She climbed down from the pyre to see a river now glutted with the Roman transport ships to carry them home and walked over to join those of her friends that had survived. The fields outside the walls of Durostorum were a forest of deadwood, hundreds upon hundreds of funeral pyres rising from the earth, temporary monuments to a forgotten legion that had saved an empire.
Iulianus’s men had marched out in pursuit of the barbarians who had fled the field, determined to fulfil their mission of summa exstinctio. So it was The IV Felix, bolstered by those few mercenaries who had not been killed, that was on parade. At their side, as it had been in the battle, were the Heronai, but it was the Spartans – those who survived – who began the funerary wailing. At this signal, men tasked with lighting the fires thrust their brands into the wood and the pyres burned bright, their smoke hecatombs to Athene, for whom they had all – knowingly or otherwise – served and died.
They mourned for hours, and all sung the paen to the goddess till their throats were raw, the sound a final battle cry that honoured the Virgin and the Wise, and until the pyres began to collapse in on themselves.
Lysandra wrapped her cloak around herself, somehow cold despite the heat of the flames and saw Halkyone and Melantha walking towards her. This then, was the sum of her life. Those from her childhood, Titus and Murco who had trained her, Telemachus who was her brother, and Illeana whom she had fought and had come to love.
Halkyone looked at the Spartans’ pyre as it blazed brightly. ‘O xein’, angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti teide keimetha tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi,’ she said.
‘E tan e epi tan,’ Lysandra offered. Then: ‘What will you do now, sisters?’
‘Return to Sparta,’ Melantha said. ‘Where else would we go?’
‘To rebuild?’
‘Yes,’ Halkyone replied. ‘And no. I had a dream last night, Lysandra. I know the goddess speaks to you and I know my dream was true. She told me that our order had served its purpose. She told me that the time had come to put down our spears. That, because of our actions here, Rome – and with it Hellas – would endure for many lifetimes. And that all our names – save your name that is not your name – would be as dust.’
Lysandra stepped forward and embraced them both, first Halkyone and then Melantha.
‘Find us if you return.’ Melantha gave her a final squeeze and broke away. ‘It was good to see you fulfil your potential, worm.’
‘And though the cost was great, it was good to fulfil ours,’ Halkyone said. ‘The Mission is complete.’ She nodded at the others and turned away. Neither she nor Melantha looked back as they joined the thin line of the Sisterhood and made their way towards the waiting ships.
‘We’re for Asia Minor,’ Titus announced. ‘Me, Murco, Mucius and Settus. With the money from all this, we’re going to set something up.’
‘What kind of something?’ Illeana asked.
‘Wine,’ Murco said. ‘We’re going to become wine merchants.’
Lysandra allowed herself a smile. Murco had always been a lover of the grape and considered himself an expert on the subject.
‘I’m for Rome,’ Illeana said. Rested and scrubbed, she was as beautiful as a May morning, her eyes green and bright. ‘I have had my fill of all this. I just want to go home. And then . . . And then I will see. You should come with me, Lysandra.’
There was something in her eyes that lifted the gloom of the funeral from Lysandra’s heart. A promise, perhaps?
‘She will come to Athens with me,’ Telemachus put his arm around Lysandra’s shoulder, the protective older brother. ‘All of us need time to heal our wounds from this, Illeana. Those without and those within.’ And Lysandra knew he was right; Telemachus had ever been a balm for her soul and she for his.
Illeana nodded, clearly understanding this. She stepped forward and kissed Lysandra’s lips as a lover would and held her close. ‘That time on Bedros’s ship,’ she murmured. ‘I think now that I was not only teasing you. We are similar creatures, you and I. I will see you again.’
And with that she turned away, Titus and Murco in tow, leaving Telemachus and Lysandra – her heart beating fast in her breast – staring after her. Illeana was truly touched by Aphrodite. They had not gone far when the beautiful Roman turned back. ‘What did Halkyone say to you at the pyre?’
Lysandra smiled.
‘Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.’
It had been years since she had looked down the valley.
The last time had been over her shoulder when Halkyone had come for her and taken her away to the temple, yet she was surprised to find that every rise of ground was the same. The stream still trickled past, the slaves still worked in the fields beyond. The old house with its red tiled roof had not changed, the walls still as white as she remembered.
Lysandra nudged her horse, Hades, onwards, the tiny bundle in her arms nestled close to her breast. The daughter of Kleandrias stirred in her sleep as their journey ended, but she did not wake.
Lysandra slid from the saddle and tethered the horse at the gate. The knife marks were still there: the lambda for Lysandra and the word Stahya – tall. Her fingers traced the faded notches from an all but forgotten childhood.
Steeling herself, she walked towards the door and knocked. There was a shuffling from inside. After what seemed like an eternity, it opened.
He was still a tall man, taller than herself. The beard that had been iron black was now shot with grey but his shoulders were still mighty. His right arm was scored and scarred by a multitude of sword cuts, his chest wide and strong. As he recognised her, she read the stark shock in his eyes. The ice blue eyes that she had inherited.
‘Hello, father,’ she said. ‘This is Kassandra.’
He regarded her for a moment and then jerked his chin at the babe. ‘Give me the child,’ he said. Wordlessly, she passed her daughter to him, watching as he shook her free of the swaddling cloths. Slowly, he turned her this way and that, examining her. ‘She is well formed and strong. The father?’
‘Kleandrias of Sparta. He died in battle with wounds in front. I bring my daughter here, father, because this is my home, and – ‘
‘Your home?’ he interrupted her, cold scorn flashing in his ice-coloured eyes. ‘You have no home, Lysandra. Many times you could have come home. I heard tell you were in Sparta not two years ago, entreating the Matriarch of your temple for spears. Did you think to come home then?’
‘I was ashamed. Afraid.’
Her father grunted, dismissive. ‘Your mother died in the earthquake that followed your departure. All she had of you had been the monument to you in the town square. Never seeing you as a grown woman save for on the Holy Days when you paraded in your war gear. Too far away for her to hold. Too in love with your goddess to notice us. I was a fool when I thought it an honour that they took you.’
The news cut Lysandra like a knife and she felt sick with shame and remorse. ‘I am sorry, Father.’
He looked her in the eye, ice meeting ice. ‘I care not what your reasons were and I care not for your sorrow and regret now. For you cared nothing of mine or ours.’ He drew the child close to his chest. ‘You owe me a life. Let us hope that she is a better daughter to me than you ever were. Goodbye, Lysandra.’ Slowly but with finality, he closed the door firmly in her face.
She stood there for long moments, the mother in her warring with the sinner, the guilt fighting with the warrior that urged her to go inside and take back what was hers.
But her father was right. She did owe him – and what was he now but an old man, wracked with the grief of losing his wife? Her mother, whose face she could no longer bring to mind.
Hardship and pain.
She knew then, that this was the final fulfilment of Athene’s prophesy. Her final sacrifice for the life she had been given back.
Lysandra walked back to her horse and mounted up, kicking his flanks gently and steering him ba
ck up the valley from whence she had come and then reined him in.
She sat for long moments, recalling Melantha’s offer to her to join them in their new temple that was now just like any other in Hellas, no longer ringing with the sound of sword on sword. But she was no longer a priestess. She had served her goddess and the price had been high.
So very high.
She looked to the north. There lay Athens and Telemachus. As always, he had cared for her, nursing her while she carried the child she had called Kassandra for her mother. She was about to ride, but hesitated. As she had served Athene, so Telemachus had served her. She could not lean on him forever.
Lysandra turned Hades to the west. To the road that, like all roads, led to Rome.
Like Gladiatrix and Roma Victrix, Imperatrix is of course a work of fiction. Where this third chapter in the story of Lysandra differs from the first two is that in those novels I worked very hard to ensure that the tales were as historically accurate as they could be. With Imperatrix this is not the case: whilst it is probable that women fought with the tribes of the steppes, it is highly unlikely that the ‘more civilised’ nations would have countenanced such a thing. As such, the events portrayed in this book are born of my imagination.
Certainly, Tettius Iulianus led a punative expedition against Decabalus, which ended in a credible draw for both sides. Decabalus would ultimately be crushed by Trajanus, and the events of that campaign would be brought vividly into relief on the famous monument, ‘Trajan’s Column’, that still stands in Rome.
Why Imperatrix drifts away from historical accuracy is something that I feel I ought to explain.
When writing Roma Victrix I felt that the only realistic way to go with the story in a third book would be to have Lysandra back in the arena – perhaps older, perhaps facing up to the fact that she was no longer as strong as she had once been. This would have become an inversion of the roles of the first book – with Lysandra in the Sorina role, facing up against a younger, hungrier opponent – and I realised that this was not the way I wanted the story to go at that time, hence the setup at the end of Roma Victrix with Lysandra ‘raising her shield in defence of her homeland.’
In Imperatrix, I wanted to reflect some of what is happening in our own time: in Britain, we are contemplating adding women to our front line regiments, something many other nations, the USA included, do already. I think this is right: women should not be excluded from any vocation once they prove they are capable of doing it.
As with the first two books, I was trying to illustrate that women are equally capable as men in their capacity to fight and compete, that they have the will to win and that not every heroine needs a man to complete her. To tell that story with characters and situations set in the ancient world, I had to break some of the rules and take a further step into the realms of historical fantasy (the first of which was with Lysandra’s fever dream of Athene at the end of Roma Victrix).
I apologise to the history buffs out there if this is not what you wanted from this (almost certainly final) chapter of Lysandra’s tale. If you can put my liberties with the facts aside, I hope I have managed to craft an entertaining story, which is what I set out to do in 2008 when I started writing Gladiatrix.
There are so many people who have supported me in this endeavour since back in the day. My agent, Robin Wade, fellow (and far better) writers Tony Riches, Ben Kane, Harry Sidebottom, Giles Kristian, Robert Fabbri, Doug Jackson, Scott Oden, Simon Scarrow and of course, the genius Donna Gillespie who inspired me to start writing ‘for real’ in the first place. Maybe a fourth book would see Auriane and Lysandra face off at last?
Something that the internet age has made possible is real contact with the people that read the stuff that you write. It’s great to have made friends with those people who have enjoyed what I’ve written (and the fact that I kill one or two of them off in every book). Steve “Settus” Setters, Dave “Slainius” Slaney, Andy “Cantius” Canty, Isabel “Ankhsy” Picornell, Daina Price, Alistair Leslie, Robin Carter, Peter Harborn, Edna Russell, Mick Cunningham, Leila Annani, Phillippa Taylor, Gerda Du Plessis-Snyman, Tina Drysdale, Siobhán E. McKendrick, Nikki Hewitson, Elizabeth Ball, Katie ‘can I have a signed copy’ Oliver, the legend that is Jason Frost and so many others. Thank you all so very much.
Special thanks to writer Maria Janecek: Maria contacted me a while back and gave me some great feedback on the books and was working on a story featuring the Aesalon Noctunna herself. From that, she began developing a stand-alone novel that takes place around the same time as Imperatrix. I really look forward to reading this and I expect Lysandra and or Illeana to be seen at least in the background! Good luck, Maria, and thanks so much for all the kind words and inspiration.
Also to Nikki Green – my dear friend and accomplice; thanks, Niks, for reading and being a real support.
A special mention here. Every year or so, Ben Kane gets myself and Tony Riches horribly drunk and coerces us into doing a charity walk weighed down in Roman armour. Through Ben’s efforts, we’ve managed to raise a huge amount of money for Combat Stress and Medicins Sans Frontiers, but whenever I think of these walks, I think of Colin Brame and his lovely partner Lynette Hartman. During our Hadrian’s Wall walk, I was dead on my feet – I really didn’t have anything left halfway through the third day. Or at least I thought I didn’t. Colin, an expert in long distance walking, picked me up by the chinstraps and explained where I was going wrong. He and Lynette got me through that day and I’ll always be grateful for that. Thanks so much, guys. You rule.
On the Italian walk, it was Riches who had to put up with my constant complaining and without him, I’d never have made it from Capua to Rome whilst the instigator of the campaign, Ben, had to sit out a few days with serious injury. This was tragic for Ben who had trained so hard and more tragic for Tony as he had to put up with me. As did our wonderful guide Emiliano Tuffano, Phil, Lewis, Stuart and Tom from Urban Apache who filmed the whole thing and managed to make me look less of a twonk than I actually was with skilful editing. Beers on me, boys.
My thanks as usual to my publisher, Ed Handyside, to Steph Roundsmith for proof reading and to artwork designer Lisa Brewster at Blacksheep, who always manages to make sure Lysandra is well turned out.
I have to thank my beautiful and long-suffering wife, Sally, for supporting me in this endeavour, and indeed in everything I do. Everything that I have, everything I’ve achieved, every good thing that I’ve ever done is because of you. I love you very much.
To my daughter Samantha: Sambo, you’re too young to read these books right now, but when you are old enough to read these words, please know that (even though I tell you every day) I am so very proud of you. You are a warrior and you make my world complete.
Et Lysandra. Ave atque vale, gladiatrix.
Also by Russell Whitfield:
GLADIATRIX
‘A great debut that shines an entirely new light on the glory and the bloodshed of the Roman arena. Whitfield paints a vivid picture of the fights and the passions of women combatants. It’s exciting stuff, with well-rounded characters, nail-biting duels to the death and vividly depicted settings. Gladiatrix makes Gladiator look very tame indeed!’
Simon Scarrow, author of
Under the Eagle and Centurion
‘What a brilliant novel! Whitfield has taken one of history’s curiosities – the role of the female gladiator – and woven from it a savage and splendid tale of the Roman arena . . . a tale that, once sampled, cannot be easily forgotten.’
Scott Oden, author of Men of Bronze and Memnon
‘. . . brutal, fast-paced . . . a great first novel.’
Gareth Wilson, Falcata Times
PAPERBACK: [ISBN 978-1-905802-09-8]
£7.99
Also by Russell Whitfield:
ROMA VICTRIX
‘. . . a compelling and gritty in-your-face account of life for women gladiators … I couldn’t put it down! Lysandra the Spartan has returned, and s
he’s more lethal and more arrogant than ever . . . full of thrilling gladiator fights, real blood and guts, and sex – what more could a reader ask for?
Ben Kane, author of Hannibal
and The Forgotten Legion Chronicles
‘Roma Victrix is brutal, bloody and loaded with authenticity. Just the way I like my historical fiction.’
Anthony Riches,
author of the Empireseries
PAPERBACK: [ISBN 978-1-905802-41-8]
£7.99
If you enjoyed the Gladiatrix novels, you may like to
sample the action-packed apocalyptic trilogy by
award-winning thriller writer, Jon Grahame:
REAPER
Jim Reaper started to plan a murder as thousands began to die in a natural disaster that almost killed the world . . .
Lonely and embittered ex-cop, Jim Reaper has nothing much to live for… until the man who raped and killed his daughter is released from prison after serving only three years.
Obsessed with plans for vengeance, Reaper is largely indifferent to media reports of what the world has labelled ‘SuperSARS’: a virulent pandemic sweeping westwards from China.
It is the apocalypse that everybody predicted but nobody believed would ever happen. It wipes out 98% of the world’s population as well as every vestige of government, law enforcement and civilised society. Still traumatised by the loss of loved ones, many simply struggle to survive while hoping to rebuild decent lives for themselves in a world of fear and uncertainty; where every town and city is a hell of shadows, smoke and distant screams; where feral gangs simply take what they want and savagery is rife.
All Jim Reaper had ever wanted to do was take his revenge and then die. But the fates that have taken the lives of so many others have different plans for Reaper: his destiny is to become an instrument of both salvation and retribution in a torn and desperate land.
Imperatrix (Gladiatrix Book 3) Page 47