The Valiant

  The Cantii, like most of the tribes of Prydain, had always kept slaves. We bought and sold them the same way as we did our cattle. Slaves had meant swept floors and lit fires and clean water carried in heavy clay pots. I was ashamed to admit I had never given them much thought. They just . . . were. I had been so very blind. And stupid. And now I was learning what it was like to have someone else decide my fate.

  I’d been right that night in ruined Alesia. The dark-haired girl was stronger than me. I watched as she took control of her own auction, posing for the crowd and driving the bids ever higher. After fetching a very good sum, she was led away to a cart where an ample-bosomed brothel owner waited, dripping with gold. She held her head high as she went.

  The crowd whistled and cheered.

  But the show wasn’t quite over yet. The ranks of Charon’s stock were thinning, and there weren’t more than a handful of us left. Then suddenly Gruoch was prodding me in the ribs with her willow switch, and Elka had gone pale as frost on a winter pond. They were sending us out together.

  But first, Hafgan stepped forward and, with grim amusement glinting in his mismatched eyes, knelt down in front of us. Before we knew what he was doing, he had clamped a short chain around our ankles, tethering us together just like before. Elka and I exchanged a confused glance. None of the others had been treated like this so far.

  With a grunt, Hafgan pushed us out onto the stage. Once we’d shuffled out onto the platform, I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t see faces. I could only see shapes. Colors. The sheen of the gold dust that painted my limbs sparked fire at the edges of my vision, and I thought I might pass out.

  “Behold these marvelous daughters of Minerva!” the auctioneer bellowed.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the bids to start coming in, wondering bitterly what paltry sum I would fetch. I was no healer nor body servant. I had no exceptional skills in this strange world.

  The auctioneer didn’t start the bid-asking. Not immediately. And when I opened my eyes, I realized that the crowd was staring at us, wide-eyed and silent. In the bright sunlight, Elka and I glittered and sparkled, dazzling. I saw the brothel mistress lean forward, a gleam of interest in her sharp gaze.

  She wasn’t the only one. Pontius Aquila, the man Gruoch had pointed out to me as “the Collector,” shifted in his seat, one gold-ringed fist clenched tight and resting on his thigh. He focused his attention wholly on Elka and me, and where the Collector’s gaze fell upon me, it seemed to burn my skin with its intensity. I flinched and looked away as Charon stalked onstage, draped in a richly bordered tunic dyed a deep sapphire blue. In his hands, he carried two short broad-bladed swords. Charon turned and dropped the swords on the stage between us, the blades ringing like bells.

  Elka and I stared in confusion at the swords. Were we to fight each other?

  And then the two brigands from Alesia climbed the steps up to the stage.

  Oh goddess . . .

  One carried a wicked-looking pike, the other—his thigh still bandaged from where I had wounded him that night—bore a long sword. He radiated a long-simmering anger, and I knew just by looking at him that the Alesian meant to settle a score on that stage.

  “These men,” Charon cried, “survived the sieges of the mighty Caesar only to be brought low by two fierce, beguiling young women—Furies who appeared in their midst one dark night, bound by chains, bearing swords, fighting like she-wolves.”

  The slave master spoke in a musical cadence, weaving a tale of a night in the wilderness, atop a hill, in a ruined Gaulish town—a gripping story of runaway slaves, of brigands and danger, and now . . . a chance for revenge.

  “He’s laying it on a bit thick,” Elka muttered.

  “Here! Now!” the slave master boasted with a flourish. “For the enrichment and entertainment of you fine citizens of Rome, I present the chance for these noble barbarians to seek redemption! To decide their ultimate destiny in mortal combat with these two deadly beauties, as skilled with swords as the Amazons of legend! Aaaand,” Charon drawled, drawing out the tension of the moment, “if either of these Gauls can defeat these girls—daughters of the goddess Minerva herself, I swear, and on sale exclusively as a pair today—I will grant them their freedom.”

  I gaped at him. Why was he doing this?

  But as I looked around at the gathered crowd, buzzing with excitement—some of them even trading wagers—I began to understand. I’d heard that male slaves who could fight were often bought and trained for combat in arenas. For the crass entertainment of the mob, which was mad for blood sport. I’d always considered the notion repugnant. And I knew what contempt the legions held for the women warriors of my tribe, so it had never even occurred to me that the Roman masses would consider my sex capable of that kind of fighting.

  But it was clear to me that Charon saw that as my fate. He had all along.

  Not a brothel. Not a salt mine. An arena.

  There are your exceptional skills for you.

  The Alesian accepted Charon’s challenge with gusto. With a roar, he stepped forward and swung his sword, the blade whistling past my ear.

  It’s a good thing I injured his leading leg that night, I thought as I dove frantically out of the way. He staggered between Elka and me, stumbling over the chain that leashed our ankles and pulling my feet out from under me. I scrambled on hands and knees to get to the swords Charon had left on the stage. My fingers closed on a hilt, and I clambered to my feet as the second brigand—far more wary and perhaps less vengeful than his partner—circled around us.

  “Fallon!” Elka’s voice held a warning note.

  “I see him,” I said.

  Together, we shifted away as the man approached. He was lanky, with long, ropey arms, and his blade whistled as he swiped it menacingly side to side through the air in front of him.

  “This one’s got reach on me,” I said in a low, tense voice to Elka.

  “Not on me,” she said. “But I think he learned that lesson in Alesia. He won’t make the same mistake as his friends did.”

  Elka stepped out to try and goad him into an attack. Instead, he made as if to lunge toward my blade but, at the last moment, spun and hewed at Elka’s weapon in a wide arc that sheared a handsbreadth of iron off the end of her cheap sword.

  Elka drew back sharply, her weapon suddenly useless, and the chain pulled taut between us. My leg went out from under me again and I fell to the ground, only to see the first man—the one I’d wounded in Alesia—looming above me. He raised his pike high over his head in both hands and let out a cry of vengeance. I gasped the Morrigan’s name—the only supplication I had time for—and threw my arms up in front of me, knowing the blow would cleave through me like an axe through kindling.

  It never came.

  Instead, with a powerful thrust of her long legs, Elka had launched herself toward us, howling with battle madness. The point of her sword blade disappeared up under the man’s helmet chinstrap. There was a frozen moment of silence from the crowd. And then the man’s chest bloomed suddenly with a dark crimson that flooded down over his painted skin. Through the grate of his helmet, I saw his eyes roll back in his head, and he dropped the pike behind him. As he sank to the ground, grasping weakly at the sword lodged in his throat, Elka freed her blade with a grunt. I scrambled to my feet, kicking away his body.

  Standing shoulder to shoulder with Elka, I could feel her shaking violently. For all her talk of war, I wondered if that was the first man she’d ever killed. I wondered if I’d survive long enough to find out.

  With that kill, the watching crowd realized this wasn’t just a show designed to inflate auction prices, and they howled for more blood. The brigand’s, Elka’s, mine, it didn’t matter. It made my stomach turn. This was what the Romans thought of as entertainment?

  And they called us barbarians.

  Charon came forward and held a long pain
ted stick horizontal between us and the remaining Alesian, keeping us separated as two other men leaped up onto the stage to drag the body off to a waiting cart.

  Elka watched them go, her face pale beneath the makeup.

  In the lull in the action, I looked out at the crowd and saw the sharp-featured Pontius Aquila flick his card up, as if to do no more than whisk away a fly. The first bid was his, the Collector’s. As one of Charon’s men ran forward with a bucket of sawdust to spread on the bloodstained stage, a flurry of cards fluttered up into the air, held up by patrons scattered throughout the stands. Each one was followed by another card flick from Aquila to outbid them, and the orange-wigged auctioneer called them out rapidly, gleefully pitting the bidders against each other.

  My mouth went dry at the thought of the Collector owning me—or Elka, for that matter—and I scanned the other bidders in the crowd, torn between feeling helpless and hopeful. It was then that a flash of crimson caught my eye, and I recognized the figure of Decurion Varro moving through the crowd. He was carrying what looked like Charon’s trunk—the one I’d helped the slave master rescue from the sinking galley—up to the back row of the stands. I saw him stoop to speak to one of the patrons sitting beneath the shade of a yellow-and-white awning. After a moment, the Decurion left the box with the patron and climbed back down the wooden steps to disappear back into the crowd without so much as a glance toward the stage.

  Charon lifted the wooden staff out of the way and stepped back, indicating with a flourish that the fighting should continue. Bolstered by the roaring crowd, the betting, and the bidding, the remaining Alesian snarled in rage and charged at me. Suddenly, time seemed to stop. The sound of all those voices clamoring for violence faded to nothing. It was as if I were a young girl again, fighting my first real match with an iron blade instead of wood. For an instant, it seemed I stood not in the blinding-bright sunshine of Rome but in the cool green light of the fields outside Durovernum, sparring with Sorcha while Mael cheered me on.

  The Alesian tried a feint and shifted his aim midstrike, but my training and instincts—all the memories stored in my muscles and blood—took over. My blade swung up at a sharp angle and met my attacker’s weapon, screeching up its length in a flash of sparks. My momentum carried me a step further, and I brought the sword back around and down in a vicious slash across the man’s extended forearm. Blood spurted, crimson and sparkling in the sunlight, and with a cry of pain he drew back, clutching his wrist.

  My sister had laid the foundations upon which I’d built my skills as a warrior. And even if I’d never been made a member of the royal war band like she had, I’d be damned if I’d dishonor Sorcha’s memory in front of that crowd of braying Romans.

  A crouch, lunge, and another slash, and the Alesian was down on one knee with a gaping wound in the meat of his calf muscle. The tip of my blade was bright with blood, and I was almost surprised at how easy it had been.

  But then he heaved himself back to standing and, heedless of the injury, lashed out with a swift kick to my ribs. I let out a grunt of pain and collapsed on all fours, gasping for breath. A second kick from him flipped me over onto my back. Through watering eyes, I could see blood dripping from his leg as he drew back his foot to deliver another kick.

  I braced for the blow.

  “Stop!”

  The command, shouted in a husky female voice, rang through the air. Almost before the sound of it had died on the still air, Charon’s men leaped up on the stage to seize the snarling Alesian. They hauled him away from me as they relieved him of his weapon. I rose to my feet and stood swaying as a tall woman, dressed in a sleeveless leather tunic and close-fitting trousers, stalked down the stairs from the back row of the stands.

  “Ah, Thalestris.” Charon turned slowly toward the trousered woman. “Always a pleasure to see you here at our humble displays of talent. Does your Lanista wish to make a bid that will curtail the action so soon?” He gestured to the stands, where another woman sat, a richly embroidered shawl draped over her head so that her face was in shadow. “But things were just getting entertaining.”

  “If by ‘things’ you mean these girls, we would prefer that they remain capable of entertaining,” the woman called Thalestris said in stridently accented Latin. “My mistress, the Lady Achillea, is willing to offer a generous bid well over and above what you have already received in order to end these proceedings, before your wares become damaged beyond all salability.”

  Charon frowned. “Your bid would have to be—”

  “Twenty thousand denarii.”

  Charon’s jaw drifted open a bit. “Twent—”

  “Each.”

  “No!” A voice of pure outrage shouted from the audience.

  Charon turned toward the disruption and cupped his ear. “Do we have a higher bid? Ah, the noble Tribune of the Plebs.”

  The muscles in Pontius’s throat jumped as he swallowed, and I could see him grinding his teeth even from the stage. “I’ll pay twenty-five for just the one in green,” he said. “You can charge whatever you want for the other.”

  A chill like ice water ran through my veins. Could one slave owner really prove better than the other? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I did not want to go with Pontius Aquila. No matter how much he wanted to pay for me.

  Charon graciously inclined his head, deep regret lining his face. “So sorry, noble Tribune. The girls are to be sold as a pair. The terms of sale, as you know, are set before the bidding begins. To change the rules now would be unfair.”

  Pontius Aquila’s mouth disappeared in a hard line, and his face flushed to almost purple. Beside him, his bare-chested slave hunched his shoulders and glowered.

  “Do you wish to improve upon the Lady Achillea’s bid for both girls?” Charon asked.

  Aquila clenched his fists and threw his bid card to the ground. He had been outbid.

  Charon nodded at his auctioneer. “Sold.” His dark eyes shone with triumph.

  Thalestris waved dismissively at the Alesian as Charon turned back to her. “You can keep your Gaulish thug,” she said. “The Lady Achillea, of course, has no use for him. Perhaps Tribune Aquila would appreciate his rugged charms.”

  The onlookers cheered and jeered as Pontius Aquila stood, his gaze full of a startling, palpable wrath. Without another word, he turned and stalked down the steps of the stands, disappearing into the Forum crowd. I felt relief at watching him go.

  “Perhaps not,” Charon said mildly as the crowd roared with amusement in the wake of the man’s departure. Then he turned back to Thalestris with a grin. “In that case, I accept your gracious offer on behalf of the Lady Achillea for these two spirited lasses and grant this fine Alesian fellow his full freedom,” he said.

  That delighted the crowd even more. The Alesian seemed overwhelmed as Charon waved for him to depart the stage so that the smith could remove his collar. Even I had to admit that the gesture was surprisingly decent. Doubtless it was coldly calculated and purely for effect, but still.

  “My paymaster will settle the account and arrange for payment.” Thalestris beckoned forward a broad-shouldered bald man. Then, in a low voice meant only for Charon’s ears, she said, “You have my compliments, Charon. That was cleverly done. But be careful, slave master. Achillea doesn’t like being played. And neither does he.”

  I wondered fleetingly who “he” was, but then Thalestris spun on her heel and stalked off after the Lady Achillea, who was already making a swift exit from the marketplace, along with a train of attendants. Elka and I stood there, blinking in astonishment.

  Who had we just been sold to?

  Charon concluded the auction and, as the crowd began to disperse, sauntered over to us. He put a hand on each of our shoulders. “I knew I could count on you both to fetch a princely sum,” he said, his white teeth showing through his neatly trimmed beard. “The most I’ve ever made in a single sale.
Thanks be to Artemis, I listen to my hunches!”

  “And who, exactly, did your hunch say would pay so much for a pair of girl barbarians?” Elka asked.

  “Congratulations, ladies.” His smile faded, and his next words were like a dagger of ice down my spine. “You are now the property of the Ludus Achillea, foremost training academy for female gladiators in all of the Republic. Owned and operated by the honorable consul of Rome, Gaius Julius Caesar himself.”

  XIV

  “IT’S NOT A BROTHEL.”

  “I know. I heard. I just . . .”

  “You like to fight.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Well then, what’s the problem?”

  “It’s not honorable!”

  “Oh.” Elka snorted. “Is that all?”

  “All?” I gaped at her. “It’s everything!”

  She rolled her eyes and settled back on the padded bench of the cart we rode in. “You’re a slave, little fox,” she said. “You don’t have honor anymore.”

  But she was wrong. I knew there had to be more to honor than just one’s station in life. That was what Sorcha had taught me: that actions meant more than accolades. That honor was something worth fighting for—and dying for—no matter what house you were born into. Still, I wondered. After all, had I ever considered any of the slaves of my father’s house honorable?

  I turned away from Elka and stared sullenly instead at the shaved, oiled head of the paymaster who sat in the front of the cart, driving the black horses with a sure hand.

  “Remember,” Elka continued, “our life now is simple: Fight, kill, die, and look good doing it.”

  I shook my head. “Did Charon really say that?”

  Elka nodded. “Right after he said we’d been sold to a murdering tyrant. Yes.”

  Julius Caesar. The tyrant.

  I could barely believe I’d been sold to the man who’d invaded my homeland. This, I thought, was injustice on a mythic scale. All I’d ever wanted was to fight—but against the man who’d dishonored my father and killed my sister. Not for him! And not in an arena. Never that.