The Champion (19 page)

A
lexius charged through the gates of the
ludus
. He jumped down from Calisto’s saddle before one of the stable boys had time to kneel and offer his back as a step. His fear for Tibi’s safety had doubled during the wild ride across the waking city. Panic and reason vied for precedence with one overtaking the other every so often. Hammered by frustration, he cursed the gods, then begged them for mercy. White hot rage bubbled in his belly, promising mayhem if he didn’t find her soon.

“Master!” Velus rushed toward him as Alexius climbed the front steps. “Your guest—”

Relief sparked. “Has Tibi…?”

“No,” the dwarf corrected with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry. She hasn’t come back yet. Master Caros along with his family and friends arrived an hour after sunrise.”

Disappointment crashed over him. He ordered more men to return to the abandoned garden. Any other time he’d be ecstatic to see his friends, but Tibi was missing. They presented a distraction from his quest to find her and he resented the intrusion. “Have you told them what’s happened?”

“No, I thought you’d prefer to do so.”

“Where are they?” he snapped.

“The women and nursemaids are seeing to the children upstairs. Their husbands are waiting for you in your office.”

The cooler, darker interior of the house surrounded him. Panic-stricken and exhausted from hours of futile searching, Alexius clawed his dirty hand through his hair and swore under his breath. Small nicks and cuts crusted with dried blood marked his skin, proclaiming his search under every thornbush and dilapidated statue. His injured side raged with fire, though he’d walked through miles of river.

He stalked across the house in the mood for bloodshed, not rounds of merry greetings.

From out in the corridor, he saw the two large men in his office. They were talking as though the bright spring day beyond the open window was a true reflection of the world and not the dark chaos plaguing Alexius.

Both men were tall and well-muscled with black hair. Caros, the brawnier of the two, bore the scars from over a decade in the gladiatorial trade. He remained one of Rome’s most famous champions. In the three years since he’d wed Pelonia and become a Christian, Caros had changed in ways Alexius hadn’t thought possible. Gone was the lethal coldness that made seasoned killers tremble. Instead, he was a contented husband and father with a peace about him that other men envied.

Quintus, a wealthy merchant once enslaved for his faith, had no visible scars from the many months he’d trained as a gladiator, but his discerning eyes were as sharp as a
gladius
with the ability to slice to the heart of any matter. His marriage to the renowned beauty
Adiona Leonia had sent shock waves through the city two and a half years earlier. The fact that Quintus had managed to win Adiona, a sworn man-hater whose outrageous wealth rivaled that of a queen, made him somewhat of a legend throughout the city.

“There he is.” Caros smiled. The gladness in his expression turned to concern the moment Alexius crossed into the office. “What’s happened, my friend? Are you ill? Has someone died?”

Alexius’s jaw tightened. He refused to consider Tibi’s death or how his heart would perish along with her. To his eternal embarrassment his throat closed up and his chest constricted. “It’s Tibi…” he managed to choke.

“Tibi?” Caros frowned in puzzlement. “You mean Pelonia’s cousin, Tiberia the Younger?”

Unable to speak further, Alexius nodded. His gaze swung between Caros and Quintus like a wounded animal’s begging for mercy. Instinctively, he knew he could count on them to help him. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed these men, who were as much brothers to him as friends.

Both men crossed to him in the middle of the room. Their faces reflected true anxiety for his unusually downcast state. Giving him a chance to collect himself, Quintus pulled up a chair and Caros pressed him down into the padded seat.

“What’s happened to her, Alexius?” Caros asked.

“I can’t find her.” He swallowed convulsively. Over the rock lodged in his throat, he gave them a quick account of their trip to the garden the previous day. He left out the personal details and ended with finding Tibi gone when he awoke at sundown.

“Why were you with her in the first place?” Caros’s
sky-blue eyes narrowed on him with suspicion. “You gave me your word—”

“And I’ve kept it! I haven’t touched her no matter how much I’ve been tempted this past week.”

“Past
week?
”

Alexius groaned, regretting his loose tongue. Struggling not to be vexed by all the questions, he acknowledged and appreciated Caros’s concern for his cousin by marriage.

Caros scowled. “You’d best explain.”

Alexius gave him the skeletal version of events since Tibi’s arrival the previous week.

“You mean you’ve been using an innocent young girl to train
gladiators?
” Caros raked his hand through his hair.

“I didn’t force her.” Alexius surged to his feet, wincing at the sharp pain in his side. “And I’d do it again, if it pleased her. She thrived on sharing her skill. Silo and I agree—she’s one of the best archers either of us has ever seen.”

“That’s not the point—”

“No, it isn’t,” Quintus interjected a voice of calm. “You’re in love with her, are you not?”

“I don’t deny it.” Alexius moved to his desk and leaned against the carved edge. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life! Now I can’t find her. The men and I tore that garden apart. We searched both sides of the river for miles. I don’t know where else to look. I’m going mad thinking she might be hurt and depending on me to find her.”

“When did this all start?” asked Quintus.

“My guess is the first time he saw her,” Caros said. “The day I wed Pelonia three years ago.”

“Three years?” Quintus whistled through his teeth.

“I thought the months I loved Adiona from afar were torture, but I meant—”

“It was.”

All three men looked toward the doorway at once. Adiona stood in the open arch, a vision in flowing light blue silk. Her glossy black hair was arranged with effortless elegance and her amber eyes glowed with love as she gazed at Quintus.

“Utter torture,” she reiterated as she glided across the tiled floor to her husband. At his side, she smiled up at him as though he lit the sun each morning.

Again, Alexius was struck by the change in the woman he’d known for the past six years. Once icy enough to give a man frostbite for looking in her general direction, she’d always been outwardly stunning. Marriage and faith had changed her cold persona and given her an inner glow that warmed everyone who came near her.

She turned her amber eyes on Alexius. “How is my favorite Greek? The children are clamoring to see their uncle Alexius.”

“Not well.”

She frowned. “What has happened?”

Quintus put his arm around her slim waist and pulled her close to his side. “Pelonia’s cousin, Tibi, is missing.”

“Does Pelonia know?” Adiona asked with instant worry. “Who is looking for the girl?”

“She doesn’t know yet,” Caros said, his expression closed. “Alexius has just returned from the river where Tibi disappeared. Other men are on their way as we speak.”

“Then we must tell Pelonia. She’ll want to pray with us for her cousin’s safe return.”

“We will. We’re trying to fish the details out of Alexius first.”

She pinned Alexius with a knowing look he didn’t fully understand. “Speak up, gladiator. We have prayers to begin.”

“I’ve already explained! She came here last week in distress caused by a row she’d had with father. I agreed to keep her here until Caros and Pelonia arrived because Senator Tacitus suggested she wasn’t safe in her own home. Yesterday, we went to a garden she wished to show me on the banks of the Tiber. I fell asleep and when I woke up, she was gone.”

Adiona looked up at Quintus. “I told you.”

He kissed her brow. “You were right. He’s already admitted that he loves her.”

“Really? When?”

“A few moments before you arrived,” said Quintus.

“Why are you not surprised?” Alexius rubbed his ribs, pain and exhaustion wearing him low.

“Pelonia and I guessed your feelings years ago….” She looked quizzically at his side. “Are you bleeding?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It
is
something.” She left Quintus and crossed to the desk for a closer look. He caught a whiff of her cinnamon perfume once she reached him. “You
are
bleeding. What’s happened to you?”

“A small wound from practice last week. I must have strained the stitches looking for Tibi this morning.”

She went to the door and called Velus. “Fetch the physician,” she told the steward when he entered the corridor. “Your master’s wound is bleeding afresh.”

“A physician isn’t necessary,” Alexius complained. “I have to find Tibi.”

“Yes, a physician is most necessary. Pelonia and I
have been asking the Lord to bring you and Tibi together for years. How will that happen if you insist on bleeding to death out of stubbornness?”

“You’ve prayed for us?”

“Of course. You’re our dear friends. We all pray for each of you daily.”

Alexius shook his head, stunned they’d cared enough to appeal to their God on his behalf. “I’m grateful.”

“You’re welcome. Hopefully, you’ll put yourself out of your misery soon and realize how much you need Him.” She gave him a smile filled with compassion. “In the meantime, I’m not going to let you thwart our prayers. If you care for Tibi, accept the help you need. Once Tibi’s found, she’s going to require more than a corpse to wed. We want you both to have a long life with a happy marriage and at least half a dozen children for you to spoil.”

His grip tightened on the edge of the desk. The hope she’d been building in him crumbled. “That is the worst of the situation. She can never be mine. Even if she agreed to marry me, her father—”

Adiona patted his cheek as though he weren’t a very bright lad. “Alexius, my friend, look around you. You’re in a room full of miracles. Surely you’ve realized by now from the work He’s done in all of us these past few years, our God is capable of making a way where there is none.”

He glanced beyond her shoulder. His office glowed with morning light. A confident Caros and Quintus looked on, nodding in agreement.

Not for the first time, he wished he possessed their faith and reassurance. He felt as though he was standing at the top of a broken bridge. He wanted to jump over the missing section in his path and join their God
on the other side. But what if he miscalculated the distance and went plunging to his death?

He knew his friends believed he didn’t take life too seriously, that he could be counted on for a laugh and that he saved his reserve for the arena. They hadn’t considered the anger that dwelled inside him or the real possibility that their peaceful God wouldn’t want him because of it. “I’ll believe in Him if He brings Tibi back to me safely.”

“All right,” she said too easily for his liking. “If you want to put off knowing His grace until then, so be it. However,
you
will have to be the one to tell Him your choice. I’m not going to do it for you.”

The physician, Remus, knocked on the door frame before Alexius formed an adequate response. Adiona excused herself to go find Pelonia and explain to her that Tibi has disappeared.

At the physician’s insistence, the men left the office for Alexius’s room. Alexius sat on his sleeping couch, trying not to disgrace himself with groans of pain while Remus pushed on his ribs.

“You’ve snapped a half dozen stitches at the very least.” Remus clucked at him. “Naturally, the reopened wound has caused all this blood. Why were you up? Where’s that pretty blonde girl who was supposed to be keeping you entertained in bed?”

Alexius’s gazed darted to Caros. His friend’s arched eyebrow and folded arms made it clear he’d heard the mouthy physician. “Caros, it’s not what you think.”

“Then do me a favor and explain.”

“I was bedridden. Tibi came up here after her morning instruction each day. We took meals together. She read to me, we talked, things got so bad, I let her convince me to play
latrunculi
—”

“Cease, now I know you lie. If you—”

“It’s true! Believe me or not, it’s up to you, but I had no intentions of using and discarding Tibi. She’s too precious to me.”

Caros frowned, but let the matter rest. While Remus prepared his supplies, Alexius left the couch and waited in front of the window, his gaze pinned to the empty archery field.

“How are you feeling?” Quintus asked.

“Like I’ve lost the last flicker of light in my life.”

“I understand.”

“I doubt it,” he said, beyond the point of hiding his bitterness. “The woman you love is a few doors down, caring for your beautiful daughter.”

“If you remember, Adiona was poisoned once. She almost died in my arms.”

Alexius leaned forward and grasped the windowsill. He hung his head. His side ached, but not half as much as his heart did. “How did you wade through the agony of waiting?”

“I prayed and the Lord showed me a way to save her.”

“Your Jesus doesn’t know me or what I’ve done. You’re a good man, Quintus. I can see why He’d help you, but why would He bother with me?”

“He knows you better than you do, Alexius. All your secrets and flaws. You have nothing to hide.”

“What a frightening thought. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Quintus squeezed his shoulder. “The truth is that
you
don’t know
Him
. He’s eager to help, not because you’re good enough or not, but because He loves you and wants you to trust in Him.”

Remus joined them. He handed Alexius a ceramic cup. “Drink this. You look parched.”

Alexius downed the honeyed wine in one gulp. “Do you have more? I’m thirstier than I realized.”

“Yes.” Quintus frowned at the physician. “I’ll get it. But only because I’m much kinder than you were to me when I was the one getting stitches.”

Alexius grinned, remembering earlier days and Quintus’s first fight in the Coliseum. Quintus brought him another full cup. Alexius drank more slowly this time. “It’s water.”