by Lydia Pax
This was as close to relaxed as Conall became—grievously hurt after a fight and waiting for his body to put itself together again.
“How was the fight?” asked Caius.
“You weren’t there?”
“I don’t go to the arena. You know that.”
Caius had lost his taste for the gladiatorial games when he retired. Or even before he retired, to hear him tell it. Conall knew, he just liked to tease the man.
“It was a decent fight,” said Conall. “Not my best. But it got the crowd excited. They’ll want to see me again.”
“I’m sure they will,” murmured Aeliana. “They love to watch a man kill himself for them.”
“Don’t be like that,” said Conall. “I’ve no interest in killing myself.”
“And you’ve no interest in staying alive either, it seems.” She tapped his knee and stood up. “It’s not my place, Conall. I’m not your medicae and I’m not your mother. But you may want to think about what else you could be doing with your life here.”
Conall frowned. What was it with medicae and telling him to quit? This was two times now in as many days.
“It isn’t as though Publius is romping down here in the cell blocks and handing out options, Aeliana. I’m a gladiator. Gladiators fight.”
She opened her mouth, as if to speak again, but Caius put a hand on her shoulder. He nodded with his head, gesturing for her to step outside. Aeliana did not seem to like this, but she nodded.
“I apologize if I offended you, Conall.” She patted his leg. “I just wish to see you well. You’re a good friend.”
“I appreciate that.”
When she was gone, Caius sat down on the stool next to his bed.
“She does care about you, you know.”
“I know that.”
“We both do. You’re easy to care about, Conall. You’ve got a big heart.”
Conall nodded, hoping his face was receptive to that bit of affection. He wasn’t sure what to say or how to respond. All these people caring for him—caring about him—made him feel as if they thought he was weak.
If there was one thing in the world that Conall hated being cast as, it was weak.
He felt in him the strongest stuff in the world if only once, just once in this damned life, he could be tested how he deserved.
A part of him wished dearly he could have talked to Leda right then. That he could have shown her how truly tough he was—that even a beating like what he had received in the arena wasn’t enough to shake out his affection for her.
It was stupid, gladiator logic, but by the gods, he was a gladiator, wasn’t he?
“Aeliana and I have been talking a lot,” said Caius. “We hear from Lucius. He goes to the fights once in a while. He saw you last night. He’d be here now, except he’s busy with his school.”
Lucius and his wife, Gwenn, ran a school that trained bodyguards for wealthy Roman citizens. It dawned on Conall for the first time that Caius had sent Aeliana out for some particular reason. Probably because Caius was closer to Conall than anyone else, and also because he knew Conall hated being ganged up on, even in conversation.
“What’s this about, Caius?”
“Aeliana and I, we’ve been doing well with the clinic. Real nice. Lots of profit.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“Lucius and Gwenn too. He and I, we talked last night. We thought probably if we all pooled our money together, we could put down enough to take a small loan out and buy your freedom.”
The thought was anathema to Conall. He stiffened, hurt body spasming slightly.
“No.”
“It would be a small loan. Not much. Just enough to cover the difference. If things held up business-wise, we could pay it off in—”
“No. No, no. No. I won’t do it.” Conall tried to sit up and groaned. His ribs spiked with pain. “I won’t let you.”
“I don’t see how you could stop us, Conall.”
“The second you buy my freedom for me, I’ll take out a contract with the nearest ludus. Maybe this one.” He slapped the wall. “Why not. I’ve gotten used to the place.”
“Let us help you, Conall. This life will suck the spirit right from you. I know you haven’t done it as long as I did, but—”
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” Rage boiled over in Conall. “You don’t think I’m good enough to keep winning, do you?”
“What? That’s not what I said, Conall. I just want—”
“I know what you want. I’m not leaving. Don’t waste your money. Spend it on something for your daughter.”
He sat back then and closed his eyes. This was as close as he could come in his injured state as leaving the room. Caius got the message—the conversation was over.
Chapter 8
Outside, the cicadas began their evening songs and a deep cool set over the earth. Summer though it may have been, the nights still sometimes carried the bite of cold. Leda wore a palla over her shoulders to keep herself warm. She was in a small room in the main estate of House Varinius, sitting over a desk and writing her latest letter to the emissary in Rome petitioning for her freedom.
Her tenure in slavery began over dinner. A series of dinners, in fact, regularly denied with an imperial ambassador to the King’s court in Armenia.
Armenia was constantly in contest between the dueling empires of Rome and Parthia. For only a brief time in its existence had it been allowed to decide who its rulers would be. Most of the time, whichever empire was stronger would choose the kings for Armenia.
As such, Leda’s father owed his position to the Roman Empire—and had repeatedly denied this was the case to save face in front of the Armenian people. Armenians were proud, and wanted to live under the yoke of no foreign influences.
To curry favor with the mob, her father had carried out a long campaign of embarrassments to the Roman ambassador. Part of this was repeatedly asking the man to dinner and then canceling at the last minute, or sending him to empty houses or estates with no meal or party to be had.
Finally, the ambassador had enough. He declared that unless the King would provide him with a feast as befit the majesty of Rome, then great and terrible consequences would be delivered unto his royal house.
Her father, then, had arranged a very special feast. The entire court was invited. The ambassador seemed to be having a grand time, drinking much wine, and all seemed forgiven. Then, his meal was brought out. Leda remembered it still. The stench of it. Inside a giant golden dish was the uncooked, rotten carcass of an eagle, blackened with oil.
The eagle, was, of course, one of the animals associated most closely with Rome.
Naturally, the ambassador was furious. Her father had always felt self-assured because he knew that Rome needed him in power to keep the Parthians at bay. This made him feel invincible. And indeed, the ambassador knew he could not act against the king directly.
Instead, he had taken his eldest daughter, enslaved her, and sold her, warning that more of the same would happen if he were defied again.
To Leda’s understanding, this had left the King thoroughly cowed.
For herself, she was cowed from the moment a contubernium of eight legionaries broke through her door and led her away from her home at spear point. Regaining her sense of calm had taken months of careful meditation exercises and a great amount of writing letters in this small office.
Publius stepped through the open doorway. Immediately—regrettably—Leda stopped what she was doing. When the Dominus was present, a slave had to wait on him. Even a slave that was royalty by birth.
“You’ve been acclimating yourself well here, I understand,” said Publius. He was in his early fifties and had salt white hair. A Roman of the old schools of thought, he disliked excess and kept himself trim and fit. “Though I also understand the secret is out with regards to your language barrier.”
“Yes, Dominus.”
Leda assumed that Conall would simply tell everyone what he h
ad found out. And so, she had started to speak to other slaves in full sentences instead of the chopped fragments she had grown accustomed to using. It was rather fun to see the surprise in their faces when they heard her speaking eloquently and simply, making requests for jugs of water, extra cloths, and so on.
It would be nice, also, to have people stop talking to her in slow, loud voices. She wasn’t deaf, for goodness’ sake, and she never had pretended to be.
The main reason, really, that she had pretended to have a language barrier was to prevent herself from entering into a minefield of needless conversations. Leda rather despised small talk and gossip, and that was most of what the servant population of House Varinius seemed interested in talking about.
When people thought you disinterested in talking to them, they thought you a snob, which Leda was not. She was simply discerning with what she chose to occupy her mind with. A brain was not a barn door, and did not need to have every sort of idea-creature floating through it at any given time.
A brain was a trap, constructed uniquely within each person with very specific purposes.
Her own skills rested in rhetoric, logic, and analysis. Another reason she couldn’t stand the aimless drift of small talk—a person’s spoken thoughts could be doing things instead of wandering through the air like half-grown bear cubs in a snow storm.
Publius knew she was skilled in legal affairs, and that was part of why Publius had allowed her for so long to pretend to have the language barrier between herself and the other slaves. It was an allowance he gave her, so long as she performed her duties for him in a sufficient manner.
Most particularly, she handled his legal matters when they cropped up. Shortly after her arrival, he’d had a dispute with a supplier of armor to his ludus which she had handled for him. With Leda’s help, the supplier ended up paying the ludus twice what Publius originally paid.
Leda was good at what she did.
“It’s good that you have adapted here as well as you have,” said Publius. “I notice that some in particular think more highly of you than others.”
“Do they, Dominus?”
“A certain fighter, in particular.”
He meant Conall, of course. Leda wasn’t sure where this was going.
“Some men are hard to dissuade, Dominus,” said Leda. “Even if you say nothing to them at all.”
For nine months.
She had not spoken a word to the insane beast for more than nine months, and all it seemed to do was make his affection for her grow.
Of course, her own attraction to him had done nothing but grow, but that was different. She did not pontificate about his beauty or dream up some saccharine love story between them. Leda merely wanted his body.
That she wanted it urgently, often to the point of distraction during a late night, was besides the point. He was a gladiator with a body from heaven. Everything about him was hairy, muscular, and masculine. He was made to be wanted.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, gladiators are an investment to this ludus.”
“Yes, Dominus.”
“As I’m sure you also aware, gladiators of good quality are in short supply.”
“Yes, Dominus.”
The Antonine Plague had hid Puteoli hard in the last few months. While there had been no cases of it specifically at the ludus, there had been plenty in Puteoli. The ludus got everything from the city, less than an hour’s walk away. The ludus needed regular supplies—food, wine, cloth, weapons, armor, and more—to keep running.
Now, any of it could be carrying the plague or carried by someone who carried the plague. Wellness was the constant concern—and there was no getting around the need for the gladiators of the ludus to perform in the arena inside the plague-ridden city. To keep morale up, imperial officials kept throwing games to entertain the populace.
It seemed as though the worst of the sickness had passed, but it still had greatly diminished the available pool of fighters for the ludus when it desperately needed them. Many able-bodied men who otherwise would have fought as gladiators were conscripted into the army to bolster its ranks. It was the army—traveling as it did all over the Empire’s bounds and interacting with so many different people—that was affected by the pock-laden plague the worst.
“I have heard many reports about perhaps him…changing his mind about fighting. He wins in a hard fashion. That can take a toll on a man. I want him to be reminded that life is sweet.”
Slowly, it dawned on Leda what Publius was asking. She stood.
“I understand the bounds of my servitude here, Dominus, but I am of royal blood. And I will not be your whore.”
“Whore?” he smiled. “No. If I wanted you to be my whore, then I would take you out into the street and pimp you. And I could. And be well within my rights as your owner.” He let that sink for a moment. “But, this ludus is an honorable place, and I am an honorable man. I am not asking you to be a whore. You are to be…” he searched. “…a companion. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to in terms of affection. But, Nyx is going to draw up a routine for him and for you. Treatment for his wounds. You will administer it to the letter.”
“I see.”
His head tilted sharply. “Dominus. You say, “I see, Dominus.’ Social ladders are important, Leda. They are how we know where we stand.”
Leda swallowed her pride. “Yes, Dominus.”
He acknowledged the deference with a slight nod. “Speaking of letters, by the way, I hope that’s going well for you. I’m sure your family, once they track you down, will be happy to know that I have treated you as fairly as I have. Just remember who pays to send the messenger on his way, yes?”
“Yes, Dominus.”
He left her alone in the small cell with her thoughts and her fears.
A companion to a gladiator. Leda’s physical desire for Conall had been kept entirely in check because the two of them simply did not spend that much time together. When lingering in his presence, her thoughts drifted to running her fingertips over the strong muscles of his thighs. Working her thumbs into the heavy bulges of his back and neck, just to feel for a moment what such strength was like beneath her hands.
And that was only after a few minutes of lingering—not for days at a time. Given that much time near him, who was to say whether she could control herself at all? Not with a man who clearly wanted her as much as Conall did.
Her mouth was dry. She wanted a drink of wine—or two or three. But she still had a letter to finish. She sighed, sat down, and reviewed what she had written already before going back to work.
Chapter 9
In the early morning, when the air was still chilly and still, Leda made her way down from the house to where the gladiators lived.
The ludus of House Varinius sat upon a small hill. The estate was at the top of the hill, partly built inside the rock and dirt toward its rear. Tall walls surrounded the grounds at the base of the hill—designed much more for keeping the gladiators in than for keeping any intruders out.
Romans had a long-stoked fear of slave rebellion, even though there had not been one en masse for centuries. Stories of Spartacus were still told to the children of Roman nobles to frighten them into behaving with appropriate distance from their slaves.
A large series of steps led up from the grounds next to the walls all the way up the hill to the estate. Tall gates on this stone stairwell partitioned the estate off from the rest of the ludus, below which was where the gladiators did their training. Some offices stood on the hill next to the stairs. On the bottom level, though, were the long training sands themselves. There were several circles of sand, each bordered by heavy stones, creating small dirt pathways between them.
In the corner of the grounds, between the walls and the base of the hills, were the cell blocks where the gladiators slept and ate. On the other side of the grounds were the stables, where Publius and his guests stationed their horses.
The cell blocks of the gladiators were slic
k with dirt and sand dragged in from their training. Small slots of light poured in from high in the ceiling.
Conall’s cell was toward the front of the blocks, which Leda felt grateful for. That meant she had to look at less of the gladiators, and more importantly, less of them looked at her.
Gladiators were known in all the world for their physiques, and those housed in this ludus could easily be as lauded as the rest. Their torsos were chiseled perfection, rippling abs housed underneath concrete slabs of hard pectorals. Thick arms, trained all day with heavy swords, spears, and shields, bulged with muscles almost as large as the ones in their heavy thighs. And yet despite all their muscle, each man moved with a particular grace, giving their bodies an emphasis on leanness over bulk despite how prominent their hard-as-rock strength was.
Leda had little interest in men much of the time. They were uncouth and always wanted something from her in exchange for little on their own.
But she was not made of cold milk. It was impossible, surrounded by so much pure virility contained all in the same area, to not let your eyes wander from time to time.
The mind wandered as well, as hers did whenever she thought of Conall’s body being so very similar. Conall, who wanted her so terribly.
Many of the gladiators walked around naked, apparently thinking they had little to be ashamed of. They were right.
Better not to let them think she was interested, though. She could only imagine what sort of mundanity their minds might come up with for conversation—and truly, it was conversation that made Leda more excited than anything else.
A body, no matter how delicious, meant little to her if the brain attached to it could not dream up new methods for delight.
Conall was sleeping. His cell was simple and small. There was the cot in the corner, a small stone toilet on one end, a stool, and then a tiny desk with some scrolls littered this way and that upon its surface.
She examined the scrolls for several moments, eyebrows raised.
“They’re stories.” Conall was awake, propped up now on his elbows. “From the marketplace. Iunius, the eunuch—do you know him? He knows a man. They cost me a fortune and most of them do not end up being very good, but reading is how I learned the language when I was young.”
