Mark of the Gladiator

by Heidi Belleau

  Now, with the match at hand, Quintus opened the warehouse doors, letting the bright noonday sun vanquish the shadows. “The crowd is gathered. Come!” he called.

  Marianus had ordered this side road blocked off for the purpose of the exhibition. Anazâr motioned to the gladiatrices to wait so their eyes would become accustomed to the sun. Blinking like owls as they were, they would impress no one with their fierceness. They looked well, though, he thought with pride. All standing perfectly straight in their leather armor and metal greaves, long hair well-combed and arranged in battle-practical cords and buns.

  “As you walk through the door, issue your war cry. Keep your heads held high—you too, Cassia.” He walked toward the door, and as his gladiatrices fell in line behind him, an unsettling sense of command swept over him, swelled inside him. Even as he schooled his body into an imposing hardness, designed to impress the awaiting spectators, he reminded himself, This is a performance, an imitation, a shadow of a battle. Never forget who you are and where you are.

  Though it was hard, sometimes, to remember in the first place.

  He paced over the threshold. Time to call upon the gods. “Mars, may you be increased!” he shouted. “Minerva, too, may you be increased!” Ifri, give strength to my charges.

  There was an answering roar from the crowd. He had not expected so many people.

  Rhakshna screamed. High and quavering, unfortunately—her people fought in dead silence, and her newly learned war cry was more grudging than fearsome. The spectators blocking the street to the right of the warehouse still gasped. They were Marianus’s clients and freedmen and knew of the gladiatrices by reputation. “The Sarmatian!” several called out.

  The Germans yelled out the names of their rough gods in unison. The Gaul women screamed the names of their tribes. Cassia managed another call to Mars and Minerva, and Amanikhabale delivered an ululating Nubian war call, since she knew of no Aksumite ones.

  Anazâr spotted Marianus at the center of his clients. Aelia’s litter was there as well, raised up to give her the best view. The left side of the street began to fill with passing spectators and neighboring shopworkers, all no doubt thrilled at the prospect of a free gladiator match. He felt their eyes upon him, and was glad in that moment for his plumed thraex helmet, glad that his forehead was concealed.

  “I’ll keep them back,” said Quintus. “And here are your swords.” They were specially made exhibition swords, crafted with costly attention to detail: metal cores wrapped in hard oak heartwood, then painted silver to lightly deceive. The gladiatrices took them solemnly, except for Rhakshna, who could not hide her disdain for what was, to her, a glorified play weapon.

  Alexandros—with input from Anazâr—had paired off the gladiatrices for a series of quickfire individual fights, with the winners of each moving on to face one another. The high noon sun had passed overhead, and the exhibitions could easily go on into the twilight. Anazâr intended to fight the winner of the tournament rounds—almost certainly Rhakshna—and by then, he’d have to consider the position of the sun. She’d know enough to take advantage of that.

  The women hadn’t yet donned their helmets, making a show of their femininity for an audience hungry for the novelty of female gladiators. But when Anazâr called Enyo and Amanikhabale forward, he beckoned them to strap into their helmets, then checked the fit himself. “Strike hard. I want to hear ringing. Amanikhabale, you will gain nothing with a poor show. Focus on swordwork, not scheming.”

  Amanikhabale gave a sharp nod, her dark face lost in the shadows of her helmet. “I know. Believe me, I’ll play the warrior queen I’m named for. Who wants the timid scribe of Adulis?” She sighed, and her head twisted oddly, as if she couldn’t bear to look at Enyo’s impassive, helmeted face.

  Anazâr turned to face Marianus’s side of the crowd, hoping he hadn’t made a mistake with this choice of opening. “Enyo, a captured rebel Gaul woman, set against Amanikhabale, of the Egypt-conquering Nubians! Let the battle begin!”

  He stepped back, slashing his arm down.

  The pair bowed to each other, touched swords, and began. Enyo struck upward, fast and cold and without warning or sound. Amanikhabale’s helmet rang a harsh note as she staggered backward. Enyo pressed in, but her second blow fell against a raised shield with a muffled thud. Amanikhabale pivoted and lunged forward against Enyo; Anazâr let out a quick sharp breath of relief.

  Amanikhabale would lose. Enyo was shorter but had the speed, the strength of blow. But at least she wouldn’t lose without fighting back.

  A few moments, a few more flurries of blows, and Amanikhabale was driven down to one knee. A cacophony of applause filled Anazâr’s ears, but there was no time to pay it mind. Anazâr stepped in, raised Amanikhabale up, led her to the side and sat her down. “See to her,” he ordered Quintus. She was likely dazed. “Enyo, victorious!” he yelled to the crowd, and they echoed him back, cheering and tossing coppers.

  But there was only one reaction that mattered. He looked to Marianus.

  Saw him smile.

  This world of artifice and confusion became a simpler, easier place, knowing that Marianus was well served.

  He noticed for the first time that Felix stood close by Marianus, his complicated shadow. Felix’s expression was nowhere near as easy to judge.

  The next match, between Diana and Venatrix, lasted longer. They were more evenly matched, but held their blows back too much, and the crowd was not as pleased. Venatrix caught Anazâr’s curt hand gesture, however, and stepped up, raining blows against Diana’s shield and then down onto her unguarded leg. Diana screamed in pain, but didn’t yield. Anazâr ended the match, then, and raised up Venatrix’s shaky hand as more coppers fell at their feet.

  Atalanta won her match against Verecunda with a feint and a kick. A dangerous move, and one a more experienced opponent could easily have turned against her, but it made for a showy victory. Through an opening in the gauzy curtain of Aelia’s raised litter, he could see her clapping her hands.

  Penthesilea, the only one equipped in heavy murmillo armor, easily overpowered Provocatrix, who spat blood from a lip split by a sword blow, and stayed silent otherwise.

  Cimbria and Batavia, the two Germans matched together, fought hard and long. Felix called out something to them—perhaps he’d caught the spirit of the event after all—but Anazâr had no clue as to the meaning. Cimbria drove her opponent far back, almost into the crowd, winning the match and a long roar of acclaim.

  Anazâr was already looking to the Sarmatian, and not liking what he saw. She shifted her weight subtly back and forth, scanning the crowd, and nothing in her carriage reminded him of an actor nervous before a performance. No, this was pure battle-wariness, and rather than glorifying it for the pleasure of the crowd, she was attempting to conceal it; if he had not studied her so closely for the last month, he would have passed over it. A full-lipped half-snarl, flickering eyes under heavy frozen eyelids—damn. She held all life, including her own, in low regard; perhaps she thought to regain her lost honor by taking Romans with her.

  And Rhakshna didn’t need a real sword to kill.

  He couldn’t call off the match on a faint suspicion. “Cheruscia, of the howling German savages, set against Rhakshna, of the legendary Sarmatian raiders!” As he checked the fitting of her helmet, he whispered in her ear, tempting her, assuming that task with a disconcerting ease. “Hold back your blows a little. Draw it out with flourishes. This is only the beginning. You can gain freedom with the years, and gold, and lovers, and another kind of honor.”

  Her only acknowledgement was a low hissing noise.

  He stepped back and signaled for the match to begin, making sure to stay between her and Marianus. He knew that if she did lash out at the audience, Marianus would be her first target, the man into whom she could funnel all her hate and resentment. If she could take down only one Roman before being killed, she would make it count.

  Because that was what Anazâr himself would do.r />
  Cheruscia held her ground and barely staggered under the first blows. But the outcome was never in doubt. Rhakshna danced around her, feet skimming in fluid patterns while her sword licked out in unpredictable intervals. The crowd cheered her, except for the men of veteran age. They were struck silent.

  She tossed her sword from right hand to left, feinted—

  Cheruscia’s shield wasn’t where it needed to be. Rhakshna’s stab sunk into her unarmored left shoulder. The blunt tip did its precise, anatomically calculated damage. Cheruscia’s shield dropped from nerveless fingers, and her sword dropped a moment later as she clasped her shoulder, sank to her knees, and keened through clenched teeth.

  Anazâr thrust himself forward and between them. His intervention was perfectly timed, but unnecessary. Rhakshna smiled sanguinely and extended a hand to Cheruscia.

  Thank the gods.

  The last fight of the first round did not eclipse the drama of Rhakshna’s elegant feint, but it ended well enough. Cassia’s swordwork was clumsy, but she used her shield well against her opponent, Nemesis. Victory came when Cassia lunged shield-first, bearing Nemesis down to the ground with her superior weight.

  From the sidelines, Amanikhabale shouted, “Well done, indeed!”

  Anazâr approached Marianus. From the corner of his eye, he kept watch on Rhakshna. “Dominus, shall we begin the second round?”

  Marianus didn’t reply, just gestured a regal “continue” with one hand. At his shoulder, Felix imitated the motion with an added lurid bulging of his eyes.

  “Gather the coppers, boy, and keep a few for yourself,” Anazâr told Rufus, who set himself to the task immediately, skipping and picking like an unusually happy crow. Raising his voice to address the crowd, Anazâr called forward the victors. “Enyo to fight Venatrix!” His small store of crowd-pleasing flourishes and epithets was quite exhausted by now, and he couldn’t think fast enough to replenish them, occupied as he was with keeping track of every single gladiatrix, but most of all, Rhakshna. Guards had been hired to oversee the proceedings, watching the crowd, the gladiatrices, and likely Anazâr himself, but there was no saying what amount of force they would resort to if called upon. Better for Anazâr to employ foresight.

  Enyo and Venatrix fought in a hybrid style—straight swords, small rectangular thraex shields—and for a while, the swordwork proved exciting. But Venatrix tired quickly. For every one of her blows, Enyo gave two, hitting increasingly below the shield, or above, each ring against the helmet sounding out pain and defeat, until Venatrix staggered backward and Anazâr stepped in to steady her.

  Penthesilea again overpowered her opponent, Atalanta. She was unstoppable in her armor and, what was more important, untiring. Her resilience surprised and pleased Anazâr, who hadn’t expected much of anything from her.

  When Rhakshna lunged through Cimbria’s defenses, she was positioned nowhere near Marianus. Anazâr swallowed his sigh of relief. He spoke with her sharply, though, before ending the second round. “Too fast,” he whispered curtly. “Fall back next time. Make it look like you’re in trouble.”

  He planned on beginning the third round with Penthesilea and Cassia, who by necessity of numbers had skipped the second round. Something was wrong with Cassia, though: her skin had gone pale and clammy, a condition strongly visible under such a bright sun, and her eyes were unfocused. “She took a blow to the head,” said Amanikhabale, pressing a rag against Cassia’s forehead and gathering her protectively under one arm. “These are unpredictable. She’ll recover.”

  Anazâr didn’t recall seeing Cassia take a notable hit to the head. Something is wrong. No time to query the cause, though. “Enyo and Rhakshna!” he shouted. The crowd’s favorites, and they showed it, screaming and chanting their names, already dividing into opposing parties.

  As he fitted their helmets, he noticed the crowd in front of Marianus thickening; some of the passers-by from the left side had migrated to the right for a better view. Jostling and cursing were the order of things. “Make way for the house of Marianus, you street rats!” bellowed someone, maybe Quintus. Marianus and Felix stood at the front now, assured a view, protected on either side by clients with jabbing elbows.

  Felix was looking as unwell as Cassia. The sun? But no, it wasn’t even full summer yet and the day wasn’t all that hot, especially standing in the shade as they were.

  Anazâr gave the signal to begin, and stepped back so that he stood in front of Marianus—no, gods damn it, he couldn’t do that. He was here as a showmaster, not a bodyguard; remembering that, he stepped aside to give Marianus a clear view.

  After the first engagement, Rhakshna fell back, as he’d wanted, before pressing forward again. She didn’t once look at Marianus or the crowd in a threatening way—she performed completely admirably, herding Enyo around the square with efficient but acceptably showy grace. Perhaps she could make a name for herself as a gladiatrix, after all.

  In fact, both of them would. He knew Enyo would ultimately be defeated, but she fought well; her slightly greater age gave her an advantage in experience, in dedication to training. He knew from practice the strength of her arms, the force of her strike. She changed her direction mid-step, pivoted, executed a feint—

  —No. Not a feint. The arc of her arm ended in a knife drawn from a greave.

  Three steps to Marianus. And she’d already taken one, the blade brandished and glinting in the sun. Sharp. Two steps until slave killed master and woke the dark beast at the heart of Rome, dormant but waiting since the fall of Spartacus. To the cross.

  He hurled himself into her path.

  Too late. The knife—

  Enyo stumbled. Behind her, Rhakshna stood with an arm extended in perfect javelin form—had she thrown her damn sword?—and then leaped forward like a panther, exactly like a panther, he’d seen one leap on a condemned man in the games last year and keep the master safe oh gods keep him safe.

  Rhakshna fell on Enyo a heartbeat before Anazâr. The pair struggled, rolled, rolled again, and Enyo was screaming, but Rhakshna was deadly silent, jaw set in grim determination as she straddled Enyo’s chest. The knife jerked. As Anazâr rolled, he caught sight of Marianus’s clients grabbing fistfuls of his toga, pulling him backward, swallowing him up into the safety of the crowd.

  The rest of the crowd, sensing the threat of real violence in the atmosphere as surely as an oncoming thunderstorm, roared in delight. Coppers fell around them like rain.

  Rhakshna had blood on her hands. Blood, pumping up from Enyo’s throat. Anazâr drove a fist into Rhakshna’s face. He knocked her backward onto the ground and she rolled away, came up shouting on her knees, waving empty hands.

  We’re all going to die here. If I kill her now, will I save anyone?

  No. Think. He unwound the chain of events as best he could in the moment it took to turn back to the crowd. Rhakshna—she’d thrown her sword to trip her target. “A murderess was executed here!” he shouted, raising both arms victorious and feeling the stickiness of blood run down one cheek. Enyo’s blood. “All free men are safe! Justice has been done!”

  His pronouncement was met with shouting and applause, the likes of which he’d never heard after a victory of his own.

  “Thanks to me,” said Rhakshna, looking up at him from where she still kneeled over Enyo’s body. “And I want some of what you promised earlier. Damn your fist, my tooth is loose.”

  He strode over to her, impervious to the infectiousness of her bloodied grin. “You knew the attempt was coming,” he accused in a low hiss. “We’ll talk later. In private.” Amanikhabale, too. More events were coming together in his mind, and a net began to weave together, still full of gaping holes but promising the most troubling entanglement once complete.

  Quintus grabbed his arm. “Marianus wants them all chained back at the warehouse. He’ll spare you the same treatment . . . for now. I’d suggest you get to the fucking bottom of this quick if you don’t want the whole lot of you sent to the fucking cross.”<
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  Two slaves dragged Enyo’s body by the legs out of the square, leaving a wide swerving trail of blood to paint the stones.

  “Some of you were born into slavery,” said Anazâr to the chained women. “You must know the law.”

  “Yes,” said Atalanta. Her voice slid up and down, quavering from girlish to croaking as she spoke. “The entire household is sent to—put to death. I know. I want to live. We all want to live. We have no reason—”

  “Enyo had a reason. So that is my question to you: what reason does a Gaul ever have to seek their own death and doom their companions as well?” He counted off from five stiff fingers held angrily high. “One, tribal honor. Which means almost nothing, absent free tribe. Two, religion. I know little of yours, save that you’re known to sacrifice by burning. A remote possibility. Look me in the face, all of you! This is your life at stake. Three, madness—hard to determine. Four, witchcraft, even worse. Five, threat to family.” He held up a closed fist now.

  Venatrix flinched.

  He sat cross-legged at her level, letting no veil of mercy fall between them as he stared into her eyes. “Speak of this.”

  “She had a daughter sold to the port of Ostia. That’s all I know.”

  Oh, Enyo.

  Rhakshna stopped rubbing the salve onto her bruised lip and met his gaze easily. “The Aethiopian bitch warned me. I didn’t believe her at first. I thought it was a plot to make me look bad. But I kept my eyes open and it paid off.”

  “You should have come to me.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t want to play the fool. Instead, I come out the heroine, the savior, and you keep me in chains. Roman justice is shit.”

  “I don’t keep you in anything. Our master does, and for good reason after one of his own slaves made an attempt on his life. We’re all lucky we’re not on the cross right now. No. Luck has nothing to do with it. Marianus’s generosity.”