That very same night, a small, rickety cart rattled and wobbled as it travelled on the road towards Rome. However, any bandit trying to rob this cart would soon find that, despite its decrepit appearance, the two men driving the cart were equipped with more than new enough weapons, and had more than enough skill to fend off any would-be robbers.
Another factor that might have helped the cart from being attacked by bandits was professional courtesy.
“This, has been, the most boring job, ever,” Bonifacius said slowly to his partner-in-crime-and-in-marriage (and he would like to argue that there wasn’t any difference).
“Boring’s a good thing, darling,” his wife Kleita replied, looking up at the stars, “when you think about it. I mean, we go deliver these crates, get rich-” She laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Bonifacius asked. “Come on, tell me.”
“No, no, it’s not very funny.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“Well,” Kleita replied, “it just occurred to me that the guy, who’s paying us so much it’d turn Croesus green, has skin as blue as Neptune’s.”
Silence. “Told you it wasn’t very funny,” she said.
“See? This is where boring gets you,” Bonifacius quipped.
“Well, on the bright side,” Kleita replied with easy irony, “we don’t have to worry about the Roman law-”
“You’ve heard of the barbarian Arminius,” a voice called out in the darkness, “Of how he defeated Varus (1)!”
But if you still desire bold a story well told,
Let me tell you of Kleita and Bonifacius!
Now Bonifacius and Kleita are a bandit gang,
I'm sure you all have heard of them,
They rob and they steal,
And should anyone squeal,
They’ll soon cling to Charon’s hem
But tonight, they'll go down together
Right after this poem atrocious,
To their mothers- no grief,
To Rome, a relief,
Yea, the end of Kleita and Bonifacius!” (2)
“Who said that?” Bonifacius called out angrily into the moonlight, his sword drawn, a torch in his other hand. “Show yourself!”
“Or at least shut up!” Kleita added. Like her husband, she too held a blade in one hand and a lighted torch in the other. “Who helped you write that stuff? A tone-deaf muse?”
“Let’s just say the Furies gave me some creative input,” Shiko said, as she stepped out from behind a tree into their torchlight.
“You!” Kleita snarled. “You’re Dracus’s pet, aren’t you?”
“…pet?” Shiko’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, now you’re gonna get it.”
“Yeah? In case you haven’t noticed, there’s one of you, and two of us,” Kleita retorted.
“Okay,” Shiko replied easily. After a moment, she continued, “What- am I supposed to be scared or something?”
“Let’s go with the ‘oh something’,” Bonifacius said, leaping at Shiko, swinging his sword and his torch in unison.
“Hey, wait for me!” his wife laughed, as she quickly joined in.
Neither of them noticed Shiko’s grin, even in the torchlight.
With a ferocious roar, Bonifacius stabbed forward, his sword cleanly slicing through Shiko’s chest- or so he thought. “Whoops! Missed,” Shiko said. “Whoops! Missed again!” Shiko laughed, as Bonifacius struck ineffective blow after ineffective blow.
He took another strike, and in the split second before the pain, Bonifacius saw that his sword had stuck in the tree-
“He always like this?” Shiko asked, as Bonifacius slumped over. “Gets all pumped up for a few seconds before falling asleep?” she said, smirking evilly.
“At least I have a man!”
“Oooh, good one, what’s next- you’re iron and I’m glue? Yeah, reaaal clever. Lemme guess- you’re the brains of this outfit?”
Rendered near-incoherent with rage, Kleita rushed forward, Shiko standing her ground, that insolent smirk still on her face. As soon as she closed, she swung her sword-
-only to have her arm caught by a quickly-dodging Shiko, who immediately turned around and threw Kleita into the ground. “What, that’s it?” she said, when Kleita didn’t get up. “They just don’t make bad guys the way they used to,” she sighed, before grinning again. “Or do now,” she said with a self-satisfied smile. “Okay boys, you can come out now,” she said, before whistling.
After a few minutes a group of horsemen came riding out of the darkness, each of them wearing uniforms that identified them as Dracus’s personal guard. “Are they…?” one of them began. Behind him, another group of soldiers brought along a much better-looking cart, its apparent cargo barrels of wine.
“You think I’d’ve tied them up if they were?” Shiko retorted, pointing at the two figures gagged and bound behind her. “They’re both still alive, that reward’s still yours.”
Shiko then got onto the cart. “Remember,” she warned, “nobody talks about this! You spent a little spare time bounty hunting, found these two, you think they’d been robbed by someone else, blah blah blah, got it?”
The guards nodded fearfully- Shiko was a slave only in name, and they knew that very well. Some of them still had scars from the last time they forgot that.
“Good,” Shiko said. “You got the other cart ready? Good. Help me load this into it,” she said, gesturing to the cloth-covered stuff on the bandits’ cart. “Don’t worry, about them,” she said, pointing again to Kleita and Bonifacius, “they’re not going anywhere.”
“That’s right, you scum!” Barcus yelled, looking at the gladiators practicing. “You’re not going anywhere until I say so! You’re not going to have lunch until I say so! You’re not going to the privy until I say so! And do you know when I’ll say so? I’ll say so when YOU-GET-IT-RIGHT!” he yelled into a hapless gladiator’s ear.
Watching as the trainer proceeded to berate the hapless gladiator, Ronnicus brought his wooden sword down towards his opponent. “Man, what’s gotten into him?” he asked.
“Well, he did miss a wooden dummy,” Kiminax replied, parrying his blow. “Ron, focus.”
“Sorry Kim.”
“And don’t slash- stab,” she said. “Your sword isn’t made for slashing.”
“I know that, I know that,” Ronnicus said.
“Yeah, right,” Rufus squeaked.
“Not helping, Rufus!” Ronnicus said, before turning back to Kiminax. “You’re really settling in here, aren’t you?”
“What?” Kiminax asked.
“Well, you’re really getting the hang of this gladiator thing,” Ronnicus said, oblivious to Rufus’s frantic gestures and “No, No!”s. “I mean, I’ve been hanging around here longer than you, but you’ve really made yourself at home here! Plus, you got mad skillz, yo! Kim?” he asked, seeing the dejected look on her face. “Kim?”
“You two! Ronnicus! Kiminax! Why aren’t you training?” Barcus shouted as he walked over to them. “Is there… a problem?” he whispered threateningly.
“What? Sir, no sir!” Ronnicus babbled. “No problem sir! Right, Kim?”
“No sir, no problem,” Kiminax said, woodenly. “It’s just… just a little hot, sir.”
“Little hot?” Ronnicus asked, bewildered. “Kim, you’re barely sweating-”
“Go sit in the shade, Gaul,” Barcus said. Though his tones were harsh, even cruel, there was a small note of tenderness in it, so subtle one would not hear it if one weren’t listening for it. “I’ll take charge of this Jew.”
“Eep.” It’s not known whether it was Ronnicus or Rufus who squeaked louder upon seeing Barcus’s ‘happy face’.
Kiminax walked off, taking her place on the tree stump seat- the same tree stump seat she had been sitting on each break she had for the past week.
One week. One week, and she already knew the difference between a Secutus and a Retarius, between a gladius and a manica. All with the same inquisitive, intelligent spirit she had used to identify herbs and the like back home.
You’ve really made yourself at home here!
“I have, haven’t I? I don’t want to, but I have,” Kiminax whispered. She remembered Britannia, with its lush rolling hills and vast forests, not at all like the flat, unnatural farmland of Rome. She remembered her village, simple, one or two roomed houses made of wood, of being lulled gently into sleep by their comfortable creaking, in stark contrast to the silent, foreboding Roman buildings.
She looked around at the gladiators training, sweat and dirt caking on their skins, and Kim felt she was noticing for the first time the same grime upon her, and she felt a terrible, sinking feeling that a lifetime of this was all that awaited her-
“You know, you look like you could use a friend.”
Kiminax turned upwards to look at the speaker. “Oh, hello,” she said. “Sorry, didn’t notice you there.”
“Girl, I doubt if you’d have noticed if the gods themselves came down and set themselves on fire in front of you,” the newcomer replied. A tall, dark skinned girl, she placed a full bowl down in front of Kiminax. “Compliments of the chef.”
“Al-Wadjet?” Kiminax asked, taking the bowl, and being surprised at the contents. This actually looked like something edible! She couldn’t tell what it was, but this stuff actually looked appetizing!
“Yep, he saw you looking so sad, pinin’ away like there was no tomorrow, he thought you needed some cheering up. Tell the truth, girl, I thought so too.” She held out her hand. “I’m Monik-tah, but you can call me Monik.”
“Monik,” Kiminax said, taking her hand. “Lemme guess, you’re not a Roman?”
“Egyptian, just like your pal Al-Wadjet. What tipped you off?” Monik asked with good-natured sarcasm. “My skin? My name? My personality? The fact that I actually gota personality?”
“Hmm, let’s see,” Kiminax said, her dark mood starting to lift, “How about all of the above?”
Monik laughed. “That’s good, Kim! Real good!”
“Thanks- wait, how’d you know my name?”
“Who hasn’t? Kiminax, mysterious new girl from Gaul, beats up trained gladiators on her first day, and in less than a week, becomes better than- what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Kiminax sighed, the depression starting to creep back in.
Monik placed a friendly hand on Kiminax’s shoulder. “Lemme guess, you’re homesick, aintcha?”
“What? How do you know that?” Kiminax asked. It appeared all those idle rumours about all Egyptians being magical were true after all.
“Kim, I ain’t just a pretty face, you know? I hear things, I ask people, I-”
She was interrupted by the sound of galloping hooves. Two horses, black a night entered the gladiatorial school, their riders two muscular men in completely black armour. Their all-black Greek-style helmets were constructed in such a way that nothing could be seen under them, not even the wearer’s eyes.
Their horses pulled up to a stop simultaneously, and the two riders dismounted with the same mechanical precision.
“You! You are trainer Barcus, are you not?” one of them asked Barcus in a deep, gravely voice. The creepy effect was only amplified by their voices echoing due to their helmets’ acoustics.
“Y-yes,” Barcus said, thoroughly intimidated by these two strange men. “What can I do for you guys?
The two men looked at each other, then back to Barcus. “I am Arcanus Suetonius, and this is Arcanus Suetonius. We’re from the Arcani,” (3) he said, pronouncing it AR-khan-eye. “And this isn’t a matter of what you can do for us, it’s what we can do for you.”
“We can do that, because we’re government,” the other Arcanus Suetonius said. “And do you know what we can do for you?”
“Um- what?”
“We can make your life a whole lot easier if you answer a few questions for us truthfully.”
“We can do that, because we’re government,” the other Arcanus Suetonius said. “Now, are you aware that a small cart was robbed last night, on the road next to your this gladiator school?”
“In fact, it was robbed just a few hundred feet down the road- any sentries you had posted must have seen it.”
“Uh… you guys saw anything last night?” Barcus called to a group of guards.
“Well, um, we did see something out there…” one of them replied.
“Oh really?” Arcanus Suetonius asked.
“Y-yeah, really,” the guard replied, regretting he spoke up at all.
“No way,” Arcanus Suetonius replied cryptically. “What else did you see, Mr…?”
“Strigidus, sir. And I didn’t see nothing much else, sir, it was so dark.”
“Pity,” Arcanus Suetonius said.
“Pity,” Arcanus Suetonius agreed.
“Uh, if you guys don’t mind me asking, what’s the problem?” Master Barcus asked as he came up behind them.
The two Arcani looked at Barcus silently, for perhaps a few more second than was strictly necessary, before replying. “Two people were robbed there, last night,” Arcanus Suetonius said.
“Two very bad people,” Arcanus Suetonius added. “The robbers Bonifacius and Kleita.”
“So… what’s the problem, exactly?” Ronnicus asked. “Isn’t that a good thing? You know, robbers get robbed, other robbers get rich, then other robbers rob them and get richer…” He trailed off. “My head hurts!” he exclaimed suddenly.
“There, there,” Rufus said.
“We’re not concerned about the robbers,” Arcanus Suetonius said.
“We’re concerned about their cargo,” Arcanus Suetonius said. “It’s classified,” he told Ronnicus.
”What?” Ronnicus asked. “I didn’t say anything!”
“But you were, weren’t you?”
“Um, yeah. How’d you guys know?”
“We’re government,” Arcanus Suetonius said.
“We know everything,” Arcan Suetonius replied.
“Oh- wait, wouldn’t that mean you should know where the stuff you’re looking for is?”
The two Arcani turned to each other, then turned back to Ronnicus. “No,” they replied in unison.
“Oh… okay,” Ronnicus replied, looking for somewhere to hide.
“Master Barcus,” Arcanus Suetonius said, turning to the trainer, “if you don’t mid, we’ll be leaving now-”
“No, nope, don’t mind at all!” Barcus said earnestly.
“-and if you or any of your staff suddenly recall anything suspicious, please, don’t hesitate to send this pigeon,” he said, handing over a pigeon marked (CCII)CCCXXIV-MMM.
“And now,” Arcanus Suetonius said as he and his partner got on their horses (which didn’t seem to have moved at all), “If you’ll excuse us…”
As she watched the two Arcani gallop away, Kiminax felt that old, familiar spark of curiosity light up within her. But in addition to that was a strange instinct, something telling her that something about this just wasn’t right.
Looks like she’d be making plans for tonight…
Historical Notes:
(1) Arminius, king of a Germanic tribe known as the Cherusci, led an alliance of Germanic barbarian tribes against the Roman forces seeking to expand into their territory, and in 9 AD, tricked and then ambushed Governor Quinctillius Varus during the Battle of Teutoberg Forest, annihilating a Roman army of more than twenty-eight thousand men. It is said (according to the historian Suetonius) that when Emperor Augustus heard of this, his hair turned white as he exclaimed, “Varus, give me back my legions!” Such was the defeat, Rome would never again attempt seriously expanding beyond the river Rhine’s right bank. However, Arminius never really got to enjoy the fruits of his victory. Not only did Arminius find the alliance disintegrating due to internal politics, another popular leader, Marbod of the Marcomanni attempted to take over. Arminius was also very unpopular with his wife’s pro-Roman family. In 21 AD, they poisoned the thirty seven-year-old barbarian king.
(2) If there are any movie buffs out there, you’ll know why I couldn’t resist putting this (adapted and highly abridged) song in.
(3) The Arcani were something like the Roman version of the CIA- they were secret agents and infiltrators, spies and assassins. However, unlike CIA career agents, the Arcani were not actually government agents, but often mercenaries hiring out their services to the highest bidder- in most cases, Rome. I’m taking substantial liberties with the Arcani here, and I would not want anybody to think the depiction above is a realistic one.