Chasing the Lion

by Nancy Kimball

  His fingers curled when he asked them to. And his toes. But reaching for his neck required much more effort. The bronze slave collar was gone. He felt higher, then lower, his stomach clenching. Sweat dampened skin and nothing more. His mother’s carving was gone.

  Was it not enough to take her from me too soon? You’ve finally taken everything from me. Everything. He leaned to sit up. A mistake, and a groan broke the silence. It must have awakened the woman, because she stood. She reached for his face, and he shied from her touch.

  Her hand stilled in midair. “It’s all right. May I?”

  She wasn’t slender or beautiful the way Valentina had first appeared to him. But something in her face seemed to soothe his fear. Her eyes were dark and filled with a concern belying the joyful curve of her mouth. He gave her a small nod and willed himself to hold still.

  The backs of her fingers touched his forehead and lingered there. Her smile grew when she removed her hand. “Your fever’s broken.”

  “Where am I?” His voice emerged raspy and slight, and as unfamiliar to him as this place. She used the small lamp to light a larger one. An entire wall of ordered shelves and cupboards stood opposite him with pouches, jars, vials, and folded cloths of every size. A large table surrounded by four stools dominated the center of the room. Suddenly the odor of herbs made sense. A place of medicine. What didn’t make sense was why he was in one. That beating had surely been meant to kill him.

  “Where am I?” he asked again.

  “The medicus chamber.” She picked up a bowl and swirled it in her hand, carefully avoiding his gaze.

  “Yes, but where?”

  Something sad flickered through her expression when she met his gaze. “Please don’t talk so much. You need to drink this and then rest.”

  That she ignored his question deepened his resolve to know. Jonathan pushed up with his elbows to try to sit up. Pain shot through his sides, across his back, so powerful it was like being beaten a second time. His eyes clamped shut as he fell back with a whimper in his throat.

  “Don’t.” Her hand pressed his shoulder as if to hold him down. “You will reopen your wounds.” She was upset. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth pulled flat. “We’ve had to keep you on your back so you could swallow.”

  But as she continued to stare at him her expression turned tender, almost sorrowful. The hand at his shoulder moved behind his neck, and she eased his head up. She tipped the edge of the bowl to his lip. The thick liquid tasted bitter, and he spit it back in the bowl.

  “It’s soured,” he rasped.

  “No, it will heal you. And you can drink it. You have been for three days.”

  Three days?

  She raised his head again and returned the bowl to his chin. “Please try.”

  Jonathan managed three full swallows before his stomach threatened to retch. She removed the bowl from his mouth and set his head back down. “Well done. Now please try to sleep. You need rest to heal.” She grasped the fur that had bunched at his waist and pulled it up to his shoulders.

  “First.” He swallowed. “Tell me.” He breathed deep to steady his voice. “Where I am.”

  “I’ve already told you. A place of healing. Now please rest.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes and began to turn away.

  He pulled his arm free of the fur and grabbed her by the wrist. The searing pain was intense but worked to strengthen his grip. “Don’t play games.” He fought the dizziness with clenched teeth. “Where—am—I?”

  She hadn’t tried to pull free. Her expression wasn’t one of anger now, but one of sorrow. “The ludis of Caius Pullus.”

  A ludis.

  He released her, and his arm dropped like a stone. He closed his eyes and struggled just to breathe. Better he had died. The only reason they would work to heal him now would be to kill him later—as a gladiator.

  He felt her hand on his shoulder again. “Rest now. Please.”

  “Rest? You want me to rest?” Anger was overtaking the pain with every breath. It felt better. Much better. “How can I rest? I escape death to discover I’ll be killed later for sport, surrounded by people cheering for my blood.”

  He would sooner die by his own hand. He’d wished for death, begged it to come while Marcus and Titus had struck him again and again and again. To escape the pain, yes, but in that moment, he’d seen death as its own kind of freedom. It had been within his grasp.

  “Why would you help them do this?”

  She had no answer for that either, but this time he hadn’t the strength to compel her. She took hold of the arm hanging at his side and laid it across his chest. Her gentleness, after he’d been so rough with her, unsettled him more. The serenity in her expression opposed everything inside him.

  “This life comes to an end for us all,” she said. “Whether slaves, soldiers, or kings. It doesn’t have to be something you fear.”

  His mother hadn’t feared death. He could still remember the peace in her expression, as if she slept and would awaken any moment. He doubted he would look that way, lying crushed and bloody with a sword sticking up from his back. “You should have let me die.”

  “It was up to God, not me. You’re immortal until His work for you is finished.”

  Jonathan’s jaw tightened. She’d said God. Not Jupiter, Juno, Isis, or ‘the gods’ like most who didn’t worship a particular one. She’d said God as in the God. The God of his mother and Deborah. The One he’d once been foolish enough to believe in as well. “I don’t believe in God.”

  “Whether you do or do not does not change His will for you.”

  Her arrogant certainty aggravated him. Deeply. “You know nothing of what you speak.”

  “I know He returned you to this life for a reason.”

  “He did nothing.”

  That calmness about her remained as she watched him. A grin slowly formed on her mouth. An urge to knock it from her face tingled through his hand. Shame flooded him in an instant. He looked away and drew a deep breath that hurt his chest but helped clear his head. What was he becoming?

  Shadow fell over him as she adjusted the fur, tucking it in around him. Her grin remained. While the abhorrent thought to hit her didn’t return, his annoyance did. “Something amuses you?”

  She straightened and stared down at him, smiling even wider now. “For someone who doesn’t believe in God, you’re very angry at Him.” She turned and extinguished the larger lamp, leaving only the faint light from the smaller one again. “Now rest.”

  She returned to the table beside him, rested her head on her arm like a cushion, and closed her eyes. That smile remained a long time, until sleep eventually erased it from her lips.

  Though exhausted, in pain, with a terrible fate looming before him, sleep wouldn’t come. He lay there staring at the wooden beams, her words echoing in his mind.

  What was all that banging? Jonathan opened his eyes. Daylight lit an unfamiliar ceiling. Where—everything flooded back as he eased his head up to look around. The slave girl from last night stood at a waist-high shelf pouring white powder into a bowl. She looked shorter in the daylight, and younger than he remembered. Her gaze met his, and her smile reassured him, though he didn’t know why.

  “You’re awake.” She poured water from a red clay pitcher into the bowl and carried it to him. “Drink this.”

  She slipped her hand beneath his neck to tilt his head up more and put the bowl to his lips. The drink overran the edges of his mouth and dripped down his neck. It wasn’t as bitter as last time which helped, because it kept coming well after he would have stopped if given the choice. When the bowl emptied she took it from his mouth and lowered his head.

  “Every time I wake you force more potions down my throat.”

  “Yes. It’s why you keep waking.”

  Her brown eyes were full of light. She must be laughing at him inside. A sudden explosion of sound from beyond the wall drew her attention—a clamor like thunder, followed by what could only be a victory shout.
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br />   “Tao.” The slave girl shook her head, still grinning. “He must have awakened in a bad mood.” She turned to Jonathan and her smile fell. “As have you.” Her hand came to rest on his arm through the thickness of the fur still covering him. Her touch was unassuming, unlike Valentina’s had always been. Was she waiting for an explanation for his gloom?

  He’d been fighting all his life. To survive. To understand who he was. Now they would put that in an arena, where thousands would pleasure in his suffering instead of a few. Even if he could give his despair words she wouldn’t understand. She looked too innocent, and part of him didn’t want to take that from her.

  A man wearing a bone-colored tunic entered the room. He wore no belt, but it would have taken two to circle his middle. Black eyebrows were the only hair on his head. They looked like two giant caterpillars that threatened to roll down from their wall of pale skin any moment.

  “Quintus, may I get you anything?” The slave girl looked happy to see him. Beside this man, she appeared much thinner than he’d thought her to be last night.

  Quintus regarded him with eyes so dark they were almost as black as his eyebrows. “No, I’m fine. How is our, what is it you say, Lazareth?”

  “Close. Lazarus.”

  Their reference to the man Jesus raised from the dead, according to Deborah, annoyed him. He could throw out some names of his own for what they were doing to him, starting with Judas Iscariot. Granted, Judas had betrayed Jesus to be killed, and these people had saved his life. He’d be grateful if he was any place other than a ludis.

  Quintus pressed cold, plump fingers to Jonathan’s neck. The woman’s light touch on his arm tightened slightly. Her mouth had flattened as she stared at Quintus. “What do you think?”

  “Stronger.” Quintus pressed his fingers lower on Jonathan’s neck. “His humours are still out of balance. We’ll keep filling him up until he’s flowing out again.”

  The slave girl blushed. A surprise. The reference had embarrassed her. In a place like this? The pink in her cheeks, however, was lovely. How had he thought her so plain last night?

  “Perhaps he could have some honeyed wine now.” She left his side for the counter on the far wall and returned with another bowl. This time instead of raising Jonathan’s head, she handed the bowl to Quintus.

  “Let’s see how you do.” Quintus put his hand behind Jonathan’s head and tilted it forward. The wine tasted delicious on his tongue after so much bitter herbs and salt. Quintus let him drink until the bowl was empty. “Excellent. It seems Nessa’s God favors you, slave.”

  Nessa. An unusual name. “So she says.”

  “Even so, you need to preserve your strength and allow your body to recover. Resist the urge to touch or scratch any wound. We have metal pins holding the deepest of them closed. Your cracked ribs should help keep you still, and those will take the longest to mend. Nessa will remain with you. I’ll return this evening to clean and repack your wounds with herbs and salt. For that I can give you undiluted opium to help with the pain. We’ve been mixing some into your solution to help you sleep.”

  Why the effort and expense if they were just going to kill him later?

  “Rest.” Quintus turned to Nessa. “This afternoon he can have the barley porridge, but strain it so he won’t have to chew anything. The less he moves the better, until his skin returns to its normal color.”

  She nodded and Quintus headed for the white cloth hanging from the top of the doorway. He brushed it aside but turned back, his face somber. “Should you feel well enough to try some ill-conceived plan of escape and your injuries don’t kill you, the guards will.”

  Nessa blanched at Quintus’ warning, but Jonathan didn’t. That was good to know.

  The medicus departed and Nessa’s smile returned. It was nearly part of her face it seemed, like her nose. He’d only known two other people so perpetually joyful. Deborah and his mother. He reached for the carving at his throat and remembered it was gone. Gone forever like his mother—and his life.

  “Rest,” the girl said. “I’ll be nearby if you need anything.”

  “Thank you.” He hadn’t meant to say it. Habit had done so, but he could tell it pleased her. She returned to the shelf across from them and settled on a stool. She took a fistful of leaves from a cloth pouch and tore them into tiny pieces, dropping them into the large clay jar beneath her hands. She hummed as she worked, and after a while, her gentle voice drowned out the sounds of combat beyond the wall. With his eyes closed and his body relaxed beneath the thick fur, she sang him to sleep.

  The day passed slowly while he woke and slept in endless cycles like the sun and moon. Every time his eyes opened, Nessa was there with her bowl. By late afternoon, he wanted to try holding it himself. When she finally relented, she helped him raise his head and tucked a thickly rolled cloth behind his neck. Holding the bowl steady and keeping his head upright exhausted him, and he spilled a fair amount. Even so, taking back some measure of independence had been worth the tremendous effort.

  He appreciated her thoughtfulness when she left him the necessaries to tend his other needs while she went for more water from the fountain. Jonathan learned much about the ludis as he listened to the almost constant sound coming through the wall. It seemed the only time the sound of sparring ceased was for the midday meal. The porridge she gave him to drink had been hot and savory, and he’d managed to drink a second bowl.

  Quintus returned that evening with a large bundle Nessa spent a lot of time sorting and putting away on the shelves. They helped him turn onto his stomach to redress the wounds on his back. Several times he almost blacked out, from the pain or the opium they’d given him, or both, he didn’t know—or care. More painful than the salt Quintus applied to Jonathan’s lashes was the knowledge he hadn’t deserved a single one. It wasn’t Nessa’s voice that carried him to sleep this time, but a burning hatred for Valentina that reached all the way back for Manius as well. If he was ever going to put a sword straight through someone, it would be them.

  Chapter 11 – Shards

  The crack of wood on wood pulled Jonathan awake. He needed to relieve himself, badly, but neither Nessa nor the bowl for that purpose were anywhere in sight. The large chamber pot she emptied it into, however, was in the far corner of the room. Sitting up was its own kind of torture, but he managed. Turning to swing his legs down—even worse. The cold stone floor chilled his bare feet, and every part of him screamed in protest when he straightened, especially his left side. The fur he’d planned to wrap around him for the journey slipped to the floor. He bent to retrieve it, and the shards of pain slicing through his back changed his mind. Hopefully, Nessa wouldn’t return anytime soon.

  He shuffled along the wall to the chamber pot. Slow as a snail, but he succeeded at the task. Faint singing mingled with his heavy breathing. That could only be Nessa, and she was coming fast. Too fast for him to make it back to the bed.

  The only thing in reach was the chamber pot. As exhausted as he already was, it might as well be a tree stump. She was coming through that sheet any moment. Think. Think!

  He swore and pressed his back into the wall, trying to become part of it while covering himself with his hands. The plastered wall mauled his barely healing back, but he held silent and froze.

  She came through the curtain carrying a pitcher. Her gaze went to the empty bed, and her song died in her throat. She spotted him and jerked back so fast she fumbled the pitcher. “Oh!”

  Her smile returned, as crimson flooded her cheeks. The amusement in her face reminded him of Valentina. It infuriated him in an instant, so to spite her, he dropped his hands.

  She dropped the pitcher.

  The clay exploded, and water splashed every direction, drowning her gasp as she spun and put her back to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would be up yet. Walking, I mean, not awake, but I didn’t—I’m sorry.”

  Her nervous stammering salved his pride. A little. He reached the bed and managed to squat and r
etrieve the fur with a minimal increase in the pain all over. Working back into the bed and beneath the safety of the blanket—much more—but keeping his teeth clenched helped.

  “May I turn around now?”

  If he said no, how long would she stand there in the wet ruins staring at the wall? His conscience smote him. The woman had tended his wounds and shown him kindness. She didn’t deserve that, even if she had meant to mock him with her smirk, which he began to doubt. “Yes.”

  She turned as Quintus came through the curtain carrying a large bundle wrapped in brown cloth. He surveyed the shards of pitcher and water stains on the floor, and then studied the two of them. “What happened?”

  Nessa rubbed her empty hands together. “We’re going to need a new pitcher… and a tunic for…” She met his gaze and the flush in her cheeks deepened. “I’m sorry. I still don’t know your name.”

  “Nessa, you’re bleeding.” Quintus bent toward her feet.

  A fine line of blood oozed from a cut above her sandal strap. She turned her heel out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t feel it.”

  Quintus cast him a look of disapproval that made him want to dissolve into the floor like the spilled water. It was as if the man knew it had been his fault. “Come sit. I’ll tend it and have a slave clean this up and get our patient a tunic.”

  Watching the doctor remove her sandal, clean and dress the cut, made him feel even worse. A slave came and took away the shards of the pitcher. He returned with another pitcher and a folded tunic. The shelf received the pitcher, and the tunic he set on the end of Jonathan’s bed, giving him an appraising stare before departing. Nessa remained statue-like on the stool where Quintus had ordered her to remain.

  The medicus emptied the bundle he’d carried in and put away herbs, vials, and a few things Jonathan didn’t recognize. No one spoke while the incessant clashing of training filled the awkwardness. Quintus shelved the last glass vial and swore before turning to Nessa. “They didn’t include my mint, and I paid for it. Will you be all right while I go back for it?”