“Challenge him first?”
“Sì. I am meeting him in the middle of the battlefield for the same reason, except somewhat different. He is attempting to claim who fate has already deemed as mine. My wife. After this, no one has the right to question it. Not even you.”
He was truly pissed that he didn’t have the right, at first, to start this first.
I sighed. “Your family?”
He hadn’t brought them up since we’d returned.
“My father has appointed Leandro head of our faction.”
“He demoted you.”
“He cut me out.”
“Does that mean…are you going to pledge fealty to Luca?”
“I will see.”
“After the…challenge is over, you mean?”
He nodded. “This is whatZioLuca wants.”
“Is that normal?”
“Sì. He will see what fate has in store before he makes a move.”
We both grew quiet. I took my glasses off and set them to the side with my phone. I curled up next to him, and he set his arm over me.
“Will Luca be judging this challenge?”
“Sì. He will be there.”
That sounded…not fully forthcoming. These men were bound by honor not to lie, but that didn’t mean they didn’t maneuver the conversation in a direction they wanted when it suited them not to speak on something.
“Ludi publici.”
I looked up at him. “What’s that?”
“What will take place tomorrow. It is a term that means public games.”
My heart shot into my throat and I lifted some, though he wasn’t letting me get far. “Public games. You make it sound like those old gladiator battles.”
He met my eyes.
I could barely take a breath. “That’s what this is, isn't it?”
He pulled me down and started to stroke my arm with his fingertips. “We use similar ways to settle disputes among family members. My grandfather reduced it some at my grandmother’s request, but not for a serious accusation such as Renato made. Not for me. It is over romance, and romance calls for a battle.”
“Archaic and barbaric, that’s what those games were.”
He didn’t say anything, and I knew he wasn’t going to deny it. To deny it would mean he lied to me.
“Tell me more.”
He told me how the accuser had to have a good reason for calling another man out, and theludihad to be approved by the head of the family, which was why we didn’t get the ruling until days after. Luca was taking his sweet time with his puppet strings.
If Luca approved theludi publici, which he had, the man who was called out, Nazzareno, had to face his accuser, Renato, or face a sentence by the head of the family. In this case, though, Luca had decided that since it was the night of his transfer of power, and I was not on board with being with Renato, he was going to wave the sentence by the head of the power bit and let the two men work it out.
