A Gladiator's Tale

by Ashley Gardner

  I did not reach for the coins. “I truly did not come here for that.”

  “No matter. Men hire gladiators to entertain them, and you have done that for me today. Listened to an old man natter on. Besides, you deserve it for putting up with my wife.”

  I sensed that Vestalis would be offended if I did not take what he offered, and so would Cassia. Our coffers were never very full.

  I held out my hand, and Vestalis dropped the three denarii into my palm. As I closed my fingers around the cool metal, I decided to take a chance.

  “Your wife hasn’t invited another gladiator to see her today, has she?” I asked as though offhandedly interested. “One called Regulus?”

  Vestalis moved his gaze past me as he thought. “I haven’t heard that name. But then, I don’t know every man she drags in here. None have been to visit today, as far as I know.”

  “Do any other ladies of the neighborhood … invite in gladiators?”

  Vestalis snorted. “Possibly. So many are scandalous these days. My own dear wife—my first wife, I mean—was quiet and serene. A joy to have her enter a room. All praised her—she was beautiful, intelligent, modest, kind, and funny too. She could make me laugh. And my daughter—as beautiful as a goddess …”

  His eyes grew moist as he trailed off. He stared at nothing for a moment, as though he’d forgotten my presence, then he buried his head in his hands. “Forgive me,” he said brokenly.

  I rose and stepped out of the room, waving for the doorman, who scurried to us. When he saw his master weeping, the young man took on an expression of great sympathy.

  “I’ll look after him,” he said. “He misses his lady and his daughter something terrible,” he confided in a whisper.

  Losing them must have been a grievous blow, and I could see that Vestalis hadn’t recovered from it, probably never would. His loss was much more on his mind than the indecorous behavior of his frivolous second wife.

  I again thanked Vestalis, who did not respond, and followed the doorman out.

  I still hadn’t found Regulus, and my idea that Severina’s bodyguard had ordered the gladiator equipment and hauled Rufus’s body into the insula was wrong.

  I needed to think, and for that, I needed Cassia.

  I trudged home through a Rome settling down for the evening. More family processions wended their way along the streets. Groups walked together, some carrying small shrines, honoring the deceased members of their families. I paused to buy a small bag of nuts from a vendor to lay on our own shrine.

  Cassia had returned to the apartment as she’d promised, but I found a throng inside.

  I recognized Helvius, and Martolia and Gaius, but not the others. By their garb, they were slaves or freed servants.

  Cassia spoke animatedly with a woman I didn’t recognize while Helvius watched Cassia with admiration. Gaius sat on the floor and beat one of the stools like a drum, and Martolia swayed idly to the rhythm on the balcony.

  I stood in the doorway for a long moment before anyone noticed me. Then Helvius caught sight of me and gasped, and attention turned my way.

  “Leonidas.” Cassia turned in eager welcome. “What have you learned?”

  I gazed across the sea of faces, some trepidatious, others fascinated. Oil gleamed on limbs, and some of the group had damp hair. They’d taken their turn at the baths, I guessed, and then stopped by to see Cassia before continuing to their master’s homes.

  “Regulus was not there,” I said. “I saw no sign of the man Albus describes.”

  “Ah.” Cassia’s disappointment was short-lived. “No matter. My friends will inquire about him as they go about their duties. As well as search for Regulus.”

  “Too dangerous,” I said quickly. Slaves poking about where they had no business faced dire consequences with no recourse.

  “No one notices servants,” Cassia said with assurance. “My friends know how to discover things unobtrusively. Evening is coming,” she announced to them. “Time to return home. We will meet again tomorrow, and you will tell me what you find.”

  Gaius gave the stool—mine—a final thump as the crowd began to disperse and heaved himself from the floor. “Martolia is dancing on the Caelian tonight. We’ll ask if any servants there know which senator’s wife is hosting a gladiator.”

  Before I could argue, he was following Martolia out, his voice raised in song as he clattered down the stairs.

  It took some time for all to leave, but finally, I shut the door on the last straggler.

  “How did you summon them all here?” I asked Cassia as I restored the stools to the table.

  “I sent the boy who works for the wine merchant to Helvius, and he spread word to the others.” Cassia seated herself in front of her open tablets and neatly lined-up scrolls. “Between them, they’ll find Regulus, I am certain.”

  “Or be killed,” I pointed out.

  “I believe the servants will be safe. You and Regulus and others at the ludus are the ones in danger.” Cassia’s confidence did not bolster mine. “Now, what happened on the Caelian?”

  I described to her my foray into Severina’s house and the conversation with Vestalis.

  “He is a sad old man.” I pulled out the coins he’d given me and laid them on the table. “Says he doesn’t care about Severina, but he’d no doubt be happier with a kinder wife and a son or two.”

  “Very likely. Children should mourn and honor their fathers, not the other way around.” Cassia’s gaze moved to our ancestor shrine, decorated once more with a vase of flowers. I added my handful of walnuts to it before I took my seat at the table.

  “He is still in great pain, which explains why he barely notices Severina,” I told her. “His wife and daughter died in Hispania, I think. Or perhaps Britannia. He is the most bitter when he speaks about Britannia.”

  Cassia studied two tablets laid out side by side in front of her. “What I don’t understand is why Ajax and Rufus? They are very different men.”

  “Maybe to this man gladiators are all the same. Fighting bodies in the arena.”

  “But they are not the same. I have seen the drawings on walls all over Rome—people sketch the gladiator they like best, adding what makes him distinctive. The Thracian helmet. The net and spear of the retiarius. The sword and shield of the secutor.”

  “True.” I traced the shape of a helmet on the table with my finger. “Ajax was a secutor, Rufus, a myrmillo. But the killer dressed him as a Thracian.”

  “Which means he was vague about which type of gladiator Rufus was. There are other differences between them, though. Ajax was a captive, sold to the games. Rufus was a free person, who became a gladiator voluntarily.”

  “Rufus took a wife, while Ajax had no permanent lover,” I added.

  “Ajax also isn’t Roman.” Cassia ran a fingertip along the wax in her tablet. “Rufus is from Latinium and grew up in Rome. Ajax was a soldier in Pannonia.”

  Cassia’s finger halted. I don’t know what she pointed at, though I recognized the P from the letters I’d traced. I felt a small trickle of pride that I remembered it.

  “Pannonia.” Cassia’s voice went quiet. “Great Minerva. Is it that simple?”

  Chapter 23

  I saw nothing simple about our life these past days. “What are you saying?” I asked impatiently.

  “Ajax is from Pannonia.” Cassia held my gaze with her adamant one, as though I should understand everything. “He was a soldier, you said.”

  “Not in the Roman army. From a tribe called the Quadi. So was Herakles. Ajax and Herakles call it something different, but I don’t remember what. They were captured in a battle, or during a raid.”

  Cassia hurriedly opened tablets and unrolled scrolls, leafing through them. “Vestalis lost his wife in the provinces.”

  “In Britannia …”

  “No, no.” Cassia ceased her searching and sat back, tapping her stylus to her notes in triumph. “His wife died when he was proconsul of a small settlement in Pannonia. Ki
lled in a raid, Helvius told me.”

  I regarded her quizzically. “You think Ajax was part of that raid?”

  “Possibly. Herakles too. When did Aemilianus bring them into the ludus?”

  “Three years ago. I remember they did well in the Saturnalian games not a month after they joined us. They did not speak Latin, and they’d never had a bath in their lives, but their ferocity drew the admiration of the crowd. That was three Saturnalias past.”

  Cassia began to scan her notes again. “Three years ago, yes—Vestalis’s wife and daughter died. He was moved to a post in Britannia, then asked to be transferred to Hispania a year or so later, a warmer clime. There he met Severina and Domitiana, while they were visiting Domitiana’s son.”

  Helvius, secretary to Domitiana, would have learned of Vestalis’s sad story.

  “You are saying Vestalis killed Ajax?” I asked. “In revenge?”

  “Very possibly. Hiring a man to do it for him, of course.”

  Her conclusion did not match the frail elderly man I’d shared a cup of wine with today. He’d been heartbroken, not full of the fires of vengeance. “Why have Ajax cut up and left in the Subura?”

  “That, I do not know.” Cassia sat back, fingers resting on the edge of the table. “From what Helvius told me, the raiders were not kind to Vestalis’s wife and daughter. They were brutal. Perhaps Vestalis was returning that brutality.”

  “What you say could explain why Vestalis would want to kill Ajax. But why Rufus?”

  Cassia deflated. “Perhaps his hired man mistook Rufus for Herakles.”

  “But Vestalis knows Herakles, who has become Domitiana’s lover. He’d have pointed out the right man. Herakles and Rufus are nothing alike, we’ve just decided.”

  “True,” Cassia conceded.

  “And why is Regulus gone? He’s from Etruria and had started at the ludus well before Aemil acquired Ajax and Herakles.”

  “There is no reason to believe Regulus has been taken,” Cassia said. “He might simply be out enjoying himself. You say he is good at freeing himself from confinement.”

  “Doesn’t like to be ordered about, no.”

  “I suppose we can’t know if Ajax or Herakles had anything to do with Vestalis’s wife.” Cassia let out a little sigh. “They might have been on the same raiding party, but nowhere near Vestalis’s family. Or in another raiding party altogether. Or have been captured in an entirely different part of Pannonia.”

  I rose to my feet, the stool skittering away. “We can know. I will go ask Herakles right now.”

  “It’s dark,” Cassia said with an apprehensive glance at the balcony.

  “None will waylay me.” I could not wait tamely until morning to discover answers.

  “Take your cloak.” Cassia’s soft voice touched me. “It’s gone chilly.”

  Somewhere under my anger and impatience, I felt a sense of wonderment. I’d never had someone worry, for my own sake, whether I’d take cold or return home unhurt.

  I lifted the cloak she’d neatly hung on a peg and went out the door.

  When I reached the gate of the ludus, Septimius admitted me without hesitation. Aemil, emerging from a line of cells, strode to meet me.

  “We found it,” he said grimly. “The curse.”

  I’d forgotten I’d suggested he search for a curse. Perhaps it was to blame for all the trouble, and Cassia and I had been rushing about Rome for no reason.

  “It was in Rufus’s cell.” Aemil’s face was hard. “A bit of leather rolled up, inscribed with a venomous spell.”

  “Wishing his death?” I asked quickly.

  “Wishing him misfortune. Boils on his body. Breaking a leg. The usual thing to keep a gladiator out of the ring. But it worked all too well, didn’t it?”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “Took it over the bridge to the temple of Hercules at the Circus. Had the curse neutralized and the leather burned.” Aemil’s anger had stamped weary lines on his face.

  “Who had a chance to put it in his cell?”

  “Anyone.” Aemil waved his arms. “Another of the gladiators. I’ve threatened to flog the whole lot, but none will confess. His bitch of a wife. A fan of a rival ludus.”

  I readjusted my conclusions. The curse could have lain in Rufus’s cell for a long time, and true, his wife might have put it there so he’d be injured or die in the arena, and she’d be free to marry Daphnus. Daphnus himself could have had it smuggled in to make Chryseis a widow.

  None of which had anything to do with Ajax.

  “Where is Herakles?” I returned to my original purpose.

  “Dining. Do you have Regulus? I thought you knew where he’d gone.”

  I couldn’t find the words to explain, so I strode past Aemil and into the long room where the gladiators took their evening meal. New gladiators weren’t allowed to eat there until they’d proved they’d accepted their fate, and those who caused trouble at training were locked away to consume their meals alone. The rest gathered around a communal dining table.

  Praxus, who’d obviously won Aemil’s trust, busily shoveled food into his mouth with his good hand, the other still in the sling. “Leonidas,” he sang out when he saw me. “Too bad you aren’t allowed to join us. Aemil’s a stingy bastard and won’t let us share.”

  I knew the rules. Aemil kept a close eye on his provisions, and uninvited guests went hungry.

  “Leonidas has a slave to get him meals now.” Herakles grinned smugly. “She’s a tender thing. Wish Leonidas would share her.”

  He barely had the last words out before I was lifting him by the tunic and dragging him across the table. The gladiators near him grabbed their bowls and wine cups and scrambled out of the way.

  Herakles struggled mightily, but I transferred him to a headlock as his feet flopped over the table’s edge. None tried to help him. I didn’t often grow enraged, but when I did, the other gladiators had learned to stay out of my way.

  I hauled Herakles across the floor, and when he gasped desperately for breath, I slung him against a wall and held him there. “What did you do? In Pannonia?”

  “What did I …?” He trailed off, coughing.

  “You and Ajax. To a woman and her daughter. Wife and child of Vestalis.”

  Herakles stared at me in shock. “Vestalis?”

  “Domitiana’s son-in-law. That Vestalis. He was a proconsul in Pannonia. Did you kill his wife and daughter in a raid? The raid that got you captured?”

  Herakles’s mouth hung open, but when I finished, furious scorn flashed in his eyes. “I don’t know. I did many, many Roman women. Maybe they belonged to Vestalis—who knows? I didn’t care.” His voice filled with venom. “Roman soldiers, they came to our lands, took what they wanted, violated our women, and then said we must be grateful that greedy Roman bastards had bullied their way into our territory. I and the brothers of my tribe took from them what they took from us. Yes, I had Roman women under me, and I sliced their throats when I was done. But there were too many soldiers, and they captured me. Flogged me, branded me, and sold me here.”

  He tried to jerk away as he said the last word, but my grip was too strong, too practiced.

  The silence from the other gladiators was heavy. They listened, none intervening.

  “Ajax too?” I asked in a low growl. “He did what you did?”

  “Yes.” Herakles sneered. “He gave back plenty.”

  “And now he’s dead for it.”

  “You think Vestalis did that?” Herakles’s laughter held derision. “That feeble old man? Sits and watches while I do everything but stick myself into Domitiana? He’s the kind I crushed with my bare hands—soft Roman whoreson.”

  I slammed his head back against the wall. “Vestalis’s wife and daughter did nothing to you. A man who kills innocents is not a man.”

  “And Roman soldiers who plow through a camp and stamp little children to death under their boots show virtus, do they?”

  I couldn’t argue wit
h him about soldiers acting brutally, because I knew they did, all the time. Barbarians were savages to them, needing to be conquered by any means. Herakles and Ajax had taken vengeance for that, and now vengeance was visited upon them.

  I swung Herakles around and tossed him away from me. By the time he regained his balance, I was out the door into the cool night, across the training courtyard, and out the gate. From there, I turned my steps once more to the Caelian Hill.

  Darkness had fallen completely by the time I reached Severina’s house. Moonlight gleamed here and there through scattered clouds, but otherwise, the night was black.

  The doorman answered my impatient pounding and gaped at me when I demanded to see Vestalis.

  “The master’s gone to bed,” the doorman said. “He goes early most nights. The mistress is at her mother’s.”

  “It’s very important.” I barely restrained myself from simply shoving him out of my way and storming inside.

  The doorman sensed this. “I can ask his manservant.”

  “Yes.” I stepped swiftly past him into the huge atrium. “I’ll wait.”

  If I had not been a welcome guest earlier today, the doorman would likely have shouted for help, but as it was, he simply shut and bolted the door and then pattered off into the dim recesses of the house.

  I studied the opulent scenes in the atrium, paintings of people lounging on sofas or in gardens, while birds posed on trees and deer calmly grazed. Everything was serene, peaceful, manicured, bathed in moonlight from the open roof above the atrium. The perfect Roman life.

  Though my fury burned at Herakles for what he’d boasted of doing, I knew he had a point. The Roman army had always pushed their way into the frontier, drawing the lines they controlled farther and farther out. Behind them came the permanent army camps and then towns, with aqueducts, amphitheatres, baths, and colonnaded markets. The barbarians were told to be humble and thankful for the civilization forced upon them, no matter how mercilessly. I could not be surprised that men like Herakles had tried to punish their invaders.