A Gladiator's Tale

by Ashley Gardner

  I grabbed Silvanus before he could dive for the knife. I yanked him across my body, twisting him around to lock my arm around his neck. He flailed and struck out, and I began to squeeze.

  Silvanus coughed and swore as the crook of my arm cut off his air. I wasn’t certain what to do next though, because my entire strength had not returned. Silvanus might faint, but I still could not move enough to get off the slab and carry Regulus out with me. Vestalis was yelling hoarsely, and it was only a matter of time before other servants heard and investigated.

  Silvanus beat my torso with one fist. He got in a lucky blow high on my abdomen, whooshing air out of me.

  I was transported back to a bout more than five years ago, in a time when I was still gaining my prowess. A myrmillo had knocked me to the ground, his foot connecting with my stomach, sending all breath from me. I’d been almost as transfixed, there on the hot sand, as I was now.

  I saw the myrmillo standing over me, gloating, ready to kick me again, his sword rising for the killing blow to my exposed chest.

  My instincts took over. I rolled on the sand, tangling my legs with his, sweeping him from his feet. The myrmillo tried to retain his balance but fell heavily, arm out to stop himself. The arm broke, and I barreled him to the ground to the screaming delight of the crowd.

  My shoulder met solid ground as I fell from the bunk, wrenching me back to the present. Silvanus came down with me, and I felt the knife cold beneath my side. I rolled again in the tight space, my hand landing on the knife just as a panting Silvanus’s did.

  A sudden bright light showed me the bronze knife blade rising high, both of our hands clenching it, the blade heading straight for my chest.

  Chapter 25

  The cell filled with noise. I managed to deflect the blow from the startled Silvanus, but the blade sliced my skin, and blood ran from the wound.

  Silvanus was ripped from me by a pair of enormously strong, weathered, and rock-hard hands, accompanied by a snarl of rage.

  I knew those hands, and that snarl. Aemilianus, who’d terrified the condemned youth I’d been long ago, held the tall Silvanus in his hard grip, and began bashing the man’s head against the ceiling.

  Regulus roared with laughter. “About time you got here.”

  Vestalis was weeping, surrounded by people I couldn’t make out. One slipped past him and flung herself onto me.

  I was half on my side on the floor, my legs knotted in the small space, back jammed against the stone bunk. Now a woman in a woolen cloak clung to me, her shoulders shaking as her hair spilled to my face.

  “What are you doing here?” I managed to croak.

  Cassia raised her head, her cheeks damp in the glow of too much lamplight. “You didn’t come home. I went to the ludus …”

  “By yourself?” I asked in alarm.

  “No, no. I found help. At the ludus Septimius said you rushed off toward the Aventine, and that you’d been asking questions about the lady of the Caelian Hill. I told Aemilianus you were in grave danger.”

  Aemil was busy bashing Silvanus’s head into the bricks, the tall Silvanus slumped and groaning.

  “Be careful,” I called to Aemil. “He carries poison.”

  “Has he poisoned you?” The voice of Nonus Marcianus came around Aemil, and the thin man stepped into the light. “With what?” His tone held eager curiosity.

  “I don’t know.” I lay in a tangle, stroking Cassia’s hair to soothe her. I noted that it was soft and warm. “I can’t get up. Regulus can’t either.”

  “Interesting.” Marcianus bent over me, touching my legs with a professional hand. I felt only a tingle.

  “Interesting, is it?” Regulus still had hold of Vestalis, who hung dejectedly in his grasp. “What about a cure? Don’t you have some vial of a potion that will let me move again?”

  “Not until I know the exact nature of the poison. How was it administered?”

  I told Marcianus the tale in a mumble. He listened avidly, taking a seat on the stone bunk as though we were in a comfortable tablinium instead of a dank cell beneath a patrician’s home.

  “Very likely snake venom of some kind, as you suspect,” Marcianus said when I’d finished. “Or perhaps spider. As you are already regaining feeling, and you can breathe, I suspect it will eventually wear off. It must be a subduing poison, not a killing one, at least in small doses.”

  “Delightful.” Regulus shook Vestalis. “See what kind of man your lackey is?”

  “He meant to help me,” Vestalis said in a weak voice. “I am proud that he did.”

  I gestured to Silvanus, who lay in a half-insensible heap across Regulus’s feet, where Aemil had finally dropped him. “He is the man who murdered Ajax and Rufus.”

  A shriek sounded. “He killed Rufus?”

  Martolia bounded into the cell, a knife gleaming in her hand. She broke from Merope and Gaius, who were trying to hold her back, and hurled herself at Silvanus.

  “I loved him,” she screeched as she stabbed.

  The knife was stopped at the last minute by Aemil, who took it away from her. Martolia fought him, but she was no match for the strength of the seasoned Aemil.

  “Help me bring them out,” Aemil ordered as he removed a struggling Martolia from the room. He nudged Silvanus with his foot. “We’ll take this one to the cohorts.”

  The sound of tramping feet, followed by shouts, cut through Aemil’s orders. Most prominent households employed their own guards, from lictors to ex-soldiers and former gladiators, and I’d known hazily that it was only a matter of time before Vestalis’s bodyguards searched for him.

  The hulking men reached us. One grabbed Silvanus and hauled him up and over his shoulder. Aemil backed away warily, but Vestalis only stood still—Regulus gripping him—resigned.

  I expected to see the large men who surrounded Severina, but these guards wore leather breastplates and carried swords, and I didn’t recognize any from Severina’s household.

  One big man leaned down and hauled me up and across his back as though I weighed nothing. Unnerving.

  Cassia stayed close, following me out of the cell as I hung over the man’s shoulders like a sack of turnips. I had a view of rough-hewn steps as he jogged up them, which became polished stone steps and then segued into the mosaic tile floors of Severina’s giant house.

  The man carried me all the way out into the night before dumping me onto a bench next to the villa’s front door. I was on the street, a cold breeze on my face. The air smelled damp—rain was coming.

  Regulus fell heavily to a bench next to mine, unloaded there by another guard who’d carried him. Cassia sat down beside me and pulled out her inevitable tablet.

  One of the guards seemed familiar. I couldn’t quite place him until I saw his master walking toward me with an easy stride, moonlight glittering on the gold wristbands he liked to wear.

  “Sextus Livius.” My voice was a weary scratch.

  “I am glad to see you alive, Leonidas.” Livius halted before me, his cloak hanging in pristine folds over a fine linen tunic. “When I received the message that you were in great danger, I feared the worst.”

  “You sent for him?” I asked Cassia in surprise.

  “I sent for everyone.” Cassia sat very close to me, her tunic-encased leg touching the length of mine, her warmth permeating my numb flesh.

  I wasn’t certain what she meant by everyone, but I was glad she’d decided to disobey my orders to stay home. When she’d said I found help, I assumed she meant the boy who worked for the wine merchant who fetched the dancers and Marcianus.

  I didn’t realize the extent of her network until the street outside the villa again rang with footsteps, and this time, men of the Praetorian Guard marched to the door. With them came the small form of Hesiodos.

  I’d seen the lead guard at the Palatine before, and he knew me. “You are to come,” the guard told me. “Now.”

  I’d never before ridden in a litter, and I decided I didn’t like the experienc
e. The stuffy tent that stank of perfume swayed with the out-of-step stride of the men who bore it, bumping me along from the Caelian Hill to the Palatine. Livius had decided it was the best way to convey me, and purloined one of Severina’s for the purpose.

  By the time I was lowered in a marble courtyard, I could stand, if shakily. The journey up the steep Palatine had been the worst part, the bearers struggling and swearing. One had stumbled, and I’d been certain we’d all go tumbling back down the hill.

  Hesiodos, the man as neatly dressed and shod as ever, watched critically as a guard took my arm and walked me into the domus. The sturdy guard conveyed me through open courtyards and closed ones, past fountains and gardens, and along vast colonnades.

  Cassia walked beside me. I heard her quiet footfalls between the thump of Praetorian boots and was glad of her presence.

  When she’d clung to me as I’d lain on the floor, I’d gathered her close, letting her softness comfort me. She’d been crying, a fact I viewed in wonder. I had command of her, life and death, yet she’d been distressed enough to pull in every favor of every person who’d promised them to me or to her, in order to find me. She had saved my life tonight.

  I’d never been to the chamber we ended up in. Porphyry columns lined its length, their gilded capitals complementing the gold-touched friezes on the walls. Floor mosaics depicted a lavish garden with birds so lifelike I expected them to take flight. Lamps flickered everywhere, making the gold shimmer.

  Nero stepped into the room not long after the guards halted. I’d seen the princeps dressed in a plain tunic with purple toga, in a charioteer’s togs, and in luxurious clothes to dine with important guests.

  Today, he wore the most opulent things I’d seen so far. A white silk tunic flowed over his somewhat portly body, covered with the flowing folds of a purple toga. Over that was a red silk cloak trimmed with a gold braid that caught the lamplight. A crown of gold laurel leaves sat on his light brown curls, with golden spikes protruding from the crown here and there to suggest the sun’s rays. He wore fine leather shoes rather than sandals this evening, which were turned up slightly at the toes and capped with beaten gold.

  The clothes had been made for him but didn’t hang on him well, making him look like an expensive grain sack.

  I tried to bow but swayed like a tree. The guard who’d brought me in held me up by the back of my tunic.

  “You have found the killer?” Nero demanded. “Who is it?”

  “A servant called Silvanus,” I said, my voice strained.

  “Who?” Nero fixed a perplexed gaze on me. “Who owns this servant?”

  “Tertius Vestalis Felix,” Cassia answered in her quiet voice.

  Nero started then his eyes narrowed. “Vestalis? The proconsul nearly worshipped in the senate? His servant has been murdering gladiators? What for?”

  Cassia, her head bowed, began to tell him all of it. She was much better at explaining and keeping a story straight than I was, so I remained silent while she spoke.

  “All that to avenge the death of his wife?” Nero asked after Cassia concluded the tale with my adventure tonight on the Caelian Hill. “It’s heroic. Almost fit for a ballad.” His voice had begun to soften in admiration, but then he stiffened and flicked his gaze back to me. “But not in my city, killing my gladiators, and terrorizing my people.”

  He waited impatiently for our response, and Cassia and I agreed with him obediently.

  Nero fingered the slight indentation in his chin. “But I can’t put Tertius Vestalis Felix to death. He has far too many friends and is too highly regarded. A brilliant career even I remember as a child. No, I need someone else.”

  His gaze lighted on me, and for a frozen moment, I thought he’d suggest I could be executed in Vestalis’s place.

  “We’ll have this servant arrested,” Nero said decisively. “After all, he is the one who committed the actual murders. We’ll have a trial so all will hear of his heinous crimes, and we’ll have his body cut up and displayed as he did the others. I will show the people of my city that they are safe from him.” He paused and drew a breath. “Excellent. It shall be written up how I discovered the identity of the killer, and this news will be read out by the criers.”

  I stole a glance at Cassia, but she stood absolutely motionless, not reacting to Nero’s proclamation.

  Did it matter? I pondered silently. If Nero claimed credit for finding the murderer while Cassia and I had no recognition, did it truly matter? Silvanus had been stopped, and Vestalis would be watched.

  Nero couldn’t touch Vestalis without angering powerful men—men who would likely agree that Vestalis had every right to go after the barbarians who killed his wife and daughter. But Nero could make certain Vestalis had no opportunity to cause more trouble, perhaps by ordering him to retire deep into the countryside. I wondered if Severina would bother to go with him or be glad to have her tiresome husband shunted aside.

  Vestalis might have his vengeance in the end, in any case. Herakles was a gladiator and could die in the arena at any time. If Aemil paired him in the next games against Regulus, who was not happy about being poisoned and imprisoned, his life might indeed be short.

  Nero took on the tone of a grateful ruler. “You will be rewarded for your services to me, Leonidas. Go now.”

  He waved a pudgy hand at us then turned and wafted toward the back of the room where he disappeared through a pair of silk hangings, likely forgetting all about us.

  Guards closed on us once we were alone, and Cassia slipped her hand into mine.

  “Time to go home,” she whispered.

  Hesiodos stood near the large fountain in the main courtyard, staring moodily into the dancing waters. I broke from Cassia and the guards, my legs obeying me once more, if weakly, and approached him.

  “Have you asked about what I wanted?” I inquired without preliminary.

  Hesiodos regarded me coolly. “I have. The answer, unfortunately, is no.”

  Rage flashed through me, erasing the last vestiges of the poison.

  “Why?” I demanded. “What difference does it make whether Cassia belongs to me or whoever is this benefactor?”

  Hesiodos moved his slim shoulders in a shrug. “I did not ask his reasons. I only do what I am told.”

  He was the perfect servant, having no questions or curiosity beyond what he was ordered to do. My fury rose.

  “When will he reveal whatever it is he wants of us?” I asked in a harsh voice. “And once he does, and I do what he wishes, will we then be dust to him?”

  Again the shrug. “That I cannot say, because I do not know.” To his credit, Hesiodos’s expression held some sympathy. “Until that day, Cassia is to look after you, and you, her.”

  I glanced at Cassia, waiting for me near an arch in the colonnade, her cloak wrapped about her, her inquisitive eyes on me. She was interested in everything around her, always, no matter what she had gone through.

  “Which I will do,” I told Hesiodos. “But he had better reveal himself soon.”

  Hesiodos fixed me with a stern gaze. “Do not confront him or defy him, Leonidas. I warn you for your own good. And for Cassia’s. Be patient. That is the best thing.”

  I tamped down my anger with effort. If this benefactor decided to punish me, it was true that Cassia would share the punishment. At best, she’d be sold again, to who knew what sort of man.

  I gave Hesiodos a final scowl, then turned and left him.

  Chapter 26

  We were not allowed to lock ourselves into our apartment and recover from what happened—I badly wanted to down a flask of wine and fall asleep—because Cassia’s retinue waited for us there.

  After Cassia told them about what had happened on the Palatine, Martolia danced in triumph that Rufus’s murder would have justice, the bells on her ankles ringing frenziedly. Gaius drummed with enthusiasm, and Merope happily twirled her sister out onto the balcony. I remembered that Martolia with Gaius had been hired to dance at a house on the Ca
elian, which explained how Martolia had reached Vestalis’s so quickly. She and Gaius must have noted Aemil and the others rushing to the villa.

  Sextus Livius had withdrawn his guards when the Praetorians had come, not wanting to be anywhere near Nero’s functionaries. He’d also sought our rooms and now thumped me on the shoulder, holding a cup of the wine he’d brought with him for all.

  “I was happy to help, Leonidas,” he said when I thanked him. “As I stated, you have done me a good turn. I admit I worried much for you when I received Cassia’s message.”

  “Your arrival was timely. He’d have killed me.”

  Livius sobered. “No doubt. I can supply a guard for you always if you need it. My men are well-trained and loyal.”

  His men looked like bandits turned partly civilized, but this was not unusual. Many mercenaries took on bodyguard work when there were no wars to fight or cities to raid.

  “You are kind,” I said. “But I am supposed to be doing the guard work.”

  Livius chuckled. “That is true. However, if you continue to hunt killers through the streets, you will need help. My offer stands.”

  I thanked him again, having no intention of tracking any more murderers. I would seek Gallus and become a builder, leaving death and murder behind me.

  Livius finished his cup of wine then departed, his men closing around him as they marched off into the darkness. I listened to their tramp of feet fading, Livius never having to fear the Roman night.

  Marcianus had arrived to make certain the poison had worn through me. He gave me a thorough examination, peering into my mouth and eyes, sniffing my breath. This to the fascination of Helvius, who’d also turned up.

  When Marcianus finished with me, I took Helvius aside.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For helping Cassia. And me.”

  Helvius ducked his head. “I’d do anything for her.” He glanced at Cassia, resignation in his eyes. “But I know she won’t have me.” He sighed. “We’ve been friends for years, and I will take that bond if I can have no other. I will always make certain she is well, even if she can’t give me what I want.”