I breathed in the smell of his hair, the exact texture of his skin. Took him whole inside me. Murmured, finally, a prayer.

“God keep you safe.”

And I slept.

Seven

THEA

ONE against six!” Lepida fanned herself prettily with one hand. “I can’t wait. Goodness, when will they finish off those zebras so we can get to the fun part?”

My hands shook as I poured her wine. Distantly I heard the crowd roaring, the snap of the whips from the arena, the animal screams. The Agonalia games, celebrating the double-faced god Janus who ushered in every new year. A wild beast hunt raged in the arena below, striped zebras being hunted by teams of spearmen. But the zebras were just a prelude to the big show: Arius the Barbarian pitted against six Spaniards.

One against six, I screamed inside. One against six!

Lepida had talked her father into it. “I know it’s against the rules,” she’d cooed. “But what a fight it will be! The crowds adore desperation.”

“Beat them.” I’d seized my lover’s face between my hands that night, hearing my voice rising and hating it. “Promise me you’ll live. Promise!”

He held me hard, made love to me fiercely, but he didn’t promise. Too wise for that. After three months with him, I should have been too wise to ask.

“Thea, hurry up with that wine.”

I passed the goblet over with cold fingers. In the arena the dead beasts had been raked away, and the midday executions were briskly progressing. Preparation for Arius and the Spaniards. I reached under my tunic for the faded ribbon I’d strung about my neck that morning. Hanging from it were a dozen charms and medallions, spelled to ward away violent death. Purchased from old crones and astrologers, witches and fortune-tellers, to buy my lover his life.

Dimly I heard the voice of the games announcer: “. . . bring to you . . . champions of Lusitania . . . the SPANISH SAVAGES!”

Out they charged to a surge of applause: six sleek and vicious fighters, swords glittering in the sun, purple plumes nodding, bowing and waving and strutting for the crowd. Their breath puffed white in the cold.

So many. God, so many.

“. . . and now . . . wilds of Brigantia . . . undefeated champion . . . ARIUS THE BARBARIAN!”

They’d given him a little platform to fight on, something to even the odds, and he sprang up on it hefting his shield. Utterly calm, indifferent to the wild cheers raining down on his head, indifferent to the cold. But so small next to that terrible horde of Spaniards. So terribly mortal. I thought of Vercingetorix the Invincible, who hadn’t been so invincible after all because he’d died in the arena like an animal.

The starting trumpet blared. The Spaniards swarmed up the sides of the platform. As one the crowd in the stands surged forward, shouting encouragement. My heart dropped into my stomach like a stone.