Elodie Harper - The Wolf Den

“He would have kissed me ,” Beronice shouts at Amara. “He would have kissed me , if I’d been at the front!” Her face is wild, almost unrecognizable in its rage and disappointment. Amara is glad Victoria cannot hear. Instead, she is standing uncharacteristically still, feet rooted exactly where Celadus placed her, buffeted by the passing flow of people now cramming to get into the arena.

“Come on!” Amara yells, grabbing her arm. “Or we won’t get a seat!”

All five of them hold on to each other, clasping hands, grabbing one another’s togas, anything to prevent themselves from being separated. They know their place at these games; they will have to climb all the way to the back row at the very top.

It’s a long queue. They join a slow-moving column of women, all waiting to sit wedged into the worst seats in the arena. Amara’s legs feel like they might give way by the time they get to the top. The back row is filling up fast and there’s a lot of irritable shuffling around until Cressa spots a space where they might all be able to cram together. After a heated exchange with another group of women, they finally manage to sit down, though as the slightest out of the five, Dido is forced to sit half-perched on Amara’s knee.

“You have to tell us what Celadus said,” Amara says to Victoria, who has been resisting answering that question the whole way up the steps.

Victoria smiles, enjoying the secret. “Imagine what it would be like to have a man like that! Just imagine .”

“Maybe he’s nothing special,” Beronice says. “Might be a rubbish lay.”

“Oh, don’t be so bitter!” Cressa laughs. “As if you ’d turn him down.”

“I would , I would turn him down!” Beronice insists. “I wouldn’t do that to Gallus.”

The rest of them laugh. “Even I might be tempted by Celadus,” Dido says. “And that’s saying something.”

“The feel of his chest!” Victoria sighs. “Like being held by Apollo.”

Amara shifts on her wooden seat. Even though Dido isn’t very heavy, it’s still uncomfortably hot having her on her knee. Awnings are stretched overhead to keep the sun off, but they also trap the rising heat. Not only will they have the worst view, it’s also sweltering up here. The murmur of so many people talking, reverberating round the arena, makes it sound as if they are in a beehive.

“What time are you meeting Menander?” Dido asks her.

“After the first beast hunt.”

“He must be something special, this boyfriend of yours, for you to miss the gladiators,” Victoria says.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Sorry, that’s the ironmonger isn’t it?”

Amara rolls her eyes as they all laugh. She and Dido have only had three nights with Salvius and Priscus, but from the way Victoria teases her, it’s as if she’s embroiled in a breathless love affair. It gives her an odd feeling to think of Salvius now, when she is about to see Menander. Her intimacy with the widower has happened almost by accident, through the time they spend playing music together and his unexpected gentleness. But she never forgets that for all his kindness, he is a customer.

It’s Menander she is attracted to – could imagine loving even – although their relationship has consisted of little more than a few snatched moments and graffiti exchanges outside The Sparrow. That’s how she knows where to meet him. I will wait for you by the second gate, Timarete. May fortune smile on us both! She was the one who suggested the timing underneath. Then she spent hours agonizing over whether that looked too keen or too cool. Would it have been better to have suggested before the games started? Or later, after one of the gladiator fights?

“Salvius is just a friend,” she says.

“If he’s just a friend ,” Victoria says. “You wouldn’t mind if he did a swap and had Dido next time, would you?”

Amara winces. “He wouldn’t do that!”

“You don’t like the idea though, do you?”

“I think of Priscus as my friend too,” Dido says, coming to her rescue. “They’re just not like that, either of them.”

“You’ll be saying they’re better lovers than Gallus next!”

“Oh, fuck off!” Beronice rounds on Victoria. “Just because some gladiator kissed you, doesn’t mean you get to lord it over the rest of us all day like fucking Venus!”

One or two of the more respectable women sitting on the row in front shuffle disapprovingly, though none is brave enough to risk a direct confrontation with a gang of rowing whores.

“Just leave it,” Cressa says wearily. “She’s only teasing.”

The sound of trumpets rings out, and the murmuring hive subsides slightly, though not enough for the opening speeches to be heard clearly from the back. Amara thinks again of Fuscus, imagines how much he must have enjoyed his moment of glory last year. Perhaps he has brought his sons with him today, or would they be too young? She has never met them.

Cheering and yelling from the crowd alerts them to the beast hunters’ entrance. The three men hold their arms up to the crowds, enjoying the glory before facing the danger.

“Will that be Celadus?” Amara asks, unable to tell one fighter from another at this distance.

“He wouldn’t do a beast hunt!” Victoria is outraged. “He’s a combat gladiator!”

There’s more screaming, a mixture of fear and excitement, as the animals are released into the ring. The women jump to their feet to get a better view.

“What are they?” Cressa asks, standing on tiptoe. “I can’t see.”

“Tigers!” Dido says. “They’ve let loose tigers!”

Amara can see the beasts circling, lean and hungry, while the men stand with their backs together in the centre of the arena. She has never seen a tiger before, but she’s watched enough cats stalk their prey to recognize the low, slow prowl, muscles bunched, ready to spring. Beronice grabs her arm as the first attacks. It moves so fast, she cannot imagine how any of the hunters have time to react, but one catches it with his spear, and the animal sheers off, limping and wounded. Another tiger charges and, this time, lands a blow, knocking a man to the ground.

The yelling from the crowd is so intense, the action in the arena so frantic, she cannot work out what is happening. Beside her, Beronice is jumping up and down, Victoria is screaming and then she realizes she is too, though she’s not sure who she is shouting for, the men or the beasts. Even Dido is caught up in the hysteria, punching the air when one man saves another, leaping on the back of the attacking tiger as if it were a horse.

The role of hunter and hunted switches back and forth, sometimes the beasts are in retreat, sometimes the men. The skill of the fighters, the grace of the tigers, all of it is punctuated by acts of savagery which make Amara gasp. She keeps watching, unable to look away, until the last tiger has been slaughtered. Their bodies are dragged from the arena, leaving thick red trails in the sand. One of the men is taken off too, his chest covered in blood from a shoulder wound. The remaining two hunters stand together, throwing their arms up to receive the adulation of the crowds.

“Doubt the injured one will make it,” Victoria says, raising her voice above the din. “That tiger practically had his arm off!”

“Will they replace him?” Dido asks. “Or will the next fight just have two hunters?”

“They usually replace them if it’s this early, otherwise the hunt doesn’t last long enough,” Cressa says.

A few women are getting up, making use of the break to go to the latrine. “I think I had better go,” Amara says.