GIRL GLADIATOR Read online

  She paused. There was still time to turn around and flee. She could go back to her everyday existence and forget she had seen Casca earlier that night at the feast.

  She had recognised his cruel, angular face immediately as he leaned forward enjoying her bout. He had not recognised her, but then why should he? She was just some savage he had amused himself with for an hour or two in a faraway place.

  She was so disconcerted at seeing the man she hated more than anything in the world that she almost allowed the Galacian she was fighting to get through her guard, but she recovered her composure, stunned him with her steel wristlet and defeated him without further fuss.

  After bathing and changing, she was able to survey Casca from behind a curtain, and she shuddered as she recalled the worst night of her life. Even though it had happened before she met Sharn, every detail was still carved into her brain.

  CHAPTER 32

  FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST

  The people of Cirig watched as a Roman legion marched past the village, their thoughts going out to their fellow Picts. The expedition’s task was to strike deep into the north and push the rebellious tribes back from the wall. As it paraded past, Fritha was fascinated by the colour of the uniforms, the waving plumes, the fluttering pennants, the sparkle of the standards and insignia, and the bugles and drums sounding out the stride cadence.

  She told Alpin that she was going down to check the fish-traps in the stream but instead she followed the rearguard of the legion as it disappeared over a hill into the setting sun.

  The legionnaires halted on a big area of flat land and pitched camp. She ventured forward for a closer look and lay down in the bracken. Bredan had always said she was too curious for her own good.

  There was something fascinating about the disciplined, patterned way the soldiers made camp, marking out the ground in big rectangles, throwing up earth ramparts and erecting palisades with pickets they carried with them. It was like watching a big colourful caterpillar miraculously breaking into segments, making a nest and settling down for the night.

  All at once she became aware that four legionnaires were heading her way. She jumped to her feet ready to hare off, but two scouts had worked their way round behind her, blocking her retreat.

  They told her the tribune of the legion wanted to ask her some questions, eager to get to know the local tribes-people. A soldier on either side held her by the arms and hustled her off, but she wasn’t afraid because they spoke to her pleasantly.

  They marched her into the biggest tent where she saw Casca for the first time. He surveyed her like a stoat eyeing a rabbit, as he dismissed her captors. He looked her up and down smiling oddly. Fritha shivered as he approached her and put his hand on her shoulder. She tried to shrug it off and when this didn’t work, she pushed it away with a pout of distaste. His eyes flared and he replaced his hand, now gripping her painfully. Fritha scowled and poked her tongue out at him. He dug his fingers deep into her shoulder joint. Fritha turned and bit his hand as hard as she could. He grabbed her round the throat and pushed his cruel face close to hers. She clawed at him with her nails, leaving furrows of red down his cheeks. He reeled back, shouting something in Latin.

  Two soldiers burst into the tent and rushed her. Fritha sidestepped and ducked beneath their grasping arms, grabbing the sword of one of them from its sheath as he passed. She was now in a corner of the tent with the two legionnaires facing her. The soldier she had robbed glared at her, fingering his empty sheath as though he couldn’t quite believe what she had done. Fritha knew she could not take on two heftily built men at once.

  So she did not wait around for their move but attacked first. She had never used a Roman sword before but she knew they were designed for stabbing not cutting. She stepped to the side of the smaller man and rammed the sword into his stomach behind his bronze breastplate, but push as she might she could only get it in a short way because he was wearing a heavy leather jerkin. She had done some damage though because he gasped with pain and dropped to one knee, clutching his flank. The other soldier threw out an arm to trap her. Fritha leaned back to avoid it, wrenching the red tipped sword out of the kneeling legionnaire. She was about to stab the other soldier in the neck when she heard Casca moving behind her. Something hit her on the top of her head and she lost consciousness.

  She came to in the darkened tent and found that she was now tied up to the central pole and Casca was watching her as if she was a wild animal in a cage. He didn’t say anything, just stared at her smugly. She hurled more insults at him. He told her if she didn’t shut up she would be sorry, very sorry; but this did not stop her from using all the curses she knew and spitting at him when he loomed close. Then there was another blow, harder this time.

  She woke the next morning out in the open, aching in every part of her body, especially her mouth. She looked around in the strengthening light to see that all the tents were gone – the legion had moved on. She tried to cry out for help but nothing happened, and that is when she realised that the Romans had cut out her tongue.

  She lay there amidst the abandoned earthworks of the overnight camp wishing for death; but in the end it was a band of Celtic raiders returning south who claimed her.

  “She’s in a bad way,” one of the warriors said.

  “She might survive … and my wife could do with a servant to help with the housework.”

  They tied her on the back of a donkey since she was too weak to ride, and set off south towards the wall.

  “Bloody Romans!” said one of the raiding party. “I thought we were meant to be the barbarians.”

  “Worse than animals,” somebody replied as Fritha slipped into oblivion.

  CHAPTER 33

  CHANGE OF HEART

  No, Fritha could not turn back. Fate had brought her to Rome and delivered Casca into her hands – it would be wrong to walk away now. She pushed open the door of Casca’s bedchamber and advanced stealthily into the room – but what she saw took her breath away.

  There was Casca’s supercilious face on the pillow, but next to him lay a young woman in deep slumber, and next to her again, snuffling in its sleep, was an infant girl.

  The plan Fritha had worked out so carefully crashed in ruins. She had dreamed of the moment when Casca was at her mercy, when she could take her revenge – and that moment was now. With one slash of the knife across his throat, she could stop her pain, and the universe would be in balance again.

  But Fritha’s eyes strayed from Casca’s predatory head to the pretty face of his young wife. If she killed Casca, she would have to kill this innocent woman for the slimmest chance of escape. And if she killed the sleeping woman, then what of the child? Fritha herself was an orphan and knew how loneliness gnawed when sleep was slow in coming. Fritha could only guess at why her parents were not around, but this child would know for certain. She would know that Fritha killed her mother and father as they slept. Was Fritha any better, then, than the vile Roman?

  She reached into her girdle and pulled out her knife, hoping the touch of the cold steel would steady her, but she could not stop the awful thing that was happening – she was beginning to soften. It was by being hard that she had got through all the bad times in her life. It was by being hard she had won her fights. What would become of her if she lost her hardness?

  So she fortified herself with her trustiest grievance. Finding she was unable to fall pregnant, she had gone to Seth. After examining her, he told her she would never be able to have a child. Her heart had turned to stone at this dreadful news. There was only one person responsible for this – Casca! And here he was with his own beautiful child; a joy she would never have because of what he had done to her. It wasn’t fair. He mustn’t get away with it. He must pay. He must pay!

  But then the thought she had been running from the whole night flew into her mind and stuck there like a flaming arrow. She looked down at the beautiful bracelet that Sharn had given her and her heart began to flap like a fish on the sand.
Fritha could have vengeance or she could have Sharn – she couldn’t have both. And she yelped at how much it hurt.

  Her cry made the young mother jerk awake. She instinctively threw her arm over her baby, and stared up. When she noticed the knife in Fritha’s hand her look of fright was replaced by a look of pleading – and Fritha’s resolve softened further. She needed to stifle this feeling – before it was too late. “Turn to wolf, my soul, to feel no pity,” she prayed. And then the baby opened its eyes and stared around trying to find something to focus on, just as Fritha had done on the frosty heath outside Cirig. This made Fritha ask a question which had never occurred to her before. Why did she call on wolves to make her pitiless? Wasn’t it they who had taken pity on her in her first moments? The memory of soft tongues flicking over lethal fangs, mercy undoing death, made something shift inside her. And in that moment she became somebody else – and a new Fritha was born.

  So she sheathed the knife. The fear in the woman’s eyes grew less, as they continued to eye each other through the moon soaked air and the baby gurgled happily.

  Fritha pulled down her shift and pointed at the tattoos on her chest. She wanted the woman to know who she was and tell Casca she had been there while he slept. She wanted him to realise that justice could find him no matter how many walls he threw up around himself. Wrong done in Britain would be paid for in Rome.

  Then Fritha smiled and put a finger to her lips. She looked at the woman searchingly … and the woman nodded. Fritha was certain that the young mother would not raise the alarm, as she turned and melted out of the room.

  She padded down the long hall and past the atrium, then froze as she heard a muffled noise. She eased herself into the alcove, rubbing shoulders with the marble statue, tracking the footfalls coming towards her. Two servants, still groggy from sleep, were making their way to the kitchen to fire up the stove. Fritha shadowed them.

  One bent over the grate to coax some life out of the embers and the other unbarred the kitchen door to get some kindling. Fritha chose her moment and walked stealthily behind them, one stooped over the oven and the other fossicking in the wood box, and out into the waning night.

  She glanced up at the kitchen roof abutting a perimeter wall, exactly as Julius had described. She climbed onto a rain barrel and hauled herself onto the low part of the roof. She worked her way up the tiles as quietly as she could, gaining the ridge where it met the wall, and looked over.

  Down below, the wavelets of the Tiber captured the moon’s silver light, then released it again. Fritha did not hesitate but launched herself into space, free as a bird.

  CHAPTER 34

  HEADING HOME

  Sharn and Fritha decided they wanted to go back to Britain to start their life again. But it was harder saying goodbye to Rome than they thought it would be. Back home, they would miss so many things they had begun to take for granted in the tumultuous capital of the world, a place in which they had learnt so much, but it was Seth they would miss most, in spite of his cantankerous manner.

  Fritha and Sharn packed two bags of things, including gifts for Cumbria, like fabric she could not get in Britain; but the bulk of their baggage was made up of scrolls, mainly history and poetry. That was another thing they had to thank Rome for – they could both read and write now.

  Finally the morning of their departure arrived. Breakfast was a rather glum meal as the three of them picked at their food and avoided each other’s eyes.

  Sharn noticed Fritha was very jumpy. She fidgeted and kept on shooting uncertain glances at him, then quickly looked away if he caught her. Finally she reached for the wax tablet, deliberating for a long moment before starting to write. Seth cocked an eyebrow at Sharn, but he shrugged.

  Eventually, she checked what she’d written and pushed the tablet across so it was between Seth and Sharn. It said: I am with child. If it is a boy, I would like to call him Seth and if it is a girl, Imogen.

  Sharn stood up with such joy, his chair pitched over, and he swept Fritha into his arms and rained kisses down on her.

  Seth tapped Sharn on the shoulder and motioned him to move aside, taking his turn to embrace Fritha. This is as affectionate as they had ever seen Seth – it was a day of firsts.

  “Science tells me you should not be pregnant – but I don’t think science applies to you. You are one of a kind. And on the other matter, I would be very flattered for my name to live on,” Seth declared. His lips trembled in an uncharacteristic way, and then he laid down the law. “One day I will visit Britain again to make sure my namesake is being raised properly. If I see the faintest evidence of hocus-pocus, I will ask for it back.”

  Fritha and Sharn laughed. Seth was such a strict atheist!

  “Well, we better get started,” Seth said shouldering the biggest bag.

  As they walked through the crowded streets for the last time, heading for the jetty on the Tiber, Sharn and Fritha said goodbye to the markets, the tenements, the taverns, the bath-houses, the shops, the temples, the theatres, the schools, the huge public buildings and monuments of marble and stone; and all the bustle and clamour of the city of the Caesars.

  They arrived at the dock where porters were loading the last cargo onto their boat. Seth hugged Fritha and Sharn once more at the bottom of the gangplank, complaining that he had some dust in his eyes which was making them water.

  Sharn had saved one last thing to say to Seth. “You see there is a purpose to one human meeting another. We will bring our child up with the things you have taught us.”

  “Soon you’ll have me believing that two dolphins jumping out of the water has meaning. It doesn’t. Everything is just blind chance,” Seth griped.

  Two porters grabbed their bags and told them they must embark immediately, as the captain wanted to make good time to the mouth of the Tiber to catch the tide. Fritha and Sharn boarded the vessel and the gangplank was pulled up after them. The sailors cast off straight away and the boat moved out into the stream, where the current caught it. Sharn and Fritha waved to Seth standing on the jetty as he got smaller and smaller, and finally became just a dot.

  “Let’s go up the front,” Sharn said. They walked forward along the deck, threading their way around the wooden crates, containing big urns of wine and oil packed in straw, and stood on the prow.

  Sharn opened his arms and Fritha snuggled in close. He wondered again at how different she seemed since she had returned cold and wet that fateful night. It must be the new life growing inside that makes her feel so soft, he thought. If Fritha could talk maybe she would have told him all the details – it was certainly too complicated to write about. Anyway it was as if the injury and damage had happened to someone else, in the polar regions of the past, not to her. Now with the sun on her face and the boy she loved by her side, her thaw had set in for good.

  Fritha smiled up at Sharn, and with the winds of morning filling their sails, they headed for home.

  END

  Also by Graeme Farmer

  Following is an excerpt from

  HIDDEN POWERS

  Paul and Gemma broke out the sandwiches and the cans of drink packed in ice, and had a leisurely picnic sitting in silence with the late afternoon sun beating down. Gemma pulled her hair round in front of her face and tried to unravel the worst tangles she’d got in the surf, going cross-eyed doing so. Paul picked up some sand and trickled it from one hand to the other. He stole a sideways glance at Gemma, the westering sun gilding her body with gold. Wow, she was beautiful! It was one of those perfect moments. He drew a shuddery breath and felt like the whole world was breathing with him. “Don’t you think it’d be great to stop time,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  Paul trapped the sand in his hand so that it didn’t trickle anymore. “You know, just keep things as they are – like now.”

  “Why now?”

  “Because maybe things won’t get any better.”

  “And maybe they’ll be twice as good.”

  Unable to think o
f a thing to say to this, Paul nodded and nodded, and nodded again, like a parcel-shelf doggie.

  There was a tiny shift in the temperature, the first stroke of evening, and gradually the sea began to darken. They watched the green of the water turn into jade as the sun took back its light and bedded down in the hills behind them, smearing the sky with neon pink, and baby blue and milky red. Gemma flicked back her hair in a way Paul was becoming very fond of; then she surveyed him coolly, which he wasn’t so fond of. He felt under pressure and looked out to sea to escape her eyes. A big swell was cresting and Paul suddenly felt like he was balanced on that teetering wave, at the mercy of ten million tonnes of water. He frowned.

  "It’s okay. There's no law that says you've got to find me hot," Gemma broke into his thoughts.

  "I think you're very hot," he said in a rush.

  "Well, don't sound so grim about it." And she smiled, a smile of encouragement. Paul felt under even more pressure. She wanted him to do something! But what?

  They stared at each other. Paul could feel his heart trying to kick its way out of his rib cage. So, it was his move. He closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure why. Did he think there would be a helpful diagram on the inside of his eyelids, plus instructions – place hand gently on part A and squeeze? A gull screamed overhead, heckling him.

  Perhaps Paul had left his run too late to build up experience with girls. Perhaps if he hadn’t got it by now, he would never get it and he'd wind up single forever, eating soup-for-one from a tin, and going to bed early with a centre-fold.

  The next thing he knew was the lightest touch on his lips. His eyes flew open. Gemma had leaned over and kissed him and was now smiling at him from close range.

  "Don't sweat it, Paul. It ain’t algebra."