She was unfamiliar with the new route through the gaol, and made several wrong turns, almost losing herself entirely. Irritated, she trudged through the darkened tunnels, trying to retrace her steps.
A foul stench reached her nostrils and she realised that she had stumbled upon the condemned prisoners’ section. These malcontents were kept in appalling conditions, living in their own filth, fed the slops and leftovers from the meals of their betters as they waited for certain death. And rightly so, for they were the dregs of humanity. Laws existed for a reason and should not be broken. Despite herself, she paused to look into one of the barred cells and her heart flew to her throat.
There, asleep in a corner, was the unmistakeable bulk of Nastasen.
XLVIII
‘You are sure it was him?’ Balbus was not at his best. His secretary, Nikos, had woken him too early, advising him that Lysandra was demanding to see him. Irritated, he had thrown on a tunic, muttering about fighters getting above themselves. It was not as if she owned him, it was the other way around.
But, when Lysandra told him of her discovery, he was astounded.
‘Of course I am sure,’ she snapped.
‘Well,’ Balbus pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger, ‘he is in there with the condemned. I can arrange that he dies today, if you like. I assume you’ll want to see it?’
The Spartan’s ice-coloured eyes bored into his own. ‘I want to kill him myself,’ she said.
Balbus grunted. ‘Yes, I can understand that,’ he said. ‘No problem, I’ll see to it. Actually,’ he added, ‘the spectators will love it. The attacker trussed and helpless before the victim who takes her revenge will appeal to them.’
‘I’m not sure you understand me, Balbus. I want to fight him, not murder him.’
Balbus was taken aback, but could see that Lysandra was deadly earnest. ‘That’s absurd,’ he said after a moment. ‘Lysandra, you are a very good fighter, but you’re only a woman. Nastasen, even if he is in bad shape, would eat you alive.’
Lysandra cocked an eyebrow. ‘I think you are mistaken. And I must fight him.’
‘Lysandra,’ Balbus sighed. ‘I have too much riding on this — on you — to let you fight a man. You are topping the bill with Sorina; if you were killed…’ he spread his hands.
‘I must fight him!’ Lysandra slammed the palms of her hands down on Balbus’s desk. He jumped at the sudden action, feeling the beginnings of anger at her presumption. But the emotion died in him as he looked at her face. The pale skin had reddened, but not through irritation. Tears brimmed in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks.
‘You cannot understand,’ she said. ‘The humiliation, the pain, the rage I feel. I live it again every night. The cell… those men all over me. What they did. Balbus, you cannot know my torment…’
‘Lysandra…’ Balbus thought to get up from behind the desk and comfort the girl, but decided against it. ‘It must have been a terrible thing.’
‘I must fight him,’ she said again. ‘I cannot carry this inside me, Balbus. Not now that I have seen him again. I see his face in my mind… I can feel him on me…’ She hesitated, angrily wiping tears from her face. ‘I can feel him in me. His stinking breath, the abuse…’ she trailed off, gathering herself. ‘I must make him feel what I have felt. He must suffer as I have suffered. I must beat him. To be free.’
Think of the money, Balbus told himself. Don’t think with your heart — think of the investment. Lysandra cannot beat Nastasen. ‘I understand how you feel, but no woman has ever fought a man in the arena, Lysandra. It’s… well… indecent.’
‘Indecent!’ she screamed at him. ‘And his rape and buggery of me was not?’
Balbus blanched at the blunt terminology. ‘Well, of course. But consider this — what if I allow this, and you lose. Your last sight will be of your rapist taking your life.’
‘That is my choice. Balbus, please.’
Please. Balbus almost fell from his chair, so much did the word take him aback. He realised that he had never heard her say it to him. Always it was Spartan pride, demands, threats and tantrums. But never please. He shook his head, looking at her through eyes that he often felt were jaded and dimmed. She was not Lysandra of Sparta to him; she was just a commodity, a piece of meat for the abattoir of the arena — mere merchandise. Wasn’t she?
Ah, but he was getting too long in the tooth for this game.
He had become involved with his stock, and could no longer look at her as simply a slave. He had gone soft, he thought ruefully.
Recently, he had given in to demands from Sorina, beautiful Eirianwen and Lysandra herself. Years ago, they would have gone to the blocks for their antics. Years ago, he would have felt no compunction. But now? He hated himself for admitting that it pained him to see one so proud so distraught. Lysandra reduced to tears. He closed his eyes. Who would have thought it? But it was insane. That she risked her life for his profit in the arena was one thing but he had no wish to send her to certain death at the hands of Nastasen.
‘It has never been done,’ he said at length. ‘The public will never accept it.’
‘They will,’ she said firmly. ‘Balbus, they accept women at the top of the billing. Why not this?’
‘It’s simply not done,’ he argued. ‘Women and men are separate — and that’s how it should be.’
‘Think of the money,’ she said suddenly.
‘What money?’ Balbus was not going to allow Lysandra to manipulate him as Sorina had done.
‘The betting would be huge, and all against me. I will defeat him and make you a fortune. Think how it could be promoted.
The virgin warrior priestess has a chance for vengeance on the man who raped her.’
Balbus felt his conviction waver. She was right. ‘You want your rape advertised all over the city?’ he said. ‘Is revenge worth all that?’
‘I do not care how lurid your promoter makes it out to be.’
Lysandra drew herself up, the cold mask falling over her face once again. ‘You have never fought out there, Balbus, but you have been in the crowd. You know that lust drives the games and nothing more. It is base but that is the truth of it. You think that I cannot hear the shouts from the mob? The things that men scream out to me? Gods!’ She threw up her hands. ‘You have us fight naked more than not. And why? For speed?’ Her smile was cruel. ‘Or perhaps to give people a glimpse of that which is pink when we fight for our lives? To watch our faces as we win or die — agony and ecstasy — like copulation?’
And there she had it. Lysandra, in her infuriating way, saw straight to the heart of the matter. How many fortunes had rich men who desired to sleep with a gladiatrix offered him? How many fortunes had he thrown away, because, at the end of it all, he could not see himself as merely a whoremaster? He had given in once: to Frontinus when the governor had asked for Lysandra and, though the old man had had no designs on her, the fact that he himself had thought so shamed him. In that moment, he came to his decision.
‘I will allow it, Lysandra.’ He watched the tension drain from her, a fierce elation in her eyes. ‘But I want you to know that there will be no betting from me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because…’ He trailed off. ‘Because you are doing what is right. I cannot profit from your rape. There was a time when I would have, but no longer. You know,’ he smiled at himself, ‘if you lose, I will be ruined.’
Lysandra lifted her chin. ‘But I will not lose, Lucius Balbus.’
‘There is nothing that bitch will not do to whore herself to the crowds!’ Sorina was furious. The news of the bout between Lysandra and Nastasen had spread through the gaol like the worst sort of plague. It was all anyone could speak of. Sorina raged impotently in her cell, pacing like a caged tigress.
‘Would you have done anything different if the opportunity had been presented to you?’ Teuta, as always, tried to remain the voice of reason but Sorina had no wish to hear it.
‘I would have never been in the situation to be raped by him.’
Sorina whirled on her. ‘She brought it on herself — I think she secretly wanted it and taunted him with her body.’
