Spartacus: The Gladiator (38 page)

He caught sight of two anguished figures ahead: a middle-aged man wearing a grubby shopkeeper’s apron and an attractive woman of similar age. Crassus smiled. This would be the owner and his wife. Those whose livelihoods were in peril could never bring themselves to leave until the very last moment.

Now the crackling of flames could be heard. Looking up through the swirling eddies of smoke, Crassus saw bright orange-yellow tongues licking hungrily at the third floor of a wood-faced block of flats. ‘It started in a
cenacula
. It’s out of control already.’

‘Is it ever any other way?’ asked Saenius.

‘Rarely,’ admitted Crassus dryly. He pushed aside the bodyguards. ‘Greetings, friend!’

The man he’d spied didn’t hear his salutation. Ignoring his wife’s warnings, he darted into the open-fronted shop that formed the structure’s base. He emerged a moment later, carrying a large ceramic pot. Setting it down beside half a dozen others, he prepared to run inside again.

‘You risk much, friend,’ said Crassus loudly. ‘Many’s the man who’s been buried alive when a building collapsed.’

The shopkeeper regarded him with a dazed expression. ‘I have no choice,’ he said in a monotone. ‘My life savings went into constructing this block of flats. I’m ruined, I know, but without any stock, we’ll starve.’ He turned away, distracted by his wife’s sobs.

‘That need not happen,’ declared Crassus. ‘Believe it or not, the gods are looking down on you today.’

‘Are you mad?’ cried the man. ‘If they are, they’re laughing.’

‘I’ll buy your building and everything in it from you, friend.’

‘Eh?’

‘You heard me.’

The shopkeeper’s face twisted as the bitter truth struck him. ‘You must be Marcus Licinius Crassus,’ he said in a cracked voice.

‘That’s correct.’ He glanced at Saenius. ‘My fame goes before me.’

‘As it always does.’

‘I don’t want your money,’ snarled the trader. ‘You come skulking here with your henchmen, to watch as my whole life goes up in flames!’ He made a dash for his shop just as a deafening, cracking sound shredded the air. Cursing, he skidded to a halt by the entrance.

Crassus watched with some satisfaction as the shop’s ceiling collapsed, burying everything within in a mass of burning timbers. ‘You’ll have to make do with those few pieces,’ he said mildly, pointing at the pathetic pile of crockery. ‘They won’t sell for much, I don’t think.’

The shopkeeper’s fists bunched with rage. He took an impulsive step towards Crassus, whose bodyguards grinned evilly at each other.

‘No!’ screamed the man’s wife. ‘I can’t lose you as well.’

The man’s shoulders slumped in defeat. ‘How much?’ His voice was barely audible above the crackle and snap of burning wood.

‘I was going to be generous,’ said Crassus coolly, ‘but your aggression has changed my mind. Five hundred denarii for the lot.’

‘It cost twenty times that to build,’ said the shopkeeper in disbelief. ‘And my stock, it—’

‘That’s my first and last offer,’ snapped Crassus. ‘Take it – or leave it.’

The man stared at his wife, who gave a tiny, helpless shrug.

‘I won’t wait around,’ warned Crassus. He turned as if to go.

‘I accept! I accept …’ The man’s voice trailed off, and a choked sob left his mouth.

‘A wise decision. You’ll sign over ownership by nightfall, and be paid tomorrow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s work to be done,’ and Crassus turned to his men. ‘Get to it! You’d better move fast, or the blaze might spread to the buildings on either side.’

‘That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?’ asked Saenius.

Crassus’ wagging finger was belied by his smile of agreement.

‘Best get out of the way,’ Saenius advised, ushering the shopkeeper and his wife some way up the street. ‘Once the structure begins to fall, it can become very dangerous.’

Crassus followed at a leisurely pace. ‘Is anyone inside still?’

‘I don’t think so, sir,’ replied the shopkeeper.

‘Good.’ Crassus made a chopping gesture with his arm. His slaves had been waiting for his command. Moving with the ease granted by long experience, they began tearing at the first storey of the burning building with specially designed, long iron hooks. The structure was flimsy, and it didn’t take long for gaping holes to appear in the wood. Crassus’ men redoubled their efforts, eventually ripping the entire front off the first storey and pulling the debris down to the street. At once the building’s timbers began to emit load, groaning noises.

It was then that the screaming began. ‘Help me! Please!’

Crassus looked up into the billowing smoke. For a few moments he saw nothing, but his eyes finally settled on a pale, terrified face peering from a window opening on the top floor. ‘Gods above!’ wailed the shopkeeper’s wife. ‘I think it’s Octavia’s daughter. She’s only eight. Her mother works in another part of the city; she often leaves the child at home. The poor mite must have been asleep.’

Saenius made a poor show of looking sympathetic.

Crassus didn’t overly care either, but it paid to keep up appearances. ‘Check the staircase!’ he ordered.

Saenius sprinted to the wooden stairs that ran up the side of the building. On each floor, a door gave access to the cenaculae within. He returned, shaking his head in false sorrow. ‘It’s burning.’

‘What can we do?’ cried the woman, tears streaming down her face.

He’d made a token gesture. Anything more would be hazardous in the extreme. Crassus wasn’t prepared to risk any of his men’s lives for an eight-year-old gutter rat. He shrugged. ‘Pray that she has an easy passage to the other side.’

The woman began to scream, and her husband pulled her close. ‘Shhh. There’s nothing we can do.’

Crassus didn’t want to listen to the screeching of either the doomed child or the distraught woman, so he walked further up the street. He scanned the shops on either side with a practised eye. Surprise, and then pleasure, filled him. They were not the usual shabby run-of-the-mill enterprises, selling offcuts of meat, shoddy tools or badly woven clothing. Instead there was a silversmith’s, a moneylender’s and a Greek surgeon’s premises. This was a quarter with a good future, he reflected. It would be a profitable place to rebuild.

His smile grew broader. Despite the heat, this had been a good day.

Crassus’ good mood did not last. When he arrived home, tired and reeking of smoke, he was looking forward to a cold, refreshing bath and a change of clothes. He was greatly put out, therefore, to discover a messenger from the Senate waiting for him in the courtyard. One who would not wait to be seen.

Crassus glared at the man down his long nose. ‘What in Jupiter’s name do you want?’

‘An emergency meeting of the Senate is to be convened this afternoon, sir.’

‘For what bloody reason?’

The messenger twisted beneath his gaze. ‘Caius Claudius Glaber has returned.’

Crassus’ mind was still on his new acquisition on the Aventine, and a bath. ‘Who?’

‘The praetor who was sent to Capua.’

‘Oh yes. His job was to seek out and kill the runaway gladiators. He had three thousand men, if I recall. It was but a simple matter. March down there, mop things up, come back to Rome.’ Crassus took in the other’s scared look. His eyebrows made a neat arch. ‘Clearly that’s not what you have come to tell me.’

‘No, sir. The gladiators attacked Glaber’s camp at night. They killed the sentries and fell upon the legionaries as they slept …’ The messenger hesitated.

‘Go on,’ ordered Crassus in disbelief.

‘According to Glaber, all was confusion and chaos. His men panicked, and fled.’

‘Three thousand men ran from seventy-odd scumbag gladiators?’

‘Y-yes, sir.’

‘Were many of Glaber’s soldiers killed?’

‘Four or five hundred, sir. The rest escaped safely.’

‘Escaped? It’s not as if they were even defeated in a battle! Fucking cowards,’ thundered Crassus. ‘And this fiasco is what Glaber has come back to tell us about?’

‘Yes, sir,’ whispered the messenger. Terror filled his eyes. It wasn’t uncommon for those who bore bad news to be punished, or even killed.

Crassus chewed his lip in concentration.
Spartacus is not just a skilful fighter. He is clearly a man of some ability. A tactician
. His Roman pride lashed out at once. ‘So what if he can marshal a few men together to make a craven attack at night?’ he said to himself. ‘This humiliation cannot be tolerated. Will not be tolerated! The next force that is sent will be twice the size.’ Even that prospect did not ease Crassus’ anger, and he paced up and down, musing about how he would deal with such a situation.

The messenger waited, trembling, for his sentence to fall.

After a moment, Crassus finally noticed him again. ‘What are you still doing here? Piss off. Tell whoever sent you that I will attend the debate in the Senate.’

‘Yes, sir, t-thank you, sir,’ stammered the messenger, backing away.

Crassus headed for the bathing complex, which lay off the courtyard. He could think about this as he relaxed in the cool of the frigidarium.

One thing was certain, however.

Glaber had to pay for his mistake.

* * *

Later, Ariadne would look back on the days and weeks that followed as a halcyon time. Spring moved into summer, and she allowed herself to forget her troubled childhood, Kotys, their journey to Italy and the ludus. She even expelled Phortis from her mind. She did not consider the future or the idea of travelling back to Thrace. What was the point? She was happier than she’d ever been. And it was all down to one man. Spartacus. She couldn’t get enough of his company. She wanted to know everything about him, and he seemed to feel the same way about her. Truly, the gods must have united them, Ariadne thought. Here she was, free as a bird, living at the top of Vesuvius with her man, and his ever-growing band of followers.

Within a month, it had become clear that there would be no immediate reprisal for the humiliation inflicted upon Glaber and his soldiers. Firstly, there were no troops in the area. Secondly, as Spartacus said, choosing a new commander and the best plan of attack would take the Senate time. So would raising a new force of legionaries. Unless there was great need, Rome kept no legions on its home territory. Thirdly, there could be no surprise assault on the gladiators. Their camp’s lofty position granted stupendous views on all sides, and on every estate for fifty miles there were now slaves who would burst their lungs to carry to Spartacus the news of a Roman column.

Spartacus drove himself hard. This period of respite had to be used wisely. It was a time to train the gladiators mercilessly, honing them into infantry. To forge the many hundreds of raw recruits – most of who had never even held a weapon before – into soldiers. To organise hunting parties, and bands that could range far from Vesuvius, raiding for newly harvested grain and stocks of iron and bronze. Often led by Crixus or Castus, who used the opportunities to avoid training, the marauders spread the word that any man used to working in the fields or tending livestock would be welcome at Vesuvius. Domestic slaves were not wanted. They needed men who were used to rough, outdoor lives. Men who could fight.

But for Ariadne, it was a time of pure, unadulterated joy. Although the threat of reprisal was ever present, it was easy enough in the warm days to forget all about Rome and its legions. To exult in the fact that, for the first time in her life, she was in love.

Unsurprisingly, her daylight hours were filled with toil. Organising the womenfolk, of whom there were now more than two hundred, came naturally to her. So did acting as the camp’s quartermaster. She also revelled in being the rebels’ talisman. From the start, Ariadne had made sure that Spartacus spoke about his dream often, and of her interpretation of it. The gladiators and slaves lapped it up. They had found not just freedom by running away from their masters, and a charismatic leader, but a mouthpiece of their most revered deity, one unsuccessfully banned by Rome more than a century before. In their eyes, Ariadne was a priestess of Dionysus, and Spartacus was his appointed one. They regarded both with awe, and news of the couple spread far and wide.

Spartacus’ time was also taken up with drilling the gladiators and new recruits, or consulting with Pulcher, the blacksmith who had challenged him. Pulcher was now one of his trusted men, and the rebels’ de facto armourer. Along with several other smiths, it was his job to melt down slave chains and fashion arrowheads and swords. To bake sharpened stakes until their fire-hardened tips would skewer a man with ease. To hammer out sheets of bronze into plain, serviceable helmets. A motley group of slaves worked alongside Pulcher, making shields.

Periodically, Spartacus would lead a raiding party out to gather information, but for the most part, he stayed at the camp. Every dusk, sunburned and covered in sweat, he would saunter towards their tent. His smile lit up Ariadne’s heart. So did the words he murmured in her ear as they sat side by side looking out over the Campanian plain, and the way he made her feel when they retired to their blankets. Falling to sleep in his arms under a canopy of glittering stars felt like all she’d ever wanted.