Heart of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 1) (6 page)

Somehow, when making the decision to return to the arena, his brain had focused only on the good parts. As if trying to convince him subconsciously, his memories had been pulled entirely from the glory of victory, the thrill of the crowd chanting his name, the exultation at a blow well struck.

But what he had forgotten was the constant pain. Flamma brought it all back now.

Around them, the crowd of gladiators had changed their volume from a cheerful, quiet roar to a hushed observation. Occasionally one of Flamma’s men would cheer his name, but that was all.

The other gladiators knew this was not a test of skill—it was Flamma sending a message.

The blow on his leg was followed by another, and Caius barely shoved his shield in to block the blow. That saved his leg from being broken. Having none of this, Flamma struck again at Caius’s shoulder, numbing it. He couldn’t raise his arm anymore. Swinging his sword to clear some distance, Caius backed up quickly, hoping for time. Just a little time to catch his breath.

Flamma approached, a great pot-bellied vision of terror. He feinted to one side and Caius bought in wholesale, tired and reeling. With his head turned the wrong way, Flamma had an easy time of slamming his training sword against Caius’s head.

He fell to the sand in a heap. Summoning all his willpower through the ringing pain in his ears, he held up the two fingers, asking for mercy.

Flamma did not look as if he would give it to him. The gladiator spat on Caius and grinned, hoisting his weapon up high.

“Flamma!” Murus voice was clear across the ludus. “Enough.”

An immense frown crested Flamma’s face. He spat again and stomped away through the sands. Mercifully, the ordeal was over.

But unless something changed, and soon, Caius knew he would only have more of that beast to contend with in the future.

––––––––

S
eptus and Lucius brought Caius up to Aeliana shortly after the sparring match with Flamma. He was out of his head from the blow to his skull, insisting on standing up for several moments.

“I am a
gladiator
and I stand.” He sounded drunk, but it was just from the concussion force of the blow to his head. “I walk from place to place.”

“Of course you do, Caius,” said Septus. “You walked all the way here.”

He had not, of course. Caius had been half-dragged, half-led up the many stairs to the medicae’s office, held up by Lucius and Septus.

Septus put his hands on Aeliana’s shoulders. “You look after him, Faun. He’s a good man. And a good fighter, despite what you saw down there.”

That was clear enough to Aeliana already. Flamma wanted blood, and Caius was rusty. It would have been that way with anyone.

“Don’t call her that,” said Lucius. “She doesn’t like it.”

“What, Faun? Isn’t that her name?” Septus turned to Aeliana. “Isn’t that your name?”

“It’s
Aeliana
,” said Caius, “and it’s very lovely.”

There was that flush again, creeping and tugging at her neck, like the knowing grip of a long-time lover.

Lucius turned to Aeliana with a great grin on his face. “Oh my. You two
did
come in together, didn’t you? Have you been prancing about with the bear, little faun?”

“You just told me not to call her that.” Septus frowned.

“
You
said it as her name. I said it in jest. It’s a world of difference.”

Septus bristled. It was a natural reaction for him. He was bristly. He slapped Lucius on the back. “Come on. Let’s get out of her hair.’

It took Aeliana a moment to realize that the entire interaction had passed without her saying a word. That was...unusual, to say the least. Her focused misanthropy when it came to the gladiators did not present itself in cold silence. More often than not, she was actively disparaging of their activities. But seeing Caius—enormous and strong—so readily vulnerable and in so much pain...it was a distraction. Her heat and attraction for him gave way to real medical concern, and she was a professional.

Next time she saw Lucius, she would stomp on his feet and call him a scum-sucking drunk bastard. He would laugh her off, like he always did, but it was something at least.

After they left, she kept Caius upright and conscious. Anytime she saw him on the verge of passing out, she administered some foul-smelling sulfur under his nose and his dark eyes jammed open. They retained a heavy glaze. A few hours passed like this, with Aeliana taking inventory of her supplies and sending Chloe down to the training grounds with solutions and bandages as the fighters there needed them.

Eventually, though, Caius’s head returned to him.

“Oh,” he said suddenly, voice clear. “Oh, ow.”

He put a hand to his head tenderly, feeling the bruise there. She had wrapped a small poultice around the large bruises in his leg and shoulder, encouraging the blood flow to rush there. There were no breaks in the bone, and his concussion seemed mild. He would need to take it easy for a few days, though.

She told him as much, and he listened patiently.

“I’m sure you’re excellent at your job. You’d have to be, in this place.” He spread his hands. “But, I can’t afford to wait that long.”

“Then you’ll injure yourself again and you’ll get hurt worse, and then you’ll
have
to be at bed rest.”

Caius frowned. “I’ll feel better tomorrow. I was just knocked loopy a bit. I know my limits.”

“You
knew
your limits. And then you came back to this awful place. For reasons I can’t understand.”

“What?” Caius smiled. “You’re not swept away by the honor and glory of a honorable fight and a glorious death?”

She bent over, looking at the wound on his head. He smelled like campfires and oak. The idle thought of bottling his essence somehow passed through her head. She could sniff at it at nights to feel this strange amalgam of heart-racing calm. An urge to kiss the top of his head took hold of her—to kiss him, and to cradle his face against her bosom—and she had to close her eyes and shake her head for a moment to exorcise the feeling. She felt like she was going mad.

Gingerly, she pressed in on the contusion. The swelling had gone down.

“I have to wonder whether you’re saying things like that because of the blow to your head or because you’re very bad at pretending. ‘The honor of an honorable fight!’ Surely you can do better than that.”

Her fingertips rested against his face for just a moment. But it was a moment too long if she wanted to have her emotions remain hidden. There was a flash in his eyes—a flash of want and desire—that she had never expected to see from a man such as he. A strong man. A handsome man.

A man that she hadn't been able to stop wanting since she had seen him earlier that day.

With startling quickness, he took her hand by the wrist. “You have soft skin.”

There was no way to hide the heat her entire body felt at such a touch. The best she could do to hide the sudden spike in sensations was to not hold her breath.

“Part of my job entails access to a great many lotions.”

His grip was not firm. Slipping away would have been easy. But she didn’t.

“It feels good. Do you lotion...everything?”

Now she
did
slip away, but only to hide that damnable flush again. She wished she were bigger. More skin for the heated blood to rise through before arriving at her face. More excuses as to why she could not keep her face from heating so in front of this man.

Behind her, Caius stood. “I thank you for your service for me. And, for your discretion.”

“Discretion?”

He put a hand on her shoulder. His strong fingers pressed against her back, and she had to gulp to resist the urge to purr. “You clearly know my feelings about being here are mixed. I would prefer that remain between you and me. Flamma might have been more agitated than I expected, and more early, but if other gladiators caught wind of my hesitations, I would be living among a pack of rabid dogs.”

“You are already.” She turned to face him.

“Yes.” He smiled. “But they think I am rabid too.”

He walked out then. She gazed with no little admiration at the thick muscles of his shirtless back. When he stopped at the door, a dozen strange fantasies ran through her head all at once. Would he demand her body then and there? Would he press her against the wall, every thick muscle sliding her upward until her legs wrapped lustily around his waist?

He did none of those.

“You can understand, by the way.”

“Understand what?”

“The reasons why I’m here. I have a daughter, Fabia. As things stood, I was too poor to give her the life she deserves. I fight for her. She’s the only thing in this life I have worth fighting for.”

She responded without thinking. “And dying for?”

“Especially that. Only that, if it means a good life for her.”

––––––––

T
he sun set on Puteoli, and Caius had spent only a few moments in his cell before a guard arrived to escort him back to the house of the Dominus. Caius took the steps slowly, still feeling the effects of his beating earlier, but his head felt leagues better than it had before. Aeliana really knew her work.

How he had left her office after touching her—first on her hand, and then her shoulder—was beyond him. Every part of his being had been yearning to stay. To explore. She certainly did not object to his hands upon her. He wondered how far that courtesy could go. That thought made his manhood stir.

He could not focus on that now. It would not do to walk into a meeting with a dominus clearly affected by thoughts of a woman. Even if that woman was steadily burning him to pieces.

The large house faced the training grounds, with an extended balcony over the front door where Rufus could walk out and observe his fighters and trainers at work.

When he had been here last, Caius was regularly brought inside the bounds of the
domus
. Guests often wanted to see gladiators up close, to have a look at their physique and maybe see a sparring match between two favorites.

There were always guests at House Varinius. During the day, they passed by the training fighters on their way up into the house. Most of them were clients of Rufus and he their patron.

The system of patronage was not something Caius had a firm grasp on during his short tenure in freedom. If he had, likely he wouldn't have brought his family to destitution.

Essentially, patronage was a series of exchanged favors that the entirety of Roman society was built upon. A patron would provide their clients with money, food, and jobs. And likewise, a client would provide a patron sometimes with labor, but more often with political and societal support—like votes in elections or petitioning for a patron to be placed a certain office. In Caius's case, most likely he would have been a hired knife for some ambitious collegium head—and killing was not what Caius wanted in his life any longer after finishing up as a gladiator.

Like many Roman freedmen, once he had earned his freedom, he wanted only to earn his own way and run his life the way he thought a freedman's life ought to be run. And so he eschewed the social obligations of patronage and unintentionally made a few enemies in the community—enemies who could have been patrons of his. With all his investments gone sour, he'd had nothing—and no one—to fall back on.

Slaves walked by Caius, some carrying blankets and trays, others amphoras and bowls. There was always something slaves needed to attend to in a Roman house, if only to keep them too busy to imagine revolting. On the walls hung many decorations. One held the favored gladiatorial weapons of the Dominus.

The House of Varinius was known for its skilled fighters in the thraex, retarius, and dimachaerus styles. Other Houses, other ludi were known for other attributes—the strength and size of their fighters, or their speed, or their trickiness in battle—or other specialities, like the heavily armored murmillo and secutor styles. The House of Varinius sometimes employed styles other than those of its specialty, but only for well-rounding in its training.

Caius took a moment as he stepped on the cool marble of the atrium to look around. He recalled the place possessing, if not splendor, then a particularly clean and austere atmosphere. But the home now seemed in disrepair. Golden and silver candlebras had been replaced with bronze and copper. Long cracks showed in several walls. Some of the marble had been replaced with simple limestone or granite.

What had happened to let this place fall into such disrepair?

“I don’t like it, Rufus! Not one bit!”

Storming out from the corner office where Caius headed was Porcia Calidius Minor, Rufus’s young and beautiful wife. She was blond and, in that particular moment, fuming. Caius heard Rufus’s voice trailing after her.

“Come now, Porcia. Calm yourself.”

“I will not!” She turned, raising her voice. “How am I supposed to be a respectable member of the Greens without laying down a bet for my cause?”

Caius understood immediately. Rufus had married Porcia shortly before Caius’s departure. She had never seemed to like Caius, which had not bothered him that much, as she had little say in the operations of the ludus and Rufus did not let her have much say in which men fought and how.

As a result, perhaps to spite Rufus, she had taken to a different area of the games than the gladiator fights—the chariot races. There were four factions in the chariot races in the Empire—the Greens, the Reds, the Whites, and the Blues. Choosing a team was akin to pledging allegiance to a king. It was a dedicated position that could not be undone without severe social consequences.

The lady liked to bet on her team. And—Caius looked around once more at the crumbling architecture of the house—she apparently did not bet wisely with her husband's money.

Rufus appeared in the doorway now. He raised an easy hand to Porcia’s face, perhaps hoping to calm her. She turned harshly. There was as much warmth between them as between Caius’s foot and the floor.

The two had a child stashed away at a school somewhere. He was about seven, to Caius's recollection. A smart, gentle boy named Marius. Porcia did not relish much the duties of motherhood, and Rufus allowed her to find a good place somewhere out of the city to stay.