Imperatrix (Gladiatrix Book 3)

by Russell Whitfield

  They passed on through the Roman lines to those of the Heronai and Lysandra was pleased to see that a strong guard had been posted on both sides of the divide; clearly, the warnings and penalties for fraternisation were still being heeded.

  The guards on the Heronai side caught her attention as she drew nearer; they were being addressed by a commander, tall women, clad in hoplite armour. Red cloaked. And their shields bore the Spartan lambda. ‘By the gods,’ she murmured. She looked at Kleandrias, who was now grinning from ear to ear, the smile this time in his eyes as well as on his face.

  The commander finished addressing her troops and looked over as Lysandra approached. She would recognise the red hair and pockmarked face anywhere.

  ‘Greetings, worm,’ Melantha said. ‘Welcome back from the grave.’

  The Dacian Plain

  ‘Bastards!’ Amagê was raging with all the fury of the helpless. The encampment was in utter chaos, tents wrecked, people killed, horses scattered. ‘I’ll kill every last one of them! All of them!’ She kicked a fallen cauldron across the ground, the metal chiming as she did so.

  Sorina watched her, tight lipped, her heart full of regret and a cold anger of her own. ‘We were foolish,’ she said. ‘Over confident.’

  ‘I posted pickets! The stupid, dead, idle bastards! Fuck! Look at this place!’ She stooped and picked up a fallen lamellar cuirass and then hurled it away. A longhaired Scythian skipped aside as the armour whizzed past him.

  ‘Whoever conducted the raid knew their business,’ Sorina said. ‘Idle or stupid some of the pickets may have been. But all of them?’ She shook her head. ‘No. They caught us out, Amagê.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Clan Chief turned around. ‘And their commander escapes in the chaos. You should have killed her!’

  ‘Yes,’ Sorina admitted. ‘I should have.’

  ‘They’re laughing at us,’ Amagê spat. ‘At me! Fucking Romans . . . Greeks . . . whatever they are. Look at the field out there!’ She gestured at the battleground. ‘Look at it. Hundreds of theirs; thousands of ours. How could this happen? How?’

  ‘I warned you about the Roman way of war.’ Sorina said. ‘And those that we faced – Lysandra’s gladiatrices and her mercenaries. They weren’t even a real legion. The real one waits for us at Durostorum – along with those we were unable to best.’

  Amagê calmed herself with visible effort. ‘It is supposed to be a substandard legion.’

  Sorina raised an eyebrow; there was no need to answer that: if this was what a bunch of arena fighters and mercenaries could do, even a ‘substandard’ legion would cause problems. ‘We were overconfident. The ditch did for us. Rest assured they will have one at Durostorum. Wider and deeper.’

  Amagê came to her and caressed her face briefly which, for an instant, melted the cold desolation of Lysandra’s escape away from Sorina’s heart. ‘That it did,’ Amagê said. ‘That it did. Look out there,’ she pointed at the battlefield. ‘The stakes – they did for us too. You know that wood must have come from Dacian trees. They turned this land against us – so we will turn the land against them.’

  ‘How?’

  Amagê smiled. ‘Have an advance party sent out to Durostorum. I want to know what the defences are before we go up against them.’ ‘And now?’

  ‘Now we clean this mess up,’ Amagê gestured expansively to the wreckage around them. ‘Get ready to move. We will gather the dead so we might burn their bodies for Zalmoxis. And then, Sorina, we will fell trees. Hundreds of trees.’

  Durostorum

  ‘The worm returns!’ Melantha threw her arm around Lysandra’s shoulder as she led her to the heart of the Spartan section of the camp. There, Halkyone sat at a fire, Deianara next to her and, around them, the senior priestesses of their order. She had seen them all not half a year ago, but Lysandra could sense the difference this time. There was no coldness in their eyes – it was as though a weight had been lifted from them.

  Halkyone rose, as did Deianara. They both embraced her, but it was to Deianara, her childhood friend, to whom she clung the longest. ‘I am sorry for what happened in Sparta,’ she said.

  ‘I too, Lysandra,’ Deianara said. ‘I was hardly trying, as I feared I would embarrass you. After all, we all knew you had spent years with the xenoi – why heap further shame on your already shameful head?’

  ‘Then your performance was of Athenian expertise.’ Lysandra shot back. ‘The deception was truly artful.’

  ‘You always were easy to deceive.’

  Lysandra laughed, though it hurt the wound on her face. Thebe’s death was still a black poison on her soul, but seeing her sisters again lifted her and filled her with joy.

  Kleandrias coughed. ‘I will make my back,’ he said, clearly a little embarrassed by the familiarity between the women. He bowed his head to Halkyone and made off.

  ‘It would seem my command of the Heronai was short-lived,’ Halkyone said, indicating that the others take their places by the fire. ‘Athene be thanked for it. These xenoi and lesser Hellenes you associate with are strange, Lysandra.’

  ‘However we may wish it so, the world is not Sparta, Halkyone. Different peoples have different ways. Of course, they are inferior, but they are none the worse for it.’

  ‘Your lover is likewise corrupted,’ Deianara jerked her chin at the departing Kleandrias. ‘Bawling like an infant at your reported demise. We mocked him for it, of course.’

  ‘He is not my lover.’

  ‘Then he wishes it so. But I guess you are still too high and mighty to even touch your own bean, let alone allow another anywhere near it.’ Halkyone and Melantha laughed and Lysandra felt a flush of embarrassment: Deianara was still too earthy to be a priestess, she reckoned.

  ‘My bean is my business,’ Lysandra said mildly. She sobered then. ‘How are you here? The Matriarch made it clear – ’

  ‘The Matriarch is dead,’ Halkyone said. ‘And the temple has fallen.’

  The warmth in Lysandra’s heart was quickly doused at her words. ‘Fallen? How? By the sword? The Romans . . .’

  ‘By the hand of Athene herself, worm,’ Melantha said. ‘Soon after you were cast out, the earth trembled. Nothing unusual in that because Poseidon is a moody bastard. But this was different. The tremors went on for days.’

  Lysandra nodded. ‘We felt them in Taenarum.’

  ‘Imagine what it was like at home, then,’ Deianara said. ‘The real quake came suddenly and with fury. Sparta is badly damaged – your statue fell over, by the way, smashed to pieces, I heard tell. It looked nothing like you, so it is for the best.’

  ‘Statues have a way of doing that,’ Halkyone said. ‘Our temple is gone. Devastated. We found the Matriarch . . . crushed under the head and breast of the goddess herself. The message was clear. She had angered Athene when she cast you out, Lysandra. The Matriarch cursed you – and you cursed her back. Soon after, the earth shook, the temple fell and Athene’s statue killed the Matriarch . . .’ Halkyone shrugged. ‘It does not take a skilled augur to see the meaning in that.’

  ‘So you are Matriarch now?’ Lysandra observed.

  ‘Matriarch of what?’ Halkyone asked. ‘Ruins?’

  ‘Temples can be rebuilt. I raised one with my own hands. We can do so again.’

  ‘If we survive,’ Halkyone replied. ‘Lysandra, you have seen the enemy as well as I. Do you think – even with a wall and your catapults – that we can hold them? A day? Two? Three maybe? They will find a weak point sooner or later and then they’ll be in among us.’

  ‘And then we will die,’ Melantha said, poking the fire with a stick. ‘Like Leonidas. Only we won’t send the xenoi away like he did.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Halkyone said. ‘Leonidas. Idiot King of Sparta who did not think to his rearguard. Perhaps you are mistaken, Melantha – for now we have Lysandra, Gladiatrix Prima, the Lioness of Sparta to lead us, the strategos who rivals the Macedonian himself. The woman who, if Caesar had her at his side, would have laid low the Parthians a
nd brought their empire under Roman sway.’

  ‘Are you making fun of me, Halkyone?’ Lysandra said, keeping her face straight with difficulty.

  ‘No,’ Deianara said. ‘She believes that shit.’

  Halkyone smiled, but it was brittle. ‘This is a holding action. One that relies on your Roman General – Iulianus. If he fails, so do we.’

  ‘He will not. We can win this,’ Lysandra said. ‘That you are here . . . that I am here tells me that we can win this. The goddess brought you here. The goddess had a hand in saving me, Halkyone. I was sure I was going to die – but I escaped and here I am. Scarred, but alive.’

  ‘All the same . . . they are many; we are few.’

  ‘Spartans ask not how many, but where,’ Lysandra replied. ‘We are not going to die here,’ she looked around. ‘Not here. Not in this place.’

  ‘We have made our peace, worm,’ Melantha tossed the stick onto the flames. ‘All the women here came of their own free will – we asked for volunteers, not one of them trembled. Even the young ones wanted to come – those we gave back to their kin. But all of them saw the Matriarch denounce you and all of them saw her corpse. Athene is with you. And so are we. From these walls, we will not retreat.’

  ‘Maybe the barbarians will give us a chance to surrender,’ Deianara grinned. ‘Demand our weapons in exchange for the chance to leave on our ships.’

  ‘And what would we say to such an offer?’ Halkyone asked, her eyes dancing with mirth in the firelight.

  As one they spoke: ‘Molon labe.’ They laughed then. They laughed because it was absurd, because Halkyone was probably right, but most of all because if they were to die, it would be a good death.

  In the Spartan way.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Settus asked.

  Valerian looked over to him and Mucius who were debating the merits of the wall. Settus was pushing against it, hands spread wide, legs straining. ‘If it falls over, I’ll buy you a skin of wine,’ he said. He could not deny the sense of relief that he felt at the completion of the wall. Lysandra had bought him the time he needed – more in fact as it had been four days now and there was no sign of the barbarian horde that she, Euaristos and the Spartan women had described. His scouts reported the same – they had not advanced from the narrow point between the two rivers.

  Part of him was beginning to hope that the Heronai and mercenaries had done more than bloody the nose of the Dacian allies – perhaps they had broken it and they were not coming. ‘Good work, boys,’ he said to the two centurions.

  ‘I have to admit,’ Settus said, ‘that I thought working with women would be a waste of time, but they’ve put in a good shift. Especially those Spartan ones when they arrived. Stuck up cows, though,’ he added.

  It was the truth – Valerian had his doubts about the effectiveness of female soldiers, but thus far, Lysandra’s warriors had done themselves credit. He had had his own men, the mercenaries and Lysandra’s troops drilling relentlessly, falling back from the wall to the redoubt, for hours at a time. They had impressed him with their hard work, their tenacity and their discipline.

  As had Lysandra herself; she was becoming something of a legend to both the IV Felix and her own troops. It seemed that she could tweak the nose of Hades and come back with Charon’s coins in her purse. Maybe her faith in her goddess had some merit after all.

  ‘I’m going to get pissed,’ Settus announced. ‘But I could do with a shag. It’s torture,’ he said to Valerian. ‘I’m so close to a whole legion of willing gash that I can smell it. But I can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘Dream on, Ganymede, ‘Mucius snorted. ‘Willing, my arse! The only gash you’re likely to get is if its owner is unconscious. Or dead.’

  ‘Best you tease one out, Settus,’ said Valerian, climbing the steps that led to the top of the wall. ‘I don’t want to have to crucify you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Settus saluted. ‘With your permission?’

  ‘Just go and have your wine.’ Valerian waved his centurions away and they strode off, lying to each other about which of Lysandra’s women were giving them the come-on.

  It was growing late and the air turned much colder, as it always did in this gods-cursed place. But Valerian was satisfied as he took the salutes of the guards and surveyed the work of his men and the Heronai. The wall now stretched from bank to bank; the strongest part of it was the town proper. Here, he had ordered the construction of a strong redoubt. Hope for the best; plan for the worst. It was a saying of Frontinus and the wily old bastard was a good man to learn from.

  Valerian had to assume that they could not hold the entire wall indefinitely – the redoubt would give them a last refuge on a narrower front. Still – he looked at Lysandra’s artillery pieces, set up behind the length of the wall – the war machines would cause great losses to a massed enemy on the move. Perhaps even enough to stop them.

  It was the north bank that gave him most cause for concern. The ground along the entire front was poor, but it was worst there. Any fool would know it, and that would be where the bulk of the attack would come. Water was an issue, constantly flooding the ditch below the defences and then washing out again. It was not ideal, but it was the best he could do.

  ‘Legate!’

  He turned to see Lysandra approach, wrapped in a scarlet cloak. Her face had been badly cut – a deliberate stroke with a knife. He did not have to imagine the terror she must have felt being in the hands of the Sarmatians – he had experienced it already. ‘Strategos,’ he said with a smile. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I have news. Please come with me.’

  ‘What news?’ he asked, but the Spartan had already turned away and was climbing down the steps. He rushed after her, but she was striding off at pace, forcing him to trot to catch up with her. ‘What news?’ he said again as he drew level.

  ‘It would be better that you heard it for yourself.’

  He opened his mouth and thought better of it: he was not close to Lysandra, but he knew her well enough to know that asking again would be pointless and would probably anger her, and the last thing he wanted was an irritated woman. There were, after all, thousands of them less than a bowshot away on the other side of the camp.

  Lysandra took him to one of the intact buildings in Durostorum town – a longhouse – perhaps a meeting hall of some kind. Inside were a few of Lysandra’s company – the priest, Telemachus, her bodyguards and her friend, the other Spartan, Kleandrias. Otherwise the room was filled with some of the captains of the merchant ships that had brought her here.

  ‘Bedros!’ Lysandra said. ‘Tell the legate.’

  A man came forward, short and with a simian look about him. He looked at Lysandra, but her gaze was cold and full of anger. He cleared his throat, shifting from foot to foot.

  ‘What’s amiss, Bedros?’ Valerian asked, hoping the smile he gave was open and easy.

  ‘We’re leaving here, sir,’ the merchant said. At his words, the captains rumbled in approval. ‘It’s too dangerous. We have families. We’re not soldiers.’

  Valerian glanced at Lysandra, understanding her anger. ‘You’ve been paid,’ he pointed out.

  ‘And you’ve been supplied and we’ve delivered Lysandra. But the men want out. We’re not soldiers,’ he said again.

  ‘If things go badly for us, you realise that your ships are the only way for us to leave.’

  ‘We already went on one rescue mission,’ Bedros said. ‘We saved her people.’ He gestured to the Spartan but could not bring himself to meet her gaze. ‘We have families . . .’

  ‘And you’re not soldiers,’ Valerian cut him off. ‘Yes, I heard you the first time.’

  ‘I did not expect this from you, Bedros,’ Lysandra said. ‘You owe me. If not for me, the Galene would be in the hands of pirates and you would be dead.’

  ‘And I paid my debt,’ the merchant replied, again not able to look at her. ‘If not for me, your soldiers would be dead. And it is not my choice – we
all voted.’

  ‘You realise that when our soldiers see you sail away, it will damage their morale,’ Valerian said. ‘You carry our supplies.’

  ‘You have enough supplies to last you weeks, legate. That’s more than enough.’

  More than enough, Valerian thought bitterly. Clearly, Bedros didn’t rate their chances. He was probably right. ‘Very well,’ he said at length.

  ‘What!’ Lysandra stepped forward. ‘We had an arrangement!’

  ‘We can’t make them stay. Unless we hold them here and have them murdered – which I am not prepared to do. Bedros . . . Captains . . . I ask that you keep your reasons for your departure a secret. Tell your men – and mine for that matter – that you are to sail for reinforcements. That at least will keep hope in the hearts of our troops.’

  Bedros turned and looked at the men, all of whom were nodding in agreement – whether out of decency or the fact that they realised that Valerian had made no idle threat. He could have all of them killed before they got close to their ships.

  ‘We will keep it secret, and lie if we are asked,’ said Bedros.

  ‘That is what you are good at,’ Lysandra snapped. She turned on her heel, gesturing to her friends and left the building without another word. The remaining men shuffled about for a few moments, before they too began to file out. Bedros, however, remained.

  ‘I . . . voted to stay, ‘he said to Valerian. ‘I swear that I did.’

  Valerian looked him in the eye, wanting to lash out, wanting to upbraid him, wanting to vent his anger – even if he could see that the man was telling the truth. But that would be beneath him; as Bedros had said more than once – he wasn’t a soldier. Valerian offered him his arm, which the merchant took with some incredulity. ‘I will tell her when she has calmed. She will not think badly of you. ‘He said. ‘Good luck, Bedros.’