“Can we speak?” Telemachus lifted a hand, gesturing to the hall, and when Felix followed, he led the way to the small guest room the monks had graciously offered to him when he and Gaius had arrived in the city. It contained a bed too small to support his frame, a blanket on the floor where he actually slept, and the leather travel bag slouched in the corner. The pillow remained on the bed. Comforts were wasted on a man like him.
You do not deserve them.He pushed the thought away and left Felix in the doorway while he angled for the bag, speaking over his shoulder.
“I’ve made a list of the missing.” He pulled out a weathered codex and flipped it open, keeping it angled to hide his rudimentary scrawl. “Which Visigoths are held in the Ludus Gallicus?”
An unreadable expression flickered across Felix’s face, chased quickly by the clearing of his throat. “We have some, yes. Gaiseric, Ilona, Ruso—er, I don’t know if that’s his real name.”
Telemachus followed the list with his finger, pausing on several names. “Ilona... Gaiseric, of course.”
“You know them?”
He nodded. “Some of them are from other villages, but these... Gaius and I taught them the Scriptures week after week. Prayed with them.”
“You prayed with them?” Disbelief was palpable in his tone. Felix shook his head. “Sorry. I didn’t realize they were... that they weren’t...”
“As barbarian as you first assumed?”
Felix shrugged. “Life in the ludi can turn the most civilized of men into blood-hungry monsters.”
Yes. But it was not only the ludi that held such power. Sometimes the monster was a merchant. Telemachus cleared his throat, hoping it would also clear the memories, and gave a nod. “Who else?”
“There are so many others trapped within those walls,” Felix said, giving a hopeless shrug. “Visigoth, yes, but Gauls, Britons, Iceni, Alamani—”
“Their leaders are not bringing an army against Rome.”
“But are they not worth saving as well?”
Of course they were. What sort of question was that? He hated that they had to choose—but this was Alaric’s fault. If the Visigoths were not returned, Rome’s innocents would pay the price of his wounded pride. And Telemachus wouldn’t let that happen. Not again.
“It is Alaric’s threat to Rome’s citizens that makes them our priority for the moment,” he said quietly. “I wish we could rescue them all.”
Felix listed others while Telemachus hunted through the list and scratched marks beside names of the missing. So many lost. So many found. Praise be to God.
“A-Adelgard.” Felix’s tongue tripped over the name. He made a show of rubbing the back of his neck, brow furrowing as if he couldn’t quite remember if that was her name or not.
Telemachus’s breath caught and held, as if his own body couldn’t bear the hope. The dread. “Adel is in the Ludus Gallicus?”
“Adel?” Felix repeated, and this time, his voice really did sound as though he’d never spoken the name before.
“Do you know her?” Telemachus straightened and raised a hand to his chin, “About this big, and fiery enough to take a city on her own?”
The corner of Felix’s lips twitched. “That sounds right.”
Telemachus shut his eyes, a flood of relief rushing through him. That she was alive. That he could send news back home. “Praise the Father. I did not know she survived.”
“They call her the Amazon. She is the most sought-after gladiatrix in Rome. Surely you’ve heard of her?”
Recognition spread through him. He’d seen the advertisements painted on walls around the city. He should have known she would be called theAmazon. “Ah, yes. Thatisa name I have heard before.” And somehow that made it worse. If she’d acquired the name and fame she’d sought, then release would not be an easy thing for her to want. She would resist. “Is she well?”
“She claims to love her life.”
Telemachus sighed. “Then the thought of going home will be difficult for her heart.”
“She’s usually offering to cut mine out.”
“That sounds like her. She has endured many... difficulties that are not mine to share.” Telemachus renewed his search in the codex, sliding his finger down a column of names and turning a page, muttering her name under his breath until he came to the final page.
He made a mark beside her name. “Lost no more.”
