Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (21 page)

“Hey, dog breath, what are you doing?”

I ignored him.

“Okay. Accala, I'm sorry, it was wrong for me to make fun of how you smell. What are you doing?”

“I'm studying. Go away.”

“What are you doing?” he asked as he walked over to the desk.

“I just told you. Learn to listen.”

“Want to see a new magic trick I've been working on?”

“Not particularly.”

“I can turn a peach into a lemon with a wave of my hand.”

“I can turn an irritating little brother into a stain on the wall with a wave of mine.”

“Vegetius,” he said, reading the cover. “You don't need a gardening book. Those prize peach trees in your apartment look pretty good to me. Perfect, in fact.”

“Vegetius is the author's name,” I said absentmindedly.

“
Epitoma rei militaris,
” he said, reading the title. “It must be old if you have to read it as a physical book.”

“I don't
have
to read it in book form, I choose to,” I said wearily. “It's a military classic from the era of the first republic. Now go away.”

“All right.”

As he headed off, it occurred to me that he'd given up much more easily than usual. “Wait. What did you say about my peaches? Were you in my quarters?”

“That they were perfect. Perfectly delicious. In fact I think I might go and have another one right now.”

He sprinted out of the library, laughing, and I dropped my book and chased after him.

“If there's even a tooth mark on one of my peaches, I'll cut out your tongue! Stay out of my chambers!”

I was in the dream but also watching it from a distance. It was a true dream, a recounting of a real event, and it struck a bittersweet chord. It had always been like that because of the age gap between us. Me distracted with training or study, him endlessly annoying. Chasing him around the Wolf's Den that time was the exception; mostly I ignored or dismissed him. The happy scene that followed—my mother separating us as I wrestled him to the ground and then taking us to make up over honey cakes—only made his sudden absence in my life a few months later all the more acute. On some level I resented that as a male he had every opportunity that I longed for offered to him, ready to pluck if he showed the slightest interest, only he never did. Magic tricks, mathematics, and exobiology (collecting crystal-encased samples of ugly insects from the distant corners of the empire to trade with his friends) seemed to be all he was interested in, that and irritating his older sister.

The happy scene suddenly fell away, and I slipped into my old dream of fire and pain, and the wall of dirty ice, except this time I found myself on the other side, looking through my mother's eyes at a screaming Accala. Confused, exhausted, I took the hairpin in my clenched fist and started scoring words on the surface of the ice wall.

MINERVA OLYMPUS

As my mother, I felt that these words were exactly the thing I needed to communicate. That if Accala could read them, then she'd understand and everything would be all right. Then Aulus appeared, the firewall behind him. I rushed to him, my arms wide, filled with a hope that this time I'd save him, but my arms passed right through his body as if he were a hologram. Again and again I tried to grasp him, but he was like a ghost. Aulus' mouth was moving, trying to speak, but all that came out was a hollow, insensible buzzing noise. He was reaching out for something. Too late, I realized it was the pin in my hand. It was gone, I'd dropped it somewhere as I'd run to him. It was important, the pin, though I suddenly couldn't remember why. I had to go and look for it, but then the light of nuclear fire erased the need for any further thoughts or actions.

*   *   *

I
AWOKE TO BRIGHT
light, not the summer sun falling into my bedchamber but a powerful cabin light flickering inches from my face. My hand was empty, my mother's pin gone. I was sitting in an instant, almost banging my head on the low ceiling as I searched frantically. Where was it? Maybe Crassus had stolen it. Maybe the small female barbarian. Then my fingers brushed against it under the pillow. The wave of anxiety subsided, and I crashed back down onto the bed, using my forearm to shield my eyes from the harsh light.

Two words: Minerva Olympus. Beneath the mountain Nova Olympus was the point of origin of my mother's last transmission, and the place where she died. Was the dream an omen? Was that where I should be looking for Aulus? Olympus was the home of the gods in ancient times, the peak of Greece's highest mountain. The ice world had been named Decimus for its being the tenth planet from the golden sun of its solar system and Olympus for its being possessed of the largest mountain range with the highest peak. That mountain had been named unimaginatively after the lesser mountain in Greece. I knew little about it other than it rose up behind the ruins of Lupus Civitas, the old Viridian capital, its peak so high it scraped the upper atmosphere. And what of Minerva? Was I supposed to make amends for not sacrificing to her back in Rome? Or was it all just useless dream stuff, fantasies tossed up by a troubled mind? The only thing I knew for certain was that I felt terrible, like I hadn't slept at all.

“The light burning your eyeballs out of their sockets right now is supposed to simulate a gentle sunrise,” my redheaded cabinmate said. “It's supposed to gradually waken you and help reset your body clock.”

“Turn it off,” I groaned.

“Can't. It's hardwired into the controls for the whole deck. All the Sertorian cabins on the ship have custom fittings.
Their
lights work just fine, but us plebs only get a stock legion fit out. For dawn simulation, read shock and awe light explosion. Now you know why I didn't take the top bunk.”

There was a divine aroma coming from below, a new smell but a good one. The field engineer was dressing in her overalls, and a tray with a pot of dark blue liquid—the source of the smell—lay on the narrow bench.

“You'd better get up or the deck officer will come and beat you. We don't let sleeping wolves lie here,” she said. “Did you like that, by the way? That was a joke.”

“It was not funny.” I bundled my hair up and slid Mother's pin into place. Without thinking, I went to jump down, but the chain pulled tight, yanking me back. “Where is that damn Iceni?”

“Here, domina,” the small white being said. “Sorry, domina.” She gently took my wrist and touched a calcedonius keystone to the connection point between chain and bracelet, releasing me. Alba had a cup of the liquid ready to offer me as soon as my feet hit the ground.

“What is it?”

“Blue lotus tisane from Mare Byzantium province, domina. It will help sustain you today.”

“You bet,” the redheaded engineer said. “It keeps us plebs working harder for longer. The whole machine of the empire would grind to a halt without that stuff.”

“I think you underestimate the value of the Senate and nobility,” I replied automatically.

“The noble houses? And those old men in fancy robes? Are you joking? They're glorified managers enjoying the hereditary rewards of mass territorial ownership. They've built nothing, done nothing to earn their status other than to randomly fall out of a noble-born vagina, and they spend most of their useless lives prancing about in the Senate shoring up those rights at everyone else's expense.”

“The noble houses embody the spirit of the empire,” I said. “Without them, Rome would be a disorderly rabble, a misshapen monster trying to devour its own tail. Much like the collegia.”

“You're kidding, right? You don't really believe that? It's what the noble houses want the lower classes to think, but the truth is that if the combined senators of the empire were struck dead by a freak epidemic tomorrow, the empire wouldn't miss a beat. But try to last one day without the collegial guilds? Life wouldn't be worth living.” She took the cup from the Iceni and pushed it at me. “I can't believe you've never had a good, honest cup of blue lotus. Get it into you. It'll put hairs on your chest.”

I'd heard of it, a popular mild stimulant. The blue was so dark that it was almost black, and the smell was potent and aromatic. I felt an instinctive reluctance to try it, but the redhead was looking at me expectantly, the smell was so good, and I needed something to help make me feel like a human being after such a terrible night. The first sip lit up my brain, washing away the worst of my tiredness—bitter but satisfying. Each subsequent sip unraveled a knot of fear in my stomach.

I indicated that Alba should pour me another cup.

“You might want to take it easy with that stuff if you're not used to it,” the redhead said offhandedly. “It can pack a punch.”

“And you might want to mind your own business,” I replied, taking another sip.

“And you might want to keep in mind the lesson you learned yesterday on the cabin floor when gravity had its foot on your back,” she said. “Besides, when we're stuck in a steel shoe box in space, your business is my business. You kept me up half the night with your crying.”

“I wasn't crying.”

“All right, call it weeping, then, if you like. You gladiators are supposed to be tough, aren't you?”

“Want to try me and find out?”

“I build things, you break them, to each her own.” She smiled again and stuck her hand out in front of her. “I'm Julia Silana. Vulcaneum immune.”

No house name. Just Julia Silana. As she turned to the light, I saw that she had freckles, small dots about her nose and cheeks. Somehow it softened her, took the edge off her determined, argumentative features.

“You've never seen any of my arena matches?” I asked.

“Sorry, I only watch the chariot races. Professional interest; they have supercharged engines. Now's the part where you tell me your name.”

“You said you knew who I was,” I said.

“And that I knew you'd be trouble.”

“Accala,” I said. “Just call me Accala.”

Her open hand had been hovering there before me as we spoke, and now she impatiently pushed it forward. “Then let's have a pax between us, Accala,” she said. “We don't have to be friends, but we do have to share this cabin.”

Julia Silana was my better in the eyes of society and the law, she owed me nothing, and I certainly wasn't there to make friends. The Sertorians were probably paying her to spy on me, but she was right, we were going to be stuck together. My mother taught me to seek equanimity, never be hostile to one who bore me no hostility.

“Pax,” I said, clasping her forearm. “I spoke to you too harshly when we met. I'm no princess, I never was. I believe all citizens of the empire should be treated with equal respect.”

That made her laugh. “Don't get carried away and speak to anyone else like that. You Viridians style yourselves as the sons of Remus, born and bred on the Aventine, but at the end of the day you're no different from the other houses. Your origins are so far behind you that you've forgotten what it means to get your hands dirty. That kind of talk will get you a beating down here and worse up there with the Sertorian nobles, maybe even crucified.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” I said. “Have you been aboard
Incitatus
long?”

“Since the war started. Two years eating hawk shit, day in, day out.”

“Then why serve them? Is it just about money and expensive gear?”

“Hey, don't knock money and tools. For me that's a lot of what makes life worth living. There's lots of reasons for me doing time here right now. After you work for a team in the Ludi Romani, you can walk into any job in the galaxy. They know you can fix anything, make anything, come up with workarounds at high speed, and all under enormous pressure.”

“So where are you going to go afterward?”

“That's a secret. When I'm done here I'm leaving everything behind me. No one will know where I've gone, no one will be able to come after me. It'll be a new beginning, an entirely new life. Each day I'll wake up happy and relaxed.”

“That's some fantasy.”

“You wait and see. I've got it all worked out. You though, you'd better be careful if you want to survive the trip to the arena world, let alone the games themselves. The Sertorians don't tolerate poor performance. Luckily I'm your bunkmate, and despite the arrogant tilt to your head, I've always had a soft spot for the underdog, so I've decided that I'm gonna help you out.”

“I don't need anyone's help.”

“Now you're really talking stupid. This is Rome. Without an ally you'll be dead by the end of the week.”

“Wait and see,” I said.

I wasn't sure how to feel about Julia Silana, but no one in Rome, especially someone you hardly knew, did anything for nothing. She had an agenda; I just had to work out what it was.

“Please, domina. It's time to dress. We must hurry,” Alba prompted. The Iceni had laid out a Sertorian novice's uniform for me—black leather pants and high-collared formfitting doublet. Vibrant crimson stripes ran up the sides of the pant legs and torso and down the arms, and seven grooved black rings surrounded the doublet. It was a striking outfit, and those who wore it reminded me of shiny, deadly spiders. The clothes represented the oppression, murder, torture, and rape of my brothers and sisters and their worlds.

“I'm not wearing that,” I said. “A clean tunic will be fine.”

“Master will be displeased,” Alba said.

“Good.”

“Maybe good for you, not so good for me. Please, or he will whip me, maybe kill me or my family.”

Alba was helping me understand that we were all in this together, all under the Sertorian thumb—her, me, the beasts in their cages pushed across the floor of the docking bay. If I protested the oppression of my people by refusing to wear the uniform, I would in turn guarantee the oppression of the small Iceni slave and hers.