Death of a Gladiatrix, Act Five: The Sacrifice to the Sea Monster

5.1 A Harbour Without a Sea

Night comes quickly in a Roman winter.

When you left the Temple of Vesta, the world had already sunk into darkness.

The priestess at the door was still praying, her white robe hanging over the edge of the stone steps. You went down the steps and followed the street away. The temple, the court, the Forum, your father’s house — you left them all behind you.

But some words were still in your ears.

The Vestal who gave birth beside the sacred flame at sixteen was Claudia.

The child abandoned by the sea and carried away by the North Sea women was Scylla.

Amazonia and Achillia died of Claudia’s fear that her crime would be exposed.

Your mother died because of Scylla’s escape when she was young.

Scylla was your sister. Blood very like yours ran in her veins.

And yet she was also bound up in your mother’s death.

You knew everything now. But the world would not change because of it. In the street, people crowded round a stall selling hot wine, and a sour-sweet smell rose from the clay cups. A child ran past you with half a honey cake in his hand, and a woman behind him scolded him in a low voice.

Rome was still turning.

Merchant ships docked, goods were unloaded, tax collectors kept their records, slaves carried loads. Egyptian grain, Greek wine, Parthian glass, northern amber and furs — ship after ship of it would keep coming into this city.

The moon and stars in the sky were the same as ever, as if the gods had never once looked down at the chaos of the world.

You stood on the riverbank and looked towards the coast, towards the firelight on the black water.

You imagined that many years ago, Achillia and Amazonia had come like this from far away. The planks of their ship were painted with black pitch, their sails crusted with salt. In the hold there were furs, whalebone, amber, coarse wool, the long tusks of sea beasts — and ambergris, which the Romans would put in beautiful clay jars.

They brought so many things from the North Sea. What they took away was a child Rome would not allow to exist.

This was Rome — the centre of the world, the centre of law, the centre of the sacred fire and of the roads.

So why could you be saved by the temple, while Scylla, whose blood was so close to yours, had to be sent onto the sand, to pay for everyone’s sins in nine days of fighting?

You kept walking along the shore.

You did not know how long you walked. Beneath your feet the smooth paving gave way to wet rock. Further from the main docks, the waves grew harsh and loud, and the caves in the rocks lay hidden in the moonlight. When you looked up, the mouths of the caves had been worn smooth by tide and wind. Inside it was very dark, with only a little moonlight slanting in from one side.

You remembered what Claudia had told you.

When she and your mother were little, they had played hide and seek here. Each of them brought a little knife, hid in a different cave, and carved short sentences, lines of poetry, or signs only the two of them could understand on the inside of the rock.

You bent down and went in.

The rock was damp, the seaweed slippery. It seemed as if the years had carried everything away. But when you raised your hand and brushed the fine sand from the wall, your fingertips touched carved grooves.

There really were words there.

When you held up the lamp, the lowest few lines were very shallow — clearly the work of a young child. The letters were crooked, and some, half carved, were squeezed together:

Luna super aquam ridet. The moon laughs on the water.

Beside it, someone had added a line in a wobbly hand, the cuts deep, then shallow:

Si luna cadit, ego capiam. If the moon falls down, I’ll catch it.

You stopped. That writing — it had to be your mother’s.

The line next to it was neater, the strokes thin and steady:

Parva manus saxum vincit, si cotidie redit. Even little hands can break stone, if they are hardened every day.

That was your aunt Claudia. Her writing was always this neat.

And right underneath it, the crooked hand answered back:

Saxum durum est. Claudia durior. Stone is hard. But Claudia is tougher.

You laughed softly.

You thought of the quiet face in your mother’s portrait, of the careful notes in the margins of her books.

So she, too, had carved naughty lines like this on a rock wall — like a little shell hidden up her sleeve that only Claudia could find.

The neat hand had written:

Si ventus vocat, respondebis? If the sea breeze calls, will you answer?

Beside it, the crooked hand had replied:

Respondebo, sed mater audit. I can answer, but Mum is listening.

Now you could almost see them.

A little Claudia kneeling in front of the rock, holding her knife properly, brows slightly drawn together, trying to make every letter look like the copybook. Your mother crouched beside her, the hem of her dress wet with seawater, sneaking in an extra line while Claudia was busy, then turning round to grin with all her teeth.

Claudia was the cleverest girl in the world.

You remembered that when you were very small, your mother told you that Claudia learned poems faster than anyone, wrote the best letters, and could answer anything the priests asked. People always said Claudia was like the elder sister, even though it was your mother who was a year older.

When your mother said these things, there was always a little unwillingness in her voice, as if the contest of their childhood had never ended.

You kept holding up the light.

Beside some of the carvings, ages were marked. Five years old. Six. Seven.

Some were lines of Virgil, some were well-known lines of Horace, and some were clearly short sentences they had made up themselves.

The neat line:

Duae sorores, unus ventus. Two sisters, one wind.

The crooked letters pressed right up against it:

Si ventus fugit, currimus. If the wind runs away, we’ll chase it.

Further on, Claudia’s writing grew smaller, and more beautiful:

Ignem time, sed noli umbram amare. Fear the fire, but don’t fall in love with the shadows.

And your mother had carved very deep beside it, as if she wanted to make the rock hurt:

Ego umbram amo; ibi ludere licet. I love the shadows; you’re allowed to play there.

You touched the letters.

Once they had been only two little girls — one serious, one making trouble; one always writing neatly, one always adding a joke beside it.

They had hidden here from the eyes of grown-ups, and tucked poems, arguments and small victories into the rock. The tide had come and gone, and after so many years it still had not carried the girls they had been away completely.

And then you saw that the neat writing suddenly stopped.

That year, Claudia was ten.

She was chosen for the Temple of Vesta.

From then on, only your mother’s writing was left on the wall. It seemed that after her sister was gone, she still came here — perhaps once a month, perhaps less. Her letters were more crooked than before, and lower down, as if whoever carved them no longer had to fight anyone for the best place.

What she wrote there were careless dates, bits of gossip, mottoes and proverbs.

Until the very last line.

Sola ludo. Roma te tulit. I play by myself now. Because Rome took you away.

You stood in front of that line for a long time.

Rome had taken Claudia to the sacred flame, into the white robe, into the awe of the crowd. From then on she belonged to Vesta, to the city, to vows that must never be broken.

What happened after that, Claudia had not said.

She was so clever, so careful. She was the temple’s best pupil. She knew better than anyone how to stand, how to be silent, how to cover a mistake. Even when she had done something that could never be forgiven, clever as she was, she would have found the most perfect way to deal with it — until, many years later, the sin came back to her in another form.

And your mother was not clever enough, not serious enough, and so Rome left her behind.

Later she married, and had you, and became the woman in your memory with the soft voice and sleeves that smelled of herbs. But on this rock wall, she was still that little girl with crooked writing, slipping into the cave after the tide went out and playing by herself.

She would catch the moon if it fell. She would play with the shadows. And when everyone else treated slaves as goods, she would stop her carriage and ask a child where she came from.

Suddenly you thought: if only she had been a little more careful.

If she had been a little more careful, if she had sensed that something was wrong in time, if she had seen how very like Claudia’s those eyes of Scylla’s were, if she had not taken a strange child into her carriage so easily. If Claudia had told her — even just one sentence…

But Claudia had not told her.

Claudia had been this way since she was small: serious, independent, silent, carrying everything on her own back. Even with all of Rome on her shoulders, she would stand up straight and become the shape Rome needed.

And your mother had not chosen Rome.

She had chosen to become your mother.

You rested your forehead lightly against the rock. The damp came through your skin like a cold hand. You stroked the last line your mother had left. Those knife cuts were a small crack she had once made in the world — not in the family records, not in the documents of your father’s study, not on the columns of Rome.

Only here.

In a place where the tide comes in, and then goes out again.

As you stood up, your hand slid across the rock, and your fingertips brushed by accident against a corner — where there was a patch of even finer carving.

It was almost covered by salt, but clearer than the rest. The letters were very small and very neat, hidden in the least noticeable place on the inside of the wall, as if whoever carved them wanted to leave them there, and was afraid of them being seen.

You bent down and brought the lamp closer.

Vade ubi Roma non est, parva unda.

Go, my little wave. Go where there is no Rome.

It was Claudia’s hand.

5.2 An Appeal That Could Not Stand

Another winter had passed, another summer was about to come, when you saw those eyes again, in the dungeon.

Sea-grey.

The torchlight was too weak to bring out the blue-green that used to be in them. Though summer was coming, the dungeon was still cold. Water beaded on the iron bars and stone walls, and the damp straw had turned black.

The air smelled mouldy and sickening.

In the cell at the end of the passage, in that darkness, Scylla was sitting against the wall.

The prison, where daylight never came, had almost destroyed her. Her shoulders were still broad, but she no longer looked ready to spring up and throw herself at a blade at any moment. New wounds lay over old on her wrists, her lips were cracked, and her hair, cut short, had grown back ragged and stuck to her neck.

She heard footsteps and did not look up at first — not until you reached the bars.

In that instant, her eyes lit up.

Not with joy.

With shock.

The jailer had taken his money and pretended to go and check a lock at the other end. He left the torch on the wall, and it threw your shadow and Scylla’s onto the cold, wet floor.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Scylla said.

Her Latin was much smoother than when you first met. Prison had not made her forget the language. If anything, it had made every word sharper.

You went closer to the bars.

“I’ll take you away.”

She raised her eyes to you.

“From here?”

“From Rome.”

Scylla looked at you and did not answer.

You took a scroll out of your sleeve. In the months since the verdict, you had used your mother’s old connections. You had gone through army account books, letters between provinces, even the records of Marcus’s father’s service in the later years of the eastern campaigns — you had people bring them to you.

You had not asked your father, and you had not told Claudia. Most of those who helped you were slaves your mother had saved in her life.

They were silent and nameless, but like a vast network of underground water, they had soaked into every inch of Rome.

“Marcus’s father isn’t clean,” you said straight out. “During the eastern campaign, he stole army grain and gave the troops rotten wheat and mouldy beans. Later that garrison mutinied, and he blamed it on local rebels and had several low-ranking officers executed. The garrison Marcus fled from was already restless because of it.”

Scylla was still looking at you.

You kept talking, faster than usual, as if you wanted to pour all of it out in front of her at once.

“I’ve found copies from the accounts office, and a clerk who was sent into exile is willing to testify. If we connect this to Marcus’s desertion, the jury’s verdict will start to shake.”

The torch crackled, and the shadows on the wall trembled.

“You have to appeal,” you told her. “And I’ll testify. Remember — not to that court. To the emperor.”

Scylla’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“The emperor.”

She repeated.

“Yes. A trial before the emperor himself.”

You gripped the scroll tighter.

“Trajan would hear it himself. He hates corruption and plots in the army. His column is about to be finished — he needs that failed eastern campaign to be clean. The House of Claudius built itself on military glory. If we prove that father and son alike have been rotting the discipline of the army, this will no longer be just a gladiator who killed a man.”

You leaned close to the bars, and your fingers touched cold iron.

“You once asked me where my sea was.”

Scylla’s gaze stopped.

“There’s no sea here,” you said, looking at her, answering her. “So I’ll turn this place into a sea.”

The dungeon was quiet for a moment.

The firelight shivered on the walls. Slowly, Scylla lowered her head and looked at her wrists. She did not smile, and she did not show any of the expressions you had imagined.

“You can’t do this,” she said.

“I can.”

“You can’t.”

“You haven’t even heard it all.”

“I’ve heard it all.”

She raised her eyes. They were still clear, almost cruelly clear, because there was none of the hope in them that you had just brought.

“You’ll send yourself in there.”

She said.

“You’ll send in the Vestal Claudia, and your mother’s name too. When the emperor hears about Marcus, he’ll also hear about me. He’ll hear what I did on that mountain road. He’ll hear that Claudia promised me freedom. In the end they won’t spare me, and they won’t spare any of you.”

“Then let them hear it.”

“You think the truth, in front of the emperor, will be like a knife?”

You did not answer.

Scylla looked at you, and her voice grew low. “Rome’s knife only cuts where it wants to cut.”

You gripped the bars.

“I won’t accept you dying in the arena.”

“I’ve died there many times already.”

“This time is different.”

“Yes,” she said. “This time you’ll be watching.”

Your face changed.

Scylla did not look away, as if these words had been circling inside her for a long time and now at last could be said.

She lifted her head, and those eyes rested on you.

“Marcus is dead. The hero’s statue is nearly finished. My nine days of fighting have already been written into the notices. If you pour water into a crack in the stone now, the stone won’t turn into the sea.”

She said it one word at a time.

“I should have died long ago.”

You held on to the bars. You wanted to argue, but her eyes stopped you.

“Your mother didn’t die straight away. She lived for a little while.”

She went on.

The cold iron bars almost cut into your palms.

“Don’t say it.”

She paid no attention to you, and went on.

“After the bandits attacked, the carriage rolled down the slope. The guards were dead, and the driver was dead too. I was pinned under the boards of the carriage and couldn’t move my legs. But she was still alive.”

Your breath stopped halfway.

“She could have crawled out and got away before the bandits came down to look,” Scylla said. “But she didn’t. She dragged me out from under the boards, covered me with her body, and put her cloak over my head.”

As Scylla said this, she did not look at you.

“Then… she bled a lot. Her blood fell on my face. She told me not to move, not to make a sound. Later someone came close, and she pressed my head against her chest.”

Your fingers loosened a little on the bars.

“She saw my eyes,” Scylla said, looking at you. “She said, ‘You have your mother’s eyes.’”

Silence — a silence so deep that time itself seemed to freeze. Water dripped, drop after drop, onto the stone floor.

You opened your eyes.

In the torchlight, Scylla’s face was so pale it was almost transparent.

“She kept me hidden under her. After the bandits left, she could hardly speak any more, but she kept on murmuring, telling me to live.”

Slowly, Scylla let the words out one after another, as if speaking to you, and as if speaking to herself.

“I covered her eyes with my hand and told her… don’t be afraid. Your soul will go home to Nehalennia’s arms.”

“Stop.”

“The last thing she said,” Scylla said, looking at you, “was: don’t go back to Rome.”

The flame burned. People say that all the fires of Rome are children of the great undying flame in the Temple of Vesta.

They leap out of that mother flame, and burn, and burn, towards somewhere very, very far away, never stopping.

You knew. You knew all of it.

Don’t go back to Rome.

Little wave.

Because Rome took your mother away.

You knew all of it: that beach, that cave in the rocks, your fingertips stopping on that line of words.

Vade ubi Roma non est, parva unda.

Go, my little wave. Go where there is no Rome.

It was not a line from the sisters’ game.

Nor was it the farewell of a ten-year-old Vestal before she left home.

It belonged to many years later — to a certain night when Claudia ran after them to the shore. She saw the North Sea women carry away the abandoned child, and she made no sound, and did not step out.

Perhaps after they had gone, she came to this cave, the sticky sweetness of milk and the smell of blood still on her hands, wearing a white robe that was not a mother’s. In the dark she set the point of her knife against the rock and, in her neatest hand, carved those words.

Your hand moved over that patch of rock, over the grooves, over those years. They had been there a long, long time.

And right beside it, there was one more crooked line.

The long years had brought in waves and seaweed, and buried that line, and drowned it. Perhaps even Claudia had never come back to see it.

Tu ignem custodi, ego undam tuam servabo.

You keep the flame. I will keep your little wave.

She knew. She had known everything. But she asked nothing, and said nothing.

That day, you heard the tide outside the cave striking the shore again and again, like someone knocking at a door from far away. You laid your palm over your mother’s last crooked words, then slowly moved it to Claudia’s small, neat carving.

They were very close, and very far apart.

As if the writing of two women were holding hands across the years.

You held on to the bars. The rust on them softened under your palm, and the damp clung to your skin.

Scylla was looking at you — as if through you, at something deeper and further away, something no words could describe, as if… an ancient flame that would burn on to the very end of human time.

You told her everything. All the words crowded in your chest came out in one breath.

“Sifra, you were never abandoned. When Claudia gave you to the waves, my mother was waiting on the shore with her arms open.

“She was always watching you. She watched you become Amazonia’s child. She watched you come back to Rome like Achillia, covered in blood.

“You were not her enemy. You were the blood of the person she loved most — the most precious secret of her whole life, the one she kept until her last breath.”

You wanted to hold her hand. You wanted to walk back across time and tell her all of it, every part of it.

Claudia.

Your mother.

Amazonia.

Achillia.

Sifra.

And you.

Your fates were so tangled together that no single thread could be pulled free, and no one could escape alone.

You were almost crying out, almost begging, through that iron door, through that fire. Scylla said nothing. She only watched you quietly and listened to the very end.

“Tell me, sister — what can I do for you?”

That was your last question.

Scylla looked at you, and her eyes changed.

She was no longer looking at you. She was looking past you, into the depths of the passage, where the torchlight did not reach.

You turned, and for the first time you realised that someone was standing there in the shadow of the stone wall. The edge of a sword showed beneath a cloak, catching the torchlight, bright as a thread of held-down fire.

Scylla nearly tore free of her chains, putting herself between you and that figure through the bars.

“Put down the sword.”

She growled at them.

5.3 The Eve of the Sacred Flame

Another bright summer day. Another Vestalia.

This is where the story begins.

The glory of Rome will live forever in the sacred flame — so the priests said.

In the round arena, waves of noise rose one on top of another. The smell of blood steamed up in the fierce sun, mixed with sweat, grease, dust and wine, and crept into every crack in the stone.

The smell made people’s throats burn. The shouting rolled down from the common seats, crashed into the senators’ seats, crashed into the priests’ seats, and then against the emperor’s purple canopy.

The emperor Trajan sat high above, representing this vast empire, watching a gladiatrix die.

Now Scylla was standing in the middle of the sand.

She was the murderer of a Roman hero.

She was a warrior of the North Sea barbarians.

She was a follower of the foreign goddess Nehalennia.

She was a gladiator sentenced to nine days of combat in a row.

Death — or death dragged out a little longer. Today was only the first day. After it, there were eight more. This was the beginning of the story, and it would also be the end.

Some shouted the name of the legate Marcus.

Some shouted the name of the sea monster.

Some shouted Amazonia and Achillia.

Old names, new crimes, the will of the gods, revenge, the glory of the empire — at this moment, they were all stirred into the same sand, the same roar.

Scylla stood at the very centre of that whirlpool, sword point down, shield close to her body. The sun lit her eyes, and that sea-grey came through the heat and landed on your face.

She struck her shield with the flat of her sword.

The first blow, louder than the curses nearby.

The second, like iron striking the side of a ship.

When the third fell, a small patch of the crowd actually went quiet.

She did not salute the emperor’s box. She did not bow her head to the senators. She only stood in the centre of the arena and let her eyes move slowly around the stands.

Then she saw you.

Those eyes came through the heat, the dust, the cheering and the old shadows of more than ten years, and stopped on your face.

Because she was still alive.

Because Claudia’s hand had not yet risen.

A whole city was waiting for one hand.

The gamblers in the lowest seats were waiting for it. The careful faces in the senators’ seats were waiting for it. Marcus’s family was waiting for it. The eyes beneath the emperor’s canopy were waiting for it too. If that hand rose, it was the Vestal’s judgement. If it fell, the will of the gods had chosen its direction.

That hand, which had saved you in court, and which years ago had put Amazonia and Achillia to death, now lay folded on the pleats of her robe, the knuckles pale, blue veins lying under the skin.

Last night, that hand had held a sword.

You closed your eyes. It was only a passing thought, and the smoke of the dungeon torches rushed back into your nose.

“Put down the sword!”

As Scylla shouted, you turned and saw the figure at the end of the passage.

It was no one else. It was Claudia.

She was not wearing her white robe, only ordinary clothes with a cloak over them. Perhaps she had been afraid of blood splashing on that holy white. She held a short sword in her hand, drawn from its sheath.

You saw the sword first.

Only afterwards did you understand that she had been following you all along.

She knew that, behind her back, you had gone through the old accounts of Marcus’s family. She knew you had found the evidence: the stolen supplies, the rotten grain that caused the mutiny, the forged army reports. She also knew you meant to appeal to the emperor — to put Scylla before the emperor’s council and have Trajan hear the case himself.

You had once been glad that your plan had slipped past her eyes. How could it have? She was the cleverest woman in all of Rome. Your mother had said so once: no little trick could ever escape her eyes.

She understood better than anyone that what you were doing would open up everything that had been sealed away.

“Claudia…”

You saw her eyes — eyes so like Scylla’s.

When that time came, Marcus’s desertion would be raised again, and the lies of the House of Claudius would be torn open. But something deeper would come to light as well:

Those sea-grey eyes. That birth twenty-six years ago. The deaths of Amazonia and Achillia. The hand Claudia had once held out.

The words Marcus had not finished before he died — someone would finish them for him.

Claudia held the sword and stood in the shadow of the dungeon. She did not explain herself to you, or to Scylla.

The sword was her explanation.

Scylla looked at her.

She did not step back.

You moved one step in front of the bars.

“Aunt.”

Claudia’s eyes went past you and settled on Scylla’s face. There was none of her old steadiness in that look. The torchlight wavered in her eyes, like water when a pebble is dropped into it.

She said, “I heard.”

The dungeon went quiet.

Scylla’s fingers moved, and the chain knocked lightly against the bars.

Claudia walked forward, one step, and another. The sword was still in her hand.

“She saw your eyes,” Claudia said.

Scylla did not answer.

“She knew.”

After these words, Claudia’s fingers opened. The short sword dropped and struck the floor, and the sound travelled far down the passage.

She reached out and took hold of the bars.

“I killed them,” she said.

Scylla looked at her.

“I know.”

“Amazonia… Achillia.” Claudia said the two names as if at last coughing up a bone that had been buried in her throat. “They carried you away and raised you. And I held out my hand in the arena and let the people believe the gods wanted them executed.”

“I know.”

“I was the one who closed the carriage window and let my attendants drag you away.”

“I know.”

You looked at the side of Claudia’s face and suddenly remembered how, when she told that story in the temple, she had not looked at you either — as if, as long as she did not see the listener, she could still treat it all as some old rumour.

But Scylla was right in front of her.

And so were those eyes.

Claudia said, “My sister hid you under her body.”

Scylla’s hands slowly clenched, and the chain gave a small sound.

“She was always like that,” Claudia said. “When we were small, if her carving came out crooked, she’d say the rock wasn’t flat. If someone cried, she’d be the first to run over. Once she saw a child fall into the water, and though she hadn’t learned to swim yet, she jumped in after it.”

She stopped. A long time later, she went on: “But she was far, far braver than I was.”

You stood to one side and said nothing.

The dungeon’s firelight was low and did not reach the depths of the passage. You thought of the words in the sea cave: You keep the flame. I will keep your little wave.

Claudia held the bars, the blue veins on the backs of her hands faintly visible in the firelight.

“Tomorrow I will sit in the Vestals’ box,” she said. “I will raise my hand.”

She did not look at you, and she did not look at the sword on the ground. She said these words very calmly, as if arranging the order of a rite: when to enter, when to rise, when to let the gesture fall before the eyes of tens of thousands.

“They will stop,” Claudia said. “At least for that moment, they will stop.”

Scylla stood up. The chain dragged out of the straw, rough and loud. She came to the bars and stood an arm’s length from Claudia.

“Don’t raise your hand.”

Claudia’s fingers were still round the bars.

“I can.”

“That isn’t meant for me.”

At last Claudia looked at her.

“It’s the last thing I can still do.”

Scylla shook her head — a very small movement, very small.

“I had mothers,” Scylla said. “Two.”

She paused.

“And a woman who, under a mountain road, pressed me down into her blood and told me I had my mother’s eyes.”

Scylla’s voice was very soft, very soft.

“And twelve years later, I saved her daughter.” She paused, then lowered her head. “That’s enough.”

Drops of water ran one by one down the dungeon wall, like a small ocean current. The torch burned quietly in the air, like a faint sacred flame.

Claudia looked at her. In those sea-grey eyes there were no tears, no pleading — nothing at all.

“And you are Rome’s Chief Vestal.”

She said to Claudia.

“You never gave birth to any child,” she said. “And you should reach out your hand for no one.”

She stepped forward once more, the chain dragging roughly over the floor. She reached through the bars and took Claudia’s wrist.

She looked at Claudia’s hand, at the spot of rust spreading on the white skin.

“Don’t watch too long tomorrow.”

She said it softly.

Claudia’s throat moved.

Scylla bent her head and kissed her hand.

It was so light it hardly seemed like a kiss — more like laying her lips there to make sure this hand really was warm. No name for her, no claiming her, no asking.

The spot of rust her lips had touched stayed where it was.

Claudia did not pull her hand away.

They stood like that for a moment, the bars between them, until from far outside the dungeon came the sound of drums, as if someone were testing the drums for the opening of the games. A heavy sound. Once. And again.

In the end, it was Scylla who let go first.

The chain dropped back into the straw. She went back to the wall, leaned against the stone, and sank into the dark.

Claudia looked down at her own hand.

There was no wound. Only a faint smear of rust.

She did not wipe it off.

She bent down, picked up the sword from the floor, and slid it back into its sheath. The sound of the blade going home was short, half of it covered by the dripping water. She walked all the way to the mouth of the passage. There she stopped for an instant, as if one more sentence had fallen behind her.

Scylla did not look up.

Claudia did not turn round.

And that moment simply melted into the long dark.

Then she walked on, her footsteps fading down the stone passage, until at last they blended with the drums on the eve of the Vestalia.

You stood outside the bars. The wax seal in your palm had been crushed out of shape. In the dungeon there was only the torch, the straw mat, the chains, and the woman sitting by the wall.

No one spoke of the appeal again.

5.4 The Salute of the Ninth Day

In the instant the arena froze, every eye was fixed here.

Claudia’s hand did not rise.

One moment.

Two.

The arena went quiet, just for a breath, as if tens of thousands had all held their breath at once. The sparks in the braziers dimmed, then brightened again in the light wind. You sat beside her and saw her hand still resting on her knee — pale, clean, not moved by a hair.

Last night, Scylla had kissed it.

Today, it belonged to Vesta.

The herald quickly caught the pause. He raised his staff, and his voice spread round the curved stone walls:

“The first day — begin!”

Behind the iron gate, the chains suddenly pulled tight.

Then the beast cage was pushed out onto the sand. Wooden wheels ground across the ground with a heavy sound. From inside the cage came a low roar, and the screech of claws scraping iron plate.

The crowd went up like sparks catching — like the tide, like waves, rising all at once. Red wine spilled over the stone steps. White garlands were thrown down, and fell onto the arena with the copper coins and broken pottery.

The noise came down from the sky.

“Sea monster!”

“Murderer!”

“Pay with your life for Marcus!”

“Nine days! Nine days!”

Some shouted Amazonia and Achillia too. The crowd twisted those ancient names out of shape, like old bones thrown back into the fire.

Scylla did not look up to find where the voices came from.

She walked to the centre of the arena, turned, and raised her sword and shield to show herself to the whole Colosseum.

It was what a gladiator was supposed to do.

She did it completely.

Sword point to the sky, shield face outward, her body turning half a circle. Letting everyone see that she was still standing, that Rome had not broken her yet. Next, she should have turned to the emperor’s box, to the Senate, to the people who held life and death and the records in their hands.

She did not.

She passed over the purple canopy.

She passed over the senators’ seats.

She passed over the place where Marcus’s family sat.

The noise in the stands went on. The crowd had not yet understood this small wrong turn. The herald held his wax tablet, his lips parted, but he did not shout a correction at once.

Then Scylla turned towards the two of you.

First, Claudia.

Those sea-grey eyes rested for a moment in front of the white robe. No accusation, no pleading. They only stayed there, like the tide rushing up to a rock, holding it for a moment, and then drawing back into the sea.

Claudia’s hand was still on her knee.

You saw her fingertips press down slightly, and then loosen.

Next, Scylla’s gaze moved to your face.

Suddenly you remembered so many pieces — the pieces that had made up your life: below the arena, under the torches, when she said your eyes were like someone she once knew; at the gladiator school, when she asked where your sea was; on the road, when she told you about the wind and fog of the North Sea; in the tent, when she took the blade meant for you; in the dungeon, when she told you your mother had pressed her down under her blood and told her not to make a sound.

Now she stood in the sunlight.

You sat in the stands.

Between you lay the sand, the bars, the verdict, the dead, and the whole of Rome.

But when she looked at you, all the shouting around seemed to draw back far away. There was only the metal gleam on the hilt of her sword, the footprints on the sand, and the strand of red cord at the end of her hair — the one thing she had ever asked of you.

Like the red cord her mother had woven for her other mother, she had said she wanted to carry your blessing with her, back into the sea.

Then Scylla lowered her shield, her sword hanging at her side.

Then she bowed deeply to you.

Not to the emperor.

Not to the Vestal.

Not to Rome.

Only to you.

Her Latin was far clearer than when you first met. Every word flew across the sand and landed in front of the stands.

“I, who am about to die, salute you.”

At last the crowd understood the ritual words, and the cheering exploded. Some thought it was part of the show, some thought it was a challenge, and some were simply excited to hear death announce itself.

You did not move.

Neither did Claudia.

Scylla straightened up and turned back to the centre of the arena. On the other side of the iron gate, the chains of the beast cage began to move. The first day’s fight was about to begin. Sunlight fell on the sand and lit up the few crushed petals by her feet.

She did not look back again.

You watched her raise her sword.

The horns sounded.

Rome began to cheer.