muscle-bound man in a rabbit-skin kilt.
‘The Beast of Britannia!’ shouted the ringmaster.
The barbarian gladiator raked his gaze over the crowd and for a moment his eyes locked with Arria’s. Startled, Arria stepped backwards. She had never seen such eyes. They were neither green nor brown, but some indescribable colour that seemed to change with each flicker of torchlight. Incredibly, she did not feel fear, though she was aware she was being appraised by a killer. It was something else she felt. Something strange. It was as if her breath had become stuck in her chest.
A second later, the ringmaster stepped in front of the man and the spell was broken.
‘Barbarian versus barbarian!’ the ringmaster cried. ‘Place your bets!’
The cacophony increased as the spectators conferred, staking their fortunes on one gory outcome or the other. ‘The Beast is the obvious choice,’ someone near Arria pronounced.
‘Agreed,’ said another. ‘I do not understand why Brutus has put him in the ring. He is one of the Empire’s finest.’
‘He is old now. His days are numbered,’ said a third. ‘Besides, look at the chest on the Ox. They have fattened him.’
The men might have been discussing fighting cocks, or horses for sale.
‘I say the Beast will prevail!’ said the first. He nudged the back of Arria’s shoulder. ‘What say you, man?’
‘Piss off,’ Arria grumbled, keeping her back to the men and feeling thankful for the low light. Besides, she had nothing to say, no opinion to profess. She did not find any of this interesting, exciting or even vaguely human.
Still, there was something about the gladiator’s name that rang familiar. The Beast of Britannia. Where had she heard it before? Probably at the baths. Women were always talking about gladiators at the baths. They spent endless hours discussing the fighters’ looks and conjecturing about the size of their…weapons. Even if he were not famous, a gladiator with a name like the Beast would never have been safe from their gossip.
Nor was he safe from death, for he wore no armour and was protected only by symbols—haunting blue swirls that had been painted across his chest.
His opponent was scarcely better off. The thick-chested Ox stood on the other end of the arena in a skirt of leather straps and little else.
She wondered if either of the men had any idea how thoroughly they were being mocked. The gladiators who fought and died at the circuses and amphitheatres wore at least light armour—helmets and shields and usually manicae for the arms, depending on the roles they played.
Gladiators skilled enough to perform at theatres were issued additional protections, including greaves to protect their shins and, depending on their assigned role, chest plates. These men did not even don sandals.
Arria gazed down at her own sandals. She had almost worn through the soles. Not that her father would have cared. When she looked up, she caught sight of him at last. He was nodding his head in conversation with a barrel-chested man just across the pit. She motioned with her arms, trying to get her father’s attention, though she could tell by the tightness in his jaw that it was already too late.
The bet had been made. Arria’s savings had been staked. Now there was nothing to do but pray. Arria gazed down at the two hulking barbarians standing in the arena below. But pray for whom?
Two slaves emerged from a tunnel and delivered the gladiators their swords. ‘Die well, gladiators!’ said the ringmaster, then followed the slaves back into the tunnel, closing an iron gate behind them.
For a moment, all was silent.
The Ox of Germania sliced the air with his sword. He danced towards the centre of the ring, feinting and jabbing to the encouragement of his supporters.
The Beast of Britannia was more circumspect. He skulked along the curved stone wall of his own side of the ring, watching the Ox with those bottomless eyes.
Arria saw her father’s lips moving. He was praying to Fortuna herself, no doubt, the goddess who so often wiped her feet with his toga.
The gladiators drew closer. Taunts rained down from the crowd along with a cascade of obscenities in a variety of tongues. The Ox lunged; the Beast dodged. A path of blood streaked across the Beast’s chest. ‘First blood to the Ox!’ someone shouted. A smattering of cheers. The changing of coins.
The Beast was bleeding. Arria had never seen such a terrible gash. It began at the tip of his shoulder and split his muscled chest diagonally, concluding at the thick arc of muscle at the top of his hip.
Arria was not the only one stunned by the wound. The Beast himself appeared utterly perplexed by it, as if he had never suffered a single wound in all his life. He stared in wonderment as blood leaked out and began to trickle down his rippling stomach. He appeared to laugh. In that instant, the Ox charged forward. Arria saw her father nod.
The Ox, then, thought Arria. I must pray for the Ox.
But the Beast dived to the ground and rolled over himself and the Ox’s blade missed its target. In a blur of motion, the Beast jumped to his feet and sliced off the Ox’s head.
It rolled to the edge of the ring, hitting the stone wall without a sound.
‘The Beast has won!’ shouted the ringmaster.
The crowd roared. Arria placed her hand over her mouth, willing herself not to vomit.
The slaves emerged from the tunnel and dragged away the Ox’s convulsing corpse. The Beast made no gesture of triumph. He dropped his sword into the bloodstained sand and spat, then stormed past the ringmaster back through the iron gate.
Arria braved a glance at her father. His face ashen, he reached beneath the folds of his toga and produced Arria’s red-leather coin purse.
As her father handed the purse to his companion, Arria pictured its contents: seventy-six beautiful, shiny denarii. She had earned the precious coins from the sale of four carpets—four Herculean efforts of knots and wool, which had required an entire year and nearly all her waking hours to weave.
Her father’s betting companion leaned backwards into the shadows, tucking the purse in a pouch beneath his bulging stomach. He gave her father a friendly clap on the back. Would you like another bet? he appeared to ask.
No, he would not, Arria thought bitterly, for he is utterly ruined.
But her father nodded vigorously and reached beneath his toga once again.
Impossible. Her father was perennially poor. He was a sand scratcher, a circus rat, a man who lingered outside the arenas begging better men for loans. But a glint of gold caught the light and Arria watched in horror as her father held out her mother’s golden ichthys.
It was the most sacred object her mother owned, a gilded fish, a symbol of her strange faith. The fish had once belonged to a Jewish man named Paul who had come to Ephesus many years before to spread something called the good news. He had secretly converted many Ephesians to his new religion, including Arria’s late grandparents.
The golden fish had been her mother’s inheritance and only comfort. She kept it near her bed and each evening she rubbed it lovingly as she mouthed prayers to her singular god and his son, Jesus.
Now the fat man cradled the fish in his palm, measuring its weight. Arria thought of her own mother’s palms, red and chapped from having to take in other people’s laundry. The man lifted the fish to his mouth and tested it with his teeth, one of which, Arria observed, was made of gold itself.
He gave a satisfied nod.
No, no, no. Arria opened her mouth to scream, then bit her tongue. Out of the corner of her eye, the governor’s ghostly toga came into focus. There he was—not a dozen paces away—on the very same side of the pit where she now stood.
She sank