He was like a strange food from a foreign land: they all wanted to try a sample. And though this particular Roman woman was one of the loveliest he had yet seen, he was not so foolish as to let her stir his lust. Roman women were all alike in his experience. They were selfish, bored creatures who used gladiators like men used whores.
Pah! He had only a few nights left upon this earth. He did not wish to waste his thoughts on a Roman woman.
‘We are locked in our cells if that is what you are afraid of, sweetheart,’ called Felix. ‘And even if we were not locked in, you would have nothing to fear. Why not emerge from the urn where you are hiding and dry yourself? We promise not to watch. You see, we are honourable men.’
Still more silence. Then, finally, ‘You are not honourable men.’
It was as if she had spent the last few hours sharpening the words upon a whetstone.
‘We die to honour Rome, my dear,’ said Felix, his tone thick.
She pulled herself from the vessel with feline grace. ‘You die to honour profit.’
He craned his head and saw her shadowy figure lifting the skirt of her tunic and squeezing it back into the urn.
Felix cackled. ‘You wield your tongue as well as you do a gladius.’
‘And you wield your boasting as well as you do your deceit.’
Cal smiled to himself. Perhaps what she lacked in judgement she made up for in wit.
She jumped in place, apparently attempting to dry herself. Finally she drifted beneath the torchlight near Cal’s cell and he gave her a glance.
Her efforts to squeeze herself dry had been for naught. She was still dripping wet. Her large dark eyes blinked beneath thick, water-clumped lashes that glistened in the torchlight and played off her ebony hair, which had come loose from its braid in places in small, distracting spirals. Worse, the top of her threadbare tunic was soaked through, giving a full view of her breast wrap, which was itself so thin that he could see the dark shadows of her nipples beneath it.
He had never seen anything so erotic in all his life. Her big, blinking eyes, her bouncing curls, her small, shapely breasts and thinly veiled nipples: perhaps she was divine after all. Maybe she was the very naiad that had been painted on the urn itself, come to kiss him with her sultry lips.
Although those sultry lips were currently twisted into a Medusan scowl. ‘You deliberately succumbed to the Satyr,’ she accused Cal. She stepped forward and gripped the bars of Cal’s cell gate. ‘Do you deny it?’
Cal did not look her in the eye for fear he might turn to stone. ‘Do you not have some escaping to do?’ he asked.
‘I asked you a question.’ She folded her arms over her bosom and that was a shame. But he could still observe how her skirt clung tightly to the shape of her thighs. She was lovely, female and completely without defence. Did she not understand how quickly he was able to move? That he could simply jump to his feet, pull her body against the bars and have his way?
‘You say nothing because you know that I speak truth,’ she spat. ‘You deliberately succumbed to the Satyr, though it was obvious that you were the better fighter.’
Cal grinned. ‘Did you hear that, Felix?’ he called. ‘She said I am the better fighter.’
‘Rubbish,’ replied Felix.
‘Your second opponent had expected to die,’ she continued. ‘I saw him begging you for a merciful death.’
‘And I damn well gave it to him,’ he grumbled.
He did not wish to think of the Syrian’s death. The man had been a farmer, not a fighter. He had been purchased by Brutus only weeks ago—a field hand who had been put up for sale as a punishment for attempting an escape. He had not been a bad man—not like most of the gladiators who came in and out of Ludus Brutus. Still, the governor had decreed his death and the governor had to be obeyed.
‘So you admit it?’ she pressed.
‘Admit what?’
‘That you deceived everyone.’
Why were Roman women so unrelenting? ‘I admit nothing.’
‘The only true fight was the first one,’ she observed. ‘You relieved the Ox of his head with little effort.’ She pushed her face between the bars. ‘You lie there acting as if you are proud of your deception. They call you Beast, but in truth you are a snake.’
Ha! If only he were a snake. Then he could slither through the bars of his cell and devour her whole. Surely that would shut her up.
Her scowl deepened and he waited in dull irritation for her next accusation. Would she remind him of the gladiator’s sacred oath, perhaps? Or would she explain the Roman code of honour and then recite it for him ad nauseum while she shook her little plebeian finger at his nose?
‘You defied the gods,’ she spat.
‘Which gods? Whose?’
‘You ruined my father.’
‘Your father ruined your father.’ This was almost as diverting as swordplay.
‘I know that you are famous,’ she said. ‘I have heard your name at the baths and seen it scrawled in graffiti. Why would you deliberately destroy your own reputation by rolling beneath the Satyr’s blade?’
‘And what of my reputation?’ Felix called cheerfully. ‘Have you also heard it spoken at the baths?’
‘And mine?’ called another gladiator from down the hall.
But the woman paid the other gladiators no mind. She seemed bent on making Cal alone suffer.
‘Do you think I care a wink for my reputation?’ Cal asked mildly, but her scowl remained fixed, as if she had not heard him.
Typical. In his experience, Roman women never heard what they did not wish to hear, never did what they did not wish to do and rarely saw beyond their own toes.
She was staring down at her own toes now, as if they alone could tell her everything she wished to know about what had happened that night. ‘By the gods, it was all theatre!’ she exclaimed at last. ‘All of it! You were told to kill the German spectacularly and that is what you did. And the Syrian knew he was going to die before he even set foot upon the sands. Those first two bouts were designed for you to win the crowd’s favour so that they would call for mercy when the time came. Your lanista knew it. The ringmaster knew it...’
She gazed up at the stone ceiling, thinking, and Cal observed the elegant length of her neck. ‘Even the governor knew it! And the gold-toothed merchant—he knew it, too. That is why he smiled when you had the Satyr at the tip of your blade. He already knew you were going to lose.’
Cal did not know whether to be impressed or furious. He settled for a smirk. ‘You are remarkably perceptive for one so naive,’ he said.
‘I am not naive.’
‘Your denial of your own naivety is itself naive.’
‘You speak in knots. I assure you that I am quite the opposite of naive.’
‘And what is that exactly?’
She paused, searching the air, and he observed the fine cut of her jaw. ‘Un-naive.’
‘Your cleverness slays me.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You are clearly trying to distract from admitting to your deception.’
Her accusations were growing tedious. Fortunately, he knew how to shut her up. ‘And you are trying to distract from admitting that you wish to lie with me.’
The woman gasped. And there it was, that look of fascinated derision—though on her face it more closely resembled straightforward disgust. ‘That is absurd,’ she snapped, then added, ‘The very thought is an abhorrence.’
An abhorrence? Well, at least she was original. ‘I know you want me.’
‘I want nothing to do with you. You are a mon—’
She bit her lip.
‘A what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I know what you are thinking.’ You think me a monster.
‘You cannot read my thoughts,’ she said.
‘I
know you are Roman and that is all I need to know.’
‘You know nothing about me.’
‘Nothing about you?’ His mind churned. ‘Let me see. You illegally shoved your way into a house of men. Only an innocent would be so stupid. You either have no brothers to act on your behalf, or if you do have a brother, he is useless.’
A small cringe. A glance at the ground.
‘Ah, so you do have a useless brother,’ he continued gleefully, ‘and his very mention causes you pain. Probably returned from one of Domitian’s foolish campaigns? A drunkard, perhaps?’
Her pink lips pressed into a thin red line.
‘Your father, too, is useless, for he is the kind of man who must be followed by his own daughter to the pits. He has plunged your family into ruin, has he not? And you pity yourself mightily for it. Pah! You are fortunate he has not sold you into servitude.’
Her face turned an unnatural shade of grey.
Had her father sold her into servitude?
‘I curse you,’ she spat suddenly. ‘I curse you and this ludus and everyone in it, but you most of all.’
He spouted a laugh—a hearty, deep-throated laugh that nearly split his chest wound. He swung his legs to the side of his bed and stood, watching her take in the sight of him. He had not washed or changed out of his fighting kilt and the bloody paint on his chest had caked and crusted into what he imagined was some nightmarish rainbow.
She stepped backwards as he approached the bars. ‘I have never had the pleasure of being cursed by a Roman woman,’ he continued. He swept her body with his eyes. ‘I think I rather enjoy being cursed.’
‘Then I curse you a thousand times, Beast of Britannia. Whatever you long for, may it be as sand through your fingers. Whatever your dream, may it turn to dust.’
He had to grip his stomach so as not to howl. ‘Such poetry! But before you go on, I am afraid I must tell you that you cannot curse me, for I am already doomed.’
‘Doomed?’ She glanced around his cell, then scolded him with her gaze. ‘You are one of the finest gladiators in Rome. You are worth as much as twenty common slaves. Your bed is perched two cubits off the ground, by the gods! I will not hear about your supposed doom.’
‘You do not believe me?’
‘Why will you not admit to your wrongdoing? You wronged every single man in that crowd tonight. You wronged Rome.’
No, he had to stop her there.
‘I wronged Rome? Rome that invaded my land and burned my fields?’ He let out a savage laugh. ‘Rome that raped my tribe’s women and sent its men off to the Quarry of Luna?’ He continued to laugh, though his wound had begun to throb. ‘Do you know what it is like in the Quarry of Luna? If you cut less than ten cubits a day you are whipped. Less than five and they remove a toe.’ He continued to laugh, feeling his wound begin to split. He could not seem to stop.
He lifted his foot to show her his missing digits, laughing harder. ‘I dug for worms each morning to fill my stomach. My flesh baked in the sun each day and then froze in the wind each night. And I wronged Rome? Ha!’ His laughter was crazed, like the laughter of a hyena, but he could not make it cease. ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ He doubled over, feeling the warmth of leaking blood down his side.
And then suddenly he was drowning.
Chapter Three
He choked and coughed as the cold water poured over his head and dribbled down his limbs. Already there was a pool of it expanding at his feet. The woman had apparently discovered the dipping pot and he watched in horror as she slung it over the lip of the urn for another filling.
‘What...? Why...?’ he sputtered.
‘Your wound. It has not been properly cleaned.’
He peered down at the long diagonal gash across his chest and felt another assault of cold water. ‘Cease!’ he hissed and watched in horror as she returned to the urn for yet another potful.
She approached the bars. Mercifully, she did not give him a third dousing. Instead, she set down the pot and studied the wound. She reached out and touched the skin of his stomach.
A shiver rippled through him, followed by an uncomfortable heat. He grabbed her wrist. ‘What in the name of Erebus do you think you are doing?’
‘Be still,’ she commanded. ‘I am merely assessing the depth of the wound.’ Ignoring his grip, she gently traced the skin around the gash with her other hand. Her audacity was stunning, but her fingers were like soft wax. Their touch sent an unexpected pang of sadness through him.
Fifteen years. That’s how long it had been. Fifteen years since the last time a woman had touched him without the expectation of bedding him. That woman had been his yellow-haired wife.
‘There is sand within the wound that will bring infection,’ she explained. ‘Take this in your mouth.’ She pushed the thick, tasselled end of her tunic belt into his grip. ‘Now bite down. This may hurt a bit.’
There was no time for protest. There was only exquisite, burning pain as he bit down and felt her fingernail razor into his soft flesh. ‘Ugh,’ he groaned.
‘Just a little bit of sand...’ she crooned.
He bit down harder, envisioning certain forms of torture.
‘I fear there is some dirt lodged very deep,’ she said, absently picking a tiny metal hairpin from her braid. She held the pin to her lips and bent it taut with her teeth.
It might have been her proximity. Or it might have been the unusual shapeliness of her lips. Or it might have been the fact that he had just survived an excruciating amount of pain and was savouring its absence. But watching her bend that hair clip was the most deliciously sensual thing he had ever seen a woman do.
Then she plunged the terrible instrument deep into his wound. ‘Ah!’ he shouted.
Across the hall, Felix was laughing. ‘What? Is the Empire’s greatest gladiator crying?’
‘Piss off, Goat-Man!’ shouted Cal.
‘Not much longer now,’ she assured him, probing deeper.
He twisted his body in agony. ‘I did not ask for this.’
‘No, but you must have it if you wish to survive.’
Survival was not exactly the plan.
‘Hold this,’ she said, handing him the hairpin. She lifted the pot and gave him a final dousing.
He gasped for air and for something to say: something scathing and clever, something that would burrow beneath her skin as painfully as she had just burrowed beneath his. But the words did not come and all he could do was stare as she began to dab the wound with her handkerchief.
Her face was lovely in the torchlight. Haunting brown eyes and ruddy red cheeks. Eyebrows so high up her forehead they looked painted. For all her vitriol, her appearance was bright. Cheerful, even. The colour of her skin reminded him of well-fermented beer.
‘I wish I had some dried yarrow,’ she said. She was dabbing his wound with a strange reverence. ‘My mother used to keep some on her night shelf to help mend my father’s wounds.’ Her eyes searched his cell. ‘Ah! I know what we can use.’ She pointed over his shoulder to the distant corner of his cell. ‘Do you see it?’
Cal studied the dark corner, wondering if the woman had lost her wits. ‘Just there,’ she said. She was nodding her head, full of certainty. ‘The spider’s web.’
‘A spider’s web?’
‘You must fetch it for me.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘I am trying to help you.’
‘I did not ask for your help,’ he said.
‘And I did not ask to be...’ She bit her lip, stared at the floor.
Enslaved. That is what she wanted to say, but she could not find the courage to voice it. How could he deny her anything, knowing that she had been condemned to such a life?
He sighed and found himself crossing to the corner of his cell and gazing down at a fine silken temple shining beneath the torchlight. At the tem
ple’s edge, a large black weaver posed regally. ‘How should I...collect it?’ he asked.
‘Just wave your palm through the web gently and gather it on your hand. Do not take it all, lest you incur Arachne’s wrath.’
Cal did as instructed, giving a nod of reverence to the tiny creature whose sanctuary he had just harvested. Reverence for all creatures big and small. It was what the white-robed Druids had taught him in his youth.
He returned to her with the silken prize and was no less fascinated watching her ball up the strands and stuff them into his wound. Why was she helping him? He did not understand it at all. Nor did he have the heart to tell her that her effort was pointless.
‘My mother used spider webs on my father’s wounds, as well,’ she explained. ‘It is an old Greek remedy. My mother is Greek, you see.’
Pride lurked beneath her words. Cal knew that the Romans despised the Greeks in the manner of a jealous younger sibling.
‘Is your father Greek?’
‘No, I am afraid he is as Roman as they come. Born in Pompeii and left before Vesuvius blew. Lucky him. Though he could not escape the wounds of war...and now, I suppose, of peace.’
‘Was your father often wounded?’
She nodded. ‘After he returned from military service he became a lictor for a new aedile here in Ephesus. The young mayor had as many enemies as he had gold auris and my father was paid to protect him. I was always so worried for my father back then. Pah! I had no idea what worry was.’
She pursed her lips, and Cal sensed her trying to stifle her emotion. If there had been any doubt in his mind that she had been sold into servitude, it was washed away by the small tear he watched leak from her eye and trace a path down her cheek.
Without thinking, he pressed his finger to her skin and caught it.
She blinked, stared up at him.
His stomach tightened. He realised that he wanted to kiss her.
‘There,’ she said with finality and her deep blush told him that she had felt it, too—whatever it had been that had just passed between them.
Forbidden to the Gladiator Page 3