Uponreturningtotheludus, Lea tried to slink to her room without being noticed, but she had to pass within sight of the training ground where the gladiators were just beginning their morning exercise. She wasn’t worried about incurring a punishment for her absence, as Lucullus had consented to her attending the dinner party and must have guessed it would run late. Veteran gladiators were generally permitted to come and go as they pleased, as long as they didn’t neglect their training.
But Lea didn’t wish to discuss last night’s events, so she quickened her pace, jogging toward the door of the barracks building. A high-pitched shout from behind pulled her up short.
“Lea! You’re back!” Velia appeared beside her, blue-gray eyes bright with excitement. “What was it like? What do they eat? I heard they eat lions. Is that true? And you didn’t tell us you were going to spend the night!”
Lea lunged for the door, but Velia somehow angled her small body in front, blocking her path.
Velia’s very loud questioning had attracted Ferox, never far from her, and Lea spotted Jason making his way over to them from across the training ground. She gritted her teeth. She really didn’t fancy an interrogation after the night—and morning—she’d had, but while Ferox and Jason weren’t the type to pry, Velia wouldn’t rest until she’d extracted every detail.
Lea let out a resigned sigh. “I don’t think lions would taste very good.”
“Well, what sort of food was there?” Velia demanded. Ferox, leaning his weight on his good leg, wrapped an arm around her waist from behind, and she leaned into his embrace with a smile.
“I mostly ate lentils. I…I don’t really remember what else there was.” Her memories of the dinner party were fuzzy, thanks to the dreamfish.
Velia cocked her head, her perceptive gaze running over Lea. “Your hair is down. Someone took it down for you. Just where did you sleep last night, Penthesilea? Or maybe the question’s not where…but with whom?”
Lea shot her what she hoped was a scorching glare. First Sextus, then Drusilla, and now Velia—far too many people were drawing entirely the wrong conclusion about what had happened last night.
Jason reached them, a sword from his abandoned sparring gripped loosely in his right hand. “Was I right? Was that a please-bed-me-I’m-desperate-for-you gift?” He nudged the silken palla draped over her arm.
Lea jerked it away from his sweaty fingers. “No!” Heat rose to her face despite the denial. Perhaps the truth was the best antidote to their incorrect imaginings. “I ate something…off…at the dinner party. I wasn’t feeling well. Kallias offered me a place to sleep for the night. That’s it.”
“But he took your hair down for you,” Velia said triumphantly.
“Maybe I took it down myself,” Leaprotested.
Velia shook her head. “A style like that? Sewn in so tightly? You’d be half-bald if you tried to do it yourself.” Velia had helped her with her hair yesterday, so unfortunately she knew exactly how difficult it would be to remove.
Jason rested the tip of his sword in the dirt, leaning his weight on it. “Well, at least with a man like that, you know if he tries anything, you can flatten him without breaking a sweat.”
“What do you mean, a man like that?” She didn’t like the dismissiveness in his tone.
Jason raised his eyebrows. “That little needle he used on you looked like it might have been too much for him to lift.”
Lea scowled at Jason’s gross exaggeration. Though Kallias might not be bulky with muscle like a gladiator, and though she had indeed managed to fell him easily when she kicked him in the stomach that morning, his body had a lean grace to it that drew the eye.
Besides, she sensed that Kallias’s type of strength might be more than physical. She recalled his story about risking himself to drug the old emperor and safeguard Drusilla. He had a hidden bravery she hadn’t expected.
“You don’t know him,” she snapped. She pushed past Velia and made it to the barracks door.
“And you do?” Jason called after her.
Lea slipped through the door and pulled it shut behind her, but his question lingered in her mind.
In the past twelve hours, she’d learned several things about Kallias. She knew he’d drugged an emperor, tended to slaves, and let her sleep in his bed while he slept on the floor. She knew how his touch felt as passion swelled between them. She knewher body’s own reaction to him, the way her skin grew hot and sensitive, the ache that bloomed in her core…
A voice in her head urged caution. As long as she remained a gladiator, anyone she got close to risked losing her. Her friends, Ferox and Jason, understood the risk. It was best to keep anyone else—anyone who didn’t belong in this world—at a distance. For their own sake.
Even so, the answer to Jason’s question rose in her mind. Yes, perhaps she did know Kallias. Or at least she was starting to. And somehow, she only wanted to know him more.
12
Ontheappointedday,Lea returned to the imperial palace for her first lesson with Drusilla. The payment had been agreed upon—five hundred sestertii per lesson, as promised—and the first fee had already been sent to the ludus. Lucullus took half, and Lea added the remaining half to her growing stash of coin. She was still pitifully far from the forty thousand she needed, but every sestertius helped.
This time, Lea was clothed much more comfortably in the loose knee-length tunic she wore most days, which allowed for easier movement. She didn’t bother binding her breasts, as she didn’t anticipate undertaking any significant exertion.
When she arrived, a guard showed her to the grassy courtyard with the fountain at its center that she’d visited last time. While she waited for Drusilla, she paced around the space, searching for the most even patch of grass for them to use.
