The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(33)

“It’s not honorable!”

“Oh.” Elka snorted. “Is that all?”

“All?” I gaped at her. “It’s everything!”

She rolled her eyes and settled back on the padded bench of the cart we rode in. “You’re a slave, little fox,” she said. “You don’t have honor anymore.”

But she was wrong. I knew there had to be more to honor than just one’s station in life. That was what Sorcha had taught me: that actions meant more than accolades. That honor was something worth fighting for—and dying for—no matter what house you were born into. Still, I wondered. After all, had I ever considered any of the slaves of my father’s house honorable?

I turned away from Elka and stared sullenly instead at the shaved, oiled head of the paymaster who sat in the front of the cart, driving the black horses with a sure hand.

“Remember,” Elka continued, “our life now is simple: Fight, kill, die, and look good doing it.”

I shook my head. “Did Charon really say that?”

Elka nodded. “Right after he said we’d been sold to a murdering tyrant. Yes.”

Julius Caesar. The tyrant.

I could barely believe I’d been sold to the man who’d invaded my homeland. This, I thought, was injustice on a mythic scale. All I’d ever wanted was to fight—but against the man who’d dishonored my father and killed my sister. Not for him! And not in an arena. Never that.

The Morrigan was having a great laugh at my expense.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about.” Elka sighed. “Like I said, there are worse fates for a slave than ending up a gladiatrix.”

I gave her a sidelong glance. “It’s blood sport, plain and simple. Something to amuse the mob—you saw how they reacted to our fight with the Alesians. You heard them. It was disgusting!”

“I heard they feed you well at a ludus.”

I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t care one bit about the victuals, but then my stomach growled so loudly that Elka heard it over the rumbling of the carriage wheels and burst out laughing. Even with my troubled heart, it was hard to stay indignant in the face of her mirth. And, I grudgingly admitted, for the first time in months we were traveling in a carriage that had no bars. There was no chain around my ankle. I was clothed in something other than rags.

But I was still a slave.

I reached up to ease the press of the iron ring resting on my collarbones. Sometimes I forgot it was there. And sometimes it seemed to weigh heavier than gold. But I also knew that Elka was right. I was a slave, but before long I’d be a slave with a sword and a full belly. And, I vowed, soon I would gain the strength to free myself.

As we followed the westering sun into the countryside, Elka turned contemplative. “I wonder who will have to work harder to earn their keep,” she mused. “You and me, or Kassandra.”

“Who?”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you joking? You took the girl’s shoes and you never bothered to learn her name?”

The image of the dark-haired girl, striking an evocative pose for the appreciative crowd, flashed in my mind. “How do you know that’s her name?”

“You’re hopeless.” Elka shook her head at me. “I asked her.”

Our wagon crested the rise of a long hill, and Elka whistled low.

We’d been traveling north, and the land stretched out on both sides in rolling waves dotted with stands of tall trees. The road we were on—the Via Clodia—was wide, arrow-straight, and like no road I’d ever traveled upon. Our wagon flew over large, flat paving stones, the ride smoother than anything I’d known in my war chariot back home. In the distance, the graceful stone arches of an aqueduct traversed the land like some great stone serpent. Even I had to admit that the accomplishments of Roman ingenuity were marvels to behold.

Now, directly ahead of us, a broad expanse of water stretched into the distance, reflecting the purple and scarlet of the setting sun—Lake Sabatinus, as I soon learned it was called. A broad path lined with tall cypress trees led to a sprawling stone compound nestled on the shores of the lake. We had reached the Ludus Achillea.

The tiled roofs of the buildings were elegant and ordered, the main villa surrounded by a profusion of outbuildings—stables and kitchens and, I surmised, some sort of barracks for the different ranks of “students.” It looked a little like a palace, but I felt my stomach clench at the sight of the high, smooth wall that surrounded the ludus, topped with iron spikes. This place was no palace. It was a well-appointed cage.

As the curtained carriage in front of ours, transporting the Lady Achillea and her attendants, rumbled through the gate, Thalestris leapt out while it was still in motion. She walked back to the carriage Elka and I rode in and signaled for the driver to halt so she could swing herself up to stand between us. Every move she made was precise and purposeful. Feet braced wide, she rested one hand on her hip as if she wore a sword there. I suspected that most of the time, she did.

“Welcome to the Ludus Achillea,” she said, her eyes flicking back and forth between us, appraising, calculating. “Your new home until such time as you earn your freedom or you die. The latter is more likely. But work hard, work well, and you will be treated fairly and with dignity.”

Fairness and dignity? I seriously doubted that.