‘I do not think so, but it was difficult to get away. Vibia Secunda pulled me on to her couch.’
Arria gasped. ‘Did you...?’ Jealousy flared.
‘Of course not!’ replied Cal. ‘I flattered her incessantly, gave her a massage and kept her cup full of opium wine. She stayed awake as long as she could, but finally lay back and closed her eyes.’
Arria exhaled, although the thought of Cal massaging the shoulders of Vibia Secunda had made the blood roar in her ears. ‘Vibia may not stay asleep for long,’ said Arria. ‘When she awakes she will surely come looking for you.’
Cal sighed. ‘I fear that you speak truth.’
‘Why is there never enough time?’
‘It is not the quantity of time, but the quality of it that matters,’ he said. He kissed her forehead softly. ‘Or so we must believe so that we do not despair.’
She heartily disagreed. The quantity of time mattered, too, by the gods, and she would not allow him to convince her otherwise. The real problem was how to get more of it and there was only one solution to that problem: freedom.
‘Is it not auspicious that the Emperor will preside over your next games?’ she said carefully. ‘Perhaps he will grant you the rudius.’
‘Arria,’ he said. ‘In another life...’
‘In this life, Cal.’
Arria tried to picture Cal bowing to some purple-robed sovereign. She gave a resigned sigh. ‘Well, you could just jump out of the theatre and run.’
He stifled a laugh. ‘Do you really think I could run faster than the Praetorian cavalry?’
‘You could lose yourself in the streets,’ she offered.
‘With this head? And this scar?’ He guided her hand to the tip of his scar and he feigned a gasp. ‘Stop doing that.’
Arria giggled softly. ‘But I am doing nothing.’
He traced her hand slowly down his chest. ‘No, really. I mean really you must stop touching me like that,’ he teased. He had manoeuvred her body so that her back lay against his strong forearms and her folded legs squeezed against his chest.
‘Put your legs over my shoulders,’ he commanded.
‘What are you—?’
‘Do as I say, my little nymph,’ he protested. ‘The time for talk is over.’
Surely she could not contradict him, what with the time so short and his voice so urgent. Not that she would ever dream of resisting such a request. He cradled her backside as she lifted her legs over his shoulders.
‘Are you a madman?’ she whispered.
‘Shush.’ She braced an arm against the tree for balance. Her legs were now draped over his shoulders. The only thing between her womanhood and his mouth was the thin fabric of her loincloth. ‘Come here, fy nghariad,’ he said, nosing into the cloth. ‘Let me taste you.’
And in that moment the all-powerful gods, who had so far been indifferent and even kind to the two lovers, decided to unleash their wrath. A woman’s voice shrieked, ‘Guards!’
Something hit Cal over the head and he stumbled backwards. Losing the support of the tree, Arria slid from his shoulders and tumbled to the ground.
After that, the blows landed like stones. First a kick to her stomach, then a punch to her face. ‘You have given my father no choice, Arria,’ said a cool, female voice. Arria gasped, sucking the air. ‘You have betrayed our family’s dignitas.’
Arria opened her eyes to behold Vibia Secunda standing beside the governor. ‘I gave you everything and this is how you repay me?’
‘Arria!’ cried Cal. She could see his shadow only paces away, struggling against the figures of guards.
‘Do not harm the gladiator!’ commanded the governor. ‘Stand him up. I want him to watch.’
Arria felt a strong hand grip her arm. A knee thrust up against her stomach, then something hard collided with her cheek. Blood. Pain. Blows. More blows. To her legs. To her arms. To her middle and back. No part of her was safe. How long did the beating last? Minutes? Hours? Cal’s voice faded in and out of her mind. She was being dragged through the dirt, then pushed down a flight of stairs. She collapsed on to a hard floor and lay there sucking the air.
Dread infested her belly. Soon the sound of footsteps filled her ears. No, not more punishment. She sat up, but could not get herself to her feet. A pair of blood-red sandals appeared in her line of sight, lit by the boiler’s rosy glow.
‘Three simple rules, Arria,’ said the governor. ‘But why did I expect such a bestial woman to follow rules?’ He held his hand out before her eyes and she perceived the white of a small scar in the shape of a smile. ‘Do you know how long your little bite took to heal?’
The same hand gave her a sharp slap. ‘A month! I had to tell my wife and daughter that I was bitten by a dog. I suppose in a sense I was.’
She tried to respond, but no words came.
‘Oppius told me about your trysts with the Beast. I knew what would happen if I brought him here. Love is a powerful thing, is it not? Though I fear that in your case it is fleeting, for that barbarian scum is not long for this world. Why do you wince, Little Asp? You caused this yourself.’
The governor squatted down and grabbed her by the face. He placed his lips on hers and kissed her, his wet, sour mouth possessing hers, bruising it. ‘Let us have an accord,’ he said, still gripping her mouth. ‘Let us say that I will not release you from this dungeon until you come to me on your knees and beg me to have you...in the carnal fashion, I mean.’ He took her lower lip in his teeth and bit down hard.
She cried out in pain, but still he bit her and soon she felt the warmth of blood pooling in her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears.
Finally, he released her. He stood and smoothed his toga. ‘I have no doubt you will learn, Little Asp, and you will come to me on your knees. It will just take time. And that is something I have in abundance.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Arria opened an eye. The sun was shining overhead, casting its pale light through the small hole in the ceiling. She spied a small grey mouse. It watched her for a long while, as if pitying her, then scurried back into the wood pile whence it came.
Her fingers found a charred piece of wood. She rubbed it hard against the tile until she could see a single black mark:
Day One.
She must have fallen asleep again, for when she opened her eyes, she was screaming. In her nightmare, she and Cal had been lying beneath a warm blanket, locked in a lovers’ embrace. Suddenly the governor had appeared and yanked away the blanket to reveal their naked bodies covered in blood.
* * *
When she opened her eyes once again, a small patch of sunlight filtered in from above. Her stomach burned and her limbs ached. At the edge of her face, she could feel the jagged crust of dried blood.
She scratched her second mark on to the floor:
Day Two.
Her throat was dry and tight. Water. She needed water. She pulled herself up, feeling a sharp pain behind her ribs. She crawled next to the large clay pitcher lying beside the boiler. She did not have the strength to lift it, so she bent over it like a dog.
Lap, lap, lap. She could not seem to get enough. She was still drinking when a man burst into the room, carrying an armload of wood. He dumped the wood on to the pile without giving Arria a second glance. ‘Will you help me?’ she asked him. He reached for two of the logs and tossed them into the fire, shutting the metal door with the same long wooden stick that the cook had used to retrieve the laundry the day before. The man departed without giving her a glance.
Did she even exist? She had to be alive, or the room would not feel so blisteringly hot. She continued to lap from the pitcher until her tongue could no longer reach the water. She wrapped her arms and legs around its large round middle and rocked backwards, letting the water pour down her throat. She closed her eyes.
Day Three.
The sun go
d stretched his arm through the opening in the ceiling and poked Arria in the eye. She opened it to discover that she was still embracing the pitcher. She turned her head to discover the mouse staring at her placidly.
‘Are you waiting for me to die?’ she asked the small creature, but he gave no reply. ‘I could kill you, you know,’ she said and he seemed to shake his head in disbelief. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’
Well, she was a liar. She would never try to kill the mouse. She was a lover of small things now—things like the shape of her mother’s smile, fresh, clean air, the sound of Cal’s voice when he said her name. Small, big things. She understood now that they were all that mattered.
Day Four.
The boiler man came and went thrice a day. ‘Please, bring me food,’ she begged, but he paid her no mind. ‘Please bring me water.’ Nothing. ‘Please bring me a gladiator with eyes of green, that he may rescue me.’ The pitcher of water was almost empty.
Day Five.
On his evening visit, the boiler man was merciful. He fed the furnace with half the normal amount of wood. Soon after he’d departed the key wobbled once again inside the lock. He is bringing more wood, she thought miserably. But it was not the boiler man who entered. It was the governor, accompanied by two very angry-looking guards.
‘Food,’ pleaded Arria. ‘Please.’
The governor smiled. ‘Are you begging me to have you, then? If so, I require you be on your knees.’
Arria shrank back into the shadows, shivering despite the heat.
‘I did not think so,’ said the governor. ‘But come with me now. We have a small errand to complete.’
Arria was ushered into a large, horse-drawn carpentum and settled between the two guards, who held her withered arms as if they expected her to flee. She scarcely had the strength to lift an amphora, let alone wrestle herself free of two men, but she made a show of struggle so that the governor would not think her beaten.
She promised herself she would not be beaten—not as the carriage rattled down the stone streets towards the Greek ghetto, not as they pulled up outside Arria’s own insula and not as the governor dangled the carrot before her, willing her to bite.
‘You wish to see them, do you not? Your miserable family? Will you beg me right now, then? To have you? Give me what I want and I will allow you to visit your mother.’
Arria felt the seams of her will fraying. Could she do it? Could she exchange her body for a reunion with the ones she loved? She felt her assent bubbling, the terrible, inevitable yes forming on her lips, but the governor had no patience. ‘I did not think so,’ he stated. ‘Lucius, why not go fetch the Little Asp’s father instead?’
Arria’s heart leaped. Her father? She was going to see her father? In minutes the guard reappeared with Arria’s father in his grasp. ‘Father!’ Arria exclaimed, reaching for him, but the guard held her back.
‘Arria!’ her father shouted. The second guard held a small pugio blade to her father’s throat.
‘Please, Dominus. Do not harm him,’ Arria begged, struggling to her knees. ‘I will have you! I will have you!’
The governor scoffed. ‘Well, that is the most insincere declaration of desire I have ever heard,’ he said. ‘No, Arria, you will have to do better than that.’ The governor nodded to the guard, who pulled Arria’s father into the carriage and settled him next to Arria.
‘Father!’ Arria shouted. She struggled against the guard, who kept her arms pinned in her lap. ‘Oh, Father!’
‘Arria, I have missed—’
‘Silence!’ shouted the governor and Arria heard the sharp clap of a slap across her father’s face. ‘If you say one more word, Faustus Arrius, I will have my guard draw his blade straight across your throat. No more talking. That is a rule. Arria will avow that I make no exceptions for broken rules. Do you understand?’ Her father nodded warily. The governor reached out of the carriage and rang a bell, and the driver snapped the reins.
Arria peered at her father across the darkness, trying to speak to him without words. Are you well? And Mother? Has the baby been born? What have you eaten? She rested her head against her father’s shoulder and he began to sob. ‘I love you, Father,’ she dared to whisper and soon felt his own head resting atop hers.
They came to a stop outside a familiar iron gate. Two guards stood watch beside it and Arria recognised their faces in the flicker of a nearby torch. They had arrived outside the ludus. Arria’s heart began to pound. Cal.
Arria and her father were yanked from the carriage into the light of a torch that burned outside the entrance. The governor’s sour breath filled Arria’s ear. ‘Listen closely, Little Asp, for here are the instructions for the first part of your errand—you are going to go inside the gladiator barracks and tell the Beast that the Artemisia Games are to be his last. In five days, when he meets his first opponent in the Theatre of Ephesus, he is to take the fall, do you understand? He is to allow himself to be slain.’
Arria choked. ‘I will do no such thing.’
The governor exhaled. He motioned to the guard who held her father. ‘Go ahead, Lucius.’
The guard lifted his knife and cut a gash across her father’s cheek. Arria lunged for him, but the other guard easily kept her restrained. Her father howled as a thin curtain of crimson seeped down his cheek.
The governor gave Arria a petulant look. ‘Lucius would be happy to cut a matching scar on your father’s other cheek if you would like to defy me again.’ Arria bit her lip. ‘Now here is the second part of your errand—you must tell your barbarian lover that you do not want him any more and that you want me instead. Tell him he can go ahead and return to his wife in the Otherworld or whatever it is the dirty Picts call Hades.’
Arria blinked, and the governor smiled wickedly. ‘Yes, I know all about his little death wish, along with your silly curse and everything else.’
‘But...how?’
‘Oppius and Brutus are brothers. Did you not know? I protect their interests and they protect mine, and everybody becomes a little richer. Do not look so surprised, Little Asp. Such arrangements make the world go round. Or did you stupidly think it was honour that makes a man rich?’
Arria heard her father gasp as he realised what Arria had understood months ago—that the fights were fixed and that Oppius, Brutus and the governor conspired together.
‘I do not expect you to comprehend the ways of your betters,’ the governor continued. ‘You must tell the Beast of Britannia that you have fallen in love with me and that you wish to serve me for the rest of your days. You must make him believe in your sincerity. If you say or even suggest that you have been forced, your father will die. Do you understand?’
Arria nodded, then felt the metal of his signet ring slam against her cheek. ‘Do. You. Understand?’ the governor repeated.
‘Yes, Dominus.’
‘And we will be here listening to ensure you do exactly as you have been told.’ The governor nodded at the guard and he tugged her through the gate. ‘Oh, and one last thing, Arria,’ said the governor, using her true name. ‘If you are unsuccessful, if you cannot convince the Beast to take the fall, then your father will meet his end. Do you understand?’ Arria watched as the guard held his blade at her father’s throat. The torch’s flames cast eerie shadows across the governor’s face.
‘Do. You. Understand?’
* * *
Perhaps it was the rhythm of her breaths, or the space between her steps, but he knew she was there before he could actually see her, and when she finally crossed into the torchlight he nearly jumped out of his skin.
‘Arr—’
He caught his breath, bludgeoned by the sight of her. In the place of the strong, lusty woman he had left in the garden there was a dull, trembling shell. She was thinner, though less than a week had passed since they had been parted. Her pale cheeks bore stains of sweat and ash, and a c
onstellation of bruises decorated her limbs. She was dirty, bent, limping, and when she finally lifted her gaze to his, he saw that her once-bright eyes had been invaded by fear.
But she was alive. Alive. And here. Cal slammed his body against the bars of his door, reaching for her. ‘Arria, my darling.’
She stood frozen in her sandals. What had they done to her? And why, why had he not been able to stop them?
‘Cal,’ she said at last. She stole a glance down the tunnel and stepped backwards. A tear cut a lonely path down her cheek. ‘Cal, I have come to tell you that—’
‘Will you not come to me?’ he pleaded. ‘Will you not let me touch you?’
Another glance down the hall. ‘I do not wish for you to touch me ever again.’
The words landed like blows. Cal stepped backwards, shaking his head. He refused to believe her. She was not herself. ‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘Who brought you?’
‘It does not matter. I have come to tell you that I am lifting the curse.’
‘What?’
‘I am lifting the curse that protects your life. You can die now. You may join your wife in the afterlife.’
‘Arria, I do not understand.’
More tears were flowing down her cheeks now. A terrible army of them. They meant to defeat his heart.
‘I...I have fallen in love with...with the governor,’ she sputtered. ‘I want him now instead of you. I wish to serve him for the rest of my days.’
‘I do not believe you.’
‘You must believe me!’ She glanced over her shoulder, then pinned him with a lifeless stare. ‘I love him and I command that you take the fall.’
‘I do not understand.’
But suddenly, he did understand. She had not escaped. That is what she was really telling him. She was deeper inside a prison than she had ever been.
‘In five days, at the games to honour Artemis. You must take the fall when you face your first opponent. Tell me you will do it!’
Forbidden to the Gladiator Page 17