Disclaimer: See Part 1
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She sat in the dimness, lost herself in the dance of a mote of dust floating across sheets of sunlight. A shadow passed across the light, blocked the golden ray piercing her eye. She glanced up. Wide eyes peered down at her through the wooden slats, the small face of a boy regarding her with awe.
A soft nudge at her elbow. Scar held out a bowl of porridge. “You should eat something. The match isn’t for another candlemark.” She shook her head, but he pressed it into her hand. “Take it. She doesn’t feed you enough. I always hear your stomach rumbling.” As if on command it gurgled and clenched. She drew her lips into a grim line, pushed the bowl away.
He shrugged. “I know what you mean. I’m nervous too.”
The room was extraordinarily quiet for the number of men and women waiting within. Grunts and monosyllables punctuated the hollow normally filled with conversations. Prisoners and combatants and guards focused every ounce of awareness on the minutes before them, the sounds above them. Too many of them looked at her with dull eyes, dead before they ever passed through those doors.
Hardness glittered back at them. No point wasting energy or concentration on something as useless as pity. They would either fight and win or fight and die. She couldn’t help any of them, and she had her own performance to worry about.
With each opening of the gates, each rousing cheer of the crowd waiting beyond, the room thinned out. Guards dragged two of the wounded to the back of the sun-striped room to join the day’s other casualties. Harried healers and assistants bustled between cots, staunching bleeding and stitching wounds. Ephiny worked among them, her face set, hands efficient. Between patients she glanced up once, her gaze settling on the Leopard. In the set of her jaw lurked lingering accusations. This is your fault. You brought this upon us.
Faintly she heard the crier announce another match. The last combatants, two of the Conqueror’s most skillful soldiers, stepped out into the blinding sun.
She waited alone, her mind focused solely on her body, on sounds, on the fight to come.
Her escort hefted the armor over the red soldier’s tunic. After years of being chained while guards strapped armor on for her, it felt strange buckling the familiar cuirass herself, unfettered by manacles. Only the thin gold collar around her neck served as a reminder of her status, that and her gentle shadow. She savored the ability to stretch her arms wide, tilted her face up to enjoy the warm light cutting through the room, allowed herself to pretend she was a freewoman. If fighting to the death for the entertainment of others counted as freedom.
The back gate opened. Two guards entered, escorting the chained prisoner. Beaded leather armor covered her from head to toe, her face hidden by a mask, a strange representation of a hawk fringed with a mane of feathers and grass. She might not have even known it was Terreis, if not for the mass of flame curls under the fringe. As Scar tightened the leather ties on her bracers she studied the queen of the Amazons, the way she swayed when forced to move, held abnormally still when left alone. Her eyes narrowed. Losing to this woman would not be easy.
A weight pulled back on her shoulders, shifted her center of balance as Scar clipped a heavy leopard skin to her armor. She scowled at the cape, at her escort. He shrugged apologetically. “Conqueror’s orders.”
The drone of the crowd above rose in volume. Wouldn’t be long now. She adjusted her bootlaces under the bronze greaves, rolled her wrists to get the bracers to settle comfortably. Absently fingers scratched the back of her left hand, still itching where it healed.
She stole another glance back at the Amazon. Did she remember those long nights in the cell? Did she recognize a fellow prisoner? The mask stared straight ahead, showing no interest in her. She wished she could see her eyes. What had the Conqueror told her? How hard would she fight? Was she in a lot of pain? Did she even have the strength to raise a weapon?
The gates flew open. Soldiers dragged one of the soldiers in, his feet plowing a deep furrow of black blood through virgin sand. The victor followed, smiling and waving, too drunk on the adoration of the crowd to notice his blood leaking out too fast. Ephiny jumped on him, pressed a bandage to his leg, swearing under her breath for protection from fools and despots while helping him toward the makeshift infirmary.
As soldier and healer passed the waiting prisoner, the queen’s gauntleted hand reached out just a little, fingertips caressing the apprentice’s leg as she hurried by. The gladiator stared, almost thought she’d imagined it, but once she got the soldier settled on a cot, Ephiny stole a furtive glance at the Amazon.
The gladiator’s head snapped around as her escort pressed chobos into tingling palms. Though similar to the ones she used before, these were new, sporting freshly-oiled leather handles and bearing the carvings of the Conqueror’s dragon interweaving itself up the length of each shaft.
The voice above seeped in once more. “…in today’s final match, fighting for the first time for the pleasure of Corinth, the Conqueror’s prize, the Leopard of Rome!”
The gates opened once more, and on the impenetrable whiteness rode the siren song of the crowd. Tension from the long wait melted away, and with a dark flutter of anticipation, she waded into the light.
Odd feelings of possessive pride swelled the Conqueror’s chest as her gladiator took center stage, coolly appraising the hundreds of people shouting and cheering and booing from the shaded stands. She was a vision of beauty, strong and healthy and confident and powerful in a way the Conqueror had never seen before, her tiny presence commanding the crowd’s attention, filling the newly consecrated arena of sand as no other combatant had.
The oval was hardly bigger than the ship they arrived on, quickly thrown together from wood and dirt, lacking any of the statues or color or finery of Caesar’s prized battleground. But in Corinth it was a rare and wonderful spectacle, and the Corinthian audience cheered loud enough to be heard as far away as Athens.
The gladiator turned full circle, pale eyes finally coming to rest on the Conqueror. Fire leapt in her belly at the contact, at the confidence in that look.
Amun shifted as he recognized her, his eyes wide. “She is your prize fighter? Your body servant?” A slow grin settled on his face. “Wherever did you find such an interesting creature?”
She shrugged, smirked. “Got lucky.”
Beside her the speaker waited for the noise to die down before addressing the crowd once more. “Facing the Leopard is a fearsome fighter, known for her prowess both on and off the battlefield. Today she fights for a reprieve from the executioner. I give you Terreis, Queen of the Amazons!”
Jeers and catcalls greeted the prisoner, that and rotten food and coins. The Conqueror watched tension knot in the gladiator’s arms and shoulders. She glared not at her opponent but the crowd, no doubt still smarting from fresh memories of her own welcome by this mob. The Amazon weathered it well enough, kept her feet under her and didn’t acknowledge the hecklers. The mask focused solely on the gladiator and nothing else.
“Gladiators, face the Conqueror and bow.”
Chobos crossed in Amazon salute, the gladiator inclining her head, the queen bending stiffly at the waist and immediately taking a defensive fighting stance. Languidly the Leopard responded in kind. They circled, closing the distance, studying each other.
The first clash of the chobos ended as abruptly as it started, one of the Leopard’s fighting sticks flying from her hand. She rolled away before the Amazon could press the advantage, scooped up the dropped weapon and reset for another go. Not the opening gambit the Conqueror would have chosen, but it certainly opened the expectations early for a more even match.
The gladiator spun it in her hand, tightened her grip and blocked the next blow head on. Both chobos flew from her hands; she barely managed to turn her face before the strike split her cheekbone, sent her sprawling. She scuttled away until she could get her feet back under her, stared down at her palms. The arena was small enough that the Conqueror could clearly see the smear of blood upon them. Where had it come from? Was it hers? The Leopard’s shock turned to resentment and mistrust in the glare she threw the Conqueror. The warrior’s eyebrows knitted with questions.
The Leopard’s eyes flicked to her opponent, barely threw her forearms up in time to block the sticks arcing toward her head, landing flat on her back, stunned. The queen moved in to strike but a powerful leg hooked the back of her ankle, dropped her to the sand. They both scrambled up, the gladiator snatching up one chobo, then the other. Careful to keep a little more distance between them she glanced at the weapons, turning them over in her hands.
The moment she looked away the Amazon came in again. Lightning fast the gladiator flipped the chobos, gritted her teeth and blocked with the handles. This time she held on. Wood smacked against wood in a flurry of strikes and blocks. The Conqueror was impressed. Two days ago the prisoner could hardly lift her arms. Now she put every ounce of strength into each blow. Even so, she was wild and uncoordinated and not remotely as cunning and evasive as the Leopard.
Her slave finally settled into the rhythm of the fight, more comfortable holding the wrong ends of the sticks. The Conqueror relaxed a little; this was the match she expected. The gladiator would keep the fight moving along, make it look good until she got the signal, then leave an opening large enough to drive a siege engine through and wait for the woman to take her down. Easy, if the queen’s endurance held.
And so things went for a while. The afternoon heat began to take its toll on the pair. The queen’s blocks began to sag under the effort of swinging the chobos. The gladiator also began to droop, although never so much that she took another hard hit for it. The Conqueror’s experienced eye detected the deception, made a note to watch for it next time they sparred.
In a lull between clashes the Leopard startled and spun, swiping at empty air behind her. Even the Amazon paused, surprised. By the time she took advantage of the distraction the gladiator turned again, ducked the swing meant to take her head off. A chobo jabbed into the queen’s armored midsection, hard enough to knock the wind out of the Amazon and send her staggering back. The Conqueror growled; she explicitly forbade any serious injuries to the queen. That was a harder shot than she was supposed to deliver the entire match.
She felt Amun lean in. “What’s wrong? I thought we were rooting for your slave.”
The Conqueror gritted her teeth. “Poor technique,” she groused, left it at that.
The gladiator hung back, feigned a need to wipe bloody palms on the hem of her tunic while her opponent recovered. When she glanced up again, her eyes went wide. At what, the warrior couldn’t tell, but something about the queen clearly rattled her. The queen lunged, driving the startled Leopard back, chobos whirling madly until they locked together. Nose to nose, the queen’s slightest lean forward caused the gladiator to arch back in alarm. A trick, she surmised; any moment now she would shift her stance, give a little, slip to the side like she always did.
A quick scoop of the queen’s foot dropped the gladiator hard in the sand. The Conqueror blinked. A raw recruit could have avoided that sweep.
The gladiator rolled over, scrabbled to get her hands under her. The queen hauled back, planted a boot in ribs the gladiator made no effort to block. It lifted her off the ground, dropped her hard face first in the dirt. Watery elbows pushed her up from the sand, a knee dragged itself beneath her—
Another kick to the ribs, this one clearly in the soft spot between breastplate and backplate by the grimace it elicited. The Conqueror twitched, suppressed a groan as her ribs clenched in sympathy. Again her gladiator hauled herself up, teetered on one knee and elbow as the Amazon drew back a leg. Finally the Leopard showed sense enough to curl an arm against her ribs. The kick snapped her head back instead, dropped her flat on her back in the sand.
“Goodness,” Amun chuckled, “it looks as if your slave is out of her league.”
The Conqueror frowned. She’d told her to lose. She hadn’t told her to get herself killed.
The slave stirred, eyes glassy as limbs waved ineffectually. The queen straddled her heaving chest, pinned her arms to the sand and leaned low. The crowd made too much noise to hear, but she could have sworn the queen whispered something in her ear. Whatever she said pierced the Leopard’s daze, drew a howl—a howl!—from her clenched throat. The Conqueror jolted to her feet. The slave might have her toenails ripped out and not make that sound.
A murmur rippled through the crowd. A second scream from her slave, a strangled keen of hatred and pain, and she bucked the Amazon over her head, clawed across the sand to pounce on her. A single fist reared back, fractured the mask and the face beneath.
“Guards!” the Conqueror bellowed. They couldn’t move fast enough. Her stomach twisted in a knot as her plan shattered under the gladiator’s assault. Even after the queen lay still, blows rained down upon her. Not until her fists came away covered in red ichor did she tire, push away from the unrecognizable form drunkenly, a hand finding one of her chobos along the way.
Her skin flushed crimson with heat and exertion. Glazed eyes scanned the crowd, the archers taking positions along the top of the wall, the soldiers forming up around her. Her eyes slid past the Conqueror, didn’t see the signal she gave for mercy that would end the match, didn’t drop her chobo. Instead she swung at the closest soldier, driving him back. Gods, was she mad? The guards pressed in tighter, surrounding her, cutting off room to maneuver. She spun, the chobo clearing space in the constricting noose even as one knee buckled beneath her. She doubled over and spat up frothy bile, snapped her stick up and swiped blindly at menacing swords before they could close in for the kill.
The Conqueror leapt to the sand, silencing the crowd with a scowl. She strode over to the Amazon queen, checked the bloody heap for signs of life. “Take her to the healers. Now!” she barked.
The gladiator still held the remaining soldiers at bay with a stiff arm, staring at nothing with eyes so dilated they looked like black pools. The Conqueror stepped past the ring of soldiers, trying to draw her attention. “Parda? Do you hear me?”
The chobo thrust toward the voice, forced her back out of range. A dozen swords tried to close in on the Leopard, but she stopped them with a movement of her hand, eased in again. “Gabrielle?”
Again the chobo warded her off, even as squinting eyes failed to find her. Her lips moved, but the grunts that scraped out barely resembled words. The Conqueror glanced up at the hushed crowd, squared her jaw.
“Give me that weapon, slave. Fight’s over.” She held out a hand. The Conqueror expected to be obeyed. The warrior preparing for anything.
“No,” her slave mumbled thickly. “Monsters.”
That she spoke at all erased any doubt the Leopard was not herself.
The slave lunged at man beside her, drove him back, put her wobbly self squarely between her owner and the nearest soldier.
Mediterranean blue eyes flickered to the crowd, their hunger whetted for more bloodshed, eager for any resistance that would oblige her to order the slave’s execution.
She lay cautious hands on knotted shoulders; unnatural heat poured off them in waves. Words began to tumble from her lips, arrows meant to pierce deaf ears and a remote mind. “Gabrielle, give me your weapon. They won’t hurt me. They won’t hurt you. I won’t let them.” As she spoke, one hand slid down the extended arm, closed around the blood-caked fist. “Listen to me. Trust me. Stop fighting. Let go.” Long fingers gentled the fighting stick from a white-knuckled grip. The Leopard didn’t seem to notice. She leaned in, full red lips breathing into burning ears. “Kneel, Gabrielle. This one time, submit to me.” And softly, so softly that she was certain no one else could hear, “As a friend.”
The gladiator’s shoulders fluttered with each gasp. Almost twenty soldiers stared at them, swords drawn, bowstrings pulled taut.
One by one her physical defenses came down, surgically dismantled as only a professional fighter could. Even the mask fell away and she seemed to shrink, shapeshift into something strangely soft and innocuous. Troubled black eyes turned toward the Conqueror while one knee bent, then the other, hovering mid-way until tired legs gave out to drop her jarringly to her knees. She winced, one arm crushed against her side, propped her more or less upright in spite of the pronounced curl around her ribs. Breath oozed from tight lips, the high-pitched wheeze of air escaping an overfilled bladder.
A sharp glance at the announcer roused him from his captivated stare. He cleared his throat. “Good Corinthians, I give you the winner! The Conqueror proclaims these games concluded!” A half-hearted cheer rose from the stands. Only as the crowd departed did the tension in the arena dissipate. Swords lowered and bows creaked at the Conqueror’s signal.
The Leopard hunched in the sand, head hanging, body shuddering with unnatural panting. Thick scarlet fluid bubbled from her bloated nose, crusted on a swollen upper lip. One cheekbone leaked red from the kiss of the chobo. Half-lidded eyes gazed at slack hands upon her thighs, stained dark with so much gore, hers and the Amazon queen’s. She looked…lost.
The last of the onlookers filed out of the arena. The Conqueror sighed. “You may rise.” She shook her head to herself, at a loss for how to get out of this newest mess.
“X-Xena?”
The Conqueror’s head snapped up at the forbidden word. Gabrielle clambered to her feet shakily, her voice hoarse, slurred. “I feel a little…strange.”
She never quite reached vertical, eyes rolling up to whites as she toppled.
“Gabrielle?”
She groaned, pushed at air, threw an arm over her eyes.
“Gabrielle.”
Her stomach pitched and bubbled, spat acid at the thought of moving. She covered her ears, willed her visitor to go away.
“Is that the proper way to greet your Master?”
Her eyes snapped open.
Caesar’s chambers. Caesar’s bed. Caesar.
She startled backwards so fast she fairly levitated. Chains snapped tight, dropped her hard to the down-filled pallet.
“I don’t recall dismissing you.” He slid across Egyptian cotton sheets to lay a hand on golden manacles. Wild eyes snapped to exquisitely carved marble busts, polished gold serving bowls full of sumptuous fruit, fine purple drapery framing a view of Rome herself. He frowned at her confusion. “Oh dear. You didn’t think I’d let her keep you?”
Her heart hammered so hard in her chest she thought it might shatter.
He propped himself up on an elbow, smirked. “I must say, you were quite helpful to me with the senator. How much moreso now? Selling you to that old buzzard was one of those fate-inspired moments. Even though…” He leaned in, drew in a heady lungful of her scent. “Hmm…being this close to you does recall certain…diversions.”
He scooped up a fistful of white gold hair, pulled her lips to his. She stiff armed him, fists clenched, but he clucked at her. “Now, now, the arrangement hasn’t changed.” His eyes flickered over her shoulder.
She didn’t look, knew who stood there watching. Her arms sagged and she withdrew behind hooded eyes as he kissed her, long and hungry. His perfect fingernails brushed her throat, traced along her breast, her side. She retreated deeper inside, but a familiar flutter in her stomach betrayed her. He took her slowly, carefully, knowingly, wanted only one thing. Only ever one thing. Control. They warred silently, her flesh the battleground, the pawn, the traitor, until she gasped and shuddered, outmaneuvered again.
He finished with a groan, low and undignified, face red, lips twisted in an unconscious sneer. Finally he rolled away, panting, body slick with sweat. “You always disappoint me, Gabrielle. No passion, no spirit. Now Xena, on the other hand…there’s a woman who loves a good fuck. She and I, we’re exactly alike. Look at her go.”
Cold water flooded under her skin as she reluctantly followed his gaze. In the Conqueror’s luxurious bed she lay, eyes closed, her features limned in the warm glow of a dying hearth fire. Not asleep, and not alone. Something—someone—moved between her thighs, rhythmically rocking to a silent song that pleased the Conqueror.
“Exquisite, isn’t she?” Caesar stood over her, the back of his hand caressing a warm cheek with sickening familiarity. The slave stood frozen across the room, afraid to make a sound lest the Conqueror open her eyes.
Xena moaned, clutched at the form above her, squeezed an ample breast. Breath caught in the Leopard’s throat. The woman ground harder into the Conqueror, her hand lost in the space between them.
“Why so shocked?” he whispered in her ear. “Hasn’t she taken you to her bed yet?”
The woman flipped thick black hair over her shoulder. The Egyptian dancer. The gladiator swallowed, the meaning in her parting look suddenly clear, one slave challenging another for the right to pleasure the Conqueror.
Caesar’s eyebrows crawled into his hairline. “Hm. Pity. I suppose a broken thing like you hardly meets her standards. This one is far more lovely. Eager, too.”
He stood behind the Conqueror’s gyrating partner, his palms hovering over the arched back, thin waist, full ass, admiring her as he spoke. “I believe my servant made my wishes known to you, yes? Yet days go by and you do nothing. You dine with her. You sleep in her chambers. You drill with weapons while she stands within arm’s reach. You sleep in your bed while she lies helpless under the ministrations of her lovers. So I must ask you, are my expectations unclear?”
With the barest twitch she shook her head, unable to take her eyes off the two women.
“I didn’t think so. And is there any doubt in your simple peasant mind as to what will happen if you refuse?”
Again, the tiniest jerk of her chin side to side.
“Excellent. Now do what you do best. Go find something sharp to put an end to her existence.”
She wavered, legs stiff as marble, iron bands squeezing her chest.
“Come, Gabrielle, we haven’t got all night. You know there’s a knife on the food table. Or are you having second thoughts about your priorities?”
How she came to stand by the table she didn’t know. Numb fingers wrapped around the blade, held it clipped against her forearm while she drifted silently across the floor. Just within range of the oblivious pair she held back, her knees trembling.
“Is there a problem?” snapped her former owner, his patience wearing thin.
She didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right. The knife in her hand didn’t sit comfortably. Her legs wouldn’t hold steady. Her vision blurred. She shook her head, narrowed her focus down to the Destroyer of Nations, to her blade suddenly hovering above the bare throat.
Pale eyes stared up at her, the Conqueror’s pleasure forgotten.
She should have slashed and been done with it. She’d seen the Conqueror’s reflexes, knew from experience how quick she could be with that jab to the neck. But once again she held an edge to that strong pulse and hesitated, unwilling to make the final cut.
“What are you doing?”
She couldn’t be sure who asked. Xena, whose lips moved, or Caesar, whose voice bored into her skull. The dancer skulked away, melded with the shadows.
“Kill her. What are you waiting for?”
She quivered with ragged breaths, licking lips suddenly dry.
With one long finger, the Conqueror casually raised the tip of the blade. “Put that away. You’re not yourself—”
She growled, lifting that fine jaw with the knife’s edge. No, she was most definitely not herself. She was someone else entirely, someone the Conqueror didn’t know.
Caesar leaned over the headboard, his handsome face inches from hers. “Finish her. Do it.” She sucked in a desperate breath, suffocating under his whispers.
The Conqueror’s eyes took in the room. “Gabrielle, think.”
Caesar ground his teeth. “Think? Since when have you ever been trained to think? Leave the thinking to poets and philosophers. You don’t think. You kill.”
A strangled sound crept out, caught between wanting to explain and trying to obey.
“Gabrielle, talk to me.” The woman looked alarmed, less for herself than the gladiator. She shoved the knife’s edge harder against the bare throat, would end her life with a single slice, easy. She’d done it before. So why did that porcelain face still her hand, steal her breath?
“Finish this, pet. Everything will be back to the way it was.” Caesar snaked against her back, one hand gliding down her abdomen to cup her sex. Her eyes squeezed shut against the intimate touch, the hated heat, the bubbling in her stomach.
A punch to the jaw sent her flying, tumbling across the rugs. She heard more than saw her coming, stumbled back. Vision swimming, instinct alone deflected some of the punches. Not a good way to fight, particularly against a combatant as notoriously skillful as the Conqueror. She ducked a swing, sidestepped into a kick that sent her crashing down on top of a wooden stand. Her hand closed around something and she swung blind, connecting with the warrior’s leg and dropping her. In the momentary respite she scrabbled to her feet and backed away, trying to get her bearings, recover her senses, assess the bruises and tickle of blood upon her lip and cheek.
“What are you doing?” Caesar screamed in her ear. “Kill her!”
Automatically she moved to comply, but a vision behind the prone warrior stole the very air from her chest. The leather-clad woman leaned heavily against a column, one leg twisted almost beyond function. From her dislocated shoulders dangled broken arms and fingers clinging to a weathered pair of gladii. The ghost raised her head, nearly unrecognizable under the long dark matted curls and swollen face.
“Kill her, sister. Mercy in a gladiator is no virtue. You taught me that.” At her stare, the ghost smiled. “Had you forgotten about me? The teacher you betrayed for Caesar? He gave you an order.”
She looked down at the Conqueror, met the woman’s questioning eyes. She jerked her head, as much shudder as protest.
“You refuse? Have you no honor? No sense of duty to your master?” When the gladiator couldn’t move, her mentor smirked. “Fine. This crippled old woman will do it herself.” She shuffled forward, awkwardly raised a gladius to strike the Conqueror.
The Leopard lunged first, drove her own sword deep into the woman’s side, caught her as she fell.
Bloated lips worked for few moments before sound oozed out. “Good girl.”
Her throat clenched, swallowing the sting of those words. She cradled the Amazon to her chest, smoothed dark curls away from her bloody face. Strange that no tears came this time. Did she have none left for the old queen, or none left for herself?
Caesar knelt to croon in her ear. “As maudlin a scene as I remember it—”
She roughly shouldered him away.
“Melosa’s right, though. Mercy is for the weak and the dead. When was mercy ever shown to you?”
Without thinking her eyes slid to the Conqueror.
“Xena? Show you mercy? The woman who hung you from the mast of her ship? The one who uses you as a poison taster? The one who forces you to fight for her amusement? Surely you don’t think she does anything except for herself. Had you forgotten all that? Let me put it another way. You just tried to kill the Conqueror. If she lives, your life is forfeit.”
Her heart warred with itself. The Leopard nodded, pushed herself heavily to her feet. Tired words tumbling from her lips. “He’s right.”
“Who’s right?”
She jerked her head. “Caesar.”
Eyes darted behind her. “Gabrielle, there’s no one there.”
“He’s—” She gestured, blinked slowly at the empty space where he’d stood. The Amazon queen’s body was gone too. She shook her head to clear it, immediately regretted it as the room spun a little, made her stomach do a slow roll. “Doesn’t matter. He ordered me to kill you.”
“Caesar?”
“The Egyptian.”
A sneer on her lips. “Did he?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it quick.” She set her stance, raised her guard.
“Is that so? With what?”
She held up her sword, found it gone from her hand.
“You’re not in the best shape.” The Conqueror rippled and blurred like a vision on a hot summer’s day. “Are you sure you can take me in your condition?”
“Condition?” She swayed, steadied herself on a column, only to jerk back as it writhed under her palm, an enormous snake stretched from floor to ceiling. She bumped into the Conqueror, jumped again. She opened her mouth to warn her, but the column was plain drab stone once more.
Gentle hands steadied her. “Maybe you should lie down for a while.”
She took stock of a disconnected body, reluctantly nodded. “Just until he comes back.”
“The Egyptian?”
“Caesar.”
“Fine.”
Careful arms guided her to a plush bed draped in pristine white linens. She sank down onto it, hissed at the stab in her ribs. “She got me good.” As the pain ebbed she sagged, smiled to herself. “My blocks were never much use against Melosa.”
Probing fingers stopped. “Melosa? Queen Melosa?”
She sighed, tired. “She was just here, remember? Caesar loved to watch her fight. She taught me how to use the chobos, how to survive in the arena. When Caesar tired of her, he let his guard beat her half to death for sport before he had me kill her. After her, they got easier.”
“They?”
She jerked at the press against her ribs, saw spots, answered through clenched teeth, “The kills.”
“What kills?”
A shrug. “Officers. Diplomats. Senators. He never did like to get his hands dirty.”
The Conqueror’s hands stilled. “I’ll be damned. Bellerophon was right. You are an assassin.”
She couldn’t read the Xena’s expression, thought she detected disappointment. Betrayal. “I wasn’t sent to kill you. Please believe me. The senator was my target, when Caesar gave the word. Then you arrived. I don’t think even he could anticipate you buying me. In the house of his enemy I hoped to be free of him, but he has eyes even here.”
The Conqueror grunted. “He’ll be blind soon enough.”
Hands dug like arrows in her side, left her feeling light-headed and far away. A cloth wiped blood and perspiration from her face. “I don’t want to, you know. Kill you. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“That’s the beautiful lady talking.”
Her brow wrinkled. “You…think I’m beautiful?”
The Conqueror shook her head, half irritated, half amused. “Never mind. I have an idea.” She began tearing a fine white sheet into strips. “You don’t want to kill me, but Caesar’s ordered you to, right?” She nodded, mesmerized by the squeal of ripping fabric. “What if you don’t get another chance? Caesar can’t expect you to follow through until you have an opportunity.” One end of a strip knotted around her wrist, pulled it snugly to the bed. “Right?”
She tested the knot warily. “I suppose.”
Another knot slipped over the other wrist. She jerked against it, but Xena took her hand. “He won’t. He has an advantage here if he doesn’t waste it. He’ll wait until the right moment. Trust me.”
It made sense. The other wrist pulled tight to the bed. More ties pinned her down. Nerves prickled in her gut. “Xena?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to execute me? For trying to kill you?”
She stopped, thought about that. “Not tonight.” She pulled a sheet up to the gladiator’s shoulders, tucked it in, shuffled out of sight.
“Xena?”
A sigh. “What?”
“I’m sorry I interrupted you…with the dancer.”
A pause. “’S alright. I was…thinking about something else.”
More answer than she expected. The dancer’s glare surfaced, unbridled hatred for a rival. “Xena?”
“What now?”
“Will you have me service you someday?”
The silence from the other side of the room deafened, long enough to make the gladiator flush with nervous imagination. “Is that what you want?”
The very thought made the already warm air go thick and heavy in her chest. “No.”
The word bounced around the chamber for a few moments. “Good. I don’t do damaged merchandise.”
Stung, she wrestled with those words for some time.
“Xena?”
“By the gods, what?”
“Are we going back to Corinth?”
“We are in Corinth.”
The bright marble halls of Caesar’s palace faded to the drab stone of the Conqueror’s dim chambers. Inky windows let the weak hearth light escape into the night. “Oh. Do you like it here? In Corinth?”
The silence stretched out, long enough to know she’d overstepped some invisible boundary. “Go to sleep, Gabrielle.”
She didn’t sleep. She lay awake for a long time, wrists fidgeting against the ties, wondering if she would die come morning. Wondering what happened to the people she’d left behind in Rome. What the Conqueror was like as a lover. Most of all, she wondered if she could kill her when the opportunity arose.
Her throat hurt, scraped and bruised and overused. A dry swallow made her wince.
Which reminded her that her face hurt. She reached up to rub her cheek.
Which reminded her that she couldn’t lift her arms.
With dread, she cracked open one eye.
Her eyeball felt like a chunk of pumice tumbling around in its socket: hard, not-quite round, and scratchy. And a poor replacement for an eye. It wouldn’t stay still on any one thing, certainly didn’t focus. Every jiggle left an afterimage, a trail behind each object that blended into an indecipherable mess. She closed it, expecting a surge of nausea.
It never came. Slowly she opened them both, found the jittering and smearing to be a little more manageable.
The rod of white in a wash of dark looked suspiciously familiar, and with persistence she recognized a tall narrow window that threw a shaft of light across the room, splashed upon the Conqueror’s opulent bed and bounced into the shadowed corners of the chambers.
The Conqueror’s chambers. Her cot, tucked in the corner. She tried to sit up, couldn’t raise shoulders or knees or arms. Memories came back to her in scraps and ashes of Xena telling her something. Telling her many things, actually, and she spoke of many things in kind, but this was something important, something both soothing and disturbing at the same time.
The ties. She was tied down. “Why?” she would ask.
“Because of the beautiful lady,” the Conqueror would reply. And her mind would wander, pondering this cryptic answer, and then she’d forget and ask all over again. How many times did they have the same conversation? A dozen? More? But she remembered this time and relaxed.
“Xe—?” The name lodged in her parched throat. Another swallow, like drinking powdered glass. Best she could do to wet her tongue. “Xena?”
Movement then, too fast, like swallows streaking out of the barn rafters when she was a girl. It startled her then and it startled her now, moreso since she couldn’t quite bring her eyes to focus on the face looming over her. Not Xena’s.
“Still alive.” Ephiny sounded disappointed as she took her chin in a firm grip, peeled back an eyelid. The Leopard tried to shake off her forceful touch, found herself too exhausted to fight back…much. But the effort earned a different expression from the apprentice: curiosity. “Hey, you in there? Do you hear me?”
She snarled at the harassment, glared daggers at the apprentice if she didn’t let go.
“I’ll be a centaur’s mother, you’re looking right at me. She’s back,” the apprentice called over her shoulder, returning small clay pots and leather bags to her satchel. She paused midway, looked down peculiarly. “The Conqueror says you chose not to kill the queen. Is that true?”
Her brow furrowed.
“The queen? The match in the arena? You pounding her face to porridge?” Her tone took on a harder edge. “She says you backed off to spare her life. Looked to me like you ran out of strength before you finished the job. So I want to know. Did you mean to kill her?”
She stared up into hard eyes, at a loss for how to respond.
“You don’t remember any of it? The match? The poisoning? What you did—?”
“Leave her alone.” Scar appeared over her shoulder, his face hard. “You heard what the Conqueror said.”
She hardly looked at him. “The Conqueror’s not here. I can ask questions.”
“I’m here.” His threat was unmistakable. “Besides,” he said, reading the gladiator’s face, “she won’t answer you now. Should have asked when you had the chance.”
Her stomach clenched. What chance? What poisoning? Who had she been talking to besides the Conqueror?
Ephiny’s hazel eyes never wavered. “Did you mean to kill her? Maim her? Or just humiliate her?”
She shook her head, desperately trying to recall what the woman wanted to know. All she could remember was one fleeting forbidden touch between healer and prisoner.
“Stop it. By the end of that fight she was out of her head. She didn’t know what she was doing.” The scarred soldier’s tenor edged away from cool detachment, settled somewhere near protective.
“Centaur dung. I saw the look on her face. Pure rage.” She leaned in, dropped her voice. “I heard what you did to Melosa. Do you hate all Amazons, or just Amazon queens?”
“That’s enough.” The low growl turned the apprentice’s head in fear. She backed away, the sudden dark void filled with the Conqueror’s blurry face. The gladiator gasped in relief, blinked furiously to clear the fuzziness from her vision, the odd stinging from her eyelids. “Relax. Close your eyes.” She obeyed, not questioning why. “Open.” Again the light assaulted her, the brightness of the window, the paleness of the Conqueror’s face. She cringed, still dreading a bout of nausea that never manifested, willing the streamers to fade.
“No dilation. Ephiny, looks like you get to live. You can return to your duties. Send me an update on the prisoner. And pass my compliments along to the old man.”
“By your will,” the apprentice forced past a clenched jaw.
The Conqueror ignored her, set to work slowly untying the knots, eyes fixed on her. An undercurrent of static seemed to crackle between them, but she couldn’t read the Conqueror’s expression, some strange mix of wariness, concern, and anger. “You almost left me.”
Perplexed, her mouth opened, closed again soundlessly. She rolled her wrists, working out soreness from struggles she couldn’t remember.
“Can you sit up?” In spite of the Conqueror’s neutral tone, but it didn’t take an oracle to know she was in trouble. She took the offered hand, found herself relying on it to pull herself upright.
A spear through her side and sparkling lights made her tilt, might have dumped her to the cold stone floor if not for steadying hands on her shoulders. Now she did feel like vomiting. She sat still a long time, willing the weakness away, knuckles locked anxiously on anything that didn’t move until the swaying passed. She opened her eyes to find cloth-wrapped fingers dug deep into the warlord’s shoulder. Immediately they let go, burned by the fine silks they crushed. She looked away before she could gauge the Conqueror’s response.
Moments dragged by, heavy with embarrassment. The Conqueror drew a long inhale. “Do you remember how you got here?”
The gladiator looked up again, vaguely past her at the waiting guard. She shook her head no.
The Conqueror’s lips drew into a thin line. “Leave us.” Her eyes burned into the gladiator, and for a moment she struggled to comply. A hand stilled her. “Not you.”
Scar cleared his throat. “Begging the Conqueror’s pardon, but she could still be—”
“She wasn’t dangerous then, and she isn’t now.” She sighed then at his concern. “Wait in the hall if you must.”
The chamber doors latched shut behind the departing soldier. For many long heartbeats neither of them moved, unsure what to do or say next. At least that’s how the slave read her owner. For her part, she knew what she needed. Sitting up cost her too much. The pain in her ribs alternated between vicious knifing and concerted throbbing. She felt tired, heavy, altogether wrong, as if coated with mud inside and out. Her cot rocked on ocean waves she couldn’t see. All she wanted was to lay her spinning head on something unmoving, and only the fact that the strong shoulder before her belonged to the most powerful woman in the Mediterranean made her pause.
Which left her suspended in discomfort, barely breathing, muscles locked protectively around injuries she couldn’t remember, waiting for the Conqueror to ask something, say something, do something—anything—to let her know what she’d done wrong and what she was supposed to do next.
Xena drew a long slow breath. “Does that shade of green mean you need a chamberpot?”
She took stock of her stomach, realized by the way it rubbed up against her spine that there wasn’t enough in there to eject. A strangely comforting thought. She shook her head again, wobbled with the motion, gritted teeth and willed herself to stay upright. That shoulder was still there, still looked appallingly inviting. She closed her eyes, shoving the thought away.
“Do you remember the match?”
The match. Unbidden images leapt to mind, of the sun-streaked staging room, the passage of bodies and souls through the gates, the makeshift infirmary, the healer, the prisoner—
“The apprentice, Ephiny,” she croaked, her throat tasting of copper with the effort. “She said I nearly beat the queen to death. Is that true?”
The Conqueror got up, returned moments later with a cup of clear water and pressed it into her hands. “You tell me.”
“I remember fighting her, but…” A horror rose up in her mind, the screech of a monstrous gryphon, its long beak snapping hungrily at her face. She shut her eyes against it, tried to squeeze the vision out. “I don’t remember how it ended.”
The Conqueror studied her. “But you do remember something.”
Desperate for liquid on her tongue and throat, she took a long drag from the cup, swallowed with effort. It did nothing to take the edge off her thirst. Another gulp finished off the cup, left her mouth dry as sand. She stared into its depths, debated asking for more, thought better of it until she collected scattered thoughts. “Yes, I remember things. Impossible things, like dreams come to life. Or nightmares.” The visions reasserted themselves, bizarre and violent, too real to be imagined. Her throbbing eyes focused on the fingers she clenched and unclenched in her lap, wrapped like sausages. She held them up. “What happened?”
The Conqueror retrieved one of the dragon-carved chobos. Dry blood crusted both ends. “Sabotage. Razors embedded in the handle under the wrap. From the first hit they cut through and into you.”
Her memory jolted. She nodded. “I remember. After I flipped them around they weren’t a problem. Why would someone bother?”
“The handles were soaked in poison. Belladonna.”
“Beautiful lady,” she breathed, finally understanding. “Thank the gods I didn’t get much of it.”
Xena snorted. “You got enough. For three days straight you barely breathed or raved like a lunatic.” Unconsciously the Leopard’s fingers brushed her raw throat. The Conqueror chuckled, not unkindly. “I’ll bet it’s sore. Once you start talking, you don’t stop.”
She couldn’t breathe. The knifing in her ribs dug deep, tapped an older wound. “Wh—what did I say?”
“Oh, many things, what parts I could make out. Stories, mostly, about the gods, old heroes, your family. About Xena, the honorable Warrior Princess. About your deadly uses to Caesar outside the arena.” The last sent a chill through the Leopard; she hardly noticed the battered sword until it rested nonchalantly on her shoulder next to her throat. “What did the Egyptian say to you?”
She could barely move, much less defend herself. She stilled, cautious of the cold steel nipping at her neck, chose her words carefully. “He said my old master had eyes even here, and I must kill you if I—if I want to go home.”
“‘Home.’” The Conqueror weighed the truth of her words. “And would you?”
The question caught her off guard, put her instantly on the defensive. “I’ve killed many others.”
“But would you kill me?”
Discomfort prickled in her gut. “I’ve already tried.”
“Yes. More than once as I recall. Although technically, holding a serving spoon to my throat doesn’t count as an actual attempt. But twice now you haven’t gone through with it. What’s stopping you?”
She struggled to sort through the jumble of feelings. “Fear, maybe.”
“Fear? I don’t believe it,” she sneered. “What could the Leopard of Rome possibly be afraid of? Being caught? Punishment?” The edge of the blade scraped against the pulse in her neck. “Death?”
The gladiator took a ragged breath, considered how to explain. “You own me. Your life is my life. My very short future is to live and die by your side or by your hand. Do you honestly think I don’t know your death will be my death?”
“Fear of what then?”
That was the harder question. She struggled to make sense of her feelings. “Of living, maybe. Going back to that existence. To him. To the arena. To silence. To a life without—” You, she almost said, caught herself in that absurdity of that statement. “Without hope. I can hardly face what I’ve done as it is. Tartarus would be a relief.”
The sword at her throat wavered. After long deliberation, the Conqueror pulled away, sheathed the blade. “There is no relief in Tartarus for people like us.”
Like us. The crack in the warlord’s customary detachment, the intensity of her words touched something in the slave. Her nose wrinkled in a wry smile. “Well, at least you’d have me for company.”
“Great. Stuck for eternity with my troublesome slave cum assassin.” A sobering thought. “I can’t have you trying to kill me all the time.”
The slave picked at the linen wrapped around her fingers, unable to look her in the eye. “Back to the cell?”
“No,” she said without hesitation. “So far as I’m concerned, someone tried to kill you, and until we figure out who, I want you where I can see you.”
“As protection?”
“As bait.” Her slow blink earned a chuckle. “And protection.” If some other purpose crossed her mind then, it never found a voice. “Within these chambers, no manacles…on one condition. No attempts on my life. Give me a chance to deal with Caesar’s spies. So long as you’re locked up, he can’t expect you to strike. Besides, I’m not some old general or fat senator. I’ve survived better assassins than you, and I wouldn’t enjoy your execution.” The warlord’s wide easy smile was meant to be conciliatory, but diamond chips glittered in her pale eyes.
The killer inside stirred, sized up the Conqueror in turn, her assessment straining her chest with feelings somewhere between pride and nausea. In her palm she felt the pressure of the spectral knife, remembered the twitch of the pulse beneath. That the Conqueror still lived spoke more of a lack of will on her part than skill. Such had always been her problem with killing, a weakness Caesar took great pains to eradicate. She’d begun to believe he’d succeeded, before she met Xena.
“Are you listening?”
Her mind snapped back, tried to resurrect the conversation. “My execution.”
She shook her head. “I said you’ll have to be restrained outside these chambers until the spies are dealt with. Will you do this for me?”
She rubbed her wrists, calloused from years of chains, scratched her neck under the gold collar. After days half-remembered of feverish soul-baring conversations, this was not the way she envisioned standing next to the Conqueror, as some pet on a leash.
The Conqueror read her reservation. “Do you remember the end of your match?”
Xena surrounded by hoary beasts, their long frosted claws reaching— She shook her head, not certain which memories were real.
“After the fight, when you wouldn’t stand down to the soldiers, I asked you to submit to me. Not as a slave. Never once has the slave surrendered to the Conqueror. But the Leopard has relinquished control and put her life in my hands more times than I can count.”
Green eyes snapped up, wary, uncertain. “I…don’t remember that.”
“You don’t think you could have been tied down without your consent or a stiff fight, do you?”
That much was true. Fragments of memories filtered in. “But…there was a fight, wasn’t there?”
“Oh, many. When you weren’t talking, you were fighting.”
The slave thought she detected a grim note of humor. And then she saw them, ochre bruises on the Conqueror’s neck, masked by a high collar. Reflexively she reached out to touch. Her owner stood abruptly, walked over to pour more water. A slow steady exhale under her breath. “I did that.”
“No. Caesar did that. You let me go.”
The pressure on her chest eased, let her breathe a little. She sighed. “What about the queen? Ephiny said I tried to kill her.”
“You hurt her pretty bad, true. But I don’t believe your strength failed you. Trust me, you had plenty left to take on my men. I think some part of you pulled back. Maybe you recognized her. Or maybe you just aren’t the heartless murderer Caesar wants you to think you are.”
Bitterness. “You don’t know me—”
“I think I do. I think hours of listening to your thoughts and opinions and stories qualifies as an education. I know what the joy of the kill looks like. You don’t have it. That you even wonder about it proves me right.”
She opened her mouth to argue, stopped herself. True or not, the Conqueror didn’t believe it. She took a deep breath. “What happens now? With the Amazons?”
“Their queen still lives. We’ll make the most of second chances.” The Conqueror’s voice projected confidence, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to look the slave in the eye.
Heat coursed down on the raised platform, on the officers and citizens assembled in the square. It prickled the Conqueror’s skin, leeched moisture from her lips. Unconsciously she reached for her goblet, found it empty, refilled it herself. Her body slave would not be pouring for her today.
Her eyes flickered to the woman standing near the rear of the platform. In the battered armor and leopard skin cape, she looked every bit a prized Roman gladiator. The collar and manacles on her wrists only enhanced the effect. She stood still as marble, tensed muscles pulling the chains tight and silent, as if they pushed her wrists apart rather than held them together. Even her eyes looked oddly vacant.
A howl yanked the Conqueror’s attention back to the open area before the dais, the swing of a mallet onto the shins of an unfortunate soul. The third today.
A second swing, the jarring crunch rippling through those assembled. Even the Conqueror twitched, instantly scowled at herself.
“Well struck!”
She turned slowly to regard Amun raising his cup in jovial salute. The Egyptian delegate leaned in from his seat, whispered to her conspiratorially, “I think your executioner is a tad out of breath with the festivities today. Certainly he needs a more vigorous workout.”
Acid bubbled in her stomach and in her veins. None of it reached her smile. “There’s not much crime to speak of in my lands anymore. Not enough executions to keep him in shape. But you are right. After we’re finished perhaps I’ll choose a new man. He can start by practicing on his predecessor.” The expected answer from the Destroyer of Nations. He laughed, and her ruby red lips smiled. If it lacked warmth, he didn’t notice.
“I’m so glad you suggested we stay one more day. This display of the Conqueror’s justice has been most inspiring.”
“I’m pleased, Amun. Besides, a little fresh air has helped me get a better perspective on Cleopatra’s changing needs. If her people are truly suffering from the drought, perhaps I should ease her tribute this year. As you say, that gold could be better spent buying grain to feed my loyal Egyptian subjects.”
Amun broke into a bright grin, bowed his head. “Conqueror, your wisdom in this matter is breathtaking.”
“And your flattery overwhelming. I see why Cleopatra regards you so highly.”
He inclined his head with a smirk, returned to the cross-raising.
The Conqueror swirled the wine in her goblet, took another gulp. “Then again, that extra gold could buy other things, too. Ships. Weapons. The loyalty of a Roman legion.”
Kohl-blacked eyes cut to her.
Her lips curled in a smile, broad and lazy. “Hadn’t you heard? Five thousand Roman legionaries landed at Nicopolis weeks ago. Bad for your queen, to be caught between my rule and Caesar’s aspirations. Worse still if she invited them. There are few things I dislike more than betrayal to Caesar.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but a chain latched around his windpipe. Thick manicured hands clutched at it, at the Leopard’s wrists, his features swelling with strain. The officer beside him rose, caught the Leopard’s heel in his throat before his sword even cleared its scabbard. She cinched down harder on the delegate’s throat, out of reach of struggling elbows, letting time finish the job.
In that long hushed minute, punctuated by occasional jerks of the emissary’s legs, the Conqueror glimpsed something in her slave. Not the same demon she housed within her own heart, always hungry for the rush of a kill. This thing in her slave was flat, distant, inhuman. In place of the willful young woman stood soulless flesh intent on its task. An arrow loosed from the bow. Except an arrow felt more.
This was Caesar’s creation.
She lay a hand on the gladiator’s bunched arm, looked into unfocused green eyes, willed them to look back. They did, cold and remote. She offered the tiniest shake of her head.
Instantly the gladiator’s grip loosened, some warmth returning to her eyes. But the thing still lurked there, waiting to for the order to finish him off.
The Conqueror cast her rich voice above the murmuring of the crowd. “Amun, also known as Marius Licentius, agent of Rome, you are charged with sedition. The penalty is death by crucifixion. Have you anything to say?”
He gurgled against the chain. At her nod, the Leopard unlooped her manacles from his purple neck, shoved him to the front of the platform with a boot. He rasped with each breath, rubbing his neck. Cornered eyes locked on the slave. “Stupid girl.”
“Save your breath, spy. Caesar’s eyes and ears will be joining you in Tartarus.” She beckoned. Guards escorted a chain of captive servants, soldiers, and citizens into the square.
The delegate took in the faces of those arrested. Some strength fled his face, left him older and frailer.
“You have something to offer, spy? Information on Caesar’s plot against Greece?” She didn’t expect any such thing. Men like Amun were chosen to lead such plots because of their fanatic loyalty. No, his network of informers had already proven quite cooperative. The delegate stood a little straighter. “It’s only a matter of time, Xena. Caesar will rule Greece, with or without your death.”
She studied his face, his stance, smiled when certain he had no more cards to play but words. “Kinetos?” she called to the puffing executioner. “Before you get started, bring me his tongue.” Her eyes raked the condemned. “Bring all of them.”
The executioner complied, swift and proficient, deaf to the roar of the crowd. Still, something niggled at the Conqueror, prompted her to scan the crowds. They could have missed someone. Word could still get back to Rome. The mob glared back, surly and spiteful, angry at the Egyptian, the conspirators, the soldiers, the gladiator, even the Conqueror. Some days sheer charisma and force of will held them at bay. Like her army. Like her enemies.
The executioner’s knife cut deep. Arms raised in unison, a great whoop of victory drowned out the delegate’s scream. In moments the rough tongue lay in her palm, warm and heavy. She smiled. Nothing unified the mob like a common enemy. A shrewd smile found the gladiator—
—who rushed her, chained arms outstretched. Instinct brought her guard up, her palm rearing back to shatter the slave’s nose.
Nerves hummed to alertness at the twang of a bow. She turned, feeling the arrow zooming toward her breast, her hand moving of its own accord as the Leopard launched. The Leopard reached her first, sent them tumbling to the platform.
Everyone moved at once. Soldiers charged into the crowd. Citizens scattered like dry leaves. Through the chaos cut the booming voice of Bellerophon. “Kill the assassin!”
“No!” She shoved the gladiator off, jumped to her feet. “I want him alive.” In four long strides she snatched from the dirt the discarded bow. The crude craftsmanship looked all too familiar. She rolled the feathers and beadwork between thumb and forefinger, a rage boiling up in her belly. “I want her alive.”
A familiar presence filled the space at her elbow. She didn’t turn, pitched her voice for the slave alone. “That was a stupid thing to do. I can take care of myself.”
She sensed the slave’s nod in a creak of leather and a ragged exhale.
“Joxer!” She tossed the bow to the Dragon. “Take that back to my quarters. Kinetos? Finish your business, starting with that thrice-cursed son of a jackal Amun.”
Bellerophon ran to her and saluted. “Conqueror, the gates are sealed and extra guards are deploying to the walls. Citizens reported a strange woman running toward the temple district. We’re concentrating our search there, with four squads searching house to house. We’ll find her.”
“I’m very disappointed, Captain. Give me your sword.”
The Dragon blanched, but otherwise kept his composure. “Conqueror?”
“I can’t go hunting without a sword, can I?”
He let out a held breath as he handed it over.
She preferred him sweating. “She’d better be found, Bellerophon. Otherwise I might have to start asking how a woman with a bow got past your guards.”
He saluted. “By your will.” Snapping orders he left, eager to put distance between them. Wise man.
She flashed her stone-faced companion a fiendish grin. “Told you the bitches would show up. Did you get a look at the woman’s face?” The Leopard offered a single tight nod. She couldn’t suppress a smile. “Come on then. I feel like hunting rabbit.”
The gladiator had to hustle to stay close as she marched through the streets, stalking past houses and carts and shops eerily empty on a summer afternoon. When the Conqueror took notice of them, they scurried back into the shadows of doorways and windows like human roaches, bruised and disheveled from the soldier’s passing. One cradled a screaming baby to her chest, fresh blood trickling from the corner of her swelling lip. She did not shrink from the Destroyer’s gaze, looked mad as Hades and powerless to do anything about it. The Conqueror’s skin prickled, the cool breeze of vulnerability blowing across her calloused soul.
Clothes and furniture flew out a door and into the street ahead, victims of a zealous squad. She hurried by without slowing, gradually became aware of the absence of her shadow. The gladiator stood frozen, gaze riveted on the family outside, the young woman they clapped in irons. “Let’s go,” she snapped, gesturing vaguely with her sword. Slowly the Leopard followed, her gaze lingering on the ransacking.
Finally they approached a crumbling temple. Vines crept over the arch of the doorway, crisped by the late summer heat. The place looked abandoned, if not for the swept porch and the dim flicker of torches within.
“Amazon Elysium. If she isn’t here, someone here knows her. Come on.”
The slave rooted into the ground, resisted the hand on her arm.
“I said let’s go. We may not have much time—”
The woman shook her head. Sweat beaded on her forehead.
The Conqueror followed her gaze. Chiseled into the lintel above the arch, a bow and crescent moon warned enemies of who resided within.
“Oh, for Ares’s sake. You think killing one Amazon queen earns you the undying enmity of a washed-up goddess? I’ve done things to her Amazons that make Hera look benevolent. If Artemis hasn’t struck me dead by now, she won’t even notice a nobody like you. Now get in here.” A tug jerked the gladiator across the threshold. When the sky didn’t split open, the Conqueror shot a knowing smirk over her shoulder.
“Your presence is not welcome here,” thrummed a harsh voice. The gladiator stiffened against the iron grip, eager to leave, but the Conqueror held tight. Echoes faded, and from behind the curtain at the far side of the room stepped a woman. Not an incensed goddess; a priestess in white armor. The temple’s keeper maintained her distance but otherwise showed no regard for the blade her visitor brandished so casually.
“That’s alright. I don’t mind.” The Destroyer turned away, scrutinized the scenes painted on the walls. Hunts through verdant forests. A stag chased by dogs and women. A woman bathing under the moon. She smiled at the priestess. “It’s unlawful to harbor Amazons in my realm. Of course, you know that. We’re looking for one. An assassin. She didn’t by chance duck in here when you weren’t looking?”
The priestess lifted her chin. “If I wasn’t looking, how would I know?”
“I see your point. Guess we’ll just have to have a look around. Let me call the guards. I’m sure Artemis won’t mind if we rearrange her house in the name of a hunt. Oh, is this a leaf prayer book?” She picked it up the delicate string of dried leaves, turned them over casually. “Looks fragile. Are you sure there’s no chance she might have slipped in here? Did you want to take another look?”
“You hold no power here, Xena. You cannot lay the daughters of Artemis any lower. Destroy the prayers. Nothing is permanent, and nothing is irreplaceable.”
She tossed the artifact back on the pedestal. “And what about you? Can I lay you any lower?” The tip of the sword grazed the priestess’ chin, bobbled at her throat. “Your predecessor didn’t last very long. I had hoped her replacement might show more wisdom.”
The priestess opened her mouth to answer, but a crash from the room behind her cut her off. The Conqueror swatted her aside, carved through the shroud to see legs dangling from a smoke vent in the roof, trying to kick and squirm through the small hole. She leapt up and pulled, dropped the Amazon to the hard-packed dirt. The girl groped for twin blades at her sides, found a sword at her throat before she could pull them.
“Is she the one?” She spared a glimpse over her shoulder. Hesitantly the Leopard nodded. She fixed the young Amazon with a hungry smile. “Time to die, assassin.”
She expected the girl to try something stupid. She even expected stupidity from the priestess. She did not expect chains to catch the sword, wrap steel around steel and jerk it from her hand.
The Conqueror stared at the gladiator, shock bleeding into rage. Her fist lashed out, flattened the slave with a blow to the jaw that must have loosened teeth. The girl took her chance and lunged over the fallen gladiator, blade drawing and slicing simultaneously, laying open the silk sleeve of her dress and the arm underneath. In one pathetically easy motion the Conqueror grabbed her wrist and twisted it behind her back. “Drop it or I’ll tear your arm off.” She wrenched it to the limits of the shoulder to make her point. The short blade clattered on the flagstones.
The Leopard pushed herself up, murmured something thickly.
“Now you talk? Speak up!” She shook the girl in her arms, elicited a yelp.
The gladiator worked her jaw. Pain-sharp eyes glanced at the priestess in the doorway, back to the Conqueror and her catch, reluctantly pitched her voice loud enough to be heard. “I’m yours. I speak only for you. I belong to you.”
“Roman whore!” The red-headed spitfire in the Conqueror’s arms thrashed, a leg catching the gladiator under the chin and knocking her on her back.
“I’ve had enough of you,” the Conqueror growled in her captive’s ear, drawing the girl’s own blade.
“No!” The shout bounced off the walls of the small room. The Leopard worked herself up on one elbow, spat blood, forced the words out carefully. “She could be useful to you. Provide information about the Amazons. Be used as leverage against her sisters, even the queen. Maybe she could end this, one way or another.”
The girl struggled. “No! I’d rather die! Finish it!”
In the girl’s ear, “You’re too mouthy for your own good, worm.” She locked eyes with her slave, tossed her the key to the manacles. “Fine, we’ll try it your way. Get up. We’re going.”
She managed, if slowly, favoring a shoulder. The shackles came off to be locked again around the Amazon’s wrists. As they marched back to the palace she fumed, robbed of the satisfaction of skewering the girl, angrier still at the gladiator for interfering for the second time today. That she had a point did little to soften the fact that the slave defied the Conqueror—fought with her, even—in front of witnesses. In front of enemies. She would not tolerate displays of defiance in front of enemies.
“Move it!” she snapped at the lagging gladiator as they wended a path through the streets. Dimly it registered that the Leopard wore no chains well beyond the walls of the palace. She could bolt at any moment, make good the escape she once considered. That night, watching from the antechamber as the Leopard wrestled with her first taste of freedom, the Conqueror had asked what kept her from running.
Not sure. You, I suppose.
It had been an unguarded answer, betraying a conflicted heart. She never once thought the Leopard spoke from a place of fear. Awe, perhaps, but never fear. But that was long ago, long enough for the shine to wear off, the reality of the Conqueror’s true nature to set in. That the woman continued to trudge through the streets back to certain captivity, head down, never once glancing around to even gauge her chances, brought on the faintest twinges of discomfort. She didn’t understand her, couldn’t fathom why the woman saved her from an arrow only to challenge her later over the worthless life of a criminal. The Leopard’s motives mystified her, made her unpredictable and dangerous.
The square stood vacant but for the forlorn bodies upon the crosses, heads hanging, arms opened wide to embrace the barren sky. At the palace gates she grabbed a soldier, sent him off to find the captain and call off the search.
She headed straight to the dungeon, tossed the prisoner into the same cell the gladiator had occupied. Once out of the Conqueror’s crushing grip the girl recovered some fire, sneered through the bars of her cage, “I had you, Xena.”
“No you didn’t,” the Conqueror sighed, turning away.
“Amarice had the great Xena! If your bitch hadn’t interfered, you’d be on the road to a long slow death!”
“No I wouldn’t,” she called over her shoulder.
She ignored the rest of the girl’s rantings, happy to put them behind her, go to her chambers, put a cool cloth on her head and think. The Leopard followed, pale and unreadable. Perhaps she expected the tongue lashing she deserved. The Conqueror had no stomach for it now, wanted only to crawl into the tepid waters of the bath and rest. Without a word between them she stripped off the ceremonial dress, pulled on the robe already laid out for her on the bed. Gods bless Vidalis.
Under the robe lay the bow next to an arrow. The tip was missing, snapped off, but the dusty Amazon fletching was unmistakable. She grunted softly, curious. Where had he found it?
“Xena?” The Leopard stared at her, at the arrow. Her beautiful face and clothes and armor, so breathtaking before, now bore as much dust and grime as a day in the arena. “Back in the courtyard—”
She cut the slave off with a curt shake of her head. “I’m not in the mood to hear excuses.” As expected, the slave’s mouth clamped shut. At least the Conqueror could still intimidate her. Sometimes. She let go of a long held breath. “Come. I need a bath. Then we’ll get you out of those things.”
She dropped the robe and slid into the water, letting it wash over her sweltering head. As she surfaced cool water sluiced down her back, damping the anger under her skin. “It’s dangerous to get between me and my objectives.”
“I know.”
“If you know, why did you do it? Your defiance makes me look weak.”
“I didn’t defy you,” the gladiator snapped. “I questioned you. That’s different.”
The warlord stared, caught off guard by the Leopard’s prickliness. She leaned in, eyes hard. “Questioning is defying. Rumors will fly that a slave influences the decisions of the Conqueror, that my decisions are flawed—”
“That decision was flawed!” The gladiator caught herself shouting, reined in her emotions and her tone. “Killing her would achieve nothing but satisfying your personal desire for vengeance. Greece needs more—”
“Greece? Who are you to lecture me on the needs of Greece?”
“A Greek! Like you! An enemy of Rome! Like you! I’m on your side! Why can’t you see that?”
“You’re out of line—”
“I’m not speaking as your slave, Xena, I’m speaking as a free woman of Greece—!”
“You are not free!”
The echoes of their shouts faded from the chamber, left them both swimming in a heated quiet.
The slave recovered her voice first. “I shouldn’t—I’m tired—”
“Don’t.” The Conqueror turned away, sullen. “Never make excuses. If you’re going to make the decisions of a leader, you better start acting like one. Do you have a plan for what to do with the girl?”
The turn in conversation threw the woman off. “No,” she finally murmured. She took a sponge to the warrior’s neck, absently worked long tracks across her shoulders. “Offer to spare her life if Queen Terreis calls off the assassins.”
“No. Absolutely not. If an attempt on my life leads to successful negotiations, dozens more will follow. Besides, Terreis won’t care about the life of one failed assassin.”
“Perhaps she’s a relative. Someone the queen cares about.”
“Not likely. I killed most of her family and friends myself.”
The sponge paused mid-rub, resumed more slowly. “The girl’s still a member of her tribe. Isn’t Terreis responsible for her, for them? She has to do what’s best for her people—”
The Conqueror rolled her eyes. “By the gods. See this?” She reach under her arm, fingered an ugly scar that ran between ribs from side to spine. “This is what she considers best for her people. One of her Amazons infiltrated my personal guard and almost filleted me. I would have been perfectly content to ignore her tribe. She left me no choice.”
A light touch traced the scar, gentle and reverent. Strange tremors fluttered across the Conqueror’s skin. Before the finger reached her side she ducked under the water, feeling the sudden need to rinse. When she broke the surface the Leopard sat a little farther away, fidgeted with the sponge as she chose her words. “She was wrong to do that. But don’t you think she would do anything to take it back? Give anything to undo the damage done to her tribe, to help her people?”
The Conqueror shook her head. “You’re talking about a woman laid up in the infirmary at this very moment because I promised her an easy match in the arena. She has every reason to hate me, and you. She’s not thinking about the good of her people right now.”
A long exhale. “Interrogate the girl then.”
She took the sponge from cool fingers, worked it against her chest. “She won’t know much. She’s young and hot-headed, too impulsive to be trusted with secrets.”
“She knows who sent her to kill you, can give you names of known Amazons.”
“Maybe.” Scrubbing absently at her stinging arm, the Conqueror half-turned. “You really want me to interrogate her? There wouldn’t be much left to give back to her queen. Is that how you want to start this brave new alliance with the Amazon nation?”
The slave slumped. “No.” She stared at her hands, finally looked up. “If you were so certain she was of no use to you, why’d you spare her life?”
She thought of the Leopard leaping between her sword and the assassin, nearly powerless to stop her but determined to try. “I wasn’t certain. You were. I took a chance. Don’t. Let. Me. Down,” she growled, poking the dusty arm for punctuation.
The Leopard nodded, deadly serious. Finally the Conqueror cracked the faintest twinge of a smile, set to work in earnest with the sponge. “They’re not bad ideas. Keep thinking. We’ll figure something out.”
The woman nodded, let go of the conversation if not the problem. After a few minutes of silence, “Maybe I should send for a healer.”
“A healer? For what?” Pink rinsed from her sponge, trickled from the cut down her arm. “For this? It’s nothing.”
They kept quiet for a while as she scrubbed the sweat from her skin, humming to herself. When she finally glanced up again, the gladiator looked different somehow, strangely deflated, distant. Xena cocked her head. “What are you thinking?”
The gladiator stared a thousand leagues away. “I should have seen her sooner. In the square. I couldn’t stop looking at Amun. And then I saw the bow and the girl, and I couldn’t move fast enough.”
“What are you talking about? Everything worked out. I’m fine. You’re fine.”
Vaguely the Leopard shook her head. “I don’t think so. No. Most definitely not.”
Curious how colorless the slave’s cheeks looked. She sat up. “What’s wrong?”
Eyes gone dark met hers. “I’m sorry.”
Her jaw clenched. “Sorry for what?”
“Xena, I…I’ve been shot.”
Bath water sloshed across the floor. “Stupid, stupid woman!” The Conqueror’s long fingers groped feverishly at the clasps and hooks of the stiff armor.
Her own fingers were less helpful, cool and clumsy. “Don’t be angry. It’s not bad.”
The heavy leopard skin fell from her shoulders, brought some relief to formless discomfort. A growled oath behind her. Reflexively she reached, found the shaft’s ragged stub buried high in the leather backplate between shoulder and neck. A steady stream of curses flowed from the Destroyer’s lips, grated on her already ragged senses.
“Please, I’m fine. Can’t really feel it. Just itches, that’s all—”
“Stupid stubborn…why didn’t you say something sooner?”
She wondered why? After the look of violence in the Conqueror’s eye moments before they collided, her hand rearing back for a hit meant to kill? The snarl on her face when she’d shoved the Leopard off, too angry to notice her wince and pale. The venom in her voice…That was a stupid thing to do. I can take care of myself. The brush off in the rush to catch her would-be assassin. She gave up on the buckles of her armor and sighed, uncomfortable at the naked truth—she was hurt that Xena would be angry at her for wanting to protect her, angry enough to not even notice her injury. She buried that hurt deep; the Conqueror showed little interest in her feelings, even less when they drove her to recklessness. “I didn’t want to be any more trouble. I started to, when I saw the broken arrow—”
Her breath hitched as the armor came off, jostled the shaft. A palm caught her as she swayed, pulled away soaked in red. For a moment they both stared at the dark smear before the warlord growled and ripped the fine linen in two, lay the shoulder bare. Curiously, painfully, she craned her neck to peer at the arrowhead. It peeked out under her collarbone like some baleful half-lidded eye, crying scarlet tears down breast and stomach.
“Stupid, stubborn woman!”
Cool air scraped across her clammy skin like a cat’s tongue, dry and coarse. She shuddered. “Please, it’s fine, just pull it out—”
The Conqueror threw on her robes. The gladiator barely had time to cover herself with the torn tunic before being dragged out of the chambers and down to the courtyard. Familiar steps led down into the dim chill of the infirmary.
“Demetrius!”
The healer scrambled to help her sit on a bench at a long table. She would have much preferred a bed. Every movement of her head made her shoulder and chest ache. She twitched when he peeled back the edges of the wound, clucked to himself thoughtfully. “Can you move it?”
The shoulder rolled slowly, reluctantly. Not good enough. She raised it, pushing higher and higher, desperate to show it was alright, said nothing of the icy pain that numbed her fingers.
“Let me.” The healer took her elbow, delicately testing the range of motion. Nearly every direction brought a wince, but pulling the arm back stole her breath. Muscles locked down to protect the wound, prevent the moan that threatened to ooze out. Eyes fixed on a point across the room, anything to hold on to until the hurt passed.
She found herself staring at the fiery red mane and quilted face of Terreis. More than a week since the match, and the swelling and bruises still made her almost unrecognizable. Dulled by pain and herbs, one unswollen eye pinned the Leopard to the bench. She looked away uneasily.
“…wedged against the bone. If we can’t push it through, I’ll have to cut it out.”
“No. You cut it out and she might never use the arm again. She’s no use to me if she can’t fight. We pull it, one way or another.”
“And if it won’t budge?”
They stood apart from her, kept their voices low as they argued. She pretended not to hear, didn’t want to hear, but the Conqueror’s words sat like a stone in her gut.
Her hand crept up to test the sharp tip protruding from her skin. The collarbone pulsed with formless pressure. Arm forward was better, raised the bone and relieved the ache; she lay her elbow on the table, eased her forehead down beside it. The wood sent another chill through clammy skin, but at least it afforded some rest. The muttering continued, grew more heated. The arrowhead kept drawing her eye, mocking her while they argued.
No use to me if she can’t fight.
She fumbled with the arrowhead, pulled on it. Useless. Her fingers couldn’t get a grip on the blood-slicked metal tip bulging under reddened flesh. Jaw set, she pushed skin back against sharp edges, widening the hole. Cold sweat trickled down her forehead, dripped from brow and nose to the floor. Her hand trembled so bad it could hardly manage the bloody task; sheer pigheadedness made her grit her teeth and keep working at it. Little by little more of the tip showed, the crowning head stretching skin to its limits. Just when the point became too big, the hurt too great, skin tore over one of the twin barbs of the broad head and settled in behind, followed by a fresh trickle of red down chest and tip.
She panted for air around the pain. The bared barb bit into raw flesh with each movement of her chest, its mate still lodged under the collarbone. With a few more shallow breaths to collect herself, she grasped the half-exposed head between thumb and forefinger and, before she could have second-thoughts, twisted.
She couldn’t kill the sound. Strangled behind clenched teeth, it squeezed out as a shrill whimper.
A hand pulled her back from the table, wrenching her shoulder and ripping another cry from her throat. Half-blind with pain she shoved it off, forced fumbling fingers around the head to pull. More hands tried to pull hers away. Impatiently she shook them off, hooked two fingers under the barbs and strained with all her fading strength.
Inch by inch, it slid free.
A hot gush down her icy breast, the void filling with seeping cold. She raised her head, held the arrow up to the light to see. It swam in and out of focus, dimmed to orange and crimson and black shadows. Her face bounced off table on the scenic route to the floor.
Shouts. Hands caught her before she hit, lifting, pinning, hurting her. Fingers dug into her cheeks, wedged her jaw open, pressed a wooden dowel between her teeth. Her vision still dark, the bit stirred ugly memories of Caesar, of helplessness, pain, humiliation. Instinctively fingers dug like claws into the flesh around her, muscles straining against the bodies holding her down. The bit dug cruelly into the corners of her mouth. She panted around it, dizzy and disoriented. If she passed out now, she would be defenseless. Through the fog of fear wormed a familiar voice, low and steady, warm breath whispering at her cheek.
That more than anything made her stop struggling, cling to awareness through the pounding in her head, Xena’s voice in the darkness, the warm flesh under her sticky frozen grasp.
White pain and the smell of melting flesh, a distant shriek that might have been hers. The sound of sizzling lingered well after the iron departed. She knew what was coming, didn’t get a moment’s rest before the hot poker found the hole in her back. She jerked and groaned, teeth threatening to splinter the bit.
They let go, left her curled around quivering flesh while the fire trapped under her skin faded. Her thick dry tongue worked the bit from her mouth, spat out fragments of wood. She pushed herself up with one arm, propped against the table while some sight returned.
“Where are you going now?” demanded Ephiny.
She cast off, watery knees held stiff for the short voyage to a row of cots. A hand took her elbow, kept her from collapsing outright on a straw pallet, lowered her into a waiting pit of darkness.
She slept fitfully. Dreamt of the Amazon girl, Amarice, on the jailer’s stained table. Watched while the Conqueror worked her over in the name of interrogation. When those blows had no effect the cloaked visitor stepped in, put blade to face to sculpt another terrible masterpiece. She wanted to shout, tell the Conqueror to stop, that she’d changed her mind.
“How many sisters will you destroy?”
The silvery tingle of moonlight made her shiver. “Artemis,” she breathed. “Please, I tried to help her—”
“Help her? As you helped Melosa? Betrayer. Murderer. You will be hunted by your sisters until your dying breath.” She drew her powerful bow, held string to cheek as she lined up the Conqueror. The gladiator stood frozen, unable to even shout as the arrow let fly.
But it was the torturer who silently jerked and crumpled to the floor. The hood fell away. She gaped at her sightless self.
“No.” Even as she backed away the Conqueror handed her the knife, guided her toward the table. Wooden feet crossed the distance, arms on invisible strings making the first cut. It wasn’t the Amazon girl she carved into. Terreis glared up at her through one swollen eye—
She gasped for air, shot back to awareness with a jolt. Still reeling from the nightmare, it took her long moments to register the burn sinking into her cheek. Curiously her hand brushed buzzing skin, stirred the beginnings of pain. A shadow loomed over her. The glowing green eye. The scarred puffy face.
“Get up!” the queen hissed, threatening another backhand. The Leopard’s eyes darted around the infirmary. No one else occupied the room, not even a healer. A second blow turned the stinging into throbbing and she held up a hand of surrender, slid reluctantly from the cot.
“So the bitch’s tool is damaged. How lucky for me.”
She could have blocked the punch, didn’t. As blows went, it paled in comparison to the Conqueror’s, didn’t turn day to night or alter the passage of time. But it was vicious in its own right, sharp-knuckled and penetrating. She resisted the urge to rub her jaw, noted with grim satisfaction the way the woman flexed her hand.
“Up for a rematch?” A fist to the other side punctuated her point. She yielded to it, spared herself the very worst of the blow. A breath to control her emotions, then she squared her face to look at the queen again.
A backfist connected with an already swollen jaw before she could adjust for it. Pain exploded through her mouth, white and red and black in succession. She staggered back, hissing through clenched teeth, willing the automatic fury back down.
Some of it must have crept into her eyes. The queen mocked her with a pout. “I’m sorry. Did that hurt?” Only a jerk of the head to the side spared her a broken nose from the next punch. She stumbled back into the wall, blinking against stars, flinging heavy drops of red with a shake of her head. Terreis’s arm pinned her there, pressed into her windpipe mercilessly. Her hands balled into fists; pitilessly she held them at her side, refused to let them retaliate.
The queen bent so close now she could trace every ribbon of red in the crazed blood-shot eye. One finger caressed her face as her sweet voice crooned, “Where is the monster that killed my sister? Perhaps it needs more…encouragement.”
Clawed fingers dug into her traumatized shoulder, pierced blackened holes.
A howl gurgled from her throat. Her fist shot out; she jerked it back before it pummeled the Amazon, convulsed against repeated urges to lash out—
“Stop! Terreis, stop!”
Ephiny wrestled the queen away. The Leopard slumped, coughing, her shoulder on fire, not daring to take her eyes off them as they argued in low tones. Even across the room she could feel the queen’s acid stare, returned it in kind. Not until Terreis rested once more on her cot, overtaken by a sleeping draught, did the Leopard look away. Even then she remained wary of the apprentice, retreated when she came to look at her shoulder.
“Stop that.” Ephiny waited impatiently, showed no signs of backing off. With a frustrated sigh she relented, drew some measure of support from the wall at her back while the apprentice prodded angry flesh. Her examination wandered to cheek and jaw and brow until the Leopard jerked away from her touch, hard green eyes glaring warning. She snatched the rag for herself and wiped the trickle of blood under her nose, pressed it tenderly into the freshly seeping hole in her chest.
Ephiny shook her head. “Why didn’t you fight back?”
She surprised herself by growling, “You were wrong.”
The apprentice stared at her.
“You said I tried to kill her. You were wrong. That day I saw—” She swallowed, suddenly uneasy. “I thought I saw a lot of the things, but her mask…I thought she…” The words sounded silly now, empty, unconvincing. “I never meant to hurt her.” Every word went against her better judgment, betrayed Xena’s trust. She pressed on. “I know Terreis hates the Conqueror, but you have to reason with her. Persuade her to go along with whatever plan my mistress suggests.”
Her mistress. She cringed. When had that word entered her vocabulary?
The hazel eyes hardened suspiciously. “Why me?”
She weighed how much to say. “You love her. You love your people. This war must end, or you’ll be the last of your kind.”
“I’m not—”
She cut her off. “Your callouses. The way you look at her. The touches. It was you I heard singing in her cell.”
The apprentice shifted, looked like she might argue. Instead her jaw tightened. “The war could have ended today. Why did you save her?”
The Leopard didn’t reply, couldn’t. She searched the floor for answers, rejecting uncomfortable vague feelings for more convenient facts. “She didn’t start this. She doesn’t deserve to die for it.”
“True or not, she deserves to die for what she’s done since.”
No counter-arguments offered themselves. She shook her head. “Please. Talk to your queen. Convince her to call off her assassins.”
Ephiny gestured at the queen in frustration. “Her assassins? Does she look like she’s in any position to command her people?”
The slave stared hard at the queen, a guest of the infirmary for the past week, the dungeon for a long time before that. Cut off from the outside world but through one Amazon sister. “No.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “But you are…Regent.”
A guess. As the moments ticked by without protest she grew more certain. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You ordered the assassination.”
“Never! Amazons meet their enemies face to face. The Conqueror lies.”
Her patience with the stubborn woman evaporated. One finger stabbed toward the door. “There is an Amazon assassin in the dungeon right now. I saw her do it. I pulled her arrow out of my chest—”
“An arrow with a metal tip! Amazons use stone! Or didn’t Queen Melosa teach you that?”
She jutted out her chin defiantly, but the Regent’s words seeded doubt in the field of her certainty. She gritted her teeth. “If she’s not an Amazon, who is she?”
Ephiny snorted. “Who knows? I don’t know that girl from Hippolyta. And Amazons aren’t the Conqueror’s only enemies.”
“Then why did we find her in Artemis’ temple?”
“Not everyone who worships Artemis is an Amazon.”
They battled silently again, the Leopard stubbornly skeptical. This time Ephiny backed down. “Fine. You don’t believe me? Come on.”
She grabbed cloaks off the wall, tossed one to the Leopard as she headed out the door. A flutter of uneasiness made the Leopard hesitate. Her mistress already questioned her loyalties once today. Wandering around the palace in the dark of night with the Regent of the Amazons would only feed those suspicions. But said Regent waited impatiently. Gods, trouble sought her out like warlords on Hestian virgins. She sighed, slung the wool around her shoulders one-armed and followed.
Her chest tightened as they stole around the edges of the courtyard, her fears confirmed when they crept down the stairs leading to the cell block. Sneaking around to talk to the Conqueror’s would-be assassin would definitely count as treason. She hung back unhappily.
“I thought you wanted proof. Or does the Conqueror tell you what to think as well?”
She shot the Amazon a glare, sucked in her cheeks. If caught in the dungeon, she would already deserve punishment. What difference would it make if she were inside or out? Bare feet padded after the apprentice, crept to the occupied cell.
“Who’s there?” Owlishly the guard on duty peered at them from the lit room at the end, hand laid less-than-casually on the hilt of his sword.
“Just me, Phavo.”
“Ephiny?” He blinked, relaxed. “What are you doing here?”
“Sorry I woke you. Just finishing my rounds.”
“This late?”
She laughed. “Don’t remind me.”
He squinted. “Who’s that with you?”
The Leopard shrank deeper into the hood.
The apprentice shrugged. “One of the kitchen slaves. How’s your elbow?”
Automatically he flexed it. “Better, thanks. You need in?”
“Nope.” She pulled from her cloak a crust of bread, tossed it into the cell. Movement in the dark made the gladiator jump, remember what they came for. The girl crept into view, fixed rabid eyes on the Regent as she shoved the brittle husk into her mouth.
Not a hint of recognition. Just rage.
See? “Let’s go.” The Amazon tugged on her arm, drew her away from the approaching guard.
“Wait a minute. You, slave, hold up.”
She stopped, heart pounding, turned slowly.
“Take these back to the kitchen.” Food-crusted bowls shoved against her chest. She bit hard on her lip, took them and bowed.
Not until they were skirting the courtyard did the apprentice speak. “I’ve never seen that girl before in my life, and she’s never seen me. If she’s an Amazon, she’s not from my tribe.” Ephiny glanced back, almost choked trying to keep a straight face. “Counting how many ways to kill a man with his bowls?”
Her jaw clenched around the void where a witty reply should be.
Ephiny just laughed, took the stack from her arm, offered a steady hand under her elbow. She resisted the urge to shake it off, accepted the help without protest. Something changed in the air between them on the way back to the infirmary, some ease born of necessity. Not trust really. An acceptance of fate. Certainly the Regent would be executed as a spy if the slave exposed her. Then again, that clandestine visit to the dungeon could be enough evidence of collusion to warrant two crosses.
Though they didn’t speak of it again, the crackle of antagonism was gone. Truces could be short-lived, but the Leopard didn’t care. For the night at least, she could sleep knowing the apprentice would watch over her, protect her from the queen’s reprisals. And tomorrow…they might find some way out of this political nightmare after all.
The stairway down loomed before the Conqueror, soft voices beckoning within. That she’d come here didn’t surprise her; she’d already spent every ounce of willpower the day before avoiding it. The fact that weak morning sun barely crested the palace walls did give her pause.
Sleeplessness brought an early morning workout, the sky then barely hinting at the dusty blues and purples to come. She blamed her restlessness on a lack of news from Egypt, aimed to burn the dissatisfaction away with a long bout of training. An hour later she’d purged a heavy sweat and little else.
An inspection of the Dragon’s barracks proved tedious, and she broke it off less than halfway through with a dismissive gesture at Captain Marcus.
He didn’t quite manage to hide his disappointment. “Begging your pardon, Conqueror, but the soldiers were looking forward to your visit. Some confess to missing your company.”
She cut him a look. “My weekly inspections aren’t enough?”
He blushed, a difficult thing with his dark complexion, turned his head away from the men. “Forgiveness, Conqueror, but it’s been almost a moon since your last inspection.”
A moon? She opened her mouth to argue, snapped it shut. “I’ve been occupied…pressing matters of state.” One of those matters of state lay in the healer’s care across the courtyard. Interwoven with threats of assassination and a looming war with Egypt and Rome wandered thoughts of the slave. She shored up the weak excuse with a clap on the back. “The men look good, Captain. A little fat, maybe. I think we could all use some action.”
He flashed his easy smile, one that reminded her of happier, simpler days. “Ares willing. I can’t recall a summer with you as peaceful and boring as this one.”
She knew him too well to be fooled. Marcus was a talented captain and a strong soldier, but his heart had grown tired of conquest long before hers. Two years in Corinth transformed him into a capable administrator and respectable family man. If he looked forward to another military campaign, it was only through the misty eye of a man grown older.
So she offered a tight smile, excused herself as quickly as possible. Which is how she came to stand at the top of the steps to the infirmary, squinting up at the white morning sun and wondering if the gladiator was up yet. Doubtful. She turned away, then turned back, her mind made up.
Several faces glanced her way when she entered the sweat-stale room. No one looked surprised to see her. Was she so transparent?
The gladiator still slept. She sat on the edge of the cot, mesmerized by the rise and fall of the bandaged chest, the soft youth of her face, free of the tension that often followed her into sleep. The swollen nose and purpling under her eyes didn’t escape the Conqueror’s notice either. A low growl rose from her breast. She pushed herself up to set someone straight.
A hand on her wrist, gentle but strong. She sank down again, her rising anger forgotten in the gentleness of those sleepy eyes. “Morning. Feeling better?”
The Leopard rewarded her with a broad lazy smile. She helped her sit up, offered a hand to lean on while the other prodded the shoulder. “Fresh bandages. Is it still bleeding?”
The gladiator shrugged.
“What about these?” One knuckle brushed the knot on the bridge of her nose, the swelling along her jaw. “Where did they come from?”
“Must’ve happened when she fell.” Ephiny approached, a steaming bowl of porridge in her hand. “I remember her mistaking the table for a pillow. Hungry?”
The Leopard nodded, wedged the bowl in her lap and attacked it with the wooden spoon. In moments the gruel was gone. The Conqueror arched one fine eyebrow, snapped her fingers at the apprentice. Soon another bowl appeared, one the slave devoured more politely.
She eyed the second empty bowl, shook her head. “You’d think you hadn’t eaten in two days.” Embarrassed, the slave ducked her chin. She smiled. “Don’t. A strong appetite is a virtue.”
When the Leopard said nothing she faltered, at a loss for how to keep the one-sided conversation going. When no ideas came to mind she stood. “Court is waiting for me. And there’s the Amazon to deal with, so I’m going to go—”
The gladiator swung her legs over, pushed up stiffly from the cot.
“Where are you going?” she demanded in her most fearsome tone.
Green eyes met hers, unintimidated.
“No. No. Look at you, you can hardly stand. Go back to bed. You need rest—”
Through it all the woman’s gaze never wavered. If anything it grew harder, as flinty as any Roman’s. She shifted tactics, chose something gentler. “Gabrielle, I’m fine. You’re not. You’re better off here where the healers can keep an eye on you.”
The Leopard closed the distance between them. That she had no desire to stay was unmistakable. Still, the Conqueror had to try. “You don’t understand. Court is tedious and exhausting on the best of days. You’re still weak—”
Wrong thing to say. The Leopard set her jaw, squared her shoulders out of pride. If the motion caused her discomfort, she hid it. The Conqueror shrugged. “Fine. But I don’t have time or patience to deal with you if you can’t keep up, understand?”
With a solemn nod, the gladiator clutched the remains of her tunic to her chest and followed the Conqueror back to her chambers. First order was a bath; sharp scents of sweat and blood and burned flesh swirled around the gladiator, innocuous enough to the warlord’s senses but hardly appropriate for a slave in the court of the Conqueror.
Cloudy water filled the tub, remnants of the aborted bath. Again the Conqueror got in first. The cool stale water wasn’t particularly pleasant. All business, she worked the morning’s perspiration from her skin with quick efficient strokes.
The bath must have stirred memories for the slave as well. Her brow creased. “What if the assassin isn’t an Amazon?”
Something in that tone made her instantly wary. “What makes you say that?”
The gladiator studied the pattern of marble tiles on the floor. “I’ve just been thinking…if she needed to get close to you undetected, wouldn’t she have worn something less…Amazonish?”
“She wanted to make a statement.”
“Somebody wanted to. Everyone knows you hate Amazons. Dress a girl in doeskin and tell her to shoot the Conqueror and anyone can guess who’ll be blamed.”
She bristled. “What are you getting at?”
The slave took a deep nervous breath. “Everyone has their weaknesses. Maybe someone is trying to manipulate yours. Trying,” she emphasized quickly at the sharp look. “Not succeeding.”
She forced long steady breaths through her teeth, resisting the urge to raise her voice. “I don’t have weaknesses.”
The gladiator stood conspicuously out of arm’s reach. “It is wise not to show weaknesses, but pretending they don’t exist is dangerous.”
A vein pulsed on her temple. “Sharing wisdom from years of political scheming?”
The head turned soberly. “A fact of combat, nothing more.”
She itched to lay whip to the slave for impudence, if only she could detect any. The slave sounded almost apologetic, as if stating the obvious to someone who already knew better. Which she did. She stepped out of the bath, gave herself time to calm down while she toweled dry. “Alright. If she’s not an Amazon, who put her up to it?”
The gladiator considered, one hand awkwardly working the ruined tunic from her shoulder. “What about Caesar?”
The Conqueror snorted. “And you say I have weaknesses. Not all bad things come from Caesar.”
The Leopard’s cheeks grew hot. She let her suffer for a moment, choke on the bitter pill of her own reasoning, then smirked. “Dangerous as he may be, I find Caesar less troublesome than others less ambitious but closer to home.”
As surely as deft hands tucked the damp towel tight around her body, they unwrapped the bandages from the Leopard’s shoulder, turned her into the morning light to see. The mouth of the angry blackened wound stretched wide in a wicked grin.
She set her jaw, about to order the gladiator to bed—
The slave turned away, eased herself into the tub. The water grew murkier with scrubbing.
Willful thing. “That wound needs to heal.”
She couldn’t see the woman’s face as the injured arm gingerly washed the other, guessed the slow strokes masked pain. “I’ve had worse. What about the girl?”
“I suppose you want me to interrogate her.”
The head turned ever so slightly. Softly, “My wants are irrelevant. You will do what’s best for Greece.”
“Ha. Don’t tempt me. This Greece would like to see her hide on my next saddle.”
The gladiator clenched her jaw, set to work scouring under the collar. “Fine. Flay her. Just find out who sent her first.” She found the shift in tone jarring, ridiculously tender one moment, supremely ruthless the next, two incompatible psyches sharing space in one entirely intractable head.
She took the sponge, dipped it in the clouded water to rinse the shoulder. White knuckles clenched the edge of the tub, twitched soundlessly with each dousing. The Conqueror moved to face her. “Why are you doing this? You need rest. You’re no good to me like this.”
Abruptly she stood, reached for a cloth. “I can still fight.”
“Fight? You can hardly move.”
“It’s just stiff.”
“You get in a fight with that shoulder and you’ll hurt it worse, maybe permanently.”
The gladiator rolled her shoulder awkwardly, her face stubbornly still if faintly pinched. “I’m fine. You said if I was going to make the decisions of a leader, I needed to act like one. I just want to hear the girl’s side of the story.”
“This is about her? Or your beloved Amazons?”
“They’re not my Amazons,” muttered the slave.
“Then why?”
She watched the woman struggle with an answer. “What I did to Melosa…I’m just trying to put it right.”
She took the young face in an unkind grip. “Melosa is no longer your concern. Nor Caesar. Your only concern is me. Is that clear?”
The Leopard swallowed, then threw off her hand. Her voice, her whole body shook with anger. “You know I serve you. But if there’s a way to serve you and end this war, I will find it.”
Such words spawned instant anger. But she said them with such earnest intensity that the warlord blinked, suddenly chilled by a sensation she hadn’t felt in years. Admiration. And fear. That she ever considered the gladiator an amusement or a pet to be tamed was a dire mistake. She was a river, willful and uncontrollable. So learned the Roman officer who first owned her but was enslaved by her words. So learned Caesar, thwarted by her silence and her conviction. So learned the senator, whose abuses couldn’t shatter her spirit. Such a soul and the Conqueror could not coexist. A familiar voice whispered in her head, sure and seductive. Kill her. Kill her now, or she will destroy everything you’ve created.
So strong was the compulsion that her hand even reached for a non-existent sword. And yet she made no other move, trapped in the woman’s eyes.
“Are you alright? Xena?”
In that moment, staring at the slave, she heard the whispers of the Fates. She couldn’t kill her. She didn’t want to. Bellerophon was right. She served the gladiator as surely as the gladiator served her.
Poison bubbled up from her stomach. She pushed it down violently, closed her eyes against the acrid gas searing her nostrils. “I’m…fine. We’ll go see the girl, ask some questions. But after that I have Court, and I have better things to do than look after a slave. You understand?”
“Yes.”
A simple word loaded with so much feeling. For a moment she almost believed everything would be okay, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
She felt anything but fine as she dressed. The sharp pain in her gut persisted, drained her of color and energy. Will alone dulled the knifing in her abdomen, schooled her face into the usual bored expression. Anything else would arouse suspicion. The gladiator also kept her suffering private, rebandaging the shoulder and concealing it under the generous fabric of a milk white tunic laid out for her. But those sage eyes occasionally jumped the distance between them, seemingly indifferent glances colored by worry.
Xena drew the slave to her with a crook of her finger. She locked the familiar manacles on her wrists, fussed with the linen hanging from her shoulders, tugged gently at the collar’s half-ring to bring it in line with the hollow of her throat. A thumb brushed the bruises darkening around her eyes. “Someday you will attend me without looking like I beat you within an inch of your life.”
Her small hands smoothed the cord fasteners on the exotic Egyptian dress. “And ruin the Conqueror’s reputation? I would sooner bleed by my own hand.”
She wanted to laugh, if only the gladiator laughed with her. The smile faded as the gaze drifted up to meet hers. In them she found neither lie nor boast. Only surety.
Like a river. Unchangeable. Inexorable. Relentless. Irresistible.
You are lost.
Increasingly harrowing images occupied the gladiator’s thoughts as they neared the dungeon. As much as they’d spoken about questioning the girl, she had no idea what the Conqueror planned to do. She kept seeing Melosa, every bone broken, back shredded by the cat-o-nine, face bathed in blood. And in some dark recess of memory better left unvisited echoed other lashes, her own flesh puckering at the kiss of the whip.
The more she thought about it, the less she wanted to know what skills her owner possessed.
She almost ran into the Conqueror who stopped abruptly, staring into the cell.
The assassin lay face down in sticky red straw.
The guard hustled out to meet her, began fumbling with the key even before he noticed the unmoving prisoner. In his sudden panic he didn’t seem to recognize the gladiator, though she remembered him, the bowl man from her previous visit.
The moment he unlocked the door the Conqueror shoved past him, crouched down beside the unmoving form, turned her over.
Like Terreis, her face was nearly unrecognizable under a plowed field of interlaced furrows. Unlike Terreis, one deeper gash grinned under her chin, flooded her unmoving chest with red.
A strange voice rattled from the warlord’s chest, thin and hollow. “Detain that soldier.”
Before her words registered in his mind, the Leopard snatched his sword from its scabbard, brandished the heavy thing with both manacled hands. He had the look of a man trapped, eyes gone glassy with fear. For his sake she hoped he didn’t try anything rash. She didn’t have the strength to wrestle him, the energy to chase him down. If he bolted, she’d stop him at the point of the sword.
To her relief, he offered no resistance.
The Conqueror let go of the girl’s face and stood, disgusted. She took the blade from the gladiator’s hand. “Go get Demetrius.”
She swallowed, dashed up the stairs and across the courtyard. A cool wind stirred the dust, brought with it hazy clouds from the sea that dulled the sun. She shivered, ducked into the well-trod stairwell to the infirmary.
The healer rested on a cot. Her urgent shaking woke him.
“What? What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer, dragged him out of bed and hurried back, hardly waiting long enough for him to grab a satchel.
A sickly groan drifted up the entrance. She ducked into the passage in time to see the soldier drop to his knees, doubled over from a punch to the gut. No, not a punch. Pink ropes bulged between his fingers. The Conqueror grabbed him by the tunic, dragged him deeper into the passage. Gladiator and healer stood rooted to the stairs, the healer’s look of horror reflecting the discomfort in her own belly. Reluctantly they followed her to the room at the far end of the dungeon.
“Demetrius, good,” she acknowledged casually, hefting the soldier onto the table like a downed stag. “See, Phavo, salvation is just a few steps away. Answer my questions quickly and you may live through this.” She tied him to the table, plucked a talon-like knife from the wall, cleaned under her fingernails with the wicked point for effect. The soldier moaned.
The healer stepped in. “Mistress, please.”
A Medusa stare stilled him. “You may wait outside until I call for you.” Demetrius chewed on his tongue, offered a stiff bow before leaving the room. Her focus shifted. “And you? Do you want to leave, too?” She raked the Leopard with a sneer. You said you wanted an interrogation.
The gladiator pulled inside herself under that withering gaze. Yes, she dreaded what might come next. But leaving meant running, hiding from what had to be done. The Leopard did neither. If Xena could do it, so could she.
Strange emotions played across the warlord’s face, surprise chief among them. The Conqueror’s mask slipped back into place, a scathing smile promising games the soldier would not enjoy. She’d felt that look before, shuddered for the man.
The Conqueror leaned in, the tip of her curved blade tracing across his face, hooking under one nostril. “Tell me, Phavo. Who killed my prisoner?”
He sucked in a breath, squirmed away from the blade. “Your torturer, Conqueror.”
She ripped through the side of his nose, earning a yelp. “I need no torturer. Try again.”
Desperately, “He bore a key, showed your seal.”
“What did this phantom look like?” The sharp edge drifted, lay a shallow seeping line from the bridge of his nose to his jaw.
He whimpered. “I…I could not see his face. He wore the hood of an executioner.”
She ripped him open from temple to mouth, baring teeth through the bloody gash. The gladiator hissed under her breath, forced herself not to look away.
“Wrong answer, Phavo. Let’s start again.”
“No, please, Conqueror. I speak the truth. I would never lie to you. Please.” He sobbed, shrank away from the blade that hovered just in the crease of his jaw. If the Destroyer heard him, her expression gave no sign. She smiled as the tip traced the back of his ear, her mind elsewhere, on the next cut, the next scream, the next drop of vengeance to quench her anger. This wasn’t interrogation. This was pure, pleasurable vengeance.
She pushed away from the wall, forced herself closer, onto the stage of pain with the primary players. The Conqueror had warned her about interfering again. She didn’t dare touch her, didn’t dare speak on his behalf. Tender as the Conqueror had been earlier, she wasn’t so certain of the nature of their strange relationship to believe she wouldn’t end up on the table in his stead. But she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. She pressed against the table’s edge, into the Conqueror’s awareness, willing the warlord to look at her.
Death looked back, ravenous, eyeing a new snack.
She refused to flinch. She’d learned that years ago. She didn’t challenge, either, or beg. She just looked at Xena, the way Xena had looked at her at the crucifixion. Intent on strangling the Egyptian, she had blocked out all thought, all feeling, all sensation but the feel of the chains pulling on her wrists, the squirming thing in her arms. He wasn’t human. Neither was she.
Until the Conqueror’s touch had wormed its way into her awareness, that and Xena’s eyes, blue and calm and very human. Slowly the world had returned. She was not Caesar’s weapon, unfeeling and deadly, but flesh and heart and mind and spirit. Sickened, she’d shoved him away, grateful for the reminder.
She offered that same reminder now, looking into the Conqueror’s monstrous eyes. This isn’t you. You don’t have to do this. You can choose not to do this.
The rage churned and ebbed, slowly retreated once more behind hooded eyes. The Conqueror stepped over to a bucket, plunged into its depths gory hands and set to scrubbing. If she noticed the flecks of blood on her face, she didn’t show it. “Demetrius.”
The healer entered, checked on her subject, muttering oaths under his breath that would make a sailor blush. “You, girl, give me a hand.”
The Leopard snapped back to the table, to the healer working feverishly on the permanently smirking soldier, teeth gleaming through his gashed cheek. At her hesitation he grabbed her hand, pressed it to cover that horrible gash while he worked on the pink ropey innards spilling from his midsection.
“Mistress, I could use your help, if you want him to live.”
The Conqueror’s mouth pulled tight at the edges as she scraped slick ochre from her fingers, nodded grimly. They worked in strained silence over the soldier, until Demetrius wiped his nose with the back of his hand, left a smear of fluid. “That’s all I can do for him here. I’ll get some soldiers—”
“I’ll do it.” Stonefaced, the Conqueror scooped up the man in her arms, hefted him with little effort and climbed up the steep narrow steps into the courtyard.
Bright morning sun no longer heated the hard-packed earth. For the first time in days, colorless clouds obscured the sun, drenched the walls and colonnades in miserable tones. The gladiator spared a glance at the rigid back of her owner, wondering if the Destroyer of Nations had somehow conjured the weather to suit her mood.
They deposited Phavo on a table in the infirmary, to the barely-restrained chagrin of Demetrius’ apprentice. The Leopard looked away guiltily, was surprised to hear Xena call out tightly, “Ephiny.”
She approached, taking in the stained dress. “Conqueror?”
“When you’re finished, escort the queen to my chambers and wait for me.”
The gladiator glanced sharply at her owner. Ephiny’s hazel eyes flickered from Conqueror to slave, back again with the faintest trace of fear. “By your will, Conqueror.”
The Leopard stared at the warlord’s rigid spine, had to jog to catch up. Why? The word pressed against her lips, insistent, but soldiers crossed their path and she bit it back, tried to still the slow queasy roll of her stomach. Questions would have to wait until they reached the Conqueror’s chambers.
But they didn’t ascend the private tower, veered instead up steps into the palace proper. They traveled halls the slave had never seen before, sparsely decorated but opulent compared to servants’ passages and prison walls. Her sharp eyes picked out doors and hallways, mapped turns and directions even as they remained studiously on the small of the Conqueror’s back. They seemed to walk forever before she began to recognize their surroundings. An immense dining hall occupied by one long table. A lonely atrium covered in ivy. Still the Conqueror walked, her long stride eating the distance. The gladiator’s head swam with the effort of keeping up. Two days ago she pulled an arrow from her chest, poured half her blood on the floor before they managed to cauterize it. But this was her decision, and she’d been warned about the consequences of falling behind. Cursing the spots in her vision, she picked up the pace.
“Straighten up,” the Conqueror hissed, pausing outside a doorway. She nodded, struggled to control her breathing, the pounding behind her breastbone. She caught the warlord’s look of impatience and squared her shoulders, forced past the discomfort constricting her chest. Her owner gave her a few more moments, adjusting the tunic to hide the bandage, making no effort to conceal the blood spatters on her own face and dress. With one long exhale Xena’s face went slack, easing the fine lines of tension she’d held onto since the morning bath. She fixed the slave with a gaze of marble before sweeping through the door.
With a deep breath, the Leopard followed.
The room rumbled to life, guards snapping to attention as the Conqueror took the throne, the slave standing at her shoulder. “Vidalis, send in the first business of the day.”
The headservant cleared his throat, pitched it for all to hear. “The Conqueror calls forth Numia, scout of the Third Army in Egypt.”
The doors parted for a lightly-armored woman no older than the gladiator. She bowed, her eyes lingering on the throne. What a pair they must have looked to her, the Destroyer wearing a blood-splattered eastern silk dress and a bone-cold smile, her manacled slave in purest white linen, face purple and swollen with cuts and bruises. She sighed. In spite of the oath to her mistress, she did hope one day to stand beside her owner without some part of her wounded or aching.
The young woman hid her trembling well as she reported on Caesar’s hasty retreat from Egyptian shores. An unkind smile wanted to take form on the Leopard’s lips. She killed it, slipped on a slave’s practiced look of ignorant disinterest.
Through the great hall flowed more military scouts, foreign dignitaries, and minor Greek officials. All bore news, but most brought requests. Money or men usually, occasionally goods or supplies. The Conqueror remained arch, snapping at her visitors for petty requests, showing little patience for delegations that wasted her time with trivial gifts and information.
The slave studied this harsh woman. Was this the face the world knew? In this room, questioning the Conqueror was not tolerated. The objections of a slave here would certainly earn a short trip to the executioner, if the Conqueror didn’t draw a weapon and do it herself. Slow understanding crept in, how lucky she’d been to stand up to her owner and live. That the Conqueror tolerated such impudence at all from the slave became the stranger thing. A warm feeling crept up her cheeks, the oddly pleasurable swell of pride. And a great reluctance to test her benevolence without good reason.
The impatient wag of an empty goblet. Even two hands couldn’t steady her trembling grip; dark liquid sloshed over the side onto the Conqueror’s hand. She caught the hard look, ducked her chin to take a blow. None came.
More faces passed before them, one blurring into another as morning became afternoon. Dizziness crept back in as she stood behind the throne, filling her head with wool and turning her knees to water. Xena had been right; she was in no shape to serve the Conqueror today, endangered them both by insisting on it. She blinked her vision back into focus, shook her head, pinched herself to stay sharp. If she faltered again, the Conqueror might send her back to the infirmary, or worse. Surreptitiously she braced against the side of the throne, stilled the swaying.
Another beckoning of the goblet. By some Olympian intervention she managed to keep it in the cup the second time, started to return to her place, but the Conqueror snapped her fingers, pointed to the floor beside the throne.
This was new. Hesitantly she knelt down to face her, bowed her head. Without the signal to rise she waited, eyes down, chained wrists in her lap, secretly grateful for a moment of respite, dreading having to stand again. A hand came to rest on her back of her neck, absently ran long thin fingers through her cropped hair. She tensed, thrown by the unfamiliar—almost intimate—touch. Clearly the Conqueror wanted to make an exhibition of her prize, but in what way? What reaction did she want from the slave? Resistance and fire? Fear? Meek acceptance? Too tired to put on a show, she huddled beside the throne, prepared to endure the Conqueror’s little display.
Slow steady caresses undercut her anxiety, eased jangled nerves and raw flesh. Weariness crept in, coaxed eyes closed. She listened, understanding some of the foreigners’ words and not others, until the droning voices blended and washed through her, guiding her mind away from the room, the palace, Corinth…
No. She pushed exhaustion away, pressed up against the Conqueror’s palm in an unspoken request to rise. The hand denied her, offered only the maddeningly soothing touch. Was it a trick? A test? She fidgeted, shifted, anything to stay alert.
The hand pulled her closer, lay her cheek upon the Conqueror’s lean thigh. For a moment she stiffened, pride grating at being treated like some favored hound. But only a few of the diplomats and messengers even registered the shift, and those that did seemed more interested in the Conqueror’s public display of affection than the creature she bestowed it upon. If they’d ever heard of the fearsome Leopard of Rome, they made no connection to the bruised and battered slave the Conqueror petted now. Her irritation dimmed and she faded again, until a random thought gripped her. Was it all an act to give her a chance to rest? She almost laughed at the absurdity of it, except her head felt so heavy, and the leg so comfortable against her cheek. Ears open to danger, her eyes closed, setting mind and body adrift.
The scrape of metal against metal brought her lurching to her feet, deadly warning gleaming in glazed eyes for any man who bared a blade to her owner.
A low chuckle. “It’s alright.” A light touch on her wrist pulled her back.
The dignitary swallowed. “A gift from the land of the rising sun.” Nervously he held up the gently sloping blade for her inspection.
At her owner’s gesture, the slave stepped forward to receive the exotic sword. For its length, it was startlingly light and balanced. The workmanship was like nothing she’d ever seen. Swirls traced the edge, red cords wrapped around a carved grip big enough for two hands. It was a thing of graceful violence, like a snake waiting to strike.
The Conqueror stood as she approached, took the blade gingerly to admire it. “This was forged by a skilled swordmaker. What’s the occasion?”
“Lao Ma wishes only to honor her esteemed mistress with spoils garnered from the Conqueror’s campaign in Japa. And she wishes to renew her invitation to visit our beautiful lands.”
The Conqueror didn’t respond, absorbed in the craftsmanship of the sleek sword. In an instant, ruler became warrior, light of feet and heart. Chops and slashes split the air, as sharp and nimble as the blade, as fast and ferocious as the wielder. The Leopard gaped. No gladiator or soldier she’d ever met could pick up a weapon and immediately find its rhythm, its strengths and weaknesses with such ease.
One misstep sent the Conqueror stumbling, jarred the assembly out of their amazement with a collectively drawn breath. Instantly the slave took a step, forced herself to hold still while the warlord slowly drew up to her full height, extending a hand for the dark polished scabbard. Only once the sword was resheathed did she murmur, “Greece accepts Chin’s gift. We regret that we will not be able to visit the Middle Kingdom in the near future.”
Green eyes never left that tensed alabaster face. The Conqueror wouldn’t look at her, resumed her seat with the faint rigidity of a body riddled with pain.
The last few visits dragged on. She watched her owner in the edges of her vision, marking every shift in position, every twitch of her hand, every curt order. By the dismissal of the last guest, the Conqueror looked unmistakably pale.
Again the slave took a step toward her, but a sharp look from hard eyes stayed her. “Vidalis?”
“Mistress?” He feigned nonchalance.
“I think I’ll retire early tonight. Send a light dinner to my chambers.”
He bowed, scurried away. An order from Captain Marcus sent the guards filing from the chamber. The Captain himself didn’t budge, waited for the last Dragon to leave before turning to face the Conqueror. He looked as concerned as the Leopard felt, struggle playing in his expression for the right words to broach the subject.
She preempted him. “Take the night, Marcus. Go home to your wife.” The gladiator held her breath as her owner pushed up from the seat, steadied herself with a crushing grip on the armrest.
“Are you sure, Conqueror? You don’t look well. Is there nothing else I can do for you?”
A faint smile. “Come back tomorrow. If I’m dead, you and Bellerophon and all the generals can fight over who gets to run this soul-sucking bureaucracy.”
“That’s not funny.”
“To me it is.” But she couldn’t manage a smile, made her way stiffly out of the chamber. The gladiator’s gaze flicked between captain and Conqueror. She hurried to catch up with the latter.
Questions buzzed in her head, niggling concerns suddenly grown too large to ignore. Again she held her tongue as they walked halls peppered with soldiers and servants and slaves. The Conqueror offered no opportunity to talk, barreled toward the royal chambers with a slightly weaving gait, rigidly upright, looking at nothing and no one as they passed. She fought the urge to steady her, to scream “Stop,” make her sit down, ask her what was wrong. The Conqueror gave no indication she wanted any of those things, so the slave tucked her chin and kept her eyes locked on the floor. A secret prayer of thanks fell from her lips when they left grand hallways for the private corridors to the royal chambers.
At the scuff of a sandal the Leopard surged forward, caught the Conqueror’s elbow before she fell. Alone in the narrow passage, safe from prying eyes, the slave slipped her uninjured arm around the thin midriff. She half-expected a protest. Long moments filled with the rasp of tight breaths and no argument.
“Come on,” she coaxed. “Not far now.”
The head lifted, the dark curtain parting for a drawn face. Athena’s mercy, the woman looked a companion to death. But a grunt got them moving again, one foot before the other.
Her burden grew heavier with every step, bones turning to lead under softening flesh. Her thighs burned with exertion. At the base of the stairs the warlord doubled over, expelled dark wine and watery bitterness upon the steps, her dress, the slave’s feet. Jaw set against the impulse to gag, she held beautiful black tresses away from the ghastly face while the Conqueror retched.
“Gods. Xena, hat’s wrong? Is it poison? The infirmary—”
“No. Bed.”
It was an order. The gladiator nodded, heart pounding so hard she could hardly think. Braced under one arm she jerked up, rising by inches to stand, the strain sending searing pain through her shoulder and ribs. Mounting the first step took long moments of struggle, led to another step just as daunting. The Conqueror’s efforts faded, each rise more difficult to scale.
“Please, Xena. I can’t do this without you.” The appeal fell on deaf ears; one of the warlord’s knees buckled, brought them crashing to the stone steps. She tugged on the arm to haul her up, found it limp. “Xena?” Her quivering fingers brushed the Conqueror’s hair aside, wiped filth from her cheeks and lips. “Xena?”
Her fingertips came away slippery and red. Blood.
A shaky exhale. Numb legs backed away. One step, two.
She ran.
The guards lingered in the courtyard, spoke in low tones. She hid in the doorway, heart threatening to crack open her chest. Precious moments of filtered grey light trickled away, remnants of Apollo’s ride. Should she wait? Was staying out of sight more important than moving quickly?
She crouched low in the shadows, unseen by the soldiers as they parted ways. Even in the failing light, one bore an unmistakable scar. She counted to five, before skulking out of the doorway under the shadow of the colonnade. Quietly she shadowed her old escort, closing the distance.
The moment the others disappeared, she yanked him into the gloom. Instinctively he shoved her away, reached for his sword. She swore at herself for not expecting as much, lunged for the dagger in his belt. A moment later the sword clattered to the ground, Scar clutching the back of his gashed hand. As she snatched it up he drew breath to shout; both blades flicked under his chin, solemn warning silencing him as effectively as a slit throat. She shook her head, her eyes pleading with him. Don’t.
They squared off in the shadows, the soldier clutching his hand, squinting at her. “Parda?” His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing out here? Where’s the Conqueror?”
She pressed the sword and dagger back into his hands, dragged him toward the darkened doorway. After a few steps he shook his head. “Wait. Wait a minute!” He shook her off, leveled the sword.
She stared at the weapon, at the soldier, grappled with her own fears. She needed him. She trusted him. “Help me,” she finally forced out past the knot in her throat. “Please.”
He stared, surprised.
She didn’t wait for an answer, hurried back through empty halls to the closed door, the narrow passage beyond. The Conqueror still lay on the steps, black blood and wine and fouler stuff pooled under her cheek. She draped one arm across her shoulders, gritted her teeth and tried to lift the woman. Her ribs screamed at the strain, her legs too watery from exhaustion and blood loss to stand. A tiny sound of panic from her throat. She began to crawl, knees and elbows scraping over each step, dragging the warlord behind her.
The weight eased. She sucked in a great gasp of relief as Scar took one arm. “We need to get her to the infirmary.”
She jerked her head. “No. Up.”
He started to protest, but she pulled them both into motion up the stairs. Several corridors later they staggered into the royal chambers. The gladiator made straight for the bed, lowered her to the mattress with as much care as her tired arms could muster.
The soldier lit a candle, brought it close for a better look. “What happened?”
She shook her head as she panted for air. “Poison, maybe. I don’t know. She didn’t eat anything—”
“She’s dying.”
She spun, found the apprentice watching from a dim corner, standing between them and the Queen.
“Help her.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do.”
The gladiator snarled and launched. Before she could wrap her hands around that fragile neck, the Dragon’s arm caught her and dragged her back. Eyes like coals scorched the Amazon. “Help her!”
“I can’t.”
“You lie!” Rage drove her at the woman.
Scar held fast, wrestled her back, his shouts to stop only slowly sinking in. He cleared his throat. “Maybe she’s just had too much wine.”
Ephiny shook her head. “Look at her. Skin and bones, pale as snow. She’s cursed, been getting worse for months. Demetrius, her herbalist…they’ve tried everything.”
The Leopard shoved off the soldier’s grip and turned away, not trusting the words that wanted to come out of her mouth. A silver pitcher among the refreshments caught her eye. She poured a cup of water, unconsciously sipped it before taking it to her owner. The cool substance moistened the warlord’s lips, dribbled into her mouth. Silently the slave begged her to drink it.
For a long moment, nothing. Then a noisy gulp.
She let out a held breath, took a towel to her stained lips and waxy cheeks and chin, wiping them clean of vomit. The exquisite silks reeked, but no matter how sick she was, undressing the Conqueror without permission and in front of her subjects smacked of suicide. She pulled up a blanket instead, hoping warmth might find her skin again.
“Parda?”
She ignored the apprentice, stared at the warlord, willing her to hear her thoughts. Don’t leave. Not like this. This is not a warrior’s death. This is not the Conqueror’s death.
“You’re bleeding.”
Her back stiffened at a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t touch me.” Air cracked around the whisper.
“Your wound’s opened up again. It’s bleeding badly—”
“Leave it.” She couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything.
The apprentice backed off. “We’ll go.”
“No,” the Leopard croaked. “You stay.”
Ephiny’s mouth drew in a tight line. Her quiet words shook with anger and fear. “Why? Do you know why she summoned the queen? After hearing what she did to that girl Amarice, I can sure as Hades guess.”
“She didn’t do anything,” the Leopard growled. “And I don’t know why she summoned you, but you’ll stay until she tells us herself.”
A harsh nervous laugh. “Says who? You? A slave?”
The gladiator looked expectantly at Scar. He flexed his freshly-bandaged hand, glanced uncomfortably from the Conqueror to the apprentice. “You can wait.”
Ephiny opened her mouth to argue, snapped her jaw shut. “Fine. But I won’t stand here and watch you bleed to death.”
Her eyes never left Xena. “Do what you want.”
She didn’t help the apprentice pull the tunic over her head. Her escort cleared his throat. “I’ll just…ah…guard the door.”
Ephiny’s sure hands worked on her for some time, dabbing, scraping, stitching. Only occasional twinges penetrated the sensation that the bed, the floor, the earth shifted beneath her, falling away into nothingness. The room swayed; only the Conqueror’s face remained solid and still.
The apprentice caught her when she tilted, steadied her until the feeling faded and she knew she wouldn’t pass out. “Told you all this bleeding would catch up with you,” murmured Ephiny. The slave knew better. She wasn’t the one spinning. It was the world, turned on its ear.
Finished, Ephiny packed up her kit, climbed onto the slave’s cot to tuck in behind her sleeping queen. The gladiator sighed, trickled more water down the Xena’s throat. Errant drops trickled down her cheek. A knuckle brushed them away, found her skin frightfully cool to the touch. A glance at the Amazons, already lost to Morpheus.
She slid under the blanket, draping her bare body over her owner’s. Already chilled, she shivered at the icy touch. Or perhaps it was the foolishness of lying unbidden with the Conqueror. She could almost feel cold blue eyes boring holes into her skull, threatening pain far worse than anything inflicted upon the wretched Phavo. The longer she ignored it, the more unbearable the tingling became until she couldn’t help but look up.
Closed eyes. A slack face.
Let her. Let her wake up and be angry. What punishment wouldn’t be worth that miracle?