“I charmed your heart out of its slumber?” Anazâr joked. “So you humiliated me in an attempt to push me away?” He may have forgiven Felix many things, but he acutely remembered the sting of that first meeting, when Felix had taunted him for performing a slave’s duty to his master. For the first time, he felt he was owed an explanation.
“No, actually. That initial cruelty was completely genuine. After the dismissal of your predecessor, I’d been lobbying my brother to send the gladiatrices to some different fate, anything but the cruelties of the arena. I tried to tell him that what had happened under the first trainer was an ill omen. That he’d be a fool to ignore it. And then you arrived and all I could see was history repeating itself. More suffering, more death, punctuated by an eventual slaughter to the roar of the crowd.” He drummed his fingers almost painfully on Anazâr’s chest in his distraction. “There were three more among their number before you came. Did you know that?”
“No, I did not.” They’d been so ill and demoralized when he’d first taken them under his care. Disease? Hunger? Suicide? Exposure? They all seemed equally likely.
“I suppose they keep their tragedies as close to their hearts as you do yours. Well, you must suspect. After all, my brother wasn’t secretive about why he requested your service, in particular.” No taste for women. The last trainer couldn’t keep his prick out of the stock. “A few of them ended up pregnant. Two Gauls, and one particularly lovely Parthian who had the kind of singing voice that could make a drought end. When the trainer realized what he’d done, he panicked and went to a cut-price pharmacopola. The abortifacient he gave them was probably no better than rat poison. Those poor women didn’t even stand a chance.”
No reply for that, either. Anazâr closed his eyes against visions of blood and wailing. He couldn’t help but picture his wife. To die so far from home, so far from family and clan and even your gods. And all for one man’s cowardice and cruelty.
A few moments were enough to comprehend why they hadn’t told him. Such sufferings among slaves were only shared when relevant to future survival. He himself would never think to tell the women—or anyone, really—of the atrocities he’d witnessed after Actium.
“I knew what they said about you, but I didn’t believe it,” said Felix. “I assumed you were of the same ilk as him. To be honest, I . . . I thought you something of an insatiable satyr, that day I first saw you. I couldn’t imagine that a man who so visibly enjoyed slobbering all over his master’s cock wouldn’t also take his pleasure from his fellow slaves. But other than my brother, you were as remote and unmovable as stone, weren’t you?”
Except for you, Anazâr thought. You drove me half to madness wanting you, and I couldn’t fight it.
“The gladiatrices didn’t like you, but when I pressed, they said you hadn’t raped any of them, although they’d seen the Aethiopian go willingly with you to your quarters. Even that day at the baths, I couldn’t tempt you.”
“Although you gave it your best,” Anazâr put in, feeling a heat and a stirring at the memory. Felix’s true face, so young and open.
“And then the more I tried to humiliate and push you away, the more it became a test, to see if you could stand me, all of me, the very worst parts of me, and still open your heart to me. And I wanted—no, needed—you to pass that test.”
“Don’t expect me to thank you. I’m not accustomed to that kind of bloodless examination.”
“You misunderstand. It wasn’t you I was testing, not really. It was myself. If you couldn’t love me, then maybe . . .”
“Then maybe you’d have to give up on all your trickster foolishness? Treat the world with the seriousness it demands, even though it hurts you to do so?” Anazâr’s heart pounded in his temples, and he fought off the urge to grab Felix by the shoulders, although whether to shake him or pin him to the bed and fuck him, Anazâr wasn’t sure. But he resisted, because he wasn’t an animal. Not like the previous trainer. Nothing like him. He settled for grabbing Felix by the chin, jerking it upward so he could see Felix’s eyes in the dim light. “And since I do . . . love you? Now you give yourself permission to resume your casual spite toward everyone and everything around you? Just so long as you’ve earned my love, you think you can refuse the responsibilities you were born to?”
“I’m ready, Anazâr. During this exile, I’ve been searching, thinking, trying to work through it all. I could seek an audience with Marcellus, the old enemy of Senator Aelius. He wasn’t involved in any of this plotting, but he could be, if I lay it all out for him.”
“You have no idea. You’re grasping at straws.” Anazâr sighed, kissed Felix on the forehead and softened his grip. “This is beyond intervention. Exile yourself from the city. Wait for me to gain my freedom, and I’ll join you, if I live.” He traced Felix’s jawline with the edge of his forefinger, hoping to engrave the outline in his memory.
“You won’t live! You won’t live and you know it. Why else would you fail to name a place for us to meet? You expect me to leave and wait out my life, and it doesn’t matter what city I choose, because I’ll be able to take comfort in picturing you alive and searching for me. A fool’s dream.”
“You’re torturing meaning into my words. But fine.” The name of a city came to him, and it was a perfect name and perfect city: within the Empire, but beyond the reach of Marianus. And it was large. Even if they wrenched the name from Anazâr, it would likely do them no good. “Alexandria, then. Meet me there. I’m sure once I arrive, even if it takes me ten years, tales of your debauchery will quickly lead me to where you make your bed.”
Felix laughed, and the sound came rich and deep from his chest—a true laugh hiding hardly any pain. “And you call me an impractical fool! I suppose I’ll have to switch roles and be the level-headed one, if we’re ever to meet again in this world. The details come to me even now. I’ll wait every Kalends and Ides, midday, by some landmark. What do you say?”
“The southwest corner of the Library at the Serapeum. I remember pleasant shade there, and vendors selling cool date wine.” Even if they tortured him, even if they knew Felix’s exact location down to the building, Anazâr had to believe they wouldn’t send a killer so far. And the promise, hopefully, would prevent Felix from ever returning.
“The Library, then. Seal it with a kiss.”
They did.
Anazâr guarded against sleep, his naked body tangled warm and lazy with Felix’s. He waited until his lover seemed at peace: breathing slowly, eyelids heavy and still. Rest. Be safe. Please be safe.
He slid from the bed as silently as he could. He cleaned himself with a cloth dipped in the crystal bowl of rosewater that stood by the bed—gods, the absurd luxury of this night—and made sure no traces of makeup remained. Tunic, sandals, belt, mock sword, and most important of all, the hood—
A rustle of sheets behind him.
He stepped for the door with excruciating care, willing the leather of his sandals to glide across the tiles. He’d rather fall on his sword than trade parting words with Felix. Words that Anazâr knew would be their last.
Let Felix have his illusions, his phantom in Alexandria. He would take Anazâr’s best self there with him. And in some measure, Anazâr would at last be free.
He wanted to thank Felix for that. So he did it silently, in his soul. You’ve done more for me than you’ll ever understand.
His hand touched the curtain at the door, and he had to turn back one more time, even though he knew the story of the downfall of Orpheus.
Pale gray eyes, burning inhumanly bright, a mark of the life force that animated Felix and charged his every gesture with improbable grace—those eyes were half-opened, and his face drawn tight with a grief that failed to mar his beauty.
Felix didn’t speak a word.
And Anazâr passed through the curtain, bearing the guilt for that wound of silence.
He was strong enough to bear it. He had to believe it.
A slave woman bearing a lamp stood
waiting at the portico. She gestured toward the exit. Her face was delicate and blank, revealing not the slightest trace of emotion.
Let her composure be a model for your own, he told himself with every step.
She fell in beside him. Sent, no doubt, to make sure he left properly without stealing the silver. She was Aethiopian, like the majordomo, like Amanikhabale. Willowy, though—nowhere near Amanikhabale’s unusual size.
Amanikhabale’s height, her thick shoulders, had doomed her to the gladiatrices’ troupe, had barred her from an easier life as a scribe or tutor slave. Fortune’s wheel again. He remembered how large she had loomed behind Aelia as they’d spoken together that night at the warehouse . . .
“Is there a problem?” asked the slim woman holding open the door. “You can take the lamp with you, if you need light.”
“Yes, to the lamp. But there’s no problem, none at all. I’m leaving now.”
His heart froze as he stepped over the threshold into the night. He’d left Felix, and what was he returning to?
Amanikhabale, holding watch for him. Amanikhabale, who hadn’t had any good explanation for why she’d known Enyo’s plans. Amanikhabale, the only one of the gladiatrices who’d spoken to Aelia in private.
He wanted to run. Run, while merciful darkness still cloaked the city. Find a horse. No, the roads are watched too closely. The fields. The Tiber. Every man and woman will turn against me when they see my face. The folded paper square of his forged pass burned in his palm. Had she purposefully given him a poor forgery? Was he carrying in his hand a set trap about to spring?
A jagged cobblestone tripped his sandal. He staggered, clung to the wall for balance, and tried to think. Gods, he wanted to turn back. He was so utterly alone, and there was his lover waiting for him. They could go together. To Alexandria. Disappear in the night. Surely Felix could talk his way out of any run-in with someone trying to stop them.
Except that wasn’t who Anazâr was. He may have been a runaway once, but never with the lives of so many—women who had trusted him against all odds—in the balance.
There had to be another way. A way to face this problem head-on. Prove to his gladiatrices and Felix that their trust and faith in him were not misplaced.
He reasoned that Amanikhabale must be playing for higher stakes than his death, or Felix’s death. After all, she’d known where Felix was waiting, and not passed it on, or else they’d both be dead by now. She had no reason to wish Anazâr gone from the table—none that he knew of, at least. So he’d return to the warehouse. She’d let down the ladder for him, and they’d come to a new, more honest arrangement.
Damn her. She’d killed Enyo, not the Sarmatian.
But as he pushed away from the wall and set out again, he couldn’t hold on to the hatred. The fear and the loneliness left no room for it, perhaps.
“I had no choice,” said Amanikhabale. “I’d be dead if I’d refused to arrange the attempt on Felix’s life. Enyo or anyone else, just so long as I found someone with something to lose . . . or gain, I suppose. Someone they could manipulate and dispose of. And I’m sure they plan on killing me as well, no matter what honeyed promises that wolf-bitch pours in my ear. Dead sooner or dead later, and I keep picking later; it’s really very simple. Aren’t you the same? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
He wasn’t going to answer that.
“Why are you still alive?” he demanded. “Marianus and his wife know it was you who warned Rhakshna and foiled their plans.” I delivered the news to Marianus myself. That day in the garden, not knowing you’d been as much a part of orchestrating the attempt on Felix’s life as you were in foiling it. He tossed down the last coil of rope and stalked toward her. She flinched. He moved inside her reach; she didn’t step back.
“I told them a good enough story,” she said, the words rushing against each other but still held perfectly clear. “That Enyo, at the last, didn’t believe her daughter would be saved, and was planning on killing Lucius instead. So I had to intervene to ensure failure. It was an easy enough lie to tell, since they’d purposefully arranged the attempt in such a way as to disguise which brother it was meant for. And then I immediately offered them another plot. Oh, you’ll love this one. They certainly did. It’s absolutely mad.” She raised up her hands, palms to the sky, and grimaced like a tragic actor. “We shall use his love to destroy him!”
Anazâr glared until she left off. “Stop praising your own brilliance and tell me, then.”
She responded in the same crisp, manic rush. “I told them Felix is desperately in love with Cassia. I showed them a love letter to prove it, written in blood, in his own hand. Remove her from the troupe, I said. Sell her for cheap to some freedman. Send me along, so I can write on her behalf—her family wasn’t rich enough to have their women taught. She’ll use my knowledge of letters to send Felix a message asking him to meet her. He’ll come, and there’ll be someone waiting to kill him. Probably you. And then, after the deed’s done, they place all the blame for his death on her shoulders. She killed her husband, after all, so why not her lover? The plan appeals to their purse strings, as well—no expensive slaves to be wastefully put to death.”
“By the fucking cross! How can you— What— But how— Repeat that!”
She did. It was mad. Her thin fabric of forgery and lies would tear apart under any real examination.
But for now, it held.
“So where’s our advantage?” asked Anazâr. “It buys us only a limited amount of time. Cassia is removed from the arena, and so are you, only to be placed in even greater danger. I’m working under the assumption her life actually holds value for you. Perhaps I’m wrong.”
“Love is a throat left unprotected. A knife turned against the one who wields it. I can’t let them know my true—” she paused there, her glib stream of words faltering into a telling stutter “—my true loyalties. I have to believe that Cassia has a greater chance, this way, than in the arena. She cannot fight. She’ll choke up. You saw her at the practice. What she did to her husband, she’ll never repeat.”
“So I’ve been enlisted to kill Felix. We’re all at this location. And then what?”
“We cut down any bastard who gets in our way, and make a run for it. Your Felix, too.”
“Appealingly direct. Do you think your fighting skills are up to the task? Cassia’s? Escaping Rome is . . .” He gestured vaguely to his tattoo, then swept his hand away. Strange, how the gesture felt just slightly less shameful after last night.
“I’ll have forged manumission papers by then. And I’m no Amazon, but if you knock a man down, I can make damn sure he never gets up again. I’ll be most highly motivated, after all.”
Her words broke some barrier inside him that he’d never even known was there. He froze with his mouth half-open, not trusting the words just yet.
Freedom—not just yearning for it, but chasing it, seizing it, taking it like a lover.
Felix wouldn’t be there, though. Felix would be gone by then. But perhaps they could carry out this plan in his absence. And then . . .
Alexandria.
“By my tally, there’s thirty-six days until the games,” she said. “If they go for this plan, they’ll want to avoid a scandal so close to Marianus’s first exhibition, lest it interfere with his reputation. I imagine it will be afterward. But nothing is sure. Pray to your gods. I’ll be doing the same.” She smiled crookedly and shrugged. “You never know if it helps, but it can’t hurt.”
“My goddess feels very far away,” he murmured. “But perhaps . . .”
“You should put me back in my shackles.”
They stared eye to eye in complicated silence, each the mirror of the other’s faint, fierce hope of freedom.
A miserable morning spent scraping at the old dinner dishes with no explanation for the lack of their usual breakfast and no promise of a later meal. The whole time, Anazâr wondered if Marianus had left them all to waste away and die, as if he could not even spare them
the regard to have them properly crucified for their treachery.
That afternoon, though, Quintus did come. The welcome sight of slaves bearing food and fresh water weighed against the concern that Quintus was also accompanied by leather-armored guards who carried their clubs like retired legionaries.
“We’ll have a couple of these fellows keeping an eye on the warehouse,” said Quintus. “The baths are back, but they’ll be split up and taken in shifts. Marianus still wants a daily report from you, but you’ll be delivering it to me instead.”
Equal parts relief and fear swelled in Anazâr’s chest. He’d been dreading seeing Marianus again, dreading another incident like the one in the garden. But the decision also spoke to a fundamental and troubling change in what was between them.
Mutual respect for each other had given way to fear and distrust.
“Some of the swords are too splintered. They need replacing.” Anazâr knew they could make do with the battered ones, but this could serve as a test of Marianus’s willingness to further invest in their prospects. I’m finally beginning to understand him.
Understand him, in order to outthink him.
“I’ll pass that on.”
The baths were a businesslike affair. Anazâr paid for scraping and simple barbering and kept his eyes to himself. When he did look to other men, he tried to see them as they really were, and not solely imagine his low station and attendant disfigurement through their eyes.
“Hey, you. Got some news for me this time, I’ll wager.” That Greek gossip, from the first day. At least the familiar face was him, rather than the alternative. No sign of Felix’s mule driver, or the man himself. Anazâr wasn’t sure if he’d be able to maintain this constant mask of indifference if it came to that. “What in Aphrodite’s magic twat is going on at the domus Marianus?”
Here to finally finish the exchange they’d started, Anazâr supposed, since last time he’d had nothing to offer other than Felix’s sexual indiscretions. He should feel more torn about his willingness to pay his debt.
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