The Defiant

  “Would you honor me with a dance, Victrix?” he asked.

  I stood there, speechless, drinking in the unexpected sight of him. Every line and angle, the planes of his face beneath the brim of his helmet, and the contours of his body beneath his armor. He was sun-browned and leaner than I remembered, with a week’s worth of stubble on his jaw and dust on his arms and legs. He was glorious.

  Cai handed his horse’s reins to a fellow legionnaire, who nodded sharply and led his horse, and that of another soldier who accompanied him, toward the stables. The other soldier walked up beside Cai and stood, fists on his hips, gazing after Elka as she walked away, tossing her long pale braids over her shoulder. For a moment, I thought the young man’s head might actually twist off its stalk as he craned his neck to keep her in view.

  “This is Quintus,” Cai said. “My second.”

  When Quintus the second didn’t seem to have heard his introduction, Cai rapped on the young man’s helmet with his knuckles.

  “Hm?” Quintus turned around, his expression a bit dazzled.

  “Quint?” Cai regarded him from under a raised eyebrow.

  “I am. Yes.” He turned and offered me a perfunctory nod. “But more to the point . . . who was that divine nymph?”

  I almost choked on the laugh that burst out of my mouth. Quintus the second was lucky Elka was far enough away not to have heard him, I thought. Nymph? If there was any mythological creature Elka saw herself as, I was fairly certain that “nymph” was as far away from it as one could get and not fall off the edge of the world.

  Cai cleared his throat, and Quintus seemed to realize he was slack-jawed and gawking. He straightened up and snapped to semi-attention. “Sir,” he appended belatedly.

  Cai shook his head and grinned. “Quint, this is Fallon.”

  “Oh, I knew that.” He nodded at me. “I could have picked you out of a crowd at fifty paces, what with the way Cai here’s gone on about y—” Cai elbowed him in the ribs, sharply enough that Quintus must have felt it through the shirt of ring mail he wore, and his jaw snapped shut. “What I mean is,” he continued after a moment, “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Your reputation in the arena precedes you, Victrix.”

  I would have responded, but his attention had drifted right back after Elka, so I turned to Cai instead. “Your father was here visiting only a week ago,” I said. “He never mentioned you were coming home.”

  Cai shook his head. “He didn’t know at the time. It’s not exactly a scheduled return.” I frowned at him in confusion, but he handily shifted the subject, saying, “How about that dance? I’m saddle-weary and could use the exercise to loosen up my muscles.”

  He gestured me over to the practice pitch and reached up to unfasten the crimson cloak that hung from his shoulders. It was then that I noticed Cai wore not one gladius but two. His sword belt bore a sheath on both hips. Dimachaerus—fighting with two swords at the same time, one in each hand—was definitely not standard fighting procedure in the legions. But it was the way I had chosen to fight in the arena.

  I raised an eyebrow at Cai, but he just grinned.

  The very first time he and I had sparred it had been with single blades—wooden ones—and he’d offered me the use of a shield. I’d foolishly declined, given him the advantage, and he’d trounced my sorry carcass soundly all over the pitch . . . right up until the moment when a last, lucky blow had given me the win. And him, a broken rib. This time, I would be the one starting out with the advantage—double swords were, after all, my chosen weapons—but I had no illusions that would necessarily mean I’d win again.

  Just as Cai—with his advantage—hadn’t, that first time.

  At the first moment of engagement, I could tell Cai wasn’t about to pull any of his blows or go easy on me.

  Good.

  Because neither would I.

  He was a seasoned soldier, trained and hardened in actual battle. And he was very skilled. As the sun climbed higher into the sky, the sweat was running into my eyes, blurring my vision as we chased each other back and forth across the practice pitch. The scarlet plume of Cai’s helmet crest tossed like the mane of a stallion as he came toward me, aiming alternating blows at my head and hips, side to side in a familiar sequence that I suspected he must have learned from watching me practice. Which meant I could counter his moves almost without thinking . . .

  Until I couldn’t.

  I heard myself shout in surprise as Cai suddenly broke the pattern and ducked low, bringing both his blades up in a sweeping right-side attack that screeched along the length of my frantically blocking blades. He let the momentum of that carry him around in a full circle and came at me again, slashing straight across with a single blade from the left. I felt the wind of the weapon’s passage on my skin at the near miss and backed off a step, tracking the angle of his shoulders to anticipate the next blow. Both swords again this time—circling overhead. I crossed my blades high in front of me and braced for the blow. When it came, I felt it all the way down into the soles of my feet, and sparks flew from the edges of our clashing weapons.

  Every muscle in my body strained to keep those swords at bay.

  I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the sting of sweat from my eyes, and looked up into Cai’s smiling face.

  “I’ve been practicing,” he said.

  “I noticed.” I grinned back at him through clenched teeth.

  “How’s my form?”

  “Very nice,” I said.

  Then I shifted forward and tipped my top guard on a sharp angle—a dimachaerus-specific move I’d worked hard on perfecting. Cai’s blades slid past my shoulder as he lost his balance, falling toward me. He caught himself a moment too late and found the tips of my blades resting in the hollow at the base of his throat.

  I leaned in close and whispered, “But your technique needs work.”

  Cai laughed and said, “Then I’ve come to the right place.”

  He held his blades out to the side, dangling from his fingertips, in a gesture of surrender. I stepped back and crossed my swords in front to me in salute, smiling, sweaty, ridiculously happy. Cai sheathed his blades in the double-scabbard belt he wore around his waist and reached up to lift his helmet off his head. I looked around to see that we were alone in the courtyard. The sun was high overhead, and it seemed everyone else had wandered indoors, out of the heat, and left us to our sparring. Cai scrubbed a palm over his sweat-damp legion-short hair.

  “The dimachaerus style is a challenge, I admit,” he said. “But I wanted to be able to spar with you the way you like to fight, Fallon. As you say, I need work. But I was hoping you might find the time—”

  That was as far as he got before I lunged at him, reaching up to pull his head down toward me, and silencing him with the kiss I’d been waiting on for months. And months . . .

  From his reaction, it seemed he’d been waiting on it too. I felt a rumbling in his chest that was almost a growl, and his mouth opened hungrily on mine. His arms wrapped around me and he lifted me off the ground. He smelled of horse and iron and leather and he tasted of salt and sunshine.

  “Never seen anyone fight with their lips like that,” Elka called out as she passed through one archway and out another, in a perfect example of terrible timing.

  I groaned. It seemed we’d have to wait a bit longer to make up for all those months apart. Cai put me back down on my feet, and I reluctantly disentangled myself from his embrace. As I turned to glare daggers in Elka’s direction, I saw Cai’s friend, Quintus, following in her wake, just far enough behind that Elka hadn’t yet noticed him.

  I shook my head in amusement.

  “He’s an ass.” Cai sighed, watching him go. “But he’s a loyal ass. And a good soldier.”

  “Elka will take him apart, you know,” I said.

  Cai grinned wickedly. “Piece by piece. That should keep the
two of them occupied for a while and give us some time alone.” Then he looked at me wordlessly, his mouth opening and closing, as if he was suddenly uncertain what to say. “I’ve missed you, Fallon . . .”

  I started to tell him I’d missed him too—so very much—but then Kronos, the fight master, appeared at the far end of the pitch to shout my name. I’d forgotten that I was on weapons-check duty that day. In truth, I’d forgotten everything except for Cai standing in front of me. But there was an entire shed full of swords and shields that needed inspection, checking for loosened tangs and dulled edges and fraying leather strapping. It would take me the better part of the afternoon.

  “Go,” Cai said with a rueful smile. “I need to deliver Caesar’s deed to the Lanista, anyway.”

  “You mean—”

  “That’s the official reason I’m here,” he said. “And one of the most pleasant duties I’ve been privileged to perform as Caesar’s errand boy.”

  “Cai, that’s . . . that’s wonderful!”

  I held myself back from hugging him again, because there were others now drifting back onto the pitch from the dining hall. I could sense one of the Ludus Amazona guards staring at us from behind his helmet grate, and the last thing I needed was to cause a scene and start rumors about lax discipline and loose morals at the Achillea school. Sorcha would have my hide—especially now that the ludus was about to become finally, fully hers. And hers alone.

  I stepped back, politely inclining my head and letting my hair fall forward so I could smile at Cai without anyone else taking note. “I’ll see you at the evening meal then, decurion?”

  “And after,” Cai murmured. “I hope.”

  IV

  IT’S POSSIBLE I might have taken a bit longer than usual dressing for dinner that evening. Normally, I wouldn’t trouble myself much beyond washing my face and hands and making sure whatever tunic I was wearing wasn’t torn or stained too badly. Which was probably why Ajani glanced at me sideways when I arrived at the mess hall with my hair combed out and wearing a fresh, fine wool tunic bordered in a blue wave pattern and belted with my good leather cincher.

  “I wouldn’t have thought the Amazona girls warranted such finery,” she said as I sat down beside her with a platter of cheese and meat.

  “They don’t,” Elka chimed in, reaching across the table to pilfer a bunch of grapes off Ajani’s plate. “He does.”

  She nodded in the direction of Cai and his soldier companions, who’d just stepped through the door at the other end of the hall. It was with a degree of extravagant casualness that Cai threaded his way through the rows of long tables with his platter and mug, Quint and the legionnaire whose name, I’d learned, was Tullius following him.

  “May we join you, ladies?” Cai asked the table at large.

  I murmured assent with my eyes on my plate as the others nodded and laughed, shifting down the bench to make room for them. Cai sat across from me, beside Elka, and I had to force myself to concentrate on eating and not distractedly stabbing my hand instead of my food, as I felt his gaze warming my skin. The girls crowded in, eagerly asking Cai and his companions all sorts of questions about the campaign and Hispania.

  “I hear the girls there are beautiful,” Elka said, nudging my shin under the table and smirking.

  “They are as nothing compared to you divine nymphs,” Quint enthused and then went on to wax poetic until Gratia lobbed a hard roll at his head and informed him that she was from Hispania.

  As the girls hooted with laughter, I leaned in toward Cai. “In all seriousness,” I said, “what in the world are you doing here if Caesar’s legions are still on campaign? And before you say ‘Caesar’s errand boy’ again, don’t. I’m sure he has couriers aplenty.”

  Cai hesitated, but Quint joined in our conversation, adding, “And it wasn’t as if you were in the consul’s tent for the whole of a dinner hour begging on bended knee for the job, after all.”

  I regarded him warily. “You didn’t beg.”

  Cai rolled an eye at his friend. “Pleaded a little,” he said. “Maybe. But I stayed standing the whole time, I assure you.”

  Quint laughed and reached for a slab of thick bread and slathered it with honey, saying, “And then, when Caesar agreed—just to spare his dignity, I’m sure—my good friend Caius did me the unkindness of dragging me along for the ride.”

  “Unkindness?” I asked.

  “Tall, blonde, leggy unkindness,” he sighed and stuffed the bread into his mouth, gazing off where Elka had gone to fill her plate for the second time. “She won’t even look my way,” he complained through his chewing.

  “Try throwing something heavy at her head,” I suggested. “That usually gets her attention.”

  Quint considered that a for moment. Then he tossed the rest of the bread onto his platter and stood, picking up a stout clay mug half-full of beer. “Worth a go,” he muttered as he downed the rest of the beer, hitched up his sword belt, and strode determinedly in her direction.

  I blinked and turned my attention back to Cai.

  “It’s getting late in the day for traveling,” I said, trying not to sound too hopeful.

  “And accommodations around here are scarce, I know. Quint and Tully and I are lodging in the stables tonight.” He grinned ruefully. “I almost suggested we could double up in a select few of the gladiatrix barracks, but it seems your Lanista is still a strict arbiter of your virtue and—”

  It was a particularly opportune moment for Sorcha to pass by. Cai cleared his throat loudly as she shot him a death glare.

  “—and rightly so,” he continued with a stern frown.

  She rolled her eyes, gave me a pointed glance, and continued on her way.

  “Will you be staying here for a few days, at least?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “We leave with first light in the morning.”

  I felt my heart sink.

  “My father is anxious to have me back,” Cai explained, shrugging helplessly. “Once he found out I was headed here, he sent word to me on the road. And, well, he can be quite . . . insistent.”

  “Of course,” I said, biting down on my disappointment.

  “He’s due to leave for Brundisium on the eastern coast in a week,” Cai said. “From there, he takes a ship to Greece as part of a key trade delegation. It’s why he’s so adamant about seeing me. He’ll be gone for several months. Otherwise, I would—”

  “It’s all right,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t have to explain. I know how much he’s missed you . . .”

  “He’s not the only one, I hope.”

  The look on Cai’s face in that moment made me want to crawl over the table to get to him. The noise of the dining hall drifted into a muffled background murmur, and I let myself drown for a moment in the warmth of his gaze. I didn’t even notice that our hands had reached across the table, fingertips touching, until I sensed we were being stared at.

  I’m not even sure what it was that made me look away from Cai, but in the constant motion of the crowded hall, there was a dark stillness that drew my attention. I glanced up to see one of the Amazona guards standing near a pillar, the blackness of his armor and uniform like an ink stain on white wool, and his eyes focused on me and Cai—on our reaching hands—like a falcon spying a field mouse.

  I pulled my hand away, simmering with frustration. Cai would be gone in the morning, and there was nothing I could do about it in the meantime. Even the sound of crockery shattering and Elka’s voice rising above all the others as she let lose a string of invective in her native tongue from somewhere on the other side of the hall couldn’t distract me from the ache in my chest as Cai and Tully rose to go collect their companion and rescue him from a gladiatrix’s ire.

  • • •

  Later that night, there was a knock on my door. So quiet I almost didn’t hear it.

  Then it came
again. And the soft whisper of my name.

  I opened the door to see Cai standing there, grinning. He put a finger to my lips and, plucking my cloak from the peg on the back of my door, whispered, “Bring the light.”

  The glow from my oath lamp carved Cai’s face into stark planes and sleek curves, and the flame danced, reflected in his eyes, sparking off the flecks of gold suspended in his clear hazel gaze. He led me by the hand out into the formal gardens of the ludus, down a winding path that led to a grove surrounding a little hidden clearing with a stone bench. There was a small clay amphora of wine and two glass goblets waiting for us on the bench, along with a platter of cheese and grapes.

  “What about the ludus guards?” I said, glancing around as if they were lurking in the shadows beneath the trees at that very moment. “We still have rules, you know.”

  “Oh, aye . . .” Cai tugged me forward. “But what the guards don’t know won’t hurt them.”

  A thrill of excitement shivered up my spine. It occurred to me that I really wasn’t used to having fun. Swinging swords day after day held its own kind of satisfaction, but it wasn’t exactly what I would have called a good time.

  “What if they come this way?” I asked, feeling a flush in my cheeks.

  “They won’t,” he said. “They’re a bit busy at the moment.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Losing their week’s wages to Quint at dice.” Cai laughed at my expression. “Never gamble with a Corsican. Especially one as devious as him.”

  “I have a feeling he’s not the truly devious one. You put him up to this?”

  “I asked a favor. Now come here. Let’s not waste it.”