Casca 7: The Damned
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Authors: Barry Sadler
This is a book of fiction. All the names, characters and events portrayed in this book are Fictional and any resemblance to real people and incidents are purely coincidental.
CASCA: #7
The Damned
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Copyright © 1982 by Barry Sadler
Cover: Greg Brantley
Brooke Luckock
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Casca listened to the slapping of the waves against the hull of the ship, the flapping of the single sail in the shallow breeze, which was taking him away from the past, on to what? He stayed in the shade as much as possible to keep the sun off his still tender skin and placed himself where he could catch some of the breeze pushing them forward. He was so damned tired; nothing had changed for him. Nothing he tried ever made any difference. The future was the same as the past; only the names changed. He grimaced when an edge of a plank dug into his ribs. To ease the pressure, he sat back, hands wrapped around his knees, looking across the easy rolling waves to Syria where he had boarded ship at Antioch; beyond, behind the mountains and deserts, lay Persia: the empire of the Sassanid Kings and personal domain of Shapur II, King of Kings.
Persia!
The name brought a bitter taste to his mouth. The sleeve of his burnoose fell back when he moved his hand to push away a droning fly. Red welts exposed themselves to the sun. He pulled the sleeve back down. Under the flowing robes his entire body was much the same a mass of seared burned tissue. A gift from Shapur to repay him for his loyalty and service.
He still found it difficult to sit near an open fire without wanting to scream. The smell of roasting meat made his stomach turn, for it had not been long ago that he had smelled his own roasting flesh. Of all the pain he had ever known nothing was as bad as those minutes on the stake where the fires ate at his body.
Flames washing his flesh, sizzling, cracking the skin open to expose raw red meat to their searing touch. He shivered uncontrollably, his skin rippling in remembrance.
What was it Samuel the merchant had said to him the first day he set foot inside the walls of Nev Shapur? That Persia was not for the likes of him. He had snorted bitterly, then; for where was there a place for such as he? Never had he found anywhere he could call home for more than a few years. Always time drove him out to somewhere else he didn't belong. It had taken nearly a month from the time he had left the cave near Koramshar till he saw the distant wavering outlines of the first Roman outpost through the shimmering waves of ground heat.
Calinicium. Cresting a rise he had stopped before going down.
Two names came to him as he'd looked back on the plains and valleys behind him: that of the man who had given him both glory and pain, Shapur II, King of Kings,
Shaha shan ut Aneran
. The glory of Ahura Mazda whose symbol was the ever burning purity of the sun. When a petitioner would approach his master, he would do so on, his knees, hands covering his eyes, crying out, "Lord, I am blinded by your radiance!" For to all in Persia, Shapur was the sun by whose will fields would grow or cities die. Shapur was the instrument and personification of their god.
Casca's reward for years of loyal service fighting the wars of Persia to secure the frontiers threatened by savage tribes was to be proclaimed a heretic by the Vizier Rasheed and put to the stake to have his body burned to ashes. That Shapur had believed Rasheed still pissed him off. But then the favor of kings is a fickle thing at best, and if they wanted to burn someone at the stake, it didn't require much reason to do so.
The other name was that of Imhept the Egyptian, who had taken him from the burning stake before his body was completely consumed. Imhept had nursed him back to health in the cave by the sea, then provided him with the money he needed to get free of the lands of Persia. If he were found alive in Shapur's domains it would mean a return trip to the stakes...Imhept had only been able to free him by claiming a debt owed him by the King that had been made in public. He had forced Shapur to live up to his word when he had promised to grant Imhept anything within his power. Imhept had chosen Casca.
The fly returned to buzz around his nose and though the little pest didn't touch his skin, the buzzing of the wings millimeters from the hairs in his nostrils made him feel like sneezing. He brushed the mindless creature away with the back of his right hand.
He didn't think that Shapur would have let the Egyptian claim him if he hadn't believed him to be already dead. He wished the little man of the Nile well.
He turned from his reflections to face the dim walls of Calinicium. It would be dark before he reached them. That meant he would spend one more night sleeping in the open. He longed for a warm bath and oils to ease the aches of his body and
sooth the innumerable sore spots where the leather of his sandals or even the rough threads in the inner seams of his tunic irritated sensitive skin. He walked down the path leading to the gates taking his time. He nearly laughed at the thought of taking his time for what did time mean to a man who was damned? Time only meant that he would go on to face more disappointments, more pain and always more killing: years and tens of years into the unforeseeable future where he would never be given the peace of death.
He sat by the gates along with about a dozen others who were waiting for dawn when the gates would open. He kept apart, staying to himself with knees pulled up to his chest and his robe wrapped tightly about him to keep out the chill of the night. He didn't sleep that night; there were too many thoughts pulling at him to give him any rest.
Casca looked to the west, where a dim line of gray was beginning to show. The rest of those waiting went about their morning ablutions finding quiet spots to ease their bladders and bowels. Those that had women with them had built small fires fed by camel and horse chips and were warming food. His stomach gurgled reminding him that he hadn't eaten since the previous day. From his pack a small bundle of dates and olives served as breakfast.
He could hear the changing of the guard on the town walls.
Familiar orders that he had obeyed more than once. It gave him a feeling of comfort to hear the language of Rome, his native land, again after so many years away. From the great wall of China to the frontiers of Persia. How many leagues had he ridden marched fighting one battle after another and for what?
He fell in line behind a Syrian farmer pulling a reluctant donkey loaded down with grain sacks larger than the animal was. The sun appeared over the ridge he had crossed the previous day, sending single red beams of light sliding across the plains to strike the brick walls of Calinicium at the same time the gates were unbarred and swung open.
When he entered the walls the guards gave him a cursory once over. One of them pulled his hood back to get a closer look at the face in the shadows. He wished he hadn't! The exposed face had red welts covering the right side and the skull was devoid of hair except for a few stubborn patches that were beginning to grow through the red welts.
Even with his amazing powers of healing, it would be some time yet before he had a face that wouldn't turn goat's milk into cheese. But he knew the scars would eventually be sloughed off like a snake's skin as the new tissue under them pushed up to the surface. The sentries could see the burns continue down from his neck to his chest under the loose robes. One of the guards started to take the pack containing his sword from him but changed his mind when the gray blue eyes staring out from a skull face locked on his. He had no desire to inspect Casca further.
Calinicium was much the same as any of its counterparts in Persia. The only difference was that the tongue of the Roman Empire was heard more frequently and the uniforms of the military were different. For the rest it would be impossible to tell it apart from any other sunbaked group of flat roofed, white stuccoed buildings set in the middle of nowhere. It didn't take him long to determine there wasn't anything for him here and it was too near the borders of Persia. If he stayed he knew he would be caught up in the next war which was coming as certain as sunrise.
He was in Calinicium only long enough to trade a few of his small silver coins, stamped with the likeness of Shapur, for a donkey to help carry him the rest of the way to Antioch, two hundred miles farther west.
The rest of the trip to the sea had taken thirteen days; he'd been in no rush. During this time most of his scars, except for the deepest ones, had sloughed off leaving only tender skin that rapidly toughened. His strength was returning too. When he was alone with no one in sight he would remove the sword from his pack and exercise, working to get the muscles loose and limber, restoring flexibility to his wrists and legs. If anyone had seen him in those predawn hours dancing and parrying, thrusting at nothing, they would have thought him a madman and gathered their neighbors for a community stoning.
Antioch, the gateway to the Mediterranean, was an ancient city. It had been ruled by Medea and Persians, Greeks and Romans, and always it had prospered under whichever master it served. It was one of the most beautiful of cities with wide thoroughfares and parks lined with statues of the great men of Rome, where once stood statues of Alexander the Great or the infamous gods of the Phoenicians. He had no eyes for the riches of the city or the temples of marble that once served Venus and Mars where now the priests of the Christus held their rites. Selling his donkey at a price which brought him only a small loss, he followed the scent of the sea leaving the city to enter the port where ships from all over the world came to buy, sell and trade their goods: slave girls from Circassia, amber from beyond the Elbe, silver bars of Dacia and weapons from the foundries of Greece.
Ports have an aura to them that is uniquely their own, the mingled odors of spices and sweat, salt air and tar. He found what he was looking for tied up to a stone wharf packed with hides from Libya.
The weeks on the trader had completed most of his healing process. There was even a new growth of hair covering what had been charred tissue. He was feeling nearly as fit as before and was ready to leave ship.
Now the door to Italy was before him. One more day at sea and they would reach Pisae to the north of Rome. He wasn't ready to enter the capital yet. He had been gone for such a long time that he wanted to find his way back slowly. To walk first in the clear fields of Italia, to sit and listen to the peasants sing as they came back from their fields and orchards.
It was with the feeling of a long lost son returning that he set foot on the piers that served the Roman garrison of Pisae. He was home at last.
North of Pisae was where he had been born. That had been when Augustus Caesar had been master of Rome. It was too far distant to think about. He would for now try to leave the past behind him. Before him were the mountains and valleys of his homeland. That's where he would go.
He took his time walking the back roads through the hills, not looking for any place in particular, simply enjoying the feelings of a man who had returned home after many years. The only thing that didn't seem to change very much was the land. Men come and go, as do their religions and philosophies. Empires rise only to be forgotten, but the land remains; at least, Casca was thinking, it stayed the same longer.
He spent a week
going from one village to the next. They were nearly all alike, whitewashed buildings, faded red tiled roofs set on the sides of rocky hills where the labor of five hundred years had cleared terraces for their orchards and vineyards.
He had noticed
a dourness to the spirit of the hill people. There was a spark missing in them; some villages were worse than others. In these, the presence of priests of the new religion were more visible.
Casca thought perhaps it was because the old ways die hardest among the peasants that they were more reluctant to give up their old gods. Several times when he stopped for water at farmhouses set away from the villages, he saw the small offering bowls for the household spirits, the Lares and Penates. If the mistress of the house saw him looking at them, there would be a flicker of fear in her eyes that passed when he would casually place a small piece of bread or cheese in the bowls.
He missed the sounds of music that formerly had been ever present in the hills. It appeared that voices lifted for anything other than praise of the new church were frowned upon. Therefore, it was with surprise when one evening, at the hour of Venus, he heard the trilling of flutes and voices singing. Following the sound to a grove of olive trees set in a small glade, he laid down his pack, then snuck up to where he could make out the singers. The sight did his heart good. Maidens with wreaths of spring flowers in their hair danced in a circle around a stone carving so old that the features on it were no more than shadows.
A sheep had been sacrificed and an old man was reading the entrails for his village, telling the future of the coming seasons for them. Wine was flowing freely to the singing of paeans that were banned in Rome. It was the spring rite of Pan and Bacchus the villagers were celebrating. Not an orgy, but a time of welcoming the awakening earth, preparing her for the planting of new life.
There were certainly, though, a few figures to be seen in the shadows away from the circle that were doing a lot of heavy breathing. Casca walked into the circle. For a minute, the music and voices stopped as the stranger in their presence approached the altar of Pan. He stopped, filled a cup with wine from an open jar, then poured a libation to the spirits of the old ones and drank. The music and laughter returned.
The laughter was infectious and soon Casca was roaring with the best of them, dancing in the circle, an olive wreath around his brow, the words of the ancient songs coming back to his tongue without conscious bidding.
He found himself away from the circle, his head turning with wine fumes, a hot sweet mouth on his. One of the village girls had decided to sacrifice a bit of herself to a stranger.
He was just raising himself from her when his eyes saw a pair of boots in front of him. Then the lights went out, as a knob ended club swung down. Casca's head pounded from both the wine and the lump the size of a goose egg on his head. Chains rubbed sore spots on his wrists and neck as the metal links tried to work their way to the bone. Behind him, similarly chained together in a coffle, were the rest of the offending villagers. They had been arrested for violating the Edicts of Theodosius.
Things had changed more in the Empire than he would ever have dreamed possible. He knew of the triumph of those calling themselves Christians; he had seen that the followers of Jesus were everywhere and their priests were powerful men. But he had never heard of the Edicts of Theodosius, which Honorius sometimes enforced with a passion. The law was being read to him and the others as they were being chained up:
It is our will and pleasure that none of our subjects, neither magistrates nor private citizens, however exalted or humble may be their rank and condition, shall in any city or in any place, worship an inanimate idol by the sacrifice of a guiltless victim. The act of sacrifice and the practice of divination by the entrails of the victim are declared a crime of high treason against the state, which can be expiated only by the death of the guilty.
Casca shook his shaggy head; the world had turned around. Before it had been death to be a Christian; now it was death not to be one. He wondered what Jesus would have thought of the change.
He had seen Christians die in the arena for their "crimes"; now it appeared it was the turn of those the Christians caned "pagan" to do the same for the identical reasons.
They were herded onto a trail leading to the road that they would take to Milan. They were kept under the watchful eye of a decurion with two squads of legionnaires to bring in the heretics. Once on the main road, they were joined by several hundred others who were guilty of the same offense.
It was afternoon before they entered the gates of Milan to face the hurled abuse of the masses. Garbage as well as invective
were heaped on them, along with taunts of "Pagan!" and "Idolaters!"
Casca had seen that look on the mob's faces before; it was a combination of hate and pious superiority. Without ceremony, they were hustled through the streets to the galleries of the arena. It was not as large as those of Rome, or even some he had seen in Africa or Asia, but it was ample enough to seat most of the adult population which would fill the stands in the next few days.
He had heard that gladiatorial combats had been forbidden, but then it was the prerogative of power to be able to change laws as they wished.
Already in the pens were about
a hundred other so called pagans; separated from them, in chains, were others considered more dangerous than the heretic villagers. Goths and members of several Germanic tribes captured on the frontiers and brought in for this occasion.
It would please the masses to watch pagan Romans and barbarians destroy each other. That over half of the Goths were Christians of the Arian sect made no difference. They were all heretics in the eyes of the Mother Church.
Casca knew one thing, the pagans would take up the sword more readily then would the Christians, who in the days of Imperial Nero had almost to a man refused to kill. They died in the belief that their death on the sands would make them martyrs and, as such, they would be guaranteed a place in their heaven.
Casca wondered who had the most courage
– one who would die without raising a hand for his gods or the others. He settled down in a corner of the cell after kicking a couple of others out of the way to make room. He had been separated from the villagers by the decurion who, once he saw the scars on him, knew he was a fighter and put him in the cells with the Germans and Goths.
The stench of fouled straw covering the stones of the cells did nothing to make him feel any better; his stomach was growling and he had a hangover. He tried to make himself as comfortable as possible and get some sleep before the games opened on the following morning.
He knew it would be vastly different from the last time he had fought in the arena. These peasants had no experience with weapons. They would simply hack clumsily at each other until they made a lucky blow or their opponent dropped from exhaustion. If they were lucky, they would be matched up against one of the barbarians who would more than likely put a quick end to their anguish.
Casca thought back on his days in the arena. It had been brutal, true, but at least there had been a sense of professionalism among the combatants. The training style at the schools, where they entered at tyros and left as professional gladiators, at least gave
them options either to die on the sands, find freedom with the gift of the wooden sword, or even a chance to acquire great wealth by betting on themselves.
One of the Germans in the cage next to him spoke to him through the bars. His voice was rough, almost a choking whisper, as if he hadn't had water for a long time. Then Casca saw the reason. There was a fresh scar on the Barbarian's throat where the edge of a blade had almost opened the windpipe. The warrior was still fit looking, wearing the homespun red trousers of his tribe and a leather vest. The gray streaks in his fair hair said that here was one who had survived much and lived longer than most of his people.
"Roman, are you ready to die in the morning?" A smile followed his throaty question.
Casca merely nodded his head. "I've been ready a lot longer than you will ever be, Suevii," he answered the barbarian in his own tongue.
The German was surprised. It was rare for a Latin to know any speech but his own.
"You speak our tongue well, Roman. Have you spent time beyond the Rhine or Danube?"
Casca nodded. "A long time."
"As a slave?"
"No, my furry faced friend, as a warrior."
The German whistled between his teeth, the front two of which were missing. He took a closer look at the object of his attention, the scarred face, thick wrist cords, and muscled neck. "Then you must be a good fighter, for the northlands have no love for the sons of Caesar."
Casca grunted. "You'll find out tomorrow, so why talk about it? There is little likelihood that any of us will ever be set free since they forbid the wooden sword. What difference would it make if you won or lost?"
The German hesitated a moment. Then, making up his mind, he said, "Listen to me. There may yet be a chance for us to make our way out of here. It has been said that the Emperor often takes men from the arena into his personal guard if they fight well enough. He has many enemies in Rome and doesn't trust anyone. He feels safer with men who owe their lives to him. Tomorrow we might have a chance if we can attract his attention."
Casca perked up. "What's your plan?"
"We become swordmates against all comers. Let the weaklings finish each other off. We lay back until only the best are left; then we make our move and challenge the lot of them. There won't be more than four or five of them. We will have little trouble between us. I think we will have a good chance of winning. Like most cowards, Honorius is impressed with bravery; he thinks he can buy it. Let's give him, a show! What say you, Roman?"
Casca thought it over a moment. Hell, he hadn't had any better offers lately. "Agreed. But only if you swear by all the gods of the Aesir and on your father's name that you'll be true until this thing is done."
The German smiled. "You have spent much time in the black forests. Be it so sworn, on my father's name and the gods of the Aesir, that I will hold my faith with you. This I swear, as my name is Vergix of the Suevii, a councilor and war chieftain of the tribes. But you, Roman, what do you swear by?"
Casca laughed bitterly. "I swear by one eyed Odin All Father, by Loki, Jupiter, Zeus, Ahura Mazda, and a dozen others you have never heard of. I swear by them all."
Vergix frowned. "It is not good to take the will of the gods lightly, Roman, but I accept your word. From this time, we are swordmates against all comers, even those of our own tribes."
The two shook hands in the Roman manner to settle their agreement, wrist to wrist, and each lay back to get what sleep he could.
Casca slept as usual, his rest troubled by dreams. Rarely could he sleep a night through without the ghosts of his past coming to disturb his rest. He awoke before the first light, eyes sticky and sore. Rolling over on his straw covering he looked straight at Vergix. "What time's chow?"
Vergix indicated with his head and Casca saw that several slaves were entering the confines of the holding pens carrying steaming pots. One of the slaves passed out wooden bowls as those behind ladled out their only meal. A thick mixture of boiled barley and pig slopped into Casca's bowl. It was not appetizing, but it would fill the gut and they knew they would need the strength later in the day. As Casca shoveled the food into his mouth with his fingers, he heard a distant rumbling. For a moment, he thought it was Vergix's stomach growling; then it came again, louder, a deep throated coughing that could only come from the lungs of a lion. Vergix noticed his attention. "There will be beasts in the arena today. How many or what kind, I don't know."
Casca called over one of the serving slaves. "What time do the games start?"
The slave, a Dalmatian, shook his head. "Don't be in a rush. You and the others won't go on until after the heat of day settles. You should be pleased; you are going to be the main attraction!"
Casca threw his bowl at the slave.
"Smart ass goat herder! I hope you lose every tooth in your head but one and have an ache in it for the rest of your life!"
Vergix chuckled at Casca's curse. "You have a mean streak, Roman, but if you didn't notice, the man is already toothless!"
Before noon, armed guards came in and began separating the men into groups; those who were old or disabled were put into one group and taken away. Shortly afterwards, they heard the sounds of the crowd roaring in pleasure and cries of dying men as they were fed to the beasts.
Those who were fit enough to fight were taken one at a time into an anteroom where they were outfitted in armor left over from the days when gladiators were treated like prized animals. Casca took the familiar helmet of the Galli with its fish crested crown and perforated steel facemask.