Felix hesitated only a moment longer. The money was tempting. With Pater home there was yet another mouth to feed and the same number of creditors to fend off. Though, Pater had not been sitting idle, and that had soothed the ire he felt. The man walked the city dawn to dusk, trying to sell the drainage pipe and doing his utmost to find work, no matterhow demeaning. Jobs were scarce in the city with the emperor gone, as Felix well knew. It was why he’d turned back to the ludus, after all.
“Triple,andyou keep your job.”
Not an idle threat. Felix gritted his teeth. He might have rescued the Gaul, been close to getting the short-haired gladiatrix out, but how many compromises would he be forced to make in the process? “I’ll get my bag.”
Jovan left with a satisfied smile and Felix gathered a bag of emergency supplies before stepping onto the colonnade and pulling the door shut behind him. The setting sun speared the training courtyard in golden shafts of light, momentarily blinding him as he turned toward the gate.
His mind spun. The gladiatrix was next on his list. He’d been hinting to Jovan that she wasn’t healing well and encouraging her to remain in the infirmary. Due to their rarity, Jovan was hesitant to dispatch a gladiatrix, even one with little skill and less popularity. His latest question had been if she was well enough to use as a reward. That solidified Felix’s resolve. He had two days at the most to get her out. But she was refusing to leave without Adel’s permission.
Raised voices drew his attention toward the open costume room.
“Are youmad?” a man’s voice shrieked. “You can’t mix brass and silver.”
“You’re the mad one. All the coolness in her skin, and you chose brass—”
A flash of blue fabric bolted out of the door just ahead, whirling and slamming into Felix full force. He stumbled backward, barely retaining his footing. It might have been the impact that knocked the wind out of him, or maybe it was the sight of the woman suddenly in his arms, outfitted like a queen, that rendered him suddenly unable to breathe.
Adel tilted her head back to look at him and he felt her own breath hitch before she quirked a fine eyebrow. “Shut your mouth, medicus, unless you intend to trap flies.”
He snapped it shut.
Adel drew back, brushing the front of the short tunic as if he’d ruined it. Were her hands shaking a little?
“Where are you off to in such a...” He’d meant to sayhurry, but the vision of her strangled his brain.
“A fight.” She lifted her bangled arms and looked down at the finery. “Can you not tell?”
Footsteps clattered behind them. “Amazon. You’re going to be late.”
Several guards and an armorer clutching a locked weapons chest against his stomach waited like a team of chariot horses, pawing the ground, impatient for the race to begin.
Adel swept past Felix without another word, and somehow his legs remembered how to move and follow. Outside the ludus gate, the men bunched around the gladiatrix like a phalanx. A set of two in front, a set of two behind, and Felix and the armor-bearer on either side. They exited the gate and stepped into the street, where an immediate breeze rushed over them. Adel shut her eyes and inhaled. It wasn’t even a good breeze, tinged with the odor of animals from the Ludus Matutinus. But perhaps for a woman perpetually trapped behind stone walls, this was a heady taste of freedom.
They set off at a quick pace, sparing no time for the fans on the street gawking and pointing as they passed.
Felix, too, couldn’t help but steal glances in her direction.
The intricate loops of light-brown braids crowning her head, woven with gold-toned leaves, winked in the December sun. Adel held herself like a queen, chin high and aloof. If she enjoyed the attention as she had claimed, he couldn’t tell.
“Keep staring at me, and I’ll cut out your eyes.” Her low voice somehow angled toward him, though she kept her face rigidly forward.
Felix clicked his tongue. “Terrible threat. How will I see to stitch your wounds?”
Her jaw flexed—angry or holding back a smile, he couldn’t tell. Probably angry. “That assumes I will be wounded. Do you think I’m weak?”
“Only a fool would think that.”
She eyed him but said nothing. Too late, he remembered she’d previously declared him to be the greatest fool in Rome.
They walked in silence, climbing to the wealthy region where walled homes gently prodded each other for breathing space and where spear-shaped cedars and the umbrellas of stone pines shaded broad gardens. It was a far cry from the six-storied insulae elbowing each other for an alleyway the size of a man to squeeze between them. Felix drew in a breath untinged by manure and rotting bits, perfumed instead with the scent of roasting fish and herbs and the crispness borne of winter.
They entered a large domus through a carved wooden door arched into the side of a marble-plated garden wall and stepped into a blooming paradise cultivated within a breath of perfection. The guards led Adel to the door while Felix hung back.
“I’ll be here if you need me.”
XXI
ADEL RECOGNIZED THE DOMUSimmediately from the manicured gardens and the way her stomach dipped in dread. The man who’d hired Adel tonight was the same she’d noticed in the stands weeks ago who’d hired her to be pitted against Vesuvia. Normally she ignored the men who came to watch the training, but this one had kept moving seats, edging closer and closer to the ring, like a lion on the hunt, until he sat in the front row, devouring the female fighters with a ravenous gaze. He’d made her skin crawl, and it had taken every bit of willpower to block him out. He’d handpicked his fighters for this evening’s matches, same as he had the last. Adel from the Ludus Gallicus, and Vesuvia from the Ludus Magnus, outfitted in fiery red and orange, gold jewelry polished to a molten sheen. A rematch in every way except one. This time there was no winner chosen in the side room, no money changing hands. This would be a true fight. Victor unknown.
