A Roman Story

Chapter 13: A Meeting with Royalty

I had been asleep for less than half-an-hour when a man entered the room. He startled me and I sat up abruptly, my head spinning slightly as I did so. He was one of the men who had travelled with us from the pit but I had no idea of who he was, he was not with us on our journey to the pit.

The new man looked at me and gave me a one-sided grin, a sign that he wondered how on earth I had managed to find myself in a place like the training school, readying myself for the pending bloodbath.

"Where are you from?" he asked, without even looking at me.

"Moesia. I managed to entangle myself in a Roman camp outside my village..." I responded, my voice sounded like it was speaking to something far in the distance. Not in the moment.

"Ah! Our troubled frontier in the Balkans...no wonder there was a camp outside your village. Our rulers hate your kind." he chuckled back in disgust, mocking both my country and myself.

"It's not my fault. We do the best we can. I ended up here because I wanted to have as much control as possible over my own fate..." I was cut short.

"Instead of having your country do it for you?" the man asked. His tone was different and a certain sort of kindness had entered his eyes.

I nodded. I was not ashamed of nothing except the way in which I had ended up in the situation I was in. It was inevitable that change would come and that when it did it would hit hard. I had been told so many times that it had become routine. Now I knew what they meant. Life wasn't uneventful after all.

I sat further back on my bed, allowing my shoulders to rest comfortably on the stonework behind me. I watched the man, studying him. Figuring him out. I turned my head as he changed into his loin cloth, not that I didn't know what it covered but to show him that I was willing to give him the privacy that every person deserves, regardless of the situation.

When I knew he was finished I turned my head back and began to study him once again. He was of medium height and a thin build which made his muscles seem out of proportion, his time in the pit had caused this to happen. His jaw line was narrow and sharp as if it had been sculpted by a knife and his eyes were an unusual steel blue. His hair was straight down to the base of his head and was as black as the night sky. To me he seemed like a stone sculpture that had been given bodily organs and functions but had been severely neglected by his sculptor. I turned my gaze to my knees, I felt sorry for him; he could not help his appearance or the way people thought of him.

I looked at my knees for some time, concentrating more on my thoughts in relation to the stone faced man than I was thinking about my meeting with royalty. I looked up to see where the man was. He had taken up sitting on the ground, this, to me at least, was a strange reaction.

"I don't know..." he muttered to himself.

"Scusi Signor, what don't you know?" I asked him softly.

"Nothing!" his last reply was as sharp as his jawline. After that he stood up and shook his head before walking out the door. As he left, another man entered, walking to his chosen bed and changing into his loin cloth before sitting on his bed. We both waited in silence waiting for the others to come in and change before we were required to meet in the centre square.

Before long the others had found their rooms and their beds and had gotten changed into their fresh garments. As the last man tied his loincloth the bell sounded and we gravitated to the centre square in the middle of the training school. Only the eleven of us who had been chosen from the pit were required to be inspected by Vespasian and Titus. There would be more men, from other training schools and walks of life at the inspection. We were the elite. The only ones who would train with our lanista.