“You took the gladiator’s oath—Uri, Vinciri, Vererari, Ferroque, Necari—swearing that you would endure to be burned, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword. You signed the contract. For the love of the gods, you were the first gladiator who could actually read the damned thing.” Leaning forward, Paullus pointed at Baro, his finger stabbing the air with each word. “You knew what you volunteered for, and it disgusts me that now, of all times, you want to leave. You are dismissed.”
Dismissed? Baro had never been dismissed. “I swore to obey you in all things,” Baro said. “Up until now, I have. I owe you two more years, but have not a single month left in me for this sport. I am broken and sore.”
“The oath you took is sacred and not something you can walk away from when it no longer suits you.” Paullus scrubbed his hands over his white hair, and the ends stood straight. He inhaled deeply and exhaled. With a swipe of his hands, he smoothed down his hair and nodded, although Baro knew not to what he was agreeing. “In all my years as a lanista, I have seen many things and understand how fame can change a man.”
“Fame has not changed me,” Baro said. Love. It was love that had changed him. “I mean no disrespect, but you misunderstand if you think that I will simply never fight again. I would make the same bargain you gave to Valens. Give me the ability to win back my contract by defeating a talented new gladiator.”
Paullus snorted. “I will offer you no such thing. The people at this ludus count on your continued victories for their livelihood.”
“My wins?” asked Baro. “What of the monies you earned from your commission?”
“Those,” said Paullus, “are mine.”
The heat of anger filled Baro, radiating off him until sweat dotted his upper lip and soaked the back of his tunic.
Paullus gave a rather loud snort and walked to the front of his desk. Leaning his hip upon the corner, he said, “All gladiators fear death, did you know that? Every one of your brothers-in-arms has sat where you are sitting, worried that he will die. I tell every one of them the same thing.”
“I do not fear death,” said Baro.
Paullus continued as if Baro had not spoken, “I tell them that Death walks among us all, and one day we will each feel his cold touch. The life of a gladiator is better than most. You will never starve. Any ludus is a better place to live than a cramped firetrap of an apartment in the Suburra, filled with filth and disease. Soak in the hot pool, Baro. Get a massage. Visit a new lady. Win today, and on the morrow this retirement nonsense will be a distant memory.”
“I have fallen in love,” said Baro. “I want to wed, not take a bath.”
Shaking his head, Paullus roared with laughter. “The gods preserve us—a gladiator in love.”
Baro sensed that the lanista might soften to a plight of the heart. After all, Paullus was a man with a wife and daughter. Baro leaned forward. “I asked her to marry me, and she accepted. I should have made sure that you would allow me to retire first, but you now see why I cannot continue to fight.”
“Retire?” Paullus snorted. “Being a gladiator is not something from which you can walk away. I own you, Spurius Mummius Baro, body and soul. In two years you will be free. Until then, I am your god and control your universe. Do not ever presume otherwise again.”
Had Paullus really spoken thusly? The words, spat at him, turned Baro’s insides first ice-cold and then fiery with fury. Baro held his breath and dared not move. He feared that his fists would act on their own accord and throttle the lanista.
“Presume?” Baro repeated the word. It tasted of filth and turned his tongue hard and heavy.
Holding up his hands in a manner of surrender, Paullus said, “We have long worked well together. I do not want to see that affinity lost. Rome worships you, Baro the Equestrian. Is that not enough?”
Paullus’s words placated Baro a little. Why could he not be satisfied with his life? Here, he had everything. Fame. Wealth. Influence. With Fortunada what would he have? The gods help him. He saw it all too clearly—a sunny villa upon a rise, a perfect home with Fortunada and her two children, and a dog. Baro wanted a dog.
“I love her,” Baro said. His voice was hollow.
“This woman and her love have made you weak.”
Baro could not give up, especially since Fortunada had agreed to be his wife. There was another stratagem he could try. “If you refuse to let me retire, at least allow me to live within Rome and take a wife.” The request was not wholly unreasonable. While not a common practice, gladiators took families and lived outside their ludi on occasion.
The lanista shook his head. “I forbid that you live elsewhere or get married. Focus on what you are good at—winning and entertaining Rome as her champion.”
“Then return all my winnings to me,” said Baro. With his saved coin, he could buy the sunny villa and provide for the family he already thought of as his own. In time, Baro would gain his freedom.
“Why? Care you to place a wager?” Paullus asked as he moved to retake his seat behind the desk.
“Only fools play at games of chance. I would buy a home for my lady love.”
Paullus slapped the flat of his hand upon the desk. “Put this woman from your mind. You will never see her again. And furthermore, I forbid you from leaving the ludus without my permission. You”—he pointed a shaking finger at Baro—“are dismissed. Leave my sight.”
Baro refused to follow the order immediately. He waited a moment, then stood. Taking special care to make each step deliberately casual, he strolled to the door, as if leaving the room were his idea and not Paullus’s. Crossing the threshold, Baro found a guard waiting for him. Together, they walked through the red-tiled atrium and into the corridor that wound through the villa and toward the ludus.
“What know you of your opponent today?” the guard asked as he worked a key into a heavy iron door that led to the training grounds.
The gods help Baro. Was there no other question to be asked? “Other than that he will be my last, nothing at all.”
The guard gaped, wide-eyed and openmouthed, at Baro. Mimicking, he assumed, his own look of shock. Had he really the balls to speak thusly?
“I am to marry.” Baro was happy to finally share his news with someone who would feel joy in his news, even if the man were nothing more than a stranger. “And after today, I fight no longer.”
“Allow me to offer you congratulations on your marriage,” said the guard. “I hope you do not mind that I ask, but I thought you had two years left to fulfill your contract?”
“I do, but good Paullus let me out early,” Baro said, knowing full well the depth of his lie.
The guard shook his head and opened the heavy iron door. “Just like that, you asked the lanista to let you retire, and he agreed. Is it really that easy?”
“You forget,” said Baro with a wide smile. He already saw his future with Fortunada and knew it would one day be true. “My life is charmed and I am denied nothing.”
Chapter 3
Fortunada
Though she would be spending the rest of the day in her villa and there was no need to dress in anything formal, Fortunada felt lovely and had donned her favorite silken gown of aquamarine. The color matched her eyes, and the high waist fit the contours and curves of her body. She felt like—as Baro had called her—a rare beauty.
She sat in the atrium. A shallow pool of water—meant for use in the kitchens—took up the center of the floor. To let in rain, the ceiling was open and held up by four pillars. Dark clouds scuttled across the sky, and their black reflection danced in the water below.
The air held a chill, and Fortunada had also donned a palla. She draped the fine woolen shawl over her shoulders and across her neck. When she and Baro married, Fortunada would trade the palla for the longer stola of a Roman matron. When her former husband left and Fortunada had to give up her stola, she was disgr
aced.
She had quickly realized the point of having different clothes for married women, divorced women, and widows. It was a kind of punishment meted out to those who could not keep a husband, or at the very least, keep him alive. It was then that she began to wear her palla with the honor of one who has survived.
Soon though, she would be giving up her beloved palla. Yet, for Baro, there was little she would not do.
A yellow-and-orange mosaic of the sun adorned the atrium’s floor, and several benches sat around the perimeter of the room. Had her father been in the city, he would have spent the early-morning hours taking meetings in this very room. After the tenth hour—about the time Fortunada returned from seeing Baro—the atrium became the place where the family gathered.
Nestled into a corner was a large wooden loom. Scattered about were toys—small wooden figurines of horses and legionnaires for Genaro, and an array of cloth dolls for Cornelia. Having taken up her place in front the loom, Fortunada worked while her children played nearby.
With a doll cradled in her arms, Cornelia stood next to her. Resting her tiny hand upon her mother’s knee, she asked, “What is it that you are making?”
“This will be a tunic for Genaro,” she said. “He grew large over the summer and now needs new things.”
“When I become a mother, I will weave clothes for my children as well,” Cornelia said.
“That you will.” Every Roman woman knew how to weave, and all took great pride in the fabric they made. “See this,” Fortunada said as she plucked the tight thread that ran from the top of the loom to the bottom. “This is called the warp.”
“Warp,” Cornelia repeated.
“And do you recall what this is?” She held out the thread used to create the weave.
“The . . .” Cornelia paused and drew her lip between her teeth. “Filling.”
“You are quite right,” said Fortunada as she tweaked Cornelia on the nose.
Sounds of battle came from nearby, as Genaro crashed his legionnaires into a column of lesser foes.
“And when Genaro grows bigger, he will join the legions—just like Uncle Damian.”
In order to honorably right a criminal wrong he had committed, Fortunada’s brother had joined the legions and now served in the wilds of Germania. While she loved Damian dearly, she hoped that Genaro would travel through the world with more aplomb than had his uncle. All the same, service with the legions was as likely a place as any for her son to begin his adult life. Until Genaro turned nineteen annums and became a man, a father would be the one to make those decisions. While it mattered little with him so young, when Genaro got older, he would be lost without the guidance of a sire. Since Genaro’s own father had abandoned the family, it would now be Baro’s job to fulfill that role.
Was now the time to tell her children that she planned to remarry? Setting the thread aside, she took Cornelia’s hand and moved to a bench near her son. Genaro took no note of their presence, tumbling horses and officers over one another in his imaginary battlefield melee. Setting Cornelia on her lap, she patted the space next to her. “Join us, Genaro.”
In a final headlong rush, the armies collided with a long-held “No.” Keeping hold of a single horse and rider, he sat on the bench next to Fortunada. Though the boy was still and proper from the waist up, his dangling legs kicked back and forth.
“And what did you do while I was out?” Fortunada asked her children.
“We played latrunculi with our nursemaid,” said Genaro with a sigh, “like always.”
Cornelia moved to Fortunada’s lap. Drawing her fair brows together, she said, “I do not like it when you go out, especially since Grandmother and Grandfather are away from Rome.”
“Mother goes out every morning,” said Genaro, “to visit the markets and the baths, as all Roman women do. I have told you as much before,” he added.
In his innocence, Genaro knew not how wrong he had been. Still, she was an adult and deserved a little time to herself. Or did she? Was Fortunada a horrible mother for taking a lover and seeing him daily?
“Is that what you do every day, Mother? Go to the markets?” Cornelia asked.
“Sometimes I visit a friend,” Fortunada said.
“Does she have a son?” asked Genaro. “Will we be invited for lunch? Last week when we all went out, the boys and I played Troy. Even though we were the Trojans, my team won.”
“Of course you did.” Fortunada gave his cheek a quick pat. “But I am here now. What shall we do?”
“Latrunculi,” suggested Cornelia.
Genaro groaned.
“Actually, there is something I would like to discuss with you.” She breathed a quick prayer that Ceres would bestow the right words on her. “We are all happy, but what would you think about my remarrying?”
Genaro sat up taller, his eyes wide and bright. “Will you remarry Father? Has he come back?”
Cornelia sat up, too. “Father is back? You said he would come, Genaro.”
Though the volcanic anger Fortunada felt for Albinius never really went dormant, it was easily ignored most of the time. But the idea that she would remarry him was so repugnant that a hot bubble of fury broke free within her.
“I will never remarry your father,” she snapped. “Besides, he has a new wife.” Both children blanched and turned to her, wide-eyed. Taking a deep breath, Fortunada let it out slowly. “I am sorry I spoke to you angrily.” She wrapped her arm over Genaro’s shoulder and pulled him in closer. “Just as he took a new wife, I could take a new husband.”
“I still miss Father,” said Genaro.
Cornelia added, “I do as well.”
How could these children miss a man who was a stranger to them, and they to him? If they all passed one another on the street, none would be the wiser. Nevertheless, it was good to know her children’s feelings upon the subject of Albinius. It would be prudent not to introduce Baro as a paramour and replacement for their nonexistent father at first.
“I have an idea,” said Fortunada. “You two can play in the pool. I want to weave some more before we take our midday meal.” Both children gave cries of delight as they ran to kneel at the pool’s edge. Within seconds, the sleeves and hems of their tunics were soaked. The sight of both children laughing left Fortunada with a smile all her own.
Genaro offered Cornelia a toy horse. His hands were so small, but in the length of his fingers and power of his grasp, she saw the strength of the man he would become. Pursing her rosebud lips, Cornelia stood on tiptoe and accepted the toy. Both children began splashing the horses through the water, completing their play with whinnying sounds.
Rising from the bench, Fortunada returned to the loom. Picking up the thread, she slipped into the rhythm of her work. Back and forth. Back and forth. Batten down the cloth.
She had not heard from Albinius in more than three years. He had left while she was six months pregnant with Cornelia, to marry another woman. Her former husband obviously cared nothing for the children, and Fortunada doubted that he would dispute any living arrangements she made on their behalf. At the same time, he would have to be located and give his consent.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Genaro cock his arm back and throw one of the horses. It sent a flume of water into the air that landed on his sister. For a moment Cornelia froze with an O of surprise on her lips. Then her face crumpled, and she let out a piercing wail.
Genaro glanced quickly over his shoulder. Meeting the watchful eye of Fortunada, he poked his sister in the ribs, hissing, “Be quiet. You are fine.”
Cornelia’s cry increased to a bawl.
“Genaro,” Fortunada said, her voice a touch louder than usual. “Cornelia. Both of you—come to me.”
Chattering loudly about the horse, the pool, and how their sibling had wronged them greatly, her children ran to Fortunada’s side.
Fortunada lifted Cornelia onto her lap and patted the seat for Genaro to sit beside her. He sat, but not too close. She ran her finger under the leather cord that held the bulla around his neck. Like all Roman children, Genaro wore a hollow golden amulet to ward off evil. Eight years hence, Genaro would dedicate his necklace to the household gods. Afterward, he would celebrate the Liber Pater, making him a man. He should attend that celebration with a father, she thought. As his mother, it was her job to find him one. She had been right to accept Baro. Not only for herself but for her children as well.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“She is such a baby,” Genaro grumbled.
“I am not,” Cornelia countered. “Genaro is mean.”
“You are both wonderful. Genaro, you surprised Cornelia when the water hit her face. It was an accident caused by your actions. To be a man, you must learn to claim responsibility and make whatever amends are necessary.”
Genaro gave a single nod. “Yes, Mother.”
“And Cornelia,” Fortunada continued, “you must allow people to apologize for their mistakes. You were not hurt, only taken by surprise.”
Cornelia leaned into Fortunada’s chest and traced the neckline of her gown. “Yes, Mother.”
“Now, children, what are you to do?”
“I am sorry for getting you wet,” grumbled Genaro.
“I accept your apology,” Cornelia whispered.
Tomorrow, perhaps, she would work with them on improving their attitudes. Today she would thank Ceres for this small victory on behalf of exasperated parents everywhere.
“Come,” she said as she stood. “It is time for prandium.”
Although her parents were away, Fortunada was not completely alone. Her favorite uncle, Sersa, was staying with them. As heir to the Illyrian throne, he visited Rome often to conduct the business of the state. Whenever he was in the city, he graced the villa with his presence.
In honor of Uncle Sersa, Fortunada had ordered finer fare than they usually enjoyed for the midday meal. Poached fish rested atop a jelly made of pears and quinces. Stewed carrots in three different colors—purple, orange, and yellow—surrounded the edges of the platter. Fresh-cut figs sat in one bowl, and a coriander salad filled another.
The Gladiator's Temptation (Champions of Rome) Page 3