The house was quiet, but there were people in it. The knowledge gave their lovemaking an edge. Doddery old Gracchus would be sleeping off his lunch. No wonder his young wife was looking smug.

Marcellus grasped her dangling breasts. They were as taut as plums. She wriggled as he squeezed them, and he struggled not to come.

"I hope your slaves know better than to bother you," he blurted.

Livia’s sloe eyes gleamed at him. "I’ve disciplined them well. They know who has the whip hand in this house." He grunted as she ground herself against him. "Imagine, my Marcellus, how much pleasure that can bring."

Their bodies moved in rhythm now. Her brow was damp with sweat. He saw a wistful glitter in her gaze. "I had one slave – an untamed bitch – who thought she could defy me. I soon showed her the error of her ways!"

He pictured it, and could hold back no longer. She threw her head back as his body bucked. They flopped and tumbled on the bed, then curled up, breathing hoarsely. A wicked little smile was on her face.

"Tell me more," he gasped, intrigued. "How did you punish her?"

"I whipped her, but I couldn’t break her pride," said Livia. "And so I made the bitch into a whore. And then, when half of Rome had used her body, I hear she killed a man, and was condemned."

Now Marcellus smiled too, imagining the outcome. "What agonies did they devise for her?"

Livia shrugged. "I never heard." She stared into his eyes. "But now I’m curious, my love. Was she thrown to beasts, or simply crucified?" Her tongue licked out across her lips. "Perhaps you would discover this for me?"

"It will be my pleasure, Lady," said Marcellus breathlessly, and kissed the lustful slickness off her mouth.

* * *

Far to the south, in a hot and dusty courtyard, the owner of a fighting troop surveyed the slender girl in front of him.

He guessed she was a former slave: her arms and thighs were muscled from hard work. Life in the fields had tanned her skin a healthy golden brown. He thought she’d be a feisty minx in bed.

She wore a boy’s short tunic with a belt around the waist. The hems were open almost to her hips. Her legs were bare, down to her army sandals. His gaze caressed them, then returned to focus on the gladius at her hip.

"I heard you specialise in female fighters," said the girl.

He looked up to her handsome face. She sounded Greek. Her eyes were like black olives. A cowl of hair, as dark as ink, hung round her slender neck.

The yard was baking in the sun. He sensed his minions stir resentfully. The brazen bitch had walked up as he’d started his accounting. The scrolls were spread across the tabletop.

"Then you heard right." He settled back. "And what is it to you?"

"I need to earn some bread," she said, and patted the black handle of her sword. It looked like polished ebony, contrasting with the roughness of her garb.

"Do you, now?" He smiled with little humour. "You think I give crusts to performing dogs? The gladiators in my troop have pledged their flesh to me. I have no need of upstart whelps like you."

Zoe stared back calmly, then her gaze flicked round the yard. The lanista’s slaves had started edging closer. A woman sat and watched them from the shade beneath an awning. No doubt she was his mistress, or his wife. A slave beside her held a bowl of peaches. The woman took her pick from it, and sank her teeth into the ripened fruit.

Her smirk was full of mockery, but Zoe wasn’t fazed. She had a sense of other watchful eyes. The barracks block was silent, and she didn’t turn her head. But it felt like being ogled by caged beasts.

"Earn some bread with what’s between your legs," the man advised.

Zoe’s gaze came back to him. Her smile was humourless. She nodded at the woman. "Like she has?"

The pale brunette sucked in a breath. Her dark eyes flamed with anger. She snatched a peach and hurled it at the girl. Zoe’s sword came rasping from its scabbard. The blade slashed sideways and the peach was splattered in mid-air.

A startled silence gripped the yard. She looked round with a hint of satisfaction. The slaves had all withdrawn a step. She slid the sticky blade into its sheath.

"If you change your mind," she said, "you can find me in the barn behind the alehouse."

She turned and walked out through the gate without a backward glance.

* * *

The barn was hot and full of flies. They buzzed amid the dancing motes of dust. The big door stood ajar, but there was no hint of a breeze. The street outside looked bright enough to melt.

Zoe took her gladius off and wrapped the sword belt round it, then lay back in the yielding mass of straw. She put the weapon to one side, where she could reach it quickly, and willed her aching muscles to relax. She’d been afoot so long, she’d lost all sense of time and distance. It seemed like half a lifetime since she’d slaughtered Phillippa.

The matron had condemned her to the pit of the arena, and Zoe had come back for her revenge. But the death had brought no lasting satisfaction. There were two more women to be killed before her restless heart might find some peace.

And while she went in search of them, she had to eat and sleep. Soon it would be autumn, when she’d need to have a roof over her head. If only she could join this troop, she’d have security, and maybe earn some coins to pay her way.

The prospect of the fighting didn’t faze her. She’d already slain too many to keep score.

Chewing on a shaft of straw, she stared up at the roof beams, and thought of how some of her foes had died. Slaked with poison. Drowned in blood. Entombed beneath the temple she’d defiled …

She was half aware of something rustling in the mound beside her, as if an animal was lurking there. Perhaps it was a cat, she thought – but then a hand thrust upward, the fingers clenched around a butcher’s knife. The sight kicked Zoe’s heart into a gallop, but before she could react, a figure rose out of the dirty nest of straw. She glimpsed a mass of fox-red hair, a pair of naked breasts, and blue eyes flashing as the woman pounced.

She gurgled as the lean attacker landed on her stomach. A pair of strong thighs squeezed her abdomen. The butcher’s knife was pressed against the column of her throat. She stared into the face of Boudicca.

The British slave was nude, her skin as grubby as a waif’s. The straw was clinging to her fiery hair. Her pale eyes gloated at her squirming victim. Her tits were taut and panting, and the nipples poked at Zoe teasingly.

Zoe felt no panic, just a furious frustration. She bucked, and felt the knife-blade nick her skin. "Easy, now," crooned Boudicca, as if to calm a pony. "I wouldn’t want to finish you too soon."

Zoe loosened up and lay there, gasping. "I had no choice. We neither of us did."

The girl leaned closer. "Hush," she purred. "Now listen. What is that? The blood of my dead sisters, crying out from the sand." The muscles of her shoulders tightened, and her face grew cold. "So let me show you how the druids kill."

Zoe glowered up at her and felt her heartbeat pounding. She’d fought the girl in Rome’s arena, slaughtering her sisters left and right. There was no room for mercy here, no more than Zoe had for her own victims. But her nails would rake those dangling breasts before the knife-edge opened up her throat ...

Even as she nerved herself, the daylight was blocked off, and figures rushed across the barn towards them. Boudicca began to turn, and a burly man seized hold of her slim shoulders. She wriggled as he hauled her up, and the knife slipped from her grasp. Another man dragged Zoe from the straw.

The two girls kicked and twisted as their arms were bent behind them. Other men closed in, and someone walloped each of them below the navel. Zoe doubled forward and a rough hand pulled her upright. Through smarting eyes, she recognised one of the slaves who’d watched her in the yard.

"See, my master wants you after all," he taunted her. "The fighters need someone to practise on."

"Typical Greek," another sneered. "She’d rather fuck a woman than a man."

"I guess we’d better bring your lover too," the first man said. "Don’t worry: you won’t have to die alone."

* * *

They stood together in the yard, where she had stood alone an hour before. The sun blazed in the hot blue sky. The dust felt scorching under her bare feet. Zoe’s body had been stripped as nude as Boudicca’s. She felt the hunger of a hundred eyes.

The yard served as a training square, enclosed by the old barracks. A crowd of townsfolk stood against the walls. The word of an unlicensed game had clearly spread like wildfire. Doubtless the lanista had charged money at the gate.

A gang of eager children had climbed up onto a roof, and watched her from the terracotta tiles. The adolescent boys were staring wide-eyed at her tits. She glared at them and felt absurdly coy.

She and Boudicca had both been shackled at the wrist, with just a foot of iron chain between them. But it was the left wrist, so they were forced to face in opposite directions. The slaves had strapped protective guards to each of their right arms. Zoe’s was just padding, but the Briton’s was a sleeve of metal scales.

The protection mocked their nudity, but a wounded sword-arm would have cut things short. Zoe looked over her shoulder. Boudicca peered spitefully at her. But they couldn’t fight each other, they were much too closely linked. It seemed they had to face a common foe.

A pair of slaves approached them, and a gladius was dropped at each girl’s feet. They’d given Zoe her own sword. She stooped to grasp its hilt of ebony. Boudicca took up her blade. A wary prickle spread down Zoe’s back. But the British girl made no attempt to stab her. To strike would leave her shackled to a corpse.

The lanista’s wife was sitting comfortably beneath her awning. Her eyes were like a greedy little girl’s. The man himself stood leering for a moment, then gestured for the action to begin.

A murmur rustled round the crowd, and then they breathed in sharply. A sudden stillness hollowed out the square. Zoe’s stomach tightened as she scanned the row of faces. And then the fighters stepped into the light.

There were four of them, as muscular as panthers. They wore tight loincloths, and their breasts were bare. The face of each was hidden by a wide-brimmed, crested helmet. The visors were as bleak as metal skulls.

The contrast with their luscious flesh was curiously unsettling, and Zoe felt her own skin start to creep. The bodies of the women had a lustre like dark honey. She guessed they came from some exotic clime.

"The Arabs breed good horses," the lanista said behind her. "But these are feisty fillies which they’ve sired!"

The women sauntered closer with a catlike arrogance, ignoring the coarse chuckles round the square. They wore bronze greaves and sword-arm guards, but none of them was carrying a shield. Maybe that was meant to stop them getting too complacent. They flaunted their bare torsos shamelessly. Each girl held a gladius, the bright steel flashing as they limbered up.

Zoe’s back rubbed Boudicca’s. They felt each other’s tension. The contact crackled like a lightning bolt. Slowly they turned round each other, arses almost touching. The big bronze helmets watched impassively.

The gladiators wore the colours of the Roman factions: their loincloths matched the feathers on their crests. Red and Green and Blue and White were the only obvious difference. But Red had matching toenails too; and Green’s left breast was larger than her right …

The gleaming women prowled in slowly, swords extended now, and Zoe eased into a fighting crouch. The onlookers watched silently. The square was baking in the windless heat. Then Red lunged at Zoe, and their sword blades clashed and locked. The Blue girl went for Boudicca, who blocked her stroke and kicked her in the gut.

The first pair reeled away and their companions waded in. Zoe struck White’s sword aside and swung her own against the ugly helmet. The hammered bronze rang dully and the woman staggered back. Her bosom jogged invitingly, then settled as she caught herself again.

Her nipples were the size of coins, and Zoe focused on them for a moment. Then Red plunged into her place, and almost hacked her way through Zoe’s guard. The clang of steel rang round the square. The air was full of disembodied shouting. The Red girl slashed at Zoe’s arm, but the quilted padding turned the blade aside.

Boudicca recoiled against her back, then shouted: "Turn!" She tugged their chain and wrenched them both around. Zoe was swung into Blue as the gladiator readied her next stroke. But the Greek girl was already braced, and shoved her blade into the naked stomach.

She heard a muffled "Hghh!" and then a crimson stream was blurted through the facemask. The gladiator doubled forward, dropped her sword and clutched at Zoe’s breasts. Zoe gave the blade a twist, and gasped with pleasure as her tits were squeezed. Then Blue lost her grip and slithered downwards, her plume of feathers nodding as she slumped.

The crowd yelled with excitement as blood spattered in the dust. Boudicca swung wildly and her own opponent skittered out of range. The chained girls pivoted around each other, weapons raised and glinting. The gladiators glared back on three sides.

Zoe’s breasts were panting now. Her cheeks were flushed with heat. Boudicca glanced back at her. "I see you love the butchery, you bitch."

Zoe brought her sword around and levelled it at Boudicca’s blue eyes. "Don’t tempt me, you little cow. I can always hack your hand off when I’ve killed you." The British girl had twisted too, a sneer on her pale face. Her swordpoint nudged the skin of Zoe’s back.

The crowd thought this enormous fun. The gladiators moved to take advantage. Zoe sensed them coming, but she held the Briton’s gaze. Then the two girls broke apart and turned their swords on Red and Green and White.

Green confronted Zoe and their swords clashed furiously. She felt the shock as Boudicca faced White. Zoe’s hair was lank with sweat and dripping in her eyes. Her naked flesh felt horribly exposed. All she could do was lash out in a frenzy, at Green’s sword and her ghastly cowled helm. The eye sockets were covered with two perforated disks, which gave the metal mask an insect’s stare.

Then her arm was twisted up between her shoulder-blades, and Boudicca was breathing down her neck. The Briton kicked back like a colt and sent White flailing backwards. She used the impetus to wriggle up on Zoe’s shoulders, and hammer on Green’s helmet from above.

Stunned, the gladiator lurched, and Boudicca dropped back. The Greek girl reeled, then slashed out with her blade. It sliced across Green’s throat below the collar of her helmet, and Zoe glimpsed wide eyes behind the grilles.

The gladiator gargled and blood spilled onto her breasts. It looked as if she’d choked on too much wine. But her hand still gripped her sword, so Zoe kicked her in the stomach, then stabbed her left breast as she doubled up. It was the slightly larger tit, impossible to miss. Green squirmed like a skewered fish and crumpled to the dust at Zoe’s feet.

White and Red drove in again. The crowd were baying now. The two chained girls began to whirl, and slewed across the courtyard like a flail. Red fell back beneath their scything weapons, while White was forced to scuttle in their wake. The nearest townsfolk scattered as the whirlwind came at them, revealing the stone steps beside the gate. Red retreated up the flight, her bosom heaving as she hacked and sliced. Zoe took each step she ceded, slashing at her guard relentlessly. Boudicca backed up the stairs behind her, still locked in rearguard action against White. The mob closed in to see the end, ignoring the two bodies in the dust.

Boudicca’s pale eyes were blazing madly. Her snarling face looked fiercer than White’s mask. The gladiator struck, and scraped the armour of her sword-arm. The Briton brought her own blade up, and hurled it like an outsized throwing-knife.

At that close range, it had no time to tumble. The point tore into White’s bare chest with all the young barbarian’s strength behind it. The gladiator’s gasping cry was muffled by her helmet. Its blankness mocked her anguish as she reared and clutched herself convulsively.

Half the twenty-inch-long blade was buried in her body. She gave a disembodied moan, and toppled loosely backwards down the steps. The girl in red saw her demise from over Zoe’s shoulder. She wavered, then lashed wildly out, and Zoe knocked her gladius aside.

"Kill!" the crowd were yelling. "Slice her tits!"

The girl’s breasts looked as ripe as fruit, but Zoe didn’t stab them. She couldn’t mar their glossy silkiness. Instead she slammed the sword’s black hilt against Red’s muscled belly. The gladiator folded with a sound that was part grunt, part sob.

"Enough!" bawled the lanista with a note of desperation in his voice.

Red had slumped onto the steps, her hands clasped to her midriff. She peered at Zoe, panting through the bronze grille of her mask. Zoe glowered down at her, still lusting for the kill. But the girl was at her mercy now. Why mutilate her to amuse a mob?

Instead she punched the gladius towards the scorching sky. Boudicca did likewise. Their audience roared. Zoe looked around for the lanista’s furious face. His stare was like a vicious trident-thrust.

His dark-haired wife or mistress had the look of a peeved child. Zoe couldn’t help but smirk at her. "Free the girls!" called someone, and the cry was taken up. The man would be a fool to disagree. She turned to look at Boudicca. The Briton eyed her shrewdly, breathing hard. Her gladius was out of reach, still planted in White’s chest. Now Zoe had the sword, and the advantage.

Red, meanwhile, was fumbling with the chinstrap of her helmet. She pulled it off and sighed with sheer relief. Framed by tangles of damp hair, her face was finely-sculpted. Her eyes were almond shaped, and dark as dates.

Zoe paused to meet her gaze in mute acknowledgement, then followed Boudicca back down the steps. The crowd parted to let them pass, but groped and fondled both girls shamelessly. A pair of slaves escorted them into the barracks building. Zoe had twisted awkwardly, and now turned back to face the way they’d come.

The slave who’d walked behind her put a dagger to her throat. "Let go your sword," he told her, and she did so. The big man leered, then thumped her in the stomach. His companion had a dagger too, and slammed the hilt against Boudicca’s head. The two girls tumbled to the floor and sprawled there, stunned and gasping. The sharp blades glinted over them. Then Zoe heard the whisper of long skirts.

She blinked at the disdainful face of the lanista’s woman. The slaves looked round at her expectantly. The dark eyes gloated, lingering on Zoe’s nudity. The plump lips flattened in a spiteful sneer.

"Those were my girls you killed," she said. "I own this troop; my husband does my bidding. Three of my finest Arab fillies, butchered by two sluts!" She gestured curtly to the slaves. "Go on and cut their throats. But do it slowly."

The men came stalking forward. Zoe tried to struggle up. She glimpsed a movement in the open doorway. Another woman stood there, wearing nothing but an arm-guard and a skimpy scarlet loincloth at her crotch.

She came into the room with the lithe bearing of a cat, a gladius now dangling from her hand. Zoe’s heartbeat kicked and she reached out for her own sword, but Boudicca’s slumped body held her back. The wife of the lanista looked round crossly. "Yersinia! This isn’t for your eyes."

The Arab girl stared back at her – then slashed the gladius across her stomach. The woman doubled forward with a squawk. The slaves spun round and rushed her with their daggers. The girl impaled the first of them, her sweaty breasts vibrating with the jolt.

The other slave went dancing back, and Zoe’s foot shot out to trip him up. She forced herself across the flagstones, heaving the stunned Briton after her. The slave was groping for his dagger. Zoe seized her sword. They rose up on their knees together and she thrust her blade into his chest.

The girl in the red loincloth squatted down beside her mistress. The woman was hunched up around her wound. Grasping her hair, the gladiator bent her over backwards and sawed the gladius into her throat. The woman gagged on the sharp blade, her eyes still disbelieving. Her head lolled as her cleavage filled with blood.

Zoe watched her from a crouch, her own sword still extended. The girl stared back, her gaze unreadable. She let her mistress slump aside and delved into her gown, then lobbed across a ring of iron keys.

Zoe used them to unlock her shackles. "I thank you for my life," she said. "But maybe not for hers." She glanced across at Boudicca. The prone girl was still trying to raise herself.

"She pampered us like pets," Yersinia muttered. "We were no more than animals to her. You set me and my sisters free. In one way or the other."

Zoe looked away, then turned to Boudicca again. She scooped one of the daggers up and pricked the Briton’s slender neck with it.

"Listen now, you little fox. We’re walking out of here. If you want my heart, you’re going to have to tear it out another time." Sitting back, she slapped her rump. "Now shift, before somebody cuts your brush off."

Boudicca hissed back at her, but slunk towards the door. Yersinia handed her a cloak. "You’d better hide that hair of yours," she said. The British girl still wore her metal arm-guard, but Zoe had unstrapped her padded sleeve. Her shabby clothes lay bundled in a corner. She dressed, then looked round at the Arab girl.

"Will you come with us?"

Yersinia shook her head. "They wouldn’t let me past the gate. And besides, I wasn’t here when you cut down my dear mistress and escaped."

Zoe stared at her, then smiled thinly. "If you stay a Lady of the Sand, our paths might cross again."

Yersinia’s dark eyes gleamed. "Perhaps they will."

Zoe followed Boudicca into the blazing sunlight. The crowd mobbed them exultantly. The lanista would be powerless to act. She raised her gladius again and scraped the sky with it. Its glitter kept their fingers off her tits.

She glanced over her shoulder as she went out through the gate. The three dead girls lay crumpled in the dust. The bunch of adolescent boys had gathered round Blue’s body. They were toying with her heavy breasts and tweaking the brown tips.

Zoe felt a little chill go tingling down her spine. She turned her face away and kept on walking.

* * *

Marcellus pushed a grape between his lover’s pouting lips, and crushed it to a pulp against her tongue. Livia sucked his finger as it slid out of her mouth. Her dark brown eyes were bottomless with lust.

"By the way …" He squeezed her breast. "I asked around about that slave of yours. She murdered old Gemellus, yes? The husband of the lady Phillippa …"

Livia smiled and licked her lips. She’d looked forward to this news. The house was hushed around them as the sunlight filtered through the silken drapes.

"What happened to the bitch?" she breathed. "Did the tigers get their teeth into her tits?"

Marcellus shook his head. "They made her fight in the arena. A natural, by all accounts. And then the slut escaped!"

A little frown creased Livia’s brow. He kissed her throat, but she did not respond. Marcellus didn’t notice: he was heading for her breasts. He licked between them, then looked up once more.

"And listen to what else I’ve heard. The lady Phillippa’s been slain as well. They found her murdered, and her household with her. It seemed a strange coincidence to me …"

He shrugged, and startled suckling his lover’s tits again. The tale had merely piqued his idle interest. But Livia stared upward like a rigid marble statue, while her belly filed with nauseous unease.