“How come you to be here?” Auriane demanded softly.
“They expect the hospital rooms to fill up with more valuable charges today and so they drove me out. I’m here because kitchen slaves aren’t watched that closely. There’s a measure of freedom in being next to worthless, it seems. Auriane, with your hair pulled back so, they’ve made you look bald.”
“I’ll just have to shame you with my ugliness, I suppose.” Her brief smile faded. “Sunia, I do not expect you to ever forgive me, but—”
“Forgive you? Are you mad? I still walk under the sun because of what you did. To even think I would hold you to account!”
Auriane felt happy disbelief. Sunia apparently had no memory of cursing her name. “That is well. Sunia, poor innocent victim of my fate.”
“Speak of it no more. Auriane, take heart—Thorgild and Coniaric are alive, as is the son of old Andar. We’ve lost only six of our people, and none from this school.”
“Praise be to the Fates.”
“Thorgild’s in here with us, but they took Coniaric off. He had a cut at the first rib, no organs struck, and an arrow wound. He’ll be about again if those vile surgeons don’t kill him with their butcher knives and poisons. We’ll be watching you—but so will Aristos. He’s in the next chamber, we saw him go in. Auriane, beware. Those eyes of night will be on you.” Sunia pressed Auriane’s hand tightly against her cheek. “Your heart is greater than mine. You must not leave us, Auriane.”
Auriane pressed Sunia’s hand to her own cheek. “May the spirits of our groves keep and comfort you,” she whispered. The passage door was thrown open, admitting a gust of fetid wind from the arena. She left Sunia then and returned to her place.
The door opening onto the sand was still barred by a guard’s javelin. At that moment two trainers of the Second Hall emerged from a side passage. One stopped as he recognized Auriane.
“Hail, Aurinia, queen of the first barrack block,” he called out merrily. “Your wealth and domains have increased in the last half hour.” He threw a bloody cloak at Auriane. She caught it, uncomprehending.
“This was Celadon’s,” he went on with a jester’s sly smile. “He wanted you to have it—he’s got no use for it anymore. Take it, it’s yours—at least for the next half hour. Then, who gets it?” Both laughed loudly.
Celadon, Auriane thought, a voiceless shriek forming in her throat. Slaughtered like an animal, and unmourned.
They turned from her, still speaking of Celadon. “How dare he humiliate Acco like that, getting himself speared by a mere net-fighter. As always, those that don’t listen to us get dragged out by the feet.”
A horde of the Numidian boys employed in turning the sand swarmed in then, busy as flies, shouting and laughing, jostling everyone. Auriane was too angry to pay them any mind. She wheeled round and hurled the bloody cloak at the trainers’ retreating backs.
“Wolves! Night-crawling vermin!” Her shouts were lost in the din.
Then suddenly she understood.
The trainers were purposely distracting her. She looked quickly at her sword—and was certain it lay at a slightly different angle on its cushion. She saw that one of the running boys carried a linen bundle—and she would have wagered her life that within it was the sword with the mark of Tiwaz. She watched the boy as he ran in a zigzag path; far down the passage he stashed it behind the open door of a guard chamber.
The small procession started forward again. Auriane thought frantically, uncertain what to do. Should she protest now?
No. I will reveal Aristos’ treachery before all the people.
The javelin was raised, and the swordbearers descended to the sand. She heard a trumpet’s brazen cry, and was almost overwhelmed by a gust of the arena’s humid air, thick with the rank, lingering odors of animal flesh and human sweat and blood. The perfumed water jetting into the air did little to cover these smells; it served somehow only to make them more nauseating.
Auriane and Perseus took the last step down onto the sand.
Erato spoke truly, she thought. Nothing could prepare you for this.
She felt she stood at the bottom of an immense funnel formed of the multitudes mounting steeply upward to the awnings and the sky. It seemed the whole world converged upon the arena, that all paths sloped down to this vortex of elemental struggle, this bottomless sand-pit that gulped the blood of strangers. Here was the heart of unholiness, the boiling cauldron of Roman savagery. Decius’ words drummed in her ears—“Never let my people take you alive.”
The vast space, nearly enclosed, admitted one thick shaft of light that slanted down from the circular opening in the velarium. Dark and powerful gods have taken possession of this place, she thought, gazing skyward and half expecting a booming god’s voice to come shuddering down. But she saw only a cold, misty abyss hung with the sluggish vapors of slaughterhouse scents, gathering and thickening at the high tiers, which were ghostly behind its veil. The weight of every stare was heavy on her shoulders, and she fought a powerful urge to turn round and flee—but the oak door behind her was already securely closed. She could feel, like penetrating needles, the people’s sharp curiosity about life and death as they eagerly examined the faces of those who walked into final darkness—as though they expected a voyager setting out on a journey to tell tales of it in advance.
Auriane and Perseus moved past the Gate of Death with its frightful friezes of demons over its arch. Through which Celadon just departed, she thought, refusing to look at it. At a stately pace they moved around the ellipse, approaching the imperial cubicle with its flanking, laurel-entwined columns surmounted by golden eagles in flight, its medallions of the Emperor, its brilliant tapestries that dropped almost to the arena’s floor. The colored sailcloth of the velarium cast shifting shadows of pale aquamarine, rose and gold onto the sand.
Beneath the imperial box were the four undertrainers who were always present, ready to goad the reluctant with whips and brands. Erato stood at the arena’s center, his keen gaze fixed on Auriane; fretfully he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Next to him was Perseus’ trainer from the Claudian School. Each combatant normally had his own trainer present, for even the most seasoned fighter occasionally needed instructions cried to him once a bout had begun.
Across from the imperial box was the Consul’s seat; beneath it, the musicians were stationed. It did not seem odd to Auriane that the combats were accompanied by music, for she counted them a form of sacrifice, and she knew all her life that the plaints of ritual instruments drew the gods near. The drummer, the flute blowers, and the seated trumpeters were silent; only the haughty Egyptian woman standing at the water organ was energetically attacking her instrument. The lurching, wailing notes of the water organ made Auriane feel she was carried off on a jolting, runaway journey into an underworld peopled with carousing madmen. More than any other, that instrument, with its cruel, gloating sound, dark as the Styx, seemed to be the voice of this place.
Beside the musicians were two wooden caskets.
Distantly she heard the herald cry—“Perseus. Aurinia.”
Marcus Julianus did not know Auriane at first; her smoothed-back hair of burnished bronze made her seem some sleek, feral hunting creature. Those eyes were remote; she walked a battlefield. This creature was first a warrior; all else would ever be second. Yet still he saw all the vulnerability beneath. A knot of misery formed in his chest. This orphaned creature of the forest, he thought, has more nobility in one hand than all those in the seats of honor who style themselves noble. Drinkers of blood, he thought, looking about him at the half-sated crowd. When will you awaken and begin to scream? Why is our country’s greatest monument a human slaughterhouse? Why do so few ask that question?
The throng reacted variously to the tall barbarian woman and the Thracian swordsman. Those in the balcony seats reserved for the Senators looked on this match with disdain, counting it firm evidence of the growing effeminacy and perversion of their Emperor, the murderer of their own Li
cinius Gallus. Such silliness would never have been tolerated in their grandfathers’ day, when it was understood the gladiatorial combats were necessary to instill courage and contempt for death in all ranks of society. But they were too dignified to cry out their discontent; they confined their protest to loud mutterings and carefully arranged looks of scorn.
Those in the seats reserved for the lower ranking nobility, the men of the Equestrian class whose togas formed a wide band of white close to the barricade, looked on with sullen boredom broken by sporadic shouts of “Set the dogs on them!” and “Save us, Aristos!”
In the next tier of seats, separated from those below by a bright band of mosaic fashioned of precious stones depicting the battle of the Titans, were the merchants, tradesmen and plebeians. Higher still were the freedmen. In these sections, smoldering rage threatened to ignite into flame. From here, occasional showers of rotted turnips rained down; Auriane and Perseus nimbly dodged them. Perseus despised Auriane the more for this fresh humiliation. Even if he dispatched her skillfully and swiftly, he feared that after this day he would have no chance of regaining his former status.
But scattered among the plebeians were many who looked on Auriane with a pity they had shown to no other that day. This was that same gallant creature who had refused to harm the Roman hostages during the war, the spirited rebel who had pulled down Domitian’s statue. She was to them a naive force, unconscious as nature, harmless to everyone except Domitian—and this endeared her to the poor. This sprite, malign only to tyrants, was their own secret representative.
And in the upper gallery farthest from the arena, to which the women were confined, only a few shouted for Aristos. Most wailed loudly for Auriane—a cry of mourning as though she had already died. The women’s seats were so distant from the arena that they could scarce see what passed below; women’s natures were held to be too delicate to withstand the sight of gore spilled on the sand—though this was not counted sufficient reason to deny prime seats to the six Vestal Virgins, who sat in the lowest section alongside the imperial box, or to the women of the imperial family. Many of the women in the upper gallery threw tear-wetted handkerchiefs in the air and cried, “She suffers enough! Set her free!” The kindliest among them left their seats in protest.
Auriane and Perseus halted beneath the imperial box. Auriane without knowing it was gradually gathering all gazes to herself; most looks were hostile, but still they were captive. As she inclined her head with almost maidenly modesty, all were rapt—it was as though her every movement were a delicate hand on a horse’s rein, guiding them without their knowledge. Julianus noted this with growing surprise. She is like some prodigal beast-tamer, he observed, who can quieten a dangerous animal with a touch or a look.
Domitian leaned forward slightly to better examine her face. You stubborn spawn of wild men, he thought. She is far from broken.
She seems to gaze upon an empty throne.
The Emperor signaled a guard with a curt motion of his hand and whispered a command. It was swiftly relayed to the trainers below. He had decided she must fight without a helmet so he could better observe her face. For this was a sort of rape at a distance, and his pleasure would only come when he saw that smug composure replaced by terror and humility.
Julianus fought silently with accumulating rage. She wore little enough protection for her body as it was—that leather tunic would tear like cloth—and now she was denied even protection for her head.
The dipping, vaulting wails of the water-organ skidded to a graceless halt. In the fresh silence Auriane and Perseus chanted together—“Salutamus te morituri” —“We who are about to die salute you.” Domitian found himself aroused by the slight roughness in her voice; one hand unconsciously kneaded the shoulder of the simpleminded boy at his feet, who looked up at him, confused.
The bearers presented their swords and shields. Perseus took up his Thracian sword, long and curved like a predator’s claw. As Auriane closed her hand round the grip of her own weapon she saw at once that the symbol of Tiwaz was not there.
She called to Glaucus, the undertrainer nearest her. They exchanged rapid-fire shouts; neither gave ground. The crowd was astir with puzzled murmurs.
Julianus understood at once. Do not give in, he urged her with all his mind. Glaucus, exasperated, motioned to Erato, who came at good speed in spite of his limp.
But Auriane did not wait for their verdict on the matter. Breaking away from Glaucus, she lifted the sword above her head, then struck it hard against the barrier. The blade snapped easily, just within the hilt. Then she half turned and stared directly at the small window covered over with a grate, where she knew Aristos watched.
That so many thousands could drop into deep silence was a wonder. Auriane halted a ritual they had never before seen interrupted. There was outrage in that hush as well as surprise, for the people regarded weapons-tampering as a hoax perpetrated directly upon themselves.
But Auriane, without realizing it, mocked Domitian. For as was customary, in a public ceremony at dawn the Emperor had inspected for soundness and sharpness all the weapons to be used in the three days of games so the people would know they were not to be cheated of blood. She made him look the fool before a throng that despised him already. A murderous flush came to Domitian’s face.
“Have the man taken out,” Domitian instructed the guard. “And loose the dogs on her.”
Julianus prayed to his father’s ghost for steadiness. Then he said casually to the company at large, “What low animal cunning, unworthy of the love that people give him.”
Domitian turned to him with a look of cold hatred, imagining Julianus referred to himself. Julianus met his eyes, his expression mild, almost bored. Montanus wondered eagerly, perhaps it will be two for the dogs?
“Whose animal cunning, Julianus?” Domitian said, signaling to the guard to wait.
“Aristos’, of course,” Julianus replied.
Domitian’s expression did not change. Aristos was his chosen favorite; as far as his own dignity was concerned, he and Aristos were one. Something bestial glittered in the Emperor’s eye.
“So you, too, turn against me, in full light of day, and on the occasion of the celebration of my triumph?” The simpleminded boy became frightened and began to softly cry.
Julianus smiled amiably, tolerantly, as though amused by a clever child. Montanus prayed—Minerva, if you’ve any power in human affairs, let this be the time this brazen conniver finally steps into the pit.
“I am only trying, in my humble fashion—” Julianus began.
“Nothing about you is humble.”
“—to tell you what, doubtless, you already know. The family of this woman, Aurinia, and that of Aristos are mortal enemies, and have been for two generations.”
Domitian’s eyes narrowed. Where did Julianus obtain these trivial but sometimes crucial scraps of information?
“And this outrage has nothing to do with you, except that Aristos, in exchanging that sword, has forgotten his allegiance to you in his zeal to destroy his old enemy, and has in consequence humiliated you at your own celebration games.”
Domitian looked away, frowning. It angered him that anyone else might try to kill Auriane, especially Aristos, who should be loyal and obedient. He felt subtly subverted, as though his favorite had stolen into the Palace at night and attempted to remove some valued possession.
“And anyway,” Julianus continued, “if you give her to the dogs you’ll be doing exactly what the most ungovernable portion of this crowd wants you to do. Do you feed a recalcitrant beast when it bites its master’s hand? ‘If we make enough noise,’ they’ll say, ‘he’ll do our bidding.’”
Domitian looked at him blankly; there was nothing he could say to that. It worried him he had not thought of it himself. He turned away and sank sullenly back into his chair. To save his own dignity before the crowd, he ordered the herald to announce that some malefactor had tampered with the sword after its inspection and that the
culprit would be caught and punished.
After a moment he turned back to Julianus.
“That Syrian maid—she’s yours alone if she pleases you. I won’t ever borrow her.”
Julianus suppressed a smile. He knew it was the closest Domitian would ever come to an apology.
Auriane waited with growing impatience as her original sword was sought. Delays wore at the mind. When at last it was brought, a great show was made of passing it up to Domitian, to satisfy the crowd that this weapon was sound.
Domitian turned the sword once in his hand; then his body stiffened. He saw the symbol of Tiwaz. As he held the sword in his left hand, the runic sign appeared to him in reverse.
This cannot be. This is insidious.
Many years ago in the time of his father, Vespasian, when the great prophetess called the Veleda, Ramis’ predecessor, was captured and brought to Rome, Domitian as a young prince had summoned her and bid her explain to him the mysteries of the runes. She cast an oracle for him and warned him that nothing was so ill-omened for him as the sign of Tiwaz, presented wrong side up. He had not, to his relief, drawn it that day. She advised him that if ever he encountered it, beware, for it meant a sword of vengeance would be turned against him.
I have received a second omen of assassination.
He realized, alarmed, that both omens were connected with Auriane. Uneasily, he looked down at her. And now her eyes seemed to reflect a baleful light. Who was this strange creature who tricked him out of ordering her immediate execution, then seduced him into craving her adoration as much as he wanted her body and her death?
The sword was passed back down, and the bearer returned it to Auriane. The undertrainers then whisked off the two combatants’ cloaks. Perseus put on his ornamented helmet and lowered the visor, disappearing into monstrous, featureless anonymity. Then Auriane and Perseus turned. While the assistants separated them with outstretched arms, they walked to the arena’s center.
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