But it was.
The man the Romans had called Vercingetorix—the godlike chieftain of the Arverni—who’d come within a handsbreadth of beating Julius Caesar himself, sat with his arms resting on his knees, long hands hanging limply in front of him. He stared into the fire, and there wasn’t even a flicker in his eyes to indicate he knew we were there.
“They used to keep him in the Tullianum,” Sorcha said in a low murmur. “It’s a prison here in Rome, a dreadful subterranean place. But when it started to look as though he might actually die there, they moved him to this place. A cage with some comforts, but still a cage.”
“Why keep him alive all these years?” I whispered.
“Because there hasn’t been a proper Triumph since Alesia.”
“But why didn’t Caesar just kill him there? On the battlefield?”
“Because Caesar is a shrewd conquering hero,” she said. “And Alesia is very far away from Rome. Remember what your fight masters have told you, Fallon—it’s what you’ve been training for all these weeks. The mob loves spectacle above all else. And Caesar plans to give them exactly that. He’s kept his greatest adversary alive so that, when the time came for his Triumphs, he could parade Arviragus in front of the plebs to show the people how fearsome the Arverni chief was. To remind them why they need Caesar to lead and protect them.”
I glanced back toward the corner. “He doesn’t look very fearsome.”
“He will. They will dress Arviragus up and chain him to a stake. They’ll probably get him good and roaring drunk, and then they’ll trot him through the town on a cart decked with the spoils of war and the shields of the fallen.”
“And then?”
“Then they’ll take him to the prison and strangle him, out of sight, where no one needs to see him die like an animal.”
Those words struck me like a physical blow. I had grown up worshipping the handsome, fiery Arviragus. He’d been my hero almost as much as Sorcha, and to see him as he was now, with the fire leeched from his soul . . .
“Caesar asked me to come here to visit him,” Sorcha murmured to me. “As a comfort—someone who knew him as he was, someone to talk to—and so I’ve come every few months for the last four years,” she said. “Sometimes we talk. Mostly he sits there silently and drinks.”
“Why would Caesar ask you to do that?” I asked.
“To remind me that he could have done the same to me—or to Father—if he’d so desired. That he still could.”
I glanced at her, but her eyes were fixed on the figure by the fire.
“But I also think he grew to admire Arviragus,” she said. “Even as he sought to destroy him. My visits are a small mercy, though. Sometimes I wonder if my presence makes it better for him or worse.” She tightened her grip on my shoulder. “Come now. Greet the king.”
The closer we got, the heavier the stink of stale wine. Sorcha crouched down in front of Arviragus and took his hands gently in her own.
“I’ve brought someone to see you, lord,” she said softly. “You knew her when she was a little girl. You taught her swordplay, like you taught me.”
He blinked, just a little, and his gaze searched the darkness in front of him until it found my sister’s face. “Did I?” he muttered, half to himself. “Did I?”
I nodded. “In Durovernum, when I was small.”
His eyes shifted, blinking and bleary, to focus on me.
“Bright little thing,” he murmured.
He beckoned me closer with a clumsy wave, and I knelt before him. His breath was foul, but I could still see—in the angles of his face beneath the tangle of overgrown beard—the hero I’d worshipped as a child.
He squinted at me. “Fallon . . . ?”
I tried to smile at him. “That’s right.”
“She is a gladiatrix now,” Sorcha said.
“Gladiatrix . . .” Arviragus murmured again. He lifted a shaking hand to my cheek. “I’m so sorry, bright little thing.”
“For what, lord?” I asked, my voice small and lost in the dim air.
His words caught in his throat as he answered. “For not making the world a place where you could choose to fight for yourself.”
I glanced at Sorcha, who bit her lip and looked away.
“But you did,” I said, turning back to the Arverni king and remembering when he was a prince—and my hero. “When I was little, you didn’t just teach me how to hold a sword. You taught me that the fight is in here.” I put a hand on my heart, my voice growing stronger. “And that it was up to me to decide how and when to use it. I saw what was left of Alesia. When you surrendered to Caesar, it was because there was nothing left to fight for. But the fight itself was more important than the loss. You will be remembered as a hero, my lord. And that is at least as important as being one.”
Tears spilled from his eyes, and before I could say anything else, he pulled me to his chest, wrapping me in a fierce embrace. When he pushed me away, finally, it seemed as though the tears had washed away some of the fog from his gaze.