The Gladiator's Mistress (Champions of Rome) (26 page)

Chapter 43

Valens

Valens stood in the damp coolness of the inner maze of the bowels of the Forum Boarium more than a little surprised that he stood at all. After having slept away the morning and most of the afternoon, he was roused by a slave two hours before the fight. His body still ached and his head buzzed. Before Valens was fitted into his kit, the ludus physician had given him syrup made from poppy seeds. Black and thick, it had filled him with sunshine. Grateful to be free of pain, he had found the strength to leave the ludus and come to fight.

In truth, he would have found his strength without the syrup of poppy. He would not have given up, even if the stakes were not as high. He tried to picture his opponent and visualize a win. Yet in his mind he saw nothing save a field of golden wheat. Elysium. Was this his end? At least he had saved his sister. Antonice was well away from Rome by now—perhaps she and Leto had already left Capernaum and at this moment made their way to Padua. Phaedra had sworn to protect his sister and keep Acestes from carrying out the execution. So if Valens died today, then he would die well.

“It is time,” said Paullus.

Valens nodded and followed him to the door that led to the arena.

“I am proud to call you my son,” said Paullus.

“A man could have no better father.”

Paullus smiled broadly and clapped him on his wounded shoulder.

Valens winced at the pain and then set it aside.

“Apologies,” said Paullus. “I forgot which arm ails you.”

“Nothing ails me, not now, not ever. I am Valens Secundus, Equestrian, the Trainer of Champions, Son of Paullus Secundus, and a Titan made flesh.”

“A titan made flesh? That is a bit much, even for you.” Paullus’s eyes twinkled.

Valens ignored him. For his mind had already taken him to the middle of the arena, where the editor held his arm high and proclaimed him victor. And yet he knew that he was not in top form. The illness was still with him. Sloppy and weak, he might not win. He fixed his thoughts on Phaedra—her smile, her spirit, her kisses. Yes, for Phaedra and their love and the life they would live together, he would win.

The heavy wooden door opened and light spilled across the dirt floor. Valens stepped through and raised his arms as the crowd cheered. The editor, a tiny man with a shiny, bald pate, stood in the middle of the sands, baton in hand. The other gladiator, an African almost a head taller than Valens, came out of the other door. Two thick leather straps crossed his chest, and one arm was covered from finger to shoulder in a leather manica. In his other arm he held an oval shield. He wore boots that came to his knees, and a buff-colored skirt of lion skin. An open-faced helmet with a crimson horsehair plume completed his kit. The crowd cheered this man as well.

The applause stunned Valens. He knew nothing of the man he faced—his strengths, his weaknesses, even his name. It had been narrow sighted on his part not to learn anything of his opponent.

The gladiators stood on either side of the editor and waited for him to review the rules, lift his baton, and begin the contest. Before the editor had even finished, the other gladiator struck Valens on the helmet with the flat of his sword. The blow was not meant to harm, but to unhinge. It worked. The second blow came in as quickly and unexpectedly as the first. The tip of the other gladiator’s sword connected with Valens’s calf.

Valens ignored the pain and the blood, but the momentary inability to move his leg sharpened his attention. The crowd stood and screamed. He heard them despite the throbbing in his head and the clang that reverberated in his ears. The two gladiators circled one another.

Thrust, thrust, block, slice.

Thrust, block, block, thrust.

Valens’s sword connected with the other man’s arm. He nicked an artery and blood pumped out like a tiny fountain. The gladiator’s shield sagged. Valens rushed in, aiming for the soft spot where shoulder and neck became one. For a split second he imagined Phaedra in his arms as he tasted her in the same place he now aimed.

His sword connected, but the tip did not punch through flesh and sinew and bone. Rather it glanced off a leather strap and leaped upward, making a shallow slice on the African’s cheek, just missing the eye. He would never get a chance at that eye again.

Focus.

No worries.

No thoughts.

Only actions.

His opponent came at Valens from the left. Wait, wait. Shift right. Turn. Valens stabbed the other man in the side as they passed each other. The movement of the fight became natural, fluid, like a long-practiced dance. They locked swords, each pushing against the other until sweat streamed down their faces and the veins under the skin bulged and pulsed.

The crowd booed their inaction, and the editor separated Valens from his opponent with a swipe of his baton.

They backed away from each other, panting. Valens’s leg had gone numb. His arm bled from a wound he did not recall getting. His shoulder throbbed. He had always known he would die in the arena.

He looked to the covered seats, those reserved for Acestes and the rest of the lazy patricians. He wanted to scream and spit and flay them all alive.

This is what you came for
, he wanted to say.
To watch men suffer for your twisted pleasure. To see me draw my final breath, then later tell your children of the history you witnessed.

Instead he saw Phaedra. He forgot all about his numb leg, his infected shoulder, and his bleeding arm.

The other gladiator came at Valens, who stepped to the side. He moved too slowly, and the larger man crashed into his injured leg. Both men tumbled to the ground. Valens saw a blinding flash of white as he heard a crack and felt a bone in his calf snap.

For a moment all was silent, save for the thumping pulse in Valens’s ears. Then came the collective gasp from the crowd. He had heard it many times as his opponents fell. It was a sign that everyone knew the fallen would never again rise.

Give up
, whispered a voice in the back of his skull.
Give up and let all the pain go.

He should kneel and take a clean gladiator’s death. Let the sword sever his spine and open the front of his throat. He would be in Elysium before his corpse hit the sands.

But no one waited for him in Elysium. Here, in Rome, were the people who mattered.

Phaedra, Paullus, and Baro were his family. If he lived, he would bring back his sister and Leto. They were his reason for rising from bed in the morning. Not the fame, or the coin, or even the notoriety.

He pushed up to his side. Leaning on his hilt, Valens rose to his knees. The other gladiator held his sword with both hands and waited for him to take the position of the doomed.

“No,” Valens said as he stood. His injured leg could still bear some weight, although he listed to the side. “If I am to die, then you will have to skewer me to the ground.”

With a nod that Valens assumed meant
so be it
, the other gladiator took a step back and lifted his sword and shield. At least his opponent would let Valens die in a fight and not slaughter him in his moment of weakness. Both men nodded at each other. The editor swiped his baton between the two, and the men started to fight again.

Slash, thrust, block, shield, thrust.

He compensated for his broken leg by using his toe to keep steady. In his mind, Valens saw his square. He never left the box and made the other man come to him.

Slash, thrust, shield, shield, turn.

In quick, successive movements, the other gladiator rushed in and withdrew. Valens remained in his square and defended his space. Once more the African tried to move the fight. It did not work. Then the man feigned right, and Valens, anticipating the trick, sliced his opponent’s back open. Shiny bits of spine shone through the skin. The African staggered, then lunged for Valens with a wild arc of his sword. The blade passed far to the left.

The man still stood. His eyes rolled back in his head. Blood trailed down his back, collecting into a black puddle at his feet. Valens moved in close and drove his sword into the gladiator’s gut. He pulled the blade upward and then free. Entrails pushed out of the gaping wound. The African stumbled forward and clung to Valens’s shoulders.

“Sleep well, Brother,” said Valens. “You have fought long and hard and deserve a rest.”

The gladiator nodded. Or maybe Valens just wanted to think that his opponent had heard the words and accepted the killing. Holding the sword’s grip tighter, he slid it across the African’s throat. A spray of blood blinded Valens, and the other man slipped to the ground.

Valens let the editor lift his hand and proclaim him victor. Silver coins and rose petals rained down from the stands along with screams and cheers that he imagined even Antonice could hear on the road to Padua.

Acestes came to the rail of his box and stood next to Phaedra. He slowly clapped his hands. “You are, without doubt, the Champion of Rome. It seems as though you have gained the favor of Phaedra as well.”

Valens held on to the editor’s shoulder to stay upright. “I am honored to have gained the lady’s favor,” Valens said.

“Perhaps I can convince you to fight at her next wedding, when she marries me. Just like when you fought at her wedding to my uncle.”

“You plan to marry her?” As Valens stepped forward, his broken leg buckled. The editor lifted him up by the shoulder, helping him to stand steady again. “Has her father given his permission?”

Phaedra looked away in a gesture Valens took for complicity, if not guilt.

“Her father is dead,” said Acestes. “He died last night. I am Phaedra’s guardian now, and I have decided to marry her myself.”

Senator Scaeva was dead and Phaedra was Acestes’s ward? The world he now inhabited was not the same one he had just fought to keep. If Valens had given up during his fight, at least he would have died thinking that one day he would have married Phaedra.

“Nothing to add?” asked Acestes.

Valens stood tall, although every part of his body ached. “I offer you sympathies, my lady.”

“Do you not mean that you offer her your sympathies for her father’s death and congratulations for her upcoming marriage?” asked Acestes.

“No, I offer her sympathies for them both.” Then to the editor, Valens said, “Help me to the door. I should see the physician about this leg.” Without being dismissed or asking for permission to leave, he turned his back on Acestes and the elite of Rome. But in truth, he walked away from Phaedra.

Chapter 44

Phaedra

Look at me. Please, for the love of the gods, look at me.
Phaedra willed Valens to turn around as he limped from the arena. She wanted him to know and understand that being with Acestes was not her choice. Also, that his announcement of their betrothal had surprised her as well.

Well, perhaps that last bit was not entirely true.

She understood Acestes’s need for a lavish production, his desire to have everyone talking about him, and his unblinking focus on becoming first above all. The fact that he had turned their betrothal into a bit of gossip that stole some of Valens’s well-deserved acclaim was no surprise.

As Valens hobbled across the sands of the arena, Phaedra tried to force her thoughts into his mind. He never once turned around.

“I think it is all over—for today, at least,” said Acestes.

“I think it is,” said Phaedra.

Acestes held out his hand. “Allow me to escort you to my litter.”

Marcus had never cared to spend much on finery, preferring to hoard his fortune until Phaedra imagined that even his coins grew moldy. Acestes did not seem so afflicted, and he brought her to another newly purchased litter.

A crimson veil hung down over its sides, turning the world ruby red. With Phaedra at one end and Acestes at the other, they reclined on silk pillows and cushions. They rode together in silence, not touching, and yet the heat from his calves radiated all the way to hers.

Each person they passed looked to her like Valens, so Phaedra closed her eyes. Without the sights of the forum to distract her, she envisioned her father and knew that amends would never be made for his betrayal. That the last time they spoke had been with filled with anger consumed Phaedra with guilt. At least her parents were together again in Elysium.

Acestes’s hand trailed over the scarlet cushion to rest on her ankle.

Acestes still wanted her, even without a powerful father. She knew that she should be grateful, but even that emotion could not overcome the sadness that enveloped her soul.

“It has been less than two weeks since Marcus died, and now my father. Everything has changed for me and not even a month gone by.”

“Even though it has been less than a month, I suppose you know that you are not with child. Your father would have made an issue out of the possible heir.”

Marcus had not lain with Phaedra for several months and her courses had come regularly. But she might be carrying Valens’s child. For an instant she felt the thrill of possibly having created a life with the man she loved. Then reality took over. Phaedra knew that the Fates would be cruel to the child, whose eyes would be brown, like rich soil, and not gray, like a stormy sky. She prayed that her womb was empty and felt it must be such. Still, she said, “I will have to wait until my time comes again to know whether Marcus’s seed took root or not. What an irony that would be, for you to think that you are his heir when all the while I am carrying his child.”

“It would matter little, since I plan to marry you myself. Besides, I do not worry about my uncle being amorous with you, much less fertile, in the last month of his life. However, I do worry about the gladiator.”

“What gladiator?” asked Phaedra, panicked that Acestes had even the slightest inkling of her relationship with Valens.

“You saw how he reacted to the news of our betrothal. He mocked me in front of Rome. He turned his back on me and walked away without permission. I must wonder why. Has the Champion of Rome also become the Master of Your Bed?”

She could not deny the implication outright. Nor could Phaedra do what she wanted and acknowledge Valens as her lover and the man she loved. Avoiding the question, she said. “I wonder why you immediately think Valens Secundus is upset about me. Correct me if I am wrong, but did you not force him to return to the arena in order to save his sister from execution?”

Acestes opened the sheer curtain and looked into the street. A shaft of pure sunlight bathed him in gold. “I did not force him to do anything. He offered to fight in her stead.”

Phaedra hesitated a moment before pressing the advantage she had found. “Valens won today in superb fashion. Wounded shoulder, broken leg, and still he was victorious. You stole his glory by announcing that you planned to marry me. Besides, he is now an equestrian and can turn his back on any of us if he chooses.”

“Valens,” said Acestes. He let the curtain fall back into place and leaned back on the cushion. “You called him Valens. Not Valens Secundus, or the Champion of Rome. You use his name as though you
know
him. I ask you yet again.
How
do you know Valens Secundus?”

“Stop being crude.”

“I knew my uncle,” said Acestes, “or feel I understood him as a man. In a way I would not mind if you had taken a lover while married. At least you would have some sexual experience. Although I do not like the idea of a gladiator’s cock having been where mine will be going.”

Phaedra could not even think about engaging in sex with Acestes. Why did he not see that if she desired him, she would have accepted his offer of a child long ago, or his offer of marriage not long past? “Did you not hear me? Do not be crude.”

“Apologies.”

Again he traced Phaedra’s ankle; this time he traveled higher to her calf. She shifted, pulling her leg from his reach.

“Perhaps my uncle chose wives who did not like sex and therefore suited him.”

“You cannot speak to me that way. Get out.” She raised her voice and called out, “Stop the litter! The general wishes to walk.”

The litter ceased moving.

“You cannot remove me from my own litter,” Acestes said.

“Get out.” Phaedra threw a pillow. He caught it in midair and placed it behind his head. How she hated him.

Phaedra rose to her knees. “Then I will walk.”

“You will do no such thing.” Acestes knelt next to her and forced her back into the seat. He handed her a pillow. “If you really cannot stand to be around me, then I can walk to the villa. Besides, riding makes me appear weak to the voters.”

“You
are
weak. Get out.”

Ignoring the stairs set out for his benefit, Acestes leaped from the litter and laughed. “You are many things, Phaedra. Dull is not one of them.”

“Return her to the villa,” Acestes said to a guard. “I have business that needs tending. You and you”—he picked two guards—“come with me. Maid,” he said to Terenita, “ride with your mistress. I vexed her too much today.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Terenita as she climbed into the litter. She sat, straight-backed, with her hands clasped over her lap at the far end of the seat.

“Since I am in the litter with you, my lady, might I speak with some frankness?”

“I wish someone would,” said Phaedra.

“Why do you bait General Acestes? If he is your guardian and will be your husband, do you not think it wise to be kind to him?”

“My father promised that I could choose my husband if Marcus died,” said Phaedra. “Marcus is dead and I have another that I love, so I do not want Acestes.”

“Along with Marcus, your father is also dead, and with him any promises he made to you. Perhaps it is time you worried less about love and more about survival.”

“How can you suggest such a thing? Why survive if not for love?”

“Beautiful sentiments,” said Terenita. “But I am a slave, so survival is all that concerns me.”

Phaedra’s face flushed and her throat constricted as unshed tears stung her eyes. She knew that her maid had spoken a version of the truth she did not care to hear. She wanted to believe in love. “Have you never loved someone so much that without them you feel that the dawn may not come?”

“I was born a slave, my lady. I have always known that love was not to be my lot in life. Being purchased by your father to care for you was more than I could have ever hoped for.”

“But you have been in love. Certainly before you came to me there was another slave or servant whom you fancied.”

Terenita’s cheeks reddened. How could Phaedra have never known? How could she have never thought to ask? “There was someone. Tell me who he is—I will purchase him on the morrow and then you might be reunited. At least you should be with the one you love.”

“Do not concern yourself with me, my lady. The man I once cared for has been dead for many, many years.”

“I grieve with you,” said Phaedra. The finality of death, all deaths, weighed upon her. A tear leaked from her eye and snaked down her cheek. She bothered not with stopping it, and it dripped from her chin, falling onto her gown. “You must promise me that you will let me know if ever you find a man whom you might love.”

Terenita’s blush deepened. “I promise.”

“I would have you with a good man.”

“Valens is a good man. He would have worked very hard to make you happy. Yet I fear for you, my lady. What will become of you if you lose the general’s affections?”

That, of course, was the one question that had plagued Phaedra since her father died. “What if Valens wins his final match the day after tomorrow?”

“Is that what this is all about? Marrying your gladiator?” asked Terenita. “If you want to make a choice in who you marry, then choose Acestes. It will still be your choice, even if it is the eventual outcome.”

“I will think on what you say.” The litter stopped in front of the heavy doors to the villa. She imagined that once she stepped across the threshold, coming out again would not be her decision. What else was she to do? Sleep in the litter? Return to her father’s villa, which no doubt belonged to Acestes now? Run to the ludus and beg Valens to overlook everything that had happened?

Although the last option tempted her, she alighted and walked through the doors and told herself that she entered the villa out of strength, not fear. And that what she feared most was not that Valens might never forgive her.