Desire of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 3) (13 page)

She just crossed her arms. There were a number of ways to express disappointment. Some women Leda knew would try—and fail—to express happiness with a decision, and end up sounding bored or annoyed anyway.

This would, by design, lead to questions about the
woman's
mood—“Aren’t you happy for me?” and all of that.

Leda had always thought a direct course of action was best.

“I know. And you’re insane. You shouldn’t do it.”

Conall’s smile faded instantly. Leda regretted her words—she could see right away her reaction was directly against something he very much wanted. Probably he wanted a kiss, or several. Congratulations and assurances that he would be terrific.

Well, too bad. Her arms crossed harder.

“I know you’re excited. And I’m sorry. But I just don’t think you should be in that fight. I don’t think—”

I don’t think you should be in any fight
, she almost said. But that was stupid. He had to fight. It wasn’t as if there was a choice in the matter. And if he had to fight, why not be in the best possible fight?

“—I’m just...it seems too dangerous.”

He laughed grimly. “Sure. And the other ones up until now, those have been no problem?”

“The other fights you had before now were before I cared.” She swallowed. “Very much, anyway.”

Some light returned to his face now, glimmers of hope sparkling in his eyes. “And now you care very much?”

“I...” she made fists with both hands. “I care about you listening to reason. That fight is too dangerous for any man.”

“Not for any man. Just the two who will enter the arena with me. I’ll put them down, and you’ll see that I’m right.”

He spoke confidently, but there was sadness behind his words. Sadness that she had brought to him. Her heart ached suddenly. She
knew
she was right—why did this have to be so complicated? Why was affection such a bag of mysteries to her? If he would only
see
...

And yet even if somehow he didn’t fight two men at once—two men trying to kill one another just as much as they tried to kill him—even then it would still be some other fight that probably she would find way too dangerous.

She wasn’t thinking logically, which she hated—and blamed him for it. Leda was not used to having emotions take a hold of her, and Conall was clearly the source of her emotions.

Just being near him now, all she wanted to do was drop this conversation and take him in his arms. Heavy urges to layer his face with kisses and bite at his neck and shoulders pushed at her like strong winds.

“I...” she shook her head. “I don’t want you to fight. That’s all. I don’t want you hurt. I’ve had enough of that.”

His face morphed entirely from fear into complete understanding. He took her in his arms. For some reason—probably some thoroughly ridiculous emotional reason—Leda was glad that he did. They did not kiss that night for their time together, and yet somehow, it felt all the more intimate for it. He merely held her in his strong, sure arms, with that insanely steady heartbeat, and she forgot about her worries like he always made her do.

––––––––

I
n the five days between the day of the party and the games, Conall trained as hard as he ever had.

On the third day, his opponents were revealed.

The first was Felix, as expected, from House Malleola. He was an excellent fighter—the Champion of Puteoli. Conall had wanted to face him in the arena for a long time now. He fought in the murmillo style, and was as good as any Conall had ever seen. The murmillo was heavily armored, and armed with a razor-sharp gladius.

Some years ago, Conall’s friend Caius had fought Felix in the arena and won just by a hair.

The other opponent was named after the Egyptian god of violence, Set. He was an Egyptian himself, a long-limbed man with deep black skin, born of other slaves bound from other countries in the African continent.

There was talk that he had arrived one day with chains already on his hands, fresh from the endless desert to the South. Such talk was only talk, but still, a man had to wonder. Set fought as a thraex—a fighter who was in many ways the opposite of the murmillo, lightly armored and relying heavily on mobility.

Murus pitted Conall against two men at once in the sands during his sparring sessions to give him a taste of what to expect. One always a thraex, the other always a murmillo. Given another three weeks, Conall would have felt confident that he could walk out without a scratch, as befit his boast.

Given the time he had, he felt he had a slender chance of survival, which sounded more than anyone else would give him.

The other gladiators looked at him as if he were a dead man. The cook at mealtimes gave him an extra half-ration to his meals with his sympathies. Amphoras of wine were sent his way at night, which he always declined, passing them on to other gladiators.

Wine was for winners—and he had not won anything yet.

The worst part was Leda. Any time he brought up the fights or the strategies in their time together, she shut down completely. She refused to listen to him, refused to hear him say word one about how he hoped to win or what his fears were in the fight.

Her visible dislike of what he wanted shook him.

It was difficult, more difficult than anything he had ever imagined, seeing all that fear in the face of the woman he loved.

He wished to all the gods he could tell her he loved her again. Too much of a burden on her to answer, though, and he did not want to test her out prematurely and be rejected. It was a stupid thought, but somehow he thought that just the fact of their shared love could offer him some protection.

That was wrong and he knew it. He knew plenty of men in love who had died in the arena. They walked as if their affection had given them some sort of armor—they took risks they did not need to because they thought the stars themselves would push out of their way in honor of the emotions they carried in their chest.

These were stupid men. Conall was many things, and often he acted stupidly, but he felt he could boast evenly that he was not a stupid man.

His days were only training. At night, he saw Leda and kissed her and pretended not be bothered by how much she hated that he would fight. He slept uneasily, wishing somehow there was a way to make things as right with her as he wanted.

They spoke often of her family and how she wanted to free her brother.

“When you’re done with him, I have another name you can put at the top of your list for freeing.”

It took her a moment before she caught the joke. She smiled. “And how will you fight if you’re a free man?”

“There are many fights in this life, Princess. I expect I’ll find one at your side somehow.”

This, strangely, calmed her somewhat—his desire for freedom. He was a slave, after all, and though he lived now for the arena, he knew that at some point or another, that was a life that would have to change.

That he wanted something beyond living out his last breath in the arena was a surprise to her. He never talked about it—and so maybe it was a surprise to him, too.

On the day before the games began, he and the other gladiators were paraded through town on a wagon. They went shirtless, as gladiators always did, and flexed and preened before the dirty throngs outside.

It was easy for the common and the uneducated to think the gladiators approaching some apotheosis in the arena. The mob was often dirty, underfed, and riddled with sickness. Each gladiator was in peak physical condition, their skin shining with oils, their every movement sure and confident. That a gladiator could become immortal in his work was reinforced with every presentation of their visage and pronouncement of their skills.

The wagon holding the fighters from House Varinius followed the wagons from House Malleola and House Vibius. And so Conall's opponents, Felix and Set, came before him. He could see the eyes of the crowd as they looked him up and down. They doubted he would live through the primus.

Set was an imposing force unto himself, seeming to draw the air and sound around him. His face was stone, and his black skin weathered with heavy scars. The crowd already knew Felix—who fought under the name Hector, after the Trojan hero—and knew him to be a terror in the ring. His only loss in the past several years was to Caius.

Conall steeled his will against their doubting eyes. There would be many more yet tomorrow.

He would fight in the primus. He would prove himself in the eyes of gods and men.

And himself. He could not forget that. There would have been no Conall without the primal driving force of doubt powering the whole of his machinations.

He carried their doubt, and his, even later that night as he tried to sleep. It was a hard duty before a fight, and for this fight more than most.

If he had expected some last-minute effort from Leda to talk him out of his decision to fight—inasmuch as it could possibly be seen as his decision—he was disappointed. She did not show up the night before the fight at their meeting place. Nyx informed him that she had been detained with work by Publius.

The life of a slave was never his or her own.

And so, in a blur of training and display and Leda and love and rage, the day of the games was at hand.

The governor did his best to ensure there was much to be celebrated—he wanted the games in Puteoli to be talked about in all of Rome. And specifically, in the city of Rome itself. To that end, he had shipped in more than twenty lions, fifty antelope, twelve bears, three dozen wolves, ten boars, and over eight dozen prisoners. All would be dead before the end of the day.

As the wagon train of House Varinius approached the arena yet again, Conall could hear the beasts. There was sorrow in their cries—sorrow so deep it was hard to hear among the cacophony of the gathered voices of all the animals and all the crowds in the city. But it was there.

It was a sorrow about loss, about never knowing their home.

A sorrow of being captured against their will and made to fight in an arena for the bloodlust of men and women in a city that cared only for the quality of their struggle.

Conall was such a beast, trapped in a cage of his own. But the cage only existed if he did not believe in redeeming his life through glory in the arena.

––––––––

S
he found Conall in the underbelly of the arena. He was leaning against a wall, stretching out his calves. She stopped in her pace for a moment to admire him. He had
such
a lovely body. She felt like she could watch him stretch all day.

If Leda were to ever free herself and him—and hadn’t
that
been a good idea from the man—she was going to reserve a room in an inn somewhere just for the two of them. They would stay there for a week, and all she would do is feed him and watch him move his muscles for her.

It had been easy to slip away from the box seats where Publius sat with the governor and the other noble guests of honor. She’d asked another slave to cover for her. The pretty young brunette had winked at her knowingly.

“We’d all like to sneak one in with a gladiator before his fight. Have fun.”

Leda hadn’t had the time to inform her that “sneaking one in” was
not
on the agenda. The two of them had not yet even deliberately and happily
placed
one in, and so
sneaking
one in was tantamount to theft.

Their first time together would be perfect.

If it happened.

If Leda
let
it happen, which of course she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She was a princess and he was a gladiator, and though he was very good for kissing and holding,
and
though her every waking moment with him made her body blaze with unending desire, their relationship ended there.

She desperately didn’t want to see him die, and desperately wanted to feel every part of him that she could. If there was a way for her to use her body to keep him safe, she would have done it—but that was foolishness.

The gladiators were all gathered in the underbelly of the arena while they waited for their own fight to be called. They sat on benches or stretched, like Conall stretched, standing up. Many worked in groups, doing light grappling exercises and pulling on one another’s limbs to loosen them up.

It was the afternoon now, and outside the arena carried the heavy metallic smell of blood. It brought to mind the memory of that awful episode in the market, weeks past now.

Down in the underbelly, where the light came in down shafts through wide slots on the walls, there was a heavy, over-perfumed smell from a variety of herbs posted in small pots. The pots were regularly arranged every several feet.

This was to keep the nerves of the gladiators level. If they smelled a day of death before stepping out before the crowd, they might get scared. Some even had their bloodlust raised from the smell of slaughter, and expended their energy before even entering the sands. Some more would get into fights with other gladiators before their time.

The arena was a tradition, and tradition meant that over time all contingencies had been planned for.

Earlier in the day had been a great slaughter of beasts and prisoners. The governor had seemed pleased with the display—or at least, how the display affected the crowd. They were appropriately dazzled by the multi-beast melee between lions, bears, and wolves. They oohed and ahhed at the venatores hunting down rhinos with spears and slings.

Outside now, though, some half dozen gladiators clanged their weapons together in a mighty melee.

Conall saw her staring at him and smiled.

“Welcome to the pit, Princess.”

He continued to stretch as he spoke to her, loosening his arms this way and that.

“How are you feeling?”

“Ready. Very ready.”

“Good.”

She frowned. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was down here, now that she thought of it. It had seemed like the right thing to do, that was all.

“I apologize,” she said, “for not being there last night. I was detained by Publius. He had some last minute alterations to a few of the vendor contracts.”