Love of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 2) (18 page)

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G
wenn saw everything. She wondered what the Gods were like in their cloudy abodes overhead, ensuring somehow that she watched everything.

Certainly she had some freedom of choice, but there was a make-up to her personality that she could not help but obey. When Lucius let her walk away in the cell blocks, she could stand to be by herself only for a few minutes. Then, she searched him out.

She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him. Maybe all she wanted to do was hit him. But whatever it was, it had to be near him and somewhere where she could grab what she wanted to grab and hit what she wanted to hit, and do whatever else in the meantime.

When he was not in his cell, she looked for him outside on the training sands.

As she stepped out from the blocks, the first thing she saw was Lucius kissing Porcia.

Just like that. Just that quickly.

He certainly had a turn-around time, didn’t he?

Rage filled her, quiet and pure. How stupid could she
possibly
be?

The only reason that she had followed him was because of the sincerity she had felt when he apologized to her. What he had said made sense to her. Somewhere, deep in the throbbing empathy organs of her body, there was a resounding chorus that told her that she would have probably done the same if their circumstances had been somehow switched.

But then she walked out to this sight—and all of the empathy was burned away in a flash.

She hated him. Wholly and truly. She
hated
Lucius, and she wanted him to burn in the same way he burned her.

And somehow, that wasn’t even the most momentous thing to happen that night.

From the many victories yesterday, several guards had the night off or were drinking on the job. She was able to leave the cell block to no protests from the men posted there. The two guards slept next to one another, huddled over an amphora of wine. The guards sure to be awake and sober were those on the outside walls, and those manning the gate up the stairs to the estate house.

But other than that, the place was lightly manned. She could move freely if she moved with caution and did not try to escape. From the second she saw Lucius and Porcia's damnable kiss, she slipped into the shadows of the shed over the water trough. Furious thoughts filled her—and then the gates opened once more, with Senator Otho arriving.

Shortly thereafter, Lucius hurried away back to his cell, wiping his mouth. Gwenn silently wished him luck in trying to clean his own slime off of himself.

With Lucius out of sight, Otho closed on Porcia. In front of the cell blocks was a short overhang with tall wooden posts. There was plenty of shadow for someone who wanted to hide. Not quite knowing why, Gwenn snuck closer so she could hear them, staying in darkness the whole way there.

Otho said something, voice too low for Gwenn to make out. With little ceremony, Porcia slapped him—and then she slapped him again.

Spreading his hands, Otho shook his head. Again, she couldn’t hear him completely—but it seemed distinctly as if Porcia should not slap him again.

Porcia slapped him again.

There was a long moment of victorious silence. Porcia’s breaths were heavy and triumphant, her eyes blazing. She started to gather breath, as if to berate Otho for even entering the house at so late an hour. And then Otho took his hands to her neck.

Gwenn gasped, understanding right away what she was witnessing. She moved one way and then another, not knowing where to go, who to speak to. One of Otho’s guards patted him on the shoulder, encouraging him to take it easy.

“You shut your mouth, legionary,” Otho barked, “or you are next!”

The guard backed off, trading fearful glances with one another.

Porcia's bodyguards advanced. A strange hope sprang in Gwenn's chest. She did not know why she wanted to see Otho stopped, but she did. To murder a woman was a horrendous, god-defying act.

But as the bodyguards closed, Karro stepped behind Brutillus and slit his throat. Brutillus collapsed down to one knee and then two, his blood pouring out on the sands.

Gwenn watched, petrified, as Porcia slowly turned purple in Otho’s grip. She had tried to pry his hands loose to no avail. Her fingernails clung at his robe for a long time until they didn’t, and her limp body was held up from the ground only by the grip he held on her neck.

When Otho let her go, she collapsed dead.

Otho circled her body one way and then the other.

“You were a beautiful little toy,” he said to the corpse. He spoke loudly and Gwenn could hear every word. “Beautiful and cruel. But only I get to play with my toys.”

Karro approached Otho, holding out a hand. Otho sighed, untying a pouch from his belt and tossing it to the man. It landed with a heavy, unmistakable clinking of coin.

Now was the time to leave, if ever there was one. Gwenn backed up and tried to sneak, but she landed hard against a bucket on the ground, sending it skittering.

“Who goes there?” Otho demanded. “Come out of the shadows.”

Gwenn froze.

“Come out, now,” Otho said, clearly annoyed. “Unless you would like to know what it feels like to be cleared from darkness at the tip of a spear.”

He snapped his fingers and his guards went to action. Gwenn, very much
not
wanting to know what it felt like to be cleared from darkness at the tip of a spear, showed herself into the moonlight.

“Oh.” Otho’s smile was bright, his eyes as dead as ever. “That is just perfect. I like this very much.”

Swift action and words were needed or she was a dead woman. That was as sure as anything she had ever known.

“You don’t want to kill me,” Gwenn said quickly. “You don’t want that at all.”

“And why not?” Otho approached, hands held wide. “I just saw you murder my dearest Porcia in cold blood after slitting the throat of her favorite bodyguard. And just when I was going to propose marriage to her. She'd wanted that for ages, you see. Big dreams about her child arriving in high society.”

“I didn’t kill her,” said Gwenn.

“Of course you did, dear.” He nodded to his guards and to Karro. “I have witnesses. It’s clear the bloodlust from the arena was too much for your womanly constitution to handle. And you brought it home. I expect you were trying to escape. Perhaps we’ll have to kill all the slaves here, too. Can’t tolerate any resistance.”

The knowledge of what to do arrived cold and certain. It was kill or be killed.

How appropriate.

“I didn’t kill her,” said Gwenn. “Lucius did.”

Otho stopped now. He seemed curious. “Lucius? The one who fought as Orion? That Lucius?”

“We all saw him do it. Me. You. Your guards.”

“And why did
he
do it?” Otho seemed interested now.

“He was Porcia’s lover. Everyone here knew it. They’ll believe a jilted lover much easier than a gladiator’s bloodlust gone wrong, won’t they? He was her lover, and he saw the two of you, and he hated it.”

Otho stroked his chin. “Doesn’t he train you? Porcia told me he trained you.”

“He’s done a lot of things to me. That’s one of them.”

“Why betray him? After everything?”

“Never mind that. I’ll back you. I’ll say I saw everything. His hands on the blade. Everything. I know he was sleeping with her before. I can make it so he seems jealous.”

He came very close now. His breath smelled like ambergris and grit. “And why wouldn’t I just kill you and spout the story myself? My gold can buy the tongues of any guard here.”

“I’m an investment.”

“An investment? Certainly. For a ludus I don’t own.”

“Porcia dismantled this place, and you know it. I was the last bit of good luck she had. You can buy all her people here at a discount, and sell me at an enormous price based on your own name.”

Every fighter is his own manager
.

She pushed Lucius’s words away. He was nothing. He was slime.

“My own name?”

“You’re famous. A senator. I bested you in the atrium. Then you changed my fight in the arena and I bested you there. What rival of yours wouldn’t pay a fortune to own the one slave who bested you?”

His smile was empty. All of him was.

“I would shake your hand to seal the deal,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’d get dirty. You're a sly one, gladiatrix, I'll give you that.”

Perhaps it should have made her happy, outsmarting Otho like that. But in truth she just felt dirty, like he said.

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T
hree weeks passed after Porcia’s murder without event.

The word around the ludus was that the culprit was well-known to the officials in Puteoli, but they held off on action until the last remaining adult heir of House Varinius—Publius Antonius Varinius—arrived. It was by his word that punishment would be carried out, and only to his ears that the culprits would be revealed.

Lucius knew little of Publius. Only a few times in his stay at the ludus had Publius visited, and for none of those times had Publius bothered to interact very much with the gladiators. Not even the champions caught his interest, as they did most men.

It seemed to Lucius that Publius, having been raised by a lanista in a ludus, probably had lost his taste for the games once upon a time.

He couldn’t blame the man. Lucius had lost his taste for the games himself, but now he felt caught up in an even bigger one.

The last he saw of Porcia, she had been left alone with a madman. That she turned up strangled to death was a shock to him—she and Otho had seemed rather sympathetic to one another—but it was not a surprise. Otho was a madman, and any trust that Porcia had felt toward him had clearly been misplaced.

But Otho had taken it upon himself to take over the ludus. He re-doubled the guards with his own men and took up residence in her house.

Being a Senator of Rome and the nephew of the Emperor besides, no one had the will or the ability to stop him.

Every night he brought in whores from the city. Sometimes, Lucius stayed awake long enough to see them arrive. Other times, waking early in the morning, he saw them leaving the gates battered and bruised.

Otho was a particular kind of monster, that was for certain. Lucius felt rage boiling at the man for his actions, but did not see how he could act.

Even though Lucius knew the truth, there was nothing he could do. All the authorities he knew to talk to were in Otho’s pocket.

All he could do was wait for Publius to arrive and hoped that the man could see through Otho's ruse.

Not talking with Gwenn was torture. Not seeing her outside of training or eating. Not being with her. Not touching her. All sick forms of torture delivered onto him by the cruelest Gods the universe could conjure.

Without her touch, her presence, her listening ear, he focused on training. At night, he talked with Conall—the one good friend he still felt he had. Occasionally, Septus would join them, but Septus was often pulled into collaborations with Murus. Those two got along more than Septus and Lucius ever had.

The day of Publius’s arrival was cool and windy. After a series of cold fronts and a great many storms in the night, the weather finally seemed to turn more to the cool than the hot, as it did every year. All the rain left the sand heavy on the feet of the gladiators. Great glops of it were spread all around their watering area and the mess hall.

The new Dominus arrived shortly before lunch. There was little procession. He came on a horse, flanked by three armed guards also on horses. Otho came down from the great stairs to great him, and they held each other as if long fast friends.

Lucius suspected this was more show on Publius’s part—he had never struck Lucius as particularly keen on politics, but that did not mean he was totally bereft of savvy. A friend like Otho would mean a lot to the ludus which now belonged to him by right.

There was a short conversation between Otho, Publius, and Murus, who was called over. In short order, all the fighters were gathered before the three figures who stood up on the stairs so as everyone could see them.

Publius cleared his throat, and all quieted.

“Hello, gladiators.” He eyed the women for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to actually greet them.  “Gladiatrices.” He turned from the women then, giving them no more mind. “I apologize for the delay in my swift arrival. Plague threatens every city in the stretch from Gaul to Puteoli, and finding safe lodging was difficult.”

The fighters all traded confused glances. The punctuality of a free citizen certainly wasn't one of their priorities.

Publius cleared his throat and continued. “It is my understanding of these matters that you are all talented and win a great many matches for the glory and honor of this house. It is my goal to ensure that continues to happen. You will have my attention and my critical eye. All of you report to your doctores. Your doctores report to Murus. Murus reports to me. So it has worked, and so it shall ever.”

He turned then to Otho at his side.

“Senator Otho has taken a great personal interest in the affairs of this ludus. He is an honorable man from a wise and noble family. As such, I will take in his counsel over the next few days as I arrange the affairs of my sister-in-law and attend to the welfare of my surviving nephew.”

Murus leaned in to Publius for a moment, whispering something. The look Publius returned him was cold and dismissive. He clearly did not like being reminded of anything by a slave.

“The games at the end of this month approach. Senator Otho, in his upkeep of this ludus in my absence, has already forwarded our fees. With his counsel, all of you will have the matches that compliment your skills as best as possible. Until further notice, assume no alteration in the affairs of the ludus. Your training schedule, diet, supplies, and winnings will all remain as before.”

Otho stepped in front of Publius now. If Publius minded, he did not show it.

“We both are very excited to take this ludus to a place above and beyond where it was before. And some of you,” he smiled at the women, “will learn just how valuable you are.”