‘Smash him up, Macro!’ a man called from the benches, and others soon followed his example.
‘Put him on his arse, the cunt!’
‘Hammer the raping bastard!’
I looked at Metella, and saw a satisfied smile tease her thick lips. The animosity towards the archer was palpable, easily drowning out the support of the dozen or so of his comrades. Amongst these angry taunts were calls for bets, coins changing hands rapidly. No matter the outcome of the match, Metella and her associates would harvest a pretty profit.
‘Fight!’ Plancus called, hobbling quickly to be out of the way.
Unlike the first pair, both men began to circle at a low crouch, eyeing their opponent. They would be judging distance, and speed. Power and strength. Calculating if an opening in their opposition’s guard was a weakness or an invitation to a counter-attack. Watching them, I thought back to my own days in the wrestling circle, and how my stomach had tightened with anticipation and excitement as I eyed my challenger as a wolf does a sheep. How my chest would swell with pride as my father would pull me from the ring, and lift me on to his thick shoulders, victorious…
‘Ten on the Syrian,’ I offered Titus.
I was ignored. Titus’s eyes were fixed on someplace far from Germany, led there by my asking about his son.
The Roman made the first move. It was a quick lunge for a leg, but the Syrian was quicker, spinning out of harm’s way. It was a risky play to open up his back and his blind side, and I wondered if the Roman would have the sense to see it, to feint, and to take it when offered again.
He did, and half lunged.
Just as the Syrian had wanted.
This time there was no spin. No evasion. The Syrian held his ground, and the Roman, only half committed to the lunge, didn’t have the momentum either to fully pursue it, or to pull back. Instead, he caught the Syrian’s knee fully with his jaw.
‘He can’t do that, the shit!’ a man roared as the Roman hit the floor, unconscious.
‘That’s fucking bollocks!’ another shouted.
‘That’s bullshit!’
‘Cheating bastard!’
Soon the air was thick with accusation. The Syrian had the sense to leave the ring, narrowly ducking a mug that was thrown at his head.
‘Shut it!’ Metella ordered with a thunderclap, stepping into the ring as if she would fight any dissenters. ‘He won fair and square. If you have a problem with it, you can stick your name down to fight him tomorrow!’
Plancus was then almost overwhelmed in a stampede, as a half-dozen indignant Romans rushed to him for just such an opportunity, anxious to restore both legion and national honour.
‘You’re a clever bastard,’ I grunted to Titus, watching the frenzied circus that he had whipped up with his comrades.
The big man shrugged. ‘We’re out here on a limb because it puts coins in senators’ pockets,’ he said, rubbing a hand over his granite jaw. ‘We’ve lost this war, Felix, but you don’t have to be on the winning side to be on the winning side.’
I knew those words were accurate, but also how they held true in the opposite case; where was victory for the soldier who died in supposed glory for the profit of an emperor and his senators?
‘Just be careful,’ I warned my friend. ‘You rub two sticks together long enough, you’ll get a fire.’
Titus waved my worries away with an open palm. ‘You can get in on it too?’ he offered.
I shook my head.
‘All right then. So what will you do?’
I had no good answer for him. Whether the enemy was in sight of our walls or not, we were under siege in a hostile province. Freedom of action was something that Arminius had taken from us, and so what choice did I have?
‘I’ll wait.’
34
I rubbed the chalk into my hands, the fine powder falling like the snow that now clung to the hillsides. Winter had come, but the gymnasium was hot from bodies and breath, my skin shining with sweat.
‘Again?’ my opponent asked me.
‘Again,’ I confirmed, and then stepped into the wrestling ring.
The fight was over as quickly as the last. The man was like the sea, always moving, and with a grace that belied his power. There was no doubting that strength now as he kicked my legs from under me and drove my snarling face into the dirt.
‘You’re too angry,’ he told me as he pulled me to my feet. ‘You come charging in like a boy that’s seen his first pair of tits. Control yourself, Corvus.’
I said nothing. I was angry. I woke angry, and I fell to sleep angry. Every moment of the day I was one wrong word or look away from lashing out. It made me angrier still that my friend could be so calm, so perfect, and yet beat me in the ring as if I were a child.
‘I used to be the one doing this to you,’ I grumbled. ‘I hate losing, Marcus, even to you.’
My oldest friend saved me the mercy of pity. ‘Times change. Concentrate on wrestling instead of trying to take my head off, and maybe you’ll have a chance.’
‘You know it’s not your head I want.’ I spoke darkly, taking the offered cup of water.
‘I know.’
Our conversation lapsed there, but my mind was not so easily pushed into silence. Voices – all of my own creation – fought as angrily as I had wrestled to be heard: You’re a coward. Why are you here? You’re weak. You’re pathetic. Why did you—
‘Again,’ I snapped at my friend, desperate to fight, knowing no other way to shut off the voices.
His eyes narrowed as he took in my battered face. ‘Corvus, your nose is already ruined. Let’s just call it—’
‘Again!’ I boomed.
And so we fought. I let the anger consume me. I charged at my best friend with every intention of breaking his bones, and he used that weakness against me, turning me inside out with feints and lunges, planting blows against my skull that only enraged me further, causing snot and blood to bellow from my shattered nose.
‘Let her go, Corvus,’ he told me as a jab crashed into my eye socket.
I would not. Instead I roared. I charged. Without knowing how I got there, I was then on my front, the weight of my friend pinned against my back, driving the air from my lungs and the blood from my face.
‘Let her go,’ he said with a calm that had no place amidst the violence.
‘Fuck you,’ I spat into the dirt.
‘Let her go.’
‘Fuck you!’
And then I felt the fingers on my windpipe. I felt it close. I felt the breaths becoming ragged, and the panic in my mind as my vision closed in.
‘Fuck you. Fuck you,’ I gurgled, blacking out.
And then all was silent.
35
I couldn’t breathe. My mind was racing. Terrified.
I couldn’t breathe.
I was dreaming, I knew I was, and yet there was no escape. I was trapped within my mind, and with each rapid heartbeat, each shallow breath, I knew that I was panicking myself towards death. I tried to scream, but the sounds died in my closed throat. I tried to call out for my mother, for her, but there was no sound except the pulsing of blood in my skull.
I didn’t want to die like this, but if I didn’t wake up, I knew that I would.
Somehow, my mind, conscious yet locked in its dream state, knew how to wake. Arms flailing, I fought for the edge of my bunk. With all my strength, I pulled myself out and crashed on to the floor.