Bookworm Gladiator

"I am Cicero, biographer of Gaius Julius (Not Caesar) of Palmyra, and I've been commissioned to write about his favorite gladiator, Hurek.

I suppose that is the sum of my literary efforts this summer. Recording the life of someone who once, in a fit of misunderstanding, bludgeoned a man with a two-stone tome of “Our Empire's Greatest Martial Advisors.”

A marvelous record. Very heavy too."

- Cicero, Personal Journal

***

Sometimes a man do everything right in his life, and still end up on a boat to Palmyra. I’d left a comfortable estate back in Rome, a military son with a promising career and a reputable office at the Forum. One with a roof.

I’d exchanged everything I could for what I hoped would be a life-changing journey to the edges of the Empire, where I could finally write about something other than biographies of crusty old consuls and their retirement.

The journey had been difficult, in the beginning. With all the nauseating smells, mosquitoes, rats climbing up my robes, and immigrants. But when I’d finally exited the city of Rome, it was actually quite a pleasant journey on the water.

Until I’d hit the Caeserean port, that is. The Syrian docks had been filled with slavers of all kinds. Persians selling Greek slaves. Greeks selling Persian slaves. Romans selling both… And of course, some entrepreneurial Egyptians tried to sell themselves. But you have to be careful with those ones.

Regardless, after fending off the foreign horde and surviving the desert sun, I’d finally found myself in the oasis city of Palmyra. The man I was commissioned to write about was a pit-fighting slave belonging to the city’s illusive governor. Eager to begin, I made my way to the palace barracks on my first morning and found him sitting alone in the corner. “Hurek,” I whispered his name, hoping I was pronouncing that correctly.

The man sat hunched over his breakfast, his muscular back pushing the boulders that were his shoulders up to his ears. He wore a silver helmet, with tufts of soft, brown hair sticking out from underneath. His jaw flexed as he chewed, only pausing when I stepped inside. He offered me a momentary glance before returning to his food.

He was eating a bowl of nuts. Far, far too many nuts. He dug his fat fingers into the bowl, grabbed a fistful, held them up to his face, and began eating them one by one with his other hand. Why not just pick them from the bowl? Why the extra effort? Or am I reading too much into the minutiae of a man who sat atop a large book.

"Greetings, Hurek," I said, taking a seat on the bench beside him. It was a good thing I wore a wool cloak over my tunic as barracks were always dusty. So dusty. Where did all the dust come from? Maybe Hurek might know.

"Greetings, Hurek," I said again, smacking my journal in front of me to get his attention, yet it only sent up a cloud of dust. "Greetings, Hurek?"

"You my priest?" he said suddenly. He had a smooth, deep voice. Broken words but that was expected from a foreigner.

"No, Hurek. I am not your..."

"You make me better?" he said, turning to me and a few peanut shells dropped from his lips.

"Better?"

"Better person?" he said, a hint of hope in his deep-set eyes.

"No... I... I'm not your priest, Hurek. I am just here to ask you a few—"

"I only speak with priest."

I sighed, and Hurek returned to his bowl. Why wasn't he drinking some water with that?

"Listen, Hurek... I am just here to write a book and—"

"Books are not weapons," Hurek said quickly, as if answering a question I'd never asked.

"Well, I suppose metaphorically," I began, but then caught the confusion in the muscular man's eyes and recalled the story of the scribe he'd nearly killed with that tome before I’d arrived at Palmyra. "No... they are definitely not weapons, Hurek," I finished firmly, hoping there was no fear in my voice.

Hurek nodded. Sadly.

I mentally sifted through the details sent to me by Suetonius, the old historian that now controlled most of collegiate guilds across Rome. On my commission, he noted the gladiator had recently been acting strange, carrying around an old tome and using it to bludgeon a scholar who had bothered him on it. Hurek’s owner, Gaius Julius, was away on business with the Syrian pro-consul, leaving me a stipend for my needs and my own room in the palace. Did that mean I was Hurek’s only authority figure in this city? How was I to control a potentially insane muscle-brain?

It seemed he was regretful of his actions, though. I didn't really know the details of the event, but he was clearly upset over it still. Enough to ponder it over his morning bowl of nuts.

"I will be your priest, Hurek," I said, an idea beginning to form in my mind, " and I will make you better. But you must answer my questions truthfully."

A crowd of scribes had begun filling the quiet barrack hall. Or should I say a gang of scribes. They glared at Hurek with pens drawn, some nibs still dripping with ink. It was all rather ominous, from young to old, from student to wizened librarian with a long, stained beard—a dozen of them lining to block every exit.

"What... is happening," I said under my breath.

"They want revenge," Hurek said gravely, pushing away his bowl and wiping his mouth.

"I ask again, what on Mars' nutsack is happening?"

"Master Cicero!" the old librarian cried. He carried an abacus that had some rope tied to it, holding it like he planned to flail it around. "You must be the new palace biographer."

"Yes, and you are interrupting my... very healthy breakfast with Hurek here," I replied. "Can you please leave?"

"It's fine, priest," Hurek said, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "You stay back."

Without another word, Hurek stood up, pulling a large book out from under him. It was a hard, leather-bound tome with iron-tipped corners and along the spine it read “Our Empire's Greatest Martial Advisors”.

"Is that the tome?” I asked incredulously and Hurek shrugged. "They take my club," he replied.

"What are you going to do—"

The next few moments were a surreal dream, as the librarian, bare-footed, jumped on the table like a crazed chimp while whipping the abacus over his head. The beads slid along the metal rods, creating a whistling sound the quicker he spun the algebraic tool of death.

The first hit sent beads flying in all directions as the man slammed the tool on Hurek's book-fashioned shield. He then jumped, dodging Hurek's return sweep.

The gladiator snarled, flourishing the book in front of him, parrying the librarian's attempts from overhead.

"He's using the tables to gain advantage!" I yelled at Hurek.

The librarian was jumping from table to table, towering over Hurek as he launched his abacus fury.

"The table, Hurek!" I cried as the barbarian struggled to answer the flurry of overhead strikes, barely getting a chance to counter.

But he finally listened, kicking at a table just as the librarian landed, which sent the bearded man tumbling to the floor.

Nevertheless, the man was as tenacious as a Gallic war-hound. He clawed across the dirt floor as Hurek pursued him with the deadly tome. The old man almost escaped but ran into an over-turned table.

Hurek, with a frightening rage, smacked the librarian's ass with the heavy tome, filling the hall with his blood-curdling scream.

His students fled the scene quicker than they had arrived.

"Is he still alive?" I rushed to Hurek's side and thankfully found the librarian clutching his behind, whimpering.

"Yes, but I kill his spirit," Hurek said with a deep breath.

"What is the meaning of this?" I questioned the tearful villain and he sniffed, staring between me and Hurek.

"You don't know what you're getting into, Cicero," he spat. "Gaius Julius has filled this town with the most wretched lie. He's a Roman imposter."

"An imposter?" I asked, wondering what the man was about. Did he think I would have some bone to pick with Roman posers just because I was from Rome? He clearly just wanted the book in Hurek’s hand and was grasping at anything that would help.

"It's all in that record," he pointed to the book in Hurek's hands. "Julius' real name is Nikolaus, and he's from Constantinople."

"As in, he's Greek?" I said, gasping dramatically.

"What does that mean" Hurek said as he scratched his sweaty chin.

The librarian ignored him, instead focusing entirely on me now. “The truth of the heart, Cicero! It’s all about the truth in the end, isn’t it? No matter how silly it may all seem in the beginning.” There was some snot leaking out of his nose and mixing in with his dirt-smeared face. I stepped away, gently guiding Hurek away from the ridiculous man as well.

“The book!” he yelled after us, “We just need that book! Please!”

The truth of the heart… It was not a very Roman-like phrase. Too sentimental and eastern for my taste. I left it out of my mind as we fled the barracks, and decided to focus on what was important. For my duties had to be kept simple and direct. I’d study Hurek, jot down his life and times, maybe see a fight or two and call it a summer. Hopefully Julius or Suetonius or someone would eventually show up and take the reins before I end up knee deep in local politics. I had no desire to leave footprints in the Forum this time around.