I was sickened at the whole evening, but as far as Lucius was concerned, he had told me how to behave, and that was that. In the past it certainly would have been.
I disagreed.
CHAPTER SIX
I had never been down into the gladiators’ quarters before. I was not forbidden to go, I just had never had a reason to. I knew where the skeleton key to the great iron gate that separated them from the upstairs house was—it had never been hidden.
I studied the key now, its metal worn and scarred from generations of use. One of Lucius’ ancestors had installed this gate, with its lock, to protect those who lived upstairs from the brutes and beasts who roamed below. Did I dare defy both Lucius and tradition and head into the bowels of our home, simply to make certain that a slave was all right?
It was reason enough for me, but I knew with certainty that it would not be reason enough for my husband. That alone should have made up my mind, for Lucius was my pater familias, and as such deserved my unswerving loyalty and obedience.
I was starting to wonder if that unquestioning obedience was right, if it was deserved. Did I have any rights at all? Did being my pater familias give Lucius the right to mate me with whomever he chose?
If he felt guilt, did that exonerate his actions?
Would I soon be expected to entertain his friends, his associates, in the way that our slaves were? The notion did not sit easily.
My hand reached unerringly for the key, even as nerves made my muscles clench. I had never defied Lucius, and though he had not specifically told me not to visit Caius this evening, it had been explicitly implied in his chastisement of my behavior earlier.
I glowered back up the stairs that I had descended at the reminder. Overhead I could still hear the revelers, loud and full of mirth. No doubt they had all already forgotten about the man who had been injured for their entertainment.
In the end, that was why I fit the key into the lock, turned it until the latch gave way. I simply wanted to make sure that the man had received proper care, given that our medic was upstairs and hip deep in the cups.
As I clutched my ornately embroidered silk tunic tight in sweaty fists, I knew that that was not true at all. I wanted to look closely at Caius, and at Marcus, if I could.
I wanted to know which man had been wearing the mask.
My pulse fluttered in my temples and my wrists as I reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the long stone corridor that was lit by torches. I was not afraid, not really.
Most of the men were still upstairs, and if perchance I came across one who was not, I was their domina, and they owed me respect.
The slave who did not show that respect would be brutally punished by Lucius. Yes, they would be punished. That was the benefit of my obedience to my pater familias, I supposed, that others were to treat me with nearly the respect that Lucius was afforded.
And after they were punished for disrespecting me, I would be beaten as well, for causing the incident in the first place. Lucius had never yet had cause to beat me, as I had always been a model wife, but given what I had learned of his character in the past few days, I absolutely believed that he would not hesitate to do so, if he felt within his rights.
Shaking away the thought, I continued down the hallway. The bitter aroma of sulphur stung the insides of my nose, strengthening as I moved cautiously through the corridor. Steam became visible in the thickening underground air, and the thin webbing of my tunic clung damply to my skin.
The hall opened to a large room before continuing down the snakelike quarters. The blast of mineral-tinted moisture in the air made my eyes tear up, and I blinked several times before my vision again became clear.
When I was again able to see, I found the source of the moisture. A row of wooden tubs, the rich grain swollen with ages of wet, was set back against the wall, and all were filled with steaming water, now pumped in by aqueduct, though in years past the tubs would have been filled and heated by hand, by the men themselves, before they reaped the benefits.
In front of the tubs were benches, long stone benches that were cracked and worn by the decades that they had stood watch in the steam.
On first glance I saw that the room was empty, and thought to continue across and into the continuing hallway, where the men’s small cells were, I suspected. But out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, and turned my head quickly to find the leftmost corner tub occupied.
My night-sky hair, already tangled from the evening’s festivities, whipped across my cheek and became stuck with the damp. Impatiently, I batted it away with scrabbling fingers, wanting to know if what I thought I had seen had indeed been so.
I knew from hearing Lucius speak that the soaking tubs were the size to fit a single man, designed to soothe muscles that were raw and aching from training and from the arena. I was therefore perplexed to see two heads and two sets of broad shoulders occupying the one corner bath.
But as I looked, I knew even from across the room to whom those heads belonged. Hair the color of burnt honey glistened in the torchlight, and my own wetness began to pool, in my mouth and elsewhere.
Marcus sat with his taut back, roped across with sinewy muscle, against the side of the tub, facing away from me. I recognized the pattern of scars that crisscrossed his skin. Snugly between his legs was Caius, who leaned forward to expose the tightly arched column of his back.
Marcus’ hands were rubbing over the exposed flesh, his touch as tender as I had seen it upstairs when he had been checking on his fallen comrade. His hands might have been large and scarred from battle, but they were sure as he smoothed water over Caius’ skin, soothing the injured man.
An ache began between my legs, even as I wondered what, exactly, it was about. The sight of my lover’s hands touching another man so softly, so intimately, softened my insides like wax left too long in the midday sun. I thought that I should be jealous, that I should feel sick. That I should stop my intrusion on this obviously private moment, both for their sake and for my own. I should say something, should announce my presence, but all words and sounds were frozen in my throat.
Instead I stood still, frozen in place in the very entrance of the room. I bit my lip and clenched my fists, and above all else I watched.
“You must learn to control yourself.” Marcus continued to massage Caius as he spoke, his thumbs pressing down the length of the other man’s spine, tracing the wings of his shoulder blades with strength. “You are lucky that Dominus did not see.”
I wondered what Marcus spoke of as a sound of pleasure from the injured man broke through the steam. He turned until his face was in profile to me, and I saw him grin rakishly at the other man, who still bore a stern countenance. He murmured something that I could not make out, winked at the larger man, and Marcus finally, reluctantly, broke into a smile.
It took me a moment to identify it, but I realized that Caius’ sigh had not been borne of sexual pleasure, or at least, not entirely—rather it was a noise of contentment.
Through the arousal that drenched my skin like the mist of steam, arousal caused by watching the hands of a warrior soothe so gently, I wondered again what their relationship was. And I wondered why I was not disquieted by the suddenly sure knowledge that there was one. They seemed to fit so well, the devilish Caius, who appeared to follow no rules, and the rigid, formal Marcus. They provided a delicious foil for one another.
Should I not have been mad with jealousy? Should I not have felt hurt, though I had no legitimate reason to?
I was not, and I did not. Instead I felt arousal, and almost a sensation of greed as I watched, watched and wanted.
Marcus’ hands finished their work, finished kneading the tough knots from his gladiator brother’s back. Caius leaned back, his back to Marcus’ chest. Though the steam had thickened while I watched, I could tell that Marcus’ groin was snug against the hard planes of Caius�
� ass, and the thought made me quiver.
How I wished to be in there, tucked so snugly into that little tub with them, and not simply to feel the surely incredible sensation of two men’s bodies pressing against my own.
How content would I feel, how safe, surrounded by such strength? Surely there, circled by two warriors of their caliber, I would not, could not, be forced to do anything that I did not want to do.
But I was not a part of that scene, no matter how I suddenly longed to be. As they lay in the ancient tub, spooned together as two halves of one whole, I actually began to feel like an intruder, a voyeur in an ultimately tender moment. I felt worse than if I had happened upon them mid-fuck, as if I had seen something that no one should know about but those involved. Slowly I began to back away, out of the room and back down the hallway from which I had come. I moved slowly, so as not to alert them to my presence, though scalding tears began to prickle at the backs of my eyes in accompaniment to a horrible yearning, a great hole in my chest that had suddenly been torn open.
Thus occupied with my feelings, it did not occur to me until I was back at the iron gate that I had not accomplished what I had entered the men’s quarters to do. Yes, I had looked long and hard at both men, but I had been distracted by questions about their relationship with each other. Distracted by my own reaction to something that I could never have.
I was no closer to knowing which, if either, was the man I would not again meet until my next courses had come.
If they came at all.
I supposed that I could already be with child, and it was an odd sensation, one that shocked away the thin film of streaming tears that I had not been able to prevent. I pondered it as I opened the gate just far enough to slip through, and closed and locked it again behind me.
At least I was not pregnant with my husband’s child. Once that very thing had been my dearest wish, but I no longer wished to create a baby with the man I now knew Lucius to be, a man who would stop at nothing to acquire what he wanted.
True, my husband had admirable qualities. But the very fact that he had chosen to hide them in favor of his ruthless business practices had changed my feelings toward the man entirely.
And while the thought of a champion growing in my womb thrilled me to the tips of my toes, I knew that that baby would still be raised by Lucius, would be influenced by him, and that made me sick to my stomach.
The noises of the party were lighter as I reached the top of the stone stairway than they had been when I descended, though I could not have been downstairs for all that long. The moon was not yet waning, the dawn and blistering sun not yet on the horizon. Only some drunkards and heavy revelers remained, I was sure, but the majority of our guests would have departed for their own homes.
That meant that I could retire to my own chambers and likely still not be missed.
“Where have you been?”
I shrieked at the words that sounded, close to my ear and from behind me. Frantically I looked around, but the speaker kept just out of sight for a full minute, deliberately, it seemed, just to irritate me and cause me worry. It worked. When finally I spun around and saw that it was Justinus, I was well and truly irked, even while my heart hammered a fierce staccato in my chest.
I was no longer standing right at the top of the stairs to the gladiator’s quarters—I had crossed the room that led to the great hall, filled with statues of our house’s past champions, as I had contemplated the hour—but I was still fairly close to the stairs that led to the great iron gate. How long had Justinus been standing there? Had he seen me ascend?
I hoped that my thoughts were not displayed on my face, that they were hidden in the shadows cast by the busts with exaggerated cocks as I thought frantically about what to say.
If Justinus were to detect my confusion, my guilt, and my arousal, then I would be in a sorry state.
“Who are you to question me?” I deliberately raised my chin, the heavy scorn in my voice something that I felt for no slave but Justinus, though society would say that I had every right to it and more. I gave in to a keen frustration for the man, whose desire to better himself had given way to unscrupulous dealings in a manner that I could not condone. I knew that he provided the men below, and the women above, with whores, with drugs, with access to gambling. If he had not been so close to my husband, I could have used my own knowledge as leverage against anything he might discover about me, but as Lucius’ right-hand man, I knew that his shady practices would more than likely be overlooked. “I will not be questioned by a slave!”
The small smile that had been playing over the man’s lips faded, to be replaced by anger and defiance. As quickly as I could blink, though, that too was gone, and overtop it a mask of false reverence.
“Of course, Domina. Apologies.” He lowered to his knees at my feet. I saw a moment too late that my leather house sandals were covered in the fine, dry white dust that lined the corridors below.
Perhaps the man was too caught in his little scene to notice, for the entire situation, his reverence, seemed like a mockery.
Failing that, perhaps the shadows were dark enough.
Though, in society’s mind, I should not have had to hide my whereabouts from a slave. I should not have had to wonder if his respect was real or false. What did he know that made him so certain he was exempt from punishment? He might have been Lucius’ right-hand man, but surely if I was to complain to my husband, then the man would be punished.
But what if he had seen where I had been? Would he tell?
Uncertain of what I do, I hid behind my own mask, this time one made of my will, not molded shiny and white. Tilting my head in acceptance, I took a step back.
“Ensure that it does not happen again.” I did not feel the haughtiness that I layered into my voice. Instead I moved down the hall, toward my own room, trying not to move any faster than I would have had I not been feeling so anxious.
I did not look back.
I was not sure that I would like what I saw, if I did.
Shortly after dawn, I lay in my bed, as awake as if I had never tried to sleep at all. I watched the colors of the rising morning as they played out over the stone walls—pale rose, brilliant saffron, and the pale gold of straw, washing over the veined white in a cascade of brilliance.
I could not stop thinking about what I had seen below. Could not stop fantasizing about it.
I had worried momentarily about Justinus, and about what he had seen, as I had removed my false yellow hair and unwound the strips of gauze that bound my own dark coils to my skull. Drusilla normally performed the task for me, but I had wanted to be alone, so I had dismissed her to the women’s quarters, where she, no doubt, was soundly sleeping away the aftermath of our celebration.
As soon as my hair had been blessedly released from the stifling cloth, and my skin from my tunic, I had lain atop my sheets, restless.
Trying to forget.
Unable to do so.
And now it was early morning. Rome would be rising, preparing for its day. So would the gladiators, though they had been at the party as late as the last guest.
I needed sleep. Needed rest of some sort to face the day. As I tossed and turned, the sheets of my bed tangling around me, pulling at the delicate strands of my hair, the first sheen of the day’s sweat broke over my skin in small drops.
Frustrated, I sat up straight, reaching for the jug of rich, honeyed wine that sat on the tray next to my bed. Without bothering to pour it into a cup, I lifted it to my lips and drank deeply, gulping until I had drained the clay pitcher and rivulets of ruby ran down my chin and across my breasts.
The wine made me dizzy. Hopefully it would make me dizzy enough to fall asleep, even if just for a few hours.
Even after the wine took effect and my head started to swim, I was tense. My muscles were stiff with stress, with the upset of the past few days.
/> With the image in my mind of two golden heads, one defiant, one proud, both damp from the steam, I moved my hand from where it rested over my head, down between my legs.
With my left hand I held myself open; I found my clitoris with my right. Without preamble I used my finger to circle the hardening nub, just the way I knew worked the best. Around and around, over and over, until I felt the familiar tension between my thighs.
I fisted my left hand tightly against my pelvis as the shock waves rolled over me, and bit at the softly woven fabric of my pillow to stifle my cries. I rode out the storm, coming back to dry land only after the last ripple had ridden through my flesh.
Relaxed, finally relaxed, I began to drift to sleep, an odd sensation with the early morning sun beaming in gilded blocks through my window. But I willed each of my muscles, one by one, to submit to the languor brought by the wine and the release. The sweat of sex clung to my skin, rolled off of my breasts onto my bed. Its musk hung heavily in the air.
I slept, finally. And while I slept, I dreamt of gladiators.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I sat on a bench covered with plush cushions, a tray of the freshest fruit at my side. I had only to ask for a cup of sweet wine, or for someone to massage my temples, or to rub my feet. I had every comfort within arm’s reach, and yet I felt sick inside, as if some plague was rotting away the flesh of my gut.
Hilaria was due to appear at our home at any moment. The purpose of the visit was to decide which gladiator she would purchase the services of, and I knew that she still felt entitled to Caius. To Marcus, too, for that matter, and if the sum she named was high enough, I knew without doubt that Lucius would overlook his rules and allow her whatever she wished.
Hilaria’s late husband had left her very, very rich. He had also left her all of those riches several years earlier. Enough time had passed for her to become used to the opulence and freedom that her lifestyle afforded her. As far as she was concerned, she could do as she wished, and her piles of denarii granted her the means.
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