Desire of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 3) (11 page)

The day after Septus caught them, she told him exactly how everything was.

“What happened between us simply can’t go on,” she said, entering his cell with her head high in the air. “I can accept that it did. I think you a fine man. But what pleasure passed between us must, regrettably, end.”

And he nodded and smiled, and they talked of other things. She couldn’t stop herself from talking to him. He was
interesting
, for goodness’ sake, and how many people did she know who were actually interesting?

They compared notes on the same stories and philosophy texts. He challenged her on her knowledge of history, and she regularly had to remind him that everything he had been reading had been written from a
Roman
point of view, so it wasn’t as if it were unbiased.

And then, somewhere in the midst of all that talking and close-touching (for the cell was small, and the best place to sit was on the cot for the both of them) she ended up kissing him again. Or, he ended up kissing her. Either way was perfectly acceptable, and completely demolished any headway she made in ending their affair.

This happened again and again as the days went on and coalesced into weeks.

The trick was to
leave
the cell after ending things with the man, she knew. But because she knew that was definitely the way to solve the problem, she absolutely did want to go out of her way to do it.

Each time it happened, they risked Publius's wrath. Both had little doubt that the Dominus would approve of a coupling between his personal assistant and the gladiator he disliked more than any other. If even Septus disapproved of the heavy implications of their cross-class coupling, they surmised, then Publius would have a fit.

Her schedule was largely static. In the mornings she trailed the older house servants, doing whatever they required. Often this was cleaning and arranging. Sometimes she would look after little Marius and ensure that he did not break his neck by climbing a tree in the garden.

One trick she found out was that Marius loved watching the gladiators train, albeit for an entirely different reason than Leda was learning to. He was at the age of many boys where everything that involved fighting was wonderful, and everything that was glorious was even more glorious for the fact of its glory.

Some Romans, judging by the nation's many wars over the course of their long history, never grew out of this phase in totality. But, because Marius loved to watch the gladiators, that meant that Leda could take him down the steps and encourage the young man to watch as they trained. His favorites were the murmillos. He loved their heavy armor and the wild helmets they wore.

“And what do you think of the dimachaerus?” she had asked him one day.

“They are not as good as the murmillo,” he said. His voice was solemn. Fighting was a serious business. “But they are good. So long as they don’t fight the murmillo.”

She had made no secret to him of her own preference for the dimachaerus. Sweet boy, this was how he tried to keep her included in the list of people that he liked. What
he
liked was better, but hers was fine so long as it did not interfere.

Another phase, if she knew anything, of which men often did not grow out.

Publius was much the same. Probably it was no secret to him, her affair with Conall. And the second that it became a nuisance to him, he would order it forbidden. Until that point of interference, there was no trouble.

Such was the life of a slave.

––––––––

T
he grand gathering Publius had planned for House Varinius began without a hitch. All the guests arrived on time. As they entered through the gates, the gladiators received them in two columns. They held torches which lit the walkway between their bodies. Every man and woman was greeted with the sight of rippling, masculine muscle as they entered.

The gladiator was a symbol of virility and strength, and even to be in the presence of one was said to make most men more capable in bed and most women more fertile. It was long thought that even parts of the gladiator—as if he were some statue or religious relic—could be used to create mystical effects such as longevity of youth or sexual endurance.

The display was a strategic one. Everyone knew that the ludi all over Rome were having difficulty keeping their ranks full. If the first thing guests saw when entering a ludus were two long lines of gladiators surrounding them, suddenly there seemed to be quite a
lot
of gladiators in the ludus. And, as gladiators always were, they were in fine fighting shape and ready to go to combat at a moment’s notice.

It was an advertising ploy, and an obvious one, but also an effective one. Publius had pulled every gladiator he owned to stand ready that evening. The cell blocks were utterly empty, and would be until the last of the guests arrived.

Conall was one of the veteran gladiators brought up into the estate house for further enjoyment of the guests. His role was to simply stand and look as impressive as possible. He, along with five other gladiators, carried his wooden weapons in case he was called upon for a show of skill.

Guests to a ludus often wanted to see gladiators in action, in the same way that someone visiting a winery would want a taste of wine. There were ludi, Conall had heard, that offered sexual services to those who could front the coin to pay for a night with a gladiator.

Fortunately, Publius was far too much of a traditionalist for such things. Porcia might have tried it out were she less superstitious, but her husband Rufus had explicitly forbade such activities in his will. For a Roman, to act against the written will of the deceased was to invite their angry ghost into your home.

The gladiators were gathered in a line at one end of the atrium on top of a podium so that any guest could look up and admire them at any time. Their instructions, straight from the mouth of the Dominus, were to remain as still as possible and their muscles as flexed as possible unless directed otherwise.

Diocles was another of the gladiators brought into the home. He stood at the opposite end of the line as Conall. Whenever possible, the two exchanged disparaging looks. They were representatives of their fighting style, as was every man there—Diocles for murmillo, Conall for dimachaerus, and four more for retarius, thraex, hoplamachus, and secutor.

There were other styles of fighting still which existed—men who fought with lassos, men who fought on horseback, men who fought just with their bare hands. But every ludus had to specialize somewhere. House Varinius had long been known for its murmillo and thraex styles, and only in the last decade had it risen to prominence with the dimachaerus and retarius styles as well.

Leda was in the crowd, serving food and wine. She wore a shimmering robe of sheer white silk, barely concealing the exotic brown color of her skin beneath. He had a great deal of trouble taking his eyes off her when he ought to have been staring straight ahead.

The cords of her stola wrapped up around the collar on her throat, attending so closely to the metal band that it looked as if the collar itself held the fabric up. Her breasts, always lovely, were displayed with agonizing tantalization, and when Conall turned away it was mostly to avoid becoming too excited at the sight of her.

It was difficult enough thinking of her without thinking of their passionate embraces they had enjoyed night after night. More difficult still was seeing her in such a revealing stola without imagining his hands running up and down the full curves of her luscious body. He wanted every part of her, and had barely been able to restrain himself.

He wanted nothing more than to take her, to ravish her, to have his way with her and bring her again and again to climax after climax. But he could sense her restraint—and already his one push past that restraint, when he had told her he loved her, had nearly ruined their affection entirely.

Now that he had her presence again, pleasant and thrilling and heated, he could not risk it.

Great plates of food were displayed before the guests. In the center of the atrium were tall tables carrying all manner of exotic fruit and meat. Slaves carried trays with tiny portions, offering up cooked shrimp or chopped, braised pork riblets to any who desired them—excepting the gladiators, of course. More slaves still carried large amphoras of spiced wine with them, keeping every glass full.

Conall was not much of a drinker, and so had seen in his time plenty of instances where a man made poor decisions because he was drunk. Fights started, investments were made, and babies got brought into the world all with the help of just a bit too much wine.

No doubt Publius had seen the same, not being a man for libations himself. And the man in particular that Publius wanted drunk was Puteoli’s governor, Trio. He was the ticket to more wealth for Publius—for paying off all the debts Porcia had incurred, for returning the ludus to the status it once held in the Italian peninsula.

Governor Trio was a large man, possibly the largest Conall had ever seen without any real muscle attached to his frame. His belly was round and distended, stretching out far in front of him like a boulder. A series of jowls and chins descended from his face, and the many steps up the stairs to the estate seemed to have winded him thoroughly.

Conall, who could run the steps for hours before getting tired, was simply amazed that such a corpulent man existed. He had seen bigger fellows in the arena from time to time, but only from a distance in the arena, and never for very long.

The governor walked the room with a hop in his step strangely agile for a man his size, examining the gladiators with great fervor. When he saw Conall, his face lit up and he began pointing excitedly.

“
This
one!” The governor exclaimed, clearly giddy. “I like this one quite a lot! What’s his name? Don’t tell me.” He wagged a finger. “Pericles. No. No, no. Pontifex? Something like that.”

There was silence in the room as no one dared interrupt his thought process. He was an amiable man—jovial—but crossing lines of authority in Roman high society was every kind of a bad idea.

“I’m lost,” Trio said, a smile on his face. “Someone help me.”

Publius leaned in and said softly, “Pertinax, Governor,”

“Pertinax!” The Governor smiled broadly. “You took a thrashing at the last games, did you not?”

“I did, Governor.” Conall nodded. “But I also won.”

“And what is more important than that, eh? If a man’s not a winner in the arena, he’s nothing at all. It did look, I must say, like you were down for good a number of times.”

“The Romans have looked that way in many wars, Governor. Hannibal destroyed the forces in Cannae, and yet Carthage is now merely a province and only a shade of the empire it once was building. Being too stubborn to admit defeat seems a good way to ensure a victory, to my mind.”

“Ha!” The Governor pointed. “Haha! Publius, you have your gladiators studying history, do you?”

Publius smiled. Its contents were a mystery to Conall. The man could have been pleased; he might have been mortified.

“What can one say, Governor?” Publius shrugged woodenly. “The gladiators are allocated funds after every fight. What they spend their money on is their own business.”

“Yes, naturally.” The Governor nodded. “But I expected...I don’t know. Women and booze. Perhaps some of the Egyptian herbs, if you take my meaning. But history? How many of your gladiators know how to read?”

“Not too many, Governor. But this one knew our tongue when he came in to the ludus, to my understanding.”

“Is that so?” asked the Governor. “Your tribesmen are searching out books to read?”

“We hoped to show ourselves civilized and worthy of absorption into the boundaries of Rome.”

“And were you?”

“I’m standing here, as you see. Apparently not.”

The Governor clapped his back. “Ha! Good man. Now,” he pointed at Conall’s face. “He’s a bit of a small one, isn’t he? Is he truly one of your best?”

“He is small, yes,” said Publius. His eyes were dangerous as they rested on Conall. “But he more than makes up for it in a fight. You saw him. Scrappy. Hard-headed. Refuses to listen to reason, even if that reason comes from his body telling him to quit. And skilled, beyond all that. A good hand in the ring in any fight.”

Conall was almost flattered. But he knew Publius had to talk up his gladiators. No one else was going to do it if he didn’t, and if no one did, then no one would want to see them fight.

And he knew also that Publius had studiously avoided calling Conall one of his “best” fighters, as the Governor had asked.

“I’d like to see you scrap in the arena soon, Pertinax,” said Trio. “Are you up for the coming games?”

“As ready as any man.” He cast a sidelong glance at Diocles. “And more ready than some will ever be.”

“Confidence! I love to see it!” He slapped Conall’s shoulder again. “Good. Good!”

He watched as Publius took the governor to one side, speaking with him softly. No doubt the subject was the games—and Publius guided Trio's gaze several times over to Diocles over Conall.

––––––––

T
he party floated ever onward to rising levels of intoxication and gullet-stuffing as Publius called Leda to the office where he did all his business. Governor Trio was there already, immediately taking the amphora of wine Leda held and pouring himself a large drink.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all, Governor.”

“Good girl.”

The man had brought his own cup, twice the size of those that Publius boasted. It overflowed gently and dripped down to the marble floors below. Later, Leda would have to clean that. Oh well.

“I keep myself to just three cups a night,” he said with a wink. “This is number two.”

It was number four, but Leda was hardly about to tell the man that. If he wanted to enjoy his lies, she certainly was not in any place to stop him.

The reasons she had been brought into the office with Publius and Trio when no one else had were not lost on her. Publius hoped to close the deal—and his fees—for the upcoming games tonight. For that, he would need a contract, and when it came to contracts, Leda was who he trusted most.