Several trainers milled among the fighters, handing out shoulder smacks and encouraging words.
“You should stretch out, medicus,” one of the hoplomachi magistri greeted. “Who do you face?”
Felix tried not to appear as uncomfortable as he felt when he joined the group, eyeing their movements and copying them.
“I don’t know.”
“After the way you trained, you’d best hope it’s anAndabata.”
Felix pulled his left arm across his chest to stretch his shoulder. “What is that? A snake?”
The magister huffed and the others chuckled. “The Andabata are sent out in helmets with no eyeholes. Blind as moles and slinging swords in every direction.”
“That isn’t very sporting.”
A carefree shrug. “They’re usually murderers set for execution. And yet, the crowds have a strange affinity for them.”
“Excellent,” Felix muttered.
“Your best option is to attack from behind.” Wulfula edged up beside him, twisting and jabbing a fist toward the back of a nearby secutor as if he held a gladius.
The sudden image of a blade in his own hand, piercing the flesh of another man with intent to harm rather than heal, sent a wave of nausea through Felix. His head went light.
“Are you going to be sick?” The magister pointed to a large pot near the wall, set there for that very purpose. “Do it over there.”
Felix drew in a long breath through his nose, calming the school of fish in his stomach, the way he did before a procedure.
“All ready?” a lanista shouted from the gate.
“Ready!” the costumers responded.
Gates creaked and groaned as they swung open. Magistri proddedthe gladiators toward the door where the armorers handed out wooden gladii painted the vivid green of the Ludus Gallicus.
“Line up!” one of the trainers shouted. “Hoplomachi first, thenmurmillones, secutors, provocators and gladiatrices. And then the rest no one cares about—crupellarius, scissors, cesti...”
Felix stumbled into line with the hoplomachi and followed them down a rounded tunnel. The scent of animals met his nose before he stepped into a larger hall filled with stamping horses and gilded chariots, and the louder hum of the crowd filtering in through the gate on the far end.
“You’re in chariot seven.” A red-bearded man with a stylus tucked behind his ear consulted a waxed tablet and then pointed down the row to a golden chariot harnessed to a pair of glossy blacks tossing their green-plumed heads. Felix forced his feet to move in the direction of the chariot, feeling as though he were slogging through honey. Was this truly the best plan they could come up with? In the moment it had seemed like the best option, the only option, and now? About to enter the arena himself, it seemed the most foolhardy and fragile of plans. But it was too late to turn back now. A chill spread over him. He was a convicted thief of imperial slaves. Good for nothing but a spectacle of death.
“Not having second thoughts, are you?” Adel’s voice drew his gaze to the chariot.
“If I was, it would hardly...”
She stood on the platform behind the driver, looking unlike anything he’d seen from her before. Pale green fabric fluttered from her bare shoulders to her ankles, sweeping over her curves and snugged at the waist with a simple gold belt. But it was her hair that made his breath catch. Flowing down her back in soft curls and crowned by a wreath of flowers. Today she was not a warrior woman prepared for battle, but something sweet and innocent. A wide-eyed girl going to meet her lover.
She was Thisbe. And he was Pyramus. He stepped up beside her, noting then the myrtle branches forming an arbor over their heads and the plastered papyrus divider secured to the chariot, rising waist high between them like the wall in their ill-fated love story.
“You look...”
“Stupid,” she supplied.
“Beautiful,” he breathed.
Adel squinted at him then dipped her chin, sliding a hand over the fabric in a motion that was uncharacteristically unsure. If ever he wanted to gather her close, shield her against his chest, it was now.
“There is no doubt. You will own the crowd, as you always have.”
She gave a nod and swallowed, then eyed him. “You look... uncomfortable.”
