Out of the Ashes

by Lori Dillon

  Save him.

  Sabina felt a sudden chill, as though a cold wind had swept down through the arena and wrapped itself around her exposed shoulders. The voice whispered inside her head, a faint teasing sound she could barely make out over the thunderous shouts of the crowd.

  The scene in the arena below drew her attention. The Myrmillo sprawled on the ground, defeated, his proud body slick with sweat and blood, the sand sticking to his skin. The victorious Retiarius stood over him, the point of his trident poised over the fallen man’s heart, awaiting judgment from her uncle, the Giver of the Games. The Myrmillo’s chest rose and fell rapidly, as if each beat of his heart would be its last.

  Save him now!

  She jumped to her feet.

  “No!”

  Silence fell over the spectators near her as they turned to gawk at her.

  Sabina pushed her way in front of her father to kneel before her uncle, her hands gripping his plump knees as she used to do as a child.

  “Dearest Uncle, as Giver of the Games, I beg you to spare the Myrmillo.”

  Gallus gaped at her with a puzzled look on his pudgy face, his arm suspended in midair, the thumb pointing neither up nor down.

  “He lost the match.”

  “Yes,” she conceded, “but he fought well.”

  “The crowd wants to see blood. That is what they came for.”

  Sabina gazed around them. The crowd no longer placed wagers on the combatants, but on whether her uncle would allow the loser to live or die. Half the people were hissing and booing, their thumbs pointing to the ground, blood lust evident in their dispassionate eyes.

  “Only some. Look around you.” The other half waved white pieces of cloth, their thumbs raised skyward in judgment of mercy. “The Myrmillo fought well for you this day. Spare him that he might fight again and bring victory to your name.”

  “Well…”

  “Show the citizens of Pompeii you are a man of wisdom and mercy,” she pushed on. “There has been much blood drawn today, and there will yet be more. What is one man’s life? Prove to the people—your people—that you are not as heartless as Caligula of Rome once was.”

  Gallus frowned, his forehead creasing in deep furrows, and Sabina knew she would have to use her position as his favorite niece in the final thrust to win him over. She opened her eyes as wide as they could go and pouted in the way she knew he couldn’t resist.

  “Please? For me?”

  He visibly melted at her plea. Shaking his head in admission of defeat, he raised his thumb in the air and spared the gladiator’s life. The stands shook under her feet as the crowd went wild.

  Her shoulders sagged in relief.

  “Thank you. You will not regret your decision.”

  “I hope not, Sabina. I would not want the people to think I am too lenient. It could cost me the elections next year.”

  She chuckled. “It will not, Uncle, and you know it. If anything, your show of mercy has just earned you a thousand more votes.”

  “I certainly hope you are right.” Gallus rubbed the first of his two chins and winked at her. “Perhaps I should make you my campaign advisor?”

  Sabina grinned. “Perhaps you should.”

  She stood, ready to make her way back to her seat, when movement in the arena below caught her eye. The fallen gladiator rose on unsteady feet, and the crowd around her fell silent once more, anticipation thickening the air.

  Sabina stood frozen, unable to tear her eyes away from the Myrmillo. Although his face was shielded from view by his helmet, she sensed him staring at her, his gaze boring deep into her soul.

  A shiver rippled over her skin. Though he stood far below, she felt as if the gladiator had reached up and touched her.

  Thumping his sword on his sweaty chest, the Myrmillo raised it high in the air and pointed it at her, breaking custom by saluting Sabina and not the Giver of the Games.

  The crowd roared at the drama unfolding before them, but she barely heard them. All her senses were focused on the gladiator. She could almost feel the point of his sword piercing her heart, the hot metal vibrating with an unseen power inside her chest as her heart pulsed around it.

  Finally, the gladiator severed the connection between them. He thumped his sword once more against his chest and pointed it at her uncle. Sabina felt weak, as if a string that had been holding her up had suddenly been cut, leaving her to drop limply to her seat.

  “Well, I hope you are happy, Sabina,” her father chided as both exhausted warriors were led away through a gate, only to have more gladiators enter the arena to take their place, “making a spectacle of yourself in front of all these people gathered in your uncle’s honor.”

  “Oh, it was really not so bad. And she is right.” Gallus chuckled as he smoothed the front of his white toga over his protruding belly. “After all, it did give me a chance to show my generous side, although I am not sure I like his arrogance, bowing to Sabina the way he did.”

  “You should have him lashed for losing, beaten at the very least for his insolence in the face of your leniency,” her father said.

  Sabina felt the blood drain from her body at the thought of the proud young gladiator suffering any more pain because of her.

  “Yes, perhaps I will.” Gallus returned his attention to the next match in the arena. “It will teach him to win next time, or there will not be a time after that, I can assure you.”

  *

  She stood alone in the stands, the Amphitheatre empty except for the man in the arena. A dry wind blew across the field, the dust swirling in tiny storms across the sand.

  With a will of its own, Sabina’s arm lifted, her thumb poised midway. Her arm felt oddly detached from her body, as if she no longer had any control over her own limb. Yet she knew that she alone had the power to determine the gladiator’s fate. With a simple twist of her wrist, she could decide whether he lived or died.

  Bright bursts of light reflected off his gold helmet as he stared up at her, his eyes piercing her through the slits in the metal faceplate. He stood in the center of the arena, his arm stretched out to her. Then the raised sword in his hand crumbled to sand, the grains trickling through his fingers and drifting away on the wind.

  The breeze carried his voice up to her, softly at first, growing louder until the vast stadium seemed to vibrate with the sound of his words.

  “Sabina, save me.”

  She awoke with a start, her heart pounding, his voice ringing in her ears.

  “Save me…”

  She was back in her own familiar room. Yet the dream seemed so real, she almost expected the gladiator to be standing at the foot of her bed.

  She tossed the covers aside and walked to her dressing table, her bare feet silent on the cool tile floor. Her legs felt leaden, her arms heavy, as though invisible chains weighed them down. She splashed cool water on her face from a shallow basin, trying to shake the last vestiges of the dream.

  A dark-skinned woman entered the room bearing a tray of watered wine, bread, and honey. Sabina sat on a small stool, and the woman began brushing her hair with a comb delicately carved from bone, as she did every morning.

  The wide leather belt the woman wore around her waist bore Sabina’s father’s name, marking her as a slave of his household. She had been Sabina’s personal servant her entire life, and yet Sabina knew very little about her.

  Picking up a mirror of polished silver metal, Sabina studied her own reflection as perplexing thoughts ran through her mind.

  “Lidia, how did you come to be a slave?”

  The woman paused in mid-stroke. Her large brown eyes met Sabina’s blue ones in the mirror, revealing her obvious surprise at the direct question.

  “I was taken from my home when I was but a child.”

  “Do you remember being free?”

  “Some, but it was a long time ago.”

  “And what of your family?”

  Lidia resumed combing, the strokes noticeably more forceful as she tugged
at Sabina’s scalp.

  “My father and brother were killed when the slave traders attacked our village. My mother and sisters were taken, too. I have not seen them since I was put on the ship and brought here.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “I am no longer sad.” Lidia shrugged. “As I said, it was a long time ago.”

  Sabina watched the slave’s face reflected in the silver mirror. Though her words revealed little, if any, emotion, the sadness in her eyes showed the woman’s secret torment. Lidia continued dressing Sabina’s hair, pinning up the wavy russet strands with hairpins made of gold and jade, hiding her pain in the ritual of duty.

  “Are you happy here, Lidia?”

  “It is the only life I know.”

  “But are you happy?”

  Lidia put down the comb and handed Sabina the cup of wine.

  “Like any slave, I would like to be free someday. Free to make my own way, to marry and have children.” Lidia turned away and pulled a tunica and stola from a chest at the foot of the bed. “But it is a foolish dream.”

  “Why is that?”

  Lidia slipped the saffron tunica over Sabina’s head and adjusted the folds so it draped her body.

  “Because it will never happen. I have been a slave in your father’s house for twenty years. It seems the Fates have decided that I shall die a slave.”

  Sabina did not know what to say. The possibility of never knowing freedom? To have no choices, no will of one’s own?

  Unbidden, the gladiator from her dreams crept into her thoughts. Did he have the choice to fight or not? Was he free or slave?

  As Lidia wrapped a fine chain of gold links around Sabina’s waist, Sabina gazed at the beautiful fresco painted on the plaster walls of her room. The bright greens and reds gave one the illusion of being surrounded by a peaceful garden, since no windows allowed in the outside world. But if she dared to look beyond the wonderful artist’s painting, high stone walls surrounded her with no way out except through one small door.

  She looked away as the walls closed in, her room feeling more like a prison than a sanctuary. Uneasy desperation drove her to escape the suddenly oppressive confines.

  She stood and walked through the door, free to go about as she pleased. But that liberty did little to ease the guilt building inside her.

  Guilt for what? For being born a free woman? Life had always been that way—there were slaves, and there were masters.

  Crossing the open center courtyard of her father’s house, Sabina found it difficult to draw in a full breath, even in the fresh early morning air. She could not shake the strange feeling that had come over her since the games.

  What had happened to change things?

  But if she were truly honest with herself, Sabina already knew the answer.

  Somehow, she had changed. And in some way, she knew she might never be the same again.

  These thoughts weighed heavily as she listened to Lidia’s soft footsteps following quietly behind her, a human symbol of everything Sabina had always taken for granted.

  Chapter 2

  Sabina strolled through the open-air market in the center of the city with no particular destination in mind.

  As she passed a public fountain, two women, voices raised in anger, caught her attention. The marble basin to catch the water was dry, only a single drip falling reluctantly from the spout of the stone lion’s mouth. The water no longer flowed freely through the aqueduct system under the city, and the women were arguing over the reason. One said it was the pipes, broken again from the recent rumbling of the ground. The other swore it was a sign from the gods that Pompeii’s time of plenty was over.

  Wondering briefly why that one and several other fountains in the city had gone dry in the past few days, Sabina shrugged and moved on. She could not be bothered with such mundane thoughts as the city’s plumbing.

  Instead, her thoughts returned to the gladiator. Even a long steam and a plunge in the frigidarium had done little to chase the dream from her mind. What was it about him? She had yet to lay eyes upon his face, did not even know his name, and yet she felt… drawn to him.

  Was it merely because she felt responsible for having spared his life? Or that he had then risked that very life by paying tribute to her in front of twenty thousand spectators?

  Sabina stepped up to a merchant’s shop, picked up a terra cotta lamp, and feigned examining it. She would not allow the gladiator to creep into her thoughts anymore. She had done what she felt was right, and it was over, the entire incident best forgotten.

  Why then, wouldn’t the memory of him leave her alone? Why did she feel as if he were calling to her?

  “Stop it! I will not listen to you.”

  The shopkeeper eyed her suspiciously. Grinning to cover her embarrassment, she returned the lamp to its shelf and continued her stroll.

  Sabina walked to another merchant’s shop where urns of incense and precious oils filled the air with exotic scents. She picked up a bottle and removed the stopper to sample the spicy fragrance.

  Did he hurt from the wounds he received during the match? Had he been lashed as her uncle had threatened?

  “No!”

  She slammed the bottle down, spilling the oil over her fingers and the tabletop.

  “What do you think you are doing?” the shopkeeper yelled.

  Sabina looked at the mess she’d made.

  “I am sorry. The bottle slipped out of my hand. I will gladly pay for it.”

  The shopkeeper took her money, the pricey oil costing her every coin she carried. She hurried away from the shop, cursing the man for disturbing her thoughts.

  Before she realized it, Sabina found herself outside the gladiator barracks on the far side of the city, the sound of clashing swords and shouting men coming from the practice field inside.

  How had she come to be at this place? She had never had any intention of coming here.

  Sabina made her way to the front gate. The iron bars of the door gave her pause, evidence of the violent men they kept within. A shiver raced up her spine, but that didn’t stop her from seeking the posted results of yesterday’s games painted on the plaster wall.

  Scanning the lists, she noted many names marked with a P for those who had perished, while a V indicated the victors of the day’s events. Her eyes skimmed over those, only reading the names marked with an M for missus—fighters who had lost, but been spared to fight another day. There were few who had been so lucky, and only one of them had been a Myrmillo. A gladiator named Dacian.

  A guard stepped up to the gate, startling her.

  “What do you want?”

  Before she could think better of it, the words sprang out of her mouth.

  “I wish to speak with the Myrmillo Dacian.”

  The guard looked at her in surprise, then stepped closer, a smirk on his scarred face.

  “Oh, you do not want to consort with the likes of him. Why, he is just a filthy slave trained at fighting. Would you not rather dally with one of the free gladiators instead? They are accustomed to the ladies coming to visit and know how to treat them.”

  Sabina cringed at the thought.

  “No, I wish to see Dacian.”

  The guard’s smirk disappeared, and he eyed her up and down.

  “Fine, but it will cost you. The slave gladiators are not allowed such liberties. They cannot be trusted.”

  She tried to comprehend what the man was saying. Did he actually want payment to allow her to speak with a gladiator? She had spent all her money on the oil she spilled. There was nothing left…

  Sabina followed the guard’s gaze to the metal band encircling her upper arm. She pried it off and handed it to him. The guard bit into it, noting it was made of polished brass and not the fine gold he expected.

  “This will let you talk to him—through the gate. If you want to spend private time with him, you will have to bring something more next time.” The guard tucked the armlet into his tunic and walked away.

&
nbsp; Next time? Was she truly even considering that there would be a next time?

  Just when Sabina began to suspect that the guard had taken her jewelry and left her to stand out in the hot sun all day, he appeared with another man in tow.

  The gladiator was brought forward, his chest bare and sweaty from the morning training session, suspicion evident on his stoic features. She was shocked at how young he was. He couldn’t be much older than nineteen or twenty, yet the strain of his profession had left its mark in the lines of his face, aging him beyond his years. Black curls surrounded that hard, yet handsome, face—curls a slave labored for an hour each morning to replicate on her father’s balding head. He would be envious to see such perfection wasted on a gladiator.

  Dark brown eyes studied her, showing no emotion at a strange woman wishing to see him. Then his eyes widened, and when he finally spoke, his voice was deep and strong.

  “You are the girl from the games yesterday.”

  “Y-yes,” she stuttered, surprised that he recognized her. “My name is Sabina.”

  He nodded. “I am called Dacian.”

  “I know. I saw your name posted at the gate.”

  Sabina glared at the guard standing next to Dacian. The man snorted, curling his upper lip in disdain before he moved a few steps away. Obviously that would be all the privacy her armlet would buy them.

  She turned her attention back to Dacian, and they stared at each other for a long time, the silence growing as awkward as the iron bars that separated them.

  “Why have you come here?”

  “I had to see if you were all right. To see if…” Sabina stepped closer, wrapping her hands around the bars. “Father said you might be punished for losing the match during the games.”

  He remained silent.

  “Well, were you?”

  His lids lowered, casting his eyes into shadow under his long, dark lashes.

  “No.”

  Sabina sighed in relief. When the silence became unbearable once more, she struggled for something to say.