gladiators.’
Frontinus shrugged, and his response was somewhat lofty. ‘The mob seems to enjoy both equally.’ He gestured to the sea of faces about them. ‘Do you not think?’
Trajanus nodded disdainfully. ‘I cannot help but agree. But it must be said that these performing women you have here are indeed superior to anything we have in Rome.’ The time for hedging and veiled competition was over. ‘I think the Emperor will be well pleased with next year’s spectacle if it comes anywhere close to this one. I shall tell him this is so,’ he said with finality.
Frontinus winked. ‘You’ve yet to see our best,’ he said. ‘But I thank you.’
Trajanus motioned for Diocles to pour for them. ‘Think nothing of it, my friend,’ he said. With that, he turned his eyes back to the sands.
Lysandra was alone. She had Thebe oil her, and sent both her and Varia away. Before long, she would be under the eyes of the multitudes, but for now she needed solitude. She glanced at the small statuette of Athene above her bunk. The unmoving ivory features seemed to be fixed in an enigmatic half-smile.
‘Be with me tonight,’ she whispered.
She ran a hand ruefully through her shorn hair. In Hellas it was the mark of mourning and she realised that, if she was victorious, she would mourn. For if Sorina fell, there would be no cause for which to fight. She would have proven, beyond all doubt that she was superior. That she was Spartan. That she was the best.
But thereafter? There would always be others like her, she realised. Always another who wished to prove that she could beat the best. In the end, she knew that when Sorina fell, she herself would become her.
Gladiatrix Prima. The one to defeat.
To be in this place was her destiny, as Telemachus had said.
Thinking of the Athenian priest made her smile. She wondered briefly if he was out there, amidst the ravening mob, come to watch her in this greatest of trials. Somehow, she knew that he was.
Sorina regarded herself in the bronze mirror. There was no mark of age upon her. Clad only in the subligaculum, she saw her breasts were prouder and firmer than they had been in years. Muscles stood out on her stomach, chiselled as if she were a Roman statue.
She too was alone with her thoughts. She felt the weight that had burdened her since Eirianwen’s death lift. The curse of the Morrigan, that the beautiful Druid’s daughter predicted so long ago, had passed. Looking back, she realised that she had indeed become maddened with hatred. Obsessed with it. It had set her apart, branded her indelibly. But now she felt that the madness had gone.
Only the hate remained. She would allow it to burn within her this one last day. Till Lysandra had fallen. Then she would let go of it and have her peace. This, she knew, would be her last battle, even if she had to maim herself to escape the arena. Balbus would have no say in it. Choice, at last, would be hers.
‘It’s time.’
She glanced up, to see the blocky form of Titus in her doorway.
‘Centurion!’ A smile sprang to her lips, unbidden. ‘I thought you were at the ludus.’
‘I was,’ he said. ‘But I could not miss this, Sorina. Much has been said and done these past months. I came to wish you luck.
Both of you,’ he added. ‘The best will win, and that is all you should want and hope for.’
‘Then I shall win.’ She got to her feet. ‘Let us go.’
Lysandra moved towards the light. Around her, the bustle in the passageways ceased as she passed by. Her friends were there, as were Balbus, Stick and Catuvolcos. The Gaul, she noted, had brought Doris with him. By them stood Telemachus, come to see her as she knew he would. She wondered why they had all come to her side of the arena, when she felt movement close by her.
Titus emerged from the gloom, flanked by Sorina. Like herself, the Dacian was nude save for the loincloth, her body oiled and gleaming in the torch light. She tensed, but the older woman made no aggressive move, her eyes blank and focused.
Titus steered Sorina to Lysandra’s side, and pointed her in the direction of the Gate of Life. ‘This,’ he said, placing his hands their shoulders, ‘is as it should be. Luck to you both.’ He shoved gently, and both women moved forward, their feet in step.
The tunnel vibrated with the roar of the crowd, so familiar to them both, yet this time so different. As one they moved towards the light, the vestiges of Lysandra and Sorina falling away from them. The gate cranked open, bathing them in the cacophony of an expectant mob. The beast ranged around them, ravenous for the feast that was to come.
As they stepped in to the light, the mob howled with lust at the sight of them. Lysandra and Sorina remained within — it was just Amazona and Achillia now.
LV
Lysandra had never heard them so loud. The sound was deafening, washing over the sands like Poseidon’s tempest, shaking the teeth in her skull. A herinarri rushed up and placed the two swords in her hands. Across from her, another did the same for Sorina. The two women raised their weapons and the crowd screamed in a vicious frenzy.
Lysandra spun her swords twice, and stretched her neck from side to side before dropping into her fighting stance, the left blade held out at an angle, the right drawn back to guard her body.
Sorina responded in kind, her lead sword held out, the right held at an angle above her head.
The noise of the crowd faded, till Lysandra was aware only of the sound of her breath, the beating of her heart, and even the soft hiss of the wind upon the sands. She clenched her toes, feeling the grains bunch beneath them, and breathed out sharply through her nose. This done, she stepped forward towards her enemy.
Sorina did not circle, nor did she step back. Her step matched Lysandra’s; as they came into range of each other’s weapons, they paused, their eyes meeting over the dully gleaming iron. For a heartbeat they stared thus.
With a cry, Lysandra attacked.
Her blades flashed out, screaming towards Sorina, but the older woman blocked and countered, her iron seeking Lysandra’s flesh; Lysandra intercepted, and the duel continued, swords shining in the torchlight.
There was no respite, the combat unceasing. Strike after strike was met and countered, each woman striving to outmatch the other. Sweat broke out over Lysandra’s body, mingling with the oil as she lashed out at Sorina. But the older woman moved impossibly fast, her swords always answering her own. Sorina pushed back, wrenching initiative from Lysandra, her blades swirling in an iron tide of fury.
Sorina spun about and Lysandra struck forward, but she had not counted on the Amazon’s ruse; the spin was not to cut, but to kick and Sorina’s trailing leg smashed into Lysandra’s side knocking her off balance. The crowd screamed a mixture of delight and dismay as she stumbled. Like a tigress, Sorina raked in, her blades slicing down. Lysandra was forced to roll away, coating her sweat slick body in sand.
Sorina growled triumphantly and pressed on. Furious, Lysandra rushed in to meet her and the song of iron on iron rang loud as the two women cut at each other. Locked in combat they circled, blows landing closer and closer to their mark. Lysandra stepped in, crowding her opponent. Thinking quickly, she collapsed her guard, striking out with her elbow, catching Sorina with a glancing blow.
It was enough and as the Amazon blinked in shock, Lysandra’s blade slashed across her chest, opening a bloody wound beneath her breasts.
She felt a hot surge of elation at the sight of Sorina’s blood and cut across again, this time slicing her across the stomach.
Sorina staggered back, a look of stunned pain etched on her features. She had her! Lysandra moved in to finish the tottering Amazon, raising her blades to end, once and for all, the enmity between them.
It was then that Sorina struck. Even as Lysandra moved, she realised that the canny Dacian’s plight was a ruse, but was powerless to stop the sword that sought her. It was all she could do to twist frantically away, letting the blade that would have gutted her carve a bloody seam in her ribs. She felt the stinging pain as cut met sweat, followed by the searing burn as the true extent of the injury was registered in her mind.
