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scars.
    ‘You’re here because you’re the lowest of the low,’ he said. ‘Common criminals look down on you. Whores wouldn’t sleep with you. Even bloody slaves laugh at you. Rome shits on each and every one of you daily, and if I had my way, I’d pack the lot of you off to the mines. But today is your lucky day, ladies. Our master is in a generous mood for a change. He’s given you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make something of your pathetic little lives.’
    A silence fell across the training ground. The doctore looked for someone to make an example of and fixed his piercing eyes on a young man at the end of the line. He had an angular and awkward physique, and appeared somehow shorter than his actual height. His eyes radiated a defiance of everything around him and he wore an intricately decorated pallium cloak over his tunic. The mere sight of the cloak caused Calamus to blaze with anger.
    ‘You!’ he shouted as he marched over to the young man. ‘That’s a rich-looking cloak. Very nice.’ He narrowed his eyes to dagger slits. ‘Who’d you steal it from?’
    The young man shook his head. ‘Nobody,’ he said. ‘It’s mine.’
    Calamus elbowed him in the solar plexus. The recruit grunted as he doubled over and dropped to his knees, coughing and spluttering on the ground. Calamus towered above him. ‘That’s “sir” to you, you little shit!’ he snarled. ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Marcus Valerius Pavo,’ the recruit said between desperate draws of breath. ‘Sir.’
    ‘Tell me, Pavo, do you think I was born yesterday?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    Calamus grabbed a fold of the cloak and shoved it in front of the recruit’s face. ‘And yet you expect me to believe that a desperate lowlife like you can afford a piece of finery like this?’
    ‘I didn’t steal it.’
    ‘Bollocks! Are you calling me a liar?’ Calamus said, lowering his voice.
    ‘It was a gift, sir.’
    ‘A gift?’ Calamus spat. ‘Scum like you don’t get gifts.’
    ‘I swear, sir. My father gave it to me.’
    Calamus laughed and rubbed his hands with glee. ‘Oh, that’s a rich one! You don’t have a father, son. You were born a bastard like every other man in this ludus. But entertain me some more. Who do you reckon your old man is?’
    ‘Titus Valerius Pavo, sir. Legate of the Fifth Legion. Or at least he was.’
    That caught Calamus off guard. He worked his features into a heavyset frown and paused, unsure for a moment how to proceed. In his twenty years’ experience in the business, Calamus had never heard of the son of a legate enrolling at a ludus.
    ‘Another rich-boy volunteer, eh?’ he seethed. ‘I know your kind. Pissed away your inheritance, did you? What was your poison, lad? Tarts? Booze? Gambling? Chariot races? Can’t be bothered to get a proper job? If you’ve come here thinking it’s an easy ride, you’re in for a fucking shock.’
    ‘I’m not a volunteer,’ Pavo said, scraping himself off the ground. ‘I’m here against my will. My father was killed by—’
    ‘Shut up,’ the doctore thundered. ‘Frankly I couldn’t give a toss why you’re here. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a fucking recruit and nothing else.’
    Pavo kept his mouth shut. He had been beaten and spat on and shouted at by men below his station ever since a guard of Praetorians arrived at the camp of the Sixth Legion and placed him under arrest. The doctore didn’t scare him. Not much did now. Not after what had happened to his family.
    He watched Calamus wheel away in disgust and pace up and down in front of the men, his voice echoing around the porticoes and travertine columns surrounding the training ground. Pavo noticed that the tendons of the doctore’s bare feet were bulbous and distorted from years of fighting on sand.
    ‘This isn’t the army,’ Calamus said. ‘Gladiators aren’t legionaries.’ He shot a scathing look at Pavo. ‘If you want to spend the next twenty-five years digging holes and collecting