It was unbearable. My sister was there—right there, not twenty paces from where I stood—and I couldn’t go to her. Even if I could, I didn’t know what I would have done. Scream at her? Throw my arms around her? I honestly didn’t know.
With the Aegyptian queen on his arm, Caesar beckoned my sister over. I watched Sorcha approach him and was struck by what seemed like a flutter of hesitancy in her step. My sister, who was afraid of nothing and no one. At least . . . she hadn’t been. It had been a long time since I had known her.
“It was careless of you to lose Ismene,” he said quietly. “She was one of our best.”
Ismene. That was the name of the dead girl at the funeral my first night at the ludus. A pained expression flashed across Sorcha’s face, but Cleopatra and I were probably the only ones close enough to see it.
“I don’t like to lose, Achillea.”
The silent implication hung in the air. Caesar let it.
And then, a moment later, he shifted his shoulders beneath the heavy drape of his toga and continued to move down the line of girls. Mighty Caesar had made his point. Sorcha followed him without once glancing in my direction.
“These new initiates hold great promise,” Caesar said, raising his voice so the other guests could hear. “I’ve no doubt you’ll train them to take their place as champions in the arena. You always do. Don’t you agree, Aquila?”
Caesar made a show of searching Aquila out in the crowd. Of all those gathered dignitaries, only one man had remained seated when Caesar stood. The man known as the Collector seemed vastly unimpressed by Caesar’s newest additions to his collection.
Caesar glanced back at his other fellows and spread his hands. “Pontius Aquila does not seem to agree,” he said.
Up on the dais, Aquila stiffened in his seat.
“You don’t approve of my new acquisitions?” Caesar’s mocking tone acquired a note of warning. “Or perhaps you don’t approve of me. Of my winning ways.”
It was clear to me that there was more to the animosity between the two men than a simple rivalry between their ludi. I remembered what Cai had said to me about how the games were almost an extension of the power struggles between the Roman political elite. I glanced over to see that Cai’s gaze was fixed on Aquila, his expression stony.
“Since your fighters cannot beat mine in the arena, perhaps you’d best find another pastime,” Caesar continued. “Politics, perhaps. Come then, Aquila, take back the Republic from me, Tribune.”
Aquila stood—slowly—and turned to Caesar.
“Your pardon, Caesar,” Aquila said through gritted teeth. “I find myself indisposed from the heat of the day.”
It hadn’t been an unusually hot day, and the chill of the evening had turned almost biting. Caesar turned back to the others, rolling a sardonic eye.
“Someone fetch the Tribune a cup of wine then, to cool his fever,” he said. “And so that he may toast my noble warriors who have taken their oaths this night.”
Then the matter was dismissed, among guffaws and mockery of Aquila, and Caesar turned to converse with his other guests about his upcoming Quadruple Triumphs. The event would celebrate his victorious military campaign, including his conquest—such as it had been—of my own home.
“Will they run for an entire month, as I’ve heard?” asked one portly man wearing rings on each of his fingers and both thumbs.
“How else do I properly honor the legions and their conquests these past years?” Caesar answered. He tilted back his head to look up into the dark sky, but his gaze turned inward. “And I will dedicate them to the memory of my dear daughter, Julia, the brightest light of my life, too soon gone.”
I leaned forward, listening to the men talk. I had heard that Caesar’s only daughter had died in childbirth while he was away, busy ending the lives of so many others on my island. A part of me wanted to gloat—to think that he deserved to lose his beloved kin—but the pain of losing Sorcha was too raw in my own heart.
The pain of thinking I’d lost her.
I stole a glance at her where she now stood at Caesar’s elbow, but Sorcha’s expression betrayed nothing of her thoughts.
“I’m thinking of reenacting my conquering of Britannia as one of the major performances in the Triumphs,” Caesar mused, turning to her. “I remember only too well how fiercely you and your women fought against my legions, Achillea. Only this time, I thought I’d turn it around and have your girls fight one of the other ludi, dressed as the shining spirit of my legions.”
The suggestion was met with much nodding and exclamations over Caesar’s brilliance. I gritted my teeth. I’d sooner die than reenact my people’s loss, let alone playing the role of a hated Roman soldier.
“And we’ll throw in a few of the showier gladiators dressed up as Briton princes, just for the excitement. With the bounty of talent I’ve seen in your stables, and even at Pontius Aquila’s House Amazona, I think a large-scale gladiatrix battle would go over well, don’t you?”