The man cried out and staggered back. Krista dropped down lightly and then jumped over the side of the embankment. Dirt fountained under her feet as she slid down the side of the road. The man, stunned by her kick, toppled off the road and bounced down the slope, crashing into a great pile of half-burned wicker baskets. Krista hit the bottom of the slope running, and dodged off through the smoldering piles of refuse.
On the road behind her, the leader of the four men cursed and ground his fist into his thigh in disgust. "Krista!" He cupped his hands to make his voice carry farther, but the girl was already gone.
It was well past sunset when Krista finally entered the city. After the close shave on the Via Appia, she had picked her way through the rubbish yards to the Ostia gate- the next closest entrance in the wall- but some suspicious characters had been loitering in the shade of the gate towers. She crouched in the shadow of a mound of broken statuary for almost two hours before one of the ragged men she had seen before appeared and spoke quietly to one of the watchers. It was afternoon, then, and she took her time working through the debris and smoke and funereal tombs to the east. The city of Rome was entered by many gates, but all of them had guards. Some of the watchers would be more alert than others, and she had no idea how many of the ragged men there were.
At nightfall she fed the little cat the last of the smoked fish from Herculaneum and scratched its ears. She sat in deep shadow under a curving section of wall at the eastern end of the city. The wall was odd looking, lined with arches and pillars in three courses. The main wall ran into it at an angle and stopped abruptly. The archways were filled in with mixed brick and concrete. Over the walls, the daytime din and clatter of the Asinara district was fading as people went home and closed up shop. The little cat was nosing about, looking for mice in the high grass that grew along the verge of the rampart. Not more than ten feet away, a doorway was set into the wall in a very shallow embrasure. The door was iron and heavy and locked, but Krista could smell the rank odor of urine on the bricks that filled the archways on either side.
The curved section of wall was known to her, too; it was the outer face of the amphitheater of Castrense- a theater of moderate size that had been incorporated in the outer city wall hundreds of years ago. Once, she supposed, official games and pageants would have been held in it. Now she knew that it hosted a stodgy succession of theater revivals, religious festivals, and- in the evening- it was rented out for private parties. Even with the height of the wall above her, she could hear the tinny clash of cymbals and the racket of young boys singing. The little black cat sidled back up to her, nosing at her hand. Krista smiled and opened her palm. There was no more fish. The little cat gave a quiet sigh and crawled into her lap.
She sat quietly, waiting for an overindulgence of wine to take its inevitable effect.
Krista glided into the alleyway behind the Duchess' villa with trepidation. Rome after midnight was still a dangerous propositionfilled with footpads and murderers- even under the firm rule of the Emperor Galen. The city was just too big and crowded and filled with foreigners to police properly. It had taken almost three hours for Krista to make her way across the city to the Quirinal hill and home, but now she was at the back gate, feeling the strain of the long day in her calves. Luckily, the Duchess had great call for people to come and go quietly from her house so there was always a watchman on duty.
She rapped on the stout wooden panel with the pommel of the iron knife and, after a moment, there was a rattling as the spy hole cover was moved aside. A bleary blue eye peered out and widened at the sight of Krista standing under the gate lamp. Krista made a half snarl and bobbed her head. "Let me in." She was very tired and very grumpy. The door clanked as the locking bar was thrown back, and she pushed in before it was even open. The man on watch made to say something, but Krista raised a hand to silence him. "Later, Macrus, later. After a bath and sleep. Oh, what happened to your eye?"
The servant, a burly man with thick forearms and a trunk like neck, had a bandage wrapped around his head and over one eye. He made to speak, but Krista ignored him and carried on. "Oh, it doesn't matter. I'll find the Duchess by myself. You can tell me tomorrow."
She hurried off, her whole body aching with desire for a hot bath and a bed with fresh, clean sheets. At the gate, Macrus closed his mouth with a snap and shook his head in amusement as he locked the gate again.
Krista clattered down the steps into the gymnasium and the baths, her cloak already bundled under one arm with the bag and the cat. On the lower level, she turned left in the round atrium, intending to enter the series of rooms that held marble tubs set into the floor, but the ring of steel drew her attention. On the right-hand side of the gymnasium was a practice floor of sand surrounded by an arcade of columns. Krista slipped into the room, her sandals off, and came to stand next to one of the fluted green pillars. Oil lamps in bronze holders burned on each acanthus capital, casting a steady, warm glow over the rectangle of sand in the middle of the room.
In the fighting square, Thyatis attacked furiously, her Indian-steel blade flickering in the air. She was clad in only a short kilt and a twisted cloth strophium that bound her breasts close to her chest. Her longhair was pinned back in a bun and away from her face. Her skin was slick with sweat and silver droplets flew off her arms as she pressed the attack. Nikos faced her, stripped to a loincloth as well, his own sword a blur in the air as he matched her stroke for stroke. Thyat is bounced back, the tip of her blade trapping his on the withdraw. Nikos lunged in, striking for the inside of her arm. She blocked downward and turned on her heel, trying to lead him past her. He countered and threw an elbow at her face.
Thyatis leaned aside, slipping the blow. Her sword flashed back at his throat, and he parried furiously. They traded a passage of lunge and thrust and parry and then stood back, chests heaving with exertion. The echoes of steel on steel faded in the high arch of the roof. Nikos' bald head and bare chest gleamed with sweat. Krista started breathing again. Both of them seemed possessed.
"That is enough." The deep husky contralto of the Duchess filled the air, and Krista started in surprise. Anastasia appeared between the pillars on the far side of the fighting square, her oval face filled with weariness. Krista frowned, seeing that the Duchess was wearing only a very simple gown. The lady's hair was bound up in a silver net, and her makeup was unusually heavy. Behind the striated green pillar, Krista licked her lips. There was some great trouble in the air.
"If you press yourselves more, you will only gain exhaustion, not skill." The Duchess' voice was already weary, and she stepped down onto the sand with the assistance of a little blond slave. Krista raised an eyebrow, seeing her replacement already in train. The girl was watching Nikos, however, and Krista smiled to see the intent look on her face. The Illyrian was rubbing his face with a towel, having put his blade away in its old, weathered leather sheath. The sweatsoaked loincloth left very little of his tough, muscular physique to the imagination. Thyatis turned to face the Duchess, her face grim and set. "We need a little more time on the sand," the young woman said. " Everyone's timing is off."
Anastasia nodded and handed another towel to Thyatis. The young woman smiled back and took it, drying her face and arms. The little blond slave sidled up to Nikos to take his towel away. The Illyrian grinned at her, and she glowered back before escaping with the towels through the pillars.