Desire of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 3) (8 page)

He took three laps with the hell log before the other gladiators started filing out from the cell blocks. Conall usually got six. He had a lot of improvement to make.

One of the fighters was Diocles, a murmillo. He was talented and large, with the sort of build and look that Publius liked. Clean-cut chin. Broad chest. And tall, of course, with every inch filled in by solid, hard muscle. As such, he had been given a great deal of special attention by Publius. His matches were chosen carefully to ensure he held the advantage, and slowly but surely Publius built a legend around him. He wanted Diocles to be the showcase of the ludus.

Conall despised the man.

The dislike wasn’t based on Diocles being unskilled. Under the tutelage of Murus and the other doctores, he was as able as man with an ounce of natural talent would be. It was the doctore’s job to cultivate ability.

“Look who’s returned to us,” said Diocles. He had picked up a training sword and shield from a rack next to the wall of the cell blocks. “It’s little Pertinax.”

“Hello, Diocles.”

A few of his cronies—other murmillos—gathered up behind him. They had the same smarmy look on their faces as Diocles did, in the way that dogs would start barking just from hearing another dog do the same a mile away. They were born followers following a born leader in Diocles. The man had a charisma to him that was hard to deny, but it was steeped in deep-rooted meanness.

“Perhaps you’ll spar with me today, at long last. I promise I won’t break your ribs like that chump from Napoli.”

The “chump” from Napoli had been in more fights than Diocles. But to say that would have been taking Diocles's bait.

“Have Murus change the rules of training,” he said instead, “and I’ll spar you all day long.”

“What is it about all you German trash that makes you want thrashing so bad?” Diocles was directly in his face now. “You haven’t even been back a day and you’re already begging to fight me.”

Standard bullying procedure, mixing words around and trying to create an argument where there had not been one before.

“I don’t know, Diocles. What is it about Greek trash that makes you so tempting to hit?” He sniffed loud. “Is it your smell?”

They stood nose to nose now. Dry timber was all they were, waiting for a stray spark to set them off. The need to hit this man filled Conall—to hit him and drive him into the ground until he couldn’t get up again without help.

His short-temper that day wasn't about Diocles, not truly. Even that much was not lost on him. He was mad at himself for driving Leda away. Over and over again, all he could think was how he had been so close—so damnably close—only to send her packing.

Would he ever have a conversation with her again?

Would he ever feel her hands upon his body again?

Would he ever have his hands upon her again?

There was no way to know, and he had to assume that he wouldn't.

So. Why not pick a fight with Diocles? Certainly, there was a man who could use a few good knocks to the head.

Normally the gladiators from a given ludus shared a certain camaraderie. They were brothers-in-arms. There was the understanding, however harsh or ugly, that they all rose and fell together. If their fellow gladiators died in the arena, then they would all start to lose money and status—and have less chances for glory in the arena.

One gladiator might be brutal in his methods of hazing, torturing novices until they proved themselves worthy in the arena, but it was all for what he perceived as a common good—to weed out weakness and ensure that only strength arrived on the sands.

But Conall was a gladiator proven more than a dozen times over. It broke the bounds of what decency gladiators had to pick a fight with a veteran—and this made Conall mad.

They were all trying to live together; there was no benefit in acting as if they lived apart.

“Gladiators!”

Murus’s voice boomed across the sand. Instinctively, Conall stepped back—a trained motion from years of obeying Murus’s voice. And as he did, Diocles popped his head forward and banged their temples together. Conall, furious now, shoved Diocles back into his crowd of followers. Diocles took a swing, but Murus was there to catch his fist.

Diocles looked a bit surprised at Murus’s ability to simply catch his hand mid-swing. Conall knew the old doctore was quicker and stronger than he looked. An older man with silver hair and hard leather skin, nearing fifty years of age, his shape was a square of muscle.

“Take the Hell Log,” said Murus. His voice like crackling thunder. “The both of you. You’ll stop running when I get tired.”

Diocles looked despondent. Hiding a grin, Conall picked up the log again and held it out for Diocles to grab it with him.

Conall’s goal was to be able to run all day to get back in good fighting shape. This was as good a way as any.

“Just don’t slow me down,” said Conall.

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A
t midday, after lunch, Conall was informed that he was to eschew the rest of the day's training in order to go to the market as part of his new bodyguard work. It wasn't until he arrived at the gates and saw Leda's lovely form clothed in a dark blue stola that he realized that she was the slave he was supposed to bodyguard.

“Is it just the two of us?” he asked her.

She frowned, looking past him for a moment. “I suppose so. Usually they send a soldier with me.”

Conall shrugged. “I suppose I am cheaper than a soldier.”

Leda raised an eyebrow, as if to say she would let that pass without comment.

The two of them had not spoken since their last discussion. Their fight? Could it be called that?

Conall was inclined to agree with her, and so it was difficult to call it a fight. He
wasn't
of her class. The difference was that he didn't want that to matter like she apparently did.

Some flashes of anger still existed in him at the conflict. Most of these were at himself and his idiot mouth, unable to hold his tongue in place. But any annoyances were overtaken by being in her presence once again.

Her hair swayed gently in the wind. The stola she wore hugged tight to her hips. Her cheeks were colored from the heat of the day.

Gods, she's lovely.

“Shall we go?” he asked.

“Very well,” she said, her voice cool. “But I should inform you that my position remains the same. Nothing that happens today will change that.”

A sharp stab slipped up his guts. He nodded. “Of course, Princess.”

“I don't want to be hurtful. Only clear.”

Again, he nodded, and she started out the gate.

If that was how she didn't want to be hurtful, Conall mused, he'd hate to have been on the wrong side of her when she did.

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“I
don’t trust the House Varinius. I want you to tell him that.”

“Certainly.”

“You’ll have the wine. But he still owes me for the rest. That’s the deal, right?”

“Yes, Olonius.” Leda tapped the scroll. “It’s all right here. An official document. I’ll send it to the imperial legal offices in town and have them record it. The debts will be official.”

This had been a sticking point for many of Porcia’s debts. With her charm and beauty—which apparently she had much of, as that was all the men (and they were
always
men) that she borrowed from remembered about her—Porcia was able to connive several lusty merchants into giving her loans without ever recording them on paper.

This meant that when it came time to collect, it was simply her word against the debtor, which was harder to prove in court. No doubt that had been part of her strategy all along.

At first, Publius had been disinclined to pay such debts, saying there was little legal precedent for him to do so. And Publius, if anything, was a stickler for precedent. Then, however, all those debtors stopped providing him with any new supplies—and so now Leda stood in the street in front of Olonius’s small taberna where he sold the finest wine in Puteoli.

“You’ve put a good name to your Dominus today.” Olonius jingled the bag of coin that Leda had brought him and leered up and down at Leda’s form. “Polite. Pretty, too. Are you for sale?”

There was nothing more to say. The scroll was signed and the money taken.

“We’ll expect the wine on the day of the party. I’ve written you a reminder for the order.” She handed over another scroll. “Good afternoon, Olonius.”

Outside, Conall waited for her. He was not wearing a shirt, which meant that his body was displayed heavily. That was very unfair in her mind. All his best features were on his body. The heavy line of abdominals, stacked like bricks. The broad expanse of his chest, every inch hard and powerful. The rippling forms of his arms, so utterly capable of gripping her most vulnerable, lust-hungry parts.

She stepped back into the bustle of the street, pushing the ugly, leering look of the merchant from her mind. Conall looked at her with plenty of want, and often, but at least he had the decency to carry the looks as if he hoped she would carry them back. To that merchant, she had been little more than window dressing for the afternoon.

“It went well, I hope?” he asked.

“Yes. Naturally. I'm good at my job, Conall.”

“I expect you are. You're a smart woman.”

It was dangerous to speak with him. She was reminded quickly as to why she hadn't for such a long time. Everything she said to him turned into some manner of compliment about herself. It was rather shameless, leaving openings for him like that. It was like she wanted to hear him say nice things to her.

Which she most certainly did
not
. She was a princess.

The city of Puteoli was famous for its massive port. Rome and its empire depended upon the free flow of grain to feed its citizens, with most every denizen depending on the grain dole to feed themselves and their families. That grain came in huge portions from Sicily and Egypt, and the grain produced there arrived almost exclusively in Puteoli.

From the port city, the grain was then distributed to the rest of the continent and empire. But, as Puteoli received the grain first, its people were often well-fed, and at the arena games (which were regular), plenty of bread was passed out to the crowd.

It had been a rich town in times past, and would have been still if it were not for the Antonine Plague. In the streets, Roman soldiers patrolled often ensuring that no plague-struck individuals begged or—more often—lay sick and dying in alleys.

The soldiers did not know much about the sickness, but any fool knew that sick people had to be kept away from the healthy populace to keep commerce flowing.

On the street, merchants plied their wares. Most of the sights were common—bronze, cloth, glass, meat. There were several communal ovens that charged small portions of the bread dole instead of money. But on the street also were some new players to the game—greasy-looking fellows with a great many necklaces and talismans about their necks.

They sold cures and preventatives for the plague. Pouches of ground animal bone were sold for cheap on the low end, with small glass vials of dust and crystals on the high end. None of it, Leda suspected, would be very effective. People would sell anything to the needy.

Thoughts of the plague turned to thoughts of the shortage of gladiators in the ludus turned to thoughts of Conall.

He walked directly behind her, eyes scanning the crowd. While he seemed perfectly content to simply be next to her, he also had the clear intent to guard her and do his job well.

Her heart still throbbed with strange and undefinable desires for him. Never had a man sent her head in such a disastrous spin. She tore between wanting to yell at him furiously for mixing up her thoughts how he had and sliding into his arms to find out what he had for her between his legs.

It didn't seem to matter
what
she thought about him. All thoughts ended up being passionate.

Men passed by, and she graded them on how Conall-like they were. Most had no beards, and so most failed. The few that did were not quite wild enough, or too tall, or too dark, or too skinny or too fat. No one was just his shape, his size, his form in all its dangerous, hardened perfection.

It was hard to process so much at once in the city. And so instead her mind floated back to what it had been dancing upon all morning and all the previous night when she
wasn't
carrying on with herself about Conall.

The letter that Publius held from her family. The first in her entire term of service to this awful ludus.

If she were being truthful, then she would have to say that her hopes had begun to wane when it came to hearing from her people. The world was large, and messengers took time to get from one place to another even traveling on the well-maintained roman roads.

The messages were expensive, and she had spent any expendable income—and any favors from Publius—mostly on her letters to the Antioch emissary for her brother’s cause. So, she had not sent as many to them.

Still, she would have thought that at least
one
of her letters would have, by now, have merited a response.

Leda’s father and mother were still alive and well, and along with Leda—the middle child—they had brought two more daughters and two sons in the world. Her sisters, Gaiane and Endza, were both younger than her. Her mother and father had been blessed—in the minds of the populace—with two healthy sons with their first couplings. Taniel was the oldest, followed by Dzovag.

Leda had always been close with her sisters. She missed them now, heart aching with the knowledge that they were just now coming into their own as young women in the court society. Probably their mother was preparing matches for them, and they were learning how to dance.

Leda did not care for much of court life—it involved so much incessantly useless talking—but she
did
love to dance.

Endza would be lovely at it. The youngest, and by far the prettiest, she was always a bundle of exuberant energy. Her imagination ran wild with games, and always she was pulling in her siblings—even Dzovag, who was notorious in the household for hating such distractions.