Gladiators of Rome:Short Stories

III

III

Shivering, Frieda's eyelids fluttered open as she heard a strange rattling sound. Curled up on her side, her arms and legs pulled in close to her chest, Frieda groaned as she lifted her head a little and looked towards the cell door.

Through the window at the top of the door she could see someone outside when the rattling stopped and a loud clunk filled the room, making her jump. As she began to uncurl herself, the cold floor having frozen her limbs through to the bone, Frieda's entire body felt stiff and her stomach seemed to be gnawing on itself, when the door to her cell was flung open, banging loudly against the wall behind it.

The sunlight that poured in from outside was enough to blind her momentarily. Raising an aching arm to shield her gaze, Frieda squinted up at the guard stood in her doorway.

"Eat fast," The guard said in his native tongue which Frieda did not understand, before he flung something across the floor at her which clattered against the stone floor. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, he seemed to see something that worried him because in the next moment he had turned and hurried away.

Lowering her arm, Frieda looked at what he had thrown at her when she saw that it was a wooden bowl with food inside. Gasping, Frieda felt the inexplicable depth of her hunger begin to grip her entire being. It would have been paralysing if she could not already see her salvation.

Ignoring the pains in her arms and legs, she hurried across the room and grappled a hold of the bowl. There was no spoon but Frieda did not care as she dug her fingers into the white, lumpy sludge and hovelled it into her mouth. It burned her cold fingers but Frieda continued to scoop out handfuls of the liquid food, her body so ravenous that she sometimes missed her mouth in her haste.

The food began to warm her body from the inside, calming her unease, when the bowl was wrenched from her hands.

"No," Frieda exclaimed, looking up to see the towering body of the woman from yesterday stood before her. Her hair, which had been braided back, made her scalp look rounder than before and her lips were pulled back into a tight grimace as she stared down at Frieda in disgust.

Frieda was breathing heavy as she watched the girl dip her fingers into Frieda's bowl of food and begin to eat what remained. Frieda felt a surge of anger boil up within her as she watched this but she also felt frightened. This girl was nearly twice her size with shoulders that seemed to take up the entire width of the cell so Frieda remained knelt on the floor until the girl smiled down at her and Frieda felt the anger overtake the fear.

She had had her family and her home taken from her before she was forced to travel for weeks on meagre water and food supplies before she arrived here, where they branded her and took her dignity. And now this girl was taking her food when Frieda was close to dying from starvation.

"No!" Frieda yelled; she would not have something else taken from her. Pushing up off the floor, Frieda wrapped her arms around the girl's waist and tried to tackle her to the ground but the girl was planted to the floor like a tree and remained unmoved despite how much Frieda pushed.

Frieda felt the girl's stomach rumble against her shoulder as she began to laugh, the gritty and rough sound grating at Frieda's ears before she reached down and grabbed hold of Frieda's upper arm where she had been branded the day previous. Shouting out in pain, Frieda relinquished her hold and stepped back to look up and see the girl's thick fist swinging down towards her face.

A moment later a pain Frieda had never known before erupted across her jaw, making her eyes water. It felt as if her jaw had been broken when she opened her eyelids for a split second and saw the girl's fist returning once more. The second punch knocked Frieda to the ground as a blinding pain travelled up her nose and across the back of her eyes. Something wet gushed from Frieda's nose but she could not see what it was when she looked up and saw the girl begin to step towards her.