The Gladiator

Her breath hitched in her throat. She could only stare. Without a doubt, the man could crush her if he chose.

“So, you are called Pelonia,” he said. “And my healer believes you wish to fight me.”

Her gaze locked with the unusual blue of his forceful glare. For the first time, she understood how the Hebrew David must have suffered when he faced Goliath. Swallowing the lump of fear in her throat, she nodded. “If I must.”

“If you must?” Caros eyed Pelonia with a mix of irritation and respect. He was used to grown men trembling before him. With her tunic filthy and torn, her dark hair rippling in disarray across the packed earthen floor and her bruises healing, his new slave looked like a wounded goddess. But she was just an ordinary woman. Flea-bitten and trodden upon. Why did she think she could defy him?

To her credit, she wasn’t a simpering wench. Her resistance reminded him of his own the day he’d been forced into slavery. Beaten, chained by his Roman adversaries, he’d sworn no one would ever own him. He’d been mistaken, of course. This new slave would be proven wrong as well.

“Then let the games begin,” he said, his voice thick with mockery.

“Games?” she asked faintly. “You think…this…this is a game?”

The roughness of her voice reminded him of her body’s weakened condition—a frailty her spirit clearly didn’t share. Crouching beside her, he ran his forefinger over the yellowed bruise on her cheek. She didn’t flinch as he expected. Instead, she closed her eyes and sighed as though his touch somehow soothed her.

Her guileless response unnerved him. The need to protect her enveloped him, a sensation he hadn’t known since the deaths of his mother and sisters. As a slave, he’d been beaten on many occasions in an effort to conquer his will. That no one ever succeeded was a matter of pride for him. Much to his surprise, he had no wish to see this girl broken, either.

“Of course it’s a game.” He lifted a strand of her dark hair and caressed it between his fingers. “And I will be the victor. I live to win.”

“It’s true.” Lucia moved from the shadows. “Our master has never been defeated.”

Defiance flamed in the depths of her large, doe-brown eyes. She didn’t speak and he admired her restraint when he could see she wanted to flay him.

Challenged to draw a response from her, he trailed his fingers over her full bottom lip. “You might as well give in now, my prize. I have no wish to crush your spirit. I own you whether you will it or not.”

She turned her head toward the stone wall, but he gripped her chin and forced her to look at him.

“Admit it,” he said with no pity for her loss of pride. “Then you can return to your sleep.”

She shook her head. “No. No one owns me…no one but my God.”

He dropped his hand away as though she’d sprouted leprosy. “And who might your god be? Jupiter? Apollo? Or maybe you worship the god of the sea. Do you think Neptune will leave his watery throne and rescue you?”

“The Christ.” For the first time, her voice didn’t waver.

So, she admitted following the criminal sect. Caros studied her, wondering if she were a fool or had a wish for death. “Say that to the wrong person, Pelonia, and you’ll find yourself facing the lions.”

“I already am.”

He laughed. “So you think of me as a ferocious beast?”

Her silence amused him all the more. “Good. It suits me well to know you realize I’m untamed and capable of tearing you limb from limb.”

Her fingers clutched at the dirt floor. “Then do your worst. Death is better…than being owned.”

Lucia scoffed under her breath, drawing Caros’s attention to where the healer waited by the window, the noonday sun coursing through the open shutters.

“What foolishness.” Lucia came to stand by a roughhewn table littered with the bottles and bowls of her medicines. “I warned you the girl would argue, Master. I’d wager she deserved the thrashing she received if all she did was quarrel.”

“The slave trader did mention she’d been beaten for a disagreement with her uncle.” Caros’s attention slipped back to Pelonia, who’d grown pale and weaker still.

Concerned by her pallor, he berated himself for baiting her, for depleting her meager strength when he should have been encouraging her to heal. Without pausing to examine his motives, he reached down and lifted her into his arms, prepared for her to protest.

When she sagged against his chest without a fight, her acquiescence alarmed him. She weighed no more than a laurel leaf and it occurred to him she’d eaten nothing more than tepid broth for the last several days. In her weakened state, had he shoved her to the brink of death?

Holding her tight against his chest, he whispered near her ear. “Tell me, Pelonia. What can I do to aid you? What can I do to ease your plight?”

“Find…Tiberia,” she whispered, the dregs of her strength draining away. “And free me.”

Chapter Three

I will not weep.

Pelonia paused in weeding the kitchen’s herb garden and wiped perspiration from her brow. Scents of basil and mint mingled with the sweetness of wild jasmine. A small fountain’s splashing water and the aroma of fresh-baked bread reminded her of home.

The garden’s rich black dirt stained her fingers, resurrecting painful reminders of her father’s burial less than a fortnight ago. Fangs of betrayal bit deep. How could a loving God allow one of His most kind and humble servants to suffer so heinous a death?

Why had God delivered her to this gladiatorial training ground, this disgusting den of violence, to serve as a slave? How did He expect her to face Caros Viriathos on a daily basis when each sight of her captor filled her with resentment and simmering rage?

She ripped a weed from the dirt and flung it into a basket beside her. The lanista didn’t have a right to imprison her here! In the week since Caros carried her from the slave quarters, he’d provided for her needs and seen her cared for, but his vow to rule over her kept him from finding Tiberia. His adamant refusal to contact her cousin, regardless of Tiberia’s certain anxiety, stoked her frustration and her fury.

She sneered at the garden wall that marked the boundary of her prison. Caros Viriathos had stolen her life and she would see it returned. In a few days, her injuries would be completely healed and the occasional blurring of her vision would disappear the same as the knot on her head.

She would escape and find Tiberia, who wouldn’t hesitate to buy her freedom. It didn’t matter that a runaway slave faced the penalty of death. She couldn’t abide the abysmal future she faced living as less than someone’s chattel.

The weeds she’d discarded drew her attention. Bitterness bloomed until she tasted it. That’s what God had done to her. Uprooted her from the flourishing soil of home and cast her aside as if she meant nothing. How could she trust a God who delivered her into such a deep chasm of despair?

The snap of a twig startled her out of her grim thoughts. A low growl directly behind her raised her hair on end. She froze, her breath lodged in her chest. Why hadn’t she sensed the animal’s approach? She’d heard the roar of big cats and sounds of various game in the training yard, but was the beast here?

Her heart stopped when warm, moist breath caressed her neck and a large wet nose sniffed her hair. From the corner of her eye, she saw the orange-and-black-striped head of a…tiger.

“Cat!” Caros’s deep voice boomed across the garden. Pelonia’s heart raced as though it meant to escape her chest.

“Cat!” he called again, his swift steps crunching dried leaves along the garden’s path. “Come, before you terrify my new slave to death.”

The tiger sniffed Pelonia’s hair once more before he returned to his master. The animal’s long, curved tail flicked her in the face as it sauntered off.

An eon seemed to pass before she took an even breath. Her muscles unlocked and she almost pitched forward into the herbs, her hands shaking with latent fear.

Caros’s long shadow stretched across the herb bed in front of her. From her seat on the ground, he seemed as tall and formidable as a colossus.

He crouched beside her, his intense blue gaze riveted to her face. “Are you well or did my pet scare you speechless?”

Not wanting him to see her tremble, she tightened her fists and tried to ignore the tiger’s golden eyes fixed upon her. “Your pet? Are you insane?”

He shrugged. “Some claim so.”

“I agree with them.” She pulled another weed. “Only a lunatic would allow a tiger to run loose in his garden.”