XV.
Taleena's second week at the Flavian fighting school started like the
first, just after sunrise. The oval cinder track which enclosed the arena was
moist with a fresh morning dew, and the air was still cool, but the rising sun
promised another mild April day. The sandy surface of the arena had been raked
over, waiting to be ploughed through by the exercising fighters, and the only
sound that disturbed the quiet of the early morning was the cooing cry of a
single dove hiding somewhere in the shoots of ivy that clung to the rough-cut
stones of the morbid Etruscan masonry.
The gladiatorial recruits had gathered in front of the staff building,
facing the massive entrance gates at the far side of the arena, ready to accept
the orders of the day from Calixtus. Taleena's heart beat faster at the sight of
Byrria, the fearsome Thracian tigress who had planted herself beside the
chief-instructor, and proceeded to scrutinize her female charges with her usual
condescending scowl.
The blonde Avernian stood first in line, alongside a sad-eyed Selia. One
could tell from the hesitancy with which she moved that the unfortunate Baetican
girl still suffered from the dozen flesh-scalding lashes she had received as
punishment for her unacceptable performance during the first week. The taller of
the two Numidians, the one who had preceded Selia at the whipping post, also
moved gingerly, in marked contrast to the fluidity and grace he typically
displayed. Arminius, the giant German with the cropped sandy hair, towered in
the middle of the row, a head taller than his neighbours, among whom were his
beefy, black-bearded crony and their two fierce-looking countrymen.
As her fellow-recruits glumly surveyed the well-remembered wooden beams
they had toted around the track once before, Taleena looked around for the more
senior fighters, but they were nowhere to be seen. Apparently their tenure
permitted them the small luxury of starting their training a little later in the
day. Flavius' place at the balcony remained as empty as it had been during the
latter days of the first week, and Taleena wondered whether the head of the
Ludus Flavianus had lost interest in his recruits' progress after having been so
absorbed in their performance on the day of their initiation.
Just then Calixtus stepped forward and announced the nature of the
day's training. "Last week, your two heroic comrades set the standard for this
exercise," the bald lanista addressed the recruits in his stentorian voice,
referring to Taleena and Arminius. "Twenty-four rounds," he muttered, nodding
his head in grudging approbation. "At the conclusion of today's training, be
sure that you thank them for setting such a lofty target!" he added with a
sardonic smile. "This morning you will do well to manage a dozen because ...
well, you shall see soon enough. Hoist your beams!"
Taleena and Selia looked around, but this time no assistants came
forward to help them. Calixtus and Byrria met their inquiring glances with
blank stares. Clearly this time the recruits, including the women, were
expected to lift the heavy beams upon their shoulders themselves.
To do so, the trainees were obliged to seize the beams by heavy nails
which projected from each end of the wooden cross-pieces, and then to manoeuver
the bulky beams over their heads and across their shoulders. Taleena only
managed to do so with great difficulty and Selia was utterly unable to lift the
cross-piece high enough to slide under it. After numerous failed attempts,
Byrria angrily directed two of the attendants to place the beam across Selia's
slim shoulders. Under the watchful eye of the Thracian, they did so without the
slightest pretence of gentleness, and Taleena grimaced in sympathy as she
watched the slender Spaniard's body sag in pain under the onerous weight of the
beam.
After a few grumbles of protest, the recruits began to plod along at a
pace that was no more than a quick walk. Their prior week of training had
accustomed them to some extent to the mandatory ankle-weights they all had to
wear, but they quickly learned that running with the beams balanced on their
shoulders was far more difficult than it had been when the beams had merely been
strapped to their bodies. Nevertheless, they trudged on laboriously, and then,
as had happened so frequently in the past, the trainers made an already
demanding exercise even more difficult to execute.
"Now that you've got the hang of it, you are to hoist the beams over
your heads!" Calixtus bellowed across the yard after the recruits had completed
half a lap. "And pick up some speed, all of you, or we'll see if the crop can't
put a little spring into your legs!"
Taleena did as instructed and heaved the beam aloft by dint of a
prodigious effort, lengthening her stride while continuing to keep her arms
outstretched. But she could not long sustain this double strain, and was
obliged to lower the beam to her shoulders before Calixtus had given permission
to do so, which earned her a stinging lash across her bare shoulders from
Byrria's crop as she crossed the starting line.
The stronger recruits were able to manage some fifty paces before they
heard Calixtus bark, "Down!" at which point they were permitted to lower the
beams to shoulder height, and trudge on down the track for about the same
distance - until they heard the dreaded order of "Up!" once more.
"Up!! Down! Up!! Down!" Calixtus' alternating commands reverberated
across the track with an oppressive regularity, but soon gut-wrenching fatigue
caused the struggling recruits to imagine wrongly that the strength-draining
"Up" cycles lasted far longer than the less onerous "Downs".
By the time they had completed two laps, Calixtus' stentorian barks to
raise and lower the burdensome beams had begun to take a heavy toll on the
recruits, and Taleena's efforts to follow her burly lanista's instructions, had
left her limbs aching from the strain. Her heart pounded wildly and sweat
poured from her body, and even the simple act of drawing breath from her lungs
became a strenuous exercise owing to her upraised arms. Calixtus began to grant
the recruits more and more time in between lifts, but even so, the exertion was
taxing in the extreme.
Despite her rower's fitness, won so painfully under the tasker's lash,
Taleena's well-toned arms and shoulders were soon on fire from the strain of the
continual lifting. Eight, ten, twelve times around the track, Calixtus drove
them before he abandoned his unrelenting cries to raise and lower their burdens.
By then the recruits were so exhausted that it was all they could do to keep
putting one wobbly foot in front of the other.
Once again Selia was the first to collapse, but considering the
latticework of welts across her back, Taleena thought that she had done well to
complete twelve laps - almost twice the number she had completed on their
initiation day - and the quota Calixtus had designated as the minimum. She had
not been able to hoist the beam overhead at all, but her effort certainly
demonstrated her resolution to improve her performance. Even Byrria seemed to
have acknowledged her efforts, because for once she had been sparing in the use
of her crop.
Taleena herself fell to the ground during the fifteenth round, racked by
increasingly severe cramps in her calves. Gasping for breath she knelt there,
her back bent low by the weight of the cross-piece, while she allowed her
overstrained muscles a slight respite, before her right leg jerked and then her
left. After she climbed to her feet, she tried to stand on her toes, so as to
stretch her leg muscles and relieve the terrible cramps, but Byrria lashed her
sharply across the backs of her legs to put an end to that simple but effective
self-treatment. Crying out in pain, Taleena set out again, forcing her ruined
leg muscles to support her weight for a few more strides. But it was no use.
She staggered forward, veering first to the right and then to the left, before
collapsing a second time, fifty paces short of the starting line, and eight laps
short of the quota that Calixtus himself had declared almost impossible to
reach.
From the first moment of her first day at the arena, Taleena's courage
had surpassed her strength, but on this day her will fell victim to her body's
exhaustion. Her shoulders were raw from the friction of the beam after almost an
hour of extreme exertion, and she loosened her grip from the nails to get rid of
the crushing yoke. While she sat on the side of the track massaging her cramping
legs, she was passed by the men, but they, too, were near the end of their
tether, and only the Herculean Arminius was able to complete the full
twenty-four laps.
* * *
The daily regimen of circuit training came next, that arduous series of
chin-ups, press-ups, sit-ups and the like. Eudocles had explained to her once
that the word 'callisthenics' was derived from words meaning 'strength' and
'beauty', but Taleena felt utterly depleted of both strength and beauty after
the exhausting run under the crossbeam, and her results in the circuit's
exercises showed a considerable deterioration from her prior scores. The fact
that her male comrades also fell short of their former marks did little to buoy
her spirits. She had begun the second week of training hoping to build on the
confidence that she had developed during the first week. But instead she had
learned that the chasm between success and failure at the Ludus Flavianus was as
narrow as a sword's edge and as deep as a death wound.
* * *
After the gladiatorial recruits had finished their simple but nutritious
meal - a thick pea soup flavoured with bits of bacon, served with brown bread -
Calixtus ordered them to gather together in front of the dining area for another
lesson in swordplay.
As they rose from their tables, a gaunt, one-legged servant
slowly limped from table to table in their wake, placing the used bowls and cups
into a basket as decrepit as himself. Once the tables were cleared he glanced
at Calixtus, and when the lanista nodded his head, the one-legged man reached
under one of the tables and retrieved two large, wide-mouthed jars. Taleena
noted that the rims of the two jars were daubed with red and yellow paint
respectively, and that a coarse brush protruded from each of them. The servant
set both jars carefully on top of the table before hobbling off, balancing the
basket precariously while supporting himself on his crutch.
Calixtus planted himself before the recruits, who had arranged
themselves in a semi-circle, and waited briefly until he had their full
attention.
"By now," he began, "you should have begun to learn how to handle a
sword. This afternoon, if you pay close attention, you will learn where to use
it. But I need a 'volunteer' to help me illustrate the proper offensive
technique." The burly lanista cast an appraising glance over the assembly, his
gaze travelling from recruit to recruit.
"Why not the Gaul?" Byrria interjected slyly, inclining her head in
Taleena's direction. "She'd make a fine teacher's aid," she continued, her dark
eyes flashing in such a way that made it clear that she would brook no
opposition. "Wouldn't you?" she demanded in an imperious tone as she glared at
the statuesque blonde. Byrria gave the chief-instructor little time to
intervene, brusquely gesturing with her head in his direction, signalling
Taleena to step forward, thereby pre-empting the former centurion.
Calixtus glanced at the two women warily. Although he could not think
of a more attention-drawing material for his upcoming lesson than the gorgeous
Gaul, he would have preferred to have chosen Arminius. He had learned long ago
that the effectiveness of such exercises often depended upon the involvement of
the leader of the pack. Such a course not only demonstrated the lanista's
authority over the most respected of the trainees, but he had found that even
the lowliest recruits usually paid closer attention if their leader had been
compelled to take part in a demonstration. Besides, he didn't want this critical
lesson to be reduced to a mere spectacle, and it was not in his nature to make
sword-training, a life-and-death matter, a pleasurable experience. But since he
did not want to undermine the authority of his co-trainer in front of the
recruits, he grudgingly let her have her way once again. Not the least of his
concerns was the fact that ever since the seductive Thracian had turned the head
of Flavius Autronius and warmed his bed, she had hardly been shy about
challenging his chief-instructor's authority in a hundred little ways.
"Turn and face your comrades!" Byrria snapped, as a nervous Taleena
joined Calixtus alongside the table with the jars of paint. And when Taleena had
squared around to face her fellow-trainees, Byrria, her dark eyes flashing with
the zealous ardour of one who has just discovered her full power, issued
another order. "Remove your clothes!"
A spark of defiance flared up in Taleena's cobalt blue eyes at that last
command. Her time on the rowing bench had accustomed her to nudity and during
her first week at the arena she had had to cope with the stares of men once
again. But now that the utter abasement and degradation of her days on the
bench were behind her, she had recently begun to feel rather proud of the effect
that her female charms had on men, especially on those from whom she had nothing
to fear.
Nevertheless it was obvious that Byrria's order signalled her intent to
humiliate Taleena in full view of her fellow-recruits. All of the men had
caught glimpses of her nakedness when she and Selia had fought on their knees in
the tight harness of the Scythian Straps. But this was somehow different.
During her fight with the Baetican girl, the men had been some distance away,
and most of the recruits had been distracted by their own training. But now, as
she looked out at the men who were arranged in a semi-circle around Calixtus,
the male trainees were gloating at her body with the expectant look of a pack of
wolves stalking a tender young doe. Only Selia looked at her with the earnest,
attentive gaze of someone who wished to profit from Calixtus' forthcoming
lesson, whatever it might involve.
"Would you like some help, Gaul?" Byrria jeered impatiently, to the
accompaniment of coarse laughter among the onlookers. Half a dozen pairs of
eager eyes, fearful of blinking and losing a moment's pleasure, attested to the
fact that every man among them would have been happy to lend her a hand.
Blushing and trembling at the prospect of disrobing before her rapt
audience like a dancing-girl in a waterfront taverna, Taleena hesitated. For a
moment or two Calixtus wondered if his eye-pleasing young recruit were going to
dare to defy a direct order. But then the tension in Taleena's bare shoulders
relaxed and she reached behind her to undo the knot that held her breast-cloth
in place. As she wrestled with the ends of the muslin strip, brief images of
her degrading ordeal in Massilia flashed through her mind. She fought off the
horrific visions, and tried to concentrate on the present, but as she did so,
her body could almost feel the heat given off by the male fighters' lecherous
gaze.
When she felt the knot come loose, Taleena hesitated again for an
instant and glanced at Byrria, hoping against hope that some miracle might save
her. But the dark-eyed Thracian merely crossed her arms over her chest and
glared at her, obviously enjoying her discomfiture to the fullest. Resigning
herself to the inevitable, Taleena took a deep breath and let her hands drop to
her side as the flimsy strip of fabric fell away from her body, while her
audience gasped with excitement as they watched her bared breasts bounce free.
Despite the mildness of the day, Taleena could not keep her lush treasures from
shivering slightly as they rose and fell with her nervous breathing.
The recruits had been deprived of the pleasures of female flesh for some
time, but even if they had not, none of them had ever seen a woman who could
match Taleena's poise and beauty. While they were bound to stand at attention,
the trainees grew visibly restive and shuffled their feet with telltale
anticipation as they watched the gorgeous Gaul bare her breathtaking body.
The flawless skin of Taleena's torso was drawn tightly over the delicate
bones of her rib cage, thus forming an alluring contrast to the lush fullness of
the breasts which sat enthroned in solitary splendour just above them. Her belly
was flat, but beautifully curved into feminine contours by the sensual layer of
flesh that asserted itself against her strong abdominal muscles. In its center
her deep-etched navel drew attention to the even more alluring parts of her body
just below. Midway between her rounded hips, at the narrow apex of her long and
slender legs, was the vertex of desire, still covered by her loin-cloth.
Taleena took another deep breath to steady her racing pulse as she
reached down to undo the belt that held her loin-cloth in place, while the men
followed each motion of her fingers with the same fierce concentration which
they would have given to the movements of an opponent's sword-hand. The belt
fell open easily enough, and the male recruits held their breath as one, while
they waited for Taleena's trembling hands to release their grip. When she did,
the weight of the leathern cincture pulled the garment over her womanly hips and
down her shapely legs.
No sooner had she dropped the waistband than Taleena flushed from the
heat of the numerous pairs of ravenous eyes which were riveted to the neatly
trimmed golden triangle that adorned, but did not conceal, the base of the
protruding folds of her mound of Venus. She had tried to brace herself for the
humiliation of that moment, but at first she found herself slouching awkwardly
and blushing with shame. Trying to preserve a veneer of composure, she forced
herself to stand motionless with her hands at her sides, like a shy Galatea,
thinking it hopeless to try to assert the privileges of feminine modesty in such
an oppressive setting. But as her blue eyes stared out into the vacant space
above the heads of the leering men, meeting the eyes of none, she noticed that
Byrria was still regarding her with an air of smug triumph. Silently vowing not
to let the dark-haired Thracian have the satisfaction of knowing the depth of
her degradation, Taleena steeled herself and rose to her full height threw her
shoulders back, thrusting her breasts out in a defiant gesture only the doomed
could dare.
Calixtus ran his eyes over the Gaul's luscious body with scarcely
concealed admiration. She posed like the chiselled statuette of a master
sculptor, but the warmth and softness of her flesh was a tantalizing improvement
on even the finest marble of the Cararran quarries. The chief-lanista did his
best to conceal his arousal, but the recruits made no such effort to disguise
their feelings. The taller Numidian nudged his countryman enthusiastically,
and the coarse Germans licked their lips appreciatively, but their instructor's
facial expression remained impassive, only a gravelly clearing of the throat
betraying his own excitement. But when he finally began the lesson, he spoke in
a controlled, professional tone.
"When you finally set foot in the ring, it will be of vital importance
to know where to direct your attack against your opponent in order to put him
out of action," he began his discourse. Meanwhile he withdrew the brush from
the jar that dripped red, and turned toward his eye-catching teaching aid.
"Any direct hit to an area marked in red will often prove almost
immediately lethal, or at worst leave your opponent fatally injured," he intoned
in a magisterial voice. "The throat should always be the target of choice
because it is nearly unprotected by normal armour." Calixtus daubed both sides
of Taleena's slender throat with the paint, and when she turned her head away
from him, raising her chin at a proud angle to show her distaste at being
treated with such disdain, her cervical tendons protruded defiantly beneath her
fair skin,
"As a rule, a hit to the chest cavity should also prove fatal," Calixtus
went on, "but your blow must penetrate both cuirass and ribcage."
Calixtus paused when he saw several blank stares in the audience.
Shaking his head with exasperation at the ignorance of his new crop of
neophytes, he continued, "That is to say, the leather chest armour, and the
ribcage. He marked Taleena's left upper arm with the red paint, just beneath
the shoulder, and traced the brush fully across her chest to illustrate his
explanation. Taleena gritted her teeth as her breasts wobbled slightly under the
sweeping stroke of the brush, hoping that this humiliating demonstration would
soon be over
The men could hardly conceal their delight, and more than one was seen
to rub his thighs covertly together in an attempt to excite himself further.
Even Calixtus' eyes seemed to brighten at the starkly sensual contrast between
the vibrant crimson of the paint and Taleena's suntanned breasts, and he had to
clear his throat once more before he proceeded.
"An upward stab here," Calixtus continued, poking at the spot slightly
beneath the young woman's breastbone where the lowest rib formed its delicate
arch, "will be most expedient. In fact, that is precisely the manner in which
you would deliver the mortal thrust if your opponent were already wounded. But,"
he added in a professorial tone, "over time strict customs have developed that
govern the circumstances concerning an injured or disabled gladiator." Then,
glancing at his charges somewhat scornfully he added, "Unless you have a desire
to make a fool of yourself before the emperor and thousands of spectators, it
will behove you to understand those niceties."
Calixtus paused to take a breath and to look out over the audience to
make sure that they were paying close attention. "For example, a wounded
gladiator is obliged to drop his shield and weapon, stretch on his back and
raise one finger of his upturned hand, a gesture which indicates that he is
seeking the clemency of the throng in the tiers. The crowd may signify mercy by
lifting their thumbs, but it will always be the emperor himself - or his
representative in the imperial box - who has the final say. The victor has no
choice whatever in the matter; you are merely the instrument of the emperor's
will. Is that understood?"
When no recruit raised a question the stern instructor proceeded to
swish the brush through the container of red paint once again. "A deep wound in
the stomach will usually cause one's opponent to bleed to death," he went on,
drawing a broad red streak down the slope where the twin peaks of Taleena's
magnificent chest seemed to run out into the smooth plane of her belly. "But,
semper paratus - be ever prepared. Many a dying man has dealt a fatal blow to
his slayer in order to have a companion for his journey to Hades."
Calixtus paused again for several moments to let that grave message sink
in, but he could tell from the recruits' lewd grins that they thought of
themselves as ever prepared in a sense he had least of all intended to imply
with his words. "The groin," he continued, shaking his head at the ignorance of
his charges, although a slight change in the timbre of his voice hinted at his
own arousal. "The groin is another critical point," he began again, annoyed
with the men and irritated with himself for having momentarily lost his
professional demeanour thanks to the distracting charms of his eye-catching
model.
"No one will survive the severing of the main artery there, but as with
the stomach, the wound will not necessarily lead to a sudden death," he went on
as he traced the crimson-stained brush between Taleena's slightly parted legs.
Then, noticing the smirks on the faces of a few of the recruits, he glared at
his audience and roared, "If you filthy swine don't wipe those grins off your
ugly mugs at once, one of you can take her place! I'll wager that none of you
would enjoy standing before a bunch of pigs such as yourselves! Not that the
likes of you would have anything much to show us!"
Calixtus' outburst silenced the recruits, but did little to diminish
Taleena's humiliation. She was sick of serving as a teaching aid for this crude
assembly, and being reduced to a butt of derision, but she also felt Byrria's
eyes on her, waiting for the least flicker of rebellion against her degradation.
So she tried to maintain her stoic poise while Calixtus marked the upper insides
of her thighs, smearing some of the sticky paint over her protruding pubic mound
and the golden hair which adorned the juncture of her legs.
Having done so, the grumpy lanista concluded the first part of his
lecture and returned the brush to the red jar and took the yellow brush from the
other.
"A direct hit to the areas that I will mark with yellow will usually not
prove fatal, but it will disable your opponent," he went on, intent on making
clear the distinction between the two types of targets.
"Raise your arms and clasp your fingers behind your neck," he instructed
Taleena, knowing full well that such a breast-lifting motion would only increase
the pleasure of the leering recruits - and his own. He intended to conclude the
lesson quickly now, but he grudgingly had to admit that in all of his years as
an instructor he had never before had such a visually attentive audience;
whether they had taken in a word of his lecture was another story.
"One of the surest methods of putting your opponent out of action is to
inflict a wound to his sword arm," Calixtus spoke, marking Taleena's
well-defined left forearm, tracing down to the slightly fleshier upper arm, the
arching hollow of her armpit and the upper part of her pectoral muscle, then
giving her right arm the same colouring.
"Any wound to the legs will naturally impede your opponent's agility,"
he went on, taking up some new paint and smearing it over both sides of
Taleena's shapely thighs, her slender calves and the sinewy hollows of her
knees. "But even a lame man can be dangerous!"
When one of the Germans snorted in derision at this claim, Calixtus
turned on him angrily. "So you find the idea amusing, do you?" he snapped at
the thoughtless recruit, who flinched back as the raging lanista planted himself
before him. "Do you remember Scaurus?" Calixtus snapped, and when the
Rhinelander cast his eyes downward sheepishly, the former centurion shifted his
eyes from him to the others, but was met with but blank and uncomprehending
stares.
Nodding at their mystified glances, Calixtus continued in a voice that
was low, but tinged with an almost palpable intensity. "Scaurus was the man who
took away your soup bowls today."
Taleena turned her thoughts to the haggard, one-legged servant with the
basket, wondering how a scarecrow such as he had found his way into Calixtus'
lesson on gladiatorial combat.
"Yes," the lanista went on, gripping the table tightly. "That limping
shell of a man was once one of the greatest fighters of Rome. I was one of many
thousands who saw him on his last day in the ring at the great amphitheatre of
Pompeii. Thirty-two brave fighters from the four corners of the empire were
matched against each other, with the winners of each fight going on to the next
round. At the end of that long afternoon, Scaurus faced his final rival, a
red-bearded giant from the land of the Cimbri at the northern edge of the world.
On and on they duelled, in sands stained with the blood of victors and
vanquished alike. The sun was low in the west when Scaurus finally managed to
sever the Achilles' tendon of the Cimbrian, crippling him. But from his knees,
the man from the hinterland lashed out with a blow that opened up the artery in
Scaurus' thigh, and cost him his leg."
Taleena and her comrades looked on in hushed disbelief. Even the
derisive German had been silenced by Calixtus' incredible tale.
Having won his audience's rapt attention, Calixtus returned to his dire
topic, "And I've seen others lose more than a leg," he continued, in a voice
that had suddenly become less angry and yet somehow more heartfelt. "In the
past Saturnalian Games, the crowd celebrated a daredevil volunteer from the
tiers. A magnificent fighter!" He paused a moment, looking out into space, as if
picturing the young champion in his mind's eye. "His father had named him
Icarius. He fought with the valor of Ajax before the walls of Troy, though armed
with only a short sword." A faint smile creased the lanista's face as he
recalled the prowess of the young hero. "Icarius duelled his professional
opponent, a retiarius who had overcome all of his previous challengers with
ease, for an hour before dealing the net-fighter a fatal blow to the chest. But
when he turned toward the imperial box to accept the plaudits of the crowd and
his prize from the hands of the emperor, the retiarius, covered with gore, rose
up from the sand and thrust his trident into the young man's back with his dying
breath!"
The air was so silent one could have heard a butterfly light on a rose
petal.
The lanista paused, and Taleena was surprised to see that the grim
chief-instructor, normally so stoic, seemed almost overcome by the memory of
those two bloody encounters. The old soldier's hand shook slightly, and his jaw
was set so that his voice had to fight its way through tightly clenched teeth,
as he pointed ominously toward his listeners. "I repeat, 'Even a lame man is
able to fight.' Listen to me, you fools! Overconfidence has killed more
gladiators than the sharpest sword or the swiftest spear! Never relax in the
ring! Not for a moment!! Never!!!"
Taleena, like the rest of the awe-struck recruits, was astonished by the
passion in Calixtus' voice, this grim ex-centurion who heretofore had always
been such a model of self-control.
"Perhaps you may wonder," the perspiring lanista continued, addressing
the apprentices in a voice now choked with emotion, "why I speak so fervently on
this subject." He took a long, shuddering breath before croaking faintly,
"Icarius was my only son."
A pall had settled over the recruits, with none venturing to breathe,
much less to speak. Even the ever-chattering birds in the olive trees on the
nearby hillsides seemed to have muted their cries in response to the solemnity
of the moment
Taleena stood frozen in place, her nudity quite forgotten, pondering the
tragic end of young Icarius, the centurion's son. The gods had punished him for
his pride and overconfidence, just as they had dealt with his namesake, the
impetuous Icarus who had dared to draw near to the sun on his winged flight from
Crete.
After staring at the sunlit heavens for a long moment, Calixtus
recovered his composure, but there was still a quaver in his voice as he
concluded his anatomy lesson.
"Keep those words in mind when you resume your training. Now get back to
the training area! And pray to Mars that you don't find yourself bleeding to
death in the arena because you were ogling this woman instead of attending to my
instructions!"
* * *
Calixtus's rather crude concluding utterance had been an attempt to ease
the awkward tension of the moment, and it succeeded in doing so. The recruits
quickly recovered their usual rugged energy but milled around rather aimlessly
before heading off for the training area. Taleena felt relief that the
degrading spectacle in which she had played such a prominent role was now over,
but she was well aware that the lewd gazes of her comrades kept returning to her
red-and-gold-daubed body. She bent gracefully down to pick up her garments, but
was forestalled by Byrria who hovered over her like an ominous bird of prey.
"Leave them!" the Thracian directed with a contemptuous sneer, as the
genuflecting blonde scooped up the loin-cloth in one hand and the strophium in
the other. "Your comrades may need to refresh their recollections of the vital
spots while they train." Byrria's remark was made in a tone of the utmost
seriousness, but there was an evil glint in her dark eyes that belied the
professionalism of her words. Her attempt to degrade the Avernian recruit might
not have worked out to her complete satisfaction, but she clearly intended to
continue to use the powerful weapon of humiliation to provoke Taleena into a
reaction that even Calixtus would be compelled to condemn.
But Taleena refused to snap at the bait. Trying to suppress a new blush
of humiliation which would have given Byrria the satisfaction of knowing her
shame, she calmly dropped the garments on the ground and rose to her full
height. Then she stalked off toward the training ring, attempting, not quite
successfully, to emulate the dignity of Aphrodite emerging naked from the sea
foam, but not quite able to inhibit the natural bounce of her hips and the
sensual spring in her stride.
Taleena had crossed nearly half the distance toward the center of the
ring, when she realized that yet another pair of eyes was on her body. Rutilius
the Jackal stood some thirty paces ahead of her, in front of the guard house,
his greedy eyes never leaving Taleena's youthful form for an instant as she
marched toward him. The pockmarked young guard leered at her nudity with
unabashed interest, enjoying the way her proud gait caused the well-toned
muscles in her thighs to tighten and gave her succulent breasts a delicious
added bounce.
Taleena averted her gaze, but was furious at the thought that this
disreputable bit of scum, who would never have a fraction of the courage or
skill necessary to fight in the ring, had probably been watching while Calixtus
had put her body on display. When she reached him, she brushed past him
without so much as a glance, with the sublime contempt of a prowling lioness for
a cowardly scavenger.
* * *
When they arrived at the ring, Taleena took her sword from the rack and
watched Selia carefully while they waited for Byrria's approach. The Baetican
girl paid no attention to Taleena's nakedness, obviously intent on the business
at hand, taking her weapon properly in her left hand and making a few feints.
As she watched her seemingly doomed comrade, Taleena's heart went out to the
slim, dark wraith of a girl, whose eyes were bereft of emotion, of life itself.
There was only fear - the cold, dark shadow of fear - as Selia practiced in
eerie silence, hoping against hope that by some miracle she could fight with
enough distinction to escape another dreadful encounter at the whipping post.
Despite her months on the galley, Taleena had never become accustomed to
moving around freely in the nude and the absence of her loin-cloth more than the
loss of her flimsy strophium made her feel highly vulnerable. Only the thin,
patchy patina of eye-catching crimson and gold shielded her nakedness from the
lusty glances of the males in the arena, fighters and guards alike, and she knew
that her breasts would make her suffer with the passing of time, their fullness
bouncing and swaying on her chest with every move.
A small group of guards had congregated on the roof of one of the
buildings in the compound, hoping for a reprise of the exciting spectacle they
had witnessed when Byrria had pitted her two female charges against one another
during the first week of training. Taleena felt a warm flush of embarrassment
sweep across her body, suffusing it with the rosy blush of shame, as she
remembered how the Thracian tigress had bridled them with the Scythian Straps,
and forced them to fight on their knees, nude save for that inhumane harness,
while half the men of the Ludus Flavianus looked on. She still felt a faint tug
where the strap had cut into her most sensitive flesh, and the reminder of that
painful degradation augured ill for the forthcoming training session.
* * *
Byrria began the final portion of the day's training with a brief review
of the prior day's lesson, whose focus had been on utilizing the proper footwork
in order to maximize the effectiveness of the various thrusts and ripostes.
Impatient with the performance of her protegees, who were still exhausted from
the morning's run, Byrria used her crop liberally to punctuate her commands,
aiming chiefly at Selia's legs which were bare beneath her loincloth. In the
case of Taleena, every inch of whose shapely body was available for
chastisement, she was more imaginative, occasionally aiming for the patches of
colour that brightened the blonde's arms and legs, belly and breasts, when
Taleena's agility failed to live up to her exacting standards. But it was
Taleena's bare backside, unsullied by crimson and gold, that suffered most as
Byrria set about painting a series of red strokes on the curves that Calixtus'
brush had neglected.
At one point when Taleena had borne yet another lash from the Thracian's
crop, she caught sight of Rutilius again, who had not bothered to join his
comrades on the roof. Seeking a more rewarding vantage point, the young guard
had stationed himself near the smithy in the left corner of the compound, at
close range to the female recruits' training area. But despite the nature of
their exercise, he took no interest in the footwork of the two young women. He
focused instead on the long-legged Gaul's nude body, mesmerized by the way each
graceful stride, each lunge, each thrust shaped the muscles in her bare legs and
her crop-marked bottom cheeks, and gave a titillating bounce to her pendulous
breasts. Taleena glared at him, but his cowardly gaze, while not daring to meet
her own, had clearly become bolder. The once-furtive peeper no longer bothered
to hide his interest in her body - nor his arousal.
Men were men, Taleena knew, and she had endured the stares of many at
sea. But not even of the men of the Thetis, crewmen or rowers, had made her
feel more uneasy than this disgusting youth. He was not even a man, this
callow, cowardly boy, who ogled her so greedily. But her growing irritation at
the young lecher made her neglect her guard, which did not only earn her a
grazing blow from Selia, but also a punitive lash high on her right thigh from
Byrria.
The sudden twinge of pain wrenched a shriek of surprise from Taleena,
and her angry blue eyes fired daggers at the leering Jackal as she struggled to
resume her poise. Although the stinging lash had fallen squarely on skin tell
tender from the brand she had received on her first day at the arena, she was
furious with herself for giving voice to her pain, and the more determined she
became to cheat the malevolent guard of his satisfaction. But Rutilius
returned her indignant look with a sneer, as if he had some secret knowledge
that the painful lash on her thigh wouldn't be her last. And something in his
malignant gaze led Taleena to believe that he pictured himself delivering the
next....
From their more remote vantage point on the roof, the guardsmen watched
the blonde Avernian, her flaxen hair tossed lightly on her shoulders by the
afternoon breeze, with the gusto of a crowd in the upper tiers of the
amphitheatre. A number of the men placed bets on who would land the next blow,
with those wagering on Taleena forced to lay heavy odds. One of the senior
guards, a well-built, middle-aged man with short-cropped iron-gray hair and a
chin that seemed to have been fashioned from the same metal, looked on with a
knowing smile. For he knew that the bets were in part a ruse, an excuse, for
the younger guardsmen to study every moment of the two shapely bodies in the
yard more intently than they would ever have watched even the most promising
male candidates.
The Thracian lanista drilled her charges thoroughly, putting them
through exhausting paces for a solid hour, using her crop time and again to lash
out at the Gaul's bare buttocks whenever she dared to slacken the pressure on
her Spanish opponent. But Taleena had steeled herself to accept the blows
without complaint, so as to deny Rutilius the satisfaction of seeing her in
pain. As the long training session dragged on, the more her fatigue took her
mind off of her humiliating ordeal.
* * *
During a brief break in the mid-afternoon, Larius, the young water-boy,
came forward and offered his services to the grateful recruits. When all had
drunk their fill, Byrria spent some more time drilling the female recruits on
proper footwork before she decided to let them spar again. Their last
sparring-match had resulted in a swift setback for Selia, and this time the
nimble, sad-eyed Baetican did her best to avoid a second defeat. Her slight
stature suggested a real agility, but she was still clumsy with her left hand
and thus no real match for the athletic Avernian. Sensing her superiority - and
ignoring Calixtus' dictum never to relax in the ring - Taleena held back a
little. She even allowed Selia to score an occasional glancing blow that she
could easily have eluded, out of sympathy for her opponent. For Taleena, too,
had come to know the taste of failure.
Byrria watched the two young women, the one tall, blonde, athletic, the
other slim, dark, and fragile, for a while as they thrust and parried and dodged
and weaved in the sand. But the longer she watched the more irate she became as
it became more and more obvious that Taleena was fighting at less than full
strength in an attempt to make her friend look better and gain badly needed
confidence.
Finally, the dark-eyed Thracian could restrain her impatience no longer.
"I've had enough play-acting from the two of you! Do you imagine that you are
rehearsing to be slave-girls in one of Plautus's farces? The only stage on which
you will appear will be the dry dust of the arena! I think you need some fresh
opposition to stimulate your fighting spirit!" she snarled, before going over to
Calixtus and then returning with the chief instructor and two of the Germans.
Taleena's heart sank when she saw Arminius, for she felt sure that she
would be matched against the mighty deserter who had given Germania Libera the
preference over his service in the Roman Legions. But despite her own
self-concern, she felt sympathy for Selia, who would be even more overmatched
physically, by one of the Rhinelander's shorter but equally muscular countryman.
Taleena had heard Calixtus address this thick-set thug as Bovarius,
obviously referring to his ox-like build, and making light of his actual German
name, Boiorix. Of all the recruits, it was this rough-bearded Rhinelander's
rapacious eyes that had made the statuesque Gaul feel most uncomfortable during
Calixtus' demonstration. During his brief stay at the Ludus Flavianus, the
stocky German had already proved himself to be the coarsest, loudest, and most
ignorant of the recruits - a combination not easily achieved in such a gathering
of slaves and prisoners, most of whom had never felt the slightest breath of
civilization in the whole of their dismal lives.
Despite his stubby stature, what Boiorix lacked in height, he made up
in width and body weight. His squat build made him rather ponderous, though,
and his bulk had proved something of a handicap during the morning races. But
the slender Baetican girl - who was no taller than he, and weighed less than
half as much - surely had no more chance against him than a flickering oil-lamp
would have had in a summer storm - or than Taleena was likely to have against
Arminius.
Moments later the Avernian beauty did indeed find herself confronting
the giant German, who eyed his naked opponent up and down with manly interest,
shaking his head in disbelief, making no secret of the fact that he considered
it beneath his dignity to be paired against a woman, much less a woman who was
not even clad, much less wearing protective clothing.
"Nice armour!" he scoffed derisively, his virile glance sweeping
leisurely over the red and yellow patches on Taleena's legs and midsection
before coming to rest on her heaving, crimson-dyed breasts. He was fortunate
that his ribald quip had gone unremarked, save by the fuming Taleena, since the
recruits were forbidden to speak to each other during training. In the first
week, one of the Numidians who had been careless enough to comment briefly on
one of Calixtus' orders had spent the rest of the training silenced with a gag.
But whereas Byrria would certainly have insisted on this form of
discipline if Taleena had spoken without permission, Calixtus was intent upon
training, not upon the over-meticulous enforcement of the code of conduct, and
he signalled for Arminius and Taleena to commence sparring.
The pairings that Byrria had insisted upon were completely one-sided
from a physical point of view. The mighty Arminius was a head taller than
Taleena, whose piercing blue eyes were on a level with his broad chest as they
crossed swords by way of initiating the match. Having served with distinction
in the auxiliaries, Arminius was renowned for his skill with the spatha, the
cavalry sword used by the Roman legions. But his confident mien made it clear
that he felt it unlikely that he would need to use more than a fraction of his
strength and skill to overcome a young woman of half his weight.
The imposing German fended off Taleena's attempts at attack in a bored
manner, conveying to the watchers the idea that he could end the mismatch
whenever he chose. Smiling confidently, he allowed Taleena to bring the fight
to him, repelling her every advance with apparent ease, his eyes never leaving
the graceful Gaul's sensuous body as she searched in vain for a chink in his
seemingly impenetrable defence.
But despite his tenacious and skilful defence, Taleena noticed that the
German was a little uncomfortable facing a left-handed opponent - just as Byrria
had predicted during her first lesson - and he was also more than a little
distracted by the sight of the crimson and gold-daubed, bare-breasted beauty, as
she circled to her right looking for an opening.
On the other hand, Taleena, too, was distracted - by the pitiable cries
of pain emanating from Selia whom Boiorix was bullying around the ring a short
distance away. The German's wooden sword carried twice the weight of hers, and
he brushed her desperate defences aside with ridiculous ease. But the brute
German sought not only to defeat the lithe Spaniard, but to crush her in spirit
and body. He used his sword as a club, punishing Selia's upper arms and bare
legs with a series of sweeping blows, only occasionally interposing a thrust at
her breasts and belly.
After being driven around the ring several times, Selia, futilely trying
to defend herself against her opponent's overpowering onslaught, lost her
balance and fell backward onto her whip-scarred back. She cried out in pain,
but the pitiless German was on her in an instant, driving a massive knee into
her solar plexus with such force that it drove every trace of air from Selia's
lungs and every ounce of fight from her body.
"It's not quite so easy defending yourself against a real fighter, is
it?!" Byrria castigated the gasping girl, who had not the breath to respond,
even if she had had the words. "It seems that a dozen lashes were not enough
to motivate you. But do not fear," she added, "as your instructor I will do
whatever it takes to drill these lessons into you. Whatever it takes," she
repeated with a sibilant smirk. "That's enough! Let her up," she barked,
slapping the German ox smartly on his shoulder with her crop.
Taleena, confronted by her own worthy foe, was only vaguely aware of
Selia's crushing and painful defeat and Byrria's menacing words. She saw that
her only chance to score some points against Arminius was to try to turn her
lack of height to an advantage, so she stayed in a low crouch, aiming her blows
at the lower part of the mighty German's body, finally managing to graze his
right thigh just below the edge of the simple white subligaculum that he wore
around his waist. The blow was not especially painful, but his surprise at
receiving it opened his defence up for an incisive thrust at his kidney.
Accompanied by cheers and catcalls from the tiers, Arminius let out an
angry bellow of pain, although the injury was mostly to his pride. Not wishing
to lose face, he fought with new resolve, not merely content to block Taleena's
nimble thrusts, but to repel them with such force that it was difficult for her
to remain in control of her sword. After a few more such counters, he seized
the offensive, delivering a fierce blow to Taleena's upper arm that drew a cry
of pain from her lips. Her arm nearly numbed by the blow, Taleena fought on
gamely but the next powerful blow from the German dashed the sword from her
hand.
Taleena's weapon slid a few yards across the dusty ground, and the
towering German alertly positioned himself between her and the sword,
brandishing his own weapon to keep her at bay. The trainers made no move to
stop the fight, so Taleena had little choice but to try to retrieve her weapon.
She circled around the hulking Teuton like a bee hoping to sting a bear,
feinting first to the left and then to the right, and then, after a second
convincing half-step to the left that lured Arminius out of position, she
reversed course and dive-rolled to her right, just managing to snatch the hilt
of her sword with her right hand before rolling further to the right, and then
leaping to her feet in one swift motion in the way that Byrria had taught.
The quickness of her manoeuvre did not fail to impress Arminius and even
the two lanistae nodded their approval at her boldness. But there was no time
to savour the success of her sortie, because the German quickly seized the
initiative and hacked at her with a fierce downward swing. Taleena only managed
to block the blow because her sword had found its way into her right hand, which
she had been forbidden to use, but which was still of more use in defence than
her left. She managed to interpose her sword perpendicular to the crushing
downward force of the German's spatha, but that merely delayed the inevitable.
Giving her a contemptuous look of superiority, Arminius slowly forced her
blocking arm down, despite her desperate resistance. Then he suddenly slackened
the pressure, and before Taleena could regain her balance and reposition her
sword effectively, he lashed out with a fierce upward backhand.
Taleena cried out as the impact of his blow lifted her off her feet, and
sent her sprawling flat on her back. She tasted blood in her mouth from the gash
on her lip and lay there, unable to move and barely able to breathe. Arminius
stepped over her naked body quickly, his massive figure silhouetted against the
puffy clouds in the azure sky like a two-eyed Cyclops. Taleena groped awkwardly
for her sword, but the German's huge foot quickly pinned her slender wrist to
the ground. An instant later the blue-eyed Avernian felt the blunt point of the
German's spatha against the smooth skin of her throat.
"This would be a good chance for you to practice how to beg for pity
from the crowd," Calixtus admonished her mockingly, as he and Byrria moved
closer to the scene.
A gloating smile crossed the German's features as he slowly drew the tip
of his sword downward over Taleena's painted chest. The defeated blonde held her
breath when the sword's descent slowed noticeably upon reaching the upper slope
of her crimson-splashed left breast, and then inched downward at a snail's pace,
testing and teasing the fullness of the slightly-flattened mound of flesh. When
he reached its pink-crested center, Arminius pressed the hard tip of his spatha
against the tender tip of Taleena's breast with enough force to cause her to
gasp with pain, before letting the sword continue on its pleasant excursion
across the tender undercurve of her breast, and then down across her chest.
The slow-moving sword finally came to rest at the base of Taleena's rib
cage. Arminius pressed the blade firmly against the red-stained blotch beneath
her left costal arch - for it was precisely here that Calixtus had designated as
the place where the fatal thrust should be given, once a defeated foe had
received the wrong end of the emperor's thumb.
Taleena glared upward furiously at her grinning conqueror, trying to
ease the racing of her heart and the pounding of her lungs, but she refused to
raise her hand to acknowledge defeat in the manner in which they had been taught
by Calixtus. Stubbornness had been no stranger to Taleena during her stint on
the galley, but she sensed that her trainers were unlikely to spare her the
humiliation of conceding her obvious defeat.
"So show us how you will implore the pity of the crowd!" Calixtus, a man
who did not like to repeat himself, growled again. "It is said that it is
difficult for a leopard to change her spots," he said, his eyes wandering freely
over the bright patches of red and gold that adorned the most vulnerable areas
of Taleena's body, "but with your pattern of colouring, who would wish to?"
Byrria's lip curled sardonically at this gibe, and Arminius looked
amused, too, which only increased the humiliation of the object of their
derision. Taleena's eyes flared up with anger, her nostrils dilating unwillingly
as she hesitated to obey, but she saw that despite his attempt at a joke,
Calixtus's eyes were those of a man of the utmost seriousness.
"Come on, raise your hand," the stern instructor insisted, his voice now
sharp and humourless. "Mind you, while death may be the outcome, there is no
shame in losing a fight to a stronger foe. But if you continue to ignore my
orders, you're in for a demerit! Besides," he added with a patronizing smile,
"no one is looking at your hand anyway!"
Taleena flushed crimson, once again supremely conscious of her nudity
and the lascivious stares of the male recruits who had arranged themselves in a
tight circle around her fallen body. She inferred from Calixtus' words that she
had so far escaped a demerit, at least from him, for her rather dismal
performance on the track and her inadmissible use of her right hand during the
fight with Arminius. She quickly weighed her options before deciding to swallow
her pride. She could ill afford another black mark on Byrria's wax tablet, and
she closed her eyes to shut out the sight of the gleeful trio, and raised her
left hand. As she did so she felt a flush of shame as deep as the one she had
experienced when she had been made to strip before the class earlier in the
afternoon. Fortunately, her ignominious gesture of surrender signalled the end
of a humiliating day.
"Well then, she shall be pardoned since she has truly learned today's
lesson," Calixtus stated gravely and then turned his wrist thumb upward as if he
had actually spared her life. Then, with an amused expression, the stocky
ex-centurion turned toward the recruits and said, "Let's call it a day!"
* * *
When Taleena entered the tepidarium a short time later, all of the
basins were already occupied. Arminius and his German countrymen lay in the
pool, resting their arms on its rim, joking and laughing. Their conversation
died down briefly upon her entrance, but then it started up again, in a lower
tone which convinced Taleena that her humiliating exhibition and defeat had been
the cause of their recent outburst.
Since she had no interest in joining her uncouth fellows, she walked
across to the fountain to wash herself, and picked up a strigil with which she
could scrape the paint and grime from her body. During her duel with Arminius
the dried paint had partially flaked off her skin, but she found it particularly
uncomfortable to scrape the remaining caked-on varnish from the pebbly roseates
of her shapely breasts. Conscious of the fact that the Germans were watching
her with some amusement, she turned away from them, but there were equally
interested spectators lounging in the basins in every corner of the room.
Blushing furiously, the colourfully-smeared blonde turned back toward
the Rhinelanders, pretending to ignore their coarse laughter while she scraped
at her tender flesh. But it was difficult not to feel humiliated by their crude
sexual allusions to her painted body and the derisive comments on her swordplay.
Her left arm was still numb from Arminius' bone-crushing blow and there was
still a slight ringing in her ears, but the ringing was not so loud that the
scathing laughter of the Rhinelanders didn't cut her to the quick. This day had
clearly been a degrading setback in her efforts to earn distinction at the Ludus
Flavianus.
But since there was nowhere to hide from the prying eyes of her fellow
recruits, Taleena was obliged to search within herself for a means of preserving
her preserve her pride and dignity. "Make the best of things," her mentor
Eudocles had often counselled her, "for a bad situation could always be worse."
Remembering his curious way of coming up with an age-old story to illustrate how
to cope with life's challenges, Taleena caught sight of her nude reflection in
the fountain, and imagined herself as Diana the Huntress, bathing in a pool in
an idyllic forest. She saw herself as the chaste goddess, discovered at her bath
by a pack of muscular Actaeons, whom she could turn into stags or worse, for
having the effrontery to observe her in her nakedness.
To compound their voyeuristic blasphemy, Taleena the Huntress stretched
her arms upward slowly in an attempt to relieve her muscular discomfort. That
languorous motion drew her golden belly-skin tight across the gentle protrusion
of her rib cage even as it lifted her moist, glistening breasts to their fullest
extension. She bent over to pick up a dripping sponge, knowing the movement
would cause her buttock and thigh muscles to tense suggestively, and then she
began to sponge her body as slowly and as provocatively as she knew how.
The raucous laughter of the Actaeons from the far bank of the Rhine died
away as they watched, spellbound, as the blonde demi-goddess flaunted her tawny
body, turning and, bending and stroking herself with the sponge. For this
Gallic Diana, in her fancy, knew that the longer and more avidly the voyeurs
watched, the lowlier the beasts they would become, once she took her ultimate
revenge. For Taleena, it was a bitter satisfaction, but a real one, to drive
these brutish barbarians wild with a desire that they were forbidden to satisfy,
for the punishment for sexual contact between trainees was bound to be swift,
sure and severe.
Finally, Taleena, tired of tantalizing her watchers and stepped, sleek
and dripping, from the basin to reach for the tunic she had been ordered to
remove hours earlier. She dressed quickly and left the bathhouse, by now a
little annoyed at herself for playing such a dangerous game with Boiorix and his
countrymen.
As she trudged back to her quarters, she ruminated over the fact that
Byrria had apparently taken no notice of her offence during the duel, when she
had used her right hand to defend herself. But despite Calixtus' pardon she was
not altogether sure that the other instructor, the malevolent Thracian, had not
marked her down for a demerit.
XVI.
As the second week progressed, Taleena felt fortunate that it did not
involve further degradations like those of the first day. The mornings continued
to be filled with the familiar rounds of fitness training while the afternoons
continued to be devoted to improving the recruits' swordplay and footwork.
After her failure in the first run - if not achieving the impossible
could be considered a failure - her running performance was impeccable, and her
results in the taxing circuit training continued to improve. Since she was
exclusively matched against Selia during the swordplay lessons, Taleena quickly
regained her former self-confidence which had been utterly demolished by her
crushing defeat at the hands of Arminius.
Judging by her own standards, even the Spaniard made considerable
strides with her swordplay, although she was still far from being a serious
opponent. Driven by an all-consuming determination not to fail again, and thus
not to suffer the rigors of the whipping post, Selia strove hard and ambitiously
to score some points. Impressed by Selia's new-found dedication, Taleena
permitted the sad-eyed Baetican to penetrate her defences occasionally, if only
to raise her spirits. Being honest with herself, Taleena had to admit that her
generosity toward the Spaniard wasn't completely selfless - it helped nourish
her own self-confidence after all - but who could judge her since her actions
seemed to benefit both women?
* * *
It was not until the fifth day of the second week that the instructors
began to toughen up the training once again. They scheduled another competitive
run at the beginning of the day, and as the recruits assembled alongside the
track they were once again confronted by daunting new challenges that their
trainers had conceived to test their mettle.
The track had once again been prepared with six of the lattices that
they had seen before, two of each type, spaced equidistantly around the track.
But this time the broken tiles on which the recruits had been made to do
press-ups on the second day of training were scattered beneath the horizontal
lattices, and, what was worse, spread on either side of them. The runners would
be obliged to leap across the shattered shards to mount the lattice, and then
vault over them during their dismount.
The oblique obstacles were positioned as they had been during the first
week, but the vertical barriers also featured a nasty new 'improvement'. A
crown of finger-thick, thorn-bearing vines had been woven in spiral fashion
around the top of the framework, so that the recruits would have to climb over
them with the utmost caution.
In addition to the half-dozen lattices, there were two new pairs of
hurdles to contend with on the track, one at the midpoint of the oval track, and
the other close to the finishing line. The cross-bars were somewhat less than
chest-high on Taleena, and thus a little too high to jump over, but since they
would be ridiculously easy to crawl under, Taleena wondered at their purpose.
The horizontal bar of each hurdle had also been wrapped with the same
thorn-vines, and the recruits were still puzzling at their odd shape when Byrria
strode boldly toward the nearer of the two pairs of hurdles, which had been
placed about twenty paces from the finish line.
"You are no doubt wondering why we would place an obstacle that is so
easy to crawl through on the track," Byrria smiled wickedly. "The reason is
because you are supposed to pass under them without letting your hands or knees
touch the ground."
Taleena considered this. But surely it would be child's play to simply
crouch down and scuttle under the bar?
"Nor," Byrria continued, "are you permitted to bend forward from the
waist," thus ruling out Taleena's plan of attack. "You are to bend backward
from the waist. Like this." And the well-toned Thracian planted herself in
front of the obstacle, and then bent her body backwards and began to ease
herself under the thorny bar, her feet preceding her body, using a shuffling
crab-like gait. When her upper body had passed under the bar completely, she
straightened up again and turned around. "Got it?" she shouted. "Size and
strength won't help you here," she admonished them. You will need litheness and
flexibility to succeed here - just like in the ring! And don't let me catch you
using your arms to help you pass through them!"
Taleena didn't know if those hurdles had been set up in favour of the
female recruits, but clearly they posed fewer problems for herself and Selia.
Despite the daunting thorns, the girls would have little difficulty passing
under the bar in the designated way, whereas none of the men seemed lithe enough
or small enough to do so. But Calixtus' next announcement negated this small
advantage.
"But since flexibility alone will not succeed in the ring either unless
it is accompanied by strength and fighting spirit," the bald lanista explained,
referring to Byrria's comment, "you will be paired against each other - and any
means is allowed to throw your opponent off pace!"
"You and you," Byrria pointed at Taleena and one of the Numidians,
before making the other pairings. Selia was matched against the thick-set
Boiorix who had beaten her so unmercifully during the sword-play a few days
earlier, while Arminius would have to contend with the other Numidian, which
left the two remaining Germans to face each other.
Taleena was shocked that she and Selia should be set against male
adversaries for what might prove to be a brutal contest. The first obstacle race
of this kind had proved to be a rather well-balanced competition, but on that
occasion there had been no question of tackling one's opponent. Selia might
well have a chance to elude her ponderous opponent if she were quick and clever,
but the two Numidians were formidable adversaries - both were excellent runners
and leapers beside having a considerable advantage in strength over the women.
Syphax, for that was the name of the Numidian she was paired against -
the one who had been gagged for talking back to Calixtus in the first week -
was, in this event, an even more dangerous foe than Arminius, faster, quicker,
and more agile. Taleena had no doubt but that the ill-willed Thracian had
matched her against the most formidable foe deliberately, in the hope of seeing
her come to grief.
Taleena studied her opponent's dark face, but was unable to detect any
reaction to their pairing. His apparent indifference made it seem as if the
match-up was of less moment to him than it was to her. Taleena was impressed
with the way the African's demeanour balanced seriousness and unconcern in a way
that was most unsettling to his opponents. She made a mental note to try harder
to mask her own emotions before and during important competitions. Certainly
the less one's opponent knew about one's state of mind, the better off one was.
But her musings on mental gamesmanship were interrupted when Calixtus
gave them, the first pairing, the signal to start. She and Syphax each set off
confidently, running side by side until they approached the first obstacle - one
of the flat lattices.
Taleena had measured her stride so that she was in position to leap over
the arm-long expanse of broken tiles that guarded the approach to the obstacle,
but just as she was about to do so, Syphax, taking Calixtus at his word, elbowed
her sharply in the side, with a suddenness that took her completely off guard.
The blonde recruit slumped to her knees in front of the tiles, gasping for
breath. She tried to rise, fell back on one knee and then struggled to her feet
again and started after the Numidian.
Holding her side in pain, the long-legged Gaul just managed to hop over
the tiles to mount the lattice, hoping not to lose more ground to her opponent,
who was already approaching the second obstacle. Once atop the wooden
framework, she negotiated it well, and then balanced herself to leap from its
far edge to land safely beyond the bed of tiles at its end.
She dashed down the track toward the second obstacle, an inclined
lattice, trying to decide whether to risk the leap from the top, which would
certainly gain time on her opponent, who was letting himself down by hand as
Selia had done during the prior week. Her knees and ankles weren't hurting as
they had been before, but a twisted knee or a turned ankle would leave her
hobbling - at best - for the remainder of the race. Hobbling to certain defeat.
But since she was trailing badly, Taleena elected to risk it. After
scrambling to the top of the oblique barrier she threw herself into space,
feeling the air sifting through her long blonde hair as she flew, even as she
braced herself for a painful fall. The bone-jarring impact when she hit the
ground sent a shivering jolt through her entire body, and she felt a painful tug
where the Scythian Strap had cut into her flesh. Despite her attempt to cushion
her landing somewhat with a nimble drop-and-roll, the impetus gathered by her
brief flight caused her to roll over twice, during which she sustained tiny
cinder-cuts to her arms and legs.
But Taleena rose quickly and pressed on down the track toward the next
barrier, one of the vertical obstacles whose upper crosspiece had been lined
with the thorn-vines. She tackled the climb aggressively, but slowed her pace
considerably when she reached the top. Her hands sought for a thornless spot
she could grasp while she swung a bare leg across the edge, trying not to
consider the effect of a slip while she was in this precarious straddling
position. Finding a hand-hold, she vaulted up and over, feeling the stabbing
pressure of the sturdy thorns against her soft inner thighs, but somehow her
taut skin resisted the sharp intruders. Having surmounted the dangerous edge,
Taleena dropped down on the other side, only to realize that she had gained
nothing on the Numidian who was now nearing the first hurdle.
Syphax slowed down as he approached it, and as Taleena had expected, he
failed to pass it in the recommended back-bending fashion. He fell backward,
spitting imprecations in an unknown African tongue, and then made a second
futile attempt, before deciding to crawl through it on all fours.
When Taleena reached the hurdle a few moments later she tackled it in
the proper style, leaning backward at the waist and neck and shuffling forward,
passing under the bar without touching it, noting as she did so that her
uptilted breasts cleared the entwining thorns on the crosspiece by the narrowest
of margins. Whereas Byrria had eased under the bar comfortably during her
demonstration, Taleena's height and opulence of figure both worked against her.
As she often had on the Thetis, she wished that the goddess Venus had not
blessed her with curves that had attracted a man like Balbinus, and which now
put her body at additional risk.
Continuing down the track at a furious pace, Taleena knew that she had
made up some ground on Syphax at the hurdle, but she also knew that she would
have to stay right on his tail, but out of his reach, and wait for the right
moment to tackle him. She had no doubt that her stamina, born of the long hours
on the galley bench, would see her through ten laps of racing, but not if she
was being pounded every stride of the way by the Numidian's flying fists and
elbows!
So she remained safely in his wake while they negotiated the next three
lattices - a flat, then an oblique, then a vertical - until they reached the
second hurdle not far from the finish line, while their comrades stood at the
side of the track watching the duel.
The two lanistae had positioned themselves at the final hurdle to see
that it was passed in the proper fashion, and when Syphax failed again,
Calixtus' used his gnarled vine cane to induce the tall African to three more
attempts, before finally allowing him to pass. Meanwhile Taleena eased her body
under the thorn-bar on her side of the track at her first attempt, and as she
continued onward she could hear gasps of approval from some of the onlookers and
groans of disappointment from others.
The hurdle had allowed her to overtake the Numidian without having to
tangle with him, and allowed her to build a lead of several strides. On she
ran, crossing the upcoming flat lattice and leaping well-clear of the perilous
moat of tiles at its end. She was well aware that keeping clear of her foe was
probably the only way to win the race, and she continued to approach each
obstacle with the proper respect lest the shards or thorns should hurt her, or
worse, slow her pace. She kept her distance over the Numidian during the
following laps, but she knew that it would become more and more difficult as the
race wore on.
Taleena clung to most of her narrow lead, but steadily mounting fatigue
made even the easier obstacles more challenging. By the time eight laps had
been completed, both contestants were gasping for air, their legs were leaden,
and the Numidian's superior strength had drawn him ever-closer. Hearing the
Numidian close behind her, the exhausted Avernian, her heart pounding for fear
of being overtaken, missed her footing on one of the flat lattices and first one
foot and then the other slipped through the wooden grid and fell down into the
shards strewn underneath. When Taleena climbed back on to the wooden framework,
the soles of her bare feet were cut where the sharp-edged fragments of tile had
cut into the skin.
It took a good half a lap for Taleena to become habituated to the
soreness in her feet, and for her hobbling gait to lengthen into a full running
stride once again, but during that interval Syphax made up the distance between
them. He caught up with her at the base of the vertical trellis, slamming a dark
fist between her shoulder blades with such force that she crashed chest-first
into the fence. Following up on his advantage, the Numidian grabbed a handful of
Taleena's blonde mane and pulled her backward. Taleena shrieked in pain but
managed to grab the off-balance African's wrist and take him down with her.
Taleena fought like a lioness, kneeing, punching and elbowing the man
who in turn tried to choke her, and their sweat-slippery bodies became encrusted
with grime as they rolled around on the ground tearing at each other's faces,
hair, body and clothing. First one and then the other almost made it to their
feet, but each time their opponent pulled them down again. Finally, after
taking a lip-splitting backhand across the face, the Avernian pulled free from
the Numidian and leapt for the fence-like barrier again. Clinging to it
desperately, she began her upward climb until she felt a restraining hand on her
weighted ankle. She kicked downward savagely with her free foot, catching her
pursuer flush in the face. The African cried out in pain and loosened his grip,
allowing the tawny feline to continue her ascent.
As she reached the top Taleena glanced down to see Syphax lying sprawled
on the ground, his hands cradling his blood-spurting nose. She regarded him with
neither pity nor mere satisfaction, but with rather a flush of triumph unlike
any she had ever known, one which only the thrill of battle could produce, a
thrill tempered only by the realization that in battle, most victories are
transitory at best.
As she threw her body over the top of the thorn-wrapped trellis, one of
the prickly spines opened a bloody gash on the inside of her left thigh. The
fierce fight had left Taleena badly hurt and gasping and unconscious of the fact
that Syphax had wrenched her breast-wrap down and around so that the dusty,
sweat-soaked muslin was little more than a rope of fabric beneath her breasts.
It was only when the bloody-footed blonde had once again picked up speed and was
racing down the track that she realized that her ample breasts were
unencumbered, being supported, in a manner of speaking, by the thin band of
cloth, rather than covered by it. She slowed and tried to adjust the garment in
mid-stride, but was fearful of having it come completely undone. Then, hearing
Syphax's footsteps pounding close behind her, she knew that there was no time to
fix it properly, and she resumed running at full speed, even though her every
step caused her breasts to bounce uncomfortably against the ruined fabric.
Taleena forced herself onward, approaching her hard-won victory with each
trudging, breast-abrading step, and completed her final lap with a considerable
margin over the defeated Syphax, whose face and chest was covered with blood,
but who looked more seriously injured than was really the case.
The two combatants were sent off to Athenodoros and his unctores, who
quickly patched them up and when they returned to the training area, bathed and
clad in fresh garments, they were permitted to watch the outcome of the
remaining races. The unexpected break from drill and competition had done them
both good. The ever-impassive Numidian seemed to have resigned himself to his
defeat, neither saying nor doing anything to suggest that he bore Taleena a
grudge. But his dark eyes, peering out from among the bandages that enshrouded
his broken nose, gave no hint as to what he might be thinking.
* * *
The races lasted the entire morning, so for once the recruits were
spared the gymnastics and the circuit training. Arminius lost his race against
the other Numidian, but the biggest surprise was Selia who actually won her
first competition. Having witnessed what had happened to Taleena, the little
girl had given her thick-set opponent the slip right from the start, and with
surprising speed and agility she had held her lead for the full ten circuits of
the track thus avenging, in part, her mistreatment at his hands earlier in the
week.
Bovarius had not even come close to her, and his defeat not only earned
him the scorn and derision of his comrades, but also almost certainly a black
mark on Calixtus' wax tablet. Taleena wasted no pity on him. Although she had
not seen the full extent of his cruelty in his bout with Selia, in her two short
weeks at the Flavian arena she had grown weary of the burly man's bragging - as
if brute force were any indicator of speed or skill. And Boiorix, too, had been
the crudest of her 'admirers' yesterday. Taleena was happy for her female
friend, and glad that, for once, Selia had had a chance to shine.
During the afternoon's sword-practice, Taleena, believing that her
subtle holding back during prior practices had allowed Selia to build the
confidence that had helped her to victory over the ox-like German, once again
fought at less than her full strength, not wanting to spoil the Baetican girl's
thrill at her morning victory. And so it was that both young women ended the
day feeling the flush of a satisfaction that, in the cruel world of the Ludus
Flavianus, neither might ever know again.
* * *
When Taleena returned from the bath house that evening, still in a
buoyant mood, she spotted little Larius, in a tunic of faded Flavian blue,
playing at the far end of the arena. She had seen him doing so on previous
occasions when the training area had been abandoned by the fighters. It always
seemed incongruous to see the young water-boy playing in an area that was home
to so much suffering, but where else, really, she asked herself, should he have
gone?
Larius had a wooden bat in one hand with which he drove a leathern,
fist-sized ball over the uneven ground, faster and faster, showing a remarkable
skill at propelling the ball forward in a relatively straight line in front of
him. As Larius bounded across the yard, Taleena was struck by the resiliency of
youth; even though the boy seemed to have no playmates, their absence didn't
seem to spoil his enjoyment of his solitary sport in the least.
Taleena sat down on the steps in front of the bath house and watched the
little boy as he advanced toward her side of the compound, and as she did, his
carefree high spirits reminded her of her own days of childhood. With a faint
smile she recalled how she and her elder brothers had played ball or
hide-and-seek on their father's farm whenever the weather and the completion of
the day's chores had permitted any free time out-of-doors. Just like little
Larius, they had played until the sun had set or their father had called them
in.
But the warmth that rose within her at her memories was tinged by a
rueful sadness, a regret that those moments and hours in the sun were
irretrievably gone, and by a bitterness at how the implacable Fates had treated
her since then. What, she wondered, did the three grey sisters have in store for
this innocent young lad, himself a slave, whose heart was kind and who probably
wanted little more from life than his own hour in the sun. She prayed that the
Fates would treat him with more kindness than they had treated herself.
Meanwhile Larius had almost reached her side of the arena, and with a
fierce final strike he drove the ball towards the building. It hit the leftmost
column of the bath house, and the carom sent the ball flying toward the far wall
of the compound, where it came to rest in front of the guard house.
In front of the guard house, three armed sentinels were sitting astride
their bench, enjoying the sunset that marked the end of their vigil. Rutilius
was one of them, and when he saw the ball rolling towards them, he rose from his
seat and picked up the toy, and held it out tauntingly toward Larius, beckoning
for him to try to take it from his hands. But the little boy seemed to have
played and lost this hopeless game of keep-away with Rutilius before, and he
merely stood there imploringly, with his hands out, hoping against hope that the
guard would return the ball.
Taleena felt herself growing more anxious as Larius continued to eye the
contemptible guard warily, and made no attempt to take the ball from his hands.
Watching the standoff, Taleena became incensed that Rutilius' bullying nature
had served to befoul even this most serene of moments. The pockmarked youth held
the ball for a while, trying to lure its young owner into reaching for it, but
when Larius still made no move to retrieve the ball, Rutilius grew bored with
his heartless game and hurled it high over the wall of the compound with a
snort.
Little Larius watched the sad, arching flight of the ball in abject
misery, dumbfounded by the loss of his precious toy, and then turned abruptly
and set off in the direction of the kitchen of the staff building, his eyes
brimming with tears.
Taleena clenched her fists in outrage, and noticed that the older of
Rutilius' companions, an iron-jawed soldier whose once-brown military haircut
was now streaked with grey, had groaned and shaken his head at the younger
guard's meanness. Perhaps it was his silent condemnation of Rutilius which
determined Taleena's decision to confront the nasty youth - and helped her to
overcome her own fearfulness of his rank, if not his person. She rose from her
place resolutely and strode slowly across the yard, not without admonishing
herself along the way to try to keep the imminent confrontation well-tempered
enough so that it didn't fester into an incident that could be used against her.
When she reached the guard house, she planted herself before the trio of
surprised watchmen, fixing her blue eyes on the youngest of the three.
"What a fine lad you are, Rutilius!" she said, stressing his name. "When
you're not spying on young women, you're harassing little children!"
The other guards met her jibe with a cackle of laughter, while Rutilius
flushed angrily, unhappy at being accused in such a contemptuous way in front of
his peers, especially by a female recruit to whom he felt vastly superior. And
whose remembered charms had brought him such pleasure in the stillness of the
night...
"Truly a fine lad," Taleena continued scornfully, though she felt her
knees trembling more than a little. "Not one of Rome's finest, one should
think, but a fine lad nonetheless."
"Take care how you speak to a guard in the service of Flavius Autronius,
wench," Rutilius retorted, glancing at his disapproving comrades, hoping to win
their support. "From what I hear, you were nothing more than a galley-whore!
I'll bet you liked it at ramming speed, didn't you, slut?"
The disparaging address made Taleena flinch inwardly, but she kept her
outward composure when she took up his statement. "It is true that I was a rower
on a galley. But I am no more a whore than you are a man!"
Rutilius took a step toward her angrily, but Taleena stopped him with a
withering look. "I did not come over here to offend you," she said calmly, "but
if you feel offended, why don't you demand satisfaction? But mind you, I'm not a
little boy, I'm a grown woman, so you may need your comrades to assist you!"
The two other guards once again roared their delight at Taleena's latest
provocation, but neither made the slightest motion to step forward to join
Rutilius. "Well, go ahead, lad," the grey-haired man encouraged Rutilius, "but
don't take on more than you can handle!" And once again the two older guards
broke into laughter at their comrade's expense. When the surly young guard
realized that he would have to take on Taleena by himself, he stood rooted to
the spot glaring at her hatefully while the scathing scorn of his peers washed
over him, and he made no move to take up Taleena's challenge.
Taleena turned and forced herself not to look back over her shoulder
while she strode slowly back toward the staff building. Her pulse raced with
excitement over the victorious outcome of her verbal skirmish with Rutilius, all
the more so since she could still hear the guards' mocking laughter echoing
behind her. But she could also feel Rutilius' venomous gaze following her and
she sensed that she had crossed the Rubicon with the young bully. She knew that
henceforth she would have to be continually on her guard whenever that cruel but
craven young man was in the vicinity
* * *
As Taleena approached the staff building she spotted flashes of Flavian
blue and auburn hair under one of the tables in the outdoor dining area.
Cautiously she inched toward the hatchway of the kitchen until she was close
enough to see that Larius had hidden himself under a table. He sat dejectedly on
the ground with his knees pulled up and his face buried in his arms. His boyish
shoulders shook convulsively as one pitiful sob after another shook his young
body as he mourned the loss of his only toy.
Moved by the pathetic scene, Taleena took a step forward to comfort the
grief-stricken child, but then thought better of it. The boy had concealed
himself after all, to hide what he viewed as shameful tears. As she re-traced
her steps to the recruits' quarters, she heaped silent imprecations upon
Rutilius, who had made this innocent child suffer merely to satisfy his spite.
Was the Roman world not cruel enough without the mistreatment of children?
As she headed towards the staff building she cast a glance at the dark
post that dominated the yard, and shivered as she remembered that the next
assessment was only two days away. Which of the recruits, she wondered, would
feel the crack of the whip when Calixtus had done tallying his grim score?
Trembling at the thought of that fearful consequence, Taleena passed
the forbidding cross only to be startled by the sight of a brown snake, lying
motionless and half-visible in a sandy area a few paces away. After recoiling
at first, Taleena cautiously edged closer and then smiled to herself a little
sheepishly. The 'snake' was in fact only a length of rope that had been cast
aside some days earlier, and which had since been trodden underfoot so many
times that it had sunk partway into the dusty ground. She picked it up, noting
that it was about the length of a man's stride, and then an inspiration seized
her.
She retraced her steps toward the kitchen, noting with some relief that
the guards had moved on to patrol another area. Larius's pathetic sobs were
still audible. Taleena took up a position with her back obliquely to the boy's
hiding place, giving no sign that she had seen him, and then she took an end of
the rope in each hand and swung it over her head.
Her first attempt at jumping the rope was misjudged, as she intended,
and the rope slapped against the ground loudly enough to draw Larius attention.
Still pretending not to notice him, she tried again, this time allowing her feet
to get snarled up in the rope. The sobs coming from the direction of the table
stopped, and she heard a faint chuckle of boyish laughter.
Her heart glowing with the success of her ploy, Taleena flubbed her jump
twice more, as Larius' gentle laughs grew into prolonged giggles. By now she
thought it was safe to look at him and glanced over at Larius as if surprised to
see him. He had wiped the tears from his red-rimmed eyes and they once again
sparkled with the glow of childish fun that they had had when he had been
batting the ball from one end of the compound to the other.
Taleena smiled at him, and jumped again, this time sweeping the rope
under her feet with a gymnast's grace, even though she felt a painful tug where
the Scythian Strap had cut into her flesh when the rope came down. But she
repeated the motion again, and yet again, showing the boy how to time his leap.
Then Taleena offered Larius the rope. The freckle-faced redhead
approached her, smiling, but wary of tricks, but she held the rope outstretched
until he took it from her hand. Taleena showed him how to hold it slightly in
from the ends to compensate for his smaller stature. Larius smiled brightly,
nodded with understanding and jumped - and got so snarled up in the rope that
they both erupted in laughter. But the boy was clever and nimble and in the
space of a few attempts, he had got the rhythm of the rope and was bouncing
joyfully in place.
Taleena stepped back, and took Larius' place on the ground, leaning back
against the tabletop, and watched the jubilant child skip rope, his slender
silhouette rising and falling against the golden-red backdrop of the setting
sun. He jumped and jumped, with the boundless joy and inexhaustible energy of
youth, bringing a lump to Taleena's throat. Her azure-blue eyes began to fill
with tears of happiness, for this was the first time in months that she had seen
an innocent person genuinely happy.
How strange were the workings of the Fates, she thought, as a tear ran
down her cheek. How ironic that this rope, which had once bound a helpless
victim to the whipping post of the Ludus Flavianus, was now bringing such
carefree pleasure to its youngest resident.
A moment later, upon seeing her tears, Larius brought the swinging rope
to a sudden halt, and offered it once again to Taleena, believing her tears to
be those of a child whose turn had come to an end. When she returned his smile
and shook her head softly, 'no,' at Larius' generous offer to sacrifice his own
pleasure, and made a gesture with her hand for him to return to his sport, his
smile lit up the twilight like a harvest moon.
* * *
On the following day, Taleena was still in high spirits, not only due to
her confrontation with Rutilius from which she had emerged as the moral victor,
but also due to the heart-warming encounter with young Larius. She could still
see the child's smile, and its remembrance seemed to cast a gentle glow into
even the darkest corners of the Flavian compound. Besides, her good performance
over the last few days had left her relatively sure that she had little to fear
from the forthcoming assessment. Apart from her failures on the first day of the
week, she felt confident that she had given the stern lanistae little cause to
mark a demerit alongside her name.
Near the end of that sixth day which concluded the second training unit,
Byrria scheduled another series of sparring matches. This time Taleena was
matched against Boiorix, the German aurochs who had battered Selia earlier in
the week, and had then been trounced by her in the obstacle race. Selia was
paired with Syphax, the Numidian with the swollen nose.
It was fortunate for Selia that she did not have to take on the stocky
German, for after his disgraceful defeat he had made no secret of his desire to
thrash her even more soundly during their next meeting. As it was, for the
moment he would have to be content in taking his wrath out on her proud
protector who had shielded the girl from Byrria's wrath during the week as best
as she could. Though properly fearful of the prodigious German, Taleena was
thankful that it was she, and not Selia, who was matched against him.
She was no match for the brute in sheer power, to be sure, but his angry
grudge might well make the slow-witted bully use ill-considered tactics.
Furthermore his fighting style, which depended solely on his awesome strength,
was eminently predictable. And despite Calixtus' heartfelt admonitions, the
squat warrior from the far side of the Rhine was too thick-headed to abandon his
confidence in his superiority - an arrogance, a hubris, that was the first
stepping-stone on the road to incaution and disaster.
Taleena meanwhile, was determined to redeem herself for her defeat at
the hands of Arminius. Bovarius began the fight in predictable fashion,
grunting loudly as he brandished his sword with power and ferocity. But he was
ponderous on his feet and Taleena dodged his bone-crushing blows with little
difficulty. The bullish Rhinelander, like his countryman Arminius, had not
often faced a left-handed opponent, and his discomfort with her clever tactics
and superior mobility narrowed the gap between their abilities substantially.
The longer the fight wore on, the more energy his inefficient style cost
him, and the more frustrated Boiorix became. His oafish response to his
disappointing performance was to rely all the more on his favoured tactics -
long, sweeping, easily anticipated blows, which slowed him all the more. Twice
Taleena caught him off guard with quick, incisive counter-strokes, but neither
carried much force behind it.
The two pinpricks, for they had been little more than that, did,
however, serve to incense the ponderous German's wrath even more, and when
Boiorix realized that he was running out of time if he wanted to conclude the
fight with a victory, he spurred himself to a final effort. He went berserk,
displaying a primeval furor Teutonicus, flailing at Taleena with brutal force
but little result, as she was still fit and dextrous enough to dodge his mighty
blows.
Taleena made little attempt to score, but it was unnecessary, because
the bovine barbarian's tactics made him look as foolish as a bull in a
glassworks. Time after time his sweeping strokes cleaved the air harmlessly,
until at last the violence of one of his swings threw him off balance so that he
stumbled forward driving his sword impotently into the ground.
Finally Calixtus stopped the fight, declaring it a draw, even though
Taleena had clearly demonstrated her superiority. The other bout had ended long
before - the broken-nosed Numidian having easily outclassed Selia - but Taleena
was satisfied with her own result.
But for Bovarius the draw amounted to a defeat, and what was worse, his
second defeat in a row to a woman. From his troubled expression it was clear
that he already visualized himself tied to the whipping post. The prospect of
being flogged for losing to a woman seemed to eat at the very core of his
manhood, and shame and anger were written all over his face. A trip to the post
was something that Taleena would not have wished on her worst enemy - save
perhaps for the lecherous Balbinus - and yet Taleena couldn't resist giving the
angry German a smile edged with triumph. A smile that was returned with a look
of pure hatred, a malevolence that made Taleena shiver, all the more so since
something in the German's brutish, undisguised hostility made her question, for
the first time, her optimism with regard to the upcoming assessment.
