Chapter XXXVIII
XXXVIII
THE TRAPPED AIR IN THE HOLDING ROOM was heavy with nerves and sweat.
The morning beast hunts were in full action, and the swelling and receding roar of the crowd above them betrayed the rise and fall of the hunters and animals.
Adel paced the length of the cell to the locked door and back.
Not a trainer in sight. Where were the monks?
The other gladiatrices sat in a line against the wall, waiting with more patience than she was exhibiting.
After the parade, the gladiators had been rushed to the cells in the bowels of the amphitheatre and locked in.
True, they wouldn’t be needed for hours, but she’d not considered this locking up, this anxious waiting when they had formed the plan.
In her mind it had all been action. Slipping through doorways, dodging guards, running free through darkened tunnels.
Adel paused at the gate, pressed her face to the bars, straining to see up the curved tunnel of cells. No guards in sight. Other faces appeared between the network of bars on other doors. None of them Felix. None of them gladiators she recognized.
Where was everyone?
She pushed away from the gate, her mouth drying as an anxious thrum beat through her body.
“Perhaps the arena side cells are in use this morning,” Berit offered.
Adel nodded. “Yes. I am certain that is it.” Not that the wrong someone had gotten word of their plans and was at work thwarting them.
She shook out her arms and stretched. Keep your wits.
Harder and harder to accomplish after Felix’s kiss.
After seeing him train the last several days, she’d known he would need every bit of support the crowd would give him.
It had taken every ounce of willpower to voice the suggestion that would have the best chance of saving his life, elevating him from an unknown nobody to the love of the .
One thing to speak it in the darkness of the cells and another to act on it in daylight before a full arena.
But it had worked. The moment his lips touched hers, the crowd had gone wild.
She’d tried to block it out, play the part, and then his words had registered in her mind.
He was not playing. And she felt it in his kiss, in the way he cradled her as close as he could, as if she were the finest pottery, the rarest of treasures.
As if he would not let her go without a fight.
It had mended something inside her and broken her heart.
Because no one came out of this arena unscathed.
Adel had not seen him since they’d disembarked from the chariot and been herded below.
The pale green dress whispered against her ankles as she paced.
They’d not stripped her of the finery after the parade.
Would they send her out to fight in this gown?
The bulk of it would be a detriment worse than the collapsing sword.
“Sit, Adelgard,” Berit urged. “Save your strength. You can do nothing by pacing.”
It was true. The anxious race of her thoughts would change nothing about the day.
She dropped to the ground and forced her shoulders to relax against the coolness of the stones.
How many others had sat awaiting death in this very spot, feeling terror or peace?
Felix was right. All that was left for them was to follow the plan and trust that God’s will would prevail in the end. Whichever end that would be.
Trust had never been her strength. Praying with Felix last night had brought a peace she was already lacking again, but knew where to source.
She shut her eyes and lowered her head onto her knees. Lord, make a way for us. End this fighting for good.
The jingle of keys and the scrape of footsteps lifted her chin. Had she slept? Adel pushed to her feet and met Ignacio at the door. Why Ignacio? Why not a monk disguised?
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s time.” He gave a nod and worked an L-shaped key into the lock.
The other gladiatrices clustered around Adel as Ignacio swung the gate open.
“Now?” Berit breathed at Adel’s shoulder.
Adel gave a sharp shake of her head. “What took so long, Ignacio?”
He waved them into the hall and shoved the door shut behind them. “The beasts did not want to be hunted today. We had to send in the eques to finish the job on horseback.”
The thought sickened her.
Ignacio directed them up the tunnel, past cells of gladiators from the other ludi, as well as criminals waiting to be executed for their crimes.
“The laquerarii from the Ludus Matutinus are out now with secutors from the Great School while the arena is reset. We’ve got to get in our places. Up these stairs.”
Adel pivoted and bunched up her skirts in her fists as she climbed. “Places for what? We never go out so soon.”
“I have to use the latrine,” one of the Hildas announced.
Not yet, Brunhilda.
Ignacio groaned. “We don’t have time.”
“You left us locked in that cell for hours. I can’t wait.”
“The latrine is just there.” Tilla spoke up as they emerged from the underground. “Where’s our cell from here? I’ll see that we get back in time.”
Ignacio bit back a growl of frustration. “Fine, you two go in. I’ll be back in a moment to fetch you.”
Tilla grabbed the Hilda’s arm and jerked her across the crowded hall and through the doorway opposite the stairwell. Adel felt the tension lift slightly. Two down. Was this really going to be so easy?
“This way. Stay close together. There’s a lot of activity on this level.”
He wasn’t lying. Slaves and magistri clogged the walkway, along with armed guards, uniformed amphitheatre workers, and gladiators moving from one cell to another.
“Make way! Make way!”
Adel and the others shuffled toward the edge of the hall, allowing several medical slaves to rush past balancing a stretcher containing a bleeding laquerarius still clutching his lasso.
Would he be among the first to escape? And would the escape of a few dozen gladiators truly change anything?
For the first time, the thought niggled at her mind.
According to Felix, the return of Visigoth captives might soothe Alaric’s anger and stay his attack on Rome, but would the ludi not be refilled with others?
How do we stop this forever?
“Through here.” Ignacio waved an arm, ushering the gladiatrices ahead of him.
Adel stepped into a room crowded with green-clad fighters, stretching, pacing, clustered around the barred gate that blocked a short tunnel leading to the arena floor.
The limited view offered several laquerari armed with a sword and lasso, each pitted against a secutor.
Though not half as popular as the net-wielding retiarius, the laquerari were entertaining in their own right.
Sharp-eyed and quick on their feet, they tossed spinning loops of rope toward their opponents in an effort to entangle them before engaging with blades.
The costumers descended upon them like birds, poking and picking and tugging.
Adel’s long gown was transformed into a knee-length hunting tunic, easier to move in, but still resembling the parade costume.
Dreda, Berit, and the other Hilda were wrestled into green tunics and blue trousers, oddly reminiscent of their own attire back in the war camp.
Would they be part of the battle then? Even though their scores from the preliminaries made them candidates to face the andabata?
“There.” The costumer stepped back with a satisfied nod.
“And my armor?”
“None for this.”
Icy dread wrapped around her chest where her breastplate should have been. “What do you mean, none?”
“My notes say no armor.”
“No armor, or no helmet? This is idiocy. Ignacio!”
The costumer threw up his hands and stepped back, gaze darting for the guard. “I’m only following the orders I was given.”
“Orders?” And then it struck. Of course.
She’d thwarted Jovan and Blandus Albus at the Ludus Magnus and they’d lost a fortune.
If they’d bet against her today, they would do all they could to ensure she did not win.
But weren’t they sending her out with Felix?
Or would they send her out against someone else dressed as Felix?
A racing panic thrummed through her chest. She scanned the room, hoping to see Felix, find reassurance that all was going to plan.
But he was nowhere to be seen. Had he abandoned her?
Found a moment to escape and taken it? Were they all on their own now, taking whatever chance presented itself?
She could hardly blame him and yet, he’d promised.
He’d promised to be there for her. See this through to the end.
The familiar weight of betrayal crushed the breath from her lungs.
Beyond the barred gate, one of the secutors from the Ludus Gallicus went down, tangled in a laquerari rope. She turned away before the dispatching blow, feeling everything inside her on the verge of crumbling. She could not break. Not now.
“Find them!” Ignacio’s voice thundered over the hum of voices as he burst back into the room and made for Adel.
“Why am I not allowed armor?”
Ignacio ignored her. Sweat dampened the front of his tunic despite the Ianuarius chill. An angry tension tightened the line of his jaw. “I don’t have time for this, . The order of fights keeps changing and I can’t find Tilla.”
“You can’t send me out without armor.”
“You are Thisbe, and Thisbe doesn’t wear armor. She also doesn’t fight a man but—”
“What?” A growing dread built in her gut, but Adel forced her face to remain stoic. She couldn’t have heard right.
Ignacio shook his head and muttered something about imbeciles. “Everything’s messed up and—” He twisted to shout over his shoulder, “I’m doing the best I can, Magnus!”