For Cal, the moments before he stepped into the arena were always the same: he would close his eyes and remember the day his wife died. That is what he did now as the trumpets blared and the door of Pergamon’s underground barracks slowly opened.
He gazed at the stands. Instead of spectators, he pictured soldiers. He saw his Caledonii tribesmen gathered on the steepest slope of Graupius Mountain, thirty thousand strong. He saw their painted bodies, imagined their fearsome voices filling the air. How brazenly they had awaited the Roman approach, so confident in their higher ground.
Cal pictured the Roman army, that terrible iron serpent. He remembered how the Roman infantry soldiers had marched up the valley and come to a halt in its cleft, turning beneath their shields to avoid the Caledonii arrows and how he and the other Caledonii warriors had poured down from above, heedless of the danger.
He remembered watching in horror as his countrymen reached the valley and began to fall beneath Roman javelins. One man. Two men. Five. Twenty. Their slashing broadswords were useless in the close quarters of the chasm. Their wild, violent movements were overmatched by the Romans’ short, precise ones and soon ten thousand Caledonii bodies littered the river, turning its water red. He remembered picking his way through the carnage, searching for survivors and finding none.
He had hurried back to his town to discover it plundered and burning, and remembered how the bodies had been piled like haystacks. He pictured the remains of his hut and the charred black figure at its centre, lying atop the remains of their wedding mat.
He opened his eyes. Moments ago, he had been thinking of Arria, yearning for her, even. But how could he ever even dream of another woman? His wife was all that existed, or ever would exist. No craving or passing fancy or pang of lust could take away his love for his wife, or the pain of that moment when he saw her burnt figure. Time could pass, memories could fade, every woman on earth could lay herself down at Cal’s feet. There would never be any day other than that one, and there would never be any woman other than Rhiannon.
The crowd exploded in cheers. The gladiators marched out on to the hippodrome sands. ‘Filthy barbarians!’ someone shouted. The crowd hissed as the scantily armed warriors fanned out on to the empty field.
At the other end of the field, a phalanx of fifty well-armed men appeared. They were dressed as Roman soldiers.
They were not soldiers, of course—nor were they at all Roman. They were slaves and captives—‘barbarians’ just like Cal. But it did not matter. The Roman spectators would have their spectacle and, judging by the dull, rusted condition of the gladius Cal had been issued, they would also have their blood.
‘We must stay together!’ someone cried, but the other gladiators were already breaking ranks. One of the men bolted towards the stands and a javelin skewered his neck.
The gladiators dressed as Romans were almost upon them. If Cal wanted to die, this would be the day.
Cal stepped backwards and put up his rusty sword like a shield. Felix was standing behind him. ‘By the gods, Cal, fight.’ But Cal did not want to fight the Roman imposters. They were not his real enemies.
Two more men collapsed beside him, pierced by arrows, and it seemed that the corpses of his own team of gladiators were piling up beneath his feet. Soon it was as if he were not in a circus at all, but a narrow green valley, and the Romans were advancing like an army of the dead.
But instead of his wife, he thought of Arria. ‘Tell your master to purchase me for the night of your victory,’ she had told him. ‘Help me keep a small piece of my soul...’
Peace be damned. He wanted to live. He began to swing his gladius.
‘That is more like it,’ said Felix.
His first kill was easy—a deep stab into a bulging gut. The collapsing body revealed a snarling man whose throat Cal slit for mercy. The next kills came harder, for their opponents had fine shields and well-honed swords. Cal had to scurry around them to gain advantage and soon found himself hacking at limbs.
He fought like the savage barbarian the crowd thought he was. With each spout of blood, they cheered. With each severed limb, they roared. Soon only himself and Felix remained. They stood atop a pile of bodies like actors atop a stage.
‘Why do they not cheer for us anymore?’ asked Felix.
‘Because we are the enemy, remember? We are not Roman.’
‘Well, it is over, so they can all just suck my—’
But it was not over. At the far end of the field, two men emerged from the barracks, donning the regalia of Roman officers. They carried mighty longswords, which they slashed through the air to the delight of the crowd. The larger officer wore a legate’s red cape and an expression full of malevolent joy.
‘You take the tribune,’ said Cal. ‘I will take the legate.’
That was when he heard the bell.
Arria hovered at the back of the stall, trying to understand what had happened. Had her innocence just been sold for the price of two carpets? She peered at Epona, who appeared to be on the verge of tears. That was when Arria heard the bell.
It was a low, mournful sound—one of tin, not bronze—and hauntingly familiar. Such bells were often rung by female beggars—destitute women who prowled the marketplaces pleading for scraps.
The bell clanked closer and Arria observed the piteous expressions of the people making wide circles around the woman. Her long dishevelled hair hung in unkempt ropes over her small hunched shoulders, which looked alarmingly familiar. Someone paused to give the woman a coin and Arria beheld the emaciated, pregnant figure of her own mother.
‘Mother,’ she whispered, knowing that if she took a single step forward, Oppius would have her by the hair.
Her mother wore no shoes, despite the cold, and her tunic was of such a loose weave that it was as if she had sewn it together with scrap yarn. Her only adornment was a small homemade necklace comprised of thick, garish beads.
Arria choked back her sobs. She knew the purpose of such a necklace, could practically read the tragic script etched on to its largest charm—Familia Arrius of Ephesus: Mother Livia, Father Faustus, Brother Clodius, Sister Arria.
It was a crepundia—the customary necklace fashioned by a mother for a baby whom she planned to abandon at the dump. The necklace was an amulet and also a badge. If by some miracle the baby was rescued, then the information written on the charms of the necklace could one day lead him home.
Her mother angled closer and Arria stepped out from the depths of the stall. She glanced at Oppius, who had become distracted by a passing cake pedlar. ‘Arria, what are you doing?’ hissed Epona. ‘Oppius will see you. He will beat you.’
But Arria no longer cared. If she had to incur a beating for a few words of comfort with her suffering mother, then so be it. She raised her arm and opened her mouth to call her mother’s name.
And in that instant a young woman in a gold-laced veil raised her arms in front of Arria and shrieked. ‘Minerva’s Owl, this is magnificent!’
The young woman rushed past Arria into the stall, followed by a small army of slaves.
‘Mother, come look at this carpet,’ the woman shouted over her shoulder, blasting Arria’s ears. An older woman with an army of her own pushed past Arria and Arria stood on her toes to catch sight of her mother again. There was still time to reach her. Arria opened her mouth to shout.
‘That is the shape of a man’s head, is it not?’ the young woman asked Arria, her face only digits away. She pulled back her veil, revealing a nest of carefully arranged braids and curls. ‘Well, is it?’
Arria tried to speak, but no words came.
‘Ah, yes, I see it,’ said the elder, removing her own silken veil. ‘A woman’s figure. Or perhaps it is the figure of a goddess. What a wonder of a design. I have never seen anything like it.’
Arria caught sight of her mother’s figure slowly retreating into the crowd.
‘Can you not picture it in the dining chamber, Mother,’ the younger woman was saying, ‘just below the middle couch?’
‘Gods, no!’ said the elder. ‘Such a carpet can only be hung on a wall.’ She turned to Arria. ‘Tell me, is this woven of lambswool?’
She had asked Arria a question, but Arria had not heard it.
‘Excuse me, woman?’ repeated the voice in annoyance. A pair of liquid black eyes bored into her. ‘Is this carpet made of lambswool or not?’
‘Ah, no, Domina, not lambswool.’
‘Not lambswool? But it is so soft.’
Arria did not know what to say. Her mother was gone. Her heart was breaking. ‘Tell me, do you know the weaver? Is she from Rome? She must be quite sought after...’
Arria shook her head. No, she did not know the weaver, for the weaver was a brave woman who loved her mother and would risk anything to help her. A woman who was clever enough to free herself from bondage and rescue her family from ruin. A woman, in other words, who was nothing like herself.