Infamia, Part xiii-a
Infamia, Part xiii-a
Xena/Gabrielle
PG-13
Notes: Another super-sized update broken into two parts. Part xiii-b will be posted right after this one.
Previous parts:
part i/
part ii/ part iii/ part iv/ part v/ part vi/ part vii/ part viii/ part ix
part x-a
part x-b
part xi-a
part xi-b
part xii
The city or the woman
As is the case with so many epiphanies, this one comes unexpectedly and unravels so many mundane mysteries that Cleopatra is more relieved than disappointed in its aftermath.
It began while Xena was in recovery. After the fight with Basileos-which Cleopatra had missed, the demands of a nap more pressing and urgent upon her delicate system than being just another witness to witless bloodsport-she had arrived in Xena’s suite to a grim tableau of pale faces over the Empress’s inert body and promptly fainted at the sight of not only a bloody gaping wound, but the glowing saffron tip of a rather crude-looking iron instrument that Ping the healer was about to use, with an inappropriate level of enthusiasm, in the process of cauterization.
In the days following the successful operation she played the concerned lover when possible-she did, after all, have a country to run. Even in her weakened state Xena seemed amused at her attentions and released her from any bedside obligations, which both relieved and disturbed Cleopatra. That Xena read her with cynical ease marked a unique, pliant quality of the Empress, namely, her worthiness both as a lover and an adversary. But beyond her observations of Xena-including the casually powerful way that Xena moved through the world, even a world in uproar-Cleopatra could not gain an emotional foothold.
The little gladiator who haunted the library, however, was a different story. From the outset, this typically mute brute fascinated Cleopatra, in fact, was more to her type-a little rough around the edges, a little unpredictable. Whatever rough charm Xena once possessed was now burnished into the imperious smoothness of a born leader, her bluntness disarmed by smiles and a strategies.
On an afternoon when the recovering Xena first attempted walking, using Cleopatra as semi-reluctant crutch on her sojourn across her bedroom, the gladiator showed up as Xena crankily collapsed into a divan. Despite her difficulties negotiating the room, Xena could at least run through a frighteningly vulgar stream of obscenities faster than a sailor.
Cleopatra stared at the silent woman in the doorway, who in turn glowered back. “You’ve a visitor.”
Xena gripped the edge of the divan, knuckles marble-white, ready to excoriate the hapless fool who had blundered upon her in this vulnerable state.
Until she saw who it was, and smiled. “Ah. It’s you.”
“Empress.” Gabrielle offered a slight nod followed by a half-bow, while her eyes darted to Cleopatra. “If this is not a good time, I can return later.”
“No need.” Perceptibly, Xena relaxed-even while cautiously flexing her wounded leg. “I could use a diversion. Tell me what you’ve been doing. What have you been reading?”
“Sallust,” Gabrielle said. The tips of her ears turned red.
“And how do you find Sallust?”
Gabrielle ducked her head, rubbed the back of her neck. “Boring. A new standard in moral hypocrisy.”
Xena grinned.
The exchange, while unremarkable, illustrated what Cleopatra has long suspected: (1) The gladiator was capable of speech, and (2) Was greatly enamored of the Empress-as recently confirmed by Titus Pullo one afternoon after she fucked him, his lust momentarily trumping his loyalties. But it wasn’t what she thought, he had assured her as he had thrashed around emphatically in bed sheets. Even as he talked he could not hold still for a moment; it made him both a problematic lover and a distressing confidant. Sure, he said, the first time he encountered the gladiator was in the Empress’s bedroom and there was some odd sex-wrestling so vigorous they broke a vase, a vase he really really liked, but later Gabrielle had vehemently denied to him that any kind of sexual relationship had ever existed between them although he was fairly certain that she only said this out of loyalty, perhaps even love, to protect the Empress’s reputation because it was bad enough people said Xena fucked the whole senate so she didn’t need any more gossip to add to that, and Gabrielle was without a doubt an entirely honorable warrior who could behead a Minoan like nobody’s fucking business-
-at which point Cleopatra, sans the modest cover of the sheets, had gently interrupted to inquire if he were not in love with the all-mighty gladiator himself.
Most men slept after coitus. Pullo babbled-irritating at first, but the end result rather a gold mine of information. Yes, the delicious barbarian was obviously in love with the Empress; had she paid more attention to the content and context of those sulky facial expressions rather than the ripe lips, gold hair, and bright eyes, she doubtless would have figured it out sooner. But what of Xena’s feelings on the matter? The inscrutable, fabulous Xena?
The smile she had bestowed upon the gladiator was Cleopatra’s epiphany. In the brief time of their acquaintance, Cleopatra has witnessed many of Xena’s smiles, the vast majority of them variants upon coolly predatory, wryly amused, or condescending pity. Even when she climaxes there’s something smug about it, Cleopatra thought. But that grin-prompted by nothing more than a catty remark about a boring, dead historian-possessed genuine warmth and affection.
As the two women discussed Sallust, Cleopatra turned away and contemplated the expanse of the Mediterranean, the surface of the harbor lacquered pearl white by the sun. She thought that this erotic entrenchment with the Empress would yield certain long-term benefits-not love, but stability. But, alas, it was easier with men; the potential to bind them with marriage and children was a distinct advantage.
Well. She sighed. Time to reconsider battle strategy. She wondered when Brutus would arrive.
The body of lies
“That’s her, Philo!”
Stupidly, Gabrielle is unprepared for the punch thrown by the brothel’s strong man-and as her head explodes in pain from his fist making contact with her nose, she can’t help but think his name is a little on the ironic side. Seconds after hitting the ground he picks her up from behind, she elbows him in the gut, wrests free, and kicks him in the groin. He drops to the ground with a howl.
Preemptive, she draws her sword and tosses a coin purse at the startled hetaera. “I was coming to give you this.”
The purse has spilled open its generous contents at the hetaera’s feet: Twice what she makes in a day. “Oh.”
“Yeah-‘Oh.’” She licks blood off her lips and gingerly touches her nose. Broken? She can’t tell.
Minutes later, with poor Philo abandoned to his painful woes and in the privacy of the same room they were in weeks ago, the hetaera mops blood off Gabrielle’s face. When she’s done wringing out the bloody cloth in the basin she stares at Gabrielle with such intent that the gladiator expects a kiss forthcoming. Instead, the hetaera gives her nose a firm squeeze.
With a squawk of pain, Gabrielle leaps away from her. “Shit!”
“It’s definitely not broken.” The woman tosses the pink water out the window.
Pain’s warm recoil seeps through Gabrielle’s face. “I don’t recall asking your expert opinion.”
“No, but I could tell you were worried. Why’d you come back here?”
“I didn’t want to cheat you.”
“Oh boy. The noble type,” the hetaera chortles. “Where’d you get that much money?”
“Borrowed it from a friend.” Pullo had given her the coins, no questions asked. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“You were so cute and shy at first. Now you’re all bitchy.”
“I get that way when someone punches me in face.”
“How was I supposed to know why you came back? You Romans are usually dumb as dirt.” The woman dries her hands with a towel. “So let me guess. You got the money from that friend of yours who’s always here.”
Gabrielle nods.
“He seems nice. Well, like I told you, I’ve never done him, but my friend Hagne has-she says he’s exhausting, he just goes on and on-“
“Thank you for sharing that.” Self-conscious, Gabrielle gently rubs her nose. “You never told me your name.”
“Didn’t seem important at the time. It’s Mira.” Matter-of-fact and apparently in the mood for a chat, Mira sits on the bed next to Gabrielle. “I’m sorry you got hit. And I’m sorry I threw a dagger at you. Well, not really, but I didn’t know you were actually, you know, a decent person. A noble type.”
“So you say.”
“I know all the types. In my line of work, you see them all. You learn how to spot them. I could write a scroll about it all, I tell you. I’d be famous and maybe I could stop fucking common smelly soldiers-no offense, for one of your lot you’re pretty clean. But yeah, you’re that noble type.” Summoning her powers of observation, Mira scowls comically, an exaggerated soothsayer’s expression. “You’re probably in love with some woman and she’s either married or doesn’t feel that way about you, and you’ve found that fighting just doesn’t cut it anymore, and you need to burn off that desire somehow-” She stops cold, however, when she notices the shocked look on the gladiator’s face. “Oh, wow-you mean I’m right?”
Gabrielle jumps to her feet. “I must go.”
“Wait, wait.” The surprisingly strong Mira snares her arm. “I’m just giving you a hard time.” She gives Gabrielle a quick kiss. “Maybe you can come back sometime, when you need to scratch that itch.” Gabrielle leans in-and is rebuffed with a playful shove. “But not now. I have an appointment.”
By the time Gabrielle reaches the palace, she is in a mood. A shit mood, as Pullo would call it; apparently the Empress is not the only one capable of them. But she had promised Pullo-in return for the money he lent-to spar with the recovering, restless Empress, who was eager to return to form before the arrival of Brutus. Gabrielle flexes her hands. Yes, it would be good to burn off that energy, such as it was. Everyone, it seems, is on edge, waiting for Brutus-the oracle who will delineate Xena’s future. War or peace, power or exile. Not that he was that important, Xena had said, but he always knew what was going on. And with Caesar’s death, there were several factions coming into play.
The long portico surrounding the courtyard is flecked with late afternoon sun filtered through the trees, the perfect place for an idle queen. Cleopatra sits erect among guards, musicians, and lackeys, an impromptu court that moves at her will. Gabrielle hopes that her long march across the courtyard to the sparring grounds will go unnoticed, but she knows the queen’s dark eyes are upon her.
“You.” The seductive knell of Cleopatra’s voice rings out across the empty space. Her court falls to silence. Gabrielle stands still. “Come here.”
It is the first time the Egyptian queen has spoken to her. At events, Cleopatra’s dark gaze, curious and cool, would find her; it unnerved her, it angered her-the queen should only have eyes for her lover. At Gabrielle’s approach Cleopatra dismisses the group: “Leave me.” Tortuous minutes pass as everyone-making a collective poor show of masking their curiosity-disperses slowly.
Alone with the gladiator, the queen rises. She runs her hands along the silk of her dress. And, for additional long minutes, stares Gabrielle full in the face. Gabrielle has seen Apollonius do with this scrolls, with languages he’s unfamiliar with, trying to puzzle out what is before him on the parchment. The comparison to gentle Apollonius ends, however, when she slaps Gabrielle hard across the face.
The queen doesn’t fool herself that she caught the gladiator unaware. Gabrielle’s expression is resignation a thousand times over: the careful stitching of years’ worth of cruelties perfected into a beautifully indifferent tapestry. But when Cleopatra wraps her stinging hand around the gladiator’s neck and kisses Gabrielle with equal fierceness and delivers the end note to this performance-a savage bite on Gabrielle’s lower lip that draws blood-the gladiator’s mask falls away and instinct takes over: She is pinned against the wall, her wrists shackled painfully against hard marble, the gladiator’s weight a maddening friction against her dress and her skin, and Gabrielle’s beautiful, angry face so close. They breathe in collusion.
“I’ve been trying to get her to do this to me for months.” The queen licks the fresh blood from Gabrielle’s lip and tries to kiss her again, but Gabrielle pulls back. “But I don’t think I inspire that kind of passion in her, do I?”
She knows.
“I could teach you how to please her.” Her mouth, on Gabrielle’s once more, finds less resistance a second time.
Or so she thinks. When Gabrielle pulls back again and releases her, there is no mistaking the look of disgust-for herself, as well as the queen. “I don’t need to be taught anything. I learned from a far better whore than you.”
Shit mood thus exacerbated, Gabrielle walks away. Fury itches her bones. Along the way, she contemplates the dubious wisdom of calling the Queen of Egypt a whore. Perhaps she’ll have to leave Alexandria. Well, there is a library in Pergamum. She presses the back of her hand to her burning lip. Still bleeding. She sighs. Xena will lecture her about fighting. Again.
In the dusty arena, observed by Ping and many curious soldiers, the Empress goes through her paces. Gabrielle hangs back, watching in quiet solidarity with the men. Xena runs. She executes a series of dizzying backflips, including one over a blockade of hay bales, and finishes with a headstand on a crumbling rampart. The soldiers cheer her on, but once the acrobatics are complete they disperse quickly, unwilling to find themselves as potential sparring partners for the woman with enough balls to yank a dagger out of her own thigh.
Ping, possibly the only person in Alexandria unimpressed with the dagger stunt-“You are stupid” were his first words to Xena when she regained consciousness after the fight- watches critically as she swaggers toward him. “No limp.” The slight lilt in his tone indicates, for him, incredulousness.
“You believe me now?”
The healer smiles. “Yes. Because you lie, but your body does not.”
With Xena’s glowing health established, both she and Ping turn their attentions to the scrappy gladiator. They frown at the swollen nose, the bloody lip. Xena raises an eyebrow. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing.” Gabrielle veers away from Ping, who has closed in on her with the determination of a mother hen. “I’m fine.”
“I see.” Xena hums. “Well, if you’re not up to this-”
Gabrielle draws her sword.
Xena laughs. “Okay, then.” She unsheathes her own sword and twirls it idly.
“Am I supposed to be impressed with that?” The words are out of her mouth before she knows it. She feels the sneer contorting her face and a vise crushing her chest. Love, as the hetaera speculated? Is this love-this feeling of complete inadequacy leading to arrogant overcompensation?
Xena’s amusement cools; her eyes narrow. She feints left. Gabrielle doesn’t fall for it. Neither seems willing to make the first strike, as if it were somehow an indication of weakness.
With one last twirl Xena does the unexpected-she transfers the sword to her left hand. “I’ll give you half a chance to take me down. Think you can handle that, or has the library made you soft?”
Gabrielle darts right, hoping to strike at an odd enough angle to put Xena at a disadvantage. A good idea, but Xena braces her sword for the strike with both hands. Gabrielle spins around in time to catch a full, straight-on blow. Now Xena has her on the defensive. With a struggling leap Gabrielle attempts to clear the stack of hay bales. The triumphant exhilaration coursing through her veins, however, is short-lived when she realizes that Xena has seized her ankle and has sent her crashing into the empire of falling hay bales.
Gabrielle’s sword clatters away. In the distance, past the furious noise within her mind, she hears Pullo calling for the Empress. She crawls out from under a bale, and, with Xena’s attention momentarily diverted to her captain, takes a cheap shot: a vicious roundhouse kick that sends Xena grunting in pain and sprawling into the dust. Xena’s inelegant fall turns into a coiled masterpiece of a tumble-just as Iolaus taught Gabrielle at the gladiatorial school, to roll away from an opponent-and she stops, poised in a feral crouch, taut fingers brushing the earth, a murderous mechanism ready to spring at the least provocation.
Sensing this, Ping and Pullo remain immobile as statues. While Gabrielle quietly berates herself-you’re no better than Basileos-and every beat of her heart crowds her chest so that she cannot breathe.
The moment passes-if only because Xena permits it. Slowly, she stands. “You were saying, Pullo?” Her blasé tone does little to counter the wary mask she presents to Gabrielle, who helplessly speculates on what lies beneath: Anger? Desire? Fear? All of the things that I feel too?
Pullo, Gabrielle observes, forces himself not to look at her. “Brutus’s flotilla has been spotted. He’s almost in the harbor.”
“Excellent.” Xena tone makes the word into the foulest curse. With a precise spin upon her heel, she is gone. Obediently, the healer and the captain trail in her wake-even though Pullo spares his friend a pitying glance before walking away.
Gabrielle stares at her sword on the ground.
Xena/Gabrielle
PG-13
Notes: Another super-sized update broken into two parts. Part xiii-b will be posted right after this one.
Previous parts:
part i/
part ii/ part iii/ part iv/ part v/ part vi/ part vii/ part viii/ part ix
part x-a
part x-b
part xi-a
part xi-b
part xii
The city or the woman
As is the case with so many epiphanies, this one comes unexpectedly and unravels so many mundane mysteries that Cleopatra is more relieved than disappointed in its aftermath.
It began while Xena was in recovery. After the fight with Basileos-which Cleopatra had missed, the demands of a nap more pressing and urgent upon her delicate system than being just another witness to witless bloodsport-she had arrived in Xena’s suite to a grim tableau of pale faces over the Empress’s inert body and promptly fainted at the sight of not only a bloody gaping wound, but the glowing saffron tip of a rather crude-looking iron instrument that Ping the healer was about to use, with an inappropriate level of enthusiasm, in the process of cauterization.
In the days following the successful operation she played the concerned lover when possible-she did, after all, have a country to run. Even in her weakened state Xena seemed amused at her attentions and released her from any bedside obligations, which both relieved and disturbed Cleopatra. That Xena read her with cynical ease marked a unique, pliant quality of the Empress, namely, her worthiness both as a lover and an adversary. But beyond her observations of Xena-including the casually powerful way that Xena moved through the world, even a world in uproar-Cleopatra could not gain an emotional foothold.
The little gladiator who haunted the library, however, was a different story. From the outset, this typically mute brute fascinated Cleopatra, in fact, was more to her type-a little rough around the edges, a little unpredictable. Whatever rough charm Xena once possessed was now burnished into the imperious smoothness of a born leader, her bluntness disarmed by smiles and a strategies.
On an afternoon when the recovering Xena first attempted walking, using Cleopatra as semi-reluctant crutch on her sojourn across her bedroom, the gladiator showed up as Xena crankily collapsed into a divan. Despite her difficulties negotiating the room, Xena could at least run through a frighteningly vulgar stream of obscenities faster than a sailor.
Cleopatra stared at the silent woman in the doorway, who in turn glowered back. “You’ve a visitor.”
Xena gripped the edge of the divan, knuckles marble-white, ready to excoriate the hapless fool who had blundered upon her in this vulnerable state.
Until she saw who it was, and smiled. “Ah. It’s you.”
“Empress.” Gabrielle offered a slight nod followed by a half-bow, while her eyes darted to Cleopatra. “If this is not a good time, I can return later.”
“No need.” Perceptibly, Xena relaxed-even while cautiously flexing her wounded leg. “I could use a diversion. Tell me what you’ve been doing. What have you been reading?”
“Sallust,” Gabrielle said. The tips of her ears turned red.
“And how do you find Sallust?”
Gabrielle ducked her head, rubbed the back of her neck. “Boring. A new standard in moral hypocrisy.”
Xena grinned.
The exchange, while unremarkable, illustrated what Cleopatra has long suspected: (1) The gladiator was capable of speech, and (2) Was greatly enamored of the Empress-as recently confirmed by Titus Pullo one afternoon after she fucked him, his lust momentarily trumping his loyalties. But it wasn’t what she thought, he had assured her as he had thrashed around emphatically in bed sheets. Even as he talked he could not hold still for a moment; it made him both a problematic lover and a distressing confidant. Sure, he said, the first time he encountered the gladiator was in the Empress’s bedroom and there was some odd sex-wrestling so vigorous they broke a vase, a vase he really really liked, but later Gabrielle had vehemently denied to him that any kind of sexual relationship had ever existed between them although he was fairly certain that she only said this out of loyalty, perhaps even love, to protect the Empress’s reputation because it was bad enough people said Xena fucked the whole senate so she didn’t need any more gossip to add to that, and Gabrielle was without a doubt an entirely honorable warrior who could behead a Minoan like nobody’s fucking business-
-at which point Cleopatra, sans the modest cover of the sheets, had gently interrupted to inquire if he were not in love with the all-mighty gladiator himself.
Most men slept after coitus. Pullo babbled-irritating at first, but the end result rather a gold mine of information. Yes, the delicious barbarian was obviously in love with the Empress; had she paid more attention to the content and context of those sulky facial expressions rather than the ripe lips, gold hair, and bright eyes, she doubtless would have figured it out sooner. But what of Xena’s feelings on the matter? The inscrutable, fabulous Xena?
The smile she had bestowed upon the gladiator was Cleopatra’s epiphany. In the brief time of their acquaintance, Cleopatra has witnessed many of Xena’s smiles, the vast majority of them variants upon coolly predatory, wryly amused, or condescending pity. Even when she climaxes there’s something smug about it, Cleopatra thought. But that grin-prompted by nothing more than a catty remark about a boring, dead historian-possessed genuine warmth and affection.
As the two women discussed Sallust, Cleopatra turned away and contemplated the expanse of the Mediterranean, the surface of the harbor lacquered pearl white by the sun. She thought that this erotic entrenchment with the Empress would yield certain long-term benefits-not love, but stability. But, alas, it was easier with men; the potential to bind them with marriage and children was a distinct advantage.
Well. She sighed. Time to reconsider battle strategy. She wondered when Brutus would arrive.
The body of lies
“That’s her, Philo!”
Stupidly, Gabrielle is unprepared for the punch thrown by the brothel’s strong man-and as her head explodes in pain from his fist making contact with her nose, she can’t help but think his name is a little on the ironic side. Seconds after hitting the ground he picks her up from behind, she elbows him in the gut, wrests free, and kicks him in the groin. He drops to the ground with a howl.
Preemptive, she draws her sword and tosses a coin purse at the startled hetaera. “I was coming to give you this.”
The purse has spilled open its generous contents at the hetaera’s feet: Twice what she makes in a day. “Oh.”
“Yeah-‘Oh.’” She licks blood off her lips and gingerly touches her nose. Broken? She can’t tell.
Minutes later, with poor Philo abandoned to his painful woes and in the privacy of the same room they were in weeks ago, the hetaera mops blood off Gabrielle’s face. When she’s done wringing out the bloody cloth in the basin she stares at Gabrielle with such intent that the gladiator expects a kiss forthcoming. Instead, the hetaera gives her nose a firm squeeze.
With a squawk of pain, Gabrielle leaps away from her. “Shit!”
“It’s definitely not broken.” The woman tosses the pink water out the window.
Pain’s warm recoil seeps through Gabrielle’s face. “I don’t recall asking your expert opinion.”
“No, but I could tell you were worried. Why’d you come back here?”
“I didn’t want to cheat you.”
“Oh boy. The noble type,” the hetaera chortles. “Where’d you get that much money?”
“Borrowed it from a friend.” Pullo had given her the coins, no questions asked. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“You were so cute and shy at first. Now you’re all bitchy.”
“I get that way when someone punches me in face.”
“How was I supposed to know why you came back? You Romans are usually dumb as dirt.” The woman dries her hands with a towel. “So let me guess. You got the money from that friend of yours who’s always here.”
Gabrielle nods.
“He seems nice. Well, like I told you, I’ve never done him, but my friend Hagne has-she says he’s exhausting, he just goes on and on-“
“Thank you for sharing that.” Self-conscious, Gabrielle gently rubs her nose. “You never told me your name.”
“Didn’t seem important at the time. It’s Mira.” Matter-of-fact and apparently in the mood for a chat, Mira sits on the bed next to Gabrielle. “I’m sorry you got hit. And I’m sorry I threw a dagger at you. Well, not really, but I didn’t know you were actually, you know, a decent person. A noble type.”
“So you say.”
“I know all the types. In my line of work, you see them all. You learn how to spot them. I could write a scroll about it all, I tell you. I’d be famous and maybe I could stop fucking common smelly soldiers-no offense, for one of your lot you’re pretty clean. But yeah, you’re that noble type.” Summoning her powers of observation, Mira scowls comically, an exaggerated soothsayer’s expression. “You’re probably in love with some woman and she’s either married or doesn’t feel that way about you, and you’ve found that fighting just doesn’t cut it anymore, and you need to burn off that desire somehow-” She stops cold, however, when she notices the shocked look on the gladiator’s face. “Oh, wow-you mean I’m right?”
Gabrielle jumps to her feet. “I must go.”
“Wait, wait.” The surprisingly strong Mira snares her arm. “I’m just giving you a hard time.” She gives Gabrielle a quick kiss. “Maybe you can come back sometime, when you need to scratch that itch.” Gabrielle leans in-and is rebuffed with a playful shove. “But not now. I have an appointment.”
By the time Gabrielle reaches the palace, she is in a mood. A shit mood, as Pullo would call it; apparently the Empress is not the only one capable of them. But she had promised Pullo-in return for the money he lent-to spar with the recovering, restless Empress, who was eager to return to form before the arrival of Brutus. Gabrielle flexes her hands. Yes, it would be good to burn off that energy, such as it was. Everyone, it seems, is on edge, waiting for Brutus-the oracle who will delineate Xena’s future. War or peace, power or exile. Not that he was that important, Xena had said, but he always knew what was going on. And with Caesar’s death, there were several factions coming into play.
The long portico surrounding the courtyard is flecked with late afternoon sun filtered through the trees, the perfect place for an idle queen. Cleopatra sits erect among guards, musicians, and lackeys, an impromptu court that moves at her will. Gabrielle hopes that her long march across the courtyard to the sparring grounds will go unnoticed, but she knows the queen’s dark eyes are upon her.
“You.” The seductive knell of Cleopatra’s voice rings out across the empty space. Her court falls to silence. Gabrielle stands still. “Come here.”
It is the first time the Egyptian queen has spoken to her. At events, Cleopatra’s dark gaze, curious and cool, would find her; it unnerved her, it angered her-the queen should only have eyes for her lover. At Gabrielle’s approach Cleopatra dismisses the group: “Leave me.” Tortuous minutes pass as everyone-making a collective poor show of masking their curiosity-disperses slowly.
Alone with the gladiator, the queen rises. She runs her hands along the silk of her dress. And, for additional long minutes, stares Gabrielle full in the face. Gabrielle has seen Apollonius do with this scrolls, with languages he’s unfamiliar with, trying to puzzle out what is before him on the parchment. The comparison to gentle Apollonius ends, however, when she slaps Gabrielle hard across the face.
The queen doesn’t fool herself that she caught the gladiator unaware. Gabrielle’s expression is resignation a thousand times over: the careful stitching of years’ worth of cruelties perfected into a beautifully indifferent tapestry. But when Cleopatra wraps her stinging hand around the gladiator’s neck and kisses Gabrielle with equal fierceness and delivers the end note to this performance-a savage bite on Gabrielle’s lower lip that draws blood-the gladiator’s mask falls away and instinct takes over: She is pinned against the wall, her wrists shackled painfully against hard marble, the gladiator’s weight a maddening friction against her dress and her skin, and Gabrielle’s beautiful, angry face so close. They breathe in collusion.
“I’ve been trying to get her to do this to me for months.” The queen licks the fresh blood from Gabrielle’s lip and tries to kiss her again, but Gabrielle pulls back. “But I don’t think I inspire that kind of passion in her, do I?”
She knows.
“I could teach you how to please her.” Her mouth, on Gabrielle’s once more, finds less resistance a second time.
Or so she thinks. When Gabrielle pulls back again and releases her, there is no mistaking the look of disgust-for herself, as well as the queen. “I don’t need to be taught anything. I learned from a far better whore than you.”
Shit mood thus exacerbated, Gabrielle walks away. Fury itches her bones. Along the way, she contemplates the dubious wisdom of calling the Queen of Egypt a whore. Perhaps she’ll have to leave Alexandria. Well, there is a library in Pergamum. She presses the back of her hand to her burning lip. Still bleeding. She sighs. Xena will lecture her about fighting. Again.
In the dusty arena, observed by Ping and many curious soldiers, the Empress goes through her paces. Gabrielle hangs back, watching in quiet solidarity with the men. Xena runs. She executes a series of dizzying backflips, including one over a blockade of hay bales, and finishes with a headstand on a crumbling rampart. The soldiers cheer her on, but once the acrobatics are complete they disperse quickly, unwilling to find themselves as potential sparring partners for the woman with enough balls to yank a dagger out of her own thigh.
Ping, possibly the only person in Alexandria unimpressed with the dagger stunt-“You are stupid” were his first words to Xena when she regained consciousness after the fight- watches critically as she swaggers toward him. “No limp.” The slight lilt in his tone indicates, for him, incredulousness.
“You believe me now?”
The healer smiles. “Yes. Because you lie, but your body does not.”
With Xena’s glowing health established, both she and Ping turn their attentions to the scrappy gladiator. They frown at the swollen nose, the bloody lip. Xena raises an eyebrow. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing.” Gabrielle veers away from Ping, who has closed in on her with the determination of a mother hen. “I’m fine.”
“I see.” Xena hums. “Well, if you’re not up to this-”
Gabrielle draws her sword.
Xena laughs. “Okay, then.” She unsheathes her own sword and twirls it idly.
“Am I supposed to be impressed with that?” The words are out of her mouth before she knows it. She feels the sneer contorting her face and a vise crushing her chest. Love, as the hetaera speculated? Is this love-this feeling of complete inadequacy leading to arrogant overcompensation?
Xena’s amusement cools; her eyes narrow. She feints left. Gabrielle doesn’t fall for it. Neither seems willing to make the first strike, as if it were somehow an indication of weakness.
With one last twirl Xena does the unexpected-she transfers the sword to her left hand. “I’ll give you half a chance to take me down. Think you can handle that, or has the library made you soft?”
Gabrielle darts right, hoping to strike at an odd enough angle to put Xena at a disadvantage. A good idea, but Xena braces her sword for the strike with both hands. Gabrielle spins around in time to catch a full, straight-on blow. Now Xena has her on the defensive. With a struggling leap Gabrielle attempts to clear the stack of hay bales. The triumphant exhilaration coursing through her veins, however, is short-lived when she realizes that Xena has seized her ankle and has sent her crashing into the empire of falling hay bales.
Gabrielle’s sword clatters away. In the distance, past the furious noise within her mind, she hears Pullo calling for the Empress. She crawls out from under a bale, and, with Xena’s attention momentarily diverted to her captain, takes a cheap shot: a vicious roundhouse kick that sends Xena grunting in pain and sprawling into the dust. Xena’s inelegant fall turns into a coiled masterpiece of a tumble-just as Iolaus taught Gabrielle at the gladiatorial school, to roll away from an opponent-and she stops, poised in a feral crouch, taut fingers brushing the earth, a murderous mechanism ready to spring at the least provocation.
Sensing this, Ping and Pullo remain immobile as statues. While Gabrielle quietly berates herself-you’re no better than Basileos-and every beat of her heart crowds her chest so that she cannot breathe.
The moment passes-if only because Xena permits it. Slowly, she stands. “You were saying, Pullo?” Her blasé tone does little to counter the wary mask she presents to Gabrielle, who helplessly speculates on what lies beneath: Anger? Desire? Fear? All of the things that I feel too?
Pullo, Gabrielle observes, forces himself not to look at her. “Brutus’s flotilla has been spotted. He’s almost in the harbor.”
“Excellent.” Xena tone makes the word into the foulest curse. With a precise spin upon her heel, she is gone. Obediently, the healer and the captain trail in her wake-even though Pullo spares his friend a pitying glance before walking away.
Gabrielle stares at her sword on the ground.