by Lydia Pax
“Did the Gods swing by in the last few days and bless it full of special healing properties?” she laughed. “Did you wash them in a sacred pool? I’ll take it for twenty-five, as I did last week.”
The merchant’s face was wrinkled from years in the sun. His frown was twice as ugly for it. “Times are tough. We’ve had five emperors in less than three years. Soldiers don’t know what tail to run under. That makes everything hard to come by. You don’t get special treatment for nothing.”
“And I suppose you’re absent from the games, are you?” Aeliana straightened. “You don’t want to see fighters in good condition?”
Aeliana was a slave. But even slaves had jobs. Her work was as a medicae for the ludus of the House of Varinius. It was her responsibility to treat the gladiators trained there—and their many, many injuries—to keep them in tip-top condition for the regular games in the city.
It was rotten, bloody work, and as soon as her contract was up with the ludus, she planned to borrow money against the buying of a small shop where she could open up her own medical office.
But that was perhaps a year away—a fact that stung all the more as she had to haggle for sub-par supplies with someone else’s money with this ass of a merchant.
He knew where she worked—many men made it their business to know the details of a ludus. If the slightest variation in living circumstances arrived, it could wildly change the betting odds. At the last games, there had been some moss on the southern corner of the ludus's wall that sent the odds against fighters from House Varinius skyrocketing upwards.
“Even supposing I did,” he said, “I’d have to afford a ticket first. And I can’t afford a ticket, or anything else besides, for selling you good cloth at twenty-five sestertii.” He paused for a moment. “Make it forty-five, seeing as how I’m a fan of Orion.”
“Orion” was a fighter at the Varinius ludus—a man who Aeliana knew better by his real name, Lucius.
She took care not to smile. It would reveal too much. The merchant had just weakened his position. “I’ll make it fifteen,” she said, “and I’ll make sure you get a ticket for the games. A good seat. Mid-section. Reserved.”
“Reserved?”
“You’ll have a great view of Orion as he faces the secutores at this next fight. I’ve heard he’s to face three of them at once.”
She had heard no such thing. But such a feat wasn’t beyond the ludicrous spectacle of the games in the arena. Everything in the arenas, in her opinion, was ludicrous and excessive. What she made up off the top of her head couldn't possibly outdo the uniquely deformed moral depravity of the arena.
The merchant frowned, but his eyes narrowed greedily. “Call it twenty and you’ve got a deal.”
She placed the coins on the table and snatched up the basket. “I call it a good deal.”
Not even an hour in the market, and she was more than ready to return to her home, such that it was. People tired her out quickly. Her father would have blamed it on her weak constitution, but then, her father blamed everything—be it something the matter with the world, the Empire, or his life—on something “weak” about Aeliana.
As she turned, though, the merchant snatched her hand.
“Not so fast, there.” He smiled. “You’re not so much to look at in those robes, but I bet you're rather nice underneath. What say you we find out,” he tilted his head back to the shadowy mess of his tent, “and I drop the price some more?”
Such attention, always unwanted, was not beyond the purview of Aeliana’s experience. She was a woman in Rome, and this sort of idiocy happened often.
“No. I’ll just have what I came for.”
She tugged away, but the merchant held fast. “Come now. Be a good girl.”
Now the rage came. Already she had begun to respond when a thick, heavy hand landed on the arm of the merchant.
“Why don’t you let her go, friend, and return to your business?”
The man who interrupted was large and thickly muscled—more broad than tall, but nonetheless a great deal taller than Aeliana, who had suffered numerous slights due to her small stature. His forearms seemed cut from stone, and despite the jovial nature of his words, Aeliana could see the vise-like grip that the merchant’s arm twisted under.
“Ca-Caius?” the merchant choked. “O-of course! Anything you say. Please. Just...please. Take the cloth. I was only joking.”
The large man shook the merchant for a moment. “And what was that price?”
“Oh, she can...she can just have it, if you’ll let go of my arm, please?”
“Let go of mine,” said Aeliana.
The merchant did, immediately, and revealed the scalpel that Aeliana had pressed against his wrist. No doubt the merchant was too busy noticing the intruder—this Caius—to know the predicament he had placed himself in, but Aeliana had the affair well in hand.
“I see perhaps I overstepped,” said the large man, a smile on his face.
He was handsome, she realized slowly. His jaw was wide and strong, covered with a short layer of thick dark hair. He had eyes like storm clouds, so dark they could swallow her whole, belying the joviality of his smile.
Her heart struck against her chest and would not stop. She thought it was because of the excitement with the merchant, but the smoky dark gaze of this Caius was more than she was used to. A flush creeping up her face, she turned away and snatched up the cloth.
Something about him made every part of her tingle. Perhaps it was the clear strength of his muscles. The broad, hard density of his chest and arms. Maybe it was his smell, something deeply masculine and animalistic, like a wild bear in the forest. No matter what it was, her body felt like it was on fire as she looked at him.
She had to avert her eyes to somehow regain composure. Her flush had extended deep to every part of her body. Sudden visions invaded her thoughts, intense images of what this Caius might think if he were to rip off her dress and see the naked, open heat on her skin.
He was so big. Were he to bed her, his strength would be irresistible. Every muscle would hold her down, keep her in place, and ravish her utterly without her ever being able to do anything but moan out in captured pleasure.
That thought only made the heat increase.
“Return the lady her coin,” said Caius. “For her trouble.”
The merchant scrambled to obey, but Aeliana turned. “No. He and I made a deal. I’ll honor it.” She shook her head at the merchant. “You’ll have your ticket tomorrow.”
In her mind, that was more of a punishment than a gift. Let him be cowed by the public slaughter like everyone else. Let his mind rot from the endless, empty splendor of the games. The merchant tried to choke out some reply, but Aeliana was already gone.
The sooner she got away from the market, the better. The market with its greedy merchants and endless stares. The market with its labyrinthine rows of carts and tables. The market with its wild animals and all their blaring.
The market with its beautifully built men who wished inanely to rescue her—even if he had set her heart racing and flooded her mind with dozens of thoughts of what his body might look like towering above her in her bed.
No—away was better.
* * * * *
It was not quite intentional, but Caius ended up following the woman from the market.
Caius had good control of his breath. More than a dozen years in the arena had taught him the value of keeping his head cool even in the most riotous of situations, when a man came after you with a weapon and the crowd roared for blood. His breath was not ever taken away. It was measured, cool, and ever-flowing.
And yet when he had seen this woman from the market, he forgot entirely how to breathe.
Every part of him wanted her. He could feel his manhood stirring just from the brief interaction they'd had, and he wanted more. Caius wanted to see what she looked like when he made her face contort with the sweetest of pleasures; he wanted to kiss her until she was as breathless a
s she made him. In the deepest portions of his brain, he could already feel his hands running down her sides, holding her body tight against his, their shared heat rising their arousal to levels beyond reason.
It was that sudden—that certain. And it drove him wild that he could not do anything about it without abandoning his plan for the day and for the rest of his life.
He’d thought he was just being a good fellow, trying to help the woman out—and then she had put him in his place.
He didn’t mind it.
The better for her to be able to do such a thing and defend herself. Gods knew there was plenty in Puteoli to defend against. It was a port town—the place where all the grain shipments for the continent came in from Sicily and North Africa. As such, there was a great deal of wealth—goods for tradesmen and all the money they brought with them—and a great deal of shady characters trying to take advantage of that wealth.
That she was quick with a scalpel was no doubt a good way to keep her possessions. She was lovely, and probably well-used to men accosting her on the street.
Her frame was small and she had deeply pink, full lips that looked made for every sort of dalliance he could imagine. The most prominent feature of hers was her pair of striking gray eyes. They had made him tremble, in a way that Caius had not trembled for years, just for the few moments he had looked into them.
“I couldn’t help but overhear that you were a medicae,” he approached her from one side. “I’m Caius.”
She turned, eyeing him slowly. “I know your name. The merchant said it.”
“May I ask yours? We seem to be going the same way.”
“I’m heading out past the walls. To the east.”
“I am as well.” Caius smiled. “I’ll travel with you.”
“Very well.” She huffed, as if exasperation, but it did not seem sincere. It seemed more as if she wanted it to be sincere. “My name is Aeliana.”
A victory, that. He'd thought she'd been determined to shut him out. Perhaps she had been drawn in by his lack of insistence that she engaged with him. No doubt men all over Puteoli took the opposite approach.
“And you are a medicae?”
“For the House of Varinius, yes.”
There was a surprise—and a pleasant one. Perhaps the swift, unreasonable motions of his passion need not seem so unreasonable after all.
He would be working with this woman. Or at least, around her. For a moment, he prepared to tell her what a great coincidence this was, but the crowd of city folk around them churned as a stray horse galloped through the street. In the ensuing noise and tumbling of feet, they separated—Caius watched with some distaste as men crowded against Aeliana. Meanwhile, his own heavy, hard frame meant that people kept their distance. Normally, he liked that—but a part of him fantasized suddenly about holding Aeliana safe as the horse stormed past.
He could tell already she would probably hate such a gesture. It made him want to do it more. She seemed made for his touch—but Caius was a patient man.
With the crowd keeping them from one another, Caius thought better of voicing the fortunate nature of their meeting.
Fortune’s favor had long lost its shine on Caius. For years and years now, in fact—since the day of his last fight as a gladiator. It was like a denarii caught up in a mountain of soiled laundry. Somewhere, that value was there but still essentially lost.
So he disliked invoking the name of Fortune—disliked making any reference to anything at all regarding luck.
Luck was for men who lived, and Caius knew well already that his decision to return to the ludus would kill him. Not could, not might—but would. It was the only way that he could justify doing it.
Another man might say that the “great and mighty Ursus” had won so many matches that winning a few more to earn a quick fortune was not beyond his means. And were it not for Fortune's souring, that man might have been right. But Fortune had soured on Caius—and so he knew his death in the arena was imminent.
A man who might live should stay with his daughter and try somehow to raise her. But a man who would definitely die in the arena, a man who could sell himself for a contract that would pay for the raising of his daughter, a man who could bestow any portions of his loser’s purse to his daughter to set her up for life—well.
That was a man who could return to the arena without a guilty conscience.
At least, that’s what he told himself over and over. Perhaps in the coming days he might start to believe it.
Perhaps he might even forget how good it was to hold his daughter.
He doubted such things, as he often doubted anything that might be fortunate.
The horse passed, its owner running after it in a dirty smock, and the crowd thinned out again. Soon, he and Aeliana walked next to each other once more.
“So, you work in the ludus,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Bloody work for a medicae.”
“The bloodiest there is.” She huffed. “It’s all so stupid.”
“Is it now?”
He was amused. Her face was rather lovely as she began her heated argument. Her full lips pale and pink. He wondered what they tasted like.
“Of course it is. Tossing men into the arena for nothing more than coin. A man’s life has more worth than that. A slave’s life has more worth than that.”
“And dignity? Honor? These have no worth?”
She really doesn’t know me, thought Caius. He did his best not to sound offended from her words. That she didn’t know him was not an issue—but her callous attitude toward the foundations of ten years of his life was not quite so easy to dismiss. He himself had his own doubts about them—but those were his doubts, and not to be thrown at him by others.
“Those are words adopted by desperate men, sold to them by powerful men who want to see carnage in their name. For the glory of Rome.” She rolled her eyes. “The games started as simple funeral rites. One noble man dies, and they butchered his slaves over the graves. But oh, no, then you couldn't just butcher slaves, you had to make them butcher one another. But then they changed their minds again and now—“ She stopped. “I'm sorry. I can go on sometimes. I don't think you're dumb. I just like explaining.”
“It's all right.”
“I just get excited about the whole business. Agitated, I mean. Do you know—do you know—that there are some men who sell themselves back into slavery? Just for money or fame or honor. Or some stupid reason like that. It’s all idiocy.”
He shrugged. “That idiocy means a lot to many people.” They approached the gates of the city, open during midday. “If quality isn’t derived from popular opinion, where do you pull it from?”
“I think popular opinion could have more quality if it didn’t revel in the slaughter of condemned men.”
“Ah, medicae. A gladiator is only condemned if he lets himself believe he doesn’t enjoy what he does.” He smiled. “But they all do, one way or the other.” A thought occurred to him. “Why not ply your trade elsewhere, if you hold it all in such disdain?”
“Would that I could. I am contracted, however. My father made me a slave to a medici so that I would learn the trade. When I did, I was sold to the ludus.”
A young man called out “Ursus” as he passed. A few others took note, and began sounding the name with him. They held up their fists, shaking them in good cheer, and Caius shook his fist right back. This brought a cheer.
“I thought your name was Caius?”
“It is.”
“And yet...”
“Oh, that.” He shrugged. “I went by another name once upon a time. People knew me for it. The better for you not to have, believe me, from what you say”
“Very well.” She paused for a moment. “Oh.”
It rather pleased him, seeing her face turn beet red like that. All that color in her cheeks. It made him imagine what other sorts of activities could bring a flush to her body.
“Ursus.” She shoo
k her head. “You’re the Great Bear of Puteoli?”
“The one and only.”
“Didn’t you retire?”
“I did.”
“And now...you’re headed east. With me.”
“All the way to the ludus.” He turned, and showed her his other arm—and the shoulder bearing the mark of House Varinius. “I’m afraid, good medicae, that I’m one of those idiots who has sold himself back into slavery.”
Chapter 2
Caius and Aeliana had approached the rest of the way to the ludus with Aeliana burning in silent shame and anger from her words.
Her mind shifted on a long, torrential pendulum, with one end holding all the various apologies she might offer, and the other creating vast, intricate angered arguments for why she was right and who was he to think she ought to apologize?
Not that he had said anything or even taken anything she had said with naught but good humor and an ineffably decent, charming look on his heart-melting, handsome face.
That made her angry too. Why did this man who so effortlessly set fire to her world have to be exactly the kind of brute she hated? There was nothing worse than a gladiator. Only, now there was—a gladiator for whom she couldn't deny her heated attraction
In a way, that was worse. It was like he mocked her for her inability to play everything as coolly as he did. Certainly he didn't feel some electric connection between their bodies—and even if he did, it was only because a gladiator only ever thought with the sword in his hands or the sword between his legs.
When they reached the ludus, the tall metal gates opened to admit entry into the yard where the gladiators trained. Large words reading Ludus Magnus Gladiatorum were carved in the stone above the gate.
The Dominus of House Varinius was Rufus Antonius Varinius. His family had been training gladiators for more than two hundred years, commissioned to duty by Augustus himself when the great Princeps had placed control of the bloody games directly in the hands of imperial power.
The Varinius ludus was east, outside of bounds of the city proper and buried in the base of a small hill. The walls of the ludus were tall, built just as much for keeping the gladiators in as they were for keeping bandits out—though not many thieves in their right minds would dare to infiltrate a school full of the city’s most terrible fighting men.