B007IIXYQY EBOK (130 page)

Tonight. I’ll have you brought to me again tonight
. Now, surely, she knew his glory and would be humble.

Do you understand now? I am this city. I caused this amphitheater to be raised. I am your Lord and God.

Perseus was keenly aware that the longer he took to crush her, the more his status would fall. In his frenzied attempts to herd her against the barrier he was taking three or four steps to her one, but he no longer cared if he exhausted himself. Though she fought passively, he found her strangely elusive. Soon he was breathing heavily from his exertions, while Auriane had scarcely begun to tire.

Then disaster struck.

A half-dozen members of the mob, drunk on spiced wine and thoroughly bored by this bout, had long been gleefully searching out some means of sabotage. At last they found it— they surrounded and captured the lottery box. After pushing past the two imperial slaves who stood guard about the ornate iron chest, they threw the lever of the spring-device that released hundreds of wooden lottery balls into the crowd. This was a means of distributing gifts to the people, an imperial donative usually scheduled for the midday recess—never when a bout was in progress. The small spherical missiles rained down on the spectators and into the arena; each bore the name of a gift to be presented to the man who caught it. Most were commonplace, such as a fine cloak or an amphora of wine, but a few were wonderful—a ship loaded with cargo or a seaside villa with a hundred slaves. Such things could change a man’s fortunes forever.

The crowd was suddenly in furious motion, scrambling for them like dogs after marrow bones. These things were familiar to Perseus, but not to Auriane. The air was full of strange flying objects; several struck her. And the crowd seemed afflicted with the falling sickness.

Men of the Urban Cohorts quickly arrested the merry culprits. But they could not undo what had been done. Auriane was wrenched from the lucid dream; instinctively she raised her shield to protect herself from the lottery balls. And Perseus seized his moment.

He slid his sword beneath hers and beat it upward. Her lower body was undefended. When that same stroke came diagonally down, it slashed across her middle from breastbone to navel. A long gash opened in her tunic; about it the leather swiftly darkened with blood. From the throng came a ravenous roar, bellowing approval.

The shock of it buckled her knees; slowly she sank to the sand. His next blow struck her shield, which, belatedly, she moved to protect her sword-side; she was knocked hard to the sand. Perseus eagerly straddled her, readying himself for a final blow to her neck.

Auriane felt every soul-weakness shaken loose; all the old poisons shot into the blood. Hertha’s voice came like the hot sigh of a bellows:
“Accursed one!”

Accept this death—it is a proper end for one who took the life of a kinsman.

Erato came at a hobbling run, hoping to stop the death blow even though he knew he could not reach them in time. Domitian felt a dark, sweet warmth flood into his loins—her fear was the finest aphrodisiac he knew. This was good.
Yes, let her die. It is meant to be.
The world has righted itself. The mocking woman’s face was pushed into the mud. He felt he triumphed over all women, so smugly confident in their power to cripple a man’s soul with their potent mockery and cast him off like chaff.

Julianus leapt to his feet and threw himself against the barrier.

But he knew she was done. It all came about with impossible speed. He felt the weight of the Colossus crushing his heart. His right hand found the hilt of his dagger; he tensed to spin round and sink it into the Emperor’s neck. Domitian would not long outlive her. He cared not at all in that moment for the awesome consequences of the act. And so it was a dangerous moment for the world as well, brought unknowingly to the edge of civil war.

But in that moment it seemed to Auriane all the dark chambers of her soul flashed to light. The means was mysterious—whether the
aurr
completed its healing or Ramis’ long-dormant purposes flowered at last, or Fria released her from some generational curse, she was never certain. With it came a clean-burning wrath.

Treacherous man, taking advantage of a ruse. Vile people, laughing at life and death. You shall not have me.

She whipped over once, striking Perseus’ shin with her shield, dimly aware she lashed out at her own shame, that she killed Hertha within her, and would not hear her voice again. Then she sprang up nimbly and landed in a spray of sand, positioned at the precise distance that was ideal for her short sword—and too close for Perseus’ long, curved blade.

Perseus’ death stroke sank harmlessly into the sand. A groan of surprise issued from the crowd.

Then she advanced with tightly controlled violence, her anger only increasing her swiftness and accuracy, and began battering her way into his territory. Perseus’ movements were at first fitful, hesitant, as he struggled with the shock of surprise.
What possessed her?
A larger soul seemed to inhabit that body now.

Perseus’ trainer looked on, stupefied to stillness, arms limp at his sides. The crowd seemed to collectively draw in a breath, as if they watched a racehorse burst from a standstill into an exuberant gallop. Her blade whipped about like some ecstatic dancer; there was something refined yet relentless in that blinding complexity of strokes. Erato followed ten paces off, nodding eagerly, approving her strategy: She crowded him, giving him no room to maneuver his longer blade, pummeling him with a rapid-fire series of savage backstrokes that allowed him no time to recover. When she had numbed him into believing she would carry on in this fashion indefinitely, she lashed out with her sword’s stabbing point and struck flesh, a hand’s breadth beneath his collarbone.

Now his blood was on her blade. At the sight of it, eager moans rose up from the throng. She never slowed; Perseus found himself consistently a half stroke behind. If he defended against a thrust, she was beginning a cut; if he attempted a cross-stroke, she trapped it before it began. It was like a violent dispute in which one person shouts, forcing the other to listen. He began to take small, crabbed back-steps, his sword flailing ineffectually, his blade a fugitive now, reduced to running and dodging.

Many found themselves slowly lifted to their feet. They witnessed a thing that could not be. The power of that assault was strangely compelling, like a cry of war trumpets or a chariot team surging into the lead on the last round. It appealed to a commonly sensed need to burst free of pain and darkness; they exulted with her, feeling they beat down their own misery. They seemed to have utterly forgotten that moments ago they despised her, so carelessly changeable were they in their affections. Hands that had just pitched rotten turnips were now clenched into fists, urging her on. Those who had shouted— “Set the dogs on her!”
now cried—“Get him, Aurinia! Kill him! Our darling! You are our own!”
The cries gathered momentum until they became one rebellious roar of approval and delight.

This acted upon Auriane in a way she could never have guessed—she found it unexpectedly intoxicating to know her every movement controlled a thousand throats. The power of every stroke seemed gloriously magnified by the cheers it brought. Waves of applause bore her up and carried her along at racing speed. For a few moments she felt she held the world permanently at bay. There was no room in her for the irony of it all—that here in this place that was the heart of her lifelong enemy’s house, she at last felt triumphantly safe.

Domitian looked on with sharp uneasiness. Each fresh surge of cheering goaded him to greater gloom. The baleful spirits of the north had aided her, after all. She was a scourge, a blight, like some dread foreign disease unknowingly brought home from a war that manifests itself later when you count yourself safe at home.

Foretell my death, will you? I shall foretell yours. And cleanse you from our midst.

The surge of love and relief that Julianus felt was short-lived. He saw that Domitian sat as if braced against a mortal enemy; in his eyes was that primitive look that heralded the meting out of gruesome punishments.

Domitian motioned to a guard and issued an order; Julianus heard only the name Antaeus, but this was enough. He deduced that Domitian meant to set Antaeus the net-fighter against her when this bout was done, and doubtless would continue to send in new opponents until she died of exhaustion or wounds. He had feared even before this day that Domitian might use her this way, and he had carefully prepared for this turn of events.

Julianus signaled discreetly to one of his own servants who stood quietly in the shadowy rear of the imperial box. His voice covered by the din, he put an encouraging hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “We’re going to have to do it, after all. Go up there directly and speak to no one on the way. Quickly now!”

Julianus’ servant unobtrusively fled the cubicle; all in the box were too engrossed in the drama below to pay him any mind.

Auriane had driven Perseus to the arena’s center. Erato still followed her like a dog at heel, frantically signaling to her to slow her pace. He was greatly concerned by her wound. Was the lung pierced, or the stomach? She must conserve herself and end this bout quickly. And he wanted the full extent of her ability kept secret as possible.

Then Perseus slipped and fell hard onto his back. The slaves who turned the sand between the morning and afternoon shows had neglected to remove the shallowly buried intestines of a rhinoceros, disemboweled by a skilled animal-baiter. At this, joyous wolf-yelps arose from the crowd. Perseus was done. It did not matter that he slipped accidentally; once a bout began, no misfortune occasioned pity. Laughter was mingled with the cry, “
Habet
!”—“She
has him!” They did not expect Auriane to pause for the vote. Had
he
paused, when she had been at his mercy? Tentative shouts of
“Aurinia, victor!”
rose from the plebeian seats. The women in the high places shouted praises to Juno, protector of women in peril, and tossed silken handkerchiefs by the hundreds; they drifted like butterflies down onto the mortal play far below.

But Auriane halted and lowered her sword. The crowd seemed to deflate like a bellows; cheers were replaced by murmurs of confusion.

Then she took a step backward and paused, standing quietly straight and still, giving Perseus room to rise. Her chest heaved as she struggled for breath; her cheek was ashen from loss of blood. A sweat-darkened strand freed itself from her tightly bound hair and hung wearily down.

“Auriane, no!”
Erato screamed, vigorously shaking his head. Gallantry was foolish. It was never returned. The roads into the city were lined with the grave-markers of swordfighters who had let another live, only to be killed later by that same man.

In the viewing chamber Sunia heard a voice in the close-packed room mutter, “What’s addled her? She throws away victory.”

And Sunia was amazed to hear herself say in reply, “That would be no victory. Who do you think she is? One of
you?”

After a moment Perseus staggered up like a man under a too-heavy load. The halt allowed Auriane time to become conscious of her wound. Her blood felt hot where it matted her tunic to her skin. Nausea gripped her. The floor of the arena seemed to tilt. The pain was like molten needles thrust into her stomach. She struggled for that sense of wild freedom she had felt only moments ago, but all the strength seemed to have drained from her arms. Despair crept up on her from behind; the whole world began to seem grotesque and wrong.

This place is haunted and god-cursed. I want to be quit of it.

Gradually she became aware the throng was raising a more insistent clamor than any she had heard that day.

The always-unpredictable crowd had decided to heartily approve her refusal to strike a man who was down. They saw it as a show of supreme confidence, an act of antique gallantry of the sort often praised by the historians. Demonstrations of reckless disregard for survival always had a good chance of winning their most enduring love. Had she deliberately planned this, she could not have found a surer means of winning the wild devotion of all ranks, even the most doubtful of the Praetorian Guards.

Julianus thought,
by all the gods, it is the most intelligent thing she could have done
. She hardly needs my help. She was born knowing how to incite a crowd’s love.

Auriane and Perseus crashed together like wearied, battling stags, striking with less force as both lost breath and blood. The spectators in the lower seats, anxious for her safety now, shouted helpful instructions: “Watch him now, that’s the first attack. Backstroke! Now thrust!”
Erato glared at them, motioning for silence, fearful they would confuse her, but Auriane knew nothing but the random staccato of striking blades. Knowing time ran out with her blood, she put her whole mind to sensing an opening for a mortal blow, inhabiting Perseus, feeling his humiliation, his sour hatred, letting his rhythm become her own. And then it was time.

She advanced, keeping her sword and shield too low, intentionally putting herself in distance. As she intended, he aimed a cut at her neck. In rapid succession she sliced upward, hitting his sword at right angles with a resounding clang; then in one fluid motion she slid her blade along his and feigned an attack to his right shoulder, her purpose to induce him to move his shield. It succeeded. He whipped it laterally to stop a blow that never came. For in the same instant she wrenched her body to the left and with one quick, precise movement thrust the point of her short sword into his naked chest. Both knew at once the wound was mortal.