Chapter Text
‘Clinton. Clinton? Wake up little bird. Wake…’
“Wake up!”
Jerking beneath a sharp, heavy pressure, Clinton’s hand reached automatically for the gladius that hung on his belt, the short sword that wasn’t there. Panic licked at his spine and for half a moment his hands fisted, ready to do whatever damage he could, but the sandal that had been planted in the center of his chest was already gone, the man looming above him - James Buchannan - scowling and rolling his eyes before turning back to the barred walls of the wagon they rode in.
“We’re here,” he growled, his voice low and rough and barely audible over the cacophony of the market around them.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, Clinton blinked away the last of his dream, shrugged off the quiet, hazy memories of a home and a mother that belonged to a thin, vulnerable boyhood he’d left behind long ago. He didn’t often dream but on those nights he did he always wished he hadn’t, and today he could not afford the distraction.
Shoving to his feet as the wagon bucked and wobbled beneath him, Clinton stepped over the men who slept around him, too many forced into too small a space, curled his fingers around the bars beside the one who’d woken him.
“You ever been to Rome?” he asked, and beside him Buchannan scoffed.
“I was not raised in Italy,” he said, raspy and quiet as ever. The marks across his throat attested to the effort it took for the man to speak, rare as his words were. “This is your world, not mine.”
“Not mine either,” Clinton protested, leaning close to the bars to peer out at the height of the buildings that towered over the streets, the color and movement and noise that assaulted his senses after weeks in the cells and basements of his master’s small, shabby household. “I was born in the south; I’ve never seen the mother-cities.”
Buchannan shrugged, reverting back to silence.
The wagon continued on over rough, cobbled streets, the free world dancing around them from the other side of the bars, reality sitting heavily on their shoulders like the weight of a yoke. For his part Clinton was used to that weight, had known little else in his lifetime. He was still a child when he learned what pain and betrayal were, when his brother, his only living family, sold him into slavery. Sold him for a handful of coins, and knowing Barney, a cup of cheap, rotgut wine.
He'd grown to manhood in the fighting pits, and later in the training rings when he'd shown promise with all manner of weapon. Hard work and harsh punishment had molded him into a block of solid muscle, wind and sun turning his skin gold and tough as leather. Anger and wounded pride made his eyesight sharp, indignity fueling his drive until he had near perfected his technique with any Roman weapon placed into his hand. As a slave he could neither read nor write, but his mind was quick, cunning, and he could often see things before they happened, see the way a man would move or an arrow would fly even before it had been released from the bow.
His mother had liked to say that the gods had blessed him, but here, with the heat of summer and the stench of unwashed men making the air thick, with the buzzing irritation of flies sitting heavy on his shoulders, he felt anything but blessed. The cart they rode in creaked and rocked precariously as Duquesne's aged, sway-backed horses dragged them through the city, towards the training fields and the slaves' barracks, their home for the next week or for as long as they survived. Clinton had been surprised by the Frenchman's announcement that he had been invited to join in the games being held the behest of Emperor Fury – he was a man greatly disliked, for far more reasons than his country of birth. Never before had anyone invited him to participate in matches or spectacles; he'd had to battle and bribe his way into any fight of consequence.
It was worrying, spoke to greater purpose than a simple celebration of the birth of the Emperor's closest friend, the much-lauded General Phillip Coulson. With the country at war the common-people had begun to whisper that the Emperor had started going mad, that this was nothing more than a fevered act of foolishness, but far more were certain that the coming days of dancing, death, and debauchery were a display of confidence, a distraction, something.
Clinton was more inclined to believe the latter.
He wasn't formally educated, knew little of the state of the country or their battles and even less of their politics or their patriarch, but this all looked like more, felt like more and it wore at him, whispered in his ears like ghosts.
"Have you figured it out yet?" he asked, distracted and not expecting a real answer. "Why we're here?"
Beside him, Buchannan didn’t disappoint, just rolled his eyes and made a no move to respond. He was a tight-lipped bastard at the best of times but he'd grown tired of Clinton's fretting early on in their journey and refused to indulge his concerns. To be fair his silence wasn't near the worst thing he could've chosen as a form of retaliation – being confined to a small, rolling prison over the course of four days was enough to try any man's patience, and he was mostly silent anyway. Clinton had never faired well being ignored and craved the shouting and attention of the crowds like some men craved malted liquor, but he'd learned long ago when to leave well enough alone and chose not to press the man any further.
The slaves may not have their weapons with them as they rode, but every one of them knew that there was more than one way to kill a man.
Frowning, unable to shake a heady feeling of unease, Clinton made to turn away but was stopped when Buchannan slammed a hand against his shoulder, forced him back around roughly. He was unashamed that he reacted with violence – as close as he and Buchannan had become in recent years they were still fighters, highly trained killers. They were angry and damaged and horribly, hotly prideful, their sense of self and their sense of manhood stinging with the constant indignity of slavery, and it was as natural as breathing to grab on to Buchannan's wrist, bones grinding together and threatening to snap under his fingers if he only turned them just so...
Buchannan snorted, looked at Clinton amusedly before jerking his chin toward the bars, prompting him to let go and allow himself to be guided back to the wall of the cart, to press his face against the bars and stare with a sudden, overwhelming feeling of dread and awe swelling inside his chest. The Coliseum, a man-made marvel larger than anything he'd ever seen rose high above them as Duquesne's caravan passed beneath it, the slave cart thrown into shadow as the massive structure cut out the sun. Clinton shivered, felt something tickle along his spine as his breath came tight in his chest, and beside him his comrade's silence had turned reverent.
What minds had dreamed this place, what hands had shifted brick and mortar so high it seemed to reach the clouds?
As the cart continued on past the towering structure and into the dank, narrow tunnels that led to the slaves' quarters, the men sprawled in contorted knots behind him began to stir themselves, men who's names he didn't know and didn't care to know. Instinctively they drew themselves up, ready for whatever might come at the end of this long road, but they were mostly new and untried in this game of blood they all played together. There was not one among them as scarred or experienced as himself and Buchannon, not one smart enough to save their apprehension for what would come later.
"Out!" Duquesne shouted, popping a thin leather whip at his side, even before the door of the cart had been lowered to allow the slaves' exit. "Sortez!"
Clinton bit down on the inside of his cheek, determined to keep the sneer off his face. In another life Duquesne would have been a man he openly mocked, a second-rate Dominus, a lowly tradesman who peddled in human flesh. In this life he had learned that a slave was better off seen than heard, and that free speech or discontent, particularly that directed at ones Domina, was dealt with quickly and viciously. His own skin bore the marks of cruel discipline just as Buchannon's did, though perhaps less obviously so. The scars that curled round the other man's throat were the very least of his disfigurements - one arm was a solid web of red and knotted scarring from shoulder to fingertips, a hot-oil scalding as punishment for some unknown offense.
Dropping down from the cart onto packed, solid earth, Clinton held his breath, forced himself to resist the instinct to breathe deep and lift his face to a sun that never showed this deep in the slaves' barracks. Buchannon eyed him intently, ever interested in Clinton's ability to hold on to the idea of something outside of this place, outside of the life they led. He wondered sometimes if the man had given up, or if he was just more intelligent than Clinton himself, smart enough to know what was good for him and to stop hurting his own heart.
Certainly Buchannon was never knocked roughly awake by the other slaves for whimpering too loudly as he dreamt of his mother's voice, long rambles in golden fields of wheat, the sun hot on his shoulders.
By rote, Clinton formed a line with his fellow slaves, paired columns ordered by experience. Naturally he paired himself off with Buchannon as he had for the last six months, ever since Ludo had met his end on the point of a spear. Clinton now held the distinction of being Duquesne's primus palus - his first sword – the most valuable and longest-owned fighter apart from Daxus. The old man didn't fight in the arena any longer; instead he served Duquesne as his Lanista, not quite free but a step above slave. Damn though if he couldn't drive a whip just as hard. He was responsible for maintaining order in the barracks, overseeing training, evaluating, teaching, and in some cases delivering swift and violent consequences.
Now he stood at the head of the line, just forward and to the right of Clinton's shoulder, his trademark, effusive body odor making Clinton's stomach turn. A shiver tickled the base of his spine, gooseflesh breaking out over his bare arms and legs where his short, loose pants failed to protect him from the damp breeze that had found its way down from the training yard. Summer had already taken a turn toward fall, the nights becoming shorter and shorter as the weeks passed, and being of southern blood, he could hardly abide the cold. It stiffened his fingers, made his head ache and stopped up his ears with cotton, but it made no difference to the crowd or to his Dominus.
You fought or you died.
You honored your Dominus or you were killed to appease his pride.
And that was if you were lucky,
"Silencieux!" Duquesne shouted, popping the whip again. "Worthless beasts!"
Behind him Clinton sensed several of the newly acquired slaves shift on their feet, unnerved by the unexplained travel and the cracking of the whip so close to their hides. A sad mistake – the movement did nothing but draw their Dominus' attention, and that was never good. He and Buchannon stood stock-still, unflinching as the transgressors were lashed soundly, yelping with each strike of the Frenchman's quirt. Like most everything Duquesne owned the whip was old and in poor repair, the leather of its double falls cracked and dry, but the man could wield it with nearly as much precision as Clinton could wield a sword, and he put that skill to use beating down the poor bastard who had had the foolishness to embarrass him in this new place, in front of a strange quartermaster.
A large man with a pock-marked face, he watched silently with narrow eyes as Duquesne sought to salvage what little dignity he had managed to arrive with, leaving the slave three rows down in a bleeding, battered heap on the filthy stone floor. Straightening the thready lapels of his jacket, he tossed his head, flung his greasy hair out of his eyes.
"Novicius," he sniffed by way of explanation, blaming the man's behavior on novice status as he slid the whip into his belt. "These farming slaves – they are soft."
The quartermaster made no reply, but Clinton suspected the man's silence was not born from respect. Shrugging he turned away, fumbled a ring of keys from a pouch around his neck and opened the doors of three empty cells – small, square prisons furnished with no more than a handful of thin, straw pallets and a bucket. Task completed the man lumbered off without a backward glance, leaving Duquesne to hiss foreign curses under his breath.
"Écouter!" he snapped, suddenly remembering his purpose and drawing himself up to his full height to address his slaves with all the air of a showman. "Tomorrow begins the celebration of our war-general Coulson. The Emperor has requested only the best gladiators to die in his honor. Go forth, fight well, or you will wish for a chance to have that honor!"
As vague as the threat was, every member of Duquesne's troupe understood the teeth behind it, had felt its bite often enough to believe in its sincerity. This was a remarkable chance for the Frenchman, an opportunity to show before the crowd and the Emperor himself, and there was not a doubt among them that any who disgraced their Dominus would prefer a swift and merciless death above the punishment he would seek from them.
Swinging round so that the folds of his cape swept dramatically about his ankles, Duquesne left them in the pits of the ludo's barracks, headed for the more slightly more opulent guest apartments above. As Daxus shoved and jostled the slaves into their cells, Clinton had to wonder what their true purpose was here. Why an invitation to display at the Coliseum would be extended to Duquesne was anyone's guess. Apart from Buchannon and himself there were no great fighters among them, indeed half of Duquesne's familia was currently made up of newly recruited slaves, men and boys who were thin and battered and not nearly prepared for the battles to come. But then perhaps the crowds of Rome were no different from any other, satisfied as long as blood was spilled.
It made a man wonder if he was even meant to survive at all.