The Champion

by Carla Capshaw

  “Never mind,” she whispered. “I don’t wish to cause you distress. You don’t have to share it with me.”

  “I want to. I need to tell you the truth,” he said, his voice husky with suppressed grief. “It’s just that I’ve buried the pain so deep for an eternity. I don’t know how to explain or even where to begin.”

  Tibi buried her fingers in the soft curls at the nape of his neck. Euphoric from his declaration of love for her, she wanted to surround him with care and devotion. If it were possible, she’d wipe away every drop of pain he’d ever endured. Hoping to ease some of what troubled him and distract him from his anguish, she brushed a kiss across his temple and whispered, “Let’s sit down. All this time on your feet can’t be good for your ribs.”

  He allowed her to lead him back to the beaver-pelt blanket. He collapsed more than sat in her former spot, his back supported by the trunk of the lemon tree. She took the place next to his uninjured side and enjoyed the way he pulled her close, as though he truly desired her near him.

  The flow of the river, the buzz of a bee and the song of a kestrel filled the long moments while Alexius wrestled with his past.

  “I told you before about my family,” he said finally. “What I didn’t tell you is that it’s my fault they were murdered.”

  “Murdered?” She arched back, horrified by what he must have suffered. His love for his family had touched her from the first moment he’d spoken of his parents and sisters. To learn they’d all come to tragic ends added to the devastation. “I don’t understand how their deaths could be your fault.”

  He rubbed his eyes and began in a gruff voice, “The day I turned sixteen years old, my father gifted me with a plot of his land to tend. Custom suggested I marry in the next few years and my abba wanted me prepared to support a wife if the right girl came along.

  “I had grand ideas. My family’s only lack was money, and I planned to correct that. In my dreams, I was going to turn my plot into a thriving enterprise big enough to rival that of the wealthiest family in Iolcos.” He smiled bitterly. “I suppose I’ve never known my place in life. That’s why I don’t take kindly to people like your sister and the senators who think, by rights, they’re better than ordinary mortals.”

  “Whether you’re rich or poor, you’re far from ordinary, Alexius. You are the best there is,” she said with unvarnished sincerity.

  He squeezed her and continued. “I worked hard and at season’s end, harvested a bountiful crop. My family helped me and rejoiced in my success. My sister, Kyra, pitched in the most because she and I were closest in age and friendship—only eleven months separated our births. On market day, I told Kyra to stay home. I knew she’d be angry, but I had my mind set on selling the harvest and making plans with all the coin I’d take in that day, not keeping her out of trouble.”

  “What trouble?” Tibi asked. “Are the markets of Iolcos so hazardous women don’t venture there?”

  “No. Kyra was special in that regard and instance. She was lovely, the most sought-after girl for miles. Ulixes, the eldest son of the wealthy family I mentioned, wanted her for his own.”

  “And she didn’t wish to marry him?”

  “He had no plans for marriage. He was already a husband. In his mind, she wasn’t good enough to wed anyway because of our family’s poverty. He planned to make her his mistress and believed she should be honored by his ‘favor.’”

  “Swine!”

  “Yes.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “But Kyra was much like you—too freethinking for a female and always landing in trouble.”

  She stiffened, but he held her closer and kissed her brow. “She followed me to town without my knowledge. I should have taken her home once she made her presence known, but I would have missed the market and lost much of my crop before I had another chance to sell it. Concerned about the coin as I was then, I let her stay with me.”

  The sunlight began to soften as the afternoon waned, bringing a new coolness to the day. Tibi reached for her cloak beside the food basket. She wrapped it around her shoulders and snuggled closer to Alexius’s warm side. “I think anyone would have done the same.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t change what followed and I’d do anything to turn back time.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Ulixes and his cohorts arrived while we were packing up the empty baskets for our return home. He sniffed out Kyra and began to pester her immediately. She knew of his snobbery toward her and wanted nothing to do with a married man. Kyra being Kyra, she couldn’t simply ignore him. She berated him in front of his friends. I stepped in and sent him on his way. Or so I thought.”

  Alexius stroked her hair, talking faster and faster as if a dam had burst. “We left in the late afternoon. Our farm was farther out of town than most, but we would have been home before dark. Ulixes and three of his men attacked us on a quiet stretch of road. I fought as well as I could, but at sixteen, I was no match for the four of them. They left me for dead and…and abused Kyra. She died from their violation a few days later.”

  Tibi’s chest ached for his loss and pain. “I’m so sorry.”

  “My father took them to court,” he continued in a flat voice as if he hadn’t heard her. “Ulixes’s wealthy family bribed the magistrate. My grieving father hadn’t sought reparations; he’d simply wanted an apology. Instead, he was forced to pay an unearthly sum when Ulixes claimed that my father’s petition amounted to slander. When abba went to pay the money he could ill-afford to spend, Ulixes taunted him with the sounds of Kyra’s cries as she’d begged for mercy.”

  A sob caught in Tibi’s throat. “You must have wanted Ulixes dead.”

  “Yes,” he said in a low voice so cold she shivered. “While I healed over the next weeks, I planned my revenge. As soon as I was able, I hunted down Ulixes and killed him, along with two of the other men who’d ravaged my sister.”

  “What of the third?” she asked, feeling both horrified and justified by his actions.

  “He escaped and told Ulixes’s relatives what I’d done. Naturally, his father went to the authorities. I was arrested and sentenced to death. I felt no remorse for my actions, but accepted the justice meted out to me. What I didn’t anticipate was that my enemy’s kin would seek revenge of their own. Months after I’d been sold out of prison to the gladiator lanista, I learned they hadn’t been content to see me die for the revenge I took on their son. They sent assassins by night to kill my blameless family. My eldest sister, Eleni, was away visiting friends at the time. When she returned home she found everyone dead. I heard that the sight drove her mad.”

  He started to move away, but she refused to let go. It wasn’t until he tightened his hold that she realized he’d been giving her a chance to flee if she planned to reject him.

  “Where did your sister go?” she asked, struggling to contain her sorrow.

  “It’s a mystery I can’t unravel. Several years passed before I had enough money to search for her. By then, Eleni had disappeared without a trail to follow.”

  Tibi bent her head and lifted the back of his strong, scarred hand to her lips. There were no words of comfort to offer equal to the level of heartbreak he’d suffered. In her own life, she’d tasted grief and unhappiness at the hands of her father, but nothing she’d borne compared to the tragedy that had cost Alexius his whole beloved family.

  The shadows of a flock of birds passed over the thicket as she and Alexius held each other in silence. She tried to push back her sadness, but a single sob worked free from her throat. She buried her face against his shoulder.

  “Tibi, agape mou, I didn’t tell you about my past to hurt you. If I had my way, you’d never experience pain again. I told you to answer your question, to give you the whole truth and make you understand why I have to fight. Before I was sold to the lanista, I sat rotting in prison, cursing the gods and those hags, the Fates. A rage formed inside me then that even now I struggle to keep buried. My anger is like a wild creature clawing to be free
or a volcano on the brink of eruption. When I fight in the arena, I can unleash the beast and know for a time, no matter how short, I’ll gain a measure of relief and a sense of my true self. If I stop fighting, I’m afraid…” He choked on the word. “I’m afraid I’ll lose control and hurt, not a trained gladiator armed with weapons, but someone powerless to defend himself against me.”

  She eased from his embrace and stood. “I understand your dilemma now, but I think there must be some other solution.”

  He smirked. “Caros claims I need his God.”

  She picked a small white lemon blossom from the tree and pressed the sweet bloom to her nose. “Perhaps He can help. Caros used to be such a dark and forbidding man, but now he’s filled with joy. You said yourself the change in him is too great to ignore.”

  “And why would a God of peace care anything about a violent man like me?”

  She bit her bottom lip, searching for a reasonable answer. “Pelonia’s told me many times her God loves everyone, no matter who they are or what they’ve done. Maybe it’s true.”

  Scowling, Alexius leaned his head against the tree. His eyes closed. He crossed his arms over his middle. Slivers of sunlight glinted off his silver wristbands. He looked exhausted and defeated, something she’d never thought she would see. Little wonder: telling her about his tortured past must have exacted a terrible toll on him.

  With neither of them able to discover a resolution to their problems, she knelt beside the basket. The fur-covered grasses sank beneath her weight. Careful not to disturb Alexius when she hoped he was falling asleep, she began to quietly stow the parchment wraps and recork their empty bottles of water.

  Once Tibi put everything away, she coaxed Alexius to lie down on the fur, his dark head on one of the pillows.

  Confident that Alexius was getting some much-needed rest, she decided to take one of her favorite walks along the river before she woke him to return to the ludus.

  “Tibi?”

  Alexius reached for her, but his fingers found soft beaver fur instead of smooth, supple skin. Disappointed, he rolled to his back and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He must have slept at least an hour. It was the darker side of twilight. The trees were an inky smudge against a sky the color of a deep purple bruise.

  He rubbed his brow, wincing at his remembered confession to Tibi. Embarrassment pummeled him like hail, although he had to admit that the storm inside him seemed calmer for the first time in years.

  “Tibi,” he called. The chirp of crickets was all that replied. Worry sparked to life. Had she deserted him? She’d said she loved him before he admitted to what he’d done to Ulixes. She was too gentle of heart to reject him outright, but perhaps she’d reconsidered the wisdom of loving a gladiator with such a violent past.

  But would she have deserted him without a word?

  That didn’t seem like her.

  “Tibi!” No answer. He surged to his feet, straining against the darkness to find her. He knocked over the basket of uneaten food as he left the thicket. Moonlight filtered through the poplar and pine trees of the abandoned garden. An owl hooted somewhere nearby. Where was she? “Tibi!” he shouted.

  Growing more worried with every step, he charged toward the river along the uneven path. So soon after reliving his sister’s assault, his mind raced to the worst possibilities. What if she’d fallen into the frigid depths or been bitten by a poisonous serpent? He started running. The river’s edge revealed nothing of her location—no footprints or sign of anyone of any kind. Light from the moon and stars reflected on the water’s rippled surface. The gentle lap of the current was the only sound to fill the eerie silence.

  He searched up and down the river. Calling Tibi’s name, he listened for any faint cry for help or other sound she might make in the darkness. The blackness of night impaired his efforts. Torn between terror and anxious frustration, he ran the distance to the litter and the men hired to stay with the transport.

  To his relief, he found the litter bearers playing dice by the glow of two torches. “Come, men! Bring the light. My woman is missing. I need your help to find her!”

  The leader of the group released three of his band to go with him. Makeshift torches were fashioned from tree limbs.

  “One of you return to the ludus,” Alexius ordered the remaining trio. He absently rubbed his strained ribs. “Explain to my steward, Velus, what’s happened. Tell him I’m in need of men and lanterns for a more extensive search.”

  “I can’t do that, sir,” said Napos, a stringy individual Alexius had been introduced to as the group’s leader. “Me and my men are bound by oath to stay with this litter—”

  Enraged by the fool’s lack of concern, Alexius lunged for him. Napos scurried away, stricken by obvious panic, but not fast enough to escape. Alexius grabbed Napos by the front of his stained tunic and lifted the quaking man off his feet. “By the gods, do you think I care about this rattletrap? I’ll buy ten litters to repay your master if anything happens to this piece of trash in your absence.” He released Napos with a shake and a shove that sent the leader reeling. “Now, run, little man, run!”

  Napos half ran, half stumbled backwards. “What if your steward doesn’t believe me? I have no seal to prove I’m on an errand of your bidding.”

  Alexius cursed. Napos spoke true and Velus had always been a suspicious sort—an excellent quality he’d always appreciated in his steward until this moment.

  Quickly weighing his options, he looked back toward the river. The three torches were fading points of light in the distance. “Tell him if he doesn’t heed you and send supplies within the hour, I’ll give him back to the beast master who sold him to me.”

  The two underlings that remained jumped to fashioning torches while their nervous leader rushed in the direction of the main road.

  Sometime later Sergius and four other men from the ludus arrived with torches, lanterns, water and horses, Calisto among them. His throat rough from calling Tibi’s name, Alexius issued gruff orders. Along with the litter bearers, the men divided into pairs and set out to explore the garden’s every nook and bramble.

  Ignoring the cold of night, he and Sergius investigated a dilapidated temple, moving fallen stones and statues until they both agreed that Tibi wasn’t under them. Several pairs of men combed both sides of the Tiber. To Alexius’s relief, Tibi’s precious body wasn’t found, encouraging him to believe she hadn’t fallen into the frigid water and drowned.

  Hours passed. The sun began to rise in a burst of red and gold streaks across the deep blue sky. Terrified, Alexius continued to lead by example, refusing to give up when exhaustion begged him to do so. Tibi was more than his love, he realized. She was his heart and his last hope for a future. If he lost her, he might as well dig his own grave and stop breathing.

  “Did you search as far as Domitian’s wall?” Alexius demanded from a set of men returning from that direction.

  “We checked everything,” the weary men assured him. “Even the fallen, hollowed-out trees are empty.”

  Sergius shuffled beside him. “We have to go back to—”

  “No!” Alexius barked. “Not until we find her.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Don’t say that!” he growled, his voice as rough as gravel. His hands clenched into fists.

  “Don’t unleash your fury on me, my friend.” Sergius grabbed him by the shoulders. “We have to go back to the ludus. There’s nothing else to do, Alexius. We’ve looked under every stone and blade of grass. The litter bearers have already left and our men are hungry and worn out. You’re dead on your feet. What good will it do anyone if you collapse?”

  Recognizing that Sergius was right, he spit on the thought of giving up. “Would you leave if Leta had gone missing?”

  “I wouldn’t want to, but I hope I’d be wise enough to realize when to take good advice.” Sergius closed his eyes and sighed in resignation. “Go back to the ludus, send fresh men to continue the search if you must. If Tibi h
asn’t been found by the time you’ve rested, I won’t hesitate to come back out here with you.”

  Alexius glanced across the gray morning to his men. Haggard and exhausted, they were asleep standing up. “All right, we’ll go back, but I will find Tibi.” He raked his hands through his hair. “I have to.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “How long did you think you could hide from me, girl?”

  Like a wayward slave, Tibi stood before Tiberius in the garden of her family’s home. Fear and the smell of fish sauce from her father’s uneaten meal churned her stomach.

  The sun had set at least an hour before. Slaves had lit multiple torches and hanging oil lamps in each archway. Light flickered across the greenery, the elegant tiled designs decorating the floor and the columns that held up the porch’s painted rafters.

  Back in the hateful reality of her family home, the precious days spent with Alexius seemed like a dream, like a lifetime ago. Her father’s slaves, Lixus and Orosius, had ambushed her on her walk near the water’s edge. Still shaken from the experience of being dragged from the riverbank, gagged and thrown into a boat by her father’s men, she worried about Alexius and how abandoned he’d feel when he awoke to find her gone.

  Quaking in her sandals, she did her best to hide her terror. “I planned to stay away for just a little while, Father. I knew I’d displeased you after that fiasco with Lepidus. I honestly never intended to embarrass you and I hoped your anger might have a chance to subside if I put some space between us.”

  “Spare me your lies and excuses,” he sneered. He rose from the red, tufted couch he rested on and tightened the black silk belt he wore around his thick waist and green tunic. He poked his index finger toward her face. “You ran away to save your worthless hide from being taken to the temple where you might finally do some good for this family. Thanks to the slaves’ talk, everyone from the city matrons to the butchers knows of your disobedience. You’ve shamed me and yourself throughout Rome. The whole city is flapping with gossip that my rebellious daughter has once again proven too much for me to handle. Even pantomimes are mocking me in the streets with their wretched skits.”