Blood of a Gladiator

by Ashley Gardner

  The gate guard straightened as I came toward him, followed by a few of my devotees. He stared at me in surprise then shouted to a boy who raked the practice ring to run for Aemil.

  “No,” I yelled after him. “I want Marcianus.”

  The guard opened the gate, closing it quickly as the devotees who’d followed me surged forward. He’d done this for me many a day.

  “Did you come to be a trainer?” the guard asked. He liked me, possibly because I’d often tipped him to let me in or out after curfew.

  I didn’t bother to answer. Aemil headed for me in his loping trot, the sun glinting on his close-cropped, light-brown hair. He moved swiftly for a man who’d retired from his fighting days ten years ago. Ruthless, he’d been. A gladiator drawing Aemil as an opponent made his peace with the gods beforehand.

  “Only a day.” Aemil peered at me smugly. He was a Gaul, captured in battle as a child, but now as Roman in attitude as any consul. “Only a day, and you rush back home.”

  “I’ve come for Marcianus. A woman is ill. I need him.”

  “Woman?” He scowled. “What woman?”

  “Floriana.” I was too hurried to explain, but Aemil knew.

  “You want to waste Nonus Marcianus on a whore?” Aemil’s eyes widened in incredulity. “He’s busy.”

  Gladiators were more valuable, he meant. We commanded a high price, while prostitutes could be found on every street for an as.

  Aemil had no intention of sending for Marcianus, I could see. He’d only come to crow that I’d returned to beg him for employment.

  Fortunately, the boy I’d called out to had heard me and was now trotting from the cells, with the lanky medicus behind him.

  Nonus Marcianus had gained a reputation for being able to save even the most injured gladiator, alternately cajoling and cursing said gladiator to hold still and let him work. Aemil valued the man, because he couldn’t afford to lose many fighters. The idea that all gladiators battled to the death in every match was a myth. A lanista put years, dedication, and money into training a gladiator for the games. Aemil could ask any price he wanted for us, because he had Marcianus to keep us whole as long as possible.

  Marcianus had brown hair and a nose too large for his face. He appeared amiable and even simple, but he was the most capable man I knew.

  “You seem to be whole.” Marcianus looked me up and down when he reached me. “Why the commotion?”

  I hastily explained, words tumbling. Aemil’s sour expression deepened. “She’s already dead then.” He dismissed Floriana with a wave. “No one survives poison.”

  “Not necessarily,” Marcianus said. “Let me get my things.”

  Aemil planted himself in front of the medicus. “You’re working on my men. The whore is beyond saving.”

  “I’ve set all the bones I need to and closed the worst of the wounds. I have a few moments to spare. I fear the poor lady does not.”

  Aemil was large and fearsome. Marcianus, who’d begun life in an Equestrian family, was small-boned and pale from sitting indoors peering at books. However, it was Aemil who grunted and backed down.

  “Go on,” he grumbled. “I know you’ll have your way.”

  Marcianus immediately left us and disappeared into the cells. He returned in a moment carrying a cloth sack. “We should run.”

  Without waiting for my answer, he jogged past me to the gate and out.

  By the time we reached the Subura, interested passersby had gathered around Floriana’s house. I pressed through, clearing a path for Marcianus.

  A few vigiles lurked on the street, looking on in case the crowd turned into a mob. Vigiles worked mostly at night, watching out for fires, but part of their job was to keep order at any time. A man I recognized as an urban cohort, who performed the same function during the daylight hours, hovered on the opposite side of the gathering, eyeing the vigiles in mistrust.

  Neither the vigiles or the urban cohort would even look at the Praetorian Guard who’d stopped to watch. The Praetorian must have been passing on another errand, because those elite fighting men kept themselves to the Palatine or their training field in the Campus Martius.

  Lucia hurried out to meet me, parting the onlookers to tug me inside. Marcianus slipped in behind me.

  “Has she died?” Marcianus asked in clipped tones.

  “No, but she’s powerful sick.” Anguish rang in Lucia’s voice. The other ladies hovered, fearful. Floriana wasn’t always a kind mistress, but if she died, the women would be out on the streets.

  Marcianus made his way to the small room at the end of the hall. I heard a whispered groan as Floriana struggled to live.

  I pulled Lucia to my side. “Leave him to it.”

  Marcianus could make healing concoctions I’d never heard of and knew how to stitch wounds with fine thread so that they closed and mended. Some believed he used magic to assist him, but Marcianus believed in little but what his own experience told him. I had faith in his skill.

  He knelt by Floriana’s pallet, never minding the filth pooled there. I do not know what he assessed, but he reached quickly into his bag and instructed that someone bring him a mortar and pestle.

  The youngest lady in the house, Marcia, peeled from the group to obey. Marcianus never snapped, never commanded. He simply asked in his reasonable voice, and others hurried to do as he wished.

  “Leonidas,” he said in the same quiet tone.

  I knew what he meant. “Out,” I said sternly to the hovering women. He needed room to work.

  Marcia hurried back with the mortar and pestle. Marcianus dropped something white and hard into the pot and told Marcia to begin grinding. The other women lingered, either from concern or curiosity, but I mercilessly herded them down the hall and out of the house.

  Lucia hung on to me as we emerged into the sunshine. Her brown eyes were filled with fear under her henna-dyed hair.

  “If she dies …” Her words held agitation.

  “I’ll look after you.”

  Annoyance drifted over Lucia’s worry. “How? I am fond of you, Leonidas, but you are a moneyless freedman.”

  “I have a benefactor now,” I reminded her.

  “One who has given you no means to sustain yourself. What sort of benefactor is that?”

  I couldn’t answer. I did not understand my situation, but for now it was enough that I did not have to sleep in the streets.

  “You will have a place to stay, in any case,” I promised.

  “You had better ask your slave if she is willing to wait on a woman like me. She sounds hoity-toity.”

  I thought about how cleverly Cassia had made certain there was plenty of food, drink, and warm blankets for sleeping when I hadn’t enough money to cover the costs. For a woman who’d lived a sheltered life, Cassia had coerced the hard-bitten shopkeepers of Rome to do what she wished.

  I wasn’t certain what she’d make of Lucia. But Cassia belonged to me, and should obey my wishes … shouldn’t she?

  I had no idea what to do with a slave. I wasn’t the commanding sort, and Cassia so far had not waited for instructions from me.

  The hordes outside the brothel hadn’t thinned. It was the third hour on this winter day, the sun well up, and the streets were full. Onlookers created a jam on the road, which led from the Esquiline Hill to the heart of the city. Those who needed to pass shouted and cursed. Others stopped to ask what had happened and lingered in curiosity. Romans ever sought entertainment.

  The vigiles and the cohort tried to get people to move on, but with little success against the thick-bodied costermongers and determined matrons who watched from behind folds of embroidered pallas.

  The Praetorian Guard looked on with disdain at the vigiles’ efforts and made no move to help. He caught my eye, frowned a moment, as though wondering what a gladiator was doing here, then his gaze slid past me.

  I spied another figure in the crowd. A small woman, nearly hidden in her plain cloak, peered around the crush to see what I’d gotte
n myself into.

  I wondered how Cassia had known to come here, but news of a commotion and possible poisoning would travel quickly. She might have been out and followed the crowd, or overheard people speaking of it in the wine shop beneath us—she’d known I’d gone to Floriana’s and could easily ask the way.

  Cassia made no move to approach me, simply watched, dark eyes taking in everything.

  Time at last dispersed the throng. As the hour passed, with no word from inside the house, the spectators grew bored or realized they had better finish with whatever task they’d been sent on, and began to drift away. Lucia ducked inside, I unable to stop her. The other ladies sat in the shade by the wall, arms around knees, heads back, dozing. The day warmed, though it was a far cry from the heavy heat of summer.

  By the time Marcianus emerged, only a handful of people remained, including the cohort and the Praetorian. The vigiles had given up and gone home, their night shift long finished.

  “She will live,” Marcianus announced to me. The ladies, sighing with relief, climbed to their feet and trickled back inside, ready for sleep.

  Marcia had followed Marcianus out, carrying his bag and watching him with a sort of reverence.

  “She will need care,” Marcianus told her. Marcia’s carefully curled black hair hung lank, her face creased with weariness, but she nodded fervently, eager to help. “She must drink the concoction I mixed and eat nothing more until I see her again tomorrow.”

  Marcia listened to his instructions attentively. I didn’t think Marcia was more than sixteen summers, but she was brighter than most.

  Marcianus turned to me. “Floriana ate the leaves of rhubarb, from what I can tell. The stems have medicinal use, but the leaves are deadly poisonous. Thankfully, it’s a slow poison, which was why I could save her.” He frowned at Marcia. “Did she not know? Some make a salad of any green they can find.”

  Marcia shook her head. “We had no salad yesterday. Or any rhubarb in the house either. We all ate the same—lentils and bread.”

  “Are you certain? She could have nipped out and bought some for herself.”

  “Fairly certain. I can find out.” Marcia ducked swiftly inside.

  Cassia moved nearer to us. She had a tablet open and made quick, precise marks in it. Marcianus noted her, his gaze growing curious.

  “This is Cassia,” I said. “She works for me now.”

  Cassia adjusted her palla to cover most of her face and bowed her head in deferential greeting. She studied Marcianus as he blinked in surprise at my announcement, then she began speaking to him. In Greek.

  Marcianus’s surprise turned to astonishment, then delight. He answered her, and the two began a conversation, both behaving with cordiality, but what they said, I had no idea.

  Marcia returned, breathless and flushed. “No salad of any kind. As I said, lentils and bread.”

  Cassia made a note. “What time did the symptoms occur?” she asked Marcia.

  Marcia stared at her and addressed her answer to Marcianus. “We found her like that this morning, in the first hour. Lucia was shouting.”

  Marcianus nodded, and Cassia’s stylus moved across the wax.

  “May I see your notes?” Marcianus asked, and Cassia handed him the tablet. He glanced over the scratches in approval. “Very succinct.”

  “Thank you.” Cassia took the tablet as he held it out to her. “I find it helpful to keep a record of events.”

  Marcia and I exchanged a baffled glance.

  “If anything changes, send for me,” Marcianus said to Marcia. “My house is near the fountain of the three fishes on the Aventine.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Marcianus had a way of commanding instant respect. His presence wasn’t powerful or dominating, but men and women alike fell all over themselves to do what he asked.

  He began to walk away, but Cassia called after him, “Your fee, sir?”

  Marcianus turned back with a start. He quickly assessed the house with its weary, mussed ladies, me still in the tunic of a slave, Cassia and her plain draperies, stylus hovering.

  “One as,” he said. “Payable whenever it can be done.”

  Cassia’s stylus moved. Marcia slid back into the house with the last of the ladies. Marcianus gave us a gesture of farewell and strode down the street.

  The spectacle over, the lingerers went about their business, ready for the next entertainment they might stumble upon.

  “He has much kindness,” Cassia observed as we watched Marcianus go, his lanky body jerking, until he faded into the crowd.

  “I would be dead three times over if not for him.” He’d patched up wounds Aemil had been certain would kill me.

  “Astute as well. He knows they can’t pay much but would be insulted to receive charity.”

  “What were the two of you speaking of?” I asked. “I don’t understand Greek.”

  Cassia flushed. “He asked where I came from and why I am assisting you. About my family and background. He was born in Athens, he said, though his parents were from Rome. He knows that part of the world better than this. He said he studied medicine in Athens and Ephesus.” She sounded impressed.

  They’d exchanged much information. I hadn’t known this about Marcianus, and I still knew little about Cassia.

  She tucked away her stylus and tablet and gazed at me with a critical eye. “You will need a barber. And a new tunic.”

  “Later.” Now I wanted to sleep.

  “We cannot wait,” she said. “You might have a job, but you must present yourself at a patrician’s house, and you will need to be shaved and in clean clothes for that.”

  Chapter 5

  “Job?” I asked in surprise. Cassia had said she’d begin her search for one last night, but I hadn’t thought she’d find one so quickly. “Doing what? For who?”

  “A retired senator on the Esquiline. We must hurry, or he will cease admitting clients for the day, and we’ll have to wait until morning. As that will be another day of expenses, I suggest we meet with him as quickly as we can.”

  Cassia’s urgency was acute. I’d be happy to sleep the day and night away—I could not run up expenses if I ate and drank nothing.

  I complied because I was curious about who she expected me to work for and what I’d be doing.

  I led Cassia to a nearby barber’s shop and ducked into the tiny interior. Cassia informed me she had further errands, and I watched her go in her uncertain gait, her head bent as she tried to avoid others in her path.

  “Leonidas!” The greeting surged at me from the barber, Paulinus, whose voice filled the small room. Several men who occupied a bench outside, awaiting their turn under the razor, also hailed me. The man on a stool being scraped by the barber sent me a grin.

  I returned the greetings and took my place on the end of the bench. Because the entire shop’s front opened to the street, the bench flowed halfway inside.

  “Freedman,” Paulinus went on in his ear-splitting voice. He reveled in gossip, and repeated it as loudly and as often as he could. “Why are you in my shop? You could have your own ludus now.”

  I shrugged, remaining mute.

  “You’ll have to go back to the games,” Paulinus went on. “Life won’t be the same for me if I can’t look forward to watching you.” He winked. “And winning plenty of money on you.”

  The other customers laughed their appreciation. They knew me as a regular but were avid followers for my career. “You could teach us how to fight,” one of the men on the bench suggested. “Charge a sestertius a round to learn what you know.”

  I flexed my hand, the one still sore from clutching the wooden rudis. A few splinters remained in my palm.

  I didn’t want to speak of it, and in fact, would rather walk away than try to explain I didn’t want to train others to kill. I wanted nothing to do with any of it.

  But if I jumped up and left, I’d have to explain to Cassia why I hadn’t stayed for the shave. I knew she wouldn’t understand why I’d
jeopardized the chance to make money to pay for what she’d already purchased.

  I realized that I’d have to pay Paulinus today. He’d always sent the bill to Aemil.

  Paulinus finished with the man on the chair, who rose, cupping his red cheek with one hand. Paulinus wasn’t the most gifted barber, but he was quick and cheap.

  He invited me to the stool, ahead of the others. The men on the bench waved me on, not minding I cut them out. They never did.

  Paulinus sharpened his half-moon shaped razor against his stone while I seated myself on the small stool. He lifted a dipper from a bucket of water, poured the water over the blade and then into his palm, and smoothed the water onto my face.

  Then he began. The process was never pleasant, but my skin was tough. The blade scraped off the day and a half growth of beard, nicking and cutting as it went.

  “Now it’s Regulus,” Paulinus observed. “As primus palus, I mean. He’s good, but not in your style. Think he’ll be defeated? He only ever fell under you.”

  I remembered the hatred in Regulus’s eyes when I’d raised him from the sand, refusing to slay him. He’d wanted to die, and I’d denied him. Hadn’t I been obliged to end his life, as a friend? Did my wishes outweigh his?

  I’d never had to ponder such things before, and it made my head ache.

  “Regulus is a prime fighter,” I said, hiding my troubling thoughts. “He will be a good—”

  I broke off as Cassia passed the door of the shop. She carried several bundles, and as I watched, a man on the street tried to relieve her of them.

  Cassia jerked away, turning on him with the imperiousness of an upper-class slave. The man simply snarled at her and lifted her from her feet.

  I was off the stool and out the door, Paulinus giving a startled cry as he snatched the razor from my throat at the last second. I stormed into the street, an animal-like noise leaving my throat, and wrapped a giant hand around the assailant’s neck. Cassia, released, skidded on muddy stones and dropped her bundles.

  I shook the assailant, a Roman freedman with greasy dark hair and a prominent goiter. He’d gone wide-eyed and limp, like a rabbit caught in a wolf’s mouth. He wheezed, trying to breathe.