Seduced by the Gladiator, Page 2

  I backed away slowly, before my fingers reached for him of their own accord.

  “I am Christus, formerly of the house of Lucius Quintus Manius. I am now pledged to your dominus, and soon to your brotherhood.” He did not seem proud of this fact . . . no, if I had to choose a word to describe him, it would have been weary.

  I shied away from the kinship that I felt along with that weariness, startled by the realization. Thoughts of friendship were dangerous—this was my life, the life of a gladiator. It did no good and much harm to long for anything else.

  “I am not your lady. I am not a lady at all.” I had no answer to his words, so instead I spat the only thing that came to my head.

  Christus stared at me, expressionless. “So said Bavarius. He also said that you were a whore. Is he right in that respect, as well?”

  My jaw dropped. Though I was challenged on a daily basis, hearing the term fall from this man’s lips was unexpected and stung more than it should have. I growled with aggravation.

  “Perhaps I am.” This was not a lie, though I had no desire to explain my meaning further. “What of it?”

  Christus again took my hand, this time lifting it to his lips for a kiss. The touch of his warm mouth on the back of my hand made a shiver skate over my skin. I told myself to pull away and found that my body was not listening.

  When he released me, I looked up at him, caution masking my face. This man was more dangerous to me than any of the other brutes in the ludus, far more so.

  He did not speak, instead studying my face intently. I grew uncomfortable and shifted beneath the stare.

  “You have not answered my question. Perhaps I am a whore. What do you think about that?” My words filled the silence but echoed hollowly regardless.

  Christus turned and began to walk away, following in the direction that Bavarius had gone. I thought he meant to leave without answering, but his final words sounded in the quiet beneath the arena even as his feet stirred up the dust.

  “I think that perhaps we are not so different.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  Darius had done more than secure his entertainment and my own for the evening. I stood against the back wall of the gladiators’ eating quarters with my arms crossed tightly over my abdomen, my eyebrows raised as high as they would go as I watched the bacchanalian scene unfold before me.

  The room was awash in mulberry wine, fresh fruit, and the naked breasts of whores. The idiots that I was supposed to call brothers were silly with drink and enjoying the unexpected fortune of the celebration.

  I was not impressed. Anger making my features stiff, I turned to my friend with disbelief.

  “Why would you spend my coin on this? These beasts deserve none of it.” As I spoke, my friend handed me back the small leather pouch that I had given him earlier. Eyeing it suspiciously, I accepted it, noting that it was still far heavier than it should have been, had he spent enough coin to create this spectacle.

  “I did not spend your winnings, Lilia. I spent my own.” The look that he cast my way was comically sorrowful and not a little bit reproachful. “You know I would not be so free with your coin. I am fully aware of your opinion of our brothers.”

  I did not contradict Darius, though he knew full well that I did not consider myself a part of the brotherhood.

  “Why would you spend your own coin, then, when your opinion is not far from my own?” It irked me to see the fools with bellies full of wine and figs. True, some were better than others, but still, those same men had failed to come to my aid when I had needed it the most.

  Now I needed aid from no one, and would not offer boons to those who had wronged me in the past.

  As he looked down from his impressive height, Darius’ face showed the same hint of exasperation that it had when we had first met, so many years earlier—the face that told me he saw straight through my bravado and bad temper.

  He was the only person in the world who was allowed to look a little bit deeper. Had anyone else tried, I would have struck him in the face for his trouble . . . not that many cared to.

  I was still unnerved that Christus had. His attitude toward me had left an impression, and I found myself craning my neck, searching for him among the men, for he had said that he was now a part of this ludus.

  I found that I did not like the idea of him twined around a whore. I was angry with myself for caring.

  “While otherwise occupied with whores who offer freely, Bavarius and his friends will give you peace, which you sorely need after such a physically exhausting day.” Though I would never—could never—let them fall in front of others, I felt the salt of unexpected tears sting the backs of my eyes.

  Darius spoke the truth, and saw what no one else would—that I was well and truly exhausted after the arena that day. I meant to stay on alert, for after Bavarius’ unexpected show of aggression and the fool Christus’ inept intervention, I felt certain that the former would come searching for me sooner rather than later, intent on teaching me a lesson.

  The man did not play fair. He would bring friends to hold me down while he had his way. I was a better fighter than any of them, but the fact remained that I was smaller and, if caught by surprise, would be at a massive disadvantage. Fatigue would only add to the weakness.

  By providing these festivities, my only friend had given me the most precious of gifts—rest. I was grateful.

  “You, and you alone, are my brother.” I held my hand out, palm facing him, a sign of respect in our ludus. Darius nodded gruffly, then gestured toward the exit of the dining hall with a jerk of his head. “Now go. Sleep. Do not waste my coin.”

  “And what of your entertainment for the evening?” There were male whores among the females, though not nearly as plentiful, and I saw none that seemed to be in Darius’ taste. He shrugged, and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

  “There were none that I cared for.” I did not care for the pang of emotion that ran through me when I heard the blatant lie, even though it was directed at my friend. Emotions, apart from anger, were a weakness that I could not afford.

  What else was I to feel but gratitude to have such a friend, one who would give up celebration of his own victory to stay alert, watching over me?

  “Gratitude.” I would not say more, for it would only embarrass us both. Instead I made my way down the long corridor of the gladiators’ living space, my feet in their thin leather padding softly along the dust that covered the floor. As the top ranked in the ludus, I had my own quarters, a room that was small but had the luxury of being mine alone.

  It also had a solid wooden door, something gifted to a past champion and a feature for which I was very grateful that night. Though there was no lock on the door, the sound of the thing opening would be enough noise to wake me, to alert me to an intruder, while the soft shush of a curtain moving—a curtain such as those that covered the other cells—might not.

  I also had a small basin that one of the girls from upstairs filled with fresh water every day. I might have been a slave myself, but being a winner who brought coin to the house came with some privilege.

  The thought had my lips curving up in a bitter facsimile of a smile. I only had to sell my soul to obtain such luxuries.

  Closing the door behind me, I peeled off the garments that I had worn in the arena earlier that day. Caked as they were—as I was—with blood, sweat, and dirt, I longed to soak in one of the mineral tubs that we were encouraged to use to soften our muscles. I had no desire to be seen by Bavarius, however, for I knew that it would only incite drunken idiocy on his part.

  So instead I stripped and slowly sponged off the layers that the arena had left on me, shivering as the water cooled my skin. As the dried blood softened and trickled in rivulets down my limbs, dropping wetly on the floor, I tried to squash thoughts of the man whom it had come from.

  The man whom I had killed.

  I had killed before, and would again—at least, I would if I wanted to stay
alive. Once the very idea had made me sick, but the life of a gladiator was what I had been given, and I had chosen to make the best of it.

  As I patted myself dry with a rough linen towel, however, I whispered a soft prayer to Pluto, god of the underworld, asking him to grant the slain man’s soul safe passage. Before I slept, I would also place a coin in the small clay vase that I kept for this exact purpose, a bribe to the god for the same.

  I knew that, had my circumstances been only slightly different, I could have been the one killed on the sands. Or I could have been killed long before I ever became a gladiator.

  Sometimes I wondered if the price that I had paid for my life was too high.

  I stood in a line in a narrow stone alley, my hands and feet bound in chains. Six others stood along with me, their hair matted into snarled nests, their skin caked with filth. I knew that this was a reflection of what I myself looked like, and shame flooded through me to be seen as such.

  I had stood in a line like this once before, mere hours after my father—my pater familias—had sold me to a slave trader. That had been years earlier, and I had been purchased by a higher-classed plebeian, one who had behaved as if I did not exist, which was much better than many alternatives that were whispered among slaves.

  Now my dominus had sold me to the slave trader who was flicking the long, polished rope of a whip at our feet, and I did not know why. I would never know why—in the eyes of the world, I did not deserve to.

  I was not a person. I was a slave. An animal. And now, after days of travel with no food, little water, and filthy living conditions, my life had been thrust back into the uncertainty that I had felt all those years ago, when I was but a small child.

  Who was going to purchase me? Where was I going to go?

  “Slaves for sale!” As the slave trader called out, his voice swallowed by the cacophony of sounds in the marketplace, he cracked the whip carelessly, and it fell across my shins. I cried out, and no one turned—no one cared.

  Peering down, I studied the brilliant red that now striped my shins. Blood trickled from the wound, bright as a jewel against the dusty white of my skin.

  Anger began to simmer inside of me. I knew that I had no rights—I was a slave, a commodity to be bought and sold. But no matter how often I was told that I was worthless, I still knew that I was a person, even if no one knew that but me.

  “Clean this one off so that I can see her.”

  A man had wandered up, a rich one, judging by the size of the ruby that adorned his finger. I was not supposed to look at his face, and so I kept my eyes trained straight ahead of me. This meant that I looked straight at his great belly, which strained the cloth of his toga.

  Though a man dressed as he was likely had a private bath in his home, he smelled. I ground my teeth as a bucket of icy water was dumped over my head, causing the grime to run in rivulets over my skin.

  Shame mixed with the anger that was percolating inside of me. I hated being dirty. I hated all of this.

  “This one’s tits are too small.” The rotund man reached out, fat fingers pawing greedily at my breasts. I wanted to spit in his face, to shy away from the touch, but knew that my disobedience would result in a beating from the slave trader.

  “Let’s see how tight her cunt is.” Panic snaked through me as those hands dropped from my breasts to the area between my legs. I was not a virgin—I had had a lover, another slave, in the house from which I had just been outed. But the thought of strange fingers touching me there was abhorrent, causing nausea to roll in my gut.

  And if he wanted to test the tightness of my cunt, I knew what he wanted a new slave for.

  I could not be purchased by this man.

  Screeching with bloody vengeance as my sudden fury washed away my panic, I flew toward him. The fat man cried out, backing away, but I had lifted my arms, my muscles quivering under the weight of my chains, and had my hands around his throat.

  I would surely be killed for this, but I would rather die here in this alley than to be taken to the home of a man who would abuse me for his own pleasure.

  “Release him! Slave!” The whip cracked over my shoulders, my back, wielded by the slave trader. I heard other voices, cheers and jeers from the crowd that quickly gathered.

  Romans loved nothing more than violence.

  As if in a dream, I shook the man, not sure of where I drew the strength from. I did not mean to kill him, merely to convince him that purchasing me would be unwise.

  He gurgled, spittle dripping from his mouth grotesquely. Caught up as I was in the moment, a movement in the crowd caught my eye—one man in particular.

  Dressed in a toga that told me he was a patrician, the man exuded intelligence as he studied me. I had the distinct sensation that here, finally, was someone who saw me as a person, an individual, not just one of a herd of filthy slaves.

  Fascinated by the thought, I allowed my hands to fall from the fat man’s neck. He fell away from me, clutching his throat and shouting, but I paid him no heed, my attention focused on the strange man who continued to watch me.

  I snarled at him, simply to see what he would do. Rather than chastising me for looking him in the eye, he allowed his lips to curl into a slight smile, nodding with satisfaction.

  “You worthless cunt!”

  Old, gnarled hands shoved me into the ground. The slave trader’s breath was hot and bitter on my face as he stood over me, straddling my legs, the whip raised in one hand. “You’ve made a fool of me, girl! Because of you, no one will buy my slaves today. You are more trouble than you are worth!” Behind him, the fat man still clutched at his throat, a look of righteous indignation on his face.

  A frenzy lit his eyes as I curled into a ball to protect myself from the angry kick of his feet.

  I knew that my time had come. He was going to kill me.

  “How much do you want for this one?”

  My body tensed as the words were spoken directly above me. When the expected blows did not come, I dared to sneak a glance upward.

  The man who had truly seen me was staring calmly at the slave trader, a small leather pouch of coin in his hand.

  Surely he could not be . . .

  Was he . . .

  Was he offering to purchase me?

  As the men haggled, I rolled to the side, hindered from moving very far because of my chains. Though I did not know this strange man at all—for all that he could be purchasing me to beat me and rape me every day of the rest of my life—I still felt something that I had not felt since I was a young, innocent child.

  I felt hope.

  “Unchain her.” The slave trader cackled at the man’s words, but the man stared him down, his face a mask of calm.

  “You do not want to unchain this one.” Despite his words, the slave trader did as the calm man bade.

  The trader muttered words about stupid patricians, words that he could not say any louder, for fear of upsetting someone higher in class than he. When my chains fell away, I stretched hugely, rotating arms that had been weighed down for days.

  “Stand up.” This from my new master. Slowly, cautiously, I did as I was told. I stumbled, my legs weak.

  I could not have run, even if I’d had a chance of escape.

  “You will not run.” The man seemed to know my thoughts without needing me to say them. Seemingly disinterested, he passed the pouch of coin to the slave trader, who seemed amazed at his good fortune.

  I wanted to kick him, the bastard who had made us sit in our own shit and piss for days.

  “Follow me.” The man turned, expecting fully that I would follow him. I did, curious and trying to suppress my joy at being free of the slave trader. Weaving through the people who crowded the market, we reached the edge of the stalls, where it was a touch quieter. It was here that the man turned to face me, studying me intently, perhaps wondering if he had made a mistake. He had already shown more interest in me than my former dominus had in the entire time in which I had been a part of his
household.

  “What is your name?”

  I tried to speak, and my voice was thick and scratchy.

  “I . . . I am just called slave. Or girl.” I wanted to look at my feet with shame, but the man’s stare compelled me to continue looking him in the eye.

  “Were you born into slavery?” I shook my head. “Then you must have had a name once. What was it?”

  I had once had a name, one that my parents had given me. That name seemed to belong to another person, another life. But I pulled it from my memory to my lips, and when I spoke, it again seemed to fit.

  “Lilia. My name is Lilia.”

  Satisfied, the man nodded, then gestured with his hand down the road that led to and from the market. “My home is not far away, a short walk down this road.”

  I nodded. I did not know what else to do or say.

  “I own a school for gladiators. Do you know what gladiators are, Lilia?”

  Wide-eyed, I rasped out an agreement. I had never been to a match in the arena, but all Romans knew of gladiators. Those with prowess in the arena were famed in the Empire, worshipped and respected.

  I could not imagine being regarded that way by others.

  “Female gladiators are very rare, Lilia. Right now there are none in the city, have been none for years.” I cocked my head, that wild hope springing free inside of me again.

  The man gestured for me to follow him as he began to walk up that road. I did, my legs stiff with disuse.

  His words floated back to me, over his shoulder, and they changed my life forever.

  “You will become a gladiator.”

  The door to my quarters opened into the training area of the ludus. Though I had closed it behind me, I heard noise coming from the stairs that led to the balcony overlooking the area—the voice of my dominus and those of several others.

  Suddenly tense, though I knew that my dominus would not allow any harm to come to his top-ranked gladiator, I wished for the lethal metal blade that I was allowed to wield in the arena.