Christus tried to make his way toward me, but the soldiers realized that a third foe had entered their midst and he could not move closer.
“I have offered you the world.” Gaius’ breath was hot against my ear. “Money, fine clothes, rich food. A place as the mistress of the emperor. Why, lovely Lilia? Why would you say no?”
Even through the confusion brought about by lack of air, I noted than something in his words was strange. Was he saying that I would be the mistress of his brother, the emperor? Or was he referring to himself as the emperor?
The thought fled as my air supply dwindled, and I ceased to care about his meaning. This was it, I thought. I was going to die, and by his hand, after all. I opened my mouth to suck in air; his grip on my throat was so tight that I could not. Gathering my strength, I prepared to try to elbow him in the gut, to stomp on his instep, to bite—anything that might save me.
A memory of Bavarius and the death that he had so deserved flashed through my mind, and with it came a surge of strength.
“I have survived far worse than a madman. I have not fought for my life only to succumb to you.”
Then, suddenly, his arms ceased tightening. Behind me Gaius froze, a great gurgling erupting from the depths of his throat.
It was not shock from my words.
I watched, horrified, as blood trickled down my neck and spilled over the breast of my toga. As soon as his hands relaxed enough that I could move, I sprang away from him, whirling to see what had occurred.
Blood was pouring from his mouth, his back. Behind him, trembling, stood tiny Viola. A wicked-looking dagger, slick with red, was clutched in fingers that were white with tension.
Her face was a study in vengeance, and her free hand was pressed tightly to her belly, protecting it from Gaius.
I was suddenly certain then that the emperor’s mad brother had fathered the young girl’s babe.
“Come here!” The fight still raged around us. I cursed the fact that I was still bound to the floor. Reaching as far as the chain would allow me to, I grabbed the girl and thrust her behind me, shielding her with my body. At my feet, close enough for his blood to splatter my tunic, Gaius slumped to the floor. He was still, and I knew that he was no more.
“Gaius is dead!” I could do nothing else, so I yelled from the depths of my soul. Some soldiers wavered, looking my way. “Gaius is dead!”
Slowly, man by man, the battle slowed. Christus and the two gladiators slowed, but remained on guard, though each looked so fierce that I could not imagine challenging a single one, let alone all three.
Assuming the role of leader, the taller of the two golden-haired men with the unmistakable bearing of gladiators stepped forward, assessing the room.
“We have no quarrel with you, soldiers.” Though his voice showed disgust at the actions of the Romans, he held still, standing tall. “If you leave, we will forget you were ever here. The man who took Lilia is dead. We will take her and leave, and we care not about anything else.”
The soldiers cast uneasy stares at one another. I thought of Gaius’ words about making me the mistress of the emperor.
Understanding washed over me. He had planned to overthrow his brother, the emperor. He had intended to take the throne himself. This was why he had needed to garner favor from the public with the massive games, which had served the dual purpose of delivering me right into his hands.
Right into his hands, where I would be the mistress of Gaius, the new emperor of Rome.
These soldiers had known, had helped. They were all traitors. They would leave.
Leave they did. Soon the room was empty of them, excepting those who had fallen to the swords of the gladiators.
Still shielding the trembling Viola from the sight of Gaius’s body, I looked up across the room. There stood my Christus, bloody and beaten from the wounds that he had received in the arena.
But he was alive. I was alive.
We were alive, and Gaius was dead.
“It is my fault.” I curled into Christus’ side, the fabric of the couch soft beneath my legs. I was naked but for the blanket that had been wrapped around me, having stripped the bloody, offensive blue toga from my skin the moment that I was able to.
“How is any of this your fault, my love?” I could not get close enough to him, kept running my hands over his arms to make certain that I was not in the throes of a dream.
He was real. He was exhausted, and injured, but he was real.
“I . . . the games. Gaius planned them all around me, so that he could capture me.” I shuddered, burrowing my face into Christus’ chest. “All of those men in the games, they all died because of his sick, twisted obsession with me.”
Christus could have died for the very same reason. This was something that I could not force from my mind.
The very notion made me ill.
“That was a lie.” From the couch where Viola sat, her hands planted firmly on her pregnant belly, came the words.
Though she still spoke softly, since Gaius had fallen, she did not tremble. The satisfaction that I had seen written on her face when she pulled the knife from his back had told me all that I needed to know about the parentage of her child.
“Is it?” I was certain that the girl was simply trying to ease my burden, much as I had done with her earlier. “He told me so.”
“It is perhaps not a lie, but it is certainly not the entire truth.” In the haggard girl from hours earlier, I saw the first vestiges of strength.
Strength came from necessity, this I knew. Perhaps this young woman could be strong enough to live with what the gods had given her, after all.
“Gaius initially decided to host these munera to garner public favor.” This I knew; it was a common enough political tactic. “He did not plan to run for an office, though it was something that he only spoke of among those he held closest.”
Those he held closest, and slaves. I shook my head at the idiocy of the man. There were no secrets in a house with slaves. Every Roman should know this.
“He planned to kill the emperor. His brother.” Her voice broke, and I wondered what it had cost this sweet soul to keep the knowledge inside, knowing that a life might be lost because of her enforced loyalty to her dominus. “He needed favor to be accepted as the new emperor. But as he was planning the games, he became aware of you. His grandiosity grew, and of a sudden he was, in his own head at least, the emperor of Rome, with that woman Hilaria as his wife, or someone like her, he did not much care. More important to him was to have you as his mistress.”
I waited for Christus to stiffen at the sound of Hilaria’s name. He did not, and when I looked at him with a question in my eyes, he reached out and brushed a tangled strand of gold behind my ear.
“I am no longer so raw. Not since I shared my burden with you.”
The two golden gladiators chose that moment to reenter the great room of Gaius’ palace. I eyed them somewhat blankly, not sure where they had gone, or even why they were there. I knew that they had helped to save my life, to save Viola’s, but I still did not know who they were.
“Lilia, this is Marcus, and this is Caius.” Christus’ voice held a note of pride. Marcus was the taller, the one who spoke more often, and Caius was the man with the tinge of red in the gold of his hair. Their names resounded inside of my head, pulling at distant memories.
“Marcus. Marcus, the former champion of the arena?” My words sounded frozen to my own ears. Marcus showed no pride in the title, instead nodding solemnly. Caius placed an affectionate hand on the other man’s back, at the swell of his spine, and I blinked at the implied intimacy of the gesture.
“Marcus was champion, and Caius next in line.” I spoke my thoughts out loud and turned to Christus, remembering the rest. “They were brothers in your former ludus.” My eyes searched his face for answers, and he nodded as I spoke.
“My brothers of the heart heard that I had been selected for these games, and as freedmen, they were also privy to rum
ors floating through the markets, rumors that said that the winner of the games had already been decided.” Christus ran a hand through my hair as he spoke.
“Though we have earned our freedom, we once swore an oath to the ludus and to our brothers within it.” This was Marcus, who smiled at Christus with fondness. “It was not right that a brother should die in a manner so dishonorable. We came to Rome to see if we could be of any assistance.”
“Instead they arrived to find that I had won, and was half mad, not knowing where you had gone.” Christus turned to nuzzle my neck, and I inhaled the scent that was uniquely his.
“You saw me fall through the floor.” I shuddered at the memory.
“I did, but I knew that Gaius wanted you too much to kill you.” We stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, each of us so very relieved that, against the odds, we had survived.
“What do we do now?” Viola’s voice was soft yet strong. The gladiators and I turned as one to look at her. Had it not been for the ball of her belly, I would have sworn that she was a child herself. As I looked at her, her lower lip began to tremble, but she bit down on it and drew herself up straight. “Will we be sent back into the slave trade?”
“What did you do with Gaius?” I asked. Marcus and Caius had left us there to start cleaning up the bloodbath that had taken place in the house. They exchanged a look, and then looked down at Christus soberly.
“Our former dominus now has many political connections,” Caius said, and he could not seem to help a small smile from lifting the corner of his mouth. “Though we hate to have any dealings with him at all, we feel that he still should pay for his treatment of . . . others . . . if need be.”
Their former dominus had had a first wife, I remembered, one named Alba. Alba had been romantically involved with both gladiators. Could it be that they had all found a way to be together?
“You took the body to the dom—to Lucius.” Christus’ voice was flat; he clearly had no warm feelings for the man.
“We told him that you needed an audience with the emperor, regarding the treachery of his brother, and that we were leaving the body of Gaius as proof.” Reaching for the ties at the waist of his toga, Marcus loosened the small sack that he carried there. “We are not rich men, but we have enough to live.” Handing the pouch to Christus, a long look passed between them, and I finally understood why a ludus would have a brotherhood. A real brotherhood, one in which the oath was undertaken seriously, bonding the men for life.
“How will the emperor know where to find us?” I nodded with approval at Viola’s question. She was a smart girl. She would survive.
“He was given the name of an inn.” I saw Caius’ eyes drift to the bulge of Viola’s child, and saw fierce protectiveness there. “And before you ask why he won’t just come and kill you, we gave him the name of the inn next to the one at which you will be staying. You will see the commotion of the emperor’s men arriving, and be able to gauge the situation from there.”
Untangling his fingers from my hair, Christus stood. “I owe you much gratitude, my brothers.” The three clasped hands as one, and I felt a yearning for Darius, my one true companion. I knew that things between us would never have the same easy affection, for now Christus would always come first.
From behind me, Viola made a small squeaking sound. Wrapping the blanket more tightly around my skin, I hurried to sit beside her on the couch, lifting one hand to stroke through her hair in the manner in which a mother might do to a child.
“You will come with us tonight. You will stay at the inn.” I saw how uncertain Viola was about her future, and how scared. Remembering the day I had stood in the market, the day my own dominus had purchased me, I understood the feelings well.
Though I certainly did not have to offer, though she and her baby might prove to be a hindrance, I found that I could not do anything but protect the young girl.
I eyed the pouch of coin that Marcus had handed to Christus. I could not judge exactly the amount of the denarii inside, but the weight looked to be enough to hold us until we got on our feet. “At the very worst, you will return with us to the house of our dominus. He is a kind enough man. He will not bother you with his cock.”
Instead of appearing scandalized by my words, Viola considered, then nodded. “Then it shall be a good sight better than my position here.”
I hesitated; I did not know if it was my place to speak of such things, for I did not have much knowledge of female things. Before I could even open my mouth, she guessed what I was about to say and shook her head.
“No matter how this child was conceived, he is mine.” She hugged her arms tightly around her belly. “And with the character of his father inside of him, he will need me all the more.”
How had I ever thought the girl timid? She was a lion, not a mouse. Before I could tell her such, Christus gestured to us, and we crossed to where the men stood.
“We will accompany you to the inn.” Caius gestured to the door. “And then we have done all that we can do. We have a wife at home, and an infant daughter. We must return to them.”
Marcus wrapped his arm around Caius as he spoke, and they shared the kind of glance that a married couple might have done. I thought that I had seen many things in my years as a slave, but I felt my mouth fall open a bit as I realized what was implied.
Alba, first wife of Lucius, was alive. Caius and Marcus and Alba and their daughter—they were all a family. They had found a way to be together.
I looked at Christus, who congratulated his brothers on their progeny. Then I looked at Viola, and felt the wave of fierce protectiveness that I had had the first moment that I looked at her.
Stranger situations than ours could be resolved, it seemed.
For the first time since before I had set foot in the arena, I had hope.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
* * *
Caius and Marcus led us to the inn at which they had left their message for the emperor. They had chosen it for the simple fact that it stood beside another inn, one with large windows through which we could easily watch the comings and goings outside.
I felt a pang of nerves when they left us, leaving for their home by the sea, where their wife, Alba, and their baby daughter, Felicia, waited for them.
Without them, two freedmen, we were but a trio of escaped slaves who had no business walking free.
It was better than being trapped in the arena.
We received several odd looks as we entered the inn. Roman sumptuary laws decreed that people had to dress so that their place in society was easily recognizable. Though we had all shed our bloody clothing, we had had to make do with items found in the home of Gaius. All that there was to be had were tunics that obviously belonged to slaves, and togas that were far fancier than anything the three of us should be wearing.
We could not dress as slaves, for surely curious soldiers would stop and question us. But neither were any of us able to pass as the extremely wealthy patricians that our pillaged finery said that we were.
Christus looked far too fierce, and I did not hold my head high, as a wealthy patrician woman should.
I was, after all, trying to keep from being recognized as the only female gladiator that Rome had known in recent times.
As for Viola, a patrician woman in her advanced stage of pregnancy would not be looking for a room at an inn—she would be lying abed, with servants bringing her fresh fruit and massaging her temple with oils.
Still, with a look that an opponent in the arena would have trembled at and the sly exchange of extra denarii, Christus managed to secure two rooms that were next to each other, and to ensure that we would be left alone once jugs of water and a simple meal had been delivered. I had thought that Viola would not wish to be alone after the trials that she had been through that day, but she had cast a look that was far too knowing for her age at the way Christus’ hand lingered on my own. She had insisted that she would prefer a separate chamber, if we had the coin for it
.
“I wish simply to sleep.” Her voice was quiet and apologetic, and her hand rubbed over her belly fretfully as she spoke. I would not have been able to deny the poor girl anything at that moment, and had made certain that she was comfortable in her room, with food and water nearby.
“You will be right through that wall, that one there.” Gesturing, Viola motioned for me to leave, after I had washed the youthful curves of her face with a damp rag. “Now go to your lover. It is where you want to be.”
She was not wrong. However, the girl brought out such tenderness in me that I felt I must ensure that she was safe and comfortable, before tending to myself.
Only after she looked as though she might fall asleep did I close and lock her door behind me. I rolled tension from my shoulders and my neck as I opened the door to the room that Christus and I shared. After the day’s events, I wanted nothing more than to wash, perhaps to eat, and to fall into a dreamless sleep in my lover’s arms.
“She sleeps?” Christus turned from the window at which he stood as I entered the room. His entire attention focused on me the moment that he saw me, and I found myself responding, my world narrowing until it included nothing but him.
“She rests, even if she does not sleep.” My eyes drank him in as I stepped forward slowly. It was strange for me to see him dressed in such finery. I did not like it.
I wanted to rip off the expensive wool, to find the skin and sinew that were so familiar to my eyes, to my touch.
I could tell that he was having similar thoughts as his eyes roamed over me. After all that had happened that day, I had thought that pleasures of the flesh would be far from my mind.
“Christus.” I was wrong. He was there, right next to me, and I wanted him as much as I ever had.
“My love.” Striding across the floor, he caught me up in his arms and rained kisses over my lips, my cheeks, my neck. My skin began to hum under his attention, and I rubbed against him.
“I am here.” Christus buried his face in my hair as he spoke, and for a long moment we simply clung to one another, each of us thinking of how the gods had favored us, to be in each other’s arms after all that had happened.
Seduced by the Gladiator Page 21
