The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(35)

We kept walking until a low stone wall with an arched portal appeared in front of us. We passed through, and at first, I didn’t understand what the place was. On the Island of the Mighty, we burned our dead or buried them beneath mounds of earth. We did not lock them away in cold little houses made of stone where their spirits would be trapped forever, barred from ever reaching the peace and plenty of the Otherworld.

But our procession wound past all those marble tombs, toward an isolated spot beyond. There I saw another kind of grave, with a log pyre stacked above it. We formed a circle, and those bearing the bier lifted it up and placed it on top of the pyre. In the place where I stood, I was close enough to see that the pit dug in the earth beneath it was filled with shallow baskets bearing all kinds of food—meat and bread, jugs of wine, a wheel of cheese—and other baskets that held personal belongings. A mirror and an ivory comb. Neatly folded clothing. Weapons—a lot of weapons. I counted three swords, a pair of spears, a small round shield, and a belt adorned with throwing knives. An impressive collection.

But there was one last item to be added to the grave hoard, it seemed.

The woman who’d led the procession—the Lady Achillea, I assumed—stood at the head of the grave pit, her face hidden in the depths of her deep hood. She reached beneath the folds of her cloak and brought forth a lamp, a delicate thing hanging on a slender chain.

“To light your way in the darkness,” I heard her murmur. She let the chain slide through her fingers, and the lantern dropped gently into the pit on top of the other things. Then she raised her voice and said, “Her name was Ismene. Let it be known. She was a sister of our familia. A gladiatrix of House Achillea. She fought as we fight, with bravery and with skill. Five days ago, she fought to win honor in a match with a warrior maid of the House Amazona. She won, but Ismene was grievously wounded in that fight. Our surgeons did what they could for her. Last night the goddess Nemesis, she of the midnight brow, in her great wisdom called Ismene to the realm of heroes and sent forth Mercury to guide her there. She feasts now in the halls of Dis, she spars with Minerva, and she waits for all of us to join her there, and we mourn her absence even as others have this very day joined our ranks here.”

I swallowed the knot in my throat. She was talking about Elka and me. But I swore in that moment that I would never wind up in this graveyard like this girl, burned and buried in soil far away from home.

“So it goes,” the Lanista continued, and something about the way she spoke teased half-forgotten memories from the back of my mind. “The circle of glory, the river of blood. Mourn her, gladiatrices. Celebrate her. Make her proud.”

There were sounds of weeping coming from some of the hoods that hid the faces of the girls, and even the Lanista’s voice quavered with emotion. But I thought I heard one girl to my left scoff in quiet derision. Had there been a rivalry within the sacred sisterhood of the ludus? Perhaps “sisterhood” at the ludus, as in life, could be a double-edged sword.

One of the gladiatrices stepped forward with a torch and thrust it in between the logs of the pyre. The white shroud caught fire instantly, and the sudden updraft of heat sent it fluttering into the sky above our heads like the spirit of the dead girl released from her body. It hovered there, fluttering for a moment, then burst into a ball of brief flame before raining back down as ash upon us. I thought of how we’d never had the chance to burn Sorcha’s body. The Romans had never given her back to us. Then I thought of Mael. I didn’t even know where they had buried him. If I had been there, I would have made my father raise a barrow for him in the Forgotten Vale and crown it with a standing stone. Then I would have lain down and wept until the grass upon it grew long, watered with my tears.

Through the shimmering air, I looked on the face of the girl who had been called Ismene. She looked like she was sleeping. I searched my heart for a prayer to offer, but I did not know the gods the Lanista had spoken of. I only knew my own. So I formed a silent prayer for the dead girl I’d never known but in that moment felt a strange kinship with.

“May the Morrigan keep your soul,” I whispered in my mind.

Yours and Sorcha’s and Mael’s.

As I hoped, one day, she would keep mine.





XV



“BY THE MORRIGAN’S BLOODY TEETH!” I spat as I stumbled forward, dropping painfully to one knee in the sand of the ludus practice yard. The wooden sword in my hand was wrenched from my grip, tangled in the hemp net that my opponent wielded. “This isn’t fair!”

The other girl heard me—and laughed.

Of course it was unfair. After the long journey through Gaul, my muscles had gone soft from lack of decent food and exercise. I had all the strength of a runty kitten. With clumsy fingers and, yes—damn Caius Varro’s eyes—weak wrists. And none of that seemed to matter to the girl who stood waiting for me to stand up so she could knock me down again. Her name was Meriel, and she fought, so I’d been told, in the style of a retiarius-class gladiator, wielding strange weapons—a three-pronged spear called a trident, and a woven rope net—like she was dancing with them.

She was my first sparring partner of the day.

I was beginning to think she might be my last.

Meriel’s pale skin was freckled where it wasn’t covered in the thin blue lines of tattoos, and her dark red hair was tied up on top of her head in an unruly rat’s nest of twists and plaits. Her eyes looked upon me with the leaden gleam of cold gray rain. I knew her look. She was from Prydain. Home. Only she was from the far northern reaches, where the tribes were brutal and barbaric. And, as a rule, very good at killing things.