A team of slaves carrying a long stake hurried to the middle of the arena. Some scraped away the covering of sand to reveal the planking beneath, a section of which was removed, disclosing a hole into which the stake was fitted. Two more slaves led out a struggling young woman and chained her by the waist to the stake. A huge, heavily muscled man was then conducted to the spot, and released. Shaking his mane of red hair, he glared defiantly around at the vast audience.
Probinus moved his curule seat to be directly behind Theoderic. ‘The woman’s a murderess,’ he murmured. ‘Stabbed her master when he tried to rape her. The man’s a Celt, a runaway slave from the sulphur mines. When he was recaptured he disabled three men so badly that they’ll never work again. It should be interesting to see how long he can protect her against the assault of wild beasts.’
‘Damnata ad bestias!’ exclaimed the king. ‘But that’s unlawful, surely?’
Probinus shrugged. ‘Technically, perhaps, Your Majesty. However. .’
He was interrupted by the trumpet’s brazen clang. Into the arena walked a huge white bull with massive forequarters and long, wickedly pointed horns. The creature’s skin slid and rippled like silk above its muscles as it moved. This was Europe’s great wild ox, which the Romans called Urus and the Germans Aurochs, noted for its implacable ferocity when roused.
A gasp of excited admiration arose as the great beast trotted round the arena, establishing its territory. Spotting the woman and the huge Celt, he turned to face them and began to paw the sand. Immediately, the woman started shrieking and struggling — her cries and frantic movements providing the very stimulus to trigger an attack. With shocking suddenness the aurochs launched itself towards her.
Gripping the arms of his curule seat, Theoderic leant forward in an agony of suspense, willing the Celt to try to save the woman. But surely it could only be a doomed attempt. An unarmed man, no matter how powerful, could be no match for an enraged bull. As the ton of white destruction hurtled towards its victim, the Celt ran forward to meet it and grabbed its horns by their tips. At first he was borne along helplessly by the creature’s impetus. Gradually, however, his churning feet found purchase on the sand, until, yards from the stake, he managed to bring the monster to a halt. Legs braced like tree-trunks, biceps bulging with titanic effort, he strained to twist the creature’s horns.
A roar of incredulous delight burst from the spectators. Almost imperceptibly, the great bull’s head was beginning to turn. The movement gradually accelerated — now the neck was sharply angled to the body; an agonized bellow, a loud crack! like a snapping branch, and the animal slumped to the sand.
For a moment the audience was silent, then it broke into wild, sustained applause.
‘They await your decision, Majesty,’ prompted Probinus.
Startled, Theoderic collected himself. From his readings of Roman history, he knew the correct response. Rising to his feet, he extended his right fist. To ecstatic cheering from the crowd, he raised the thumb. Turning to Probinus he commanded, ‘Have him brought to me.’
‘You are a brave man,’ declared Theoderic, his voice warm with admiration, when the Celt — chest heaving as he fought for air, body dripping sweat — stood below the royal box. ‘What is your name?’
‘I am Conall Cearnach, a Scot from Dalriada in Caledonia. But my forebears came from Hibernia; that’s the island-’
‘-to the west of Britannia,’ finished Theoderic with a smile. ‘I am not entirely ignorant of geography, you see. The Scots are a brave and loyal race, I’ve heard. My bodyguard could use such men. What would you say to joining them?’
‘Anything is better than the sulphur mines.’
‘Have this man taken to the palace,’ Theoderic told Probinus, ‘with instructions that he be fed, allowed to wash, then clothed.’
‘The man is still a slave, Your Majesty,’ objected the senator. ‘A slave, moreover, who has inflicted grave injury on several men.’
Fury filled Theoderic. About to roar a reprimand to the editor, he remembered — just in time — to check himself. Dignitas. ‘See to it,’ he snapped.
‘Very well, Majesty.’
A growing impatient buzz alerted the king to the fact that the crowd was growing restive. Looking up, he was amazed to see the woman still secured to the stake.
‘Why has she not been freed?’ he demanded. ‘I raised my thumb.’
‘Surely, Majesty, your gesture indicated that mercy be shown to the man alone,’ Probinus pointed out.
Again, rage threatened to overwhelm the king. Was he to be balked at every turn by this arrogant aristocrat? With a huge effort, he controlled his anger. ‘Free her,’ he ordered, forcing himself to speak evenly.
Seated to his right, Symmachus turned to speak. The great senator’s face was furrowed in concern and sympathy. ‘Serenity, would that be wise?’ he cautioned. ‘Your instinct is a noble one; it does you great credit. But to free the woman would be to disappoint the crowd. That might be’ — he paused, searching for the right word — ‘let us say, impolitic.’
‘Impolitic?’
‘Serenity, seditio popularis is easily aroused and can have terrible consequences.’ The patrician’s voice held a note of urgency. ‘Only last year the Pope himself was injured in a riot, and several priests were killed. And many present can remember the lynching by an angry mob of the emperor Petronius Maximus.’
All Theoderic’s nature, with its German sense of honour and reverence for women, rose in revolt against the idea of having to appease the Roman mob. Now he could see clearly what that snake Probinus’ game was: to box him into a corner, forcing him to act against his nature, in a demonstration that it was the Senate, not the king, who held the reins of power. Well, he was Theoderic, the warrior king of a heroic race, who ruled by right of conquest. He would show these Romans who was master. Then something tugged at his memory, cooling his indignation. Symmachus had addressed him as ‘Serenity’, a title used for emperors alone! Conflict raged within the king: desire to act honourably, according to his principles and conscience, versus a new emotion, a heady exaltation that his dream, acceptance by the Romans as their emperor, could be on the point of being realized. But that acceptance was conditional, he knew; an emperor must please his people.
Meanwhile, the clamour of the crowd had risen to a rhythmic, thunderous chant: ‘Ad bestias! Ad bestias! Ad bestias!’
Like an enormous weight, Theoderic seemed to feel the force of fifty thousand wills pressing against his own. Guilt and shame welled up within him — to be suppressed by the promptings of ambition. Again, his fist came forward, but this time the thumb turned down, in the gesture of pollice verso. A roar of triumphant approval burst from the throats of the mob.