He kept a firm grip on her. “Just vinegar. Your wound is deep. It needs careful treatment to ensure it doesn’t fester.”
Sweat broke out on her forehead. “It fucking hurts!”
“I guarantee it hurts less than amputating your arm.” Kallias glanced at her face, then turned to Jason, still hovering behind him. “You. Fetch some water for her, or wine, if you have it.”
Jason shot him a skeptical look, likely not pleased at being ordered around, but took another look at Lea’s face and departed.
“You’re very rude,” Lea informed Kallias through gritted teeth as he continued to blot her wound with the vinegar-soaked cloth.
His dark eyebrows rose. “I didn’t realize gladiators valued politeness so highly.”
“One would think someone who works in a palace would have better manners.”
“One would think a gladiator wouldn’t be complaining about a bit of vinegar,” he shot back, but his tone was light.
“When’s the last time you had someone dumping vinegar in your stab wound?” Lea snapped.
He grinned as he finally set the evil cloth aside. “Fair enough.”
Her stomach gave an unexpected lurch at the sight of his smile, and for a moment she couldn’t tear her gaze away. He was so different from the men who usually surrounded her; looking at him was like biting into a tart apple after a week of eating nothing but unseasoned porridge. His body was slender instead of bulky with muscle, his golden skin pristine and free of scars. His features, too, were refined: an elegant nose that had surely never been broken, full lips, and a finely chiseled jaw. He even smelled different: an herbal fragrance clung to his clothes, rather than the odor of sweat she usually detected.
He looked like he belonged in a palace, surrounded by luxury. Clearly, he’d ended up where he was meant to be.
“Does your physician not use vinegar, then?” he asked.
Lea shook her head. “Sometimes a bit of wine, if it’s to hand.”
“Wine is acceptable,” Kallias said. “But vinegar is better. Stronger.” He fished around in his bag, withdrawing a slim bone needle and a spool of fine thread, which gleamed in the light.
“Is that…silk?”
He cut a length of thread and fed it through the tiny eye of the needle. “Yes. Surprisingly strong, and much thinner than wool or flax.”
“How fancy,” she murmured. “I’ve never been sewn up with silken thread before.”
Jason returned, bearing a cup of water which Lea gratefully downed in a few gulps. “Is there…anything else?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at Kallias.
Lea recognized the concern behind the question:should I leave you alone with this stranger?
“I don’t need anything.” Kallias seemed competent enough, and she didn’t want Jason to witness the painful process of stitching she was about to endure. Jason was her friend, but she still didn’t like to show weakness in front of him.
“All right,” Jason replied, with one last assessing glance at Kallias, then moved off.
Not a moment too soon, for Kallias drove the needle into her flesh. Lea hissed in pain. Her muscles tensed, and instinct urged her to rip her arm away from Kallias, but she managed to stay still.
“Is it true the emperor’s nickname is Little Boots?” she asked through gritted teeth, seeking to distract herself. Supposedly, the emperor had spent his youth in his father’s army camps, dressed in a miniature legionary uniform, which earned him the nicknameCaligula.
Kallias remained focused on his task but made a dismissive noise. “Not anymore. He prefers it to be forgotten.”
She couldn’t blame him; it was a childish nickname, after all, hardly suitable for an emperor’s dignity.
Thankfully, the wound was deep but not long, and it required only a few stitches. Kallias worked slower than the ludus physician, but his movements were steady, careful. Their regular medicus stitched people up as fast as a housewife might stitch a tunic; the sooner he finished, the sooner he got paid. Kallias, however, lingered over each stitch, making sure the tension of the silk thread was just right, that the next one would be perfectly even.
Finally, Kallias snipped the thread with a tiny pair of shears and stowed away the needle. Lea exhaled in relief as the pain dulled to a manageable ache. He withdrew a small clay container which appeared to contain honey and slathered the golden substance on the wound before binding everything up with a clean length of cloth.
“There,” he said with a satisfied smile. “How far away is your ludus?”
“Only a block.” Thankfully, the complex of buildings where the gladiators lived and trained wasn’t far from the arena.
