I let out a breath and replaced the rudis on the shelf. I’d perform this task for Aemil, take his money, and purchase her the gift she deserved.
Cassia sent me a faint smile, believing all was well.
“I should still kill you,” Regulus informed me.
We stood at the entrance to the Circus Gai, the long arena built for chariot races and gladiatorial games by the late emperor Gaius, sometimes known as Caligula, for the small army boots he’d worn as a child. The Circus lay on the far side of the Tiber, north of Aemil’s ludus, on an open plain atop a low hill.
The vast stands were already full, with more spectators arriving. Word had spread that Leonidas the Spartan, after a year’s absence from the games, would walk out once more before the crowds.
“I could win the grand prize money for the day if I defeated you,” Regulus droned behind me as we waited to begin the parade. “Remember when I asked you to kill me? So I could go out with dignity? So that day would always be remembered as the one when Leonidas slew his greatest friend?”
I well recalled how Regulus, trapped in the crook of my arm while we awaited the decision on the match, had snarled at me to kill him on the spot. He’d cursed me soundly when I’d refused.
Regulus had not been my greatest friend, as he claimed. That had been Xerxes. I’d lost Xerxes, suddenly and painfully, during a bout when he’d made a fatal mistake against his opponent. One hesitation, and he was gone, nothing more than a dead gladiator, bleeding onto the sand.
Regulus could never take his place. But at that moment one year ago, I hadn’t wanted to lose Regulus as well.
He’d never forgiven me for it.
Aemil stalked up and down the line of gladiators, bellowing last minute instructions or rebukes. He’d given me the promised contract, which Cassia had scrutinized and I’d signed my name to. Cassia had been satisfied with the agreement’s legality, even if Aemil still wouldn’t pay me beforehand.
“Straighten up, look proud,” Aemil was admonishing. “The princeps will be watching. If he thinks you’re a sorry specimen, he’ll have you skewered on the spot, or maybe fed to the lions. These are the Saturnalian games. They want spectacle, not sulking old maidens.” He moved on, growling and muttering.
Behind Regulus was Herakles, who, despite his name, was not Greek, but from a savage barbarian tribe in Pannonia, on the northeastern edge of Roman territories. He was now secundus palus, one below the primus, and always chafing to best Regulus. He regarded me warily, remembering the beating I’d given him some months ago.
I saw more familiar faces beyond him, gladiators I’d fought and helped to train. New men had joined since I’d left the ludus, such as Praxus, from so far north his hair and skin were ghostly pale, and an Egyptian from its southern deserts, whose muscular body was a rich brown.
A few I’d known were notably absent, gladiators Aemil had sold or traded, or who’d met their deaths in games this past year. I mostly tried not to think about the last, but I let myself spend a moment acknowledging them.
Inside the arena, trumpets blared, and banners fluttered. Nero, the princeps of all Rome, had entered his box.
A cheer went up for him from the higher levels of the arena. While senators loathed or feared Nero, the common people liked him. Nero was interested in the same things they were—chariot races, gladiatorial games, dicing, theatre, music, dancing.
The princeps acknowledged the plebs then settled himself. His attendant, always a slave high in his favor, took his place next to him. Nero leisurely made himself comfortable, forcing us to wait for his signal to begin.
Aemil went up and down the line again, fussing and nervous. The Saturnalian games were the most prestigious of the year, and Aemil was as agitated as a bride before an important wedding.
Finally, Nero raised a hand, the gesture almost negligent.
“Now,” Aemil ordered, as a roar emerged from the crowd.
A man with a standard bearing the emblem of Aemil’s ludus started through the archway and into the arena. I was to follow him.
Inside the circus, the crowd, who knew I was coming, began to chant.
Lee-o-ni-das. Lee-o-NI-DAS.
I froze under the curve of the arched entrance, my bare feet adhered to the gravel beneath them. The muscles of my stomach clenched, and my breathing ceased.
I seemed to view myself from outside my body, as though a spirit had detached itself from my flesh. I saw a tall gladiator with a shaved head standing utterly still in the shadowed archway, while the noise from the sands swelled and grew.
Perhaps I’d died on the spot, I mused dispassionately, and hadn’t yet realized it.
A heavy shove from behind snapped me back to awareness.
“Get on with it,” Regulus growled. “If the princeps orders us all executed because you refused to walk in the gods-cursed parade, I’ll make sure I kill you first.”
Regulus’s diatribe erased my strange vision. I dragged in a long breath, firmed my grip on the rudis Cassia had handed me before I’d left the apartment, and marched forward.
