Chapter XXII
XXII
“SHE WHAT?” He couldn’t have heard right. Felix dug two rags from his bag and threw one to the guard—if that would still be his job by the end of the evening. “Dip this in the pool.” Cupping the back of Adel’s head in one hand, he pressed the other rag to her streaming nose. “Come and sit down.”
She made no protest as he led her to a marble bench near a torch in the garden and gently pushed her down on it.
Her bloodied fingers fumbled against his as she reached up to hold the rag.
He knelt in front of her, cradling her jaw in his fingertips, running his thumbs over the bridge of her nose, her cheekbones.
She winced at his touch. But nothing broken.
“What possessed you to fight the dominus?”
Her eyes lowered to his. “He gave me no choice.”
Anger swept over him in a rush. Where had the so-called guards been? “What do you mean, no choice?”
The guard returned with the dripping rag and Felix snatched it from him with a glare.
He’d never been one to fight, but this .
. . this made him want to tear the man limb from limb.
What had he been doing in there anyway? Guilt smote in the next breath.
Perhaps he might have prevented this had he been inside watching the fight rather than pacing the garden. He gently wiped blood from her face.
“.”
A shaking voice called her name. Felix turned, blocking Adel with his body as soft footsteps padded up the path behind them.
Torchlight fell over a woman in white who cast a glance over one shoulder toward the doorway before hurrying forward, reaching out toward them.
Adel nudged him aside and watched the woman approach, blood still seeping from her nose.
“Forgive him,” the domina murmured, pressing several gold coins into Adel’s palm. “That was . . . not right.”
“You would offer coin for my pardon?” Adel pushed her hand away. “I do not want it, lady.”
The woman shook her head and closed Adel’s fingers around the coins. “Accept my gift. My . . . apologies. Please.”
“You should keep it.” Adel’s voice rose in a tone Felix had never heard from her before. Urgency. Compassion. Fear. “You must get away from here—”
“And go where?” The domina’s face folded into a sad smile as she gave Adel’s hands a gentle shake. “At least here I am cared for.”
Adel sucked in a breath to respond but the woman didn’t wait for her to speak. Only gave one last trembling smile and fled back inside. Adel sighed.
“Rinse this.” Felix slapped the bloodied rag at the guard again as the armorer and other guards stepped outside.
“We’ve got everything,” one volunteered. “We’re ready to leave if you are.”
Adel pushed Felix away and stood on unsteady legs, all the while brushing aside his attempts to help. “I’m ready.”
The march back to the ludus was a silent one. Injustice lit his blood. For Adel. For the bruised domina. For all those made to fight and cower to satiate and inflate the ego and bloodlust of others.
By the time they reached the ludus, starlight blanketed the city and a sheen of sweat clung to Felix’s skin.
From anger or the exercise, he could hardly tell.
Their escorts drifted off to their quarters once inside the gate, leaving Adel in Felix’s care.
Felix nabbed a lantern from the guard on duty and led the way to the clinic.
“I am fine. I am only tired,” Adel protested as he opened the door and gestured her in ahead of him.
“And I need to do my job.” His voice came sharper than he’d intended.
“I’ll be quick, and you can go.” Felix closed the door behind them and crossed to the operating table, flinging his bag on top of it.
He lit several lamps with the lantern next, and spread them about the room, warming it with golden light.
“I thought you said you would hurry,” Adel grumbled, slouching against the table and crossing her arms over her chest.
“I need to see what I’m doing.” Felix tucked jars of olive oil and medicinal wine into the crook of one arm. He glanced over his shoulder. “Why did you fight the dominus?”
“I already told you.”
“You said you had no choice.”
“He attacked me. I had to defend myself.” She touched the edge of her swollen lip.
Felix dumped the clutter of supplies on the operating table. “Where were your guards?”
She shrugged.
“Why did the domina pay you?”
“Are you a questioner now?” She held out her hands. “Which finger will you break first?”
He gripped her hands and tugged them down, lowering his voice. “I won’t force you to answer anything you don’t want to. Only, Jovan will ask me why your face looks like this.” He pressed a rag to the mouth of a bottle and shook it, wetting the cloth before swiping it across her swollen cheek.
She hissed and drew back but couldn’t go far with the operating table at her back. “That stings.”
It did. It stung. No matter what he did, the evil kept coming.
The strong oppressed the weak. And he was left to clean up the aftermath.
When would it end? Holding her chin with the crook of his index finger, he drew the rag slowly from her temple to her jaw, erasing smears of blood and revealing small cuts in their wake.
The gesture was more a caress than the dispassionate touch of a medicus simply doing his job.
Seeing her battered, forced to stitch her wounds over and again—it turned his stomach the way his job had never done before.
“I hate this,” he whispered.
Her gaze flickered to his. “Being a medicus?”
“Seeing you like this. Them using you like a beast.”
Her shoulders went rigid. “They love me.”
A flash of anger drew him back. “This isn’t love, Adelgard.” He threw the rag to the ground with a wet snap. “It’s slavery. They treat you as they would a prized animal—worse. You’re locked in a cell, denied the freedom to walk in the outside world, have a home and family of your own—”
“You think because you are a medicus that you can fix everything,” Adel growled, shoving him backward. She took a step toward him, her fists pressed against his chest. “I don’t need a family. I can provide all I need with my own two hands. And at least Rome cares for me.”
“Subjecting you to continual pain and injury isn’t care.”
She shrugged, her voice dropping. “And yet, here you are, waiting to fix me.”
“Because they only make money off you if you aren’t dead.” He ran a hand through his hair, the sudden urge to make her see reason overpowering his discernment, his gentleness.
She swallowed and lowered her chin. “Stop it.”
“No. They don’t care about you, Adel. Not really.”
“I said stop.” Her words emerged tight and fragile as blown glass.
“Why do you think Ignacio brings you and the others wine in the evenings and during the fights?”
Her lips trembled, voice cracking. “It is only—”
“It is opium, and who knows what else. To keep you under control. To keep you from feeling your pain so you can continue to fight and line Blandus Albus’s coffers. They will drug you and use you up until you have nothing left to give, and then they will cast you aside for a new star.”
Like the flick of a finger to fine glass, his words left her shattered.
He might as well have plunged a dagger through her chest too. How could he say such things? How could he know? He hadn’t witnessed a single one of her fights. Didn’t know how the crowd roared her name.
“Jovan said he would make me a magister.” Adel spoke through gritted teeth, pain ricocheting through her head. Out loud, the promise sounded flimsier than it had in her mind. And yet she clung to it like a lifeline. If she didn’t have that, what was left?
“A magister?” Felix repeated.
“Yes. Perhaps a doctore one day. I am close . . .”
The breath left his lungs in a way that seemed to pain him. “Look around, Adelgard. Do you see any female magistri?”
She forced her chin up a notch. “I will be the first. No one is as good as I am.”
“That is true.” Felix gave a nod. “But I’ve known Jovan my whole life, and he would never make a woman a magister. He is only using you.”
She lifted her chin, eyes beginning to burn.
“He is not.” The words turned to ash in her throat and left her choking.
Because she knew it was true. She’d known all along and yet .
. .Tears stung her raw face, loosening the strength in her knees.
She reached back and gripped the edge of the table behind her, clawing for proof, however fragile, to disprove his claim.
“My image is painted on the sides of buildings across the city. They parade me to dinner parties, embroider my name and face onto bags, etch it into glass—”
“And Jovan reaps the benefits.”
“Stop.” She clenched her fists, struggling to suck in a breath.
Felix had always been gentle, kind, until now. Was it his Romanness that made him ambush her like this? Everything she’d worked for, everything she’d built, cracked beneath his words, threatening to crumble. And yet, deep inside she knew he told the truth, and the truth was—
“They do not love you, Adel.”
She slapped him and broke. Folding in half and crumbling to the floor, arms wrapped around her aching head. Sobs ripped through the center of her chest, pain sharp as a gladius. No matter what she did, must she always be measured and found wanting?
Adel sensed Felix crouch near her, smelled the warm scent of sandalwood, didn’t have the strength to push him away. It didn’t matter anymore. He was right.
“Fine. I am nothing,” she hissed from beneath her arms. “Is that what you want me to say? It is nothing new. I have known it my entire life.” She sniffed and lifted her head, turning an expression of cool fury on him for reminding her of it.
She could not have anticipated his response.
The way the corners of his eyes seemed to turn down, his posture drooping as if her confession had pained him instead of her.
His shoulder bumped hers as he sat beside her, draping his arms over his drawn-up knees.