Spartacus: Blood And Sand Guide

To the new recruits, like the fiery Thracian Spartacus, Pelorus was furniture. A relic. “The Fingerless Ghost,” they called him behind his back. He never spoke unless spoken to, and his one good eye—the other was a milky, useless pearl—seemed to look through men, not at them.

Crixus, the Undefeated, bristled but said nothing. Even he felt the cold weight of Pelorus’s stare. spartacus: blood and sand

The silence that followed was deeper than the Capuan night. Sura’s eyes welled. “Why tell me this?” To the new recruits, like the fiery Thracian

As Spartacus and the others fled into the night, Pelorus sat down on his stool one last time. He took out the olive wood he had been whittling. It was nearly finished: a small, crude figure of a woman, her face upturned. He set it on the ground, leaned his head against the cool stone wall of the gate he had guarded for a decade, and closed his one good eye. He never spoke unless spoken to, and his

Pelorus looked at his mutilated hand. “I believed the same once. That my skill, my fame, my will would shield the one I loved.” He paused. “They sent her to the mines when I lost. I never saw her face again.”

“You,” Batiatus spat. “You traitorous relic. You told the woman something. You poisoned her mind.”

His name was Pelorus. He was older, his back a lattice of scar tissue, his left hand missing the last two fingers. He had been a champion once, ten years ago, in the time of Titus Batiatus, the current lanista’s father. Now, he was the ostiarius —the gatekeeper. He did not fight. He did not train. He sat on a stool by the inner gate of the ludus, oiling straps, sharpening practice swords that would never see a real throat, and watching.