The Valiant

  The woman made a choking noise of assent. It sounded as if he was physically threatening her. I thought to make a noise—a cough or a shoe scrape on the gravel, as if I’d just now come walking up the path—but then I heard the woman bid Aquila good night, albeit a little hoarsely. I pressed myself against the side of the grain shed, fearing that they would find me eavesdropping. I feared for the girl they spoke of, the one Pontius believed was his.

  I wondered if it might be me . . .

  Don’t be ridiculous. I gave my head a stern shake.

  What Cai had said to me earlier was certainly true—I wasn’t the only girl who could swing a sword. And so far, in my brief time at the Ludus Achillea, I hadn’t done anything to distinguish myself. I was nothing more than a green little gladiolus in the eyes of Sorcha’s dignified guests.

  Girls like Nyx and Meriel were the ones who caught the wealthy patrons’ eyes, not me. Not yet. Still, it was good to know that Sorcha and Cai hadn’t exactly been exaggerating the Roman propensity for secrets and double-dealing. I heard the voices moving on, growing faint in the distance, and I let out a slow breath.

  Let the ludus owners and their lanistas backstab and bargain. I cared only for bed and sleep and maybe a dream or two. I smiled wearily as I loped down the path back to the barracks. I hoped my dreams would be good ones, because in the morning, it was back to the basics of sand and sweat and the sword.

  But this time, it would be as a gladiatrix in my own right.

  Not just a maybe, a someday.

  A would be, I vowed.

  XXI

  MY FIRST DAY as a gladiatrix began with the stench of blood.

  “What happened?” I asked fight master Kronos as he elbowed his way through the girls gathered at the edge of the practice pitch. The smell curdled the honeyed porridge in my stomach that I’d only just wolfed down.

  “Accident” was his brusque response in passing. “Need a stretcher.”

  I turned on my heel and ran after him to help. Just inside the equipment shed, there were several canvas stretchers hanging on the wall.

  “Take an end,” Kronos grunted at me, lifting one off the storage hooks.

  We sprinted back out into the yard, Kronos bellowing for the girls to make way. As we neared the arena, I saw the crumpled body of a girl lying in a pool of blood, shockingly red against the white-gold sand. She was the one Sorcha had gifted with the sword and shield with the lion motif at the oath swearing. Her sparring partner, the girl with the serpent shield, stood nearby with a blank look of shock and a bloodied sword.

  Lion’s hand still held her sword too. Only it lay in the sand a little distance away from her, the slender fingers still curled around the hilt of the weapon. The sight of it was jarringly wrong.

  Thalestris was on her knees, tearing linen into strips and wrapping Lion’s arm as tightly as she could while crimson spurted in time with the beating of the girl’s heart. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, and her mouth was open, a low animal-sounding moan coming from it.

  “What happened?” Kronos asked the fight mistress as he and I set the stretcher down beside the injured girl. The other gladiatrices stood helplessly in a ring.

  “Fools,” she grunted through clenched teeth. “Thought they’d do a bit of sparring with their oath gifts. Neither of them has ever held a real blade.”

  Especially not one as sharp as a blade chosen by my sister. Lion and Serpent should have known better. But I’d also seen how very excited they’d been, and I could hardly blame them for wanting to play like giddy children with their new toys. Now Lion would never fight again—if she even survived the injury—and I shuddered to think what Sorcha would do to Serpent.

  I glanced at Lion’s severed hand and choked back the bile that rose in my throat at the sight of the gleaming white bone sticking out of the end. I looked away to see Sorcha running from the main house, her face contorted and her hair and robes spread wide in her wake. The avenging Fury.

  Serpent went even paler as the Lanista approached.

  When my sister stopped in front of her, Serpent burst into tears.

  She could have her flogged, I thought, or turned out of the ludus. But then, to my complete surprise, Sorcha stepped forward and gathered her into a fierce embrace. I knelt there in the sand, staring as Sorcha rocked the girl like a frightened child.

  Thalestris finished doing what she could for the injured gladiatrix, and then the ludus physician—a quiet, broad-shouldered man named Heron—helped Kronos get the girl onto the stretcher. They rushed her toward the infirmary as I stood there, not knowing what to do.

  I felt a sudden spattering of fat raindrops, and then the clouds opened up, pouring down rain in hissing gray sheets. Lightning split the sky, and Thalestris shouted for everyone to get inside, that the day’s practice was cancelled. The arena was deserted in moments. And still I stood there. The rain was almost blinding, reducing the world around me to a circle in the sand—just me, and Lion’s sword, and her hand. In the confusion, the trainers had forgotten it. Not that it mattered, really.

  And yet, I couldn’t just leave it lying there. I stripped off my cloak and knelt down in front of the sword and hand. The rain had washed away the blood, leaving the fingers pale and cool. Spreading my cloak out on the sand, I picked up the hand and blade and shifted them gently onto the wool. I wrapped them up as carefully as I could—exceedingly mindful of the sharp edge of the blade—and cradled them like a bairn as I put my head down and slogged through the now muddy pitch toward the infirmary.

  As I entered, I could smell the sharp tang of the vinegar antiseptic they used to clean wounds, and my stomach turned over. Lion was lying on a cot, and the neat white bed linens were stained with red. Sorcha sat beside her bed, smoothing the hair back from her pale face, while Heron and his assistant worked to stanch the flow of blood. As I watched, the surgeon wiped his hands on his apron, leaving more red there, and disappeared behind a curtained wall. He returned with a bronze brazier full of angry red coals and a metal bell-shaped tool that had been heated until it glowed.

  My stomach didn’t so much turn over at the sight as threaten to hurl its contents back up again. I knew what would come next. My gasp alerted Sorcha to my presence, and she rose from the girl’s bedside and hurried over to me.

  “What are you doing here, Fallon?” she murmured urgently. “You shouldn’t be—”

  “I brought this.” I pulled back the corner of my cloak to reveal Lion’s hand and held the bundle out toward my sister. “I didn’t want to leave it in the rain,” I said. “I didn’t know what else to do . . .”

  Sorcha looked down and then, after a long moment, back up at me. She blinked rapidly and reached out, gently drawing the cloth back over the hand and the sword it still clutched.

  “That was honorably done, Fallon,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She took the bundle from me and then wrapped an arm around my shoulders, leading me out of the infirmary. “Come on,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here right now.”

  The screams of agony and the stench of seared flesh drifted down the corridor behind us. Sorcha walked me all the way back to the barracks in silence.

  “You won’t send her away, will you?” I asked, fearing that Lion—whose true name I still didn’t even know—would be turned out of the ludus to wind up a beggar in Rome’s filthy back alleys.

  “Weren’t you listening during the oath ritual?” she asked. “We don’t abandon our sisters.”

  For a moment, I thought the irony would escape Sorcha. But then a faint flush crept up her face, and she glanced away from me. I decided to let the moment pass. Some things were more important.

  “But she can’t ever make back the money you’ve lost in buying her slave contract,” I said. “She’s useless to the ludus now.”

  “You have such a low opinion of this place. Of me.”
br />   She looked at me, and I saw actual hurt in her eyes. Her gaze drifted down to the iron ring that was still around my neck. I had refused to go with Elka when she’d gone to have hers removed. She’d told me I was an idiot, and perhaps she was right.

  Sorcha shook her head. “I suppose I’ve earned that. But I do wish you would at least give the ludus a chance before condemning it as a place as cruel and cold-hearted as its mistress. I have to go prepare Antonia’s hand for a proper burial. Thank you for bringing it to me. The Morrigan watch over you, Fallon.”

  And then she was gone.

  I watched her walk away like a queen or a priestess toward the tiny, elegant building that served as a kind of multifaith temple for all the girls of the ludus. I could no longer hear the screams of the handless Antonia with my ears.

  But they echoed in my mind for a long time after.

  • • •

  Practice resumed the next day, under a dismal gray sky that threatened more rain but refused to pour. None of the girls talked about what had happened the day before, but all of them—even the veteran gladiatrices, I noticed—fought their bouts and drills with wooden blades. Within a few days, though, everything was more or less back to normal. With the exception of Neferet (the Aegyptian girl with the serpent shield), who vehemently refused to continue practice. Instead she spent most of her waking hours in the infirmary helping Heron tend Antonia in the struggle to keep her wound from succumbing to infection.

  Six days after the oath swearing, Caius Varro returned to the Ludus Achillea with missives from Rome for the Lanista. But instead of leaving after his correspondence was delivered, he accompanied Thalestris out to the yard, where the girls were all hard at work. I had to stop myself from greeting him as he passed by. I knew he was on Caesar’s business, likely reporting back to him on our progress.

  Who do you think you are now? I reminded myself bitterly. In the eyes of any Roman, Caius Varro is a legion officer, and you’re nothing more than a diversion for the howling plebs—a vulgar bit of sweaty, bloody entertainment.

  As much as Sorcha proclaimed the honorable nature of my new occupation, I still didn’t believe her. I wanted to . . . I just couldn’t. Especially when Cai strode right past me, deep in conversation with Thalestris. He didn’t even so much as glance in my direction. I hated that I had been looking in his.

  But then I heard whispering and giggling and realized I wasn’t the only one watching Cai. Thalestris shouted at us all to stop gawking and get back to practice. She pounded the butt of her staff on the arena sand, and her fight masters moved in, whips snapping through the air in case any of us needed extra motivation. I ducked my head and went back to my practice routine. In recent days, I had focused my concentration—ironically enough, just as Cai had suggested—on relaxing into the work. On letting the memories stored in my muscles and blood take over. On breathing all the way down into my swords. The less I thought about the next move, the easier it came, until it felt like I was dancing with a blade in each hand—

  “Gladiatrix Fallon!” Thalestris’s voice rang out. I finished the sequence—my last two hits landing solidly on the practice post with loud cracks—and turned, wiping the sweat from my brow. I jogged across the sand to stand before her.

  “Mistress?”

  “The Decurion wishes to spar with you.”

  I could feel the eyes of the other gladiatrices on me. I glanced back and forth between Cai and Thalestris. For a fleeting moment, I thought she was joking. But the look on Cai’s face was anything but amused.

  “Do you have a problem with that, gladiatrix?” Thalestris asked.

  “No.” I straightened to attention. “No, of course not.” I nodded a brief bow at him. “Decurion. As you wish.” The only man I’d spared with since arriving at the ludus was Kronos, the trainer. I felt an anxious flutter at the thought of facing off against a legion-trained soldier.

  Don’t be ridiculous, I thought, steeling myself for the bout. When I trained as a warrior back in the Vale, I would have longed for a fight like this. An opponent like Caius Varro.

  “Gladiatrix.” Cai inclined his head, giving no indication whatsoever that he and I had almost kissed only a handful of days earlier. Or had we? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure.

  In the bright light of day, Cai seemed a very different creature than the one I’d strolled through a moonlit garden with. Even dressed in a simple soldier’s tunic and leather sandals and not in a decurion’s armor, there was an air of command about him. And something else—something I couldn’t put my finger on. It almost seemed for a moment as if he was angry.

  Focus, I chastised myself. You’re imagining things.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know how satisfying a seasoned soldier like yourself will find such a bout, my lord.” I grinned as I tightened the leather thong on the bracer wrapped around my forearm, trying to lighten his mood. “I am, after all, only a woman. With weak wrists.”

  He didn’t smile. Instead, he stalked past me and plucked two wooden practice blades off the weapons rack and tossed me one.

  “There’s only one shield left.” He gestured to the parma, one of the small round shields favored by many of the gladiatrices.

  I considered it briefly. But it was just a practice spar. Neither of us wore any armor. There was no real danger in the exercise, and so I declined.

  “I’ll do without,” I said. “Thank you. I wouldn’t want an unfair advantage.”

  Cai shrugged and strapped the shield onto his own arm. I blinked at him in surprise, but he ignored my reaction and picked up his wooden gladius, sinking into a ready stance. I remembered the first time I’d encountered him, how arrogant he’d seemed. And I wondered if the other night I hadn’t been imagining things, and if this was the true Decurion.

  I bent my knees and rocked forward on the balls of my feet, waiting for him to come at me. Cai didn’t even blink as he stared me down. There was no indication of where his attack would come from . . .

  And suddenly, I was ducking for my life!

  Cai’s blade—even blunted and wooden as it was—would have made a pretty dent in the side of my head if my instinct to move—now!—had come a fraction of an instant later. But, before I was even aware of it, I was now crouched in front of the Decurion, having narrowly avoided his blow.

  He followed up with a second diagonal slash, and I went from a crouch to a diving roll to evade it. When I sprang back up to my feet, I swept my sword in a vertical block over my right shoulder and prayed to the Morrigan I’d anticipated his next move correctly. I had—for all the good it did me. The force of his next slash knocked the wooden blade from my suddenly numb fingers and sent it tumbling across the yard. I glanced up at his face, startled. I was even more surprised by what I saw there.

  Cai wasn’t Cai anymore. Not in that moment.

  He was Caius Antonius Varro, soldier of the legions of Rome.

  He was my enemy.

  Wordlessly, he stepped back and pointed to my sword with his, indicating that I should go pick it up so that we could continue. I flexed my hand and shook it out, wincing as the blood flowed back into my prickling fingers.

  I felt anger flare in my chest as I picked up my sword and turned to face him again, circling warily to my left this time as Cai advanced. Facing him as warrior to warrior, with the harsh sun carving the angles of his face into sharp relief, I saw nothing of the young man who’d seemed so very concerned for my well-being only a few nights earlier.

  If it was, indeed, Cai’s intent to demonstrate to the ludus at large that I was no more than . . . well, no more than target practice to him, he was certainly going about it enthusiastically. And with an intensity that left my sword-side shoulder and arm burning as blow after blow from his blade rained down on mine. Meanwhile, my own blows fell harmlessly on his shield.

  “Don’t think, gladiatrix!” he admonished me. “Don’t hesita
te. There is breath and there is movement, and that is all. Now, fight! Move!”

  He was relentless, he was humorless. And while I didn’t think he was trying to hurt me, he was definitely trying to beat me. After a quarter hour or so, I no longer cared that I’d almost kissed him. Furious, I realized that a part of me had been holding back, and I gave myself over to the fight. I was a warrior. I was a gladiatrix. And if Caius Varro had come to me that day looking for a fight, by the goddess, he was going to get exactly that.

  “Are you so sure you don’t want that shield now?” he asked through gritted teeth. Our blades had locked up and we were nose to nose, grunting and thrusting, trying to outbalance each other.

  “I don’t like hiding behind things,” I grunted back. “It feels like cheating.”

  Except I was about to do just that. Cheat. As we strained against one another, leaning heavily on our swords, I let my focus drift off to one side of the courtyard . . . and let out a little gasp.

  I was shocked when that oldest of ruses actually worked.

  Cai’s gaze flicked over, following mine, and the pressure eased off my sword for the briefest of instants. I assumed he’d seen right through my little trick and was mocking me, ready to dance away from my blade. With a cry, I wound up with all the strength I could muster and delivered a slashing blow to his exposed flank.

  I heard his rib crack like the slap of a hard-shot arrow.

  Cai dropped to one knee in the sand with a cry of pain.

  The fight masters were on us in a flash. Thalestris shoved me out of the way, warning me with her rudis staff to stay back. I was stunned that my laughably obvious attempt at misdirection had worked. I glanced up and realized it was because there actually was something unexpected in the shadows at the edge of the pitch.

  For the first time since the accident, Antonia was out of the infirmary. She sat ghastly pale in a chair well back from the edge of the practice enclosure. Her right arm lay cradled in her lap, heavily bandaged, the strips of linen dark and discolored from the stubborn seepage of blood and from Heron’s salves.