“Promise me, Fallon,” she demanded.
Either living in this treacherous place had unhinged her, I thought, or there was something she wasn’t telling me. Either way, it seemed as if my brave sister had been reduced to jumping at shadows.
“All right,” I said. “Fine. I promise.”
My gaze drifted over to Cleopatra. Sorcha didn’t seem to mind the Aegyptian queen knowing who I was. But Cleopatra smiled at me, gently this time.
“The Lanista and I are old friends,” she said. “And dear. I keep her secrets as she keeps mine. Do not fear me, Fallon.”
I nodded. For some reason, I trusted her.
“Understand this,” Sorcha said. “You’ll get no special treatment from me either. You will train, and you will fight. You will be rewarded or punished commensurate with your actions. Eventually, you will enter the arena, and, the goddess willing, you will not die there.”
“The will of the goddess won’t be the one keeping me alive,” I said. “I’m not target practice anymore, Sorcha.”
Something flitted through her gaze then—a fleeting emotion that I imagined might have been a touch of pride. She blinked and turned away.
“Tomorrow,” she continued, “you will go with the other new girls to the blacksmith down at the stables. He will remove your slave collars. You’ll still be the property of Caesar, but at least you won’t have to look like it.”
The very thought of ridding myself of the horrible thing made my heart lurch. But then it sank again. I wasn’t free. I was still a slave in this place, and I wasn’t about to forget that.
I wasn’t about to let Sorcha—my sister, my owner—forget it either.
XX
IF THALESTRIS, with her spear, hadn’t been watching me like a hawk as I headed back toward the ludus gates, I might have made a break for freedom. In the wake of the oath taking, and coming face to face with Sorcha, I was a roil of emotions. The lake’s beach, stretching out in a gentle curve to the north, beckoned. I could run. I could even swim. But to what? To where? And to whom?
Even if I could forgive my father—and as the days and days had taken me ever farther away from him, I started to think that maybe I already had—I wasn’t foolish enough to think that I could make it all the way back to the Island of the Mighty on my own, without even the swords my sister had gifted me.
And then there was my sister herself.
Try as I might, I couldn’t just leave this place that Sorcha seemed to have made her own. Not before I truly understood what had made her choose this life over the one she’d once shared with me. Now it seemed I shared my life with her—and with the other girls and women of the Ludus Achillea.
I’d spoken an oath to it.
And, if Sorcha was to be believed, I was the reason their freedom was in jeopardy.
I turned and retraced my steps back up the strand and through the gates into the compound. Halfway back to my cell, I was surprised to discover that I wasn’t the only one wandering the ludus grounds that night.
“Good evening, Decurion Varro.”
Cai didn’t exactly jump out of his skin at the sound of my voice, but he spun around smartly. I thought for a moment that I might have heard the rattle of his sword in its sheath—a soldier’s training—but then he saw it was only me. Unarmed, for once.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
His shadow merged with mine on the path as he said, “It’s Cai, remember?”
Cai. I tested it out in my head. For the first time, it seemed to suit him. Probably because there was nothing of the Decurion about him in that moment. He’d shed the dress armor he’d worn for the ceremony and was dressed simply in a tunic and toga. His head was bare of helmet, and there were matching silver cuffs circling his wrists instead of bronze arm guards. The legionnaire’s uprightness was gone from his stance, and he moved with a kind of easy grace. But, I noticed with a smile, he still wore a sword strapped to his waist.
“What are you doing out in the darkness alone?” he asked.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered truthfully.
He studied my face for a moment. Then he offered me an elbow. “In that case, will you honor me with your company, fair gladiatrix?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.
I hesitated. That’s really what I was now: a gladiatrix. For a moment, it felt as if the collar around my neck were growing tighter, choking me.
“Fallon?” Cai looked at me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
I took a deep breath as I slipped my hand into the crook of his arm. If the world insisted that I was now a gladiatrix, worthy of Roman attention that went beyond mere curiosity, then I would play the part.
Cai wrapped his hand over mine, and his fingers were warm and strong as we walked in the gardens that stretched between the ludus compound and the high, thick walls that surrounded it. I would catch proper hell if any of the guards found me alone in the night with a man. But right now, I didn’t care. I could feel the tension leave my shoulders and arms the longer we walked in silence. Cai’s presence was a steady, calming one.
“I didn’t think to see you tonight at the oath swearing,” I said finally.
He shrugged. “I was simply here in my official capacity.”
“And that is?”
He smiled tightly. “As Caesar’s errand boy, of course.”
“You’re hardly an errand boy.”
“Oh, yes I am,” he said. “My father saw to it that I would find myself in a position that was both useful to him and, to his way of thinking, useful to me.”
“And have you found it useful?” I asked.
“I serve.” He shrugged again. “As far as useful . . . well, occasions such as this afford me the opportunity to brush elbows with my patrician betters, even if it means I have to stomach the company of the likes of Pontius Aquila for the evening.”
“The Tribune of the Plebs?” I asked. “The one people call the Collector?”
“Not to his face.” Cai grimaced.
“He and Caesar don’t seem overly fond of each other.”
Cai laughed softly. “You have a gift for understatement, Fallon. The Tribune is here tonight at Caesar’s invitation—an invitation he could hardly refuse—and it’s positively killing him to have to stand there making polite conversation all night. Which, I think, was Caesar’s intention. That and to flaunt his newest acquisitions.”
“Like Elka and me. Aquila tried to buy us,” I said, remembering. “That day in the Forum.”
Cai nodded, thoughtful. “Until the Lady Achillea swooped in with her sizable purse, yes. He has an insatiable thirst for the games, and his stables of fighters are almost as impressive as Caesar’s. Aquila is far from rich, but politically, at least, he’s a power to be reckoned with. Personally, I find the man—and his appetite for death in the arena—repugnant. But I’m required to be cordial because my father is an investor in several of Aquila’s ludi. One of which is the House Amazona.”
“The other gladiatrix school?”
“The same.”
“Our rival, then. But that means your father holds interests in direct competition with Caesar’s.” I looked up at him. “Isn’t that a conflict of loyalties for you?”
“I’m an officer in the Roman legion, Fallon,” he snorted. “And the son of a senator. It makes me impervious to moral conundrums.”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. It was irritating, the way the Roman mind seemed to work. And the Roman mouth. Cai, as far as I could tell, could say one thing and mean another entirely, and he didn’t seem to find anything inherently confusing in that.
“But I will say this,” Cai continued, oblivious to my frustration. “If it hadn’t been for Pontius Aquila, I might never have met you. It was at his request that I was in Massilia t
o escort Charon’s galley. And barring that one moment when you tried to stab me, I found the experience . . . gratifying.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Gratifying?”
He smiled. “Extremely.”
I’d found that Latin could sometimes be tricky when it came to the exact meanings of words. But there was no mistaking the tone of Cai’s voice, nor the look in his eyes. I felt heat rising in my face. He found me attractive—that much was plain—but something had changed in his gaze since the first time he’d looked at me on the legion ship after the pirate attack.
“I’ve found myself wondering about the place you come from,” he continued. “About your tribe. I wonder, do they all fight like you do? Are the men as fierce as the women?”
“Is that a polite way of asking if the women of my tribe fight naked?” I asked.
I’d meant only to tease him, but his eyes went a bit wide, and I wondered if I had been far too bold. I had forgotten myself and spoken not like a slave but like his equal. Like the daughter of a king. Remembering Sorcha’s warning not to reveal my real station, I bit my tongue to keep from mentioning it again.
Cai didn’t seem to notice. “Why don’t we just leave my thirst for knowledge unslaked for the time being?” He grinned at last. “The air tonight is too cold for such a contest anyway.”
For a moment, we just stood there, looking at each other. It was the first time we’d shared a joke that wasn’t bitter or barbed. Cai’s grin widened to a smile and he gestured to a stone garden bench that stood just off the path. I followed and Cai sat down beside me, drifting into silence again. The smile faded on his lips as something else clearly occupied his thoughts.
“Fallon, I’ve been thinking,” he said finally, turning to meet my gaze. “I’ve watched dozens of men and women speak the oath you swore tonight. And I’ve seen just as many fulfill that oath on the arena sands. I never thought anything of it, but tonight it was different.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it was you.”
“I must have said the words wrong.” I laughed, suddenly feeling a little nervous.
Instead of laughing with me, Cai leaned forward, his face pale and earnest in the moonlight. “No,” he said. “In fact, the way you said it, it was the truest I ever heard those words ring. And I realized that I don’t want to see you burned or bound or beaten . . . or killed by the sword.”
I laughed again. This was definitely not the turn I’d expected the conversation to take. Surely we were still joking? I was surprised to see that his expression remained serious.
“Listen,” he said. “My father is one of the wealthiest men in Rome. I can go to Caesar—he owes me at least one favor for my years of service to him—and I can offer to buy your contract. I could—”
“What? No!”
I sprang to my feet and stared down at him.
“You would dishonor me?” I said angrily.
“Dishonor you?” He blinked at me. “Fallon—”
“I will not be bought and sold like livestock, Caius Varro! Not again. Certainly not by you.”
Cai’s mouth dropped open, then closed and slowly hardened into a line. “You know the life you have committed yourself to often ends in death,” he said.
“All life does.”
“I would not have you die at all if I could help it, Fallon.” He stood and moved to take my hand, but I crossed my arms tightly in front of me and took a step back. “But since I don’t have the powers of the gods, I would beg this favor of them: I would not have you die any day soon.”
“Your faith in my abilities as a warrior is nothing short of staggering,” I snapped.
“You’re not the only girl in the arena who can swing a blade!” he snapped back.
I’d almost begun to think that Cai was different—that there was even a chance that he believed in me. But suddenly, it felt just like being a little girl again, listening to Sorcha tell me that I would be target practice for every warrior I met on the battlefield. It felt like when my father denied me a place in his royal war band because he feared that he might lose me, that I couldn’t hold my own on the battlefield. Sometimes I wondered if even Mael had simply thought me more reckless than brave.
“I thought you said you admired my spirit,” I said. “I thought I reminded you of Spartacus.”
“I did.” His voice softened as he took me gently by the shoulders. “You do. Fallon, Spartacus is dead because he decided he wanted to live free, and he had to rebel against the might of the whole empire to do it. And yes, he has my admiration, but it does him precious little good in his present state. I only want to keep you away from the arena so that you can avoid a similar fate.”
I shook my head. “You just heard me swear an oath, and with my next breath, you would have me break it. I am a daughter of the house of Cantii.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means I don’t break promises—even ones I wouldn’t have made, given a choice—and I will not break this one. Not even for you, Caius Varro.”
Cai’s eyes flashed.
“Not even for me?” he asked, tilting his head. “Does that mean I’m something to be taken into consideration in your decision making, Fallon?”
I wished I could take the words back. I wasn’t even sure what I had meant.
“Do not flatter yourself, Decurion,” I muttered, turning away from his gaze and shrugging free of his grasp.
Silence stretched out between us, and it became increasingly difficult to hang on to my indignation. Especially when I heard him let out a low, throaty chuckle. I looked back to see him grinning at me.
“You think about me,” he said.
He took me again by the shoulders, drawing me toward him. I could feel the heat coming off his skin. In the cool night, I wanted to take that warmth and wrap it around me like a blanket. I wanted him wrapped around me. I knew I shouldn’t. If anyone caught us together, I would most likely be flogged, and Cai would be shamed. But he didn’t seem to care in that moment. He moved closer to me, and the cloak I wore fell back away from my shoulders, as Cai’s hands lightly moved up my arms, over my shoulders and down my back to my waist, tracing my body through the thin material of my tunic. I shivered, and he looked down at me.
“You’re freezing,” he said, stepping back to tug the edges of the heavy wool cloak back over my shoulders.
But I wasn’t freezing. I burned. Everywhere his hands had touched me, the skin was seared as surely as if I had been branded there.
He lifted a hand to my cheek, and I felt the rough calluses there, left behind by the countless hours his fingers had spent wrapped around the hilt of a sword. But when he bent his head beside mine, his breath teasing my neck just below my ear, and he murmured my name . . . I froze. I couldn’t see Cai’s face. Instead, all I could hear in my mind was another whispering voice.
Mael’s.
“What’s wrong?” Cai whispered, sensing my sudden reluctance.
I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut.
“You’re a senator’s son, and I . . .”
“What?”
“I am infamia.” I opened my eyes and looked up into his face. I might as well embrace the cold truth of the night. “Even if the ludus wouldn’t punish me for being here, with you, if they found us together . . . the oath I swore tonight marks me as sure as a brand on my skin.”
His gaze darkened. “You think I care about that?”
“You should.”
“Fallon—”
“I should return to my quarters now, Decurion. You’ll excuse me.”
I turned and walked—ran, really—away from him before I betrayed myself any further. My heart pounded in my chest, and my throat ached with unshed tears. Even though I’d heard Mael’s voice, plain as day, in my head, I’d also realized, for the first time, that I could no
longer picture his face.
I couldn’t remember what he looked like.
The image of him had been slowly fading over time, and I’d let it slip away. To be replaced by the face of another—of our enemy. What kind of a monster was I? Tears seeped through my lashes and ran down my cheeks, burning with shame.
• • •
As I made my way back to the barracks, taking a shortcut between the baths and the cooks’ quarters, I heard sounds—voices coming from around the corner of the grain shed. It seemed that Cai and I weren’t the only ones indulging in midnight strolls. I stopped and held my breath, wiping the wetness from my cheeks. The ludus guards may not have caught me in an embrace with a legion officer, but I still didn’t exactly want to have to explain any weepy midnight wanderings to them. All I wanted was to get back to my cell and collapse on my pallet.
But the voices continued.
“Does he know she’s here?” asked a female voice. “Within barely a half-day’s ride of him?”
A man laughed in reply, an ugly sound.
“You mean Mandobracius?” he said. I recognized the voice and froze—it was Pontius Aquila. The Collector.
“Is that what he’s calling himself now?” the woman asked.
“One of his fellow barbarians coined that gem after he won his last bout—they all speak Latin like they’re chewing on shoe leather—and it seems to have stuck.”
Mandobracius? I puzzled through the mangled Latin to arrive at something like “Devouring Arms.” A gladiator, I gathered, from the mention of a bout. I wondered if those gathered elites ever talked of anything else.
“No,” Aquila continued. “No, I haven’t told him yet. That sort of information could prove priceless when it comes time to bending that wretched barbarian to my will. He’s damned lucky things turned out the way they did—no thanks to his incompetence.”
“It’s uncanny,” the woman said.
“It’s fate. That girl will be mine. The gods have willed it so.” His voice turned suddenly low and threatening. “In the meantime, you’ll not breathe a word of it to Mandobracius—or to anyone else. Do I make myself clear?”