Call to Arms (The Girl In The Arena Book 1) (13 page)

It was as if all her emotions had been placed inside a bottle with a hard stopper to prevent them from coming out. She felt cold and empty. It was as if she was standing to one side watching herself walk inside the phalanx of soldiers and trying to figure out how she was no longer actually present within her own body.

The night before she had left a small amount of water in her pitcher. Into that water she had poured half of the packet of werebane. She had no fire with which to boil the poisonous plant leaves, but she could and did leave her knife soaking in it overnight. It was not as potent as using the boiled down concoction but it was still strong, and still lethal.

When she entered the arena, the crowd was on their feet clapping and cheering and screaming her name. Reena looked up at them and then she did the only thing she knew to deal. She raised her middle finger in a rebellious salute and a statement of exactly what she thought of them. To her utter astonishment they screamed and clapped louder! It was as if the insolent gesture had not angered them at all, but rather amused them.

Jewels and favors began to fly into the arena. She sought diamonds winking in the dust and she stared upward at them, wondering if they were all insane here. Even those people dressed in the poorest of garb threw things at her.

She felt some small emotion beginning somewhere deep down inside her, but she ruthlessly clapped that stopper back down on the bottle that housed her emotions and refused to allow it to surface.

The gates opened and one of the women who would have been on the cart with her was brought out into the sunlight, blinking and shivering. Reena walked over to her and said in a tight and very controlled voice, “I’m going to do my best to save your life. Do us both a favor, pick up whatever you think we can use after this battle — that is if we live through it. Even if I do not, perhaps you can bargain your way free with whatever you find on this forsaken earth.”

The woman stopped shivering and her tears dried. She looked at Reena standing in front of her so calm and still and it was as if that calmness and stillness transferred itself upon her own person. She lifted her head and looked Reena directly in the eye as she said, “Yes Mistress.”

Mistress? She was nobody’s mistress! She was not even in control of herself. It seemed to calm the woman though the she did not correct her. The woman was scampering about, gathering up stuff. The crowd was growing restless, so Reena decided to give them a little more entertainment. She walked towards the box where the Governor sat and when she got a few feet from it she lifted her hands above her head high in the air and shouted, “if you really want me killed, why not bring your swords and come down here yourself? Do you fear me so?”

Uh-oh. She might’ve gone too far with that one. The crowd fell silent and the hush was so thick she could hear the sound of the other woman’s footsteps as she shuffled across the sand to pick up another bauble.

From somewhere in the crowd a woman’s voice cried, “All men fear women deep down inside if they have any sense at all!”

The roars of laughter that rang out broke the tension and the crowd began to clap and cheer again. Reena was looking upward and the Governor was standing, his hands braced on the outside railing of his box and his face wore an expression that was anything but amused. She had just pissed him off worse than she had ever angered him before.

The gates opened as her opponent came out and the crowd fell silent once more. The nails erupted in cheers and shouts.

This couldn’t be real! There was no way they could honestly expect her to fight… It was two gladiators, riding in a chariot. They were both heavily armored, even the horse was armored! The battle horn had not sounded yet and the two spun around the arena raising their arms and their spears and swords while the crowd went crazy.

Reena stood silent and still, watching the woman gathering up her own favors run to the side and stand near one wall. Her face was a white smudge with too dark circles where her eyes should’ve been. She was utterly completely terrified; Reena could see the wet spot on her skirt that attested to that. She didn’t blame her, there was no way she could fight two men — two gladiators! — armed with such an array of weapons and in a chariot!

Reena said a quick prayer. If she ever needed help from the gods, now was the time. The battle horn sounded and the two gladiators in a chariot made mocking little bows in her direction before slapping the reins down hard on the horse’s rump and aiming the chariot directly at her.

There was not much she could do, running was about her only option, so she did. She could feel the ground shaking below her feet, feel the heat of the horse’s breath on her back and she managed to slide to the right, going down on the ground and onto her back flying across the rough sand. A sword cut through the air where her head had been, another second and she would’ve been decapitated. The close call shook her more than she cared to admit and she rolled to one side, wedging her body down below a small outcropping made by the lowest of the seats in the stands.

That was how she avoided the next blow. The crowd began to boo her and she could see how fast their favor was switching. Anger at their very fickleness filled her as she rolled out from underneath the outcropping while the chariot rode its way around the arena, its occupants waving and laughing and cheering on the crowd.

She had to think; she had to figure out a way out of this. She only had her blade and no other weapon. Looking around she spotted a man’s walking staff nearby. She ran along the lower section of the arena, and grabbed it away from him. He cried out in protest but she yelled back at him, “May the gods pay you for your favor!”

Her father had told her a story once, a long time ago. About a man who had held off a veritable army on horseback with nothing but spears. She didn’t have a spear; she had a walking staff, but then again they didn’t have an army either.

The chariot started to come back around and she took off running again, this time in the opposite direction from it. She had to time this just right if she was going to make this work.

She was sure she couldn’t make it work, but she was going to try anyway when the chariot was almost opposite her on the other side of the arena, she took off running across the arena dead at it. She held the staff up in front of her and took a deep breath.

She knew how to throw a spear; she often hunted with them in the woods and while her targets then were usually far bigger than the small space that she was aiming at now and the staff was not sharp; she was pretty sure that it would work if her aim was good and true.

The staff hurtled through the air, flying low. The two in the chariot had not yet noticed her coming towards them; they were too busy playing to the crowd. Either that or they thought she posed no threat.

The staff went into the wheel, right between two spokes just as she had planned it. Even Reena could not believe the luck of that shot. The staff jammed the wheel of the chariot, which was going far too fast at that moment. The staff caused the wheel on one side to snap completely off and the chariot tumbled into the dust. The horse screamed in fear as its passengers and its burden suddenly vanished.

The horse began to scream and buck wildly, foam flying from its mouth. One of the gladiators, stumbling out from under the wreckage of the chariot, was not watching where he was going and the horse’s hooves struck him dead in the face, knocking him to the ground. The horse began to paw and stomp him. Blood went everywhere and Reena shuddered all over, horror at what she had done finally breaking through that impenetrable bottle.

The other gladiator was already dead; it appeared as if his neck had been broken in the fall. The crowd was on its feet, proclaiming her to be the victor. Reena could not believe the carnage that had ensued from something as simple as an old man’s staff. She hadn’t even planned it that way; she had merely thought to get them out of the chariot so that she could maybe have a fighting chance.

The horse shied and ran and she let it. The woman’s life she just saved pressed herself closer to the wall, her arms shielding her face as the horse ran in wild circles around the arena. Reena went to the chariot and removed the staff that she had taken from the stands and with it still in her hands, she approached the man who it belonged to. When she drew abreast of him, she held it up over her head so that he could reach it, and looking up at his face as he looked down at her she said, “thank you Sir, and the gods.”

The roar that went up at that was even louder. The horse had stopped running, and was standing in the middle of the arena with its head down and its sides heaving, covered with foam. Reena had never ridden a horse before and she had no intention of approaching the beast.

She looked up and saw murderous fury on the Governor’s face. He had planned for her to die today; he’d actually planned for her to die several days before and she was confounding his plans, something that was not making him very happy at all.

Reena gave him a low mocking little bow and then she extended both her middle fingers up high in the air and brought them towards him. There was no doubt that she was giving him and solely him that salute. That time the crowd’s laughter was so loud it hammered at her ears and she knew she had done it: she had won the approval of the crowd.

But at what cost?

“The gods have taken revenge on you by making your mind as weak as goat milk!”

Reena looked at Hector. They were still in the dim passageways below the arena, awaiting the escort that would take her back to herself. “Have you ever tasted goat milk Hector? It’s very strong.”

Hector’s chagrin was written all over his face. “Do not let your mouth run away with you Missy. I will kill you right here and suffer the consequences!”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Back! You are worth it!”

Hector stomped off into a corner and drew his fist back as if he was going to punch the hard stone wall, but thought better about it and dropped his hand to his side. He spun around to face her, “what were you thinking? Do you not know what you did out there? Do you not know what this all means?”

“Yes, to all of that. I did it on purpose and I would do it again. As far as I’m concerned the Governor can go…”

Hector hushed her by slapping his broad hand right across her mouth and pinching her nostrils shut. For a moment Reena was afraid that he actually was attempting to murder her but then she realized that he was merely trying to make her be quiet. When he removed his hand from her mouth she said, “you told me to win the crowd.”

“So I did. I didn’t mean to do it this way.”

“I saw no other way. Most of those people out there don’t really care if I live or die Hector, and you know it.”

“That is true of all gladiators Reena, why should you be different? Why do you feel that you are special?”

“I’m just a girl! This isn’t fair Hector and you know it! And I’m a girl. I’m not supposed to be fighting in the arena, I’m not supposed to be…”

“You’re not supposed to be doing what?” Hector drew closer to her and for a moment she thought that there might be actual pity in his face. “We don’t design our fates,, the gods do that for us. You are here because you are meant to be here, it’s your destiny.”

“What about the people that I’ve killed Hector? Was it their destiny to die? And if so, why?”

“You ask too many questions.”

Her shoulders drooped and she stared at her feet. “I want my father.”

“I know you do. You will see him again, but not today.”

“Why can’t I just see him?”

“You know the answer to that Reena. Look here comes the guards. It’s time to go back to your cell.”

The soldiers were not alone. The woman whose life she had saved that day was with them and Reena looked at her, uncomprehending. “Why are you still here?”

The woman drew herself to her full height, which was not very high. She was maybe five foot four. “You saved my life and so you are now my Mistress. I will serve you from here on out.”

“I have no need of a servant. I live in a cell, I don’t have anything to give you, I have one change of clothes and I’m wearing it. There’s nothing that you can take care of for me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong Reena,” Hector said. She will have the freedom that you do not, she can come and go as she pleases. Many of the richer people who been imprisoned have made use of their servants even while they were kept in cells. It’s her wish to serve you, and it’s her duty. Except it gracefully and do not anger the gods by spurning her gift.”

“Hector, I can’t…” She halted, seeing the warning look on his face. She turned to the woman and asked, “what’s your name?”

The woman’s brown hair was streaked with gray but her face was remarkably unlined and Reena wondered just how old she was. Her blue eyes were keen and unclouded and when she smiled she had all of her teeth. “I’m Octavia.”

Reena might still have protested except at that moment she looked over at Hector and saw a look on his face that she had never seen before. He was looking at Octavia with a soft warm smile on his face and he was actually straightening his shirt as Reena watched. Why, he was trying to make a good impression on Octavia!

There was precious little amusing about her situation but that was funny. Reena bit back a smile and said, “Well I guess if you can’t help me, maybe you can help out Hector once in a while. Maybe you can get him to dress a little better. It seems he has suddenly and remarkably developed an interest in doing so.”

One of the soldiers actually chuckled and Hector turned a dull brick red before regaining his composure and shooting Reena a filthy look before saying, “We must get back to the cell. You have three days before your next battle and you need some training.”

He marched in front of their escort all the way back to her cell.

**

Octavia, as it turned out was a lifesaver. Because she had the freedom to come and go, the guards set her up in the room across from Reena. At night she spread her pallet down in the hallway in front of Reena’s door and Reena moved her pallet over to the door.

The two found that they had a lot in common. Octavia was only twenty-one years old but her life had been a lot harder than Reena’s. She had been sent off to an arranged marriage when she was only fourteen. Her family had been vendors at the open air markets and her husband’s family had run a small store. It was a step up in the world for her and she knew it. But after she failed to bear him children three years in a row his family grew impatient with her and declared her unfit.

Her husband was allowed to divorce her and he did. He sent her away with nothing more than the clothing she wore and three silver coins: one for each year that she had been married to him.

A woman alone in the city was a woman at risk and Octavia had quickly run out of money and since her own family would not take her back (a divorced woman was a symbol of shame to both her own family and herself), she began to do odd jobs in the market, hoping to earn enough money to one day open a stall of her own in order to support herself.

She had barely been scraping by, sleeping in whatever shelter she could find on the streets and eking out a miserable living with her small jobs. Then she had been accused of thievery, a crime she said she had not committed.

“It’s not unusual Mistress,” Octavia said as they lay on opposite sides of the door on their pallets. “It’s easy for someone to accuse you of a crime, simply because they don’t want to pay you for the work that you did and that’s what happened. I had no way to defend myself, I didn’t have the five coins necessary to higher representation and so I was found guilty.”

Reena was horrified. “And for that you were sent to the arena?”

“No, for that I was sent to the taverns. I did not want to be there, I had had enough of men taking from me what they wished without my permission when I was married. I fought a man who had hired my company for the evening, almost killing him with a tankard of ale and that is why wound up in the arena.”

Reena asked, “How could they just sell you to the taverns and demand that you do whatever the tavern keepers say? That’s inhumane!”

“That’s life here in the city. Many women are taken to the tavern. Some come from the farms, they are Culled...”

“I know about that. My own mother was to be brought to the taverns. It’s why my father took her and ran, it’s why he became an Outlaw.”

“Oh, how romantic! She was so lucky! It must have been so wonderful to know that you are loved so much that a man would leave with you, risking his own life to keep you from a life of servitude in the taverns.”

Romantic? Reena had never thought of it in those terms. How could it have been romantic when her parents had become Outlaws? They had lived on the run and roughly, but yet… Did she herself love the woods? Did she know how much her parents loved each other even though her mother had been dead since she was small? Yes, she did.

“Yes, it was very romantic.”

“I’ve never been kissed by a man that I thought made kissing feel good.” There was a wistfulness in Octavia’s voice. “If I found a man that I wanted to kiss and kiss forever, for the rest of my life, then that is who I would kiss for the rest of my life.”

Reena gave her a speculative look. “Would you marry again?”

“Yes, of course. If there was a man that I knew would love and care for me, not treat me as if I was a dirty rug on the floor, something just to wipe his feet on. I have funny ideas they say, but I don’t think that a woman should be under a man’s thumb — I think she should be there with him in every way. I think they should be partners.”

“My mother was my father’s partner. They did everything together because they had to. He never gave her an order, and she never gave him one either. They worked together to make sure that we survived, and that we had as much as was possible under the circumstances.”

Octavia said, “it must’ve been beautiful to grow up watching them.”

Reena didn’t want to talk about herself anymore; it hurt too much. It made her miss her father and what was more, it made her miss her mother. “What are your parents like?”

“Like most parents. My mother is basically a servant in her own house. We don’t have enough money for servants… They did not have enough money for servants. My mother does not do anything unless she is ordered to do it and my father expects her to do everything. It’s no different than every other husband-and-wife living on our street. That is the way of it.”

“I would never agree to a marriage like that.”

“I did, and I know how awful it is. I would never agree to that ever again either. Do you know what they call woman like me?”

“No, what?”

Octavia laughed, “Feminists. Isn’t that the funniest word you ever heard? I have no idea what it really means, but that’s what they call me and other women like me. It’s a crime to be a feminist and they can actually put you in jail for it.”

“What about those women that you see on the streets all the time who have their own servants and give them orders?”

Octavia said, “most of them have outlived their husbands. Or their family. Women have freedom, if they are single. You can do everything except vote; you can keep your own money, you can take a lover, you can own your own business – but only if you’re single. If you’re married all of that becomes her husband’s. And you have no rights anymore, then they wonder why woman like me rebels against the idea of marriage.”

“But you just said you would get married again.”

Octavia said, “Only if I found a man willing to love me and to be my partner in this life; there’s no way I’m going to marry another man that wants me to be his servant.”

Teasingly Reena said, “I think Hector would like to marry you.”

Octavia giggled, “He’s so… manly isn’t he? Can you imagine kissing him?”

“No,” Reena said honestly. “Then again, he’s always knocking me onto  my butt in the dirt so perhaps kissing him was not something that’s ever crossed my mind.”

“I could see why.”

That conversation and more like it was to follow in the days leading up to her next battle. Reena had had no idea of just how lonely she was, or how much it meant to her to have company. Octavia often left; she took some of the jewels and other things that she had scooped up off the arena floor and went out into the marketplace with them. When she returned she had fresh clothes for Reena to wear in her cell and she took her gladiator gear to a leather worker to be repaired and cleaned saying that the smell of sweat was enough to knock down the hardiest of men. “In that case perhaps better leave it as it is,” Reena had suggested to that, making them both laugh.

Octavia also brought back things that Reena had not been permitted before: small sweet treats and a hairbrush, a small slim volume of poetry that had been written by a man who was hawking copies of that verse for a few bites of food and other little items.

One of the things that Octavia brought back for her was a long veil. Reena had looked at it in confusion and looked back at Octavia. “What is this for?”

“It’s to keep you from noticing the stares of the people in the streets when you walk past them.”

Reena’s face flamed. So Octavia had noticed that. She had thought that she had hidden so well her discomfort with being stared and pointed at, but Octavia had seen it immediately.

“Let me help you pin it on,” Octavia said kindly.

Octavia beckoned for a soldier, to allow her into Reena’s cell. Octavia sat Reena down and began to brush her long hair, plying the stiff bristles through the soft strands until they swung colossally from her scalp. “We must do something about your hair. You have a fight today and I think you should wear it up.”

“What you mean?”

“I am going to braid and arrange it so that it’s all up on top of your head and not in your way, if you’ll let me.”

Reena was touched by that, “I would like that very much, thank you.”

Octavia pulled her hair tightly back, styling it in tight braids before braiding it below itself and tucking it tightly against her scalp so that not a single strand showed or waved around her face.

Reena had not yet dressed for the arena, so she reached for her usual garb when Octavia said to her, “no, not today. Today is a special day and I have something for you to wear.”

“The garments she held out were solid white. They were made of the same toss-resistant leather that the outfit that River’s mother had made for her was, but there was a chain mail breastplate that fit over the top as well as under the skirt. The gauntlets were also white and silver. After Reena had all of the clothes on, Octavia opened the box and said, “I had these made for you. I saw something like them once in an old book. It cost me almost everything you earned during your last battle, but I think when the crowd gets a look at you today they will make sure that you have plenty when you leave there.”