The Tea Machine

by Gill McKnight

  “I don’t recognize her,” she said, looking Millicent up and down. “But we have new girls arriving from the provinces all the time.” She seemed unimpressed with the provincial specimen she was looking at.

  Millicent did not trust the obsequious change in Cassian’s manner. Nor did she like the way she was being discussed, as if she were a bartered object. She levelled her gaze with the matron.

  “Excuse me,” she said in her most frosty, formal voice, “but I don’t believe we have been introduced. I am Miss Millicent Aberly.”

  The matron gawped at her with an expression of shock that very quickly turned to red faced anger. Without warning she slapped Millicent across the face. The crack of her hand against pliant flesh startled a dozen doves into flight. Cassian twitched involuntarily, and Millicent was vaguely aware of his struggle to keep composed as she collapsed on the beautiful marbled floor.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Not another friggin’ coal hole.” Gallo swore into the gloom. She lay curled in a corner as if tossed there by some great force. Slowly, she unfurled her long limbs and sat up. Nothing was broken, but everything felt bruised and aching, and her head banged like a war drum. She groaned in protest. This was exactly how she’d felt the last time she’d been sucked from reality and dumped in a black pit. She wondered if she really had died this time and made it to Tartarus.

  It was so damned hard to tell these days.

  Somewhere to her right, she could make out the faint glow of smouldering embers. It was a small, inconsequential light but enough to throw elongated shadows; much to Gallo’s dismay, the shadows began to seethe and crawl. They flickered across the walls and ceiling, creeping slowly towards her, stick-like and eerie, hemming her into the corner. She slithered back until the rough stone bit into her shoulders. Her knife was not in her boot, and she vaguely remembered leaving it by the couch when Sophia fainted. Now she cursed her carelessness. Okay, bare knuckles it is. She lurched to her feet, hunched in a boxer’s stance. It was a crazy way to face demons, but Gallo was out of options. All she knew was she was a legionnaire, and she had promised her dear old mother she would die on her feet.

  The glow in the far corner flared, then blazed up into a good sized fire. It threw out heat and enough light to see clearly. Gallo found she was surrounded and, to her consternation, dwarfed by several warriors of the Amazon nation. Her shoulders relaxed. I must be dead and on the Elysian fields. Score me! She was on the field of warriors with the Amazons. She had finally arrived at her happy-ever-after, eternal resting place.

  Oof! A punch to the stomach doubled her over.

  “Spying scum! How long have you been hiding here?” The nearest Amazon kicked at the hamstrings of her left leg. Gallo fell to the ground, and a foot pressed down on her windpipe.

  “Speak, or I’ll crack your neck like a dung beetle.” Extra pressure was applied, and Gallo’s eyes bulged. She spluttered weakly, and the pressure eased enough to allow her to swallow.

  “I just got here.” She gasped. The pressure was mercilessly reapplied to her throat, then eased off. “I’m not spying,” Gallo said, before she was silenced again. One of the warrior women leaned over and glared directly into her face.

  “Explain,” she said. She was the boss. A quick nod from her and the boot was withdrawn.

  “The goddess Looselea brought me here.” Gallo coughed. It wasn’t that much of a lie. There was certainly some correlation between Sophia and the goddess, and touching Sophia in that infernal machine had somehow catapulted her into this mess. Ergo, she was on a godly mission. She’d love to know exactly where she was. She worried that Sophia might be in similar trouble. After all, the Amazons were vicious, tree hugging bastards.

  “Looselea?” At least the lead warrior recognized the name. “She’s not one of our goddesses,” she said dismissively.

  “Well, she’s one of mine. And she sent me here.” This was another half truth and was received with a frown.

  “She definitely wasn’t in here before.” An Amazon warrior spoke up. “We checked out the cell when we arrived, and she wasn’t here. And there’s nowhere she could hide, tiny as she is.”

  Gallo bristled, but she could feel a general assent among the group. She had not been here before. Ergo, she had just arrived. Ergo, she was not a spy. And ergo, she was a bleedin’ divine messenger.

  Get with the cosmic order, sisters. My gods are better than your squirrely, tree hopping ones.

  Relief ran through her. She might get away with this. An act of divinity was a hard sell, especially to hard-nosed heathens such as these. At least she had them thinking about it. It was bad mojo to kill a god’s minion; any god, even one that wasn’t your own.

  Cell? The word pricked into her consciousness. “Did you say we’re in a cell?” she asked. It made sense. There was a rough floor under her back, and what she could make out through the barrier of Amazon legs was enough to tell her this wasn’t another coal hole. Her heart sank. The bellow of an angry bull echoed from some place not too far away. At least that was different. “A cell where?”

  “A cell in the Belly.” The lead warrior stepped back and allowed Gallo get to her feet. “So, messenger of a goddess we don’t believe in, why are you here? What brings you to the Belly of the Beast? Come to save us?” There was a sneer on her lips.

  “Who is the Beast?” Gallo asked, though the churning in her stomach already told her. The Belly of the Beast was the nickname for the most bloodthirsty gladiatorial arena in all of Rome’s long history. The Beast was always the current Emperor in his sporting guise. It was his prerogative to wear the golden lion’s mask at the celebratory games. But the one, true, most monstrous Beast, was the man who had built the Belly arena in the first place; the Emperor who had created the bloodthirsty games for his own glory. He’d been the most callous and vicious of all Rome’s early Emperors. In Gallo’s own timeline, his name acted as a curse for the clean living and an oath for the debased. He was worshiped by secret cults who gathered in dark temples on stark, lonely hillsides, or in the heart of deep, damp forests.

  “What rock do you live under not to know that Severus ex Machina is the Beast of Rome,” the Amazon said, amused at Gallo’s question.

  Gee, of course it is. She had guessed right. She had landed in the depravity of Rome’s darkest age, governed by its cruellest ruler. She was indeed in the coal hole of Hell. “Oh, shit,” she said.

  “Easy to smell when you’re neck deep in it.”

  “Why are we in the cells?” Gallo asked.

  “A messenger of the gods who doesn’t know where she is or why she has been sent? We are lucky, indeed,” the Amazon leader said. Behind her, the warriors laughed. She stepped back and gave Gallo a rude, once-over glance, before saying, “I am Alkaia of Thermodon.” She drew herself up, dark and proud, to her full, impressive height, and glared at Gallo with shrewd, narrowed eyes.

  “Gallo of…of the Prussian Dragoons.” Gallo played it canny. Common sense said it would not be wise to be an Imperial soldier in a cell full of the Empire’s prisoners. If she’d had to use a fake identity for Londinium, then maybe it would be smart to use it here, too. Until she was back in her own time, she would follow Sangfroid’s advice. And if she ever caught up with her again, she would break both her legs and wrap them around her neck like a snood. Decanus or no, she was one pig-swilling turd of Circe. Gallo was not sure how or why any this had happened, but she knew it was somehow Sangfroid’s fault.

  “I haven’t heard of Prussian Dragoons. But you are a warrior? You have the bearing of a warrior,” Alkaia said. Gallo took it as a peace offering.

  “Yes. And you are Amazons.” Gallo tried to dampen the natural awe she held for them, but the wry smile she received showed she was unsuccessful. A shift ran through the throng surrounding her; the body language relaxed, and she realized they had accepted her quietly spoken respect and were pleased. Initial
antagonisms had been dispelled with a few careful words.

  “Eat with us,” Alkaia said. “Hipp is a good cook, even with the meagre provisions we’ve been given.”

  A younger woman tended a pot hung over the fire pit. She smiled at Gallo and nodded for her to sit. Gallo counted six Amazons in all, crowded cross-legged around the cook pot, passing around an apple-wood pipe filled with a crude dung tobacco.

  “So why you are in a cell in the Belly? Are you prisoners?” Gallo asked Alkaia. She took a lung-churning toke from the pipe. It hurt her throat more than the boot stomping had. She choked down a cough and tried to look composed.

  “We’re here for Severus’s annual games to the glory of his own sweet ass. Every nation has to send gladiators as an act of allegiance,” Alkaia said.

  Outside their cell, the corridor shook with the howl and snap of the pit animals and yells of their keepers. Gallo tried to ignore it just as her companions did. They calmly puffed on the pipe and stared at the flames, talking softly as the stew bubbled. Someone handed her a cup of ale. It eased the ache in her throat, and finally she let herself relax, confident that she may not be among new friends, but at least they weren’t going to gut her anytime soon.

  “But the Amazon nation was not part of Severus’s Empire? I mean is not part of his Empire,” Gallo said.

  “All nations send warriors to the games, unless you want Severus and his army knocking on your door.” Hipp snorted and threw more herbs into the pot.

  “It’s a token,” Alkaia explained. “It keeps the peace with a man who does not like peace. And manages to push an Empire spinning out of control away from our borders.”

  Hipp splashed stew into coarse wooden bowls and handed the first one to her leader, and the second to their guest. Gallo accepted it, grateful for the gesture. These women had little enough to share.

  “Eat and be eaten.” Hipp laughed as she served them all.

  “To a death well met,” the others chorused back and slapped cups of weak ale together in a joking toast.

  “You fight tomorrow?” Gallo asked and supped from her stew bowl. The first mouthful was rich and strong and she could feel it doing her bones good.

  “We fight tomorrow, messenger. I believe you are a sign after all,” Alkaia said, watching Gallo carefully over the rim of her bowl. “I think tomorrow you will work the magic you were sent to do, and make sure we die honourably.”

  “It is Severus’s way to try and shame our nation,” another warrior called Toxis explained. “Every year he orders bigger and better games, and the games master devises more macabre ways for us to fight, but we are never cowed. We fight hard and die bravely. The Amazons will never die easy.”

  “They treat the tribute fighters like toys. They delight in destroying us,” Alkaia said. “And as we are a strong, masterful nation of women, they are especially vindictive towards us. We fight hard to uphold the honour of our nation. The longer we can survive in the arena, the better for Thermodon.”

  “If the contestants die too quickly or fight poorly, then Severus takes it as an insult and annihilates their homeland. Genocide is nothing to him. He boasts of it as a cleansing. To prove worthy of existence each nation must send the best warriors it can,” Toxis said.

  Gallo’s appetite was lessening. She had no magic to combat this. Looselea was no longer a talisman on a cord around her neck. She had become Sophia, a silly, sweet woman, and Gallo worried for her. What part of this ancient world was she in? She could be in the next cell for all Gallo knew, or a thousand miles away. What if she had landed in the sea, or a volcano? It was funny how, in the middle of this madness, her first priority was Sophia. The only option was to get out of this cell, search for Sophia and the others, and hope that somewhere out there they were looking for her, too.

  “Where are your weapons?” She could see none in the cell.

  “They were confiscated. We get them back before we go into the arena. Until then, we are treated like this. All the tribute fighters are herded down here with the animals. It’s a psychological test, but we are strong up here, too.” Alkaia tapped her temple with a forefinger and winked. Considering they faced a death match in the morning, Gallo found her companions very upbeat.

  “Has anyone ever won and walked away?” Gallo asked out of interest.

  “It’s a rare as a red moon. The odds are stacked against you.”

  “But it is possible to fight and go on to live a long and happy life?” she persisted.

  Alkaia shrugged, and the other Amazons looked at each other. “That’s a bit of a radical theory,” Toxis finally said. “Is that your divine plan?”

  “I don’t have a plan. I’ll fight and see what happens.” Gallo raised her bowl to salute to her new comrades. She was here, and she was required to fight, and that was all she had ever done. If she won, she would go free, and if she died honourably, then that would be good, too. Gallo had always expected to have a shorter life than normal. All legionnaires did. She had lived well and had no regrets except one, and it shadowed her heart. For one magical moment, she had met a woman who transcended all others and then lost her almost immediately to another, darker magic. She would get Sophia back. She would save her. She had no idea how, but she vowed it to herself.

  “Tomorrow we die.” Alkaia cracked her bowl against Gallo’s. And for Gallo that was a right and natural salute. She would die. But only if she had to.

  “With honour!” The Amazons roared, and Gallo’s voice roared with them. And along the corridor, strange and dangerous creatures roared back.

  CHAPTER 19

  The marble floor was cold and hard. And not as pretty when her nose was pressed up against it. Millicent lay clutching her stinging face. The patter of bare feet rushed towards her, and she was hauled up by hands more concerned with haste than care or courtesy. From the corner of her eye, Millicent could see that the matron and Cassian had moved aside and were in deep discussion, ignoring her prone position.

  “I know I still owe you from the last time, but I would really like this one for myself,” Cassian spoke in a pleading, urgent voice. “Couldn’t you keep her aside, just for me? I’m bringing a few friends back after the games.” He pressed a small bag of coins into the matron’s hand. “I’ll bring the rest with me this evening,” he added, rather desperately, as she weighed the bag thoughtfully. “And we’ll have a pound of your finest Oolong in honour of the goddess.”

  “Come this way. Quickly.” A voice whispered in her ear. Millicent was manhandled away by a young woman dressed in a short tunic. “If she notices you’re still about, she’ll hit you again harder,” the girl said.

  “If she so much as touches me, I’ll…I’ll…” Millicent didn’t have words for what she would do; she had never been physically assaulted before and felt a little in shock.

  “Come.” The girl led her through a doorway and down a chilly corridor. Sunlight did not penetrate this part of the building, and the shadows loomed long and gloomy from the flickering tallow candles. From far off, she heard the splash of water, and the farther they progressed down the corridor, the noticeably warmer it became.

  “Where are we going?” Her heart was still thumping, and her face felt hot and bruised. She was thoroughly agitated by the assault and unsure how much danger she was in. Why should she trust this girl? “Where are we going?” she repeated, trying to squelch the panic in her voice.

  “The bathing rooms.” Her guide relented.

  The answer was not what she had expected. It did not reassure her either. They could be about to drown her for all she knew. Her travels into Sangfroid’s time had been dangerous, but she had always been more or less in command of her own destiny, if only because Hubert was in the background engineering her exit. Here it was different. Here she was trapped and vulnerable. She had felt it in the streets, and now she had been attacked by that fat slattern! Lord only knew what else aw
aited her. The muted whispering between Cassian and the broodmare, who seemed to own the place, was another worry. What she had overheard was calculated and menacing, and she knew it concerned her.

  The girl pulled her into a side room. Fragrant heat bloomed around them.

  “We’re in the caldarium. Leave your clothes there.” The girl pointed to a stone bench on the far wall. Millicent looked around her. The room consisted of a small pool wreathed in delicious clouds of scented steam and surrounded by stone benches. The walls were garishly painted with forest scenes filled with romping nymphs and hoary centaurs.

  “Oh, you are slow.” The girl began hauling at Millicent’s clothes. “Where are you from? Your colouring is unusual; are you Gallic?”

  “I can manage myself.” Millicent slapped away the groping hands.

  “Well you better get on with it then. Matron will be here in a minute to see how you clean up.” The young girl was equally irritated. “I’m Jana, by the way. What do they call you?”

  “Millicent,” she muttered and tried to decide what to do. She was overheated. Her undergarments stuck to her body, and her hair had escaped from its pins and now fell around her shoulders. She was certain her cheek was black and blue, but she absolutely refused to cry. The scented water called to her. Flower petals floated on it, for heaven’s sake. It was irresistible. Surely a quick wash could only help her refresh and re-focus? Not that she would let Jana assist with her toilette. She was no more to be trusted than any of her Roman counterparts.

  Millicent fretted for her friends. Were they going through equally bizarre experiences? She particularly worried about Sophia. She was least equipped to cope with the vagaries of time travel and could be in mortal peril. She hoped either Gallo or Sangfroid were with her, looking after her.