She jerks her head, gesturing for me to hurry away.I do so gratefully, because I know if I had to stop and deal with the situation, my efforts to sneak in here would fall apart.I find stairs and head down them into a large space where people are gambling at tables on cards and dice.Servants hurry between them, fetching drinks or food, but this area doesn't seem to be that busy.
Instead, I can hear familiar sounds coming from the door to the back room, a crowd calling out in response to violence.There's a guard on the door, suggesting that this is a more private area, even within the private establishment.I wait until a servant is heading that way with a tray of drinks and move to intercept him.
“I'll take that for you,” I say.“You're wanted upstairs.”
“Me?”he says.“It’s Lord Philo, isn’t it?I'd better hurry then.”
He passes me the tray, and I take it to complete my disguise.It also means I can slip past the guard without comment, heading into a space that's as large again as the rest of the establishment, although it's far more crowded.There are benches set out here around a fighting pit, and those benches are crowded with nobles, merchants, and their entourages.
A man and a woman are fighting down in the pit.She's taller than me, broad-shouldered, and wearing scraps of leather armor that seem to be as much about decoration as protection.He's slightly built and stripped to the waist, wearing a scale kilt and bracers.
Both are armed, and immediately I know that these aren't going to be the blunted weapons of the Colosseum.The woman has bladed gloves, daggers sticking out from them so that any punch might thrust a blade home into somebody's heart.The man has a longer, heavier club with a spike on one side.He whirls it constantly, trying to keep the woman at a distance.
“Kill her!”a noble calls out.“I've got good money on you.”
“He's got no chance,” another noble calls back.
“You!”a guard says next to me.“What are you standing about for?Lord Arin wants his wine!”
He points to a fat lord, sitting in the midst of a gaggle of hangers on.I almost freeze in place when I see that one of them is Lucius, the nobleman who was speaking with Marcus in the rooms outside the Senate chamber.
Can I get close to him?He knows my face, but then, plenty of people know my face.They've all seen me in the arena.My only hope is that in their arrogant nobility, they don't imagine that some servant could possibly be one of the city's senators.
“Move, I said,” the guard says, pushing me.“And if you spill any of that wine, you'll find yourself bound to a whipping post.”
He says it casually as if it's something that happens regularly to the servants if they disobey.It’s the kind of punishment that used to be reserved for the slaves of Aetheria, but the city hasn't had slaves since Rowan banned the practice after the emperor fell.As with so much about Aetheria, it seems the city is sliding back to what it once was.
My first instinct is to lash out at the guard, but I know I can't, just as I couldn’t with the noble upstairs.Instead, I hurry over to the nobles.Lord Arin looks me over with a frown, and I feel sure that I've been found out this time.
“Where have you been?Pour my wine!”
I feel a sense of relief as I stand beside him, pouring wine to keep his cup full.I carefully keep my eyes downcast so that my face won't be as visible.It also means I can watch what's going on in the pit below.
The male fighter swings his club low at the legs of the woman in a blow that would probably break them if it connected.She leaps over it, but then needs to leap back to avoid a swing aimed at her head.This blow could kill.
“How long do you think it will be before we'll have fights like this in the Colosseum again?"Lord Arin asks.
Lucius shrugs.“The time frame is hard to judge, but it will happen.There are those who are trying to hold us back, but they might as well try to hold back the tide.We have all the right people on our side.”
“I was worried when the emperor fell,” Lord Arin says.“With that peasant Rowan in charge, I assumed that the good times would be over for us, but things are starting to get back to where they should be.”
I grip the jug I'm pouring from tightly, gritting my teeth.Below, the man lands a glancing blow on the woman, sending her staggering and opening a wound on her shoulder.
He rushes in to press his advantage, but she ducks under the sweeping blow he aims at her head, slashing her blades across his stomach in a pair of shallow wounds that still stain the floor with blood.The two keep moving, and the crowd are on their feet, baying for more.
The man attacks more frantically now, trying to corner the woman so he can finish the fight with his club.She keeps moving though, avoiding the worst of the attacks, circling so she's never trapped.She crosses her arms, catching one blow, then lashes out with a foot that sends her foe stumbling back.
The man swings his club again, and the woman confidently raises her gloves to stop the blow once more, but this time he switches directions, and the spiked club hammers into her side, making her cry out in pain.
She doesn’t fall back, though, but holds her foe close, stabbing him with one of her blades, wounding him badly.She throws him to the ground, standing over him.
“Death, death, death!”a couple of the nobles in the crowd chant, and the woman has her bladed glove raised, ready to finish her opponent.
I know I can't let it happen.I need to stop this before it goes any further.I start to reach out, feeling for any animals in the vicinity I can use to cause a distraction, but there are only a few rats, and even then not enough to cause chaos or fight off a gladiator.If I want to stop this, I'll have to do it by leaping down into the pit to intervene.That will give away my presence here in the gambling den, while simultaneously drawing the ire of the crowd.I'll have to fight my way out because I doubt my status as a senator of Aetheria will protect me much.
I tense, ready to do it, unwilling to let someone die for the entertainment of the crowd, even if it means danger for me.Anger fills me that it could come to this, that there are places in the city where nobles are still holding fights the old way.
“The gladiator Merka is victorious!”an announcer calls out, though, bringing a sudden end to the bout.
