by L. A. Witt
Above us, the noise gets even louder; the munerator must have given a losing gladiator his verdict, and apparently the crowd is pleased with his decision.
Titus and I continue armoring up Hasdrubal until the squeak of cartwheels turns our heads. A pair of servants are wheeling out the body of one of the female gladiators. The wagon stops, and the woman is quickly stripped of equipment needed for the next fighter. Her body is battered and bloody, and it’s not just from the fatal wound to her throat. It’s no wonder the crowd is pleased; the fight must have been an impressive one.
Once her equipment is removed, the woman is carted away. The other woman emerges from the arena carrying a palm branch of victory and heavily favoring her left leg. One of her greaves is bloody, and as soon as it’s removed, a servant sets to work wiping it off while a medicus addresses the wounds on the woman’s upper leg. She grimaces, but doesn’t make a sound.
I’ve only seen a few women fight, and they’re as skilled and dangerous as any one of us. Men and women never fight each other in the arena; sometimes I wonder if it’s because the females stand a chance at soundly beating us, and no man’s reputation would ever recover from that.
Fight after fight, bout after bout, men and occasionally women go into the arena and leave bloody, battered, and sometimes dead. One of the men from our ludus leaves on the undertaker’s cart, and Drusus isn’t pleased, but nothing can be done except replace the lost fighter at the next auction.
Hasdrubal comes out of the arena, defeated and bleeding but not gravely injured.
“Good fight,” Drusus says as Quintus and I remove Hasdrubal’s gear. “No shame in a surrender after a fight like that one.”
Hasdrubal exhales, as do the rest of us. “Thank you, Dominus.” He hands off his helmet to Philosir, and then looks at me as he brushes sweat from his forehead. “Hey, Saevius.”
I glance up from untying the leather cords around the manica on his arm. “Yeah?”
He holds an herb-soaked rag to a wound on his side. Keeping his voice as low as he can, he says, “One of the retiarii lost his net. It’s half buried by the east end of the arena. Sand’s half covered it. Watch you don’t get tangled in it.”
“Good to know,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Saevius,” Drusus barks. “Get ready. Your match is coming up.”
“Yes, Dominus.” I leave the other men to help strip off Hasdrubal’s gear, and go outside with Sikandar and a couple of wooden swords to warm up. We spar a few times, with far less effort and violence than usual, and then return to where Drusus and the other men wait.
Hasdrubal fastens the bronze greaves around my legs. Sikandar picks up the manica and starts toward my right arm, but I stop him.
“Other arm.”
He pauses, cocking his head, then nods. “Oh, right.” He wraps the thick leather and linen around my arm, covering from my wrist to my shoulder. The rest of my torso is still exposed, as are my legs from the edge of my loincloth to the tops of the greaves just above my knees.
Drusus watches, an ornate bronze helmet with a horsehair plume tucked under his arm. He gestures with his free hand at another fighter who’s getting ready. In a hushed whisper, he says to me, “Watch this one. Capaneus has fought left-handers before. Notorious for beating them. He knows what he’s up against, so don’t get cocky.”
I nod. “Understood.”
Our eyes meet. The faintest smile on his lips makes my stomach flip.
“Gods be with you,” he says quietly.
Almost whispering, I reply, “Thank you, Dominus.”
He holds my gaze for another half a heartbeat, then looks at the helmet in his hands. Without a word, he hands it to me, and then he’s gone.
As is my breath.
“Saevius, you ready?” someone shouts, and I shake myself back to life.
“Ready.” I pull on the helmet. Armored, helmeted, and armed with the short, sharp sword and small round shield of a thraex, I wait. I glance at Capaneus, and he peers at me through his helmet’s visor. In his hand, he has the larger shield. With that shield, he’ll be fighting as a myrmillo, which means the bastard has the advantage every myrmillo has over a thraex. Apparently my left-handedness gives me an advantage, and his larger shield evens the odds between us. Except he’s fought left-handed fighters before. Evening the odds, indeed.
Capaneus goes out into the arena first, and the crowd roars with approval. I shift my weight and loosen, tighten, loosen my grasp on my weapon’s hilt as people chant his name. So he’s a spectator favorite. With experience against left-handers. And a larger shield.
I pull in a deep breath and slowly release it. Spectator favorites usually get missus—mercy—from the munerator if they’re defeated. Their opponents? A blade to the throat, a crowd-pleasing spray of blood on the victor’s greaves, and a ride out of the arena in the bed of a cart.
The gate opens again, and I whisper a prayer just before I jog through the tunnel to join Capaneus on the sand under the blazing sun. My eyes are slow to adjust as I emerge from darkness into the bright afternoon, but they do adjust, and the velarium extending out over the stands to shade the spectators keeps the sun from my eyes.
We face off in the middle of the arena. Weapons poised, we circle each other slowly, and he’s certainly sizing me up like I am him. Eyes are nearly impossible to see through visors, but I can figure him out as a fighter without much trouble. Same height as me. Perhaps a little broader in the shoulders. Keeps his shield high to protect his throat. Vulnerable from just above the greaves to nearly mid-thigh. Light on his feet and subtly closing the distance between us.
He attacks.
Drusus is right. This man knows how to fight a left-handed gladiator, and he’s good. Blow for blow, he matches me, parrying away blade and shield alike, and he narrowly misses my bare torso as many times as I narrowly miss his. Metal hits metal, shield hits shield, sword hits sword, and now and again, iron bites flesh. Blood and sweat mingle. Dust swirls around our feet.
The spectators love it, and before long, they’re cheering as much for my hits as Capaneus’s.
I parry his blade with my shield, and he takes advantage of the momentary exposure to shove the edge of his shield into my ribs. The impact drives the breath out of me and surrounds my vision with white sparks, but I recover enough to fend off his sword before it delivers a strike to my abdomen. I swing my shield, hit his arm, and not only deflect the blow but throw him off balance, then I lunge forward to shove my sword into his upper leg.
The spectators drown out the roar of pain, and when he drops to his knee, the entire crowd is on their feet. I raise my shield to hit his visor and knock him the rest of the way to the ground, but he thrusts up his arm with his index finger extended. I back off, and the umpire steps between us. Thank the gods; another moment or two and my aching arms and legs probably would have cost me the match.
Once the umpire is certain I’ve backed down, all three of us turn toward the munerator. High above us, he stands, holding out his arm with a closed fist, and the amphitheatre trembles with the crowd’s enthusiastic pleas for Capaneus’s life to be spared.
“Missum! Missum! Missum!” they shout. Louder and louder as the munerator’s indecision drags on.
At last, the munerator signals that Capaneus is to be granted missus, and I wonder if the pleased spectators will bring the entire amphitheatre crumbling to the ground around us.
The umpire guides Capaneus to his feet and helps him out of the arena as the spectators chant both Capaneus’s name and mine. I accept my palm branch and purse of coins from the munerator, and slowly make my way back to the tunnel as the spectators continue shouting their approval.
The tunnel shades the blazing sun from my shoulders, and I release a breath as I pull off my heavy helmet.
Immediately, the other men from the ludus start removing my equipment, unfastening the greaves around my legs and untying the leather bands around the manica on my arm. Hasdrubal takes my weapons and passes
them on to one of the other men, who’s getting ready for his own match.
Drusus looks me up and down. “Anything broken or bleeding?”
“No.” I shove the helmet into Sikandar’s hands. “Took a few to the ribs, but they’ll heal.”
“Serves you right for letting down your guard.” Drusus arches that damned eyebrow. “Still, well done.” He claps my shoulder. “Fight like that every time, you’ll be a legend.”
I bow my head slightly as I tuck the coin purse into my belt. “Thank you, Dominus.”
He smiles, and I return it, pretending the shiver is just from being in the shade after enduring the sun’s brutal heat.
Drusus quickly pulls his gaze from mine and gestures down the corridor. In a heartbeat, the lanista is back to his sharp tone. “Get some water. Rest a bit.”
“Yes, Dominus.”
The men remove the last of my protective equipment, and I tilt my head a few times to work out the ache from the weight of the helmet. Rolling my shoulders and kneading my exhausted muscles, I leave the tunnel, hoping the masseurs here are half as good as those in Rome.
I’m not even clear of the tunnel, though, before a sharp voice says, “You there. Gladiator.” When I turn, he looks me in the eye; even a slave doesn’t bow to a gladiator. “Come with me.”
I glance back at Drusus, who’s staring intently out at the fight going on in the arena. To the servant, I reply, “Let me get some water first, you fool.”
“The Lady Maximus waits.” He gestures outside. “She will not wait long. This way.”
I try not to groan. I haven’t even put cool water on my tongue yet, and the pain in my ribs makes me disinclined to spend an afternoon feigning passion for a noblewoman whose husband can’t or won’t satisfy her. There are worse things for a gladiator to endure, though, and no gladiator in any familia would turn away money for his lanista.
So I nod, and when the servant turns to go, I follow him. I haven’t seen this servant before, but I haven’t been in Pompeii long enough to know a noblewoman from the faces of her servants.
There are plenty of places within the amphitheatre itself, rooms where a woman and her gladiator of choice can steal away long enough to satisfy her craving, but the slave leads me outside and strides briskly toward the street. Behind me, the stands rumble and people roar over the deafening music, the crowd evidently satisfied by the fight going on now, but the sound fades as we continue away from the Ludi and into the city.
He takes me into a brothel, and it’s one I’ve visited more than once to service other wives. Madam Lucretia lets local women take gladiators into the rooms here for a steep fee, which she splits with Drusus.
The madam peers at us as we step through the curtain-covered doorway. She acknowledges me with a sharp nod, but says nothing.
The servant takes me down a short hall, and stops in front of a closed door. “In here.”
On the other side, a man groans loudly as a woman cries out, and the sounds of movement and friction are unmistakable.
To the servant, I quietly say, “I think someone is already taking care of her.”
“You’ll wait for her,” he snaps. Then he leaves, and I stand in front of the door like a damned fool listening to another man fuck the woman I’m supposed to entertain.
Her cries are as loud and enthusiastic as the whores in the rooms around hers. I suppose it’s just as well another man is having her first; she sounds insatiable, and I’m in no shape to be the first to take on a woman like that.
The pair inside the room fall quiet. Voices murmur and clothing rustles. Then the door opens, and a half-naked Egyptian woman with smeared makeup and a sheen of perspiration on her skin steps out, shutting the door behind her. She throws me a glance, and then brushes past me on her way down the hall. I wait for the man to emerge, but he doesn’t.
The door opens again.
Finally. Now I can get this over with and return to the—
Jupiter’s balls.
Staring back at me from the other side of the threshold inside the lamp-lit room is neither an amorous noblewoman nor a spent gladiator, but a half-clothed Calvus Laurea himself. Sweat glistens on his forehead, and even in the low light, the red lines on his bare chest and arms are clearly visible.
Instinctively, I snap to attention. “Dominus.”
“Get in here,” he orders, and I obey. He shuts the door behind us and leans on it. I wonder if he’s as aware as I am that he’s blocking the only way into or out of this room. “What have you learned?”
“I haven’t heard anyone speak Ver—”
He lunges forward and swings an arm to backhand me, but I grab his wrist in midair.
We stare at each other, his wrist twitching in my hand and his lip curled into a furious snarl. My fighter reflex dissipates in favor of remembering my place as a slave, and I release his arm.
“My apologies, Dominus.”
He jerks his hand back. “Don’t you dare speak her name here,” he growls. “Do you want someone to start slandering my good name because of your loose lips?”
I grind my teeth, weighing the consequences of snapping the man in half with so many people nearby, and finally settle on repeating, “My apologies, Dominus.”
He looks me in the eye. “Tell me only what you know.”
“I know nothing yet,” I say.
The politician’s eyes narrow. “It’s been weeks.”
Through clenched teeth, I lie, “And until the other men accept me into the familia, they won’t breathe a word of anything where I can hear it. It will take—”
“My wife is being defiled, and my respectable reputation with her,” he says in a hushed voice. “I haven’t the time for the social intricacies of a horde of savage slaves.”
“My apologies, Dominus,” I say quietly. “I know nothing about an affair, but she’s been to the ludus.” I moisten my lips. “With a young boy. They come, they stay in the training yard, and they leave.”
“What is their business there?”
“The boy, he’s fascinated with us. With gladiators.” I swallow. “Likes to watch us spar and hear our stories. Ver—I’ve never seen her so much as look at any of the men.”
No relief appears in his expression. His eyebrows pull together and his lips peel back across his teeth as he steps closer to me. “Listen to me, gladiator.” His nostrils flare and his eyes narrow. “She’s fucking a man in that ludus. I know she is. And you will find me his name, or I’ll have no choice but to send in a more competent man to do so.”
I force myself not to shiver at the unspoken threat. No scorned husband will ever relinquish a slave who knows too much about his wife’s crimes. Not with the ability to speak, anyway.
“With respect, Dominus,” I say, “how do you know she’s—”
“Don’t question me, you son of a whore!” He seizes my shoulders and, with his face nearly touching mine, he growls, “Don’t you dare, you—”
“If you tell me how you know,” I say quickly, “then perhaps that will help me find him.”
His grip doesn’t loosen, but the fury in his expression dissipates a little in favor of . . . of something else. Something I didn’t think I’d ever see on the face of Master Calvus. The focus leaves his eyes, and his voice is quieter as he says, “There are days when she returns from her errands and won’t even look at me. Her shame, I swear I can smell it on her.” Renewed fury contorts his lips. “And it’s just the same when she returns from taking the boy”—he spits the word like it’s poison—“to that ludus.”
I hold my breath, unsure if he’s less dangerous now that his temper is under control, or if he’s a heartbeat away from cutting my throat.
“Whoever he is,” Calvus says, and now he looks me in the eyes, “he’s there. And she’s met with him both inside the ludus and out.”
“So he’s a citizen,” I say. “Or a freedman.”
Calvus nods. “I won’t tolerate this insult.” His fingers tighten on my shoulders, and
his lip curls into a snarl as he says, “Find his name, gladiator.”
Every muscle in my body is tense, poised to fight if his hands echo the threat in his voice. I quietly say, “I will, Dominus.”
“See that you do.” He shoves me away from him, then stabs a finger at me. “You have seven days. Then you will meet my servant here, and you will tell him if you’ve learned anything at all. If you have, he will tell you when and where you will meet with me. If not . . .” He inclines his head. “Then you’ll meet him again seven days later, but I warn you against trying my patience.”
I sweep my tongue across my parched lips. “Yes, Dominus.”
“Dismissed,” he snaps.
I leave the room as quickly as I can. Behind me, Calvus barks, “Isis, get back in here.”
“Coming, sir.” The Egyptian prostitute who’d been in the room earlier trots past me, and the door closes behind her.
In spite of my aching muscles, I hurry back to the amphitheatre.
Titus and Hasdrubal pass me in the tunnel, half carrying a grimacing Sikandar. No doubt on their way to the medicus to address the deep wound in his side.
Closer to the arena, Lucius helps Quintus put on his manica, and I don’t envy Philosir: he’s sweaty, battered, bloody, and on the receiving end of a seething tirade from our angry lanista. I can’t hear what Drusus is saying, but his furious expression is eerily reminiscent of the one I faced down just moments ago in the brothel.
Philosir is dismissed. Quintus jogs into the arena. Iovita and Lucius wipe blood off a pair of greaves that one of them is probably going to put on before long.
Drusus faces me, and he grins. “Barely out of the arena, and already the women are calling for you. A legend in the making, indeed.”
I force myself to look amused. “Thank you, Dominus.”
He holds out his hand. “I assume she paid well.”
Ice forms around my joints. “I . . .”
