An Inn, The Naumacha District, Roma Mater
Vitellix was singing, his voice booming through the low-ceilinged room. It was a clear, beautiful voice, particularly with its edges smoothed by a great quantity of good beer. The clamor of the crowd in the caupona did not dissuade him. Both citizens and travelers were packed into the underground room, drinking and singing themselves. The smoky air was filled with many cheerful voices.
The Gaul's voice faded away, and he raised a cup high. "Let the Many-Handed hear our prayer and look upon our sacrifice with joy," he said, draining the cup.
Dummonus, Otho and Franco raised their own flagons and drank. Diana, squeezed in between Ila and the aerialist, sipped at hers. The wheaten beer was heavy and dark. She liked it very much, finding it soothed the throat and added to a pleasant sense of well-being.
Vitellix ended their day early, calling a halt to their unceasing practice. Diana hadn't paid attention to the gossip, but she gathered that the urban prefects had allowed artists and performers to use the theaters of Pompey and Marcellus to prepare for the upcoming munera. No date had been set for the funeral games, races and performances to begin, but an electric tension was palpable in the air. The diverse troupes that had been loitering in the countryside, observing the word of the Emperor's edict that "lest they debauch women and stir up tumults, disturbing the unquiet dead, they are banished from the city of Rome until such time as given leave to return," had entered the city in a flood.
Diana snorted in her beer, thinking of the previous "secret" traffic of the lanistae and their performers into and out of the city. No one had paid the Emperor great heed. She was pleased to work on a proper wire at last. The Pompeian Theater was equipped with a suspended harness and ring system that lowered from a crane atop the backdrop. With it, she could soar out high over the empty white seats, flipping and rolling at the end of the wire. Dummonus had begun teaching her how to use her muscles and strength to perform amazing feats. The weakness in her limbs was being driven out by hard work. Her leg and arm had healed up straight, too.
She leaned back into the wall, closing her eyes, one arm tucked around little Ila, pleasantly aware of the warmth of Dummonus' thigh next to her own.
"Let's play a game," Otho was saying to his brother. Vitellix groaned in despair. "It goes like this," the acrobat continued, ignoring his father. "One man asks questions, while the others must answer without saying the words yes, no, black, or white. Simple, yes?"
Franco laughed, saying, "I think not. Are you going to begin?"
"This cup, what color is it?" Otho was holding up a Crotonese-style ceramic wine cup, white with a blue band around the lip.
"I'd say it had a light color." Franco grinned.
"Ha! You've lost! You said it was white!"
"Never. It is light."
"I'm sure you're saying white."
"You'll have a light eye if you keep this up."
"Will I? You'll have a black eye to match mine. Hey, is that Numismatix?"
Franco looked over his shoulder. A gang of burly gladiators were pouring down the steps into the inn, bodies gleaming with fresh oil. Most of them were wearing only cotton loincloths and banded leather belts. The noise level in the inn rose appreciably. The men waved to the proprietor for wine and began pushing people out of their seats near the middle of the room. The innkeeper bobbed nervously at them, then began hastily filling wine cups from wide-mouthed amphorae built into his counter.
"No, that's not… Curse you! You're a fine brother!"
Otho laughed like a donkey braying and Diana closed her eyes and put her fingers in her ears to try and block out the sound. Ila turned into her shoulder, covering her head with her hands. Franco, infected by his brother's good humor, started to laugh as well. Luckily, the room was so loud that you couldn't hear him. Vitellix grinned, trying to catch Diana's eye.
She had gone quite still. With her eyes closed, she felt something, some sensation in the room. There was a cold feeling on her neck and arms. With all of the raucous merriment and the distractions afforded by sight, it was almost disguised.
Someone is watching us. The thought was unbidden, but once it had broached the water of memory, it was unmistakable. Diana swung Ila into her lap and then switched places with her.
"Hide under the table, little mouse," she whispered in the girl's ear. Ila looked up quickly, her face screwed into a mask of concern. Dummonus was also looking at Diana, his placid face questioning.
One of the gladiators pushed over a man sitting in a chair. The man jumped up, shouting. He was a drover, thick bodied with rugged features and arms stout as axles. The gladiators sneered at him and his friends, turning their backs on the rage percolating through the wagonmen. Diana stepped away from the table against the wall, motioning to Vitellix. The troupe master half rose, his face concerned, while Diana's eyes flicked across the crowd in the room. There were too many people in too small a space now. She felt hemmed in, trapped. It would be difficult even to reach the stairs going up to the street.
"Oh," came a voice, sharply clear in the angry murmur of the room. "Are you girls bleeding today?"
The gladiators gave out a great angry cry and spun on the wagoners. Diana watched, detached from the violent movement in the room, as the lead gladiator snatched up a wicker chair and swung it, hard, at the nearest drover. The burly man was already swinging his fist, which punched through the bottom of the chair and slammed into the gladiator's chin. The oiled man's head snapped backwards at the blow, sweat flying away from his nose, and he fell heavily to the grimy floor.
Diana was in motion a grain ahead of everyone else. A heavy pottery mug whipped through the air and her hand rose, fingertips flipping it away to shatter against the wall. Men surged against her, some rushing the doorway to escape the riot, others striking out at anything around them. Three men scrambled up from their table. A body flew into them and they all hit the ground hard in a tangle of arms and legs. Diana turned sideways and let them fall past.
A hot eager fire wicked up in her breast as she ducked a flying wooden platter. With each motion, as she spun and danced, evading blows, limbs, bodies, thrown chairs and splintering amphorae, the fire mounted, hissing in her veins and making her head throb. This was not the usual gray pain. This felt good!
She glanced sideways and felt a stab of relief. Vitellix and the others had turned their table over and crouched behind it while wine bottles smashed on the wall and men punched and kicked, gouging at one another's eyes on the ground. The old Gaul caught her eye and pointed desperately at the door. With Dummonus holding up the rear legs of the table, they were edging along the wall, using it as a shield. Perhaps they could make the stairs that way. Diana leapt across the space between them.
Something swift slammed into her shoulder, cracking against the bone. She spun. Two men rushed forward out of the mob. One of them spun a heavy hand-sized bag from the end of a leather thong. Diana knew instantly what it was, and what they were.
Slavers! Man catchers, with a sap and a net.
That was enough. The black-bearded man flung a net with a practiced hand. It whispered out, the edges dragged wide by lead weights. The smaller, pox-faced man ducked left, avoiding the flight of the net. He whirled his sap high, waiting for her to be tangled. Diana was moving too, hitting the floor with her hands flat, taking the weight of her body on her biceps. The net whispered overhead. Diana spun hard, her legs arrowing out.
The bearded man was still moving forward, trying to crash into her and bear her down. The side of her spinning foot cracked into his kneecap. Sadly, she was not wearing heavy boots, only sandals. He staggered, clutching at his knee. Diana rolled up, legs coming under her.
Pockmark swung at her right-handed, face contorted by rage. The sap breezed by her head as she leaned to the side, coming up off the floor. Silence swallowed the room, the noise of the riot and the mob drowned out by a rushing hiss. She caught Pockmark's wrist, then wrenched down and away, in line with the movement of his body. It seemed right and natural that his elbow would bend back against the joint, that his mouth should open in a cry of agonized pain, that her left elbow should swing around, hard and pointed, to drive into his shoulder.
Sound resumed with a roar and a crash of splintering wood as a table flew across the bar and into wicker shelving. The proprietor ducked behind the countertop. Pockmark screamed, his voice high and thready, as Diana's motion snapped his elbow and then popped his arm from the shoulder joint. The rest of his motion threw him headfirst into the plaster wall where Ila had once been sitting. There was a wet sound as his face jammed into the bricks.
Diana spun back, left arm up in guard across her face, in time to see Blackbeard lunge with a knife. He was limping, his body turned to favor his injured knee. Diana drifted to his empty hand, her motion becoming languid. Everyone in the room clawed through tar, though she felt exhilaratingly light. She caught Blackbeard's thumb and bent it back with her left hand. The knife flew away, skittering across the floor, and she twisted her upper body into the blow, smashing the man's hand into his nose.
Blood gouted and she punched him in the throat with her right hand, fingers stiff and pointed. Cartilage and muscle cracked under her fist and Blackbeard's eyes widened in horror. Blood bubbled out of a crushed nose and he fought for breath. Diana pushed him away, turning, her face a mask of calm. A chair flew at her and she caught it by one of the legs.
The gladiators had cleared a space at the middle of the room, leaving the floor littered with moaning bodies. Those few drovers who remained standing were fighting with the press at the stairs, trying to escape. The floor was littered with broken pottery and wood and unconscious men and women. The leader of the oiled men turned towards Diana, eyes slitted. He was a tall, bronze skinned African, with high cheekbones and slick black hair.
"This must be her," he said, jerking his head. Two of his fellows turned as well, their faces lighting with interest. "A delightful morsel for our supper."
The other gladiators were dragging the innkeeper out of his poor shelter.
There was a loud crash as the door gave way and the crowd poured out into the street. Most of them were screaming, nearly crushed by their fellows. Diana could not spare a glance to see if Vitellix and the others had escaped. The three gladiators fanned out, moving across the low-ceilinged room towards her. The leader tossed a glass bottle over the bar.
Diana hefted the chair, vision narrowing to encompass the three men. The leader had stopped, drawing on a pair of boxer's spiked gloves. He was smiling at her as he tied the leather straps. The other two men glided across the floor, stepping easily over bodies and debris. The one to her right was wearing a scaled corselet at his shoulder, bound across his powerful body with leather straps. His head was a polished dark mahogany. The one to her left was pale, with thinning blond hair and arms like tree trunks. His skin, too, gleamed with oil, and his forearms were covered with sleeves of iron fish-scale mesh.
Wrestlers, she thought idly, watching them come. Professionals.
Voices whispered in her mind, sounding almost as if they spoke from the air around her.
When you cannot maneuver, you must kill. That was a lilting voice. On difficult ground, press on; on encircled ground, devise stratagems; on desperate ground… kill.
Diana breathed, centering herself, letting breath fill her, concentrating on a point just below her diaphragm. Her eyes lost focus and she shifted her feet, letting the sensation of the floor flow up through the thin soles of her sandals. She tossed the chair to one side. She seemed to have forgotten the two gladiators. The blond man laughed and strode up to her on the left, scarred knuckles clenching into a fist. Behind him, the leader looked up from the last of his laces and suddenly frowned. "Attalus, don't-"
Diana exploded into motion, even as the man's fist whipped short-handed towards her stomach. She didn't try to stop his blow; the scaled mail protected his arm and elbow. Instead, she spun outside his strike, which drove past with crippling power, and smashed an elbow into the side of his head. The blow rocked Attalus, throwing him back, blood smearing his ear, into the path of the black gladiator. They collided and Diana shouted, a deep, coughing sound, left leg lashing out in a high kick as she finished her turn. The black gladiator threw Attalus to the side just as Diana's heel intersected with his throat. There was a pulpy sound and then Attalus fell, choking.
The black man drove in, fists blurring in the air. Diana caught one blow on the muscle of her shoulder as she turned. The shock staggered her. Her left hand slapped down, catching the second punch on the inside of the man's wrist, deflecting it. He threw his forehead at her, and she had to wrench back, leaning backwards nearly double. The stench of garlic on his breath made her eyes smart. He jumped back, and Diana sprang backwards onto her hands, her toes brushing the roof as she contorted into a half-twist, and then was standing again, in guard, facing him.
"Well struck!" the boxer cried, shaking out his arms and watching with interest. "Watch her legs, Mithridates, she's got a powerful length of thigh there!"
Mithridates circled to the right, his fists up, leading with his left foot. Diana circled as well, though she remained unfocused, waiting for the boxer to join the fray. He did not. The Numidian was watching her, waiting for her guard to drop. He seemed tentative, so Diana waited until she was again facing both men. The blood fire was running hot in her too, and she began to feel a furious anger welling up. These men had tried to hurt her, hurt her friends. Without knowing it, her face contorted in a ferocious snarl. Mithridates' eyes widened, then he danced in, feinting with his right.
He was very fast, much faster than Attalus, who was choking to death on the floor. Diana jerked away from the feint, then had to spring back violently as he followed with his left. His knuckles grazed her side, then she had to block hard with her forearm as his right fist plowed in, trying to knock her out. Diana screamed kiiii at the top of her lungs, then jumped up, snapping her left foot out. The gladiator dodged, but she clipped his chin and he rocked back. Furious, she plowed into him, slamming her right forearm into his face. The man blocked with his fist, but the force of her blow drove his hand into his chest.
She punched him in the diaphragm with her left fist, but he grunted, turning and catching the blow on muscle. He kicked hard at her knee and Diana jumped again, his hobnailed boot slashing under her. She came down, pivoted and snap-kicked the back of his other knee. Bone splintered and he howled in pain. A wild, glad look on her face, she grabbed the back of the leather strap running along his waist. He twisted, grimacing at the horrible pain in his knee, trying to get away. Diana kicked him in the cheek. There was a brittle cracking sound and his eye socket splintered, white bone jutting from his flesh. He howled.
Grunting with effort, she grasped both his shoulder and his belt strap and then threw him over her thigh. Mithridates hit the floor hard, winded.
Diana swayed, then stepped back, catching her balance. Her arms and legs were throbbing with effort and bruises were already wrinkling purple on her forearms. The room seemed blurry. She blinked, trying to clear her vision.
"You are very good," the boxer said, sidling towards her, spiked fists raised. "Like one of the heroes of old, standing on the bright sand, victorious." He grinned, though she could barely see him. The blood fire ebbed in her veins and she began to shake. Half sensing his approach, Diana scuttled sideways, then her foot clattered into the chair lying on the floor. Flinching, she jumped back, turning towards the unseen assailant.
The boxer stood up and back, motioning with his hand. One of his confederates, lurking by the stairs, flipped him a length of rope, which swung with a leaded bag. Nonchalantly, he let the rope swing easily around his head.
"Dear lady," he said in a loud voice, "you've got me to deal with next."
Diana snarled, turning towards him. Her left arm rose across her face, right fist pointing to the floor. The sap flicked through the air, driven by the boxer's powerful wrist, and caught her on the temple with a soft crack. She toppled over.
The boxer flipped the sap back into his hand, smiling. He raised the bloody bag to his lips. "Faithful, faithful, faithful. Better than any woman. Pick her up, we'll go out the back way."
The boxer surveyed the ruins of the caupona, whistling idly to himself. One of his companions rolled Diana in a gray blanket and then hoisted her onto his shoulders. The other ran forward and held open the curtain to the kitchens. As he stepped over the body of the proprietor, the boxer struck an Apollo on the wall, and then tossed the burning spark into a pool of black fluid spreading behind the counter.
Flames leapt up, burning fierce and green, and licked along the smashed amphorae and the wicker shelving. The boxer closed the curtain between the kitchen and the main room of the inn, then walked quickly out the back door. The crackle and spit of the fire was already loud behind him, spreading across the ceiling of the room. He whistled a merry tune.
Amid the ruined furniture, Mithridates struggled to rise, reddish light gleaming wetly on his skin. His ruined leg failed him and he cried out in despair. Smoke was already biting at his throat.
"Hamilcar!" His scream of rage was drowned by the roar of the fire.