Mistress of Rome (3 page)

“Father, when does Belleraphon’s bout come up? I’m dying to see what he can do against that Thracian—”

The guards gave the blunt sword to the man with the scars. He hefted it a moment in his shackled hands, gave it a swing. No hacking for him; he killed the man who had gone before him in one efficient thrust. I winced.

The arena guard reached for the sword and the big scarred man fell a step back, holding the blade up between them. The guard gestured, holding out an impatient hand, and then it all went to hell.

 

H
AND it over,” the guard said. He stood spraddle-legged on the hot sand, heaving air into his parched lungs. The sun scorched down on his naked shoulders and he could feel every separate grain beneath his bare, hardened feet. Sweat stung his wrists and ankles under the rusty cuffs of his chains. His hands had welded around the sword hilt.

“Hand over that sword,” the guard ordered. “You’re holding up the show.”

He stared back glassy-eyed.

“Hand—over—that—sword.” Extending an imperious hand.

He cut it off.

The guard screamed. The slick of blood gleamed bright in the midday sun. The other guards rushed.

He had not held a sword in over ten years. Much too long, he would have said, to remember anything. But it came back. Fueled by rage it came back fast—the sweet weight of the hilt in his hand, the bite of blade into bone, the black demon’s fury that filmed the eyes and whispered in the ear.

Kill them
, it said.
Kill them all.

He met the first guard in a savage joyful rush, swords meeting with a dull screech. He bore down with every muscle, feeling his body arch like a good bow, and saw the sudden leap of fear in the guard’s eyes as he felt the strength on the other end of the blade. These Romans with their plumes and pride and shiny breastplates, they didn’t think a slave could be strong. In two more thrusts he reduced the guard to a heap of twitching meat on the sand.

More Romans, bright blurs in their feathered crests. A guard fell writhing as dull iron chewed through his hamstrings. A liquid scream.

He savored it. Lunged for another bronze breastplate. The blade slid neatly through the armhole. Another shield falling, another scream.

Not enough
, the demon voice whispered.
Not enough.

He felt distant pain along his back as a blade cut deep, and smiled, turning to chop down savagely. A slave’s toughest flesh was on his back, but they didn’t know that—these men whose vineyards were tended by captive warriors from Gaul and their beds warmed by sullen Thracian slave girls. They didn’t know anything. He cut the guard down, tasting blood in his rough beard.

The sky whirled and turned white as something struck the back of his head. He staggered, turned, raised his blade, felt his entire arm go numb as a guard smashed an iron shield boss against his elbow. Distantly he watched the sword drop from his fingers, falling to hands and knees as a sword hilt crashed against his skull. Sweat trickled into his eyes. Acid, bitter. He sighed as the armored boots buffeted his sides, as the black demon in his head turned back in on itself like a snake devouring its own tail. A familiar road. One he had trodden all his years under whips and chains. With a sword in his hand, everything had been so simple.

Over the sound of his own cracking bones, he heard a roar. A vast, impersonal roar like the crashing of the sea. For the first time he turned his eyes outward and saw them: spectators, packed tier upon tier in their thousands. Senators in purple-bordered togas. Matrons in bright silk
stolas
. Priests in white robes. So many . . . did the world hold so many people? He saw a boy’s face leap out at him from the front tier, crazily distinct, a boy in a fine toga shouting through a mouthful of figs—and clapping.

They were all clapping. The great arena resounded with applause.

Through dimming eyes, he made out the Imperial balcony. He was close enough to see a fair-haired girl with a white appalled face, one of the Imperial nieces . . . close enough to see the Emperor, his ruddy cheeks, his purple cloak, his amused gaze . . . close enough to see the Imperial hand rise carelessly.

Holding out a hand in the sign of mercy.

Why?
he thought.
Why?

Then the world disappeared.

 

L
EPIDA chattered on as I undressed her for bed that night—not about the games, of course; all that death and blood was old news. Her father had mentioned a certain senator, a man who might be a possible husband for her, and that was all she could talk about. “Senator Marcus Norbanus, his name is, and he’s
terribly
old—” I hardly heard a word.

The slave with the scarred back. A Briton, a Gaul? He had fought so savagely, swinging his sword like Goliath, ignoring his own wounds. He’d been snarling even when they brought him down, not caring if he lived or died as long as he took a few with him.

“Thea, be careful with those pearls. They’re worth three of you.”

I’d seen a hundred slaves like him, served beside them and avoided them. They drank too much, they scowled at their masters and were flogged for troublemakers and did as little work as they could get away with. Men to avoid in quiet corners of the house, if no one was near enough to hear you struggling. Thugs.

So why did I weep suddenly when they brought him down in the arena? I hadn’t wept when I was sold to Lepida. I hadn’t even wept when I watched the gladiators and the poor bewildered animals slaughtered before my eyes. Why had I wept for a thug?

I didn’t even know his name.

“Well, I don’t think Emperor Domitian is terribly handsome, but it’s hard to tell from a distance, isn’t it?” Lepida frowned at a chipped nail. “I do wish we could have some handsome dashing Emperor instead of these stolid middle-aged men.”

The Emperor. Why had he bothered to save a half-dead slave? The crowd had clapped for his death as much as for the show he put on. Why save him?

“Go away, Thea. I don’t want you anymore. You’re quite stupid tonight.”

“As you wish,” I said in Greek, blowing out her lamp. “You cheap, snide little shrew.”

I weaved my way down the hall, leaning against the shadowed pillars for balance, trying not to think of my blue bowl. Not good to bleed myself twice in one day, but oh, I wanted to.

“Ah, Thea. Just what I need.”

I stared blurrily at the two Quintus Pollios who beckoned me into the bedchamber and onto the silver sleeping couch. I closed my eyes, stifling a yawn and hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of his huffing and puffing. Slave girls aren’t expected to be enthusiastic, but they are expected to be cheerful. I patted his shoulder as he labored over me. His lips peeled back from his teeth like a mule’s during the act of . . . well, whatever you want to call it.

“What a good girl you are, Thea.” Sleepily patting my flank. “Run along, now.”

I shook down my tunic and slipped out the door. Likely tomorrow he’d slip me a copper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
HE atmosphere at the Mars Street gladiator school was contented, convivial, and masculine as the tired fighters trooped in through the gates. Twenty fighters had sallied out to join the main battle of the Cerealia games, and fourteen had come back alive. A good enough average to make the victors swagger as they filed through the narrow torch-lit hall, dumping their armor into the waiting baskets.

“. . . hooked that Greek right through the stomach! Prettiest piece of work I . . .”

“. . . see that bastard Lapicus get it in the back from that Gaul? Won’t be looking down his long nose at us anymore . . .”

“. . . hard luck on Theseus. Saw him trip in the sand . . .”

Arius tossed his plumed helmet into the waiting basket, ignoring the slave who gave him cheery congratulations. The weapons had already been collected, of course—those got snatched the moment the fighting was done.

“First fight?” A chatty Thracian tossed his own helmet into the basket atop Arius’s. “Mine, too. Not bad, huh?”

Arius bent to unlace the greaves about his shins.

“Nice work you did on that African today. Had me one of those scrawny Oriental Greeks; no trouble there. Hey, maybe next time I’ll get Belleraphon and then I’ll really make my fortune.”

Arius unlaced the protective mail sleeve from his sword arm, shaking it off into the basket. The other fighters were already trooping into the long hall where they were all fed, whooping as they filed along the trestle tables and grabbed for the wine jugs.

“Quiet, aren’t you?” The Thracian jogged his elbow. “So where you from? I came over from Greece last year—”

“Shut up,” said Arius in his flat grating Latin.

“What?”

Brushing past the Thracian into the hall, he ignored the trestle tables and the platters of bread and meat. He leaned over and grabbed the first wine jug he saw, then headed off down another small ill-lit hallway. “Don’t mind him,” he heard another fighter growl to the Thracian. “He’s a sour bastard.”

Arius’s room in the gladiator barracks was a tiny bare cell. Stone walls, a chair, a straw pallet, a guttering tallow candle. He sank down on the floor, setting his back against the wall and draining half the jug in a few methodical gulps. The cheap grapes left a sour taste in his mouth. No matter. Roman wine was quick, and all he wanted was quick.

“Knock knock!” a voice trilled at the door. “I hope you aren’t asleep yet, dear boy.”

“Piss off, Gallus.”

“Tut, tut. Is that any way to treat your
lanista
? Not to mention your friend?” Gallus swept in, vast and pink-fleshed in his immaculate toga, gold gleaming on every finger, magnolia oil shining on every curled hair, a little silk-decked slave boy at his side. Owner of the Mars Street gladiator school.

Arius spat out a toneless obscenity. Gallus laughed. “Now, now, none of that. I came to congratulate you. Such a splendid debut. When you sent the head flying clean off that African . . . so dramatic! I was a little surprised, of course. Such dedication, such savagery, from one who swore not an hour before that he wouldn’t fight at all . . .”

Arius took another deep swallow of wine.

“Well, how nice it is to be right. The first time I saw you, I knew you had potential. A little old for the arena, of course—how old are you, anyway? Twenty-five, thirty? No youngster, but you’ve certainly got
something
.” Gallus waved his silver pomander languidly.

Arius looked at him.

“You’ll get another fight in the next games, of course. Something a little bigger and grander, if I can persuade Quintus Pollio. A solo bout, perhaps. And this time”—a glass-sharp glance—“I won’t have to worry that you’ll deliver, will I.”

Arius aligned the wine jug against the wall. “What’s a
rudius
?” The words surprised him, and he kept his eyes on the jug.

“A
rudius
?” Gallus blinked. “Dear boy, wherever did you hear about that?”

Arius shrugged. They had all been waiting in the dark under the Colosseum before their bout, nervous and excited, fingering their weapons.
Here’s to a
rudius
for all of us
, one of the others had muttered. A man who had died five minutes later under a trident before Arius could ask him what it meant.

“A
rudius
is a myth,” Gallus said airily. “A wooden sword given from the Emperor to a gladiator, signaling his freedom. I suppose it’s happened once or twice for the stars of the arena, but that hardly includes you, does it? One bout, and not even a solo bout—you’ve got a long way to go before you can call yourself a success, much less a star.”

Arius shrugged.

“Such a dear boy.” Gallus reached out and stroked Arius’s arm. His plump fingers pinched hard, and his black peppercorn eyes locked onto Arius’s with bright curiosity.

Arius reached out, picked up the tallow candle beside him, and calmly poured a stream of hot wax onto the soft manicured hand.

Gallus snatched his burned fingers away. “We really will have to do something about your manners,” he sighed. “Good night, then. Dear boy.”

As soon as the door thudded shut, Arius picked up the wine jug and drank off every drop. Letting the jug fall, he dropped his head back against the stones. The room wasn’t spinning anymore. Not enough wine. He closed his eyes.

He hadn’t meant to fight. He’d meant what he’d told Gallus, standing in the dim passage underneath the arena, hearing the roars of the crowd and the screams of the wounded men and the whimpers of the dying animals. But the sword had been placed in his hand, and he’d gone out with the others in the brisk group battle that served to whet the crowd’s appetite for the solo bouts, and he’d seen the African he’d been paired to fight . . . and the black demon had uncoiled from its self-devouring circles in his brain and roared joyously down the straight and simple path of murder.