Timeus flipped the coin into the air, caught it, and slapped it onto the back of his hand. “Tails,” he said. “Better luck next time, Sisera. Your men can play the Trojans.”
Sisera groaned. “Every damn time,” he muttered. He stood and introduced his gladiators as six men rode into the arena. They carried lances at their sides and wore plumed helmets on their heads. One gladiator, who was apparently playing Hector of Troy, wore a bright blue sash across his chest. Sisera seemed to go on for a long time, nearly shouting about the honor of the Trojans, their skills in battle. When he finally finished, he collapsed into his chair, mopping his brow with a piece of linen.
“Finally,” Timeus muttered. He turned to Lucius. “How about it, boy? You’ll have to do it someday.”
Lucius shook his head. “You are much better at it, Uncle.”
“You can’t say no forever,” Timeus replied, but he got to his feet all the same, walked to the edge of the veranda, and raised his hands for silence. “Romans,” he began, and although he didn’t shout as Sisera had, his voice carried across the entire arena. “The great poet Homer once told us of the epic battle between the Greeks and the Trojans…”
Attia’s focus shifted as Timeus went on. Her father had told her about the Trojan War, how a spoiled prince and an arrogant king battled over a woman so beautiful that her face launched a thousand ships. Attia remembered laughing at that.
“How can a face do that? You need two dozen strong men, at least, if it’s a long ship,” she’d said.
Sparro hadn’t so much as smiled at her na?veté. “I don’t mean it literally, Attia. Helen was famous for her beauty, and her husband Menelaus was angry to lose her. But she was not really the reason for the war. She was an excuse.”
“But you said that the king and the prince fought over her.”
“Yes, but…” Sparro had put his hands together and tapped his long fingers against his chin. “Agamemnon—the brother of Menelaus—used his brother’s anger as an excuse to attack Troy. It was a very wealthy city.”
“So … they fought for gold?”
“And power, yes.”
Attia shook her head. “That makes even less sense than fighting for love.”
At that, her father did laugh, but she hardly minded. She was only a child, after all.
Timeus’s version of events was markedly different. He spoke not of love or even ambition, but of ruthlessness and cunning, of strategy and superiority. And then when he introduced his gladiators, he called them something else—neither Greeks nor Trojans. He called them Myrmidons.
Attia sighed with recognition, finally seeing his game. If the gladiators were Myrmidons, then Xanthus could only be Achilles, and even the illiterate of Rome knew that Achilles slew Hector. Timeus obviously believed his gladiators’ victory was inevitable. If it had been any other men down in the arena, Attia would have paid the boatman herself to see them all on a one-way trip to the underworld. But Xanthus was down there, or soon would be, and she found herself hoping that Timeus’s confidence was warranted.
The old man raised his hands again. His next words were spoken in such a distinct cadence that Attia thought he’d probably spoken them hundreds of times before. “Our champion needs no introduction. Call his name! Release his fury!”
And instead of calling for Achilles, the entire Coliseum shook with the force of another name. “Xanthus! Xanthus! XANTHUS!”
A loud creaking echoed from somewhere far below as the gate to the hypogeum opened. The crowd became nearly hysterical with excitement when they saw Xanthus walk out onto the sand.
Even from a distance, he looked intimidating—all muscle and bone and pure, deadly force. His black armor wasn’t armor at all, but a leather breastplate and greaves that were meant to show off his body rather than actually protect him. He had no shield, only two straight swords strapped to his back. He didn’t even have a helmet, and the tips of his dark hair seemed to turn gold in the sun.
The five other gladiators who fought with him were also dressed in black, but they carried round shields, and their armor covered everything but their arms and knees. They raised their swords to Xanthus as if he were truly Achilles—he their commander and they his loyal soldiers.
At the very center of the arena, Xanthus turned to look up at the veranda. With a single fluid motion, he unsheathed his swords and struck them together over his head with enough force to send sparks flaring along the bright metal.
The people screamed with delight.
The man with the ruby raised his fist, trumpets blared across the Coliseum, and the battle began.
Galena turned her face away and closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch.
Attia couldn’t look away. She stared as Sisera’s men charged forward on horseback. Xanthus and his companions stood side by side in a straight line that never faltered, not even as clouds of dust kicked up behind the horses and distorted the sunlight.
The horsemen, on the other hand, had already broken ranks. Hector fell behind while another gladiator charged straight for Xanthus, intent on cutting the champion down. But Xanthus leaned away, just barely avoiding the edge of the horseman’s blade. The miss was so close that the crowd gasped in unison.
Iduma used the distraction to launch himself off another’s back and mount the horse. He didn’t waste any time in burying a dagger into the horseman’s chest before letting him fall to the ground. Attia imagined his neck breaking with a jarring crack.
Instead of keeping the horse, Iduma jumped down, landing agilely on two feet before joining his companions with an easy smile.
One down. Five more to go.
The remaining Trojans turned back in a line and charged again.
Attia shook her head in disapproval. That kind of brutal, forward attack was primitive at best. It required no strategy, no planning, no real thought beyond the will to move. She’d heard some call it a brave way of fighting. She called it stupid, and Xanthus and his men seemed to agree.
Albinus scoffed and swung his sword as soon as the first horse reached them. The poorly trained animal reared up, dropping its rider to the ground before running away. A second horse tried to leap to the left, lost its footing, and fell, crushing the legs of the gladiator on its back. Xanthus’s men wasted no time dealing the final blows to the fallen.
Timeus smiled at Sisera. “Three of your men gone already, Sisera. Good Trojans, the lot of them.”
Sisera grumbled under his breath.