But, as she fought desperately to live, Lysandra heard faint voices carried to her on the breeze. ‘ Hellas! Hellas! Hellas!’ The Hellenes in the crowd were urging her on, as though somehow their voices could lend her strength. She would not disgrace her Spartan blood and she yelled in fury, leaping back at Aesalon, paying no heed to the thud of iron on flesh as Aesalon once again hit home, this time on her upper arm – Lysandra simply forced herself to come back at the Roman and she saw the shock in the other woman’s eyes as she wrested back the initiative.
Their blades weaved, liquid fire in the torchlight, the discordant clash of iron on iron piercing the omniscient roar of the crowd.
Lysandra struck low with her left and exulted as bright blood sprayed up from Aesalon’s sweat-drenched thigh. Gasping, the Roman tried to step back but Lysandra continued on, her right blade cutting in a vicious arc. Aesalon jerked her head back but the tip of the sword slashed down her left cheek, opening a shallow wound.
Aesalon staggered back, her hand coming to her face and touching the blood there. For a moment, all was still but then it was Aesalon who screamed with rage and charged into the attack. You are also a highly skilled pankratatist. The words of Kleandrias came to Lysandra.
And I think that Aesalon is not accomplished in unarmed combat. These will be our advantages.
Lysandra decided to risk all and trust to the training of her youth.
As Aesalon rushed in, Lysandra cast her swords away, ducking inside the attack and grasping the Gladiatrix Prima’s lead arm with her two hands. Twisting her body, she executed a hip throw, flipping Aesalon over and to the sands, her swords skittering away as she too hit the ground. Keeping her grip, Lysandra followed her down, left leg over Aesalon’s throat, right knee braced against the Roman’s body.
Lysandra pulled, knowing that it would only be a few moments before either Aesalon’s shoulder or elbow broke. She gritted her teeth, head back, cords on her neck standing out as she exerted crushing pressure. ‘Come on!’ she heard herself shout. ‘ Come on!’
There was a sudden sickening, agonising pain in her calf. Lysandra screamed and jerked back, releasing her grip. Aesalon Nocturna sprang from the earth, her mouth a mess of Spartan blood. Snarling, she leapt forward and crashed into her and they rolled about on the sand, smashing blows into each other’s faces. The oil on their bodies made purchase difficult as it became a gutter war, both women striving to batter the other into submission. Aesalon ended up on top. Hair hanging about her face, she used her fists like twin hammers.
Senses reeling, it was all Lysandra could do to cover up.
She had to escape or it would be all over.
She twisted about as though in panic, giving her back to the Roman, praying that Kleandrias had been right in his assessment that she was no pankratatist. She could almost feel the confusion passing from Aesalon’s body to her own as she turned, but it was now that the strength training came to the fore. Lysandra forced her knees up and heaved, hurling the Roman from her.
Both women leapt up, Aesalon raising her fists like a boxer, Lysandra dropping back into the pankratatist’s stance. Lysandra staggered, unable to put her weight on her right leg where Aesalon had taken a chunk out of her and the Gladiatrix Prima seized the moment, darting in with a furious combination of punches. There was no order to it: she was milling but it was effective, and Lysandra covered up as the Roman’s fists thudded into her body and forearms.
As Aesalon took a breath, Lysandra struck back, a straight left that snapped her opponent’s head back and a right cross that sent her down to one knee. Lysandra’s eyes flicked about, looking for their swords, but the brawl had taken them far from where Aesalon’s swords glinted in the torchlight— her own were lost in the darkness – and before she could run to them, Aesalon was up again.
They were both covered in blood and arena filth, Aesalon’s once-beautiful features a mask of gore, one eye beginning to close. Lysandra too could barely see as the pounding she had taken began to swell the flesh around her eyes. Her body was becoming numb with exhaustion and blood loss, the muscles in her back seizing from the early wound. But Aesalon too was suffering and Lysandra could tell that she was realising the extent of the damage as her eyes sought a weapon.
Lysandra stepped towards the fallen blades of the Roman champion, but Aesalon matched her and then came forward, weaving like the boxers she must have seen in combat. Steeling herself, Lysandra raised her guard and went on the attack. They came together like weary titans, almost using the other’s body to keep upright as they slammed blow after blow to head and body.
‘Worth the wait, wouldn’t you say, Frontinus?’
The emperor was enjoying the fight immensely. It was, Frontinus thought, more savage than Achillia’s encounter with Sorina and the skill level on display far higher. But like all fights, when tiredness set in, the action slowed and it became siege warfare, each woman seeking to batter down the defensive wall of the other.
He could hear the Greeks in the crowd screaming for their champion and he recalled the conversation with Iulianus earlier that evening. Someone the Greeks would fight for… He recalled that Achillia had once been a priestess of Minerva – or Athene, as the Greeks called her. She was a champion and she had led an army in battle, albeit a staged one. He remembered their conversation – six or seven years ago in Halicarnassus, where she had embarrassed Valerian and debated military tactics with him – Sextus Julius Frontinus, conqueror of the Silures. She was perfect.
‘Caesar,’ he leaned closer to the young emperor. ‘I beg you – if the Greek raises her finger at the end of this – save her.’
Domitian glanced at him. ‘If that’s what the crowd wants, Frontinus. I’m not going to risk upsetting them, mind. But if it’s any comfort to you – and your purse, as I’m guessing you’ve wagered that she’ll live – I think they’ve both done well enough for the missio.
I’ve never seen anything like this. But, as I say, it’s not up to me.’
Frontinus opened his mouth to argue, but this was not Vespasian who would give him a hearing and see to the heart of the matter.
All he could do was pray that Achillia emerged from this victorious.
Breath exploded from Lysandra as Aesalon sank a vicious punch into her solar plexus; she was forced to try and hold on to gain respite and they staggered like two drunks as she did so. Lysandra jerked her head back and slammed it forward, catching the Roman above the right eye, opening a nasty cut and Aesalon broke away, hand coming to the wound.
Both women looked again for the swords and found that the battle had carried them towards the weapons. As one, they made for them, with the tired, exhausted stagger of drunkards. Lysandra scrambled in the sand to grasp one of Aesalon’s blades, unable to see clearly, but she heard the rasp of iron on sand and knew that the Roman had already retrieved the other.
Lysandra reached inside herself, hearing the words she had once spoke to Varia – pain is a feeling. You feel hot, you feel cold – all such things are simply a state of mind. Whatever she had left, she would use it now, and as she advanced on Aesalon she could tell that she too had reached that same critical watershed.
Win or die. It was the way of the gladiatrix.
There was no time for skill now – it was just blunt force as they fought like barbarians, hacking and slashing at each other with a desperate fury, both landing blows to arms and torso, both too numb to feel the pain. Bleeding from a dozen wounds or more, Lysandra’s strength began to fail – but inside she knew that this was her edge and, as desperate as she was, Aesalon was in worse shape, the Roman’s attacks coming slower and with less bite.
There!
Lysandra saw the gap and her sword speared out, sinking deep into the flesh that joined Aesalon’s shoulder to her neck, all but severing the muscle there. Aesalon screamed in agony and staggered back, crashing into the wall, her bloodied sword falling from her grasp.
Too tired to feel anything, Lysandra made to step forwa
rd, hoping that this courageous woman’s pride would allow her to raise her finger and seek the missio.
Her legs would not obey her and suddenly she became very aware of the noise and the torchlight around her. And there was pain, a sickening agony in her side. She looked down and saw a gaping wound there. Blood gouted from it, drenching her legs and soaking into the dark sand.
She had been stabbed in the last exchange and she had not felt it until now.
The world tilted crazily as she saw Aesalon speed past her vision, her bloodied fist raised to the heavens, then the ravening mob, and finally the stars of the night sky. As her head hit the sand, blood bubbled from her mouth, crawling down both cheeks. She could not breathe, her chest working but to no avail.
Lysandra could see images flickering before her eyes as though she were underwater: her mother and father looking after her as she was led away to the Temple of Athene; then standing in line with her Sisters, singing the paen to the goddess, swimming with her friend Deianara in the Eurotas River… all seemed to merge into one. Then she saw Varia, little Varia who she had loved as her own, little Varia who she had killed. She saw her Eirianwen, her beautiful blue eyes full of tears. ‘Do not cry!’ she whispered. ‘Do not cry!’
Around her, Lysandra could hear the crowd chanting ‘ Roma Victrix, Roma Victrix, Roma Victrix...’
And then there was nothing.
Illeana slid down the wall, the rush of victory leaving her and, with it, the last of her strength. The wound in her shoulder was bad, the muscles gone, and she knew in that moment that she would never fight again. As the crowd chanted her name, she crawled over to Achillia.
The Greek woman had given her what she most desired, the fight of her life and the proof that she was indeed Gladiatrix Prima.
But the sweetness of victory was marred: Achillia was a warrior – the daughter of warriors – and she had honoured her goddess with this fight. The gods could not be so cruel as to take her from the earth. But as she reached her side she knew the truth.
Achillia of Sparta was dead.
EPILOGUE I
As Charon lifted Achillia’s body onto his cart, Frontinus cursed under his breath.
Iulianus nudged him in the ribs.
‘I think,’ he grinned, ‘you owe me some money.’
‘I’ve lost more than money!’ Frontinus snapped.
‘Don’t be a bad sport, old boy,’ Iulianus chuckled. ‘Win some, lose some, as they say. I’d never back a Greek against a Roman – but you live and learn.’
Frontinus forced himself to smile back. There was, he thought, no point in explaining his plan now. There was no victorious Achillia to inspire Greek mercenaries to fight for Rome. There was just a corpse who would soon be forgotten. It was a shame, he thought, as the arena attendants helped the badly wounded Aesalon Nocturna away. He had rather liked Achillia and she had been useful to him in the past. A pity she could no longer serve his – or Rome’s – designs.
That burden would now fall squarely on the shoulders of Gaius Minervinus Valerian.
Sorina awoke with a start.
Around her, the camp was alive with noise. Twenty thousand she had found and twenty thousand were ready to march with her.
The Sarmatians she had convinced to join Decabalus’s banner were eager for Roman gold and Roman blood. For too long, the tribes had lived in fear of the empire: now they would have their revenge.
‘Are you all right?’ Teuta opened a sleepy eye.
‘Yes… no… I don’t know.’ Sorina replied. Something from the dream goddess had unsettled her and she could not quite remember what it was. ‘I was dreaming,’ she said, trying to force the memories back as though she was squeezing a near-dry sponge. ‘I was dreaming of Eirianwen. She was crying. And I was dreaming of…vengeance.’
‘Oh, we will have our vengeance, Sorina. Listen…’ she gestured to the activity of the camp beyond their tent. ‘This is not even half the forces that Decebalus can muster. Your tribe, my tribe, the Sarmatians, the Dacians, the Getae and more. All are poised and ready. We’ll wait for the Romans to come and when they do, we’ll trap them and finish them. This will be their last battle, Sorina. And one day, the head of their emperor will ride one of our spears. And the young women will sing songs of Sorina of Dacia who brought the tribes down on the empire and trampled the eagle beneath her horse’s hooves. This is prophesy. This is destiny.’
It was not the Spartan way to cry, but Kleandrias could not help himself.
He looked down at the corpse, tears spilling over his cheeks.
Cappa and Murco were there, as were Lysandra’s friends – Titus, the priest Telemachus, the gladiatrix Thebe – all openly weeping over the body of the slain.
‘I will take her home,’ he gasped. ‘I will take her to Sparta and she will have a gravestone. I will take her home.’ He spoke then the words that he dare not utter whilst she had breath in her body lest they shame her. The words that he had wanted to say since the first moment he had laid eyes upon her. He knelt and held her hand that had not yet cooled and kissed it, whispering his love for her over and over as though she would somehow hear him.
He prayed that, in Elysium, perhaps she would.
EPILOGUE II
Shale crunched under the woman’s bare feet as she walked along the beach.
To her right, the greyish river churned listlessly, hissing as it washed up to the shore. In every other direction stretched an endless plain of shingle, as far as the eye could see.
The sky was as barren and featureless as the desolate landscape it looked down upon. It was devoid of cloud, moon or sun. Or life.
No birds flew here, and no animals grazed along the riverbank. She could not remember how she had come to this place.
The woman caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. She squinted at the river. She could see a small boat in the distance, its tall pilot obviously poling the little craft towards her.
Perhaps he could tell her where she was.
The boat drew nearer and she saw the pilot silhouetted against the stark sky. He was clad in a heavy black cowl, its hood pulled up to conceal his face. Her eyes were drawn to his hands: where the flesh of a normal man should have been, the chalky white of bone gripped the pole.
This was Charon, the ferryman of the dead.
She remembered then: the amphitheatre, Aesalon Nocturna , the roar of the crowd and the burning agony of the wound in her side.
Dead.
Lysandra wanted to run away, or find a sword; to do something – anything – to avoid her fate. But she just stood, rooted to the spot, watching the inexorable approach of the figure in the boat.
The boat slid sluggishly up onto the beach and Charon disembarked. With morbid fascination, Lysandra watched as the skeletal hands moved up to the cowl, seeking to pull it back.
‘Do not look upon his face.’
Lysandra whirled around to confront the speaker.
Before her stood a tall and impossibly beautiful woman. Her luxuriant hair cascaded in golden waves down her back, her raiment was of pale white silk and her flawless skin was the colour of alabaster.
But it was her eyes that held her. They were grey, a deep grey; those eyes held wisdom. They were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.
And in her right hand she held a spear.
In awe, Lysandra dropped down onto one knee, averting her eyes. She had seen her image a thousand times, her statues adorned the Deiopolis, her name invoked in daily prayer.
Athene, Goddess of Wisdom and War; child of Zeus, the God-King.
She spoke again. ‘Rise, Lysandra, daughter of Arion and Kassandra.
Look upon me. I come to offer you a choice.’
Lysandra swallowed and got to her feet. She stared at the goddess, unable to speak, such was the presence radiating from her, intoxi-cating in its power.
Athene gestured for her to come away from the silent ferryman.
She was quiet for a few moments as Lysand
ra walked with her, as if in a dream.
‘Lysandra, you stand in the netherworld between life and death.
The Morae ordained that this day would be your last. There lays the River Styx,’ she swept her arm, ‘and beyond, the Realm of Hades.’
‘Yes, my Lady.’ It was all she could think to say.
‘The path for you in death is to Elysium. Your life deeds have earned you the right to enter Paradise and share ambrosia with your forefathers. You have ever been my handmaiden and I love you as once I loved Odysseus.’ She glanced at her. ‘And, like those heroes of old, you have been headstrong and errant. I punished you for this and you bore my judgement with a fortitude that honours you.’
‘My lady honours me with her gracious words.’ Lysandra felt foolish. How was a mortal woman supposed to converse with a goddess?
‘How indeed,’ Athene’s mouth turned up slightly. ‘It is customary to obey. But what I ask of you now is not a command, for it is forbidden for me to make it so. I risk the wrath of my father as I stand before you. So I ask of you: will you serve me once again, Lysandra of Sparta?’
Lysandra made to reply but the goddess cut her off.
‘I mentioned a choice. You can return to the world from whence you came or you can take your place in Elysium.’ She stopped, turned towards her and placed her hand on Lysandra’s arm. The touch was somehow warm and cool at the same time, and it made the skin on Lysandra’s biceps tingle.
Athene’s magnificent grey eyes bored into hers, making her head swim. ‘If you choose to return to the mortal world, I can promise you three things: firstly, that what remains of your life will be one of hardship, pain and loss; second, that you will raise your shield in defence of your homeland; and third, that the name of Lysandra will be lost to the sands of history – but that of Achillia will be known many thousands of years hence, when everything Rome has built is naught but ruin and men have themselves become as gods.
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