Sorcha would stay at Charon’s house in the city and help him coordinate our two disparate objectives. It was easy enough for her to move through the city in relative anonymity—the fame she’d earned as the vaunted Lady Achillea in her arena days had faded in the eyes, if not the minds, of her many ardent fans. And the elegant patrician figure she cut now bore almost no resemblance to the fierce mythic creature she’d been back in those days.
The same could not be said of her little sister and her companions. We had to adopt a different strategy altogether. Which was why, in the port of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber where it emptied into the sea, we’d docked briefly for a single purpose: to bring onboard a shipment of empty wine barrels. I wasn’t about to risk sneaking myself and the Achillea girls off the ship in twos and threes. I would not risk a repeat of the scenario that had led to the loss of Meriel. But there was only one way I could think of to avoid it, and after mulling over the outlandish idea with Cai and Charon and the others, we’d agreed that it was the best—probably the only—hope of success we had.
I’d teased out my idea from a story Antonia had once told after the evening meal at the ludus, about the hero from her land named Odysseus, and how he and his war band had infiltrated a city hidden inside a wooden horse. Not having one of those handy, we’d had to make do.
“Whatever was in here previously was a cheap vintage,” Ajani muttered, crinkling her nose as she lifted one long leg over and climbed gingerly into the empty barrel. “And musty.”
“Don’t be a wine snob.” Gratia rolled her eyes, stifling a grunt as she attempted to fold her muscled bulk into a small enough ball. “At least you’ve got room to breathe.”
“That’s not necessarily a plus,” Neferet gasped. “I’ll be giddy on fumes by the time we get to where we’re going!”
The ship deck was awash with grumbling gladiatrices:
“A slave cage is starting to look like a pleasant way to travel . . .”
“Lucky Amazons . . .”
“There’s a rat in my barrel, and I think it’s drunk . . .”
“Oh, don’t be such a pack of princesses!” Antonia rolled her eyes as she hopped nimbly into her barrel. “I think it’s a brilliant ploy.”
“You only think that because Fallon got the idea from your ridiculous Trojan horse story,” Vorya said, crouching reluctantly.
“Ja,” Elka concurred. “And the horse probably smelled better.” She waved at Antonia’s prosthetic weapon. “At least you can carve your own air holes once you’re in there.”
Antonia just grinned in response, waving the crescent blade in a little circle.
“It’s not a far journey,” I said, ignoring the rough wooden splinters digging into my flesh as I climbed into my own barrel.
“Better not be,” Elka grumbled as Quint lifted the lid of her barrel.
“It isn’t. I promise.”
It wasn’t. Well . . . not that far. Only up a twisting road and through the gates of the sprawling Varro estate, perched high on the Caelian Hill. It really was a desperate gamble, but we’d all agreed that it was the only way we were going to get off Charon’s ship without being immediately arrested. Even with Rome’s vigiles on the lookout for us, no one would think to stop a shipment of libations being transported through the city at the behest of one of its wealthiest and most powerful senators. That was the hope, at any rate.
I settled myself as comfortably as I could inside the oaken cask as Charon’s men hammered the lid on, breathing as slowly and shallowly as I could, trying to ignore the dizzying scent of the long-gone wine and the faint stirrings of panic the cramped confines provoked. It felt as though I had been entombed, like in the stories Neferet had told us about how they buried dead Aegyptian kings, trapped forever in darkness, sealed up in a sarcophagus for all eternity. When finally they carried the barrels up onto the deck, then tipped them over to roll down the gangplank, it took every ounce of self-control I had not to scream or vomit.
Assuming none of the others did either, I thought, and we managed to get through the city without discovery, I was going to owe a whole cellarful of wine-stained gladiatrices an unpayable debt.
The trip through the winding streets of the capital was nerve-wracking. Every time the cart slowed or stopped, I feared it was because we’d been discovered. Every voice I heard calling out was surely the vigiles ordering us to halt for inspection. When, finally, I felt my barrel being lifted down off the cart, I felt a surge of fear strangle my throat. I had no idea if we’d actually reached our final destination. For all I knew, we’d been diverted to the Forum to be arrested and hauled away.
I held my breath as the lid above my head was pried off and the rosy light of the setting sun poured into my wine-soaked casket. It blinded me for a moment, and then Cai’s head and shoulders blocked the twilight gleam as he reached down and lifted me out of the barrel and set me down on wobbly legs.
He tried to keep a straight face, I could tell, but it was no use. The bare whiff of me up close was enough to bring tears to his eyes. He took a step back and mustered a watery, breath-holding smile of welcome.
“Welcome, daughter of Bacchus, to Domus Varro,” he said as he tucked a straggling, sticky lock of hair back behind my ear.
I rolled an eye at him. Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, was probably gazing down on us from his purple-stained couch, high on Mount Olympus, and laughing himself silly.
Quint was nowhere near so diplomatic as Cai.
“Whoo!” he exclaimed, waving a hand in front of his face as he helped Gratia and Elka step from their barrels. “You lot smell like a legionnaire mess tent after a right good pillage of a Gaulish vineyard!”
It was entirely true. But it had also worked. We were safe. I looked around at the vaulting stone arches of Cai’s father’s wine cellar, and at my companions, and couldn’t help the grin spreading across my face. For the first time since our desperate escape from the ludus, I dared to hope that we had not seen the last of our home as our home.
? ? ?
Home . . .