The undertrainers halted, dropped their arms, and quickly backed away. And Auriane and Perseus were alone, facing each other with but five paces of sand between them.
A honeyed trill seized the stillness; then came the hobbling throb-and-trip of a drum—the musicians had begun to play. The double flutes pulled the senses to bowstring tension.
For Auriane, the throng vanished. She stood among tall pines; her feet crushed long grass. The sword of Baldemar was in her hand. Several villagers watched raptly, concealed behind a juniper bush. And somewhere near was Decius, ready to cry instructions, should she need them. A chill northern wind stirred her braided hair; it carried the scent of yew fires. And before her was her old, old enemy, not Odberht, not Wido, but that which first drove her to spurn settled life—the dark, armed menace beyond the pines.
Her gods give her strength, Julianus prayed. Her life is mine, and mine hers.
CHAPTER XLVIII
SUNIA COULD SEE LITTLE BUT THE broad, sweating back of Androcles, a surly four-time victor, planted determinedly in front of her. Every time she fought her way forward she was roughly shouldered back. She called to Thorgild, who had managed to work his way closer to the barred window.
“Nothing to see…all’s quiet still,” Thorgild replied irritably. But then he took pity on her and let her crawl onto his back; she gasped with pain as muscled bodies pressed against her injured leg. At first she saw only sand; then, some fifty paces off, she made out the figures of Auriane and Perseus.
“Where is her helmet?”
“She’d none to start,” Thorgild quipped impatiently.
“But why—”
“Why? Here we are awash in a sea of cutthroats and madmen and you expect what you see to fit tight to your cozy notions of normal good sense.”
Sunia retreated back into her frantic misery. It is but a practice bout, she assured herself as she watched Auriane and Perseus slowly begin to move around each other with the steely poise of panthers. Auriane can come to no harm.
White light glinted off their blades as they were touched by the broad stream of sunlight. Auriane’s pace quickened. She started easing sideways, head slightly raised like a beast scenting something evil on the wind. The crowd was so hushed that Sunia could hear a hawker somewhere above the second tier crying that he had sausages for sale. Auriane was moving into Perseus’ sword side, her eyes just visible over the top of her oblong shield. Thorgild looked to Erato, who stood near the Gate of Death. He saw that Erato was slowly, approvingly nodding his head.
“Look at him,” Thorgild whispered, nodding at Erato. “Whatever she’s doing, it must be right.”
A moment later Erato stopped nodding. Of course, Thorgild thought. The advantage lies with the one who strikes first. Why does she delay?
Almost simultaneously, both sprang. Auriane was an eye-bat ahead. Thorgild saw that Erato grinned. She had timed it well.
They erupted into a frenzied engagement that called to mind birds fighting in air. Veils of sand were thrown skyward all about them.
The fast, fierce ring of steel on steel battered Sunia awake. This is not practice.
Just as suddenly, both withdrew. Sunia felt an ice shard had lodged in her throat, so great was the effort of withholding sobs. Squinting through tears, she examined Auriane for some sign of blood. Apparently she had not been struck. Sunia looked at Erato and saw a guarded, pleased smile.
“What did she do?” Sunia asked.
Shaking his head, Thorgild replied, “Too fast for me—Erato alone knows for certain. My guess is, she enticed a strike. You know, to find out what draws a parry. Now, hold your tongue and watch.”
The throng reacted to this opening flurry with mild surprise; the woman almost seemed to hold her own, but they were far from convinced. Time would tell. A few who had a better comprehension of the sport looked wonderingly at Auriane, their faces suggesting they had been shown a magician’s trick. In the end most of these simply dismissed what they had seen—it was impossible that she was that skilled.
Gracefully Auriane shifted direction; Perseus followed her. They moved together as though attached by a cord. Erato gave Auriane the signal that meant: No more test encounters, you risk giving yourself away. Move according to plan.
A change came over Auriane that was not perceptible to the crowd, but Sunia knew her well enough to detect when she was not herself. She seemed to falter in midstep; then she moved like a dancer who struggles for the rhythm and cannot find it.
“What is the matter with her?” Sunia whispered to Thorgild.
“I do not know.” They both looked at Erato, but his face told them nothing.
Perseus harried her with a flurry of low, rapid feints, while his trainer nodded in bland approval. Then he became impatient and attacked her with a sweeping down-cut; Sunia could hear the vicious hiss of that scimitar blade. Auriane jerked backward and met his blade not with her sword but with her shield. Sparks showered from the iron bindings. She seemed to half collapse under the blow; then, an instant too late, she engaged him. It was as though she were being slung around in his wake. Contemptuous laughter came from the upper seats.
Perseus then directed a series of tight, fast cuts at her unprotected head. She countered by raising her shield, while retreating in a tortured zigzag path. Soon all her movements were defensive, all Perseus’ impatient and angry. What a fool they have made of me, matching me with this! Perseus thought as he greedily took more ground.
Auriane continued to melt away from him. He cut his way forward unopposed, using the sweeping strokes for which his sword was designed; all the while she stayed well hidden behind her shield, occasionally inserting a halfhearted thrust with her sword’s point. Heads shook slowly in the throng. He was clearly much too strong an opponent for her. Soon he would have her backed against the barrier. Why was their time being wasted with this? The chant—“Aristos, save us!” began anew.
In the seats reserved for Palace officials, the Finance Minister Musonius Geta fixed a murderous gaze on Erato, mentally hatching a plan to have him kidnapped and tortured slowly. This would be the last time that rapscallion played him for a fool.
Sunia shielded her eyes, unable to watch. But Thorgild had put it all together. Erato was not alarmed enough for this to be what it seemed. “She’s playing a part, Sunia,” he said in a low voice. “It’s all right. Don’t you trust her by now to know what she’s about? She has him by a tether. She’s dragging him right before the imperial box. And Perseus thinks he has her.”
In the imperial enclosure, Julianus, who knew of the strategy, sat tensed to leap. She was playing the role too well, and it was unnerving. He fought savagely to shut off all feeling; he was but a consciousness, fiercely alert, living in her every movement, willing her to know the right moment to mount her attack.
Domitian sat forward, borne on a current of dark excitement. In his mind he wielded the sword that beat her into submission. Much of the dread he felt at the sight of the omen began to ease away. If she possessed terrible powers, why was she not using them now? He considered whether or not he should grant her life when Perseus had her at his mercy. Taken all together, she had gotten off unpunished with more misdeeds than anyone who ever crossed him. But if he allowed the death blow he would have no further opportunities to enjoy her battling for her life.
Tonight. I’ll have you brought to me again tonight. Now, surely, she knew his glory and would be humble.
Do you understand now? I am this city. I caused this amphitheater to be raised. I am your Lord and God.
Perseus was keenly aware that the longer he took to crush her, the more his status would fall. In his frenzied attempts to herd her against the barrier he was taking three or four steps to her one, but he no longer cared if he exhausted himself. Though she fought passively, he found her strangely elusive. Soon he was breathing heavily from his exertions, while Auriane had scarcely begun to tire.
Then disaster struck.
A half-dozen membe
rs of the mob, drunk on spiced wine and thoroughly bored by this bout, had long been gleefully searching out some means of sabotage. At last they found it— they surrounded and captured the lottery box. After pushing past the two imperial slaves who stood guard about the ornate iron chest, they threw the lever of the spring-device that released hundreds of wooden lottery balls into the crowd. This was a means of distributing gifts to the people, an imperial donative usually scheduled for the midday recess—never when a bout was in progress. The small spherical missiles rained down on the spectators and into the arena; each bore the name of a gift to be presented to the man who caught it. Most were commonplace, such as a fine cloak or an amphora of wine, but a few were wonderful—a ship loaded with cargo or a seaside villa with a hundred slaves. Such things could change a man’s fortunes forever.
The crowd was suddenly in furious motion, scrambling for them like dogs after marrow bones. These things were familiar to Perseus, but not to Auriane. The air was full of strange flying objects; several struck her. And the crowd seemed afflicted with the falling sickness.
Men of the Urban Cohorts quickly arrested the merry culprits. But they could not undo what had been done. Auriane was wrenched from the lucid dream; instinctively she raised her shield to protect herself from the lottery balls. And Perseus seized his moment.
He slid his sword beneath hers and beat it upward. Her lower body was undefended. When that same stroke came diagonally down, it slashed across her middle from breastbone to navel. A long gash opened in her tunic; about it the leather swiftly darkened with blood. From the throng came a ravenous roar, bellowing approval.
The shock of it buckled her knees; slowly she sank to the sand. His next blow struck her shield, which, belatedly, she moved to protect her sword-side; she was knocked hard to the sand. Perseus eagerly straddled her, readying himself for a final blow to her neck.
Auriane felt every soul-weakness shaken loose; all the old poisons shot into the blood. Hertha’s voice came like the hot sigh of a bellows: “Accursed one!”
Accept this death—it is a proper end for one who took the life of a kinsman.
Erato came at a hobbling run, hoping to stop the death blow even though he knew he could not reach them in time. Domitian felt a dark, sweet warmth flood into his loins—her fear was the finest aphrodisiac he knew. This was good. Yes, let her die. It is meant to be. The world has righted itself. The mocking woman’s face was pushed into the mud. He felt he triumphed over all women, so smugly confident in their power to cripple a man’s soul with their potent mockery and cast him off like chaff.
Julianus leapt to his feet and threw himself against the barrier.
But he knew she was done. It all came about with impossible speed. He felt the weight of the Colossus crushing his heart. His right hand found the hilt of his dagger; he tensed to spin round and sink it into the Emperor’s neck. Domitian would not long outlive her. He cared not at all in that moment for the awesome consequences of the act. And so it was a dangerous moment for the world as well, brought unknowingly to the edge of civil war.
But in that moment it seemed to Auriane all the dark chambers of her soul flashed to light. The means was mysterious—whether the aurr completed its healing or Ramis’ long-dormant purposes flowered at last, or Fria released her from some generational curse, she was never certain. With it came a clean-burning wrath.
Treacherous man, taking advantage of a ruse. Vile people, laughing at life and death. You shall not have me.
She whipped over once, striking Perseus’ shin with her shield, dimly aware she lashed out at her own shame, that she killed Hertha within her, and would not hear her voice again. Then she sprang up nimbly and landed in a spray of sand, positioned at the precise distance that was ideal for her short sword—and too close for Perseus’ long, curved blade.
Perseus’ death stroke sank harmlessly into the sand. A groan of surprise issued from the crowd.
Then she advanced with tightly controlled violence, her anger only increasing her swiftness and accuracy, and began battering her way into his territory. Perseus’ movements were at first fitful, hesitant, as he struggled with the shock of surprise. What possessed her? A larger soul seemed to inhabit that body now.
Perseus’ trainer looked on, stupefied to stillness, arms limp at his sides. The crowd seemed to collectively draw in a breath, as if they watched a racehorse burst from a standstill into an exuberant gallop. Her blade whipped about like some ecstatic dancer; there was something refined yet relentless in that blinding complexity of strokes. Erato followed ten paces off, nodding eagerly, approving her strategy: She crowded him, giving him no room to maneuver his longer blade, pummeling him with a rapid-fire series of savage backstrokes that allowed him no time to recover. When she had numbed him into believing she would carry on in this fashion indefinitely, she lashed out with her sword’s stabbing point and struck flesh, a hand’s breadth beneath his collarbone.
Now his blood was on her blade. At the sight of it, eager moans rose up from the throng. She never slowed; Perseus found himself consistently a half stroke behind. If he defended against a thrust, she was beginning a cut; if he attempted a cross-stroke, she trapped it before it began. It was like a violent dispute in which one person shouts, forcing the other to listen. He began to take small, crabbed back-steps, his sword flailing ineffectually, his blade a fugitive now, reduced to running and dodging.
Many found themselves slowly lifted to their feet. They witnessed a thing that could not be. The power of that assault was strangely compelling, like a cry of war trumpets or a chariot team surging into the lead on the last round. It appealed to a commonly sensed need to burst free of pain and darkness; they exulted with her, feeling they beat down their own misery. They seemed to have utterly forgotten that moments ago they despised her, so carelessly changeable were they in their affections. Hands that had just pitched rotten turnips were now clenched into fists, urging her on. Those who had shouted— “Set the dogs on her!” now cried—“Get him, Aurinia! Kill him! Our darling! You are our own!” The cries gathered momentum until they became one rebellious roar of approval and delight.
This acted upon Auriane in a way she could never have guessed—she found it unexpectedly intoxicating to know her every movement controlled a thousand throats. The power of every stroke seemed gloriously magnified by the cheers it brought. Waves of applause bore her up and carried her along at racing speed. For a few moments she felt she held the world permanently at bay. There was no room in her for the irony of it all—that here in this place that was the heart of her lifelong enemy’s house, she at last felt triumphantly safe.
Domitian looked on with sharp uneasiness. Each fresh surge of cheering goaded him to greater gloom. The baleful spirits of the north had aided her, after all. She was a scourge, a blight, like some dread foreign disease unknowingly brought home from a war that manifests itself later when you count yourself safe at home.
Foretell my death, will you? I shall foretell yours. And cleanse you from our midst.
The surge of love and relief that Julianus felt was short-lived. He saw that Domitian sat as if braced against a mortal enemy; in his eyes was that primitive look that heralded the meting out of gruesome punishments.
Domitian motioned to a guard and issued an order; Julianus heard only the name Antaeus, but this was enough. He deduced that Domitian meant to set Antaeus the net-fighter against her when this bout was done, and doubtless would continue to send in new opponents until she died of exhaustion or wounds. He had feared even before this day that Domitian might use her this way, and he had carefully prepared for this turn of events.
Julianus signaled discreetly to one of his own servants who stood quietly in the shadowy rear of the imperial box. His voice covered by the din, he put an encouraging hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “We’re going to have to do it, after all. Go up there directly and speak to no one on the way. Quickly now!”
Julianus’ servant unobtrusively fled the cubic
le; all in the box were too engrossed in the drama below to pay him any mind.
Auriane had driven Perseus to the arena’s center. Erato still followed her like a dog at heel, frantically signaling to her to slow her pace. He was greatly concerned by her wound. Was the lung pierced, or the stomach? She must conserve herself and end this bout quickly. And he wanted the full extent of her ability kept secret as possible.
Then Perseus slipped and fell hard onto his back. The slaves who turned the sand between the morning and afternoon shows had neglected to remove the shallowly buried intestines of a rhinoceros, disemboweled by a skilled animal-baiter. At this, joyous wolf-yelps arose from the crowd. Perseus was done. It did not matter that he slipped accidentally; once a bout began, no misfortune occasioned pity. Laughter was mingled with the cry, “Habet!”—“She has him!” They did not expect Auriane to pause for the vote. Had he paused, when she had been at his mercy? Tentative shouts of “Aurinia, victor!” rose from the plebeian seats. The women in the high places shouted praises to Juno, protector of women in peril, and tossed silken handkerchiefs by the hundreds; they drifted like butterflies down onto the mortal play far below.
But Auriane halted and lowered her sword. The crowd seemed to deflate like a bellows; cheers were replaced by murmurs of confusion.
Then she took a step backward and paused, standing quietly straight and still, giving Perseus room to rise. Her chest heaved as she struggled for breath; her cheek was ashen from loss of blood. A sweat-darkened strand freed itself from her tightly bound hair and hung wearily down.
“Auriane, no!” Erato screamed, vigorously shaking his head. Gallantry was foolish. It was never returned. The roads into the city were lined with the grave-markers of swordfighters who had let another live, only to be killed later by that same man.
In the viewing chamber Sunia heard a voice in the close-packed room mutter, “What’s addled her? She throws away victory.”
And Sunia was amazed to hear herself say in reply, “That would be no victory. Who do you think she is? One of you?”
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