Denter angled his head at the podium for the signal to execute his vanquished rival. Pavo couldn’t make out Pallas and Murena. Everything had blurred. The crowd was a smudge of coloured tunics. The men at the podium were a row of white blotches. Spectators pleaded for Pavo to be spared. The hooligans cheered for him to be put to the sword.
‘Time to die,’ Denter said, his voice muffled behind the metal of his helmet. The black, dull eyeholes stared cruelly at Pavo. ‘I’m going to cut off your head. Just like Hermes did to your father.’
‘Go to Hades,’ Pavo whispered.
Denter raised the sword above his head with both hands wrapped around the pommel.
But at the last minute he hesitated. Pavo glanced up, wondering why Pallas had not given the signal. Something had caught the attention of both Denter and the umpire. Pavo rolled his eyes in the same direction. He was stunned to see spectators clashing in the galleries. Pompeiians and locals traded blows, hurling cups and jugs at each other. A darkly featured youngster grappled with an elderly local and tipped him over the side of the gallery. The man crashed amid the dignitaries, whose wives shrieked at the tops of their voices. More Pompeiians began clambering into adjacent sections populated by local supporters loyal to Pavo. The Pompeiians laid into the crowd with their fists. A few of the guards attempted to intervene but they were brushed aside by locals and Pompeiians alike, and soon the violence had spilled across to every part of the arena. Pavo’s vision slowly returned. He caught sight of Pallas shooting to his feet, his lips pressed together in a thin line as he chopped his hand at the umpire.
‘Oh gods,’ said the umpire, inserting himself between Pavo and a livid Denter. ‘The fight is postponed! Orders of the sponsor. Return to the tunnels.’ He flinched as a shower of jugs and cups rained down on the gladiators and shattered on the ground. ‘Now!’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Pavo watched the violence unfolding in the crowd as two orderlies dragged him towards the tunnel. The umpire thrust Denter back towards the opposite arena entrance as hordes of spectators left their seats in a desperate hurry, abandoning the cushions they had brought to make the stone seats more comfortable. They stampeded towards the exits leading down into the street, shoving fellow citizens to the floor in their mad rush to escape. But they found their progress blocked on the steps of the gallery exits by pockets of guards, who had panicked at the sudden mass of humanity surging towards them and had taken to randomly slashing at the civilians in front of them. The orderlies dumped Pavo in the mouth of the tunnel, and the gladiator experienced a chilling fear clamp around his neck as he realised it was only a matter of time before the guards were overwhelmed by the sheer size and desperation of the crowd.
A cloud of dust and mortar poured down from the arched ceiling and choked Pavo. He coughed violently. Tears welled in his eyes as he hacked up a lungful of hot dust and slumped against the wall. His hands and feet tingled as feeling slowly returned to his deadened limbs.
‘Hard to please, that lot,’ a gruff voice said. ‘The mob.’
Pavo was conscious of a form emerging from further down the corridor. The figure stopped next to him and crouched. Pavo adjusted his eyes to the dark and saw the grizzled features of Macro staring back at him.
‘What are you doing here?’ Pavo responded weakly. His throat felt as if it had shrunk to the width of a reed and he struggled to utter every word.
‘Orders of those two bloody freedmen.’ The optio jerked a thumb towards the galleries and sucked his teeth.
‘I suppose they ordered you to train Denter too,’ Pavo responded tartly.
‘They did, as it happens.’ Macro rose to his feet and frowned as the shouts of the Pompeiians spilled down from the galleries. ‘Roping you into a fight with that drunken madman was their brilliant idea. They only travelled down here to celebrate your death.’
‘I knew it!’ Pavo gritted his teeth. ‘They kitted me out as a retiarius and sent me to face a legend of the arena clad in armour from head to toe. I never had a chance.’
‘If it’s any consolation, the mob are just as pissed off. That’s what sparked the riot out there. Pallas had to interrupt the fight. If the violence spills into the streets, there’ll be blood on his hands. And the Emperor’s, since he’s sponsoring the event.’ Macro sighed as a spectator was hurled down from the upper gallery and crumpled into a heap on the arena floor. Servants rushed over to tend to the bloodied victim. ‘Tell you what,’ the optio grumbled. ‘If that pair are supposed to be the best advisers Claudius has got, then we’re all fucked.’
The comment drew the hint of a smile to Pavo’s lips. Macro glanced over his shoulder. Pavo suppressed his smile before the optio could see it. ‘Pallas and Murena are snakes, but they’re no more rotten than half the officials in Rome. They don’t give a shit about the mob. They’re only in it for themselves.’ He hardened his gaze at Macro. ‘And what about you, Optio? How did you stand to profit, if Denter won today?’
Macro looked with surprise at Pavo for a moment, then clamped his lips. ‘I had no choice, lad. Pallas and Murena forced me to do their bidding. If I refused, they would’ve thrown me from the Tarpeian Rock.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘All their scheming makes my bloody head reel.’
‘Business as usual in Rome, then.’ Pavo looked away from Macro. ‘You conspired against me.’
‘Bollocks, lad!’ Macro grunted testily. ‘I’m not your enemy here. It’s those stylus-pushing Greeks.’
Pavo turned back to the optio. Macro stared at him.
‘You’re not the only one getting shat on by the imperial household.’ The optio ground his right fist into the palm of his left hand. ‘I won a medal for killing a bunch of wild Germans, and what did I get in return? No tarts or gold. Just a back-handed thank you from an imperial arse-licker and a job trawling the taverns and brothels of Pompeii, keeping a drunken old gladiator out of trouble.’
‘Sounds like your ideal mission,’ Pavo snorted derisively.
‘Ideal pain in the arse, more like. Truth is, I’m glad to be out of Pompeii. It’s a pleasant little town but no place for a soldier. Nothing ever happens there and never will. I didn’t like the idea of helping a pair of imperial snakes plot against a decent lad.’
Pavo tilted his head in puzzlement at the optio. ‘You mean me?’
Macro nodded. ‘You’re quite the thorn in the Emperor’s side, boy. But you know what? As long as the crowd are chanting your name, Claudius and his freedmen can’t lay a finger on you.’
Pavo pursed his lips. ‘Pallas and Murena hold sway over the Emperor,’ he said softly. ‘They do as they please. No one is untouchable in Rome these days, Optio. Look how they’ve treated you, a newly decorated hero of the Empire.’
‘Don’t I bloody well know it.’ Macro considered the trident and net the orderlies had placed next to Pavo. ‘But you’re wrong about one thing. Pallas and Murena need the support of the mob. Murena said so himself. Without the people, Claudius’s regime won’t last long.’
Pavo blinked. ‘So?’
‘Listen to that lot.’ Macro rolled his eyes and nodded to the arena. The sound of the fighting had died away, drowned out by the rhythmic chant of Pavo’s name. ‘They’re not completely thick. They can see the odds have been stacked against you, and they don’t like to see Rome humiliate its heroes.’ The optio averted his gaze. ‘Not publicly, anyway. Your old man was guilty of treason. This is different. The mob’s on your side.’
Pavo grimaced. Macro had a point, he conceded. Control of the mob was more powerful than any ancestral tree or official title. Emperors since the days of Caesar had arranged gladiatorial combats to win the support of the mob, and now the same trick had come back to haunt Pallas and Murena. The young gladiator smiled at the thought of the freedmen breaking out in a cold sweat up in the podium. He now found he could move his legs, albeit clumsily.