Heart of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 1) (12 page)

“In the course of the fight, I will give a good show. And I will win.” Felix blanched. “I will win. Believe me on that. But I will not seek out the blow to kill your brother unless I must. Do you understand? Unless I must. Sometimes it cannot be controlled.”

“I understand.”

“And should we both survive until the end of the fight, let your heart fill with all you have. There will be no death. Not for a fight between fighters like him and me.”

Caius was dead sure of this fact. Felix began to smile. Behind him, Caius saw Vox approaching—and other fighters from the Buteo ludus. Without warning, he slapped Felix.

The young fighter’s face lit up with rage.

“Hit me back,” hissed Caius, “and unleash with fury. Taunts.”

Felix hesitated.

“Do it now!”

They could not have other fighters believe there was any deal going on. That sort of suspicion would have had Caius dead before he reached the sands of the arena. Felix, finally intuiting this danger, slapped Caius back.

“He’s going to take his sword and shove it straight up your ass!” Felix roared.

Caius shoved him back against the wall. Gladiators pushed in from all around, separating the two. The gladiators no doubt would love to watch a good fight, but when fights broke out in the pens of the arena, guards began to get loose with their swords to restore order.

Caius held up his hands, telling them it was all right, it was all right.

It was all going to be all right.

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O
n a clear day, Aeliana could see all the way out to the city from her office's perch on the hill. It was morning now, and the sky was free of clouds. A transport ship circled into the dock of Puteoli—the first of many that day, probably. No doubt it held nothing but suffering and doom. Usually the transports held slaves, or prisoners, or animals. Most of these wound up in service to the games.

“Stupid.” She shook her head. “Stupid.”

Only a day had passed since she had refused Caius the aid he deserved. Two nights, and one day, which was enough for two nights of nightmares full of his legless body running after her, demanding why she wouldn’t help him.

She watched him train essentially on the one leg, his belt tied around a rag over the wound. Without rest and proper treatment, the wound re-opened during his training and continued to bleed. It needed to be stitched. By the end of the day, he looked weak. She was amazed he could still stand at all—but stand he did, and fight, and train, and probably still improved his skill. That was just the sort of man he was.

They approached ever closer to the games at the end of the month. The games were to be held in honor of the new emperor, Septimius Severus. Severus had earned his power by military right. After the mad Commodus was assassinated, and his successor quickly faced the same fate, a man named Didius Julianus bought the title of emperor from the elite Praetorian Guard—who were responsible (in part if not in whole) for the deaths of the
last
two emperors.

With power being advertised on the open market, Severus and two other generals quickly tried to usurp the throne for themselves. Power in Rome, when it could not be bought, could be taken with enough might on your side. After several years of fighting, Severus had finally established himself as the sole ruler, and he wanted to celebrate.

Or rather, he wanted the
people
to celebrate. Rumor had it that Severus wasn’t exactly a fan of frivolity. But when the people celebrated games throughout the whole of the Empire in your name, well. That was as established a ruler as Rome was likely to get, the Senate be damned.

Organizing that many games was a massive affair. From her trips to the market and from the good vantage point that Rufus’s hilly estate offered, Aeliana had seen ship after ship arriving with fresh deliveries of slaves and animals. Every good series of games in the arena needed plenty of the deaths of both. The slaves were most likely all criminals rounded up from other provinces, or prisoners from warring tribes.

Depending on the severity of their infraction—which was branded on their skin—they would either fight in the arena, face executions in the midday of the games, or be sold to the mines. The lucky ones would simply be sold for service, and the supremely lucky would be sold to a kind Dominus or Domina.

The beasts would all be killed. They had no hope. Some of every sort imaginable was brought in—elephants, giraffes, ostriches, antelope, bears, and wolves. Anything unique or dangerous was good fodder for the venatores and bestiarii, hunters and beast-fighters, in the arena.

The day of training began, and Aeliana watched again from her office as Caius struggled. At first, he looked better than he had the day before. No doubt he had gone right to sleep after his last meal, and the rest had done him good.

But the bandage was still there on his leg, and as Aeliana watched, heartsick and wrapped with tension, he grew weaker and paler as the day went on. If he had not been sparring with Conall, it was likely he’d have been thrashed to the ground.

Conflicting notions pushed for dominance in Aeliana’s mind. The first was that she only had to look after herself. She didn’t know Caius from anywhere, and he was a gladiator besides.

Even if she saved him now, he’d most likely die in the arena on his first fight out. Spending her emotions on him was a wasted venture.

And of course on the other hand...on the other hand, there was the way his hand had electrified hers. The way his kiss had lit her entire body up. The way her heart thumped when she thought of his presence, and how the thought of him hurting when she could
fix
it tore her in two.

At nightfall, for no good reason, she found herself back in the cellblock for the gladiators. Hoping, maybe, that just by being near Caius, she could push her good will onto him through the walls.

As she approached his cell, she heard voices. Holding herself in the shadows, she positioned herself carefully so she could look in but not be seen. Inside were Conall, Lucius, and Caius.

“I want to talk about Flamma,” said Conall. “I want to teach him a lesson.”

“You mean to hurt him?” asked Lucius.

Conall winced. “No. Leave that for the arena. I want to shame the man a bit.”

“Better to hurt him.” Lucius’s eyes were cold. Calculating.

They both turned to Caius. Aeliana was sure he deliberated. Flamma was many things, but a dead weight he was not. If you hit him, he’d hit you back—and expect you to hit again. In their world of violence, Flamma understood only more violence.

“No,” said Caius. “Let’s hear the boy out. What have you got?”

“Firstly, I would do it myself, but I need your help to spread out the blame. If I am not in his line of sight when it all happens, if I have no alibi, then of course I will be blamed.”

“So. You do not want our approval.” Lucius leaned forward. “You want us to be agents in your cause.”

“Yes. It’s like this,” Conall began. “He loves his meals, yes? So...”

Aeliana sped away. Best for her not to know the details of such things. But those three were not the only ones who could conceive of plans in the darkness. The use of agents.

The supplies were easy to find, and Chloe was still awake in her bunk. The young Greek shifted, sitting up from a scroll she had underneath her. She read often and well, a habit Aeliana encouraged from time to time with scrolls she picked up in the market for Chloe when out on her supply runs.

Chloe's curls, thick and dark, hung loosely over the edge of her bed. Aeliana could see a flyer for the upcoming games hidden under the scroll. Almost she pointed it out, insisting that Chloe did not need to hide such things from her—but that was a discussion for another time.

“You know Caius, yes?”

Chloe nodded. “Ursus? Of course I do. You won’t treat him for some reason.”

“No,” said Aeliana. “I want you to do it. Why haven’t you already?”

“I...” Chloe looked surprised. “I just do what you tell me to, medicae.”

“A little initiative is always a wonderful thing. You take so much in your other affairs. I’d like to see more.” She handed Chloe needle and thread. “Tonight.”

“You want me to bring him up now and sew up his wound?”

“I want you to do it in the cell block. And,” Aeliana smiled. “Make it look jagged. A big scar. Like he had done it himself.”

“Like he had...?” Chloe stood, pulling on a shawl over her shoulders. “This has nothing to do with me taking initiative, does it?”

Smart girl. Aeliana should count herself lucky to be working alongside such a smart girl. But for now, she simply needed Chloe to obey.

“The less questions you ask, the better.” She took Chloe’s hands, painfully aware of how this was how Porcia had tried to manipulate her. The difference was that Porcia was horrible. A tool was a tool; it was the purpose it adhered to that mattered. “Will you do this for me, please Chloe? It’s important. He is hurt and he needs help.”

“Of course I won’t, Aeliana,” she said, smiling. “He’s going to do it himself.”

Smart girl
, Aeliana thought again.

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T
he games approached, and training continued. Every day Caius felt himself getting stronger, better. His form quickly returned—a habit as familiar as walking—and only his strength and speed had to catch up.

He doubted he would be as strong as he was before. Not before the games, at any rate. In his absence, Caius had not tried to get out of shape, and did not eat or drink his way toward some early grave. He had a daughter to raise. But there was a difference in the muscles needed for manual labor and the strength needed for the flashy showmanship the arena required.

The skills of a fight were, in essence, quite simple. Keep your footing; block incoming blows; slash with your sword; thrust when you have to; parry if you can.

But the crowd of the arena required more than blood—they required a show. Special time was taken with a retarius like Lucius, for example, to make his killing blows come from leaps and spins. A thraex like Caius was expected to brawl almost as much as he dueled, to slide through the sand and hone in on his opponent’s open sides with hard shield blocks and overhand strikes.

And all the while during his training—at the back of his mind when he was able to keep her somehow from the front—was Aeliana.

First she refused him service. Then she sent Chloe after him to stitch his wound, but do it ugly. Ugly, as if some novice gladiator had stitched himself up. Chloe would answer none of his questions, but she did not have to.

Caius was not stupid. Someone didn’t want him treated. But who?

It made no sense for Rufus to wish him dead. A lanista in general didn’t want his gladiators to die, being such a large investment of time and money. And Caius in particular was a windfall waiting to happen, so long as they put him in a match worthy of his reputation.

Murus the doctore could probably threaten Aeliana somehow, but again, that made no sense. He had not insulted Murus, and had taken care to be deferent to the man’s knowledge since arriving. It was only good practice; Murus knew his trade better than anyone.

And it was not another gladiator, either—not even Flamma. Should a gladiator threaten the medicae, he would be flogged and imprisoned.

It had to be have been someone in the house; someone not a slave. That left either a guard or Porcia, and of course—Caius knew Porcia had it out for him. He didn’t know why. Her fickleness angered him, but there was nothing he could do about it without endangering himself and every slave in the house. If a slave—even a gladiator—attacked his Dominus, it usually meant the death of most of the house’s slaves.

His suspicion was that she had some money riding on him to lose. She was such a gambler, after all. The thought made him smile. If only she knew his plan!

There was one upside to all of this, though. The heat in the kiss with Aeliana was real, not imagined. That was the best part of Chloe coming to stitch his leg.

That knowledge carried through in every thrust he parried, every swing he forced into his sparring partners on the sands. The thrum of that simple fact pushed his legs forward for another lap around the yard with the Hell Log weighing him down. The memory of her lips, untainted and perfect, vibrated through him like a sword rapped against stone. At night, the air was cold but his thoughts, his flesh was all hot. Not hot enough—not hot with the thrill of her touch.

That after so long, he could find affection like that again...

His usual doubts—his terror, really—of Fortune souring on him was present. But not as present as the memory of their kiss.

When the hooded form suddenly shadowed his portal, he thought it was Aeliana at first. But after a moment, his vision corrected—no. Too tall, and wearing too much perfume. Guards flanked her on either side, keeping their distance from the cell door.

“Hello, Domina.”

“Slave.” She pushed her hood down, revealing her beautiful,  severe face. “I heard our prized Ursus was injured.” She gestured at his leg. “Show it to me.”

“As you wish.”

He pushed into the light and showed her the jagged, healing scar that formed. The flesh around the black stitches was thick and purple. The stitchwork was ugly, but it did the job. Another ugly scar on Caius’s form did not trouble him much. He felt it gave his thigh some character, even.

“Who did this?”

“I did, Domina. I did a little sewing work as a freedman.”

She turned up her nose. “And where did you get the needle and thread?”

He shrugged. “Iunius supplies every man here with whatever he should need.”

“I did not authorize him to sell that to you.”

“Do you authorize him to sell extra rations to Flamma? Or olive oil to a fighter who wants to braid his hair? Pen and paper for letters? He sells, and we buy.”

Caius had already paid Iunius to keep the story going. He was well used to selling things he shouldn’t—and being revealed that he had. He was as much a foundation in the ludus as the stones in the walls. Porcia would do nothing to him without Rufus’s approval.