by Lydia Pax
The celebrity extended to both genders. Men still called out the name of Orion—Lucius’s fighting name—as he passed in the city streets. None had today, though, which Lucius thought was a pretty good reason to have a drink later.
Most things, good or ill, were a good reason for Lucius to have a drink later.
He wondered if all the sight of these shirtless, muscled men training in unison was enough to raise the pulse of Gwenn. She seemed a tough nut to crack. That alone was enough to draw his attention. What might bring joy to that impassioned, rage-filled face?
Her skin, scarred and marred how it was, might have been reason for other men to turn away in disgust. But it only drew Lucius’s attention all the closer to the loveliness beyond all that pain. The patches of clear softness that wrapped in a loose whirlpool pattern around all those years of pain.
“Little flame” was a diminutive, and an obvious one. She was as big of a flame as he had ever seen.
Her face and neck were clear of scars, so far as he could tell. No doubt her previous owners thought enough about hurting her that they wanted to ensure they could warp her skin and still sell her.
The cold certainty of that made his fists twitch to hurt someone.
Lucius had started the day poorly, waking up hungover as he ever did. He had slept on his bad arm again. That meant all day it would ache.
It ached now and would not stop for anything. The only anodyne he’d found with any effectiveness was wine.
Frequently he slept on the bad arm. It would always be the same. In the early hours of the morning, there were several spurts of waking where he felt himself putting weight on the arm. But, he was too tired—and too drained from drinking the night before—to move himself over.
And so, he would ache, and the ache would drive him to find more wine.
Once, he had been a gladiator. Once, he had been the Champion of Puteoli, the king of fighters in one of the largest arenas in the entirety of the Roman Empire.
Now, Lucius didn’t even know what he was outside of a drunk. He felt like a lion kept in the house of a patrician’s house, toothless and with its claws removed, kept around to show the other lions what happened if they slipped up just once.
The fight that had taken his arm from him had been more than a year and a half ago. In the time since, he’d tried to earn his keep at the ludus of House Varinius by acting as a doctore—a teacher. There were four other doctores to teach the dozens of gladiators that the ludus boasted.
Murus was the lead doctore, overseeing the administrative duties of the fighters. He decided who was fit to fight and who needed more training before stepping into the arena. A gladiator was a highly lucrative commodity, and even unshaped novices could be hardened into money-making diamonds if only given proper time.
Lucius was a doctore for the retiarii class of fighters at the ludus. The retarius was one of the more unique styles in the world of arena fighting. He fought with a trident in one hand and a weighted net in the other. The idea was to try and catch an opponent with the net and stab him with the ends of the trident. It was a showy style, and required great skill to be effective. Lucius had been one of the best in Rome—perhaps in all of Rome’s history.
Now that he had returned to the ludus, he left the slaves with the guards and walked across the sands to his men. They were all handsome—a retarius usually was. Part of the selection for a retarius in the first place, indeed, was that they were good-looking, because they were one of the few fighting classes to enter combat without a helmet on.
Their lack of armor was supposed to be made up for with speed and agility—neither of which Lucius had much of anymore. But in his day, when he was well, there was no one who could match him.
Murus, thick of body and heavily balding, had been training the retiarii in Lucius’s absence. Now that Lucius was here, Murus nodded curtly at the other doctore and approached the newly arrived slaves. That was odd, but Lucius had to focus on his men.
There were not many of the trident-fighters left in the ludus. Just eight, in fact. But Murus had told Lucius, repeatedly, that whenever they happened to arrive, the newest recruits were to be his responsibility. So, Lucius hoped to thicken their ranks soon.
This was part of the reason he had approached the errand this morning with some annoyance. Why was he buying woman slaves when he needed to flesh out the ranks of his retiarii so badly? The crowd loved to watch them fight, and they were an important part of any games as opponents for the always-in-demand murmillo style fighters.
The retiarii trained with long wooden poles with three prongs on the end to represent the trident they carried. The training weapon, like all training weapons in the ludus, was heavier than the actual weapon they would use in the arena.
If a man could spin, thrust, slash, and dodge with the training weapon in his hands, then he would be well equipped to do the same with a real weapon in the arena with adrenaline pumping through his veins.
“All right.” Lucius took his position at the edge of the sands. He picked up a long walking stick he used as a training aide instead of a whip. He couldn’t use a whip; he had been whipped too many times. “Position two. Let’s see it.”
The retiarii formed up and thrust, slashed, and thrust again as he instructed. They all worked in a line, each across from their own post, dug deep into the sands. The post was the target, and had notches at points to indicate where a fighter’s eye-level ought to be with his weapon.
The retarius was just one style of gladiator—and House Varinius trained many. They all differed in some ways, with the retiarii differing more than most.
But even the overall style of the gladiator was different than that of, say, a soldier. A soldier entered a fight purely to kill. Sometimes, a gladiator killed. Sometimes he did not. But always, a gladiator had to entertain. A gladiator without the crowd behind him was dead the second he stepped foot in the sands.
“I see you’ve finally returned to your job.”
The voice came from the Domina of House Varinius, Porcia, who had approached from behind him. Lucius did not try to hide his disdain. She knew he disdained her, and he knew she knew; just the same, her low opinion of him was no secret to anyone.
“Position three!” Lucius called out. The fighters obeyed. “And continue repeating!”
Then he turned to Porcia. “Hello, Domina. I see you’ve finally remembered you run a ludus.” He pointed at his fighters. “Those are gladiators. They’re working on sand. Did you recall our conversation about how we need more of both?”
She was a beautiful woman. Her hair was thick and blond. She wore a green stola that fit tight around her shapely form, a sunset-orange belt cinched around her waist. Behind her, as always, stood her two tall guards—Karro and Brutillus. Both had been gladiators at another ludus, once upon a time. She bought their freedom specifically to ensure their loyalty to her.
Porcia did her best to present herself as a single childless woman to the available suitors in Puteoli. Lucius knew the truth, though.
Single? Yes. Childless? Hardly. She had a son named Marius who she saw maybe twice a year on visits to her family in Neapolis, with whom the boy stayed. He was eight years old.
Despite all of Porcia’s beauty, and her clear cunning of intellect, she always seemed to be containing some ball of fury.
From Lucius’s words, her fury was clear now. “If you weren’t protected by my husband’s will, Lucius…”
“You would have me flayed, Domina? Or is it hung from the walls today? Dragged behind horses?”
“Something like that. I think I may simply ride you to death, for old times’ sake.”
He thought of this woman trying to tame the wild Gwenn. The thought gave him much glee.
And the thought of being around Gwenn as it happened gave him something more than glee. Perhaps, over time, the lovely young fighter would want to know the very best ways to get on Porcia’s nerves—all of which were well-known to Lucius.
“D
omina.” A tone of soft reproach entered Lucius’s voice. “If you hadn’t sworn to see me to my grave, I might think you were flirting.”
Technically speaking, House Varinius was run by Marius Antonius Varinius, the son of the late Rufus Antonius Varinius who had expired from sickness some eighteen months prior. It was, in fact, around the same time that Lucius’s arm had been mangled by a tiger in the arena, and shortly after a fire had destroyed much of the ludus grounds. Tragedies, like armies, always liked to arrive reinforced. The better to break a man’s resolve.
But Marius was seven years old, and so instead the ludus was run in fact by Porcia until he became of age. Lucius was of the opinion, as were most of the gladiators he spoke to, that Marius would probably be able to do just about a good of a job as Porcia in most of the affairs of the ludus.
Perhaps that was unfair. She had done a nice job of rebuilding the estate after the fire. The house had undergone extreme renovations, completely rebuilt. Every floor was marble. Seven new columns had been installed in the atrium, and the dining room had been furnished with great silver disks on the walls.
Many roman houses held busts of their ancestors; the great men who had come before them and paved the way. It was uncommon for the operator of a ludus to do that, and yet Porcia had designs on the upper class of Roman society. She furnished busts of a few of Rufus’s ancestors, and a great many of her own—which many, many hundreds of years ago were instrumental in protecting the Republic during the wars with Carthage.
Lucius, unlike many gladiators at the ludus, knew what the inside of the house looked like due to his tenure as Porcia’s personal Adonis. When she called, he had to answer. Once, it had been an agreeable arrangement—he received extra favors, and she convinced the doctores and the Dominus to turn a blind eye to his drinking.
But then her cruelty, once only as present as any Roman’s, became an essential part of her personality. Perhaps it was always that way, and she had merely uncovered herself. Either way, after Lucius had his brush with death, he could not stand being Porcia’s lover for very long.
It had been an ugly end, and he did not like to think about it.
Porcia’s reconstruction efforts did not cease with the house. The walls were half again as high as they were in the past, and with half again as many guards on duty. This was because of the mass escape attempt at the beginning of the year.
Porcia’s fighters kept dying or getting gruesomely hurt in the arena. The rumor passed around that the ghost of Rufus had, in his death, been able to see Porcia’s many infidelities and lies to him in full. And so, as a result, he had cursed the ludus to bring shame down upon her.
It was a very Roman idea to think the place cursed, but all the gladiators had been thoroughly Romanized at that point.
All those involved in the escape attempt had been executed, ironically, at the arena. Their former brothers-in-arms fought in the arena afterward in the very same place of execution.
Porcia looked as though she was going to counter with some particularly vicious jab, probably aimed at the quality of his manhood and loving. But, very suddenly, her attitude changed.
“I have a present for you, Lucius. I think you’ll hate it.”
His voice rang with insincerity. “If it comes from you, Domina, I don’t see how I could.”
“We’ve finalized all arrangements for your new trainees.”
That did perk Lucius’s mood a bit. “It’s about time. When will they arrive?”
She pointed to the female slaves, where Murus examined them against the wall. The truth hit home like a slammed door.
“Right there, Lucius. You picked them out yourself.”
Chapter 4
Gwenn was ready to fight. She knew it in her bones. And soon, all of the men and women in her new home would know it too.
The new home was quite something, she had to admit. All these shirtless men, working their muscles and making themselves more fit by the minute.
Even with all her talk—and the many scuffles she had suffered and fought through to back it up—Gwenn was not made of stone. She did not imagine any woman could be among so many men, each one seemingly cut from living marble, without a slight increase in pulse. Her own increase was much more than slight—especially after those heart-pumping thrills that Lucius had inexplicably delivered to her.
Fighting was in her blood. Her father was an arena fighter, but before that, he had been a great warrior of his tribe. His father had been a chieftain and a warrior, and his father’s father had been a warrior, and so on and on all down the line.
As fighting was in her blood, fighting made her blood race. And she held fighting men in the highest of esteem.
She had always wanted to join herself to some strong, able man. Now she was surrounded by them—but all were forbidden. Lucius had said as much on the road up to the ludus.
She had been sold away for rebellious attitudes, for starting fights with the other slaves when they would not treat her fairly. As a slave, nothing was her property. And now, in this ludus, even her sex was not her own to operate as she wished.
Lucius, besides being a procurer of slaves for his mistress, seemed to also be a doctore for the retiarii style. She was well-versed in the nature of the arena. Her father had fought and died on the sands. She made it her business, lobbing question after question at anyone who attended the games, to find out as much as she could.
She herself had never been allowed to see the games in person. Not even on the day her father was killed.
A beautiful blond woman dressed in an ornate stola—Gwenn guessed it was the mistress of the house—Porcia, spoke to Lucius. It was clear even from a distance that the two had history. But Lucius now was staring at the gathered slave women at the entrance of the ludus.
No, that was wrong.
He stared directly at Gwenn.
Her heart began to race rapidly, once again. Hatred for her body’s quick response populated rapidly. She did not want her heart to race because of this smarmy lout. Nor did she want to imagine his body freed from all clothes, her fingers tracing the lines of his muscled thighs.
Gwenn found herself staring back at the man. His nose was tall on his face, unbroken. It was clear, though, that he had fought many times in the arena. He had the same easy confidence as the other fighters she saw on the training sands.
Something had happened to him, though—to his arm. An injury that kept him from training. He was not quite as fit as some of the other fighters—more wiry, with less bulk. Somehow it made every muscle more defined.
But she could very much notice from this distance how handsome he was, yes. In the arena, with no helmet to speak of, she was sure he stole many hearts.
It was too bad he was a terrible idiot who had bought her at the beck and call of his mistress.
And staring at her. Why was he staring at her?
She could not linger on it. The tall, wide, tanned fellow who had examined each of the gathered slaves in turn began to speak. His disappearing hair was streaked with gray, his skin like old leather.
“Welcome to House Varinius. My name is Murus. But you will know me as ‘Doctore.’ I am your teacher while you are here. I am your father. I am your brother. I am the only man you need concern yourself with. I am the High Priest of your life, and the Domina is your Goddess.” He pointed to back to the beautiful blond woman watching them. “Some of you will earn a place here. Some of you may die here. Some more of you will die in the arena as failures in your old life, shamed and purposeless.”
Gwenn could hardly believe her ears. Could such news be real? Could she honestly be hearing what she was?
Was she truly to compete in the arena as her father had—to ride the line between living and dying within a single breath?
The other slaves—trained well enough not to make any comments—looked at one another with wide alarm as opposed to Gwenn’s clear eagerness.
“But if you listen,” Murus continued, “and you work, you ca
n shed the bounds of that old life. You will earn the favor of the crowd, and your name on the Wall of Turmedites, where you shall live in immortality!”
He walked from one end to the other of their line, shaking his head. He did not look impressed. Most of the girls looked back at him with abject fear. They had expected simple house work. Not the most pleasant of lives, but at least it normally had some longevity to it.
“It may have occurred to you that this is some joke, women fighting in the arena. Certainly some of my own men will think it so. But I assure you, this is deadly serious. If you have any illusions about me taking it easy because of what is or is not between your legs, think again. It is my purpose in life to deliver glory to this ludus. And so I will shape you from women into gladiatrices. If you falter, I will work you. If you fail, I will drop your carcass into the sea. And if you succeed, I shall be the first to hold you up.”
He grinned wickedly then.
“It is my hope that you ladies take great pleasure in training. I certainly do.”
Gwenn’s heart sang. She would compete as a gladiator. And she would earn herself a legend, just as her father had years before.
Murus unloaded a bundle of training swords on the sands before them. As Gwenn picked up her sword, she smiled—and she did not stop.
Chapter 5
The women took up arms and began hacking at training posts in the sands. Their forms were laughable, and so Lucius laughed. He was joined by one of his retiarii, Ajax.
“Do you think their breasts will get in the way?” asked Ajax. “I think they will. I think that one there, the busty one? I don’t think she’ll be able to swing around her tits come time for the arena.”
“Maybe she’ll smother her opponent with them,” suggested Lucius. “I’d pay to watch that.”
