The Valiant by Lesley Livingston
“Told you I’d be fine,” Elka mumbled, turning her face back into the pillow. Within a few moments, she was gently snoring.
I shook my head and turned back to Sorcha.
“Why are you soaking wet?” she asked.
I ignored the question and glared at her silently.
“What’s that face for?”
“You had Elka beaten.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I did.”
“But not Nyx? Did you really believe her story about a midnight kitchen raid?”
“Of course not,” Sorcha said. “But it gave me an excuse not to whip her out of commission. As of this morning, I thought she was my only contender for the Victory role in the Triumphs.”
“Sorcha—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Plead for me to reinstate you as a contender.”
I bit my lip in anguish.
“Because I already have.” She sighed. “I discussed it with Thalestris, and she convinced me I was overreacting. Of course, I should have both you and Nyx thrown in irons and hung from the rafters for the stunt you pulled last night, but I really don’t relish informing Caesar of the appalling lack of discipline at his ludus. Now that you’ve returned unscathed, I’ll send you both to his villa so he can make his choice between the two of you—Minerva help the poor man!—and call it a day.”
I could barely contain the excitement I felt. But I was still angry—with Sorcha, but mostly with Nyx—over Elka’s punishment.
“I’ll win the Victory role,” I said. “But I still want Nyx to pay for what she did. She took me to that place on purpose so I’d wind up in trouble.”
“Leave Nyx be,” Sorcha said and put a hand on my shoulder. “Vengeance is never the right path to take, Fallon, no matter where you think it might lead. If I were you, I’d let Nyx think she’s gotten away with something. She hasn’t. And though it saddens me to say it, because she’s been dear to my heart these many years, she will get what’s coming to her. The Morrigan watches over you and will see to it, as she sees to all things.”
I fleetingly considered telling Sorcha about what had really happened in the house on the Caelian Hill and just how much trouble I’d actually encountered at the Domus Corvinus. About Aeddan and Pontius Aquila and the so-called Sons of Dis who worshipped death itself in the catacombs. It was the prudent thing to do—especially if Aquila had really turned his sick, covetous gaze my way. But Sorcha had only just reinstated me in the Victory competition, and if she thought I truly was in peril, she would defy Caesar himself and send me packing back to the ludus, no matter what, to keep me safe. After it was all over I would tell her, I promised silently.
But would the Morrigan protect me? I wondered. I was beginning to think that perhaps my goddess just watched. Watched and waited to see what kind of trouble I could get myself into next.
XXVIII
I CAN TRUTHFULLY SAY THAT, in private, Gaius Julius Caesar was nothing like what I’d expected. I attended Caesar the next day at his private estate on the west bank of the River Tiber, escorted there on horseback by Decurion Caius Varro and a handful of his men, along with my rival for the Triumph, Nyx. It was a near-silent ride. She stonily refused even to make eye contact and Cai kept a respectful distance from us both. But in the few, brief moments when I caught his eye, I could see the warmth of encouragement in his gaze.
I also couldn’t help but notice the great care Nyx had taken with her appearance. As Caesar’s gladiatrices, we were both in full fighting kit, weapons and armor polished to shining, but Nyx was also wearing smoky circles of kohl around her eyes and a crimson stain on her lips. And the tunic beneath her armored skirt was a handsbreath shorter than mine. If she hoped to seduce Caesar—actually seduce him, rather than in the way Arviragus had counseled me—then I suppose she was to be commended for the effort.
When we reached Caesar’s sprawling villa, Cai turned us over to his praetorian guard. Nyx was the first to take her audience, and I was left to wander the gardens under the watchful eye of the guard. The air was fragrant with the sweet smells of cedar trees and flowers. And my hands were sweat-slick on the hilts of my swords.
I paced back and forth, arguing with myself over my chosen course of action. Then, when it was finally my turn, I took a deep breath, fighting against the terror that swept me head to foot. I was about to meet Gaius Julius Caesar: conqueror, commander, master strategist . . .
A man.
He’s just a man. Not a god.
He breathes and bruises and bleeds just like any other man.
And at that moment, he was sitting in a beam of sunlight, reading a vellum scroll. Caesar was slender, tall but not towering, with fine hair combed forward to flatter a high forehead and a mild blue gaze. He was handsome in a sharp-featured kind of way, and strong. His lean physique did nothing to conceal the corded muscles of his forearms and the breadth of his shoulders—but he did not look like a man who had conquered the world and slaughtered hundreds of thousands. There was no dried blood beneath his manicured nails, and his teeth, straight and white, did not drip blood. There were no Gaulish chieftains’ heads hanging from the pillars of his audience chamber. Instead the room was pleasant—breezy, full of sunlight, sparsely decorated, and smelling faintly of juniper.
I was almost disappointed. Arviragus’s prison was more mythic than this.
There was, of course, one mythic aspect to the room: Cleopatra. Just as I remembered her from our first meeting with Sorcha, she commanded respect and admiration—and even a certain breathless kind of awe—on sight. She reclined elegantly on a couch next to Caesar’s chair and gave no indication that she and I had ever met. And I suspected, just from the way Caesar’s gaze lingered on her face when he occasionally glanced up from reading, that he was hopelessly in love with her—which was something else I hadn’t expected from him: a human heart. But that, I hoped, was exactly what drove the man more than anything else. And I planned to use that to my best advantage.
Before my interview, Sorcha had once again cautioned me against revealing my identity as her sister. Caesar had been good to her, she said, but that did not mean he wouldn’t use a familial connection against her if he ever found it necessary. Family, she’d said, was the greatest strength—and the greatest weakness—one could have. I aimed to prove Sorcha’s theory right.
To that end, I did something that I never thought I’d do.
I willingly bent my knee and bowed my head before Julius Caesar.
The silence stretched out in the room, broken only by the creak of armor from the praetorian guard who stood near the back wall. He was far enough away that, for a fleeting instant, I imagined I could cross the distance and have my blades in Caesar’s chest before they could cut me down. Retribution for the assault on my land, the humiliation of my father and Arviragus . . . I would die the instant afterward on the point of the guard’s blade, but it would be a noble, useful, good death. Instead of spilling my blood out in some silly game played before mobs and madmen. Wasn’t that worth it? Wasn’t that the truest kind of freedom?
And what of Sorcha? What of your sisters at the ludus?
What of their freedom?
I stayed where I was, stone-still and staring at the floor. It seemed like I would stay like that forever, until finally I heard the vellum scroll snap shut and Caesar seemed to notice that he had a visitor.
“Please,” he said mildly. “Do get up.”
I rose and stood, uncertain of what to do. Sorcha had assured me that Caesar would set the protocol for the interview as it happened. She had said there was no use preparing for what was to come because whatever it was would be unexpected. So far she was right.
“Ah, Fallon,” he said, his gaze placid and appraising all at once. “My Lanista, the Lady Achillea, tells me that you grew up in Britain.”
“Prydain, my lor
He raised an eyebrow, and I winced internally. Had I just corrected Gaius Julius Caesar?
“Your pardon, great Caesar—”
“Not at all.” He waved away my apology. “Perhaps I am the one who should apologize for my inability to make my tongue obey the shape of your native language.”
I saw Cleopatra hide a smile behind her hand.
“You’re very gracious, my lord,” I said and lowered my gaze to the tiled floor in an attempt to appear docile.
“I can be.” Caesar gestured to an attending slave. “Get the girl a chair and a cup of wine.”
The slave produced the amenities as if by sleight of hand, hovering until I’d sat and sipped, and then retiring silently to his place by the door.
“Now,” Caesar continued, “my question, Fallon, is this: Do you remember the days when Rome came to the shores of your home?”
I nodded. “I remember well, my lord.”
“And what are your memories of those days?” he asked.
“I remember running through the fields with my friends, racing to the tops of the cliffs so we could look down on the soldiers as they marched,” I said. “I remember the sun shining brightly on their armor. They dazzled me, like the gods themselves had come to our land.”
Caesar leaned forward. “You must have been very young,” he said. “Were you frightened?”
Frightened? I thought. No. Angered. Spitting mad and wanting to fetch my wooden sword so that I could take on the whole lot of you filthy invaders single-handed.
Caesar must have read my thoughts in the expression on my face. Cleopatra’s grin spread into a full, white-toothed smile.
“No!” Caesar chuckled. “No, she was not! Look at that, my queen . . .” He got up to pour me more wine himself, even though I’d barely touched what was in the delicate goblet I held in white-knuckled fingers. “I can see that you were the furthest thing from frightened. Probably ran back home and got your own toy sword.”
“So please you, lord, that’s exactly what I did,” I said, taking another sip of wine. “You still won.”
At that, he laughed again. Heartily.
“Indeed I did, Fallon,” he said. “It’s what I do.” He leaned one elbow on the carved arm of his chair and rubbed his chin, regarding me.
“Barring that long-ago occasion, my lord”—I lifted my gaze to meet his directly—“I also win.”
Cleopatra went still, watching Caesar as he watched me.
After a long moment that tested the breaking point of my nerves, he smoothed a fold of his purple-striped toga and said, “Would you win for me?”
“I already have, Caesar,” I said and took another sip to prepare for the sheer audacity of what I was about to do. “The Ludus Achillea is yours. I am yours. My victories, also yours.”
He nodded, as if that was the right answer. I suppose it was.
“This pleases me. The Britannia Spectacle is neither the largest nor the grandest spectacle of the Triumphs,” he said. “But it is the one that means the most to me, the one nearest to my heart. When I was on campaign in—forgive me—Britain, I lost someone very, very dear to me.”
My pulse hammered in my ears. This was my chance, my opening.
“And so did I, mighty Caesar.” I put the goblet down on a little table and stood. “And it was your fault.”
Caesar went completely still. I held my breath . . . and then drew my swords. The reaction was instantaneous. The praetorian guard was across the room in the blink of an eye, blade drawn and ready to defend Caesar. And there was another blade pressed to my throat, held by the slave stationed by the door. It seemed he was more than just a simple houseboy.
I lifted my arms slowly and held my swords out away from my body, dangling them harmlessly from my fingertips, but my eyes never wavered from Caesar’s face. Neither he nor Cleopatra had moved.
“I am the second daughter of Virico Lugotorix, king of the Cantii tribe of the Island of the Mighty,” I said, knife at my throat biting against my windpipe with each word. “My sister was Sorcha ferch Virico, warrior of the Cantii. You took her away from me and gave her the name of Lady Achillea.”
Caesar’s eyes narrowed slightly—his only reaction.
“These swords were a gift from her. You watched her bestow them on the night of my oath taking. One of them, she carried with her when you took her from my home. The other, I carried myself, on the night the slaver Charon took me.”
Caesar murmured something to the guard and motioned the slave back toward the door. The cold pressure of the blade eased away from my throat, and I gulped at the air. The praetorian guard moved off to one side but kept his gladius unsheathed. The realization that I would never have succeeded in assassinating Caesar washed over me. It almost felt like relief.
The one thing I’d thought I wanted all my life was suddenly so unimportant in the face of the thing I was about to ask for. “I want my sister back. Will you help me?”
“What would you have me do?” Caesar asked slowly.
“Grant me the role of Victory and let me fight for you.”
He shook his head in amusement. “I was going to do that anyway. I thought you Celts were better bargainers than that—”
“I’m not finished,” I interrupted. It earned me a frown of displeasure, but I raced on regardless. “I will win the crowd and bring you glory. I will make them love me more than any other gladiatrix who ever set foot upon the arena sand. I have heard of the kinds of matches in which those who fight can win their freedom if they win the crowd—”
“Those instances are rare.”
“And so am I.” I flipped my swords over in my hands and, crossing them at the hilts, set them on the floor and stepped back. “I lay my swords at your feet and my fate in your hands, mighty Caesar. If you judge my performance worthy, if I can make the people of Rome love me like you loved your daughter, Julia, then I ask one favor.”
“Your freedom.”
“No,” I said. “What I want is my purchase price.”
“I heard it was rather substantial. At the time, I didn’t understand why Achillea would do such a thing.” Caesar’s lip curled up at one corner. “Now I do.”
“She used that money to buy my life when she could have used it to purchase the title to the ludus, as you’d agreed.”
“That title will cost more than just your slave price.”
“Sorcha—Achillea—can pay the difference,” I pressed. “And if it’s still not enough, I have this.”
I fished in the leather pouch at my waist and found the little rolled scroll Charon had given me, along with my armor. I handed it over to the praetorian guard, who gave it to Caesar. I silently begged the slave master to hold true to his word—my need was dire—and it was for my sister, whom he loved. Caesar glanced at the black wax seal, and I could tell from his face that he recognized the insignia. He broke the seal with his thumbnail and unrolled the vellum. His eyebrow arched.
“And if it’s still not enough,” I said, “my sister can turn my contract over to you, and I will continue to fight in your name until I can win enough to someday buy it back myself and—”
“Fallon.”
“My lord?”
“A good bargainer knows when to stop pleading their deal.”
I bit my lip and fell silent.
After a moment, Caesar sighed. “My daughter, Julia, was not so very much older than you are now when she left this world. She died in childbirth while I was off campaigning in your lands.” As he spoke, I was shocked to see the sheen of unshed tears that rimmed his lashes. “She was such a light, like a clear, shining flame . . . I see her light in you. It is you, my dear Fallon, whom I would choose to honor Julia’s memory by fighting in the guise of Victory in the reenactment of my conquering of Brittania.”
I held my breath.
I could sense that our conversation was over, but there was one thing I needed to know before I left. “May I ask a question, my lord?” I said.
“Would it be in my power to stop you?” He smiled.
“Why?” I asked. “Why the games? Where I come from, there is no such thing, not really.”
Cleopatra answered for him. “Rome was built by a nation of warriors, dear girl,” she said, her dark eyes twinkling. “And now that they’ve conquered most of the world, there’s no one else to kill! So they’re obliged to satisfy the Republic’s bloodlust here at home with their games.”
Caesar smiled at her teasing. “The Daughter of the Lotus—no stranger to bloodying her own blade on occasion, I might add—is right, to a degree,” he said. “The people crave the games—the excitement, the thrill, the violence. We are a nation born of blood. If we do not at least attempt to satisfy those cravings, then we will turn inward and fall to corruption.”
He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. I turned to leave, almost giddy with relief that I had successfully argued my case with Caesar.
That relief was short-lived.
“One more thing,” Caesar said, raising his voice just enough so that I would stop in my tracks and turn back. “Not that you seem to need any added incentive, but you should know that I’ve made a wager on the outcome of your competition. If you lose, I will be obliged to sell you to the Ludus Amazona, as I have already done with your rival, Nyx. She’ll be performing opposite you, playing the role of that goddess of yours. You know the one I mean—the Morrigan.”
Nothing, it seemed, was ever an easy win with Caesar.
• • •
Cai had been instructed to escort me, after my audience, not to the town house in the capital but back to the Ludus Achillea. Sorcha and the other girls had already set out for home, and we would meet them there. Nyx, Cai told me, had been sent directly to the Ludus Amazona after her meeting with Caesar. I shuddered to think what her reaction to his decision had been—and just how venomously she was plotting to take me down when we met in the Triumphs. I put it out of my mind, determined instead to enjoy the fact that I’d just emerged from a battle of wits with one of the most brilliant strategists alive relatively, if not wholly, unscathed.