I bit my cheek to keep from dissolving into gales of laughter as she sat back down, leaving the poor boy standing there, looking for all the world as if he’d been shot, not with Cupid the love god’s arrow but Diana the Huntress’s. A whole quiverful of them.
Before the others could tear him to further pieces with mockery, Quint ducked his head and pushed his way out of the tent. Cai followed. I waited for as long as I could stand it, then hugged my sister, hefted an empty basket up onto my shoulder to help hide my face, and ducked out of the tent myself. No one looked at me twice as I shouldered my way through the crowds, following the crests of Cai’s and Quint’s helmets. No one was looking for Victrix in the body of a lowly serving slave. Once we reached the outer perimeter of the crowd, I ditched the basket and the three of us broke into a run, heading in the direction of a road that circled off to the east, leading to the opulent villas on the other side of Lake Sabatinus.
? ? ?
When we arrived at the gates of one particularly sprawling estate, the bulky-muscled eunuch who’d been called to deal with us had been aghast at granting me an audience with Cleopatra. I was fortunate that Sorcha’s name carried far more weight than mine. I told him what our situation was—as succinctly as possible—and the Aegyptian queen’s chief bodyguard grunted and grumbled but finally led us to a triclinium, where we were to wait for her Royal Highness.
As the skies began to grow dark I started to fret that my plan would unravel if we didn’t see her soon. And then the far gilded doors flew open and Cleopatra came striding across the marble floor, golden-beaded sandals slapping a war tattoo as she came. Cleopatra, it seemed, was itching for a healthy dose of vengeance in Sorcha’s name.
“Dead, they told me!” she exclaimed angrily. “When I sent my maids calling at the ludus for your sister to come visit me. Dead in an uprising and at your hand, little one.”
“But you didn’t believe them?” Cai asked deferentially.
She laughed and threw herself down upon a gilded couch, motioning for us all to sit. “Take it from one who has—and on more than one occasion—actually tried to murder her sister. Not for a second.” She turned to me. “There is nothing of that in you. I know how much you love Sorcha. I’m almost as fond myself. And therefore, anything you ask of me, on her behalf, you may have.”
“A boat, Your Highness,” I said, perching anxiously on the edge of a carved ebony chair. “That’s all. Just a boat to get us across the lake unnoticed.”
“A stealthy attack?” the queen said, leaning forward on her couch and swinging her sandaled feet back down to the floor. “But there are only three of you.”
“There are more of us, inside the ludus.” I told her of the gladiatix sisters I’d left behind. And of the Amazons that Charon had “sold” to the ludus. “All we have to do is get to them and set them free.”
“That sounds exciting!” Cleopatra’s wide dark eyes glittered dangerously. “Of course you can have the use of my boats. Take my barge if you’d like. And my men—there aren’t many of them, and they’re mostly fat and lazy like Sennefer here.” She waved a hand at her eunuch bodyguard. “But I approve in Caesar’s name of this adventure.”
“Well . . . less an adventure, perhaps, than a dangerous folly,” I allowed.
“Perhaps I shall come with you—”
“Absolutely not!” the eunuch erupted in argument, his face going purple.
Cleopatra rolled her eyes. “Sennefer has no sense of adventure.”
Perhaps not, I thought, but I was glad of it. While I suspected—from what I’d heard from several sources, including Caesar himself—that Cleopatra was likely more than capable of killing an enemy with poison or an unexpected knife in the back at a dinner party, I had no relish of the prospect of utilizing her lethal charms that night. What was to come would be chaotic and dangerous . . . and dirty. Quite frankly, if I could have killed Nyx without having to look her in the eyes first, I would take that opportunity, because I knew that, under the same circumstances, she certainly wouldn’t do me the courtesy of a tap on the shoulder first.
But that was my business. Not the queen’s.
At any rate, Cleopatra relented almost immediately with a shrug.
“He does, however,” she continued, “have a point. I am the daughter of the gods and, as such, should probably leave such robust bloodshed to you who are trained in those arts.”
I bowed low and stood, so that we could be on our way swiftly.
“Wait.” Cleopatra stopped me before I could leave. “You’re not planning on going out dressed like that, are you?”
“Uh . . .” I looked down at the plain linen tunic and sandals I wore. “I gave my armor to Sorcha so she could fight in my place.”
“Well.” The queen wrinkled her nose. “That will never do. Sennefer, fetch.”
Sennefer rolled his eyes, but seemed to know what his mistress was talking of, even if I didn’t. He left the room by a side door painted with scenes of a royal hunting party. The wooden trunk with which he returned, when he opened it at my feet, was full of a sight to make my warrior’s heart soar with longing and delight.
Armor. Glorious armor. Fit for a queen. Or a Cantii princess.
“I have, on occasion, bestowed gifts on your sister,” Cleopatra said, clearly delighted by my reaction. “But this time, I have something for you, Fallon ferch Virico. It was to be a gift—for your first arena fight under the Nova Ludus Achillea banner. Which, I suppose, technically this is. Or will be—if you win. So please do. I hate wasting presents.”
As Cai and Quint helped buckle me into the new gear, Cleopatra had one more gift for me.
“Truly, I am sorry that you and my dear Sorcha have found yourselves entangled in the webs woven to ensare Caesar,” she said, as she rose and walked over to a coffer-like jewelry box resting on a table in a corner of the room. It was almost as big as the trunk in my cell at the ludus—the one that held everything I owned of value. “And I know,” she continued, “that were he here, my lord would be both proud and grateful to you, Fallon. Since he is not here, allow me to act in his stead.” She rummaged for a moment, and emerged with a silver and faience pendant—the elegant head of a lioness. “This,” she said, smiling, “is Sekhemet. One of my goddesses, and much like—if I understand what your sister has told me—your own goddess, the Morrigan.”
The queen fastened the necklace around my neck, and I could feel the cool silver warming almost instantly against my skin as I tucked it beneath my new armor.
“She was an adversary to Anubis, who is akin to Dis,” she continued. “She is wise and loving and tender . . . and merciless.”
I looked into Cleopatra’s eyes and saw a dark, implacable glint in her gaze.
“Now,” she said with a terrifying smile, “go get the bastards.”
? ? ?
Sennefer escorted us down to the lake dock.
“You cannot have her barge,” he said.
“I don’t need the barge,” I agreed.
“And you cannot have her soldiers.”