Night of the Wolf (53 page)

Outside, the seats were filling and torches were being placed to illuminate the sand.

Wide-eyed, Dryas looked around the room. They were all present: the wolf Maeniel, Gordus, Marcia, Martinus their son, Philo, and even Octus. “What happened?” she asked.

Lucius avoided her eye.

“Dryas,” Philo said, “you were a bit too successful in telling Caesar’s fortune.”

“So she came,” Dryas said.

“Oh, yes, oh my, yes, did she ever. She came close to frightening everyone to death, even that invincible lout Cut Ear. Fulvia is locked in her chamber, probably still having the vapors and terrorizing her maids. Cleopatra, I think, has dried her tears. She is a woman of infinite composure. But Caesar is in a fury. He believes, must believe, that somehow you engineered the whole thing. He is bent on revenge.”

“What sort of revenge?” Dryas asked.

Gordus answered. “You and I are to fight to the death. The stakes . . . the lives of our loved ones.”

Marcia burst into tears. “It’s my fault,” she cried. “I was the fool who told that Egyptian bitch—”

Dryas went to comfort her and Marcia wept in her arms.

Antony came to the cell door. “I see she’s come out . . . her little nap is over.”

“Antony,” Philo asked deliberately, “don’t you ever get tired of being Caesar’s pimp?”

“Just for that, Philo, I’ll make sure, if the lot falls on you, your death will be particularly unpleasant.”

Gordus studied Antony as if he were a large piece of dung. “I cannot think he will let any of us live.”

“Oh, yes, he always keeps his word. Never doubt it,” Antony replied. “The winner will not only be allowed to live, but rewarded handsomely.”

“So this is what killed Priscus,” Dryas said, speaking of the soul she’d put to rest.

“Yes,” Gordus answered. “He faced his kin and killed them in order to survive.”

Dryas embraced Marcia and then she left to go to Lucius. They didn’t embrace, but spoke together in low voices. Philo stood near them.

Gordus also spoke quietly to Marcia and Martinus.

Maeniel stared coldly at Antony. “Go away,” he said, “or I’ll find a way to tear you limb from limb.” Then he snarled and there was nothing human in the sound.

Antony stepped back from the grilled door, for a moment very glad it was present, then left.

Lucius rested his hand on Dryas’ cheek. “I’ll understand if you . . . lose.”

“Yes,” she said. She took the hand in both of hers and kissed the palm.

“I’m sorry, Philo,” Lucius continued. “You shouldn’t have tweaked Antony’s nose.”

“I have a quantity of opium concealed on my person, enough, more than enough, for both of us,” Philo answered in a low voice. “Neither of us need suffer, Dryas. Don’t worry, at least not about that.”

“Yes,” she said, then kissed Lucius on the lips and Philo on the cheek. “I’d better go and get dressed.”

Marcia stepped away from Gordus and took her hand.

Octus stood in the shadows near the door. He was, as usual, very quiet.

“I thought I told you . . .” Dryas began.

“Forgive me, domina, for my disobedience, but I had compelling reasons to return.”

“Come, Dryas,” Marcia said. “We have not much time. Half the luminaries in Rome are seated outside. At Caesar’s invitation, I might add. Hottest ticket in town. Sorry I can’t enjoy the excitement, but having my life or death riding on the main event is sort of . . . a distraction.”

Dressing didn’t take long. When Gordus and Dryas turned back, he wore only the gladiatorial loincloth, the subligaculum. Dryas had one on, also, and the chain mail she’d worn when she fought the boar. Lucius noticed she’d rendered the fragile garment more respectable by placing a strophium under it, and her hair was braided up around the copper-spiked crown.

Antony stood at the door again. He held two swords. He presented them at the grating, hilt first.

Dryas drew hers, then Gordus took his. Together, they walked toward the arena entrance.

It was dark now, but there were many torches and the arena was brightly lit. She heard a cheer and saw Caesar enter what would become the imperial box. Cleopatra was at his side.

The gate in front of them began to rise and they stepped out into the arena.

“Are we supposed to greet him?” Dryas asked.

“No,” Gordus rumbled. “Only condemned criminals do the ‘we who are about to die’ speech. I may be condemned, but I refuse to consider myself a criminal. Or to behave like one.”

“Yes.” Dryas nodded. When they reached the center, they turned and faced each other. Both could see Caesar from the corners of the eyes.

“When he drops the handkerchief,” Gordus said.

In the cell, Lucius stood watching the two of them through the iron grating. He couldn’t find it in his heart to say anything to the rest, not even Philo.

The soldiers had been waiting when he and Maeniel returned to the villa. Dryas was already gone and Cut Ear nowhere to be found. The big Gaul had somehow managed to melt into the Forum crowd and Caesar had not cared to pursue him. Octus came to the back gate when Caesar’s soldiers were placing them under arrest. He simply joined them, as usual without saying much, and was taken away with the rest. Though why he should bother to put his life at risk for an owner almost certainly doomed to die soon was a mystery to Lucius.

He, like Gordus, was sure Caesar would not let any of them live, not in the long run. Caesar had a record of merciless destruction. His opponents might win temporary clemency from him, but—like the legion who revolted against him—he ultimately exterminated them.

As far as Lucius was concerned, whatever Dryas chose to do was all right with him.

Antony entered the arena.

“So, he’s going to play lanista, is he?” Gordus’ eyes narrowed. “Might be a way to make him pay for it.”

“I wish,” Dryas said.

“We both do.”

But Antony stood well back from the combatants, sensing they were both faster and more deadly than he was.

Caesar dropped the handkerchief.

Dryas and Gordus crossed swords. Antony backed far away and even Lucius, whose life was riding on the event, moved away from his position at the door of the cell beneath the arena.

Gordus came in fast, trying to muscle her.

Dryas remembered the words from her earliest training: “My dear, they are stronger than we are and will try to use that first.”

Yes,
Dryas thought. Both swords, polished to a high gloss, flashed in the torchlight like flames of gold.

Dryas gave ground so rapidly at first that Lucius was sure Gordus, in his immense skill, would overtake and kill her. But he was wrong. Instead, she subtly made Gordus pay for the pressure he was putting on her, catching him across the knuckles with her sword tip, and then slashing his arm.

Gordus became aware he was enjoying himself. A man of his kind, to survive, had to learn to live in the moment. This was a particularly fine one. He’d never had such a practiced opponent. She countered each of his moves with an equally effective one of her own, constantly negating his greater strength with her quickness and skill.

The crowd was silent. Not many of them knew how brilliant an exhibition this was, but almost all realized they were seeing something they would never encounter again.

To Gordus, Dryas was a problem to solve. No, muscling would not do it. What? He pushed her arm high and then went low. Nearly got her, but paid the price in a quick slash to the inside of his forearm. The Gallic sword was razor sharp. Had she managed to cut a bit deeper, she might have crippled him. He began to push her toward the wall in earnest, hoping to trap and kill her.

Dryas saw it coming, allowed him to press her, then, when she picked up the arena sides in her peripheral vision, she changed the sword from her right hand to her left and ducked under his arm.

Gordus had heard of the maneuver, but had never seen it worked or even seen anyone try it. But as he recovered and pivoted, he saw Dryas backing away from him. There was nothing for it but a straight-out contest of skill.

She was breathing hard. This was where women failed against men. A man’s body is adapted for strength. Men don’t carry as much normal body fat as women and the apex of the body is in the shoulders, whereas a woman’s is in the hips. Everything on men is bigger—heart, lungs, and muscles. Women, most women, simply don’t have the endurance men do.

Gordus went in for the kill.

He’s fast,
Dryas thought. It was simply terrifying how fast he was. Their blades sang and danced in the firelight. Dryas knew it was taking everything she had to match him. He, with his size and weight, would have more than she did. If she fought his fight, she would die.

Antony tried to break them.

Gordus cursed him.

Dryas realized Gordus was putting everything into this last push.

Antony dropped back, or perhaps the two fighters simply left him in the dust.

Dryas sensed she was beginning to slow. Now or never! Last gamble!

On the next parry, she didn’t push the blade down far enough. The tip entered her right thigh.
Take one to give one,
she thought as she hooked Gordus’ hilt and tore the sword from his hand.

It went spinning, tearing a bigger gash in her thigh than Gordus had intended. She felt the hot blood sheet down her leg. The amphitheater was silent, but in the distance, she heard Marcia scream.

Gordus stood in front of her, arms akimbo, hands empty, unarmed.

Antony arrived, panting. “Ask for mercy, Gordus.”

“No,” Gordus answered. “I won’t do that.” He stared into Dryas’ eyes.

Around them, the spectators were in ecstasy, screaming, shouting, pounding at the benches and seats.

“Kill him, Dryas,” Antony ordered. “Caesar’s thumb is down.”

“Go away,” Dryas said, “or I will kill you.”

“Back up,” Gordus rasped. “She means it. I don’t care how many guarantees you give. None of us feels we have anything to lose.”

Antony backed away.

Dryas raised the blade and kissed the steel, saluting Gordus, then she extended the hilt to him.

He took it.

Dryas threw off the chain mail, but remained modest since she wore the strophium under it. “I will not dishonor my sword or myself. Do a clean job, Gordus. Philo and Lucius have opium. Live until tomorrow. Caesar is dead. Brutus has the list of proscribed men. They will kill him in self-defense, if nothing else.

“Here,” she said, pressing her fingers below the strophium on the left side. “Here is the shortest distance to the heart.”

“No, Dryas, you won. I won’t die like Priscus from a broken heart.” Gordus threw the sword aside and began the long walk back to the gate.

Dryas walked toward the blade where it lay glinting, reflecting the yellow torchlight. As she stooped to pick it up, a shadow loomed over her. Antony!

He picked the sword from the ground and ran it through her body.

The outcry from the crowd alerted Gordus. He spun around, charged back, and saw what happened to Antony.

Some shock seemed to knock Antony backward about twenty feet. The sword hissed, flared, smoked, and then the hilt turned red-hot in his hand. He flung it away with a scream of agony.

Gordus snatched up Dryas. She was mortally wounded. The blade had entered the right side of her chest. Now she would drown in her own blood.

She gasped. Blood poured from her mouth.

The gate was dark. There should have been lights behind it. Gordus wondered if they had all been killed while he and Dryas fought. He would believe such an evil trick from the dictator—his kind brooked no opposition. Gordus knew. He’d seen the naked power of this kind of man shown openly and often. Caesar was hardly the first bloodthirsty tyrant to dominate politics in Rome, but only one, and not the last, of a long line.

Carrying Dryas, Gordus sprinted for the gate. He met Maeniel just inside. The rest, his wife and son, were gone.

Maeniel cradled Dryas and thrust something between Gordus’ lips. There was a terrific flash of light and he sprawled on the moss near a natural spring high on a mountain.

Maeniel came next, but he was no longer a man, but a giant wolf.

Then Dryas fell bloody, but no longer bleeding, into Lucius’ arms. She was pressing Calpurnia’s rose to the wound in her side. As he watched, it healed, becoming a red line, a puckered scar and then clean, soft, unbroken skin.

Octus thrust a cup of cold water into Gordus’ hands and he drank and drank and drank.

The Ides of March came raining. A thick, soft-gray overcast sent its burden of showers to Rome.

Caesar stood and watched at Calpurnia’s bedside. He had begun to believe the little witch woman was right. Calpurnia was dying. She resisted all attempts to awaken her; instead her breathing was becoming more and more shallow, her pallor was increasing, and her hands and feet were cold. Sad, so sad. She had once been so lovely.

Outside, a small rainstorm came and passed, rain pattering down, increasing the weight of moisture in the trees, bending the limbs lower. The brief shower turned to a mist, but the sky brightened only slightly. The light in the room where she lay was a green gloom. A gust of wind shook the trees, sending a flurry of droplets to the stone pavement and rings dancing in the mirrored surface of the pool, as if, far away, something wept for the beauty that had been hers and the promise that had been his.

After the fight yesterday, when he had told the story of Dryas’ prediction to Antony, he had strongly denied any feelings of disquiet or even that anything unnatural had happened in the temple.

Antony had been soaking his burned hand in cold water and swearing that the Caledonian woman was the most powerful sorceress anyone had ever encountered. And he hoped he, personally, had brought about her demise by stabbing her with her own weapon. But he hadn’t seen her die and they hadn’t found her body, so he would go tomorrow and offer a brace of oxen to Jove the Protector in the fervent hope—

This was as far as he got because Caesar found himself disgusted with his legate’s pissing and moaning and told him to shut up.