by Nhys Glover
Accalia clasped her hands in front of her chest and her face became radiant. “Oh, he is. A great man! And a kind master. Everyone loves him. We grieve when he goes away.”
“But he goes to arrange munera for his gladiators, and to locate the best warriors for the breeding program,” I couldn’t help but say. Everyone knew how important his trips were and how it had struggled because he hadn’t gone these two years past.
Shrugging, Accalia stared moodily into the dying fire. Only the full moon’s light showed us her face now. It was as if she took it personally that the master had gone. Maybe her father was the master’s assistant and travelled with him? Or maybe he was one of his bodyguards? When a gladiator retired they often became bodyguards or doctores in a gladiator ludi. If they weren’t freed. None of those who remained on this estate were freedmen, as far as I knew. If a slave became a freedman or woman they had to leave and find work elsewhere. As work was hard to find, it was not always such a good thing to be freed.
I seemed to be thinking about freedom a lot. Was it something to do with the girl?
“Does your father travel with the Master?” I asked, trying to piece it all together. She was a mystery and I liked mysteries and puzzles.
She glanced up at me in surprise and guilt. “Ahhhm, yes. He is one of the Master’s scribes. A very learned man.”
“A Greek then? You don’t look Greek. You look Latin.”
She fingered her brown hair and grimaced. “You ask too many questions. Pater is a Greek and Mater was a local girl. Does that satisfy you? I tire of your questions. Are boys always this tiresome?”
That had us all jerking back as if hit. Tiresome? We weren’t tiresome. We were the bravest and most outrageous of our kind. No one would ever call us tiresome. Except possibly Marcus. He’d declare us tiresome before challenging us to do something that broke rules and could get us in trouble. Luckily, we were rarely caught.
“You came to us, Accalia. We simply want to know who holds our fate in her hands.” This was Talos, with more patience and understanding than I had in that moment. I was ready to spit fire at her for that offense. Tiresome!
She thought about that for a moment before answering. “I suppose I do, don’t I? But you hold mine in yours, so we are even. I should be able to ask you lots of questions to assure myself my fate is safe with you.”
Talos shrugged. “Ask away. But make it fast because the fire is almost out and we have to return to the barracks.”
“Why do you do this? Escape and risk punishment?”
“Why do you escape and risk punishment to find out who sits beside this fire?” Talos answered easily. “It is exciting. We thrive on excitement. It is what will make us great gladiators one day.”
She considered this for a moment. “It strengthens your spirit. Is that it? This small freedom strengthens your spirit.”
All of us shrugged. I doubt any of us had thought of it that way.
“Our numen, you mean?” Orion said with little real interest. “I have heard Will called that. I don’t know. We just enjoy hunting and sitting up here eating our kill. I suppose we’ll continue to do it while ever we can.”
“Might... Might I join you again? I could bring food from the kitchens. There is always plenty left over.”
We must have looked like the wolves we called ourselves right then. The promise of fine food from the master’s table was too tempting to ignore. But what if she were caught stealing? Would she tell on us then? It was a risk. A big one. But to taste the master’s own food... Tempting, very tempting!
“Bring food. But if you get caught you can’t tell anyone about us, do you understand? This is a secret, an important secret,” Talos told her before Orion could stop him by pointing out the danger of the plan. Or how we would lose our edge if we started eating from the master’s plate. None of us wanted to hear it.
The girl smiled smugly and nodded. “When will you next be here?”
“A week today if it’s good weather. If not, the first good day after that.” This was Orion, grudgingly giving his approval.
She nodded again and smiled. “You can trust me. I have as much to lose as you by being caught.”
Of everything she had said since I discovered her hiding, this was the most honest. I believed that we could trust her and that she did have as much to lose as we did. For the rest... I wasn’t sure. She wasn’t an accomplished liar, which was useful because it pointed to the truth when she spoke it. We’d ferret out the truth behind the lies soon enough. Until then we all shared one motivator: don’t get caught.
Chapter Three
ACCALIA
I sat in my room staring at the mural one of the slaves had painted for me when I was little. It showed a peaceful scene of mountains and river that closely mirrored the world beyond the walls of our villa. But in this pastoral scene there were beings that none had seen for hundreds of years. Maybe longer ago than that. There were flying horses, a cyclops and river dryads of great beauty. I had spent many hours studying the different beings and finding out all about them from my tutor, Hermes.
But the painting had been done long ago, and now I looked at the scene with disinterest, seeing it as only a faint reflection of the real world. The world I was denied because I was the ‘Little Mistress’.
The ‘Little Mistress’ must stay inside away from the harsh rays of the sun. A milk-white complexion was what the nobility prized. A ‘Little Mistress’ did not play with friends who were slaves; Orion had been right about that. If she did not have brothers and sisters, then she sat alone, amusing herself as best she could with her weaving and her studies.
Never in my life had I been so restless and unhappy with my lot. Partly it was because Pater had gone away a few weeks ago, and I missed him terribly. So much of my time in the last two years had been spent with Pater, accompanying him to town to visit other officials, having him explain the intricacies of his breeding program and the running of the estate, which might fall to me when I am older. He had become more tutor to me than my own had been for some time. Oh, I still learned my letters and numbers from my tutor, but the rest... the rest came from Pater. All the stories about the gods and goddesses, about history and the natural world. He was my font of knowledge.
Before Mater died, I remember spending most of my days with her, learning what it was to be a lady of nobility. She had come from a higher strata of nobility than Pater’s but had married him nonetheless because she loved him. Love rarely factored into marriage. Among the patrician class a form of breeding program existed that was not all that different from the one Pater and my avus, my grandfather, had developed and were so proud of.
But where my family bred gladiators for their strength, stamina and spirit, patricians were bred for power and influence. A woman should marry well to give her children the best chance of an honourable and dignified life. Mater would have made such a marriage, would have accepted it as her fate, if she had not met my Pater on one of his journeys and fallen in love with him immediately. Her father, the head of her paterfamilias, was not happy with her choice but gave in gracefully, assured she would divorce him when the bloom of love wore off. And there had always been the possibility that Pater, an honourable and wealthy man already, might one day rise above his station as his wealth increased.
A man of nobility was measured by his wealth and his charity. When he staged games for the people he improved his position in other’s eyes. And because Pater’s gladiators were the best, his games were always the best. People admired and respected him, and he made good money, not only from his land but from the renting out and selling of his gladiators. Each one was worth his weight in gold, quite literally.
So Mater had been happy and willing to put up with her husband’s long absences because it made his returns all the sweeter. Her one sadness was her miscarriages. She had one before me and two after me, and then with her third, a stillborn son, she died with him. Pater was away when it happened but had returned home as soon as w
ord reached him. And he stayed home for two years after her passing to be with me and to grieve.
‘Grieve’ was not a word I had ever heard before I lost Mater. I knew sadness. If I found an injured bird and could not save it I was sad. If I fell and hurt myself and was confined to bed I was sad. When Pater went away I was sad. But grief... grief was different somehow. It was deeper and longer lasting and took away the will to do anything beyond exist. Or that is how it seemed to me, watching Pater grieve for Mater.
But even grief ends finally. And Pater began to laugh again and take an interest in his gladiators. Maybe the special treatment the Wolf Pack received was a sign of him recovering from his grief. They reminded him why he and his pater had dedicated so much time and attention to the breeding program. They were his crowning glory.
And now I had met those paragons.
How did I feel about them? It was hard to say. They had frightened me badly at first. Typhon, that strange boy with slanted almond eyes and blue-black hair, was the most frightening of them all. It was how he sprang at me that frightened me most. One minute, I was safe; the next, under attack. Not just once but several times during that visit. I never knew what to expect from him.
But I had seen respect in his eyes at times, too. That surprised me. And the fact I wanted his respect surprised me as well. Yet I did not want any of the slave boy’s respect because I was the Little Mistress. I wanted their respect for me. I suppose that was the reason I lied.
An honourable noblewoman does not lie. Honesty is important, although there is honesty and then there is politeness. I was only starting to learn the distinction when Mater died. The way I understood it, if something might offend another it is acceptable to soften the truth or avoid it.
When Orion asked whether I was a slave from the villa, I tried to avoid the truth by saying I came from the villa. I did not admit to being a slave. Then, as the questions continued, I had to dispense with avoidance and outright lie, fabricating a story so impossible it amazed me they accepted it. I was the friend of the Little Mistress and that was why I wore gowns made of the finest linen. That my Pater was a scribe to the Master. The more they asked, the deeper I dug myself, until I knew I was no longer honourable in the least.
But had not the very act of escaping my room and going to the woods been a dishonourable act? I knew Pater would not approve. What might be seen as an acceptable rebellion for his prize gladiators-in-training would not be seen as such for his daughter. I knew that on some deep level that required no evidence.
So I lied. And I crossed the line Orion spoke of. And... I discovered what it was to be free for the first time in my life.
Now I stared at my mural and bemoaned my luxurious cage. And I counted down the days until I could taste that freedom again. Maybe I was more like those boys than I could have imagined. Maybe they were not the only ones who craved a taste of freedom. A chance to step away from who they were and be someone different.
I did not know. I could not properly conceive of what it was I felt. Just a bone deep restlessness that had started the first night I saw the fire in the woods. Now it ate away at me like a poison. I did not want to stay in my room. I did not want to practice my letters. I did not want to spin and weave the wool our sheep produced, as noblewomen did. I wanted to run free in the woods where no one could see me or tell me no. I wanted to be with the Wolf Pack. I wanted to be part of the Wolf Pack.
Why else would I have chosen the name Accalia, which I knew meant she-wolf? When they asked me my name I knew I could not tell them I was Ennia so I had chosen Accalia. And it had helped me ingratiate myself with them. Although Typhon did not seem to believe me. Actually, he did not seem to believe much of anything I had said. Which meant he was the one to watch. Not just because of his sudden shifts in mood, but because he seemed to see so much deeper than the others. He knew I had lied, and yet he had let it go. For now.
Why did I want to be part of their pack? I did not know. It was not because I liked them. They were too strange to be likeable. Too different from me. But they did draw me. And I was as curious about their lives as they were about mine. Orion said the questions were to help them decide if I could be trusted. That was only partly true. The other part was that they wanted to know what it was like to live in the villa on the hill. To experience luxuries they could never hope to have. I was as fascinating to them as they were to me.
And I wanted to know about the barracks and what it was like to leave your mother and never know your father. To spend all your time with other boys, rough and dirty boys, and always be fighting. What it was like to be boys who thought eating half-cooked rabbit over a fire was something special.
Oh, yes, I had watched them gobbling down their feast as if it came from the emperor’s own table. Yet it looked disgusting me. Especially when the blood-red juices ran down their chins and they wiped it away with the back of their hands. So foul!
But part of me wanted to taste that awful meat and see if it was as good as they made it look. I doubted it. How could it be, when it was cooked on a dirty stick over an open fire and handled by dirty hands?
Still... maybe next time they would let me try it, in return for the food I would bring with me. I was already excited by the prospect of stealing food from my plates and hiding it away so Minerva could not find it. It was possible she might think I was eating again. After Pater left I barely picked at my food. And even after several weeks I still barely ate a fraction of what was on my platter.
That was why the desire to taste that partially raw rabbit was so shocking to me. I did not fancy anything. Yet just the sight of something that disgusting had made my stomach grumble.
I had a difficult time sneaking away from the villa. It took many days before I was ready for my first attempt. I had not even been sure the boys would be there that night. Pater had told me how often they escaped, but if they missed a day because of bad weather it would throw the schedule off. So I had to keep watch for them from the terrace, see their fire and then count seven days after that.
On the night of my escape, I went to bed early, claiming I was tired after not sleeping well since Pater left. Minerva took to her pallet at the door to my room shortly after I went to bed. I knew my nurse appreciated her sleep and took every opportunity to close her eyes. So my turning in early was greeted with pleasure disguised as concern. Once she was down it was almost impossible to wake her.
Once I heard her loud snores, I dressed and tiptoed from the room. Some of the house slaves were still about, but most had gone to their beds. The guards would be on duty all night, I knew, but they had a set pattern of behaviour, which I had studied during the week I had awaited my chance, so I simply chose my moment to run from the back of the villa to the tree-line.
Every moment I worried I would be too late and have missed them. Or I had miscalculated and they would not be there this night. Or a dozen other reasons why I would be disappointed. I had not even been sure I could find their campsite. Wandering around the woods in the dark was not something I had ever done before.
But somehow I managed to scramble and trip my way through the undergrowth until I saw the faint glow in the distance somewhere below me. And, once there, I had hidden and thought myself safe. Of course, I had not been. Typhon had proven how wrong I was on that score. Damn him! And yet, if he had not caught me, I would never have had the chance to meet them and gain an invitation to return.
Getting home had been easier than going. There were always lamps lit around the villa, and because it was on the crest of a hill, the outline of it was easy enough to differentiate from the mountains behind. Once back at the villa, I had to stop off at the bath house to wash my legs and feet. Only then could I sneak back into my bed, hoping desperately that Minerva would not notice how filthy my gown was in the morning.
And she had not, because I had dropped it into the washing pile before she saw it. I was very lucky she was not an observant person. And the idea that the Little Mistress would sneak o
ut of the villa and go adventuring with slave boys would be so far out of the realm of possibility that she could safely ignore any evidence that supported such an outrageous idea.
By the time the next week—the longest week in my life—was over, I had a sack of food ready to take with me. I had hidden it behind the trunk containing my winter clothes. Minerva had packed those away some weeks back, so I knew it would sit undisturbed now until the end of autumn.
I also hid my coarsest woven gown with the food so I did not have to worry about Minerva noticing the state of my clothes when I returned, or have the boys commenting on the quality of the fabric again. That had been a close one. Of course house slaves did not wear such fine clothes. That they believed me was a mark of their ignorance. They knew nothing about what went on in the big, fine villa on the hill, just as I knew nothing about what went on in the barracks at the bottom of the hill. We could have been living worlds apart instead of a mere mile or so, for all the distance of our life experience.
When it was time for me to leave, I grabbed up my sack and clothes and slipped from the house. Once outside, I changed clothes and ran for the tree-line as I had done the last time. I was so excited it hurt. And it was easier to find my way this time than the last, my eyes seeming to have become used to the limited moonlight and the lay of the land.
I crashed through the undergrowth so loudly that all four boys jumped to their feet in fright at my arrival. When they saw it was only me, panting and sweating in a most unladylike way, they sat down again and groaned. I could tell immediately they were not happy I was back. They may have been hoping I would not return.
To entice them to change their minds, I threw down the sack at their feet and crossed my arms in triumph.
“There,” I said proudly. “I said I would bring food and I have. There is goat cheese, flat bread made this morning, some sweet meats made from crushed almonds and honey, dates, olives and apples... I collected apples over the week. Do you like apples?”
