Sparta
They had taken her – at spear point – to an anteroom off the main temple. It was small with a single couch and a bench; a place for messengers to be refreshed. Food and water was brought. Lysandra did not feel like eating, but knew she must. As she forced the flatbread into her mouth, the question kept resounding in her mind – why? Why was the Matriarch doing this?
She finished the last of the bread and, still chewing, she removed her cuirass and let it fall to the stone floor – too loud in the small room. Her red tunic was soaked with sweat and she downed more water, knowing that if she had to fight, too little water would exhaust her quickly
Fight.
Again the question. Why?
The door to the room opened and Lysandra’s heart beat faster, the feelings unfelt since her bout with Illeana beginning to stir in her gut.
‘You have grown, worm.’ It was Melantha. She was out of her armour, she too wearing the simple red tunic of the temple. She looked good, Lysandra thought; strong, assured and confident. Nine years had passed and they suited Melantha well.
‘Is it time?’ Lysandra asked.
‘No,’ Melantha sat on the bench. ‘But soon.’
‘Why?’ Lysandra asked.
Melantha arched an eyebrow. ‘Big question. Why are you here? Why did you come back? Why . . .’
‘Do not play with me, Melantha,’ Lysandra snapped. ‘I’m no longer a child.’
‘Were you ever?’
Lysandra did not respond, meeting Melantha’s gaze with her own.
‘You ask why?’ her old instructor said. ‘Why you were not feted as the returning heroine? Why are we now at this moment not sharpening our spears in preparation to join you in a war we know nothing of or care little about – ’
‘No,’ Lysandra cut her off. ‘None of that. Why is the Matriarch trying to make me fight? Hate me all you want, cast me out. You can even say I am no longer Spartan if it pleases you.’
‘It does not please me. Nor any of the others, I suspect. The Matriarch is old, Lysandra. Older than anyone has a right to be. Her whole life, she kept her body fit and strong – now, it sustains her whist her mind . . . does not.’
‘She is mad?’ Lysandra arched an eyebrow.
‘No . . .’ Melantha frowned. ‘It is hard to explain. Sometimes, she seems quite fine. At others she seems not to know who we are or where she is. We think it is at these times that she speaks to Athene. But clearly, these communions have taken a toll on her. She is not as she once was.’
‘She remembered me well enough,’ Lysandra muttered, hearing the petulance in her own voice.
‘You went too far,’ Melantha shrugged. ‘Hera’s tits, Lysandra. You cannot curse the Matriarch of Athene’s Temple on her own steps in Athene’s name! You have always had some front, but by the gods – ’
‘By the gods, Melantha, I do not care what anyone thinks – my mission is at the behest of Athene herself. I have the right of it, not the Matriarch.’
‘I am a Priestess of Athene,’ Melantha replied. ‘You, however, are not. I take my orders from the Matriarch.’
Lysandra looked straight at her. ‘But you do not agree with them.’
‘It is not the Spartan way to speak ill of one’s leader.’
Lysandra almost laughed at that – because she had heard herself saying such things so many times in the past. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I believe that you do not agree with her. You keep your own counsel.’
‘Wisdom from worms,’ Melantha’s mouth twisted in a halfsmile. She turned serious then. ‘Halkyone now pleads with the Matriarch,’ she said. ‘She asks for no blood to be spilt. But it is a hard ask – to entreat such is an admission that she fears that you will win.’
‘Fears?’
‘You have been gone a long time, worm,’ Melantha rose to her feet. ‘The Matriarch may have cast you out just now, but the truth is, you left this place years ago. It is my guess you had chances to return, but you did not. Deianara is one of ours – who do you expect us to want to win?’
‘She cannot defeat me. And I have no wish to defeat her.’
‘I know,’ Melantha’s face was grim. ‘I know.’
Shadows danced on the palaestra, the wind catching the flames of the lit braziers that lifted black smoke to the sky – a hecatomb to the gods. The Priestesses of Athene had assembled, surrounding the training area, their spears planted. They looked to Lysandra like so many statues, unmoving and unyielding. Despite the nervousness she felt as she moved to the sands, she found she was still proud of them – this is where she had been made. No matter what the Matriarch said, she was still one of them in her heart.
They had sent an acolyte to oil her body in the anteroom. They were to fight gymnos – naked – as was the Spartan way. Lysandra remembered that her first bouts in the arena were fought such, but for a different reason. Romans were titillated by the sight of naked flesh. In Sparta, to exercise unclad was the norm. It was, she thought, so like yet unlike preparing for the arena. Lysandra still felt the familiar tingle on her flesh, her nerves coming alive as the girl applied the unguent to her. But there was no sense of purpose. She had once told the gladiatrices of Balbus’s ludus to think of another fighter as the enemy, to show her no mercy.
Those words mocked her now, as they had before when she faced Varia. Varia who had died on Lysandra’s blade, punishment for her hubris.
She stepped on the cold sands of the palaestra and glanced up at the temple steps. The Matriarch sat in a chair, flanked by Halkyone and Melantha. Then, the ranks before her parted and Deianara walked towards her. Lysandra’s heart quickened at the sight of her childhood friend.
She had flowered into true womanhood – beautiful in a way that Lysandra herself could never hope to be. Her body was muscular but lacked the hard, angular shape of her own and her front was free of the scarring she had accumulated over her career as a gladiatrix.
With her blonde hair slicked back with oil, Lysandra realised with a start that Deianara looked much like Eirianwen. She pressed her lips into a thin line at thought of the woman she had loved more than life itself.
A priestess broke ranks and walked over to her and pressed a xiphos – the Spartan short sword – into her hand. She looked across to see another do the same with Deianara. Wordlessly, the women walked away, leaving them alone on the sands. Lysandra advanced – and, after a moment’s hesitation, so did Deianara.
They halted perhaps five feet apart, swords held loosely by their sides. Lysandra looked into the eyes of her friend. She saw no fear – but Deianara was Spartan; she would not show her foe any emotion.
‘The combat will begin,’ the Matriarch’s voice rang out. ‘To the death.’
Deianara dropped into her fighting stance – her weight was too far forward for one-on-one battle, Lysandra noted. Too used to the shield wall, too used to training for close quarters fighting, too used to fighting other priestesses where these weaknesses would not be exposed.
She skipped forward, her blade thrusting straight for Lysandra’s chest. Even as she skipped aside, she could hear Nastasen’s voice echoing in her mind: ‘First rule: You get an instant kill on the red,’ as he daubed paint on her pale body. ‘Always remember, go for the red first, because if you don’t, your opponent will . . .’ She had a chance to slice Deianara’s side open but, as she sidestepped, she managed to still her hand – her instinct to kill screamed at her in frustration.
Deianara turned. She knew how close she had come. ‘Please, Lysandra,’ she said. ‘My orders are to kill you. I must obey them. I will not stay my hand as you just did.’ She did not wait for a response but launched into an attack – thrust, step in, thrust, highcut, side-cut . . . Lysandra could read each move before Deianara had begun it. She had learned the same steps, the same attacks. Good enough to defeat most, she knew. She had used them to great effect as a novice in the arena. But she was not a novice any more.
Iron struck iron as Deianara pressed in; predicta
ble or not, she was good and Lysandra knew all too well that she could not continue to parry and evade forever. One mistake was all it took and Deianara would have her. Her friend struck out again – this time Lysandra stepped forward as she warded the blow away, moving to inside Deianara’s guard. Her left fist swung up in an uppercut, cracking into Deianara’s jaw, snapping her head back. She staggered back, but Lysandra gave her no chance to recover, her foot lashing out and kicking Deianara straight between the legs.
The blonde gasped in pain, doubling over – and Lysandra was on her. She cast away her sword and grabbed Deianara’s wrist, twisting it, making her lose her grip on her own weapon. The hold still in place, Lysandra forced the arm up behind her friend’s back to between her shoulder blades; at the same time she clamped the blade of her forearm into Deianara’s throat.
Deianara gagged, her fingers scrabbling at Lysandra’s arm, trying to tear it away from her neck; at the same time, her feet stamped down, trying to catch Lysandra’s instep or shin – anything to make her let go. Lysandra pressed her foot into the back of Deianara’s knee, taking her – face down – to her knees. Lysandra made sure that she faced the dais and looked directly at the Matriarch as she applied the chokehold.
Deianara became frantic at the lack of oxygen, her struggles increasingly desperate. The eyes of the Matriarch did not waver, but even from the distance that separated them, Lysandra could see
the gleam of irrational hate in them. She squeezed harder as Deianara’s strength began to ebb away. The struggles became more sporadic till finally her hand fell away from Lysandra’s arm.
She dropped her to the ground. ‘I rather think,’ her voice rang out, ‘that if I was cursed by Athene it would be me lying there. As such . . .’ she shrugged, ‘I would take my leave of you and this place.’ The Matriarch clenched her firsts in fury – and Lysandra smiled at her as a young acolyte ran up clutching her tunic. She threw it over her head and turned her back on the temple.
Sparta
‘. . . Utterly surrounded and outnumbered, it was a desperate fight,’ Kleandrias said as slaves removed their eating bowls and refreshed their cups. The Last Stand was, as the Spartan had promised, of good standing. Illeana insisted that they have their own section set aside from the other patrons, but even she had winced at the price of it.
Their repast done, Kleandrias was regaling them with a story that was either made up or heavily exaggerated. But she liked the aging warrior, his love for Lysandra so blatant and obvious that only the narcissistic gladiatrix could fail to see it.
‘But I know the cut of tribal warriors,’ Kleandrias went on, ‘and I stepped from the ranks and challenged their leader to single combat.’
‘What happened?’ Illeana indulged him, a slight smile playing about her lips.
‘His centurion tore off his balls for breaking ranks in the middle of a contact and assigned him to latrine duty,’ Cappa said, nudging the chortling Murco.
‘Our centurion was already dead at this stage,’ Kleandrias was clearly annoyed that the two were not taking his tale at all seriously.
‘You weren’t there,’ Illeana said to the two bodyguards. ‘Kleandrias is clearly a mighty warrior.’
‘If you say so, my lady,’ Cappa said, doing a bad job of looking chagrined.
Illeana’s eyes told him to behave and she turned back to the Spartan. ‘What happened?’
‘It was much like an arena battle,’ Kleandrias began, a faraway look in his eyes. ‘My blade was already red with the blood of my enemies . . .’ He stooped as the door to their anterooms opened and Lysandra walked in.
She was not wearing her armour and helm – only her sword, slung over her shoulder from a baldric. Her hair was slicked back, wet with oil and her skin was black with sand. She had clearly been fighting. The question was with whom. And why?
‘Lysandra,’ she rose to her feet as the Spartan walked towards their dining area.
‘Leave me!’ Lysandra snapped. At once, Cappa, Murco and Kleandrias got up and made way, Kleandrias’s eyes full of concern. Yet he did not speak as he made his way towards the rooms that had been set aside for them.
Lysandra threw herself onto a couch and poured a hefty measure of unwatered wine. She looked over at Illeana, as though questioning why she was still here.
‘I’m not your servant,’ she said. ‘Nor your employee.’
‘Stay if you want,’ Lysandra shrugged. ‘I will be poor company.’
‘You’re always poor company, Lysandra. What happened?’
‘Matters did not go as I expected them to.’ The Spartan tipped back her wine and refilled her cup.
Illeana waited but Lysandra was clearly doing her best to ‘go native’ and act as though she was the paragon of laconic speech – despite the fact that, although she would never admit it herself, she usually was as garrulous as a senator. ‘Kill anyone?’ Illeana asked at length.
‘No,’ Lysandra replied. ‘Though they wanted me to. The Matriarch is quite mad,’ she murmured. ‘Quite mad. She made me fight Deianara – a childhood friend. I was skilled enough to overcome her without killing her.’
‘Not the homecoming you expected,’ Illeana poured more wine for herself, noting that Lysandra threw hers back at pace.
‘No,’ the Spartan admitted. ‘I thought . . .’ she hesitated. ‘I thought that the Matriarch would be proud of what I have done. What I have achieved. I have honoured Athene,’ she stated.
‘I know,’ Illeana agreed. It was the truth – if Lysandra was anything it was religious. Illeana had little truck with the gods, but she knew that such Romans who acknowledged their existence realised that they were fickle and untrustworthy. They could be bargained with – do something for them, they were supposed to do something for you. That was the modern way of looking at things. But then Lysandra was a walking anachronism and her attitude towards her goddess whilst unusual was hardly surprising once you got to know her. ‘You honour her all the time – even when life deals you harsh blows.’
‘Varia,’ Lysandra raised her cup, her lips pressed into a thin line. She drank and poured more. ‘I expected the priestesses to rally to our cause. But they did not – the Matriarch refused. She sought to punish and humiliate me – as though making me fight as a gladiatrix in front of my former sisters would shame me.’
‘And it did not.’
‘Certainly not,’ Lysandra’s inherent haughtiness shone through. ‘She even cursed me in Athene’s name!’
‘That must have been hard to take.’
‘Hardly. I cursed her back – in Athene’s name.’
Illeana laughed. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
‘Why are you here, Illeana?’
The question caught Illeana by surprise. But that was Lysandra for you. She had given Lysandra one reason and it was the truth. The hidden truth was that she found the strange Lysandra intriguing. Attractive even. She was a creature like Illeana herself – the only one she had met who could match her. The only one, she guessed, that would truly understand her. However – these were thoughts she could not share. ‘As I told you,’ she said at length. ‘I’ve never fought in a war before.’
‘Nor have many people. Some would say that most would not want to. You have everything a mortal could desire. Fame, wealth and beauty, the love of the people and your emperor and clearly the gods. You could die,’ she added, her voice now a little heavy with wine. ‘Why risk it?’
‘Because life without risk is not life,’ Illeana replied. ‘Why did you let me come, then? If we fight again, I could kill you. You risk the same as me.’
‘That is different,’ Lysandra responded.
‘No it isn’t. Not really. You know as well as I that only when Hades is on your shoulder do you truly feel alive. This is an opportunity never afforded to a Roman woman – at least not that I know of. I want to know what it’s like.’
‘And then?’
‘I’ll think of something else,’ Illeana smiled and was pleased that Ly
sandra did too. ‘If we live, you and I have to fight again – as per our agreement. That in itself will be challenging enough.’
‘There is truth in that,’ the Spartan agreed. ‘Do you know anything of leadership? Of tactics. Of battle?’
‘Gods, no!’ Illeana waved that away. ‘Just give me a sword and let me at them.’
Lysandra looked vaguely affronted. ‘I am afraid that is not how it works. You will have to learn a different way. A new way. To fight as a soldier is not to fight as a gladiatrix.’
‘How so?’
‘On the battlefield, you are not Gladiatrix Prima. You are part of a team – each person supports the other. It is the barbarian way to indulge in personal glory and single combats and other such nonsense. But I will write notes so that you are prepared as well as you can be.’
‘So that I’ll survive in order that you’re not robbed of your revenge?’ Illeana could not resist teasing.
‘So that you will not let the side down.’
Illeana frowned – and then realised it was she who was being teased. She sobered then for a moment. ‘How do matters with these priestesses affect your plans?’ she asked.
‘It is not ideal,’ Lysandra admitted. ‘They are all highly trained. They have been taught the arts of war since an early age. In terms of morale for the other women I have sought, they would have been invaluable. As it is . . .’ she shrugged. ‘ . . . It will have to be you and I that inspires them now, Illeana.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ And she did.
It was a decision she regretted in the morning.
Illeana consoled herself that no one who knew Lysandra could have an inkling that the Spartan’s capacity for alcohol matched her fortitude in battle. In the arena, it was as though Lysandra did not feel pain; at the altar of Bacchus, she seemingly knew no limits.
They left Sparta that morning, heading back to their ship. Illeana spoke little and her companions let her be, aware of her plight. She took some satisfaction that Lysandra too looked a little pasty. She glanced over at the Spartan who was looking down at a small farm holding.
Imperatrix (Gladiatrix Book 3) Page 17
