The lanista raised his fingers, ticking off the points one at a time.
‘They don’t understand the rules …’
‘They’re bright boys, all three of them. They’ll learn quickly enough, especially with an experienced hand like you to talk them through it.’
Sannitus shook his head, his lips pursed disapprovingly.
‘They’re still soldiers. Unless we teach them what gladiators do and don’t do to each other in the arena then all they’re good for is hacking a bloody trail through whatever we put in front …’
He fell silent, looking at the man on the other side of the broad wooden desk with a fresh understanding. Julianus nodded.
‘Exactly. This emperor isn’t like his father, Sannitus. Marcus Aurelius used to insist that we made the most economical use of the lads, and that we turned as many of the prisoners we took in into long-termers as were capable of making the change and learning our ways. All his son wants to see is a series of good fights, ceaseless excitement from the first bout to the last, and above all plenty of blood. I’ve already been given very clear instructions from the palace to put on something that will make Commodus sit up and take notice, once we’ve got all the usual animal baiting and bestiality out of the way. Apparently the chamberlain has promised him that we’ll be starting this year’s Roman Games with a series of fights to make the plebs roar with delight, and you know what that means. Dead bodies, nothing more and nothing less.’
He took a sip of his own wine.
‘The Flavian’s procurator has promised me a batch of Dacian prisoners, prime men apparently and all still in good condition, and I was going to tell you to put Hermes and Nemo into the ring against them, but I see no reason to risk our better fighters against a bunch of unknowns. Let’s see what these centurions are capable of against men with nothing to lose, shall we?’
Sannitus shrugged.
‘If you put it like that it doesn’t sound as if we have much choice. Two prisoners apiece?’
Julianus inclined his head in gracious agreement.
‘You’re right, anything more would be pushing our new boys a little too hard the first time out. Two men apiece it is.’
‘Life in the ludus ain’t all as black as Sannitus likes to paint it.’ With the completion of their training for the day, the lanista’s assistant Edius was leading the three centurions to their accommodation, talking over his shoulder as he led them into the ludus’s maze of corridors. ‘Free men, slaves and even the men that scrape out the sewers may all call you scum when they think you’re not listening, but women, on the other hand, will see you as their best chance to get a decent portion of cock once their husbands’ dicks have shrivelled up and dropped off. And let me tell you from experience, having the nail hammered home by a body the likes of which their men could only dream of drives them wild!’
The school’s accommodation took the form of a series of corridors which were lined on both sides with cells barely large enough to accommodate two men, their front walls formed of narrowly spaced iron bars with heavy hinged doors to allow for both access and containment as the situation required. All along the corridor down which he led them, the doors were wide open, and men lounged around both in the cells and the walkway in various states of undress.
‘Not everyone in the ludus is quite as happy as you boys are to be here, but since this is the volunteer block we usually keep the doors unlocked. You two will be sharing this one …’
He pointed Marcus and Horatius at the doorway of a stone-walled room barely big enough for two straw-filled pallets, before turning back to point at another empty cell, gesturing to Dubnus.
‘And you, big man, since we have no one to share with you yet, you get this one to yourself for the time being. One of the slaves will be along with your food soon enough …’ He paused, looking pointedly at the other two, who had walked into their cell and were looking round the small enclosed space with bemused expressions. ‘And you both need to get as much of it down your necks as you can stomach, I’d say. We need to get some fat on you, so that you look like proper gladiators rather than the sad pair of skinny runts you are now, eh? There’s only your mate here that’s got the look of a fighter!’
The two centurions grinned at each other wryly, Marcus shrugging at his new comrade.
‘And there I was making the mistake of thinking that since two years of campaigning in Britannia, Germania and Dacia has left me without an ounce of fat on my body, I’m in perfect condition.’
Edius leaned into their cell with a serious look, wagging a finger at the two men.
‘You’ll learn better soon enough. If you’d not been so fast with your swords I reckon old Sannitus would have told you both to fuck off.’ He shook his head at their baffled expressions. ‘Not big fans of the games, are you?’
The two men nodded, Horatius leaning back against the cell’s stone wall.
‘I was too busy learning my trade to give a toss about a load of fixed fights. There’s not one in ten bouts where the outcome’s not already arranged before they step onto the sand, and after a while you get bored of watching the same fighters with the same tired moves dancing round each other and waiting for the moment when one of them goes down.’
Edius shook his head knowingly.
‘That might be the way where you come from sonny, but this is Rome. This ludus is one of the most famous schools in the empire, and our men are expected to put on a show that’ll have the plebs roaring and shouting for more. And that means men sometimes get killed, and more often than not even the victors get cut. Of course a decent swordsman can judge the cut just right, and make his opponent bleed like a stuck pig without actually maiming him, or making it so bad the poor bastard bleeds to death in the arena — not unless they’re really going for it or they hate each others’ guts — but for that to work the other fighter has to have a good layer of fat for him to cut into. See?’
He lifted his tunic, showing the pale lines of scars that criss-crossed his thighs.
‘You boys know as well as I do that one good thrust of a sword into a man’s upper leg’ll kill him inside half a dozen breaths, once you’ve opened the artery in the thigh, but the men I was fighting knew how to keep their cuts shallow. That way we always used to put on a good show, with plenty of blood, but without too many of us ending up face down. After all, nobody wants the cupboard to be empty when the big games like the ones that start tomorrow come round.’
Horatius started.
‘Tomorrow?’
The barrel-chested lanista nodded, cracking a wry smile at them.
‘I thought that might make you sit up and pay attention. Tomorrow, my lads, is the start of the Roman Games, the biggest series of games in the entire year as far as the major schools are concerned, with hundreds of fights to be staged between now and the end of the celebrations in two weeks’ time.’ He laughed at their expressions. ‘Don’t worry, no one’s going to throw a bunch of tyros like you into the arena without training you up first!’
Still chuckling, he turned away and left them to it. Marcus and Horatius looked at each other for a moment and then laughed at the same time.
‘A pair of skinny runts?’
Marcus shook his head at the other man’s incredulous tone.
‘It’s a label we may have to learn to love. Now I think about it, just about all of the other gladiators in this place are rather better upholstered than I was expecting. Perhaps we will need to fatten up a bit.’
‘Or perhaps you won’t.’ They turned, finding a tall, well-muscled man in a tunic of fine red wool standing in the cell’s doorway with his arms folded. ‘If you’ve got the speed and skill to keep other mens’ blades away from you, then you’ll never need to worry about all that padding that everyone else is carrying. They said the same thing to my brother and I when we walked through those gates, but neither of us ever found any need to stuff ourselves.’