GIRL GLADIATOR Read online

  But Sharn fretted about what was going to happen to his father, and his sister too, for that matter – and it was this that drove them back to civilisation. As they sighted Ryant, Sharn reflected on how dilapidated and rundown it looked. It was shrivelling like a dying thing as the clan deserted it.

  They saw a figure in the distance. It was Guyleen hurrying along the track toward them with a basket full of herbs she had gathered in the woods. She smiled at Sharn when he shouted a greeting, but gave Fritha a suspicious stare as she always did.

  “I have terrible news. Colun is to die tomorrow,” she said heavily.

  A cold fist closed around Sharn’s heart. “Why so soon?”

  Guyleen shrugged and spat on the ground. “Who knows with the foreigners? The things they should do fast they do slow, and what they should hurry, they never finish.” She placed a wrinkled arm around Sharn’s shoulders. “I’m sorry you must live in this time, when everything is turning to blood.”

  And with this the old woman trudged wearily off to her dwelling.

  He turned towards Fritha. “I am going to Damnonium straight away. There must be something I can do.”

  Fritha nodded and hugged him with a murmur of comfort, and Sharn sprinted off.

  It was evening when he arrived at the prison. Despite his begging, the guards would not let him in because of the lateness of the hour, so he headed to the entrance of the officers’ living quarters.

  It helped that Sharn was now known at Crassus’s compound because he was ushered straight into Cumbria’s sleeping quarters.

  “Guyleen says that da will be executed tomorrow.”

  Cumbria sat her brother on her bed. “Britain has just got a new governor. He decreed that crimes like this must be punished swiftly.”

  Sharn’s shoulders started to heave and tears pricked the back of his eyes. “What about Rem and Brion?” he asked.

  “They have been condemned to row in the galleys for life. They’re already on their way to the coast.”

  Sharn grimaced as he thought about this for a second. He’d heard that this fate was worse than a death sentence.

  “Once da was caught, it was only a matter of time, Sharn, we both knew that.”

  Sharn nodded dully. “They wouldn’t let me into the prison just now. Will they let us in tomorrow?”

  Cumbria nodded. “Crassus will see to that.”

  Sharn detected a warming in his sister’s voice when she mentioned Crassus’s name.

  “You’re getting very close to him, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t complain, Sharn. If it weren’t for him, there wouldn’t be any visit.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” Sharn said.

  “Don’t try to make it back to Ryant in the dark. The stables are warm and comfortable enough,” Cumbria offered.

  She got Sharn a blanket and showed him to the stables where he tried to sleep on a pile of hay – but tears came before sleep did.

  CHAPTER 19

  ROMAN JUSTICE

  The next morning as Sharn struggled wearily to his feet in the dawn chill, he went over and over in his mind what was going to take place that day and he could not believe it. Perhaps he was still asleep and this was another ghastly nightmare; but when he joined Cumbria in the kitchen and she handed him a bowl of porridge, the way it burnt his mouth was real enough.

  Cumbria and Sharn headed out into the misty gloom. The sun seemed reluctant to rise, as if it also disapproved of the day to come.

  They crunched across the frost-stiff grass towards the prison. Thankfully the guard who ushered them into Colun’s cell was kindly enough and left them alone.

  Colun rose to greet them with a smile. He put his arms around them, and they stood together for a moment. Colun’s mood was light as if he was determined their last meeting would not be miserable, and he asked Sharn a lot of questions about Fritha, chuckling at the account of her attack on Alpin and Nectan.

  Cumbria didn’t join in the conversation. She was preoccupied and seemed to be on the verge of saying something but stopped herself a couple of times.

  “You’re very quiet, Cumbria,” Colun said.

  Cumbria finally took the plunge, speaking nervously. “There is a priest I could call on … to baptise you.”

  Colun said nothing, but Sharn couldn’t help himself. “Baptise? What’s that?”

  “If da agrees to be baptised he will live forever.”

  Sharn frowned. Their father was about to die – what did she mean?

  Colun reached out and took Cumbria’s head fondly between his hands and stared into her eyes. “I’m pleased this new religion means so much to you, but I’ll stick with the old gods – the ones I grew up with.”

  “They’re false!” Cumbria exclaimed.

  “I’ve made my peace with them. And besides I don’t want to be in any place your mother isn’t.”

  Cumbria was about to say something else but Sharn caught her eye – Colun had already made up his mind. Cumbria nodded and the words died on her lips.

  The morning light filtering in through the barred window was growing stronger – it couldn’t be long now.

  “I just want to say one thing,” Colun began, his eyes beginning to glisten, “I have loved every second of our life together. All the good times we’ve had – and even the bad times were good too.”

  There was a noise outside. “It’s time,” the guard said, as he tramped through the door.

  The bottom dropped out of Sharn’s stomach.

  Colun leaned down and gathered Cumbria and Sharn in so that their three heads rested together. “I want you to call on me whenever you need me … and I’ll somehow find a way to be there.”

  The guard forced himself between them. “Time’s up! Let’s go!”

  Colun drew himself up to his full height and a small smile played at the corners of his mouth. Sharn could not help but feel proud of his father. His face seemed younger now his features were no longer blurred with alcohol. But as Sharn was hustled out the door and he threw one last look over his shoulder, he suddenly felt sick – soon this warm flesh would lie under the cold clay.

  Cumbria and Sharn moved into the square in the middle of the military barracks and waited with the two Roman officials there to see the sentence carried out.

  With a creak, the main door in the wall of the prison opened. Two legionnaires appeared and marched forward; then Colun stepped out, blinking in the sunlight; then two more soldiers exited, and Crassus brought up the rear. The stone-faced group made its way into the centre of the square.

  “Halt!” Crassus ordered and the execution squad came to a stop.

  Colun gave his children a smile of comfort. “Remember, I’ll always be close.”

  From another part of the compound a giant flaxen-haired Norseman had appeared, carrying a double-handled broad sword on his shoulder. He arrived at a leisurely pace at the centre of the square.

  Sharn’s heart was drubbing on his breastbone and he had trouble breathing. Suddenly the air seemed to have a taste to it – a bitter taste. Sharn threw a look at his sister who was gazing unblinkingly at their father, her lips moving in the prayers she had learnt from Crassus.

  Sharn’s eyes were drawn back to the centre of the square by raised voices. Crassus was asking Colun to kneel down but Colun was refusing.

  “I will not die on my knees.”

  Crassus insisted more loudly – this was the correct procedure, as two legionnaires crowded forward.

  “So what are you going to do if I refuse?” Colun asked, “Kill me?”

  Crassus waved the two soldiers back as the Norseman spoke to Colun. “I cannot guarantee a good job if you remain standing.”

  Colun turned to the giant blond man. He looked him up and down, glad that his executioner seemed to know what he was about. “I won’t be in any condition to complain if you mess it up.”

  This made the Norseman chuckle.

  “Strike me from the side and I’ll try to lean into it.�
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  The lofty Norseman grunted appreciatively and turned to Crassus. “Let him stand. I seldom get this sort of co-operation.”

  The legionnaires and Crassus fell back a pace or two to allow the Norseman to swing his sword.

  Sharn saw his father take a very deep breath and hold his neck rigid so that the sword would cut clean.

  And then time stopped. Sharn felt the cool breeze on his cheek and noticed how the light bounced off the grass and somewhere a bird flew off squawking.

  The Norseman hefted the sword up to shoulder height and started his swing. Colun was staring straight at Sharn and Cumbria, a rod of love extending from his eyes to theirs.

  And then just before steel met flesh, Sharn had to look away – in fact Sharn had to run away. There was a gasp from one of the officials to announce it was done, as Sharn broke into a run … and ran and ran.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT OF THE WORLD

  Sharn ran all the way back to Ryant, trying to outstrip the memory of what had just taken place.

  He burst into the hut, his ragged breathing making Fritha turn from the hearth and rush to him. He drooped in her arms as she led him to the sleeping platform and made him lie down. He huddled there with his face to the wall, covered in clammy sweat.

  Fritha tended him, as he had once looked after her. Guyleen prepared infusions of skullcap and valerian which allowed him to doze for a while, but she also had something upsetting to tell them. She had decided to settle with relatives deeper in the tribal lands where the Romans had not penetrated. “They blight this land with their murder!” she grunted with distaste and spat into the fire. She kissed Sharn quickly and handed Fritha a pouch of herbs, before she closed the door behind her for the last time.

  And only an hour later, Sharn’s fragile grip on reality was disturbed even further when Cumbria visited and brought troubling news.

  “Crassus has asked me to be his wife.”

  Sharn turned over in the bed and gaped at Cumbria. “And you laughed in his face?”

  “I told him I would be honoured.”

  Sharn was dumbfounded, and his world unravelled a little more. “You can’t mean that, Cumbria.”

  “I love him,” she replied.”

  “He killed da. Have you forgotten already?”

  Cumbria winced.

  Sharn tried to make himself as imposing as possible, difficult as that was, feeling like death in his sweat-drenched bed. “I am head of this family now and I forbid it!”

  Cumbria shrugged. “The old ways are over, Sharn. Rome is here to stay. Christianity is here to stay. Celtic ways are dying. I am a Celtic Christian marrying a Christian Roman. I’m not going to say sorry for that.”

  Sharn stared reproachfully at her and she stared steadily back. He wracked his brain for something to say but he couldn’t think of a thing.

  Cumbria put her hand on his. “There is a very good military physician who might be able to help you. I will ask Seth to come and see you.” She stood quickly and kissed Sharn on the cheek.

  “Get well, brother. Peace be with you.” She crossed the hut to embrace Fritha, who had been listening to all this in the background.

  “Look after him for me,” she murmured as she hurried out.

  Everything was closing in on Sharn. The Romans had taken his father and were now getting his sister too. He shivered as the room seemed to grow colder. Fritha arranged their thick bearskin around his shoulders. She held him close but Sharn could not feel her. His body seemed to be coated with ice, as if the cold of the earth had travelled through him, freezing his bones.

  He tried to sleep but when he closed his eyes, the darkness inside him spawned horrifying sights: headless corpses, bleeding Africans, black crows with stabbing beaks.

  And so he opened his eyes, but then the light from the fire and the flickering mutton-fat lamps lanced into his brain. The light was his enemy, as the dark was also, and his head filled with screeching and buzzing.

  Sharn couldn’t stand it any more. He jumped up and stood in the middle of the hut, swaying on his feet. Fritha hardly recognised the haggard, lank-haired creature staring at her with unfocused eyes. Then he turned and ran out. Fritha rose quickly and followed him.

  “Stay here! I don’t need your help for what I’m going to do,” Sharn shouted back over his shoulder as he sped off. Fritha waited a second and gave chase.

  As Sharn ran through the night, he did something he hadn’t done for a long time – in fact since his mother died. He called on Taranis, the god of thunder, to help him make sense of all the dreadful things that had happened. He stopped on the dark forest path, looking to the heavens and waited for an answer. But the night remained quiet. Silence. Nothing. Sharn nodded grimly … just as he thought. There was nobody out there who cared.

  “This life you gave me, God, I don’t want it any more,” Sharn shouted into the emptiness.

  And that is why on this hopeless night, he ran towards the Roman wall.

  CHAPTER 21

  WALLS OF MIST

  Fritha loped behind Sharn, far enough back for him not to know she was shadowing him. Once or twice she thought she had lost him in the thick mist; and she was getting more and more worried as she realised where he was heading. What was Sharn up to? He knew he could not enter Damnonium after dark unless he had business approved by the military.

  She became even more alarmed when he did not slow his steps as he drew near the wall. He was almost within archery range and if it was a clear night, he might have already been brought down by an arrow.

  If only Fritha could cry out at Sharn to halt. She turned on a spurt of speed to try to head him off but what she saw next stopped her in her tracks. A javelin arced out from the ramparts. She saw it catch Sharn high up on his body and he spilled down into the ditch. She cried out as if she felt the pain herself and took off again like an unleashed hunting dog.

  She jumped into the ditch without breaking her stride. The javelin struck out point first through his shoulder, blood welling through his cloak and steaming in the chill. Fritha did not know what to do. Some women are good at the healing arts, but she never had been. She was a fighter, making wounds not mending them.

  As she knelt and tried to comfort him, she heard the nailed sandals of a Roman soldier ring on the stones and then the slit gate open. Fritha was almost relieved – now she was under attack, she knew what to do. She pulled the spear out of Sharn’s shoulder. It was easier than she had expected because the wound was so big from his tumble into the ditch.

  Fritha waited for the soldier to rush her, taking deep breaths to calm herself. A familiar stillness settled on her as she waited, her heart starting to thud slower as she took charge of her body, time stretching out like catgut. She even had a moment to wish she’d snatched up a shawl because the wind was blowing colder. When the legionnaire made his run towards her, it was like she could predict his every move and soon he was bleeding to death at her feet.

  But then she heard the gate open again. Sharn ordered her to run away but she would never leave him to die alone. If it was his time, then it was her time too.

  She was surprised how easily she dealt with her next assailant, noticing that he had shaved carelessly that morning, as she gutted him with his friend’s spear. She tried to assist Sharn to stand but, besides the wound in his shoulder, his leg was broken. She could see the bone sticking out through his leggings.

  And then three men materialised out of the gloom, carrying torches. She lay Sharn gently back down and gathered the spear again. Fritha looked for the eyes of the leader of the three men, as Bredan had taught her to do. The two soldiers she had just killed had shallow eyes – fighting spirit, but not much else. The centurion who arrived now had clever eyes and had brought an archer to pick her off from a distance. That was smart, Fritha thought.

  For a moment, she contemplated throwing the spear but her special skill was fighting in close – and besides, she would only hit one, so she tur
ned her back on the men who had come to kill her. She gazed down at Sharn, to fix his face in her soul.

  There was a thump between her shoulder blades as if someone had poked her hard with a stick. Her knees turned to liquid and she felt like a necklace when the thread breaks and all the beads scatter. And then she toppled into nothingness.

  CHAPTER 22

  ME

  Falling, falling, falling … through the endless mist into the cold darkness. Cold was the thing she remembered most in her life. Right from her first moments – when her unwed mother, still just a child herself, left her in the ice-stiff heather outside Cirig wrapped in rags. It began to snow – snowflakes tumbling out of the cold face of the moon onto her cold face. The breath started to freeze in her lungs. Just new born, she had come from nowhere and now she would return there. She knew no words, she knew no prayers, she knew nothing … except one thing – she wanted to stay here in this breathing world.

  All at once huge grey shapes appeared from the fog. Two wolves circled once or twice and lay down next to her. Their coarse grey hair pricked against her skin but she didn’t mind because they were so warm. They licked her all over, their rasping tongues darting out from between their deadly teeth, driving away death. They kept her alive till the morning when she was found by the people of the village, then they melted into the mist.

  She was sure that she would never be as cold as that again … but she was wrong. Nobody in the household that raised her showed her much love. And a life without love is worse than snow and ice. As she grew up there was only one person in Cirig who took an interest in her and that was Bredan. He invited her to join the warrior-circle and told her why. “You have the gift of cold-bloodedness. I have never come across anyone who feels no fear … it is as if you have no feelings when you have a weapon in your hand.” But he was wrong. It was not just in a fight that she had no feelings. She had no feelings ever. She had no need for them in the life she was leading, surrounded by stony people. Feelings were like shoes that were too small. That is until she met Sharn and something blossomed inside her.