Fireball by John Christopher

impatiently, of the things and places he would show Simon in the city; it was Londinium as he had assumed. There was a little wine bar in particular which was Bos’s home, insofar as he could ever know one. His girlfriend kept it. She would like Simon, he said. And she had a young sister. He made a gesture indicating feminine beauty and winked an eye.
    Simon played up to this. The important thing was getting out of the barracks. It was safer to keep his counsel as far as the step after that was concerned. One thing of which he was sure was that, however attractive the wine bar or the younger sister, they could not begin to make up for the unpleasantness of staying on as a gladiator.
    Or the risks. He reminded himself of something else: Everything depended on his actually making thetransition from tiro to veteranus —in other words, on fighting at the Games and winning. Whatever his intentions for the future, fitness and skill as a gladiator were important now. It was not something like a school examination or cricket trials which loomed ahead, but a matter of life and death. His life.
    With that in mind, Simon put effort into the training in a way he never had for anything before, and would scarcely have thought himself capable of doing. He exercised and practised not only during the long periods scheduled by the lanista, but outside them as well. Bos heartily approved, joining him and encouraging him. As he frankly said, other things being equal, the odds were not on Simon’s side. The greatest fatalities were always (and understandably) among the tirones; in addition, Simon was a lot younger than was usual and, although tall and reasonably well built, was a long way from peak condition. So Bos welcomed the enthusiasm and drove Simon on when he showed any sign of flagging.
    Bos also used his influence with the cooks to get Simon even more of the precious meat which in one meal a day accompanied the basic mess of barley andbeans. Simon became an object of professional pride to him; he would stare at him with the approval of a farmer surveying a prize steer.
    The other and even more important thing he did was to teach the tricks of his trade—the manoeuvres and dodges he had learned in the long years of fighting. He had already fixed it that Simon, after the initial basic training, should join him as a secutor parmularius. The advantage of having a lighter and less cumbersome shield, he declared, more than made up for the lower level of protection even when one was up against a scutarius, and against a retiarius the difference was much more marked. Especially, he added, for a youngster like Simon.
    There was one particular trick he would reveal only when they were off parade, with no one watching. It was for use against a retiarius, as a last resort if one had been netted, and involved falling in a particular way, rolling, and coming up again with a special leap which took you sufficiently clear of your opponent to have a chance to cut your way free of the net. Bos managed to get hold of a net for them to practise with in one of the unused storerooms. It was agonizingly difficult, involving theuse of muscles Simon had not imagined existed. Practising went on a long time before Bos expressed grudging satisfaction.
    Something else happened in the aftermath to this, while they were relaxing and resting. Bos’s barrel chest rose and fell with his breathing, and the fish design on it did the same. At the beginning Simon had wondered idly about the tattoo, but later it had become something he took for granted, like the trumpet reveille soon after dawn or the grainy coarseness of the bread. In the beginning he would have felt diffident about asking, but he felt more sure now of Bos’s amiability.
    Bos did not look surprised or put out by the question. He said simply: “Christianus sum.”
    It should not have been too much of a surprise; Simon recalled that the fish had been one of the earliest Christian