And I ran.
Like an acrobat, arms wide, feet curving around the pole to grip with each fleeting step, I held my breath and ran the length of the spar and—as the mast finally toppled—I leaped out over the water in a swan dive, just like I used to do back home from the cliffs above the River Dwr. The world went from bright sunlight to chill darkness in a moment as I hit the water with a splash.
When I surfaced again, sputtering, it was to see the rail lined with Achillea fighters, all peering down at me in astonishment.
“What in Hel’s name was that lunatic trying to prove?” Elka shouted over the roaring of the spectators, gesticulating at the chaos caused by the fallen mast.
“Never mind!” I shouted back. “Grab their flag!”
I could see where the Amazona flag had been left unattended at the bow of the other ship when the gladiatrices scattered.
“The flag!”
Maybe I was a bit single-minded in my desire to win, but I was suddenly feeling awfully motivated to thwart the ambitions of whoever had given Leander his purse of coins. Elka looked at me like I was crazy, but she spun and was already running for the banner before the Amazona team knew what she was doing. She hurdled the space between the boats, hailed Meriel as she swept up the flag on its pole and threw it like it was her spear, back over to our side for Meriel to catch. Shouts of outrage and cries of victory burst forth from the Queen of Aegypt’s barge as I scaled the rope ladder thrown down to me and staggered over to where Tanis still lay sprawled on the deck.
“Come on,” I said, and held out a hand to help her stand.
She hobbled with me to the bow of our ship, and, in full view of the elite entourage across the waves, together we threw up our fists in triumph. A cacophony of cheers rolled like thunder across the water, and I felt a bit ridiculous, even as my chest was heaving with exertion and I felt myself grinning madly. We’d been play-acting. Not fighting. This was not what being a gladiatrix was about. Not what I had traded my freedom to achieve.
And yet, it was . . . something. Something just a little bit extraordinary.
It was fun.
II
THE MERRIMENT WAS contagious. Well, among the Achillea crew, at any rate. The Amazona girls were uniformly sullen. It seemed they took things very seriously in their ludus. Of course, when I thought about who owned the Ludus Amazona, that wasn’t at all surprising. Defeat, I didn’t doubt, bore consequences in Pontius Aquila’s academy.
I might have felt a twinge of sympathy for them but, to be honest, in that moment, I couldn’t have cared less. My friends and I were victorious, and that was all that mattered.
Over on the queen’s barge, the spectators lobbed sheaves of flowers out over the water. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Elka grinning past me at Ajani. Then suddenly—and for the third time that afternoon—I found myself plunging over the side of the boat and into the water below.
I surfaced in time to see Damya, our fearsome Phoenician fighter, pick Elka up and heave her over the side. Then Meriel. Then Damya leaped over the side herself, warbling a joyful war cry and sending up an enormous splash. Others followed until the waters of Lake Sabatinus began to resemble the mosaics on the bathhouse wall of the ludus, replete with frolicking nymphs.
“Victrix!” One young patrician shouted at me from the deck of the barge, leaning far out over the water with a jewel-set goblet sloshing over with drink. “A cup for your bravery!”
I swam beneath his outstretched arm and reached for the cup, but he yanked it out of my grasp and leaned further out over me, a lascivious grin on his face.
“Uh!” he said, licking his lips. “After a kiss for your beauty!”
“Beauty doesn’t win battles, sir.” I smiled up at him sweetly. “But strong legs and a fearless heart can overcome a wobbling mast-pole.” With that, I snatched the cup from his hands and drank the wine in one gulp.
His grin froze on his face, and his friends howled with drunken laughter.
I swam back toward the rest of the girls, and the expression on Elka’s face told me she’d heard the exchange. My actual stunt with the wobbling mast-pole, she apparently found far less amusing.
“You know, you could have been killed when that sail fell,” she said.
I shook the wet hair back off my face and nodded. “I know,” I said. “But Tanis probably would have been, if I hadn’t helped her.”
Ajani swam up to tread water in front of us. “That’s the kind of help that gets you hauled out of the arena facedown by hooks,” she said. “Elka’s right. You could have let her fend for herself.”
“I could have. But I decided not to.” I grinned, unwilling to let their scolding mute my good mood. “And that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”
“What?” Elka asked.
“The right to decide for ourselves!” I splashed a handful of water at her. “As soon as Achillea receives the deed to the ludus from Caesar, we’re free!”
“You’re not, little fox,” Elka reminded me. “That was the idiotic deal you made.”
“Shush. Be kind,” Ajani admonished. “I for one am glad of her idiocy.”
“See?” I said. “And at least I’m more free than I was. More free than they are.” I nodded at the Amazona boat deck, where our adversaries still stood, sulky and defeated. “And I intend to make the most of that.”
We paddled languidly back and forth in front of the pleasure barge for a while longer. The revelers poured down wine and tossed sweets to us, and Sorcha indulged the revelry for longer than I thought she would. Finally, with a signal blast from a conch shell, we made our way back to the ludus shore. The naumachia certainly hadn’t gone as planned, but it had managed to fulfill its purpose of entertaining a barge-load of high-society butterflies.