“All right.” The Decurion sighed. “Let me tell you a little story.”
I eyed him warily and stayed silent, listening.
“The slave auctions are almost always an entertaining bit of distraction for the good citizens of Rome,” he continued. “And never more so than when Charon comes to town to market his wares. He’s theatrical, certainly. Shows every piece of—” He bit off his words abruptly. “That is, he shows every, uh, person off to their best potential. Costumes, cosmetics, wigs . . . the works. As I’m sure you noticed. But your mock duel? That was extravagant, even for him.”
“It was hardly a mock duel,” I said. “A man died. I don’t think Charon was expecting that.”
“No, but he also thought it worth the risk. The high price he got for you bore that out. And that’s what was so surprising about the whole affair.” The corner of the Decurion’s mouth lifted. “Truthfully, sparkling costumes and a dead Alesian notwithstanding, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about your performance that day.”
I sputtered in outrage, but he was right. Even that day’s kill had belonged to Elka, not me.
“Pontius Aquila started off with a high enough bid,” he continued, “but then, in the interval while they cleared away the corpse, Charon sends me into the crowd with a message for the Lady Achillea.”
“What message?”
“A trunk.” He watched for my reaction. “With a sword in it. A sword with a triple raven etched upon the blade.”
My mind flashed back to the chaos of the slave galley sinking beneath me as I helped Charon heave his trunk over onto the other ship. Was that what had been so vitally important to him? My sword?
“Achillea offers a sky-high price, well beyond the means of the other bidders, and that seals the deal right there. For a pair of unknown, unqualified, potential gladiatrixes.” The Decurion’s clear hazel gaze bored into me, unblinking. “So tell me: What am I missing?”
“I’m flattered you think so very highly of me.”
He ignored my sarcasm. “It’s your sword, isn’t it?” he asked. “How did a lowly thrall come by a blade like that?”
I shot to my feet. “How dare you assume I was always a lowly thrall!”
He grinned—a wily expression—and said, “So I was right.” He leaned forward on the bench, as if to get a closer look at me. “I guessed as much after we spoke at Massilia and I said you didn’t talk like a slave. You’re freeborn, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m freeborn,” I snapped. “I’m the daughter of a king!”
My words hung in the air between us. For a moment, I thought he might scoff at me for making such an unbelievable claim. But instead, his gaze darkened and his grin disappeared.
“Surely you’re joking?” he asked.
“What if I am? What do you care if I’m a queen in my own land or a cowherd?”
“Because you’re not in your own land anymore,” he said. “This is Rome. Treachery and opportunism and backstabbing run in her veins like lifeblood, and if you’ve never had to live your life constantly looking over your shoulder, then you have no idea how dangerous it can be. The Lady Achillea is a close friend of Caesar’s. And when Caesar isn’t off in other lands making war, he’s here in Rome making enemies. It’s my job to make sure those enemies can’t use the few friends he has against him.”
“What has any of this to do with me?”
“I don’t know. Yet. But the mark on that blade clearly meant something to the Lanista, and Charon knew it would. I’d like to know what that something is.”
“Then you’ll have to ask them,” I said. “All I know is that it’s the symbol of my goddess—sacred to the warriors of my tribe. There is power in the mark. Perhaps the Lanista recognized that.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said, frowning in thought. “Your people aren’t the only ones who think of ravens as omens. Although most Romans would consider them bad ones.”
I thought about the dead bird and the bloody feather someone had left in my room. I’d thought it was just a prank at the time, but now I wondered if I shouldn’t tell the Decurion about it. I knew more than he did just how powerful a symbol the raven was—and how dangerous. But no—how could there possibly be a connection between my sword and the feather?
And, at any rate, the crimson plume of the Decurion’s very Roman helmet stirred in the breeze and reminded me that he belonged to the legions that had invaded my home. He was the enemy of my people. He was not my friend.
“If the Lanista thinks you’re worth keeping out of Pontius Aquila’s collection, then you’re worth keeping safe,” the Decurion continued. “The Ludus Achillea is Caesar’s, remember? He owns it—and everything and everyone in it—and it’s worth a lot of money. And, as much as some people might think the gladiatoral games are nothing more than a decadent indulgence to keep the mob distracted and mollified, there’s more to it than that. There are rivalries that run generations old, and deep divides both politically and philosophically among the Republic’s elite. There are those in the senate who whisper of Caesar’s increasing power. Of his superior airs. They say he’s been tainted by the Aegyptian queen, Cleopatra. That she’s convinced him he should be treated as a god, not a man. An emperor rather than Rome’s chief consul.”
“So? I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.”
“Caesar’s perceived arrogance has caused a great deal of resentment among his peers in the senate. But the plebs—the common people—adore him.” He looked at me. “They love him for just such things as, well, you. Or, rather, what you might become in time. Caesar’s games are the best. His fighters, the best. His upcoming Quadruple Triumphs are his gift to the people of Rome, a massive celebration such as this city has never seen. They are meant to cement his popularity in such a way that the senate will never be able to cast him down—not without risking the wrath of the mob. That’s how important Caesar’s gladiators are to him. Now do you understand?”
I did. Or, at least, I thought I did.
Someone called Caius’s name, and he glanced over his shoulder to where another legionnaire approached, leading a pair of horses. “I have to go,” he said.
“Before you do,” I said, “tell me this: You could have just asked Charon about the sword mark the next time you saw him. Why did you seek me out instead?”
He was silent for a long moment, staring at me, and I wondered if he would give me an answer. Then he said, “I was curious about you.”
“Why?”
“On the ship, I saw something in you.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “And that was?”
“The absolute need to fight. To be free. That’s something I can understand.”
I wasn’t so sure he could.
“Some years ago,” he continued, “there was a revolt. A gang of slaves—gladiators, in fact—rose up and challenged the might of the Republic. They fought the legions for a very long time, and they very nearly won. But it took one man—a man named Spartacus—to ignite the spark that turned to flame. I’ve always admired him, even though he went against everything I’m supposed to fight for as a soldier of Rome. I thought, on the ship, that I saw that same kind of ember glowing in your eyes. I suppose I wanted to see if it was still there.”
I felt a sudden prickling behind my eyes. How could I even hope to keep such a spark alive when it seemed my life was destined to play out behind the high walls of an arena?
I blinked the tears away quickly, but not before the Decurion saw. His expression softened.
“A gladiatrix, if she’s good enough, may one day earn enough in the arena to buy her freedom, you know.” He reached into the basket and pulled out one of the wooden blanks I’d hewed to kindling. He tossed it to me and grinned. “Just be good enough.”
My mind reeled with the implications of actually, one day, being able t
o make enough money to buy my freedom back. No one at the ludus had told us that yet. Then I remembered just how very much money I’d been sold for. Good enough would have to be very good indeed.
The Decurion laughed at my stunned expression. “I’ll be back soon, on Caesar’s business,” he said. “Perhaps I might look in on your progress.”
“If it pleases you, Decurion,” I said, distracted.
“It would.” He hitched his cloak higher on his shoulder. “My curious mind and all. Also . . . another thing that would please me is if—when it’s just the two of us together—I’d like it very much if you would call me Caius instead of Decurion. Or better yet, Cai.”
I thought about how very unlikely it was that we’d find ourselves in such circumstances again. “As you wish . . . Cai.”
A moment of silence stretched between us, and then he sighed heavily.
“What?” I blinked at him.
“That’s the part where you’re supposed to say: ‘And you can call me . . .’”
I hesitated for a moment.
“Fallon.”
Cai smiled. A slow, inward-turning smile, like he’d just learned a secret. “Be well, Fallon,” he said. “Be careful. And tomorrow . . . try tucking in your chin and imagine breathing all the way down your arms, right out the ends of your fingertips and into your swords. Let go. Relax into the work instead of fighting through it.”
Shaking my head, I watched him mount his horse and ride off in a haze of dust. Sound advice, maybe, but it seemed to me that there was far too much fighting ahead for me to ever think about letting go.
XVII
THE DAY OF our gladiatorial oath swearing approached with the swiftness of a late summer tempest and just as much foreboding. For weeks it had seemed nothing more than a distant threat, an occasional rumble like thunder on the horizon. But now, the very air of the ludus training grounds seemed to bristle with the furious, pent-up energy of a storm cloud ready to burst.
Thalestris and the other fight masters—two hard-bitten ex-legion soldiers named Kronos and Titus—had been observing our progress with eagle-keen eyes, and the tension among the girls was palpable. I know I felt like a walking bundle of flayed nerves, both on the pitch and off. Just because the ludus had bought us as slaves didn’t mean they couldn’t sell us again if we didn’t measure up as potential gladiatrices. As much as I loathed the idea of living under the yoke of the ludus, performing like a trained animal for the delight of bloodlusting crowds, the prospect of getting dragged back to the auction block to be sold as a failed fighter was far more odious—and, truthfully, terrifying.
At the same time, what Cai had told me that day by the stables had kindled in me a tiny spark of hope. If I could become a gladiatrix, there was a chance—a faint hope, maybe, but still—that I could one day earn my freedom with my sword. “Just be good enough,” he’d said.
So I fought with the Meriels and the Gratias of the academy, and I even sparred with Nyx—at Thalestris’s cruel behest—one miserable raining afternoon in a bout that lasted forever and saw us both end up covered in mud and bruises. I bit down on the urge to whimper every morning from the ache in my muscles, and I spent every spare second I had hacking away at the stable post with my two practice swords under the disinterested gaze of the donkey.
I worked on my presentation—on flourishes and salutes to the (as yet imaginary) crowds of onlookers—and on my style. Some of the girls who’d fought in the arenas already had patrons who sponsored them, wealthy patricians who flaunted their riches by equipping their favorite fighters in the games with better weapons and fancier armor.
Me, I spent the hours I wasn’t practicing or sleeping digging through the baskets of scrap leather in the weapons-makers’ shops, fashioning wrist bracers and a pair of shin guards for myself. I incised the spiral patterns of the Cantii on them with the point of my dagger. They weren’t anywhere near as fancy as some of the bronze ones the other girls wore, but they were something. A start. They’d have to suffice until I could attract a patron of my own.
By barely measurable increments, the days became less grueling. And through it all, Elka was there to lift my spirits with her blunt humor and fierce friendship. As much as I hoped that I would make it all the way to the oath ceremony, I hoped just as fervently that she would too.
“You’re getting good, little fox,” Elka said as she ambled over, wiping the sweat from her tall brow with the back of one arm. “You could almost pass for a Varini, the way you fight.”
I grinned at her. “And you could almost pass for a Cantii.” I nodded at the spear she held in one fist. She’d been practicing her throwing all morning, and she had a sharp eye. “Only we throw our spears from the decks of racing chariots.”
“Chariots are for girls.” She laughed and nodded toward the gate in the compound wall that opened out toward the shores of Lake Sabatinus. That day the gate stood wide, and we could see a pair of the swift, light war carts racing along the strand. Mounted ludus guards rode nearby, keeping the charioteers under watchful eyes, but I envied them even that illusion of freedom.
The drivers were Nyx and another girl whose name I didn’t know. Nyx lashed furiously at her ponies and pulled ahead of the other chariot with a triumphant shout. The wing of black hair flowing out behind her reminded me of the crow feather that had been left in my room.
I’d cleaned the dried blood off the thing and put it under my pillow. I slept with it there as a kind of secret act of defiance. Crows and ravens were sacred to the Morrigan, and I didn’t think she’d take kindly to one of her own being gutted for the purposes of a prank. Every now and then I wondered if I’d been foolish not to report the incident to Thalestris or one of the other masters, but I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t fight my own battles. Not before the oath swearing. And if the dead bird and bloody feather had been meant to frighten me, they’d failed to do so. If anything, they spurred me on. The goddess was on my side. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
I didn’t know who’d left the thing—or why. I might have suspected Nyx, but that’s all it was: a suspicion. And she hadn’t followed up with any similar threats. Still, I frowned as I watched her race down the lakeshore, urging her horses on with the crack of her whip. A shadow of unease crept across what had been my good mood.
Elka nudged me with her elbow. “Come on,” she said. “I was joking. Here. Help me practice.”
She led me over to the far side of the yard, where there was an assortment of targets set up. One of them was made from an old round shield pinned to a post through its center. It had been painted like the spokes of a wheel, divided into numbered sections, one to twelve. Kronos the trainer had explained to me what the number markings meant and how to read them, but I still got confused sometimes and mixed them up. So we made a joke out of it every time Elka asked me to spin the shield wheel and pick a number.
“Thirteen!” I would call out and spin the wheel so that the markings blurred.
Elka’s spear invariably pierced the twelve: XII.
“Only off by one!” she would say. For some reason the joke had yet to grow stale. And her aim had yet to falter. As a prospective gladiatrix, she was good. And she actually seemed content—happy, even—that her fate had led her to the Ludus Achillea and the chance to live and die as one.
Which makes her either stronger than me . . . or weaker.
I didn’t know which.
• • •
The evening before the ritual, I was beyond restless. I felt as though I would jump out of my skin if I stayed another moment in my cell, pacing a groove in the dirt floor and wondering if I would still be sleeping on that same narrow cot after the oath swearing.
Even after a full day of hard practice, I wasn’t the least bit tired. The blood hummed through my veins like trails of busy insects, and my fingers opened and closed on the air as if searching for lost
weapons. But my mind and heart were torn in opposite directions. If I was chosen to take the oath, then my fate would be inextricably tied to the Ludus Achillea. If not . . . I didn’t know. The very idea of being set adrift in the middle of a foreign land—maybe sold, maybe just turned out into the streets of Rome—set my heart pounding with the possibilities of escape . . . even as it turned my mind to the probability of death or dishonor in those same streets.
When I finally couldn’t take the closeness of my four walls any longer, I plucked my cloak off the hook on my door and slipped out into the barracks corridor. The sun had dropped below the horizon, and the sky was darkening swiftly. I could smell the lake, cool and fragrant on the air, and longed to run along the shore, outside the gates of the compound. I would have to content myself with a run on the paths meandering through the gardens.
I heard the muffled sounds of blades clashing, distorted by the evening mist, but I knew that all the other students had retired for the night. My mind suddenly tumbled back to the night Mael and Aeddan had fought in the fog. It had sounded just like that, like the sound of the Morrigan laughing.
Without thinking, I followed the ringing echoes toward a small torchlit courtyard. There I saw Thalestris, dressed in her usual breeches and sleeveless tunic, fighting with another woman. Both of them were helmed and lightly armored, fighting with short swords and shields. And both of them were staggeringly good.
I guessed at the other fighter’s identity: the Lady Achillea herself.
Your new goddess, Thalestris had said on that first day at the ludus.
I spat in the dirt at the very thought.
I already had a goddess, and no matter what trials she saw fit to put me through, I would not forsake her for someone who thought fighting for the sport of the masses was the least bit honorable. Achillea was no true warrior.
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