The noise in the arena soared. The sound surrounded me like a heavy blanket, binding and suffocating.
I knew Regulus spoke the truth that our temperamental princeps might order us all killed if we did not perform to his liking. I kept walking.
I gripped the rudis as tightly as I had when it had first been presented to me. I’d clamped my hand around the wooden hilt and kept it there all that afternoon and evening, overnight and on to the next morning. Only Cassia had been able, with her gentle touch, to open my stiff fingers so I could release it.
I saw her. As I took in the mass of people, a wash of color under the gray December sky, I spotted her near the top of the stands. Cassia stood in the midst of the throng, wrapped in her pale woolen cloak, her stance serene, her gaze on me.
I exhaled a long breath, my fingers loosened, and I strode on, my step lightening.
I was no longer Leonidas the Spartan, the famous gladiator the people shouted for. I was Leonidas the Freedman, here by my own choice.
I would return home tonight with the woman whose belief in me eased me even at a distance. I’d eat my lentils and greens, drink light wine mixed with water, and sit on the balcony to enjoy the last of the crisp winter evening.
No more cells, no more darkness, no more having to kill men I knew and liked in order to survive.
It occurred to me, as I strode around the far corner of the Circus, that the odds of me picking Cassia out of the dense crowd were small. Had I truly seen her? Or only imagined her? Or had a goddess had directed my eyes to her, to bolster me when I most needed it?
Whatever had happened, my gloom departed, and I marched on, lifting the rudis to salute the people who cheered me.
The line of gladiators and other performers continued the circuit behind me, drummers and flute girls sending sweet music into the air.
I planned, the moment I reached the gate that led back under the walls, to quit the place, find Cassia, and return home. After I extracted the fee from Aemil.
As I approached the archway, however, a commotion in the stands brought me to a halt. The clamor soared over the excited shouts of the crowd or the drunken cries of Io, Saturnalia! caught and repeated.
A senator who sat next to Nero’s box was on his feet, screaming and gesticulating, his bright white toga flapping around him.
Nero was a tiny figure at this distance, but I could tell by the way he twisted his body toward the senator that his irritation was becoming a dangerous rage.
The senator, uncaring, continued to bellow, pointing at Nero and then into the crowd. He showed no fear of the murderous princeps, which meant he was either a fool or from a very prominent family who could protect him from Nero’s temper.
“Ennius Fabricius Drusus,” Regulus said behind me in derision. “Pompous idiot. Bets heavily on me, though, and never loses.”
Regulus had plenty of conceit, but the sneer on his face held great contempt for the senator.
“He must be a brave man,” I said as the senator’s gesticulations only grew.
“He thinks he’s untouchable.” Regulus shook his head. “He’d better calm down or the princeps will delay or even cancel the games, and I’ll be out the prize money.”
The amount a gladiator could win at Saturnalia would keep him in wine and women for a year. Some hoarded their winnings to buy their freedom, but my price had always been so high I hadn’t bothered. Aemil would have found a way to prevent me going, I’d always sensed, even if I’d raised the funds.
Aemil was frantically signaling us to keep moving. I started once more for the opening beneath the walls, ready to be gone.
A year ago, I’d have sought a cool place to rest and stretch, readying my body for the first bout. The preliminary matches would be less perilous, exhibitions mostly, before the true combats began later in the day.
Today, my step quickened as I entered the dim vault beneath the stands. I’d coerce the two sestertii out of Aemil and make my way home with Cassia, never mind the rest of the games.
The tunnel I strode through led to an archway of light. The way out. Freedom.
Four Praetorian guards filled the bright space before I could reach it, blocking my path.
One was called Servius, I knew from my visits to Nero’s domus on the Palatine Hill.
“Leonidas,” Servius greeted me, his countenance grim. “He wants you. Now. I’m to bring you to his box.”
Chapter 3
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was a man of twenty-seven summers. While he liked to dress as a charioteer and declare that he won athletic games, he had a pudgy body and round, youthful face that sometimes bristled with whiskers and was sometimes clean-shaven.
