Chapter 6

For a split second Krista could not hear a thing except a loud buzzing noise. Her heart dropped inside her chest and her breathing froze as all she could do was blink.

“Because it will harm the baby,” the old woman said again as she took a step closer and slipped the chalice from Krista’s fingers.

If she had any resemblance of control over her limbs Krista would have stopped her from taking such liberties but as it was, her entire body felt numb.

Her mouth had gone dry, her shoulders dropped and she could barely make a sound whilst her mind raged ahead of her.

With child? How could she be with child!?

Krista knew very well how but was it possible such a thing could happen?

After fighting vigorously every day and being surrounded with so much danger Krista would think it impossible to fall with child.

Krista remembered a woman from her village that had to be kept in bed for two days to make sure the baby stayed where it was when she fell pregnant.

But Krista could never keep still for so long.

How many times had she been struck in the stomach during a fight?

Surely any child she would have had would have died in such a hostile environment.

Yes, Krista thought, it was impossible.

Thinking this reassured Krista as her finger tips began to tingle and she began to feel each of her limbs once again.

“What tale do you spin, crone?” Krista whisked her arm away from the woman, who attempted to soothe Krista by stroking her arm and leading her towards a chair.

“My name is Helga and I spin no tale,” the woman grew flustered when Krista refused to listen, “I worked in a hospice. I cared for those who were with child and I can recognise the symptoms,”

Krista would not believe her, it was impossible, “Then you are older than you think because your senses have taken leave and have been replaced with impropriety.”

“Have you been feeling ill?” Helga grew determined to prove herself right, “Heightened sense of smell?”

Krista ignored her because even now Krista could still remember the smell of the blood on the floor and it made her stomach churn despite the fact that she had lived with blood her entire life.

The sight and smell of it had never made her uneasy until now.

Helga let out a sigh of frustration, “Have you bled!?” Helga exclaimed when she was forced to resort to the basic of remarks.

When Krista did not respond, instead her body freezing in place, Helga greeted Krista with a knowing smile.

“I thought so,” Helga seemed pleased making Krista glare at her, “When was the last time you bled?”

Krista tried to rally her thoughts, “A month after the battle at Rome- No!” Krista spun around and grabbed her sword from the desk, “I will hear no more of your poisonous words!”

“They are not poisonous,” Helga told her in fear as Krista gripped her sword, “You must take it steady, my dear, or you risk losing the child,”

That’s it.

“Do not,” Krista turned back to Helga, wrapping her fingers around the old woman’s frail throat, “presume to tell me what to do. There is no child and let that be the end of it,”

Movement caught the corner of Krista’s eye and as she lifted her head she saw a group of intoxicated gladiators leaving the courtyard and heading in their direction.

“You were never here,” Krista instructed Helga as she released her throat and slipped from the room.

Leaving the wine behind, Krista kept to the shadows as she hurried past the group of warriors and progressed through the villa.

A sense of urgency had manifested itself inside of her chest out of nowhere, making Krista turn to a light jog whilst she tried to keep her mind occupied.

Most people were resting after the day’s events making Krista able to slip through their ranks without being noticed.

Nearing the southern wall, Krista hoisted herself up onto a table that had been propped up against the side.

Grasping the edge of the bricks which had not been laid properly, Krista started to climb.

The light from the moon helped to light her path as her fingers brushed the wall for any jagged edges to hold on to, whilst the darkness kept her movements concealed from those who would wish her to remain inside.

Eventually, Krista reached the top.

Swinging her leg over the edge, Krista dropped down the other side and headed straight for the tree line less than fifty feet away.

Krista did not know what she was doing or where she was going. All she knew was that she had to do something; she had to move.

It had always been the same when she was a child; whenever something happened she had to move.

She could not sit idly by; she had to feel the air coursing through her lungs, feel the sweat on her brow and the earth beneath her feet.

So that’s what she did; Krista ran.

She did not know if she was running from or towards something; all she knew was that as she ran Krista’s mind became a blank slate.

She could, for a few moments, afford not to think about anything.

But eventually she had to stop for water as she crossed a stream allowing those treacherous thoughts to come rushing back in.

It will harm the baby. The baby!

Krista splashed the cool water over her face and felt it run down the back of her neck.

Illness? Sense of smell?

Krista took one last gulp of water, feeling her chest rise and fall with exertion, before she rushed to her feet and had to reach out a hand to steady herself against a tree when her head began to spin.

When was the last time you bled?

Krista swallowed as she closed her eyes and leant her back against the tree, unable to run any further.

Because no matter where she ran to, Krista would have to stop and then the thoughts would come back.

She could never run away from them despite how much she wanted to.

Secluded in the middle of a forest with no one within a league of her, Krista finally felt able to face what she had been running from.

Krista searched her mind, trying to figure out the answer to Helga’s question. When was the last time she had had her monthly bleed?

With everything that had been happening with Pompeia, Krista could not be expected to remember such trivial things.

Though it may not be trivial any longer, Krista pondered.

But from what she could recall, it was a month after they had battled Pompeia’s army outside of Rome; which was a little under four months ago.

Krista’s throat started to work in reflex as a strange sensation enveloped her mind, causing her to lean forward and rest her palms against her knees for support.

Four months!? Had it truly been that long ago?

Bolting up right, Krista unbuckled the sword from around her waist, letting it drop to the floor, as she started to release the straps on her corset.

A sudden urge to look had engulfed her heart until the ground was littered with armour and cloth.

Pulling the leather back from around her torso, Krista looked down at her bare stomach but could not see clearly in such darkness.

She didn’t know what she had been expecting to see but an urge to reach out her hand to touch it had Krista torn in two.

What if it was true?

Krista panicked and pulled her arm back as she battled with herself.

If it was true then it would be obvious soon otherwise; four months, Krista gasped, how could so much time have passed without her realised it!?  

Clenching her hand into a fist, Krista rested her head against the bark, staring up at the night sky.

A feeling she would never let anyone know about started to course through her veins; fear.

Krista was afraid.  

Forcing herself to flatten her hand, she pressed her palm just below her breasts and started to slowly move her hand downwards over her midriff.

Closing her eyes, Krista’s heart was racing inside her chest as her stomach remained flat most of the way down.

Hope flared in her chest.

It was only when she reached above her belly button did she feel a slight swell to her stomach that had not been there previously.

“No,” Krista eye’s darted open as she slipped her hand down those last few inches and felt the definite curvature of her stomach.

“No,” She whispered again as she looked down, both of her hands cradling her stomach from below which she could now see was starting to expand.

Krista could not be with child! She could not!

And yet there it was; slowly growing inside of her without her knowledge.

How was Krista supposed to do anything burdened with a child inside of her!?

Soon she would be bedridden and who would follow someone that was not permitted to walk!? The army she had spent so long building would leave her for someone stronger.

Warriors followed only strength. A few may remain by her side out of loyalty but the rest would flee for a stronger leader.

And once that happened all of her chances for revenge and justice would have gone beyond recall.  

How could Krista be strong when it was very likely that she would die in childbirth like the tens of thousands of other women who did so every year?

Krista had not battled the greatest warriors in all of Rome to be felled by childbirth.

No, Krista thought as she shoved her clothes back on, she could not be a mother.

She had not finished everything she had sought to achieve yet.

She had to kill Pompeia! She had too much to do.

But then a worse fear entered Krista’s mind; how did she tell Artorius?

Artorius came from a large family and simply looking at the way he doted on the children they freed was enough to tell her that he wanted children.

He would not allow Krista to do anything that may harm the child that now grew inside of her.

Krista could no longer deny the truth but she could not stop being who she was; she was a fighter; she was a leader.

She was a Gladiatrix.

And gladiatrixes don’t stop fighting because someone tells them to.

Krista could not be kept from battle but it was in battle that she would lose this child that now sucked the life from her very limbs.

*

As dawn approached, marking their second day at the villa, Krista knew she had to return.

Frieda will be calling upon her room at any moment.

As she approached the wall, waving the archers away who thought she was an intruder, Krista faltered for a moment before she made the jump.

Getting her mind straight, Krista bent at the knee and leapt through the air, feeling her corset shift slightly from where she had kept it loosened slightly around her waist.

Landing directly on top of the wall, she nodded at the men on guard, before she dropped down the other side, ignoring the way her heart beat with fear.

She had done the move a dozen of times but back then she had not known she was with child.

Forcing herself forward, keeping a blank expression on her face, Krista turned into her room and found Frieda already waiting.

“Where have you been?” Frieda arched an eyebrow in curiosity as she reclined in the chair, eating a bowl of something.

“I went for a walk,” Krista snapped, not wishing to be interrogated, “I trust that the army survived without me for one night,”

“Well, while you attended your walk,” Frieda leaned forward, the tone of her voice telling Krista she didn’t believe her, “We received a bird,”

Krista now only saw the parchment rolled up in Frieda’s palm that she now held out to her.

Krista took the message and unrolled it in her hand; silence falling between them as she read the news.

“Can this be true?” Krista’s eyes grew wide as she re-read it a second time to be sure she wasn’t imagining it.

A Roman Legion was approaching the villa.

Frieda set her bowl of food aside and rose to her feet, “It seems true. I sent out a scouting party who has just sent word of reinforcements arriving from our camp,”

“Artorius,” Krista whispered under her breath, knowing it would be he who came to their aid before they even knew that they were in danger.

Frieda nodded her head in confirmation, “The Romans are less than half a day’s ride from here. They will be on us by nightfall,”

Krista turned and looked over the courtyard at the most recently freed slaves; women and men who had been underfed with no battle training, “They are in no shape to fight,”

“Krista?” Frieda spoke, looking for orders.

“Tell everybody to pack their belongings and be ready to leave within the hour,” Krista whirled into action, “We’ll meet Artorius on the road.”

Frieda nodded her head as she hurried from the room and started to spread the word.

* * *

Rheia did not want to be here.

Perched in a saddle as she headed away from Rome, looking for a man whom Pompeia thought would change the war.

Rheia did not see how one man could change anything but she had been given the order by the Empress herself and Rheia was duty bound to carry it out.

It could be worse, Rheia thought to herself, she could be starving alongside Krista’s blinded followers.

That was an exaggeration, Rheia knew fully well that Krista and her men were not starving.

Quite the contrary, they were thriving much to the annoyance of the Empress and everyone in Rome who had lost a slave to her cause.

But Rheia was with the winning side and that, Rheia knew, could not get any worse.

Swaying softly in the saddle, her black hair braided over her left shoulder, Rheia kept her eyes fixed in the distance, looking for any sign of camp.

The Empress had told Rheia that this man would be on the outskirts of Rome.

Coming to a fork in the track, Rheia turned her horse to the left, about to make another trip around, when a strange hiss filled her ears.

It was only once it had imbedded itself in a trunk beside her head did Rheia place where she had heard the sound before; an arrow.

Keeping her head still, Rheia narrowed her eyes at the shaft of the arrow as it rested in front of her face.

Looking back at where the arrow had been shot from, Rheia was shocked to find a man stood out in the open watching her; bow still raised.

Turning the reins, Rheia kicked her horse into a gallop and circled the man whose head was level with her hips on horseback.

He must have been nearly seven foot tall with shoulders almost a metre wide; veins bulged tautly beneath his bronzed skin.

He reminded Rheia of a large boulder with his tough exterior.

His nose was crooked from being broken one too many times; she could barely make out the colour of his eyes he was squinting so much in anger and his head was covered in patches of blond hair sticking on end.

“You just shot on a soldier of the Roman imperial army,” Rheia shouted as she turned her horse, continuing to circle him.

The man lowered his bow as he gazed into her eyes, not uttering a single word but there was an anger to them that unsettled Rheia.

“I do not like the Roman Imperial Army,” His voice sounded like he had been forced to swallow rock and stone; his words barely eligible through his thick drawl.

Rheia watched him carefully as he turned his back on her and started to walk away from her.

“Where are you going?” Rheia chased after him but it was not much of a chase.

The man, or beast, did not seem pleased with being stopped once again.

Slipping from her horse, Rheia hit the ground and realised she had made a mistake.

She was less than half his size, her eyes level with his chest, as his torso alone eclipsed her body.

“I have been instructed to bring you back to Rome,” Rheia relayed her orders, “You are to be in the presence of a roman soldier at all times,”

“I do not like roman soldiers,” He gazed down at her with boredom before he stepped around her and started to walk once again.

Rheia let out a sigh as she watched his retreating form and conceded to falling in behind him.

Holding her horse’s reins, Rheia followed this beast of a man back towards Rome as she repeated her earlier thought; she did not want to be here.