Palace of Darkness (18 page)

The darkened passageway slanted downward, then led to steps. She emerged at the side of the stage, her footsteps echoing back from the seating. The three-story
scanae
at her back was clad with marble and painted plaster, but the seats were red Petra sandstone, and the setting sun lit them like fire. She searched the side walls of the theatre for a passageway below.

She found a narrow slit in the rock and entered it, ducking under the lintel into the darkness. The passage smelled of damp stone, perhaps a spring that flowed under the theatre.

Cassia called out a greeting, hoping for a response. Ahead, a dim light beckoned her to enter deeper into the bowels of the theatre.

A face appeared at the end of the passage, an older man if the long white-gray hair was an indication.

She pressed on and the man stared, as though he had never seen a woman below.

“I am looking for the gladiator training,” Cassia called.

He shook his head. “None for sale.”

She reached the end and stopped before the old man. He wore a rough tunic with the sleeves cut off, revealing a network of ancient scars on his forearms. His hair hung below his shoulders, unwashed for some time.

“I do not wish to purchase anyone. I wish to find his trainer.”

His eyebrows shot up and he clicked his yellowed teeth together twice. “Follow me.”

He led her deeper underground, through narrow passages lit only by an infrequent torch and smelling of unwashed men. Cassia was rethinking her decision, as it felt as though she descended to the underworld with this man. Finally they reached some sort of central chamber with cells surrounding it.

Their arrival was met with a shuffling scramble of sandals and the hoots of a dozen men in the cells.

“Stand down, fighters,” the old man called. “She is not here for any of you jackals.”

The lewd calls continued, and Cassia lowered her chin but studied the men from the corner of her eye. Foreign, most of them. No doubt captured somewhere and marched here to be trained for the entertainment of the city. Had any of them been fighters before their capture?

“Now.” The old man turned to her. “You are selling a slave, I take it? How old? How strong?”

Cassia shook her head. “I have nothing to sell.”

He clacked his teeth together again.
Strange habit
. “Nothing to buy, nothing to sell. You interest me very little, then, woman.”

“I wish to be trained.”

The chamber erupted in laughter.

The old trainer held up a hand, his wide smile still showing those teeth. “You wish to be a gladiator.”

Cassia lifted her head. “No. Only to fight like one.”

The old man grew serious and studied her. “He beats you, then?”

Cassia frowned.

“Your husband.”

She hesitated. Would he be more likely to train her if he thought it was merely for defense against a nasty husband? She searched his eyes a moment, reading into his soul, and found her answer. “I am tired of being his victim.”

The man clacked his teeth and nodded. “These men today, they think they can do as they wish with their wives . . .” His voice trailed off as he turned away from her, still muttering. She had read him correctly. Something in his past had given him a loathing for abusive men. Odd, given his line of work.

He turned back to her, worn strips of leather in his hands, and held two of them to her. “Let’s see what you can do.”

Cassia took the leather and eyed the gladiators, each of them standing at the front of their cells in rapt attention. “Here?”

He followed her gaze. “Hmm. I suppose not. Come.”

He led her back through the dim underground passage and out into the fading light of the amphitheatre. She followed his lead in wrapping the leather strips around her hands as they walked. “No one comes when there is no event. We will be alone.”

And then, before she had a chance to prepare, he flew at her, his right arm aloft.

Cassia reacted out of instinct, with the defensive dodge that Aretas had taught her, and the old man’s arm swung down through empty air. She whirled, leather-wrapped fists raised.

He chuckled. “Perhaps I should hire you for the arena after all. Think what crowds would come.” He pointed to the vacant seating area. “You’d have all eight thousand seats filled each night.”

Cassia half smiled and dropped her fists a few degrees. “You have seen the extent of my skill, I am afraid. And one can only evade for so long. I wish to learn the
offense
.”

He smiled, and she saw that she had won him over already. “Then I shall teach you.”

“I want to come every few days. I will pay.”

He held up a hand. “We shall talk of money later. For now, let us have our first lesson.”

Cassia inhaled and stepped forward.

“What is your name, little woman?”

“Cassia.”

He bowed. “And I am Yehosef.”

Cassia dropped her head. “I am honored to be under your learned instruction, Yehosef.”

He grinned at the flattery. “So, you are ready, Cassia?”

“I am ready.”

Within minutes they were engaged in a mock battle, though it felt nearly real. Yehosef’s long white-gray hair flew out from his head in damp strands. Cassia blocked bony forearms with her own and tripped over swinging feet. But as the shadows grew long over the stage and the scrape of their feet and grunts of pain filled the theatre, Cassia felt a sense of power flow through her and it was good.

There had been nothing but inaction since she had come to Petra. Fruitless, frustrating stillness. But this, to fight like this, it felt like strength. Her arms ached and her vision blurred with sweat and
effort, but still she fought on. The thought of Alexander’s abuse in the palace and the impossibility of his rescue fueled her anger and strengthened her arms.

Yehosef spun and struck her shoulder and she went down. She turned in time, but her head and her cheek smacked the cold paving stone. She tasted blood inside her mouth but jumped to standing and whirled to face him, fists raised.

Yehosef clapped his leather-bound hands. “Like a panther she is, with the energy to match!”

Cassia remained still, chest heaving.

“I have never seen the like in a woman. But that is all for our first night.” The old man bowed. “You will come again soon.”

She unwrapped her hands, then reached under her tunic for her money pouch. Again, Yehosef held up a hand. “Later. When I have seen your skill increase.”

Cassia bit her lip, then ventured another request. “I want to learn to use a sword as well.”

Yehosef’s brow furrowed. “Your husband—”

“He puts me in dangerous situations.” Her experience with Aretas would serve some good after all. It gave her story the ring of truth. “He . . . he sometimes brings danger upon our family. If we are attacked, I want to be prepared.”

He still frowned but nodded slowly. “Next time, the sword.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Yehosef.”

He stepped closer and looked down into her eyes. “Be wary, Cassia. You are a fighter, it is true. But you are not yet ready to fight. Do not be overconfident.”

She nodded and handed him the leather strips. “I will see you soon.”

She left him on the stage and ascended through the corridor up to the street level again, her legs aching with the upward climb.

She had only gained the middle level of the
scanae
when a man jumped from the shadows to block her path. She cried out.

He was huge and dressed as a slave, with a shaved head and two gold posts through his ears, symbols of his service. Cassia had the sense she’d seen him before. The palace?

He reached out for her and she tried to block his arms, but this was no training exercise, and he was nearly twice her size. He wrapped beefy arms around her middle and lifted her from the ground.

She screamed and kicked at him.

A moment later he released her and dropped her to the pavement on her hands and knees. Then fell beside her.

She flipped her body and stayed in a crouch.

Yehosef stood over the prone attacker, grinning. “Your husband?”

She shook her head. “How did you do that?”

He shrugged. “We shall leave that for another lesson.” His face darkened. “Training with swords, now this.” He jabbed a thumb toward the man on the pavement, who groaned and stirred. “Perhaps you should tell me more of your troubles.”

Cassia stood. “I don’t know who he is.” It was true, in part.

Yehosef scowled. “Then we shall ask him.”

He bent to the man and pressed his fingers into the place where his neck and shoulders met. The man howled and curled into Yehosef’s hand.

I must learn how to do that.

“Who are you?” the old gladiator asked.

“A slave, nothing more.” He tried to wriggle from Yehosef’s grasp, but he held him still, then kicked at the slave’s finely woven tunic. “Not like any slave I have seen.” He drove his thumb and forefinger deeper, and Cassia winced.

“In . . . in the p-palace.” The slave moaned and closed his eyes.

Yehosef’s glance shot to Cassia. How much did she dare tell him?

“You are not surprised,” Yehosef said to her. “That much I can see.” To the palace slave he said, “Were you sent to kill her?”

He nodded, then sucked in breath. Yehosef released him with a shove. “Tell them you were successful. It will be better for all.”

“Until she comes again to the palace.” The slave rubbed his neck and pushed up to his knees. “And then what of me?”

Yehosef shrugged. “Then return today and tell them you failed.”

The slave’s eyes went dark, and Cassia feared he would lunge at her again, but Yehosef advanced on him, and the man held up his hands.

“Go!” Yehosef raised a hand. “Before I regret my mercy!”

The slave scrabbled to his feet and backed away, then turned and ran.

She waited for Yehosef to face her. When he did, she read suspicion in his expression. “It is not healthy for a man to raise the ire of the royal family.”

“I am sorry, Yehosef.” She hesitated, then decided to take the risk and tell him everything.

When she finished, he rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “And now the queen wants you dead.”

Cassia exhaled. “I should have expected it, once she learned I had not left Petra.”

“Indeed.”

She feared she had lost her opportunity to prepare for the fight to retrieve Alexander. Yehosef no doubt relied upon the good favor of the royal house.

He looked up the street, toward the city, where her attacker had disappeared. “If that brute decides the truth will better serve him, then neither of us is safe.”

“It was unfair of me—”

His gaze returned to hers. “So you had better come back soon.”

TWENTY

T
HE YOUNG WOMAN BEFORE THE CITY COUNCIL LOWERED
her eyes at the accusations that flew against her from the semicircle of white marble seats in the Great Hall. Torches ranged the room, smoking as the meeting wore on into the evening.

Malik waited for his chance to speak, outraged that the only reason the council was unsympathetic to her plight was she was Jewish. She had tried to lay claim to her late husband’s property, but his family was attempting to reclaim it because she was foreign.

He served on the city council for this reason—to be involved in the ongoing relations between the Nabataeans of Petra and the many others who called the city home, including Jews.

Twice he stood and voiced his opposition. Both times he was shouted down. He sat and pounded a fist against his palm.

The room buzzed with conversations both public and private as council members griped to those sitting next to them. The half circle of stone seats trapped the conversation and swirled it into confusion.

Others on the council believed him to be a Jew-lover. Well, what of it? He had embraced the Jewish Messiah, it was true. And he held
a deep desire to see them realize their Messiah waited for them with outstretched arms. He had studied the Law and the Prophets, and his mentor, Paul of Tarsus, had been Jewish.

“She is not one of us,” someone yelled. “Why should we give our property away?”

Once again Malik stood and shouted, “Because it is right and just!”

The girl glanced up at him, gratitude in her eyes.

But the council majority would not be swayed, and the meeting ended with the woman thrust from them, her property officially seized.

Malik left immediately, not caring to engage his fellow council members in conversation. The darkness of the city left him blind after the bright torches of the Great Hall, but he walked on by memory, crossed the
Cardo Maximus
, passed the Nymphaeum’s noisy fountain, and entered the housing district at its beginning, wanting to stay off the main street where he might be approached. The street narrowed to a mere alley, but Malik had lived here for a lifetime and knew well the cobbled ruts. Here and there lamplight flickered from open doorways.

All the way he fumed, replaying the meeting in his mind, making his arguments to the empty night air as though he were given another chance to speak.

Though the Jews brought with them valuable trading connections because of their access to the Great Sea and they held positions of wealth and influence in the city, there seemed to be some inborn animosity that all of Arabia had for the Jews. It was hard to understand, as they had not been a military power for many years, swallowed by Rome more than thirty years earlier. That the Jewish people had no love for the Christians, he knew. But by God’s grace the believers had been grafted into Israel, whether or not the Jews approved.