Capaneus goes out into the arena first, and the crowd roars with approval. I shift my weight and loosen, tighten, loosen my grasp on my weapon’s hilt as people chant his name. So he’s a spectator favorite. With experience against left-handers. And a larger shield.
I pull in a deep breath and slowly release it. Spectator favorites usually get missus—mercy—from the munerator if they’re defeated. Their opponents? A blade to the throat, a crowd-pleasing spray of blood on the victor’s greaves, and a ride out of the arena in the bed of a cart.
The gate opens again, and I whisper a prayer just before I jog through the tunnel to join Capaneus on the sand under the blazing sun. My eyes are slow to adjust as I emerge from darkness into the bright afternoon, but they do adjust, and the velarium extending out over the stands to shade the spectators keeps the sun from my eyes.
We face off in the middle of the arena. Weapons poised, we circle each other slowly, and he’s certainly sizing me up like I am him. Eyes are nearly impossible to see through visors, but I can figure him out as a fighter without much trouble. Same height as me. Perhaps a little broader in the shoulders. Keeps his shield high to protect his throat. Vulnerable from just above the greaves to nearly mid-thigh. Light on his feet and subtly closing the distance between us.
He attacks.
Drusus is right. This man knows how to fight a left-handed gladiator, and he’s good. Blow for blow, he matches me, parrying away blade and shield alike, and he narrowly misses my bare torso as many times as I narrowly miss his. Metal hits metal, shield hits shield, sword hits sword, and now and again, iron bites flesh. Blood and sweat mingle. Dust swirls around our feet.
The spectators love it, and before long, they’re cheering as much for my hits as Capaneus’s.
I parry his blade with my shield, and he takes advantage of the momentary exposure to shove the edge of his shield into my ribs. The impact drives the breath out of me and surrounds my vision with white sparks, but I recover enough to fend off his sword before it delivers a strike to my abdomen. I swing my shield, hit his arm, and not only deflect the blow but throw him off balance, then I lunge forward to shove my sword into his upper leg.
The spectators drown out the roar of pain, and when he drops to his knee, the entire crowd is on their feet. I raise my shield to hit his visor and knock him the rest of the way to the ground, but he thrusts up his arm with his index finger extended. I back off, and the umpire steps between us. Thank the gods; another moment or two and my aching arms and legs probably would have cost me the match.
Once the umpire is certain I’ve backed down, all three of us turn toward the munerator. High above us, he stands, holding out his arm with a closed fist, and the amphitheatre trembles with the crowd’s enthusiastic pleas for Capaneus’s life to be spared.
“Missum! Missum! Missum!” they shout. Louder and louder as the munerator’s indecision drags on.
At last, the munerator signals that Capaneus is to be granted missus, and I wonder if the pleased spectators will bring the entire amphitheatre crumbling to the ground around us.
The umpire guides Capaneus to his feet and helps him out of the arena as the spectators chant both Capaneus’s name and mine. I accept my palm branch and purse of coins from the munerator, and slowly make my way back to the tunnel as the spectators continue shouting their approval.
The tunnel shades the blazing sun from my shoulders, and I release a breath as I pull off my heavy helmet.
Immediately, the other men from the ludus start removing my equipment, unfastening the greaves around my legs and untying the leather bands around the manica on my arm. Hasdrubal takes my weapons and passes them on to one of the other men, who’s getting ready for his own match.
Drusus looks me up and down. “Anything broken or bleeding?”
“No.” I shove the helmet into Sikandar’s hands. “Took a few to the ribs, but they’ll heal.”
“Serves you right for letting down your guard.” Drusus arches that damned eyebrow. “Still, well done.” He claps my shoulder. “Fight like that every time, you’ll be a legend.”
I bow my head slightly as I tuck the coin purse into my belt. “Thank you, Dominus.”
He smiles, and I return it, pretending the shiver is just from being in the shade after enduring the sun’s brutal heat.
Drusus quickly pulls his gaze from mine and gestures down the corridor. In a heartbeat, the lanista is back to his sharp tone. “Get some water. Rest a bit.”
“Yes, Dominus.”
The men remove the last of my protective equipment, and I tilt my head a few times to work out the ache from the weight of the helmet. Rolling my shoulders and kneading my exhausted muscles, I leave the tunnel, hoping the masseurs here are half as good as those in Rome.
I’m not even clear of the tunnel, though, before a sharp voice says, “You there. Gladiator.” When I turn, he looks me in the eye; even a slave doesn’t bow to a gladiator. “Come with me.”
I glance back at Drusus, who’s staring intently out at the fight going on in the arena. To the servant, I reply, “Let me get some water first, you fool.”
“The Lady Maximus waits.” He gestures outside. “She will not wait long. This way.”
I try not to groan. I haven’t even put cool water on my tongue yet, and the pain in my ribs makes me disinclined to spend an afternoon feigning passion for a noblewoman whose husband can’t or won’t satisfy her. There are worse things for a gladiator to endure, though, and no gladiator in any familia would turn away money for his lanista.
So I nod, and when the servant turns to go, I follow him. I haven’t seen this servant before, but I haven’t been in Pompeii long enough to know a noblewoman from the faces of her servants.
There are plenty of places within the amphitheatre itself, rooms where a woman and her gladiator of choice can steal away long enough to satisfy her craving, but the slave leads me outside and strides briskly toward the street. Behind me, the stands rumble and people roar over the deafening music, the crowd evidently satisfied by the fight going on now, but the sound fades as we continue away from the Ludi and into the city.
He takes me into a brothel, and it’s one I’ve visited more than once to service other wives. Madam Lucretia lets local women take gladiators into the rooms here for a steep fee, which she splits with Drusus.
The madam peers at us as we step through the curtain-covered doorway. She acknowledges me with a sharp nod, but says nothing.
The servant takes me down a short hall, and stops in front of a closed door. “In here.”
On the other side, a man groans loudly as a woman cries out, and the sounds of movement and friction are unmistakable.
To the servant, I quietly say, “I think someone is already taking care of her.”
“You’ll wait for her,” he snaps. Then he leaves, and I stand in front of the door like a damned fool listening to another man fuck the woman I’m supposed to entertain.
Her cries are as loud and enthusiastic as the whores in the rooms around hers. I suppose it’s just as well another man is having her first; she sounds insatiable, and I’m in no shape to be the first to take on a woman like that.
The pair inside the room fall quiet. Voices murmur and clothing rustles. Then the door opens, and a half-naked Egyptian woman with smeared makeup and a sheen of perspiration on her skin steps out, shutting the door behind her. She throws me a glance, and then brushes past me on her way down the hall. I wait for the man to emerge, but he doesn’t.
The door opens again.
Finally. Now I can get this over with and return to the—
Jupiter’s balls.
Staring back at me from the other side of the threshold inside the lamp-lit room is neither an amorous noblewoman nor a spent gladiator, but a half-clothed Calvus Laurea himself. Sweat glistens on his forehead, and even in the low light, the red lines on his bare chest and arms are clearly visible.
Instinctively, I snap to attention. “Dominus.”