Sword of the Gladiatrix
Page 3
Panting, Marcius did as she said. As his chest and arms floated to the top, his breathing eased.
“Relax. Now move the spear under your hips.”
His hips and legs resurfaced.
“Slowly…use your arms to row towards me… Don’t flail! Be calm. Go slow.”
Inch by inch, Marcius made his way. When his head and shoulders touched solid ground, she grabbed him under the arms and slowly pulled him toward safety. Finally, his legs and feet came out of the sinkhole with a distinct, sucking sound. Marcius lay on the ground trembling.
“Always listen to your guide in a strange land.” She retrieved her spear and wiped it off with a handful of grass. “Stay. I’ll get the birds and come back for you.”
Marcius stayed.
***
ON THE WAY BACK TO MEROE, Afra listened to the grumbling and complaints among the soldiers and traders.
“Nothing but sand or mud…scorpions or mosquitoes.”
“People have nothing but goats and even they’re tough and stringy.”
“No wine…just brackish water…if there’s water at all.”
She seemed to have accomplished her mission. She smiled to herself. Soon, Asata, soon!
The night before they entered Meroe, Marcius sought her out by her fire. “Afra, I have a proposition for you.”
“What?”
“I’ve watched you on this trip. You’re one of the best hunters I’ve come across. Even in that cursed desert you managed to find a hare or two.”
“So?”
“I want you to come back with me to Rome. Skilled hunters are in great demand for the games. You could earn a good deal of money.”
“What need have I for Roman money? My Kandake provides shelter, food, and money.”
Marcius frowned. “For the experience, then. Don’t you wonder what the world is like beyond Meroe? There are palaces, five times bigger than your queen’s, and they belong to merchants not nobles. You can wear cloth from India softer than the fur of a cat. Taste food sweetened with honey from Spain. Hear music from Greece.”
She raised her hand to ward off further words.
“Do you have family to care for? Aging parents, siblings, a child?”
“You do not ask about a husband.”
“You don’t act like a woman around men, flirting or shy. I assumed you were a tribade—a woman who loves other women.” Marcius shrugged. “Some tribades marry, but no husband would allow his wife to travel among men as you do.”
“These…tribades…are they common in Rome? Accepted?” The idea startled her. She knew no one who shared her feelings except Asata; but Afra lived her life among men. Maybe there were other—tribades?—among her countrywomen. She shook her head. She wanted Asata, no one else.
“Not common, but known. Accepted?” He scratched his beard. “I’d say tolerated. All have heard the stories of the rich and their orgies: men with men, women with women, both with beasts. Some consider that an abomination, but the rich do as they please. Common women? They have to provide for themselves as best they can. Generally what happens behind closed doors is no one else’s business.”
Afra sat silent, poking the fire. A place where she and Asata could live together; be...tolerated. Her step-mother accused her of corrupting her step-sister—leading her away from her natural path as wife and mother—but Afra believed Mesbat’s anger had more to do with losing the prestige of a connection with the king’s first minister.
Mother Isis, can this be true? Can Asata and I live together, love together in a far-off land?
“I have no family myself, just a…” Marcius paused, his eyes hooded.
“My mother died when I was born,” Afra said. “My father married a widow with a daughter two years younger than I.” Her lips curled into a sweet smile at the thought of Asata then faded. Rome was a distant dream, possibly as ephemeral as a desert mirage. She couldn’t drag Asata to a foreign land.
“Afra, you could earn a lot of gold for your family. If your father gave permission? I could talk to him.”
“My father is dead. My step-mother banished me from her house, and I am forbidden to see my step-sister. She is married to the son of Kashta, the king’s chief advisor.”
“Afra, you’re a free woman!” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Come to Rome with me. I’ll make you rich.”
“I will think on it, but my loyalty is to my Kandake.” And Asata.
***
AFRA MET WITH THE QUEEN the evening after they reentered the city. The queen raised her from her abasement with a smile. “General Donkey seemed unimpressed by the country to the south. My agent confirms he plans to report to his emperor that Kush is too poor and too far away to be worth conquest.” She placed a fat pouch of clinking coins in Afra’s hand. “You did well, my daughter, and earned your reward.”
Afra bowed low, blood running warm from the praise. “My only wish is to serve. Thank you, Kandake.”
Leaving the queen’s quarters, she counted the coins then tied the pouch onto her belt. Now she had enough money and could make amends.
***
“TELL YOUR MISTRESS, her sis—a friend bearing gifts has come to visit.” Afra looked over the man’s head into the interior of her step-sister’s splendid house. Brilliant yellow, green, and blue frescos, showing leopards hunting river birds on the shores of the Nile, adorned the walls of the reception room. It put her poor room over the stables to shame.
The servant looked her over and sniffed. Afra’s blood rose. She had bathed and dressed in her best red linen tunic with yellow embroidery for her audience with the queen, but it obviously wasn’t good enough for this servant.
“My mistress is in bed and my master is at the Roman feast. Come back tomorrow.”
“Why is Asata in bed? Is she ill?” Afra pushed the man aside. “Asata! Where are you?”
“Stop!” The servant grabbed her arm and looked closely into her face. “My master forbids you entrance. Be gone!”
She shook him off and spied a frightened-looking girl carrying a tray of food. “You! Where’s your mistress?”
The girl squeaked, dropped her tray, spilling a tureen of lentils and a flagon of wine.
Afra rushed toward the girl, the male servant raising an alarm behind her.
“’Mani?”
She turned at the sound of her childhood name. Asata stood swaying in the entrance to a sumptuous bedroom. Oil lamps flickered on white walls draped in gauzy blue-green fabric, giving the room a look of being underwater.
“I have your bride price, Asata.” Afra fumbled at her belt for the bag of coins. “I can take you away from him. He’ll never hit you again.”
“You’re too late.” Asata said in a dull voice. She turned back into the room and the oil lamps momentarily outlined her figure, rounded in pregnancy, beneath her sheer linen shift.
Afra followed her to the low wooden bed carved with sacred ibis and papyrus fronds. She gathered Asata in her arms, feeling the warmth of her skin and smelling the sandalwood-scented oil she used to dress her hair. “It’s never too late.”
“Give me your knife.”
“What?” Afra held her at arm’s length. Her sister’s face set in haggard lines; dark circles bruised eyes bright with fever or madness, her full lips thinned in pain.
Asata cupped her bulging stomach with both hands. “This is what keeps me tied to him. Give me your knife and I’ll cut it out.”
“No! You are unwell. Let me take you from here. We will deal with your husband tomorrow.”
“He knows I hate him and it…excites him. The more I resist, the more he enjoys it. Now I carry his child. He will never let me leave,” Asata mumbled, her eyes glittered with hate and despair.
Afra recognized the look of a cornered animal and her heart quaked.
“Give me your knife. He keeps all such from me. The servants watch me all hours.” Asata pleaded, looking toward the open door. “’Mani, the knife. Please, I have no one else!”
I should have come back, stolen Asata away. Afra’s grip tightened.
“What is this? Leave my house!” Afra turned to see Piye dressed in his finest saffron-colored linen and backed by two brawny men standing in the doorway. The male servant smirked over his shoulder.
Asata shivered and muttered, “Give me the knife.”
Afra rose, sheltering her love with her body. “I’ll not go without Asata.”
“She’s mine. If you don’t leave now, I’ll take great pleasure in letting my men beat you before throwing you out.”
Afra eyed the men. She couldn’t prevail, particularly in such a small space. Horror crossed Piye’s face. “Asata, no!”
Afra whipped around to see the bed in flames from the oil lamp, the fire spreading toward Asata. She reached for her, but her love backed across the bed, behind the flames, laughing. The acrid stench of burning feathers stung Afra’s nose.
Asata’s laughter turned to shrieks of pain as her shift caught fire.
Afra grabbed the first thing to come to hand, a richly embroidered cloak, and tried to smother the blaze. Tears streamed down her face as she coughed and fought the blaze.
Ignoring the pain from the fire, she grabbed Asata’s arm, dragged her out of the burning bed and rolled her in a woolen carpet. As Afra stopped to catch her breath, pain exploded in her head.
CHAPTER FOUR
Britannia, land of the Iceni
TENSION DRAINED FROM CINNIA’S SHOULDERS as she entered her own tribal lands. The people of the Cornovii and the Coritani tribes had offered her the obligatory hospitality in their forests and hidden valleys, but their leaders were uneasy. She was not the only one spreading the word of the massacre at Mona. Those druids not killed on the Sacred Isle sent messages throughout the land demanding retribution. The Cornovii and Coritani remained neutral…for now.
Most of the Iceni people were farmers living with their extended families on their land: cleared fields alternated with open woods on rolling hills. Cinnia spied the occasional large round house with thatched roof set in the barren grain fields. Shaggy cattle and brown sheep, tended by older children and herding dogs, dotted the open meadows.
Cinnia stopped at a spring at the bottom of the path leading up to her brother’s village. Several women had gathered there to fill buckets with fresh water for their families and to gossip.
“Oriana!” Cinnia greeted her sister-in-law.
The plump blond woman dropped her bucket and grabbed Cinnia in a fierce hug. “We heard of Mona and feared you dead.”
“Father is gone.” Cinnia swallowed her tears. “At least I think so. We couldn’t identify many.”
“Oh, Cinnia, to see such a thing.”
This time, Cinnia couldn’t hold back the tears and she sobbed in Oriana’s arms. “I know the druids teach that he will be reborn, but I miss him now.” The other women murmured soothing words and patted her on the back.
“Come dear.”
The flock of women struggled up the hill with their burdens of water and grief. A bored-looking older man, in patched leather and wielding a worn spear, guarded a packed earth path bisecting a flat-bottomed ditch and wooden wall that surrounded the tiny settlement village. His eyes crinkled in concern at the women’s obvious distress.
“Cinnia, the bard’s daughter, isn’t it?” He leaned on his spear, peering closely at Cinnia.
“Yes.”
“We thought you dead on Mona.”
“So I’ve heard.” Cinnia’s lips turned up into a sour smile. “There are many uneasy spirits about in the land, but I’m not one of them.”
“What news from the west?”
“Enough!” Oriana glared at the man. “Can’t you see the girl’s exhausted? You’ll hear soon enough.”
The warrior grumbled, but the women hustled Cinnia through the gate. The rest split off, heading to their homes and to spread the news of Cinnia’s miraculous return. The villagers had adopted the Roman town plan of oblong houses, set around a square for meetings and markets. Their village was too small for a temple, but druids came to preside over the main festivals. Young children chased each other screaming between the houses. Women took advantage of the light to spin wool or repair clothing on the benches outside the houses, but there were no young men loitering, playing bones, or sharpening weapons.
“Where are the men? Where’s Dumnor?”
“Your brother has gone to the king’s oppidum with the other village men. The king is ill and the queen has called a gathering.”
It was not unusual for a queen to co-rule a tribe or rule in her own right. Cartimandua had ruled the Brigantes in the north since before Cinnia was born. Prasutagus had two daughters, but no sons. His wife Boudica would rule—as long as her subjects wished to have her as queen.
Oriana ushered Cinnia into her brother’s home, a well-tended house of wattle and thatch, painted white with lime. They entered a dim room lit by a central hearth. Straw stuffed pallets and sleeping furs were piled against a wall. A few sets of extra clothes hung on pegs by the door; smoked meat and dried herbs hung from the rafters. A cauldron, held by a chain hanging from an iron tripod, bubbled over the fire. Cinnia’s stomach rumbled and mouth watered at the smell of rabbit seasoned with rosemary. For the first time in days she wanted to eat for the taste and not just to keep up her strength.
A slimmer version of Oriana—her younger sister Melva—sat next to the fire in the center of the hut spinning wool into yarn with a drop spindle. Cinnia, with practiced ease, plucked a swaddled baby from a basket set at Melva’s feet. She nuzzled his belly with her nose, sending him into gales of giggles. She liked babies, how they smelled, how they smiled, their vulnerability. They touched a place in her heart that roused an intense need to nurture and protect. One day, when she found a man good enough…
“Cinnia! We thought you—”
“—dead on Mona.” Cinnia chimed in. “I know, but my stomach tells me otherwise. Could you possibly give me some of that stew?”
Melva blushed to the roots of her blond hair. “Of course.”
She filled a wooden bowl with stew—rabbit, barley, and turnips—and offered it to Cinnia with a chunk of brown bread. Cinnia put the baby back in the basket and grabbed the food. He started to cry. Oriana retrieved him, unpinned her brown wool tunic at the shoulder, bared a breast, and put him to suck. She smiled over the baby’s head at Cinnia. “You’re not the only hungry one.”
In between bites Cinnia told her story. “Dumnor must know Father is dead. I must go to the king’s hill fort.”
“It’s another day’s journey.” Oriana put the full baby on her shoulder and gently rubbed his back to make him burp. “Stay the night.”
The thought of a warm bed and a hot breakfast appealed to Cinnia after her journey. “I will.” She picked a burr out of her long braid. “And I could use a wash and combing.”
***
LATE THE NEXT DAY, Cinnia, passed through the gate into the Iceni king’s oppidum. It differed little from other villages except in size. There were ten times as many mud-daubed huts, some white-washed with lime, inside the wooden palisade. Sturdy chariot ponies grazed in the adjoining fields with the cattle. Smoke rose from a blacksmith’s foundry and beehive shaped ovens where women brought their bread to bake. Men and women crowded the streets. An open space before the kings large house, built of timber and decorated with carvings of horses and wheels sacred to the gods, served as a gathering spot and impromptu market. A temple to the triple goddesses sat a
cross from the king’s house. White-washed timber pillars flanked the carved double door and marked the sacred entrance. Cinnia looked for her brother in the crowd, but didn’t see him.
A blast from a ram’s horn sounded a gathering, sending a mournful sound to the ends of the village and beyond. Iceni warriors pushed the people back to make an open space in the plaza. An ancient druid exited the king’s house. The old man looked wild—twigs sprouted in his long white hair; mud caked his feet and the hem of his robe. He pulled a green and brown checked cloak tighter about his shoulders.
That must be what I looked like traveling the forest. She smiled at the thought.
The druid leaned heavily on an oak staff. Their queen, Boudica, a tall woman with flaming red hair and the strong arms of a chariot driver, joined him. Two girls, her daughters, by the cast of their faces and color of their hair, followed her. Cinnia knew Brianna, the eldest to be three years her junior, fourteen; Maeve, at twelve, had the gawky look of a child becoming an adult and uncertain in her body.
The druid pounded his staff onto the ground three times and the murmuring crowd quieted. Boudica stepped forward, her face streaked with tears. “Prasutagus, your king and my husband is dead. We will send him to the afterlife with ceremonies befitting a king.”
A low moan went up from the crowd. A few women screeched in ritual grief. Cinnia saw her own pain and loss reflected in this royal family’s eyes and tear-stained faces. Royal, noble, or peasant—everyone died sometime and their families grieved. Her heart found some space for these young girls, left fatherless, like herself.
“What of Mona?” a man cried.
Boudica’s head swiveled and pinned the man with a glare. “We bury the king, and then take counsel.”
The man shrank back into the crowd.
Boudica and her daughters returned to the house followed by the druid. The village people scattered to their homes and tasks. Cinnia spied her brother across the plaza.