GIRL GLADIATOR (12 page)

The lyre player seized the opportunity to run from the room, throwing a circumspect look at Fritha and almost colliding with the servant on his way back with the writing instruments.

“You better stay, Cimba. I don’t read too well these days – going blind.” In fact Axis had never learnt to read and was sensitive about it.

Fritha wrote something quickly on the wax tablet.
I need to get into Casca Suetonius’s house.
The servant read the message to his master.

“Casca, the tribune?” Axis queried.

She nodded.

Axis whistled. “Why?”

Fritha scribbled something else on the tablet.
Get me in tonight and you can have this.
She threw the bag of gold coins on the bed.

Axis grunted, “I don’t want your money. I’ll help you because you are brave … too brave for your own good.”

Something was surfacing in Axis’s mind, as he surveyed the girl, her slight body thrumming with tension. Casca had been a tribune in Britain for some years and Axis heard from returning soldiers how cruelly he had treated the natives.

“Tell me, Fritha, are you fixing to kill Casca?”

She stared back at him impassively.

Axis heaved his bulk from the bed and crossed the room to stand in front of her. He reached forward and pulled back the folds of her shift to reveal the knife.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Axis smiled, and touched her cheek. “That boy, he’ll miss you.” His eyes dropped to the bracelet Sharn had just given her and he nodded. “Oh, yes, he’ll miss you all right.”

She winced and made an impatient gesture. She wanted to get on with things, before her second thoughts grew.

“Come with me!” Axis was surprisingly sprightly when he could smell a fight.

They moved quickly down the empty streets, eventually arriving outside a tumbledown dwelling. Fritha frowned – this couldn’t be Casca’s compound. Axis drummed on the door with his big fist. After a while, a villainous looking character opened up and the two men shook hands in a special way, talking in slang so thick Fritha could not follow it. After Axis had finished explaining their business, the stranger threw a glance at Fritha and said something dismissive. Axis said something back. The only word Fritha could make out was pescator; and the stranger again looked at Fritha, this time with respect.

Axis turned to Fritha. “Julius is one of Casca’s gardeners. He will let you in.”

“I can get you inside the perimeter and past the guards, but then you’re on your own. The only window which is not barred is tiny. You may be thin enough to slip through it … or maybe not.” Julius shrugged.

Now that Julius was close, Fritha could see the same scars and nicks all over his head and hands and arms that Axis had, indicating that he too had spent a lifetime in the arena.

“Julius, ask your wife for a little flask of olive oil,” Axis said.

When Julius finally exited his house, the three of them forged off through the night, heading for the patrician side of town where the rich people lived. The houses were getting grander, the marble finer, the gardens bigger and the walls higher.

They arrived outside a stout wooden door set in a stone wall topped with spikes. Julius indicated that they were to stay put and keep quiet. Fritha looked up at the stars sparkling serenely in the inky sky, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, eager to get on with her mission. Julius held up his hand and made a low shushing noise. It was clear now why he had forced them to wait. Two voices were approaching on the other side of the wall, and the clink of weapons and the scuffle of armoured leather announced that they were soldiers.

Julius waited till the patrolling sentries passed by and then opened the door with a key.

“Casca must have a lot of enemies – to guard himself so well,” Axis remarked.

Julius nodded. “The man’s a pig. Everybody hates him.”

Axis handed Fritha the small flask of oil. “It will help you slip through the window.” He turned to Julius. “And what is her best chance of getting out?”

“She won’t be getting out, Axis, you know that.”

“You were always a pessimist, Julius. Tell her, just in case.”

“Head towards the kitchens. They back onto the wall which rises straight from the river. It’s a long drop, and hopefully there won’t be any barges tied up.”

Axis suddenly reached out and hugged Fritha. “Run brave, little one … and strike sure.”

Fritha nodded at Axis in farewell and slipped through the door. She heard the lock go behind her, and stood stock-still staring at the palatial house. When she had got her bearings, she ran across the beautifully kept garden, banks of flowers on either side making the night heavy with their perfume.

The tiny window was exactly where Julius said it would be on the second storey. Fritha’s heart sank – it was smaller than she expected. She got the flask of oil and rubbed it on her shoulders and clothing.

There was a thick creeper snaking all over the wall of the house. She shinned up its gnarled branches and arrived at the sill – and not a moment too soon, as she heard the two soldiers passing by down below talking about who was favourite in a chariot race at the Circus Maximus the next day.

Fritha tried to squeeze through the window but wriggle as she might, she could not manoeuvre herself in. She dropped one shoulder, then the other, but the casement was just too small, until one of her feet waving around outside found a branch of the creeper. Pushing sharply back, she popped through.

She dropped onto a pile of baskets which broke her fall, but made a terrible clatter. She lay there dazed, waiting for someone to burst through the door and challenge her … but nobody did.

She picked herself up and steeled herself to open the door. What lay on the other side? She almost cursed Sharn. She had never suffered from nerves until she met him – and found something to live for. She took a deep breath and eased the door open, and sighed with relief as the house remained quiet – nobody had been alerted by her entrance. Maybe the noise she had made wasn’t loud at all – it just seemed so because she was so tense.

Fritha stole along the hall past the atrium at the centre of the house. Suddenly her heart leapt into her mouth as she saw a motionless figure observing her from an alcove. She froze and laid her hand on her knife, but the figure remained even more immobile than her – which wasn’t difficult since it was made of marble. Fritha shook her head at the Roman’s passion for statues, as she glided towards the bedchambers. She counted off the doorways, as she crept over the mosaic floor, silent as a cat. Julius had said Casca slept in the third chamber along from the atrium. She located this door in the gloom.

She paused. There was still time to turn around and flee. She could go back to her everyday existence and forget she had seen Casca earlier that night at the feast.

She had recognised his cruel, angular face immediately as he leaned forward enjoying her bout. He had not recognised her, but then why should he? She was just some savage he had amused himself with for an hour or two in a faraway place.

She was so disconcerted at seeing the man she hated more than anything in the world that she almost allowed the Galacian she was fighting to get through her guard, but she recovered her composure, stunned him with her steel wristlet and defeated him without further fuss.

After bathing and changing, she was able to survey Casca from behind a curtain, and she shuddered as she recalled the worst night of her life. Even though it had happened before she met Sharn, every detail was still carved into her brain.

T
he people of Cirig watched as a Roman legion marched past the village, their thoughts going out to their fellow Picts. The expedition’s task was to strike deep into the north and push the rebellious tribes back from the wall. As it paraded past, Fritha was fascinated by the colour of the uniforms, the waving plumes, the fluttering pennants, the sparkle of the standards and insignia, and the bugles and drums sounding out the stride cadence.

She told Alpin that she was going down to check the fish-traps in the stream but instead she followed the rearguard of the legion as it disappeared over a hill into the setting sun.

The legionnaires halted on a big area of flat land and pitched camp. She ventured forward for a closer look and lay down in the bracken. Bredan had always said she was too curious for her own good.

There was something fascinating about the disciplined, patterned way the soldiers made camp, marking out the ground in big rectangles, throwing up earth ramparts and erecting palisades with pickets they carried with them. It was like watching a big colourful caterpillar miraculously breaking into segments, making a nest and settling down for the night.

All at once she became aware that four legionnaires were heading her way. She jumped to her feet ready to hare off, but two scouts had worked their way round behind her, blocking her retreat.

They told her the tribune of the legion wanted to ask her some questions, eager to get to know the local tribes-people. A soldier on either side held her by the arms and hustled her off, but she wasn’t afraid because they spoke to her pleasantly.

They marched her into the biggest tent where she saw Casca for the first time. He surveyed her like a stoat eyeing a rabbit, as he dismissed her captors. He looked her up and down smiling oddly. Fritha shivered as he approached her and put his hand on her shoulder. She tried to shrug it off and when this didn’t work, she pushed it away with a pout of distaste. His eyes flared and he replaced his hand, now gripping her painfully. Fritha scowled and poked her tongue out at him. He dug his fingers deep into her shoulder joint. Fritha turned and bit his hand as hard as she could. He grabbed her round the throat and pushed his cruel face close to hers. She clawed at him with her nails, leaving furrows of red down his cheeks. He reeled back, shouting something in Latin.

Two soldiers burst into the tent and rushed her. Fritha sidestepped and ducked beneath their grasping arms, grabbing the sword of one of them from its sheath as he passed. She was now in a corner of the tent with the two legionnaires facing her. The soldier she had robbed glared at her, fingering his empty sheath as though he couldn’t quite believe what she had done. Fritha knew she could not take on two heftily built men at once.

So she did not wait around for their move but attacked first. She had never used a Roman sword before but she knew they were designed for stabbing not cutting. She stepped to the side of the smaller man and rammed the sword into his stomach behind his bronze breastplate, but push as she might she could only get it in a short way because he was wearing a heavy leather jerkin. She had done some damage though because he gasped with pain and dropped to one knee, clutching his flank. The other soldier threw out an arm to trap her. Fritha leaned back to avoid it, wrenching the red tipped sword out of the kneeling legionnaire. She was about to stab the other soldier in the neck when she heard Casca moving behind her. Something hit her on the top of her head and she lost consciousness.

She came to in the darkened tent and found that she was now tied up to the central pole and Casca was watching her as if she was a wild animal in a cage. He didn’t say anything, just stared at her smugly. She hurled more insults at him. He told her if she didn’t shut up she would be sorry, very sorry; but this did not stop her from using all the curses she knew and spitting at him when he loomed close. Then there was another blow, harder this time.

She woke the next morning out in the open, aching in every part of her body, especially her mouth. She looked around in the strengthening light to see that all the tents were gone – the legion had moved on. She tried to cry out for help but nothing happened, and that is when she realised that the Romans had cut out her tongue.

She lay there amidst the abandoned earthworks of the overnight camp wishing for death; but in the end it was a band of Celtic raiders returning south who claimed her.

“She’s in a bad way,” one of the warriors said.

“She might survive … and my wife could do with a servant to help with the housework.”

They tied her on the back of a donkey since she was too weak to ride, and set off south towards the wall.

“Bloody Romans!” said one of the raiding party. “I thought we were meant to be the barbarians.”

“Worse than animals,” somebody replied as Fritha slipped into oblivion.

N
o, Fritha could not turn back. Fate had brought her to Rome and delivered Casca into her hands – it would be wrong to walk away now. She pushed open the door of Casca’s bedchamber and advanced stealthily into the room – but what she saw took her breath away.

There was Casca’s supercilious face on the pillow, but next to him lay a young woman in deep slumber, and next to her again, snuffling in its sleep, was an infant girl.

The plan Fritha had worked out so carefully crashed in ruins. She had dreamed of the moment when Casca was at her mercy, when she could take her revenge – and that moment was now. With one slash of the knife across his throat, she could stop her pain, and the universe would be in balance again.

But Fritha’s eyes strayed from Casca’s predatory head to the pretty face of his young wife. If she killed Casca, she would have to kill this innocent woman for the slimmest chance of escape. And if she killed the sleeping woman, then what of the child? Fritha herself was an orphan and knew how loneliness gnawed when sleep was slow in coming. Fritha could only guess at why her parents were not around, but this child would know for certain. She would know that Fritha killed her mother and father as they slept. Was Fritha any better, then, than the vile Roman?

She reached into her girdle and pulled out her knife, hoping the touch of the cold steel would steady her, but she could not stop the awful thing that was happening – she was beginning to soften. It was by being hard that she had got through all the bad times in her life. It was by being hard she had won her fights. What would become of her if she lost her hardness?