“That isn’t true.” Berit’s voice was stiff.
“Of course it is not,” Adel was quick to add. The last thing she needed was Berit worrying and it affecting her performance.
Wulfula’s brows flickered. “No? So the magistri are all mistaken? I overheard them talking about it this morning.”
His words cut her more deeply than Jovan’s rejection. She looked toward the magistri. Did they all know? She lifted her chin, determined not to let Wulfula rattle her.
“The ludi would never agree to death matches. Not unless we’re paired against criminals. We are too expensive.”
Wulfula shrugged. “Ask Jovan yourself, then.” He twisted out of their circle as quickly as he’d come into it.
“Liar. I hate him.” Dreda muttered. The vitriol in her tone told Adel everything about thenothingshe’d claimed moments before.
“Did you tell Jovan?”
Dreda gave a sharp shake of her head. “I’m a gladiatrix. I should not have to run to a man for help.”
“You should not have to be subjected to abuse at every turn either.”
Dreda barked a sharp laugh and threw up a hand. “Look around you, Adelgard. You think this place is a paradise? Perhaps it is for you, with yourfine food and room of your own. But for the rest of us?” She slammed down her mug and stormed from the room.
Tilla snagged the mug and tipped it to her mouth, muttering something aboutweakness.
Compassion is not weakness.Adel heard the words in Felix’s voice, remembering him say something similar. She could hardly think of him as weak, and he was the most compassionate person she’d ever known. Perhaps strength of character was better than strength of arm?
“Do not let Wulfula’s lies divide you. We are stronger together.”
“The weak fall and the strong must stand on their backs or fall too.” Tilla dropped the mug to the table and smeared the back of her hand across her mouth, eyeing the door. “There is notogetherhere.”
Adel scoffed, but didn’t deny it. Across the room, a group of fighters quietly sipped their mugs of beer and pretended not to listen as a secutor named Gaiseric spoke in low tones, casting occasional glances toward the guards. Some might have considered it suspicious. A threat. But she remembered Gaiseric from the Visigoth camp. A God-fearer who could usually be found discussing theology with Telemachus or one of his friends. She wondered what Gaiseric spoke of now and a small part of her wished she could listen too. It seemed that God had abandoned her along with her people. But was it possible He could be in such a place as the ludus?
Crickets sang in the shadows along the edges of the arena when a slave ushered the body-bearers into Felix’s office. The gladiators had gathered for the munera in the triclinium, and the courtyard was quiet in the evening respite. Felix had puttered around the operating room hours later than usual, waiting for them and—if he was honest—sweating a little. The plan had been to send word to Telemachus and in turn, he wouldsend monks disguised as body-bearers. But what if Sergius or Jovan had also sent for the usual company of undertakers?
The undertakers arrived at dusk as they usually did, delivered to the clinic door by a ludus slave. The two men were dressed in the typical red tunics, the color masking stains Felix didn’t want to guess at. They set the wooden litter on the ground beside the Gaul’s sheet-draped body.
“This it?” one of them asked, lifting the edge of the sheet to reveal one of the gladiator’s feet.
Felix nodded, unable to discern from their features if he’d seen them at the monastery or not. “Shall I help or—”
“No need.” The flat response was punctuated by the drop of the sheet and a snap of fingers as the two men squatted at either end of the body. With a practiced grunt and less practiced moves, they lifted, and shimmied, and pushed the body against the side of the litter, which jumped and skittered sideways across the stone floor. The ludus slave just stood in the doorway and watched. Why did he not leave?
“You may go,” Felix attempted to dismiss him with a nod.
The slave shrugged and leaned against the doorframe. “I’m supposed to keep the portico clear for the undertakers.”
Felix’s pulse might as well have been a team of chariot horses barreling down the track of the Circus Maximus, reins broken and snapping free. He stared at the Gaul, willing his chest to stay still, for the slave not to have seen the slight expansion, the twitch of a finger.
Do not make a sound. Do not make a sound.
“I don’t mind helping.” Felix stooped to hold the litter steady and reached across it to grip the Gaul’s arm. Perhaps he could help disguise any movement.
Pulling the arm, Felix pushed the litter beneath the Gaul, as the two undertakers finally rolled him atop it. They sat a moment, panting.
“First day?” Felix asked, hinting for anything that might give him apeace of mind that these two men were indeed the monks Telemachus had sent. If not—
One of the men rubbed his forehead into the crook of his elbow. “He’s heavy.”
If they were from Telemachus, he’d sent good ones. If not... “I’ll walk you out. I’m just leaving.”
