Gladiator: Prologue

Prologue

What you are about to read is true. I existed and my story truly happened. Every word is as real as the hand that writes it, mine.

I will die tomorrow, executed in the pit of the Coliseum which I have come to know so intimately. My blood has stained its sandy ground. I have stained it with the blood of my opponents. I have fought in that pit. I have killed in that pit. Now I am to be the killed.

I have not always been a gladiator. In fact, I am not even Roman or a man. I am a Celt, from the land the Romans call Wales. I am a woman. The masters who thought they owned me put me in the ring more often then the other Gladiators. I was exotic. A foreign woman gladiator draws crowds to the Coliseum far better than a male slave will. They used me. They made me fight for my life.

Yet I never allowed myself to become a spectacle. You may think me proud and perhaps I am, though it is not my flaw. Neither was my desire for revenge. I deserved revenge. He deserved the punishment I gave him.

This is not a happy story, but my life in Rome was not all misery. I had companions, General and the scholar Petrus among them. There were moments where I was distracted from my vendetta for revenge. There were times when my fate seemed lucky. But above all, I never forgot who I was.

Why am I writing this? The scholars of Rome have degraded by people into mindless barbarians. Perhaps reading this, you will understand who the true barbarians were. And I want people to know my story. I want the world to know of me and how through all the whippings and torture and constant battles, I never ceased being me.

Terrwyn, Queen of the Cyrmu.