Desire of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 3) (2 page)

And always, always, he had the crowd with him.

For some reason, as he circled the secutor, Leda arrived on his mind.

Brown-skinned and dark of hair, she was exotic and lovely. Her body was shapely and full, her every expression loaded with sharp intelligence. He'd wanted her from the very moment he saw her.

Every swell of want in his chest, every moment of need, every desperate look he’d given Leda—all of that channeled into an energy for this fight that felt boundless and endless.

There was a truth at the bottom of his chest that fueled every action he took. No matter how he worked, or how he tried, or how he performed, no matter the results of any action, he would always be a gladiator and she always a princess.

She would never lower herself to being with him and he knew it.

And it made him mad.

Not at her—gods, no—but at the entire mess. That what he felt could not stop at simple bodily lust—even though he certainly felt a great deal of that. The agonizing closeness to her presence drove him to distraction. When she breathed, her chest rose and fell, giving movement to a bosom more perfect than any sculptor could hope to imitate. And when she spoke—or tried not to, more often—he could see the vibrations in her pink lips that told him that Elysium had been delivered to him, with her as the window inside.

In the arena, a man could live according to his rage, and Conall had plenty to go around.

The secutor approached, a heavy brute apparently made for the specific purpose of killing little men like Conall in the arena.

That
made Conall mad.

They exchanged a heavy flurry of blows with neither gaining the advantage. Sparks flew as Conall's swords struck hard against the blade of the secutor's ax.

Well over six feet tall, the secutor’s armor barely fit him. He carried an enormous shield, almost impossible to break due to its density and weight, and had heavy armor on his arms and legs. The standard fight between a dimachaerus and a secutor was skill versus strength. But this secutor was fast, too—and brutally armed. He carried, instead of the normal short sword, a securis—an ax with a long, heavy blade.

The secutor swung with the ax again and Conall parried it aside, sliding one sword forward. The attack hit, but only on the secutor’s armor, sliding off harmlessly. Following up, the secutor rolled his heavy shield over to bash Conall again—a blow that landed. Conall rolled back into the sand and, with a roar, hopped back up again.

No doubt the secutor thought this some easy fight. Kill the little man. Take him out, make him sorry he ever entered the arena with him.

No doubt the secutor, heavy and huge, wanted to end the fight early. Secutores often did. Their helmets, closed over the face, made it hard to breath for a long time. And no doubt the secutor thought that he could end the fight early, too.

They fought in one match before the primus, which would be the main event of the day. Conall often fought on this level on the card. He had never fought in a primus, not in more than two years of winning fights. He had fought more than sixteen times to earn his place this high on the card. The secutor had fought in six fights.

And that made Conall mad.

He roared and leapt back into the fray.

––––––––

“B
east man,” she muttered to herself. “Insane man.”

Leda watched from the box seats, containing the honored senators of the day and the lanistas who ran the ludi providing the gladiators. Leda attended Publius, the lanista of House Varinius and her Dominus—the man who owned her.

Her jobs for him were many and varied. Mostly they fell under the blanket of “whatever he told her.” This meant assisting other slaves with domestic matters, like decoration and serving and cleaning, but as Leda was educated, her duties also extended elsewhere. He knew Leda spoke the Latin tongue; knew her to be intelligent and able. He was willing to keep her secrets so long as she obeyed his orders.

The secutor beat Conall down to the sand again, and again Conall got up. His face and shoulders were bloody. A wild, terrible grin was on his face. Somehow, he was enjoying himself. The hair of his beard had turned red, making him some demon-like form in the arena.

As they did any amount of blood, the crowd roared with constant approval as they saw Conall's form grow bloodier and bloodier still.

Today’s games had been initiated in honor of the summer season. There was also, as there often was, a temple constructed sometime years ago during this month, and a great many Roman battles won. Any one of these by themselves was reason enough for the imperial agents in Puteoli to agree to arrange games for the citizens; all of them together was cause for
extravagant
games.

And extravagant today’s games had been indeed. The morning had seen several elephants and lions fighting—sometimes against hunters, and sometimes against other animals. The executions at midday were more theatrical than usual, pitting the condemned prisoners in costumes and forcing them to act out ancient myths.

One unlucky sod had to try to play a lyre—judging from his playing, probably for the first time in his life—and “soothe” the wild animals in the arena. He did all right against the antelopes and the goats, but not nearly as good against the half-starved wolves released after a few minutes.

The Roman crowd, in their typical fashion, ate this brutality up. Leda did not understand it. She turned away from most of the gory brutality, unable to stomach the sights for long. The gladiator fights were better, if only because they had some reasonable semblance of
sport
to them that did not involve mindless slaying.

Most fights ended without the gladiators dying, which had surprised her from the many legends that spread to her of Roman society into Armenia. Gladiators were investments—spoken of as such, in fact, during the games by the various senators and especially the lanistas who she served wine to—and were not quickly dismissed from the mortal coil. It was impossible to gain back money on a man’s corpse, after all.

If Conall wasn't careful, he would become such a corpse.

In the arena now, the secutor knocked Conall down again. And again, he got up—but slower this time. His grin remained, and he went on the offensive, swinging his swords wildly.

The secutor's shield was driven down almost to the sand before he managed a counter-attack, kicking Conall hard across the midsection and driving him back once more with his ax. He nearly had Conall driven against the wall, where spikes protruded outward to keep gladiators from running away—or from scaling up into the crowd.

The most important people had the seats closest to the action, and so were awfully jumpy at the thought of a gladiator—such a lowborn sort—getting too close to their noble blood. In this way, seating in the arena was as structured as Roman society.

The box for the honored guests and their slaves was at one end of the elliptical arena, with prominent members of the local temples at the other. Men of noble and senatorial rank sat at the lowest level, closest to the action, with rich equestrians behind them. Behind those were freedmen, and then finally women and children near the top. It was a great metaphor for who was actually listened to and who mattered in Roman society.

But, as Conall dodged another blow from the secutor's ax, all thoughts of the structure behind the fights faded away. She wanted him to win. She did not want him to be so smitten with her, and she did not relish his insipidly persistent company with all his heartfelt compliments and empathy—but nor did she wish him harm in the arena.

The secutor did. Once again he had knocked Conall down. He seemed to be enjoying himself. The larger man played to the crowd, not bothering to attempt to finish Conall off with the ax in his hands. He kicked Conall instead, directly in the ribs. Acoustics were impeccable in the Puteoli arena. Crunching sounds—Conall’s ribs breaking—could be heard throughout the crowd. Leda felt her stomach turn over. The mob cheered and booed, both. Conall had many fans, sometimes as riotous and reckless in the crowd as he was in the arena; but, the secutor—the fighting style if not this particular fighter—had many fans himself.

Leda gulped as she watched Conall struggle back to his feet. He had trouble rebounding from that blow, though still he tried. Broken ribs were nothing to walk around with. The wrong shift in the muscle or the bone could send a splintered mass straight through an organ—even the heart.

Because he got back up to his feet slowly, the referee had rushed in. He held a whip in his hand, and began lashing at Conall’s feet. The heavy stings compelled Conall to move and fight again. Another referee whipped at the secutor, yelling at him to finish Conall off.

Members of the crowd shouted at Conall to put up the sign for mercy—two fingers over his head. But Conall simply got up again, bloody and battered, and yelled at the secutor to attack him again.

It was like the crowd, urging him to take mercy, only drove him onward.

“Insane man,” she whispered, leaning closer to the arena, watching with her breath held. “Beast of a man.”

––––––––

A
t least three ribs broken. Maybe more.

Crowd practically ordering him to ask for mercy.

More blood spilled on his body than he knew what to do with.

The secutor stood tall, essentially unharmed.

And all of this just made Conall mad. He spat out blood on the sand and gestured for the secutor to attack.

The secutor, shrugging and shaking his head, did just that.

Only this time he did not knock Conall back. He thrust with the heavy, bladed tip of his ax, and Conall dodged and attacked—cutting away at the secutor’s cloth manica. As before, the secutor attempted to bash him with his shield, but Conall blocked himself, and dodged again when the secutor followed up with his ax.

It was as if the secutor was a child trying to hit his older brother. Every blow whiffed, and Conall continued to hack and pick at the larger man’s armor.

This man had thought for a good ten minutes of fighting that he had the fight won already. That was stupid. It was a rookie mistake, and it was an underestimation.

And that made Conall mad.

Roaring with frustration, the secutor swiped hard with his ax, clearing space. Then he gathered his legs underneath him and charged.

Conall had been attacking again and again, driven away each time and apparently doing no damage. But each attack had cut hard on the secutor’s armor around his arm. It was loose now, with large gaps showing.

The secutor swung, and Conall thrust his arm up in a mighty uppercut blow. His sword bit into the secutor’s wrist, spilling his ax—with the hand attached to it—out onto the sands of the arena. Standing dumbfounded, the secutor wavered and looked at his hand in the sands, far removed from his body. Conall was already following through, his other sword landing hard into the secutor’s exposed flank. He fell to the sands, dead.

Conall, bloody and battered, had won.

Hot cheers spilled out from the crowd, the sheer force of them vibrating heavily through Conall's body. So much noise, all at once, actually made his injuries feel worse—but he ignored the pain and allowed the elation of victory to fill him.

He raised his sword up to the editor’s box, where he could see Leda standing in the crowd of senators and slaves. His heart raced faster, looking at her up there, than it had in the entirety of the fight.

She was the one he was meant to be with. The only one.

And seeing her looking back down at him, he could feel all anger melt away, at least for a little while.

––––––––

A
fter the fight, Conall walked off the sands by himself. But, as soon as he was back inside the lower bowels of the arena, a pair of slaves was ready to help him back down to the medicae, Nyx.

Nyx was a broad, older woman with a thick mass of white hair she kept wrapped in a long pony tail that stretched down near to her waist. Her skin was tanned and leathery, her hands always sure, and her knowledge of medicine as broad as any person Conall had ever encountered.

She was well-used to seeing him after a fight, and had been prepared for his coming. She placed him on her table, the wood permanently stained with the blood of other fighters in the past (and probably much of Conall’s as well). Her treatment started right away, righting his ribs and then quickly wrapping him tight with bandages.

Above them, Conall heard the crowd swell with cheers as the primus began. He struggled with his own swell of resentment as he heard it.

One day
.
One day, they’ll see me there
.

“You were put through the wringer out there,” said Nyx. “How do you feel?”

“I feel...” said Conall, noticing for the first time how dizzy he was, “...victorious.”

Nyx snorted. She gestured for a jar of herbs from Chloe, her assistant, and then began to rub the herbs over the cuts on Conall’s forehead and shoulders.

“That was a low move from him,” she said. “Going after your ribs like that.”

“It’s all low moves in there,” said Conall. “That's just how it is. I don’t mind that.”

“That seems like one thing you didn’t mind from the man, then.”

“What does that mean?”

Nyx stopped rubbing for a moment. “Do you really not know what I mean, Conall?”

His vision was fading. He was tired and the blood loss of the fight was finally catching up to him now that adrenaline had stopped flooding his system. She referred to the brutality of the win, no doubt.

“I won, didn’t I?”

“I don’t think you can survive many more wins like that one.”

He grunted in response.

“Tell me true now.” She leaned over him, grabbing him by the face and massaging her thumbs into the herbs she had placed along his temple and his nose. “You could have had him earlier in the fight, couldn’t you? Without getting hit so much?”

“Maybe.”

“I think you wanted to hurt him. I think you were mad at him.”