Love of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 2) (13 page)

The guard's head lolled on his shoulders, unconscious on the ground.

“Well done!” said Porcia, clapping her hands in advance of the crowd. “A well fought victory indeed!”

The rest of the crowd clapped with her. They had been given a show, after all, and the only polite thing to do was clap.

It would have been different if someone had been seriously hurt or if the rest of the party wasn’t quite so good; but with the help of the others in his contubernium the groggy soldier got back up to his feet, and the wine still flowed just as freely as before.

“I think you can see, Senator Otho,” said Porcia, “that you are in for a wonderful display at the anniversary games.”

Otho smiled grimly. “I can see that she knows a thing or two about avoiding the blows of an oaf. But what would she do with a real Roman fighting man?” He gestured with one hand. “Give me a sword.”

Lucius’s throat tightened. He did not mean a training sword—and nor did he receive one. The heavy blade now in Otho’s hands was sharp Roman steel.

––––––––

G
wenn only had a moment of exhilaration from her victory over the soldier. She savored it, that hot pump of adrenaline combined with the unstoppable sense that she had bested a man at his own game.

And then Otho began to advance on her with his own sword—a real sword.

Gwenn backed up, unsteady. She scanned the crowd for a hint that this might be some kind of joke—a jest that Otho performed readily. Any sort of boredom from over-exposure or mirth in the eyes of the onlookers. But they all seemed as surprised as her. Some seemed aroused by the thought of watching Otho have his bladed way with the gladiatrix in the flimsy clothing.

She saw Lucius in the crowd. Fear ran wild in his expression. And somehow, that steeled her.

Nothing so much mattered to her in that moment but letting him know that he had nothing to fear. She would take care of this madman. Shame him into behaving a little more according to his station.

Otho swiped at her, almost casual, and Gwenn dodged easily. He swiped again, playing with her, and again she dodged. This continued, with Gwenn continuing to back up and considering how to attack.

She waited for openings, tried perhaps to goad him into rushing like the soldier had. But Otho was not impatient. He could do this all night if he had to.

There was a calm, effortless madness in his eyes that set Gwenn’s insides cold. She truly believed that he would kill her if she gave him half a chance.

Luckily, she did not intend on doing anything of the sort.

He made another casual swipe with his sword, and Gwenn made him pay for it. She parried the blow and then immediately hammered her sword’s pommel into his hand. His sword clacked and clanged across the atrium until it landed, with a splash, in the pool.

Otho sniffed. “Retrieve that.” His soldiers moved, but he held up a hand. “No. You.” He pointed at Gwenn. “Retrieve my sword.”

She hesitated, but after a moment she nodded and said, “Yes, Senator.”

As she bent over to grab the sword from the water, Otho kicked her from behind. Her head landed awkwardly on the marble steps around the pool, and she slid across the floor. Blood sprouted from a long cut on her forehead.

“Never take your eye off your enemy!” Otho pulled his sword out from the water. “Don’t they teach you that down there in the sands?”

Gwenn’s training sword was far away. Otho attacked and she scrambled backward, avoiding one strike and then another. Either would have chopped deep into her thighs. Otho’s face was red, blood rushing into every part of his body.

She did not like to think where else this display of her helpless form was guiding blood in his body. She remembered the shameless way he groped her body. He attacked in long slashes and heavy thrusts, hoping for blood.

Finally he got it. She misjudged a slash and was struck high on her arm, sending red into the crowd. The sword carried the blood, spraying it onto an equestrian woman who looked close to fainting. Gwenn rolled forward after the blow, though, leaping across the atrium and snatching up her sword again.

Otho was right on top of her, raining down blows. The training sword was hard wood, lacquered and molded to stand up to the heavy everyday uses in the ludus, but it was still just wood. Bits of the length chopped away under the strength of a fully-grown man battering at it with a soldier’s steel sword.

A deep, old instinct arrived in her belly, immediately taking grip on her actions. She let him strike her sword again and again until it was almost cut through.

Then, in one blinding-fast spinning maneuver, everything changed.

Her body clung to his and there was a quick wrestling for position. She struck him in the temple with her bloody forehead, stunning him just briefly. A mark remained above his eyebrows, like a wet red kiss.

When they separated again, he held the training sword and she the steel. With a furious chop, she clove the training sword in two and held the point of the steel to Otho’s throat.

Not missing a beat, Otho stepped away and began to clap, a smile on his face.

“Well done!” he shouted. “Well done!”

The crowd took several seconds to catch up to him. They had all been stunned at the severity of the violence in display. First by Otho’s dedication in maiming Gwenn, and then by her defiance in emerging victorious.

Soldiers advanced steadily on Gwenn, still holding the sword. With a curt smile, she dropped it and kicked it over toward them.

After a moment, Otho turned back toward her. He was smiling still, and clapping, playing to the crowd, but his eyes had changed.

His eyes were still the eyes of a madman—but they were not emotionless anymore. Anger filled him now, and it burned on Gwenn with all its force.

She understood, then. The fear in Lucius’s eyes. It wasn’t that she might lose.

It wasn’t that at all.

Lucius was scared she might
win
.

––––––––

T
he following morning, Lucius waited for her outside the cell blocks. She'd had trouble sleeping, and the bandages that Nyx had put on her wounds were coming loose, but all the same her mood was high. Another day living, and still she was a gladiatrix.

“We need to talk.”

Rage began to fill Gwenn. A reprimand, was that it? For defending herself? She wouldn’t have it.

The previous night, she had thought long and hard about what had gone down in the atrium. She did her very best to consider herself blameless.

The man had ordered her to fight, and twice she had done it. There had been no orders to lose. No orders to let a senator have his way with her. He could be well damned with his expectations that a slave might take it easy on him simply because of his standing. What did she care about standing? What cause had she to ever care about what others thought of a senator?

And a nagging voice kept telling her:
he can make you care. One way or another
.

“I did the right thing, Lucius, and you know it.”

He did that little eyebrow shrug of his that she found so intolerably cute. “I don’t know about that. But—”

“He’s lucky I didn’t draw blood. I could have. I had my sword less than an inch from his throat.”

Lucius laughed. “
You’re
lucky you didn’t draw blood, and you’re also insane if you think otherwise. You think slaves can draw the blood of senators and it’s nothing? You would have been crucified—actually crucified—and probably burned alive just for the trouble of stringing you up.”

Her rage receded. Then, like a wave, it returned. Just because he was
right
didn’t mean Gwenn was any less mad about
what
made him right.

“That’s all shit, and you know it.”

“I do. But it’s the shit we live in, Gwenn. Vent on me all you want. I don’t mind. I just don’t want you mouthing off to Murus or worse.”

He meant Porcia, of course.

“Was that what you wanted to talk to me about? Watching my mouth?”

“I’d watch your mouth all day, and talk about it twice as long.”

She grinned, despite herself, at the open flirtation. Not for the first time since that night in her cell, she thought about grabbing him, pinning him against the wall, and showing him what a real kiss felt like.

“But,” he sighed, “sadly, no. Otho didn’t take his defeat as kindly as his pronouncements might have made him appear.”

“I didn’t think he had. He had to cheer me to save face.”

“Yes. And saving face is something that a senator like Otho, or any senator really, hates having to do. He’s changed your fight.”

“I’m no longer fighting a murmillo?”

“You’re no longer fighting
one
murmillo,” Lucius said. “And you’re fighting in the tradition of Horatius on the bridge.”

“I’m fighting how?”

He guided her to the sands, gesturing with his hands as he went. “Horatius was an ancient Roman. Fought for the republic, or something like that. I don’t really know. The bottom line is, a long time ago, he was on a bridge and he held off a bunch of attackers. And so, in the arena, they’re going to set up some platforms in the arena. You’ll stand on them. Below you will be fire or spikes. Maybe animals. It changes. You’ve been ‘honored’ by Otho to fight in the role of Horatius. So, on your platform will be some gates. In front of that, a narrow bridge. You’re standing between the bridge and the gates. You’ll have attackers come at you. If any one of them reaches the gates, you forfeit.”

“You said attackers. Not '
one
murmillo.' How many do I have to fight?”

“It’s one at a time, okay? The number is almost inconsequential.”

She put her hands on her hips. “If it’s inconsequential, then tell me.”

“I mean the bridge is so narrow, they’ll only be able to take you on one at a time, all right?”

“I understand, Lucius. How many?”

“I don’t think you have any reason to be afraid, is what I’m saying.”

“Lucius, you’re making me nervous.” That was an understatement. “Tell me.”

“Seven. One for each of the thousand attacking Rome.”

––––––––

T
he games were at the end of the week and Lucius trained the women harder than he ever had. He woke them early and ran them for an hour before the men woke. As they ran, he ran next to them, urging them forward. Kav fell back often and he had to drag her by the arm to keep her in line.

He didn’t want a single one of them to fall behind. Any of them could fight at the arena this week.

Only four had been scheduled, it was true—but sickness could take a fighter overnight. Lucius had seen it happen many times, leaving a man to fight who was woefully under-prepared. Beyond that, Otho might change his mind at the drop of a hat and ask for more gladiatrices. Different gladiatrices.

Lucius was only glad the madman hadn’t thought to ask the women from the same ludus fight one another.

During training with the posts and sparring, Lucius was just as merciless as he was with the running. He ran drill after drill, correcting their forms endlessly, holding up the swords and shields himself when he needed. His arm felt better every day. The exercises Nyx gave to him worked.

The danger here was clear to him. He was letting himself get far too invested in the lives of these women.

If a novice of his died—
when
a novice of his died, his experience corrected him—he would be devastated. He ought to look to Murus, confer with the man, ask him how he kept himself so distant and whole after more than a decade of watching good men be cut down in the arena.

But these warnings burned up in a soul hot with a passion for Gwenn and her sisters-in-arms. He wanted them to show the world what they could do. By the gods, he wanted Gwenn to show the world what she could do.

He had been wrong about her. About all of them. He was man enough to admit it.

Seven on one was bad odds indeed. A gauntlet worse than any even he had ever taken apart. A normal woman wouldn’t have even made it into the arena if they knew that's what they had to face. A normal
anyone
wouldn’t have, man or woman. They would have strung themselves up by their sheets and given themselves the dignity of choosing their own deaths.

But Gwenn trained on, smiling and furious.

She was a wonder, and his biggest wondering of all was how he was going to keep himself from lusting after her like he did day after day.

––––––––

W
hen Lucius broke for water in the middle in the day, he stood in the shade and watched the other gladiators train and spar. They had their own games for which to prepare. He saw Conall and Flamma, both of them heavily bruised. They held nothing back with one another.

Conall’s bruises were all from attacking as reckless as he normally did, without heed to any defense. Flamma easily landed blows on his arms and side as Conall flung himself headfirst into one volley of strikes after another. But at the same time, Flamma couldn’t avoid the return blows—so quick and precise—that Conall showered out.

There was intensity in Conall's face, but it was strangely empty. It reminded Lucius too much of Otho and the horrible, abyss-like gaze he had when fighting Gwenn.

Hours later, after dinner, Lucius walked over to Conall’s cell. The smaller man was on his cot, head hanging over his knees. Brooding.

“May I sit?”

Conall kicked a stool over to him.

“You’re not training for a fight out there.” Lucius thumbed back to the direction of the sands.

“I’m training.”

“Yes, but not for a fight. You’re training to die. Aren’t you? You want to give them a good show, take a piece or two off the other man. But you want to die.”

Conall looked up at that. “What’s it to you?”

“I’d rather not see my friend die.”

“Is that what we are, then? Friends? Because you don’t act like it.”

Lucius inhaled and swallowed down the bad response that had been about to spill out. He thought about his words. He wanted to help.