Arena by Simon Scarrow Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    ‘Hold it.’ A guard gripped Bucco by the shoulder. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
    ‘To eat.’ Bucco gestured to the cookhouse. ‘What does it look like?’
    The guard sniggered. ‘This isn’t for scum like you,’ he said. ‘That’s the lanista’s dinner they’re preparing.’
    Before the men could protest, the guard brusquely shoved them beyond the cookhouse and further down the corridor. They passed a heavily guarded armoury sealed off with a wrought-iron gate. Armour and swords gleamed on wall racks. The guards stopped the recruits when they reached a dark, damp room at the end of the corridor, located next to the stairs that led up to the cells on the second storey of the ludus.
    ‘This is where you lot eat,’ the guard grinned as he waved a hand around the canteen.
    A powerful stench of manure hit Pavo, and he realised the canteen was right next to the stables. Straw had been scattered across the floor, and from its damp, rotten texture, he guessed it had already been used for the horses. He spotted a cockroach scuttling across the floor. Blowflies buzzed in the air. The other recruits scuttled towards the far end of the canteen, where a cook with teeth like old tombs poured small rations of barley gruel into clay bowls.
    Pavo felt his heart sink at the sight of the squalor. There were two trestle tables with a pair of benches either side taken up by the veterans. The recruits had to content themselves with squatting on the floor. Many seemed accustomed to their surroundings, ignoring the insects crawling over their legs, and the rancid smell. Pavo supposed these men had grown up as slaves and were familiar with such appalling living conditions. At the roll call that morning he’d been surprised to discover that Bucco was the only volunteer recruit. Eighteen of the other men were runaway slaves and four had been accused of murder. Laws introduced by Augustus and reinforced by subsequent emperors had attempted to rein in the number of volunteer gladiators, and the fact that most of the men around Pavo came from a much lower station only increased his sense of isolation.
    A brief pang of nostalgia hit him as he remembered the feasts that had been laid on for his father at the imperial palace. Titus had been highly respected by Emperor Tiberius, Caligula’s predecessor and a military man to the bone. Titus and Tiberius would often relive past glories on the battlefield over jars of honeyed wine late into the evening, whilst Pavo played at gladiators with the other children in the palace gardens.
    ‘Here,’ Bucco said, snapping Pavo out of his daydream and handing him a small bowl of gruel. ‘Get stuck in before it’s all gone.’
    Pavo looked despondently at his meagre ration. A maggot wriggled in the mixture. Pavo felt his stomach churn. ‘I’m not feeling hungry,’ he said, passing the bowl to Bucco, who accepted it with a shrug.
    ‘Fine by me. More for old Bucco.’
    ‘How do they expect us to live like this?’ Pavo said quietly.
    ‘Oh, it’s not all that bad,’ Bucco replied between greedy mouthfuls of gruel. ‘Three square meals a day, a bed to sleep in and the chance to earn a few sestertii. There’s plenty in Rome who’d give anything for that.’
    Pavo threw up his hands. ‘You’re right,’ he announced drily. ‘What am I thinking? I should be grateful for being thrown into a ludus and forced to work myself to the bone every day, feeding on scraps and living with a bunch of criminals and the very dregs of society.’
    Bucco looked hurt. Pavo offered a weak smile.
    ‘Present company excluded, of course,’ he said.
    ‘Well, you’d better get used to it.’ Bucco finished licking his bowl clean and stifled a belch. ‘Gurges has a reputation as a right vicious bastard. Step out of line and you’ll find yourself being crucified in the arena instead of fighting in it.’
    Pavo fell quiet as he mulled over his conversation with the lanista. Gurges had dropped a