The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(87)
Sorcha was only a little taller than me, and with the crested Victrix helmet on her head obscuring most of her face beneath the decorated visor, no one would be able to tell the difference. Even I almost felt as if I was looking into a mirror once she settled the helmet on her head.
As for me, I pulled my hair back into a quick, clumsy braid, hiding it under a tatty felt cap, and wrapped a shapeless servant’s cloak around me. Seated on folding campstools all around us, the other Achillea gladiatrices looked magnificent in the armor and weapons Charon’s abundant wealth had provided for them. They would accompany my sister onto the field as if she were me. All of them, Ajani and Elka included, though the latter had protested bitterly. But even she had to admit that it would look strange, indeed, if the Victrix’s “frost maiden”—as, apparently, Elka had become known among the plebs—wasn’t at her side for the battle.
And so, while my sister gladiatrices fought honorably at “my” side, in reality, Cai and Quint and I would be carrying on the dirtier business of double-dealing.
“This feels so awkward,” Sorcha muttered, shifting my two swords on her hips so that they sat comfortably. As comfortably as possible for one who wasn’t used to wearing them.
“Just let her disarm you on one side as soon as you can without making it look intentional,” I said. “And then you’ll have all the advantage you need in the fight.”
“I might not have to let her disarm me,” she said, drawing a blade with her left hand and spinning it in her palm—just a tiny bit clumsily. “I might just drop the damned thing trying to hold it!”
I hid an indulgent grin, only because I could tell that Sorcha was actually—and this was something I hadn’t expected—nervous. What I was counting on was that once she was in the ring, my legendary warrior sister would remember who—and what—she was, and all would be right. Our entire strategy hinged on the deception. Nyx knew me. She knew how to fight me. She knew how to beat me.
She was expecting it to be me out there in that arena.
And that was why she would lose.
Once Sorcha began to fight her way—the way she’d retrained herself to fight after the injury in the arena that had ended her career—she would destroy Nyx. In a way that I could never hope to do. And while she did, I would be busy retaking the ludus. Just like I’d promised. To that end, it was time to put the second phase of the plan into motion. I nodded to Cai, who put a hand on Quint’s shoulder. They stood and hefted legion packs onto their backs that made heavy, dull clanking sounds as they settled the straps on their shoulders.
“Time to go,” he said.
Quint saluted Sorcha and the girls, but before he had a chance to leave the tent, Elka stood up and stepped in front of him.
“Behave yourself around that pack of she-wolf Amazon cubs,” she said.
“I will.” Quint nodded without thinking. And then froze, blinking dumbly, when he realized Elka had actually spoken to him. “I . . . what?”
“I like my men with their virtue unsullied,” she said, grinning wolfishly herself as she reached out to grab him by the chin.
“Un . . . sullied . . .”
“By anyone but me,” she continued.
Then she leaned in and kissed him, full on his open, astonished mouth.
I bit my cheek to keep from dissolving into gales of laughter as she sat back down, leaving the poor boy standing there, looking for all the world as if he’d been shot, not with Cupid the love god’s arrow but Diana the Huntress’s. A whole quiverful of them.
Before the others could tear him to further pieces with mockery, Quint ducked his head and pushed his way out of the tent. Cai followed. I waited for as long as I could stand it, then hugged my sister, hefted an empty basket up onto my shoulder to help hide my face, and ducked out of the tent myself. No one looked at me twice as I shouldered my way through the crowds, following the crests of Cai’s and Quint’s helmets. No one was looking for Victrix in the body of a lowly serving slave. Once we reached the outer perimeter of the crowd, I ditched the basket and the three of us broke into a run, heading in the direction of a road that circled off to the east, leading to the opulent villas on the other side of Lake Sabatinus.
? ? ?
When we arrived at the gates of one particularly sprawling estate, the bulky-muscled eunuch who’d been called to deal with us had been aghast at granting me an audience with Cleopatra. I was fortunate that Sorcha’s name carried far more weight than mine. I told him what our situation was—as succinctly as possible—and the Aegyptian queen’s chief bodyguard grunted and grumbled but finally led us to a triclinium, where we were to wait for her Royal Highness.
As the skies began to grow dark I started to fret that my plan would unravel if we didn’t see her soon. And then the far gilded doors flew open and Cleopatra came striding across the marble floor, golden-beaded sandals slapping a war tattoo as she came. Cleopatra, it seemed, was itching for a healthy dose of vengeance in Sorcha’s name.
“Dead, they told me!” she exclaimed angrily. “When I sent my maids calling at the ludus for your sister to come visit me. Dead in an uprising and at your hand, little one.”
“But you didn’t believe them?” Cai asked deferentially.
She laughed and threw herself down upon a gilded couch, motioning for us all to sit. “Take it from one who has—and on more than one occasion—actually tried to murder her sister. Not for a second.” She turned to me. “There is nothing of that in you. I know how much you love Sorcha. I’m almost as fond myself. And therefore, anything you ask of me, on her behalf, you may have.”