I can abide it no more. I am broken. Ramis, you are victor. Come for me. I fight you no more.
Or at least lend me a measure of your baffling indifference in the face of death.
Turn his wrath against him. Now. She lifted her visor and called out in a low, clear voice, “Well done, Odberht. You murdered seven unarmed men, four of them boys. Or perhaps you would deny these killings as well? The slaughter of innocents becomes easier with practice, does it not?”
He gave a growling grunt and replaced the visor with an angry clang. But was this no more than his regular foul temper, or the runaway rage that had seized him that day in the practice ring?
“Prepare to die, pestilential witch,” he responded gaily. “How would you like to be served? Diced for frying or cut in joints for roasting?” He kicked aside a body and began his advance.
In the safety of the passage, Acco, Meton and a cluster of arena officials came close to blows as they debated the best way to halt the bout. Then a Centurion of the Guard pushed past them with angular stride and slammed closed the iron-bound door opening onto the arena.
“Off with you. Begone!” he commanded with the casual crispness of one accustomed to being obeyed.
Meton and Acco exchanged looks of bewildered desperation. Some order must have been handed down from above. The bout was to go on. There was nothing more to be done.
Meton shrugged. “The woman dies, then.”
As Aristos and Auriane slowly closed in upon one another, the people rose to their feet by the thousands, ready to begin a brawl. The smoke of cataclysm seemed to hang over the vast bowl of the amphitheater; it was a caldera rumbling with angry life, ready to spew lava and flame. Aristos’ fanatic devotees added a dissident note to the chaos, shouting, “Good fellow! Brave show!” and “None to compare! He is the king!” Aristos was decidedly frisky today, they agreed among themselves. As always he managed to enliven dull, predictable proceedings by inserting an entertaining caper or two all his own. Who before him ever thought of clearing off those insolent armor-bearers and pesky musicians?
But the greater part of the throng demanded the rescue of Auriane. The driving shouts—“No bout!” were hammer blows of sound striking the sky.
The people’s voice finally pounded Domitian out of his lethargy. Bright malice returned to his eyes.
“You,” he grunted at the Guard’s Centurion standing at attention beside the crimson curtains. He then gave the Guard the nod and dismissive wave of the hand that meant: “Do whatever you must to discipline those noisy miscreants.” The Centurion, relieved to see the Emperor had rejoined the world, moved off quickly to carry out the imperial wish.
Within moments a detachment from the ranks of bowmen stationed on the wooden roof of the upper gallery crept down as unobtrusively as footpads, until they occupied the aisles alongside the plebeian seats. They selected a dozen of the loudest protesters as targets and released their arrows.
Necks were pierced. Scattered screams rose up, followed by wails. By hundreds, people dropped to the floor in terror. In the vicinity of the carnage, they moved in furious eddies, clambering over seats, frantic as tenants trapped in a fiery building. A stream of people moved for the exits, but guards were stationed at the entrances to the stairwells. No one could leave.
As the bowmen withdrew as stealthily as they had come, terror settled over the throng like a red fog, paralyzing every tongue. It was a remarkably effective maneuver. In an instant the temper of the crowd collapsed from dangerous spiritedness into whimpering submission.
Domitian eased forward on the throne and languidly plucked a milk-fed snail from a silver bowl filled with snow. The taste was exquisite. He felt like an accomplished rider who knew how to control a difficult horse.
Aristos and Auriane faced each other in airless stillness, their wills locked in murderous embrace. She could scarce believe the race to death was at last poised to begin. Before her, Aristos’ form billowed, then grew large, as though swollen with all her terrors and imaginings; she felt she viewed him through the shimmering heat-waves of a cremation ground.
The sun flashed on the gold-embossed eagle adorning his hexagonal shield, blinding her. She shifted a fraction to the left so she could better see—and he shifted as well, following her with the barest of movements, so that she was blinded still.
Her fearful respect intensified. This is a seasoned predator on whom not one bat of the eye is lost.
For long moments they were caught in stalemate. Neither was willing to make the opening strike—both knew the other’s skill in taking advantage of an opponent who threw himself first into the attack. The tension grew oppressive; the throng felt they awaited the onset of a swift-gathering storm. Every mind was braced for the thunderclap.
Auriane began to ease around him, probing with every sense for an uncovered target, a moment of inattention. With oiled movements he turned with her, the muscles of his stout leather-laced calves tautening to thick ropes as he crouched slightly. She could hear his rasping breathing within the helmet, a sound of air rushing, then dying, like wind through sea-caves. Monster. The morbid smell of hate hung about him like a charnel stench. That grotesque helmet concealed no human face; that breast, no sympathies. This was a creature composed of pure, sulfurous loathing.
Suddenly he feigned an attack, pulling his arm back abruptly to the accompaniment of a torn-off growl. She deduced instantly what his intention was, and marshaled all her will to resist being thrown into a defensive position. She was certain this rapid deduction saved her life.
That ploy failing, he kicked hard with his right foot, throwing sand in her face. Again he misjudged her; she was not so easily distracted. She focused with keen single-mindedness solely on his center of balance, discarding the kick as irrelevant.
She sensed he was disconcerted slightly by her steadiness. Instinct told her this was the precise moment to attack.
She arced into the air, beginning a powerful cut in midflight. As flash of illumination follows lightning bolt, he lunged to meet her. The amphitheater fell silent as a tomb.
At last came the thunderclap.
They crashed together like battling stags, shield to shield. Auriane gave beneath his weight as he struck, or the impact would have broken her shield arm at the wrist. Then followed the piercing, arrhythmic clang of steel on steel.
It was the sound of pure rage.
Metallic shouts rose to the awnings, battering every mind into dazed quiet. Many looked on with superstitious dread; there was something markedly dark and ill-omened in this violent eruption that had the bestial speed and whiplike confusion of a dogfight. Sparks showered down in a fiery rain. The encounter was nerve-shredding and interminable; there were many who sat with jaws clenched, praying for it to stop.
Sunia fought her way to the novices’ viewing chamber just as the bout began and found it packed to rib-crushing capacity with arena officials and trainers. She knew she would never get close enough to see. Coniaric and Meton had somehow secured coveted places near the barred window. Occasionally she called out plaintively to Coniaric, begging him to tell her what passed, but he seemed sealed in his private prison of dread.
It was Meton who finally satisfied her craving to know; with casual authority he began addressing the chamber at large.
“Look at him! Charon’s eyes, it takes ten blades to equal him! Nemesis, but Aristos is in fine fettle today! Now they’re breaking into elementary parries…. Nothing remarkable, just demonstrations of speed… one thrust, hers…one attempt to entice a strike, his…. Now the woman’s giving a step of ground….”
But as he spoke on, measured excitement began to creep into his voice. “Now they’re close-blocking, first and second attacks, and—do my eyes fail?—she appears to match him, blow by blow….” Meton half expected Aristos to march up and hack her in two with not much more trouble than it had cost him to dispatch the Numidian boys. He was silent for a time; then he exclaimed softly—“Incredible!”
; “Hel’s cauldron, I swear I’ll murder you if you don’t tell me at once,” Sunia cried.
Meton went on excitedly, “Madness. Look at her. She’s moved in too close on his left, so he cannot use the full strength of his arm. A building is collapsing on her, and she thinks strategy will save her! By Venus, this is not courage, it is insanity!”
After long moments Auriane and Aristos dropped into stillness and drew apart, like armies retreating to high ground to plan the next attack. Auriane’s whole soul shuddered from the repeated shocks of impact; she felt she butted herself half senseless against a stone wall. He left no openings whatever; it was as though he were protected by a net of steel. Nor did he miss the small openings that she left as she strove vainly for a strike; he actually seemed drawn to them, like lightning to a tree. And it was dismayingly evident she had failed at the first to spur him to unthinking rage. She must find another way.
And she suspected as well he had held back in this first foray, to tease her into relaxing her guard and lead her into false hope. Something in the looseness of his posture and the arrogant bobbing of his plume told her the expression behind that helmet was one of amused satisfaction.
Their next attack was simultaneous, as if they were so united in rage they knew each other’s minds with lovers’ accuracy. After a short, brutal volley she managed to assault his blade, then strove to pummel it down. It gave way, if barely. Strengthened by this small success, she whipped her own blade upward, enthusiastically throwing all her strength into a follow-up thrust to the throat.
But in that instant something struck her shield with the violence of a wild ass’s kick, snapping her backward. Confused and amazed, she fought for balance. Too late, she put it together. It was a devious trick, beautifully played. His yielding to her first strike, real as it had seemed, was feigned; his purpose was to position her for a terrific blow with his left foot. As she wobbled backward, he charged, all his fury and strength undisguised. A rhinoceros bore down on her—his sword was its tusk.
A hollow roar came from beneath his helmet. Rage reared him up to Titan’s size. Her knees gave way beneath his first blow; it crashed on her blade and seemed to loosen every joint in her body. The second blow she blocked by twisting round and catching it with her shield. Before the third fell, she managed to leap into a defensive stance. She knew then she had failed utterly—for now Aristos launched the characteristic assault that brought him victory after victory—he took the lead and never lost it, battering his opponents’ will, pummeling their spirits with a rapid series of uninterrupted attacks that left no room for counterploys. Recognizing it, his devotees broke into applause.
Death-panic seized her. This was what she had so wanted to avoid—falling beneath his strength.
The heavy arm rose and fell in relentless rhythm. Auriane had no chance to parry; her whole mind was focused on one task—stopping that blade. All her skill was a thin, precariously strained barrier, barely protecting soft flesh from a snapping, tearing tooth of steel. Her worst imaginings had not conjured the power of those blows—that bestial strength had to be felt to be truly known. Though she deflected them to avoid absorbing their full strength, still it seemed each would tear her arm from its socket and splinter her bones. This was not swordfighting—it was a vain effort to stop a bull.
With one sweeping stroke he tried to hamstring her. The backstroke nearly cut the child from her womb. The follow-through cut whistled down on her shoulder; she blocked it with her sword, certain the crash of steel on steel would shatter her skull.
And always, she gave ground. She was battered earth, hammered by the hooves of a runaway stallion. She had no ear for those in the throng who cheered her or for their cries of amazement that she preserved her life as long as this. For long moments she danced backward with manic speed, half a leap ahead of death. Even her great endurance was of little avail, for he managed it so that a mightier effort was required of her than of him. Soon she struggled against despair as hard as she struggled against him. She felt she staved off a rockslide—she might succeed for a time, but the end was inevitable.
She took nimble leaps sideways to prevent him from herding her against the barrier. Once she stumbled over a corpse, rolled over on her shield and sprang up again, only to be driven farther back. Aristos moved forward ponderously, his elephant steps contrasting strangely with the coltish grace of Auriane’s light, fast leaps. There was a desperate beauty in her movements; to the crowd it had the tragic gallantry of the struggling stag falling beneath wolves.
Meton exclaimed softly, “Poor fool—she has the wit and skill, but not the power. He should stop dallying with her and end it. There must have been two moons in the sky at her birth. What a waste!”
Sunia’s hand was frozen at her throat. She was too paralyzed with grief to cry.
I should not outlive her. She is dying for us. Sunia gripped the arm of Acco, who stood in back of Meton. “I beg you, let me have your dagger.”
“Silence, woman. If you want to die, it can be arranged. But not with my dagger.”
Auriane felt herself dying. Her every muscle seemed battered into quivering pulp; her every stratagem failed. She had tried for a day and a night to launch an attack, and could not.
I leapt too far into the torrent and found it too strong for me. Fria, Wodan, holy earth, why have you abandoned me?
Her people, all hope, all love, seemed dim and distant as stars. Life ended as it began, full of fright and pain.
She sensed an obstacle at her back. Too late she realized she had been driven up against the water organ. First she struck its bronze windchest, then rolled onto the keys. Its multiple mechanisms were set into rollicking motion—the small bronze dolphins dropped their valves into cylinders, the air compressed within the windchest, and resonant, jangling screeches merrily piped forth.
Aristos’ heaving laughter, breathless but triumphant, accompanied this soul-shredding cacophony. She had been troublesome to catch, but at last he had managed it.
A rumbling groan rippled down the vast sweep of seats, broken by scattered laughter. Wails of protest floated down from the women’s gallery.
Domitian grinned at the water organ’s windy howls. “Aurinia plays that thing better than all your musicians!” he remarked to Plancius. Intently, he sat forward. Aristos, give me my omen now.
Auriane felt the oak base of the water organ grinding into her back. Aristos’ shadow engulfed her.
“Breathe your last, wretched father-killer,” he shouted between gasps as he lashed out with a flurry of stabbing motions, trying to catch her with his sword’s point. Each strike missed by less than a finger-width as she frantically heaved from side to side, all escape blocked by the massive oaken instrument. She made an attempt to dive beneath his arm but he blocked her with a leather-encased foot, then struck her shoulder a bruising blow with the boss of his shield. She felt her will to defend herself ebbing away.
She saw with taunting clarity the arrangement of the runes upon the white cloth—the sign for death and rebirth. Death comes first, before resurrection. I am yours, Odberht—the Fates do not want me.
Petronius was quietly admitted to the imperial box. He halted beside the throne, feeling intensely uncomfortable as he waited for Domitian to give him a moment of attention. Petronius tried not to look at the Emperor’s hands—the puffed, bluish flesh squeezed painfully between those many rings reminded him of the veal-and-fennel sausages he had seen in the market earlier that day.
Domitian’s gloomy gaze halted halfway between his Guard’s Commander and the struggle by the water organ.
“Shyness is no virtue in a Commander of the Guard. Out with it.”
Petronius leaned close to speak discreetly into the imperial ear. For one numbing moment he forgot entirely what he was supposed to say. If this interruption were not thought justified, his next audience might be in the arena with a pair of highly unsympathetic Molossian dogs.
“Your Excellency, you must accept the apology
of your good servant for this interruption…. If this matter did not concern your mortal safety as well as the welfare of all who live within your imperium—”
“Why don’t you recite the whole of the Aeneid before you tell me,” Domitian muttered with a murderous scowl as he returned his full attention to the arena. Somehow the cunning witch had evaded three more thrusts at close range—but surely the end was near.
“A plot has been unearthed. They plan to do you to the death within the hour, right where you sit.”
Domitian sat up abruptly, his face rigid, eyes sharpened to knives. All concern with Aristos and omens vanished before the announcement of a threat serious enough to be reported by his Praetorian Guards’ commander.
He signaled for Petronius to speak on in a covered voice. He had no wish for Plancius to learn any of this.
“This villainy started among your most trusted chamberlains,” Petronius went on, “—Parthenius, Stephanus, and Satur—and we believe they may have also seduced a few men of the lower ranks of the Guard insane enough to listen….”
Domitian was profoundly irritated when he heard these names. So his own household had turned upon him—just as Marcus Julianus had warned him they would if he did not reduce the severity of their punishments. Why do the gods love to embarrass me by unfailingly bringing to pass whatever that man predicts?
My household. Minerva, I knew I had worms in my cupboard. An exceedingly dangerous business, this is. So many complicated, crossed loyalties. They must be skillfully questioned in order to pry out the names of all their hidden confederates….
And Domitian found himself thinking, against his will— Marcus, you sly reprobate who thinks he knows more about my household than I do—undoubtedly you’d have some stimulating advice to give me on this matter…. No. It wouldn’t look right to humble the man, then turn around and beg a favor of him.
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