The Champion

by Carla Capshaw

  “She asked to see master Caros’s wife. When I told her Pelonia wasn’t here, she demanded to speak with you.”

  “Demanded?” Few people rubbed his skin raw the way Tibi’s self-important sister did. “Have her wait in the entryway.”

  “She won’t like that, dominus.”

  “I don’t like her,” he said simply.

  Velus grunted and set the tray on a side table. “The lady wishes to see her sister.”

  “How should I know where Tibi is?” he asked, filling a basin with hot water from an amphora. “I haven’t seen her for—”

  “Hours?”

  He grinned. “I don’t remember when.”

  Velus’s weathered features pinched with confusion. “She’s down the hall—”

  “Even if I did know where to find Tibi, I wouldn’t tell Tiberia—or anyone else for that matter. I promised the girl I’d keep her hidden until Caros and Pelonia arrive later today.”

  “I understand,” Velus said. “But if you lie to his wife, senator Tacitus might take offense on her behalf and strive to make trouble for you.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” he replied, unconcerned. Conditioning his face with a mixture of oils and herbs, he picked up a small, straight-edged razor and began to scrape the bristles from his cheeks.

  The Ludus Maximus supplied the games with the best gladiators and the senator’s popularity was down. Tacitus was too canny to risk his reelection by tampering with the mob’s favorite source of entertainment. “It’s not as though he can force me to close my doors because his wife is in a snit.”

  “Yes, but if someone took Tibi away without your knowledge you’d be telling the truth when you said you didn’t know her whereabouts.”

  “True.” Alexius finished shaving and rinsed the razor in the basin. A slow smile spread across his face as he dried his throat with a square of linen. “Tibi seems to think her sister will insist on searching the ludus for her. If she’s not here, I’ll have no trouble allowing the shrew to look until her heart’s content. When Tibi’s nowhere to be found, Tiberia will look elsewhere and we’ll have bought some time and peace for a while.”

  “I’ll find a safe place to take her and report to you once the sister is gone,” Velus assured him.

  Alexius laced up his sandals and slid on a pair of silver wristbands before heading toward the door. “Wherever you take Tibi, make certain she’s well-guarded and dressed to go unnoticed. I imagine all that blond hair and creamy skin attracts admirers by the score.”

  Velus nodded and followed Alexius into the corridor. The shutters had been folded back from the row of arched windows to allow a bird’s-eye view of the peach orchard. Clear morning light filled the vaulted path to the stairwell. On the first floor, the two men parted company.

  Alexius took his time walking to the reception hall. In order to give Velus more of an opportunity to leave with Tibi by way of the back door, he meandered along the inner peristyle, surrounded by the soothing cascade of the fountains and the sweet fragrance of orange blossoms.

  “So you’ve finally deigned to arrive,” Tiberia screeched the moment he entered the brightly painted room. “You took long enough, gladiator.”

  “I saw no reason to hurry.”

  Tiberia’s dark eyes narrowed. She rose from the plush blue cushions of her chair, the voluminous folds of her white stola pooling at her feet. “Your dwarf informed me that my cousin hasn’t yet returned to Rome. However, I believe my sister, Tibi, came here to look for her last night. Fetch her for me. My father insists I bring her home.”

  Hackles rose on the back of Alexius’s neck. His gaze slid to the display of weapons hanging on the wall above the hearth. He didn’t take orders well, but he controlled his irritation and maintained a tolerant expression. “Then why didn’t he bother to come here himself?”

  “I offered, in hopes that he’d calm down before we returned. He’s furious enough to do her serious bodily harm.”

  “Then she was wise to leave.”

  “It’s no concern of yours, gladiator.”

  “That may be. Either way, you’ve wasted your time. Your sister isn’t here, mistress. If I see her, I’ll convey the message.”

  “You lie. I know she’s here. Only Pelonia is kind-hearted enough to take her in.”

  “It seems to me a sister should be just as kind.”

  Her expression soured. “Why would I risk my father’s good opinion of me for a bumbler like Tibi?”

  “A bumbler?” Raised with a gaggle of close but competitive sisters, Alexius recognized the jealous comment for what it was. Few women were as graceful as Tibi. “How so?”

  “What I mean is…she’s brought the situation upon herself.”

  “What situation?” Alexius asked, pretending ignorance in an attempt to learn the details Tibi declined to confide in him. “Does it have anything to do with the reason my men were sent home untested last night?”

  Tiberia flushed, but said no more to enlighten him. A citrus-scented breeze carried in from the central garden, rustling the potted palms near the open doorway. “You’ll have to discuss the use of your men with my father. Now, call Tibi for me. You’ve delayed me long enough.”

  “I told you she isn’t here. And I suggest you tread lightly before calling me a liar again.”

  Tiberia had the wit to put distance between them. “You do grasp that my husband has the power to order a search of this villainous den?”

  “There’s no need for the senator to trouble himself. Ask nicely and you’re free to look for your sister now as long as you wish.”

  Tiberia moved behind the chair and glared at him. With her haughty expression—as hard as one of the marble columns supporting the painted ceiling—she made it clear that she considered him less than human. To ask him for anything was an affront to her kind’s belief in her own superiority. He recognized the signs well. Other than his loving family, people had always looked down on him. First for being a poor farmer’s son, then for his life as a slave-turned-gladiator. He waited, his expression placid and betraying none of his desire to toss her into the street. If not for his esteem for her cousins, he wouldn’t hesitate.

  “What will it be?” he asked, losing patience when she remained silent. “I’m expected at the arena. I have business to attend to.”

  She raised her chin and attempted to look down her sharp nose at him. “I have several trusted slaves waiting for me outside. I’ll have them search the house and grounds.”

  “I’ll inform my steward,” he said, pleased she’d taken the bait. Once she left to gather her people, Velus appeared in the doorway, his round face flushed, his breathing labored. “Is all well with you, Velus? You look as though you’ve run the marathon.”

  The steward ambled into the room and closed the door behind him. “Everything is as it should be, master.”

  “Excellent. Where did you take Tibi?”

  “I’ve sent her to the arena.”

  Alexius’s heart stopped. “You did what?”

  Velus blanched, obviously realizing he’d made a rare misstep. “I thought she’d be well-protected with your men. I gave her slave’s garb and made Darius responsible for keeping her safe. No one in her family will suspect she’s there.”

  “How could you possibly think that beautiful girl would be safe surrounded by men who plan to face death within hours?” Alexius grabbed a gladius from the display of weapons on the far wall and ran for the back of the house. He was shaking with fury and a sickening, unfamiliar sensation he could only equate to fear.

  Outside in the courtyard, he called for his horse and vaulted into the saddle the moment his slave delivered the gray stallion.

  Velus arrived on the doorstep, wringing his stubby hands.

  “See to the shrew,” Alexius ordered over his shoulder as he spurred the horse through the gates. And if the gods have any mercy, I’ll see to her sister before my men do.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Darius, the young, ginger-
haired gladiator trainer Velus had charged to ensure Tibi’s protection. Rather than calming her, Darius’s warning served to raise her anxiety as she followed Alexius’s troupe through the torch-lit path leading into the dank underbelly of the Coliseum.

  “The competitors from the other ludi are slaves for the most part,” Darius continued. “They’re shackled and weaponless until moments before they’re armed and released to fight in the arena. If one of them escapes and happens to notice you’re a woman he wishes to molest, we’ll keep you safe.”

  His dubious tone suggested such an event was as likely as the arena crumbling around them. Convinced that any slave given the option of running for freedom or ravishing her meager charms would choose freedom every time, Tibi tried to relax and reminded herself that she was here by choice. Although the circumstances were less than ideal, a few hours in the protective custody of gladiators were preferable to a lifetime of servitude to a goddess she didn’t believe in.

  Unable to see through the wall of burly warriors encircling her, Tibi tugged the cowl of her dark wool cloak more tightly around her face. The distant roar of lions and the clang of metal against metal echoed in the passageway, competing with the thunderous din of the crowd that bled down the stairwells from the upper levels.

  In the staging area, pandemonium reigned. The noise of hundreds of men and beasts reverberated through the cavernous space. Air whooshed through huge bellows, stoking fires used not only for light but for blacksmiths forging hasty repairs on a variety of iron weapons. Big cats—lions, tigers, spotted leopards—prowled in cages stacked against the pitted concrete walls. Bears, horses, boars with huge twisted tusks and even elephants awaited the ring in iron-barred stalls.

  Sickened by the sharp stench of fetid hay and human degradation, Tibi watched the maelstrom of activity in awe. Life beneath the amphitheater spun like a well-oiled mechanism. Guards shouted orders to various troupes. Pulleys groaned as multiple lifts filled with dead warriors and animals were lowered from the arena’s sandy floor above them. Tibi cringed when the bodies were kicked aside. Just as Darius had said, trainers from the various gladiator schools unshackled their men. The fresh combatants lined up and traded their wooden practice weapons for polished shields, swords and tridents made of iron before being loaded onto the platforms that were raised back to the field.

  “We’ll wait in here.” Darius waved her into a side room divided from the staging area by a low wall. Flanked by stone benches, the converted game pen held a large, chipped ceramic pot filled with water at the far end. The bulk of Alexius’s gladiators filed in behind her, while the rest remained beyond the wall to practice their battle stances.

  Tibi tugged her cloak around her and buried her nose in a clean patch of itchy wool. The frenzied cheers of the mob blended with the tempest of activity clashing all around her. Doing her best to fade into a darkened corner, she studied the scarred, fierce-looking men. Some of them laughed and joked as though they were boys awaiting a romp while they played dice on the hay-strewn floor. Others were solemn, melancholy even. She wondered at the difference. Unlike most gladiators who were sold or sentenced into the profession, the men of the Ludus Maximus were volunteers who’d sworn their loyalty to Alexius, a tradition Caros began a few years earlier when, she suspected, he became a Christian and no longer wished to keep slaves.

  The crowd’s muffled chant of “iugula, iugula,” demanding a fallen man’s death, chilled her. The gladiator games were a pillar of the Empire, but she’d never been allowed this close to the carnage before. Nausea swirled in the pit of her stomach. “How many men do you expect to lose today?” she asked Darius when he sat down beside her.

  The edges of his mouth turned downward as he mentally took a head count. “Ten. Maybe twenty,” he answered prosaically. “The sponsor arranged battle re-enactments instead of a single man-against-man. The group fights are more expensive in lives and coin, but priceless in terms of buying the mob’s goodwill.”

  Cringing, Tibi nodded. Everyone knew authority in the capital depended on keeping the public amused and satisfied. The emperor and other rich men who wished to influence or keep power did so by providing food and sponsoring an endless array of entertainments. The chariot races and gladiator games—the bloodier the better—were by far Rome’s favorite sports.

  “What drew you to this life, Darius? Why did you volunteer?”

  His dark eyes questioned her sanity. “The money’s good. So is the acclaim. Where else can slaves, foreigners, the condemned or poverty-stricken men like me go to earn freedom or fortune if not in the arena? We gladiators embody Romans’ worst fears. Because of that fear, most people look on us with a mix of repugnance and awe. But train a man with weapons, teach him how to entertain the crowd and in return the mob will give him a godlike reverence few men can ever hope to attain.”

  “I know, but—” Another loud cheer signaled that the fallen gladiator was dead. She swallowed and wiped the sheen of perspiration from her upper lip with a shaky hand. “Some of you have wives and children. What good is fame and fortune if you’re dead? Why not be farmers or blacksmiths or—”

  “It takes coin to set up a farm or a shop, mistress. Except for a few men like the master who fight their own rage in the arena, a volunteer does so because his plans require funds to prosper.”

  Tibi frowned. She’d always sensed an underlying danger in Alexius and assumed his hardened life was the cause, but his charming smiles and easy humor made it difficult to imagine he possessed true menace in his heart. Now, she saw that her instincts had been correct. She’d been right to keep her distance from a man filled with anger.

  “What are your plans, Darius?” she said, realizing she’d allowed the conversation to dwindle.

  The hard angles of his narrow face softened. “My son is two years old and my wife is with child again. We want to leave Rome, to give our children a better life.”

  “Where do you plan to go?” she asked, touched by the gladiator’s affection for his family.

  “The master has a farm in Umbria.”

  “Umbria? My cousins and their friends live there also.”

  He nodded. “When Alexius speaks of the place with its green hills and rich soil, it’s as though he’s gone to Elysium. We want our children to grow up in such a place.”

  She fiddled with the muddied edge of her cloak, unable to imagine a battle-hardened killer like Alexius enraptured by any type of earth except the sand of the arena. “I can’t see your lanista as a farmer,” she admitted. “The image of him trailing a beast of burden with a plow is too foreign to contemplate.”

  “He does like his comforts.” Darius chuckled. “I’m certain he’ll have plenty of slaves to do his bidding, but you might be surprised. He’s the son of a farmer and I believe Alexius is still a farmer at heart.”

  Intrigued by the idea of Alexius as a farmer, his chiseled features softened by talk of his land, she suddenly regretted the differences between them that made it impossible for her to know him better.

  Without warning, Darius launched to his feet. “Wait here, my lady. I see the editor. I have to speak with him about today’s roster.”

  Tibi watched the young trainer go, uncomfortably aware of the eyes of the other men upon her. Trying to appear nonchalant, she turned on the bench to watch the mock fights in the staging area. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a huge gladiator stoop and rummage through a small pile of hay near an empty cage. The giant laughed as he straightened and lifted something small, black and squirming in one hand above his head. He pitched the bundle to one of his practice partners who then tossed it to a third man close enough to her position for her to see it was a tiny panther cub.

  “Toss the runt over here,” the first man ordered in a thick accent as he lifted his sword. “I’ll wager five sesterii I can skewer it in one go.”

  Tibi surged from the bench. Thanks to the violence going on above them, she’d had her fill of brutality for one afternoon. Unable to digest thei
r cruel play, she dashed to the low dividing wall and planted her palms on the rough concrete. “No!” she shouted. “Wait!”

  The outburst silenced the talk within the small area encircling her, but worked to draw the trio’s attention. Three sets of fearsome eyes locked on her like arrows seeking a target. She froze, her mind registering the long, jagged scar that ran across the leader’s blunt nose and weathered left cheek.

  Clearly undaunted by her command, the gladiator swaggered toward her, inciting her entire body to tremble from fear. He swiped the cub from his comrade and stopped a sword’s length away from Tibi. Too proud to do the intelligent thing and turn coward, she lifted her chin and met his sharp gaze.

  “Who’s going to stop me, little girl?” He dangled the frightened cub by the scruff of the neck, its tiny paws clawing the air. “You? I think not.”

  Chapter Three

  His blood pumping, Alexius raced down the steps of the Coliseum, his sole concern to find Tibi. The frantic ride from the ludus had been a torment. The potential dangers of the arena were legion. Imagining all the ways Tibi might be harmed—wild animal attack, rogue gladiators, an accident with any number of weapons—had his mind playing tricks on him. Memories of his last weeks in Greece a decade ago merged with the present, pitching up images of the beloved sister who’d died because he’d failed to protect her.

  If it took his last breath to keep her from harm, he refused to allow Tibi to suffer the same fate.

  Used to the noise and stench in the staging area, Alexius stormed past stacked cages and gladiators from the other ludi donning helmets in preparation for battle. He looked forward to his own fight later in the afternoon when he’d have the chance to release some of the pent-up aggression churning in his gut.

  His relief began to rise once he located the familiar faces of his men beyond the central system of lifts, then quickly plummeted when he saw Tibi’s trim, cloaked figure engaged in what appeared to be a disagreement with his champion, Gerlach, an ill-tempered Germanian who loved nothing more than to wager and brawl.