The Gladiator's Mistress (Champions of Rome) (23 page)

Chapter 39

Valens

Valens left the ludus, his stride quick and purposeful. Keeping his head down, he avoided looking at passersby. Today he lacked the time to talk to admirers about his career or yesterday’s near defeat. A few whispers of “Is that Valens Secundus? I thought he would be taller” caught his ears. He ignored them all—even those of a woman who chased after him, screaming his name like one possessed. He increased his pace. He had no time for the crazed devotee.

People stopped their work, pointing and laughing. Valens hurried on as the woman continued to run after him. Annoyed with the commotion she was creating, he stopped and turned around.

Holding her long skirts up with one hand and balancing a headscarf with the other, Terenita asked as she approached, breathless, “Have you gone deaf? I have been calling for you since you left the ludus.”

“I did not realize it was you,” he said.

“Why? Because lovesick women call after you day and night?”

“Not
every
day.” Valens laughed and shrugged.

“Ah.” The maid was trying to look disapproving, but he could see the rigid lines in her face soften, and some of the hostile bite in her words disappeared. “My mistress sends me with congratulations. The Senate approved your bid into the knighthood of the Roman republic.”

Valens gripped Terenita by the shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. When he felt her muscles tense at the familiarity of the gesture, he released his hold and stepped back. “I thank you for bringing me word. Send my thanks and affection to your mistress as well.” Fancy, formal language felt false on his tongue, yet Valens thought they were words that befitted an equestrian.

“I will do so. I hope the Fates continue to smile upon you and my mistress,” said the maid.

“They have, said Valens. “And tell your mistress that my part of the plan has worked out as well.”

By the time he reached his villa, the sun hung halfway up the sky. It beat down on the white paving stones and heated the air. A sheen of sweat clung to his brow and neck. As he approached, Valens looked for the soldiers Phaedra had told him about. They were easy to spot, their bearings too stiff and their gazes too intent. Valens knocked upon the villa’s door. The steward opened a window set within and peered out. With a wide smile, he slid the interior bolt free.

“Dominus,” he said as Valens entered the villa. “We did not expect to see you so soon.”

“Water,” he said. The steward filled a pottery cup from the pool in the atrium. Valens drank it in one swallow. He handed it back to the steward twice more before quenching his thirst.

“It is good to see you again, dominus,” said the steward.

Valens and the old man grasped wrists. “It is good to be seen.”

“We heard that the fight yesterday was not in your favor until the end.”

“The ending is all that matters.”

“I suppose you are right.”

The steward had once been a trainer, and a wily one at that. He could easily distract the soldiers Acestes had sent to watch the villa. “I need you to do something for me,” Valens said.

“Anything, dominus.”

“There are two men watching the house—soldiers. I need them gone long enough for Antonice to get out of the house and off the Aventine.”

“Consider it done,” said the steward. “They will not even suspect that she has left for days.”

Although Valens ached all over, he allowed himself to smile. “All’s the better.” Then he added, “Send Antonice and Leto to my tablinum.”

Valens turned to go and the steward called after him, “Your back is bleeding.”

He looked over his shoulder. Wet, red blood stained his tunic, and the cloth stuck to his back. “Have Leto bring hot water and some towels.”

“Might I suggest some salve and a clean tunic?”

“Fine,” said Valens. He wanted to sit in the coolness of his tablinum and rest his weary legs for a moment. He took another step forward and stumbled, tripped up on his own stupidity. He had let his shoulder putrefy. He suddenly realized that a fever-filled ache radiated from his back. If not treated aggressively and quickly, it would move on to poison the rest of his body.

Dazed, he moved through the villa. As he took a seat behind his desk, Valens wondered what kind of gladiator he was. The first rule, the most important rule, the only rule worth remembering was that a gladiator’s most effective weapon was his body. Ignoring the needs of the body rendered every other tool useless. Lovesick and dumb with lust, he had broken the unbreakable rule, and now Valens would pay with an ineffective weapon.

Antonice burst into the room. She ran to him, wrapping her arms around his wounded shoulder. “You live. We heard of your victory, and you have come home to celebrate.”

He returned the embrace, although it pained him all the more. “I have come home, but not to celebrate. You must leave the city. Baro’s aunt in Padua has need of a girl to help her with a newborn.”

Antonice let go of Valens and moved to the other side of his desk. “I am not a wet nurse.”

“It is not that kind of help. I do not know what you will be required to do. You must leave Rome for your own safety.”

“You won your match. I am safe for now,” she said.

“For now, yes,” said Valens. “I need to win twice more or you will be dragged to the arena and executed. If you are not in Rome, then Acestes will have a harder time finding you. If you are hidden away, he might give up looking. If not, I can ask a friend to convince him to grant clemency.” How awful to rely on Phaedra to help Antonice if he died. She would have to bargain with Acestes, who by then would be her husband. But Valens saw no other choice.

Antonice stood by a potted palm and traced lines in the leaves.

“Do not sulk,” he said. “I am trying to save your life.”

“By ruining it?”

“I ask for no thanks,” said Valens as he resisted the urge to shake his sister. “But I do not expect an argument from you, either.”

“You lock me away for a week and then show up and tell me to leave Rome without telling me why.”

Valens breathed in and counted to four. His sister was little more than an angry child with an adult’s ability to ruin lives. He exhaled slowly before speaking. “You understand, Antonice. You know why. You would like to blame me as the one who makes you miserable, but you chose poorly and now we all suffer. I have two more bouts ahead of me this week, thanks to your behavior.”

Chastened, she nodded. “I am sorry for that,” she said, her eyes downcast. “When will I leave?”

“Soon,” he said. “The steward will tell you when.”

The housekeeper entered with a bowl of steaming water, a swatch of linen, and a small jar on a tray. Over her arm she carried a clean and folded tunic. “The steward said you injured your back, dominus. Might I have a look?”

“Gather your things,” he said to Antonice as he stood.

“I want to stay and visit a moment longer. I did not mean for us to quarrel.”

“I am sorry, but you really should leave now.”

She stamped her foot, the pouting girl suddenly reappearing. “You are always unreasonable.”

“I also do not wear a loincloth and need to remove my tunic so Leto can tend my wound.”

“That is disgusting,” Antonice said as her eyes widened and she rushed from the room.

“Such is the way with young women,” said Leto. She drew a low arc in the air. “Their moods swing from one side to the other without cause.”

“I am glad you appreciate her.” Valens tried to take off his tunic, but he could not lift his arm even to his ear. “My shoulder is worse than I thought.”

“Let us have a look, shall we?” Leto helped him undress. She gasped. Valens took that as a bad sign. “Oh, my, and the doctor at the ludus did not stitch this up?”

“I did not see the doctor,” he said. Yesterday he had wanted Phaedra—he had let the German wrap his shoulder in rather unclean linen to stop the bleeding and then ignored the trainer’s advice to see the physician. Leaving a wound untended was worse than leaving his sword out in the rain.

“The good news, dominus, is that the cut is still open. I need to get out the infection and then clean the wound.”

In the distance Valens heard the bells from the forum begin to toll the eleventh hour. “Do what needs to be done,” he said, “but hurry.”

Leto tended to his shoulder. He redirected his mind from the pain by telling her his plan for getting Antonice from the city. After the steward distracted the soldiers on guard, the housekeeper and his sister were to travel with a hired guide to Capernaum. From there they would hire another guide to take them to Padua, but stop in a small town just before that city. After that, they needed to ask for the location of Baro’s family home. Valens would send word if he survived the next two fights. Otherwise, news of his demise would reach them soon enough.

“Do you think it is necessary,” asked Leto, “to go first to Capernaum?”

“If they find your Roman guide, he will lead them there. Then General Acestes would have to determine that you had not remained. After that, it will be a matter of finding the next guide. By then another slave uprising may come along to take his attention from my sister.” Valens bit off the last word as the housekeeper washed his shoulder with salty water, and the sting took his breath away.

“It will help to kill the bad humors,” she said.

“I know. Can you work faster? I am expected back at the ludus.”

She wrapped his shoulder with a clean bandage. “I am no medicus, but this will have to do for now.”

Valens kissed her plump, dimpled cheek. “Thank you for everything.” He slipped the clean tunic over his head. “Take care of my sister.”

“Do you want to say good-bye to her?”

“I need to leave now. One last thing—if ever an aristocratic lady named Phaedra comes to you, know that she can be trusted.”

“May the gods keep you safe, Valens Secundus,” the housekeeper called as he ran out the door. “Because you are doing a bad job without my help.”

Valens hurried through the Aventine and returned to the forum. He found Paullus waiting outside the gate of the ludus.

“Where in the name of Hades have you been?” the lanista asked.

“I went to my villa to see Antonice. My shoulder is injured and my housekeeper tended to the wound.”

They walked together as two guards made a path for them through the crowd of gathered admirers. “What did the physician at the ludus do for you?”

Valens wiped sweat from his brow.

“You did not see him, did you?” asked Paullus.

“I was busy.”

“Doing what?” Paullus asked. “Never mind giving me an answer. You were busy with the senator’s daughter.”

The sun, a great ball in the sky, fried Valens’s skin. He wiped away more sweat and tried to think of something to say.

“You are sick, either with love or fever,” said Paullus.

“Or both,” said Valens.

They entered the cool stables. Paullus ordered a nearby slave to bring water and inform General Acestes that he wished to speak to the crowd. The same slave returned with two pottery mugs. Ignoring the bits of hay that floated about, Valens drank the water in both mugs. A few moments later another slave, dressed in a finer tunic, approached. “The general invites you to speak to the crowd now, if convenient, as the final fight of the morning has just ended.”

“I accept your master’s invitation,” said Paullus.

Valens and the lanista followed the slave through a warren of stables and indoor pens. In one pen four men and a woman huddled in the corner. Dirty, smelling of vomit and blood, frightened of the upcoming horrors, and yet ready to die, the condemned looked at Valens with already lifeless eyes. He turned away lest he imagine his sister among them.

The well-dressed slave opened a door leading to the arena. Paullus stepped through and Valens followed. The crowd cheered. Their cries of approval were too loud for Valens’s liking. Puddles of blood soaked the hard-baked earth. The coppery grit filled his nose, coated his throat, and turned his stomach. He stood still, although the earth underfoot swayed.

Valens looked at the sponsor’s box for Phaedra. Acestes and Senator Scaeva stood at the railing, but she was not there. The general held up his hands for silence.

They ignored the gesture and filled the air with a chant. “Valens. Valens. Valens.”

Valens gave a little wave and they screamed all the more. He waited a moment before lifting both hands, palms down. The crowd grew so silent that he heard the unmistakable scraping of Paullus’s foot through the sand as he fidgeted and waited.

“I understand you wished to make a public announcement, honorable Paullus Secundus,” said Acestes. His deep voice carried to every part of the arena, his diction clear and precise so that he could be understood by all. The general wore a silver tunic, and his hair, so perfect, looked to have been arranged by a lady’s cosmetics slave. Even Valens admitted that Acestes was an impressive man, and he hated him all the more for it.

“Great and noble General Acestes,” said Paullus, “I have come to right a wrong. Many years ago I knew the mother of the man who stands next to me, Valens Secundus. I spent many nights in her arms but knew we could never marry. Nine months later she bore a child, a son, again the man who stands next to me.”

“Are you saying that Valens Secundus is your natural son?” asked Acestes.

Paullus paused a moment. “He is. That is why I allowed him to join my ludus and have trained him well.”

“Why claim him as your son now?”

“He is injured. He has become ill. In order to save his sister from the arena, he must fight and win two more times.”

“In other words, tomorrow might be too late.”

“Yes, although I dearly pray that does not happen.”

“I have more good news, honorable Paullus Secundus,” said Phaedra’s father. “Earlier today the Senate voted to name Valens Secundus a knight of the Roman republic.”

The crowd went wild. Valens looked into the stands. They chanted his name again. Louder. Stronger. “Valens. Valens. Valens” became the thunder that echoed across the hills.

Paullus leaned into Valens. “This is your moment, my boy.”