“Kim! Kim! Wake up, Kim!”
“Aw mom, just a little bit longer,” Kiminax said, burying her head even further into her pillow.
“Now, now, Kiminax, you know as well as I do, it’s your turn to help gather the herbs. Come on now, wake up, your father’s waiting.”
Kiminax yawned, her hands rubbing sand from her eyes as her mother fussed around the room, when a thought occurred to her. “Wait a minute, isn’t it the tweebs’ turn to help with the herbs?”
“Come on, Kiminax,” her mother said indulgently, “you know how sick your brothers have been these past few days. You can’t possibly expect them to go out into the forest in their condition.”
Memories came flooding back into Kiminax’s mind. Yeah, the tweebs were sick, she remembered that… “Sure mom, no problem,” Kiminax said, pulling back her blanket and getting out of bed.
“Are you all right, Kimmie?” her mother said, concerned. “You don’t look like you slept too well.”
“What? Oh yeah; don’t worry mom, I just had a bad dream, that’s all.”
Hmm? What was it about?”
Kiminax opened her mouth to reply, but-
-Rome, the clink of the chain around her legs, the dust of combat-
-Shiko-
-after a moment, shut it again. “Tell the truth, mom, I don’t really remember.”
“If you say so, Kiminax. Now go get dressed and help your father.”
A few minutes later, Kiminax opened the door of her family’s simple hut- into her oncoming father.
“Ohmigosh! Dad, I’m so, so sorry,” she said, helping her father up.
“Oh, don’t worry, Kiminax, these things happen all the time,” her father replied, wiping away some blood from his nose as he got up. “So, Kim, you ready to help your father gather his herbs?”
”As always,” Kiminax said confidently, slinging her bag.
“That’s my girl,” her father said affectionately. “Come on, Kim, let’s go.”
“Hold on, dad, one of my sandals came off,” Kiminax said, bending down to put it back on. “There, done. Okay dad, let’s-”
She gasped as she looked up. The sky- no, the whole world had turned blood-red, save for her parents and her brothers who stood before her, arms held out as if begging her for help while behind them, Roman soldiers drew their swords. Kim tried to go to their aid, but her legs seemed to have turned to stone, and she could only watch helplessly as the Romans brought their blades down-
“NO DON’T!” Kiminax screamed as she woke up.
For a moment, she thought she was dead- the whole world seemed to have slipped into darkness.
But as far as she knew, the lands of the dead didn’t have someone asking “Kim, you okay?” when you reached them.
Then memories, both welcome and otherwise, flooded her tired mind. “Ron, that you?” she asked, wiping the sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”
“Dawn,” Al-Wadjet said through the hole in Kiminax’s ceiling.
“Al-Wadjet? You too?” Kiminax asked. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake all of you- wait, you sleep in the kitchen?”
“Having the servants sleep where they’re supposed to, you know, serve means that Bonita’s dad doesn’t have to spend any of his precious money building us an actual place to sleep,” Al-Wadjet said derisively.
Then, the relative silence was pierced by the sound of loud ringing. “Looks like we didn’t miss that much sleep, Kim,” Al-Wadjet said, as the doors at the end of the dungeon passageway opened.
(scene change)
“Get in line! Get in line!” the gladiator school’s guards called out to the hastily assembling would-be gladiators. “Early comers in front! Early to late! One line!” they said, repeating the same words again and again.
Kiminax and Ronnicus soon found themselves near the front of the line, and patiently awaited the other gladiators to line up. Soon, all the gladiators had formed a single line, with the exception of-
“Hey loser, you’re in my spot,” Briccus said, pushing Ronnicus out of his place in line.
“Oi! Grrr!” Rufus growled.
“My sentiments exactly,” Kiminax said indignantly. “He was here first!”
Briccus looked like he was going to back down, but in less than a second both pride and idiot bravado, which he had in far greater quantities than brain cells, took over. “Oh yeah, what’re you going to do about it?”
“What, you’ve forgot what happened yesterday already?”
“Nope, I remember. I also remember that you had a friend with you, and guess what? She ain’t here. But, I’m still here, my friends’re still here, and all you’ve got’s Ronnicus and his pet rat. So what’re gonna do about it?” he sneered, standing- no, towering right in front of Kiminax, so that the shadow the torches behind him cast completely engulfed Kiminax in darkness.
“This,” Kiminax replied, and brought her knee upwards.
She was impressed by her results- she never seen eyes cross like that, nor was she aware that a man could squeak like that.
“Back of the line, got it,” Briccus gasped a second later, as he lay on the ground, before dragging himself to the back with his arms, trying to use his lower body as little as possible.
“You know Kim,” Ronnicus said, the other gladiators backing away reflexively as Kiminax turned, “I get the feeling that isn’t the sort of thing Britannians teach their kids.”
“It’s not,” Kiminax admitted. “I saw Shiko do it, though.”
“Ah, Shiko,” Ronnicus said, as understanding dawned.
“Baaad influence,” Rufus squeaked in agreement.
“Oh come on, she’s not that bad- I think,” Kiminax replied uncertainly.
“You… think?” Ronnicus asked. Clearly no uncertainty there.
A voice suddenly boomed across the (relatively) silent training ground. “Good morning, dirtbags!” Master Barcus shouted. “Did my assistants wake you from your beauty sleep? Gods knows the whole bunch of you need it! Well, too bad! This is a gladiator school- not that any of you seem to have figured that out so far! You-”
He raised an eyebrow. “Briccus? Get up, you! Why are you in the back of the line?”
“Woke up late, sir,” Briccus said (or rather, wheezed), his legs shaking as he struggled to keep his balance.
Barcus took in the sight before him, then turned around. His eyes scanned the row of suddenly angelic gladiators before him. Then, they narrowed as they found their target.
“You! Britannian! Yeah, you! Come over here!”
Kiminax gulped, but it was with an air of defiance (albeit fearful defiance) that she walked over to Master Barcus. “Y-yes, Master Barcus?”
“Did you do this?” Barcus asked, as his face came uncomfortable close to Kiminax’s, his finger pointing at the unsteady Briccus, who, oddly enough, looked a great deal more scared than Kiminax.
Kiminax gulped, but she decided since she was going to get it anyway, might as well tell the truth. “Y-yes, sir,” she answered.
Barcus drew back, satisfied. “I may not look like the sharpest pilum in the arsenal,” he announced to the world in general, “but I know when someone’s lying to me.”
“I’m not lying-”
“I wasn’t talking about you, Britannian,” Barcus said, looking at the shamed gladiator behind him. “I also know,” he continued, his disapproving gaze remaining fixed on Briccus, “when someone’s hiding something from me- and you’ve just proved me right both times, in that order.”
Briccus hung his head, too embarrassed for anything else.
“Bullying other gladiators so you’d get to bunk off the punishment for being late for roll call, thatI can take. But getting your butt kicked by a girl, that- that’s just wrong.”
“But- but- but yesterday, she-” Briccus began, as he tried to use anything as an excuse, even the very same reason he had discounted from Kiminax just a few moments before.
”IF I recall correctly, Briccus- and I do- she had a friend with her yesterday, didn’t she?”
”Yeah!” Briccus said, his natural sycophancy taking over his vocal cords before his brain could. “That’s what I said- uh, I mean-”
“And who does she have with her now? On her side, I mean.”
“Uhhh…”
”Gosh, Master Barcus!” Ronnicus exclaimed in amazement. Kiminax had barely been here a day, and she already showed an instinctive knowledge of what could happen as she tried to stop Ronnicus continuing, “Were you listening in or something? ‘Cos I’d swear on a pile of Torahs that Briccus said-”
“Was I talking to you, auctoratus?”
“Uh, no?”
“Right.” Master Barcus then turned back to Briccus. “So I guess this means you got your butt handed to you by a girl, ain’t that right?” When the furiously blushing Briccus failed to answer, Master Barcus nodded, and started speaking in a reasonable tone (meaning that he was feeling anything but reasonable).
“Don’t worry Briccus, it isn’t your fault you’re such a weenie- I just haven’t been training you hard enough. In fact,” he added, as a collective groan ran through the assembled gladiators in anticipation of what he was going to say next, “considering how manly all of you were yesterday, I don’t think I have been training all of you hard enough.” The torchlight glinting off Master Barcus’s sneer made him look like a denizen of Hades as he continued, “So, today, all those three little break times a day I’ve been giving you out of the goodness of my heart? From now on, you are all only getting one! And bedtime? You can forget it! You sleep when I sleep, or if you keel over, got it?”
“Sir! Yes sir!” the gladiators responded with little choice. Some of them gave dirty looks at Kiminax and Ron-
“You, Britannian! Stay here! I’ll be your personal trainer for today,” Barcus called out to the retreating Kiminax.
“Oh man, he’s really got it in for you,” Ronnicus said sympathetically. “You going to be all right?”
“You’re asking about me?” Kiminax asked, astonished. “You’re the one going back to those guys,” she said, indicating the disgruntled majority of the school.
“Ah, well, you get used to it,” Ronnicus said dismissively. In his pocket, Rufus moaned.
“ ‘Used to it?’” Kiminax asked, echoing Rufus’s sentiment.
“Britannian!” Barcus shouted again.
“You better go now, Kim. Barcus looks like he’s at the ‘angry voice’ stage.” He leaned closer, as imparting Imperial secrets. “You don’t want him to get as far as ‘angry face’. It’s nasty.”
“Ronnicus! Get to training NOW!”
“Aaaah! Angry face!” Ronnicus squeaked.
“Oo-hoo, really bad,” Rufus agreed.
(scene change)
“That the best you can do?” Barcus asked in disgust as Kiminax took another clumsy swipe at him. “See Britannian, the thing about being a gladiator is: you’re supposed to fight,” he said, in the tone of someone explaining the blindingly obvious to a stupid child.
Through teeth grit together, Kiminax replied, “Fight. Got it, Master Barcus.”
“I’m not sure about that, Britannian-”
“I have a name, you know,” Kiminax quietly whispered under her breath.
But not quietly enough, apparently. “What’s that you say, Britannian?”
”Oh, er, nothing, Master Barcus,” Kiminax said.
“Oh, I heard you, Britannian,” Master Barcus said. “All right then, I’ll play along. What is your name, Britannian? Come on, I haven’t got all day. My show’s on at,” he consulted a wrist-mounted sundial, “my show’s on at III.”
“Show?” Kiminax asked, bewildered.
“The trainers’ lounge has its own small theatre,” Barcus said. His eyes misted over. “Today, Caesar’s gonna tell Servillia that maybe…” he wiped a tear from his face, “that maybe they ought to see other people. It’s so sad,” he said hoarsely. Seeing the bewildered, wide-eyed look on Kiminax’s face, he pulled himself together. “So, getting to the point, what’s your name, Britannian?”
“…Kiminax.”
“Kiminax, huh? Well, Kiminax,” Barcus said, “you see, here’s the thing: You’ve got a problem. You want to know what that problem is?”
Do I have a choice? Kiminax thought.
“You can’t swing a sword, you’re completely useless with a shield, and it’s obvious you have no idea how to fight properly! I know what you’re thinking: That’s three problems, not one. That’s where you’re wrong- your only problem is that you’re a girl-”
The other gladiators looked on in surprise as Master Barcus skidded backwards, his shield raised just in time to block Kiminax’s kick. They then looked back to Kiminax, breathing heavily with anger, vengeful anticipation written all over their faces, except for Ronnicus, who looked like he was going to be ill.
But nothing resembling the expected wrath of Olympus materialized. Instead, Master Barcus fixed Kiminax with a steely gaze, before raising his shield again and saying one word.
“Again.”
Once more, clouds of dust flew as Barcus skidded back again.
“Again.”
Kiminax took another kick-
-Barcus suddenly ducked under her leg and struck out with a wooden shortsword-
-to hit nothing but empty air. Kiminax was already backflipping through the air out of harm’s way.
Not that her respite lasted long. As soon as she landed, she found herself under renewed assault from a suddenly silent Barcus, and considering his longer reach, it was all Kiminax could do to keep out of his range.
At least, that was what Barcus thought, right up to the moment he took another swing and Kiminax surprised him with the exact tactic he had used against her just a few minutes earlier- she ducked under his arm, and sprang upwards in a surprise attack.
Barcus raised his shield, but instead of the barehanded attack he was expecting, he instead saw Kiminax’s fingers grip the wooden top edge of the shield, and proceeded to watch in shocked surprise as she lifted herself upwards over his head to land behind him, sweeping a leg out and tripping him.
Or at least, that was what Kiminax expected. What she hadn’t expected was Master Barcus jumping over her leg and swinging his sword downwards towards her-
-and stopping just a few inches from her forehead.
“I guess,” Barcus said slowly, just as slowly as the smile spreading across his face. “I guess somebody just earned herself a break.”
(scene change)
“Eat up,” Barcus said, pushing another bowl of gruel across the crude table (actually, a big, flat tree stump) towards Kiminax (who, like Barcus, was sitting on a small tree stump, the gladiator school’s idea of a dining area). “When this break’s done, I’ll be training you twice as hard.”
Kiminax almost choked on her gruel. The training she had received that morning was draconian- and he wanted to train her twice as hard now? Under the blazing afternoon sun? It wasn’t that she wasn’t sure she would be able to stand it. More to the point, she wasn’t sure she would survive it. Think, Kiminax, think.
“Uh, isn’t your show on? At III?” Kiminax asked, in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner.
“Nope,” Barcus said easily, dipping a large spoon into his own gruel. “You see, Kiminax, that was what we Romans call ‘sarcasm’. Don’t worry, you’re a foreigner, I understand.”
Kiminax bristled at this remark, but she took care not to show it.
Not that Master Barcus would have noticed anyway- at the moment, his eyes and mind were on something else. “Look at that,” he sighed. “Ronnicus’s rat’s better at this than he is.”
Kiminax looked at where he was pointing, and saw his point. While Ronnicus cowered behind a straw dummy, his practice opponent was leaping around in consternation as he tried to dislodge Rufus, who was at that moment scampering all over him, biting and clawing.
“Hey, at least he’s winning,” Kiminax said.
“Who? Ron or the rat? Wait, don’t bother answering.” Barcus sighed again. “I mean, sure, he’s an auctoratus, but you’d think he’d be able to at least point a sword.”
There was that word again. “What’s an auctoratus?” Kiminax asked, her desire to plead Ronnicus’s case tempered (for now) by curiosity.
“A free man who chooses to become a gladiator,” Barcus said disgustedly. “Yeah, like any sane Roman of pure blood would want to become a gladiator. Putting your life on the line just to make a bunch of screaming harpies and sons-of-harpies happy is bad enough, but to let that same bunch decide whether you live or die? If you ask me, some people have been staring at the full moon a little too much.”
“So, why do people become auctoratuses then?”
“Auctorati,” Barcus corrected, as he leaned back and stretched. “Who knows? Maybe it’s the fame, maybe it’s the fortune.”
“So, which is it for Ronnicus?”
“None of ‘em.” He got up. “Enough talking, Time to get back to the best part of the day.” He looked at Kiminax, and smiled evilly. “At least for me.”
Kiminax looked Barcus straight in the eye, determined not to show reluctance or fear. “Bring it on.”
(scene change)
“Worst thing to say to the worst person to say it to, Kim,” Al-Wadjet said, later that night.
“Thank you, didn’t really need you to say it,” Kiminax said as she lay in her bed, her body aching all over.
Yeah, about that, I, uh, I’m sorry, Kim,” Ronnicus said from his cell.
“Sorry?” Kiminax asked, too tired to even turn to Ronnicus. “Sorry for what?”
“I should have warned you about his ‘happy face’. I think I’ve heard stories about barbarian armies being beaten by his ‘happy face’.”
“Come on, Ron, those are just stories,” Al-Wadjet said.
“I won’t be too sure, Al-Wadjet,” Kiminax joked ruefully as the aches started up again. “What about you, Ron? You all right?”
“Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t I be? I mean, it wasn’t as if I did a lot of fighting out there. Nope, that was all Rufus, ain’t that right, buddy?”
“High five!” the little molerat said enthusiastically, holding up a small paw in response.
“Glad to hear it,” Kiminax said, happy despite the pain she felt.
There was a comfortable silence between the three friends for a few minutes, when Kiminax asked the question that had been bugging her since that afternoon. “Ron?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Why did you choose to become a gladiator?”
There were a few more moments of silence, this time of the uncomfortable sort. Even though she could not see him, Kiminax also felt that Al-Wadjet’s curiosity had been aroused.
They heard Ron sigh. “Any of you guys hear of a bunch of people called the Jews?”
“Jews?” Al-Wadjet asked. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them- got a city near Egypt, called Jerusalem, if I can remember correctly. Why?”
“Well, the Romans,” Ronnicus began hesitantly. “They don’t like the Jews much.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Ron,” Kiminax laughed. “The Romans don’t like anyone who isn’t them.”
”Yeah, but they’ve really got it against us. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because we only have one God, and He ain’t anything like the Roman gods.”
“What do you mean?” Kiminax asked, lost in the theological debate.
She heard Al-Wadjet clearing his throat. “Well,” he said, “when the Romans conquered Egypt, they sorta merged our gods with theirs, you know, like they said Ra and Jupiter were just different names for the same god, because they were both kings of the other gods and they did the same thing.”
“But the Jewish God, He isn’t anything like that?”
“Nope, and it drives the Romans crazy, ‘cos there’s no way to control the Jews with religion, like they did in Egypt,” Al-Wadjet mused. “There’s another bunch of people, the Christians, they’ve got one God too, and they’re also getting the short end of the stick with the Romans.”
“So, Ron, you’re a Jew?” Kiminax asked.
“Well, my mom was. She was a Jewish slave, and after dad fell in love with her, he set her free and married her.”
“But he was a Roman? He wasn’t a Jew?”
“Not officially,” Ronnicus admitted. “I mean, yeah, he was Jewish, but only in private. As long as the law said he was a Roman citizen, mom and me were safe. At least, that was what we thought. A few years back, dad lost a lot of denarii on a bad business deal. It was looking real bad for us, ‘cos we owed a lot of people money real soon, and nobody wanted to hire a Jewish woman- you know, ‘cos it’d be wrong to actually pay a Jew.”
“So you became an auctoratus,” Kiminax said softly.
“Like I had a choice,” Ronnicus replied, equally quietly.
Kiminax and Al-Wadjet stood silent for a moment, unsure of what to say next, when Ronnicus spoke again, repeating himself. “Like I had a choice,” he said, a catch in his voice hinting of tears.
Then, the torches outside were put out, and the halls plunged into silent darkness.