“It was… what we did,” I say finally. “We took care of each other. Romans wanted us to be enemies, to fight like animals. But we were… family, maybe? Strange family, but family.”
“Tell me about that family dynamic.”
For the next hour, I share stories I haven’t told anyone since awakening. About Gaius, who sang lullabies to fighters having nightmares about killing friends. About old Brutus, who knew every trick for hiding injuries from the trainers. About the waywe’d gather in the barracks after fights, not to celebrate violence but to process what we’d been forced to do.
“We had… how you say… rules,” I explain. “Never fight angry—anger makes you stupid. Never forget your opponent is also a prisoner. Always remember the crowd is the real enemy, not the man across from you.”
“That’s smart. You found ways to survive with more than muscle.”
“Had to be smart. Simple thinking gets you dead.”
She nods, making notes on her laptop. “Can you look at something for me? I found some old Roman writings about gladiators, but they talk more about fighting moves than about reading crowds. I want to see if what they wrote matches what you experienced.”
The screen is covered in tight blocks of writing—shapes that look like English but might as well be scratches on a wall for all the sense they make to me.
“There’s a passage here from Martial’sSpectaclesthat might connect to what you said,” she continues, pointing to a specific section. “Could you read through this and tell me if it matches your experience?”
The page might as well be blank. Lines of marks march across it—orderly, confident, meaningless. I recognize the shape of the script, the way the words are spaced, but none of it resolves into language.
Heat crawls up my neck. I would rather face an armed opponent than admit this to her.
“I…” My throat goes dry. This is the moment every conversation with educated people eventually reaches—the moment they discover I’m not the intelligent person they thought they were talking to, just the Jester who made them laugh long enough to forget to look deeper.
“Is there a problem?” Her voice is gentle, but I can hear the confusion.
“I cannot…” The admission sticks in my throat like a bone. “I never learned to read.”
She blinks, clearly processing this information. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—”
“Is not your fault.” I push back from the table, suddenly needing distance. “Most smart people, they assume… but I never learned. Inludus, it was not needed. I learned by doing, by listening.”
Silence stretches, and I brace for the shift—when she’ll start looking at me different.
This is why I stick to demonstrations and tourist entertainment—no one expects the performing monkey to be literate.
“Flavius.” Her voice is careful, neutral. “Can I ask… is this something you’d like to learn? Reading, I mean?” Her voice is steady, but her gaze holds something softer—like this isn’t just about research. Like she wants this for me.
What? I look up to find her watching me with an expression I can’t quite name. Not pity, exactly, but something else.
“You would… teach reading? To a gladiator?”
“To someone whose insights are valuable and whose intelligence is obvious.” She closes the laptop decisively. “Reading is just a skill, like sword work. It doesn’t reflect intelligence, just opportunity.”
The words touch me deeper than any blade ever has.
The casual way she says it—like not being able to read is just another fact about me, not a flaw or source of shame—loosens a tight, familiar knot in my chest.
“Romans tried to teach me, in the beginning,” I admit. “But I was… angry. Scared. Did not want to learn things from men who saw me as property.”
“That makes perfect sense. Learning to read their language felt like helping them control you.”
Exactly. She understands without my having to explain why learning from your captors feels wrong, even if it might save your life.
“But now?”
I consider the question seriously. “Now… maybe is different. Maybe learning to read your language will help me tellour stories better. Make sure people understand what really happened.”
Not the stories Rome wanted told. The truth.
