Chapter 18
Velia’s door was closed when he reached it. Ferox knocked gently. “Velia? Are you all right?”
He could hear her within, footsteps moving as if she was pacing.
Something smashed, the sound of pottery breaking. He jerked his head away from the door in surprise.
“Go away!” she yelled.
“No.” He laid his palm flat on the surface of the door. It would be the work of a moment to remove it from his path. The thorny emotions still surging through him urged him to break, to smash, to rip the door from its hinges—anything to get to her.
But a brute breaking her door down was not what Velia needed right now, so he forced himself to adopt a more measured approach.
Maybe he wasn’t even what she needed right now.
This situation required delicacy, and delicacy was not exactly his strong suit.
“Would you like me to find Penthesilea?” he asked. “Perhaps…a woman…”
Then again, Lea was one of the least delicate people he’d ever met.
The door was yanked open, revealing Velia’s blotchy face. “No,” she hissed. Her arm shot out, and she dragged him inside by the front of his tunic, slamming the door behind him. “Did anyone else see?” she demanded. “Besides you and Achilles?”
Ferox shook his head, slightly bewildered by her anger. He’d expected her to be distraught, scared—not furious.
The evidence of her fury lay in shards of pottery on the floor, the remnants of a green-glazed water jug.
“Swear you won’t speak of this to anyone.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Make Achilles swear too.”
“I’ll swear it, but don’t you think your uncle should know?” Ferox took a tentative step closer to her. “I would bet that—that man belonged to another ludus. Lucullus could see an appropriate punishment administered.”
Velia shook her head. Her hair cascaded around her face, the braid fully disintegrated. “No.” Her shoulders hunched, and she turned away from him. “No one can know.”
“But…why?”
“Because it shouldn’t have happened!” The dim light glimmered on a tear hovering at the corner of her eye.
His heart clenched at the sight of it. For a brief, powerful moment, he was gripped with regret at not ending that man’s life. He’d been so focused on getting him away from Velia and then out of the ludus, he hadn’t even stopped to consider if the man deserved to draw breath anymore.
“I know,” he murmured. “That bastard never should have lain a hand on you.”
“That’s not what I meant.” The tear spilled down her cheek, and she drew in an unsteady breath. “I-I didn’t fight. I just stood there. I didn’t even scream!”
The anguish in her voice cut him deep. “Velia, that man was a trained gladiator. There was no way you could have—”
“Lea taught me how to fight,” she interrupted. “She taught me what to do if someone—did that. But…I just couldn’t…” Her voice broke.
He reached for her, and she sagged into his arms, clutching at him.
He drew her against his body, holding her as tight as he dared.
The feel of her eased some of the tension inside him, reassuring him that she was still whole, and alive, and real.
“There’s a reason gladiators train every day,” he murmured.
“It doesn’t matter if you know how to do something.
When you face it for real, that knowledge flies out of your head unless you’ve practiced so much it’s ingrained into your very soul. ”
“I should have fought,” she mumbled against his chest. “I didn’t even try.”
“If you fought, he would have hurt you.” Darkness unfurled in his chest at the thought of what violence might have befallen her.
“So I was just supposed to let it happen?” She pushed away from him, ripping herself from his embrace. “You know very well what would have happened if you hadn’t intervened at just that moment.”
He had been trying not to think about it, but her words brought the sickening prospect to the front of his mind. “I know.” There was no good answer, no rebuttal to what she said.
She hugged her arms around herself. “I shouldn’t even be upset,” she muttered. “I know far worse happens to women in this city every day, every night. I should be grateful.” She glanced up at him. “How did you find us, anyway?”
At least this was a question he could answer. “I was watching you,” he admitted. “I noticed when you disappeared.”
“You were watching me?” She seemed bemused by the concept.
“Velia, whenever you’re within sight of me, you’re all I can think about.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
Ferox wasn’t sure what to say next, so he turned his attention to the shattered jug. He gathered together the shards and piled them on the small table, bending to pluck the tiniest fragments from the floor. He didn’t want her to step on one and injure herself.
She would need a new jug. He could buy her one.
That would be an excellent use of his money, though replacing the pitcher would not undo the harm that had been done.
Even so, the practical goal soothed him.
He’d ask Jason to accompany him tomorrow if they had time.
Ferox had no taste for decorative objects, as his hideous selection of rugs proved, but Jason understood these things better.
“You don’t have to do that,” Velia said as he swept the last bits of clay pieces into his palm and deposited them on the table.
“I don’t mind.” He dusted his hands clean.
She surveyed him uncertainly. “I…I know you should get back to Achilles, but…” Her fingers twisted at a curl of hair. “Would you stay? For a little while?”
He hadn’t planned to leave her unless she demanded solitude, but her hesitant question made bittersweet warmth swell within him. “I’m not going anywhere. Achilles can take care of himself for an afternoon.”
“Thank you.” She passed a hand over her face with a long sigh. “Maybe it would be better if I kept busy, but I’m just…so tired.”
He often felt that way after a fight, a bone-deep weariness that seemed to exceed any level of physical exertion. “Come here.” He drew her over to her bed and sat down, pulling her into his lap. His arms wrapped around her, and she pressed her face to his shoulder.
She sniffled, and he realized she was crying again. These tears seemed different from the angry, frustrated tears of earlier. These seemed more like a release.
He had no idea how to comfort a crying woman—or a crying anyone, for that matter—but he settled for running his hand up and down her spine in what he hoped was a soothing motion. Maybe he should say something, but he doubted there was anything he could say that would make her feel better.
The shoulder of his tunic grew damp, but eventually she stilled and her breathing calmed. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
She slid off his lap and came to lie down, head pillowed on his thigh. He stroked her hair, fingers running through the wayward curls.
“Why Hispania?” she murmured after a while.
The question took him aback. As much as he didn’t wish to discuss the future, he recognized that some distraction might benefit her. “I grew up there.”
“Really?” She rolled onto her back, her head still atop his leg, and cast him a surprised glance. “That’s where your accent is from.”
“I don’t have an accent.” He’d grown up speaking both Latin and his native Cantabrian.
“Yes, you do. Just a little.”
He let out a dissatisfied grunt, but decided to let her think she’d won.
“What name were you born with?” she asked.
It took him a moment to summon the long-disused word. “Larus.” It felt strange on his tongue, like it belonged to someone he’d once known but hadn’t thought of in years.
“How did you become…” She cleared her throat. “I mean, how did you end up in Rome?”
How did you become enslaved, he knew she meant.
“I’m from the far north of the province.
There was instability.” The area he hailed from, Cantabria, had been the last region of Hispania to come under Roman control, and plenty still resented Roman rule.
“A rebellion broke out. Those who weren’t killed were enslaved. ”
“Oh.” She stretched a hand up to brush his shoulder. “I’m sorry. Your family?”
“Dead.” He alone had been the lucky one, young enough to be spared and sold into slavery.
He’d been bought first by a gladiator trainer in the south of the province, in search of strong young men to train up.
He’d changed hands a few times in the following years until ending up in Lucullus’s service in Rome.
The wound of his parents’ deaths, the loss of his home and childhood, had long since scabbed over, but he’d always carry it with him. As his body bore the scars of his fighting career, so the hidden parts of him would always be marked with his past loss.
Velia made a sound of sympathy. “I can understand why you want to go back. But…” She hesitated, rolling onto her side. “You never told me why you left my uncle. You stayed in Rome then, didn’t you?”
“I spent nearly every coin I had on securing my freedom. I thought I could earn the rest of the money I’d need.
I didn’t realize…how hard it would be.” There was a certain na?veté in living as a gladiator.
Everything was paid for—food, housing, clothing, medical care, even female company if one desired it.
After leaving the ludus, he’d quickly realized that the money he earned from winning fights was vastly more than freedmen with few skills and little education could make.
“But why did you leave?” she asked. “If you didn’t have enough money, why not stay and earn more?”
He focused on gently untangling a small knot that had arisen in her curly hair.
He’d guessed this question was coming, but this was a vastly more unpleasant subject than his plan to return to Hispania.
“There was…another gladiator. A friend. His name was Hector.” A slight shiver ran through him when he spoke the name.
Names had power, and he’d been avoiding all mention of Hector’s, hoping that would lessen the pull of his ghost. “He was killed in the arena.”
If the loss of his home and parents was a long-healed scar, then Hector’s slaying was a wound that festered, refusing to mend.
“I’m sorry,” Velia whispered. Her hand slid over his knee in a soothing motion.
Ferox closed his eyes, but that only made the memories rise brighter in his mind, so he fixed his gaze instead on the strands of Velia’s hair threading through his fingers, picking out all the various colors. Gold, wheat, sand, even a touch of ashy silver.
He knew he should end the conversation here, find a way to speak of something lighter. But words flew from his mouth like arrows from a bow, unable to be stopped. “It was my fault. He died because of me.” The confession was ragged.
She half-sat up, turning to face him. “What?” Her eyes gleamed in the dim room. “Were you his opponent?”
He shook his head. “But I was supposed to be fighting that day. I was recovering from a minor injury, so he substituted for me. I could have still fought. The injury wasn’t serious. If I’d just done what I was supposed to, he’d still be alive.”
“But you might have died.” She climbed back into his lap, her arms hooking around his shoulders. This time, he sensed it was for his comfort, not hers.
“Or I might have beaten the other fighter. We might both be alive today, if not for me backing out.” His arms curled around her, pressing her close.
Guilt overwhelmed him, stealing his breath for a painful moment.
He didn’t deserve her comfort, the warm pleasure of her in his arms. Hector had been robbed of all this, only because Ferox hadn’t wanted to fight with a sprained ankle.
She burrowed her face against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” She made no attempt to assuage his guilt, to tell him the fates had clearly ordained it this way and he should accept it. Instead, she just hugged him. “Will you tell me about him?”
The only thing that could induce him to speak of Hector was if it helped distract Velia. “He was from Germania. He spoke with a funny accent.”
“Worse than yours?” A teasing lilt entered her voice.
“Given that I don’t have an accent, yes, his was worse than mine.”
Velia snorted.
“He’d flatten anyone who called attention to it,” Ferox continued.
“That was the only thing that could rile him, really.” Other memories, long buried, rose in his mind.
“He was the luckiest person I’ve ever met at dice.
People always accused him of cheating, but he never did.
He loved globi. Always stuffed his face with them.
He became an expert at sneaking them past Lucullus.
” A smile twitched at his lips as he remembered Hector’s fondness for the fried cheesecake balls.
“He even paid a baker to deliver them here at the crack of dawn, before anyone else was up.”
Velia made a noise of appreciation. “He had good taste.”
“Yes.” Ferox was silent for a moment, extending his awareness to see if he could sense Hector’s shade lingering, pulled close by their talk of him.
But Ferox felt none of the dread, the crushing guilt that usually accompanied his thoughts of Hector.
He only felt a bittersweet warmth at the memories of his friend’s distinctive accent, his talent for games of luck, and his fondness for globi.
Perhaps the ghost couldn’t find him in Velia’s room, he decided. Or maybe Velia really was a talisman against it. One more reason to keep her close…as if he needed another.