‘Stiff and sore, but the surgeon tells me that I am healing well and will be able to return to the ludus soon. Although by wagon.
I am not ready to ride just yet.’
‘Well, that’s no problem.’ He patted her hand. ‘Just as long as my best fighter is back up to speed soon, that’s the main thing.’
‘You’re in very good spirits, lanista,’ Sorina said, eyeing him archly. ‘Why are you still in the city, anyway? Shouldn’t you be back at the ludus?’
‘Business,’ Balbus replied glibly. ‘The gladiatrix has only to concern herself with the next bout, but the lanista must arrange those bouts. Also, I’m looking at expanding,’ he added. Sorina could see that he was having difficulty in expressing his obvious delight at making a fortune and tempering it with a suitably solemn demeanour. After all, the fortune was earned with the blood of his slaves.
‘You are buying more slaves, then?’
‘Well, yes.’ Balbus cleared his throat. ‘And meeting with building contractors to increase the capacity of the school itself.’
‘We have enough room at the ludus for more than twice the number it now holds,’ Sorina pressed him. ‘Just how big are you going, Balbus?’
‘Very.’ He smiled, somewhat uncomfortably. ‘But don’t you worry about that now. Just get yourself well. I’ll have you taken to the ludus as soon as you are ready to travel.’
Sorina was about to speak again, but Balbus got to his feet, indicating that their conversation was at an end, so she dismissed the matter. She would see what his plans were soon enough.
Lysandra tried to immerse herself in the tasks that Telemachus had set her, hoping it would be a diversion from her thoughts and the recurring memory of Nastasen. But she could not escape her mind, filled as it was with visions of the rape. Worse, when the sun played across the pages, she was reminded of Eirianwen, and the light she had brought to her life. If the days were bad, she feared the night. Sleep, if it came, was a constant torment: Nyx, the Goddess of Nightmares, denied her the embrace of Morpheus with savage malice. When she was not forced to relive the horror of the cell, Eirianwen’s death was played out for her in bloody detail.
The lack of sleep began to fray her already taut nerves and, one afternoon as she pored over a scroll, she finally broke down.
Tears flooded in her eyes, her throat filled with shards of glass.
Telemachus had heard her, and rushed to the small area in which she worked. She looked up at him, her face red and stained.
‘There now,’ the priest said, sitting opposite her. ‘What’s amiss?’
Lysandra shook her head mutely, her tears splashing on the parchment, spoiling the ink. ‘I miss her so much,’ she said after some time. ‘I just cannot bear it.’
Telemachus sighed, his mouth setting a grim slash in his beard.
‘To lose a loved one is the worst pain of all, Lysandra. I know this. But I know also that no one in the world has ever suffered as badly as you.’
Lysandra sniffed. ‘Of course they have.’ She was about to speak again but fresh spasms of grief welled up in her. She felt the priest’s hand on her shoulder and she jolted at the male touch.
But it was brief and he was already past her, returning momentarily with a krater of wine.
‘What I mean is,’ he said as he poured, ‘our own suffering is always the worst. Logically, we know that others feel pain too — but logic has no place in the heart, Lysandra.’
‘I am ashamed of my weakness,’ she said. ‘This is not the Spartan way.’ She wanted to claw at her face, so strong was the pain that wracked her chest.
‘You have nothing to be ashamed of,’ Telemachus told her.
‘These wounds you bear have cut you worse than any sword can.
A lesser woman would have died, but you…’ he trailed off for a moment. ‘You have more strength than you know. It may not seem so at the moment, but you do.’
‘I feel that I have not the will to live.’ She shuddered and reached for the wine cup. Telemachus did not comment as she drained it. ‘What Nastasen did to me, I could bear if only Eirianwen were here to hold me. But I am alone, Telemachus. In here.’ She tapped her chest.
He shook his head. ‘You are not alone, dear Lysandra. In times of grief, to share it with one’s friends is the best thing. And I am a friend to you, Spartan. Any hurt takes time to heal and you are welcome here for as long as you wish it.’
‘But I must return to the ludus as soon as I am able to fight,’ she said earnestly.
‘Yes, but you are not able to fight yet.’ The priest poured her a stiffer measure of wine and she took it, knowing that to walk with Dionysus was to keep Nyx at bay.
Telemachus watched as Lysandra threw back the un-mixed wine.
There was a chilling eagerness in her voice when she expressed her desire to return to the ludus, but to send her back to the sands before her mental scars had healed would be tantamount to assisting her suicide. He did not see fit to bring this up with her, as she would only deny it. ‘Have another drink,’ he offered.
‘It is not always the answer, but sometimes it helps.’
Lysandra did as she was bidden and in time she became drunk, and erupted once more into floods of tears, rambling about Eirianwen and the attack in the cell. It was all Telemachus could do to keep a tear from his own eye at her plight. He was, by nature, a cynical man, but he could not fail to be moved by the desperation in the girl’s voice when she spoke of the Silurian gladiatrix. As for the terror she had suffered at the hands of Nastasen, Telemachus prayed that the giant would be brought to justice and suffer such an end that would even turn the stomachs of the hardened Carian mob.
Eventually, Lysandra became incoherent, her head falling forwards onto her chest. When he was sure she had passed out, Telemachus carried her to her room and laid her gently on her bunk. This done, he made to prepare a healing draught, as he knew well that she would be sorely ill when she awoke.
The first month of her stay with Telemachus passed slowly for Lysandra. The nightmares were a constant plague to her, but Telemachus was always there, shaking her awake, saving her from reliving the pain of the past. The presence of a man in the dark had panicked her at first, but once she became sufficiently accustomed to him to realise that she was not in danger, Lysandra was truly touched. She did not mention this to him as she felt it would shame them both.
True to his word, Telemachus was a healer of some accomplishment. His potions and salves quickly restored her physical health, so that she was able to move about unassisted in short order. More, the unguents had prevented any scarring to her face: whilst it was not the Spartan way to be vain, Lysandra had secretly feared that she would be disfigured by the beating she had received.
Thankfully, this was not so.
‘How would you like to help me today?’ Lysandra looked up from her work, a passage from Thucydides, as Telemachus entered her room.
‘I am almost complete with ‘ The History of the Peloponnesian War ’ she said. ‘I have made no amendments though Thucydides is, frankly, biased.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ He sat on her bunk. ‘I meant in the shrine.’
She put her stylus down carefully. ‘In what capacity, Telemachus?
I am a priestess no longer.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ he responded.
‘I have been known by a man,’ she swallowed. ‘This is forbidden.’
‘In Sparta, perhaps,’ Telemachus said, making a dismissive gesture.
‘It would do you good, I think, to help others commune with Athene. Truth be known, Lysandra, it is not for the Orders of Men or Women to cast out a priestess. This is vanity, I think.
Athene will look after her own.’
Lysandra’s heart beat a little faster. True, she knew she could not return to the life of priestess; yet to help, to enjoy the rituals once more, to hear the goddess speak to her in the sanctity of a temple; it was something she had thought denied her forever.
‘I would be honoured to assist you,’ she said finally.
‘Excellent. I thought you would. To that end, I have a gift for you.’ He handed her a small package.
