A Voice in the Wind (28 page)

His question surprised and confused her. “He is interested in the religion of my ancestors, my lord.”

“Only in your religion?” he said, dubious. “Nothing else?” He suddenly reached out, caught her chin roughly, and jerked her head up. Seeing the heightened color in her cheeks, he grew angry. “Answer me! Have you become his concubine?”

“
No
, my lord,” she said, blushing painfully. “We talk of my people and my God. Today, he spoke of gladiators and Julia.”

His hand gentled. She looked up at him with dark guileless eyes. Innocent. “He has never touched you?” He let go of her and she lowered her head again.

“Not in the way you mean.”

Angry heat poured through him. “In what way then?”

“He put his hand on my shoulder today. He held my hands and…”

“And?”

“Kissed them, my lord.” She looked up at him. “He said every man needs a friend, but it’s not right that it be me, my lord. I pray you. Talk to your sister, my lord. Encourage her to be kind to her husband. No more than kind, if she so wishes. He is a lonely man. It’s not right that he should have to turn to a slave for companionship.”

“Are you daring to criticize Julia?” Marcus said. He watched Hadassah’s cheeks flame and then go deathly white. He went on. “By your words, she is neglectful of her wifely duties and unkind to her husband.”

“It was not my intention to criticize, my lord. May God do so to me and more also if I lie to you.” She looked up at him beseechingly. “The Lady Julia is unhappy. So, too, is her husband.”

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

“She listens to you.”

“Do you think my speaking with Julia will change anything?”
Less than she might think
. “Finish my feet,” he said tersely and Hadassah did so, her hands shaking now. She dried his feet carefully and strapped on his sandals. He stood up and moved away from her, his emotions roiling.

He didn’t need Hadassah to point out to him that his sister’s marriage was disintegrating, and Julia was doing nothing whatsoever to stop it. That concerned him—but what ate at him even more was the thought of Hadassah spending hours with Claudius in the privacy of the library. She said Flaccus needed a friend. Was that all he needed? Marcus had been telling himself he wanted to set Julia’s marriage aright for the sake of his sister’s happiness. Suddenly, he saw the truth: he wanted it not for his sister, but so that Claudius would leave Hadassah alone—and that stunning realization struck a raw nerve.

Marcus looked back at Hadassah as she gathered up the towel, oil vial, and basin. She was growing more lovely each time he saw her, not that he could see any great physical change in her. She was still too thin, her eyes too large, her mouth too full, her skin too dark. Her hair had grown down to her shoulders, yet to look at her critically, she was still homely. But there was something beautiful about her.

He could see she was shaking badly, and he felt an odd pang of guilt for having frightened her so. She was just a slave. Her feelings shouldn’t matter to him, but they did. They mattered too much. He hated the way Claudius looked at her.

And then, as he watched her and drank in the sensation of her nearness, he was rocked by another realization: he was jealous! By the gods, what a joke. He was jealous over
a slave
. He, a Roman citizen by birth, stood there intrigued by a skinny little Jewess with big dark eyes who shook in fear of him. How Arria would laugh!

The situation was ludicrous, though not uncommon. Antigonus carried on affairs with his slaves—male and female. Marcus thought of Bithia, seeking him in the secret of darkness, warm and eager. No, it was not uncommon to use a slave for convenient sexual gratification.

He watched Hadassah pour the water into the potted palm and then go back to set the empty pitcher in its basin. All he had to do was command her. His heart beat faster. She straightened with the basin and pitcher in her hands, the damp towel draped over her arm. Crossing the room, she put both away in a small cabinet and set the glass vial on top with half a dozen others. She straightened again, the damp towel now in her hand.

Marcus looked down over her slender body, clothed in a brown woolen dress belted by a striped garment that proclaimed her heritage. A Jew. Jews had a ridiculously rigid sense of morality. Virginity until marriage, fidelity until death. Their restraints defied the nature of man, but he could make her break all her laws by a single word. All he had to do was command her and she would have to obey. If she didn’t, he could punish her in whatever way he chose, even unto death if he so desired. He held the power of her life in his hand.

She looked up at him. “Do you wish anything more, my lord?”

Every woman he had ever been with had come to him willingly or sought him out—Bithia, Arria, Fannia, and numerous others before and after them. If he commanded Hadassah, would she melt in his arms or cry copiously that he had defiled her?

He knew. She wasn’t like the others.

“Leave me,” he said tersely.

It didn’t occur to him until he was riding back to Rome that for the first time in his life, he had put another’s feelings above his own.

12

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Atretes was not prepared for the splendor and magnificence of Rome. In the thick forests of Germania he had seen the well-disciplined, seasoned legionnaires in their armor and leather and brass-studded skirts. He had faced the shrewd ruthlessness of the officers. Yet never had he imagined the teeming population of Rome itself, the cacophony of languages, the mass of citizens and foreigners alike descending upon the city like ants, the glistening marble columns and buildings, the tremendous diversity of Rome itself.

The main artery of the Empire, the Appian Way, was engorged with travelers from a dozen regions within the Empire, all clamoring for entrance. Wagons clogged the roadway, pressed as close together as possible, waiting for the ban to lift with sunset and the gates to open. Bato, in the service of the emperor, was at the head of the line. The Roman guards had already examined his papers and looked over his cargo of gladiators. When the gates opened, Atretes could feel the rush of adrenaline as wagons, carts, oxen, and humanity pressed at their backs to get into the city.

The noise and push within the gates of the city sent Atretes’ head spinning. Greeks, Ethiopians, savages from Britain, mustachioed Gauls, peasants from Spain, Egyptians, Cappadocians, and Parthians shoved their way along the crowded thoroughfares. A Roman lounged within a thinly veiled sedan chair borne aloft by four Bithynians. Another carried by Numidians passed by. Arabs in their red-and-white
kaffiyehs
mingled with barbarians from Dacia and Thrace. A Greek cursed a Syrian shopkeeper.

Streets were lined with shops. Wine taverns dotted the streets on both sides, all crowded with patrons. In between, jammed so tightly together they appeared to have common walls, were fruit sellers and booksellers, perfumers and milliners, dyers and florists. Some shouted their wares and services to passersby. A glass-blower drew attention to his shop by performing his art with dramatic flair, while a sandal maker hawked his shoes from atop a crate. A fat woman in a blue toga, followed by two equally fat children in white, entered a jeweler’s shop for more of what already bedecked her hair, neck, arms, and fingers. On the other side of the street, a crowd gathered to watch two hardened legionnaires argue with a leatherworker. One laughed while the other shoved the shopkeeper into a pile of leather goods.

Atretes’ head pounded as he sat chained in the wagon, taking in the city. Amazed, he could only stare in silence. In every direction he looked were buildings: small shops and grander emporiums; squalid tenements and lavish homes; giant marble temples with gleaming white columns, and the smaller tiled and gilded temples, or
fana
, sheltering the devout.

Rome was aflame with color. Massive buildings were constructed with red-and-gray granite and alabaster, and purple-red porphyry from Egypt, black-and-yellow marble from Numidia, green cipollino from Eubold, and the white stones of the Carrara quarries near Luna. Houses built of wood, brick, and whitewashed stucco rose every day. Even the statues were painted in garish colors, some draped with vivid fabrics.

Amidst the grandeur, the stench of the imperial city made Atretes’ head swim and his stomach lurch. He longed for the crisp clean air of his homeland, the scent of pungent pine. He could smell the sweetness of cooking meat mingling with the polluted Tiber and the odious city sewer system, the
Cloaca Maxima
. A woman pitched slops out of a second-story tenement window, barely missing a Greek slave carrying bundles for his mistress. Another pedestrian was less fortunate. Drenched by slops, he stood shouting curses up at the woman, who set her bucket aside and put her basket of clothes on the windowsill. While he continued railing at her, she ignored him and draped several tunics over a wash line.

Atretes longed for the simplicity of his village and the comfort of a log longhouse and cleansing fire. He longed for silence. He longed for privacy.

Men and women of all nationalities gawked at him and the others in the wagon. They made slow progress in the heavy traffic, and there was plenty of time for people to come close, making insulting comments and suggestions. They seemed to find him of particular interest. A man touched him in a way that sent the hair on the back of his neck bristling. He lunged at him, wanting nothing more than to break his neck, but the chains prevented him from doing so. Bato gave an order and several guards moved closer to the wagon to keep admirers back. But that didn’t prevent them from following and calling out lewd propositions.

In Germania, men who lusted for men were drowned in a bog, their perversity thus hidden from the world forever. Ah, but in Rome, they spoke openly of their foul passion, shouting it from the roofs and street corners, and in the streets, as they strutted about proud as peacocks.

Atretes felt a burning contempt in his heart. Rome, reputedly pure and majestic, was a stinking bog of base humanity drowning in the filth of depravity. His hatred deepened and an even fiercer pride rose within him. His people were pure, unpolluted by those they conquered. Rome, on the other hand, embraced and absorbed its vanquished. Rome tolerated every excess, accepted every philosophy, encouraged every abomination. Rome joined itself with every comer.

When the wagon rolled through the gates of the Great School, Atretes felt relief to be in familiar surroundings. It was as though, once through the thick gates and within the high stone walls of the gladiator school, he was at home. It was a disturbing feeling.

There was little difference between this ludus and the ludus in Capua. It possessed a large rectangular building with an open court in the middle, where the men were practicing. Around the court ran a roofed passageway with small rooms opening into it. There was a kitchen, a hospital, an armory, quarters for trainers and guards, a prison with shackles, branding irons, and whips. So, too, would this ludus have a small solitary cell where a man had not the room to sit up or stretch out his legs. The only thing missing was a large graveyard. It was against the law to bury the dead within the walls of Rome.

Even after the gates were closed behind him, he could hear the sounds of the city. It was dark now that the sun had gone down, and torches lit their way. Atretes fought against the despair filling him as he was taken to his quarters. Even if he did escape this place, he would have to make his way through the city, past the city gates and guards. And even if he made it outside of Rome, he was so far from his homeland, he didn’t know how to get back.

He began to understand why each man was searched before entering his cell, and why the guards walked back and forth overhead through the long, dark hours of night. Death began to look like a friend.

Life fell into a pattern again. In the Great School, the food was better and more abundant than under Scorpus Proctor Car-pophorus. Atretes wondered if he would have another equally arrogant and stupid lanista to replace Tharacus.

Bato proved to be a different sort of man from the others Atretes had come across during his bondage. The Ethiopian was intelligent and shrewd. Tougher than Tharacus, he never resorted to mockery, humiliation, or unnecessary physical abuse to gain what he wanted from his trainees. Atretes felt a grudging respect for him, which he rationalized by telling himself Bato was not a Roman and therefore acceptable. He learned by listening to the conversations of others that he shared a commonality with the black man. Bato had been leader of his tribe, the eldest son of a chief who had been slain in battle by a Roman legion.

Beneath Bato’s tutelage, Atretes learned to be as skilled with his left hand as he was with his right. To build muscle, Bato had him use weapons that were twice as heavy as the ones Atretes would use in the arena. Bato put him in bouts with other gladiators who were far more experienced, several of whom had already fought in the arena. Twice, Atretes was wounded in practice fights. Bato never stopped the fight at first blood. He waited until a life hung in the balance before he blocked a killing blow.

Atretes worked harder than the rest. Silent, he listened and watched, studying each man carefully, knowing his life depended on what he learned in this foul place.

Sometimes women came to the ludus—Roman women who found it entertaining to go through the paces of a gladiator. Beneath the watchful eyes of several armed guards, they exercised with the trainees. Dressed in short tunics like the men, they exposed their legs. Atretes looked upon these women with disdain. They were arrogant in their insistence that they were as good as any man, all the while demanding they be pampered.

Atretes’ mother had been a strong woman, capable of entering a battle when necessary. Yet never once had he heard her claim she was better than or even equal to any man, even the least among the tribesmen. Her husband was Hermun, chief of the Chatti, and there was no one to equal him. His mother was sorceress and seer, and no one had equaled her either among all the Chatti. She was considered a goddess in her own right.