“And who, exactly, did your hunch say would pay so much for a pair of girl barbarians?” Elka asked.
“Congratulations, ladies.” His smile faded, and his next words were like a dagger of ice down my spine. “You are now the property of the Ludus Achillea, foremost training academy for female gladiators in all of the Republic. Owned and operated by the honorable consul of Rome, Gaius Julius Caesar himself.”
XIV
“IT’S NOT A BROTHEL.”
“I know. I heard. I just . . .”
“You like to fight.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Well then, what’s the problem?”
“It’s not honorable!”
“Oh.” Elka snorted. “Is that all?”
“All?” I gaped at her. “It’s everything!”
She rolled her eyes and settled back on the padded bench of the cart we rode in. “You’re a slave, little fox,” she said. “You don’t have honor anymore.”
But she was wrong. I knew there had to be more to honor than just one’s station in life. That was what Sorcha had taught me: that actions meant more than accolades. That honor was something worth fighting for—and dying for—no matter what house you were born into. Still, I wondered. After all, had I ever considered any of the slaves of my father’s house honorable?
I turned away from Elka and stared sullenly instead at the shaved, oiled head of the paymaster who sat in the front of the cart, driving the black horses with a sure hand.
“Remember,” Elka continued, “our life now is simple: Fight, kill, die, and look good doing it.”
I shook my head. “Did Charon really say that?”
Elka nodded. “Right after he said we’d been sold to a murdering tyrant. Yes.”
Julius Caesar. The tyrant.
I could barely believe I’d been sold to the man who’d invaded my homeland. This, I thought, was injustice on a mythic scale. All I’d ever wanted was to fight—but against the man who’d dishonored my father and killed my sister. Not for him! And not in an arena. Never that.
The Morrigan was having a great laugh at my expense.
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about.” Elka sighed. “Like I said, there are worse fates for a slave than ending up a gladiatrix.”
I gave her a sidelong glance. “It’s blood sport, plain and simple. Something to amuse the mob—you saw how they reacted to our fight with the Alesians. You heard them. It was disgusting!”
“I heard they feed you well at a ludus.”
I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t care one bit about the victuals, but then my stomach growled so loudly that Elka heard it over the rumbling of the carriage wheels and burst out laughing. Even with my troubled heart, it was hard to stay indignant in the face of her mirth. And, I grudgingly admitted, for the first time in months we were traveling in a carriage that had no bars. There was no chain around my ankle. I was clothed in something other than rags.
But I was still a slave.
I reached up to ease the press of the iron ring resting on my collarbones. Sometimes I forgot it was there. And sometimes it seemed to weigh heavier than gold. But I also knew that Elka was right. I was a slave, but before long I’d be a slave with a sword and a full belly. And, I vowed, soon I would gain the strength to free myself.
As we followed the westering sun into the countryside, Elka turned contemplative. “I wonder who will have to work harder to earn their keep,” she mused. “You and me, or Kassandra.”
“Who?”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you joking? You took the girl’s shoes and you never bothered to learn her name?”
The image of the dark-haired girl, striking an evocative pose for the appreciative crowd, flashed in my mind. “How do you know that’s her name?”
“You’re hopeless.” Elka shook her head at me. “I asked her.”
Our wagon crested the rise of a long hill, and Elka whistled low.
We’d been traveling north, and the land stretched out on both sides in rolling waves dotted with stands of tall trees. The road we were on—the Via Clodia—was wide, arrow-straight, and like no road I’d ever traveled upon. Our wagon flew over large, flat paving stones, the ride smoother than anything I’d known in my war chariot back home. In the distance, the graceful stone arches of an aqueduct traversed the land like some great stone serpent. Even I had to admit that the accomplishments of Roman ingenuity were marvels to behold.
Now, directly ahead of us, a broad expanse of water stretched into the distance, reflecting the purple and scarlet of the setting sun—Lake Sabatinus, as I soon learned it was called. A broad path lined with tall cypress trees led to a sprawling stone compound nestled on the shores of the lake. We had reached the Ludus Achillea.