Oblivious to my inner worries, Drusus goes on. “Saevius, I need eyes and ears in my ludus.”
I nearly choke on the wine in my mouth, and barely croak the single word, “Dominus?”
“Like you, I have reasons to distrust someone within my own familia.” He’s speaking softly now, and before I realize it, I’ve leaned closer to hear him better. “I believe there’s someone who has been at work since well before your arrival, so I can be certain it isn’t you.”
I resist the urge to swallow nervously, and thank the gods Drusus cannot hear my pounding heart.
“One of the auctorati is here for more than just paying off a debt,” the lanista says. “I could have all of you killed on suspicion, but if there are messages leaving the ludus, then there’s someone outside it who’s involved. I’m not certain who, only that you’re not involved because the messages began before your arrival, and it’s most likely not Philosir either, since he hasn’t been here long.” He looks me in the eyes. “I’m charging you with finding out who within the familia is working against me.”
I moisten my parched lips. There’s no sense arguing with him. Now that we’ve had this conversation, I have no choice. I know about his suspicions, and therefore he won’t keep me in the ludus if he can’t trust me to keep that information to myself.
So it’s true, Drusus is no fool. Who better for him to ask than the newest member of the familia, who has no reason to be loyal to anyone except the man who put a tag around his neck?
Besides, perhaps, the nobleman who forged his papers, but Drusus does not and cannot know about that.
So I have no choice.
“All right.” I barely force more than a whisper past my lips. “I’ll watch and listen.”
“Good.” He picks up the wine jug. “More wine, Saevius?”
“Please.” I hold out my nearly empty cup. “And thank you.”
Drusus fills his wine and my own, and we drink in silence.
“May I ask something?” I say quietly after a while. “With respect, out of curiosity.”
Drusus nods.
“Were you a gladiator before you were a lanista?”
He doesn’t answer right away, instead looking into his wine cup and swirling it slowly, as if the answer to my question lies in the amber liquid. And while his wine and my question apparently fascinate him, his slender fingers around the cup fascinate me. As does everything about him, if I’m honest with myself. Fingers. Eyes. The way his lips purse just slightly while he mulls over my question.
I’m going mad. I truly am.
Finally, he says, “Do you respect me, gladiator?”
Not the answer I expected. “Yes, of course I do. As do all the men in the familia.”
He sits back. “Then does it matter if I’ve been a gladiator myself?” He raises his cup and makes a sweeping gesture with it before he brings it to his lips. “If my men respect me, and their opponents respect them as they rightly should, then I’ve succeeded as a lanista, have I not?”
“Of course.”
“And to the successful lanista,” he says, waving his hand, “comes money. Which is why I’m here.”
“I see.”
His gaze falters from mine. “Why do you ask?”
I’m silent for a moment, carefully choosing my words. “I’m only curious, I suppose, why a man would choose a life like this one.”
This time, it’s Drusus who is silent. He takes a sip from his cup, and his eyes are focused elsewhere so he doesn’t notice that I’m suddenly intrigued by his mouth as he rolls the wine around on his tongue.
Gods, Saevius. What’s the matter with you?
Drusus swallows his wine, and only then does he look at me again. “How long have you been a gladiator, Saevius?”
“Many years.” I pause, quickly adding, “Debts. My father’s debts have forced me to volunteer as an auctoratus ever since I was of age.”
“So you’ve only lived the life of a gladiator.” He sets his wine on the table beside him. His gaze is distant, almost haunted, as is his voice when he says, “I assure you, there are worse existences than one within a ludus or an arena.”
So now I am the eyes and ears of a lanista, and the eyes and ears of a politician and scorned husband.
Watching.Listening. Waiting. Even as I spar and train, I watch and listen, and I wait. It’s only a matter of time, after all, before Verina and her lover show themselves. Women, especially the wives of the wealthy and influential, surreptitiously come and go from the ludus, usually under the cover of darkness. Sometimes servants come, pay Drusus a handsome sum, and take one of us to a house or a villa elsewhere in the city. More often than not, a discreet room in a brothel. Nothing unusual there; women in Rome do the same thing. Especially after we’ve fought or trained, when we’re still battered, sweaty, and bloody. I’ve heard some of the lanistae make more money off us after the games than they do during. With the upcoming Ludi Appollinares, we’re probably conditioning as much for the women as we are for our fights.
Names are rarely spoken, but the men who’ve been in Pompeii awhile know one woman from the next. The wife of a local magistrate and her obsession with Carthaginian men and the odd Phoenician. The daughter of a respected senator and her penchant for the biggest, most dangerous brutes in the familia. A pair of wealthy vintner’s wives who are forever calling on men to be shared between them for a night.
Most of their husbands probably turn a blind eye. We’re slaves, after all, not freedmen or citizens, affairs with whom would be dangerously scandalous. But everyone is discreet nonetheless; the wives likely don’t speak of it and, outside the ludus, neither do we. Who would we tell? Only the auctorati ever leave the ludus alone, and when we do, we all know full well that bringing scandal upon the familia would result in great unpleasantness from our lanista.
Within the walls of the ludus, however, the men gossip like women about their encounters with the wives of Pompeii’s nobility, exaggerating details like soldiers telling war stories. They’ll even brag about a particular wife’s young child who looks nothing like her powerful, influential husband.
“Now that I’ve been with the Lady Aurelius,” Hasdrubal says, grinning broadly, “her husband will be lucky if she ever stays awake while he fucks her.”
“Lucky bastard,” someone mutters one night when a young novice is summoned. “The Lady Antonia is a right whore. She’ll leave him bloodier than the arena ever could.”
“Don’t know who she is,” another says after staggering back into the ludus shortly before dawn, “but that woman’s husband is a fool if he’s not bedding her every damned night.”
I’ve been sent to plenty of beds myself. Usually to a seedy brothel in the worst parts of the city. Places no one would ever come looking for a nobleman’s wife. Since I haven’t yet fought publicly in Pompeii, I’m rarely requested by name unless it’s a woman I’ve visited before, but that could change after the Ludi Appollinares.
And still, in between all the training and the visits to brothels to service the wives of Pompeii’s nobility, no one in the ludus breathes a word about the Lady Verina of Laurea.
Perhaps Calvus is mistaken. Maybe his wife is the only woman in Pompeii who hasn’t bedded a gladiator. Not one from this ludus, anyway.
Calvus has to know something. He’s not stupid. If he’s gone to the trouble of forging documents and sending in a slave—perhaps more than one?—he knows something. And if he’s this concerned, then her lover is likely not one of us. I can’t imagine a Roman man being surprised, let alone this enraged, over a tryst with a slave. One of the trainers, then? A medicus? Drusus himself? It could be anyone.
I haven’t been here long, though. The men probably don’t yet trust me enough for the most scandalous gossip, and there’s still plenty of time for the Lady Laurea to make herself—and her lover—known. I only hope Calvus can be patient while the men around me slowly lower their guard.