A bolt of joy shot through my worries.
Done with his examination, Pompeius reached again for his cup. Finding that he had already tossed its contents down his gullet, he looked around, for a servant, I was certain. I watched with some amusement while pulling myself awkwardly into a sitting position. The man looked bewildered that the only other people to be found were the gladiators. He did not appear of a mind to ask either of the large, imposing men to fill his cup for him.
“Do you not have more help here?” He appeared amazed as I rose to take the pitcher of wine in hand and fill his cup.
“I do.” This was the opening I had been looking for. “My own girl. She is upstairs. She has been ill since before we arrived here, and I do not know what to do to ease her discomfort. I would be most grateful if you would examine her before you leave.”
“Examine a slave girl?” He blinked over the rim of his cup, but nodded shortly thereafter. It might have been an odd request, but I knew that he would not quibble over the extra fee that he would be paid. “Very well. Show me to her room.”
The man’s face again showed surprise to find that Drusilla’s room was upstairs, not in the slaves’ quarters. But he held his tongue, simply bending over his work. My gut clenched when I saw that Drusilla was too weak to even acknowledge that we were there.
Pompeius’ mouth set in a grim line as he noted the girl’s pale skin, the sheen of damp on her face, and the speckles of blood on her pillow. Alarm shot through me when I saw the blood.
“What is this from?” I gestured to Drusilla’s pillow, my eyes searching the doctor’s face. He shushed me and continued his inspection of the girl. I stood, worry gnawing at my insides as he worked his way over her body.
When he had concluded his work, Pompeius nodded toward the hall. I followed him out, anxious to hear what could be done to help ease Drusilla’s suffering.
“It is the consumption.” The words were blunt, not tempered with emotion of any kind. “The lung sickness.”
I waited for him to say more. He did not.
“What does that mean?” I had not heard of this before, but then, I had been sheltered for much of my life. “What can I do?”
Puzzlement set over his face. “There is nothing to do, my dear.” After a moment’s thought, he reached out to pat me on the shoulder, to offer comfort. He might not understand why a slave girl meant so much to me, but he would acknowledge it. “She will die, and soon.”
I cried out, feeling my blood rushing to my head in a great wave. Marcus, who had been standing at the end of the hall, moved toward me faster than I had ever seen a man move. I heard loud steps on the stairs, and assumed that Caius ran toward me, as well.
“You must stay calm, my dear. For the child.” I heard the doctor’s words over the sudden buzzing in my head, but shook myself, denying everything that he had said.
A gladiator stood on each side of me, ready to catch me should I fall. But I found my legs surprisingly steady. Inside I still felt as though I was screaming, but I would not fall or succumb to hysterics.
“Thank you, Pompeius.” Drawing myself up, retreating into myself, I nodded as regally as I could manage. “Make certain that you charge Lucius for the extra time.”
The man nodded, and the expression on his face was slightly confused.
“Escort him out, please.” I pushed through the three men, not waiting to see if they would heed my words or not.
I pushed through the curtain that covered the room where Drusilla lay. I stood just inside, staring down at her, unable to identify what, exactly, it was that I felt.
Pompeius did not seem able to understand why I would be upset over the death of a slave. Perhaps I did not fully understand it, either. She had been my lover. She was the closest thing that I had to a friend. She had always been there.
And now she was dying.
For the first time I noticed the smell that hung heavy in the air of her chamber. It was a heavy musk, and it smelled of sickness, of death. I wondered that I had not noticed it before. Guilt streaked through me when I realized that I had been too wrapped up in my own life to notice much of anything. And besides that, I had not been looking for it.
I had thought that she would be fine.
Pulling a cushion over to the expanse of marble by the head of the bed, I lowered myself stiffly until I was seated there. Leaning against the wall beside the low cot, I stared down at the pale face, the snarls of brown hair.
I did not know what else to do.
I did not sleep. For the next week I sat on that same cushion by my friend’s bed, brushing her hair away from her face as blood came up from her lungs, supporting her back while coughs racked her slender frame. In the quiet between her bouts, I curled into a ball on the floor, sorting through my memories of Drusilla, sharpening them desperately, lest I forget some small detail.
There was no part of my life in which she had not been a part. My very first memory, of being a small girl myself and having my hair combed out and braided, had included a tiny, wide eyed girl who watched with big eyes. The girl had been Drusilla. The slave combing my hair had been her mother.
When her mother had died several years later, Drusilla had clung to me for comfort. After the household had gone to bed, she had snuck into my own room, knowing that I had the comfort she sought, and knowing that I would never tell.
She had in turn comforted me when I took hysterics after my first kiss, that innocent slave boy who belonged to the neighboring familia. He had been beaten very nearly to death, all because of me. Drusilla had helped to alleviate my guilt.
She had calmed my nerves with copious amounts of wine on the eve of my marriage, and she had come with me to my new home. She was the sole part of my old life that had merged into my new one.
Now that last link was fading away, and with it all vestiges of my former meek self. Drusilla would no longer be here to comfort me, to protect me.
I would have to do it myself.
She drifted away a week later, her soul departing her body on one final, whispered breath. In accordance with tradition, I sealed the passage of her spirit with a kiss on lips that were already starting to cool, and closed her eyes with shaking fingers.
I was numb. I had spent the past week in a haze, growing more used to the knowledge that she was dying, but not any less grievous about it.
Marcus and Caius had done their best to comfort me, to feed us both, to make sure that I slept, but I was not in a place where I could appreciate it.
As I sat on the bed beside her body, I knew that I would not take her back to Rome. As her familia, we owed her a proper burial, but I did not care so much for the pomp and circumstance that a funeral demanded.
I did not think she would have cared for it, either. I thought I knew quite well what she would like, and a formal funeral procession led by my husband, the head of her house but whom she had never cared for, was not it. And so I resolved to amend tradition in her favor. She had been a good person. I was not afraid that her soul would not pass.
At dawn the next morning I had Caius and Marcus help me take her outside, by the water. It seemed to me that she had been happiest here, at the coast, much as I was. There I washed her in the sea, my own hands cleaning away the dredges of sickness from her body. I combed the long ribbons of hair until it was again silky smooth and I anointed her skin with the herbal oil that I used for my baths.
I dressed her in one of my own tunics, the finest one that I had with me. And while I covered her motionless, waxen form in the emerald silk, I performed the lamentations, calling her name aloud, over and over again.
I had my warriors build a pyre of driftwood as I prepared her. Before they lifted her atop it, I placed Charon’s obol in her mouth—a coin ensuring special passage to the afterlife. She had been a slave without a coin of her own, but I thought she deserved that special salvation.
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We watched as the pyre burned, the three of us, standing in the sand by the water. The sickly sweet smell of burning flesh should have made me sick, but I was too far into my grief to notice such things.
The two men did not have to stay with me, and I told them so, for I intended to remain until the last ember had cooled. But there they stood, one on either side of me, stern and solemn.
I knew that Drusilla would have appreciated the tribute.
Hours later, hours that seemed like mere minutes, I gathered the ashes. The fire had cooled, and so I placed them in a vase that had sat in the house. Custom said that I should seal it, but the idea did not sit well with me. Drusilla had been a slave in this lifetime. I wanted her to be free in the next. I waded out into the water, letting it lap at my knees, and tipped the vase into the wind. The salty breeze carried away the remains of my girl, and with it, the last vestiges of my old life.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I am not returning to Lucius.”
My two gladiators sat with me at the table, all three of us picking at the oatmeal and fruit that I had laid out in front of us. Two sets of hands stilled, and two brows furrowed.
“What is your meaning?” Caius clearly did not take my statement at face value and cocked his head in my direction inquisitively.
“I mean just as I said. I will not return to Lucius, not as his wife.” I made certain to keep my face expressionless, free from emotion, so that they would understand that this was not a decision that I had come to lightly.
“How do you intend to support yourself?” This was Marcus, ever the more practical.
I ignored his question, and replied with one of my own. It was important, very important, for me to hear the answer before I told them of my jewels.
“Will you stay with me?” I looked at each in turn. Caius, with his god-like face, and Marcus with nearly black eyes. I wanted, more than anything, for them to stay with me. To be with me.
Both hesitated, and my heart sank.
“I think . . . I think that neither of us would like anything more.” Marcus, when he spoke, sounded raspy and hoarse. “But we do not have enough money saved to buy our freedom, freedom for both of us. And we took an oath to the ludus, to our dominus. It would damn us both to renege.”
I eyed them both warily. “Is that truly the only reason that you would return?” Doubt began to plague me. What if they really would rather return to the ludus, to the arena? To life without me?
“Yes.” Caius drew the word out. “Yes. Of course.”
Relief felt cool, like the ocean breeze. “I have money. Or rather, I have things to sell for money. Enough to live modestly for many years.” I was still not certain what I would do when the money from the jewels ran out, but I did not pause to think of that now.
Both men shook their heads vehemently, and I started, not expecting the response at all.
“No. Our woman will not pay for our freedom.” Though I warmed at being called their woman, I sighed at Marcus’ stubbornness.
Caius agreed. “We will find another way.”
“I am champion,” Marcus said quietly. “Perhaps if I saved all that I earned, in a year . . .”
We all sat in silence, thinking of what another year would bring. I would have my child then, a child that by rights belonged to one of them, but one who would be introduced to the world as the offspring of Lucius.
I shook my head, resolute. “I will find a way. A way that does not involve my paying for you.” The last was added hastily as both men opened their mouths to protest again. “I will convince Lucius.”
“How?” Caius did not sound as if he did not believe that I could. No, he merely sounded curious.
“I will threaten to tell Baldurus that the child I carry does not belong to my husband.” This was something that might or might not have effect. Baldurus may not care at all about parentage, so long as there was a child in the family.
I was betting everything that I held dear, however, that it would be completely against his morals.
Marcus considered, nodding. “And if Lucius will not let you go?”
I did not like to think of this, but I had. “I will run away.” I would sell my jewels and travel far, far away. “With or without you.” I nearly left the last words inside my mouth, as it made it sound as if I did not care whether they were with me or not.
I did care. I would be miserable without them. But if they would not come, I was leaving Lucius anyway.
Drusilla’s death had taught me that life could be far too fleeting to be miserable. Now that I had had a taste of joy, I could not picture spending the rest of my days in a loveless marriage, in an existence where I was unfulfilled.
“Are you certain?” Caius asked. “Your life will not be what you are used to.”
I understood that he did not think me spoiled, necessarily. He was just acknowledging something that I might not have thought of.
But I had.
“I leave tomorrow to journey back to Rome,” I said, my stomach clenched with fear at the thought. “I will tell Lucius when I arrive. I will also bargain for your freedom.”
I had debated telling them that I was leaving at all, knowing that they would insist on accompanying me, even though the negotiation would be easier if I was alone. I saw the two consider, communicating somehow between themselves without speaking.
“We are strong; we could find work,” said Caius, summing up what they had both been thinking.
After a long moment’s rumination, both men nodded, and it was Marcus who spoke.
“We will come with you.”
The first day’s travel on the way back to Rome had proved harder than any of the days on the way to the sea.
As evening approached, we thankfully found a room at an inn. Though the lodgings were dubious, at least there was a bath. I sank into the tub of water gratefully. Pregnancy made riding difficult, and I was sore in every single place that I could be sore.
That soreness extended to my heart, a bit. It had been difficult leaving the small house by the sea that morning. I had stood ankle deep in the water, letting the cold numb my skin, thinking of Drusilla and wondering if I would stand there again.
Though I had made up my mind, I knew that that was only the smallest part of the battle. No matter what I threatened, my husband would not be easily convinced. I still needed to somehow convince Caius and Marcus to remain outside the walls of the ludus while I told my husband of my plans, for fear that he would have them killed, something that was well within his rights as their owner.
For tonight, all that I could handle was a bath to soak away the soreness, and sleep to ease the weariness of my mind. I was grateful that we had been able to get a room with a bath. I knew that had I been traveling alone, or with any other men for that matter, it would not have happened. However, one look at my massive warriors, at the swords sheathed at their hips, and the seedy-looking innkeeper had suddenly found that his best room was free.
His best room still left much to be desired, but I could not stand the thought of riding through the night, nor would Marcus or Caius have heard of it. It had been difficult enough to convince them that I would ride on my horse’s back, as taking the carpentum would slow us down. I had not thought of the pain on my already tender flesh, and so I had not argued when they had announced that we would be stopping for sleep.
Inns were not the safest of places, generally speaking. Nor were the open roads, the territory of thieves and bandits. But I knew that the men I traveled with were more than a match for anyone we should encounter.
One looked at the brand of the ludus burned into their flesh, the brand marking them as trained gladiators, would send even the most hardened criminal running.
Stretching out the tense muscles of my neck, I looked up when I heard footsteps. Marcus stood above me, free of his subligaculum. He did not spea
k, but I knew that he wanted to join me in the bath.
Too weary to do anything but nod, I did so, pulling my knees to my chest to make room.
Marcus wedged his large frame into the wooden tub, facing me. Reaching out with his arms, he pulled me onto his lap, my center directly over his semi erect cock.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his shoulders, and placed my cheek on his shoulder. I wanted to stay like this, just like this, wrapped in warmth and man.
Safe. With Marcus I was safe.
More footsteps approached. I reflected that none of us seemed to be in the mood to talk, not even Caius, who appeared sleepy as he made his way toward us.
There was no room for him to sit in the tiny tub. He settled for resting his weight on the edge, his feet in the water, one leg on either side of my hips. A very large man, he also had long arms, and did not have to bend very far to reach the water with his hands. I heard them slip through the warm water, and then felt the warmth trickle down my back as he poured it over my shoulder blades. The warmth felt like an extension of Marcus’ arms around me. I sighed in pleasure and shifted position, arching my back toward the warmth.
From between my legs, I felt Marcus’ cock harden fully. It nestled between the folds of my lower lips, and I gasped as it pressed against the saddle-sore flesh there.
Moving my face from his shoulder, until my nose was pressed against his own, I received a soft kiss on the lips. As he kissed me, he shifted position, just a bit, and entered me slowly, his cock coming to rest against my womb.
I moaned with the pleasure, which was mixed with a little bit of pain. Sore as I was, it felt good, so good, to be anchored against one of my warriors.
From behind me, Caius kept up the splashing of the water, his fingers trailing up and down my spine. His large, strong hands moved to my shoulders, rubbing hard, working out the tension that had manifested in knots.
My Wicked Gladiators Page 24
