not let go of his hand.
“Apologies,” Clodia murmured, placing it gently by his side. His finger grazed the back of her hand, igniting an invisible spark where it touched.
When she looked up, the man was peering down at her, a curious gaze in his blue-gray eyes. But before she could blink he was looking forward again, his eyes fixed on some invisible horizon.
He was lean, filthy, and smelled of the sea. His hair was thick and yellow and grew in serpentine ropes that mingled with his beard, which grew so long and tangled it seemed stolen from Medusa herself.
He was a ghastly vision, but his power could not be concealed. He stood two heads taller than Clodia, his arms full, his legs long and solid as tree trunks.
But will he do what I require, when the time comes? There seemed no way to be sure.
At the edge of the piazza, Clodia spied the long toga of the city’s most famous gladiator trainer, the procuratore of the Ludus Magnus. The man’s slight build and delicate manner belied a boundless ambition. Even Clodia had heard of his efforts to maintain the favor of the emperor with increasingly bloody spectacles.
Now, the procuratore’s assistants were surveying the captives, who appeared to have been plucked from every corner of the Empire. There were war-weary souls from Judea, black-skinned Numidians from the Mauretanian sands; and rebels from Germania and Britannia, with eyes the color of stormy seas. At the procuratore’s commands, the largest, healthiest-looking men were being marked on the cheek with ash.
If she did not act, Clodia knew that the man before her would also be tagged for the gladiator school. And for him, as for the others, there would be no education. The inaugural games needed victims as well as heroes, and Emperor Titus had made no secret of his desire to anoint his new amphitheater in a river of blood. In two short days, these men would most certainly be dead.
Damnati ad gladium. Gladiator’s bait.
“This Numidian is nice,” called her sister from across the way. Clodia pretended not to hear. The procuratore and his crew edged closer.
Clodia faced the man before her and drew a breath. “Will you protect me?” she asked aloud, knowing he was not permitted to speak. Then, impulsively, she stretched to the tops of her toes whispered in his ear, “And will you obey my command, when the time comes?”
Clodia noticed the man’s chest moving. His lips tightened. Glancing down, she perceived a new fullness in his loincloth. Was it a slave’s wrath he now fought to suppress? Or had her words somehow aroused him?
“Clodia, have you decided?” asked Davena, rejoining her sister.
“What?”
“Are you unwell, sister? You look red as wine.”
“No, I’m fine. It’s just the heat.” Clodia fanned her face with her hand.
“By Juno’s peacock, Clodia, why did you not bring a fanner?” Davena motioned to a feather-bearing slave. Then she regarded the man. “So it is this one, then?”
“Yes.”
Davena studied the man closely, her eyes scanning the entirety of his body. “With a little training, he shall make a fine guard,” she concluded. Then she lowered her voice and nudged Clodia. “He seems quite willing to rise to the occasion.”
“Do not be ordinary!” Clodia exclaimed. Still, her heart would not stop beating.
“Really, Clodia. You should try to enjoy him. You cannot stay in mourning forever.” Davena held out her gardenia. “But are you sure you will not reconsider our invitation? Come live with me at Father’s villa? It would be safer, you know. Sensible.”
Sensible, indeed.
A move to her father’s villa would be extremely sensible. Sensible for Davena, who made no secret of her unending boredom. And sensible for her father, whose newly-widowed daughter now carried with her the wealth of a great general’s estate—a dowager to be properly managed.
But Clodia was not to be managed, not anymore. She smiled back at her sister, then shook her head. “Gratitude, dear sister, but I should like to stay in Rome.”
“Then you are mad,” Davena said, pulling the gardenia back to her nose. “But do your worst. Father will have a new husband for you soon enough.”
Clodia watched Davena walk away, wishing to explain her plan, to make her sister understand. She loved Davena dearly. But sharing would not be safe. Davena was notoriously indiscreet. Even now, she was discussing Clodia’s intended purchase with a well-dressed woman Clodia recognized from the Esquiline.
Davena was speaking so excitedly that Clodia did not notice the procuratore, who had arrived by her side and was inspecting the man. “Now here is a gladiator,” he announced, clasping his hands together as if beholding a sacrificial bull. “Mark this one,” he told his assistants.
Clodia gathered herself, then stepped forward. “I’m sorry, honorable Procurator,” she said firmly. Then she held up her coin purse, heavy with aurei and denarii. “He is already taken.”
Chapter Two
It was a long way from Iceni to Rome—a hundred days’ journey or more. His father had told him that much when he was a boy. Still, Artair had somehow known that he would see the famed city one day—whether in triumph or in bonds.
What he had not expected was this...woman. When he felt her warm breath in his ear, an odd feeling had awakened inside him, a kind of yearning. It had been years since he had been near a beautiful woman. Before the Romans had defeated his people, before his world had been torn apart, he had made love to a girl in the forest outside his village. It was a memory so old, he scarcely recognized the hunger.
It was of no consequence. As he walked obediently behind her—no fewer than five steps, as he had been instructed—he let his desire fade, and in its place grew a feeling as bitter as it was familiar.
Spoiled Roman woman. How dare she purchase him? He was for the arena. Couldn’t she see that? The procuratore had been just seconds from marking his flesh, had even called him “gladiator.”
How many beatings had he endured for such a chance at glory? How many snaps of the whip across his back? As a gladiator, he would show the thieving hordes of Rome the true worth of an Icenian warrior. He would rage and battle and win his freedom, or at least die with honor.
And she had taken that from him, all in a single quill stroke.
Calm yourself, man. He could feel the sweat trickling down his neck. You will find another way out.
As they walked, Artair tried to commit their route to memory, but he quickly became confused. The city was a maze. Giant concrete and stone buildings stood like cliffs along the winding cobblestone streets. Stifling, narrow walkways yielded to large, busy piazzas where shopkeepers shouted at throngs of passersby, and troops of plump gray pigeons alighted to steal their dinners from piles of rubbish.
Artair marched in a retinue of slaves that surrounded the two women. Several other slaves followed, carrying a large, empty litter. Artair had never seen such a thing. It appeared to be designed to carry a person. Were the aristocrats of this
