The Triumphant, page 11
“Fallon!”
The legionnaire reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders, and it took me far too long to realize that it was Quintus. Elka was about four steps behind him, hurrying down the tunnel to catch up, her pale complexion flushed from exertion.
“Thank the gods!” she exclaimed. “We were coming to find you and—”
“He’s dead!” I blurted. “Elka, Quint . . . Caesar is—”
“I know.” Quint’s face beneath the brim of the helmet he wore was grim and gray. His usually bright eyes had gone flinty. “The whole city knows by now.”
“Where are the vigiles?” I asked. “The constables? Why aren’t they abroad in the streets to keep order?”
“For whom?” Quint asked. “Caesar’s dead. Caesar’s friends are in hiding. And Caesar’s enemies had better be.” He glanced up at the sky, to where the sun had hidden his face behind a thick pall of overcast. “I give it three hours—maybe less—before Rome starts to tear herself in two . . .”
He trailed off as Elka brushed past him into the arena, her steps faltering as her gaze took in the sight of the defaced dummies. She walked up to one on the end that bore long, straw-pale ropes draped over its head like braids. I hadn’t even noticed that one, but it was clear who it was meant to represent. When Elka looked back at me, I saw that her face had gone white.
“Sons of Dis,” I said. “I saw them earlier.”
She looked back at the figures—her gaze fixing bleakly on the mangled one with the kohl-heavy eyes—and I saw her come to the same conclusion that I had: It was common knowledge that Cleopatra held court on the shores of Lake Sabatinus, consorting with the gladiatrices of the Ludus Achillea. Pontius Aquila could kill two hated birds with one stone . . . more than two. A whole flock.
“We have to get back to the ludus,” she said. “We have to warn them. The lanista and the queen—”
“We won’t be going anywhere,” Quint interrupted her, “unless we make it to the Porta Flaminia on the north wall before they close the gates of the city and we’re trapped inside with all of this madness. Let’s go.”
He reached out and took Elka by the wrist, and together we ran through the tunnel and back out into the street. But Quint’s mention of the gate had knocked some of the sense back into my head.
“Wait!” I stopped and glanced over my shoulder. Toward the walls of the Ludus Flaminius where they rose up, high and topped with jagged stone, just beyond the theatrum.
“Fallon—”
“I’m not leaving the city without Cai.”
As fearful as I was for Cleopatra and my sister—all my sisters at the ludus—there was no earthly way I would forsake Cai in the midst of the gathering storm. Had I said anyone else’s name, I suspect Quint might have just thrown me into the back of a cart and spirited me out of the city regardless of my protests. As it was, he exchanged a glance with Elka, who gave him one of her stoic Varini shrugs. She knew I wouldn’t leave. And, really, I think she already knew he wouldn’t either. It was Cai—his friend too—and Quint wasn’t the type to ever abandon his friend. If I knew anything about him after what we’d all been through together, it was that.
He put up his hands. “All right,” he said, pulling off his helmet and raking fingers over his military-short hair. “All right. But we have to do this fast. There’s no telling what will happen in the next few hours.”
“Is it really going to be that bad in the city?” Elka asked, frowning. “Leaders die every day.”
“Caesar wasn’t just a leader to most of these people.” Quint shook his head, his expression mystified, as if he couldn’t quite believe that the man he spoke of was actually gone. “He was a god. For good or ill. And he was the only thing—the only man—capable of keeping that pack of vultures who call themselves senators from shredding not just the city but the whole of the Republic to pieces like a felled deer carcass.”
“What do you honestly think is going to happen, Quintus?” I asked quietly.
The look in his eyes as he turned to me made my blood run cold.
“Honestly, Fallon?” he said, putting his helmet back on and tightening the chinstrap. “I don’t know. But I can tell you this: Whatever it is, I’d much rather watch from a good long distance. Atop a good high hill . . . surrounded by a good stout fence.”
IX
WHEN WE REACHED the Ludus Flaminius, the lanista himself was at the gate along with three of his men, hastening to haul the heavy doors shut. Quint shouted for them to stop.
“Away with you!” the lanista shouted back. “Seek shelter elsewhere. This is no place to—”
“I know exactly what this place is.” Quint stalked up to him and gestured back at me, saying, “and I suggest you let this lady in through your gates. We’ve business with one of your gladiators. You’d best let us conduct it in peace, and then we’ll be on our way.”
The lanista’s gaze narrowed, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Quint. I pushed the hood of my cloak back off my face. I saw a spark of recognition flare and knew the ludus master remembered me. Of course he did. I was Victrix, and I was Caesar’s. At least, I had been . . .
“Why should I do any such thing?” the lanista asked Quint mulishly.
“Because if you don’t,” I answered, stepping forward and mustering a shrug that I hoped was half as glacial as one of Elka’s, “then we might be inclined to spread word that Caesar’s assassins are holed up right here in your ludus. Let’s see how well you handle a bloodthirsty mob when they’re pounding on your gates instead of sitting in the arena stands.”
The lanista’s angular features went ash pale, and in only moments, the gates of the ludus were groaning back open just enough to let the three of us squeeze through. Once inside, I stepped up to him and held out my hand.
“Give me the key that will open Caius Varro’s cell,” I said.
“I can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because that man is the property of—”
“Of Caesar?” I tilted my head and waited for him to work that one through.
“I . . . uh.”
“The key.”
When he hesitated still, I grabbed a fistful of his tunic, ignoring his men, who seemed utterly at a loss as to what to do. Without another word, the lanista reached into the scrip hanging from his belt and withdrew a ring of keys, handing them to me by the one that would open the doors in Cai’s barracks block. I nodded and, together with Quint and Elka, started off in that direction. Before we reached the stone archway that led down into those dreadful catacombs, I turned and called to the lanista.
“None of these men belong to anyone anymore,” I said. “Not even you, lanista. If I were you, I’d consider a career change. And soon. You won’t have much time before the carrion crows come circling to pick over Caesar’s leavings.”
As I said those words, I could feel them echoing in my own bones. What was true for the gladiators of the Ludus Flaminius was just as true for me. I had been the only gladiatrix left that Caesar had still owned. Now Caesar was dead. I was truly free. And the weight of my freedom hung from my shoulders like a cloak of lead feathers.
Three steps inside the mouth of the tunnel that led down to the slave quarters and it may as well have been middle night. The darkness and dank air pressed against my skin, and the torches set in iron sconces on the wall gave off more smoke and pitch stink than actual light.
“Jupiter’s beard,” Quint swore as we descended. “If I’d known it was this bad in this place, I would have petitioned Caesar myself to let Cai out. What a rat hole.”
“I think it’s cozy,” Elka muttered, her lip curling as an actual rat scurried out of the darkness and disappeared into more darkness.
It didn’t take me long to locate the corridor where Cai’s cell was, and I was almost running by the time I found it, the sound of my boot soles slapping on the damp stone floors echoing off the seeping walls.
“Here!” I called to Quint and Elka. “He’s down this way—”
“Fallon?” I heard Cai’s voice call out and saw a hand reaching between the bars of one of the cell doors.
“Cai!” I sprinted the rest of the way. When I reached him, I clutched at his fingers before letting go to fumble with the lanista’s key ring.
“What in Hades are you doing here?” he asked me, his eyes wide. Obviously the news of Caesar’s demise hadn’t yet filtered down into the lower depths of the ludus. In the uncertain light from the torches, the deep shadows carved on his face beneath cheek and brow gave him a haunted look. “Fallon—what’s happened?”
For a moment, I could only stare at him, unable to utter the stark, horrible truth. Finally, I managed to stammer, “C-Caesar . . .”
Cai drew back from the bars of his cell, dread in his eyes, as if he knew what I was about to say. He shook his head, echoing back the name. “Caesar.”
“He’d dead, Cai,” I said. “Murdered.”
“Who was it?” he asked, his voice like cold iron.
“Who wasn’t it?” Quint answered for me as he and Elka caught up.
“Senators,” I said, suddenly remembering the keys I held in my hand and grasping for the one that would open the door to Cai’s cell. “Dozens of them—all with daggers—a conspiracy . . . they cut him to pieces on the steps of the theater, in plain sight and bright daylight.”
Cai looked back and forth from me to Quint and then, after a long moment, turned his back on us and walked toward the deeper darkness at the back of his cell, fists clenched like stones.
His father, I thought. He’s thinking of his father and the hatred he bore for Caesar. It was a hatred the elder Varro and men like him—men like Pontius Aquila—had sown and nurtured and carefully cultivated among their peers for years.
“So they finally worked up the guts to do it,” Cai spat, disgust in his voice.
It didn’t even matter to him that Caesar was the reason he was in that dismal, lightless hole, fighting daily for his life. Even after his time at the Ludus Flaminius, Cai bore his commander no ill will. And now he never would. Caesar was dead.
“There was no courage in what they did,” I said.
Cai shook his head. “I didn’t say courage.”
“You’re right about that,” Quint agreed. “Both of you. More like they finally managed to cobble together a plan. And not a very good one either. They had luck or the love of their black god Dis on their side, that was all. As I understand it, Antony would have been there in another minute with Caesar’s praetorian guard and they could have stopped the whole bloody clot of them. Brutus, Cassius, Casca . . . bastards all.”
“And who else?” Cai’s eyes narrowed.
“Too many to name,” I said as I found the right key, finally, and jammed it into the heavy iron lock. “But . . . I saw Aquila. He was there, with a knife. Only he . . . he wasn’t one of the killers—he was there, but hiding. Hanging back until all the others had fled. And then . . . he . . . he knelt beside the body and dipped his dagger blade in the pool of Caesar’s blood.”
I felt my stomach roil, and I couldn’t go on. The image of Aquila hovering ghoulishly over the body—like a carrion crow on a spent battlefield—was just too fresh and horrid.
“Filthy coward,” Cai said, as I swung the cell door open and he ducked his head, stepping over the threshold. “It must have been like watching a dream come to life for him. He’s hated Caesar since the day they first met, and he’s been prodding men like Cassius and Casca—all those who held a grudge against Caesar, real or imagined—toward this for years.” He shook his head and looked at Quint. “But Brutus . . .”
“Yeah. No small surprise there,” Quint said.
Suddenly Caesar’s words to me—about Sorcha and the perils of blind loyalty—came roaring back like a cruel jest. I remembered how he’d said it had been a mistake for her to trust Thalestris, her primus pilus at the academy and most loyal friend. Or so she’d thought, right up until Thalestris’s complete betrayal.
“Trust,” Caesar had opined to me on the matter. “A noble, useless, frequently terminal affliction of your people, my dear. Achillea trusted Thalestris. She allowed her greatest enemy to get close enough to stab her in the back, Fallon. That’s what blind trust does.”
And yet, for all his wisdom, Caesar had fallen victim to that same affliction. In the most literal fashion possible. The irony was almost too much to bear—along with the grief. But that would have to wait. I told Cai about what I’d seen in the theatrum and the implicit threat it posed from the Sons of Dis to the queen. To our friends . . .
“I have to get home,” I said, trying to quell the surge of panic that crawled up from the pit of my stomach again at the thought. “Back to the ludus. I—”
“I know.” Cai gripped my shoulder. “And I’m coming with you.”
“Of course you are,” Elka said, glancing from Cai to Quint. “You both are. Now can we please get out of this place? That rat followed us down here, and now he’s staring at me.”
We started back the way we came. It hadn’t occurred to me—to any of us—to keep our voices down, and so all of the other gladiators in earshot had their faces jammed up against the bars of their cell doors as we passed, expressions ranging from elation to fear to mild curiosity. For them, a regime change might spell either catastrophe or just business as usual. I kept my gaze focused in front of me. They weren’t my concern. I had my own folk to worry about.
“Hey!” one of them hailed me as I approached. “Girl!” He thrust an arm out between the bars of his locked cell door, his grasping hand spread wide and reaching, fingers like claws. “Princess!”
That made me stop in my tracks. I turned and peered into the darkness and saw that it was the man I’d spoken to the first time I’d visited Cai in this awful place. Yoreth. A member of my very own tribe—a warrior in my father Virico’s royal Cantii war band.
“It’s me,” he said. “Remember?”
“Yoreth . . .”
“Yoreth, yes.” He nodded vigorously. “The key, yeah?” He reached for me again. “Give me the key . . .”
I blinked, my eyes focusing on his arm. On the serpent tattoo that spiraled up from his wrist all the way past his elbow, knotting and coiling in twisted, familiar patterns. I’d seen those marks before. Whatever—whoever—else he was, Yoreth was also the retiarius fighter from the Theatrum Pompeii. He’d worn a helmet that day with a full face visor but, looking at him now, I recognized his tattoos. Yoreth was the one who’d led the other gladiators in the fight against Cai.
The one who’d almost killed him.
So he was treacherous—and that, in itself, was enough to make me extremely disinclined to help him—but Yoreth had done more than just dishonor a fellow gladiator. Yoreth was a liar. And it was his tattoo that told me both of those tales. I looked up from his arm into his eyes then, with the bars of the cell door between us.
“Princess . . .” he said again.
I moved to stand in front of his door, the ring of iron keys hanging loosely from my fingertips. He looked at me and flashed what I’m sure he thought was a persuasive smile. In the cell next to him, I saw Acheron, the gladiator who had—unlike Yoreth—fought at Cai’s side. He stood there, leaning against his door with his arms crossed over his chest, relaxed but watchful, and he nodded when I looked at him, but said nothing. I glanced back and forth between the two men for a moment and then plucked up the key from the ring that fit into the cell door locks.
“That’s a good lass,” Yoreth said, his grin broadening. He pulled his arm back through the bars. “Your father would be proud . . .”
“My father,” I said. “Whose royal war band you were a part of.”
He nodded vigorously.
He’d said he remembered me. That he remembered the night I disappeared from Durovernum. There had been a feast that night. Chiefs and their warriors from the Four Tribes gathered to celebrate their alliances . . . But there had been men from other tribes as well at that feast. Men of Gaul, men of the west, men of the north . . . even Coritani men, sent there to foster peace between our tribes that never lasted more than a day past the feasting. Yoreth was from the Island of the Mighty. There was no doubt in my mind about that.
I unlocked Acheron’s door and turned away to rejoin my waiting friends.
“Princess!” Yoreth called, a frantic note to his voice.
I paused and looked at him over my shoulder. “Fallon,” I said. “My name is Fallon ferch Virico, and you would know that if you knew me. I don’t know you.”
“I swear—”
“My father’s war band has numbered half a hundred men and women of our tribe, give or take, ever since I was a child and my sister Sorcha led those warriors into battle against the Romans,” I said in a low, dangerous hiss. “I might not have known all their names, but I knew their faces. They were Cantii. My tribe. My family.”
I dropped the key ring to the dirt floor, well out of reach of Yoreth’s grasp.
“And I know a Coritani tattoo when I see one.”
X
BACK OUT IN the main—decidedly deserted—courtyard of the ludus, the day was still overcast. The sky a dull, mournful gray, and the air strangely muffled. We crossed to the small door set in the stone wall beside the larger gates. Quint tugged back the slide-bar lock and opened it just far enough so that he could stick his head out.
“What’s going on?” Cai asked.
Quint ducked back inside. “Not a thing,” he said. “It’s quiet as a necropolis out there. Every window and door shut up tight.”
“It won’t stay like that for long,” Cai said.
