Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [239]
“In the arena she was fierce and murderous. I saw the spectacle—the huge crowds roaring for her. I saw the sand red with the blood she shed. She won every match, no matter how heavy or great her opponent. I saw her in her shining armor, her sword at her side, her hair tied back, her eyes on Caesar as she made her regal bow!
“Years passed during which she fought, her parents commanding ever higher and higher fees. At last, when she was still a girl, she was sold to a merciless master for a fortune, and he sent her into the ring against the fiercest of wild beasts. Even these could not defeat her. Nimble and fearless she danced against lions and tigers, thrusting her spear deep and true to the mark.
“But she grew tired in her heart, tired of combat, tired of lovelessness, tired of misery. The crowd was her lover, but the crowd was nowhere in the dark of night when she slept chained to her bed.
“Then Arion had come, Arion had paid to see her as had so many. Arion had paid to touch her, as had so many. Arion had bought dresses to pose her. Arion had embraced her. Arion had liked to comb her long black hair. Then Arion had bought her and set her free. Arion had given her a heavy purse and said, ‘Go where you please.’ But where could she go? What could she do? She couldn’t bear the sounds of the circus during the games. She couldn’t bear the thought of the gladiatorial schools. What was there for her? Was she to be pimp and whore at the same time? She had tagged after Arion, loving him.
“ ‘You are my life now,’ she had told him. ‘Don’t turn your back on me.’ ‘But I gave you the world,’ he had answered her. Unable to bear her tears, he had given her more money, a house in which to live. But still she came to him weeping.
“And finally he took her under his wing. He brought her to his city. He brought her to beautiful Pompeii. His was the cameo trade, he told her. He had three shops of cameo makers, the finest in all of the empire. ‘Can you learn this art for me?’ he asked her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘For you I would learn anything. Anything at all.’ She set to work with a passion she’d never known. She wasn’t fighting for multitudes, she wasn’t fighting for her own worthless life. She was fighting to please Arion, a fragile and total thing. Her enemies were clumsiness, impatience, anger. She studied with all the masters in his shops. She watched. She imitated. She worked in shell, in stone, in precious jewels. She mastered the chisel, the small drill. She learned all that she could.
“Finally, at the end of two years, she had her specimens to show Arion, fine and perfect things. She had done gatherings of gods and goddesses like unto the friezes on the temples. She had done portraits like unto the finest in the Forum. She had made art out of a craft. Never had he seen such work, he told her. He loved her. And such happiness she’d never known.
“Then came the terrible days of Vesuvius, the eruption of the mountain and the death of the idyllic little city where they had all known such happiness. Arion had fled the night before to the far side of the Bay of Naples. He’d sensed early on the evening before the eruption what was to happen. It had been her duty to see that the slaves of the shops escaped. But only a few would listen to her.
“And when it was all over and the air was full of ash and poison and the sea was full of bodies, when nothing remained where Pompeii had once stood, she had come to Arion’s villa—the very place where we were now—weeping and with only a handful of followers, to tell him that she had failed.
“ ‘No, my beloved,’ he said. ‘You have saved my finest prize, you have saved your own life when I thought that all was lost. What can I give you for this, my sweet Petronia?’ And in time he had given her the Blood that she was giving me. In time he had made her immortal as she was making me.
“She let me go. My lips stroked her cock as I withdrew.
“I fell back on the floor. But I could see with new eyes all around me. And I felt the bruises all over my body healing. I felt