Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (49 page)

“And the day's match? Who won?”

“The race result was declared null and void due to the Hyperborean intrusion, so it came down to the largest number of kills in the fight. Crassus tipped us over the edge and we won with ninety-seven kills.”

The Caninines would have to produce almost a hundred thousand slaves as an offering to the Sertorians and their allies. After weeks in bondage to the Sertorians, swallowing their precepts, watching Bulla die, I didn't want to ever have a barbarian wait on me again, and I'd rather have taken every slave in the empire right into the Wolf's Den than have them suffer life under the Sertorians.

“We got an engine booster as prize,” Barbata continued. “It'll allow us to match the Flavians' speed for a short time.”

“Then we might win the final round,” I said.

“I'm certain of it,” she said.

“Now tell me, and spare no detail, what happened to you? We lost track of you when you went to fight the bull chief.”

“I chased after him and fell down a crevasse. He left me for dead as far as I can tell, and I had to climb my way back out.”

She looked at me with her seductive, searching eyes. “You're holding something back,” she said, a dangerous edge to her voice. “Don't think we didn't notice that your bracelet's locater didn't function.”

“Maybe it got damaged in the battle or when I fell.”

“Maybe.”

“Aren't you going to take it away and repair it?” I asked, holding it up.

“The immunes have already taken care of that. What else? Tell me of this bull chief. Be honest.”

“I was frightened of him,” I said. “I didn't want to admit it before, but it's true.”

“Really? How frightened? More frightened than you are of Licinus?”

“Yes.”

“More frightened than you are of me?”

“Yes.”

She put a chill hand on my cheek in a show of tenderness, and I worked hard not to pull away. “You should be more frightened of me than any of them. You know what I do to those who get in my way? I'm like the female spider. I mate with them, then I eat them. Do you believe that?”

“Yes.” I could see she was telling the truth.

“And you're still more frightened of the ice ape?”

“Yes.”

“Poor darling. I believe you,” she said, pulling up a holographic reflector from her armilla. She held it out before me so I could see my face. “You see, that inelegant shock of white hair has come back. You must have had the fright of your life.”

She had a fresh phial of ambrosia in her hands. I reached out for it, but she pulled it away and smiled. “I wish I could give you some. I know what it feels like to go without.”

Barbata dangled the precious substance before her.

“I don't know what you see in her, you know, that redheaded grease monkey. Aside from being bad luck, fiery, and irrational, redheads are genetic abnormalities. When the precepts are more widely accepted, the proconsul's going to eliminate the gene. We'll be rid of the cursed things once and for all.”

“She's a person,” I reminded Barbata. “And a citizen of the empire.”

“She's a manual laborer. All sweaty like a house slave and fat in the arms. You should have come to me,” she said, as she unstoppered the ambrosia and took a small, seductive sip. “Am I not beautiful? And look at you—I gave you the gift of beauty. There's no point having a magnificent façade unless you rebuild the inside as well. You must be willing to upgrade your tastes, indulge in true pleasure. That immune like an old pair of work shoes.”

She traced her fingers along my forearm, tripping the thin hairs. Gods. Really? She was jealous of Julia. Her hand trailed down my neck, between my breasts, but I pushed it away as inoffensively as I could manage.

“Really? You think you're in a position to deny me? Your name in the Roman arena was Lupa, wasn't it? The she-wolf? You know they also call prostitutes that, the brothel is the lupanar—the den of she-wolves.”

She dangled the phial of ambrosia before me. Her words sank in and—at this point in the game, when I thought nothing could shock me—I was genuinely taken aback. She wanted to buy me with this. She really thought of me in this way, like a common whore who had overstepped her station. Still, that ambrosia. A whole phial could mean the difference between victory or defeat.

Before I could decide, Barbata held up the phial and swallowed the rest of the ambrosia. She smiled when she saw the longing in my eyes.

“Mmm. So bitter and sweet all at once. You can have a taste if you want, there's still some on my lips, on my tongue.”

I surprised myself by sitting up and pressing my lips to hers. The smell and taste of the ambrosia triggered the pleasure centers of my brain. I opened my mouth, begging her to let me taste more. I hated myself, hated this indignity, but every drop of ambrosia was priceless.

“Why?” I asked her when she finally pulled away.

“Because it pleased me to take what I wanted and it pleased me to remind you and your collegia slut of your place in the scheme of things. I have power over you and I exercise it. If you are truly on the Sertorian path, you will learn to take pleasure beneath me until such a time as you can supplant me through your own exercise of power. That is our way. Consider it a lesson. Now, you rest and let the medicine do its work.”

“The ambrosia, it wasn't enough.”

“Try Crassus. He's your master,” she said.

“I thought I didn't have a master now I've been blooded.”

“We all have masters. That's how life is. Freedom is an illusion.”

“All hawks without wings?” I asked.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Where is Crassus, then?”

“Ah, now that isn't the interesting question. You should be asking where your Vulcaneum immune is.”

“Where is she, then?”

“Why, with Crassus of course. He should be between her legs right now. He's very vigorous. I hope she can walk well enough to carry out her duties in the morning.”

She walked off laughing, confident she'd rattled me, but I knew she was lying. Julia would never give herself to someone like Crassus. I slumped back on the bed to rest. I needed to conserve my energy for tomorrow's games. There was no buzzing song—with the ambrosia in my system, I was in the dark again when it came to Aulus' location. My hastily made plans in the ambrosia cavern were already crumbling to pieces. I'd been kidding myself. I couldn't hold out on the ambrosia. I'd have to do things the other way round. Take Mania's ambrosia, use it to kill the Blood Hawks, hard and fast, then try to wean myself off the substance so that I could find my brother. It could be done. As long as I struck quietly, not giving the Hawks a chance to send any messages or alerts to their agents who guarded Aulus. Yes, that was the best way.

I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard a familiar laugh. I crawled over to the entrance and peeked out. It was Julia. She and Crassus were emerging from his tent. He had his arm about her, kissing her neck playfully, and she was not resisting. She was enjoying it. Did Julia even know I was alive? Was this his way of getting back at me for not giving in to his desires? Her way of getting back at me for not performing to her satisfaction? I didn't want Crassus, I despised Crassus, and yet the thought of Julia having him, of them being together, made me sick. While I was out there risking my life to hamper the Sertorian efforts, was she cavorting with the enemy? I hated them with a burning intensity. She was not to be trusted. No one could be trusted. I was on my own and always had been. From now on I'd do only what was best for myself and my brother, and if Julia got in my way, it'd be all the worse for her.

XXV

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
I intercepted Julia as she emerged from her tent. The entire night I'd tossed and turned, unable to get the thought of them together out of my head.

“Done with you now, is he?” I said to her.

“I'm glad you're alive,” she said. “Everyone thought you'd had it.”

“So the first thing you do is bed Crassus?”

“I'm an agent, Accala. I gather information. The first thing I did was tap the best resource we had to locate your brother.”

“Is that supposed to be funny? Tap the best resource? I think you've wanted him all along. It's not the first time you bedded him, is it? That's why he's been so uninterested in me. That's where you got the code for my bracelet.”

“I've been scanning his armilla without his knowledge. It's been a useful exercise.”

“Is that how it works? I tell you everything, but you tell me nothing?”

“No, that's not how it works, but I also have a responsibility to look out for you. I didn't want to trouble you unnecessarily. You're under enough stress as it is.”

“And what valuable information did you find out while Crassus was between your legs?”

“I got a look at some of their internal communications. They're planning to break away, Accala. Where the course runs past the alien tunnels, the Blood Hawks are going to head right into them. The uprising's got them spooked. They've got a hidden base down there, the center of their ambrosia-mining operation, and it's been overrun by the barbarians. Certain of their assets have been threatened. They sound desperate to protect them.”

“Assets? Does that mean Aulus?”

“It wasn't specific, but I wouldn't discount it. They're going to direct all or part of the team into the tunnels to reclaim the base. They wouldn't do that if it wasn't critically important.”

“That's something. That's useful,” I said.

“You're welcome.”

I mulled over Julia's words. “I want you to contact my uncle. Crassus is going to make his move on Licinus in the next round and that's going to be my time to strike at them from within. Tell him I'm ready.”

“No, you're not. You're not ready at all.”

“I didn't ask you for your opinion.”

“Your uncle wanted you to sight your brother first, to have absolute confirmation of his location. Saving your brother is the number one goal. Remember, your mother said that both of you would be needed to deprive the Sertorians of the ambrosia. If you act too soon and fail, they'll kill Aulus.”

“You just said the Sertorians might not even be in possession of the base where they're holding him.”

“Exactly, ‘might' being the operative word. You can't stake everything on tidbits of information. You need solid proof.”

“I'm going to get Aulus, don't worry—I can find him, but it'll be after I've eliminated the Sertorians.”

“How do you know he's near? Have you had some luck with the pin?”

“I've made some inroads. While you were cavorting with Crassus, I engaged in a fact-finding mission of my own. I've got a plan, I know what I'm doing.”

A chime commanding the players to gather sounded.

“Just make sure you contact him,” I said. “I'm making my move and after, when I have Aulus, I expect his full support.”

“Accala…”

I walked off to the sounds of her quietly cursing.

The domes surrounding the different camps were lowered and the teams came together, summoned to neutral ground—flat terrain with no cover. The referee hovered, reminding us that fighting was not permitted until the day's race had commenced. The overall energy was low. Every team had suffered injuries from the fight with the Hyperboreans; everyone had had to rework their strategies to compensate for the unexpected losses. We were also drained from the constant wind, which seemed to be stronger and colder every day.

The emperor appeared before the assembled athletes, his head a massive projection, his figure sharply defined. Julius Gemminus' head was there too, one-tenth the size of the emperor's, little holographic wings still fluttering from beneath his ears.

“Well, well,” said Julius Gemminus. “It appears that there's been quite a kerfuffle overnight. We'll be finishing the chariot rounds today as planned, but I'm obliged to notify you of some changes that will take place in tomorrow's bestiarii rounds. I do this at the behest of the emperor, as we'll be making considerable modifications to the course on the fly, yet again. I had planned to run through the barbarians' territory aboveground,” he stated, “where everything could be easily observed from the Rota Fortuna. But now we're going to take a different route. Rather than going over the mountain's spine, we're going to go under it. The audience was quite animated by yesterday's battle, and they want more. The emperor, always pleased to accommodate the will of his people, has agreed to the request. Might I add, against the initial protestations of myself and the editor's guild. Unexpected things can happen when we divert from plans. The games are carefully structured. It takes me months to cater to every eventuality. To just discard those carefully wrought plans … it's a tragedy, a sacrilege to arena sport—”

“Julius…” the emperor chided.

“Yes, of course, Imperator,” he said, collecting himself. “But we have seen the light of wisdom. We will deviate from the planned course and embark upon this new, unexplored course. As the contestants represent all the houses, the attack of the barbarians is being seen as an attack upon the spirit of Rome itself, and so now, for the bestiarii round, you will all retaliate in kind and take the fight to the Hyperboreans, cut them down root and branch for daring to resist Rome.

“Media spherae will of course follow you into the mountain. It's been no small feat reworking the spherae to operate in subterranean conditions and running hundreds of topographic surveys, but we've concluded that the tunnels have multiple entry and exit points on either side of the mountain range, so we should be able to pick up the contest on the other side. I've been a games editor for over three decades, and I can tell you right now that no good can come from wandering off the grid, from changing the rules.” The emperor scowled, and the editor backed down at once. “But we serve at the pleasure of the emperor … and the people of Rome and so gladly modify our carefully thought-out course. The Ludi Romani is, after all, a sacred contest to allow the cheers of the people to reach the gods in adoration.”