Chapter XII
XII
Like roots to a poisonous plant, a network of tunnels ran beneath the entertainment district, connecting the Flavian Amphitheatre to the four gladiator ludi, costume and set warehouses, the armory, and the spoliarium where the dead gladiators would be stripped and laid out for collection by their schools.
Berit marched next to Adel as they wound through the tunnels, the other fighters from the Ludus Gallicus stretching in front and behind them in double rows. Chains clinked at their wrists.
Berit huffed. “Why bother chaining us together? Where do they think we’re going to go?”
Adel inhaled a breath of stale, damp air.
They both knew full well they were chained so they wouldn’t peel away into the darkness of the tunnels, seeking refuge or escape through a connecting warehouse of dusty ships, papyrus trees, and plaster boulders and out into the real world beyond.
And yet, had she been allowed to walk the tunnels unchained, the free world beyond the ludi would hold only uncertainty.
Should she find herself on the street, what would she do?
Where would she go? Would her atta even allow her back home?
She simply shrugged and recited the same flimsy reason they’d all been given: “They are precautions against being stolen away by the rival ludi.”
A lie. But a comforting one. One that spoke of value and worth. In truth, the hindering shackles would be a death sentence were they ambushed in the dark. But she would not think of that.
Her pulse thrummed as they turned the final corner and a blazing rectangle of light announced their arrival at the Ludus Dacicus.
Heat prickled across her skin as she climbed a set of worn steps and emerged from the coolness of the tunnel into a windowless holding room.
The walls, long ago painted a sickly yellow, were peeling and splattered with rusty stains.
Adel averted her eyes, knowing the Dacian School painted them so to discourage and dishearten rival fighters.
A gate of ornate iron bars cut through the wall across from the tunnel and led onto the arena of the Ludus Dacicus.
Another gate set in the wall to her left opened to a tiny courtyard and fountain. For now, both were locked.
The magistri closed off the tunnel and began removing the chains.
Adel rubbed her freed wrists and moved toward the arena gate, drawn to it like a sunbeam to sword steel.
Unseasonable heat radiated into her face from the sand, the stands around it humming and already nearly filled to their three-thousand-spectator capacity.
The smells of roasted nuts, fried globi drizzled in warm honey, and spiced wine drifted on the breeze.
Nerves twisted her gut as she scanned the other barred gates around the ring.
Who would she face today? A stranger? An old friend?
The armorer’s approach forced her to turn away from the gate. He waddled toward the group of gladiatrices, clutching a chest of armor against his stomach. He dropped it at her feet with a clank and removed the lid.
“Find your pieces and I’ll be back with your weapons.”
The women sorted the curved bits of metal among them and began to apply the pieces to their limbs. Berit pressed a small breastplate between her collarbones and breastband and turned her back toward Adel so she could secure the leather straps.
“Remember,” Adel admonished, bending worn straps through tarnished buckles, “you are skilled and strong. There is no humility here. No false modesty.” She turned the girl to face her, pulling Berit’s forehead against hers. “You are strong. Be courageous.”
“I don’t—”
“Courage, Berit. You can beat whoever you face. Your mind is your greatest enemy.” She released her and pressed the fasicae into her hands. “Put these on.”
Berit knelt to fasten on the shin armor, and Adel turned to Dreda.
“Do not forget to move. Evade with your feet first, then your body.” Adel held the padded manica as Dreda wiggled her arm into the tube of layered fabric and leather straps that made her arm resemble a body wrapped for burial.
But there would be no burials today. Adel tightened the last strap with a yank and slapped Dreda’s shoulder.
“Remember, quick feet. Ducking and dodging only gets you so far.”
She went down the line, murmuring encouragement and final instructions as she tugged on straps and fitted helmets.
The armorer met her at the end of the row, ready to fit her own armor.
She lifted her arms and allowed him to settle her breastplate into place, the polished metal cold against her collarbones where it fell just above the green band binding her breasts.
A cruel thing. Small enough to allow serious injury.
Large enough to protect her heart and lungs, preventing a quick death.
Leather straps crisscrossed between her shoulder blades, holding the breastplate in place.
Other straps tightened the manica around her arm, bit into her ankle and just above the swell of her calf as the armorer attached the fasica to her left shin.
A drape of green fabric fell down her back from the high neck protector rising from the shoulder of the manica like a shimmering cloak.
If only it were a whole gown, and not merely an illusion of femininity.
The rest of her body was near bare to the entire world.
She fought the urge to cross her arms over her stomach and rolled her shoulders back instead. Her only revenge was to be bold and proud and not allow them to feel the satisfaction of knowing how it bothered her to be on display.
The armorer tightened the final strap with a yank. “Before you go out, the medicus wants a look at you.”
Adel gave a nod, steeling herself for the elder medicus’s derision. That his son had been killed in the raid that made her a captive had not been her doing. But logic mattered little to Sergius. She was Visigoth and that was enough for him to hate her.
She spun and nearly trod on Felix’s feet.
She choked back her surprise with an irritated growl. What was he doing, standing so close? Hoping to pinch and prod when no one was looking? So much for his claims of compassion. He was no different than anyone else. “Well?” She raised an eyebrow and both arms. “You wanted to look at me?”
He blinked twice and coughed. “At—at your arm, yes.”
Fitting him with a glare, she turned her left arm toward him, unable to ignore the confusing flush of pink rising in his neck. She’d rattled him. And . . . and he had not looked at her like Wulfula had. Like a man willing to steal before he’d starve.
“How is the pain?” Felix lowered his gaze to the bandage, checking the firmness of the wrap and security of the knot.
“It is not there.”
“Not at all?”
“No.”
The down-turned corners of his eyes sank further into a look that might have been disappointment or hurt had it not been . . . impossible. His voice lowered. “You can tell me, you know. I’m here to help you.”
She stared past him through the bars of the gate, willing anger to send fire through her veins, energy to her limbs.
His kindness, gentleness—weakness—would not help her today.
“You are here to help Jovan, to keep his money flowing into your coffers. Not to help me. Both of you only care that I fight well, and that this”—she lifted her bandaged arm in a shrug—“does not stop me from doing that.”
He let out a slow breath, the muscles in his jaw tightening.
She’d rattled him again, though this time the triumph was bitter on her tongue.
“I only want you to be whole.” His next quiet words came at her with the force of a blow. “I pray strength and safety over you in the name of Jesus.”
Sudden tears stuck in her throat. Aipei had said something similar before Adel had left with the warriors. Stroked her cheek with a tender touch, and then murmured prayers for safety as she twisted Adel’s hair into three thick braids that hung to her waist.
Some good those prayers had done. Look where she’d ended up.
As soon as the thought entered her mind, another met it. She’d been spared in battle. Made into a warrior of a different sort. Cared for and beloved by her enemies. If that was not safety, what was?
Adel clenched her jaw against the emotions that threatened to undo her focus. Felix meant the prayer for himself, of course. Her regained strength meant his job security. But that was not what his eyes said.
“Why do you not stay?”
He bent to pick up his bag of supplies. “My duty is to wait in the clinic. Don’t come rushing to find me there.” He straightened, his mouth tipping in a smile that was both tender and sad. “Be careful, Adelgard.”
The sound of her name, her real name, sent a jolt to her chest sharper than any spear. He remembered her name? She didn’t have time to recover, to respond before Ignacio nudged Felix aside and pressed a sword into her right hand.
“You face the Strix.” He lifted a scutum in front of her and held it steady as she slid her left arm into the straps on the backside. It was smaller and lighter than her normal shield. Easier on her arm, but less sturdy. Less safe.
Ignacio buckled it in place and squeezed her shoulder. “Mars be your strength.”
Her gaze flicked toward Felix. It was not Mars he’d spoken of.
Felix disappeared when Ignacio slid the close-fitting helmet over her head and leaned to peer through the eyeholes.
“She knows you are injured and will strike hard and fast.” He spoke in low tones as he cinched the leather strap beneath her chin. “You are strong and equally quick. Evade her at first, wear her down. She’ll get sloppy and you can make your move.”
Adel nodded, forcing Felix from her mind and feeling her heart begin to thrum in anticipation of what was coming. She hated this part. The waiting. Just throw her in the ring, start the fight. Anything to keep her out of her own head. She rolled her shoulders and shook out her sword arm.
“Easy.” Ignacio jumped back. “Watch the point.”
Her lips twitched in a smile he could not see, and the bars on the gate swung wide. Ignacio gave her a little push.
“The crowd loves you.”
Love. A fickle thing. Offered one day and withdrawn the next.
She knew she should not trust it. And yet the truest love she’d known had been shown from this crowd.
Match after match they came for her, cheered for her.
Threw flowers and tokens into the ring. For her.
She lifted her chin, warmth radiating against her legs as she stepped into the ring.
The roar of the crowd increased as the breeze tugged at the fabric billowing behind her, the green and gold signaling her identity to all who watched.
“Am-a-zon, Am-a-zon!”
Adel drew in a breath and the name that was hers and was not hers.
The cheers and whistles dripped and trickled into the deep empty places of her heart.
Each syllable a droplet that echoed in an illusion of fullness.
Soothing the ache. It would return by morning.
But for now, she drank it in. The crowd loves you.
In the muffled confines of her helmet, she could almost believe they called her name. Her real name. The way Felix had.
A-del-gard, A-del-gard!
Gates clanged around the ring and the cheers and shouts morphed into a cacophony as other gladiators and gladiatrices joined her in the arena.
“Strix!”
“The Hammer!”
“Boudica!”
“Wulfula!”
Footsteps swished in the sand behind Adel as the green-clad fighters from the Gallic School joined her in the ring for the initial parade of the gladiators.
This was only a shadow of what the Victory Games would be.
That opening parade would find the fighters costumed and carried around the amphitheatre in gilded chariots.
Today they simply walked. Sunlight glinted on curved dimachaerus swords and Thracian helms as the blue-clad Dacian School paraded into the arena, pumping fists in the air.
The roar of the crowd grew deafening, echoing against her helmet.
When the trumpets broke through the cheers and finally sent them to silence, Adel raised her gladius, saluting the spectators.
A second short blast of the trumpets announced their cue, and she shouted with the rest.
“Morituri te salutant!”
Those about to die salute you.