She barely kept her jaw from dropping. The man gathered with the church? What was he doing in a godforsaken place like the ludus? He stepped closer, his sandalwood scent doing something odd to her ability to breathe. Definitely the herbs affecting her.
“I am called Adel—” Her own name emerged from her lips on a string bound to her heart. The syllables tugging painfully as it burst into the open. “Adelgard.” A piece of herself floating in the air between them that she could not reclaim.
“Adelgard.” He repeated her name in a voice that seemed to cradle it, to hold it up to the light like a jewel. She’d never heard her name spoken like that before. “What does it mean?”
“Noble protector.”
She felt his assessing gaze as his fingers slid beneath her arm, gently lifting it. “It suits you.”
“Not here.” Adel flinched as he cut the torn stitches and tugged them free of her skin.
“Yes, well, Rome has never called things as they truly are.” His gaze flicked up to her, then dropped to his work again. “Do you... miss your home?”
Her home was as elusive as his. If she found herself liberated, if she went home... what would she find? A starving mother and sisters? Was her atta even alive? Word had reached Rome that Alaric had suffered yet another defeat at Verona and had been pushed back to the Balkans. Could she slink home too, like an unwanted dog? There was nothing for her there.
But here?
She lifted her good shoulder. “Why would I go back to that scrap of dust the emperor crowds us on like cattle awaiting slaughter? I am far better off in Rome. Here, I have made a name for myself.” Not her own name, perhaps, but a name nonetheless. “Rome loves me.”
“You’re a slave.”
She sucked in a breath, fighting back the sudden swell of tears. “I am protected, fed, revered, and cared for.”
“That isn’t love.”
His words cut deeper than his scalpel. “How would you know?” She tried to jerk free of him, but he held her firm in a grip that said he was used to wrestling gladiators to the operating table. And yet, he used none of that force with her.
“Hold still, or this will hurt.”
“Life is pain,” she spat. “There is nothing else.”
“There is so much more, Adelgard.” His quiet words stilled her.
She drew in a breath, let it out.Control yourself, Adel. Guard yourself.She stared into a corner where a worn broom waited to be put to task against the floor and struggled to replace the armor over her heart.
To feel nothing.
“Hurry up. You are wasting my time.”
“I could argue the same, since you’ve refused to follow my instructions and I am stitching you up yet again.” He did not sound as though he minded. He bent over her arm, keeping the same methodical pace as before. “I’m trying to be gentle and not hurt you more.”
A single huff of laughter escaped her chest as she stared over his bent head at the shelves of carefully labeled jars and lidded pots. “In case you have not noticed, the ludi are not places for a weakness like gentleness.”
“There is always a place for gentleness. It isn’t weakness. Rather a... power under control.”
She assessed him, as if the size of his arms or thickness of his chest would determine if he spoke true. Like most who worked in the ludi, his build suggested that he spent time in the gymnasium. Lifting weights most likely, if his shoulders and arms were any indication. Even so, she couldn’t accuse him of using his strength to dominate.
“My atta would disagree.”
“Atta...”He squinted at the cut as he tugged the needle through. “I don’t know that word.”
“You saypater. He...” She shifted. Shut her mouth.
He looked up, dark hair waving over his brow. She averted her gaze, trying to smooth her features into something cold and indifferent. Rome loved her. Her atta could not. It was as simple as that.
“You miss him.”
There he went again, poking and prodding at things, trying to assess injury. And this time he’d gone too far.
