The tiled roofs of the buildings were elegant and ordered, the main villa surrounded by a profusion of outbuildings—stables and kitchens and, I surmised, some sort of barracks for the different ranks of “students.” It looked a little like a palace, but I felt my stomach clench at the sight of the high, smooth wall that surrounded the ludus, topped with iron spikes. This place was no palace. It was a well-appointed cage.
As the curtained carriage in front of ours, transporting the Lady Achillea and her attendants, rumbled through the gate, Thalestris leapt out while it was still in motion. She walked back to the carriage Elka and I rode in and signaled for the driver to halt so she could swing herself up to stand between us. Every move she made was precise and purposeful. Feet braced wide, she rested one hand on her hip as if she wore a sword there. I suspected that most of the time, she did.
“Welcome to the Ludus Achillea,” she said, her eyes flicking back and forth between us, appraising, calculating. “Your new home until such time as you earn your freedom or you die. The latter is more likely. But work hard, work well, and you will be treated fairly and with dignity.”
Fairness and dignity? I seriously doubted that.
“Wherever you have come from,” she continued, “whatever you did, whoever you were . . . forget. Kill your past and bury it deep in the earth of your heart. It will not help you here. It will only shackle you. This place is a sisterhood. These girls are your family. The Lady Achillea, the lanista of this place, is your goddess. And I am your new mother.”
“Couldn’t be any worse than my old mother,” Elka shrugged.
Thalestris shot her a look that plainly said, Don’t be too sure of that.
“There will be an oath swearing at the rising of the next full moon,” she said, “for you and for some of the other girls who are recently arrived. It is a sacred time. And this is a sacred vocation. Do not ever dare to think otherwise. Be proud, and be thankful to the Fates that they have brought you here to become a gladiatrix. Bring honor on this house. Bring honor on yourselves. Win. Be valiant. Now go.”
? ? ?
Honor.
I’d always thought I’d known what that word meant to me. That night, I took my first steps toward learning what the word “honor” meant to a gladiatrix. And I took those steps in a graveyard.
It had been well after the supper hour when we’d arrived, so Thalestris escorted us to the kitchens to gather plates of leftovers from the evening’s meal that we could eat in our quarters. Coming and going, we saw only a few of the other girls in residence. We spoke to none of them. I was glad of it, mostly because I was beginning to feel a bit ridiculous in the wilted, travel-stained remains of my auction costume. They’d stripped us of most of the finer accessories before loading us into the wagon, leaving me with not much more than the tunica and boots. Elka, for her part, didn’t really seem to care—she was far too concerned with balancing the towering heap of meat and cheese and fruit she carried as she walked to really even notice.
Our quarters were small, narrow rooms, barely big enough to hold the straw pallet that served as a bed. There was an open, empty trunk at the foot of it for personal belongings. I had none. No torc, no sword, not even a decent set of breeches or a good warm shift made of well-spun wool . . . nothing that identified me as Fallon. No tokens or mementos of the life I’d led. The loss of my sister’s blade felt like I was missing a limb. And the only thing I had left of Mael was the memory of his kiss . . . and the look on his face in the moment he died.
I kicked the lid of the trunk shut and turned my back on it.
A single candle on the high windowsill cast dancing shadows on the walls as I finished eating. I was sitting on my bed, too exhausted to even undress and lie down for sleep, when there was a knock on my door. It swung open before I could respond, and I looked over to see a tall, slender girl standing in the doorway. She had short, dense hair cropped close to her skull and dark skin. I tried not to stare, but I’d never seen anyone like her before. She ignored my rudeness and simply gestured to the candle.
“Get your boots,” she said. “Bring the light. Come with me.”
Outside in the hallway, I saw that the girl carried a cloak.
“I am Ajani,” she said, holding it out to me. “Put this on.”
I took it with a grateful nod, for the night air held a damp chill. “Fallon,” I said and slipped the heavy wool over my shoulders, pulling the hood up around my face. “Where are we going?”
The whites of her eyes shone in the darkness. “To say goodbye.”
She turned on silent feet and padded down the corridor. I followed, the candle flame sputtering in the breezes that slipped between the pillars. Ajani led me out into the courtyard at the heart of the ludus compound, where a gathering of girls and women stood in a cluster, some of them holding torches, all of them cloaked and hooded. If Elka was there, I couldn’t tell which of the cloaked figures she was. No one spoke. At the center of the crowd there was a funeral bier draped in a gauzy white cloth.