Death of a Gladiatrix, Act Two: Rising — The Caged Beast and the Open Sea

2.1 The Sea Beyond the Page

Only later did you learn that Marcus did not go to the arena now and then.

He loved it.

Not the forced love of a nobleman keeping up appearances, and not the flattering love of a man keeping the emperor and the senators company. He knew the fighting style of every famous gladiator, and the habits of every barbarian.

When he talked about these things, there was a bright patience in his eyes.

People always said that bread and circuses fed Rome. He was exactly the kind of man who had been fed very well.

After that day, he brought up Scylla several more times, his voice eager, as if talking about a rare foreign short sword.

“If you like,” he said to you after a banquet, “I could take you to the gladiator school. It’s more interesting than below the arena. You’d see how they train, how they eat, how they learn to make people cheer before they die.”

He was still smiling as he said the last part.

The night wind blew in, carrying the smell of water and damp earth. The banquet lamps lit up the deep red cloak on his shoulders, and the wine moving in the silver cup in your hand.

You set the cup back on the low table.

“I won’t go.”

Marcus paused for a moment, then quickly found his smile again.

“Only to look. There’s no need to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.”

When you had said this, you bowed to him, every courtesy complete.

“Of course,” he said. “It really isn’t a place for you.”

He said it gracefully, as if he had never been refused.

At that time he still had to please your father, to please your aunt, to look generous and measured in front of everyone — a suitable future son-in-law.

But when you got home, Marcus’s words stayed with you.

Scylla, the gladiatrix from the North Sea.

The name circled in your mind.

The library was stuffy in the early evening. The window was half open. You spread out a map.

Rome’s maps were drawn around the sea in the middle of the world. The roads, provinces, army camps and tax districts were all marked clearly — the sea of civilisation. But further north, at the wild sea, there was nothing but fog, tides, cold and empty space. No order that the Senate knew, and none of Rome’s straight roads. Only a few simple words:

Salt fog, marsh, barbarians, amber, furs, slaves, storms.

But not one word could explain the hand Scylla had held over the lion’s eyes.

Your fingertip stopped on that empty space.

Nehalennia.

You wrote the name on a wax tablet.

Drums sounded outside the window. Someone was rehearsing a procession for the Vestalia. In the inner courtyard, slaves were moving copper basins, and the sound of water knocked against the stone walls. Before long, Rome would dress itself in the sacred flame, garlands, olives, sheaves of wheat and pure salt cakes.

That was when Claudia came.

She came through the gate, her white robe sweeping across the stone floor, and the household slaves all stepped back and lowered their heads.

To everyone else, she was the Chief Vestal. From the age of ten she had tended the sacred flame in the Temple of Vesta. Thirty years had passed, and two years ago she had risen to become Chief Vestal. People believed that as long as she lived, the flame that carried the prosperity of Rome would never go out.

But to you, she was…

“Aunt Claudia.”

You greeted her warmly.

She saw the open map, and then the name on the wax tablet.

“You’re looking into the north.”

“I can’t find anything,” you said.

“When Romans write about faraway places, they usually write only the parts they can use.”

As she spoke, she sat down beside you, easy and relaxed.

On an ordinary day, every movement she made seemed to be watched; she had to stay dignified and grave. But tonight the lamps burned low, the voices outside the window were far away, and the Chief Vestal seemed to melt into the dark, leaving only the aunt you knew — and did not quite know.

You moved closer to her, the way you had as a child.

After your mother died, the nights in the house had always felt too long. The night wind howled, the sound of water was frightening, and the shadows on the walls looked like thieves watching in secret. You would not sleep. Your nurse held you, the slaves soothed you, and sometimes your father came home, his clothes smelling of wine and dust, sat for a while and left.

In those days, your aunt Claudia came to look after you.

She was a Vestal. She should not have given so many nights to her own family. The temple needed her, Rome needed her, the sacred flame needed her.

But the family she and your mother came from was old enough, and powerful enough. Wealth, tribunes, friends among the priests, seats in the Senate, generations of blood woven into a wide net — enough to let her watch over you night after night.

She sat by your bed, her white robe in the lamplight like a patch of quiet moonlight. She told you how Aeneas fled burning Troy, how the she-wolf nursed the twins, how if the sacred flame of Vesta ever went out, the city of the Romans would fall…

And just like now, she was still telling you stories.

“When I was young, I saw those northerners at the harbour.”

She said.

“They came in from the sea on black ships sealed with pitch. Their skin was red from the wind. They tied their hair with bone pins, copper rings, or cords they had braided themselves. They wore sealskin and coarse wool, and they smelled of the sea and of grease. They brought sealskin, whalebone, amber, coarse wool, and the long tusks of great sea beasts.”

You watched her, and so she went on. “And ambergris. Greyish white, carried in clay jars, wrapped in cloth, the cloth sealed with wax. The perfumed oil people use in front of the altars is made from it.”

You listened, your eyes on the empty space at the northern edge of the map.

None of this was in the books. No black ships with their seams sealed in pitch, no hard crust of salt on sealskin, no fish smell that never left a sailor’s clothes.

“Is their faith in Nehalennia?” you asked.

“Some of them believe in her,” Claudia said. “She is a goddess of the sea.”

You remembered the stiff Latin you had heard below the arena.

Even what dies on land needs a way home.

You told her what you had seen in the arena, the way you always did.

“That gladiatrix covered the lion’s eyes to send its soul away — back to the place she thought it should go. Back to the sea, back into the goddess’s arms.”

That lion had come from Africa and died on Roman sand.

It had never seen the North Sea. The Romans gave its flesh and blood to their gods, but Scylla still gave its soul to her own goddess of the sea.

Two kinds of order touched for a moment in front of you, and neither would give way to the other.

“She also said,” you added quietly, “that my eyes are like someone she once knew.”

Claudia’s breath stopped for a moment. It was not a long pause. If you had not been watching her the whole time, you would hardly have noticed it.

“What else did she say?” Claudia asked.

“Nothing. Marcus came back.”

You told her what had happened below the arena — Marcus’s attentions, the gladiatrix’s silence. Claudia listened without any clear change in her face.

Only when you had finished did she speak.

“Many people have said it before,” she said. “You look like your mother.”

“She knew my mother?”

“Your mother helped a number of slaves in her life,” she said. “Some from the east, some from the north. She didn’t like buying people from the market, but she was always stepping in after a sale — paying for someone’s freedom, or having the steward send them to the country estates. She even argued with senators over them more than once.”

You looked at her. The lamplight flickered, and her grey eyes showed a very faint blue-green.

“Scylla might have met her?”

“She might,” Claudia said. “Or heard about her from someone else. Slaves pass many things between them. It isn’t strange to remember a pair of eyes.”

“It didn’t sound like she’d only heard about her.”

Claudia raised her eyes.

“To stay alive, gladiators learn many ways of talking in their cages. They know who matters.”

You did not answer.

She did not go on to tell you to forget it. She only picked up the wax tablet and looked at it.

“I will find out.”

Those words, from her mouth, always carried weight.

She had said them when you were small and had a fever. She had said them the first time you were taken to a family banquet and stood at the door refusing to go in. Afterwards, things were always carried away by her, put somewhere you could not see. When you woke the next day, the water was fresh, your clothes were smooth, the people who needed to leave had left, and the people who needed to be quiet had gone quiet.

You nodded.

For a moment the library was almost silent. The noise of the festival preparations outside came faintly through the walls.

Claudia stood up.

You thought she was leaving, so you stood too. But she did not walk to the door. She walked into the inner room. The family shrine stood against the wall, and your mother’s small statue was kept there.

Claudia stopped in front of the shrine.

She looked at the little statue for a little longer than an ordinary prayer would take.

“Aelia,” she said at last, with her back to you, “you will soon be leaving Rome.”

2.2 The Price of Leaving the City

It was a few days before you understood what Claudia had meant.

You had thought she meant a journey, or going with your father to visit some official from the provinces.

Not long before, the emperor Trajan had won his victories in the east. The lands of the Parthians had been made Roman. Assyria, Mesopotamia, Armenia — Rome now had three new provinces.

And your father had been appointed governor of the province of Mesopotamia.

After that, people came and went from the house without end. You saw your father’s outer robe hung over the back of a chair, its hem dusty from the Senate. He came home very late and left very early, and his face was tired.

The appointment was an honour. It was also a danger.

The far-off cities had not yet fully submitted to Rome. So the army would arrive before the government did, to carry out the first wave of suppression. Only after that would the governor take up his post.

Before he arrived, a wall of family ties by marriage had to be built.

You were the only child of the house, and so, quite naturally, your father raised the question of your marriage.

The legate of Rome’s Twenty-Seventh Legion, Marcus Claudius.

When your father spoke of him, he spoke as if making ordinary conversation.

Marcus came from the House of Claudius. His father’s generation had done well in the later years of the eastern campaigns, and his family was on very good terms with your father. You remembered Marcus’s father, the former legate — you had called him Uncle Gaius. This time Gaius had already laid the road. Marcus would go out as the new legate, responsible for suppressing and holding the new province.

“So he’ll be leaving soon,” your father said. “The betrothal must be settled before he leaves Rome.”

You stood in the middle of the inner room and heard him out.

The robe for the evening’s banquet already hung on the stand, with the gold pins and the belt laid beside it. A servant knelt on the floor holding a jar of scented oil, not daring to look up.

“So the day at the arena was part of the plan too, wasn’t it?”

Your father did not deny it.

“You needed to meet him.”

“I have met him,” you said, word by word. “I sat next to him and listened to him talk about gladiators and lions for a whole morning.”

At last his eyes lifted from the letter.

“I won’t go.”

You pushed the invitation away.

The servant’s hand shook, and the jar of oil knocked softly against the floor.

Your father pressed his hand against the edge of the desk, as if he wanted to snap the wood.

“This is no ordinary banquet.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know.”

“I know you mean to give me to him,” you said plainly. “To show everyone that you have the army behind you — and the gift is a daughter of the House of Aelius.”

You had spoken your mother’s family name, and the room fell silent at once.

Your father finally stood up.

“Aelia.”

At last you heard the anger he could not hold down.

“Your mother’s family gave me a great deal. I have not forgotten it, and I hope you won’t either.”

“You haven’t forgotten?” You turned to him. “You used her name and her money to get into the Senate. Now she’s dead, you’re sending her daughter away. What more do you want? Isn’t being a senator enough?”

Your father’s hand left the desk, and he clasped his hands together. You knew you had gone too far. After your mother died he had never married again. You were their only child.

But you could not back down now.

“Watch your words,” he said, raising his voice. “You are my daughter.”

“I’m her daughter too.” You did not give way.

For a moment your father looked lonely, but he quickly pushed that look back down, and said nothing more about your mother.

“Change your clothes.” It was an order.

You did not move.

There were footsteps outside the door.

When Claudia came in, no one announced her. Or perhaps they had, and no one in the room had heard. She wore the white robe of a Vestal, the white veil falling to her shoulder and covering half her face.

Your father turned to her.

“Claudia.”

She glanced at him, then at the robe on the stand, the invitation on the desk, the servant kneeling on the floor.

“I’ll send someone to tell Marcus,” she said. “Aelia can’t attend tonight. The temple physicians of Vesta will confirm she has been taken ill with the heat.”

At last your father’s face changed.

“Claudia, this is no small matter.”

“Precisely because it is no small matter,” Claudia said, her voice not raised, “she should not sit at that table with this face on. Tell Marcus these are the words of the Chief Vestal.”

Your father stared at her and said nothing.

Claudia stood under the lamp. This time she had not spoken as your aunt. She had invoked the title of the Vestal. And so even your father, a senator, could not simply go over her head in this room.

After a while, your father looked away.

“Just this once.”

Claudia did not answer.

Your father walked past you. The curtain over the door rose as he pushed it aside, and fell again.

Only when his footsteps had faded did Claudia look at you.

“Put on your cloak.”

For a moment you did not react.

“Where are we going?”

“To the gladiator school.” She turned, her voice level, almost stern. “You’re leaving Rome. The road to Mesopotamia won’t become safe just because you don’t want to be married. You need a guard.”

You were taken aback, and asked, “So you agree too.”

Claudia stopped at the door and did not look back.

“I agree that you must reach that place alive.”

Suddenly you understood. She had kept you from the banquet — but only for this one night. She had not refused the longer road for you.

Night had already fallen over Rome, and the streets still held the heat of the festival days. Claudia’s carriage was waiting outside the side gate, and an attendant lowered his head as he helped her up. You sat across from her. Once the curtain fell, the noise of the street was muffled by the cloth into a dull hum.

The wheels began to turn.

At first neither of you spoke. Claudia leaned against the side of the carriage, half her face in shadow.

After a long time, she spoke without warning. “When your mother was small, she was even better at hiding than you.”

You looked up. She seemed to be looking at something beyond the curtain.

“We often went down to the harbour. If you walked out past the main docks, there were caves in the rocks. At high tide the water poured into them; when it went out, it left shells and little fish behind. Your mother could always find the narrowest crack and squeeze into it, and leave me outside looking for her for ages.”

The wheels went over an uneven gap in the paving, and the carriage jolted gently.

You could almost see the caves in the rocks by the sea already, and you were impatient to see more. She always knew how to catch your heart.

“We each took a little knife and hid in different caves,” Claudia said. “We carved words on the inside of the rock. Whoever finished first without being found won.”

You remembered the northerners she had spoken of before — the merchant ships, the salt fog, the amber and sealskins. The harbour always seemed to appear in her stories, but each time it only showed one corner of itself.

“What did you carve?”

Claudia lowered her eyes.

“Sometimes lines of Virgil, sometimes poems we made up ourselves. Your mother wrote fast, but her letters always leaned to one side. She said the rock wasn’t flat, so it wasn’t her fault.”

When she got to this, there was the faintest movement at the corner of her mouth, as if an old mark had brushed across her face and left the shadow of a memory in her expression.

“Are the words still there?”

“The sea has been in and out of those caves many times. Perhaps they’re still there. Perhaps they’ve long since been covered by salt and seaweed.”

The carriage went quiet again.

You wanted to ask more — whether they had gone back when they were older, what your mother had written, what she herself had written…

But an attendant lifted the curtain. You had arrived at the gladiator school.

Claudia got down first.

You followed her. As your feet touched the ground, you suddenly thought of the harbour she had not finished telling you about, and of words that might still be hidden in a cave in the rocks.

And you thought of those sea-grey eyes.

2.3 The One Who Was Chosen

The gate of the gladiator school closed behind you.

Claudia did not come in.

She stayed outside in the carriage, the white curtain lowered. It was not fitting for the Chief Vestal to walk into a gladiator school at night herself, to choose for a senator’s daughter a piece of property that killed people.

But it seemed she had already arranged everything for you. As soon as you came through the gate, the owner came forward to greet you.

He was thick around the middle, his beard neatly trimmed, a ring set with a green stone on his finger. When he saw the cloth you wore, and the purse in your attendant’s hand, his face at once filled with practised respect.

“Lady Aelia,” he said. “Of course we’ll do as Lady Claudia instructed. We have plenty of good stock — Germans, Gauls, Numidians. If you meet bandits on the road, give one shout and they’ll clear the mountain pass for you.”

“I’ll choose myself,” you said.

“Of course, of course.”

He took you to the edge of the training ground.

There were a dozen or so people there. Some were stripped to the waist, swinging wooden swords. Some were sparring in heavy armour. Two had chains on their ankles and were practising their footwork, iron rings dragging on the ground with a broken, rattling noise.

The owner pointed first at a tall man.

“A Thracian. Strong, very powerful, good on mountain roads.”

The man looked up, showing a crooked nose that had been broken.

The owner pointed at another.

“A Numidian. Quick, a fast runner, good with a javelin — and he doesn’t eat much.”

The man grinned. His teeth were very white. He looked quite young.

You looked at each of them in turn and said nothing.

Until a figure in the corner came into view.

The firelight lit only half her face. She was sitting beside a wooden post, leather straps wound round her wrists, an old shield by her knee. The place on her shoulder where the lion had clawed her was nearly healed, the colour darkened. Her hair was tied back, a little shorter than when you had seen her below the arena, as if someone had cut it carelessly.

It was Scylla.

Your aunt’s words sounded again in your ears: your mother helped a number of slaves in her life. If that woman had heard of her, it isn’t strange to remember a pair of eyes.

The owner followed your gaze. His smile stuck for a moment, then quickly came back.

“Not that one,” he said. “She’s a rare gladiatrix, for the shows. Besides, she’s bad-tempered and doesn’t know the rules.”

You paid no attention and walked straight to the corner.

The clack of wooden swords slowed around you. Somewhere in the shadows someone laughed, and then the trainer knocked the laugh away with his stick.

Scylla finally raised her eyes. Her sea-grey eyes were very pale in the firelight, like the rocks that glint at night when the tide has gone out.

You stopped in front of her.

“Do you know Amazonia and Achillia?”

Behind you, the owner gave a dry laugh. “What does the lady want with that?”

Scylla did not look at him.

You went on. “Twelve years ago, at Halicarnassus, the last match. The two of them stood on the same sand — one with a net, one with a short sword.”

Scylla’s fingers stayed on the leather strap. They did not move.

You stared into her eyes, trying to read even the smallest ripple in them. Because on that very day you had sat in the stands and watched the fight. And on that very day your mother had been attacked on the road, and had never come back to Rome.

“Do you know how they ended?” you asked.

Torch smoke drifted between you. You had wanted to draw something out of her — whether she knew those two names, whether she knew their end, whether there was some deliberately hidden link between her and your mother, and your eyes.

Scylla looked at you.

She did not say she knew, and she did not say she didn’t. Her gaze rested on your face. Then she asked, “Where is your sea?”

It was not an answer, and it did not sound like a challenge.

For a moment you stood there, stunned.

The owner laughed first, short and contemptuous.

“See, that’s how she is. The lady talks sense to her and she answers with nonsense. North Sea women — nothing in their heads but water and fog.” He stepped forward, trying to put himself between you and Scylla. “What you need is a man who follows orders, a big man who’s afraid of the whip. A gladiatrix is a rare thing, not fit for a long journey. And this one has killed too many things. Aren’t you afraid to have her sleeping by your carriage at night?”

A few gladiators nearby laughed quietly again before the stick could reach them. Someone knocked a wooden sword against a shield, as if agreeing with the owner.

Seeing that you did not rebuke him, the owner grew bolder.

“The lady is highborn, of course, and doesn’t understand these things. Women choosing guards often look in the wrong places. This bit of North Sea goods is frightening enough in the arena, but out of it she’s nothing but trouble. Buy her, and you’ll have to buy two more men to watch her.”

Scylla said nothing.

She only lowered her head and wound the leather strap once more around her wrist. The edge of the strap was worn through and pressed against an old wound. Blood seeped slowly out through the crack.

Suddenly you thought of the invitation on your father’s desk, and of the eager way Marcus had said “how a person is trained into a weapon”. You thought of Claudia in the carriage telling you about the words carved in the rock caves — the sea pouring in and out again, leaving seaweed and salt.

Almost without meaning to, you clenched your fist.

The owner was still talking. “If the lady insists on a woman, I have two kitchen slaves who can use a knife — better for looking after you on the road. This one—”

“How much?”

The owner stopped.

He blinked, as if he had not heard.

“What did the lady say?”

You turned and looked at him.

“How much is she?”

For an instant the training ground was completely silent.

The owner’s smile froze on his face, then quickly turned into another kind of smile — careful, and greedy.

“This woman doesn’t come cheap. She has several more matches coming up, and she’s famous — around the Vestalia, lots of people come just to see her. Selling a gladiator like this…”

“Name your price.”

“She’s no ordinary guard. She’s killed lions, and she’s killed men. Wild, hard to tame. If she hurt the lady—”

“Name your price.”

You did not raise your voice. But when you said it the second time, your servant had already stepped half a pace forward and taken out the purse. The bronze clasp opened. Inside were not loose coins but gold, ready and waiting.

That gold spoke louder than any words. He named a figure at once, far higher than it should have been.

You did not bargain.

Your servant looked at you. You nodded, and the gold coins were counted and handed over.

Only then did Scylla lift her head.

She looked at you with no surprise and no thanks. Her eyes were cool.

You pressed your family seal onto the contract. “Emptor dominus est rei. The buyer is the master of all!” the owner flattered, laughing. The moment the contract was sealed, the gladiator’s status changed.

“Off you go, sea monster. Go and fight for your mistress,” he said loudly.

Scylla stood up and picked up her shield. She did not reach for the sword that had been taken from her. The trainer took down the bronze tag that belonged to Scylla, tossed it to the steward, and made a scornful noise.

Scylla walked up to you.

Close to her, you could smell herbs, blood and old leather all together. The skin on her wrists was rubbed raw, leaving a deep ring.

She stood at your side and did not bow. Some of the people around you laughed again. This time the laughter was hurried and dry, with a kind of envy in it that no one would say aloud.

You did not look at them.

Outside the gate, Claudia’s carriage was still waiting in the night.

Tonight you had bought a woman who would not answer your question — and you had bought the question itself.

2.4 The Sea That Cannot Be Tamed

As autumn was about to begin, Marcus sent you another invitation.

This time it was not a beast hunt. It was a naval show.

The sand of the arena would be flooded, wooden ships would sail into the great round basin, and slaves and prisoners would be given the names of Greeks and Easterners to act out Rome’s old victories again. Marcus’s letter was restrained and his words mild. He wrote only that such a spectacle was rare, and that he would like to watch it with you before he left.

You had meant to refuse.

But at that moment, Scylla was standing in the courtyard, looking at a wax tablet.

Since she had been brought back to the house, you had been teaching her Latin, starting with her own name. Scylla was the name Rome had given her. Sifra was her own.

For the journey, you taught her manners, place names, the words she would need on the road. But very soon you found yourself talking about Rome’s roads, buildings, laws and civilisation.

She learned fast.

While she listened, she pressed her finger to the wax tablet and stopped on the word civitas.

“City,” you said.

She looked up.

“Wall.”

You did not correct her. Perhaps, to her, the two words meant almost the same thing.

“Marcus says tonight is a rare battle on water.” You looked at the invitation. “Will you come?”

Scylla put down the stylus.

“You’re going.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll go.”

On the day of the naval show, you took her in with you.

When Marcus saw Scylla, his smile stopped halfway. Several officers were with him — as if seeing him off early, or witnessing ahead of time the dignity of the man who was about to take up his post in the eastern provinces.

“You’ve brought your sea monster,” he said.

“My guard.”

“Does she understand that word?”

People around him laughed quietly. Scylla stood behind you, her eyes on the arena. She did not look at them.

That made Marcus even more certain that she did not understand.

“No matter. Let her see how Rome turns land into sea. A little comfort from home for her.”

Horns sounded in the arena. The flooded amphitheatre imitated a miniature sea. Small boats rammed each other, oars snapped, water sprayed. Slaves dressed as the enemy were pushed into the water. Some clung to the sides of the boats. Some were struck on the shoulder with long poles, sank, and struggled back to the surface. Wave after wave of cheers came from the stands.

The water soon turned murky, mud and blood churned together by the oars.

Marcus leaned towards you to explain. “This kind of set-up is crude. A real sea battle is about the formation of the fleet, the wind, the currents. Pity these slaves know nothing about tactics. All they know is how to throw themselves at each other and bite.”

When he talked like this, it sounded as if he had already been to a real battlefield.

But in truth, his family had kept him very well protected. For this posting to Mesopotamia, as the heir of his house, Rome had prepared a glorious standard for him in advance.

“Look,” he said, pointing to a small boat in the arena. “That’s the stupid barbarian way of fighting. Without Roman engineering, the sea is nothing but a mess of water.”

Scylla suddenly spoke.

“That is not the sea.”

Marcus turned his head. So did the people around him.

Her Latin was rough, but it reached every ear clearly.

Marcus narrowed his eyes. “So she can talk.”

Scylla looked at the muddy water in the arena.

“You keep us in cages, just as you think you keep the sea in a cage. But the sea yields to no one. (Non vincitur mare.)”

She had remembered that sentence — the one you had first written on your wax tablet. For some reason, it stirred you.

Scylla fixed her eyes on Marcus and went on. “You’ve never seen the real sea. You’ve never really killed anyone. You’ve only watched in the arena, and you think you know everything.”

In that moment the noise of the water and the cheering went on, but the small circle around you fell dead silent.

Marcus’s face went a little pale first, then flushed red. He stood up, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Kneel, slave,” he said.

Scylla did not step back.

You stood up too. “Marcus.”

He did not look at you.

“She has insulted a Roman officer in front of everyone.”

“She’s my guard.”

“Then you should learn to keep her in line.”

In the arena, the slaves were still fighting for their lives in the water, but no one cared any more. Eyes around you began to gather. Someone asked in a low voice what was going on; others already wore the look of people enjoying a show.

It was then that a white figure appeared at the entrance to the passage.

Claudia had come. When people saw her pure white robe, the voices around you dropped at once.

“Legate,” Claudia said.

Marcus bowed.

“Most revered Chief Vestal.”

She did not ask what had happened. But her eyes moved slowly from Marcus’s face to Scylla. The gravity in that look sent a chill down the back of your neck.

Scylla met Claudia’s gaze and did not back away.

Claudia made the promise for you. “I will discipline her on Aelia’s behalf.”

“Aunt,” you began.

“You have drawn enough attention tonight,” she said, looking at you. “Sit down.”

You could not argue.

Claudia had Scylla led away. As Scylla passed you, she did not look at you. She only moved her shield to her left hand and followed the shadow behind the white robe into the passage.

After that night, Scylla did not come back to your courtyard.

The household slaves said she had been taken to a house near the temple and would not be coming back for now. Claudia gave no explanation. She only sent someone with a message: the matter of the guard stands as before.

More than ten days went by.

On the morning you were to leave, before the sun was up, the courtyard lay under a thin grey dawn. But the house was already piled with travelling chests, and attendants were counting horses and water skins.

With the sound of footsteps, Scylla walked in through the gate.

She had changed into clean leather armour, a short sword hung at her side, her hair tied back. She wore a red cloak, worn but neat — perhaps Claudia had given it to her.

She walked past everyone, stopped in front of you, and put her right hand on her chest.

“I will guard you,” she said. “From Rome to Mesopotamia. If anyone on the road wants your life, I kill him first. If anyone on the road wants to take you, I cut off his hands first.”

She paused.

“Until you reach your father’s province.”

This was not a Roman oath. No fine set phrases, no family names, no humble ending.

You looked into her eyes.

“Why?” you asked. “What did Claudia say to you?”

Once again, Scylla did not answer that question.

She only lowered her head, and for the first time gave you a rough bow. It was not correct. It was even a little stiff.

But she finished it.

The morning wind moved through the courtyard, stirring the lamp flames by the pool, and suddenly you remembered the question she had asked you.

Where is your sea?