Mistress of Rome Read online

  He knocked her sword aside and drove his shield boss against her unprotected breast. Her neck arced in agony. She crumpled to the sand like a broken clay figurine.

  Not dead. Not yet. Just strangling on her own blood, crushed ribs trying to expand. He took a tired step forward to cut her throat.

  “Mitte! Mitte!”

  The cry assailed his ears, and he looked up dumbly. All across the tiers of spectators, the thumbs called for mercy. The cheers were good-natured, the opinion unanimous: mercy for the last of the Amazons.

  His eyes burned. Sweat. He flung the blade away and dropped to one knee to slide an arm under her shoulders. She was bleeding everywhere—

  Her eyes swept him feebly. A swaying hand reached up to tilt back his visor. And then he was jolted all the way down to his bones as she spoke to him in a language he had not heard for more than a dozen years. His own language.

  “Please,” she rasped.

  He stared at her.

  She choked again on her own blood. “Please.”

  He looked down into those great, desperate eyes.

  “Please.”

  He slid his hand up into her hair, turning her head back to expose the long throat. She closed her eyes with a rattling sigh. He eased his blade into the soft pulse behind her jaw.

  When her crushed body was cold in his arms, he looked up. His audience had gone silent. He rose, stained all over with her blood and weighed down by unbelieving eyes.

  The demon’s fury roared up, and with all his strength he hewed his sword sideways against the marble wall. He struck again and again, feeling the muscles tear across his back, and at last the blade snapped in two with a dissonant crack. He flung the pieces away, spat on them, then ripped the helmet from his head and flung that after. Rage surged up in his throat and he shouted—no curses, just a long wordless roar.

  They applauded him.

  Applauded.

  They cheered, they shouted, they screamed praise down on his head like a stinging rain. They threw coins, they threw flowers, they surged upright and shrieked his name. They stamped their feet and rocked the marble tiers.

  It was only then that he wept, standing alone in the great arena surrounded by the bodies of five women and a thousand downward-drifting rose petals.

  Two

  THEA

  HE’S magnificent.” Lepida’s voice was lazy. “Don’t you think, Thea?”

  I murmured something, reaching for the vial of rose oil. My mistress lay facedown on the green marble massage slab in the Pollio bathhouse, a beautiful black-haired mermaid among the tasteless fish mosaics and the gaudy clutter of perfume bottles.

  “Really, I’ve never seen anything like him before. Much more interesting than Belleraphon. Belleraphon’s too civilized. This Arius, he’s a real barbarian.” She shifted an arm so I could massage the rose oil into her side. “There’s something untamed about him, don’t you think? I mean, no civilized man would kill women. But this Arius, he just mowed them down without a thought.”

  I kneaded my fingers along her spine, and she arched her back. “He even looks like a savage! Covered in gore, and you could tell he didn’t even notice. A real man shouldn’t care about getting his hands dirty, don’t you think? Belleraphon, now, he never really closes in with his enemies. Too afraid of getting blood in that pretty beard of his. And really, what kind of show is that? I don’t go to the games to see someone being careful; I go to see something thrilling. Someone thrilling.”

  In my mind’s eye I saw Arius cradling the poor crushed Amazon.

  “—and when he just stalked out afterward like he didn’t even hear the cheering! He doesn’t care about the applause; he does it because he likes it.” Lepida stretched her arms languorously over her head. “Do you think he’s handsome, Thea?”

  “I don’t know, my lady. Do you want the pumice stone for your feet?”

  “Yes, the pumice stone, and put your back into it. You do too think he’s handsome, Thea. I saw your face when he was fighting.” She turned with a little laugh. “Well, these rough types appeal to those with lower instincts.”

  “Mmm,” I murmured. “And how does my lady’s betrothed appeal to her?”

  “Marcus?” She snorted. “Do you know he’s forty-six? His son is two years older than me! Really, I don’t know why I can’t marry the son instead. What’s the use of being young and beautiful if it’s all going to some boring old man with a crooked shoulder? He kept telling me about his books. As if I cared about his stupid library.” Lepida reached for the wine cup. “If that’s the best Father can do for me, well, he’ll just have to look harder. I want someone young, someone exciting. I want a real man.”

  She twined a curl of hair around her fingers. “What do you suppose this Arius is like in person?”

  I didn’t like his name in her mouth.

  CONGRATULATIONS, Barbarian!” “Good show!”

  “Not a bad—hey, where are you going?”

  Arius brushed straight through the Mars Street dining hall, not looking to either side. Dropping his cloak in an unceremonious heap, he leaned over the long table and grabbed the wine jug.

  “Hey, that’s for all of us!”

  He drank straight from the jug, gulping without thirst. The other fighters, piling in with their congratulations and their envy, gradually fell silent.

  He rocked back on his heels and dragged a hand across his mouth as a single drop of sour wine fell from the lip of the jug to the floor. For a moment he contemplated the jug, swinging by its handle from one finger, then he drew back and hurled it against the wall. Everyone swore and jumped back as clay shards crashed to the floor.

  “Bloody sour barbarian,” a Gaul muttered.

  Arius turned and kicked out in one lightning-smooth motion. The Gaul yelled as his stool collapsed underneath him. Then he yelled in earnest as a table knife clipped a chunk from his ear. He charged like a bull, and they thrashed across the floor in a vicious tangle. Gladiators piled in, shouting.

  “Nail him! Nail him!”

  “Get the bastard!”

  “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Gallus shouted from the doorway.

  The gladiators fell back. The Gaul, streaming blood from the side of his head, tore loose and staggered to his feet, swearing in his native tongue. Arius rose in silence, brushing his hands off and regarding his lanista coldly.

  “Well, well,” said Gallus. “Congratulations, dear boy. You’re living up to your name, I see. In the streets they’re already calling you ‘the Barbarian.’ ”

  The Gaul glared. “He cut my ear off—”

  “Oh, stop whining. Get along to the infirmary.” Gallus’s eyes never left Arius. “Stay out of trouble, and I’ll get you a bigger fight next time. Something really grand to round off the spring season. Then there’s summer training—”

  Arius picked up another wine jug. His eyes never shifting from his lanista’s, he drank a deliberate mouthful and spat it accurately out between Gallus’s well-shod feet. Then he turned and stalked back into his bare cell. Everyone braced for a resounding crash, but the door clicked quietly shut.

  THEA

  JUNE. A pretty month in some places—blue skies, gentle warmth, blooming flowers. Not so pretty in Rome, where the sun beat down like a brass coin and the streets shimmered like water. Hateful, molten June. The nights gave me dreams to frighten ghosts in their tombs.

  The city spilled over with a last round of frantic gaieties as the wealthy citizens prepared to set out for their cool summer villas. The games of Matralia were breathlessly anticipated, an extravaganza of blood and excitement that would close out the season, and patricians, politicians, charioteers, courtesans, and plebs alike buzzed with the news: At the pinnacle of the festivities, the great Belleraphon was to be matched against a rising newcomer. A certain Briton named Arius, already nicknamed “Barbarian” by the mob.

  “It’s all my doing,” Lepida crowed. “I persuaded Father to pair them up. They’re starting Arius at five-to-one odds.”


  “Optimistic,” I ventured.

  “I know,” my mistress agreed. “Won’t it be fun, watching the Barbarian die bravely? I wonder if Father might consider hosting a dinner party for all the gladiators the night before . . .”

  Father would indeed consider it. Especially when his daughter pointed out that any party with Arius and Belleraphon as star attractions would be sure to attract guests of the highest rank.

  “And I’ll go, too,” Lepida concluded, tossing her blue-black ringlets. “Right next to you, Father, so you can protect me if things get, well, rowdy.” Dimpling. “I know it’ll be a wild crowd, but Aemilius Graccus might be there, and Julius Sulpicianus—very important families! Who knows? Maybe one of them will ask for me, and then I wouldn’t have to marry boring old Marcus Norbanus, and we’d both be happy. Please?”

  The entire household was thrown into frenzy. The cook was up till the small hours designing a menu fit to be served to the expected patrician guests as well as to the gladiators who might well be eating their last meal. The silver-inlaid dining couches were sumptuously draped and the tables garlanded with visibly out-of-season flowers so that every guest from the most noble of patricians to the most menial of the gladiators should see the Pollio wealth. Too much wealth, I could have told them; too many flowers and ornaments and slaves on display for good taste, but who asked me? When the night finally arrived, my feet were sore and my cheeks stinging from slaps before Lepida pronounced herself tolerably satisfied with her appearance.

  “Not bad.” She pirouetted, angling her head before the polished steel mirror. “No, not bad at all.” Sapphire-blue silk molded artfully against her rounded body, the sway of her hips causing the golden bells around her ankles to chime, pearls glimmering at her ears and throat, mouth painted a luscious red. I smoothed the front of my rough brown wool tunic.

  “I shan’t need you again tonight, Thea,” she declared, adjusting a gold filigree bracelet. “Can’t have a drab thing like you hanging around all those glittering people; you’ll put them off their supper. Clean up this mess first!”

  “Yes, my lady.” But I left her gowns where they lay, thinking of my blue bowl and a quiet room somewhere away from the clatter of voices already rising from the triclinium. And despite Lepida’s warning, I did steal a peek around the edge of the inlaid satinwood door.

  A much better crowd than usually attended Pollio’s parties: one or two senators, Emperor Domitian’s personal chamberlain, Lady Lollia Cornelia, who hosted Rome’s most famous dinner parties and was cousin to the Empress. They lounged among the flowers and cushions in their bright silks, picking at the roast elephant ears and ostrich wings and flamingo tongues on their golden plates, and never ceasing to gossip in that elegant patrician drawl that Pollio had never quite managed to acquire. The only jarring chord in that gracious company was the presence of the scarred and muscle-bound gladiators—dark wool among the silks, common accents among the refined, vultures among the peacocks. And the peacocks liked it that way. Tomorrow those powerful men would curl their lips at the sight of the gladiators; tonight they would wax expansive and clap the scarred shoulders with their ringed hands. Tomorrow those elegant ladies would draw their skirts aside from any fighter they encountered on the streets; tonight they would fawn and even flirt. Why not? By tomorrow, these men would likely be dead.

  On the couch of honor where all could see them sat Arius and Belleraphon. “Ah, yes, the Barbarian,” Belleraphon had said languidly as they were introduced, and extended a manicured hand. Arius just stared at it until it was withdrawn. “How quaint,” whispered Belleraphon to a tittering patrician lady at his other side. “One presumes he does know how to speak?” Side-by-side on the dining couch, the two of them proceeded to ignore each other utterly.

  No one could help but compare them. Belleraphon smiling and joking, Arius sour and uncomfortable. Belleraphon nibbling daintily from every dish, Arius fueling himself from whatever plate was put before him. Belleraphon lounging on the silk cushions as if born to it, Arius sitting as stiffly upright as a statue. Belleraphon the civilized and Arius the barbaric.

  I drew a fold of my cloak up around my face and slipped quietly away.

  ARIUS was tired of the overheated chamber, tired of the too-soft cushions, tired of the constant babble, but most of all he was tired of the girl at his side.

  “You’re frightfully brave, risking your life in the arena day after day.” She shifted on her couch, and one varnished nail brushed against his arm. “Are you ever afraid? I’d be terrified.”

  He imagined her clamped between the jaws of a lion. “Yes,” he agreed.

  “A whole word!” She tossed her head back and laughed. “What progress.”

  He reached for the wine decanter.

  “Don’t be cross with me.” She pouted, sliding over onto her back so he could admire the curve of her breasts under the blue silk. Beautiful breasts. Beautiful hair, too. Beautiful face. Eyes like a ferret. A burst of music from the flute players drowned him out before he could tell her to leave him the hell alone. The guests were slipping off their couches and wandering toward the gardens. Senators took the arms of women who were not their wives and made discreetly for the moonlit paths of the conservatorium, while gladiators openly grabbed slave girls and pulled them into the privacy of the night. The great Belleraphon disappeared behind a statue of Neptune with a distinguished matron of the Sulpicii.

  A hot little hand descended on his. “Would you care for a stroll in the gardens?” said the girl with the ferret eyes. “Don’t worry about my father. He’s busy cutting deals with your lanista.” Her tongue flickered over her painted lips.

  He let her drag him off the absurd couch, stopping only to seize up a flagon of wine. The soft hand with its lacquered nails tucked into his elbow, propelling him down a gravel path that curved away from the house. The smell of jasmine and roses cloyed his nose.

  “So,” she smiled up at him. “Wherever did you come from? I’m mad with curiosity.”

  “Nowhere, Lady.”

  “Everyone’s from somewhere—”

  “Isn’t that your father, Lady?” He pointed over her shoulder.

  When she turned to look, he twisted his arm out of her hand and ducked into the bushes.

  “Arius!”

  He came up against the atrium wall and veered around the corner to the rest of the Pollio house. The lamps were unlit, the rooms dark. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw his host’s daughter still standing on the garden path, craning her neck. He ducked inside the first available doorway before she spotted him.

  The bathhouse. He could see the faint glimmer of the pool. The marble felt wonderfully cool against his back as he slid down by the wall and uncorked the flagon. Now here was a place a man could get drunk in peace. Who cared if his head ached the next morning? He was going to die, anyway. He took a long swallow of wine.

  A soft scrape from the far corner froze him sober. He rose noiselessly, stealing along the edge of the pool.

  Another soft sound. He lunged into the dark and caught hold of a wrist. “Don’t move. Or I’ll kill you.” The demon snapped on its leash. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Thea,” said a polite female voice. “Do you always start conversations this way?”

  Her wrist was narrow and smooth, easily circled by his hand. He dropped it, stepped back—and realized his fingers were sticky. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Yes,” the voice agreed. “Quite a lot. The blue bowl’s got a good inch on the bottom. I think I cut too deep this time.”

  He wondered if she was drunk. “Who are you?”

  “Thea,” she repeated. “You can’t see my hand, but it’s extended for a proper shake. The unbloodied hand, that is.”

  Her narrow hand was callused across the palm: a slave’s hand. “Cut yourself?” he asked.

  “Yes, I cut myself,” she returned agreeably. “I do that, rather often. My wrists look like your back.”

  He started.

/>   “It’s Arius, isn’t it? A Roman name on a Briton. ‘Thea,’ though—that’s a Greek name on a Jew. Sorry, I’ll be quiet now. I imagine you just want to sit in some dark corner and get drunk.”

  He sat, propping his back against the wall, and drank off the rest of the wine in a few swallows. His eyes were used to the darkness now. He could make out a dim profile, a straight nose, a shadowy cable of hair, a wrist flexed over the bowl. She was singing something softly in an odd tongue.

  “She’ma Yisroel, Adonai Aloujanou, Adonai echod.” Her voice slid around the marble walls of the bathhouse; a warm, melodious alto. He closed his eyes as the strange music trailed off into silence.

  “Arius?”

  “What?”

  “Are you going to lose tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pity. I’ll have to watch. I get dragged to all the games,” she added, “and I hate them. Hate them, hate them, hate them.”

  He imagined he could hear her blood sliding down the side of that blue bowl. “Yes.”

  “You, too? I thought so. You’re no Belleraphon, drinking up the applause.”

  So dark. It could have been the beginning of the world. “What am I, then?”

  “Barbarian,” she sang softly. “Barbarian, barbarian, barbarian. Where did you come from, Barbarian?”

  “Brigantia.” With fumbled amazement he heard the wine-slowed words uncoil. “In Britannia, but we call it Albion. Far to the north. Mountains by the sea.” He could still see the mountains, pressed up against the night like a dark wild song.

  “Family?”

  “Two brothers. My mother died young. My father . . .”

  “He was a great chieftain?” she prompted.

  “A smith. He believed in iron and bronze, not fighting. My brothers taught me to fight. Brought me up on stories of Vercingetorix.”