It would be so easy.One push, and Regulus would drop at my feet, dead.At rest with the gods.
I would remain, alone, undefeated, lying in my cell to stare at the ceiling and the crude erotic sketches Xerxes had made there as a joke.
I withdrew my sword from Regulus’s throat.I held it high while the spectators screamed their anticipation of whatever it was I’d do.
I hauled Regulus to his feet.He was bleeding from stabs I’d landed on his gut and shoulders, but none were lethal.I too bled from his sword cuts on my chest, thighs, and stomach, but the wounds wouldn’t kill me if they didn’t take sick.We had the bestmedicusin the world to make sure they didn’t.
“What are you doing?”Regulus bellowed at me, his cry lost in the din of the crowd.
“Making you a champion.”
I took hold of Regulus’s left fist and raised his hand high.I pulled off my helmet and turned us slowly around, forcing Regulus to move, displaying myself—theprimus palus, the champion—and Regulus, my equal in the fight.
I spared him, I was telling them, because he’d fought valiantly and lost only by ill luck.
“You prick,” Regulus snarled.“You bloodyprick.I’ll kill you for this.”
His rage cut through the delirious screams of approval, but I didn’t waver.Regulus might hate me, and he might kill me, but he’d be alive to do it.
The crowd wasn’t finished, but I was.Still holding Regulus by the wrist, I started for the edge of the arena, and the opening to the cells.This was the last game of the day, and we’d have our wounds tended before returning to ourludusnot far from here.There we’d celebrate victories and make toasts to the dead.
Regulus froze in sudden shock, pulling me to a halt next to him.“Hades.”
Three men strode toward us, two in tunics with cloaks, one in a toga.I didn’t recognize them—they hadn’t come to watch us train or negotiate our price for the games.The threesome proceeded solemnly, one toga-less man carrying an object on a square wooden platform.
I waited, wiping sweat from my shaved head, my heart hammering.
I’d seen a procession like this only twice before.First, the day I’d survived my virgin match, young and terrified, surprised to find myself alive at the end of it.The veteran I’d lost to had been honored thus.He’d beaten me by a slim chance, and my life had been spared because I’d fought skillfully and valiantly.The gladiator, who’d been about thirty summers, had wept when he’d beheld those heading for him.
The second time, the man they’d come for had been half-dead of his wounds, but still standing.He’d been carried from the ring, leaving me to becomeprimus palusin his stead.
“I don’t believe it.”Regulus glared at the men and then me.“Why didn’t you kill me, youstupid bastard?”
I didn’t bother to speculate that the procession might be for Regulus.I knew it was not.They came for me.
They reached us, none of the three looking happy with their task.The lead man in the toga, whoever he was—senator, praetor—turned and faced the crowd.The one next to him, his tunic and cloak showing him to be of the Equestrian, or middle class, began a loud oration while the togaed man remained silent—a highborn gentleman would never waste his voice on the populous of Rome.
I paid little attention to the words that flowed around me, standard phrases praising the gods and theprinceps.
At the end of the speech, the man who carried the platform lifted what was on it and held it out to me.
The crowd’s approval rose to blot out all other sound.The noise snaked into my head, kicking up the pain already there.Regulus cursed again, long and hard, his hatred of me clear.
Paralyzed, I stared at the wooden sword, offered hilt first.
Therudis, in the shape of a gladiator’s short sword.A reward for a life spent in the games.I recognized the letters of my own name carved into the blade, the only word I could read.Therudismeant release.
Freedom.
I couldn’t move.The man with the sword glared at me impatiently, his distaste evident.He didn’t like gladiators, his stance proclaimed, and he didn’t want to touch one.
Many believed the blood of a gladiator cured illness.People had crowded today to the place where the dead fighters had been carried, jamming forward to dip cloths or even bare fingers into the gladiators’ still-flowing blood.They’d take it home and store it for when it was needed.
This man didn’t want anything to do with my blood, or me.But at last he had to shake my bronze sword from my hand, and shove the wooden one into my grip.
Regulus wrenched himself from me, not gently.The sting of his rage was a distant pain, receding behind the buzzing in my head.
I lifted my arm, the wooden sword strangely light after the heavy weapons I’d wielded this day.I heard my name pouring from the crowd, shouts of joy.
