For Marie, the real stress didn’t begin until the day before she was set to leave with Logan. That was the day her and Jubilation began transferring everything from the far corner of her wardrobe to the stables. That made what Marie had planned all the more real. There were four bundles in all. Two containing clothing for both Marie and Logan and the other two consisting of rolled up blankets with satchels of food in the center. There was also a saddlebag filled with different medical supplies that Marie thought Logan might need after his fight in the Circus Maximus. He was going to win the fight. Marie had no doubt in her mind about that. The only thing that was in question was what shape he would be in when it was over.
“I really don’t see why we can’t get Logan and leave before the fight,” Marie lamented as she and Jubilation sat in Marie’s sitting room to eat their lunch. “We could be on our way sooner and also won’t run the risk of Logan getting severely injured.”
Jubilation shook her head, pushing around the food on her plate with a fork. “Because, right before the match, Logan will be guarded like a hawk. It will be impossible to sneak him out of the arena then. We have to wait until after the match. Reynaldo will only be able to help us after the match.”
Reynaldo was a friend of Jubilation’s who worked in the gladiatorial arena. It was his job to get the combatants into the Circus Maximus for their fights. He kept the fights in order and made sure that everything flowed smoothly. It would be inconsequential if, after the match, if he took an injured Logan to see a “physician.” Having already fought, no one would pay any attention to Logan and Reynaldo could sneak him out of the gates to where Marie would be waiting.
“I know that, Jubilation, I honestly do,” Marie sighed, dropping her fork and leaning back against the back of the couch. “It’s just.... I just don’t want Logan to be hurt anymore. He has been through enough over the past months and I wish that we could prevent the fight tomorrow. To just leave before it all happens.”
Jubilation set down her fork and smiled confidently at Marie. “It will be nearly dusk by the time you are to leave the city with Logan, Mistress. Even though it comes at a bad time, that is an advantage. It will be easier to pass through the city unnoticed once the sun begins to go down.”
Marie nodded her head, chewing nervously on her bottom lip. “That’s the only advantage there is to this whole mess. Other than that this entire situation is awful. I don’t know what I will do if Logan doesn’t win.”
“If Logan doesn’t win, the two of us will go on to your aunt’s as planned,” Jubilation told her, giving her a reassuring smile.
“You’re coming?” Marie asked, arching an eyebrow. “Why was I not made aware of this?”
“Because I am not about to let you venture out into the great unknown without me,” Jubilation said with a wide grin on her face. “I plan on being there every step of the way. Which is why I placed a bag of my belongings in the stables last night.”
Marie smiled broadly at the other woman. “Thank you, Jubilation. This would have been impossible without you.”
“I’m sure that you would have found a way to get Logan out of the city without my help,” Jubilation assured her, smirking slightly. “From what I’ve seen, you would be willing to do anything to free Logan. There is no way that I’d stay here without you anyway. Which means that I’m going and that you have no say in the matter.”
“Of course not,” Marie agreed good naturedly. “How silly of me thinking that I had any say in the matter. Now hurry up, we need to visit this Reynaldo friend of yours this afternoon. I need to give him something for Logan tomorrow.”
Jubilation looked perplexed. “But I thought you were going to the gathering at Flavius’s tonight. Won’t you see Logan there?”
Marie nodded her head, fingering the torc she still wore about her throat. “I will be there. What I want is to give the torc to Reynaldo so that he can give it to Logan just before the fight tomorrow. The torc means a lot to Logan and I want him to have it when he fights. It may bringing him luck.”
Once they had finished their lunch, Marie removed the torc for the first time in six days. While Jubilation went to fetch a cloth to wrap it in, Marie sat on her bed running her fingers over the intricate designs that were etched into the metal. Marie longed to place the torc about his throat herself, but having Reynaldo do so would have to do seeing as how she would be unable to get near Logan before he fought before the crowd in the Circus Maximus.
“Here, this should do,” Jubilation said as she handed Marie a square of fabric that had once acted as a veil. It was the remains of the crimson veil Marie had worn the night she and Logan had first met. Jubilation had washed it and stitched it back together. There was a small section missing from one corner that Marie assumed she had dropped on the journey home.
Marie lovingly wrapped the torc in the silken fabric, being as gentle with it as she would an infant in swaddling. Since she had no plans to wear the dress ever again, Marie used the golden bands of silk that would wrap around her torso to secure the red cloth. In an attempt to keep it from looking obvious, the wrapped torc was then placed in a plain satchel.
To Marie’s complete disappointment, when they made the trip to the gladiatorial arena there was no sign of Logan. Not being able to go passed the gates, Marie couldn’t see much of the actual arena, but she had hoped that she would be able to catch sight of Logan like she had two days before.
“I will be sure that Logan receives this before I take him to the Circus,” Reynaldo ensured Marie as she handed him the bundle that contained the torc. He then downed his voice to a whisper. “Everything else has been arranged. Come here directly after the match and I will have Logan waiting for you.”
“May the gods bless you eternally for this,” Marie murmured, reaching out to place a hand on Reynaldo’s arm.
Reynaldo turned his gaze to Jubilation, a slight smiling playing on his lips. “I could hardly refuse anything that Jubilation asked of me.”
Jubilation returned his smile shyly and bobbed her head.
For the rest of the afternoon, Jubilation was as jittery as Marie had ever seen her. The attraction between her and Reynaldo was unmistakable, but when Marie brought up the idea of Jubilation staying in Rome to be with Reynaldo, Jubilation adamantly refused. She insisted that her place was with Marie and, regardless of Reynaldo, Jubilation wanted out of the city.
“You are not going to convince me to stay,” Jubilation said later that afternoon as she began pulling back Marie’s hair into a style that would look best with her costume.
“I thought that I would make the attempt,” Marie said with an absent shrug. “Has my father left yet?”
Jubilation nodded her head as she reached for another pin on the vanity. “He left a short while ago and will be celebrating tonight at Divinicus Bassus Scott’s while you remain home because you feel ill. You father will not suspect a thing.”
“Good. I have very important plans for this night and I refuse to have my father interrupt them,” Marie declared as she began pulling on armbands that would cover up the still remaining bruises from her father’s painful grip on her arm the day he had told her of her marriage to Scott. They had faded to a sickening yellow, but since her costume had no sleeves, Marie needed something to cover them up.
Jubilation pursed her lips as she pinned the last braid into place. “I wish you would tell me what it is that you have planned, Mistress.”
“You are involved enough as it is, Jubilation. This is something that I have to do for myself and therefore does not concern you. This way, if my father does happen to ask for me when he returns, you can honestly say that you don’t know what I am doing,” Marie told her, fiddling with one of the armbands.
“Then all I ask, Mistress, is that you behave yourself this night,” Jubilation said in exasperation. “We are one day away from your plan becoming complete. It would be awful if everything was to go wrong tonight. So please behave yourself. That is all I ask. I want this to happen as much as you do and I will hate to have to tell Logan that he’s not going to be free because you did something foolish.”
“I am fully aware of what I am doing,” Marie said with a rueful smile. “I also know the risks. I still have to go through with it. I will not be able to live with myself if I do not.”
“Have I mentioned that you have become much more brazen since learning your skin was not poisonous?” Jubilation inquired with a quirk of an eyebrow.
Rising from her seat, Marie headed towards her wardrobe where her costume was hanging out of view from anyone glancing in. “I have seventeen years of human contact to make up for,” Marie told her as she picked up the costume and the golden sash that went with it. She left Jubilation to get the rest of the costume. “The gods forbid it, but this could very well be Logan’s last night before he is taken to Elysium and I plan on spending it with him. The setting may not be the best, but we will be together.”
After that, Marie and Jubilation talked about less serious matters in order to keep the mood as light as possible. They talked of the lewd play they had seen the night before and of the Queen of Egypt’s presence in Rome while her lover Caesar was away fighting Pompey’s sons in Spain.
“It is easy to see why Caesar fell in love with her, she is very beautiful,” Jubilation said as she fitted the golden helmet on Marie’s head. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to claim her exotic mystic. Caesar claims she is Venus and even has a statue of her in his new temple. I wish that I could be a goddess.”
“I’m sure that Reynaldo would call you a goddess if you but asked,” Marie teased, stepping up to a mirror to view the overall costume. “You can be his Venus and he your Mars.”
Jubilation smiled back, throwing a sheer cloth over Marie’s head.. “I do believe that position is already held by you, my most esteemed goddess. Though I do believe the name your god prefers is Cernunos, the god of the hunt. I wonder, does your Logan have a pair of horns hidden under all that hair? Or are you Artemis tonight? Our very own goddess of the hunt. Or do you prefer the name Diana since we are in Rome?”
Marie pulled off the cloth and threw it back at Jubilation. “I am now and will always be Greek, Jubilation. So I will take the name Artemis tonight.... Though perhaps I will not be a virgin when the sun dawns again in the east.”
“You wouldn’t!” Jubilation gasped, all trace of mirth gone from her features. “Mistress, I beg you, do not do anything so foolish! Regardless of your affection for Logan, the fact remains that he is a slave and will be so until we leave the city tomorrow night. What will happen if he is killed tomorrow?”
“If Logan is killed tomorrow, I urge you to continue on to my aunt’s without me,” Marie said solemnly. “She will take you in with open arms and all will be well.”
“Well?” Jubilation cried, fully aghast by what she heard. “How can all be well if you plan to kill yourself?”
Marie grasped the girl’s face in her hands, forcing Jubilation to meet her eyes. “I have no plans to kill myself, Jubilation. None whatsoever. That was just my emotions talking. They are silly things and often make me say or do things I do not mean. No, if Logan dies tomorrow, I will still leave the city.... But I will take Logan’s body with me as well,” Marie declared calmly. There was no fear or hysteria in her voice, only an assured calmness that Marie could not determine the source of. It was as if the gods themselves were speaking through her. “I will not have him thrown to the dogs. No. Tomorrow morning, we will go and talk to Reynaldo and inform him that he is to bring Logan to the gates whether he is alive or dead. Alive, the three of us will flee the city for my Aunt Livia’s. Should, all Logan’s gods forbid it, he die, then we will take his body and bury him near the destroyed temple where we plan to camp tomorrow night. It is out in the open where the sky is perfectly visible. From there, Logan will be able to see the sky for all eternity. The same sky that he looked on as a boy for our sky is no different than the one he looked upon from his home at the edge of the world.”
Jubilation was sobbing openly by this point and it was all that Marie could do to keep herself in check. Taking several deep breaths, Marie calmed herself before pulling Jubilation into a comforting embrace.
“Everything will turn out well in the end, Jubilation. The gods would not be so cruel to take Logan from me so soon,” Marie whispered in her ear. “Nor will Logan’s gods allow him to die as nothing more than entertainment to a nameless crowd. It will not happen. By this time tomorrow, the three of us will be riding towards my Aunt Livia’s home, all of us alive and joyous because we will be free.”
“I shall pray for that to happen,” Jubilation murmured, hugging Marie back.
Marie pulled away and smiled reassuringly at her friend. “Then you pray for us tonight. I will join you in your prayers upon my return. But now I must go to Logan and give him strength and hope for the coming day.”