So far, the little she had seen of him had suggested that he was perpetually in a bad mood. He seemed to communicate mostly in grunts, though he was polite to Lucullus, and she had heard him speak a full sentence to Jason and Lea as they warmed up earlier that morning. She’d caught enough of his speech to detect a slight accent, a harshness to certain consonants and an alteration to the vowels. He must be from the provinces, but she couldn’t decipher his exact origin.
His manner made Velia wonder how he’d become such a revered gladiator. Gladiators weren’t just fighters; they were performers. They had to win the crowd’s interest, put on a show. And Ferox…well, so far, he didn’t seem to have an ounce of theatrical sensibility in that huge body.
When the match ended, Ferox sat heavily on a bench at the perimeter of the training ground, wiping the sweat from his brow. His short, dark hair was plastered to his forehead.
Velia ambled over, curious to discover if she could elicit more than a grunt from him.
He ignored her as she approached the bench.
“You’ll feel that tomorrow, no doubt,” she said with a sympathetic smile.
His gaze flicked toward her, but he said nothing.
Maybe some flattery would soften him up. That worked on most gladiators, in her experience. “My uncle told me of your record. Twenty wins, eight draws, and three losses, right?”
“Four losses,” he corrected her. Again, her ear picked up that hint of an accent.
“Four losses,” she conceded. “Still, that’s quite the career. Better than anyone else here.” His career was most impressive in terms of sheer volume: often, gladiators didn’t survive more than five or ten matches. “I’m sure it’ll be twenty-three wins by the time these games are over.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic at the thought of further embellishing his record. “I get paid either way.”
His nonchalance irritated her. He was supposed to be one of the greatest gladiators the city had ever seen, and he didn’t even care about winning?
Sharp words rose to her tongue before she could bite them back. “Or maybe it’ll be seven losses. You’re huffing and puffing after one practice match as if you’ve climbed Mount Olympus.”
Ferox’s head swiveled toward her, and their gazes met. His eyes were dark, narrowed in displeasure. His brows lowered, giving the sharp planes of his face an even more forbidding appearance. Up close, she noticed a jagged scar that cut through one eyebrow.
Despite the fact that he was glaring at her as if she’d put ants in his food, a bolt of heat shot through her. A year at the ludus had shaped her into a connoisseur of the male physique, and though she would probably rate Jason the most objectively handsome of all the men, with the face and body of a temple statue, there was something about Ferox that drew her eye to linger, to savor. His size alone was impressive, but there were plenty of giants to whom she wouldn’t give a second look. No, he washandsome—despite the scars. Despite the broken nose. Despite the glowering.
Or maybe because of all that.
“Velia!” Her uncle’s voice.
She broke away from Ferox’s gaze and turned to see her uncle beckoning from the other side of the training ground.
“Don’t forget to stretch,” she said to Ferox, then hurried away to join Lucullus.
Her uncle gestured her toward the entrance to the ludus. “There’s a potential recruit I thought you might want to see.”
Her interest piqued. “Really? A volunteer?”
Lucullus nodded. “Take a look. See if you think he has potential.”
Since the new emperor had announced eight weeks of games to celebrate his accession, Lucullus had been hard at work recruiting or purchasing new gladiators. They needed to swell their numbers if they were going to supply enough fighters for such anextravagant display. Lucullus’s agents prowled the slave markets every day in search of suitable men, and they accepted volunteers as well.
Lucullus knew of Velia’s desire to manage her own troupe of gladiators, and had suggested that these games might be a good chance for her to take on her first fighter, if the right candidate presented himself. It would have to be a volunteer, rather than a slave; Velia had some money saved up from the modest wage Lucullus paid her, but not enough to finance the outright purchase of a man in addition to all the other expenses entailed in the training and upkeep of a gladiator.
Her feet sped up as she followed Lucullus. She was eager to see this volunteer. It could mean the start of everything she wanted. Her uncle had carved out a very profitable life for himself with his gladiators, and she was determined to do the same. It would mean that she’d never have to return to her family’s horrible farm ever again.Thiswas where she belonged, and though she didn’t mind working for her uncle, she didn’t plan to be just an assistant for the rest of her life. She wanted to have a hand in something great, something bigger than herself—and the games were the biggest thing she could imagine.
Lucullus led her over to a lanky man leaning against the wall just inside the entrance to the ludus. The stranger straightened up when he saw them approaching, crossing lean arms over his chest.
“Dis, that hair,” Velia muttered as she took in the fiery color of his hair. A promising start: hair like that would be memorable, if nothing else.
“You want to be a gladiator?” she asked him, not waiting for her uncle to introduce them. “Why?”
He looked her over with a frown. “Well, who wouldn’t?” he said, as if she’d asked if he believed the sky was blue. “Money, fame, women. Honestly, I’d expect you to have volunteers lining up from here to the Campus Martius.”
They did get a trickle of volunteers, men with crushing debts or no better options to see themselves housed and fed, but the prospect of a grisly public death usually put off anyone with much of a choice.
