“So what is your plan?”
“Short of waiting for them to grow ill enough that I can fake their deaths and sneak them out with monks dressed as undertakers? Nothing. That has worked so far, but it is slow and risky. Telemachus has gone to plead with the emperor but—”
The creaking of the street-side door silenced them. A city messenger stepped inside, shaking overly long hair out of his eyes. His face brightenedonce he could see them and he peered at the missive in his hand as he crossed the courtyard.
“I’ve a letter for Felix Cassianus. Do you know which apartment he’s in?”
“Good fortune to you.” Pater smiled. “I am Felix Cassianus, and so is he.”
The boy looked between them and hesitated. “It is from the monastery.”
“Then it is mine.” Felix fished through his pouch for a coin and traded it for the missive. The boy left as he opened it. “It is from Telemachus,” he murmured.
“Let us hope it is good news.”
Seven words scrawled across the page and seemed to freeze the heart in his chest.
“What does he say?” Pater urged. “Did the emperor change his mind? Cancel the games?”
Felix swallowed the sudden dryness in his throat and looked up. “He writes,I have failed. Do all you can.”
Pater let out a long breath, his brow wrinkled in disappointment or thought. Perhaps both.
Felix reread the lines over and again. How could so few letters carry the weight of a thousand sinking ships? Of defeat before the battle had even begun?Do all you can?What could that possibly be? The rescue of a handful of fighters? What good would that do?
“Perhaps you should not work with me.” Pater’s sandals scraped on the paving stones as he shifted his weight. “I think... perhaps I should work with you.”
Felix looked up. “But the job—”
“There’s a city beneath Rome,” Pater continued, words gaining speed if not volume, “roads and rivers, detours and bypasses, passages and doorways, all connecting to the upper city like veins to the heart.”
Felix nodded. He’d heard as much even if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. Though only Pater might refer to a sewer system as a city. But what any of it had to do with Telemachus’s message, was beyond him.
Pater ran his tongue over his teeth. “Perhaps my news this evening was meant for such a time as this.”
“What do you mean?” What could toilet repairs possibly have to do with the rescue of slaves and imminent destruction of Rome?
“I have access to everything. To the Ludus Magnus, the Flavian Amphitheatre. To the very heart of Rome.”
XXX
23 DECEMBER, AD 403
“Courage, Berit,” Adel murmured, tightening the straps of her cousin’s breastplate. She gripped her shoulders and turned Berit to face her. The girl’s blue eyes were wide in fear. “You are quick and strong.”
“Not like I was before.” Berit’s breath was as weak as the color in her face. “I’m going to lose.” In a week under Felix’s care, the worst of her symptoms had worn off, leaving Berit pale, weak, and far slower than ever. The outcome of today’s matches would determine which pairs would fight at the prime hours in the arena. The better the hour, the likelier the crowds would show mercy to the fallen, even if the match was determined for a mortal end. She thought of Felix again, of his rescue of the Gaul and Ilona. Perhaps it was best if Berit did lose her match today. Perhaps Jovan would call for her extermination and Felix could slip her out of the ludi. Perhaps they all should fail.
“Just...” There were no promises she could make. “Do not walk onto the sand already defeated. You can do this, Berit. We are all behind you.”
The girl offered a faint smile before Adel lowered the helmet onto her head.God, give her strength. Protect her.The prayers had started coming easier of late, the facade of her self-sufficiency beginning to fracture.
Adel turned Berit toward the gate to the arena where she’d meet her match from another ludus. An odd mix of anxiety and hope churned in her gut. Because her atta was alive. He was looking for her. He... wanted her back.
The truth of it set Adel’s heart pounding and her mind spinning with questions. What could come of this? She was a gladiatrix in the Ludus Gallicus, and her father’s most prized and valuable possession rested beneath her mattress. But to what end?
Her nerves jangled in time with the doorkeeper’s keys as he unlocked the iron gate and pushed it open with a screech.
Berit was shoved onto the cool sand of the Ludus Magnus and Adel followed her as far as the gate, watching through the bars. Three thousand spectators filled the stands in a blaze of gaudy colors, everyone wearing their brightest clothes in celebration on the last day of Saturnalia. The wine was strong and the air rumbled and swirled with overloud voices eager for one last day of oblivious excitement before their lives returned to normal.
