn it, that open-air gymnasium, he had a keen sensation that he had been granted a gift. And that someone or something had just made a decision for him. In the same way that, many years earlier, someone had chosen that name for him, charged with future promise: Calgacos, “He with the sword.”

At that point the boy had run home and set to work doing what he had come into the world to do. He had taken an old, curved blade that had lain in the workshop since who knew which warrior had abandoned it there, leaving to go to sea or returning from the blood-stained lands, and restored to its former splendor.

With the blade finished, he had returned to the clearing to begin training. With neither a teacher nor even the vaguest idea of how to handle a sword in combat. Swinging and lunging by the moonlight, sculpting his muscles to the sound of metal on wood.

Since that night, the young blacksmith has never given up on chasing his destiny.

Moon after moon he has cut, thrust, parried and dodged countless imaginary blows.

Month after month he has transformed his own miserable existence into a wild dream.

Year after year, Calgacos has imagined the future.

The very future which, a few hours from now, will be denied him forever.

But Calgacos knows nothing of destiny.

He hacks and slashes until he cannot go on. Until the moonlight gleams on the back of his sweat-pearled neck, quietly whispering that dawn is not far off, that it is time to go and sleep.

He is satisfied and content, exhausted but full of life.

He follows the same path of branches and sharp leaves all the way back to the hut and, when he finds himself face to face with her, she seems a ghost.

A spirit of the night, a vision: Adraste is there, standing in front of the closed door. Beautiful and pale, a shy smile on her lips and a flower in her hair. She is holding her hands behind her back and slowly skipping from one foot to the other.

The boy would like to say something, but the maiden is tired, and the night is not meant for words. She takes the slightest of steps towards him and brushes his lips with hers.

It is the first time for both of them.

The girl turns the caress into a real kiss, Calgacos is a little awkward but he does alright.

Tongues and playful bites, giggles, teeth, the moon still shining.

It lasts as long as it needs to last—certainly not long enough. Calgacos wants more, and without a doubt Adraste does as well, but the time for love has just ended, though neither realizes it.

Death, the damned witch, is already at the gates.

It begins with a hiss, followed by a streak of fire.

The blazing arrow lands in the workshop roof and the flames spread with unbelievable speed.

In the space of a few seconds the hut catches fire and Cormac emerges from the doorway, half-asleep and cursing as only a British blacksmith who has been drinking since the early afternoon is able to:

“By the scrotum of Belenus! What the fuck's going on?”

When he realizes his world is about to be reduced to ash he wants to go on swearing, and with more imagination, but the second flaming arrow strikes his bald head, burning his flesh without compassion.

Cormac slumps down, dead before he hits the ground.

Adraste screams and cries, flees towards her home.

Her father is already at the threshold, like many of the men in the village. Most are naked, long beards and hair twisted into sweaty braids. A war hammer or dagger in the right hand. It does not take the warriors long to comprehend that the hordes of Rome are at the gates: the blast of cavalry trumpets, the clatter of iron-shod hooves, words of damned Latin rending the air. They organize themselves in a few moments, Calgacos watches them in shock as his house and entire life go up in flames.

In his left hand he is still grasping the sack with his training sword in. His master's face is gone, horribly burned away by the tar on the flaming arrow.

But there is no time for things on fire, whether huts or unlucky people; the warriors of the village are already on a war footing and march straight past Calgacos, throwing themselves into the attack.

The impact is deafening, the vanguard of the XX Legion Valeria Victrix is merciless; the boar standard flutters in the night's reddish glow. The troops under the command of Sextus Julius Frontinus are hungry for victory, a desperate desire to get this over with. The conquest of the Island has dragged on for too long: how many of these soldiers left home before their children were born? Now those kids have grown up, and within a couple of years at the most they will be demanding their own place in the army ranks. It is not supposed to be like this. In the name of Hercules, why do these stubborn barbarians go on resisting the all-conquering Eagle? Ordovician blood fights with honor, with rage doing the rest. A Roman officer is unhorsed before he even has time to say a word. The Briton he is fighting hammers his skull to pieces. His brothers take care of the rest of the vanguard: a dozen or so heavily-armed men receive a heavy lesson, while the women of the village gather to put out the fire.