The memory of your loved ones
A/N: I disclaim all right to originality over this work, I have made no money from it.
When I have finished this existence, I hope to be remembered less as a man than a phenomenon. For, as the armies of our dear ruler approach I cannot help but give over to sentimentality. Yes, I, Antonius Proximo too have memories of my past and whilst our young crusader works his plan of revenge I intend to leave my tale, so that in death I will be remembered not just as a traitor to my state.
I have few memories of my early childhood, I never knew my mother or father. The first that I have are in the service of a knight, a man who not only knew how to manipulate the fears of young children but also how to abuse their trust. From him I learnt nothing but cynicism. There was one cook who helped smuggle me out and she was the first to have shown me any gentility during my young life.
I repaid this trust in the most abhorrent manner. It was a hot day, the sort of day that makes sweat stick to clothing like honey. She had found herself work at a barracks and I as her young assistant helped her with every minor task. At the close of the evening she was preparing herself for sleep when some drunken legionaries dragged her off her feet and away to her room. I stood in powerless silence, watching the woman try to scream through closed hands. To protect myself from these men I ran, sliding away through the dust.
It is a guilt that I carry to this day, that my eleven year old self was unable to prevent that travesty. I never returned to that place. For a time I wondered, relying on the kindness and naivety of strangers to get me through each day. They always used to comment on how thoroughly bored I seemed. I suppose to an extent I was, ill-educated and dull, just another common thief without obligation.
This was until I met Plurus. Here was a man unbound, an educated freeman who knew the relationship between hard profit and hard labour. He trod with a rare and fierce discipline on my rage. In gradual degrees he educated me, I learnt to write and read proficiently. He was a man of practicality, who taught me the value of profit and success. This became all too apparent when he decided to sell me back into slavery.
In a storm they held their auction, the catchers spitting angrily at the offers they received. Young men and women compelled towards their new lives regarded each other, a prostitute here, a salt miner there. In my case, my broad shoulders caught the attention of Tertius, a tall man of little speech. He picked me out with a fine offer which Plurus immediately accepted. At seventeen years of age I was to become a gladiator.
For all of the casual brutality of the school, it did at least teach me how to approach adversity. When a man lunges at you with a sword you survive by one thought only, that you will strike the next blow and end his life. In this harsh light I learnt nothing of honour and so when I heard the word used in our salute I wondered what it could possibly mean. It is a bitter irony that the realisation has dawned only in the final hours of my life.
Those ten years I was a man of deed, striking those in my path and swaying away from the mortal blows that I could not block. In those moments, the thudding of the heart was so loud your own ears rattled with it, the blood flooded and surged to your limbs with each passing moment. The crowds I can still hear, their salutations rattling over the vanquished opponent. Yet in truth I cannot remember much of any of my contests, such was the insanity of the battle.
In those moments when all else seems to fade and you are one with shield and sword you face not only your opponent but also yourself. When I stepped away and removed my armour I became once again a young man with the run of the courtesans of the city. Yet for all this easy gratification I felt only for one woman. She was not cut of the same cloth, of a different breed entirely to the sycophantic hags I was used to.
Her gait was tall and effortless and yet she did not want for charm or guile. Such was her easy manner and life that I became infatuated. Our life together was brief and yet in those moments I felt trust for another. As I found to my cost the feeling was not mutual and as she walked away a ready purpose returned. The progress of those weeks was reversed and in my rage I turned to all that was left, the freedom so long promised.
With new vigour I returned to the fray, more violent than I had been. In these bouts I lost the crowd, for they made it clear they did not care for a butcher. Nonetheless, the emperor felt that I had been risking my life long enough and handed me the mark of my freedom. This goes to show how little our wise fool knew of the games, he had freed me just as the mob started to turn.
In the years since I have set everything on my skills as a gladiator and whilst I am bitter about what has gone before, I have survived long enough to know how to turn a profit. Perhaps posterity will see me as a penitent man for my final act of conscience although that does not seem a fitting legacy. So many men aim to stride amongst the gods, whereas it is likely I will be remembered as a man who never looked upward. Or, at least, that is how I hope to be remembered.