On a street of beaten earth outside the forum of Volos, three boys were scuffling over a jute rope spliced to a couple of small, brass weights taken from a scale.
The rope flew in an arc as it slipped off their hands.
Moon Xeator thrust forward with his sword in sheath and caught the rope on the hilt before the brass weights could hit a peddler on his pate. He whirled to the boys across the street.
They took to their heels, dipping headlong into a thronging crowd, and disappeared into a warren of mud bricks.
All the youth, the energy, the angst that found no outlet, Xeator mused on how to channel them to his favor. Frowning at the brass weights, he closed his eyes. Dust of the past rose into shapes of men like wraiths.
Well over fifteen years ago, when he was about the same age as those boys and still known by the name Cato Duilius Cladius, on a balmy day like this back in Pethens, he and Julius Pompeius Gaius were pitted against each other in a game of catching the flag.
At each of two diagonal corners planted a red and a blue flag. Next to which, along the width of the field, two prison areas were circled out with rattan. He glimpsed his opponents over the shoulder and gathered his teammates, rounding them by the blue flag. If they were to win, they must pluck the red from across the field and return to their side. If the snatcher got caught before crossing the halfway line, he would be consigned to the prison area, and the flag returned to their opponents.
"Marius," he said to a stout boy, broader and taller than average, with shoulder-length dark coils framing a square face. "You're the fastest. Julius knows this. He and his team will be watching you closely. So, we'll have you as our gambit to take out Julius. Once he's tagged and out, his team won't even know where to stand. That's when we go for their flag," he paused, regarding his mates in turn. "Now, what do we play for?"
"For the win!" the boys chanted in chorus.
"And what do we keep?"
"Our word!"
"Good. On your marks!"
At the break of a whistle, Septimius and Tiberius flanked and covered Marius, who was bolting straight at Julius' red. As Julius ignored the cover as predicted and went right after Marius, he and Cyprian skirted to either side of the field while Septimius and Tiberius retreated to defense and held off their counterparts.
Once having Marius tagged and prisoned, Julius nodded at his two teammates on defense, assigning them to intercept him and Cyprian. Swooping down along the diagonal line across the field, Julius sprinted for their blue. His brown curls flopped like tumbleweed while his muscles bulged on his long legs shifting as if a cheetah behind his prey.
"Veni, vidi, vici!" Julius blustered, plucking the flag off the ground as he whirled to run for the base, his cerulean eyes widened.
Without engaging the defense, Cato had bolted back as soon as he saw Julius approach. He made up for his speed by running a perpendicular that shortened the distance. Holding out an elbow, he knocked Julius to the ground.
"Tagged!" he snarled, bestriding Julius as he snatched the flag and stabbed the pole in the grass. "Veni, vidi, vici, huh?" Before he could gloat more, however, Father's voice rose from behind, calling him off.
He begrudged his compliance and rose to his feet, while Julius made an obeisance to Father.
"You've always fought against each other," said Father, ruffling Julius' brown curls. "That's enough. Let's tweak the rules a little." He winked, then turned to his adjutant, who brought forward an exotic piece of weapon at the gesture. Said to be made by Turisian horsemen from the north, it had two iron balls latched to a metal chain. They called it a meteor hammer.
Xeator looked down at the brass weights on the jute rope he had confiscated just now. His hand squeezed.
Father's voice continued in his head.
"Any idea how to fight this?"
Julius shot him a sidelong glance.
He narrowed his eyes, tilting his mouth to a half smile. "Well, the weight could crush any wooden shield, and swords seem even more useless. You scared, Julius?" he teased.
Julius snorted in reply.
"It's usually the winner who chooses, but I'll let you have it today." he continued, affecting a tone of magnanimity. "Offensive or defensive?"
"Not so fast, Cato," Father cut in and ordered a brawny soldier to come forward. "This is Longinus," he introduced. "And he'll be wielding the meteor hammer today. Whoever is the first to disarm Longinus, wins."
So, there they were. Two boys – one twelve, the other fourteen – were left alone with a rock of a man. Julius prodded him in the arm with his elbow. "Anything else you haven't boasted about, crow now before we both die."
He broke into a short laugh, as did Julius.
"Remember Father said how we've always fought against each other?" With a sudden change of the subject, he lowered his voice, his gaze narrowing, front teeth scraping on his bottom lip.
Julius nodded.
"And that he wanted to tweak the rules?"
"What do you imply?"
"I think he meant for us to work together on this one." He leaned to Julius' ear and whispered a plan.
Under the scorching afternoon sun, the verdurous sward bobbled, their skin a sheen of sweat. Julius initiated the charge, fending the blow from Longinus with his shield.
Clang.
Julius lurched aside.
He took the chance and leveled at the big man's barrel waist.
Longinus glowered, wheeling around to get him.
Who didn't engage but headed for the hills. Having drawn enough a distance, he glimpsed over his shoulder and espied Longinus hurl the meteor hammer. Chains rattled, crossing the air. He readied his lance while his feet brought him to a halt, whirling as he caught the metal chain on the shaft of the lance. The iron ball swooshed, spiraling down the pole. Aware that he alone couldn't hold Longinus still, he stabbed the spike of the lance in the grass with all his might.
Longinus snarled and launched, while Julius leaped at him from behind, shoveling at the brawny's knee with the top of his cracked shield. As Longinus dropped to the ground with a cry of pain, Julius ringed his right arm around his thick neck and held a dagger to his larynx.
"Veni, vidi, vici!" he growled, his eyes a cerulean glow.
Julius won.
But Father took them both to hunt as a reward. They grilled a stag in the woods at the fall of dusk and scaled a large sycamore for honeycombs in a hive.
"It's easy getting what you want," Father yelled from many feet below while he and Julius approached the hive hanging fat and heavy near the crown of the tree. "Not so much getting away with it. Work together and see how you can watch each other's backs!"
"They're just some stupid bees!" Julius shouted back, his voice taut with pique.
Father chortled. "Useless a fool might be, he could still trip you. It's up to you whether the fool should be a stumbling block or a stepping stone."
Xeator could still feel the warm breeze up at height. Behind his closed lids, the sun was both far and close, shrouding everything above and below the horizon in stripes of gold.
He gulped and gasped. His eyes popped, wide and wet. Something incinerated inside him, burning him alive. He hunched and punched a mud brick fence. A twinge throbbed from his knuckles, reminding him that to dwell on the past was a luxury he couldn't afford. The weights on the jute rope slipped out his other hand and dangled from the crook of his thumb. He raised his arm, looking at the toy meant as a weapon, or perhaps the other way.
Now, what do I do with these?
Glancing around, he saw a cypress behind the hovels and tossed the rope to a high branch near the crown.
If those boys ever come back and try to get it from there, he thought wistfully, perhaps they, too, will learn to work together.
Turning back to the road, he held up his hood and headed to the central square, where men were milling about for the news from the capital. Xeator stood among them, his head low, wisps of hair draggled before his eyes.
Stout and spry, the newsman of Volos looked quite comical. Xeator noted that his silver hair was thinning from the top, the brooch of a laurel wreath pinned to a red toga on his broad chest. His jowls wobbled, sagging about his neck. His hooded eyes, small but piercing, roamed the crowds in tune with the cadence of his voice.
"Citizens of Renania," the newsman thundered, pumping an arm as he put a leg up on a stump and announced the words from Pethens. "The great Commander General, Julius Pompeius Gaius has brought us exhilarating news, that the Dam of Uruk has been completed! By far the largest mankind has ever beheld, the architecture dares even the wildest imagination!
"For the last five years, General Julius has endured the forlorn north, keeping safe of our borders, while his father, Lord Triumvir Augustus, put up with the disdainful rebukes of his contemporaries at court. The House Gaius has borne the unbearable so all of us here today can thrive under the Praetorship of Marcus Cornelius Uranus!
"My dear citizens of Renania! Today, let's not forget General Julius! He who stands tall between heaven and earth, and there he declares, Veni, vidi, vici! To Commander General Julius Pompieus Gaius! Hail! Hail!"
The crowds hurrahed in their newfound veneration for the young general they had semi-forgotten. With a pang of guilt for having swept a great man to the periphery of their remembrance, they chanted his name and prayed to the Gods for his health.
Xeator snorted.
Let's turn you into a messiah worthy of the Praetor's attention, Julius.
He whirled, withdrawing himself from the manic crowds, and headed south to the marketplace. Amidst the mooing cows, the neighing horses, the bleating sheep, and the cries of peddlers behind trestle stalls displaying slabs of bloody meat and withered greens, threadbare mendicants thrust their palms covered in dirt and gore at passers-by under the awnings of woven thatch.
Gnawing at his bottom lip, Xeator looked ahead without a stir in his eyes. He pitied the people as much as he needed them. He needed their hate, their jealousy, and their puerile definition of justice to stir Renania upside down.
"Moon!"
A voice called out at him from the cross section joining the high street. He swiveled and saw Felix Nipius bound up to him.
"Thought I might bump into someone at the market," the boy chirped. "You got everything you need?"
"Yep."
"But you got nothing." Scanning him from head to toe, he fished out a fig from a burlap sack slinging over his shoulder and tossed it at Xeator.
Who caught it in one hand. "I've got what I need."
"And what's that?" The boy badgered, hopping from Xeator's left to right as they strolled between the stalls.
"Confirmation."
"What did you confirm?"
That Anthony has done his job in Pethens. Xeator only smiled. He twisted the stem off the fig and bit the fruit in half. Pulp the color of aged wine flensed out, spurting juice that ran in rivulets down his chin. An unbidden taste of boyhood rushed on his palate. "This is nice," he crooned, then, glanced sidelong at Felix. "Thanks!"
The boy waggled an arm.
"Once the tournament starts," Xeator continued, "we won't be able to come and go as freely as we wish. Anything else you want to do, save food?"
Felix scratched his head. "I don't know. I'm actually kind of nervous. It'll be my first real fight. Don't think those outliers will spare me like you did."
"Don't overthink it." Xeator favored the boy with a half-smile. "You aren't going to die, not tomorrow. The tournament is for strutting our stuff, in hopes of getting picked as the Favorite. It's the final in Pethens where things start to get interesting."
"So, what're you saying?"
"Keep count of your scores." Xeator shrugged, sauntering ahead. "If you don't wanna die in the final, withhold your strength and lose a few on purpose so you won't be in it. You won't make much gold that way, true. But what is gold if you haven't got the life to spend it? And speaking of gold, here comes the question again. How do you, Felix, plan to spend yours before tomorrow?" He took another bite of the fig.
"I, um, I," Felix stammered, his face flushing. "I heard guys are going to brothels tonight."
"Sure."
"Are you?"
"I am."
"Can I come along?"
Xeator choked on the fig. "Wait, you've never…?" He frowned as the boy glanced up, those downturned eyes pleading. His slick, ebony hair, cropped close to the skull, gleamed like the pup of a shepherd. Despite all the corded muscles belying his age, he was still a boy, not yet on the cusp of manhood.
Xeator huffed a sigh, reminded of how young Felix really was.
"It's quite a fine establishment where I'm going tonight," he paused, clucking his tongue. "Can you afford it?"
"Why, if you can? I make just as much if not more!" The boy blustered, emanating from his eyes the distinguishable pride of early years that only the years to come would extinguish.
"Fine."
A broad grin returned to the boy's face. He scampered up to Xeator, his burlap sack slipping off his shoulder, dangling from the elbow. "What's the place like? You know the girls there? What're they like, I mean, when you touch them?"
"Pneumatic."
"What does it mean?"
Xeator only chuckled. Regret gnawed at him as he bit the other half of the fig. Among all the possible ways things could go awry tonight, he had just added Felix.