The Gladiator’s Master

by Fae Sutherland

  Caelius choked on a sobbing laugh and then moaned, one hand coming to his ribs. Gaidres supported him with strong arms, filled with concern until the coughing passed. He needed rest. It was a blessing from the gods that he had survived.

  Caelius clutched at him, coughing. “Do not worry. I give you my word as you gave me yours. I will recover quickly and plague you with my dreaming for a very long time to come.”

  Gaidres eased Caelius gently back onto the pallet. He ached to hold his lover but here, dressed as a soldier, he could not. He glanced around, catching one of the medicus’s boys as he passed. “You there, boy. Go and find someone to alert the house of Laraniia that their master lives and to send help here to transport him home.” He met the boy’s stare, tone fierce. “Do it quickly and there will be coin for you, you have my word.”

  That got action, and the boy scurried from the temple. Gaidres turned back to Caelius and reached for the wine. Caelius shook his head, turning his face away.

  “Gaidres, no…I do not wish to sleep. You are here, you live. You love me. I could run back to Fidena without aid knowing that.”

  Gaidres touched Caelius’s cheek. “I am here and I am not going anywhere. I promise you. I will be right beside you when you wake. The gods themselves could not move me. Drink. I would not have you in pain.”

  His words seemed to get through the fog Caelius was drifting in and out of, and the other man sipped from the cup before laying his head back down. His dark eyes saddened. “The others…Gaidres, all of the others…” His voice broke.

  Gaidres shook his head, squeezing Caelius’s hand. “Do not think of it now. Rest, heal. All will be well.” He met Caelius’s eyes. “Do you trust me?”

  Caelius nodded, his face already relaxing as the drugged wine began to work. “Of course. All will be well. I love you…” The last drifted off as Caelius’s eyes fell closed and sleep took him.

  Gaidres settled down beside the pallet, forcing himself to release Caelius’s hand lest anyone see and question. He glanced toward the temple entrance, anxious for word from the villa in Fidena and someone to help him bring Caelius home where he belonged.

  And while he had told Caelius not to think on all the others, from their ludus and beyond, Gaidres did not have the luxury of drugged wine to aid him. Still, he reminded himself every time the depth of loss would hit him, Caelius was alive. He would sacrifice anyone, including himself, to make that so.

  Chapter Twenty

  Caelius could not lie in bed anymore, staring up at the ceiling, or he would go mad. The medicus had said he should stay in bed a week and Gaidres had taken that to be a sacred order from the gods. The first two days had not been difficult. He had drifted in and out of a drugged sleep, waking up long enough to eat, be cosseted and send everyone scurrying to see who else had survived and come home.

  The only thing that had made it bearable was Gaidres’s presence and the fierce love in his eyes whenever he sat by the bed. He brought Faustus for visits and other times sat and spoke with Caelius, holding his hand until he could sleep again.

  Caelius pushed himself up as Helene peeked in. “Has anyone reported from the arena?” he demanded.

  “Not yet, Dominus.” Helene came forward to ease another cushion behind him. She tried to keep her expression smooth, but Caelius knew her well and saw the bleakness in her eyes.

  Caelius had given up hope that any more survivors would be found. Since yesterday all that had been discovered were more bodies. He received no rest when he closed his eyes. Either he was trapped back under the rubble knowing Gaidres hunted for him in vain or else Felix and Gaidres’s fallen haunted his dreams.

  “Can you bring me Faustus?” Caelius asked, desperate for some distraction.

  “He sleeps now, Dominus. Perhaps when he wakens, if you promise me you’ll not allow him to crawl all over you. You will injure yourself more.”

  Caelius cast her a dark look. “Who is dominus here?”

  A smile cracked Helene’s weathered face. “I look at you and see the young man I paddled for stealing sweets. If you have no further need of me, I’ll go check on my other demanding charge.”

  She left him to his thoughts. He was ready to be out of bed, yet Gaidres would not allow him. And not only was his lover restricting him to his bed, everyone in the household was deferring to Gaidres’s wishes on the matter. Caelius closed his eyes against the grief that threatened to overwhelm him. Felix, the doctoré, Marius, Rufus, Kashta…He went through the names one by one of all the dead in his household. All for what?

  “Felix, I shall miss you the most.”

  He pressed his lips together in a hard line and tossed his blankets back, ignoring the pain in his ribs as he levered himself up and swung his legs over the bed. Never again would he allow such senseless death to ravage his people.

  The large bruise that covered his thigh was finally changing colors and he still limped as he went to search for a tunic. A wave of dizziness went over him as he struggled into his garments. But it disappeared with a splash of cool water on his face. He had people to see to, work to do. He’d check on Demos first. Once again grief struck and Caelius pushed it away. There was too much to do.

  Being careful not to move too fast, he made his way toward the ludus and paused in the tunnel, hovering as he spotted Gaidres outside the ludus, brows furrowed as he spoke with the medicus. Caelius shrank back before Gaidres noticed him in the shadows. He had not expected his lover to be here.

  “If you think it was bad food, why did no one else take ill? We all shared the same meal the night before the Lupercalia. It makes no sense.” Gaidres frowned at the medicus.

  The medicus sighed and made a helpless gesture. “I do not know. It was a special meal, not the normal fare, perhaps some unfamiliar part made him ill. I’ve seen that happen to men when they’ve eaten something they had not been exposed to before. At any rate, Demos is lucky, for it kept him from participating in the games that day. He is finally up and about, though still weak.”

  Gaidres nodded, lips pressed together as the medicus headed back inside to tend to Demos. He seemed about to follow, but then he spied Caelius in the tunnel and his brows shot up. He strode across the training ground with an exasperated expression on his face. If Caelius gave him half a chance he’d find himself back in bed before he could blink.

  “I am fine. Gaidres, please, I cannot lie in bed a moment longer. There is too much to be done! My ribs barely twinge now, I assure you, and my leg takes much of my weight without trouble.” He peered up at him. “Is Demos well?”

  Gaidres slid one arm around Caelius’s waist, urging him to let Gaidres take much of his weight as he began to turn him back toward the villa. He supported him with that rare gentleness Caelius had seen in him when he let down his guard.

  “He is fine. Much better. Better than you, I wager, but then he is following the medicus’s orders. Unlike someone else I could mention.”

  Caelius clutched Gaidres’s arm and cursed his own weakness as Gaidres moved him toward the villa. He didn’t have the strength to fight. He glanced over his shoulder at the ludus, frustration eating at him. “Gaidres, I cannot lie about in bed like an invalid any longer.”

  “You are an invalid, and until the medicus says you can move about, in bed you will stay.”

  Caelius glanced at the stubborn set of Gaidres’s jaw and clenched his teeth together. The man would not listen to reason. He thought about digging in his heels until he remembered what happened yesterday. He’d stumbled and then the next thing he’d known Gaidres had been carrying him back to his rooms. At least this time, he’d been spared that indignity, but if he balked too much his lover would do it all over again.

  The combination of frustration and grief was overwhelming. “Gaidres, please, not our rooms. Set me up on a couch in one of the main rooms if you must, but I need to be doing something or else I’ll go mad.”

  Gaidres looked as if he was about to refuse, but then he glanced at Caelius’s face
and his expression softened. “I’ll consider it after you’ve eaten.”

  “We should have Demos moved to the villa. It’s not right that he be locked up in the ludus alone. In fact, I do not see why he should be in a cell at all.” He scowled as Gaidres maneuvered him down the corridor. “The ludus is no more and I’ll not be opening it again, no matter what anyone says.”

  It was cursed, the whole villa in Fidena was cursed and had been since before Caelius had come to live there. The spirit of his uncle, no doubt, who’d destroyed everything he touched.

  Gaidres helped Caelius back into his bed with a look of relief on his face. “I agree. The medicus wanted to be sure whatever was ailing Demos was not contagious. He is fast on the mend, however, and I’d planned to speak with you to be sure it was alright to move him.” He chuckled at Caelius’s incredulous look. “Though I knew it would be. And I have been seeing to the others’ belongings myself, Dominus.”

  Caelius’s face tightened. “Why do you still call me that? I hate it.”

  Gaidres smiled, shrugging as he sat on the bed beside him. “Because it is still what you are. Only those within these walls know what you are master of to me.”

  “You just strong-armed me into bed against my will! What is it I am master of?”

  A look of such love entered Gaidres’s eyes that Caelius’s throat ached. “My heart.”

  Caelius was rendered speechless by that soft comment. He stared at Gaidres, his heart filling until he thought he had to be glowing from the inside out. He had never known such happiness. “Well…then perhaps I do not mind it.”

  “I thought not.”

  The man was the worst patient to ever exist, and Gaidres adored him. It was such a relief to admit it, to embrace it. How could he have ever denied it?

  He glanced up and then rose to take the tray of food from Aelia. Before Caelius, it would never have occurred to him to ask nor care about using a fellow slave’s name. But it seemed his lover’s need to make everyone in his home a part of his family was rubbing off. Gaidres turned back to the bed and set the tray beside it. “You must eat. You have not had enough to sustain a child the past three days.”

  “I have not done anything to require eating,” Caelius said in exasperation, though he accepted the wine and bread Gaidres handed him.

  “Nonsense. Your body heals and requires nourishment to do so.” Gaidres sat on the side of the bed. He had much to see to and the household was still in an uproar, but he would not leave Caelius alone with his morose thoughts. “I understand you chafe at being confined, Caelius, but your body will not heal as well if you strain it.”

  Caelius winced and took a sip of wine. “I’m not the kind of man to lie about being coddled while everyone else is busy.”

  Gaidres said nothing, simply handed him some cheese and meat when Caelius finished the bread.

  It had the desired effect and Caelius sighed. “My apologies, love. I do not wish to burden you even more. It’s just…My mind is not broken and being alone with my thoughts, with nothing to do…it does not help me heal either. There must be things that I can do that don’t require me to move about. I know there are. I can think of a dozen right now.”

  Gaidres tilted his head. “I do not think it is duties to busy you that you need.”

  Caelius frowned, eyes tired and sad. “What is it you think I need?”

  He didn’t take the sullen tone personally. What had happened had affected them all, but for Caelius he knew that the injuries were the least of his concerns. It was his lover’s heart and mind that had taken the brunt of it and Gaidres knew the kind of guilt he was feeling over the loss of so many from his ludus and his home.

  “I know your guilt. I also know it is unwarranted. You did nothing wrong. In fact, reports are circulating that Atilius sought to save himself coin when he erected the arena—they say he failed to have the site inspected. The ground was too sandy and shifted beneath the weight. The tragedy lies on the shoulders of Atilius, who has paid the ultimate price for his foolishness. He died with the rest.”

  Caelius’s expression changed, from sullen to strained with sorrow. “I’d heard the rumors of Atilius cutting corners, Gaidres. I sent them out there. I sent you out there…all for some foolish aspiration to a political office I do not even want anymore. Maybe never did.”

  Gaidres shook his head, taking the tray from him and then sliding into the bed beside Caelius to draw him into his arms. “You could not foresee what would happen. We do not choose others’ fates. That is decided by those far greater than ourselves. And you and I both know you did not send me anywhere. I went whether you liked it or not.”

  “And I did not!”

  “I know. And yet still you carry guilt for it, as if you pushed me on to the sand. As if you pushed any of the others there either. Think you Marius and Rufus and the doctoré would have chosen to be anywhere but at the arena that day? That they, too, would not have insisted on fighting?” Gaidres shook his head. “We are fighting men, one and all.”

  Caelius frowned, as if trying to reconcile Gaidres’s words with his heart. But Gaidres knew he spoke the truth. Maybe some of the men would have taken Caelius up on his offer, but not all. Not even most.

  Caelius laid his head on Gaidres’s shoulder. “You speak sense, Gaidres. My mind knows this, but my heart cannot agree.” He looked up into Gaidres’s eyes. “I’m alive, and I have everything I could ever have wished for, knowing that you love me.”

  “And you drown yourself in guilt because you survived and they did not. I understand better than you think, Caelius. I feel the same way. I am here, happy with you, but if there is one thing I’ve learned recently it’s that you can only take care of the living. By some grace of the gods we’re alive and I’m going to continue living and loving you. All those who died will not be forgotten. Not by me or you or anyone else in your house.”

  Caelius blinked, eyes damp. “I want to go home, Gaidres. I don’t ever wish to see this cursed place again. And I want to go home with you by my side as a free man and my lover. Please, Gaidres.”

  Gaidres sighed. “As your lover, yes, I will go anywhere you wish. But a former slave, were you to free me, is still a slave in the eyes of the world. I would not subject you to the ridicule, or worse, of being known to have lowered yourself in such a way. And what of Faustus? Your villa is not the world, Caelius, as much as you might wish it to be. You cannot surround us all in cotton wool and protect us from the cruelty outside the gates.”

  Even a former slave could not rise but so far above his former life. Perhaps in some far-flung place, some exotic country where Rome and status mattered little…perhaps there they could have some semblance of a normal life. But not here. Not anywhere near here. The moment he’d been captured, any chance to become something besides a slave had been lost. And that included the chance to be the man Caelius spent his life loving, without hiding.

  “I care not what others think, you know that.”

  “Yes, I do. But just because you do not care does not mean there are not repercussions, and I do not want that for you or Faustus.” He cupped Caelius’s cheek in his hand, his heart so newly freed to revel in the emotions now near to bursting with the tenderness he felt. “We can go to Caere, and live on as we have so far. We can have that, and it is not so much of a chore, is it? You do not understand much of the cruelty in this world, I think, but I have seen the worst of it. Believe me when I say there is no way.”

  “But there is!” Caelius shook his head, seeming to shed his sour mood as he pushed to sit up and face Gaidres. His eyes were pleading. “There is a way and that you cannot see it tells me how very much a man like you needs a dreamer after all.”

  “I do not understand…”

  “Hear me out. Argon the gladiator…Argon the slave died in the arena, with every other man in my ludus. Our people in Caere know you to be Gaidres. They believe you to be free already and have accepted you as my lover. You can be who you were meant to be in Caere, Gaid
res the free man and Argon no longer.”

  Gaidres knew what Caelius was thinking, and his heart pounded, shaking his head even as hope sprang into his throat to almost choke him. “But there are those who could recognize my face. I fought for your uncle before he brought his ludus to ruin.”

  “Who, my love? Who would make the connection between Argon the gladiator and Gaidres the free man and my lover? Anyone who followed the games around Fidena was in that arena when it fell. If they survived, they have far more on their minds than a slave whom they never owned in the first place. How many Romans take notice of the slaves they do have?”

  Oh, how he struggled inside, the need to agree warring with caution. Caelius seemed to sense Gaidres’s wavering and reached up to cup his face in his hands. “You know you belong by my side, Gaidres. You are a natural leader, others look to you for guidance, the children there worship you.”

  Gaidres swallowed hard as he closed his eyes. “Caelius, the people here in your villa know the truth.”

  “Why would they say anything?” Caelius gave him a gentle smile as Gaidres opened his eyes again. He brushed his thumb over the curve of Gaidres’s cheek. “They are loyal to me and you have won their hearts and respect this last week as well. You could have run, and most would not have blamed you, yet you did not. You found me, you brought me home and you’ve cared for them all these past days. Who would begrudge you this bit of happiness you have earned? Demos? He is your friend. You think Helene would say anything, knowing how much Faustus loves you? Or any of the others?”

  For the first time, Gaidres felt a true glimmer of hope. Hope that perhaps Caelius’s dreams were not quite so farfetched as he’d believed. Even still, he hesitated. “No one would believe I am a Roman…”

  “Would they not? Who was it that stormed into the heart of Rome herself in the guise of a Roman soldier to find me? People believe what they are told unless given reason not to. There would be no reason to doubt who we say you are with no one and nothing to say otherwise.”