Felix turned from the gate and moved toward the costumer, easing his shoulders into the posture of a confidence he didn’t feel. He wasn’t a coward. But there was a measure of uncertainty in stepping into an arena to fight to the death when one has never fought before. When one hoped beyond reason that beneath his feet, gladiators were escaping the arena. Returning home.
Around him, the other gladiators were being fitted into costumes to depict Roman soldiers or Visigoth rebels.
The costumer glanced at him and checked his codex of notes, humming in thought. “Blue for you.”
“Why blue?”
The costumer set down the codex and plucked a blue loincloth from the pile. “Traitors to Rome wear blue in this battle.”
Felix donned the costume and straightened. “Battle? I thought I was reenacting Pyramus and Thisbe with the Amazon.”
The costumer glanced at his notes. “There’s been a change in the plans.”
Hope jolted through him. Had Adel already found a way out? Was she even now with his pater in the tunnels? He tried to imagine them meeting. What would Pater think of her?
The costumer pointed to the men near the gate. “To the armorers next and...” He held out a strip of cloth. “Give them this.”
Felix took the strip and wished his legs felt steadier. His heart had taken up an irregular rhythm, fast and shuddering in time to the restless hum of the crowd beyond the gate. If he could just make it through with a wound, he could join the other liberators in the medical room, ushering fighters into the tunnels.
The armorers slid a dingy cloth manica over his sword arm and buckled it in place with a row of leather straps.
He lifted the cloth strip. “I was supposed to give this to you.”
The armorers shot grim glances at each other before one took it, stretched it between his hands and jerked his chin toward the middle. “Bite down.”
“Why?”
“Do it or I’ll force it in.”
Felix obeyed. What else was he going to do? In a quick and practiced motion, the armorer had the strap wrapped around his head and tied in a knot, gagging him. The other shoved a helmet over his head, buckling it under his chin. Smooth and domed, the helmet offered no padding and two eyeholes barely big enough to allow his thumb to poke through. A strange sort of panic swelled. Was this the life Adel had endured and escaped?
“Ready?”
His response was muffled by the gag.
Something heavy was pressed into his hand at the same moment the gate groaned open.
“May the gods show mercy.”
A hand to his back—or maybe a foot—and he was stumbling forward into the sand, craning his neck to see through the eyeholes. Had the helmet shifted? He paused, twisting left, then right, trying to see.
His heart hammered in his throat. The arena was being transformed into a forest filled with plaster boulders, fallen logs, and trees formed from poles that had shot up through the floor, crowned with a fan of palm leaves. Bushes and shrubs appeared, rolling up ramps from the hypogeum. An echoing snarl of a lion sent his hair prickling.
Where was his opponent? A surge of panic raced over him and he reached up, fingers bumping against the helmet, unable to reach beneath and remove the gag. To draw in a full breath.
So many plan changes surely meant the liberators were at work. So if his part now was to be a distraction, give Adel time to escape, he would do it with everything he had.
The hope that she’d found a way out early rushed at him with a relief that was as short-lived as the love of the crowd. A flash of pale green caught his eye just as the crowd erupted in unmistakable shouts. Cheers. Chants.
Hope dropped to his feet and lay there bleeding as the air drained from his lungs.
“Amazon! Am-a-zon! Am-a-zon!”
He turned and Adelgard came into view, waving to the crowd as if she loved every moment of being in the arena. She wore no helmet, no armor at all. Flowers rained from the stands, landing in the sand at her feet. She swept up a rose and held it to her nose, looking for all the world like a girl out for a frolic in a field. Sweet, feminine.
The costumer was wrong. They had not changed the plan after all. He started across the expanse of sand toward her. The sooner they were together, the safer—
Adel turned to face him, the breeze rippling the shortened skirt of her tunic and blowing long waves of hair across her shoulders.
