Blood and Sand

by C. V. Wyk

  “What does that have to do with anything that you said before?” Xanthus asked with exasperation. He’d learned on the first day that ignoring Kanut only made him worse, but it was so difficult to take him seriously.

  “My point,” Kanut said, “is that birds are like people.”

  “Oh, of course,” Xanthus replied. “Except for the feathers, claws, beak, flight—”

  “Don’t be pedantic, gladiator. I like you much more when you’re aloof and cold. Now, wolves are a different matter.”

  Kanut droned on, and Xanthus found himself remembering the fight with the wolves in Ardea. He’d thought his heart had stopped when Attia fell and that gray body shuddered on top of her. He remembered knowing—instantly—that if she died, well, there wouldn’t really be much point to anything.

  That same reasoning was why he now found himself on the road with mercenaries who wouldn’t speak and another who couldn’t stop: to keep Attia safe. Xanthus thought it might well be that everything he did in the future would be for her sake.

  Kanut’s grating voice broke through his thoughts. “Tell me again how you defeated the Taurus.” He bit into an apple, chewing with noisy, wet smacks of his lips.

  “I killed him,” Xanthus said.

  “Obviously, gladiator. But how?” Kanut pressed.

  “I sliced his head off.”

  Kanut slapped his knee and laughed. “Brilliant! Is that how Spartacus killed his men?”

  Xanthus rolled his eyes. Kanut wasn’t even trying to be coy about it anymore. His incessant questions about Xanthus were peppered with inquiries about Spartacus. He was no doubt trying to catch him off guard, hoping that Xanthus would release more information than he intended.

  “No,” Xanthus said. “Spartacus beat the first man with his bare hands, remember?”

  “Bare hands,” Kanut repeated with a nod and barely suppressed smile. “Rather impressive. And was his opponent armed?”

  “To the teeth,” Xanthus said yet again. He glanced to the side just in time to see Number Two mouthing the words along with him. “At least one of you has been paying attention.”

  “You’ve told us the same thing at least a dozen times now, gladiator,” Number Two said.

  “Maybe that’s because you’ve asked the same question at least a dozen times now. It’s not my fault you can’t listen.”

  “There is one question you haven’t answered,” Number Two said.

  “And what is that?”

  “How did you learn his name?”

  “What?”

  Number Two turned in his saddle to look at Xanthus. “Spartacus was mute, you said. Didn’t say a single word, correct? So how did you learn his name?”

  Xanthus met the man’s challenging gaze full on. “You’d have to ask Timeus’s nephew. He was the one who introduced him at the arena.”

  A charged silence passed between them, broken when Kanut laughed forcefully. “Oh, who cares? What is in a name? I’ve had plenty of names in the past few months alone.”

  Number Two turned forward.

  “I’m more concerned with what Spartacus is,” Kanut said. “A demon? A monkey? A frog?”

  “All viable options,” Xanthus muttered.

  “Or perhaps she was a giant, as the gladiator says.”

  She.

  Xanthus nearly fell off his horse, his hands involuntarily jerking on the reins for balance. The beast reared up with a loud noise of protest.

  But neither the mercenaries nor Kanut nor his Number Two were paying attention to him, because in the distance, two scouts were racing back and waving their arms wildly.

  Kanut translated. “Fido’s men. Follow me, gladiator!”

  The mercenaries dispersed, spreading out in every direction. There was no time for questions.

  Xanthus urged his horse into a gallop, following in Kanut’s wake as he scanned the horizon. The others had already disappeared, but dust rose just ahead.

  Kanut saw it, too. He forced his horse into a sharp turn. They barely made it fifty yards before they saw the dust rise again. Kanut made another sharp turn, then another. But Fido’s men were coming at them from all sides. There was nowhere to go. Their horses trotted nervously as the men rode closer to them.

  “Maybe you should lend me a sword,” Xanthus said.

  “Maybe you should follow my lead.”

  “Because that worked out so well for me just now?”

  Kanut chuckled and raised his hands above his head as Fido’s men finally came into view.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Xanthus growled.

  Kanut smiled. “Surrendering.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Rory ran to the shutters, her small hands struggling with the latch. She and Attia were finally alone, and the child had been whispering about this all day.

  “Hurry!” she said urgently, beckoning to Attia to come and help.

  Attia reached over with a smile and let the shutters swing open.

  Orange-tinted light filled the room, warming the air with the glow of the sunset. Rory’s giggle was a sound of pure delight, and she spread her arms wide.

  “We almost missed it. Why don’t people do this all the time?” she asked, spinning in circles that made her sleeping-tunic swirl around her ankles.

  “It’s different when you’re older.”

  “I wish I could do this all day, not just at sunset.”

  “You can’t do it for too long, Rory,” Attia said. “The sun will toast your skin brown and then what will your mother say?”

  “She wouldn’t notice,” Rory said.

  Attia couldn’t argue with that. Valeria so rarely made appearances anymore, not even at the evening meal. Attia doubted that she’d even seen her daughter since they left Rome. “What about your brother? He would certainly notice if you start to look like a raisin.”

  Rory lowered her arms and her voice. “Lucius wouldn’t, either. He hasn’t come to visit me in so long. He used to tuck me in some nights. But I haven’t seen him in days and days. I wish I could tell him. I wish he could see me in the sun.”

  Attia understood the affection that Rory had for her brother. In many ways, it seemed like he’d raised her more than Valeria had. But then again, Attia was grateful that Lucius hadn’t come to see his sister. The young man she’d seen that morning in the training yard with his glazed eyes and trembling hands was so different from the Lucius whose hands she’d bandaged in Rome. The attack on the camp—and what he’d been forced to do because of it—had changed him immensely.

  “Attia, look,” Rory said. Her little face peered over the marble railing of the balcony. “It’s like the mountain is breathing.”

  Cloudy black exhalations surrounded the entire summit of Vesuvius. The edges of the clouds turned red in the setting sun, as though tinged with fire. A layer of gray-and-white ash coated the roofs of the houses and shops at the base of the mountain.

  “We should go back inside, Rory.” Attia gently ushered her back into the room and closed the shutters.

  Rory didn’t argue. It was nearly dark anyway and time for her supper. Ever since Attia had started letting her play in the evenings, Rory had been eating more and more. She’d already gained a few pounds, and her skin no longer looked like it was hanging on bone. Even if her family hadn’t yet noticed the new glow to her skin, it was only a matter of time before someone saw that Rory was getting stronger. Let them see, Attia thought. She wasn’t going to starve a child. Not for the Romans, and certainly not to keep their secrets.

  Attia left Rory to her little games while she went downstairs to pick up their supper from the kitchens. But her steps slowed on the way back when she found Lucius sitting on the stairs that led to the upper rooms.

  His body was stretched across the bottommost step, his left foot tapping a soft beat against the floor. The cup of wine in his hand was nearly empty, but he stared into it as though there was a message to be read there. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

  �
�Have you heard?” he said, still staring into his cup. “Tycho Flavius is coming.”

  Flavius. The name rang in Attia’s ears.

  “Two weeks, the messengers say. Maybe my mother has the right idea—maybe we should all just drink ourselves into oblivion so that we can stomach the fool’s presence.” He chuckled to himself, threw his head back, and drained the cup.

  It was obvious that Lucius was less than pleased by this information, but Attia was more concerned about whether or not Tycho would bring his father with him. Just the thought of having both Timeus and the Legatus Crassus in this house, close enough for Attia to drive her blade into their chests …

  “Is he coming alone?” she asked, trying to sound as calm as possible.

  Lucius turned to her with a thoughtful frown. “He may bring soldiers with him, if he’s cautious. But he doesn’t know that I know.”

  It was Attia’s turn to frown. She had no idea what Lucius was talking about. She watched him reach into his pocket and hold up a gold coin between his fingers.

  “Did you know,” he said, eyes intent on the coin, “that after the House of Flavius rose to power, they restandardized the Republic’s currency? They didn’t want there to be any question that Vespasian was the rightful Princeps. Now all coins are engraved with Vespasian’s profile on one side, and an inscription that reads ‘Vespasianus Augustus, Noble Father of the Roman People’ on the other.” Lucius toyed with the gold coin in his fingers before reaching out his hand and offering it to Attia.

  She took it hesitantly. The coin was almost solid gold—shinier and heavier than the Republic’s currency. It bore no profile, no long inscription. There was only the image of a wolf’s head on both sides, along with a single word. “Flavius,” she read.

  “After I executed that bandit, this coin fell out of his pocket. I hid it before the guards or the soldiers could see. The guards are my uncle’s men, and the soldiers are loyal only to the Princeps. I didn’t know who I could trust.”

  “Do you really think a Flavian ordered the attack on the camp?”

  Lucius nodded at the coin in Attia’s hand. “You can’t trust a Flavian.” His words were an eerie echo of Valeria’s.

  Attia handed the coin back to him. “Have you told Timeus?” she asked, even though it was obvious that Lucius hadn’t told anyone besides her.

  “This coin is the only proof I have. I don’t even know what the motive would have been for such an attack. To prevent us from reaching Pompeii? To kill us outright? I can’t imagine they were looking for anything.” Lucius shook his head. “Besides, my uncle is ambitious. Even if he knew, he’s dependent on Titus for political favor. He can’t accuse the family of treachery. Then there’s that wager he’s made with Tycho—my uncle will win a seat on the Senate if Xanthus wins the match against Tycho’s new gladiator. So for now, he just wants to keep all the right people happy.” His face hardened, and he looked up at Attia. “Especially his champion. You are the prize Xanthus gets for being a skilled murderer. I take a single, miserable life, and now I can barely sleep at night. Xanthus takes dozens, hundreds of lives, and everyone loves him for it. He must enjoy it.”

  “If you believe that,” Attia said, “then you don’t know him at all.”

  Lucius scoffed. “You told me once that nothing matters but the present. Not redemption or the afterlife or the gods. Only what we do here and now. Xanthus is what my uncle has made him. We all are. And nothing in this life or the next will ever account for that.”

  Attia bit her lip to hold back the words that wanted to spring out of her mouth—that there would be an accounting. That Rome would pay dearly for its sins. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after, but someday their precious Republic would come to ruin, and it wouldn’t be the work of the gods or fate. A living, breathing, suffering soul would make Timeus and his ilk suffer as they’d made so many others suffer. And it would be called justice.

  With the cup cradled lightly in his hand, Lucius stood and tucked the coin back into his pocket. “I see it now,” he said. “Xanthus is a monster, just like the rest of them. And I am so sorry that you were given to him, Attia. I am so terribly sorry.”

  Attia’s heart tightened at the utter sincerity in Lucius’s voice. Gods, he truly believed what he was saying. She gripped the basket of food in her hand and hurried back to Rory’s room.

  She found the child drawing in the ash by the fireplace. Rory’s tiny fingers were wrapped around a long, narrow stylus. Her tongue stuck out from between her lips in concentration. Attia decided she would have to steal some real papyrus from Timeus’s study for the girl to draw on.

  Rory looked up as Attia put the food on the table. “I’m practicing birds,” she said.

  “What kind of birds?’

  “All of them. But mostly the big ones.”

  Attia sat beside her and watched as Rory took great care in shaping a wing, then a beak. She had surprising control for a child so young.

  “What kind is that?” Attia asked.

  “A seagull,” Rory said. She pointed at another drawing. “And that’s a vulture. It’s an ugly one.”

  Attia laughed and noticed a familiar-looking shape, drawn larger than the rest. “And what is that one?”

  “I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s special. Oh, but I forgot the other parts.” She leaned forward, and all Attia could see was the end of the stylus wiggling back and forth. When Rory sat back again, there were new details around the bird—wavy lines at its feet and a small circle in its chest. “I think that’s water,” Rory said, pointing to the lines. “This circle is a stone.”

  Attia felt like she’d forgotten how to breathe. “Where did you see that, Rory?” Her voice was tight and strained.

  The child’s eyes lowered, and she nibbled on her lower lip. “It’s a secret,” she whispered. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “You can tell me,” Attia said. “I’m good at keeping secrets, remember?”

  Rory’s sweet face crumpled in a frown, and she threw the stylus aside. “I didn’t like him.”

  “Who?”

  “The man who came to our house. I was supposed to stay in my room. But I was curious. He had so many men and horses. I thought he was someone important, so I snuck down and…”

  “And?”

  “He had this on his cloak. It was silver.”

  Attia’s heart was threatening to burst from her chest. “When, Rory? When did you see the man?”

  “Before we went to Uncle’s house in the big city. Mother said we needed to get away.”

  “What else did you see, Rory? Who was the man?”

  “I don’t know,” Rory said. “Someone. I can’t remember.” Her voice wavered between a whine and a sob.

  Attia pulled her into her arms and placed a gentle kiss at her temple. “It’s all right, Rory. Don’t worry. Why don’t you draw me something else?”

  “I don’t want to draw birds anymore.”

  “You can draw whatever you want.”

  “Horses?”

  “Yes,” Attia said. “Draw me a horse.” She picked up the stylus and handed it to Rory.

  While the little girl bent over the ash to start her new drawing, Attia tried to control her breathing. She knew what Rory had seen, of course—the pendant that rightfully belonged to her as the crown princess of Thrace. But who’d been wearing it? He couldn’t have been a Maedi. There was no way he could be Thracian. Or was there? What if Xanthus had been wrong?

  What if—somewhere, somehow—there were other survivors from Thrace?

  * * *

  Fido’s men were armed as heavily as they had been in Ardea, though the fat bastard himself was noticeably absent.

  Xanthus spat into the dirt for the third time in as many minutes. The ride had lasted nearly a day so far, and he felt like he was choking on sand. He couldn’t even wipe his mouth because his hands were bound behind his back. At least the Ardeans had let them keep their mounts.

  “Again, fantast
ic plan, Kanut.”

  The mercenary shrugged. “Thank you.”

  “We could have fought them.”

  Kanut glanced around. “All twelve? Do you think so?”

  “Easily. If your men hadn’t run. I didn’t know you employed cowards.”

  “Only the best,” Kanut said with a grin.

  “I hope you haven’t paid them yet.”

  Kanut leaned forward and squinted. “Oh, look. We’ve reached Capua.”

  Xanthus saw the wall first—brown brick and stone nearly fifty feet high. Men in brown tunics patrolled along the top of it, and beyond the walls, brown insulas rose in uneven intervals. Even the road beyond the wall was brown.

  “A whole city made of sand and dirt,” Kanut said.

  “Enchanting,” Xanthus replied.

  They dismounted, and the Ardeans smuggled them past the gate using an abandoned tunnel under the southern wall. The air was thick with the stench of sewage and standing water. The Ardeans put hoods over Xanthus’s and Kanut’s heads and pushed them roughly along. They were obviously trying to confuse them—leading them over rubble and through broken walls, into a maze of alleys and streets. But it was easy for Xanthus to keep up.

  When Xanthus turned fourteen, Timeus had forced him to fight a match blindfolded. For weeks, Ennius had trained him, honing his hearing, teaching him to fight by sound and reflex. The ring of a swinging sword still resonated in Xanthus’s head. It was one of the reasons he’d been able to defeat the Taurus so easily.

  Those same senses guided his path now. They were being led northeast, to the poor district by the sound of it. There would be few people to watch and even fewer to care when the Ardeans killed them.

  Xanthus knew they’d finally reached their destination when a distinct smell wafted through the air—the smell of old cheese and dirty feet.

  “Hello again, Fido,” Xanthus said.

  The hoods came off, and there was the leader of Ardea in all his greasy glory.

  Fido chuckled, the rounded protrusion of his belly bouncing up and down. “Hello, champion. Miss me?”

  In answer, Xanthus spat again, this time aiming at Fido’s feet.

  “Who’s your friend?” Fido asked.