Bookworm Gladiator

I dragged blankets and my bedsheet into the barracks. With Lucius’ help, we pushed the tables to the walls and arranged some spare straw mattresses for everyone. Merula was already asleep, as was Hurek. Ollia helped as much as she could, but I could see the day’s ordeal had finally gotten to her. And not just the tiredness.

When she thought no one was looking, she stared emptily, devoid of emotion or will and barely blinking. When I spoke to her, it was like a snap of a drover whip, her face changed and she smiled and nodded as if nothing was amiss. “You are too kind,” she would mutter and I argued against myself.

I kept thinking of Lepidus. What if he died on campaign, out of my sight and thoughts, alone in the mud of Gaul? I’d had my fair share of death in the family, the gods saw to that, but for family to die before their time in something so brutally unnecessary like a gladiator match, I couldn’t see how Ollia was still functioning. My son had only been sentenced to a risky campaign and I’d mentally accepted regicide. But it wasn’t about Lepidus, was it?

It wasn’t even about Nero, now that I thought about it. Rome itself had shamed me. There was a time I thought having a son fight for the republic and retire as centurion would finally bring honor to my name after a lifetime of scribal servitude. But Suetonius had made it so Lepidus’ service was nothing but a slap to my face—an attempt to end my lineage itself.

“Rot in your potted grave, Suetonius,” I mumbled, “along with Nero soon enough.”

“What’s that?” Lucius asked. He was the only one left awake, with a bundle of sheets under his arm and looking for the best corner to curl up in. Ollia and Merula shared a straw mattress, and Hurek was given the most blanketed layers.

“Nothing,” I said and then pointed, “go on then. I’ll blow out the candles.”

“Let them run out,” Lucius said.

I did as he requested and stayed my hand, even on the brazier that filled the barn-like room in a soft glow. Lucius became a hulking shadow in the far corner, and I stood alone, at the entrance, watching the desperate poor left under my care try to sleep after the day had stripped them of their dignity. People still sleep, somehow.

It was strange—sleeping, eating, shitting and repeat, day after day of pretending like something mattered enough for you to keep living. The stark contrast of the mundane minutiae of our day punctured by the deepest of losses.

I will not prevaricate! My father liked to say whenever I questioned his stoicism against the indignities put on the common-folk. I will not prevaricate! Their judgement is theirs alone, Cicero.

Sophos’ voice echoed in my mind as I walked barefoot in across the vegetable garden. The coolness of the night was a welcome feeling, although the grass and dirt was still a little warm. The moon seemed bigger, shining almost as bright as the sun, bathing the now slumbering oasis. How quiet everything seemed.

I heard no voices or the clamor of unrest and violence that you would expect. And yet, somewhere out in the streets were looters and thugs running wild, Persians doing Jupiter knows what, and lives were being lost; I was sure of it. Baba Haza’s actions were out of the norm, even for a frontier colonia like Palmyra, and there would be repercussion for days.

The night couldn’t care less, though. Our sins need not be buried so deep, because the stars were silent and the dunes flowed into each other ever so slowly; an ocean stuck in time. I wish I could enter their space where moments had no ending, and I could just lie down here in my patch of dirt and be free from the anxiety that this palace, this city, drowned me in every passing minute.

I paused when I entered the kitchen. The candles were out and it was a dark room that smelled of soap and salt and wine. The cellar, I thought. Merula had mentioned the cellar before she’d dozed off. I’d questioned her a bit about Hurek’s energy tonic, hoping she’d found the source, and she’d manage to utter the words that sounded a lot like cellar.

“Nothing suspicious about a barefoot man sneaking into the cellar at night,” I grumbled, and let the rickety door creak open. There was enough moonlight entering to reveal an ordinary chamber with a full pantry. Earthenware jars lined the walls, with shelves of dried fruit and grain above. I left the door open and began my search—for what, I could not say.

I opened lids, sniffed random sacks of grain and spice jars. Sneezed a few times and did it again. Around the room I went, and almost succumbed to gulping down wine that smelled almost as good as the wine from Picanum. I’ll remember this jar for later.

One of the jars smelled like sour milk, and I retched, closing it immediately before I could empty my stomach all over Atia’s stash of exotic spices. The reddish-black tonic that Hurek was drinking had to have been made with milk, I figured. With fingers clamping down on my nostrils, I dared open the jar again and tipped it towards the light. Sure enough, it had some drops of the red tonic at the bottom.

I looked around the jar for some clue as to its ingredients, but nothing made sense. What was Atia feeding Hurek? And for how long?

I didn’t have the strength to taste the liquid myself. “There has to be more than this,” I said, feeling a familiar obsession overcome me. There were times in my previous life I’d obsessed over certain things—seemingly unimportant to the average person—but I’d spent hours pouring over text in my research. It was always reading and stealing scrolls from patrician libraries in my youth, and I suppose my station in life at this point was to scurry around a patrician’s cellar like a rat.

And by Jupiter, I did it well. My knees protested, but I crawled around on all fours, looking behind the clay jars and along the walls. I pushed aside heavy burlap sacks with as much strength as I could muster. My hands traced the uneven surfaces, spilled liquids and cracks that I assumed were handles. A hidden drawer or box, that’s what I was looking for. Where else would Atia hide a secret in her pantry?

Instead, I found a rope handle. It was nailed into a wooden platform behind two large sacks of rice. I pushed them aside and lifted a small cover that revealed a ladder that led down a small hole. A rat indeed, I thought, staring down into the dark tunnel. Did I actually have the willpower to explore further?

Without a moment’s hesitation I slipped my lean frame into the hole, my toes grasping at the rough hemp and I prayed to Jupiter the nails on the ladder held my weight.

One foot after another I descended into Atia’s hell. My foot would slip or the step gave away and my shriek echoed in my ear until I was sure the entire palace must’ve heard. Oh mitte, oh mitte… Protect me Jupiter!

I was a moment’s away from changing my mind when my foot landed on hard stone. Hanging tight on the ladder, I prodded the surface to make sure it was sturdy. A cave, it’s a cave underneath the palace.

Or an old cistern fashioned into Atia’s personal dungeon. Of course she had a fucking dungeon.

The smell, though, was anything but fresh spring-water. It was dank and irony. A small drop could be heard, the dripping echoed around me along with my raspy breaths. I fumbled around for a torch along the wall and sure enough found some kind of hanging oil lamp. The next few minutes were painful as I struggled to light it with damp matches of animal fat.

My hands were grimy by the time a small flame erupted in my hands, illuminating the cavern floor, the puddles of dark liquid around my feet, the table of metal tools and instruments, and just a few feet in front of me, hanging upside down, was the headless corpse of a woman.

I clenched my fists and every muscle in my body, fighting the draining blood in my face and the rushing lightheadedness. Oh Minerva…

The body hung so still and shriveled, it could have been made from leather and wax, except a drop of blood dripped from its torn neck and into a bucket. I leaned against the table and set the lamp down lest I faint and start a fire. Though I could see that as a viable option to escape this nightmare.

And yet I stared, transfixed, not entirely sure I was fully awake. Maybe I was asleep in the barracks with the Nokchi family, and this really was a nightmare. An excruciatingly lucid nightmare. Bile burned my throat, but somehow, I had the strength to push it down yet again. “This is demonic,” I whispered. Atia was not human. This was something beyond cruelty or a love for violence. This was cold, in-human, almost other-worldly.

I have been possessed, Hurek’s words came to me as I studied the grisly display. I fought the fear of magic and superstition and focused on exactly what I was looking at. This was methodical just as much as it was brutal. It had a purpose, an intention behind it.

Atia was collecting this woman’s blood, and… feeding it to Hurek? Dear Minerva, please let it not be so. I picked up the lamp, covered my face with my dirty sleeves and leaned closer. The instruments around the table were all something I would see in a torture chamber at first glance, but they were also practical and surgical. A plate of what looked like flesh was placed beside a mortar and pestle. Everything I saw pointed to the conclusion that this body hand been harvested like freshly caught big-game. Except the hunter was fixated on extracting every bit of blood from the carcass as well.

My eyes fell on a bundle of clothes, a bloodied chiton that was once white, with a gold belt similar to the ones worn by Priestesses of Yorhibul at the Temple. My mind was blank for a moment—I know this, I know her—and when the name finally came to me, it cut me deep. Layla.

I placed my hand over the lamp, my fingers closing tight over the burning wick to extinguish the flame and send me into darkness once more.