Perhaps he did need the story. At least the latter part, not how the better part of his life had been spent in chains, nor that he was the son of an enslaved woman and a cruel merchant who’d sold him to a gladiator troupe to punish his mother for giving him extra food when he was hungry. The memory sent a quick flush of heat through him. No. He would not share that part.
“The battle near Pollentia, you’ve heard of it?”
Felix nodded. Of course he’d heard of it. Everyone had. The boy emperor’s victory over Alaric and his Visigoth army was widely touted and celebrated.
“Ambushmight be closer to the truth. So many taken captive. Soldiers, war-daughters... Alaric’s own wife and children.” He drew in a slow breath, trying to cool the injustice simmering beneath his skin. It would take little to fan it into a blinding boil. But rage was not needed here. He ran a hand over his head, gripped the back of his neck. “Their families are desperate to find them. To learn whether they are alive or dead. I am here on their behalf.”
Felix crossed his arms, listening, but with a look in his eye that was ready to challenge everything. “Some might consider you a traitor to the empire for that.”
“And they would be wrong.” Telemachus leveled his gaze, voice dropping.
Gaius edged forward, voice going quick with urgency. “Alaric is furious and humiliated. Even now he is gathering an army, threatening to sack Rome to find his family and rescue his people. We have no power to sway him, and fear the loss of many innocent lives if he succeeds.”
“Can he succeed? Rome has never been sacked.”
“The emperor must think so, if he has fled.” Telemachus paced the room, agitation coiling his muscles, feeling the bands of restraint beginning to stretch thin.
“We’ve begged meetings with his generals, his advisers, senators—anyone who will listen,” Gaius spoke again. “No one will take the threat seriously. We know Alaric. Fury and revenge are the gods he serves, and I shudder to think of the consequences for us all.”
“Why tell me?” Felix raised both hands. “I’m not in a position of power or influence. Do you need me to find the Visigoth captives?”
Telemachus stopped and turned, meeting his confused expression with one of determination.
“I want you to free them.”
XII
27 NOVEMBER, AD 403
Like roots to a poisonous plant, a network of tunnels ran beneath the entertainment district, connecting the Flavian Amphitheatre to the four gladiator ludi, costume and set warehouses, the armory, and thespoliariumwhere the dead gladiators would be stripped and laid out for collection by their schools.
Berit marched next to Adel as they wound through the tunnels, the other fighters from the Ludus Gallicus stretching in front and behind them in double rows. Chains clinked at their wrists.
Berit huffed. “Why bother chaining us together? Where do they think we’re going to go?”
Adel inhaled a breath of stale, damp air. They both knew full well they were chained so they wouldn’t peel away into the darkness of the tunnels, seeking refuge or escape through a connecting warehouse of dusty ships, papyrus trees, and plaster boulders and out into the real world beyond. And yet, had she been allowed to walk the tunnels unchained, the free world beyond the ludi would hold only uncertainty.Should she find herself on the street, what would she do? Where would she go? Would her atta even allow her back home?
She simply shrugged and recited the same flimsy reason they’d all been given: “They are precautions against being stolen away by the rival ludi.”
A lie. But a comforting one. One that spoke of value and worth. In truth, the hindering shackles would be a death sentence were they ambushed in the dark. But she would not think of that.
Her pulse thrummed as they turned the final corner and a blazing rectangle of light announced their arrival at the Ludus Dacicus. Heat prickled across her skin as she climbed a set of worn steps and emerged from the coolness of the tunnel into a windowless holding room. The walls, long ago painted a sickly yellow, were peeling and splattered with rusty stains. Adel averted her eyes, knowing the Dacian School painted them so to discourage and dishearten rival fighters. A gate of ornate iron bars cut through the wall across from the tunnel and led onto the arena of the Ludus Dacicus. Another gate set in the wall to her left opened to a tiny courtyard and fountain. For now, both were locked.
The magistri closed off the tunnel and began removing the chains. Adel rubbed her freed wrists and moved toward the arena gate, drawn to it like a sunbeam to sword steel. Unseasonable heat radiated into her face from the sand, the stands around it humming and already nearly filled to their three-thousand-spectator capacity. The smells of roasted nuts, friedglobidrizzled in warm honey, and spiced wine drifted on the breeze. Nerves twisted her gut as she scanned the other barred gates around the ring. Who would she face today? A stranger? An old friend?
The armorer’s approach forced her to turn away from the gate. He waddled toward the group of gladiatrices, clutching a chest of armor against his stomach. He dropped it at her feet with a clank and removed the lid.
“Find your pieces and I’ll be back with your weapons.”
The women sorted the curved bits of metal among them and began to apply the pieces to their limbs. Berit pressed a small breastplate betweenher collarbones and breastband and turned her back toward Adel so she could secure the leather straps.
“Remember,” Adel admonished, bending worn straps through tarnished buckles, “you are skilled and strong. There is no humility here. No false modesty.” She turned the girl to face her, pulling Berit’s forehead against hers. “You are strong. Be courageous.”
“I don’t—”
“Courage, Berit. You can beat whoever you face. Your mind is your greatest enemy.” She released her and pressed thefasicaeinto her hands. “Put these on.”
Berit knelt to fasten on the shin armor, and Adel turned to Dreda.
