XXXVI
It took some days for Sorina’s fury to abate.
The hated Spartan’s face swam before her eyes, the grating voice, the strange eyes and, most of all, the arrogant demeanour.
It was obvious now that what Eirianwen had said was true. The Morrigan had marked all three of them, intertwining their destinies.
Clearly, the Goddess of Dark Fate had a competition in mind, where only one would be left alive. Eirianwen was dead by Sorina’s own hand, and the Spartan had challenged her in turn.
Soon there would be only Sorina, as it was in the beginning.
She knew that she had the beating of Lysandra, and she prayed furiously that the Spartan recover soon in order that the matter between them might be settled. The Greek’s overweening conceit grated but, worse, the bitch had thrown the Friendship Gift back in her face. She was sick with anger at Lysandra’s mistreatment of her honour. It had taken a great deal for her, as Clan Chief, to make the first words, yet the ingrate had used this merely as an opportunity to insult her. Well, the challenge was laid at her feet and Sorina had never shirked a foe in her life. In normal circumstances she took life with regret, but in her heart she knew that she would enjoy killing Lysandra. To ram three feet of iron into her belly and watch those ice blue eyes widen in pain and surprise would give her great pleasure. More, to send the Greek to Helle knowing that a ‘barbarian’ had bested her would be revenge of the sweetest kind.
Sorina’s rage gave her strength and helped score out the grief she felt at her slaying of Eirianwen. There was guilt still, but she would wash it away in Spartan blood. If not for Lysandra, none of this would have come to pass. She had come into the world of the ludus seeking to take it over and make it her own. She sought to corrupt the best and bravest of the Tribe, mocking them with her seduction of Eirianwen. There had been times when Sorina had doubted in her conviction of this, but now she knew that she was looking for good where there had been none.
Lysandra was evil. That she had been raped was a sign from the gods that she curb her arrogant ways but the ‘priestess’ had ignored it. Sorina knew that this discounting would cost her her life.
This hatred of Lysandra was a contentious issue between her and Lucius Balbus. The lanista visited her often as she recuperated — more, she knew, to keep an eye on his best remaining asset than over any real concern for her health. Balbus needed his best fighters training and earning, not laid up in expensive arena surgeries. The Roman had quizzed her ruthlessly over the cause of her spat with Lysandra but Sorina had remained tight-lipped.
‘It is something between us, lanista,’ she said.
‘Well,’ Balbus stabbed a finger, ‘I don’t want any more of it.
Lysandra is here to stay so get used to it.’
Sorina grunted. ‘Have it your way, Balbus, but I will not stand to be upbraided or attacked by that little slut.’
‘I’ll see to it that she is kept busy, and far away from you.’
Balbus smiled at her, and changed the subject. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Stiff and sore, but the surgeon tells me that I am healing well and will be able to return to the ludus soon. Although by wagon.
I am not ready to ride just yet.’
‘Well, that’s no problem.’ He patted her hand. ‘Just as long as my best fighter is back up to speed soon, that’s the main thing.’
‘You’re in very good spirits, lanista,’ Sorina said, eyeing him archly. ‘Why are you still in the city, anyway? Shouldn’t you be back at the ludus?’
‘Business,’ Balbus replied glibly. ‘The gladiatrix has only to concern herself with the next bout, but the lanista must arrange those bouts. Also, I’m looking at expanding,’ he added. Sorina could see that he was having difficulty in expressing his obvious delight at making a fortune and tempering it with a suitably solemn demeanour. After all, the fortune was earned with the blood of his slaves.
‘You are buying more slaves, then?’
‘Well, yes.’ Balbus cleared his throat. ‘And meeting with building contractors to increase the capacity of the school itself.’
‘We have enough room at the ludus for more than twice the number it now holds,’ Sorina pressed him. ‘Just how big are you going, Balbus?’
‘Very.’ He smiled, somewhat uncomfortably. ‘But don’t you worry about that now. Just get yourself well. I’ll have you taken to the ludus as soon as you are ready to travel.’
Sorina was about to speak again, but Balbus got to his feet, indicating that their conversation was at an end, so she dismissed the matter. She would see what his plans were soon enough.
Lysandra tried to immerse herself in the tasks that Telemachus had set her, hoping it would be a diversion from her thoughts and the recurring memory of Nastasen. But she could not escape her mind, filled as it was with visions of the rape. Worse, when the sun played across the pages, she was reminded of Eirianwen, and the light she had brought to her life. If the days were bad, she feared the night. Sleep, if it came, was a constant torment: Nyx, the Goddess of Nightmares, denied her the embrace of Morpheus with savage malice. When she was not forced to relive the horror of the cell, Eirianwen’s death was played out for her in bloody detail.
The lack of sleep began to fray her already taut nerves and, one afternoon as she pored over a scroll, she finally broke down.
Tears flooded in her eyes, her throat filled with shards of glass.
Telemachus had heard her, and rushed to the small area in which she worked. She looked up at him, her face red and stained.
‘There now,’ the priest said, sitting opposite her. ‘What’s amiss?’
Lysandra shook her head mutely, her tears splashing on the parchment, spoiling the ink. ‘I miss her so much,’ she said after some time. ‘I just cannot bear it.’
Telemachus sighed, his mouth setting a grim slash in his beard.
‘To lose a loved one is the worst pain of all, Lysandra. I know this. But I know also that no one in the world has ever suffered as badly as you.’
Lysandra sniffed. ‘Of course they have.’ She was about to speak again but fresh spasms of grief welled up in her. She felt the priest’s hand on her shoulder and she jolted at the male touch.
But it was brief and he was already past her, returning momentarily with a krater of wine.
‘What I mean is,’ he said as he poured, ‘our own suffering is always the worst. Logically, we know that others feel pain too — but logic has no place in the heart, Lysandra.’
‘I am ashamed of my weakness,’ she said. ‘This is not the Spartan way.’ She wanted to claw at her face, so strong was the pain that wracked her chest.
‘You have nothing to be ashamed of,’ Telemachus told her.
‘These wounds you bear have cut you worse than any sword can.
A lesser woman would have died, but you…’ he trailed off for a moment. ‘You have more strength than you know. It may not seem so at the moment, but you do.’
‘I feel that I have not the will to live.’ She shuddered and reached for the wine cup. Telemachus did not comment as she drained it. ‘What Nastasen did to me, I could bear if only Eirianwen were here to hold me. But I am alone, Telemachus. In here.’ She tapped her chest.
He shook his head. ‘You are not alone, dear Lysandra. In times of grief, to share it with one’s friends is the best thing. And I am a friend to you, Spartan. Any hurt takes time to heal and you are welcome here for as long as you wish it.’
‘But I must return to the ludus as soon as I am able to fight,’ she said earnestly.