“Lucius I really do love you.” Veracunda said as they walked along a narrow alley on their way from the ampitheatreii to the inn where they were lodging. She felt warm and protected walking by the side of this giant of a man.
“I feel the same way about you.” Lucius replied. Smiling to himself, he was sure that this lithe bodied little actress was going to give herself to him. His comrades, the other gladiators of his familiaiii had exchanged many nudges and winks when he had begun to talk to the new girl with long dark hair.
The amphitheatres of Britannica were too small to justify their own gladiators, clowns, and other performers. For much of the time the army used the ampitheatres as training areas to conduct weapons drills. Itinerant troupes of gladiators, performers, beastmen and the animals travelled a circuit from one venue to another, as they travelled together it was inevitable that liaisons should develop.
Septimus the wily manager and owner of the performers tragoedus and comoedus, recognising the drives of human nature neither encouraged nor discouraged such relationships. However he had one rule, any actress who got pregnant would be aborted. It was not that he was an especially cruel master, he was simply a prudent businessman good actresses took him time to train, and he could not afford to loose his investment. Although Veracunda had only recently become a member of the troupe, she already knew of the rule, her former master Gropius who was Septimus’s brother had the same rule.
At the inn they ate a light meal and drank some wine. The innkeeper Graccius an old gladiator who treated them as honoured guests, as Lucius was entertaining a lady he personally served their table. The inn was a shrine to the games, the walls decorated with murals of gladiatorial fight scenes, man against man, man against women, women against women and men against beasts. In a niche stood an altar to Nemesis.iv The centre piece of this gladiatorial décor was taken by Graccius’s Rudisv, the wooden gladius he had been given on his liberty and retirement.
Lucius pointed at the Rudis. “Two more fights and I will get mine.”vi
“Get what?” Asked Verecunda, she had been gazing into this handsome giant’s sparkling blue eyes. Even the pale scar that ran along his jawbone only served to accentuate his rugged handsomeness.
“My Rudis! Two more fights and I will have fulfilled my term of servitude, I will be a libertus. Oh I have to serve Antonius Severus my master, the lanistavii as a doctoreviii, but there will be no more real fights, I’ll only be training others in the gladiator’s skills.” The muscles of his forearm rippled as he lifted the wine goblet to his lips.
“So after you have fought your two fights I’ll never see you again?” She asked, thinking – I wonder if he realises he’ll be lucky to survive those fights. She had seen it before, the gladiator had become valueless to the lanista. If one was required to die, the lanista would try to ensure that it would be him.
“I wanted to talk about that.”
“Oh!”
“After I am freed would you marry me? I have money saved, we could get an inn like this, there’s good money to be made running an inn.”ix
The romantic fool, he really is in love with me. But what does he mean by purchase. “You may be free, but I shall not be. Don’t forget I am the property of Septimus.”
“I could purchase you from Septimus.”
“If he sells me to you, then I shall be your slave, I am obedient I shall do as you command.”
He gave the answer she had hoped he would. “No I will not purchase you to be my slave – I will purchase your manumissionx. I shall pay Septimus to free you, you will never belong to me that way. You will be a Libertina!”
“If you do that, I will marry you and then you will still be my master.”xi
“I have yet to meet an obedient wife.”
She laughed, both knew gladiators accumulated the bulk of their fortune by servicing bored matronae, the wives of merchants, bureaucrats and senior army officersxii. Their husbands were the men who often patronised actresses. “Nor I a faithful husband.” She said dryly.
“Veracunda I promise you, when you are my wife I shall be that exception.”
The man is serious. “And I a virtuous wife to my faithful husband.” She knew it was inevitable that having exchanged these pledges he would expect her to sleep with him. It was not that she doubted his sincerity, but she doubted his ability to survive those last two engagements in the arena. In her head she could hear the crowd chanting, “habet, hoc habet!”xiii The roar of approval as his blood drained onto the sand. His body dragged away by Charronxiv and his assistants through the Porta Libertinasxv. At least he would not be fed to the beasts, he had the money to pay for a proper funeral.
A group of gladiators and bestariixvi gave a drunken roar, when together they rose from the table and walked to the side door. Climbing the steep stairway to his chamber, she was glad to note that he was still sure footed.
The attic chamber was cramped, he could not even stand upright. She went to the bed and under a pillow tucked the small saccusxvii she always carried. The bed was not the most luxurious bed she had slept in, nor was it the meanest. “The chamber is a bit small but at least the bed coverings are clean.”
“Antonius does not pay for our lodgings, he would have us lie by the beasts.”
“Yet you can afford a chamber to yourself – you must have made a lot of money.”
“I win a fight, I get a purse. I have won a lot of fights.”
He takes care not to mention the gifts he has received from grateful rich matronae. She began to lift her tunica. “Let me.” He said. He was standing behind her, he took hold of the coarse garment’s hem. Slowly he lifted the garment, feasting his eyes upon her body as it was gradually revealed. Her legs he noted were straight and pleasingly shaped. Her buttocks rounded and firm. Her back arched as she lifted her arms allowing him to remove the garment.
Clad only in pants and breastband, she turned to face him. “My turn.” She lifted his tunic pulling it over his head, to reveal his muscular and scarred body. One jagged scar ran across his right ribs. “You’ve won every fight?”
“Well no not quite every fight, but I have always fought well. When I got this I was entered missus that day – the crowd liked my style, my life was spared by the turn of their thumbs.”
She trailed her fingers across his rippling chest muscles that gleamed in the lamp-light. “The lamplight shines on your muscles like the silvery path of the moonlight on windblown water.”
“That’s the oil.”
“Do you always oil your body.”
“After we fight we bathe, then the unctoriaxviii gives us a massage, as he does so he oils our bodies. – It’s the gladiator’s way.”
“It makes your body very sexy.”
“It is meant to enhance our looks.”
Her eyes returned to the scar. “Until your body is marred by the sword.”