Mistress of Rome, Page 2

  “Marvelous!” Pollio threw a few coins into the arena. Lepida picked through a plate of honeyed dates. I concentrated on the peacock fan. Swish, swish, swish.

  A bull and a bear battled next, then a lion and a leopard. Tidbits to whet the appetite, as it were. The bear was sullen, and three handlers with sharp rods had to goad its flanks bloody before it attacked the bull, but the lion and the leopard screamed and flew at each other the moment the chains were released. The crowd cheered and chattered, sighed and settled back. Pomp and spectacle came next, dazzling the eye after the crowd’s attention was honed: tame cheetahs in silver harnesses padding round the arena, white bulls with little golden boys capering on their backs, jeweled and tasseled elephants lumbering in stately dance steps accompanied by Nubian flute players . . .

  “Father, can’t I have a Nubian slave?” Lepida plucked at her father’s arm. “Two, even. A matched pair to carry my packages when I go shopping—”

  Comic acts next. A tame tiger was released into the arena after a dozen sprinting hares, bounding in a flash of stripes to collect them one by one in his jaws and return them unharmed to the trainer. Rather nice, really. I enjoyed it, but there were scattered boos through the stands. Fans of the Colosseum didn’t come for games; they came for blood.

  “The Emperor,” Quintus Pollio was droning, “is especially fond of the goddess Minerva. He has built a new shrine to her in his palace. Perhaps we should make a few large public offerings—”

  The tame tiger and his handler padded out, replaced by a hundred white deer and a hundred long-necked ostriches who were released galloping into the arena and shot down one by one by archers on high. Lepida saw some acquaintance in a neighboring box and cooed greetings through most of the blood.

  More animal fights. Spearmen against lions, against buffaloes, against bulls. The buffaloes went down bewildered and mooing, the bulls ran maddened onto the spears that gouged their chests open, but the lions snarled and stalked and took a spearman with them before they were chased down and gutted. Such wonderful fun. Swish, swish, swish.

  “Oh, the gladiators.” Lepida cast the plate of dates aside and sat up. “Fine specimens, Father.”

  “Nothing but the best for the Emperor.” He chucked his daughter’s chin. “And for my little one who loves the games! The Emperor wanted a battle today, not just the usual duels. Something big and special before the midday executions—”

  In purple cloaks the gladiators filed out of the gates, making a slow circle of the arena as the fans cheered. Some strutted proudly; some stalked ahead without looking right or left. The handsome Thracian trident fighter blew kisses to the crowd and was showered with roses by adoring women. Fifty gladiators, paired off to fight to the death. Twenty-five would exit in triumph through the arena’s Gate of Life. Twenty-five would be dragged out through the Gate of Death on iron hooks.

  “Hail, Emperor!” As one they roared out toward the Imperial box. “We salute you from death’s shadow!”

  The clank of sharpened weapons. The scrape of plated armor. The crunch of many feet on sand as they spread out in their pairs. A few mock combats first with wooden weapons, and then the Emperor dropped his hand.

  The blades crashed. The audience surged forward, straining against the marble barriers, shouting encouragement to the favorites, cursing the clumsy. Waving, wagering, shrieking.

  Don’t look. Swish, swish, went the fan. Don’t look.

  “Thea,” Lepida said sweetly. “What do you think of that German?”

  I looked. “Unlucky,” I said as the man died howling on his opponent’s trident. In the next box, a senator threw down a handful of coins in disgust.

  The arena was a raging sea of fighters. Already the sand was patched with blood.

  “The Gaul over there wants mercy.” Pollio peered out, sipping at his wine cup. “Poor show, he dropped his shield. Iugula!”

  Iugula—“Kill him.” There was also Mitte—“spare him”—but you didn’t hear that nearly so often. As I was to find out, it took an extraordinary show of courage to move the Colosseum to mercy. They wanted heroism, they wanted blood, they wanted death. Not scared men. Not mercy.

  It was over quite quickly. The victors strutted before the Imperial box, where the Emperor tossed coins to those who had fought well. The losers lay crumpled and silent on the sand, waiting to be raked away by the arena attendants. One or two men still writhed in their death throes, shrieking as they tried to stuff the guts back into their own bellies. Laughing tribunes and giggling girls laid bets on how long it would take them to die.

  Swish, swish, swish. My arms ached.

  “Fruit, Dominus?” A slave came to Pollio’s elbow with a tray of grapes and figs. Lepida gestured for more wine, and all through the patrician boxes I saw people sitting back to chatter. In the tiers above, plebs fanned themselves and looked for the hawkers who darted with bread and beer for sale. In his Imperial box the Emperor leaned back on one elbow, rolling dice with his guards. The morning had flown. For some, dragged.

  For the midday break, business was attended to inside the arena. The dead gladiators had all been carted away, the patches of blood raked over, and now the arena guards led out a shuffling line of shackled figures. Slaves, criminals, prisoners; all sentenced for execution.

  “Father, can’t I have more wine? It’s a special occasion!”

  Down in the arena, the man at the head of the shackled line blinked as a blunt sword was shoved into his hands. He stared at it, dull-eyed and bent-backed, and the arena guard prodded him. He turned wearily and hacked at the chained man behind him. A dull blade, because it took a great deal of hacking. I could hardly hear the man’s screams over the chatter in the stands. No one seemed to be paying attention to the arena at all.

  The arena guards disarmed the first slave roughly, passing the sword to the next in line. A woman. She killed the man, roughly cutting his throat; was disarmed, killed in turn by the next who tried vainly to stab her through the heart. It took a dozen strokes of the dull sword.

  I looked down the chained line. Perhaps twenty prisoners. Old and young, men and women, identical in their bent shoulders and shuffling feet. Only one stood straight, a big man gazing around him with blank eyes. Even from the stands I could see the whip marks latticing his bare back.

  “Father, when does Belleraphon’s bout come up? I’m dying to see what he can do against that Thracian—”

  The guards gave the blunt sword to the man with the scars. He hefted it a moment in his shackled hands, gave it a swing. No hacking for him; he killed the man who had gone before him in one efficient thrust. I winced.

  The arena guard reached for the sword and the big scarred man fell a step back, holding the blade up between them. The guard gestured, holding out an impatient hand, and then it all went to hell.

  HAND it over,” the guard said. He stood spraddle-legged on the hot sand, heaving air into his parched lungs. The sun scorched down on his naked shoulders and he could feel every separate grain beneath his bare, hardened feet. Sweat stung his wrists and ankles under the rusty cuffs of his chains. His hands had welded around the sword hilt.

  “Hand over that sword,” the guard ordered. “You’re holding up the show.”

  He stared back glassy-eyed.

  “Hand—over—that—sword.” Extending an imperious hand.

  He cut it off.

  The guard screamed. The slick of blood gleamed bright in the midday sun. The other guards rushed.

  He had not held a sword in over ten years. Much too long, he would have said, to remember anything. But it came back. Fueled by rage it came back fast—the sweet weight of the hilt in his hand, the bite of blade into bone, the black demon’s fury that filmed the eyes and whispered in the ear.

  Kill them, it said. Kill them all.

  He met the first guard in a savage joyful rush, swords meeting with a dull screech. He bore down with every muscle, feeling his body arch like a good bow, and saw the sudden leap of fear in the gu
ard’s eyes as he felt the strength on the other end of the blade. These Romans with their plumes and pride and shiny breastplates, they didn’t think a slave could be strong. In two more thrusts he reduced the guard to a heap of twitching meat on the sand.

  More Romans, bright blurs in their feathered crests. A guard fell writhing as dull iron chewed through his hamstrings. A liquid scream.

  He savored it. Lunged for another bronze breastplate. The blade slid neatly through the armhole. Another shield falling, another scream.

  Not enough, the demon voice whispered. Not enough.

  He felt distant pain along his back as a blade cut deep, and smiled, turning to chop down savagely. A slave’s toughest flesh was on his back, but they didn’t know that—these men whose vineyards were tended by captive warriors from Gaul and their beds warmed by sullen Thracian slave girls. They didn’t know anything. He cut the guard down, tasting blood in his rough beard.

  Not enough.

  The sky whirled and turned white as something struck the back of his head. He staggered, turned, raised his blade, felt his entire arm go numb as a guard smashed an iron shield boss against his elbow. Distantly he watched the sword drop from his fingers, falling to hands and knees as a sword hilt crashed against his skull. Sweat trickled into his eyes. Acid, bitter. He sighed as the armored boots buffeted his sides, as the black demon in his head turned back in on itself like a snake devouring its own tail. A familiar road. One he had trodden all his years under whips and chains. With a sword in his hand, everything had been so simple.

  Not enough. Never enough.

  Over the sound of his own cracking bones, he heard a roar. A vast, impersonal roar like the crashing of the sea. For the first time he turned his eyes outward and saw them: spectators, packed tier upon tier in their thousands. Senators in purple-bordered togas. Matrons in bright silk stolas. Priests in white robes. So many . . . did the world hold so many people? He saw a boy’s face leap out at him from the front tier, crazily distinct, a boy in a fine toga shouting through a mouthful of figs—and clapping.

  They were all clapping. The great arena resounded with applause.

  Through dimming eyes, he made out the Imperial balcony. He was close enough to see a fair-haired girl with a white appalled face, one of the Imperial nieces . . . close enough to see the Emperor, his ruddy cheeks, his purple cloak, his amused gaze . . . close enough to see the Imperial hand rise carelessly.

  Holding out a hand in the sign of mercy.

  Why? he thought. Why?

  Then the world disappeared.

  LEPIDA chattered on as I undressed her for bed that night—not about the games, of course; all that death and blood was old news. Her father had mentioned a certain senator, a man who might be a possible husband for her, and that was all she could talk about. “Senator Marcus Norbanus, his name is, and he’s terribly old—” I hardly heard a word.

  The slave with the scarred back. A Briton, a Gaul? He had fought so savagely, swinging his sword like Goliath, ignoring his own wounds. He’d been snarling even when they brought him down, not caring if he lived or died as long as he took a few with him.

  “Thea, be careful with those pearls. They’re worth three of you.”

  I’d seen a hundred slaves like him, served beside them and avoided them. They drank too much, they scowled at their masters and were flogged for troublemakers and did as little work as they could get away with. Men to avoid in quiet corners of the house, if no one was near enough to hear you struggling. Thugs.

  So why did I weep suddenly when they brought him down in the arena? I hadn’t wept when I was sold to Lepida. I hadn’t even wept when I watched the gladiators and the poor bewildered animals slaughtered before my eyes. Why had I wept for a thug?

  I didn’t even know his name.

  “Well, I don’t think Emperor Domitian is terribly handsome, but it’s hard to tell from a distance, isn’t it?” Lepida frowned at a chipped nail. “I do wish we could have some handsome dashing Emperor instead of these stolid middle-aged men.”

  The Emperor. Why had he bothered to save a half-dead slave? The crowd had clapped for his death as much as for the show he put on. Why save him?

  “Go away, Thea. I don’t want you anymore. You’re quite stupid tonight.”

  “As you wish,” I said in Greek, blowing out her lamp. “You cheap, snide little shrew.”

  I weaved my way down the hall, leaning against the shadowed pillars for balance, trying not to think of my blue bowl. Not good to bleed myself twice in one day, but oh, I wanted to.

  “Ah, Thea. Just what I need.”

  I stared blurrily at the two Quintus Pollios who beckoned me into the bedchamber and onto the silver sleeping couch. I closed my eyes, stifling a yawn and hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of his huffing and puffing. Slave girls aren’t expected to be enthusiastic, but they are expected to be cheerful. I patted his shoulder as he labored over me. His lips peeled back from his teeth like a mule’s during the act of . . . well, whatever you want to call it.

  “What a good girl you are, Thea.” Sleepily patting my flank. “Run along, now.”

  I shook down my tunic and slipped out the door. Likely tomorrow he’d slip me a copper.

  PART ONE

  JULIA

  In the Temple of Vesta

  Yesterday, Titus Flavius Domitianus was just my brusque and rather strange uncle. Today he is Lord and God, Pontifex Maximus, Emperor of Rome. Like my father and grandfather before him, he is master of the world. And I am afraid.

  But he has been kind to me. He says I will marry my cousin Gaius soon, and he promised me splendid games for the celebration. I couldn’t tell him that I hate the games. He means to be kind. He says his Empress will fit me for my wedding gown. She is very beautiful in her green silk and emeralds, and they whisper that he’s mad with love for her. They also whisper that she hates him—but people like to whisper.

  I stare at the fl ame until there are two fl ames.

  I’m afraid. I’m always afraid. Shadows under the bed, shapes in the dark, voices in the air.

  My uncle watched a thousand men die in the arena today—and he saved just one. He hates the rest of the family—but is kind to me.

  What does my uncle want? Does anyone know?

  Vesta, goddess of hearth and home, watch over me. I need you, now.

  One

  APRIL, A. D. 82

  THE atmosphere at the Mars Street gladiator school was contented, convivial, and masculine as the tired fighters trooped in through the gates. Twenty fighters had sallied out to join the main battle of the Cerealia games, and fourteen had come back alive. A good enough average to make the victors swagger as they filed through the narrow torch-lit hall, dumping their armor into the waiting baskets.

  “. . . hooked that Greek right through the stomach! Prettiest piece of work I . . .”

  “. . . see that bastard Lapicus get it in the back from that Gaul? Won’t be looking down his long nose at us anymore . . .”

  “. . . hard luck on Theseus. Saw him trip in the sand . . .”

  Arius tossed his plumed helmet into the waiting basket, ignoring the slave who gave him cheery congratulations. The weapons had already been collected, of course—those got snatched the moment the fighting was done.

  “First fight?” A chatty Thracian tossed his own helmet into the basket atop Arius’s. “Mine, too. Not bad, huh?”

  Arius bent to unlace the greaves about his shins.

  “Nice work you did on that African today. Had me one of those scrawny Oriental Greeks; no trouble there. Hey, maybe next time I’ll get Belleraphon and then I’ll really make my fortune.”

  Arius unlaced the protective mail sleeve from his sword arm, shaking it off into the basket. The other fighters were already trooping into the long hall where they were all fed, whooping as they filed along the trestle tables and grabbed for the wine jugs.

  “Quiet, aren’t you?” The Thracian jogged his elbow. “So where you from? I
came over from Greece last year—”

  “Shut up,” said Arius in his flat grating Latin.

  “What?”

  Brushing past the Thracian into the hall, he ignored the trestle tables and the platters of bread and meat. He leaned over and grabbed the first wine jug he saw, then headed off down another small ill-lit hallway. “Don’t mind him,” he heard another fighter growl to the Thracian. “He’s a sour bastard.”

  Arius’s room in the gladiator barracks was a tiny bare cell. Stone walls, a chair, a straw pallet, a guttering tallow candle. He sank down on the floor, setting his back against the wall and draining half the jug in a few methodical gulps. The cheap grapes left a sour taste in his mouth. No matter. Roman wine was quick, and all he wanted was quick.

  “Knock knock!” a voice trilled at the door. “I hope you aren’t asleep yet, dear boy.”

  “Piss off, Gallus.”

  “Tut, tut. Is that any way to treat your lanista? Not to mention your friend?” Gallus swept in, vast and pink-fleshed in his immaculate toga, gold gleaming on every finger, magnolia oil shining on every curled hair, a little silk-decked slave boy at his side. Owner of the Mars Street gladiator school.

  Arius spat out a toneless obscenity. Gallus laughed. “Now, now, none of that. I came to congratulate you. Such a splendid debut. When you sent the head flying clean off that African . . . so dramatic! I was a little surprised, of course. Such dedication, such savagery, from one who swore not an hour before that he wouldn’t fight at all . . .”

  Arius took another deep swallow of wine.

  “Well, how nice it is to be right. The first time I saw you, I knew you had potential. A little old for the arena, of course—how old are you, anyway? Twenty-five, thirty? No youngster, but you’ve certainly got something.” Gallus waved his silver pomander languidly.

  Arius looked at him.

  “You’ll get another fight in the next games, of course. Something a little bigger and grander, if I can persuade Quintus Pollio. A solo bout, perhaps. And this time”—a glass-sharp glance—“I won’t have to worry that you’ll deliver, will I.”