Chapter XVII
XVII
THE TRAINING GROUNDS FLICKERED in the light of a dozen torches ringing the courtyard.
Dressed in her best tunic, such as it was, Adel slid along the edge of the cluster of fighters standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the entrance to the hall of heroes.
The gladiatrices usually hugged whichever side placed them in the clearest view of Jovan and the trainers, for no other reason than to keep the hands of the male fighters in check.
The gladiators were only punished if caught, and the rush of risk only made it more of a game.
She rolled to her tiptoes, scanning for Brunhilda’s flaming hair.
Instead, real flames danced in clay lamps set into the wall niches, light shattering across glazed jars of opaque glass and painted pottery.
Each bore the name and heart of a famed and fallen gladiator.
Asos, “The Mighty.”
Dominicus, “Flame of the north.”
Marcus of Sarmatia.
Livia, “The Lightning.”
Ulrik, “Bear of the Balkans.”
Few in Rome remembered their names anymore. The death of a favorite celebrity was mourned for a moment and quickly forgotten in the shine of a new sword entering the ring. Here at least, their names and memories lived on, if their bodies did not.
Adel caught a glimpse of a red braid in the space between a granite column and a thick body, and she darted forward. Just as she stepped into the gap, the gladiator shifted, slamming her against the column.
“My apologies.” The voice registered as Wulfula’s before his hands raked her chest and backside in a clumsy disguise of help.
Adel rammed an elbow into his gut and shoved away. “Unless you want to lose your filthy hands, keep them off me.”
He only laughed and let her go, not daring to detain her further and risk drawing Jovan’s eye and ire.
What she wouldn’t give to be able to put him in his place.
But there were different fighting classes for a reason.
No matter what Telemachus had tried to tell her about the equality of men and women in God’s eyes, there was no equality in the ludi.
Not physically anyway. Not without a dagger of her own. Or poison.
God forgive her for the thought.
God forgive her for not being truly sorry for the thought.
Adel pushed past him and stopped beside Dreda and Tilla, who turned and gave brief nods.
“It is hard to believe the Gaul is gone,” Dreda said in a whisper.
Jovan, Blandus Albus, and the magistri exited Jovan’s office and walked to the hall of heroes—little more than a hallway with a domed roof that opened into the training courtyard.
The shadowed end framed the single entrance to the ludus, an impenetrable, oak-planked door, braced with studded bars of iron.
“He was honorable. In his way,” one of the Hildas murmured. “I will miss him.”
“I doubt Wulfula will,” Tilla spat, casting a venomous glance at the man behind them.
The Gaul had kept him in check, as he had the other gladiators, not allowing the arena rivalries to come between them in the ludus.
Without him . . . Adel didn’t spare Wulfula a glance.
Did not need to. She could already picture him at the head of the group, oiled hair gleaming on shoulders wide as mountain ranges.
Did he think because of his size, because of his fighting record, the stories sold to spectators of his heroics in battle, he would inspire the rest of them as the Gaul had done?
She would be the first to disappoint him.
Jovan stepped to the front, clutching the same red-glazed jar from earlier when he’d stopped their training and announced that the Gaul was dead.
Hearts in jars. Such an odd and risky thing to do, given the Roman superstitions and fear of ghosts and hauntings that plagued the populace.
She’d lived among Romans long enough to know that mutilation of the dead was strictly forbidden and yet—it was not so in the ludi.
Throats cut after death, bodies dumped into sewers rather than covered with the minimum three handfuls of earth to avoid the wandering of vengeful souls—but did no one fear the vengeful souls of enslaved people trained to kill others?
Or perhaps it was so because Rome believed they had no souls to fear?
She didn’t need to try hard to imagine Telemachus’s response to that.
Her eyes traveled to the small cluster of men with Jovan.
Felix stood rigid, holding his forearm in a white-knuckled grip and somehow managing to look determined and sick at the same time.
He moved to flank Jovan, tension in his steps.
She could well recognize the gait of a man trying desperately not to flee.
It was written all over him. Had he made a mistake?
Was he afraid he’d find himself the battered victim of the Gaul’s friends?
Irritation flared that she’d even sought him out.
Blandus Albus gestured for Jovan to speak. The ludus owner’s name matched his appearance perfectly. Tonight he’d wrapped himself in a white cloak and tunic, and now attempted to turn his bulging lips into the shape of mournful solemnity.
“We gather to honor a gladiator, a hero, a brother,” Jovan said, raising his voice and the jar. “The Gaul was the best of men, of fighters. Brave and bold. We will feel the emptiness of his seat at the table, the space where he should stand in our arena.” His hand swung toward the training ring.
A few nodded, murmuring assent.
“And though he died, yet he will live in our hearts and in the strength we use to fight at the Ludus Magnus in two weeks!”
A rumble went through the crowd of fighters. A stamping of feet and thumping of chests.
“We will show the other ludi that they may try to steal the lives of our best, but they will never take our spirits.”
Louder shouts. More stomping. Tilla and Dreda jostled Adel between their shoulders as they raised fists in a cheer.
Strength and valor.
Death and honor.
Jovan continued to speak of lofty things. Of the immortality of honor and acts of valor. But all Adel could see was the jar in his hand. The death inside.
The only certain thing.
“Where have you been?” Adel asked over the rim of her mug, as Dreda joined the table of gladiatrices eating the solemn munera meal of barley cakes and beer.
The triclinium buzzed with heat and voices, more crowded than usual now that everyone had been crammed inside after the ceremony, instead of divided into the alternating groups of bathers and eaters.
Dreda had disappeared in the muddle of bodies after the gathering and now, as she dropped into her place, Adel’s gaze caught on a newly darkening bruise on her cheekbone.
“What happened?”
Dreda snagged Tilla’s mug, scowling to find it empty. “Nothing,” she growled.
“Your face tells a different story.” Anger kindled in Adel’s chest. She glanced about the room, trying and failing to discover who else had been missing besides Dreda. Impossible to tell.
Dreda gritted her teeth. “I said it was nothing.”
The table went quiet at the venom in her tone. Tilla flagged a slave with an amphora who refilled her mug. She pushed it in front of Dreda, who downed it in silence.
“Have you heard anything about Ilona?” Berit sidled close, her voice small against the din.
Adel reached for a barley cake from a platter in the center of the table and took a bite. “Nothing since I brought her to the medicus.” He had not released her back into the courtyard all afternoon, and even now, she was absent.
“Will he be good to her?” Berit’s concern for her cellmate was admirable, but Adel resisted the urge to tell her not to get attached to a friend. How many gladiatrices had they lost in the time she’d been here? Three? Four?
“He is not the cruel sort,” she replied instead.
“Ilona is in good hands.” Kind, capable hands .
. . hands that had been strangely tense and fidgety during the ceremony.
Adel glanced around the room, noting that Felix was absent from the ludus staff clustered around the room.
Her gaze flicked again to Dreda’s bruise. He was not to blame for that.
“I hope it’s nothing that will keep her away long,” Berit murmured.
“I disagree.”
Adel felt her jaw going tight as she turned toward the voice.
“I hope that girl doesn’t recover her full strength.” Wulfula stood at the head of their table, mug in hand, a cold, satisfied grin firmly in place. “She’s a curvy one. Even if she has lice.”
“You are a pig, Wulfula.” Adel spat the words like a raw olive.
Wulfula drained the rest of his mug. “There’s no need to be jealous, Adelgard.
There’s enough of me to go around, isn’t there?
” He sent a pointed look toward Dreda, who looked away as if she hadn’t heard the suggestion or threat.
He chuckled and downed his drink, slamming the empty mug onto a nearby table.
“Nothing matters anyway,” he muttered. “The games are set for death matches.”
“That isn’t true.” Berit’s voice was stiff.
“Of course it is not,” Adel was quick to add. The last thing she needed was Berit worrying and it affecting her performance.
Wulfula’s brows flickered. “No? So the magistri are all mistaken? I overheard them talking about it this morning.”
His words cut her more deeply than Jovan’s rejection. She looked toward the magistri. Did they all know? She lifted her chin, determined not to let Wulfula rattle her.
“The ludi would never agree to death matches. Not unless we’re paired against criminals. We are too expensive.”
Wulfula shrugged. “Ask Jovan yourself, then.” He twisted out of their circle as quickly as he’d come into it.
“Liar. I hate him.” Dreda muttered. The vitriol in her tone told Adel everything about the nothing she’d claimed moments before.
“Did you tell Jovan?”
Dreda gave a sharp shake of her head. “I’m a gladiatrix. I should not have to run to a man for help.”
“You should not have to be subjected to abuse at every turn either.”