Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (7 page)

“It's just as well,” Darius said. “The Ludi Romani is no place for women. Gladiatrix. Gladiatrices. Pfah!” He spat on the arena floor, right at my feet.

Gladiatrix.
Darius, like most of the other male gladiators, used the feminine suffix to try to demean me. They didn't want to give me the respect that came with the title
gladiator.

Marcus put a restraining hand on my shoulder just as I was about to take Darius' head off. “Don't be petty,” Marcus said to Darius. “She's twice the fighter you are. Be grateful for the training I've given you and that you have a place in the coming tournament at all.”

Darius didn't like that. “It's just common sense,” he said to me. “Not only are women weaker than men, but it's a proven fact they have smaller brains and can't overcome their nurturing instinct when it comes to combat in…”

I tuned out. That was it. He was going down. But before I could strike, Marcus stepped in front of me and hit Darius square on the jaw, sending him flying back into the benches. He stayed there, knocked out cold.

“Why come to my defense?” I said, rounding on Marcus accusingly. “What he said is little different from what you said to me.”

Before Marcus could reply, someone behind me said, “Accala. What a pleasure it is to see you again. Still caught up in the thick of things, I see.”

Crassus! I spun about and threw a punch, but the Sertorian easily caught it in midair.

“You should cultivate more of an air of dispassion,” he said mildly. “You telegraph your intentions when you're angry.”

It was not only his speed that caught me by surprise. Crassus was bigger than when I'd last seen him. A chiseled jaw, strong blue eyes, sharp cheekbones; his features had matured to take on an aura of strength and beauty, the result, no doubt, of Sertorian genetic streamlining. Despite my irritation I had to admit that he was strikingly handsome.

“I've got nothing to say to you,” I said, pulling my hand free.

“Come,” Crassus said. “There's an armistice. We're not at war right now. We can agree to be civilized.”

“Your idea of civilization is House Sertorian with its foot on the throat of the empire and the members of the other houses reduced to slaves. There's not a single thing we can agree on.”

“Things are always so simple with you, black and white. I prefer to see the galaxy in shades of gray. It suits the complexity of the Sertorian mind. You know, I admire you Viridians; in a way you're the house closest to our own. Viridians always talk of self-reliance, but you don't apply the principle to its ultimate end and eliminate the weak and the poor. You allow yourselves to be bridled by tradition and ethics.”

“I won't be lectured on ethics by a member of a house that has none.”

“You know that however distasteful you may claim to find our enlightened cultural perspective, Accala, we do not discriminate against women. Gaia Sertorius Barbata, the net fighter, is an equal member of the Blood Hawks, as is the trapper Mania Sertorius Curia. Look at your Caninine Alliance teams. Viridians, Calpurnians, and Flavians, and not one woman among them. If you want progressive thinking, you must look to the Talonite teams, especially my Blood Hawks.”

“If there wasn't an armistice, I'd happily castrate you with my discus,” I said. “Then you could stand proudly side by side with your sister fighters.”

I went to move past him, but he grabbed my upper arm. “In fact, I have not come here simply to exchange pleasantries. There was something I wanted to say to you, in private if I may.”

“There's not a thing in the universe I'd like to do with you in private.”

Marcus stepped closer, locking eyes with Crassus. “You heard her now. Fly away, little bird.”

Crassus looked at Marcus like he'd just stepped in something distasteful. “A little young for you, isn't she?” When Marcus didn't back away, Crassus smiled slightly and continued. “You're old enough to be her father and with plebeian dirt beneath your fingernails to boot.” He made a little
tsk tsk
noise to reprimand Marcus and remind him of his place.

Now it was my turn to step in. I couldn't care less if Marcus struck my cousin Darius; Marcus was his lanista and able to punish him at will. But if Marcus struck a nobleman he wasn't training, especially during the armistice, then the Praetorian Guard that he'd once belonged to would execute him.

Crassus smiled and looked right past Marcus as if he didn't exist, returning his attentions to me. “It's a shame you're not competing. I'd have very much liked to be there when you had to finally finish an opponent. Losing your arena virginity, all caked in blood and guts. You'd have looked resplendent in red.” He gave a slight bow and then briskly strode away. Crassus was the type of upper-class Sertorian who made a big deal out of manners and gentlemanly behavior, at least what passed for that on Sertorius Primus, right up until you got in the way of what he wanted.

“You said you didn't know him,” Marcus said after Crassus was gone.

“We were in the same year at the Academy. I haven't seen him for a long time. Besides, you saw him. Who would want to admit knowing a creature like that?”

“He's one of the Sertorians you've sworn to kill,” Marcus stated. It was an astute guess, as I'd never told anyone the names of any of the men on my list.

“You can tell?”

“I saw how you looked at him. It was either love or hate.”

“How dare you make a joke of this,” I snapped. “You think I couldn't take you in the arena? You think you'd have to roll over for me? I think you're old and frightened.”

He looked me over. I'd seen that expression before. He was assessing me, considering my ability.

“I know what it's like to hate someone so much it burns like acid in your mouth, and it's not the way. Revenge will lend you wings, but they will carry you only so far before they fail. If you seek justice, then you might just survive. It's an important distinction, Accala.”

“I do seek justice, I swear it in Minerva's name.”

“Well, you can say it, but the doing is not always so easy. All right, then. Go and get changed. You'll get your shot.”

I was stunned. Marcus was so decisive. He never changed his mind.

“Why?”

“What do you care?”

“It matters.”

“You want to know why I changed my mind? It was that trumped-up Sertorian turkey. You know what? That pompous ass was right. It's not that they think you can't kill if you have to. They're not letting you fight because you're a woman, and the stakes for the coming games are too high for the Caninine teams to be risking victory over a penis or lack thereof. You say you've got what it takes, well now's your chance to put your money where your mouth is.”

“I thank you, but what about the committee?”

The six stone-faced judges for the Galactic Committee for Combative Sports—withered and intractable ex-gladiators, soldiers, and senators—there wasn't an ounce of fondness for me among the lot of them.

“Leave them to me.”

“And you'll list me as trying out for the Calpurnian team? What about the team leader? Will he take me on if I win?”

“Cossus Calpurnius Blaesus? I spoke with him this morning. You should have heard him cursing the Golden Wolves for being stupid enough to cut you. Don't worry, it won't take much to twist his arm. He'll take you on if you win and, more, he'll expect you to win the tournament for House Calpurnian.”

“I'll win him the moon and the stars if he'll give me a shot at the Sertorians,” I said.

“Don't get cocky. We've clashed in practice many times, and you've never bested me yet. I won't roll over for you out there. Stay focused. When we fight it'll be for real.”

He said it so dismissively, like life and death were nothing to him.

And it was true precisely because of what Marcus had said—the stakes were indeed high. Faced with the problem of resolving a civil war without destroying the empire, Caesar Numerius Valentinius had conceived the idea of using the Games of Jupiter to decide the winner. Over fifteen days on the emperor's chosen arena world, the strongest fighters of the great houses would compete in chariot races, beast hunts, and gladiatorial combat spread out over a lethal obstacle course set to test the mettle of the bravest Roman. The teams would be arranged to represent, in small scale, the makeup of the two sides as they stood in the civil conflict, the Sertorian Blood Hawks and their allied houses versus the Viridian Golden Wolves and theirs. The team that won in the arena won the whole ball of wax—victory in the war, ownership of the contested ice world, continued membership in the Council of Great Houses—everything. The losing house would be outcast, decimated and banished to the galactic frontier, stripped of influence and resources so as to never again disturb the Pax Romana, the emperor's peace. There was, and never had been, a greater prize to be won in the arena. For me it meant not only a chance to kill the Sertorians responsible for the deaths of my loved ones, but the added bonus of bringing down their entire house, cutting it out of Roman life root and branch.

*   *   *

T
HE CHANGE ROOMS STANK
of blood and sweat. Nervously excited hopefuls prepared for matches, while the defeated, including those wounded by my cousin Darius and the Sertorian hammer fighter Lurco, were being treated by physicians.

When I first heard the emperor's announcement that the games would decide the fate of the empire I was elated. It seemed like divine providence. I'd already built up enough points in the arena to qualify for the Golden Wolves and turned all my efforts to getting on the team. A one-off opportunity for me to right the wrongs visited against me by right of arms.

I unslung my weapon case and removed my armilla and stola. My costume went over the top of my base-layer fighting outfit, that of a provocator, a legionary soldier's armor with the minimum of weight—golden breastplate, dark green leather gloves and boots, a manica that ran from the wrist to the shoulder of my discus-wielding arm, and a helmet capped with two feathers, one on either side, to symbolize swiftness. As I was a woman and therefore forbidden to fight as a soldier, I'd decided to dress as one in the arena. Less armor and more mobility allowed me to focus on a strong offense, and in green and gold, there was no one watching who could doubt that I was a fighting Viridian. Then came the band of five short tassels tucked into my bracers.

More than fifty victories to my name, but I fell short of being awarded the sixth tassel, indicating the highest grade of gladiator—primus paulus—because none of my fellow gladiators had died at my hands in the arena. When there were enough bloody victories to my name, the committee would be forced to grant me a sixth. I tied my hair back tight. No hair in my face, nothing that might give Marcus the edge.

My instructors at the Academy had taught me that if I knew the enemy and knew myself, then I'd never be defeated. What did I really know about Marcus? He was a plebeian member of House Calpurnian, an ally of my own house and therefore an enemy of House Sertorian. What I knew about Marcus I had pieced together from the stories other gladiators told and historical records I'd accessed via the vox populi. He never spoke about his past to me or, as far as I knew, to anyone else.

Marcus had lied about his age and joined the legion at fifteen, fighting on a dozen barbarian worlds between Mother Earth and the imperial frontier. There was even a rumor he'd spent a year in a Sertorian hard labor camp on suspicion of espionage. By the time he was in his thirties, he had more medals than you could pin on his chest, had attained the rank of centurion, and was assigned to the Praetorian Guard, which would ordinarily be a high honor and an easy commission, except he found himself close to the emperor Julius Heliogabalus in his final years, when the old man was at his most unstable and unpredictable.

It so happened that the emperor had seen Amphiara Calpurnius Merga (reputedly the most beautiful woman in Mare Byzantium province and a skilled huntress to boot) display her skills in marksmanship, and he developed a hankering to add her to his collection of consorts in the imperial palace. The only problem—Amphiara was the favorite daughter of Mare Byzantium's proconsul Caius Calpurnius Oceanus, who had spoken out repeatedly against the emperor's excesses and was willing to set his whole province on a war footing if old Julius Heliogabalus tried to take her by force. Oceanus figured the emperor couldn't afford a war, not with the coffers of the treasury being plundered to create the largest series of memorial busts known to human history, and he was right. So the emperor decided to send in one man, Marcus, in place of a fleet. The emperor's thinking was that since Marcus was a fellow Calpurnian, he'd know how to convince Oceanus to part with his daughter with a minimum of fuss.

When he arrived in Mare Byzantium, Marcus explained his predicament to Oceanus. He understood the man would not part with his daughter, but if Marcus returned without her, he would have failed the emperor—he would lose all honor and be tortured and executed before his own men. At the same time, Marcus assured him that he would personally guarantee Amphiara's safety and that although she would have to serve the emperor at his whim, he would not permit her to be beaten or physically harmed.

When Oceanus was unmoved, Marcus added that the very next thing the emperor would do after ordering Marcus' death would be to put the terra-sculpting project on hold, divert funds to the Praetorian fleet, and take Mare Byzantium by force, killing one in every ten members of the local nobility in a good old-fashioned decimation, ensuring Oceanus' name was at the top of the list. Oceanus had to agree, but he couldn't be seen to be backing down in front of his local court without a fight and so he made Marcus an offer.