Gladiatrix

VIII

Sorina awoke, her head thick and pounding. Her mouth was gummy, her eyes full of sand. Sitting up, she groaned as her stomach lurched. Teuta lay next to her, snoring softly, her arm resting across her eyes. Sorina smiled and swung her legs out of the bed. Their lovemaking had been unrestrained and passionate, a perfect end to an entertaining evening. She had even enjoyed the fight with the arrogant Spartan.

She made her way to a full-length bronze mirror, a gift from one of her supporters. Leaning close, she saw that Lysandra had blackened her eye. Three years ago and she would have put her down before she had had the chance. She stepped back and regarded herself. Her body was still lean and tight, her breasts still firm. But that belied the passage of years. Thirty six was no age to most in the Empire, with their doctors and medicines.

But on the plains of Dacia, her home, she would be classed as an older woman now.

Six years, she mused. Had it really been six years since her capture and imprisonment? Six years of death in the arena, six years of slavery. She looked around her room. She had more than most freeborn Romans could ever hope to possess: a house, wealth, the adoration of the mob. She dimly recalled accusing Eirianwen of getting used to Roman luxuries the previous evening.

For a moment she wondered if the accusation was in fact her own conscience speaking. Was she too becoming what she hated?

She shook her head and dismissed the thought.

Without her liberty it was all fool’s gold. She had long since given up believing Balbus’s lies that she would one day buy her freedom. There would never be enough money for him. She knew there were only two chances for her: to be freed during the games by a benevolent editor, impressed enough by her prowess to deem her worthy of the wooden sword; or escape. She had come up with many plans, but none seemed feasible. And if she were caught escaping, the penalty for runaway slaves was a slow, agonising death by crucifixion.

She slipped a tunic over her head and made her way to the baths. The training area was a hive of activity as the domestic slaves cleared the debris from the previous night’s celebration, looking none too happy that they had had no part in the revels.

But, she thought to herself, a banquet was small reward for those risking life and limb on the sands, something the scrubs did not have to bear.

She was unsurprised to see the baths virtually empty. The entire famillia would no doubt be sleeping off the effects of the evening.

Only Eirianwen, a famous early riser, was there enjoying her routine swim. Sorina disrobed and slipped into the pool, not wishing to disturb her friend until she had finished her laps.

She watched with pleasure as the Silurian’s perfect body sliced through the water. Eirianwen was a living embodiment of the universal mystery, a balance of opposites. So beautiful and yet so deadly. She had been at the ludus merely two years and had already slaughtered her way to become Gladiatrix Secunda. Sorina prayed that they would never be matched against one another.

But she knew Balbus. If the price was right they would be compelled to meet on the sands and only one would walk away.

She saw Eirianwen swimming towards her and the smile she gave her served to break her melancholy.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ Eirianwen said in the language of the Celts. Though their two lands were separated by many thousands of leagues, their tongues were surprisingly similar.

Eirianwen had learned enough of Sorina’s native Getic and they conversed in a jumble of both.

‘I thought a dip might clear my head,’ said Sorina.

‘You did overdo it.’

‘It was that sort of evening. Good fight too,’ she commented.

‘I should have taken her earlier.’

‘You don’t like her, do you?’

‘There is nothing to like.’ Sorina threw up her hands, trying to put into words what she felt in her heart. ‘These Greeks and Romans revel in their achievements but what have their kind brought to the world? The cancer of stone, and the fire of war. Was not the greatest of all Greeks, Alexander, a conqueror, a slayer of nations?

The Romans have their Caesar and have made him a god. Lysandra is a child of this culture and she represents everything I despise.’

Eirianwen sighed. ‘She is just a woman, like you and me, Sorina. She has no wish to be here either.’

Sorina’s laugh was sour. ‘Have you seen her train? She loves it. It is as if she has been doing it for years. Even the beatings she takes. It is like a contest to her. And yet I sense she is still not giving it her all.’

‘Perhaps it is the Greek mindset,’ Eirianwen offered after some thought. ‘Perhaps she too is trying to make the best of her lot.’

‘You sound like a Greek. Mindset!’ she mimicked. ‘Next you will be talking philosophy.’ She used Latin for the word, as there was no Celtic equivalent.

‘Maybe I am becoming a little too civilised for my own good, Sorina!’

‘I am sorry for what I said last night,’ Sorina said earnestly. ‘I was drunk.’

‘As were we all; beer makes bad talk sometimes.’

They rested in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the shared feeling of sisterhood with each other. Neither had set foot in the other’s land, yet the blood of the Tribes stretched over oceans. Truly, it was an empire greater than that forged by the Romans, for it was made whole by kinship, not carved by the sword. Sorina knew the Tribes would endure when the Romans and their stone cities turned to dust. The Earth Mother would not permit their atrocities forever. Indeed, just over ten years since, she had spat her defiance at them, and turned their great city of Pompeii to molten rock. It was a warning the Romans failed to heed, and it would bring them low.

‘Why did you bring Lysandra to our table?’ Sorina asked after some time.

Eirianwen did not respond immediately. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘There is something that draws me to her. I cannot say what it is.’

‘Perhaps you should take her to your bed and get whatever it is out of your system.’ Sorina laughed. ‘Can you imagine it?’ the Dacian hooted. ‘She’s as dry as a bone, that one!’ She wiped her tears of mirth away, noticing that Eirianwen had not joined in the laughter. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘You probably have the rights of it, Sorina. She’d be affronted at the mention of bedding someone. But I don’t feel comfortable mocking her.’

Sorina snickered. ‘Sweet on her, are you?’

‘Of course not,’ Eirianwen said quickly. She seemed to lose herself in thought for long moments, and when she spoke again, her voice was low. ‘But there is something about her, Sorina. I know it.’

Sorina sobered. Eirianwen’s father had been a Druid, a religious leader of the Britons, and in his blood ran the power of that mystical brotherhood. Some of his magic flowed through his daughter, of that she was certain.

‘I feel that our paths are intertwined,’ Eirianwen said. ‘Yours, hers and mine. The Morrigan has had a hand in this.’ Sorina made a sign to ward off evil at the mention of the dark goddess of Fate.

Eirianwen blinked and came back to herself. ‘Fate is her own mistress, Sorina. She will do what she will, and we must follow.

Come,’ she clambered out of the water. ‘Let us find some food.’

Sorina nodded, her thoughts still on Eirianwen’s mention of Morrigan Dark Fate. A Druid’s daughter would not say such things unless the Sight had come through her. That Eirianwen was able to say it was testament only to her youth. Fate was nothing to the young, she thought ruefully. Whilst the body still possessed youth and strength, even the gods themselves could be challenged. Only in the later years did one realise that the greener days would soon turn to autumn.

She looked upon Eirianwen’s faultless, youthful body as she made her way to dry herself. Then she too heaved herself out of the water, her mood sombre once more.