But then the Chattian prisoners gave the trilling native war cry. They surged away from the rope in a single disordered mass and ploughed into the guards, striking them with the loose ends of their chains. The guards were taken unaware by this fierce opposition from a group of doomed, unarmed men and were readily distracted.
Swords were drawn. A furious, bloody struggle ensued, resembling a battle between naked men and sharks.
Auriane looked on in piteous horror, then averted her eyes. Her tribesmen’s mad maneuver broke up the guards’ human barricade, opening the way for the two chariots.
Her people were dying so that she and Aristos could get through.
For a moment she stood transfixed by their shrieks, her hands paralyzed on the reins. Shame scalded her heart. I dared doubt the necessity of the holy rite of vengeance!
They do not doubt. And I am their only instrument. My faltering resolve may well be what brought them to this horrible end.
Go on, Daughter of the Bogs. Move forward, unholy woman. There is only one route left open—into the pit of sacrifice.
With furious sadness she snapped the reins hard against the ibexes’ backs. They responded with several jerking leaps, each animal moving independently of the other, and Auriane was nearly pitched out of the back of the chariot. But she managed to get well past the guards before the massacre was finished. Her people’s blood speckled Cleopatra’s white robe.
Fria, be gentle to them in death as you were not in life.
The ibexes settled into a brisk, anxious trot, all four moving at slightly different speeds; she held desperately to the Horns of Horus as the car jerked crazily from side to side like a ball on a string. Aristos’ lionesses were less responsive to the reins, but they glided smoothly behind her at a good pace.
The two chariots passed unopposed out the entranceway of the Ludus Magnus and into the barricaded passage leading to the Colosseum. Well behind them, Meton shouted at random to anyone who would listen, “Halt them! That is Aristos!” Many in the crowd smiled at him and shook their heads, thinking it some clever ploy to manipulate the betting. “And I’m Hercules!” one shouted back.
When the guards finally disentangled themselves from the slaughtered Chattian captives, two dozen started down the roped passage in pursuit.
But Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius were passing into the shadow of the Colosseum. When the two chariots disappeared into the gladiators’ entrance, the guards flanking it closed the door in the faces of those giving chase, meeting them bluntly with the objection: “Erato’s order to stop the bout? Let us hear it from Erato, then.”
Auriane and Aristos waited in the dim, vaulted passage terminating at the iron-bound door that opened onto the arena. Two officials dragged it open. Before them was misty emptiness, and sand.
The ibexes were half maddened by the slaughterhouse scents; they bolted forward in a lurching canter. Auriane’s car sank into sand. The mob laughed heartily at the sight of Cleopatra scrambling for balance as she was nearly tossed from her chariot. Soon Aristos was driving alongside, his lionesses slinking along with a sleepy air; to carnivores that had just been fed, the dense, humid stench of blood was welcome and pleasant.
“Aurinia! Aurinia!” came the cries from the plebeian tiers, a reckless sound spiced with the scent of anarchy. Auriane felt keenly their readiness to bolt; they were like a loosely penned band of aurochs ready to make a collective rush at the fence. She allowed herself one cautious look at the face of Rome—to look longer might scatter her silence. The lower tiers of the amphitheater had been converted into a banquet hall; everywhere was a look of ease and opulent disarray. The people did not sit; they lounged on great, gaudy cushions. The crowns of rose garlands on every head made it appear a priestly hand from above had sprinkled the crowd with blood. Multitudes of silver wine cups glinted in the sun. Legions of youths and maids—imperial servants dressed as forest sprites—capered along the aisles in scanty deerskin tunics with ivy twined in their hair; they poured the wine, handed out baskets of glazed fruit and offered gilded bowls for washing hands. Others fanned the guests with great feather fans. Citharists walked the aisles playing and singing, their small voices scarcely audible in the din.
But this thin overlay of festiveness did little to disguise the coiled tension beneath. The people’s gaiety seemed raised to a shrill pitch, as if to cover the screams from the Palace and the wails of private lamentations at home. Many were half drunk, and so more willing than usual to cry out dangerous opinions. “Free Marcus Arrius Julianus!” one shout vaulted above the others; guards were efficiently dispatched to remove the rebel. The sound of his name made Auriane feel her bones would collapse. Her concentration flickered and died, and fear for him flooded over her.
Close your ears to them, she commanded herself. Let your whole mind inhabit the blade of your sword.
After a moment she felt a powerful indraft of returning strength. The arena was a high altar; she, a priestess, and Odberht, the sacrifice. She was fire, poised to consume. The smoke from this offering would carry to Baldemar in the sky. The cries “Aurinia!” and “Cleopatra!” broke meaninglessly over her head; neither woman was she.
Aristos turned slightly once and looked at her. She saw a flash of sharply focused eyes, smelled his lust to crush her bones.
They moved past the musicians’ station; the three trumpeters sat with their circular instruments passively at their sides; the bronze-skinned woman at the water organ stood poised and still. Only the three drummers were in motion, beating with a sluggish discipline on their huge skin drums, sounding the beat of a weary, dissolute heart.
The two chariots halted before the imperial box, where the armor-bearers awaited. Sunlight from the opening in the awning high above found her short sword on its vermilion cushion; light flared on the blade, and she imagined it excited by her approach.
The trumpets burst into a clashing fanfare accompanied by the water organ’s shrill bays. Then all dropped into silence. The herald stepped onto the archers’ catwalk and called out, “Hail, Antonius, hail, Cleopatra!”
“Unmask that trickster! Who says you’re good enough for our Aurinia!” came a shout from the equestrian tier. Someone hurled a fruit basket at Aristos, who did not flinch. A broken plum slid down his massive arm.
The herald spoke in a rich, calm voice that was powerful, feminine; he sounded like a scolding mother: “Our Lord and God is gravely displeased with you today. Do not test his graciousness any further. Those of you with criminal opinions will keep them to yourselves, until such time as his justice finds you out. If anything more is thrown from the stands, these games will be canceled. How dare you answer his generosity with unlawfulness and riot.” Adroitly his voice shifted back to facile joviality. “Now, friends, all wagers shall stand, even though our Cleopatra has been found out. And no more shall be laid once they dismount….”
Auriane missed his next words as she gazed up at Domitian. The Emperor faintly withdrew; he had been studying her face and did not want her to know. She saw him but dimly in the shaded box, but she was jarred to attention. It seemed a black nimbus clung about him; there was a look of death-knowledge in his face. He is doomed, and a sleeping part of him knows it.
A cataclysm comes—I feel it certainly as if it signaled its coming with sound and scent. This must be the day they have chosen for king-killing.
The herald cried musically, “And now, let the bout begin!”
Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius stepped down from their chariots. Two Numidian boys took the animals in hand while two undertrainers presented themselves before the pair, ready to remove headdress and mask.
In the hush, Auriane heard Aristos muttering a curse against her.
“May her heart be home to worms. May this eve see her black with flies….”
She was uncomfortably conscious of his size as she saw that colossal chest heave faintly with every breath. For one fright-filled moment fighting him seemed utter madness. She sensed the three gray-
cloaked Fates beneath their sovereign Ash, three judges proud and stern at their looms, weaving her in, weaving her out, and felt a tug on the strands as they sought her life, holding it apart as they debated whether her strand should be cut. Fates, you are women, and so must love a child. Pity mine—do not let it die. She traced in air the runic sign for strength and shut her eyes.
The undertrainers standing behind them whisked off the cloaks with a flourish. Auriane felt practiced hands remove the headdress and replace it with a helmet of embossed gold.
Then she heard a great groan of surprise, followed by scattered exclamations of outrage.
Aristos was exposed. The man who removed his mask had dropped it in fright on seeing that dread face. And before Aristos could be concealed beneath the purple-plumed helmet, hundreds in the seats above the imperial box saw him. They would have known him soon enough from his style of fighting, Auriane judged, but by then it would have been too late to stop them. She cursed. This was too soon.
In moments the whole of the amphitheater knew. Those in the poorer sections climbed onto their seats and began stamping their feet.
“No bout!” came the tumultuous cry, growing steadily stronger. The rumbling chant pumped the air like a great fist shaken in rage.
“String up Plancius by his thumbs!” came a single shout, followed by a cheer. They wanted Aristos and they wanted Aurinia, but it never occurred to them they would be given both at the same time. Only the foreign ambassadors remained in formal quiet in their seats of honor opposite the imperial box. These bearded, colorfully robed envoys from Abyssinia, Anatolia, Parthia, Arabia Felix and outer Britain looked on with faintly baffled expressions that seemed to ask—in this temple of the tasteless and grotesque, what is particularly objectionable about this?
Word of the match spread rapidly beyond the amphitheater, and out to the milling mob in the streets. Smoldering frustrations caught fire, and the mob gathered outside began to chant, “No bout!” The woman Aurinia was gallant against all odds—they would not tolerate this release of a ruthless force against her. Justice prevailed nowhere else in these times, so the people demanded it be upheld in the mythic realm of the arena.
The ten Praetorians assigned to the imperial box gave Domitian tense, questioning looks, poised for his order to halt the bout. This was not even a clever jest. Someone had simply blundered.
But no order came. The Emperor sat passively, his eyes glassy, staring at nothing like a carp suspended in a pool. The Guards were alarmed that he made no move to punish the crowd. It was a grave error of judgment to threaten the people for their unruliness, then let it go when they defied him again.
Plancius stole a look at Domitian and guessed he had not slept in many nights. The Emperor’s face appeared puffed and bruised, as if someone had given him a beating. Those eyes were cold, fixed, incurious as a reptile’s, though they flashed occasionally with the manic light of one who swims close to delirium. The whites had soured to the color of curdled cream. His mouth was clamped tightly closed; the lines about it were etched deep enough for a man twice his age. That once well-formed body had succumbed rather suddenly to years of overfeeding; Plancius had sat near him at last year’s games and he did not remember that protruding belly. Domitian’s legs had become so spindling that Plancius wondered if the Emperor suffered from some wasting disease kept secret from the world.
When at last Domitian spoke, it was not to his agitated Guards, but to Plancius.
“You’re irksomely silent, Marcus, and you know how that nettles me. As long-haired slaves have lice, I know you’ve got some vile opinion tucked away you’re waiting to torment me with. Speak.”
A midnight cold settled upon Plancius. Was Domitian merely exhausted, or had he gone mad as Caligula? If he thinks I’m Julianus, then what is he going to do to me?
Plancius shifted in his seat, wanting desperately to take his leave. The Guards looked away, quietly exasperated. The tillerman would not steer the ship.
Domitian focused softly on the two figures below, his sleep-starved mind remembering, then forgetting. The gauzy curtains undulated. In the moments when clarity came, he knew his life and death were being played out below. Auriane was a bringer of omens—of that he was certain—and twice now she had given him warning of violent death by the sword. Something in her fate was entangled with his own, and he desired one last message from her. Domitian would no more interfere with what took place below than he would interrupt the flight of birds before the taking of an augury. The difference this time was that he knew the outcome, and the message she would give—for she had not a chance of life. If he, in the guise of Aristos, dispatched this spawn of Nemesis quickly, he would have a long and vigorous life ahead. If Aristos played with her first, or had difficulty destroying her, he would have perilous days ahead, but he would live. All had been perfectly set up for his purposes; the auspices had to be favorable—and no augur could accuse him of manipulating the circumstance, for she had arranged this bout herself.
While Domitian languished in his waking dreams, Meton, Acco and four burly undertrainers armed with nets, whips and brands burst noisily from the gladiators’ entrance and sprinted toward the pair; it had taken Meton this long to organize what he felt was a sufficient force to separate Aristos from Auriane. They were certain this was the imperial wish, and they feared punishment if they did not quickly put a halt to this bout.
Simultaneously, Aristos and Auriane moved forward and seized their weapons. Auriane’s hand closed eagerly around the bone grip of her sword.
As Fria lives, this weapon will not be wrested from me until one of us lies dead.
CHAPTER LVII
WHEN AURIANE SAW ACCO CLOSING IN upon them, she broke into measured motion, striding sideways in an attempt to draw Aristos into the arena’s center. But Aristos stood poised and still, his head half turned toward the noisy intruders. She halted, realizing he waited for them.
In moments the undertrainers swarmed around the pair, shouting, snapping whips at their legs as if they sought to drive two dangerous animals apart. Auriane felt a dog pack flowed about them. She fenced lightly with them as if their brands were swords, while shifting sideways, attempting to get clear of them. Now Aristos moved with her. One of the Numidian boys was caught in the middle of this, crying.
“Aristos!” Meton shouted from just beyond the melee. He realized then that brands were far more effective for goading men to fight than they were for separating two combatants determined to fight. “I command you! Throw down that sword. No bout. Erato’s order!” Aristos stalked along parallel to Auriane, giving no sign that he heard.
“Aristos!” Meton tried again, an edge of frenzy coming into his voice. “Are you mad? Do you hear the crowd? Drop that sword. Erato’s order. I’ll see you blocked from fighting for a year!”
Acco pleaded similarly with Auriane, who nearly collided him as she flowed sideways, her movement smooth as a serpent’s head as it prepares to strike. A whip lashed round her shield, pulling her off balance, but she quickly regained it; another brought blood to her arm. She ignored it. The crowd was intrigued in spite of themselves as they watched this strange crab-walking procession with all its participants fighting among themselves. Laughter arose as they realized that the whole mass of them, as they moved steadily across the arena, were on a collision course with the musicians.
“Aristos, you hotheaded fool!” The steely authority in Meton’s voice was giving way to the dip-and-lurch of hysteria. “Harm her and I’ll see you lashed until you’re nothing but bloody bones. I command you, throw down that sword!” Aristos had always listened to him even when he listened to no one else; Meton could not accept that he had lost all control over his charge.
Until the last moment the musicians stood steadfastly by their instruments. Then their courage deserted them all at once; trumpets and drumsticks were thrown to the sand and they scurried about to flee. But they had delayed too long.
A lusty roar issued from beneath Aristos
’ helmet, the sound of a carnivore eager to close in on its meal. For a heartbeat, all stood transfixed. Then Aristos’ sword arm flashed back; there was something archaic and monstrous in his form, as if he were some horned dragon reared up against the sky.
Then he burst into furious, frenzied motion, whipping about with movements measured as a dance, yet so swift the crowd saw not the man so much as the result—a trail of bodies collapsing slowly onto the sand.
His first stroke knocked the brand out of an undertrainer’s hand and sent it sailing; the backstroke severed half through the man’s neck. His second neatly decapitated one of the Numidian boys. The third disemboweled a drummer who, in his panic, ran right into Aristos’ blade. There was a hideous efficiency in his whirling and slashing; every cut, every backstroke dismembered or killed. He was a remorseless scythe leveling human wheat, clearing a path through living flesh.
“Jove’s thunderbolts,” Meton shouted. “Run for cover— he’s gone off his head!”
Meton, Acco, and a single drummer managed to get off with their lives. The rest lay in a twitching heap, their blood soaking into the sand. Aristos had accomplished his purpose. Now there was nothing living between him and Auriane.
One of the victims, an armor-bearer, struggled pathetically to rise. Aristos turned, and with the nonchalance of one who stabs flies with a stylus, thrust his sword into the man’s chest. As the armor-bearer sank in death, Aristos bent on one huge knee and with several casual strokes wiped his bloody blade clean on his victim’s hair. Then he lifted his visor and grinned at Auriane across the field of bodies. “Clean for you, Aurinia!” he called out in fine spirits, holding the sword aloft so she could examine the blade.
Horror came in a flood tide, tearing at her, ready to bear her off; she clung blindly to her resolve as if to a stout oak. Erato’s words, Stay off from him—he is a human monster, pounded in her ears.
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