The Valiant

  The Morrigan was having a great laugh at my expense.

  “I don’t know what you’re complaining about.” Elka sighed. “Like I said, there are worse fates for a slave than ending up a gladiatrix.”

  I gave her a sidelong glance. “It’s blood sport, plain and simple. Something to amuse the mob—you saw how they reacted to our fight with the Alesians. You heard them. It was disgusting!”

  “I heard they feed you well at a ludus.”

  I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t care one bit about the victuals, but then my stomach growled so loudly that Elka heard it over the rumbling of the carriage wheels and burst out laughing. Even with my troubled heart, it was hard to stay indignant in the face of her mirth. And, I grudgingly admitted, for the first time in months we were traveling in a carriage that had no bars. There was no chain around my ankle. I was clothed in something other than rags.

  But I was still a slave.

  I reached up to ease the press of the iron ring resting on my collarbones. Sometimes I forgot it was there. And sometimes it seemed to weigh heavier than gold. But I also knew that Elka was right. I was a slave, but before long I’d be a slave with a sword and a full belly. And, I vowed, soon I would gain the strength to free myself.

  As we followed the westering sun into the countryside, Elka turned contemplative. “I wonder who will have to work harder to earn their keep,” she mused. “You and me, or Kassandra.”

  “Who?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Are you joking? You took the girl’s shoes and you never bothered to learn her name?”

  The image of the dark-haired girl, striking an evocative pose for the appreciative crowd, flashed in my mind. “How do you know that’s her name?”

  “You’re hopeless.” Elka shook her head at me. “I asked her.”

  Our wagon crested the rise of a long hill, and Elka whistled low.

  We’d been traveling north, and the land stretched out on both sides in rolling waves dotted with stands of tall trees. The road we were on—the Via Clodia—was wide, arrow-straight, and like no road I’d ever traveled upon. Our wagon flew over large, flat paving stones, the ride smoother than anything I’d known in my war chariot back home. In the distance, the graceful stone arches of an aqueduct traversed the land like some great stone serpent. Even I had to admit that the accomplishments of Roman ingenuity were marvels to behold.

  Now, directly ahead of us, a broad expanse of water stretched into the distance, reflecting the purple and scarlet of the setting sun—Lake Sabatinus, as I soon learned it was called. A broad path lined with tall cypress trees led to a sprawling stone compound nestled on the shores of the lake. We had reached the Ludus Achillea.

  The tiled roofs of the buildings were elegant and ordered, the main villa surrounded by a profusion of outbuildings—stables and kitchens and, I surmised, some sort of barracks for the different ranks of “students.” It looked a little like a palace, but I felt my stomach clench at the sight of the high, smooth wall that surrounded the ludus, topped with iron spikes. This place was no palace. It was a well-appointed cage.

  As the curtained carriage in front of ours, transporting the Lady Achillea and her attendants, rumbled through the gate, Thalestris leapt out while it was still in motion. She walked back to the carriage Elka and I rode in and signaled for the driver to halt so she could swing herself up to stand between us. Every move she made was precise and purposeful. Feet braced wide, she rested one hand on her hip as if she wore a sword there. I suspected that most of the time, she did.

  “Welcome to the Ludus Achillea,” she said, her eyes flicking back and forth between us, appraising, calculating. “Your new home until such time as you earn your freedom or you die. The latter is more likely. But work hard, work well, and you will be treated fairly and with dignity.”

  Fairness and dignity? I seriously doubted that.

  “Wherever you have come from,” she continued, “whatever you did, whoever you were . . . forget. Kill your past and bury it deep in the earth of your heart. It will not help you here. It will only shackle you. This place is a sisterhood. These girls are your family. The Lady Achillea, the lanista of this place, is your goddess. And I am your new mother.”

  “Couldn’t be any worse than my old mother,” Elka shrugged.

  Thalestris shot her a look that plainly said, Don’t be too sure of that.

  “There will be an oath swearing at the rising of the next full moon,” she said, “for you and for some of the other girls who are recently arrived. It is a sacred time. And this is a sacred vocation. Do not ever dare to think otherwise. Be proud, and be thankful to the Fates that they have brought you here to become a gladiatrix. Bring honor on this house. Bring honor on yourselves. Win. Be valiant. Now go.”

  • • •

  Honor.

  I’d always thought I’d known what that word meant to me. That night, I took my first steps toward learning what the word “honor” meant to a gladiatrix. And I took those steps in a graveyard.

  It had been well after the supper hour when we’d arrived, so Thalestris escorted us to the kitchens to gather plates of leftovers from the evening’s meal that we could eat in our quarters. Coming and going, we saw only a few of the other girls in residence. We spoke to none of them. I was glad of it, mostly because I was beginning to feel a bit ridiculous in the wilted, travel-stained remains of my auction costume. They’d stripped us of most of the finer accessories before loading us into the wagon, leaving me with not much more than the tunica and boots. Elka, for her part, didn’t really seem to care—she was far too concerned with balancing the towering heap of meat and cheese and fruit she carried as she walked to really even notice.

  Our quarters were small, narrow rooms, barely big enough to hold the straw pallet that served as a bed. There was an open, empty trunk at the foot of it for personal belongings. I had none. No torc, no sword, not even a decent set of breeches or a good warm shift made of well-spun wool . . . nothing that identified me as Fallon. No tokens or mementos of the life I’d led. The loss of my sister’s blade felt like I was missing a limb. And the only thing I had left of Mael was the memory of his kiss . . . and the look on his face in the moment he died.

  I kicked the lid of the trunk shut and turned my back on it.

  A single candle on the high windowsill cast dancing shadows on the walls as I finished eating. I was sitting on my bed, too exhausted to even undress and lie down for sleep, when there was a knock on my door. It swung open before I could respond, and I looked over to see a tall, slender girl standing in the doorway. She had short, dense hair cropped close to her skull and dark skin. I tried not to stare, but I’d never seen anyone like her before. She ignored my rudeness and simply gestured to the candle.

  “Get your boots,” she said. “Bring the light. Come with me.”

  Outside in the hallway, I saw that the girl carried a cloak.

  “I am Ajani,” she said, holding it out to me. “Put this on.”

  I took it with a grateful nod, for the night air held a damp chill. “Fallon,” I said and slipped the heavy wool over my shoulders, pulling the hood up around my face. “Where are we going?”

  The whites of her eyes shone in the darkness. “To say goodbye.”

  She turned on silent feet and padded down the corridor. I followed, the candle flame sputtering in the breezes that slipped between the pillars. Ajani led me out into the courtyard at the heart of the ludus compound, where a gathering of girls and women stood in a cluster, some of them holding torches, all of them cloaked and hooded. If Elka was there, I couldn’t tell which of the cloaked figures she was. No one spoke. At the center of the crowd there was a funeral bier draped in a gauzy white cloth.

  And from the shape of it, a body beneath the shroud.

  Six figures stepped apart from the crowd and approached the bier, lifting it up onto their shoulders as
if it weighed no more than a sack of feathers. A procession formed behind them as they moved with stately dignity toward the gates of the ludus—which was, on that night, open to the world. I fell in behind Ajani and followed. Once outside the ludus compound, the sky seemed enormous to me. Growing up, I’d been so used to being hemmed in by the trees and forests of the Island of the Mighty. But now I felt small beneath the vast canopy of stars.

  Mouse small . . . too small to notice . . .

  I slowed my pace, dropping back in the ranks of the gladiatrices until I trailed behind them. If I could lose myself in a hollow and wait until they were far enough away, perhaps I could make a dash for freedom.

  And the collar around your neck? How will you outrun that?

  The cold metal twinged against my skin.

  I might be just a wee mouse outside those walls, but the slave iron marked me as easy prey for an eagle. Runaway slaves were criminals, punished by flogging or branding—or outright death. I was in the middle of a foreign land, friendless and forsaken. Running—at least, running without a plan—would only get me killed. Somewhere over one of the distant hills, a wolf howled, and I quickened my pace to catch up with the others.

  We walked for a while in silence. In the distance, I could see the dark shapes of other villas, and everywhere we passed, there were lamps burning brightly in all the windows. I was reminded of all the sleepless Samhain Nights I’d spent growing up in Durovernum, nights when the shades of the unquiet dead walked the earth and the lamps in all the houses burned until dawn to ward them away. Now, I felt as though I were one of those hungry, roaming shades—torn away from the world, but still tethered to it.

  We kept walking until a low stone wall with an arched portal appeared in front of us. We passed through, and at first, I didn’t understand what the place was. On the Island of the Mighty, we burned our dead or buried them beneath mounds of earth. We did not lock them away in cold little houses made of stone where their spirits would be trapped forever, barred from ever reaching the peace and plenty of the Otherworld.

  But our procession wound past all those marble tombs, toward an isolated spot beyond. There I saw another kind of grave, with a log pyre stacked above it. We formed a circle, and those bearing the bier lifted it up and placed it on top of the pyre. In the place where I stood, I was close enough to see that the pit dug in the earth beneath it was filled with shallow baskets bearing all kinds of food—meat and bread, jugs of wine, a wheel of cheese—and other baskets that held personal belongings. A mirror and an ivory comb. Neatly folded clothing. Weapons—a lot of weapons. I counted three swords, a pair of spears, a small round shield, and a belt adorned with throwing knives. An impressive collection.

  But there was one last item to be added to the grave hoard, it seemed.

  The woman who’d led the procession—the Lady Achillea, I assumed—stood at the head of the grave pit, her face hidden in the depths of her deep hood. She reached beneath the folds of her cloak and brought forth a lamp, a delicate thing hanging on a slender chain.

  “To light your way in the darkness,” I heard her murmur. She let the chain slide through her fingers, and the lantern dropped gently into the pit on top of the other things. Then she raised her voice and said, “Her name was Ismene. Let it be known. She was a sister of our familia. A gladiatrix of House Achillea. She fought as we fight, with bravery and with skill. Five days ago, she fought to win honor in a match with a warrior maid of the House Amazona. She won, but Ismene was grievously wounded in that fight. Our surgeons did what they could for her. Last night the goddess Nemesis, she of the midnight brow, in her great wisdom called Ismene to the realm of heroes and sent forth Mercury to guide her there. She feasts now in the halls of Dis, she spars with Minerva, and she waits for all of us to join her there, and we mourn her absence even as others have this very day joined our ranks here.”

  I swallowed the knot in my throat. She was talking about Elka and me. But I swore in that moment that I would never wind up in this graveyard like this girl, burned and buried in soil far away from home.

  “So it goes,” the Lanista continued, and something about the way she spoke teased half-forgotten memories from the back of my mind. “The circle of glory, the river of blood. Mourn her, gladiatrices. Celebrate her. Make her proud.”

  There were sounds of weeping coming from some of the hoods that hid the faces of the girls, and even the Lanista’s voice quavered with emotion. But I thought I heard one girl to my left scoff in quiet derision. Had there been a rivalry within the sacred sisterhood of the ludus? Perhaps “sisterhood” at the ludus, as in life, could be a double-edged sword.

  One of the gladiatrices stepped forward with a torch and thrust it in between the logs of the pyre. The white shroud caught fire instantly, and the sudden updraft of heat sent it fluttering into the sky above our heads like the spirit of the dead girl released from her body. It hovered there, fluttering for a moment, then burst into a ball of brief flame before raining back down as ash upon us. I thought of how we’d never had the chance to burn Sorcha’s body. The Romans had never given her back to us. Then I thought of Mael. I didn’t even know where they had buried him. If I had been there, I would have made my father raise a barrow for him in the Forgotten Vale and crown it with a standing stone. Then I would have lain down and wept until the grass upon it grew long, watered with my tears.

  Through the shimmering air, I looked on the face of the girl who had been called Ismene. She looked like she was sleeping. I searched my heart for a prayer to offer, but I did not know the gods the Lanista had spoken of. I only knew my own. So I formed a silent prayer for the dead girl I’d never known but in that moment felt a strange kinship with.

  “May the Morrigan keep your soul,” I whispered in my mind.

  Yours and Sorcha’s and Mael’s.

  As I hoped, one day, she would keep mine.

  XV

  “BY THE MORRIGAN’S BLOODY TEETH!” I spat as I stumbled forward, dropping painfully to one knee in the sand of the ludus practice yard. The wooden sword in my hand was wrenched from my grip, tangled in the hemp net that my opponent wielded. “This isn’t fair!”

  The other girl heard me—and laughed.

  Of course it was unfair. After the long journey through Gaul, my muscles had gone soft from lack of decent food and exercise. I had all the strength of a runty kitten. With clumsy fingers and, yes—damn Caius Varro’s eyes—weak wrists. And none of that seemed to matter to the girl who stood waiting for me to stand up so she could knock me down again. Her name was Meriel, and she fought, so I’d been told, in the style of a retiarius-class gladiator, wielding strange weapons—a three-pronged spear called a trident, and a woven rope net—like she was dancing with them.

  She was my first sparring partner of the day.

  I was beginning to think she might be my last.

  Meriel’s pale skin was freckled where it wasn’t covered in the thin blue lines of tattoos, and her dark red hair was tied up on top of her head in an unruly rat’s nest of twists and plaits. Her eyes looked upon me with the leaden gleam of cold gray rain. I knew her look. She was from Prydain. Home. Only she was from the far northern reaches, where the tribes were brutal and barbaric. And, as a rule, very good at killing things.

  So am I.

  Never mind that the only things I’d ever actually killed, up to that point, had ended up in the cauldron for supper. With a grunt of effort, I pushed myself back up to my feet.

  “Well, come on then, gladiolus,” Meriel sneered in barely understandable Latin buried beneath a guttural accent.

  “Gladiolus,” I’d learned, was a nickname bestowed on all the new recruits—a pun meant to diminish us by calling us flowers. Pretty to look at but easily trampled.

  “Come on!” Meriel barked at me again. “Show us why you are worth all the monies!”

  She rubbed the fingers and thumb of one hand together. “So
many sestersii. And for what? Falling down?”

  Word of the price paid for Elka and me had obviously gotten around. It wasn’t my fault someone paid that much for me, I thought bitterly. Behind Meriel, I saw that a group of the other ludus girls had gathered and were watching us. They were all laughing, except for the one with long black braids, who just watched. Her name was Nyx. I’d seen her sparring on several occasions, and she’d impressed me with her technique. I, on the other hand, was clearly impressing no one.

  I’d figured out fairly quickly that you could tell how well and how often some of the girls had fought by how they were kitted out. The ones who’d earned a purse or two or more wore bronze or leather wrist bracers or belts, or they had better weapons beyond the ludus-supplied gear. Nyx, by the look of her, was one of the better fighters. She wore tooled-leather shin greaves and wrist bracers and a belt around her waist that was decorated with bronze medallions and coral studs.

  I was dressed in a simple tunic provided by the ludus. An ugly, shapeless thing stitched of undyed linen and belted with a plain leather belt. It was indistinguishable from the ones Elka and the other new arrivals wore. And distinguishing oneself, I soon learned, was at least as important in the arena as winning.

  Meriel made an exaggerated show of waiting patiently as I retrieved my weapon and held it at the ready again. The wooden blade trembled only a little in my hand, but the small round wicker practice shield strapped to my left wrist felt heavy as iron as I lifted it into position. Meriel circled to my left, threatening with her trident, the net held down by her side. I’d never fought against such weapons before, and I thought they were ridiculous—more suited to a fishing skiff than an arena. I didn’t know how to defend against them.

  Maybe I didn’t have to. Why defend when all I had to do was attack?