His black hair was braided back into a mass of different-sized plaits that hung down his back, tied together with a leather string. Somehow, even with the outdoor training, his skin had remained pale. As if he too had emerged from a mine.
Adel shook off his grip and muttered a name her aipei would have scoured from her tongue had she heard it. In Alaric’s army, Wulfula had been no more than a common foot soldier, but in the arenas of Rome, he was touted a Visigoth general. The lie had gone straight to his large head, until it was clear he believed it.
“Will they let you fight next week?”
She shrugged and wiped a hand across her mouth. “What do you care?”
Few had sought his company in the war camp. He’d been slithery and sly, hanging around the fringes of the camp with other ne’er-do-wells. Even then, they’d chosen someone else to lead their slinking pack.
“We Visigoths ought to look out for each other, is all.” Wulfula knotted his arms over his wide, bare chest, an attempt at concern pinching his face in odd lines.
“Oh?” She nearly laughed. Look out for each other? The way they had on the battlefield? All she seemed to recall were shoulders and soles of feet as the others ran.
Wulfula leaned close, the odor of training clinging to his clammy skin and clogging her nose. “We could be great together, you and I. Think ofit.” He lowered his voice. “The Visigoth general and his fierce warrior princess. The crowds would be wild over it.”
Adel tried to mask the jerking of her stomach, refusing to allow him the pleasure of knowing how his very presence nauseated her. She’d trained to guard the supplies in camp, but had only become so good a fighter to ward off Wulfula’s growing advances. The monk Telemachus had intervened once, and then taught her to defend herself. She’d latched on to his every instruction. So, perhaps, she did owe her success to Wulfula. She swallowed back her revulsion and forced her eyes to widen and meet his, her lips falling apart as if she could barely believe his suggestion. Indeed. She could not.
“Oh, Wulfula,” she breathed, as if he’d offered her the world.
The change in his expression was slight. The darkening of his pupils, the satisfied tilt to his mouth. The look of a man triumphant. She inched closer, letting her eyelashes flicker just so. He followed her movement, his eyes dropping to travel over her body.
Her tone went tender and deadly. “I would rather die a thousand deaths than be anything of yours.”
Pain shot through her injured arm as he wrapped his hand around it, fingers digging into her wound. She clenched her teeth, strangling the cry of alarm in her throat.
“You think you’re so great.” He jerked her close, lowering his voice to her ear. “But you know the crowds only love you because they like to laugh.”
Adel gripped his wrist and spun, breaking his hold and twisting his arm behind his back. She shoved a foot into the back of his leg and dropped him to his knees. “They love me because I am good.”
Wulfula shifted, grabbing her arm and flinging her to the ground. “On your back, perhaps.” He spat and shoved to his feet.
“Amazon!”Ignacio barked, interrupting the scuffle. “Jovan would speak with you.”
Adel held Wulfula’s glare until he turned away, then rolled to her feet, skin burning from the scrape of gravel. She brushed pebbles from her arms and moved toward Jovan’s office, heart thundering in her chest, pulse hammering in her arm. What she wouldn’t give for a cup of Ignacio’s wine just now. Crossing Wulfula was a stupid thing to do. Even with guards and trainers surrounding them most of the time, the school was not a place of safety. Only last week one of the gladiators had been beaten in the baths. Left nearly dead in a matter of moments. As far as she’d heard, no one knew who did it.
The lanista stood waiting in the doorway, hairy arms crossed over his paunchy stomach. He met her gaze and turned inside, a silent invitation to follow. Adel swiped drips from her chin, and sand from her knees. Would this be the moment Jovan made good on his promise to make her a magister over the gladiatrices? She wished she could clean up first, don a tunic instead of the training garments, but Jovan would not wait. And she hadn’t bought a new tunic yet anyway.
“You called for me, sir?” Adel bowed as she entered the dimness of the office.
“Shut the door.” Jovan crossed to his desk and eased into his chair. The chair creaked and crackled as Adel closed the door at her back.
“Magnus tells me you’re doing well.”
Warmth spread in her chest. Compliments from the doctore overseeing the gladiatrices were something of myth and legend. To receive one felt as incredible as a Pegasus sighting.
She swallowed back her surprise and dipped her chin. “I am honored he thinks so.”
Jovan tipped his head, squinting at her before opening a book on his desk. “He tells me you have great influence over the gladiatrices. That they look up to you.”
In the ludus, perhaps. It had not been so back in camp. Tragedy had flipped the scales. She neither confirmed nor denied his words.
He laced his fingers together atop the book. “I’ve made a list of improvements for each gladiatrix. I want you to work with them. Encourage them. Make them better.”
A surge of hope swept over her and she fought to keep her expression still. “That is the job of the magistri.” Was he offering the position? He’d hinted at it before. More than hinted, really but—
“It is the job of a leader.”
Not a yes, exactly. Adel pressed, boldened by the turn of the conversation. No one would fight for her, if she did not fight for herself. She was done relying on others. “If I do this, improve them, you will make me one of the magistri?”
