Gladiator

Another vicious assault had twenty three steadily backing up until she mounted her last counter offensive. But, she was unable to deliver a blow that mattered. An air of impending doom seemed to settle over us in the roasting heat of the arena.

Exhausted and breathing heavily, twenty three remained in a defensive mode, a sign of her impending defeat. She had used up much of her strength trying to provoke me into fighting.

When I paused to assess her condition, twenty three was unable to raise her sword. Her feet were unsteady and she wobbled precariously. As she fell to her knees, the sword in her left hand slipped from her grasp and thudded on the arena floor.

"Pick up your sword and fight," I frantically implored the fallen figure.

Twenty three was sweating profusely and gasping for air as blood poured from the wounds on her body. She removed her helmet placing it on the ground as a signal that she was done fighting.

Then, twenty three looked up at me with a heartbreaking expression of sadness. My heart sank in utter despair as I realized that she had sacrificed herself for me.

"Get up and fight!" I screamed at her, my voice shrill and filled with desperation.

But, twenty three was incapable of rising to the challenge, and fell onto her back. She was thoroughly beaten; there was no fight left in her and I wept uncontrollably at the sight of her bloody and battered body.

The crushing reality that I would have to end twenty three's life filled me with horror. If she had pressed her advantage early, it would have been me kneeling defeated in the blood soaked dirt.

As I stood over twenty three, I looked through a haze of tears at the Senators' box for any sign of hope that she might be spared. The tremendous cheering by the spectators was for mercy. But, it was not to be.

"Kill her...finish her!" came the cries from the Senator's box.

It had been decreed, fight to the death.

With my sword in both hands and ready to deal deaths blow, tears streamed down my helmet covered face. Twenty three was the only one who could see my tears of anguish. With the faintest of smiles, she gazed at me with forgiving eyes and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she loved me.

"Goodbye my fiery Gaul," her final words of endearment in the passageway rang in my ears. I had failed to comprehend that she was making the ultimate sacrifice.

When twenty three closed her eyes in acceptance of her fate, I made the appropriate sword thrust that robbed her body of life. I had no choice or die with her. I felt like a coward.

Consumed with grief, I looked down at her still form for a few precious last moments as the restless mob jeered its disapproval of her demise. Her unmarked beautiful face had a serene look; she was at peace.

As I walked dejectedly to the iron gates of the gladiator exit, I dropped my sword in the blood stained sand of the arena floor. I was sobbing with heart rending sorrow behind my metal mask and let the shield drop too.

When I reached the iron gates, I turned and looked where twenty three's body lay but it had already been removed by the highly efficient slaves who toiled in the arenas of the Roman Empire.

Because twenty three was a slave and lacked status, there would be no marker or plaque to commemorate her existence and passing. Her body would be thrown into an unmarked mass grave.

I watched as the next group of gladiators entered the arena to the whistles and cheers of the spectators. Still garbed in my armor and helmet, blood from cuts on my arms was dripping off my fingertips. I no longer wanted to live. I had lost everything in my life that was near and dear to me; my people, my village, Blanka and now the dearest of all, twenty three.

As I removed my helmet, I heard twenty three's voice in my head. "Your time to die will come but not today my fiery Gaul," she said with certainty as I nervously awaited a gladiatorial contest in the Coliseum of Rome now some long months ago.

We fought side by side in the arena that day with our contests ending in a draw.

"You fought bravely my fiery Gaul,'' twenty three declared with a broad smile on her luminous face and placed her arm affectionately around my shoulders.

I vividly recalled the upwelling of emotion that surged in my heart as we strode out of the arena. Twenty three was a noble warrior princess with a courageous and unselfish heart.

"The Romans have robbed us of much except one thing, our memories of our people, loved ones and home. That, they can never take away," twenty three said to me one day with passionate fire.

"I will remember you till my last dying breath," I murmured in a breaking voice filled with sorrow and turned my back to the spectacle of killing.