“Lusitanians over here!”
In response to that peremptory command, the chained and plaintive human tide was pushed forward by its chieftains who, terrorised by their captors, proceeded. Lit by a few faint torches, the corridor smelled of urine and stale blood, and the swords of the guards relentlessly prodded the backs of the poor devils at the rear to make them push those in front of them and speed up their pace. The desperate weeping of the women and the moans of the wounded made a disquieting accompaniment to that forced march towards death.
The intricate underground tunnels of the Tarraco amphitheatre had been built so as to separate the prisoners’ cells from the gladiator’s rooms and from the cages of the beasts, but in the end, the destination they all shared was the arena where, with the help of fate, courage or cowardice, humans and beasts would decide their own fate or that of their adversaries for the joy of a public thirsty for violence and for blood.
In this balance between executioners and victims, prisoners of war were often destined to succumb, either to the hands of their own kind or to the claws and fangs of hungry beasts. The cells where they were made to wait were dark and lacking any kind of comfort. The only slits through which the light filtered in looked directly out onto the arena so that they could see what awaited them. Even their final journey was designed as a prelude to the ultimate torture: they were made first to pass in front of the gladiators’ quarters, then in front of those of the beasts and finally, for a short distance, along a tunnel lined with railings behind which the corpses, or what remained of them, were piled up.
“Stay close to me, Jago. Always look at the ground, and have faith: Endovelicus will help us, you’ll see.” A woman to whom the sufferings of the last few days had added several years clutched to her a thin child who could not have more than ten. His short blond hair was now the colour of ash, and was encrusted with sweat and dirt. Obedient to his mother, he kept his eyes lowered, but he trembled like a leaf. When they passed in front of a small square-shaped cell, a half-naked man who was checking the joints of his shield stopped to follow the flow of the procession.
“Where are this lot from?” he asked the first guard who passed by.
“Lusitania. From Beja.”
“Really? How many of them are there?”
“This is the last batch.”
“The gods be thanked. I’m sick of risking my hide for these carrot-eating yellow-bellies.”
The woman with the child walked past just as he turned his attention from the procession to the blade of his sword.
“What’s happening, mother?” the child asked, trying to raise his head.
The woman stopped him.
“I told you not to look. For your own sake, Jago.”
“Very well mother. What’s happening?”
The column of prisoners snaked along, banging against the walls of the long underground passage with a sound of rattling iron. Suddenly a row of vertical bars appeared, rising from the ground to the low ceiling. On the other side the woman seemed to catch a fleeting gleam of eyes. Eyes that were not human. A sort of trumpeting was heard and two ivory-coloured tusks sprouted from between the bars like swords, brushing against the ragged clothes of the nearest prisoners. Overcome by terror, they retreated, huddling against their companions. The guards shouted and struck them, and the line continued on its way, leaving behind large blood stains which were immediately absorbed by the dirty sand.
“Come on, everyone inside. And I don’t want to hear a sound!” ordered the chief of the guards who was waiting for the group on the threshold of the cells. They were narrow and low, without seats and without latrines. A narrow rectangular opening ran along the joint between the wall and the ceiling. From there, a narrow portion of the arena was visible and, in the distance, the first three rows of the stands were visible, already crowded with excited spectators.
“When it’s your turn, we’ll come and get you. Until then, absolute silence or you’ll deprive me of the fun of selecting you.”
While the chief of the guards gave the orders, his helpers closed the cells and bolted them shut.
“Can I look now, mother?”
The woman raised her head. At least fifty people had been crowded together into a cell that was meant to hold at most twenty. Many had fainted and were only kept on their feet because there was no room to fall to the ground. Nothing else could be seen but bodies, all soaked with the sweat of fear and most of them now devoid of consciousness or in prey to the most profound terror.
“Yes, my son. Now you can look.”
Clouding her vision, large, pitying tears began to fall onto her cheeks as she too surrendered to their inevitable destiny.
The child took a few moments to open his eyelids, and two blue eyes moved hesitantly as they tried to make sense of what they saw before them.
“Where are we?” he asked in a faint voice before fatigue took over. The pitiful oblivion of sleep spared him the first muffled cries from the arena that floated into the cell like an invisible shroud. The games had begun.
*
Jago could not work out whether it had been his mother that had awoken him or the prolonged screech that the grate above their heads had made and the last rays of the sun.
“Your turn!” shouted the voice of the chief of the guards from behind the silhouettes of the jailers who had opened the cell. “Come on, I want to go home!”
With the tips of their swords, the guards led the prisoners out of their shelter, the applause of the crowd seeming almost to accompany their movements.
When she crossed the threshold of the cell, the woman seemed to reawaken from some trance-like sleep. A glimmer in her eyes, the tensing of her facial muscles and a new rhythm of breathing accompanied her back to the threshold of the real world, and terror suddenly assailed her like a gust of wind spewed from Neptune’s mouth. She fell to her knees and gave a hysterical cry, the chain at her wrists also dragging down the fragile body of the child who found himself beside her on the ground.
“Please, take me but spare my son!”
Being accustomed to such scenes, the guards paid no attention to her and simply lifter her up like a marionette and began to drag her like a dead weight. Jago tried to get up but stumbled and clung to his mother’s kicking legs.
“No, not my son!”
Knowing how contagious her fear was, the other prisoners backed up against the wall, keeping at a safe distance from the woman.
Walking towards them came a prisoner with long grey hair who proudly showed the only two teeth that remained in his mouth. He was tied with ropes and chains, but the guards who escorted him to the cells seemed almost afraid to touch him. He laughed and gave his gaolers glimpses of the fire that was still inside him.
“You did it again today, Nesto,” the chief guard laughed in his face without letting go of the weeping woman’s wrist. “I’m almost getting used to seeing you come back to the cell at sunset.”
The prisoner held his gaze.
“The gods all seem to be on his side,” said one of the gaolers. “Today the lion that was about to tear him to pieces collapsed just as it was about to sink his fangs into his neck.”
“What happened then?” asked the guard chief.
“Stone dead. it never got up again.”
“It was old,” the prisoner hissed, mumbling the words, “its heart couldn’t take it.”
He laughed and for the first time noticed the woman on the ground. The laughter died in his throat when he saw the boy clinging to her ankles.
“Since when did you start throwing the young into the arena?” he muttered with a shudder of disgust.
“Since the old started refusing to die,” was the gaoler’s prompt response.
The prisoner turned to the chief of the guards. There were numerous open wounds on his chest and red patches where the grey hairs had been torn away.
“Do you know how many legionaries these hands have killed, friend?” he said, showing his chained wrists. “You can’t begin to imagine. But they have never been guilty of the death of a child.”
“These children grow up,” said the gaoler, “and then decide to take in hand a weapon. Let’s just call it prevention.”
He was about to continue but the prisoner blocked his way.
“What are you trying to do, Nesto? Enjoy the gift the gods gave you today and don’t force my hand.”
“Is this the last group?” the old man asked, looking at the boy again.
“Yes. Now get out of the way.”
“Wait.”
The jailers who were escorting him exchanged a questioning look which they then addressed to their leader. The man chewed his lip.
“What do you want, Nesto? People don’t like it when the show stops.”
“It won’t stop. I’ll make you an offer. You let me go back out there and take the child back to the cell.”
“What?”
“I escaped out of pure luck today, but I’m tired, very tired… It will be a fitting end to this impeccably organised day.”
“You want to go back out and fight? In the place of this brat you don’t even know? He’ll die anyway tomorrow, and you will have wasted your last day of your life.”
“I told you, friend – I’m tired. Tired of playing at being alive in front of a bunch of animals dressed in robes.”
The boy had stopped crying and was silently observing the stranger with the messy blood-soaked hair who was negotiating for him.
“It’s simple,” said the prisoner. “A day of my life in exchange for a day of his.”
The head of the guards thought for a moment.
“Very well then. Even though I do not understand your decision.”
The jailers turned the man around, and he headed off back towards the arena, but not before giving Jago a toothless smile of satisfaction and melancholy.
“Do you want some advice, chief?” said Nesto said finally as he put his foot on the first of the steps leading up to the arena and to his death. “Bet half your pay on my opponent’s life, whoever he is. Consider it a gift from hell.”
“And are you happy to go to the next world?”
“No, but I am happy that it was I who chose when to do it.”
The chief of the guards gave a vague smile, then grabbed hold of Jago by the arm and lifted him up.
“Take him back to his cell.”
The guards also picked up the woman, who had watched the whole scene without daring to intrude.
“No, not her. She goes out with the others.”
Jago listened to those words and looked at his mother. He felt for her hands, but the chains being unfastened signalled their definitive separation. While the silhouette of the woman walked silently towards the arena, four strong arms dragged him back towards the darkness of the cells.
The crowd shouted impatiently – as impatiently as the roar of the lions which at that moment made their entrance into the sandy oval. It seemed to Jago that he could see her smile as she went away. But his mother had her back to him.
A sensation. A sensation that would accompany him for many a long and sleepless night.
As they threw him back into the now empty cell, Jago put his hands over his ears and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to hear any more cries because he knew that now he would recognise them.
*
At dawn the following day the guards found him curled up in a fetal position with his back against the wall that opened onto the arena. The first light of morning, which descended in an oblique beam from the opening above his head, cut through the semi-darkness of the cell like a gigantic blade.
When they lifted him up he didn’t say a word and he made no sound. All the energy of his despair had turned into tears over the course of the night and now he felt exhausted, resigned to the fate they had planned for him, whatever it was.
He only partially walked the underground corridors on his own two feet – when his strength left him, his jailers lifted him from the floor and carried him along of the cell like a side of beef for butchering. The slow march lasted forever until finally under his feet he felt the steps that would lead him outside. He knew that his feet would never touch them again, unless as a dead body attached to iron hooks.
The blinding light struck his face violently, forcing him to close his eyes, but he resisted the pain and forced himself to open them again.
A roar greeted his entrance. Despite the hour, the brick steps of the stands were already crowded with members of the public. The amphitheatre surrounded a slightly asymmetrical elliptical arena which was covered with fine white sand. They must have cleaned it up during the night because there was no trace of blood and the surface appeared to have been carefully raked.
Because of the heat, the gladiatorial shows began early in the summer to allow the spectators a break for a frugal lunch before watching the final rounds of the battles, which were always the bloodiest. The lucky ones made it through to them – but those who died first were even luckier.
Jago peered about him and winced: the damp of the cell had put what felt like an invisible painful vice on his neck. As he stumbled towards the centre of the arena, about four thousand eyes followed him, and more people continued to flow in through the vomitoria.
The first three rows of the stands housed the wealthiest public who paid handsomely for the smell of human blood and the sweat of the beasts. Above them were the spectators who came from the intermediate social classes and the soldiers on leave. Higher up still, sheltered from prying eyes, were representatives of local institutions and the envoys of Rome.
Jago advanced further and found himself in the middle of the ellipse where a cross-shaped ditch had been dug; near each arm of the cross, a pole was embedded firmly in the ground.
When the jailers began to attach his chain on one of the poles, Jago noticed that the other three were already occupied by as many other prisoners. They were two men and a woman and like him, their ankles were imprisoned by chains long enough to allow them limited movement. The woman’s face was scarred, a sign that she must have already passed other tests like the one for which they were being prepared. The two men, on the other hand, were quite old and dressed in rags. They looked around them in disbelief as the crowd shouted insults of all kinds down into the arena. Fortunately, the wall of noise they created was largely incomprehensible.
Jago observed the final movements of the guards and then watched as they slowly walked out of the arena. His eyes scanned the entrances just below the boxes of the first rows.
“That’s where the animals come out from,” said one of the two men, noting the curiosity and terror with which Jago stared at the dark openings. “And I can assure you that it isn’t a pretty sight. Because it is the last one that we will see.”
Suddenly silence fell. All eyes were on the pulvinar – the governor’s box. A rather thin man, clad in an elegant dark red tunic and with a tanned complexion, appeared and settled himself on the central stool. He was accompanied by an escort of half a dozen soldiers, who stood on either side of the marble and wooden podium. Another man dressed in a brightly coloured ceremonial robe joined him. This was Manlius Cantabrius, the richest and most influential merchant in the region, who had decided to ingratiate himself with the new governor of the city by financing the games to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the transformation of the city of Tarraco into a colony.
“I hope, Governor,” he said with a broad gesture of his hand to the amphitheatre, “that my modest contribution will enliven the festivities and arouse in us the deferential memory of he who ordered all this built.” He sat down next to the man in red and the crowd immediately began shouting again.
Accompanied by young pages, the trumpeters positioned themselves along the four sides of the amphitheatre while the legionaries moved to fill the gaps on the steps so as to keep any eye both on the spectators on the meniana and the protagonists of the show under.
The preparations lasted an interminable time – so long that the woman soon slumped to the ground and closed her eyes. The two men instead shifted nervously, every now and then testing the resistance of the chains.
Suddenly there was the sound of a trumpet. The prisoners froze and scanned the gratings under the boxes, waiting for a movement or a noise to confirm the arrival of the animals. A second trumpet sounded.
“In a few moments,” shouted the sponsor of the games, “the governor of this magnificent city will officially declare the final day of games – a day which will be memorable for us all – open.” His words reached the stands near the box of the authorities and the arena. It was the tradition that the opening speech was passed among the people by word of mouth.
“Today, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Tarraco, our governor has decided to overturn some of the rules. Let the gladiators enter.”
The crowd welcomed that announcement with a roar and the screeching of grates opening preceded the entry into the arena of four men armed and dressed in a singular way. They stopped in front of the entrance from which they had appeared, waiting for Cantabrius to continue.
“Each of our gladiators has been given a prisoner, and his job will be to defend them until the end of the day. Whoever succeeds in this undertaking will receive a pass which will make him a free man, by express wish of the governor.” The buzz of the crowd became more intense. “But the moment a prisoner succumbs, his gladiator will follow his fate,” said Cantabrius, pointing to the archers lined up on the steps facing the pulvinar.
The governor bowed his head in appreciation of Cantabrius’ words. Cantabrius rolled up the sleeves of his tunic, raised his hands to the sky, repeated the invocation to the gods and then fell silent.
A third trumpet blast echoed through the arena.
The audience stood up and the first of the gladiators, a left-handed secutor, began to run towards the cross-shaped ditch, positioning himself beside the pole to which the unconscious woman was chained. He wore an oval helmet with small eye slits and in his left hand held a sword while in his right he held a heavy rectangular shield.
Then it was the second gladiator’s turn to go towards the centre of the arena. He was almost twice as tall as the colleague who had preceded him and moved more slowly as he went to take his position near the male prisoner farthest from Jago. Like all dimachaeri, his equipment was very simple and light; he wore no helmet but held two short swords in his hands. His arms were protected by bandages and an armour of hardened fabric. He supported himself on two bare knotty legs like tree trunks and defended only by bronze greaves.
The third gladiator went to position himself in front of the other prisoner. An unpretentious paegniarius, his slender body and narrow shoulders made his equipment – composed of a short whip and a wooden shield that the man dragged more as if it were a burden than a means of defence – seem even poorer.
Soon, however, Jago realised that the prisoner next to him had not been the most unfortunate of the group: the gladiator who had chosen him was much shorter than all the others. His legs were protected by high greaves similar to those of a thraex and he held a long Hispanic sword with a particularly sharp blade, which ended in a narrow point like that of a dagger. Jago’s gladiator wore no protection on his body and showed the public a chest covered only by an incredible amount of black hair. He looked around him, moving his head very slowly as though wanting to fix every detail of the arena in his memory, and then he donned the helmet he had until then been holding under his armpit, upon which were numerous figures in relief and a high white crest made of ostrich feathers. The helmet, however, lacked any kind of opening. Like all the andabatae, the gladiator chosen to defend the Lusitanian boy would be fighting blind.
When the four gladiators settled at the ends of the ditch, two men on horseback emerged from the side exits and burst into the arena. Instead of swords they held long brushes made of feathers tied with rope to a wooden rod. Attached to their saddles by means of a hook was a copper bucket that overflowed with a thick, reddish liquid. The two attendants soaked the feathers in the buckets and quickly rode by all the prisoners, daubing them and the rags they wore with the stinking scarlet liquid. Jago looked at his arms in bewilderment.
“It’s fermented ox blood,” his gladiator explained without turning his head, “I can smell it from here.”
“Why?” The boy had never stopped shaking and a trickle of urine now ran down his leg.
“It serves to attract hungry animals. This way they will ignore us and immediately attack you. They do it to make the show more… spectacular.”
The trumpeters raised their horns to their mouths and the governor stood up. The audience gazed at him while the musical instruments began to sound, creating a monotonous and rhythmic rhythm. A group of trumpeters began to pour in from entrances of the upper stands and arranged themselves in a long crescent-shaped line above the heads of the spectators seated up there in order to be able to see the pulvinar. While their colleagues continued to mark out the rhythm with horn blasts, they raised their instruments to their mouths. The trumpet was the preferred instrument of the army and often had the task of setting the rhythms of battle and the movements of the troops. Its harsh, hoarse voice echoed in the nightmares of Rome’s opponents and was the defining symbol of any kind of battle. When the gladiators heard its music, they knew that fate had declared the challenge to their lives open.
The sun glistening for a moment on their elongated forms, thirty trumpets rose to the sky, and the gentle African breeze seemed almost to hesitate in fear for a moment. The governor raised his right hand again and the clinking of his sparkling bracelets was the only sound.
Then the arm dropped slowly and one by one, in succession, the trumpeters began to play their unmistakable melody until they produced a terrifying concert of breath and metal that had the nearest spectators covering their ears with their hands. The amphitheatre seemed to tremble as if shaken by an earthquake while the sound echoed deafeningly through the stands.
The governor sat down and for a long moment there was silence.
The wind blew again, playing over the gladiators in the arena.
A dull noise accompanied the movement of the gratings which, via a mechanism of ropes and weights, opened wide on the entrances arranged along the elliptical flank of the arena.
From within came a noise, which grew louder and increasingly threatening. Gradually, it turned into a hissing, as though hundreds of stone chips were falling simultaneously onto some crystalline surface, before finally the indistinct sound became a concert of roars accompanied by the pattering of dozens of paws. The carceres of the animals had been opened.
The left-handed secutor looked at the woman slumped on the ground. “Get up, or you’ll be the first to die.” Not receiving an answer, he went over and grabbed her hair. “Did you hear me?” he shouted, looking her in the face. The glassy gaze with which she looked back at him made realise that, whatever happened, he would not be leaving the arena alive.
At that moment, a swarm of white tigers spewed out into the amphitheatre.
Jago had never seen animals like them. They were beasts of incredible beauty and agility, and legend had it that they didn’t like to play with their prey: when they struck, it was to kill. He had heard about them from his mother in stories which were meant to teach him that as long as the village community protected him, his life would never be at risk despite the dangers of the outside world. Then the soldiers of Rome had arrived and now he found himself at the centre of a gigantic sandpit and at the mercy of his worst nightmares.
There were about ten of them. Mighty, haughty and proud they came out of their shelters at a run, but once in the sunlight they slowed down and walked with a measured step, the sunlight glinting off their snow-coloured fur and the glistening golden sand, as though aware of the public’s admiration. They looked like white shadows – flagbearers of death.
“Let’s try to work together,” Jago’s gladiator said. The others looked at him without replying while, accompanied by an astonished silence, the beasts continued to advance. The public had filled every inch of the amphitheatre, and you could even see people leaning on the colonnades, willing to stand all day in the hot sun so as not to miss the show.
Before the contest could begin, though, the gladiators in the arena were distracted by movements in the stands. Someone was taking their seat. A Roman officer, accompanied by an assistant in civilian clothes, appeared from the stairs leading to the governor’s stage. The games’ sponsor quickly stood up.
“Prefect, we had been awaiting your arrival.”
The soldier nodded to the governor. His anatomical cuirass of hardened linen absorbed the rays of the sun, seeming almost to feed on their energy and the simple helmet which covered his head shaded two eyes which betrayed no emotion. His assistant, a bald man in a salmon-coloured robe, motioned for him to sit down but the officer shook his head and pointed something out to his companion. The man looked into the arena, nodded and turned to the governor. There was an exchange of glances and a nod of understanding.
The prefect threw aside the red cloak that fell over his shoulders and sat down next to the governor, sighing as the beasts began their dance of death.
*
The tiger spread its nostrils and opened its jaws, from which came a fierce roar. It advanced at a slow trot and then suddenly accelerated and set off towards the woman. The easiest prey. The paegniarius checked that the other animals were still far away and then jumped into the cross-shaped ditch, cracking his whip. The leather tongue caught one of the tiger’s legs before it leaped, sending it crashing sideways, and the secutor jumped out of the way to avoid it falling on top of him. The tiger at his feet had no time to recover from the surprise before a blade had already cut its throat.
“Careful,” the other gladiator warned as he swung his whip.
The secutor turned around just in time to dodge the leap of another of the beasts. The unfortunate animal failed to stop itself and fell into the ditch where the paegniarius’ shield was waiting for it. The blow made it stagger and the whip wrapped around its neck several times as it tried to control its legs. The sword of the black-skinned dimachaerus finished it off.
But then one of the animals noticed the boy and, very slowly manoeuvred its way behind the blind gladiator.
“It’s behind you!” Jago warned him, his eyes wide. “ It’s behind you!”
Breathing deeply, the andabata spun around. “Shut up,” he ordered.
“It’s coming!”
“I told you to shut up.”
The tiger advanced while the crowd in the amphitheatre followed the scene with bated breath. The other gladiators were still busy with the other tigers which had formed a pack, meaning that what was happening at the northern edge of the field had become a duel.
“When I tell you to get out of the way, do as I order,” said the andabata. “But until that moment, try to keep even your heart still.”
“Which way should I move?”
“You don’t have to move. You have to jump as if you had a handful of locusts in your breeches,” the gladiator explained. “But not until I tell you.”
The tiger decided to launch its attack. Jago could already feel the warmth of its breath.
“Keep still,” the gladiator whispered. “Trust me, and keep still.”
The tiger took two more steps forward and then, with a majestic gesture, suddenly leapt four feet off the ground. The gladiator followed its trajectory with his hearing while the boy closed his eyes and instinctively hunched his shoulders in preparation for impact.
The tiger opened its jaws.
“Now!”
Stretching out his arms to increase his momentum, Jago hurled himself to one side, making the chain that held him tied to the pole stretch out as taught as a spear shaft. Surprised by the movement, the tiger was unable to change the course of its leap and ended up on top of the gladiator, who was waiting for it with his legs spread out and his sword pointing upwards.
When the animal landed, the gladiator seemed to almost embrace it. He let himself fall backwards, absorbing all the feline’s weight on his chest. The impact caused the prisoners’ chains to rattle. Man and beast were still for a few moments. Then the gladiator pushed away the corpse of the animal and emerged again before the crowd. The applause that rose from the stands of the amphitheatre sounded like a sudden downpour of rain in the fields.
The andabata staggered but managed to get to his feet.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” the child replied.
“What about the others?”
Jago looked at the other gladiators. “They’ve killed almost all the tigers. The one with the dark skin is fighting against the last one while the others are back near their prisoners.”
“Count the corpses of the tigers. Can you do it?”
“Yes, I think so. There are … eight.”
“Then it’s not the last one.”
In that moment, the claws sank into his back. Sharp, thin daggers that penetrated his flesh in a radial pattern, making the gladiator scream in pain and drop his sword. The beast was upon him and before the other fighters could rush over to help, it had bitten clean through his neck. The andabata’s head still between its teeth, the tiger advanced towards the child then dropped its trophy, which rolled to a stop in front of the pole where Jago was tied. The child closed his eyes.
At that moment he heard a noise like a meowing carried in the wind of a storm cloud, and when he raised his head, the dimachaerus was straddling the corpse of the last tiger. His two swords had severed its head which was now attached to the rest of its body only by a thin strip of muscle.
“Now we’re even,” he said, pushing the carcass aside.
The three surviving gladiators moved until they were shoulder to shoulder right at the point where the two ditches intersected each other. The tigers were all dead and the air was heavy with the smell of freshly spilled blood.
“That went well,” said the dark-skinned gladiator.
“But we’re only just getting started,” says the paegniarius. The gates all opened simultaneously and from a cloud of dust and sand three majestic lions emerged. After having scrutinised the gladiators for a moment, what must have been the leader of the pack walked over to one of the two male prisoners and with a quick movement tore off one of his legs with its fangs. The man screamed in agony and then passed out, and was thus spared the torment of seeing another of the three lions finish off the work its companion had begun, dissecting the victim with its sharp teeth.
“My prisoner,” said the paegniarius before a swarm of arrows from the arena began to rain down on him. He raised his shield and the tips of the darts sank into the wood with a thud. On the terraces the Roman officer who had arrived last made a peremptory gesture which was received with a nod by the governor. The archers stopped firing at the gladiators and lowered their bows.
The three lions slowly began to surround the other chained prisoner, who stood staring at them, his eyes were wide with terror.
“Please,” he pleaded to the gladiators who looked at him impassively.
“I can never resist when they beg,” said the secutor. He picked up the sword of the beheaded gladiator and threw it at the prisoner. The razor-sharp blade entered the man’s flesh as if it were butter and the body slumped to the ground dead.
“That will keep them busy for a while.”
“They’ve changed the rules. I don’t think they care about us defending the prisoners anymore. Shall we wait for them to eat the boy too?” asked the paegniarius, cracking his whip. “They’d be less hungry and more sluggish.”
“We’d better keep him alive. We don’t know what the next course of this banquet is going to be.”
“I don’t care what they want up there. I’m not changing my strategy: I’ll kill anything that comes between me and the way out of this arena,” said the dimachaerus, spinning his two swords.
The paegniarius nodded. “That sounds like a reasonable idea to me.”
He approached the lions and whistled. The closest one, still chewing on a hand, raised its head absently. The gladiator made a meowing noise to attract its attention, and that it was all it took to make it leave the rest of the group. A sudden crack of the whip blocked both its hind limbs. The lion looked at its paws with surprise and almost roared with annoyance when the dimachaerus slipped one of the swords into its neck.
The paegniarius advanced towards the ditch, snapping the leather tongue on the sand. “Come on, my beauties – come over to this side.”
The plan he had in mind was to push the animals towards the ditch, his reasoning being that it might be helpful to face the confrontation from a vantage point. Unfortunately, the gladiator didn’t notice the open hatch behind him. He put his foot down badly, slipped and slammed his head on the edge. The two beasts divided up the gladiator’s carcass and then strolled around the perimeter of the amphitheatre directly beneath the stands, almost as though performing for the audience. This gave the survivors precious time to organise.
“We must free him from those chains,” said the dark-skinned gladiator to the secutor. “We cannot protect him if he’s stuck at the centre of the arena.”
“So you weren’t joking before, then – you really do care about the fate of a prisoner. Didn’t you see what happened before? They won’t kill you if they tear him to pieces.”
“But he’s a child.”
The secutor shrugged. “We all were once. But we’ll all end up the same way.”
The two lions played a bit with fresh meat while from some of the more fearless spectators in the nearest stands leaned out over the balustrade to experience the thrill of being close to them.
Sated with blood, one of the lions licked its whiskers and turned its attention to the movement in the centre of the arena.
“Here comes one,” said the secutor, watching the animal’s movements through the fissured in his helmet. “If he goes for the boy we’re in luck. We take it from behind and kill it while it’s mauling him.”
The other gladiator’s only reply was a grimace of disgust.
But the lion was apparently interested in more mature meat.
“Come to me, damn you,” said the dimachaerus.
“Didn’t you want to protect the boy?” laughed the secutor nervously. “Well here’s your chance!”
But the lion changed its mind again, and this time its companion followed suit.
The dimachaerus did not move.
“You bastard.” It was the last word that the left-handed secutor managed to utter. The lion at his back swiped at him with its paw, slashing through his spine, while the other plunged its fangs into his neck.
The gladiator’s body arched back like a reed shaken by the wind while his blood sprayed out, staining the golden coat of the animals that were tearing it to pieces.
The dimachaerus ran towards the boy. He walked around the pole a couple of times and then grabbed at the chain. “We need to free you of this,” he said.
Jago moved with difficulty. He was soaked in his own urine and the bile he had vomited up. He had stopped trembling, but only because his terrified muscles had become as tense as bundles of wood.
The gladiator pulled at the stake several times but without success.
“We’d need a hammer. But where am I going to find a hammer? Or something to break the pole so we could pull off the chain.”
At that moment fate came to his aid, though not in the way he would have expected.
All the entrances to the animal’s cages were wide open except for one. The largest and tallest of all, which was at the far end of the elliptical arena. And at that moment it began to open.
A strange noise came from inside; something very like the sound of a trumpet, but more high-pitched and piercing.
The two lions froze with terror, and a moment later the first began to slowly retreat while the second fled to take refuge at the opposite end of the arena. The gladiator moved closer to the pole to which Jago was chained. What could frighten two lions of that size? What could be dangerous enough to make them abandon a succulent meal?
Standing at least ten feet tall, the elephant burst into the arena with its trunk raised to the heavens, its trumpeting echoing through the amphitheatre like the roar of an erupting volcano. A powerful, intimidating sound. And in that moment, the lion which had decided not to flee realised that it had made the wrong decision.
The elephant seized it in its trunk, lifting it from the ground like a bale of straw and then flinging the creature into the stands at the height of the second row of seats, not far from the pulvinar. The governor gave a start and jumped to his feet instinctively as the lion flew before his eyes like a catapult projectile before crashing into the spectators, crushing half a dozen of them. The soldiers rushed to the scene but only to find that the lion had been killed by the impact, taking with it a couple of spectators. But the turn the show had taken sent most of the audience rushing back to see what was happening in the arena.
Not yet satisfied, the elephant looked around it and puffed angrily. Its feet seeming almost to want to shatter the earth beneath them, it set off towards the surviving lion, which had flattened itself against the ground like a lizard and was moving nervously about in a corner of the arena, staring wide-eyed at the colossus that was now charging at it.
The first assault failed. The lion jumped out of the way and the elephant’s momentum was such that it was unable to stop in time and crashed with all of its weight into the wooden palisades that supported the tiers closest to the circus field. A portion of the corner box gave way and half a dozen spectators found themselves lying on the sand, but the elephant didn’t even look at them. The failure of its attack seemed to have angered it even more, and its small eyes blazed with fury. Its target remained the last lion.
It turned about with impressive speed and trumpeted again. The sound seemed to hypnotise the lion which, as the elephant ran towards it, appeared almost as if were attached to the ground. It flattened itself even lower, but not low enough to be able to pass under the elephant’s feet which slammed into it like enormous battering rams. The lion roared in agony, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of its bones being shattered.
Its bloodlust momentarily sated, the elephant stopped. But only until the smell of humans reached its nostrils.
“Stretch the chain as far as you can,” said the surviving gladiator, pointing Jago to a point away from the pole where he was tied.
“How?”
“Just do it. And get as far away from the pole as you can.”
With hands that were covered with dust and sweat, Jago picked up the chain and took ten steps backward until it was stretched out as far as it would go.
“Good. Now stay there.”
The dimachaerus stood with his shoulders against the pole, facing the elephant and taunting it by simultaneously waving his two swords.
The gigantic beast charged.
The gladiator breathed as if trying to keep the movements of his body in time with the approach of his adversary.
“Keep still,” he repeated to the boy.
The elephant came at them like a wave about to break against the keel of a ship during a storm.
At the last moment the gladiator threw himself between the animal’s feet with his hands over his head in an instinctively defensive gesture and an instant later the elephant slammed into Jago’s pole. The sturdy wooden trunk flew out of the ground like a twig and the elephant dragged it for a few steps under its feet, pulling the little boy who was attached to the chain along with it. Jago felt the dust and sand scratching his face while something that felt like a swarm of stinging wasps forced its way into his eyes. He shouted and struggled but finally the chain broke away from the pole.
The boy knelt and put his hands to his face, but before he had time to complain a firm grip lifted him from the ground and dragged him away.
The dimachaerus dropped him in a corner like a sack.
Jago blinked hard. Each movement he made sent a jabbing pain through for his muscles. He slowly raised both hands, which were still chained together, to indicate something behind the gladiator. The dimachaerus turned around and, because instinct never distinguishes between the useful and the useless, saved the child’s life instead of his own, giving Jago a shove that sent him crashing into the balustrade at the wall of the arena while the gladiator was mown down by the running elephant. The beast raced on without stopping, dragging the man’s body between its legs, and it was this that proved fatal to it. It stumbled over its own prey and fell forward, slamming its muzzle violently into the ground, then turned over with its belly in the air and swung there for a few moments, one of its hind legs bent at a right angle, then tried to get up with its front legs before exhaustedly letting itself collapse to the side.
Jago swallowed hard and stood up. Dragging the chain behind him, he marched slowly over towards the wounded animal. As he passed by the body of the dimachaerus, he snatched one of the man’s swords from his dead hand, then sniffed and continued to advance with fury in his eyes. The elephant raised its head and met the gaze of the child, who continued to approach amidst the surreal silence. Jago walked around the prone elephant and stood behind his reclining head. The animal’s eyes, which had never stopped watching his movements, closed. A sign of surrender.
The child raised his sword and began to tremble again. He gritted his teeth, then with a liberating cry plunged the blade into the elephant’s neck. Continuing to shout, the child thrust it into the animal’s flesh again and again, only stopping when his hands were so slippery with the creature’s blood that he lost his grip on the weapon.
In the pulvinar the man dressed in orange approached the prefect.
“So?”
The Roman officer shook his head.
“Should we continue?”
The prefect nodded.
“Do you really want to? Wasn’t this enough?”
The officer opened his right hand and scanned the small black gem he had been clutching since the start of the games. Then he closed his five fingers upon it and returned to his thoughts.
*
Pulled by a frightened horse, the cart entered the arena from the furthest entrance. The creature dragged its burden around randomly, its wheels bumping several times until eventually the harness came loose, making the cart sway dangerously and throwing its load down onto the sand.
Jago was tired of this performance. He just wanted to get it over with, and hoped he wouldn’t have to suffer too much. Through eyes half-blinded by the sand, he scanned the steps of the amphitheatre, looking in vain for a friendly face or an expression of pity or of commiseration. But those people were only waiting for him to die, and trying to remember every detail so that they would be able to talk about it that evening with friends over a goblet of watered wine.
A gust of wind opened one of the bundles which had fallen from the cart and Jago saw a hand. Small, tapered and withered like a branch that had fought against fire. He recognised it.
It was the hand that had accompanied him into the dark to defend him from fear. That had comforted him when the terror screamed in his ears and rasped on the grates of his cell. They had brought his mother’s body so that he could see her agony.
The little Lusitanian raised his hands to his mouth to stifle a sob and swallowed a mouthful of boiling dust. The dried wounds on that youthful face had become furrows and the trembling of his limbs was no longer a manifestation of physical suffering: it was now a conditioned reflex of muscles and nerves.
The sun was at its zenith, and the dry air was as hot as a furnace, and filled .with the sweet smell of carcasses and corpses. But in spite of that, Jago was cold and the chains on his wrists weighed upon him like boulders of marble. He stood up and walked over to the cart. The other bundle also contained a corpse. It was that of Nesto.
A day of my life in exchange for a day of his.
The crowd continued to shout, but even though their voices were far away, to his ears their cries were as deafening as hammer blows upon bronze panels and the noise made his head spin.
When he approached his mother ‘s body he lost his balance and found himself almost embracing her corpse. The pitiful sheet that covered it was blown aside again, and this time it was her face that showed itself to the light. Jago felt his stomach clench, and warm tears slowly began to fall down his face, stinging as they touched his open wounds.
He was startled by a sudden roar. Jago wiped his eyes with his forearm and then turned in annoyance towards the point of the arena at which the crowd, which was now on its feet, was staring.
The bear had just emerged from one of the cells and was now standing upright on its hind legs, its head touching the bottom of the grille, to smell the air. It was the most powerful and threatening creature that Jago had ever seen in his life, and when it opened his jaws again to give another of its roars, the boy saw the sinister glimmer its long sharp teeth, curved like birds’ beaks. The weapons that would cause his death.
Still weeping, Jago got down on all fours while the bear began to move towards the centre of the arena. It could smell the fear coming from two different directions and took a moment to choose between the horse and the human. But in the end, it chose not to complicate its life too much. At least not at first. It threw itself on the woman’s body, bit down on the hand that emerged from beneath the pitiful shroud and pulled. The body gave off a harsh, intense odour, and the beast opened its nostrils wide to enjoy it. It bit down harder and with a sudden crunch, severed the hand, then stood up on its hind legs and raised its snout to the sky, displaying the delicious morsel to the audience. Then, almost defiantly, it turned to Jago.
“End… vell… ous.” The child breathed in through his nose as he crooned. “End… vell… ous.”
The bear chewed slowly and swallowed its repast.
“Deus… sanctus… praestantissimus.”
Jago lifted his head and cast a glance at his new adversary. Flickers of amber darkened the blue of his large, wide-open eyes.
“Succellos… Cernunnos.”
From the clear sky, a sudden flash of light, like the blade of Zeus’s sword piercing the clouds, fell on the horse. The animal did not fall to the ground, though: it stood there motionless in an attitude of shock, an ebony sculpture of terror.
The public howled in surprise and the bear peered about itself, annoyed by the noise.
On the terrace, the Roman officer suddenly jumped to his feet. He made a movement with his hand and with a grimace, his aide nodded. They both looked back to the arena.
Jago pulled himself to his knees and then, with a painful effort, got to his feet.
“End… vell… ous…”
His eyes glowing in the pasty yellow light he stared challengingly at the bear.
How dare you disturb Endovelicus, human?
The bear was getting to its feet. Jago backed away. Ruffling its fur and giving a roar that moved the air like a gust of wind, the beast shook itself and then turned around and headed for the wagon.
The horse tried to free itself but in its fear the reins had become snagged on the wheels. The bear attacked it, knocking it to the ground with one claw.
You? You want to make a bargain with me? Why should I lower myself so?
The audience roared. They were all waiting for the confrontation with the child.
Jago opened his arms and closed his eyes.
True, you hate these people almost as much as I. They have exterminated the people who worshipped me and this makes them detestable to me. But what do you offer me in return?
When the bear had eaten a third of the woman’s body, it remembered the only living human prey still present in the arena and turned its body completely around, stretching out a paw at the boy.
A day of your life? And what would I do with that? I am no half-breed, your energy cannot satisfy me.
The claws swept through the air and Jago arched back instinctively and fell onto his back. He lay there looking up at the sky, almost unable to breathe, and the bear’s gigantic head loomed once again into his field of vision. The animal towered over him, trying to decide the best way to kill him. It opened its jaws and lowered its head to strike. The boy waited with open arms.
And then there is something about those like you that irks me. I cannot abide that your mortal eyes see gods and humans equally.
The bear’s fangs were a few inches from Jago’s face.
That could be the object of our pact. That seems fair, in exchange for your life. But you must decide now.
The bear froze, then suddenly seemed almost to dissolve into a cloud of reddish particles that shot apart with centrifugal force, splattering down onto the golden sand of the arena like crimson rain.
Jago opened his mouth but suddenly felt a piercing pain behind his eyes as though someone had stuck two red-hot embers into them and, not content with that, had decided to twist them as though trying to dig a hole. His heart beat more slowly and his lungs slowed the pace of his breathing. The boy’s body arched and fell like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Jago tried to reopen his eyelids but they were as hard as iron. He tried and tried several times but they seemed to be sewn together. Then he brought his hands to his face and tried again with his fingers, but his fingertips found only the gelatinous surface of the eyes themselves.
His eyes were open but Jago could not see.
A breath of icy air blew through the arena and dust devils rose from the sand on the ground. To Jago, who was now the only survivor of the entire day of games, the eyes of the audience upon him felt like knife blades in his flesh. It was a feeling he had never experienced before: things had a… taste that made them perceptible even without the use of eyes.
He wept and cried out. The crowd rose to its feet. And the boy collapsed into darkness.
*
The man in the orange robe sought an answer in the prefect’s eyes. “So?” Only then did he notice that the officer looked profoundly moved. He was staring at the black stone that lay in the folds of his hand as if he were hypnotised.
“Is it really him? Can he do it?” insisted the other, putting a hand on his shoulder.
The prefect closed his fist then got up and pointed to the arena.
His companion understood and headed for the stairways that gave access to the tunnels.
*
When Jago opened his eyes he felt a sense of loss. Visions against a backdrop of a black velvet cloth. They were not images but, inexplicably, he could see them.
A tall, thin man with a hairless head, wrapped in a tunic of the same colour as the lobsters that they caught in the seas of his homeland, loomed over him and a hand invited him to get up…
“Come, boy. Lean on me.”