Spartacus (7 page)

‘They were heroes,' said one of the Ionians, a clerk, a thin man who had run with rapidity. ‘Such men they bred once in Greece.'

‘Mighty in valour were those of the vanished Western Isle,' said Titul, being mad.

Kleon clung to the horse's mane. The Ionians trotted behind. The darkness began to clear and soften till, brilliant and white, the stars came out. Up the hill-side a wolf howled long and piercingly.

‘The wolves are late about,' said Titul, ‘for the flocks are unguarded.'

Again the long howl, wild and cold and cruel, arose. It was a lone wolf. None of its kind answered it.

‘It may be the Wolf of the Masters herself,' said Kleon, ‘come down from Rome to bay.'

The Greeks shivered, believing it a werewolf. Remote in the distance, they heard a last howl, then the beast left them.

Suddenly one of the Greeks, a young man, stumbled and fell. Titul halted his horse and Kleon went back and bent over the man.

‘What ails you?' he asked.

Then he saw it was the young man who on the hill-top had spoken of Delos harbour. Now between his lips his breath blew out in a bloody spume. The eunuch squatted beside him and wiped his mouth.

‘I'm wounded in the breast. But I said nothing. Lest you leave me behind to die. Alone. In the dark. Like a slave.'

He coughed and murmured. Broken Greek came to his lips, though he had never seen Greece. The spume grew to a warm stream. Suddenly he gripped Kleon's arm.

‘Oh, the sea!'

Then Kleon knew that he was dead, and a sad and terrible anger stirred in his frozen heart. But there were no tears in the body that had lost its manhood.

[v]

It was near to dawn and the morning cold with a drizzling rain before Kleon, Titul, and the four Ionians came to the slave camp. They had twice lost their way, wandering up stark ravines or into canebrakes. By accident they stumbled upon the camp, nor did they know it the camp at first, for the fires were long dead, no sentries placed, no trench had been dug or stake-fence erected. The slaves were men from the Eastern world, and they slept under dripping sycamore trees, shivering, numbed in their dreams. But one was awake and he challenged them on the verge of the camp, in a whining, sibilant Latin.

‘We're slaves,' said Kleon, peering at him in the dawn-gloom, ‘seeking freedom and empty bellies, not to mention a band of Gladiators.'

The man held an axe in his hand. Now he came from under the dripping fronds and looked at Kleon with a frowning face. The Greek saw before him one stout and black-haired, with a curling beard and a curling nose, bright, scowling eyes as black as his hair. He was clad in an ill-fitting toga, edged with a senator's fringe.

‘If you seek empty bellies you've been misdirected, for these hogs are filled with the wine we looted. As for the Gladiators of Capua, they've surrendered at last, or so it's said, betrayed by a Thracian who led them.'

The eunuch shrugged. ‘Then we don't seek the Gladiators. Couldn't the fools find a leader other than a Thracian savage? And who is your leader here?'

The bearded man scowled upon the morning. ‘I am the leader – may Jehovah give me wit. Half of these' – he waved an arm at the dim groups huddled under the trees – ‘are Bithynians, newly-come from Brindisium and speaking no Latin. I and twenty household slaves of Crassus the Lean freed them, for we surprised their guards on the marsh and strangled them.'

‘That was well. I am Kleon of Corinth, a Greek.'

‘That's ill, for I've no love of Greeks. I am Gershom of Kadesh, a Pharisee and a Jew.'

In revolt against Jannaeus and his Hellenistic priests, Gershom ben Sanballat had twice raised the standards of the Hasidim, and twice had been defeated. But so dourly had he held his own in the mountains around Kadesh, that the King had been forced to grant him a pardon, and thereafter left him in peace. Gershom had retired to cultivating his farms and engrossing himself in the Ochian mysteries of the synagogue. These practices lost him his following. In two years' time Jannaeus died and his widow Salome Alexandra reigned in Jerusalem. Among the first to fall was Gershom, secretly seized and sold into slavery in Syria, from there re-sold to Rome, from there re-sold to the household of Marcus Licinius Crassus. For less than a year a slave, his iron spirit was but faintly bent when he heard the news of the Gladiators' revolt, and stirred his fellows to emulation. Now he fronted Kleon, unclean, a Greek, the old, strong Gentile hate in his face, that hate forgotten while he was a slave, stirring now to a flame from old embers.

But also, the Greek had a strange attraction. The flame died down. Scowling, Gershom raised a hand to head and heart. Kleon responded, and they then touched hands, watched by Titul and the Ionians. But Gershom secretly cleansed his palm against his tunic, remembering that the touch of a Gentile was defilement.

‘This is an Iberian,' said Kleon, pointing to his company, ‘and these are Ionians.'

‘There's Greek wine under these cloths,' said the Jew. ‘And unclean meat. Eat, if you're hungry.'

Titul and the Ionians squatted on the ground, and drank, and were warmed with the strong Greek wine, choking and gulping on the mouthfuls at first, being slaves unaccustomed to wine. Famished, they tore with their fingers at the roasted meat, Kleon eating but sparingly, hungered though he was. For even hunger in his mutilated body was only a faint ghost of the lusts he had known. Slave or free, that would alter never, and a moment that thought came twisting his mouth. Then he filled a silver cup with wine and went to Gershom, who had drawn away.

‘This is a fine cup of good workmanship,' he said.

‘I stole it from the pantry of Crassus the Lean,' said Gershom, moodily. ‘He will crucify his overseer because of its loss: unless the man has fled. Which is unlikely: for he was a fool.'

‘Why is he named the Lean?'

‘His soul is lean,' said Gershom. ‘May it howl for ever in the wastes of Sheol. Which is hell.'

A taciturn and calculating man, the attraction of the Greek was growing upon him. Looking at Kleon, he combed his curled beard with long, brown fingers, and sighed, remembering Kadesh, though memory and heart and soul alike were encased in an armour of iron. Kleon drank the wine in a cold amusement, and answered with sardonic politeness.

‘I hadn't heard of your hell. Also, but a little while back you spoke of an unknown God. Who is he?'

‘Jehovah, the One God. Your Greek and Roman Gods are but idols of demons. No idols are reared to the One True God – unless by Salome's Hellene rats.'

‘There are no Gods,' said Kleon, ‘but Time and Fate. I worship neither, which doubtlessly vexes them. This Iberian also has a new God – with a name like a cough and a serpent's head and its home, I gather, the sea.'

‘Doubtlessly it is Behemoth, the Beast of the Waters,' said Gershom, looking at Titul contemptuously. ‘For he is a Gentile.'

‘He is also mad,' said the eunuch, indifferently, and looked about him. ‘Your Bithynians are awakening.'

The rain and the morning gloom had passed away. Above the ridged Italian hills uprose the sun, trailing a translucent veil that shivered and faded like a bubble-wall. In the air was the smell of green life rain-drenched. From under the trees the slaves thronged forth to stand by Gershom and peer into the East. As the sun rose full and rested upon the brow of the hill, round, splendid and scintillant as a new gold coin, the shivering Bithynians droned an Ormuzdic hymn, their arms upraised in adoration, their mouths engaged in singing and yawning. Titul, the Iberian, prostrated himself, howling at the sun like a dog. But Kleon, Gershom, and the Ionians did not worship, knowing the sun to be but a ball of fire three leagues away.

One slave still lay asleep under a sycamore. Yet presently he awoke and looked at the worshippers, companioned by those who did not worship. One of these attracted his attention. He crawled to his feet and came softly behind Titul.

‘As big a fool as ever, Iberian. Your God's a slave like yourself, and cannot keep his bed.'

His sleepy bass laugh boomed out, disturbing the hymn. Then he turned his face towards Kleon the eunuch, who saw that it was Brennus.

His tale was short:

‘At the ford I broke the knees of a horse. Horse and rider fell on me. I took the man by the throat and lay with him under the horse, strangling him. I held his throat till he ceased to move and his skin grew cold in my hands. Then the Masters came slicing their swords in the dead and cutting the throats of the wounded. So I feigned death, but looked out a little, the shine of the moon was on us by then. Petronius and his wife stood by the ford and near them stood two others. Petronia wept like a bleating sheep, and knelt, and wrung her hands. The two other Masters cried out at Petronius, and pleaded with him, but he grunted and spat. Then he put his arm round Petronia and drove his dagger in her heart. I hid behind the dead horse and saw no more. She was strong in love, as I found that night I took her in bed. But a bitch.'

He ruminated a little, vexed with some memory. ‘I didn't mean to hurt her then – overmuch. Pity that that fool should kill a good bedmate. He'll not spare the daughter either, if she tells – Gods, she was ripe and fair!'

‘Fair from the womb were the children of women in the vanished Western Isle,' said Titul, being mad.

[vi]

At noon Gershom ben Sanballat marshalled his Bithynians. One man who was quarrelsome he slew with his own hands. Then he marched southwards, resolved to seek some stronghold, and from there escape to the sea.

With him went Kleon and Titul and Brennus. They marched until sunset, and then, hard by a marsh, came on the rout of a battle. Horses, riderless and ridden, streamed north in drumming flight. Already wolves howled on the verge of the dark. Seeing the fugitives soldiers of the Masters, the Jew flung his company upon them, slaying many and possessing themselves of armour and swords.

Only then they learnt that this rout from the Battle of the Lake had been wrought by the Gladiators, still undefeated. Their leader had fallen on Clodius the praetor, taking him unawares and scattering the half-legion he had brought from Rome.

Gershom halted his company and waited till dawn. But from east and west and south, all that night, the slaves gathered by rumour and an insane hope, marched into the camp of the Gladiators.

The Gladiators

[i]

A YEAR before the Battle of the Lake there had arrived in the ludus of Batiates at Capua a Threce called Spartacus, condemned to death ad ludam as a bandit. One side of his head was split with a great sword-wound, and he sat long hours on the benches, saying nothing, staring at the clang and wheel of the training Games-men. He was young and bearded, heavy-chinned, with a brow that rose straightly to thick-curled hair. The thick-lipped mouth was set evenly, his eyes were clear and grey. Batiates stared at him move and saw the hunter's stride. No story came with the slave from the barbarous land where he had been a bandit. Then presently, in the idle gossip of the ludus, the story spread that the bandit himself remembered nothing, the sword-wound had destroyed his memory.

Presently the wound healed. He was quick and strong, his grey eyes cool and patient, his hands learned readily the grip of the gladius, the shameful, curved sword of the Games-men. Batiates matched him with mirmillones, then with a retiarius, both times in test. But a madness came on the Threce, caught in the retiarius' net. He dropped his wooden sword and caught his opponent and strangled him to death ere the lanistae could save him. Panting, he flung the body on the ground while all the school gaped and Batiates smiled. With a thorough training this slave would earn a good price for the Circus at Rome.

It was a time of hardship and heavy taxes. Batiates cut down the supply of meat to the men in the ludus. Accustomed to flesh, not corn, the Gladiators grumbled and dozed in the sun, unheeding the shouts of the lanistae. Batiates had these armed with great wire whips, and the Gladiators driven again to their exercises. Watching them, Batiates would calculate on each the profit, and retire at night, satisfied, to the arms of Elpinice.

She was sixteen years of age, a Greek slave, and four years the mistress of Batiates. She was Athenian born, the slave-master had affirmed, as she stood naked, with white-painted feet on the platform of the ergastulum. Batiates, in need of a mistress, had kindled, grunting, but demanded if she were yet a virgin. Reassured, he had bought her and taken her to his bed. His slaves heard that night sounds that rang through the ludus. But by morning she had learned the place of a bed-slave. In the months that followed she was quiet and demure, with ivory skin and deep red hair, and dark brows meeting intently, Greekwise, across her nose. Hated by the rest of the slaves, she kept Batiates' bed and his favour. Wakeful in the middle of a night, she would hear the drone from the sheds of the Gladiators, and a God of horror havoc in her heart as she looked on the sleeping Batiates.

Winter went by. The food grew worse. Now, roused, the Gladiators were like half-tamed beasts snarling at the sight of Batiates. But he kept them patiently, awaiting the sales of Spring. Elpinice fed the Gladiators with scraps from the kitchen; and stumbling through the sheds in the dark found herself by the chained Thracian.

He spoke to her in halting Latin. ‘What is your name?'

‘Elpinice. And yours is Spartacus.'

She put a hand on his head. He put up a chained hand on her arm. She shivered in his sudden, wild grip.

Lovers, she found in his bed delight, not agony. He found with her something that cleansed the dark gloom from his eyes. Lying together, they planned the revolt, with the restive mutter of the Gladiators around them.

Elpinice brought the keys in the dead of one night, and unlocked the chains. Shouting, the Gladiators poured into the kitchens and fed their starving stomachs with meat and filled their hands with spits for weapons. Roused, Batiates called out the lanistae, and a desperate fight broke out in the half-dawn, the Thracian leading the Gladiators, Elpinice crouching in the sheds and watching. Presently the lanistae broke and fled and the Gladiators threw aside the spits and armed themselves with the abandoned weapons. Gannicus, a German retiarius with palms sent down to the ludus for re-training, would have made himself leader, but the Gladiators shouted for the Threce Spartacus, and placed themselves under his command.