Chapter 9
Aemil regarded me in amazement then resumed his glare. “What do you mean who truly killed him? Xerxes died because he wasn’t paying attention. His arrogance finally got the better of him.”
“No.” I leaned more heavily on my fists, my heart pounding. “He never would have let Perseus get in that blow. Perseus was a middling fighter, who shouldn’t have been paired against him anyway.”
“I know.” Aemil shouted the words at me then threw down his stylus and slumped back on his stool.
“I know. It was supposed to be a comic bout. Xerxes chasing Perseus everywhere, stepping on him when he went down, winning but letting him live. The next thing I knew, Perseus’s gladius was in Xerxes’s stomach, and Xerxes was bleeding, dying …
” Aemil covered his face with a shaking hand.
I did not relent. “Why didn’t you stop the match when you saw Perseus was gaining ground? Why didn’t the referees? And why did you not have me in there against Xerxes if you wanted the round to be funny?”
Aemil slid his hand down, some of his sorrow fleeing. “Because you have no sense of humor, Leonidas. None that you’ve exhibited, anyway. Xerxes was a showman. He knew how to play the audience. Everyone in the arena was stunned when he died, no one more than I.”
No, I’d been far more gutted than Aemil, unable to move once I’d left the Circus Gai that afternoon. I’d lain on my bunk in my cell for days, staring up at the crude drawings Xerxes had left there as a joke. Except for relieving myself, I’d remained in that cell until Aemil’s threat to sell me.
I’d lived by rote for months afterward—training, eating, sleeping—and feeling nothing.
“Who would have known about this fight?” I asked. “That you put them together as a farce, I mean.”
Aemil shrugged. “Everyone. It wasn’t a secret.”
I leaned closer, old anger burning. “Someone got at Perseus. Told him exactly how to murder Xerxes.”
Aemil shook his head. “Couldn’t be. Perseus wasn’t skilled enough. No, that blow was pure chance, because Xerxes wasn’t paying attention.”
“Xerxes always paid attention,” I said stubbornly. “Even when he was playing the fool. Especially then.”
“Well, he wasn’t at that moment. He looked away, distracted, maybe. Perseus saw his chance and darted in.”
Landing the killing blow. The practum est—a practiced thrust, a perfect kill.
“What distracted him?”
Aemil slammed both fists to the table, making his tablets dance.
“I don’t know, Leonidas. It was a long time ago.
I had twenty bouts to put together, twenty pairs of gladiators to keep track of and out of trouble, including you.
You’re still confounding me, and you don’t even live here.
Won’t do me the courtesy of assisting me—you only pelt me with bothersome questions. ”
He trailed off into mutters, pulling the tablets that had slid halfway across the table back to him.
I continued to scowl at Aemil, but he bent over the figures again, pretending to ignore me.
I knew I’d get nothing more out of him, so I turned and stepped quietly from the cubicle.
The afternoon was waning into evening, but I moved down the line of cells toward the room where Marcianus doctored hurt gladiators.
He wasn’t there. This late, he’d more likely be at home, but sometimes, he’d return to the ludus if there were injured gladiators who needed extra tending. Apparently, everyone was well tonight.
I was too unsettled to return to our apartment and eat stew and bread alone. After standing motionlessly in the arcade for a few moments, I decided to seek Marcianus on the Aventine before climbing the Oppian Hill to Livius’s home and reporting all I’d learned this afternoon to Cassia.
The thought of the calm way Cassia listened to all I said, the careful movement of her hand as she took notes, almost soothed my agitation.
Any chance of peace fled the next moment, when Regulus strode from the dining hall and nearly ran straight into me.
“The gods are pissing on me today,” he proclaimed. “What are you doing here, Leonidas? Toadying to Aemil?”
I regarded him without hostility—Regulus could no longer needle me.
He and I had once been friends, or at least drinking companions.
The day I’d been given my freedom, I’d enraged him by not slaying him and releasing him from this life.
He’d become primus palus once I’d gone, but he hadn’t yet forgiven me.
“You were there when Xerxes was killed,” I said.
Regulus’s scowl deepened. “You mean the day I became secundus palus?” He’d been third, behind Xerxes.
“You watched the bout.”
“Of course I did. Xerxes was an idiot. He could have blocked that thrust easily enough—I’d seen him do such a thing a hundred times.
” Regulus’s bluster faded. “I think Fortuna put her finger out and moved his shield out of the way. That’s the only explanation I can manage.
His arm went down instead of up.” He demonstrated.
My focus narrowed as I watched him. “Show me.”
“What?”
“In the practice yard. Be Xerxes. Show me what he did.”
Regulus’s brows jammed together once more. “I just ate. I need a dump.”
I reined in my impatience. “Do it, then. Meet me in the practice yard.”
“Yes, yes.”
Regulus stomped away, but I saw a flicker of interest in his eyes before he sought the latrine.
That curiosity was likely the only reason he reappeared in a short time, bearing two wooden swords and two round shields. The practice weapons were locked up after training was finished for the day, but Agapios, the slave in charge of them, wouldn’t oppose Regulus.
Regulus handed me a set and threaded his arm through the other shield, tossing his sword once before catching it in a perfect grip.
“You be Xerxes,” Regulus said. “I’m not letting you stab me in the gut, even with a rudis.”
I nodded, uncaring. I took my usual ready stance, the position coming back to me as easily as breathing.
“Not like that,” Regulus said. “He didn’t fight the way you do. He just stood there, jeering at everyone.”
Regulus held his shield straight down at his side, beckoning me on with his sword, mimicking what Xerxes used to do. I tried to imitate him, but my instincts wouldn’t let me.
Leonidas the Spartan, the young man who’d fought his way to the top of the pack, streamed back inside me as I faced Regulus. I knew exactly how to defend myself against him and exactly how to beat him.
Regulus regarded me with annoyance. “Fine, be Perseus. He used ordinary gladiator tactics, which was why I thought he’d lose. Perseus attacked quickly, thinking Xerxes would be an easy mark.”
I went for Regulus. He instantly brought up his shield, fending me off. My arms and legs moved of their own accord, my sword coming around to jab under Regulus’s guard.
He danced backward, growling. “Do you want to fight a real match or know what happened?”
I halted, my body fighting me as I made myself stand upright.
“I knew you’d never be able to quit being a gladiator,” Regulus said. “You trained yourself to be nothing but. Try this—pretend you’re showing a raw recruit some moves, someone who’s just been dragged in by Aemil, a rope around his neck.”
Aemil would never let a gladiator he’d just purchased into the practice yard until he’d tamed him for a few weeks, but I nodded.
Regulus lowered his shield. “If I’m standing like an idiot, as Xerxes did, how would you show a new gladiator how to take him down?”
I drew a long, slow breath and tried to think like a trainer, not a man about to fight for his life. I’d demonstrated tactics often enough to new gladiators to understand which ones would survive and which would end up beneath the row of grave markers Aemil erected outside the city.
“I’d tell him to watch for a trick,” I said. “And to swing to his opponent’s sword side, striking at his shoulder or elbow. Then, when the opponent tried to block that with the shield, strike where he was exposed.”
I demonstrated, in slow motion, ending up in the obvious, open space of Regulus’s abdomen.
Regulus brought up his shield in a rapid movement, using its edge to cut at my sword arm.
I danced out of the way but made myself stop instead of following through and jamming the rudis at Regulus’s neck.
“That’s just what Perseus did,” Regulus said. “He went for the opening, and Xerxes blocked him. The bout went on like that for a while, everyone screaming from the seats. Xerxes played it up.”
I lowered my sword. “How do you remember so exactly? It was more than two years ago.”
Regulus shrugged. “I watch all the bouts, observe every move, to decide what will work for me. How do you think I got to be primus palus?”
He was primus because Xerxes had died and then I’d been freed. But it was true that Regulus was a formidable and good fighter. When he made mistakes, as he’d done during his last match with me, it was because he let his anger overtake him.
“Xerxes was in good form for most of the bout?” I asked.
“As far as I could see. Then something happened, I don’t know what. He was scanning the stands, not paying attention.”
“That’s when Perseus stabbed him?”
“No, Xerxes snapped back into focus when Perseus came at him.” Regulus resumed a fighting stance. “Fought like he was ready to end things and go home. And then …”
“Then?”
“Then he just stopped.” Regulus stood up straight, his left arm with the shield going slack.
“Xerxes stood there as though he’d been dazed by something.
He dropped his guard, but not like at first, when he’d been goading Perseus.
It was like he couldn’t lift his arms anymore.
” Regulus demonstrated, both his sword and shield hanging from limp hands.
“Perseus saw his opportunity, and he took it.”
I imagined the scene, the gladiator called Perseus abruptly realizing he could win. He’d have lunged with glee, ramming his sword at Xerxes.
I pictured Xerxes, standing motionless, preoccupied with whatever had caught his attention, not realizing his danger until too late.
I clenched my hand around the wooden sword until my fingers ached. “The referees should have stopped the match—they should have seen that Xerxes couldn’t fight anymore. It should have been a draw.”
“The referees didn’t have time,” Regulus said.
“It happened so fast I wasn’t sure I’d seen right myself.
Perseus moved, and all of a sudden, Xerxes had a sword sticking out of him.
He collapsed almost instantly, and Perseus was declared the winner.
The crowd wasn’t happy with Perseus—he had to run from rocks and cups and whatever else people pelted at him.
” His eyes narrowed. “Where were you all that time? Why didn’t you see? ”
“Marcianus was sewing up a cut in my arm.” My old anger rose. “The cut was nothing. I should have been there.”
“And done what? Rushed in to deflect the fatal blow? You wouldn’t have reached him in time, and Aemil would have beaten you bloody for interfering. You’d have stood there with me in the archway, watching your friend be killed.”
I tasted rage, but I knew he was right. If Xerxes hadn’t been able to block Perseus’s thrust, there was no way I could have raced across the arena to save him. I’d have watched Xerxes fall, instead of seeing him dragged past me for Marcianus to receive.
I threw down my sword and let my shield follow. They landed on soft earth, through which new grass was trying to sprout.
“The gods cursed me that day,” I said. They’d seen I’d gained too much, and they took it from me.
“What are you talking about?” Regulus demanded. “Xerxes’s death made you a better fighter. After he joined his ancestors, you were unstoppable. Even I couldn’t best you.”
Truth again. I’d dealt with my grief by honing my skills, telling myself I fought for Xerxes, avenging his death on every gladiator in my path.
I hadn’t awakened from this haze until a small man called Hesiodos had pointed to Cassia and told me I had the keeping of her.
“You were too fond of Xerxes,” Regulus was saying. “I’ve never worried so much about the death of another gladiator as you did over him. You were cuddling with him at night, were you?”
Xerxes and I had never been lovers, but I didn’t correct him. Aemil didn’t let his gladiators pair up, in any case, while they were still under his control.
I was done here. I picked up the sword and shield, knowing Aemil would bark invective if they were left on the damp ground, and walked with them back toward the cell where they were kept.
“Thank you,” I said stiffly to Regulus when I passed him.
Cassia had taught me that I should always be polite.
The vision of Xerxes’s last bout filled me as I strode from the ludus. In my mind, I heard the crowd chanting for him, mocking Perseus, booing as Xerxes froze and allowed Perseus to get under his reach.
I heard the sudden shocked silence when Xerxes tumbled to the ground, and then the roar of rage when the crowd realized their favorite had been felled.
I remembered Xerxes’s body being dragged past me, the smear of blood in his wake.
I’d almost throttled Marcianus when the man had said he couldn’t save him. Aemil had pulled me off him, and Marcianus had regarded me in sorrow and understanding.
I stepped off the Pons Aemilius and started for the Aventine but halted in front of the temple to Portunus, the god who protected warehouses and ports.
The Forum Bovarium rose on its manmade hill behind it, light from the setting sun flooding the scene.
Men and women pushed around me, a new pillar in the road.
If I went to Marcianus in my black mood, I might try to throttle him again. Marcia, who’d become very protective of Marcianus, would likely hit me with one of the heavy bowls in which she ground medicines.
I needed a cooler head to listen while I poured out all I’d learned. I walked on, to the relief of those trying to get past me, turning my steps to the Oppian Hill.
The door guard at Livius’s home readily opened its portal for me, and I marched into the vast atrium. Livius’s majordomo hurried out from an inner room, arms spread, whether to welcome me or herd me out, I could not say.
“Where is Cassia?” I demanded of him.