Julia's heart stopped. Everything seemed to slow down. Each movement took an age. A rushing noise filled her ears as the cudgel started to come closer. An evil grin split the attacker's face. This was it, the time of her death.
She felt another scream build within her, then escape with a fury. The attacker checked. She crouched low and made a grab for Valens's eating dagger, which hung off his belt. Her hand curled around the hilt and she pulled it with all her might. The dagger arched upwards and hit the neck of the cudgel with a crash that shook her arms. Instinctively she moved the dagger away from her, trying to force the cudgel backwards.
It refused to move. Julia braced her feet against the wall and resisted the attacker's attempts to bring the cudgel down. Neither gave way. Her arms ached and she wondered that she could hold out for this long. The fetid stench of the attacker's breath was overpowering. Gagging, she locked her elbows and used the wall to push her feet off and drive the dagger forward.
The cudgel moved with a suddenness that made her gasp. She saw it fly out of the attacker's hand and bounce to her right. The attacker then ran down a darkened alleyway. She stepped over Valens's prone body and looked up and down a twisting street with its shadowed doorways and narrow darkened alley entrances. Only the faintest of moonbeams pierced the high tenement buildings where several flickering oil lamps showed in the slitted windows.
'Valens,' she muttered under her breath. 'Stand up. Move. We have to leave.'
Her ears strained to hear. Nothing except a low moan, so soft that Julia thought she had misheard. Then it repeated, louder. Julia's heart leapt. Valens was alive.
She used a hand to wipe the sweat from her brow while the other made a slow sweep with the dagger in front of her. The weight grew heavier with each pass. Her shoulder muscles screamed. She wanted to change hands but her fingers were glued to the hilt.
A small movement to her right and Julia used her last ounce of strength and lunged forward. Her arm jerked as the blade hit something soft and bounced back. She heard the cry, the clatter of a dropped object and then footsteps.
She felt her arms begin to give way and lowered the dagger with a heartfelt sigh. She had done it! She had seen off the attacker.
When Valens gave another low moan, Julia immediately knelt by his side, her hand probing his head for any injury. A noise from the alleyway in front of her made her pause and raise the dagger again.
'Who goes there?' she cried, hoping it was a rat. The attacker had to have fled. She was certain she had heard running noises disappearing down the alleyway. 'Show yourself.'
Keeping the dagger trained straight ahead, she stooped down, picked up several pebbles from the road and tossed them in the general direction of the noise. A faint cough made her blood run cold.
'Quite the tigress when you are aroused, Julia.' A cold voice from the alleyway sent shivers down her spine. 'Pity I only learnt of it now.'
'Lucius,' Julia said. Cold sweat started to drip down her back.
'Who else?' Lucius stepped from the shadows. She felt the bile rise in her stomach. She had seen that look on his face all too often. 'You have been a most annoying problem, Julia Antonia, but in the end, you had your uses.'
Julia tried to lash out with her dagger, but missed.
'What are you talking about, Lucius?' she said forcibly, trying not to show her fear. 'I will never do anything for you.'
'But you have, my dear, you led me straight to Gaius Gracchus. I had thought my cousin dead five years ago, dead of an…unfortunate…accident. It grieved his father so and I was able to comfort him and his wife whose illness I had learnt of from my mother. Did you know the senator would have married my mother, but then he saw her cousin? The Gracchi wealth is great and it should have been my birthright Only one person stood between me and its inheritance. So simple, so easy. Why, I never even had to meet the man. How was I to know that the pirate would double-cross me? He took my money, sent me the ransom note and then failed to kill Gaius. Instead, he sold him on.'
'Never trust a pirate.'
'Indeed.'
She glanced at the dark alleyway where the first attacker had disappeared. Her mouth went dry. How long until he would be back with reinforcements?
'Clodius,' she screamed, hoping the elderly porter would hear her through the oak door. 'It's Julia Antonia, help me.'
'All the pleading in the world won't help you.' Lucius leant forward and Julia could see the strange glowing light in his eyes. 'You know it only makes me angry. You and I know Clodius is deaf when he chooses. I took precautions.'
'You are evil,' Julia said between gritted teeth. 'You won't get away with this. My father—'
"The gods have decreed it, Julia Antonia. Such a fitting end for the two people I dislike most in the world dead…killed by a footpad as they attempted to copulate in the alleyway.'
'I don't think so, Lucius. I have a dagger and I am determined to use it.'
His hand snaked out and closed around her wrist like a vice. He tightened until she found the knife slipping from her grasp and falling to the street with a loud clang.
'Correction—you had a dagger.'
Julia swallowed hard and refused to curl up in a ball and wait for the next blow. She brought her arm to her teeth and clamped down on his fingers with all her might.
'You bitch,' he swore and she felt his hand connect with her face, sending her reeling back against the wall.
She collapsed down to the cobbles and her foot kicked the abandoned cudgel. She dropped to her knees and grabbed it.
'Correction, I have another weapon.'
'You have changed, Julia. The mouse has learnt to roar. A pity that.'
He brought the knife down on the cudgel. The reverberations shook her teeth, and she felt the cudgel grow slipper}' from sweat. Her fingers struggled to maintain their grip and knew she would not be able to hold out much longer.
A pool of light formed in the doorway.
'What in the name of Hades is going on out there! Honest people want to sleep!' she heard Clodius call.
'Clodius, come quickly!' she called out.
'What sort of shade calls my name? Back, you creature of the night.'
'It's Julia Antonia,' she replied. 'I need help. We're being attacked!'
Clodius swung his oil lamp towards her. She blinked in the sudden glare, she could see Lucius frozen in the pool of light.
'What are you doing out there, Julia Antonia? I thought you were spending the night at your friend's.'
Lucius's wolfish grin increased. He took a step closer to Julia. 'Deaf and blind… when he chooses, Julia.'
'Get my father quick!' she yelled, raising the cudgel with the last ounce of her strength and prayed fervently that some god might see her plight and help. 'Please, Clodius.'
'Exactly what is going on out here!' her father roared.
At the sound of her father's voice, Lucius dropped the dagger and started to run. The cudgel slipped from her gasp and fell to the ground with a thump.
'Father, thank Venus you are here!'
'Julia, I thought I heard your voice. Why in the name of Jupiter are you screaming like a Fury?'
Julia wiped her hands on her gown, swallowed hard and made sure her voice was clear and firm.
'I've been attacked,' she called. 'Come quickly.'
'Who attacked you?' her father demanded. 'An armed gang of thieves, my political enemies, who?'
'Lucius,' she stated flatly, staring into the shadows where he had vanished. She raised a hand to shield her eyes against the glare of her father's lamp. 'Lucius and his henchmen attacked me.'
Her father lowered the oil lamp he was carrying.
'Lucius! I refuse to believe that. He'd never do a thing like that—not to you. Not to my family.'
She heard a slight moan from Valens. Without stopping to think, she knelt down and cradled his head in her lap. She fancied that his eyelashes fluttered and his lips turned up in a weak smile.
'Believe what y
ou like!' she said, looking up at her father. 'I have no reason to lie. And Valens has been injured. These were no shades of the night that attacked us.'
'There is no reason for Lucius to be here. He lives on the Palatine and I warned him away not more than four days ago. Your imagination is playing tricks on you, daughter.'
'I think I should know my ex-husband.' Julia said between clenched teeth. 'I know what he did, what he is capable of doing.'
'Lucius was here earlier, master,' Clodius said, plucking at Antonius's sleeve. 'He and his servants brought an amphora for me to apologise for his behaviour the other day. He said you knew all about it. Right chatty he was. He wanted to know all about what the family had planned. Whether or not Julia was going to the Gladiatorial Feast, whom I thought would do well in the games. That sort of thing.'
'Did he, indeed? And where is this amphora, Clodius?'
Clodius hung his head.' Julia's dog came bounding up and pushed it over, shattering it before I had a chance to drink a drop. I thought there was no harm in it.'
'Next time, you will tell me about it.' Her father's voice was full of ice-cold fury, 'You know what they say about Greeks bearing gifts. Lucius is no friend of this family.'
Clodius hung his head and scuffed his sandal. 'I didn't think a broken amphora was worth mentioning, not straight away like.'
Julia heard Valens groan again and saw him struggle to raise his head from her lap.
'You're hurt,' she cried. 'Don't move. Lie still, and we'll get help.'
'I knew you had the makings of a gladiatrix,' he whispered with more than a hint of pride in his voice. His hand caught hers and giving it a brief squeeze before he rolled over onto his side, taking his head off her lap. "The way you faced Lucius down with that cudgel. I owe you my life.'
'Pure fear and stupidity, I am afraid,' she said, but her heart glowed. She smoothed her gown out, touching the spot where Valens's head had lain.
'Fear and courage are closely linked, Julia. Not many men would have done that' He started to stand up, but sank back down to the ground and placed his head on his knees, groaning.
'It will be fine,' she said soothingly, touching his shoulder with her hand.
Valens gave a groan in reply and waved his hand above his head as if to say he understood.
'Who do you have with you, Julia?' Antonius asked, lifting the oil lamp again and sending shadows across Julia's face.
'Valens,' she said. 'He saw me home from the Gladiatorial Feast. Lucius attacked us without any provocation.'
'Why should your ex-husband do that? Tell me the truth, Julia. What are you trying to hide from me?'
She wondered how much she should tell her father. She ought to explain about what Lucius had done, but she also knew Valens wanted to keep his past, a secret. She had promised him. She knew what she wanted. She had to let Valens do it his way.
The world started to tilt and her legs grew weak. Suddenly she sat down on the cold ground and drank in gulps of cold air.
'Her experience has overwhelmed her,' she heard Valens say from a long way away. He took her wrist in his hand, his fingers curling around, probing. Julia gave a small tug and they released.
'If we can give her some air,' Valens said with a perplexed look in his eyes, 'she will recover. It is the aftershock of the fight. You should have seen the way she wielded the dagger. Without her bravery, you would have had two corpses by your door.'
Julia pressed her hands together in an effort to keep from speaking. She wanted to protest and say that it had nothing to with that and everything to do with her fear about what would happen now that her father was bound to guess something had occurred between her and Valens.
'Are you telling me that my daughter fended off Lucius's friends on her own?'
'She saved my life. Lucius was intent on killing us both. Only the gods know the true reason.' Valens rubbed the back of his neck. 'It is lucky I have a hard head.'
Julia felt her whole body begin to shake. He had made his choice. She ran her hands up and down her arms.
'It's so very cold,' she said, 'Funny, I thought it was warm before but now the night air has turned bitter.'
Antonius snapped his fingers and Clodius disappeared briefly, only to reappear with a coarse woollen blanket that he handed to Antonius. Antonius draped the blanket over Julia's shoulders.
'We need to get you both inside the compound. The night air is not good for anyone,' Antonius said. 'We can talk about your exploits later, Julia. But inside first, out of this night air. I'll take Julia; Clodius, you support Valens.'
The few hundred yards to the porter's lodge seemed like climbing Mount Vesuvius to Julia. Without her father's hand under her elbow, she was certain she would have stumbled and fallen. She carefully kept her eyes from Valens, but found it impossible not to wonder if this completely drained feeling was what he felt after a bout in the arena.
At the sight of Clodius's small stool, she sank down. Her feet refused to move any further.
She held her hands over the tiny brazier and tried to get them warm. When she thought she had control of her emotions, she turned towards Valens. He was sitting on the floor. Legs sprawled out in front of him, eyes trained directly on her. At her glance, he gave a small smile and raised his thumb upwards. Julia found her face breaking into a wide smile.
'How are you feeling?' she asked and her hands gripped the edges of the stool to prevent her from hurrying over and exploring his injuries.
'My head feels like it has been hit by a cudgel but other than that I'll live.'
'Good,' Julia breathed. Her eyes met his and she allowed herself to be swallowed up in his deepening pools of brown. The world seemed to narrow down to the two of them. Nobody or nothing else mattered. She half-rose and swayed towards him.
'Clodius, I want you to get me a runner.' Her father's brusque voice cut across Julia's thoughts, making her start. She had forgotten he was there.
Julia felt her cheeks begin to burn. She abruptly sat down and covered her face with her thin mantle, pretending to be overcome once more. She clenched her fist, hoping that her father had not noticed what had just passed between Valens and her.
She risked a glance upwards. Her father's impassive face gave no clues.
'I want that runner now, Clodius,' her father's voice commanded. Grumbling, Clodius left the room. He continued in the same tone of voice. 'And now I would like to know what I am supposed to do about all this?'
'What do you mean all this, Father?' Julia asked, holding her palms upwards. 'Surely it is obvious that you must file suit against Lucius and prevent him from attacking me again.'
Her father waved an impatient hand. 'That is immaterial to what I am talking about, Julia. I want to know what I am supposed to do about you two and your affair. There will be no hushing up the scandal this time. All Rome will know and they will realise that it has been going on for a while.'
Julia's heart stopped. He knew! She glanced up into her father's hard, grizzled face. There was no merriment or sentiment in his countenance.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Valens stand and move closer to her. She only had to reach out her hand to brush his. She tightened her grip until her knuckles shone white against each other.
'Father, you are jumping to conclusions.'
Her father's face contorted. 'I am no fool, Julia, please refrain from treating me like one. If I had not known before to-night, Lucius's actions make it abundantly clear what is going on.'
'Julius Antonius—' Valens started to say.
Her father's face grew beet-red before the words exploded from his mouth.
'You be quiet! Look at the trouble you have caused. Sabina was correct. We should never have had an infamis in the house.'
Julia buried her head in her hands. Her father was treating Valens as if he were some object, as if he were a slave. She felt Valens's reassuring touch on her shoulder.
'How long?' she whispered and raised her head to look at her father. "H
ow long have you known?'
'Long enough.' Her father's face softened and he touched Julia's hand. 'I am neither blind nor an imbecile. You have blossomed ever since this gladiator arrived. When he abruptly left, you wilted like a flower starved of sunshine and water.'
Julia tilted her head and looked at her father. The explosive anger appeared to have vanished.
'Blossomed?' she questioned.
'Became more like the way you were as a child. Not jumping at every noise. Back to being my little Julia.'
'I hadn't realised you noticed.' Julia stared at her father in disbelief. She had thought her father never bothered, that she was an encumbrance, a pawn to be used by Sabina; now she discovered he did care.
'I am your father, Julia,' he said quietly and patted her hand. 'I notice you.'
'Then you approve?'
'Approve?' her father roared, his face growing red again. All tenderness vanished as if it had never been. 'No, I most certainly do not approve. How could I approve? He is a gladiator. I could never approve of such a relationship. While you were discreet, I had no reason to interfere.'
Julia stared at her father's forbidding face. He had to understand. She offered up prayers to Venus to intervene. 'But you like him. You said you liked him. You said you liked the way I have been blossoming.'
'If I did not like him, I would have stopped this much sooner, but, like a sentimental fool, I allowed you to keep seeing him. I thought it had all ended when he left the other day, but now I see it has not. And the incident tonight means I shall have to take action.'
Julia tried to ignore the growing pit in her stomach. 'Why has it changed?'
'Lucius obviously came upon you two and reacted with the appropriate rage. He was well within his rights, Julia. A Roman matron consorting in a public street with an infamis. No jury will convict on such evidence. The story will be all over Rome within hours. Our family and our standing in the community will be ruined!'
'What do you intend to do?' Julia stared her father directly in the eye.
Her father reached out a hand, but she brushed it away.
The Gladiator's Honor Page 22
