by Lydia Pax
“He jilted her,” said Sabiana.
Gwenn shot her a glance—shut up.
“Well, didn’t he? Isn’t that what this is about? You came on to him after your fight, and somehow it went wrong.” She smiled. “Though it sounded awfully right, from what I heard.”
Kav leaned in. “You slept with our doctore?”
Ros joined her. “You slept with him and you didn’t tell us?”
“It’s not…” Gwenn rolled her head around. Her neck was getting stiff. “It’s not any of your business, first of all.”
“Yes,” said Sabiana. “But pretend that it is. What’s the deal?”
She sighed. The one secret she held from this crew—from everyone—had already been dragging at her feet like an anchor halfway dug into the ground. Her every thought and movement felt sluggish trying to keep up with the memory of this stupid, blasted lie: that she had seen Lucius murder Porcia.
“My father was a gladiator, once upon a time.”
“It’s in your blood,” said Sabiana, shaking her head and smiling. “I knew it.”
“He was a gladiator,” Gwenn continued, “and he was great. He was the best, or so they said. He fought murmillo.”
Sabiana grinned and nudged her. “Of course. That explains so much.”
“And then, one day, he fought a very good—possibly great—retarius. An up-and-comer.”
“Oh. Oh.” The grin on Sabiana’s face faded very quickly. “Oh gods. Oh, Gwenn. Oh, no.”
“He told me about it after I already found out from Porcia. She didn’t like it very much that we were sleeping together, I don’t think. She wanted him to herself, even though she had Otho already.”
“A strange woman,” said Ros.
“But he did tell you about it?” asked Kav.
Torch light fluttered around their face.
“After the fact of our…after what happened between us.”
“That’s a tough pill to swallow,” said Ros.
“Yes,” said Gwenn. “It is.”
They were silent for many minutes. The silence clearly made Kav uncomfortable, who kept squirming.
“I don’t like it,” Kav said finally. “I don’t like any of it.”
“You think I do?” said Gwenn.
“Of course not. But I mean…so he killed your father. Okay. We didn’t even know our dad, and from what we heard of him, it’s the better for us.”
“My father sold me to this place,” said Sabiana.
“I did know my father. I would have preferred to keep knowing him.”
“Yes, but you…I mean, if he was like you,” said Kav, “then he was made for the arena, wasn’t he? I mean, he wanted to be in there, right? Like you do?”
“I don’t know that I want to be in the arena,” said Gwenn. “But yes. We shared a love to fight.”
“Then didn’t he go out the way that he wanted? Lucius would have given him an honorable death.”
“Yes,” said Sabiana. “How did the fight go? Was it close?”
“I didn’t ask. I don’t know.”
They were all stunned at this. “You didn’t even ask?” said Ros. “But…it’s your father. You should know how he went out. You should know from the man himself, and you can talk to him anytime.”
“I don’t know.” Gwenn put her head in her hands. “I don’t know about any of it anymore.”
She wished they would all shut up. She had heard all of their arguments already in her own head. The arguments were many and precise.
There was no good in carrying a resentment. No good in living in the past. No good in ignoring the good thing right there at your fingertips just because of some damned coincidence. All the arena fights in the world hadn’t made Lucius any less of a man she had loved from almost the day she met him.
Sand and stone shuffled in front of her. She looked up and Sabiana was there, hands on Gwenn’s knees.
“I know what he did,” said Sabiana. She had a strange, sad smile on her face. “But your father…in the arena? One way or the other, odds are he was a dead man. Like all of us.”
“I don’t care.”
But she did care. She just couldn’t force herself to face it.
“What choice would Lucius have had? You know what it’s like in the arena. It’s life or death.”
“I don’t care.”
She squatted down into the corner, banging her fist against the stones.
That strange, sad smile still there, Sabiana squatted down in front of her. “This life takes most things from us. But you hold your own dignity. You cannot win honor in the arena without a life of dignity.”
“Yeah,” said Ros. “And Gwenn, I hate to say it, but the second you decided to hate Lucius, you haven’t acted with a speck of dignity. You’ve been mean and isolated. You’re not helping in training and you’re being kind of awful to Sabiana in sparring.”
“Have I?” Gwenn asked.
Sabiana nodded, one eye squinting. “Yeah. I figured you were just working through something. I didn’t want to bring it up.”
“You brought it up to Ros.”
Sabiana stood and put her hands on her hips. “Some of us talk about things that bother us, Gwenn.”
“Okay.” Gwenn held up a hand in surrender. “Point taken. I’ll…work…on my attitude.”
But this didn’t seem to completely satisfy them. Kav stood up, flexing on her calves just a bit.
“I can’t think of something harder to come by in this place than love,” said Kav. “If you found it…even in a small way, even in a strange way, isn’t it worth looking for?”
They all looked at her, waiting for a response. She couldn’t help it, she smiled—and saw them smile in return. She recognized her own smile reflected on their faces.
“What in the hell,” said Gwenn. “What did I do to deserve such good friends to torture me like this?”
Chapter 46
Gladiator Lucius, once known as the great Orion, a terror in the sands and the best retarius in over a decade of the arena, stood convicted of murder. The date of his death was in five days’ time. They let him train during the day, but only by himself—no doctore to speak of. In the afternoons, Conall volunteered to spar with him, for which Lucius was eternally grateful.
Now, in the evening, he stayed in a cell flanked by guards, no longer in the cell he had called home for close to five years, since becoming a champion of the ludus.
This cell was far away from the other fighters, deep in the cell blocks so as to keep any fraternization to a minimum. Otho might have pinned the murder on Lucius, but he would have been a fool to think that the slaves in the estate actually believed that.
Otho, however, was not a fool in the least. Murderous, yes. Cruel, yes. Arrogant, yes.
But a fool? The slaves of House Varinius were not so lucky there.
Lucius lay on his cot, trying to shut his eyes and empty his mind. There was much to empty, and so he was having a hard time of it. In such a dark time, it was hard to fight the old familiar impulse to drown his sorrows in wine. Truthfully though, there was little reason to fight it. There was no money to be spent on wine, and no guards would dare to risk Otho’s wrath by giving him any.
From outside his cell, he heard incoming steps, and then a familiar voice.
“Would you give us a minute?” Gwenn asked the guards.
They were both portly and young. One had a long nose that was puckered with acne scars. He was the one who spoke.
“Not likely, lady. This slave’s a murderer. Murdered a woman, didn’t he? What are we to do, leave him with another woman?”
Lucius heard the rustling of some coin. Gwenn had a great many winnings to go around. He wondered how much he was worth to her.
“This is about a day’s pay for you, isn’t it?” she said.
“More like three,” said the other guard.
The first guard elbowed him. “More like half of one,” he said.
It was not a hard game to play, and
Gwenn was a quick learner. She pulled out another coin.
“Twenty minutes,” she said, “and you stand far away not to look inside or listen.”
“What, so you can escape?”
“Where am I going to go?” Lucius, grinning in the darkness, could practically hear her roll her eyes. “Watch the door all you want. Just do it from over there.”
She pointed down the hall to where the thick stones of the cell blocks melded with heavy limestone.
“Fifteen minutes,” said the guard. “And if you try anything funny, we’ll lash the both of you.”
Inside Lucius’s cell, it was dark. He pretended to be asleep.
No doubt she knew he pretended, because he—like most every gladiator—was a light sleeper. There would not have been any way to sleep through the altercation with the guards.
She sat down on the cot next to him. Through minute vibrations in the fabric, he felt her hands dance on the edge of the cloth. All he could think of was not grabbing her thighs, her torso, pulling her to him and kissing her madly and wildly until there was nothing left between them but pure, cleansing passion.
“You know I’m awake, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“You weren’t going to say anything? You only have fifteen minutes.”
“I thought if I ran out the clock with us in a silence stalemate then at least I would have an excuse for not saying anything.”
“That’s pretty thin, little flame.” He blanched at the nickname. “Sorry. Habit.”
“It’s all right.” She sighed. “I want to talk to you, Lucius.”
“I noticed. You want to do a whole two sestertii of talking to me.” He paused. “That’s a guess. Was it more than two?”
“Stop joking. This is important.”
“I’m sorry.” He sat up. “You have to understand, I didn’t think I’d talk to you again at all. My tongue feels a bit loose right now.”
“There’s something very important I have to tell you.”
Oh, it was guilt, was it? He knew that very well. If there was anything he could do to make Gwenn’s load easier, he was going to do it.
And so he said, “You told Otho to pin me for the murder and offered to work as a witness.”
Her mouth opened. His imagination ran wild with what she might be feeling. Cold twisting feelings sliding across her esophagus. Pits leading straight to Tartarus opening up in her stomach. He had to admit that it was rather fun to watch.
She choked slightly. “How did you know that?”
“I figured it out. Otho questioned me in private and bragged a lot about how he had a witness. I hadn’t made too many enemies that would wish me dead. You were one of them. And you’re smart enough to leverage something like that.”
“I see.”
The silence hung over their heads like a death shroud. It was heavy and just barely transparent—the way to move through it only evident with much stronger lights than he possessed.
Say something else, stupid. You must say something.
But she spoke first. “I didn’t know you would be fighting two on one against Ajax and Perseus. I am sorry for that.”
“I lived for a long time thinking I was going to die in the arena some day.” He shrugged. “Might as well be against them.”
“Don’t say that. You could—”
“You know I won’t live, little flame. Don’t tell me lies.”
Her mouth twisted, threatening to turn up into a smile.
“I have to tell you something,” he said.
“Don’t.”
From her face, he could tell that she already knew what he wanted to say. That made it easier, though, not harder.
“I miss you like hell, Gwenn. I want to be with you. I’m sorry as hell for everything that happened. I can’t take it back. I wish I could, somehow, and still be alive.”
“I know,” she said.
Her hand came down on his torso. Fingers pushed across the muscles of his abdomen and up onto his chest, and then back down again. It felt as though the Gods themselves were in the room with them, lending their light to her every touch and movement.
“Being close to anyone,” he said, “it’s difficult for me. My relationships are all very complicated.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You haven’t heard everything.”
She straightened. “I’m here now. You’ve told me much about yourself. About how you think. I won’t shy away now. I’m here, Lucius.”
His heart swelled with emotion. Several moments passed as he tried to gain a bearing on his voice. It wouldn’t do to begin choking up now. After some time, his throat softened again and he could speak safely.
“I never had any family. When I was young, I was sold from house to house. Everyone always had need of a strong boy in their service. Never more than a year or two, even though I did all the work I was asked. In the beginning, I would grow close to people. Surrogate mothers and fathers. And the second it seemed we trusted one another, I would be sold again, or the owner would die and his property dispersed. That sort of thing.”
“The owners did not want you to get to know the other slaves?”
“Nothing so obvious, no. It would have been simpler if there had been malicious intent behind it. But it was just…chance. Profit. A chance to shift up their household. Eventually someone thought I would look good in the arena, and I was sold to the ludus.”
This was easier than he thought it would be. Easier with her. Her hand gripped tight around his forearm.
“I think I am scared of what happens when people are close to me. The closest thing I knew to a brother, a father, was Caius. And he left once he had his freedom, and did not return once. And then, when he did return, he left almost right away, once again. I don’t blame him for not returning. But this life…it’s not a life for keeping people close. Everyone dies or leaves. It has been difficult for me to see much value in relationships.”
“Is that true still?”
She looked very scared at that. He wished he could tell her a safe, easy lie. But she had earned the truth.
“I don’t know. I would very much like it not to be, I think. Especially with you. It’s caused me a lot of pain, thinking that way. So I tried to forget it. Drinking helped a lot with the forgetting. There was a lot of it to do.”
“I don’t think that’s a good way to forget in the long term.”
“No.” He smiled. It was a dead thing, but he was trying to make it not quite as much. “Probably you’re right. I suppose my point is…affection. Admiration. Attraction. It’s difficult for me. I treated it like nothing because I wanted that part of my life to mean nothing. But you mean quite a lot to me. And there were truths that I knew that if you knew, too, it might sabotage the first real thing I had ever felt in my life.”
“That makes sense.”
“You don’t like it.”
“There is so much not to like, but I do like that it makes sense, at least.”
He felt it necessary to reiterate one last thing. “I am very sorry about your father.”
“Dying in the arena is an honor, so long as it is honorably done,” she said, a low smile on her face.
“A small comfort to the dead.”
“All comforts are small in this place. We take them where we can.”
He smiled. She was a good listener.
“May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
Her hands were making a long sliding pattern across his torso now. It was clear that talking was not on her mind. It was a marvel to him that the storm, somehow, had passed.
Their want was too strong. If even a fraction of his want for her was reciprocated, then he knew that it was strong enough to push aside all tragedy, all heartbreak. Her touch, her kiss, her passion was the very beating essence of his heart.
“What changed your mind about me?”
“I thought about how if the day had been just a little bit different, h
e would have killed you instead. And then I wouldn’t have you.” She shook her head. “I don’t know that it’s a preference. But I…I don’t think I can enjoy who you are and also have regret for the past. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“Good.” She slid down on top of his body. “Then kiss me, and let’s not speak of this anymore.”
For this, Lucius was only too happy to oblige.
Chapter 47
The forgiveness Gwenn felt for Lucius surprised her in its total lack of reserve. But in its own way, she felt it made good sense.
She lived as a slave, as did he. Though his condemnation to die was sooner than her own, it was just as likely that she could die in her own match in the arena. The future was a mess of death and ending. The past was a cloud of tragedy and heartache.
It made no sense to a woman like Gwenn to focus on anything at all except for the perfect, sad beauty of this fighting man who had fought so much in his time to somehow land before her in the present, there on a cot and at the mercy of her lips.
She loved this man, she realized slowly. His fire, his drive. His quiet, grim determination to see every battle through to the end. He was a warrior in every way that mattered.
She loved him because he believed in her in a way that not a single other man in her life ever had.
Their mouths met and Gwenn moaned, melting into it completely. Quickly her legs straddled across his hips, and she floated down onto him. Her breasts crushed against the thick muscles of his tall body.
With arms wrapped fast around his neck, she clung to his body, absorbing every sensation she could. The semi-dry, scraggly touch of his chin where his beard had grown in. The hard lines between his collarbone and his neck and his chest, where her fingers could dig for seconds and seconds and only feel more hard muscle. The long sides of his torso. The thick golden strands of his hair.
And she knew he felt her also—those rough, hard hands pushing up her back and then scraping down again. Hot tugs on her hair. Playful, heated nips on her tattooed shoulder followed by soft kisses on the meat around the bone.
She wanted to feel all of it, all at once, forever.
But she couldn’t.
The guards returned, banging on the cell door with their spears.