The Defiant

  We weren’t rebels or renegades.

  We were defiant heroes, on our way to reclaim what was ours.

  And once we got there, we’d give them a show they’d never forget. As we traveled up the Via Clodia, the crowd followed, swelling with each mile, a festival parade. When we arrived, the mob that had gathered in the fields and in the stands, beneath the striped awnings and banners snapping in the evening breeze, roared mad approval. The closer we got to the arena, the more I could feel the bloodlust that fogged the air, thicker than I’d ever tasted it. Even during the Triumphs. It pressed against my skin and made me feel, for a moment, like I was suffocating. The mob was the only reason we’d been able to engineer this challenge, but they were not why I was fighting. Not who I was fighting for. I was fighting for the girls I rode with. I was fighting with them.

  This fight was for no one but us.

  Another wave of shouts and cheers went up, echoing off the distant hills and shaking the very walls of the Ludus Achillea in front of us. Pontius Aquila would have no choice but to send out most, if not all, of his gladiators—male and female. If he and his fighters stayed hemmed in behind those walls, I had little doubt the mob would storm the ludus in outrage at being denied their bloody spectacle. At the very least, he and Nyx and his whole Amazona contingent would become little more than a laughingstock. There would be no more munera for the Sons of Dis—not from Aquila at any rate—and he would lose any influence he wielded in the political circles of the Republic. I smiled to myself grimly. The mob didn’t know it, but they were our most powerful weapon in rendering the Sons of Dis powerless. They might very well achieve their desired bloodshed this night, but I swore to the Morrigan, it would not be in the way they expected.

  They could choke on the blood we would spill for all I cared.

  As the sun began, finally, to sink over the far distant hills, painting the arena purple with dusk, hundreds of torches flared to life. The roars of the crowd were like the gales of a summer storm, thundering in waves across the fields to slam into the walls of the ludus and roll back again over the makeshift stands. The sloping hills that cradled the lake on either side gathered the noise and echoed with the roars of “Victrix! Victrix!” making it seem as though the crowds of spectators were even larger than when I’d fought during the Triumphs in the Circus Maximus.

  Their cries shook my bones.

  Even as my sister walked out onto that field of combat in my place.

  Dressed in my Victrix armor.

  XVII

  I LAY IN the bottom of a boat, drifting across the silent water of Lake Sabatinus, half a mile away from the Ludus Achillea, listening to the faint dull roar of the crowds. I reached over, searching for Cai’s hand. His fingers, long and strong and calloused, tightened on mine, and he flicked a glance toward me, his clear hazel eyes glinting in the starlit darkness. The sun had long set, but there were so many torches burning in the makeshift arena in front of the ludus that the sky in the southwest seemed lit on fire.

  Still, I was grateful that it was the night before the new moon. The overarching darkness would make it easier for Sorcha, wearing my Victory helmet, to pass as me. And with any luck, it would also serve to help us infiltrate the Ludus Achillea from the lakeward side.

  It has been Arviragus’s strategy—one that he’d suggested to me when I’d told him back on Corsica about my idea to retake the ludus. Something learned from his time battling Julius Caesar in the forests of Gaul: Never commit all your forces to only one front of attack. As strategies went, it certainly wasn’t groundbreaking in its innovation. But then again, Pontius Aquila was no soldier, and I could only hope that he didn’t have the necessary strategic instincts to become one. With the massive spectacle we’d orchestrated in front of the ludus, I was counting—hoping, praying—on him having committed all, or at least most, of his defensive elements to dealing with the roaring tigers clawing at his front gate.

  Leaving the back door open to the silent, sneaky rats.

  It had gone according to plan, so far.

  Once our contingent of gladiatrices had arrived at the field arena, we’d made our way through the excited throng, straight to the pavilion tent Charon had commissioned to have built for us at the south end of the makeshift arena—a waiting place where the combatants could prepare for the coming spectacle, away from the raucous crowds. Sorcha had been waiting inside the tent since before dawn, and she and I had gone about our business swiftly and with minimal chatter. I shrugged out of my armored breastplate and battle kilt, my greaves and bracers and helmet, and handed over my signature weaponry—my dimachaerus swords.

  Sorcha was only a little taller than me, and with the crested Victrix helmet on her head obscuring most of her face beneath the decorated visor, no one would be able to tell the difference. Even I almost felt as if I was looking into a mirror once she settled the helmet on her head.

  As for me, I pulled my hair back into a quick, clumsy braid, hiding it under a tatty felt cap, and wrapped a shapeless servant’s cloak around me. Seated on folding campstools all around us, the other Achillea gladiatrices looked magnificent in the armor and weapons Charon’s abundant wealth had provided for them. They would accompany my sister onto the field as if she were me. All of them, Ajani and Elka included, though the latter had protested bitterly. But even she had to admit that it would look strange, indeed, if the Victrix’s “frost maiden”—as, apparently, Elka had become known among the plebs—wasn’t at her side for the battle.

  And so, while my sister gladiatrices fought honorably at “my” side, in reality, Cai and Quint and I would be carrying on the dirtier business of double-dealing.

  “This feels so awkward,” Sorcha muttered, shifting my two swords on her hips so that they sat comfortably. As comfortably as possible for one who wasn’t used to wearing them.

  “Just let her disarm you on one side as soon as you can without making it look intentional,” I said. “And then you’ll have all the advantage you need in the fight.”

  “I might not have to let her disarm me,” she said, drawing a blade with her left hand and spinning it in her palm—just a tiny bit clumsily. “I might just drop the damned thing trying to hold it!”

  I hid an indulgent grin, only because I could tell that Sorcha was actually—and this was something I hadn’t expected—nervous. What I was counting on was that once she was in the ring, my legendary warrior sister would remember who—and what—she was, and all would be right. Our entire strategy hinged on the deception. Nyx knew me. She knew how to fight me. She knew how to beat me.

  She was expecting it to be me out there in that arena.

  And that was why she would lose.

  Once Sorcha began to fight her way—the way she’d retrained herself to fight after the injury in the arena that had ended her career—she would destroy Nyx. In a way that I could never hope to do. And while she did, I would be busy retaking the ludus. Just like I’d promised. To that end, it was time to put the second phase of the plan into motion. I nodded to Cai, who put a hand on Quint’s shoulder. They stood and hefted legion packs onto their backs that made heavy, dull clanking sounds as they settled the straps on their shoulders.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  Quint saluted Sorcha and the girls, but before he had a chance to leave the tent, Elka stood up and stepped in front of him.

  “Behave yourself around that pack of she-wolf Amazon cubs,” she said.

  “I will.” Quint nodded without thinking. And then froze, blinking dumbly, when he realized Elka had actually spoken to him. “I . . . what?”

  “I like my men with their virtue unsullied,” she said, grinning wolfishly herself as she reached out to grab him by the chin.

  “Un . . . sullied . . .”

  “By anyone but me,” she continued.

  Then she leaned in and kissed him, full on his open, astonished mouth.

&nb
sp; I bit my cheek to keep from dissolving into gales of laughter as she sat back down, leaving the poor boy standing there, looking for all the world as if he’d been shot, not with Cupid the love god’s arrow but Diana the Huntress’s. A whole quiverful of them.

  Before the others could tear him to further pieces with mockery, Quint ducked his head and pushed his way out of the tent. Cai followed. I waited for as long as I could stand it, then hugged my sister, hefted an empty basket up onto my shoulder to help hide my face, and ducked out of the tent myself. No one looked at me twice as I shouldered my way through the crowds, following the crests of Cai’s and Quint’s helmets. No one was looking for Victrix in the body of a lowly serving slave. Once we reached the outer perimeter of the crowd, I ditched the basket and the three of us broke into a run, heading in the direction of a road that circled off to the east, leading to the opulent villas on the other side of Lake Sabatinus.

  • • •

  When we arrived at the gates of one particularly sprawling estate, the bulky-muscled eunuch who’d been called to deal with us had been aghast at granting me an audience with Cleopatra. I was fortunate that Sorcha’s name carried far more weight than mine. I told him what our situation was—as succinctly as possible—and the Aegyptian queen’s chief bodyguard grunted and grumbled but finally led us to a triclinium, where we were to wait for her Royal Highness.

  As the skies began to grow dark I started to fret that my plan would unravel if we didn’t see her soon. And then the far gilded doors flew open and Cleopatra came striding across the marble floor, golden-beaded sandals slapping a war tattoo as she came. Cleopatra, it seemed, was itching for a healthy dose of vengeance in Sorcha’s name.

  “Dead, they told me!” she exclaimed angrily. “When I sent my maids calling at the ludus for your sister to come visit me. Dead in an uprising and at your hand, little one.”

  “But you didn’t believe them?” Cai asked deferentially.

  She laughed and threw herself down upon a gilded couch, motioning for us all to sit. “Take it from one who has—and on more than one occasion—actually tried to murder her sister. Not for a second.” She turned to me. “There is nothing of that in you. I know how much you love Sorcha. I’m almost as fond myself. And therefore, anything you ask of me, on her behalf, you may have.”

  “A boat, Your Highness,” I said, perching anxiously on the edge of a carved ebony chair. “That’s all. Just a boat to get us across the lake unnoticed.”

  “A stealthy attack?” the queen said, leaning forward on her couch and swinging her sandaled feet back down to the floor. “But there are only three of you.”

  “There are more of us, inside the ludus.” I told her of the gladiatix sisters I’d left behind. And of the Amazons that Charon had “sold” to the ludus. “All we have to do is get to them and set them free.”

  “That sounds exciting!” Cleopatra’s wide dark eyes glittered dangerously. “Of course you can have the use of my boats. Take my barge if you’d like. And my men—there aren’t many of them, and they’re mostly fat and lazy like Sennefer here.” She waved a hand at her eunuch bodyguard. “But I approve in Caesar’s name of this adventure.”

  “Well . . . less an adventure, perhaps, than a dangerous folly,” I allowed.

  “Perhaps I shall come with you—”

  “Absolutely not!” the eunuch erupted in argument, his face going purple.

  Cleopatra rolled her eyes. “Sennefer has no sense of adventure.”

  Perhaps not, I thought, but I was glad of it. While I suspected—from what I’d heard from several sources, including Caesar himself—that Cleopatra was likely more than capable of killing an enemy with poison or an unexpected knife in the back at a dinner party, I had no relish of the prospect of utilizing her lethal charms that night. What was to come would be chaotic and dangerous . . . and dirty. Quite frankly, if I could have killed Nyx without having to look her in the eyes first, I would take that opportunity, because I knew that, under the same circumstances, she certainly wouldn’t do me the courtesy of a tap on the shoulder first.

  But that was my business. Not the queen’s.

  At any rate, Cleopatra relented almost immediately with a shrug.

  “He does, however,” she continued, “have a point. I am the daughter of the gods and, as such, should probably leave such robust bloodshed to you who are trained in those arts.”

  I bowed low and stood, so that we could be on our way swiftly.

  “Wait.” Cleopatra stopped me before I could leave. “You’re not planning on going out dressed like that, are you?”

  “Uh . . .” I looked down at the plain linen tunic and sandals I wore. “I gave my armor to Sorcha so she could fight in my place.”

  “Well.” The queen wrinkled her nose. “That will never do. Sennefer, fetch.”

  Sennefer rolled his eyes, but seemed to know what his mistress was talking of, even if I didn’t. He left the room by a side door painted with scenes of a royal hunting party. The wooden trunk with which he returned, when he opened it at my feet, was full of a sight to make my warrior’s heart soar with longing and delight.

  Armor. Glorious armor. Fit for a queen. Or a Cantii princess.

  “I have, on occasion, bestowed gifts on your sister,” Cleopatra said, clearly delighted by my reaction. “But this time, I have something for you, Fallon ferch Virico. It was to be a gift—for your first arena fight under the Nova Ludus Achillea banner. Which, I suppose, technically this is. Or will be—if you win. So please do. I hate wasting presents.”

  As Cai and Quint helped buckle me into the new gear, Cleopatra had one more gift for me.

  “Truly, I am sorry that you and my dear Sorcha have found yourselves entangled in the webs woven to ensare Caesar,” she said, as she rose and walked over to a coffer-like jewelry box resting on a table in a corner of the room. It was almost as big as the trunk in my cell at the ludus—the one that held everything I owned of value. “And I know,” she continued, “that were he here, my lord would be both proud and grateful to you, Fallon. Since he is not here, allow me to act in his stead.” She rummaged for a moment, and emerged with a silver and faience pendant—the elegant head of a lioness. “This,” she said, smiling, “is Sekhemet. One of my goddesses, and much like—if I understand what your sister has told me—your own goddess, the Morrigan.”

  The queen fastened the necklace around my neck, and I could feel the cool silver warming almost instantly against my skin as I tucked it beneath my new armor.

  “She was an adversary to Anubis, who is akin to Dis,” she continued. “She is wise and loving and tender . . . and merciless.”

  I looked into Cleopatra’s eyes and saw a dark, implacable glint in her gaze.

  “Now,” she said with a terrifying smile, “go get the bastards.”

  • • •

  Sennefer escorted us down to the lake dock.

  “You cannot have her barge,” he said.

  “I don’t need the barge,” I agreed.

  “And you cannot have her soldiers.”

  “I don’t want her soldiers.”

  “Good.” He stopped abruptly and looked at me, his expression grave. “The queen has not thought of it this way,” he said, “but she is in danger as grave as any you face. And from the same men. They hide in shadows, pray to dark gods for power, whisper and scheme in the halls of the politicians, and use the mob’s thirst for the gladiators against their masters . . . and all of it for a single purpose. To throw down Caesar. This you already know. But if they succeed, if the great general topples from that lofty height, then Cleopatra will have no friend here in the land of the Romans. They hate women. They hate powerful women. They hate her, most of all.”

  I thought about that for a moment and knew it to be true. The Optimates saw Cleopatra as a vile foreign seductress. A barbarian whore who prayed to false gods and tempted Cae
sar to think of himself as one of those gods. At least, that’s the way they would frame the picture if it ever came time to act against her.

  “Take care of her, Sennefer,” I said. “As much as she will let you.”

  He sighed. “I always do, lady. May Osiris bar the doors of his underworld kingdom to you. For as long as he can.”

  He turned and clasped wrists with Cai and Quint, and then left us to ourselves at the edge of the water. On a far dock, I saw the boat we’d used during our naumachia for the queen, with its chopped-off mast still sticking up midship like the trunk of a felled tree. It seemed like only the morning past we’d performed the whole silly spectacle, but it wasn’t. It was a lifetime in the past. Leander’s lifetime. Meriel’s. Probably Tanis and Lydia were gone too. Maybe others from the handful of girls who hadn’t made it out of the ludus that night.

  We chose a boat that was small and sleek, low to the water, and painted dark blue. Cai and Quint loaded their legion packs into the boat, and I climbed in, crouching as low as I could. Then we pushed off, Cai rowing as silently as he could. The oars were well oiled in the locks, and there was barely a creak and splash as we glided over the black water of the Sabatinus. As we approached the shore where the ludus walls loomed above us, the noise of the gathered crowds in the arena field beyond was like the roar of surf on the ocean. The dark skies were bright with the multitudes of flaming torches that illuminated the spectacle about to begin. I felt my heart beating like a war drum in my chest as the shallow keel of the boat grated, slithering up the sandy beach, and we dropped over the sides.