The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(57)
As I entered, I could smell the sharp tang of the vinegar antiseptic they used to clean wounds, and my stomach turned over. Lion was lying on a cot, and the neat white bed linens were stained with red. Sorcha sat beside her bed, smoothing the hair back from her pale face, while Heron and his assistant worked to stanch the flow of blood. As I watched, the surgeon wiped his hands on his apron, leaving more red there, and disappeared behind a curtained wall. He returned with a bronze brazier full of angry red coals and a metal bell-shaped tool that had been heated until it glowed.
My stomach didn’t so much turn over at the sight as threaten to hurl its contents back up again. I knew what would come next. My gasp alerted Sorcha to my presence, and she rose from the girl’s bedside and hurried over to me.
“What are you doing here, Fallon?” she murmured urgently. “You shouldn’t be—”
“I brought this.” I pulled back the corner of my cloak to reveal Lion’s hand and held the bundle out toward my sister. “I didn’t want to leave it in the rain,” I said. “I didn’t know what else to do . . .”
Sorcha looked down and then, after a long moment, back up at me. She blinked rapidly and reached out, gently drawing the cloth back over the hand and the sword it still clutched.
“That was honorably done, Fallon,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”
She took the bundle from me and then wrapped an arm around my shoulders, leading me out of the infirmary. “Come on,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here right now.”
The screams of agony and the stench of seared flesh drifted down the corridor behind us. Sorcha walked me all the way back to the barracks in silence.
“You won’t send her away, will you?” I asked, fearing that Lion—whose true name I still didn’t even know—would be turned out of the ludus to wind up a beggar in Rome’s filthy back alleys.
“Weren’t you listening during the oath ritual?” she asked. “We don’t abandon our sisters.”
For a moment, I thought the irony would escape Sorcha. But then a faint flush crept up her face, and she glanced away from me. I decided to let the moment pass. Some things were more important.
“But she can’t ever make back the money you’ve lost in buying her slave contract,” I said. “She’s useless to the ludus now.”
“You have such a low opinion of this place. Of me.”
She looked at me, and I saw actual hurt in her eyes. Her gaze drifted down to the iron ring that was still around my neck. I had refused to go with Elka when she’d gone to have hers removed. She’d told me I was an idiot, and perhaps she was right.
Sorcha shook her head. “I suppose I’ve earned that. But I do wish you would at least give the ludus a chance before condemning it as a place as cruel and cold-hearted as its mistress. I have to go prepare Antonia’s hand for a proper burial. Thank you for bringing it to me. The Morrigan watch over you, Fallon.”
And then she was gone.
I watched her walk away like a queen or a priestess toward the tiny, elegant building that served as a kind of multifaith temple for all the girls of the ludus. I could no longer hear the screams of the handless Antonia with my ears.
But they echoed in my mind for a long time after.
? ? ?
Practice resumed the next day, under a dismal gray sky that threatened more rain but refused to pour. None of the girls talked about what had happened the day before, but all of them—even the veteran gladiatrices, I noticed—fought their bouts and drills with wooden blades. Within a few days, though, everything was more or less back to normal. With the exception of Neferet (the Aegyptian girl with the serpent shield), who vehemently refused to continue practice. Instead she spent most of her waking hours in the infirmary helping Heron tend Antonia in the struggle to keep her wound from succumbing to infection.
Six days after the oath swearing, Caius Varro returned to the Ludus Achillea with missives from Rome for the Lanista. But instead of leaving after his correspondence was delivered, he accompanied Thalestris out to the yard, where the girls were all hard at work. I had to stop myself from greeting him as he passed by. I knew he was on Caesar’s business, likely reporting back to him on our progress.
Who do you think you are now? I reminded myself bitterly. In the eyes of any Roman, Caius Varro is a legion officer, and you’re nothing more than a diversion for the howling plebs—a vulgar bit of sweaty, bloody entertainment.
As much as Sorcha proclaimed the honorable nature of my new occupation, I still didn’t believe her. I wanted to . . . I just couldn’t. Especially when Cai strode right past me, deep in conversation with Thalestris. He didn’t even so much as glance in my direction. I hated that I had been looking in his.
But then I heard whispering and giggling and realized I wasn’t the only one watching Cai. Thalestris shouted at us all to stop gawking and get back to practice. She pounded the butt of her staff on the arena sand, and her fight masters moved in, whips snapping through the air in case any of us needed extra motivation. I ducked my head and went back to my practice routine. In recent days, I had focused my concentration—ironically enough, just as Cai had suggested—on relaxing into the work. On letting the memories stored in my muscles and blood take over. On breathing all the way down into my swords. The less I thought about the next move, the easier it came, until it felt like I was dancing with a blade in each hand—