Chapter 36
An hour later, only Lea and Phoebe were left in the tournament. Lea had been shooting well, ruthlessly keeping her focus on the arrow and bowstring and target. Nothing else. One or two unlucky shots had fallen victim to an errant breeze, but she’d also scored several perfect strikes.
Next to her, Phoebe grinned ear to ear as she pulled out her next arrow. She was guaranteed either a spot on the Praetorian Guard or the first place prize of anything that was within the emperor’s power to grant.
They’d been neck and neck in this final match, but Lea now held a slight edge.
Phoebe had two arrows left to shoot, and Lea had one.
She was so close—but things had been getting more difficult as the competition progressed.
Lea’s arm was shaking from the effort of pulling back the bowstring so many times, and her headache had returned with vicious force.
The constant noise from the crowd wasn’t helping.
She was starting to think that if she won, what she’d ask of the emperor would be a long, hot bath in a dark, silent room.
Lea held her breath as Phoebe lined up her penultimate shot. The arrow flew from the bow and sank into the target, one painted ring away from the center.
A good shot, but not perfect. Lea’s heart thumped with eager hope. If she could match or improve on Phoebe’s shot, then based on their current scores and with Phoebe having only one shot left, she’d be nearly certain of victory.
Phoebe made a face as she set down her bow. “Damn wind,” she muttered.
Lea lifted her bow and stepped forward, preparing for her last shot, the one that could change everything.
One slender arrow stood between her and freedom.
She notched her arrow and took careful aim at the target. But the painted rings of the wooden target suddenly lost their crispness, shifting and blurring before her gaze.
Lea closed her eyes. Panic rose within her. Not now. Please, not now. She prayed that when she opened her eyes, the blurriness would be gone. Sometimes these attacks lasted only a few moments, and they’d been getting shorter and shorter with each day since her injury.
Her eyes opened. The blurriness was still there. She lowered her bow, her breath coming fast and short. “A moment,” she called to the official keeping score. “I-I need to tighten my bowstring.”
He scowled at her. “Be quick about it.”
She fumbled aimlessly with the bow, trying to buy time. Boos rang out from the crowd, displeased at the delay, but she ignored them.
“Penthesilea,” the official snapped after a few moments. “Shoot, or you forfeit.”
There was nothing else for it. She gritted her teeth, hefted her bow, and took aim.
The arrow flew toward the target.
She couldn’t even tell where it landed, but from the crowd’s reaction, she knew it wasn’t good. Gods below, did I miss the target entirely? She blinked, squinting desperately.
The arrow trembled in the wooden target, three rings away from the center.
The bow slipped from her fingers, falling to the sand. Well, that was it. There went her freedom.
Phoebe said something to her, but Lea couldn’t hear over the roaring in her ears. All she could feel was horror. She had doomed herself. Just as Kallias had feared. He was fucking right, damn him.
She couldn’t let herself think about what his reaction must be, as he sat just a short distance away and watched her destroy her chance at freedom.
She didn’t dare turn around. If she saw him, she would crumble.
Right now, all that remained to her was her dignity, and she clung to it with desperation.
Phoebe lined up her final shot. If she did even slightly better than Lea, which wouldn’t be difficult, she’d claim the victory.
The noise from the crowd lowered to an anticipatory hush as everyone waited for this last fateful shot.
The arrow flew from Phoebe’s bow. Lea’s vision cleared in time to see it sink into the target just beside Lea’s arrow.
In the same ring.
“That fucking wind!” Phoebe hissed as the crowd exploded.
Lea stared at the two arrows. There were numbers to be calculated, numbers that flew uncomprehendingly around her mind.
She knew only the most rudimentary arithmetic, and she’d been relying on the official’s accounting of the score after each arrow to keep track.
But she thought…if she’d been up just enough points before that terrible shot…
Then the official was beside her, grasping her right hand and raising it high, the gesture of victory. The crowd roared, a chant of her name taking shape.
She couldn’t believe it. Surely the numbers were wrong.
But if they were, no one seemed to notice.
Phoebe clasped Lea’s arms and issued jubilant congratulations, looking entirely unbothered by her defeat.
Lea mumbled a polite response, and then the official was leading her away from the targets, toward the steps that led to the emperor’s seating area.
She hesitated; she wasn’t sure if she was ready to face Kallias and all the unknowns of what had happened to him. But the official was hustling her up the stairs, so she was there before she could summon any real resistance.
Her gaze snapped to Kallias as soon as she entered the box. What happened? she tried to communicate with her eyes.
He gave her a loaded, heavy glance she couldn’t decipher. Then, surprisingly, a smile lifted the corners of his lips. You did it, he mouthed.
“Well done, Penthesilea,” the emperor said, coming to meet her. He appeared jovial and relaxed. Drusilla flanked him. “A performance worthy of your namesake.”
Drusilla beamed at her. “Oh, I almost fell to pieces with that last shot! I was sure you’d lost it.”
Me, too. Lea couldn’t bring herself to speak, but she bowed her head in acknowledgement of their praise.
“Now,” Gaius said. “I believe I owe you a prize.” He reached for something that rested against the railing at the front of the seating area—the rudis, the wooden sword that granted freedom to any gladiator it was bestowed upon.
“I took the liberty of anticipating what you might ask of me. Was I right?” He lifted the sword, one hand on the grip and another balancing the blunt tip, and held it out to her horizontally.
All she had to do was reach for it, close her hand around it, and freedom would be hers.
Her hand lifted, but something made her hesitate.
Her gaze flicked to Kallias once more. What if there was something she could ask for that was more valuable than her freedom?
“Well?” The emperor proffered the sword. “It’s yours, Penthesilea.”
She drew her hand back. Kallias’s brow wrinkled, and he stared hard at her, as if asking what in the underworld she was doing.
She wasn’t quite sure of that herself.
“I—I don’t want it.” The words came out breathy and timid. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to stand tall. If she were going to do this, she had to be confident and clever—like Kallias. “Thank you, but there is something else I’d ask for.”
The emperor cocked his head, but lowered the sword, leaning its tip against the floor. “Oh? What is it to be, then? Coins, jewels? Perhaps a pair of fine horses? I have a villa at Baiae—say the word and it’s yours.” He opened his arms magnanimously.
He was enjoying this, she realized—projecting the image of the benevolent ruler in front of his people. She could use that to her advantage.
She raised a hand and pointed just over the emperor’s shoulder, straight at Kallias. “Him. I want him.”
Kallias shot to his feet, his golden skin blanching. “Lea,” he hissed.
The emperor swiveled to look where she pointed, then turned back to her, frowning in befuddlement. “My physician? What can you possibly want with him?”
“I seem to have a habit of injuring myself.” Lea gestured to her arm, then her head. “I like him better than the one our ludus employs. He uses silk thread.”
She spoke with the language of ownership and possession, a language she expected the emperor would understand. For even though the emperor had legally freed Kallias, he’d never treated his physician as if he were a free man.
Gaius stared at her. “You can’t have him. Pick something else.”
“No.” Lea took a step closer to him, allowing her gaze to travel over the courtiers watching as avidly as if this were a theater performance. Some whispered behind their hands.
The emperor’s eyes flicked to them for a moment before returning to her. Good: remind him he had an audience.
She lifted her chin. “Did I misunderstand the terms of the competition?”
“I need him,” Gaius said, ignoring her question.
If she hadn’t been so tense, it might have amused her that it didn’t even occur to Gaius to object on the grounds that Kallias was not technically his to give away.
Lea raised her eyebrows. “Forgive me, I didn’t realize you were ill.” She borrowed the argument she’d heard Velia use on the Praetorians.
“I’m not,” he said immediately.
“So you have no need of a physician, then.” She strove to keep her tone light, innocent, as if they were discussing anything but the fate of the man she loved. “Release him from your service.”
A flash of anger tightened the emperor’s features. Lea knew she was on dangerous ground, relying on little but his desire to keep his word and appear to be an even-handed, generous ruler in front of his courtiers.
Drusilla stepped forward and curled her arm around his, twining their fingers together. “You don’t need him,” she murmured in his ear. “You know you don’t. We only need each other.”
He murmured something in reply, too low for Lea to hear, and they turned away to confer.
During the brief pause, Lea’s gaze returned to Kallias.
He was staring at her in shock, fists clenched.
Then he shook his head, breaking free of his horrified trance.
“No. I won’t stand for this.” He strode forward, grasped the wooden sword, and thrust it at Lea. “Take it. This is what you deserve.”
She batted it away. “No. I’ve made my choice.”
The emperor’s voice intruded, and Kallias hastily stepped back.
“I’m afraid this is not up to you, medicus.
” Gaius’s shoulders were stiff, but he spread his hands once more in that gesture of benevolence.
His mouth curved into a brittle smile. “Of course I will honor the terms of the contest.” He spoke as if there had never been any doubt of it, but his voice had a bitter edge to it.
When he deigned to look at Lea, his eyes were filled with such venom she nearly took a step back.
He hates me, she realized. Her reckless demand had forced the emperor into a corner he couldn’t escape from without appearing to violate his word in front of twenty thousand people, and she’d just made an enemy of the most powerful person in the world.
“Enjoy your new medicus, Penthesilea.” Gaius returned to his seat and waved a hand at the official managing the games. “Let the next match begin!”
Lea just stood there for a moment, unable to move, waiting for the emperor to laugh and snatch Kallias back.
Then she took one step toward the Praetorians that guarded the entrance to the private area. They didn’t lunge for her or Kallias, so she took another step. She glanced behind her, making sure Kallias was following her.
He was, though the look of horror hadn’t faded from his face. She raised an eyebrow at him. He could stand to look happier, given the circumstances.
“Lea,” he said in a harsh whisper as soon as they were out of the imperial seating area, onto the staircase leading to the higher levels of the stands. “What did you just—”
“Wait.” They needed privacy. There would be none if they returned to the lower level beneath the stands where the other gladiators congregated. So instead of heading down the narrow stairs, she turned the other way, climbing higher and higher into the stands.
At the very top, the worst seats were empty.
They were effectively invisible up here, as everyone else faced toward the arena.
Lea slid onto a bench in the highest row.
These seats towered above the arena, reducing the two gladiators beginning their fight to indistinct dots, highlighted by the occasional flash of sun on steel.
She gestured for Kallias to sit beside her, but he remained standing, hovering over her. “Lea,” he repeated, his voice strangled. “What in Hades did you just do?”
He was in shock, and she couldn’t blame him. She herself was dizzy with astonishment, residual tension humming in every muscle in her body. “Not sure,” she admitted.
“Because it seemed to me that you just exchanged your freedom for mine.” Finally, he sat, his body coming to rest heavily on the bench beside her.
“Yes,” she said. “It does seem that way.” She stared down at the arena. The height wasn’t helping her dizziness, but her eyes tracked the movements of the two gladiators below.
“But…why?” He slid off the bench, coming to his knees in the narrow space before her.
He reached up to take hold of her face with shaking hands.
“You don’t understand what you’ve done. Every time you fight, you’re going to be at his mercy.
You think he’ll hesitate to order your death if you lose?
I can’t let you do this. I’m going to go back there—I’m going to demand you accept the rudis—”
She summoned a wry smile, though she knew in her bones that she’d sealed her fate if she should ever lose another match.
“Just yesterday you were begging me not to compete, saying we could secure my freedom another way, offering me every coin in your possession to make it so. Well, now’s your chance to prove you were serious about that.
” She trailed her fingers through his hair.
“You deserve to be happy, philé emé. What’s my life worth if I can’t do something good for the person I love? ”
Her blurry vision had returned, but this time, it wasn’t from her head injury. A tear spilled down her cheek.
“Oh, my love,” he whispered, voice rough. Then his arms were around her, pulling her into a tight embrace. Everything else fell away—the roar of the crowd, the fight taking place below, even the lingering ache in her head. With him by her side, nothing else mattered.