Chapter XXXV
XXXV
Adel shivered and pressed the skirt of her gown to her thighs as the breeze tried to tug it away.
Her sandal slapped impatiently against the paving stones, the sharp snap echoing back off the columns and roof of the colonnade as she hurried toward the entrance hall.
She’d attended dinner parties as the evening’s entertainment, had fought in inter-school matches, but never had she fought in official games.
Nor had she ever attended the game master’s feast. Part guest, part spectacle, Adel had been outfitted in the green of the Ludus Gallicus, the front and back panels of fabric pinned at her shoulders and belted at her waist, brushing the tops of her feet.
Though the gown left the sides open, she’d been grateful for the hint of modesty she’d been allowed.
But now outside in the wind, her skirt panels flying sideways, she cursed it.
Her gladiatrices clustered around her in a phalanx: Dreda, Berit, and the red-headed Hilda had chosen to accompany her.
She looked over her shoulder, the walkway still empty behind them. “What is taking the men so long?”
“They’d better come out in elaborate costumes for how long they’re making us wait,” Dreda grumbled. “I’m freezing.” She pressed a hand to her head, her hair tied into a high tail streaming down her back. Wisps had already escaped the wax sculpting the rest to her head.
The Hilda huffed. “You’d think they’d be just as eager to get there before the food gets cold.”
The women hurried into the entrance hall, slightly more sheltered from the wind, and moved nearer to the firepot where two guards stood warming their hands.
Adel paused a safe distance away and flexed her foot, the brass-studded sandal straps oddly constricting.
She blew out a shaking breath, willing her stomach to settle.
Dreda edged toward the warmth and the nearest guard shifted, allowing space for her. As she held out a hand, he sidestepped behind her, pinning her against the firepot and blocking her from view with his body. Her feet twisted as she tried to squirm away from him.
“Atticus,” Adel snapped. “Let her go.”
Atticus turned, one arm wrapped around Dreda’s shoulders, holding her against him. “Come now, , you know warmth isn’t free.” He let his other hand wander. Dreda rammed her elbows against his breastplate with little effect.
Adel balled her fists on her hips. Four against two wasn’t terrible odds. But the guards were armed and armored. “Neither is anything else. Are you willing to pay what Jovan will demand?”
“I doubt he’ll care with the games tomorrow.”
“I would not be so certain.”
Atticus laughed and rolled his eyes as if Adel was nothing but a nuisance.
Feet clapped up the walkway. Jolting as if stung by a bee, Atticus shoved Dreda toward the other gladiatrices. “She’s too bony for my taste anyway.”
Adel shot him a knowing scowl. Coward.
Dreda muttered a curse and straightened the pleated folds of her gown as she rejoined the others.
“Are you all right?”
“It will take more than his greedy hands to break me,” Dreda ground out.
Adel squeezed her arm and turned as a troop of ten gladiators rounded the corner into the hall. All were oiled until every curve of muscle shone. Nearly all of them were dressed alike in simple green loincloths that left little to the imagination.
Felix’s gaze found hers, discomfort etched in his features, in the way he knotted his arms across his bare chest. That he’d not trained like a gladiator was clear.
No layer of fat rounded the lean lines of muscle.
He was a fine thing to look at now, but in a ring, one cut would leave him severely wounded.
Jovan and a team of armed guards swept into the hall behind the men and set to work locking their wrists into shackles and stringing them together with chains in preparation for the march through the city.
The men were chained together first with the four gladiatrices added on to the end.
Adel found herself chained to Felix. He shifted in front of her, rolling his shoulders as a wave of gooseflesh traveled across his bare back.
“Do not let them see your discomfort,” she murmured. “They will sooner strip you naked for their own amusement than give you a cloak. Best lift your chin and walk with pride.”
The gates opened and the guards ordered them to march.
Icy wind tore through the streets, pressing the group together.
They were all shuddering with cold when they reached the game master’s elaborate villa.
The sculpture gardens surrounding the domus were strung with hanging lanterns, flickering in the gathering dark.
Inside, the feasting hall was just as bright, hung with swaths of white silk and garlands of greenery and papyrus flowers painted in a rainbow of colors.
Tables sagged beneath the weight of whole roasted pigs, towers of fruit, and fried breads.
Adel’s stomach rumbled at the sights and scents, even if she’d race away in a moment, given the chance. The guards unchained them at the edge of the room, escorting them in sets of two to raised platforms scattered across the hall.
“Spread out my gladiatrices, one per platform,” Jovan ordered. “I want them all over the room, not confined to two spots.”
The guard unshackled Felix and then Adel. “You two with me,” he muttered.
Though glad she’d not be paired with Wulfula, Adel felt her heart sink slightly.
They’d hoped to be separated to talk with the others.
Go over the plan for tomorrow one last time.
Chained together, away from the others, they could do nothing.
But perhaps that was Jovan’s idea. Did he suspect them of plotting against him? Or did he have another motive?
The guard led them to an empty platform situated at the very heart of the room.
Two ankle shackles lay waiting for them.
Adel stepped onto the knee-high platform, feeling once more as if she was at the slave market.
If she’d been cold before, the air in the feasting hall was stifling from the combined heat of the wall torches, lamps, and bodies.
Dotting the vast room, head and shoulders above the crowd, other pairs of gladiators stood on similar platforms, dressed in the red, yellow, and blue of the other ludi.
Some flexed and preened; others stood still and aloof.
Felix bumped her as he stepped up beside her. “Sorry.”
“Do not apologize,” she hissed. “Do not ever apologize. Lift your chin.”
She followed her own advice, raising her eyes above the gawking women and assessing men milling about.
One of the costumers came by as soon as they were in place, readjusting Adel’s gown beneath the thin gold belt.
He bunched the fabric panels in the front and back, leaving her legs and sides bare.
She hated the redness she could feel burning across her chest and neck.
Feel nothing. Reveal nothing.
“Now this is the one I’ve been dying to see up close.” A man approached, swathed in a white silk tunic and red embroidered robe. Jewels winked from thin fingers and a woman in blue adorned his arm.
“The .” He breathed her name in a tone that set her skin crawling and disentangled himself from the woman’s grip so he could circle slowly, greedy eyes roving.
Across the room, a doorway beckoned Adel to leap from the platform.
She imagined herself racing toward it, shoving the skinny man in canary yellow into the silver pool of wine he seemed so fond of, and leaping over the table towering with pastries.
In two more steps she’d be outside, running, running until she was home.
The longing hit her with the force of a cestus’s fist, and this time she didn’t push it away.
If all went to plan tomorrow, this would be the last time she’d endure such—
A hand gripped the swell of her calf and slid upward, skimming the back of her knee.
“Magnificent.” The voice shattered her thoughts, bringing the maddening hum of the room back into full volume.
“I’ve never been so close to someone about to die.” The woman moved to the front of the platform, gazing between Adel and Felix with wide brown eyes.
The hand slipped higher up her thigh. She tensed.
“Nor have I.” Felix jolted beside her, hunching slightly. The hand froze. “That’s quite enough,” he growled.
Adel’s eyes slammed shut. Her stomach dropped as she looked down and saw the man’s wrist locked in Felix’s white-knuckled grip.
“Felix, let him go.” She grabbed Felix’s hand and forced him to release the guest. “This is not the time to make enemies,” she hissed under her breath.
Felix’s jaw twitched with tension, his eyes blazing into hers with words he—thankfully—didn’t speak aloud.
So this was how he would die. Defending her at the game master’s feast. Fear snaked through her at the thought. God, protect him. The prayers seemed to be coming more easily now that her illusion of control had shattered. Why had it taken so long?
The man looked between them and laughed. “Brilliant. Jovan?” He turned away with a shout and clapped as if to summon their lanista. “I love it! I can’t believe you kept this from me.”
Jovan emerged from the crowd, flanked by several other men dressed in robes and tunics equally as resplendent as those of the man Felix had just accosted. If one of them was not the game master himself, they were surely his assistants.
“A pair of lovers!” The man in red clapped again, like a child overjoyed with a new toy.
“Lovers?” Jovan’s eyes lifted to Felix, then shifted to Adel.
She smoothed her features, then let one eyebrow twitch as if to say the man was insane. Jovan saw it too, didn’t he?
“Do you have more, or just this set?” The man’s words tumbled faster. “We have to use them. The crowds will go wild! Where is Giulio?”