Wild Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 2) (35 page)

An argument boiled in Aeliana’s throat. Some of her patients were in the best shape of their lives, thanks to her—and had lived for years longer than they would have otherwise. But she swallowed it, as she swallowed most things with her family.

“Of course. Thank you for the letter. Have a safe trip back.”

Her aunt took the farewell as a shot from a ballista, and sped away from her office and the ludus with all haste.

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D
own the long stone stairs outside her office and across the training grounds, she could hear the gladiators eating breakfast. Somewhere, Caius was there, eating his food.

And smiling, probably.

He was always smiling. She had never known anyone so sad who smiled as much as he did. His every front was a fight—even just forcing a smile on his face as he learned his daughter’s life had been thrown into turmoil.

And he had held her
hand
. Just remembering that set her heart aflutter. His hands were strong and calloused. Thick fingers, dense as iron. It felt like sliding her hand across the paw of a lion.

Or a bear
, she thought wryly.

And even after that, he had
kissed
her. And she had kissed him. And it had been good.

Very good.

Of course nothing could happen between the two of them. Her father already hated everything about where she worked. Imagine what he might think of her bringing a gladiator home! The thought brought a low smile to her face.

It always took a reserve of will to read a letter from her father. She knew it was going to hurt. She didn’t know
how
it was going to hurt, and that was always part of the hurt. One could defend very well against the attacks you knew were coming. But with her father, the attacks were always new, even though the substance was always the same.

It all went back, always and entirely, to her being
lesser
.

And yet still she could not shake the need to make him proud. Despite everything, despite all his harsh words and stern looks, all his doubts and sabotage, she could not help but love him. It was a weak love, stretched long and thin, but somehow it remained intact. She had been born with love for him, and whatever reserves existed there had not yet been exhausted.

The morning light crested over the walls of the ludus. She crushed some dried jasmine with one hand, letting the pleasant, strong scent fill the area of her office. Then, with a sigh, she opened the letter.

Daughter,

I expect you are well. Your aunt reports no trouble.

Business continues. The Illyrians are buying a great deal of grain this year.

I spoke with a man recently who has a good working relationship with the legions along the Danube. With any luck, the second your contract expires, we can have you sold over to the Legion protecting our borders. Nothing more in the garrison, as I recall your distaste for such things. Once your contract comes to terms for renegotiation with Varinius, I will explore the subject with him. A contract of another five years, working for the Danube Legion, would be sufficient for you to learn your trade in its entirety and no longer be confined by the bounds of slavery. No doubt Varinius will see the logic of moving a woman away from a distasteful place such as his. Then, finally, you will be doing honorable work.

- Vitus Galerius Rutila

“Oh, Father.”

Another five years as a slave for her. That was his plan.

Aeliana set the letter down,

Then, finally

put her head in her hands,

finally, you

and did her very best

you will be doing honorable work.

not to cry.

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T
he best thing for her was to keep moving. She headed outside with dry eyes and a mind set on emptying itself. Chloe stood on the top of the steps, utterly transfixed as the new recruits for the ludus finally arrived through the gates below.

“Look at those two,” she pointed. Her voice was heavy. “Ajax and Perseus. They’ve fought for over a
year
, now. Rufus really must have put out for them.”

Aeliana had to agree. The two young men looked to be in tip-top shape. Both were tall and toned, with long hair. Ajax was blond with a broad nose and a heavy brow. Perseus was dark of skin, with small deep-set eyes. Both walked with confidence, seeming above the jeers of the gathered gladiators.

The jeering was a common initiation. Aeliana expected it to escalate quickly. In the past, she had seen fighters killed on their first day in brutal sparring matches. Not on purpose—or, seemingly not on purpose. But training did not go easy for the novices, and they were put through the wringer just as hard as a man who had been fighting for years. Even harder, perhaps, as the novices were not used to such treatment.

There were a dozen men in all. Ajax and Perseus were clearly the “gets” of the group, and they looked like they knew it. One or two others showed some promise, but many seemed fit only for slaughter.

One was barely taller than Aeliana, and though he had a grim determination on his face, his stature made him a surefire candidate for a swift death come the next bout of games in a few weeks’ time.

Aeliana made a mental note of all their faces, trying to recall with certainty every man she did not want to know any more intimately than she had to. It was a helpful exercise with the memory of her father’s words still stinging. She took a moment and imagined a glove made from ice, wrapping slowly around her heart. Each one in turn, each face, brought a new squeeze from that ice glove.

As she searched the crowd, she saw Caius greeting the fighters. He was smiling and shaking their hands. Other gladiators, the established veterans, looked at him like he was crazy. Aeliana, though, felt that ice glove—so well-composited, begin to thaw just slightly.

Murus cracked his whip—and all the men stood at attention. When the doctore spoke, people listened. Not doing so would have them punished, but even besides that, his voice carried authority. She could not hear him totally, but no doubt he was welcoming the new fighters to the ludus.

Aeliana had heard the speech so many times that she expected she could recite from memory:

Welcome to House Varinius. Some of you will earn a place here. Some of you may die here. Some more of you will die in the arena as failures in your old life, shamed and purposeless.

But if you listen, and you work, you can shed the bounds of that old life. You will earn the favor of the crowd, and your name on the Wall of Turmedites, where you shall live in immortality!

I will shape you from men into gladiators. If you falter, I will work you. If you fail, I will drop your carcass into the sea. And if you succeed, I shall be the first to hold you up.

There was a pause. Aeliana knew he grinned with wicked, ready mirth.

It is my hope that you men take great pleasure in training. I certainly do.

The veteran gladiators began to form a circle—similar to the way they had when Caius arrived last week. They all knew the drill. There would be a sparring match between two fighters, and it would be dirty. The first one always was, to cow the other novices into submission.

“Chloe, go prepare our table.”

“But I want to watch the—”

Chloe’s voice fell as she saw the steel in Aeliana’s eyes. The medicae would have attended the table herself, but she had to watch the match, because that was the best way to know how the injury occurred.

Because there would definitely be one.

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“C
onall, is it?” Caius had to lean down to hear the man in the din of the crowded gladiators.

“Yes, Sir. Conall.”

“Don’t call me ‘Sir.’ My name is Caius.”

“And Ursus?”

“The both, that’s right.”

The man, Conall, was about the same age as Caius had been when he first entered the ludus. He had thick reddish-brown hair and bright blue eyes vibrating with youth and pain—much the same as any young slave who had found his way into a ludus. Long bruises and scars lined the flesh of his back; evidence of repeated floggings.

“I’ve seen a lot of people in my time. You look as if you’re from a Germanic tribe. Is that right?”

Conall nodded, somewhat surprised. “Goth. I lived near the border to Rome in the East. We learned your language. But the Romans invaded anyway.”

“You’re bad at taking orders, I see.”

“I don’t take well to submission.”

“That could bode very ill for a gladiator.”

Conall crossed his arms. “Death awaits us all.”

“True,” Caius laughed. “I was not particularly good at taking instruction either.”

Flamma entered the middle of the circle, holding one training sword high.

“One of you will fight me.” His grin was as wicked and yellow as ever. He circled with the sword, looking from fighter to fighter. The sword point cast briefly over Conall, but Flamma shook his head. “No. Too small. Not even a challenge.”

Caius felt Conall stir, but put a hand on the boy’s shoulders. He clearly had fire, but Flamma was not someone to fight with fire alone.

He stopped on the very next fighter, though. A tall young man with a wild mass of red hair. “You, boy.” Flamma kicked a sword through the sand at him. “Fight me.”

The lad, hesitating briefly, picked up the sword and entered the ring with Flamma.

It was a short, brutal, ugly affair. Toying with the lad, Flamma let him swing his sword several times, “narrowly” parrying each blow. As the lad grew in confidence, he opened himself up to more and more attacks.

“He thinks he’s doing well,” said Conall. “Poor bastard.”

Caius could only agree.

After a few minutes of this circus act, Flamma finally became serious. With one blow, he disarmed the lad. With another, he knocked the air from his chest. And with another series of swipes to the chest and head, he knocked him out cold. His blood sprayed on the sand, spouting from a heavy gash in his forehead. The lad, struggling to stand, rotated woozily. Flamma reared up for another blow, and to everyone’s surprise, Conall jumped out in front of him.

“You won, all right? You clearly won. So let him be seen to.”

Caius, perhaps, was too well-ingrained in the systems of the ludus to protest as Conall had. Once you were in this place long enough, he knew, you simply became used to the brutality exhibited on a daily basis.

There was a sort of code. If the lad had asked for mercy, for instance, or if Murus had ordered them to stop, then Caius would recognize that it needed to stop. But as these things hadn’t happened, the match would end at Flamma’s discretion.

And there was Conall, doing the right thing just because he knew what it was. Caius felt a sudden stab of envy at his moral clarity.

“It’s over, is it? I won?” Flamma laughed harshly. “Oh, terrific.”

He whipped Conall over the side of the head with his sword, knocking him down. Now Caius stepped forward—and as Caius stepped forward, so did a number of other gladiators. Flamma grinned at Caius, goading him forward with an evil glint in his eyes.

But just like clockwork, Murus sounded out the air-splitting crack of his whip—and all the fighters stood down, Flamma included.

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F
lamma had done a number on the poor lad. The gash on his head was large, but not untreatable. Aeliana approached it with her normal vigor, first stopping the bleeding with a sequence of compresses and herbs, and then starting in on stitching the flesh back together.

The mending of the flesh was the easy part. Whether the lad would ever be the same again was another. Flamma had hit him
hard
, and a blow like that could change a person entirely.

In the past, Aeliana had seen hard blows to the head turn ferocious lions of men into middling kittens. She had seen mild-mannered types turn into unstable hotheads, liable to go off the handle from the slightest provocation. She had seen men slip into comas and never come out.

“Do you think I can start today?”

The question was from Conall, the small German who—apparent fool that he was—stood up to Flamma. At the very least, though, he was a noble fool. Aeliana was just finishing the stitchwork on the other young man now, a task easy enough to accomplish and speak at the same time.

Conall's own injuries seemed more superficial. He had a long cut down his cheek, and a bruise forming there that threatened to take over the whole side of his face, but otherwise he was fine. She had given him a poultice of herbs to apply to his face, which he held now.

“I would wait out the rest of the day before returning to training.”

Conall shook his head. The poultice sprinkled some green matter down. “I can’t.”

Aeliana knew he couldn’t, and she knew why.

If Conall missed the entirety of the first day, he would be out of place for the rest of his tenure in the ludus. He would gain a reputation as a coward. The veterans would not trust him, as they had not been able to subject him to the hazing that was so common. And the novices would not trust him either, as he would not have suffered as they did.

“You asked for what I thought. That is what I think. I cannot stop you from doing what you will.”

“Did you see that Caius? He leapt in right after me.” Conall smiled. “A good man, him.” He paused. “Is he a good man?”

“He’s as good as I’ve seen in this place. Short of someone stepping between Flamma and his intended victim.” They laughed. “But yes. I like him dearly. He is...there is something altogether right about him.”

Conall rapped his knuckles on the table, smiling broadly.

“I’ll tell him you like him, payment for fixing my head here. Maybe you’ll kiss.”

Her stitching threatened to go crooked. She stopped and turned. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“It’s clear you like him. Where I come from, we don’t hold for this waiting and seeing nonsense. You like someone, you tell them. Life is short. And shorter here than in most places, from what I can tell. You should kiss him before someone kills him.”