‘I am not sure that I can win against Sorina,’ she said quietly.
‘Despite it all, I am not as confident as I should be. We have much to fight for and, though I am certain of my skills, I know that her will to win is as strong as my own. I am the younger, the stronger, but she is the Gladiatrix Prima. Never defeated. Her experience may tell.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Varia chided. ‘She’s all used up. You will win.’
‘The point is,’ Lysandra ignored Varia’s blind optimism, ‘that if I defeat Nastasen, I will have no doubt in my mind that I will go on to beat her. It is necessary that I face him for this reason above all. He is my catalyst. To win against him is the ultimate prize, Varia. After that Sorina will be a mere formality. In here.’
She tapped her head.
‘I don’t know why you are making such a fuss.’ Varia shrugged.
‘He’s as good as dead, Lysandra. There has never been a gladiatrix like you. You are the best that there has ever been.’
‘Of course,’ Lysandra responded, more from habit than real conviction. ‘I am being foolish.’ The words, however, were imbued with a confidence she did not feel.
LI
‘What you are doing is wrong,’ Catuvolcos said, wiping the foam from his mouth.
‘No, what you are doing is wrong,’ Sorina bristled.
‘Training with her.’
‘She will need help to face Nastasen,’ Catuvolcos said earnestly.
‘Only I am anywhere near as strong as he.’
‘This is true, but in aiding her, you could hasten my defeat.
You are making her stronger and faster — this is the result of training against a man’s strength. So it is your actions that forced me to train with Nastasen. I must have all the advantages she has if I am to kill her.’
‘Maybe.’ He handed her the beer sack. ‘But that isn’t the real reason, is it? You’re training with him to unsettle her.’
‘That too,’ Sorina said. ‘And why not? She is trying her mind games with me. She will learn that I am long enough in the tooth not to be affected by this sort of thing. I think her game has been turned about.’
Catuvolcos did not reply to that. ‘You could find other men to train with?’ he protested. ‘There are plenty of gladiators who would help you.’
‘I know. But it will be Nastasen, for those reasons we spoke of.’
‘He raped her, Sorina. You lose honour in what you do.’
Sorina fixed him with her chestnut-coloured eyes. ‘Honour, Catuvolcos? It has died in this place. It died with Eirianwen.
Perhaps it died when I was made a slave. Honour will be satisfied when Lysandra is dead and Eirianwen is avenged. That is all that matters.’
‘You think Eirianwen would approve of this, Sorina?’ Catuvolcos did not hide his exasperation. ‘Like it or not, she loved Lysandra!’
‘And I loved her,’ Sorina flared. ‘She was like my own daughter, Catuvolcos, and a part of me died with her. You cannot know how I feel. I struck the blow, but her blood is not on my hands.
Lysandra…’ The name dripped with a hatred Catuvolcos found chilling. ‘Lysandra. It is always her. Before she came we were at least happy, if happiness can be found in such a place. You and I were close yet — and let us not lie to one another — our friendship is not what it once was. Eirianwen was alive. All was as it should be. Even Nastasen,’ she threw up her hands. ‘For years he had been at the ludus. Never had he laid a hand on any of us.
He was cruel for sure, but he was no rapist. But Lysandra drove him to it. She is a witch. She brings death and hatred where she walks. She beguiles with her false austerity then wantonly displays her body, claiming it is natural to be so. But we know how she snared you. Balbus panders to her whims and even Stick, of all people, has a place in his heart for her. He likes her. And Stick likes no one. There is magic in what she does, Catuvolcos, and none of it good. I will kill her for the better of all.’
‘You’re insane in hatred, woman. You will not beat her, for you hate too much. It has clouded your mind…’
Sorina surged upwards, her face close to his. ‘Don’t say that!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t say it, Catuvolcos. I will destroy her, I will cut her down. I will bathe in her blood!’
Despite himself, Catuvolcos took a step back at the maniacal fervour in Sorina’s eyes. Saddened, he turned away.
‘Catuvolcos.’ Halting, he looked back. Slowly, deliberately, Sorina spat on the ground between them. ‘Go to her, then. We are finished, you and I.’
‘We were finished a long time ago,’ he said softly. ‘Sorina is dead. She, like honour, died with Eirianwen, and I only see it now. She has not seen it herself.’
‘And Catuvolcos is dead to Sorina.’ She did not wait for a response but stalked off, burning with fury.
Attalus yawned. The Macedonian was weary, and yet his guard duty had only just begun. It was, he thought, a good job, and he was lucky to work for Balbus. The pay was decent, the job safe.
Certainly safer than taking the Legionary’s oath, more secure than patrolling the streets as one of the urbanae, which in its turn offered its own dangers. However, there were some parts of the job that were less than savoury. He glanced at the cell door, knowing that the giant, Nastasen, slept within. An evil bastard, Attalus thought. Admittedly, that Lysandra was a stroppy one but nobody deserved what the Nubian had dished out. Guarding the door alone, so close to the giant savage gave Attalus the chills.
Lysandra was becoming quite the love of the crowds, the Macedonian mused. He recalled that it was he who had spoken to her first and she had mocked his accented Latin. He should have known even back then that she was something different from the rest. If any mere woman could defeat a strong man, it was Lysandra. She had bigger balls than most of the guards, that was certain.
He chuckled at that, but then was unable even to cry out as strong hands gripped his head and, with appalling suddenness, the wall loomed up in his eyes. There was sickening pain as his skull crunched into the unyielding stone. He tried to struggle but again his head was smacked into the wall. Attalus felt his legs go, and then there was nothingness.
Nastasen blinked into wakefulness as the torchlight from the catacombs fell upon him. ‘What’s going on?’ he mumbled, brushing the sleep from his eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, swinging his legs from the cot, his face splitting into a grin.
‘Come to keep me warm?’
The sword thrust took him straight in the chest. He cried out in shock and pain as the fire of agony engulfed him. Huge gouts of blood erupted from the wound and he slumped back on the cot, a stunned expression of horror on his face. Holding up his hands, he called for help but the entreaty became a scream as the gladius whistled downwards, biting into his meaty forearm.
Again the weapon fell, cutting his face, blow after blow raining upon him, butchering him where he lay.
Nastasen shrieked frantically for help, his strength gone. The walls of the cell were coated in his blood, the stink of his shit rising from between his legs. The skin of his arms hung about in bloody tatters as the attacker stepped in.
‘Why?’ he whispered, blood bubbling on his thick lips.
‘Because I must win,’ came the response. The gladius swung again, catching him on the side of the neck, spraying blood and ichor into the air. The severed head clattered across the floor, Nastasen’s final expression one of open-mouthed horror.
‘… And because you are a pig.’
The room was awash with blood. Despite the chill of the early morning, flies had, with their unerring sense for such things, found their way into the cell and had already begun feasting upon Nastasen’s corpse.
‘Jupiter’s sake!’ Balbus hissed, running a hand over his thin-ning hair. ‘What a mess.’ Despite the fact that he
