Heart of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 1)

by Lydia Pax

  The gossip in her felt shivers of excitement when she imagined such things. But it was that same gossip that knew she would take far worse a hit than Otho. Women did not have much in the way of protection in Rome, and even less when they were flagrant about enjoying themselves. Even the old cuckolded Emperor Claudius had to get rid of his wife after she dragged his name through the mud one too many times.

  She wore an appropriately expensive stola wrapped with a striking red tunic. A flash of blue was embroidered upon one shoulder, as close as she could get to matching the stripes of purple on Otho’s toga. Anything actually purple was just too damned expensive; the only reason only the Imperial family wore it was because they were the only ones who could actually afford it.

  The party was hosted by the Governor of Puteoli, who held the property in Capua where they were now. It was not uncommon for men of high social rankings, particularly those put in charge of entire cities, to own dwellings in multiple places. From the state of this house in Capua, it must have had a staff on hand every day of the year to keep it so clean and the gardens so well-maintained.

  The house itself was modestly sized and extravagantly furnished. In one corner of the atrium where the guests all gathered, great plates of figs surrounded veritable mountains of crab meat and freshly butchered beef, all freshly seasoned with the finest spices from the eastern half of the Empire. Slaves dressed in nearly sheer fabrics floated from one part of the crowd to another, carrying golden trays with wine and tiny desserts.

  Porcia made niceties with the first few people she met—an old friend from her time in Neapolis who had married clearly beneath her station; a former consul’s wife; the son of a slave who somehow had become the man in charge of the legionaries stationed in Capua—but all the while her head was on a swivel, looking for Otho.

  Something about the man set her body on fire. She could not help the way he made her feel. All that she could do, really, was hope that somehow she encouraged similar feelings in him as well. If she were to divorce Rufus and marry Otho—one of the richest young men in the Empire, and the nephew of the man ruling Rome—it would be an enormous step up for her.

  And, naturally, for her son Marius. Porcia didn’t have much interest in motherhood in the traditional sense. But, if she were to raise the adopted son of the nephew of the Emperor…her pulse quickened at the thought. Emperors had been made from less legitimate places in the hierarchy.

  She found Otho arguing with Buteo, the rival lanista to her own ludus in Puteoli. She raised an eyebrow, enjoying how sweaty and desperate he seemed.

  “Really, Senator, I must protest. You cannot have a match between beast and man in the primus of the games honoring the Emperor. It is unseemly.”

  Otho set his goblet down on the tray of a nearby slave. “You would speak to me of what best honors the Emperor, lanista?”

  The games in celebration of Emperor Severus would last for months. Tomorrow’s celebration at Capua was the first show in a long series around the Italian peninsula, with another in Puteoli in six weeks time. No doubt Buteo hoped to elevate his own men in the games and bring down those of House Varinius.

  “I…” Buteo gulped. “I only mean to say that my fighter—my best fighter, who fights as Hector—he would be the man you want in the primus. Why, a match between him and Orion, the retarius of House Varinius, would be—”

  “Enough.” Otho grabbed another, fuller cup of wine from another tray. “I have heard enough.”

  Hope struck Buteo. “And so you’ll do it?”

  “Of course not. I arranged that primus myself. I want to see it. Civilization versus nature. It seems a fitting spectacle to honor my uncle. I shall hear no more of the otherwise.”

  This was a warning, whether Buteo knew it or not. Porcia once had seen Otho beat a slave for pestering him once too often about the way a broach sat on his toga. Such beatings were not uncommon in Rome; slaves were simply property. But Otho had certain…extremes of character. She tried to believe they enhanced his other virtues—especially in the bedroom.

  “Yes, Senator, I agree that the match you have in mind would be a spectacle. But must we relegate it to the primus? It is not proper to—”

  Otho snapped his fingers. Guards snapped at his heels instantly, and Otho set them upon Buteo.

  As they dragged him off and out of the party, Otho said loudly, “Keep your mouth shut, Buteo, and I’ll consider letting you stay in the games in Puteoli. But your services are no longer required in Capua. I’ll send a man ‘round to collect your fees.”

  Buteo barely had time to protest before being tossed through the front door.

  It took all of Porcia’s self-control not to wrap herself around Otho at that very moment. Such displays of his enormous power excited her dearly.

  But again, she could not risk the ire of Roman society—and Otho’s wrath in turn—were she to do anything more than smile. She approached him with a full cup of wine to replace the one he downed as Buteo left. Otho could drink as well as any man and better than most.

  “A horrible man,” said Porcia. “You are well to put him in his place.”

  “I agree.”

  The voice came from a large, severely round man who had been collecting a plate of meats and fruit from the table behind Otho. The Governor of Puteoli, Gaius Numerius Trio. Porcia had only met him a handful of times. He dealt often with Rufus, arranging many games with him, but Porcia often excused herself from his company. He was, to her mind, disgusting to look at. Though she was hardly a stoic, she still found obesity in others something akin to an affront to the senses. That Trio seemed to revel in his large bodyweight made him all the worse to be around. As he spoke, he popped little mounds of crab meat into his over-sized mouth.

  “Yes, yes,” said Trio, “a disagreeable sort altogether. I do believe he’s called on my house more than fifteen times in the last month, trying to get me to leverage you in his favor, Senator.”

  Otho shared Porcia’s sentiments about the overweight, and so of Trio as well. In fact, Otho rather despised anyone with a deformity. He’d had a dwarf as a slave for about a month, doing his honest best to torture the unfortunate creature with demeaning duties and harsh discipline. When the dwarf disappeared from his house one day, Porcia knew better than to question Otho about it.

  “It’s too bad you could not dissuade him from speaking to me directly.” Otho swirled his wine. “As satisfying as that might have been, just now.”

  “I’m afraid, perhaps, that my frequent refusals likely sparked him speaking to you directly. You are given a great many honors of late when it comes to the games, Senator. I must assume you have become somewhat accustomed to such attentions.”

  Otho sniffed and sipped his wine. “Perhaps. I think people often think too much of themselves in my presence, so as to bear the burden of asking me for whatever niggling favors worm into their heads.”

  Porcia opened her mouth and closed it. Otho appeared a little drunk to be as honest as that. How many glasses of wine had he downed before she arrived?

  The governor leaned in, popping in another morsel. “And you were not worried, Senator, about those high in the strata calling it overkill?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, you are to be editor at these games in Capua and then in my city of Puteoli. Another man might have been satisfied with one or the other.”

  “I am not as other men, Governor. And I do not believe in overkill.”

  “So I have heard. You do like to order for death in the arena, do you not? Woe to the fighter who fails under your editorship. I wonder what might happen if the crowd began to turn against you?”

  “The crowd loves blood as much as I.” Otho wagged a finger. “You are trying to make me feel guilty, yes? For being editor. I know you petitioned for the position yourself.”

  Trio shrugged. “All men of high position petitioned for that position, Senator.”

  “Yes, but you run the city of Puteoli. And you labored for mon
ths to ensure that there were games there in the first place. You did all the arrangements as if you had already secured the position. Why, I barely had to do any work at all. One could say I simply swept in and enjoyed the fruits of your labor.”

  “Rome finds glory in the labors of many men, Senator.” Trio spread his hands. “So long as the populace is entertained, what need be there for jealousy?”

  This was clearly not the answer Otho wanted. All the way to the party, he had spoken with zeal of how he hoped to put the governor in his place.

  Plotting against me somehow, Otho had said. I cannot place it. He is always with a smile and a gift. But he hates me. I know hate well, and I can see it in him.

  If Trio did indeed hate Otho, he hid it well. His expression now was entirely guileless, eyes wide. His face reminded Porcia of an overfed child.

  “Governor, you backed Albinus against my uncle, did you not?”

  Several people around the two stopped talking. Music from a small troupe continued from outside in the garden. Inside, though, a silence grew like some fast-acting cancer.

  Albinus was the last of the Five Emperors to compete for control of the Empire after Commodus had been slain. Emperor Severus won out after a long and bloody conflict.

  “You know well your politics, Senator. You must know also then that I swore loyalty to Severus once it became clear that his cause was the right and honorable one.”

  “The one that would win, you mean.”

  Trio smiled. “The two are often one and the same. The Gods must love the righteous, Otho, for how often they seem to win in the histories.” He smacked his lips, downing several morsels of meat with a deep draught of wine. “Do you ever wonder, Otho, what might have happened to you if Albinus won the purple instead of your uncle?”

  “I don’t spend much time at all wondering about make-believe, Governor.”

  “Mm.” The Governor put his hands to his lips. “Of course. No, why would you? I have many thoughts as a governor, you see. Probably more time to think than you. Something must occupy this fat receptacle!” He knocked his head.

  Otho laughed. “You mean besides more food?”

  “Precisely, Senator. And you are very busy. Very busy. You spent all that time destroying the reformations proposed to the arrangement of a mint in Puteoli.”

  “I recall that was your proposal, Governor.”

  Porcia fought the urge to catch Otho’s arm. Everyone was listening now. This talk was dangerous indeed.

  “Was it? I forget. So many thoughts run through here.” Trio knocked his head again. “Though I suppose I would have liked one. Legions get antsy when they are not paid on time.”

  “If you have a criticism, Governor, I suggest you either quell it or come clean with it. I will not play word games with you.”

  “Word games?” The Governor smiled and shook his head. “Here, I’ve led us astray. Terrible of me. Terrible! My friend,” he took Otho by the shoulder. “In this very house, I have a wine of such vintage that you will be knocked into Elysium from the very first taste. And,” his voice became a whisper, “just between you and me, I lost a good three slaves trying to retrieve it for this very occasion. Bandits got word of the shipment and wanted it for themselves. No doubt they would have consumed it in some mountain lair.”

  It was a good of a way as any Porcia had ever seen to manipulate Otho. All events and thoughts revolving around violence fascinated the man. It made him dangerous, yes, but also horribly interesting in a way that Rufus simply couldn’t compare.

  Sometimes when they lay together, she thought Otho might snap. The fevered, mad expressions in his face and the twisting rough grips on her throat, shoulders, and breasts. It felt like putting her very life at risk. A gamble of a most extreme kind.

  She followed the two into the kitchen and beyond, where a series of slaves led Otho toward the wine held in a cellar below. Trio stayed at the top of the stairs, head tilted as he watched Otho descend.

  “You play many games with the Senator, Governor.”

  Trio turned, smiling. “Ah, Porcia,” he said. “I thought you would have left.”

  “You are mad about that mint, aren’t you? About the mint, and about being the editor at the Puteoli games too. You wanted both of those for yourself.”

  “I do not get very much mad about anything, I’m afraid. I find it bad for my constitution. If I don’t get my way, I find some new solution.”

  “You don’t fool me. Your words are as fat as the rest of you. I know you’re upset. You must be planning something.”

  The Governor raised an eyebrow at this for a moment, considering.

  “Can you keep a secret, Porcia?”

  Porcia’s heart raced with eagerness. She licked her lips just slightly.

  “Of course, Governor.”

  “Mm.” He squinted one eye and then shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. But then, neither can I. I just have a different way of letting them known than loosing my lips.”

  Chapter 32

  Perhaps it was just Caius’s imagination, or his own projection, after the pleasant encounter with Aeliana, but the mood of the column seemed to shift dramatically after the break. Men talked large about the purses they would win and the women they would have thrown at them. A few veterans reminisced happily about the food their fans made for them—a common occurrence.

  Every fighting style had its own fans, and within that style there were plenty of favorites. Caius himself, in his first year of freedom, had trouble paying for his own goods and meals when he was in public. Too many recognized the great Ursus—and the thraex was ever popular in the arena, second in Puteoli only to the murmillo.

  More smiles could be seen on the faces of the gladiators, laughing in the face of what would be incumbent death for many of them. At lunchtime, Lucius had taken a few gulps from an amphora of wine. As they continued to travel, he snuck regularly to the wagon where it was kept, continuing on his pattern. Or, he thought that he snuck—the truth was that the guards simply didn’t care if he was drunk or not, so long as he was presentable.

  Ever the champion, Lucius got away with quite a lot. The behavior worried Caius, but he doubted his ability to do anything about it. Lucius was stubborn, and taking away a man’s drink was a good way to get into a fight.

  Death in the arena was on its way for him one way or another. Why not let it happen one-armed and with a drunk at your side? There were less noble ways to die, though if pressed, Caius probably couldn’t tell you any of them.

  A great throng awaited their arrival, and the guards closed in on the column, keeping the crowd at bay until the men were safely inside the barracks beneath the Capuan Amphitheater. Graffiti on the walls around the city advertised the names of the crowd’s favorite fighters, some of the art even depicting victories. Caius had been there many times before. Capua, being so close to Puteoli, often called for a great many games throughout the year.

  Caius had traveled as far as Rome and the Colosseum in the past, where he won—but he was in the early part of the fights and so undistinguished aside from his victory.

  What happened next that day was mostly a blur. The traditions before a fight were many, even on the day prior to the games. Swept up in the routine, carried away by the crowd and the many memories he held in the city, had little time to worry. He and the other gladiators were led outside the amphitheater once again and paraded through the crowd.

  Along with them were the great beasts—brought out from an enormous menagerie where the animals were kept in reserve for games like this. No doubt, in the last several days, the bear and tiger that were due to face him in the arena had been prepped. It was a grisly affair. The flesh of dead slaves and prisoners would be given to them to encourage a taste for man. Then, in the few days before the fight, they would be barely fed at all, so as to facilitate a quick, desperate anger to their actions.

  The parades were long, taking the combatants through a twisted path in the city. Citizens stood on
rooftops and tossed down flowers and sweets; more still stood on the streets, hoping to entice gladiators to endorse their wares before a fight. A gladiator vouching for one merchant over another was a great way to boost sales.

  At one point in his life, all of this had seemed readily exciting to Caius. But now it felt somewhat empty. Soulless. He did not want to think of what lay ahead in the arena for him.

  His thoughts filled instead with Aeliana—holding her body against his. Feeling her in that intimate way. He wanted only to fall into her arms, but with the business of the day, it was not possible. He barely saw her at all.

  Near sunset, the gladiators from all the competing ludi were brought out in front of the crowd at the base of the amphitheater and assessed. Some few thousand were in attendance. Nearby merchants sold their wares beneath heavily tented tables to keep out of the midday sun. The gladiators had no such luck, but all were tanned thoroughly and well used to the heat of the day on their strong, cut-hard bodies.

  The poultice Caius wore over his arm was strapped down with bandages beneath a thick tunic. It looked as a sort of shoulder pad, making it seem more as an affectation of his character than a bandage. He wondered how many were fooled.

  A tall man in a purple-striped robe read off their names, their win-loss record, and their style of choice. He also read off the names of their opponents and their win-loss record and style. This was the first many were brought aware of the nature of their competition. There were not a great many surprises. Conall, a thraex, found he was to fight a murmillo, which was fortunate, as that was what the ludus had trained him for. Septus, a secutor fighting with heavy armor and a short sword, was paired against a nimble hoplomachus armed with a spear and shield. Flamma would be in a heavy melee near the end of the day’s matches with several other fighters—just the right fit for his brutal style.