Romanus walked quietly; he seemed a willing contender. If he was some kind of agent, whatever was he thinking of getting himself into this?
Finally Saturninus, the local trainer; clearly a popular character. Even before the herald's announcement, the crowd gasped. The champion he brought would be regarded as outrageous; it was a woman.
“Scilla!”
Escorting her, Saturninus made a wide, self-mocking gesture as if saying that under pressure he had allowed her to defend her cause herself. There were cynical laughs in reply. The local crowd leered, while the smaller contingents from Oea and Sabratha mocked the Lepcis champion.
Instead of just a loincloth she wore a short tunic for decency, with a normal gladiator's swordbelt hugging her waist. Boots. Two shin guards. A round buckler and curved sickle-shaped sword-she was assuming the role of a Thracian. Her helmet, customized perhaps, looked light but strong, with a grille she had opened so the crowd could see her face as she strutted in proudly.
Her big moment. It was unlikely she had ever appeared in an arena previously, though bouts between women did happen. They were greeted with a mixture of scandalized contempt and prurience. Women who attended gymnasia to exercise were held in the lowest regard in Rome. No wonder Pomponius had wanted to keep any further taint of unsuitable behavior away from his betrothed after Leonidas died. He would have tried to excuse her passion as a misguided hobby-though he had still wanted to impress her by staging that fatal private show. At least now I could see why he had thought it would appeal to her. One aspect of this brutal muddle at last made sense.
When women did fight in the arena, they were always put against other women. To the Roman mind that was bad enough. Nobody would even contemplate pitting a female against men. Still, at least one of Scilla's opponents today was a slave and “Romanus' must surely be of low origin to have ended up here. But she had damned herself; even if she could survive the fighting, she was now socially untouchable. As to the fight, every man present would tell you, she stood no chance.
Suddenly, worrying alarums rang. There was no time to pursue the thought that raced through my mind, however. The fight was about to start.
“Approach!”
The three gladiators, such as they were, took up three points of a triangle at first. This was fighting severally- that is, not in fixed pairs. Unless their lanistae allowed two of them to cooperate and together batter the third, that meant one would probably stand back while two others fought each other first.
So it transpired. I had expected a long period of prowling around, while all three hoped to be the last in action, saving their strength. Instead, the woman chose her mark. She began at once: Scilla snapped shut the grille of her helmet and took on Fidelis.
He was always the victim figure, likely to be attacked hard by both the others early on. Unarmed, he had no alternative but to run. First, he fled across the arena to the far end. Scilla pursued him yet held back from attack; she was toying with the slave. Doomed by Myrrha, nobody had given him any advice. He had no idea how to deal with the netman's equipment. The dangerous skills that would normally make such a match an equal combat were cruelly denied him.
He did not want to die, though. Since he must, he decided it would be with a flourish. He swung at Scilla with the net, and somehow managed a half-decent sweep, even clinging onto the cord that surrounded the bulk of his net. He had cast it over one of her shoulders-unfortunately for him the wrong one; instead of her sword arm he had hampered her left side, tangling up her shield. Scilla just let it fall. Sufficient free play remained for the weight of the round shield to drag the net off her. It caught once on her belt but she shook herself violently and it fell free. Fidelis lost his hold on the cord. She was then facing Fidelis unprotected, and his trident had a longer reach than her curved sword, but she showed no fear. She skated rapidly backwards, yet she was laughing-still taunting him. Her confidence was astonishing.
He advanced, with an awkward, unattractive lope. She retreated farther back, towards us. She was deft on her feet; he was clumsy. He plunged the trident at her, missing badly. She swept her sword at it, but somehow he snatched it back. She skipped several strides backwards again-then stopped abruptly. Fidelis had run in too close. The head of his trident passed by her harmlessly. Left-handed, Scilla fearlessly grabbed the shaft and pulled towards herself hard. She jerked her sword into Fidelis with a vicious blow. He fell at once.
Scilla stepped away, her blade dripping blood.
Fidelis was clearly still alive. Hanno and Saturninus, who had been sidelined, neither attempting to encourage their fighters with the usual prancing around, now raced up to inspect the damage. Fidelis was raising an arm, one finger up. It was the standard appeal to the crowd for mercy. In a fight without quarter this should not be allowed.
Some of the unruly audience began to drum their heels and give the thumbs-up sign, themselves appealing to the president to grant Fidelis his life.
Rutilius stood up. He must have thought fast. He signaled that he passed the judgment to Hanno, as the lanista whose man was down. Hanno swept an arm viciously sideways, indicating death.
With a coolness that made people gasp, Scilla at once stepped forwards and delivered a death blow straight at the base of the prone man's neck. Fidelis had never been trained as real gladiators were to take the force without flinching; yet he had no time to disgrace himself. A murmur of real shock ran around the crowd.
A brief glance passed between Scilla and Saturninus. According to the secret agenda of this combat, Fidelis had always been intended to die. From his intimacy with the Pomponius m?nage, Saturninus probably knew that Scilla had been trained to fight. But he cannot have been expecting that she would prove quite so efficient and merciless. Or did he?
Ask Scilla who really killed that lion! Euphrasia had urged Helena. Dear gods. Of course! Saturninus already knew what I now finally realized.
Scilla herself had said Rumex had been decrepit; all his fights, she claimed, were fixed. Such a man would not even have tried to tackle the beast when Leonidas broke loose. As he fatally mauled her lover, Scilla had yelled at him to make him leave his prey. Then, I had no doubt at all, it was Scilla who had grabbed a spear and followed the lion into the garden. She had speared Leonidas herself.
62
A SHORT TRUMPET blast warned all those present that the rites of the dead must be followed. Justinus and I paced out across the sand to where Fidelis lay. Everyone stood back.
He was done for. Justinus touched him only lightly with the caduceus, though even then the waft of burnt human flesh was off-putting. I struck Fidelis soundly with my mallet, claiming his soul for Hades. We followed as he was taken from the arena, stretchered off this time. Apparently since these three combatants were not professionals they were to be accorded gentler treatment than the toughs we had seen dragged away previously. I felt a wry pride that under my auspices as the Judge of the Underworld, the ceremonies were more civilized.
As soon as we had seen out the corpse we turned back from the doorway into the arena. I had a bad taste, sickened by the merciless behavior Scilla had exhibited. This was more than a legitimate quest for vengeance. The woman had no sense of proportion, as well as no sense of shame.
Justinus signaled the protagonists to recommence. Scilla was already under attack. While she had been preening for the crowd, Romanus, whoever he was, had had the nous to interpose himself so she was cut off from her buckler where it still lay tangled in the net. I saw him kick it farther towards the barrier. He was on guard, well positioned-head up, eyes no doubt watchful behind his helmet visor, sword point at the correct height, big shield held close to the body. A textbook stance-or trying too hard, perhaps.
Scilla pulled back her shoulders and crouched, on the alert. This new situation clearly posed a far bigger challenge than Fidelis. She looked eager, completely unafraid.
Hanno retired slightly now that his champion was dead. I wondered what he was thinking. Did he already know what Scilla was planning? Calliopus had moved forward to support Romanus, who ignored the lanista stalwartly.
The crowd had become menacing. There were rival chants from small groups of troublemakers. A lot of
