“I was born in a fishing village on the east coast of Corsica,” he said. “Youngest of five boys—hence the name: Quintus. My mother sent me and two of my brothers away to the mainland when I was ten.”
“Why did she send you away?” Elka asked.
He paused and glared at the ground between his feet, a strange expression that was half regret, half anger crossing his face. “Because she didn’t want us to be taken,” he said. “Like one of her other boys had been. My brother Secundus . . .”
“Taken by who?” Elka asked.
Quint lifted his gaze to meet hers directly and said, “The Amazons.”
Cai and I exchanged a glance.
“That’s what they call themselves,” Quint continued. “They’re not really—everyone knows there haven’t been any real Amazons for over a century—but don’t tell them that . . .” He looked about, the muscles of his jaw working. “Is there any drink left around here?”
Arviragus silently went and fetched him a mug of ale. Quint took a deep pull and huffed a sigh as the rest of us gathered around to listen to his story.
“In the early days, a hundred years ago or more, when the Greeks first sailed the Mare Nostrum and discovered Corsica, they colonized it,” he began. “No one else had really paid it much attention before that time, but they thought it might be worth establishing a trading port or two in the coves where the marsh flies weren’t so bad. They brought slaves with them, of course, and some of those slaves were, to my understanding, Amazons. Real ones. Or the daughters of them, at least.”
I remembered Gratia saying something similar about the real Amazons having died out long ago as we sat around the fires on the beach after the naumachia. And when Quint told his story, it sounded like part of a long-forgotten legend. I forced myself to listen, not to give in to the urge to do something—anything—in that moment that would do nothing to actually help my sister and would only put myself and my friends at risk.
The Huntress Moon, I told myself. There’s time . . .
“Corsica is a rugged land,” Quint was saying. “Mountainous where it’s not treacherous bog, full of ragged peaks and hidden valleys . . . and, well, it proved the perfect place for those ladies to one day defy their masters. They rose up, rebelled, escaped, and set up a cozy little settlement of their own, hidden away on the other side of the island.” He laughed a little and swallowed another mouthful of ale.
“And no one ever hunted them down?” Hestia asked, skeptical.
“Their Greek masters decided—wisely, I suspect—that they were more trouble than they were worth and let them be,” Quint said. “The Roman settlers who came after—my folk—decided to adopt that policy. And so they’ve remained there ever since, spearing fish, brewing honey mead, telling tales of bygone glory . . . and occasionally swooping down out of the hills in a midnight raid to steal a few of the young fishermen—my brother, for example—from the villages on the other side of the island to keep their population from dying out entirely. Probably explains my predilection for cold-hearted warrior women,” Quint muttered, casting a laden glance at Elka.
She grinned back at him. Cold-heartedly.
“The only time we ever got any retribution,” Quint continued, “was once when my brother Tertius was a raw recruit with the legions and our village begged Rome for protection. They feared the time was coming round when the Amazons would be back. He was sent over with a detachment to the village and, sure enough, there was a raid all right. Chaos and casualties. But they captured a handful of those wild women and sold them at auction in the Forum. I’m betting your Thalestris and her sister were two of those.”
“And we all know the rest of how that story ends,” Cai said, grimly.
“No,” I said. “We don’t. Because it’s not over yet.”
A spark of anticipation flared in Quint’s gaze.
“Can you take me there?” I asked. “To their settlement?”
He nodded, and a slow smile spread over his lips. “Aye,” he said. “I can lead you right to their bloody doorstep.”
I turned to Cai. “We’re going to need a boat.”
Antonia stood up. She was back to wearing the plain leather sheath over her arm, her crescent blade carefully oiled and set aside. “One big enough for all of us,” she said.
“I can’t ask that.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what risks we’ll be taking—”
“You don’t have to ask. Achillea could have turned me out of the ludus after the accident.” She gestured to Neferet, who stood beside her. “Both of us. But she didn’t. We owe her our loyalty, Fallon. And you too.”
“Me?”
Neferet nodded. “You could have easily left us at the ludus and escaped on your own. You didn’t.”
Gratia stepped forward. “We’re with you, Fallon. To be honest, I want to be there just to see you pummel Thalestris’s treacherous arse into the dust.” She rolled her muscled shoulders, grinning, and cracked the knuckles of her fists. “And maybe give a hand, if the opportunity arises.”
I looked around at all of their faces. Each one—from Elka, my closest friend, to Devana, who I barely knew—bore a look of fierce determination. Of purpose. Even Aeddan’s expression told me that he would follow me to Corsica to rescue my sister.
I felt a swell of gratitude. For all of them.
Leander stepped forward. “Please, domina, let me come with you too. All my life, I’ve pretended I was the hero in my own epic tale. But you, all of you, are real heroes. Give me the chance to win back your trust—to prove myself more useful than pilfered fish and wine.”
“And the bag of coins we’re not giving back to you,” Elka said.
His shoulders sagged for a moment at that, but then he turned back to me. “Let me help you bring the Lanista home,” he said quietly.
I raised an eyebrow at Cai.
“Better bring him along,” he said. “Who knows what kind of trouble he’ll get himself into if we leave him behind.”
“All right then, hero.” I nodded. “You’re with us. One of us. But I swear on the breath of the Morrigan, if you even think of betraying us, I’ll make you wish for Thalestris to find you before I do.”
It was decided. Now, like one of Leander’s epic tales, all we had to do was journey to a land across the sea, descend into the Underworld to rescue my sister from the clutches of death, and . . . if we somehow managed to get that far, I thought silently . . . return with Sorcha and together liberate our home from the evil that beset it.
The Ludus Achillea might have been named for the legendary hero Achilles, I thought, but even he might have second-guessed undertaking such a journey.
My next thought was To hell with Achilles!
He was famous for defeating one Amazon.
I would defeat them all, if it meant getting my sister back.