Adel adjusted her grip on Felix’s gladius, the grip larger than her own had been. Her breaths came fast. Too fast. No time to dwell on Felix’s fate through the death gate. In their planning, they’d failed to consider that the game master might not play by his own rules. That he would change and manipulate the events to produce an outcome of his own making. A staged performance if she ever saw one. Their attempt to manipulate the crowd had failed to conjure their compassion.
Felix had been right. Rome didn’t love her. Nor would its people ache for her loss. Instead, they likely thought it was all part of the act, the tragic story playing out across the sand. Not Pyramus and Thisbe, but the origin story of the Amazon. At least she would not have to watch Felix fall for real.
The murmillo raised his sword, a salute, pointed at her. She was his next fight, never mind that a murmillo never fought a gladiatrix. In this battle, there were no rules. It was war. All was fair. All was death.
She hefted the sword, shaking it into a tighter grip, and spread her feet, waiting, watching his feet, the tension in his legs. When he took his first step, she already knew she would dodge him to the right. Swing around behind and try a slice at the back of his knee. Not a killing strike. If the spectators wanted blood, she would refuse to give it to them. She would wound, disarm, never kill. It was a deadly rebellion. The only one she could enact and one she would not escape.
But if she died this day, then she would die on her own terms. Fighting for dignity, for a voice, and, in her own way, for life itself.
Adel stepped away from Tilla, drawing the scarlet murmillo away from her, though it did not matter for long. In a few breaths, Tilla was engaged in a fight of her own. The murmillo lunged forward, the way Adel had known he would, and she dodged him, swinging her gladius back against the fleshy part of his calf instead. The blade left a thin slice of red snaking across his skin. They had given Felix a dull blade.
The man growled and swung around faster than Adel had anticipated. For his size, he was quick on his feet. She deflected the next blow and nearly lost her grip on the gladius. A wave of panic sent strength to her limbs. How could she be losing this fight two blows in?
The murmillo struck like a hammer, blow after blow, driving her backward. Bits of metal chipped from her blade, flicking her face, reminding her that she wore no helmet, that if she didn’t stay strong, it would be her head next. Her sword arm shook, weakening. How much longer could she hold him?
All around her the sounds of battle raged, calling to mind the battle so long ago. So long ago... less than two years? How did that feel like a lifetime, and like yesterday, all at once? She blocked two more blows and tried to sidestep, swing around him, get a breath of rest from the relentless beating. The murmillo was breathing hard. She, harder.
He slammed his shield against her next swing, the rattling blow jarring the sword from her fingers and sending it flying. She lunged for it and he blocked her escape with another swing. They broke apart, feet always in motion, sweeping the cool sand, circling like vultures. He stepped in front of her gladius, blocking any retrieval she might have attempted.
A Visigoth in blue lay to her right, apugiodagger lodged in his chest. If he wasn’t already dead, drawing the blade out would kill him for certain. But she knew there was no point. The Visigoth captives would die, side by side in the arena, a tragic or triumphant story told for a few weeks and then forgotten in the next wave of celebrity gladiators rising to thetop of dinner conversations. The hearts of the Romans in the stands were as cold as the Ianuarius wind swirling about her legs.
This had all been for naught.
She edged closer to the fallen gladiator, still staring down the murmillo, though she couldn’t see his expression through the bulging mesh screens over his eyes. The face set toward her was one of shining brass. Inhuman.
“What are you called?” she shouted over the clatter of blades.
The man beat his sword arm against his chest. “Ursus.”
The bear. The animal moniker placed him with the Ludus Dacicus even if his colors hadn’t.
Adel shook her head. “I mean your true name. Not what they call you.”
He hesitated, stepping to his left. “You try to weaken me. Everyone knows the power of a true name. You cannot have it.”
She lifted a shoulder, gesturing toward the stands. “They would see us all dead. Cheer as our blood drains into the sand. And they would see us as animals, not people, with real names, and hopes, and homes.”
“You try to save your own life with words when your strength will not do.”
“Does it make you feel strong to face a woman half your size?”
“We were told to kill the rebels.” He gestured to the green she wore. “That you were wily.” He took a step forward.
She didn’t move. “Is obedience to Rome what you dream of?”
“I dream of wealth and women.”
“Not honor?”
“There is no honor here. Only death”—he took another step—“and victors.” He raised his gladius and swung. Adel shut her eyes and stiffened, waiting for the death blow, but a clatter of swords crashed in her ears instead. She scrambled backward as a blue-clad secutor locked bladeswith Ursus, pushing him back toward the blur of colors engaged in battle. Legs shaking, she scanned the ground for her weapon and dove for it.
The sounds of battle clamored in her ears, steel and wood, pain and death. Visigoth gladiators littered the ground, blue and green uniforms stained red. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. The burn in her throat edged higher. She would not cry. Not here. Not yet.
Her gaze clashed with another’s across the battlefield, wide, and horrified, and frozen. Adel didn’t have a moment to think, to plan, to consider—only to burst into motion to intercept Berit before the brass-knuckled cestus did.
XLI
THE ROAR FROM THE STANDS SWELLEDand faded each time a soul fell in the arena, and with every fade, Telemachus felt his heart chip until he thought it might shatter like pottery. It had taken all day to become so great a bother that a slave finally informed Emperor Honorius of his presence. From the look on the slave’s face, he did not expect the emperor to allow him to enter the purple-draped box. And from the quiver in his knees, Telemachus wasn’t sure he’d expected it either. Yet the slave ushered him into the open balcony, heated with flickering firepots and carpeted with thick furs that hid his footsteps. The slave escorted him around a table laden with delicacies and to the front of the gilded throne, where Telemachus dipped his chin in a half-hearted bow. How could he show proper deference to one who so callously disregarded human life? Discarded it and cheered its end? And how could he, of all people, judge him?
