Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Sophia
Conference Room B feels like a fishbowl as morning sun floods through its floor-to-ceiling windows. I arrive fifteen minutes early—my usual buffer to adjust to the lighting and acoustics so I can focus—only to find someone already here.
Flavius sits at the far end of the long wooden table, unnaturally still, shoulders squared, hands folded loosely—but I notice the way his thumb keeps tracing the grain of the table, over and over, as if memorizing it.
He’s changed from yesterday’s gladiator gear into simple jeans and a forest-green Henley that makes his red hair look like burnished copper, and for a moment I lose my professional footing.
The shirt stretches across his chest when he shifts, and for a ridiculous second, I forget I’m supposed to be cataloging facts, not noticing shoulders. Without the gladiator costume, he looks younger. More approachable. Yet somehow more intimidating.
“Good morning,” I say, setting my laptop bag on the table with perhaps more flourish than necessary. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”
He looks up, and that easy smile from yesterday is nowhere to be found.
His thumb keeps brushing the grain of the wood, a pattern I recognize–someone keeping themselves steady under pressure.
Yesterday he was larger than life, laughing and dazzling the crowd.
I didn’t expect to find him this focused, this intent.
“Is no problem. I come early to… quomodo dicitur?… prepare thoughts.”
There’s something different about his posture this morning—more guarded, less of the enthusiastic performer I met yesterday.
No trace of the “Jester” Laura mentioned yesterday.
It shouldn’t be appealing, but the seriousness only makes his presence feel heavier, more deliberate, and somehow more compelling.
I wonder if someone warned him about academics and their agendas, or if he’s simply more nervous in a formal interview setting.
I pull out my digital recorder, laptop, and carefully organized notebook filled with color-coded questions. The sight of all my equipment seems to make him even more tense, if that’s possible.
“Do you mind if I record our conversation? It helps me transcribe accurately later.”
“Is fine.” But he eyes the small device like it might bite him. Even wary, there’s nothing foolish about him—he notices everything, like a fighter sizing up a weapon.
I settle into my chair and open to my first page of questions.
As I fiddle with my translation earpiece, he reaches into his pocket and inserts his own.
Years of research have taught me that preparation is everything—know what you want to ask, anticipate the answers, and guide the conversation toward useful information.
“Let’s start with some background. Can you tell me about your training in the ludus? Specifically, which fighting styles you specialized in?”
The question hangs in the air between us like a challenge. Flavius stares at me for a long moment, then leans back in his chair with what might be amusement.
“You want to start with training? Not with… how I feel about being alive again, or what it’s like to see the modern world?”
Oh. Heat flushes through my cheeks as I realize how clinical my approach must sound. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to jump straight into—I mean, of course those things are important too. I just thought—”
“Is okay.” His expression softens slightly. “I understand. You want facts. But facts and feelings… they are together in arena, yes? Fighting is technique, yes. But also fear. Also courage. Also what you show when you have nothing.”
I close my notebook and really look at him. Yesterday’s performer is gone, replaced by someone more serious, more complex. Someone who’s clearly thinking about how to answer questions I haven’t even asked yet.
“You’re right. I’m approaching this all wrong, aren’t I?” I lean back in my own chair—not because he’s relaxed, but because he isn’t. “Tell me what you think I should know first.”
He studies me for a moment, clearly caught off guard. “You’ve studied gladiators for long time, yes? Read many books?”
“Since I was eight years old. My dissertation focused on gladiatorial combat techniques mentioned in historical sources, but obviously I’ve never had access to…” I stop. Too formal. Too stiff. “Primary source material,” I finish anyway, gesturing toward him.
“And what do your books say about how we fight?”
I can recite this in my sleep. “Training typically began with wooden weapons, progressing to live steel. Different specializations—” I pause as I realize I’m reciting. “Sorry, I’m lecturing. You know, murmillo, retiarius—”
“Secutor, thraex,” he finishes. “Yes, but that is only part.” He nods slowly. “Not the complete story.”
“What do you mean?”
For the first time since I entered the room, he really smiles. Not the performer’s grin from yesterday, but something more genuine. It hits me low and warm. It’s unfair, really, that a smile can disarm me faster than any weapon.
“Your books, they tell you what we carried, how we stood, what armor we wore. But they do not tell you why we survived.”
“Because you were skilled fighters?”
“Some of us.” He shrugs. “But skill alone? Gets you dead fast if the crowd does not like you.”
His language toggles back and forth—broken English for simple answers, then a rush of Latin when the explanation deepens. It’s not inconsistency; it’s bandwidth. English slows him down. Latin lets him think.
I lean forward despite myself. “But the sources make it sound more… systematic. Like crowd influence was just about final mercy decisions, not ongoing strategy throughout the fight.”
“Everything was for crowd,” he says simply. “Not to win. But to make them happy. Big difference.”
The casual way he says it, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, sends a chill down my spine. “But surely the goal was still to defeat your opponent?”
“Sometimes. If that is what the crowd wants to see.” His fingers resume their quiet sweeping movements—not restless exactly. Calibrating. “Sometimes mercy. Sometimes blood. Sometimes both men live. Fight again.”
The textbooks mention crowd psychology, but only as an afterthought to combat skill. What Flavius is describing flips that entirely. Crowd management wasn’t secondary; it was the whole strategy. The fighting was just the delivery system.
“How could you tell what they wanted?”
“Practice. Listen to how they breathe, how they shout, when they get quiet.” His eyes focus on something beyond my shoulder, like he’s seeing ancient crowds instead of the Missouri countryside outside the window. “I learned to feel their mood like… like weather changing.”
I’m scribbling notes frantically now, trying to capture not just his words but the implications. “So combat strategy had to adapt constantly based on crowd reaction?”
“Always about survival,” he corrects gently. “Strategy was… a luxury for men who live long enough to have many fights.”
“How many fights did you have?”
The question slips out before I consider whether it’s too personal. He goes very still, and I realize I might have crossed some invisible line.
He doesn’t look at me. “Forty-three.”
“Forty-three?” The number rocks me so hard it feels like a physical pain in my gut. It’s not raw data anymore—it’s a man’s life measured in near-deaths. “In how long?”
“Five years.” His voice is even quieter now.
Forty-three times, this man faced potential death for other people’s entertainment. Forty-three times, he had to read a crowd’s bloodlust and give them exactly what they wanted.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Is okay.” But his voice is too even, too carefully neutral, to mean it’s really okay. “That’s why I am here, yes? To answer questions about fighting.”