Love of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 2) (12 page)

“I do too. It’s a shame you’re so dead set against finding out more about it.”

Now she raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure I don’t have any idea what you mean, Doctore.”

But the crawling heat on her neck suggested she knew exactly what he meant.

Before, when they spoke to one another, sex was always in the background. They did not play with flirtation, really, nor explore any issues of their mutual attraction. But now that it was there, it felt tangible. Like a giant mass of heat wrapped around both of them, pulling them in and yet pushing them away at the same time. It was the sort of propulsion that you couldn’t help but fight against. A kind of ache, like a bruise on your elbow that you kept rubbing just to see if that hot, sudden, gasping sensation of pain still lived.

He thought they might strip then and there, secrets be damned. Sense be damned. Memories be damned.

He wanted his little flame. He wanted to give her the flame of her life.

But, footsteps rang down the corridor.

“They told us we’d find you here, Lucius.” It was Caius, and behind him, his wife Aeliana, along with Conall. “What have you got for an old friend?”

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G
wenn had difficulty concentrating on Caius’s story. It was the third or fourth such one that he’d told since arriving an hour ago. They were all rather the same—embarrassing tales about Lucius when he was a novice. Aeliana bore the stories patiently and with good humor, stroking her husband’s thick arm as he recounted tale after tale.

It was difficult concentrating on most anything anyone might have said. Lucius was right there.

You’re gorgeous, and your body is gorgeous, and I want to have it.

That was what he said. Words, straight from his beautiful mouth. She wanted to run her lips over it until he could not help but say them again.

“Meanwhile,” said Caius, laughing heartily now, “Murus is yelling his ass off, trying to get Lucius to drop the Hell Log before he sinks all the way in the mud. But it’s raining so hard that Lucius can’t hear him.”

Lucius was laughing too, red-faced. Seeing his friends had made him suddenly into a different person. A younger person—someone who seemed closer to Gwenn’s own age than she had realized before. But they were only seven, eight years apart? Not that much. Not so much for friends.

Or for lovers.

The gladiator Conall had joined them. He sat in the corner, smiling gently. He was a short man, unimpressive in his stature. He’d had a long run of bad luck in his fights as far as Gwenn understood. Scars ran up and down his arms where he’d been hurt. The only reason he'd survived was by being a crowd favorite. He did not ask for the missus—for mercy—ever.

He had a fiery temper, though, one that she had seen explode on the training sands more than once. The other gladiators seemed rather used to it. They called him Pertinax in the arena, after a famous Roman general with a legendary temper.

“So Lucius, he keeps trying to run, but—”

“Don’t forget I’m naked this whole time,” said Lucius. “Because Murus wouldn’t let me go back to get my cell and get dressed once he found the dead rat I put in his cot.”

Caius’s laugh became a long burst at this recollection. “That’s right! That’s right, and you were knee deep, and you kept complaining that you were dipping the tip down into the mud.” He was getting tears in his eyes. “And finally, finally Murus gets through to you. And you hear him telling you to drop the log. And you say—”

“I say, ‘I can’t do it, Doctore! The log will drown in this muck, and it’s done nothing wrong!’”

They all burst out laughing at this. Gwenn let the feeling of the laugh carry her, but then her eyes met Lucius’s and reality struck again.

It would be quite glorious, the two of us going at it. And very loud.

“All that mud,” said Aeliana, shaking her head. “Couldn’t you have died? Like drowned, if they didn’t get you out?”

Lucius shrugged his eyebrows, as if considering this for the first time. “I suppose so. Didn’t work out like that, though, did it?”

“Idiots.” She looked up at Gwenn. “You have inherited a legacy of idiots, I hope you know.”

“I don’t know,” said Gwenn. “I think it’s noble enough.”

Caius and Aeliana traded a knowing look.

“If you think that's noble, you should hear about Conall's plans to fight the Titan.”

“What's this?” Aeliana turned sharply at the bearded gladiator. “You want to fight the Titan of Rome? He kills everyone he fights, Conall.”

Laughing, Caius put a hand on his wife. “It was an idle boast he made once. Nothing to fuss about.”

“I don't know that the boast was
idle
,” said Conall, swelling slightly. “I would fight him if I could. But with the way this ludus is run, I don't feel it very likely. My next fight is against someone well beneath my station. I expect to win in five minutes.”

“That's lucky,” said Aeliana.

Conall shrugged. “I would prefer a challenge.”

“And what of you, Gwenn? Do you fight in the upcoming games?” Aeliana asked.

“I do,” Gwenn said, with pride.

“She does,” said Lucius. “And she’ll win, too. I think she’s a better murmillo than Felix, Caius.”

Caius snorted. “Then I’m glad I’m done with the arena.”

He looked as though he wanted to ask something else, and Gwenn wanted to learn more about Caius's legendary bout with Felix, but a guard arrived.

“Gladiatrix Gwenn.” He stamped his spear down on the stone. “Your presence is requested in the house.”

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T
he ins and outs of Roman society were something of a mystery to Gwenn. Every day, while she trained, there were at least a dozen people—and sometimes many more—who called upon Porcia for patronage.

These were Porcia’s clients.

Porcia then would give out some measure of money, and then these clients would leave. Some would continue to go on to other houses, hoping for other patrons to benefit them, until they were able to pay for their bills of the day—usually for food and the like.

What Porcia gained in return was that these individuals now owed her, either in favors or fighting power, should she ever have need to call on them for it. This had happened in other houses Gwenn had worked in, although not to the degree that it appeared Porcia suffered it, as they weren't quite as rich. She didn’t understand how so many people found work in simply asking for money or how Porcia found status in giving it.

But, then again, Rome had utterly conquered Gwenn’s people. So they certainly seemed to know what they were doing, even if Gwenn didn’t.

It was a particular sort of humbling experience, knowing that Rome had been around for somewhere near a thousand years, and her own tribe had been together in the form Gwenn knew it only for a few generations. Probably no one from Rome would ever have to suffer the complete humbling of being as inconsequential as she did.

As she entered the house of the Domina for the first time, she recognized quite a few faces who had traveled past her and the other fighters in training during the past few weeks—those same clients. Some part of the patronage system involved patrons inviting the same people they gave money to over for dinner.

Gwenn suspected that there were others in attendance—senators, imperial officials, wealthy equestrians and the like who were patrons in turn to Porcia. All wore togas, and most if not all of them had their garments decorated with stripes or coloration that denoted the many variations of their office, which Gwenn had no mind for.

The majority of the guests stood in the atrium, eating olives and grapes held up for them on trays by well-muscled and well-practiced slaves. Music played from one corner; a man with a lyre banding about and crooning about some great, ancient fight in the arena two hundred years ago.

If Gwenn stopped to listen for too long, she might be overwhelmed with the history of her current task.

Porcia spoke with a handsome man with curled hair and blank dark eyes. They were the eyes of a predator, crafted from the deep pressure of growing up in a land full of other, bigger predators. He touched Porcia with great familiarity, as if he did not care that he essentially announced their intimacy to the rest of the room.

He, like several other senatorial guests, wore a toga striped with purple.

On either end of a table behind Porcia, flanking her, were her guards Karro and Brutillus. They wore long, twisted swords at their sides, their scarred chests bare, with thick leather belts wrapped around their waists. It was a sort of ceremonial gladiator garb they wore, even though they were free men.

“Here she is now,” said Porcia, eyes lighting up. She addressed Gwenn.“Slave, this is Senator Otho. He wanted to inspect our fighting stock of women, and I told him we’d had some very
promising
recruits arrive.”

Otho approached Gwenn and immediately began to grope her body. His hands squeezed at her arms and shoulders, then her rear and thighs and breasts. No one in the crowd found any of this amiss. Porcia had merely allowed Otho to do a hands-on inspection of her property.

“Very nice,” he whispered in her ear. “Very nice, indeed.”

Gwenn could do nothing about this without risking her death. She considered it—and a part of her knew that not so long ago, she would have punched the senator without hesitation. But her many weeks of training had prepared her for one purpose in the arena. To risk that purpose now felt sacrilegious.

“She is hard indeed. Your trainers certainly know how to put a man, or a woman, into good shape.” He eyed her critically. “Her chest is a bit flat for the show, however.”

“The better for maneuverability, dear Otho.” Porcia smiled. “Why, if she were as shapely as some of us, she’d have too much a target wagging around.”

They had a crowd now, circled around Otho, Porcia, and Gwenn, and at that comment, they all laughed. Gwenn concentrated very hard on not letting her anger rise.

I’m not even here. I’m far away. I’m some place better.

I’m in Lucius’s lap, and he’s telling me how attractive he finds me. He’s telling me that we would leave scorch marks on the bed if we ever went at it. My hand is slipping down into his loincloth and finding the stiff member he has there waiting for me.

“I’d like to test that theory,” said Otho. He snapped his fingers. “Get me a pair of training swords. You, soldier.” He pointed to one of his own retinue. “Form up. I want you to fight this woman.”

The soldier looked confused. “But she’s a woman, Sir.”

“What do I pay you for? Is it questions?” Otho’s nose tilted upward. “She’s a gladiatrix, and that makes her half again more man than you if you won’t fight her. Grab a sword and let’s see it.”

Another soldier handed Gwenn a sword. The crowd spread out to the walls. Her heart pumped strangely, hands flexing and re-flexing over the cool wood of the training blade.

This was really happening.

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R
ight away, Lucius didn’t like the exhibition. He had been asked to spar and wrestle on a number of occasions in the past during parties such as this.

Usually, the request had been made by Porcia. The game was for him to be shown half-naked, or sometimes completely naked, for Porcia in front of her husband or other women. She enjoyed showing off her toys, in other words. Often she took bets on the outcomes, with Iunius running as a bookkeeper.

When Gwenn was called away, Lucius followed almost immediately. He stopped only to say goodnight to his friends, wishing Caius and Aeliana a safe trip back.

So he had been there to see Otho fondle Gwenn. He had seen more than enough to make rage take a long, deep grip on his stomach and twist it all the way around.

His hands would look good, Lucius decided, wrapped around Otho's neck.

The soldier Otho picked to spar with Gwenn was tall and brutish, looking more ape than man. He looked of Gaulish ancestry, and had thick forearms, broad forward-facing shoulders, and a heavy brow. He and Gwenn squared off around the pool in the middle of the atrium. The soldier had been reluctant at first, but now advanced on her with a grin on his face.

He thought it would be easy.

Gwenn parried his first several blows and then delivered a whirling roundhouse blow to the side of his helmet. The clang reverberated through the atrium. Members of the crowd gasped and applauded at the showy maneuver.

Don’t show off
, Lucius urged silently.
Just finish him and be done with it.

The longer she fought, he knew, the more interest Otho would take. With a man like Otho, better not to have any interest at all. Even if a lion favored you for a while, it was always still a lion.

But Gwenn ignored Lucius’s silent advice. She walked in a circle around the fallen guard, allowing him time to get up. She wanted to put on a show for the crowd.

God, she was a real gladiatrix, sure enough. The tone of her muscles was clear as she moved. Her footing was always solid. She had learned much under his tutelage. A potent combination of pride and lust fought it out in his heart, struggling for advantage.

The soldier advanced quickly now, done with what little caution he had used before. He struck out wildly, pushing Gwenn to the corner in a bull rush of blows. The crowd split at their approach, wine spilling on the floor. She blocked or parried each blow, and when they were close enough to the wall, she spun around him again and whacked his helmet with her sword. Again he fell to a knee, holding his head in pain.

The crowd loved it. They laughed and cheered as Gwenn held up her hands.

“Wouldn’t want to be in the arena with her,” said one.

“I wouldn’t mind being in a few other places with her, though.”

Lucius held his tongue. They would have better luck—and fewer scars—in bedding a leopard.

With a roar, the soldier snapped back up to his feet and charged after Gwenn full bore. She only smiled as he approached. It was nothing for her to step aside at the last moment and trip him, sending him crashing hard into one of the many marble columns. His helmet splintered the marble where he landed, leaving a dusty spiderweb formation.