The Gladiator Prince (8 page)

A sound startled her, and she came out of the dream, but before she could utter a sound, a hand materialized in front of her and clamped itself against her mouth. Someone threw an arm around her waist, yanked her back into her chambers and tossed her onto the bed. Before she could scream, Bahar’s face suddenly appeared above her out of the darkness. All the lights had been extinguished.

“Quiet,” he hissed, turning his face toward the door. Phaedra had never seen her brother this agitated.

“What is it? What is wrong?” she bellowed, but he lifted the back of his hand as if to strike her, and she covered her mouth with both hands.

Grimacing, Bahar took her hand and pulled her through the room and out into the hallway, glancing from side to side and listening intently. Then, apparently when it was safe, he pulled her down the flight of stairs and back out into the night.

When they were well out of earshot, Phaedra refused to go any further and planted her feet, pulling Bahar back.

“What is going on?” she demanded, loosening her hand from his grip.

He scanned the darkness then motioned her to follow him into the woods.

After several hundred feet, he stopped abruptly and for the first time in years, Phaedra watched in horror as Bahar put his back to a tree and sank to sit, sobbing.

She went to him at once, shaken completely. Bahar never sobbed, never broke down, raised his voice in despair, or any of the dozen other things he controlled with practiced discipline.

“What is it? What has happened?”

It took her a long time to get him to calm down enough to understand him. He finally bit down on his lip hard, sending small trails of blood down his chin. When he opened his eyes to her, Phaedra saw real terror, and it stunned her.

“Father called me into his room…” he started in a shaking whisper. “He said he and Hasani had come to an agreement about marriage.”

“Yes,” Phaedra said, “we knew he was here to marry me, little brother. It is why…”

“No,” he snapped back at her taking his hand away. “Another marriage.” Swallowing, he turned his eyes to the darkened forest. They glistened in the sparse light. “My marriage to his cousin. Father told me it had all been arranged; that I was to be formally presented to Salihah in the morning.” He turned to her abruptly and clawed at the sleeve of her nightgown. “I am to report to Hasani’s tailor tonight to be fitted for the proper costume.”

Phaedra backed away from him and slid down to the ground in front of him. “No,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he hissed back at her then buried his face in his hands. “What am I going to do, Phae? If father finds out… if they discover…”

“I know, Bahar!” she said harshly, unable to get the trembling to stop. “I know what they will do to both of us if they find out.” She jumped to her feet and paced over the dead leaves and duff. They smelled of mushrooms and that was somehow comforting.

“We have to do something…” Bahar bellowed.

“I know!” Seeing the horror in his eyes, Phaedra knelt down to him and touched his cheek. “Let me think,” she said softly.

There really was only one solution, and the thought of it made her heart quake and her arms go numb. In a disjointed way, she kept hearing the same question inside her head.
Are you brave enough?
She did not like the answer.

Sitting next to Bahar in the damp debris, Phaedra wrapped her arms around him and rocked for a long time, afraid to even broach the subject. Finally, she kissed him gently on the forehead and whispered in his ear. “We must run away, Bahar.”

He lifted his head and pulled away from her. “What do you mean
we?
”

Phaedra shook her head and touched his chin with the fingers of her right hand. “Do you honestly think I would leave you alone to face this?”

Cocking his head to the side, Bahar furrowed his brow and glared at his sister. “I will not ask you to go with me, sister. This is my burden to bear.”

“Oh, what a little brave soul you are,” Phaedra replied, standing up and pulling Bahar with her then laughing at the frown on his face. “How far do you think you could get without me?”

“Phae, I…”

She pushed a finger to his lips and smiled. “If father does find out, what do you think my life would be worth? He knows there are no secrets between us.” Taking his hand, she led him further into the forest.

“Where are you going?”

“To think,” she said simply.

“We will need a place to go,” Bahar said at her back, but Phaedra ignored him, trying to locate something in the dark.

In twenty steps, she saw it and hauled him running.

The cave had seemed a lot larger when they were children: larger, warmer, and by all means a lot less gloomy. Now it was just a hole out of the rain.

Bahar moved to the back while Phaedra sat on the thinking rock they had spent hours of childhood bliss exposing to their imaginations. How she missed those days long ago. Putting that aside she turned just as Bahar was striking tinder against a stone. At first, the sparks were listless, but soon the dried material caught and the torch sputtered in the wind blowing in from the outside night.

Phaedra was not having problems coming up with a solution; that had presented itself immediately. She just could not think of the words to explain the situation to her younger brother. He was not going to like it.

“I have a house in Rome,” she said when he moved to her side and sat on the ground.

“What?”

“I have a house in Rome. And gold… and friends. If we could get there, I know we would be safe with Thrasea.”

He scowled at her. “What makes you think the senator would care for us. We will only remind him of his dead son. He made it clear enough when…”

Phaedra touched his arm gently and squeezed it. “Trust me, little brother. I know what he said, but he was in pain. The loss of Lucius cut him deeply. The rest… the things he said to us was for the benefit of the servants who gossip and the neighbors who wondered at the rumors. He loves us very much. He told me so.”

“When?”

She looked at her knees, knowing she would not tell him all of Thrasea words. “At the dock, the day we left Rome. He promised that the house, the servants, all of it would be mine to keep, regardless of father’s wishes.”

“Then why did we leave?” Bahar said in frustration.

Phaedra took his face in her hand and tried to smile. “Because our staying there would bring him nothing but more shame. What do you think the elite would think of him harboring his dead son’s bride? Putting her up in Lucius’ house instead of sending her packing to her father as the law requires and as Abella demanded. I could not do that to him, Bahar. Not after all he had done for us.”

Bahar stared at the torch, apparently mulling over her words, for he did not reply.

The night seemed unnaturally quiet, and Phaedra wanted to say more, but she knew to let him work it out for himself. Bahar was headstrong, but always listened to reason, eventually.

“How do you propose to get to Rome?”

She said slowly, “There is a ship…”

She did not get to finish the sentence as Bahar jumped to his feet and put his hands on his hips. “You are out of your mind! That is three days away from here, across countryside filled with beggars, thieves, not to mention Roman soldiers between here and
Rutupiae
.”

She hoped her voice sounded more confident than she felt. “Not if Thane goes with us.”

That stopped him cold. His mouth and eyes all opened at once, and he fell to his knees next to her. “What makes you think Thane would ever do something like that? I know for a fact he is very fond of his life and being stretched out on a cross would not be his first choice…”

“Quiet, little brother. I need to tell you something, and there is very little time. Now, listen.” With that, she told him all she had seen and heard that night, excluding only her embarrassing session with the gladiator in the garden. When she was done, his eyes and mouth had not changed.

“Granted, he is well motivated to get to Rome, but what makes you think he would ever take us with him?”

“Think about it. The last thing he wants anyone to know is that he has children. They would scour the land to find them.” She looked at her feet.

Bahar took a step back from her and rubbed his hands against his legs. “Could you… do that to him?”

Phaedra got to her feet and met his gaze, a kind of strength rising in her belly as she searched his eyes. “I will do whatever it takes to protect you, Bahar. If that is not clear to you after all these years… I would give my life and the lives of anyone else to save you.” She touched his face and shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes. “There is no one I love more than you. If I have to fight, I will fight. If I have to go cold or hungry, then I will go cold and hungry. If I have to die, I will die for you.”

He leaned in to touch foreheads with his sister. “And I you, Phaedra.” He pulled in a breath. “May the gods protect whoever comes between us, big sister.”

May the gods protect you, little brother.
She could not say that to him. Instead, she squared her shoulders, wiped her eyes and sat back. “This is what we are going to do…”

Chapter VIII

Thane stared at the forty gladiators around him as they discussed his dilemma. Someone had suggested an afternoon escape with the food wagons, but he knew the best time to leave would be in the small hours of the morning. In recent months, Abella had been more lenient with him. Thane knew he could merely walk out of the compound at his discretion, if he liked. The only reason the guards escorted him to the baths was because of the women. As a rule, the doors had neither locks nor guards.

They all knew the punishment for escape: crucifixion to every sixth gladiator in the familia and whipping for all the rest. If someone went missing and was not found quickly, the gladiatorial guard who inspected the beds would also lose his life for his negligence. None of the others would leave them to face an ignominious death while they escaped. To die in the arena was to die with honor; to die on the cross because one of your kind betrayed you was unspeakable. For this reason, gladiators rarely escaped.

Thane did what he had done for the last two years with these men; he trusted them with his life.

When Thane told them about the slaver raid, Thaddeus had been furious.

“To take strong, brave men as fighters who can defend themselves and possibly leave with some piece of slaver is one thing,” he bellowed after Thane finished his story. “But to take innocent children and defenseless mothers, why, the gods will spit upon these animals!
Impudens es leno
!” The familia looked on with murmurs. “They should be sold to the pharaohs to die in the scorching sun.”

“Peace, Thaddeus,” Thane said to the one-eyed hulk from Greece. “That is not helping.” The common room’s wooden walls seemed to bend in upon him as he sat. The wine was tasteless. Loss had dulled his senses. His face seemed too heavy. He had to force himself to listen.

Darweshi stood in the center of the circled benches, one long black exposed arm glistening in the torchlight, the other buried somewhere in the depths of his strange robes. Adjusting the brightly colored material, he leaned into Thane. “How long to get children?” The torchlight flickered in his black shining eyes.

“Three days to the ship, twenty days on the voyage one-way, then time to find them and return. Eight weeks, perhaps…”

The gigantic black man stroked the few strands that still remained of his curly black beard, the hairs of which had slowly been sacrificed to the rag doll he kept in memory of his family. “When do you fight next?”

Thane searched the horde of men sitting in a circle around him. He would have given his life for any one of them, but ironically, he would have killed them in an instant in the arena if required. It was a code that had taken him a long time to adjust to, but that had to be in place for the survival of the group. “I fought a few weeks ago in Manduessedum, so not until half way through the cold season.”

“Huh?” one of the newer members grunted.

“When the frost comes,” Thane added. “
D
ecumo-mnsris.
On the ides.”

Darweshi nodded solemnly. “Eight weeks. It is a long time.”

“Can you do it?”

Thaddeus lifted his hand to point at Darweshi. “A witch, this one,” he said tossing them a toothless grin. “If anyone can it would be him.”

Darweshi searched the faces of the forty sitting there and finally stopped at one. “Brennus, you are most like the prince.”

Thane watched the Brit. Brennus’ people had warred with Thane’s tribe for generations, but hopefully that had all been put to the side now. Brennus was a big man, as large as Thane, with the same shock of red hair and blues eyes. Truth be known, Thane was certain they shared an ancestor or two. Three rusty braids fell from his square chin almost to the middle of his chest.

“Aye,” he replied then spat. “I am prettier than his lordship here.” Everyone laughed when he pushed his jaw from side to side and eyed Thane for several heartbeats. With a nod, he said, “I will do it. But you owe me a favor, prince.”