Forbidden To The Gladiator

‘And I did not ask to be…’ She bit her lip, stared at the floor.

Enslaved. That is what she wanted to say, but she could not find the courage to voice it. How could he deny her anything, knowing that she had been condemned to such a life?

He sighed and found himself crossing to the corner of his cell and gazing down at a fine silken temple shining beneath the torchlight. At the temple’s edge, a large black weaver posed regally. ‘How should I…collect it?’ he asked.

‘Just wave your palm through the web gently and gather it on your hand. Do not take it all, lest you incur Arachne’s wrath.’

Cal did as instructed, giving a nod of reverence to the tiny creature whose sanctuary he had just harvested. Reverence for all creatures big and small. It was what the white-robed Druids had taught him in his youth.

He returned to her with the silken prize and was no less fascinated watching her ball up the strands and stuff them into his wound. Why was she helping him? He did not understand it at all. Nor did he have the heart to tell her that her effort was pointless.

‘My mother used spider webs on my father’s wounds, as well,’ she explained. ‘It is an old Greek remedy. My mother is Greek, you see.’

Pride lurked beneath her words. Cal knew that the Romans despised the Greeks in the manner of a jealous younger sibling.

‘Is your father Greek?’

‘No, I am afraid he is as Roman as they come. Born in Pompeii and left before Vesuvius blew. Lucky him. Though he could not escape the wounds of war…and now, I suppose, of peace.’

‘Was your father often wounded?’

She nodded. ‘After he returned from military service he became a lictor for a new aedile here in Ephesus. The young mayor had as many enemies as he had gold auris and my father was paid to protect him. I was always so worried for my father back then. Pah! I had no idea what worry was.’

She pursed her lips, and Cal sensed her trying to stifle her emotion. If there had been any doubt in his mind that she had been sold into servitude, it was washed away by the small tear he watched leak from her eye and trace a path down her cheek.

Without thinking, he pressed his finger to her skin and caught it.

She blinked, stared up at him.

His stomach tightened. He realised that he wanted to kiss her.

‘There,’ she said with finality and her deep blush told him that she had felt it, too—whatever it had been that had just passed between them.

Lust, he told himself. Simple, physical lust, born of the fact that he had not enjoyed a woman’s company in months. But that would be remedied—and very soon, thank the god Gwydion.

The woman stepped away from him and he was glad of it. If she had not, he might have taken one of those small, coiling curls of hair and wrapped it around his finger. He might have made the mistake of reaching through the bars, catching her by the waist and pulling her close enough to drink the tiny bead of water that had lodged itself in the small crevasse of her shapely upper lip.

He might have violated one of his most important rules: never to kiss a woman.

‘It will heal quickly,’ the woman was saying, nodding confusedly at his wound. In truth, the gash already felt much better.

‘I am in debt to you,’ he said. Not that the debt would ever be repaid. Not that any of this mattered at all. A dressed wound was of no benefit to a man whose days were numbered.

‘I suppose you are in my debt,’ she said. It was just the sort of thing a Roman woman loved to say and he knew what came next. ‘So tell me, how will you pay it?’

Reflexively, his eyes slid down the length of her. Curses. What was the matter with him? ‘I do not know,’ he said.

‘Why not tell me the truth as payment?’ she asked. The woman was like a dog with a bone. ‘Why did you agree to take the fall tonight? Tell me, I beg you.’

‘Because of a woman.’ There, he had said it. Surely it would be enough to put her off.

But she only frowned. ‘I do not understand.’

He could tell that she wanted him to confess totally. But if there was one thing he held sacred in this wretched world it was the memory of his wife and he was not about to cheapen it by admitting how much he missed her, or what he planned to do to honour her memory. ‘I took the fall for a woman and that is all I am going to say. I do not expect you to understand.’

‘Come now, you must do better than that, Briton.’

Briton. She might as well have called him a butter eater or a beer guzzler.

‘I am not a Briton,’ he said through his teeth.

‘Not a Briton? But you are called the Beast of Britannia, are you not?’ There was the Roman arrogance again. It rankled him.

‘That is what you Romans like to call me, because you know nothing about the lands you call Britannia.’

‘Are you a Briton then?’ she asked. His stomach twisted into a knot.

‘I hail from the island that the Romans call Britannia, yes. But I am not “a Briton” as you say.’

‘So what are you?’

I am a Caledonii warrior, proud and true, and I cannot trust you to ever respect that.

‘Do you wish to escape this ludus or not?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘Because if you are here arguing with me when the guards arrive, I promise that they will have you for breakfast. You are a slave now and your body is no longer your own.’

She looked at him as if he had just slapped her face. ‘Yes, I know that you have been sold into slavery,’ he continued, ‘and by your own wretched father no less. Now listen to me. You have no more legal protection now and your security depends on the whims of men who regard you little better than a vase of flowers.’ There were tears at the edges of her eyes and he knew that he had put them there.

‘Do you not see that I am trying to help you? Get tough, woman. Toughness is the only thing that will serve you now.’ Along with a dose of humility. ‘You have one chance to escape this ludus and that chance will come very soon, when a group of guards will open the door to the barracks to bring us our rewards.’

‘Rewards?’

‘You must hide yourself behind the door as it opens and, as soon as the group passes through it completely, you must slip out the door and run, do you hear? As fast as you can. Then you must find your way back to your new master and beg his forgiveness. You must do this all in haste, lest you be caught by a slave catcher on your way.’

She shook her head and he could sense the mix of anger and panic at war inside her mind. It was illegal for a pater familias to sell his children into slavery, but few paid attention to such rules outside Rome. She was as doomed as he was now, though she had no idea what that meant. Yet.

She was studying the floor again. ‘And do not even think about trying to escape into the wilds,’ he continued. ‘You cannot live for ever off wild berries and grass. Believe me, for I have tried. You will be caught eventually and your new master will be forced to pay for your return. Ask yourself if a few days of starving in the wilderness is worth your master’s name tattooed across your forehead.’

That was the punishment for most escaped slaves, after all, though he could tell that she had not appreciated the reminder. ‘I curse you,’ she whispered.

‘That again? It is the Empire of Rome you should be cursing, my dear, for it consumes us all.’

And he was done with it.

No more selling his soul for some elusive hope of escape. No more doing the bidding of his cursed lanista, Brutus, who valued gold and silver over flesh and bone. It was true that Brutus could control where Cal ate and lay and pissed, could decide when Cal was beaten and when he was bedded, could even control how often Cal was allowed to lift his face to the sun. But there was one thing Brutus could not control—the moment in five days’ time when Cal would choose to die.

There was the sound of creaking hinges as the barracks door began to open The woman froze in terror. ‘Get tough,’ he told her. ‘Now go!’

Chapter Four (#u0da4ebb0-04cf-5d50-8d9f-ad872c2b14ee)