The Gladiator's Mistress (Champions of Rome) (6 page)

Chapter 10

Phaedra

With the sun setting over the Tiber River, a cramped litter with a soiled gold cushion carried Phaedra to her new home, one of the largest villas in Rome. The stars had yet to come out. Would Polaris be there, as Valens had said?

Ascending the Palatine Hill, she saw the Capitoline Market and merchants disassembling colorful awnings at the end of the day. Wooden stands sat atop a grassy bank and overlooked the long, oval dirt track for chariot racing at the Circus Maximus. She heard they meant to construct permanent stands of stone, but knew not when. Close to the Circus Maximus sat the round Forum Boarium, where most of the gladiatorial games were held. Like the chariot track, wooden stands surrounded the sandy cattle market, although she knew those were erected temporarily for games and taken down when they ended.

Would Valens fight in the next series of games? Perhaps Marcus might attend and take Phaedra with him. They could sit in the box seats reserved for senators and drink sweet wine as they watched Valens win in splendid fashion.

In the far distance to the north, the Via Appia wound toward the city. Travelers trying to reach the city gates before they closed looked like small brown specks upon the white stone road.

At the villa, Marcus greeted Phaedra on the street. His housekeeper, Jovita, a thin-lipped woman, gave Phaedra the keys and pronounced her
domina
, mistress of the house. The housekeeper and Marcus took Phaedra on a tour. Moving from the atrium with its open ceiling and large tiled pool below to a cavernous triclinium, she figured that her father’s entire home could fit into this building’s garden.

Still, the villa had an unkempt air. Once-vibrant blue curtains, now faded to gray, hung in one of four dining rooms. The reclining sofa in a guest room had a wide tear in the upholstery. Dust floated by in clouds and gathered in piles at the corner. A peacock and his peahen wandered unimpeded, eating bugs off the floor and fruit off the table with gusto. Their excrement stained the cracked and chipped mosaics upon which they all trod, bird and human alike.

“What think you of your home?” Marcus asked.

The house reminded Phaedra of a beautiful woman with a dirty face and tattered dress. As domina of this villa, she could bring order. Marcus was a busy and important man. He had no time to worry about the cleanliness of his home. But
she
could, and by taking care of her husband, he would come to love her and need her.

“The villa is splendid,” she said.

Marcus led Phaedra through the corridors to her new room, or rather, rooms. There was one for sleeping, another for dressing, yet another for eating, and a final room in which she could entertain guests. Like the rest of the villa, her rooms seemed poorly tended. She noticed an unpleasantly sour smell in her private dining room, as if someone had spilled a dish that had not been properly cleaned up. Or perhaps it was many dishes. Marcus seemed not to notice, so Phaedra said nothing.

Her bedroom was by far the nicest. Sheer white curtains hung in front of the door that led to the garden and moved lazily with the breeze. Her large bed had wooden posts at each corner, with four beams atop that connected them all. Silken white curtains hung from each post and were tied back with golden rope. A mosaic of the sea and great silvery fish covered her floor.

She and Marcus were alone. They stood near the door that opened to the garden, close to each other but not touching. A breeze blew and the curtains rose and fell like a sigh. The bed was nearby. Was now the time? “This room is breathtaking,” she said for want of something to say.

The color rose in Marcus’s cheeks. “I had hoped you would like it,” he said.

Phaedra came to understand that her husband had taken time to make her feel welcome, and she was filled with affection and hope. “Thank you.”

“Apologies,” Marcus said as he shifted from foot to foot, “for making you wait all day. Dealing with the slave uprising in Sicily is taking longer than I anticipated. I could have sent the litter to retrieve you earlier, but I wanted to be here myself when you entered your new home.”

“It pleases me that you were here,” she said. True, Phaedra had spent much of the day distraught, pacing and wondering when she might be summoned to her new home. But to know that her husband had wanted to personally welcome her relieved her worry.

“I would share dinner with you tonight, but I have more meetings. The Sicilian slaves do not respond to the usual encouragement and have stopped working altogether. The time of planting has just ended, and we need them to tend the fields or the entire republic will starve.”

“I understand,” she said, although she felt keenly dissatisfied again.

“Your father said you would be most accommodating. I do not want to disappoint you, my dear. We can get to know each other better after we leave the city.”

“You planned a wedding trip? I am shocked and flattered.”

“Oh, we can call it that if you wish. I always retire to Pompeii before the hot season arrives and stay until the rains return to Rome.”

“That means we will be gone for months,” she said.

“We will.”

Many of Rome’s wealthiest citizens owned homes in coastal Mediterranean towns like Pompeii or Herculaneum. There they escaped the summer’s heat, the noise, and the rancid air that rolled off Rome’s wharves, carrying diseases. Phaedra’s family did not have one of these homes. What little money her father had went to the trappings of an aristocratic Roman lifestyle—furnishings, food, wine, parties, and clothes. She had always wanted to travel to one of the beachside towns so popular with other patricians. But not like this. A season away from her father and friends with an indifferent husband for company sounded less like a holiday and more like a punishment.

“Make sure you have everything you need,” said Marcus. “Silks, cosmetics, jewelry. We will attend parties most every night, and I would have you looking magnificent. Go to the Capitoline Market tomorrow and have the purchases delivered to the villa. The quality of the goods found in Pompeii is equal to what you find in Rome, but the prices . . .” Marcus shook his head and rolled his eyes. Phaedra took his gesture to mean that costs were higher than even one of the richest men in the republic was willing to pay.

Her father had never allowed her to go to the market, even with a guard and an attendant. She had never bought anything, or even made the final decision on a single purchase. Her pulse roared in her ears. Sweat dripped down her back and pooled under her arms. She was sure that she would have no idea how to conduct herself in the market, yet Marcus expected her to be comfortable in that setting.

Breathe.

Inhaling, she chanced being honest. “I do not frequent the market.”

He paused, suddenly understanding. “Have you never been to the market at all?”

Phaedra looked down and said nothing, her silence answering for her.

“It is not difficult. You decide what you want and send your maid to make the purchase. I shall provide you with two guards and enough coin for anything.”

“I tell Terenita what I want,” she said, “and she makes the purchases for me. I can do that, I think.”

Marcus placed his hand on her shoulder. “I am sorry if this frightens you. Anytime you do something for the first time it will frighten you. You will see that going to the market is simple, and after your first visit, it will become commonplace.”

She looked at him. His gray eyes were full of understanding and compassion. “I trust you,” she said.

“Good. That pleases me.” With a quick brush of his lips to Phaedra’s cheek, Marcus left to attend another meeting.

Phaedra and Terenita spent the evening organizing belongings and making a list of things to buy before leaving for Pompeii. She wondered if Marcus might come to her bed when his guests left.

After all her gowns, sandals, and jewels had been laid out and the candle burned down to a nub, Phaedra stopped wondering. She knew the answer. She stepped out into the garden and cast her gaze upon the heavens. Polaris looked down upon her as it also must on Valens. With a weary sigh, she turned back to the villa. Alone, she climbed under the blankets of her musty bed and tried to sleep.

Chapter 11

Valens

The next day Valens woke at dawn and began to train. As the sun reached its zenith, he decided to venture into the city again. Maybe this would become his pattern—train in the morning, leave the ludus for the afternoon, and return in the evening. He liked the idea, even without a notion of where he might go.

The Capitoline Market sprawled out in front of the gates, and he decided to lose a few hours wandering by the stands and shops. Bright awnings of yellow, orange, and green shaded the vendors and their goods. Fruit sat in wooden bins and meats hung from hooks. People called to each other, speaking in every language of the republic. Merchants held out their wares as he passed, bowls filled with brownish-red cinnamon, ripe yellow melons. Others displayed fabrics of every hue, some rough as wood and others smooth as the surface of a still pool.

Men loitered on street corners. They nudged each other as he passed and asked, “Was that Valens Secundus?”

“I think not. He is blond and hails from Gaul.”

Women stood in doorways and offered to please Valens for free. At least they recognized him. Their ample breasts spilled from necklines cut low and tight. Garish red colored their cheeks and lips. Powders of blues and greens covered their eyelids. All of it melted in the heat and their sweat until they appeared to have cried multicolored tears.

He ignored it all.

Ahead he saw the stall of a silk merchant. Squares of different colors floated in the slight breeze, one of them the exact crimson of Phaedra’s bridal veil. Had she bought the fabric here? Was he standing in the same place she had stood a few weeks before the wedding, selecting the perfect shade?

Coming from the opposite direction, in the midst of the throngs of people, he saw her. Two thickly muscled guards stood nearby, and she had a maid at her side. His gut twisted with excitement and indecision. He wanted to speak to her again and tell her that he was no longer a stupid beast and could now read and write, if only a little. Yet he knew that he should not.

Before Valens could slip away into the crowd, he spied her walking near a blind beggar. The old man sat in a doorway. A grimy rag was tied round his eyes, his hand upheld in want and waiting. Did she see not the man? What if he was not right about the head? He could be dangerous. Valens moved forward. The world around him slipped away, and he saw only Phaedra.

She stopped before the beggar, bent low, and seemed to speak to him. What had the man said to draw her attention? Valens increased his pace. Phaedra turned to one of the guards, who held a leather pouch. From it, he withdrew a few coins that he dropped into the palm of the beggar. Hand on hip, Phaedra looked back at the guard, who then produced several more coins.

Valens could not help but laugh aloud. Poor cloistered Phaedra had stood up to the brutish guard for the sake of a lone blind beggar.

She turned. Their gazes held. The hairs at the nape of his neck stood on end. He breathed in her perfume, clean aloe and the soft lightness of lavender. Valens hoped to hold her scent forever.

“Greetings, Valens Secundus,” said Phaedra. “What brings you to a silk merchant?”

Valens froze. She was as beautiful as she had been on the night of her wedding, maybe more so. Finally one word tumbled from his lips. “Greetings,” he said.

“I purchased the fabric for my wedding veil from this merchant. His colors are so vibrant. Best in the republic, I would wager.”

Valens’s eye found Phaedra’s color among the others once again, but he chose to lie. “I had not noticed your exact fabric.” He could hardly admit that he had thought of little save her for the past two days, or that he had wrapped her veil around his wrist time and again since he had last seen her.

Valens very much wanted to run his fingers through her hair, which hung loose over her shoulder. Or better yet, kiss her on the cheek. But even he, a stupid bastard from the Suburra, knew he would never be allowed to touch an aristocratic woman in public. He balled his hands into fists and held them to his sides in case they betrayed his need to reach out and touch Phaedra.

“How do you fare?” he asked.

Phaedra examined the cloth on display. Running her hand over a length of blue silk, she shrugged. “Have you found a tutor yet?”

“I have,” he said. His hand tingled with both the memory of writing and the excitement in sharing his newfound knowledge. “Come.” Using his finger, Valens traced the one word he knew on a dusty wall—V-A-L-E-N-S. “I know it is not much, but it is me. That is my name.”

Phaedra’s eyes shone with pride. “That is marvelous. Who taught you to write?”

“The gladiator I fought at your wedding, Spurius Mummius Baro, volunteered at my ludus. He knows how to read and write. I am his trainer now and he is my tutor.”

“So you train as well as fight? I never knew. Then again, I do not follow the games, so there is much about gladiators I do not know.”

“Baro is my first trainee. The lanista means to make him the next Champion of Rome.”

“What will become of you, Valens Secundus? What will you be, if not the champion?”

“The trainer of champions,” he said. The title tasted of lead, cold and hard.

“It does not suit you, if you do not mind me saying so.”

Valens laughed. Ah, at least someone was willing to be honest. “I could not agree more.”

“It pleases me that you have learned to write your name. The next time we meet perhaps you will have read Plato, and we can discuss whether Rome is the ideal state.”

“Will there be a next time?”

He wanted to see her again, and for a moment thought she might want to see him, too. Phaedra looked away and chewed on her bottom lip. He felt that he had said too much, pushed too hard, and she wanted to be rid of him.

In silent answer to his question, she shook her head. After a moment, she added, “In the morning I leave for Pompeii. I came here to buy fabrics, jewelry, everything I need.”

As if suddenly punched in the stomach, Valens lost his breath. Yet, why? Why Phaedra? There were other beautiful women in Rome, agreeable women who desired him. What did he need with one person when the rest of the republic worshipped him?

Until that moment Valens had thought of his attraction to her as only physical. But it was more than that. It was her willingness to speak candidly and to be kind that drew her to him. The desire to read and the courage to leave the ludus came from his longing to become good enough for her. If he never saw Phaedra again, then who would know if he became a better man?

“Safe travels,” he said after realizing that he had stood too long without speaking.

Phaedra smiled and Valens died a little.

“Thank you,” she said.

The guards approached Phaedra. Valens turned away and began to examine a piece of silk. He stared until the fabric became a combination of parts and was no longer a whole. He found each individual thread, finer than a baby’s hair. At first glance the color appeared uniform. Then he saw that it varied by degrees—bright blue in the middle, and by the time the eye traveled to the edges, the color had lost its luster.

“I have more purchases to make,” Phaedra said. Her guard gave the silk merchant a handful of coins and exchanged a few words about delivering the order that day.

Valens said nothing.

She spoke to a female attendant with a voice so bright and happy that his head ached. Did she feel nothing for him? She did not. She could not. He was a slave and she a patrician, the wife of Rome’s wealthiest man and the daughter of its most popular senator. He needed to let Phaedra go.

“Farewell, Valens Secundus,” she said.

“Farewell,” he said, still looking at the silk.

The air around him ceased to vibrate, and the soft scent of Phaedra evaporated. Without looking up, Valens knew she was gone. He stood at the silk merchant’s stand for several moments after Phaedra had gone.

“Can I help you with something?” the merchant asked.

“No.” Valens looked once more at the silk that hung in rows, his eye finding the familiar crimson of Phaedra’s bridal veil. “There is nothing here for me,” he said, and walked away.

Intent on returning to the ludus, Valens made his way through the crowded marketplace, ignoring the whispers and stares of passersby. When mud walls that had been painted white rose up before him, surrounding the ludus and the training ground, Valens thought but one word:
home
.

Weary of spirit and foul of mood, he slammed an open palm on the wooden doors thrice before a guard pulled them open.

“What took you so long?” he snapped at the guard as he shoved his way past.

The training ground stood empty and silent. All of the practice weapons sat on their racks. A group of men stood together in the shade of a wall, laughing and enjoying a moment of rest.

Valens nodded toward the group of men. None returned his wordless greeting, or even noted his arrival, causing his temper to flare. As he had learned to do long ago, Valens turned his anger into force that he would save for his next fight. Turning his back on the group, he began to scan the training ground for his new trainee.

He did not consider the new gladiator a friend. But Baro had taught Valens how to write his name. That kindness deserved to be returned. The first days of gladiatorial training were meant to be brutal and frightening. While Valens did not want to make the trainee weak, he also felt some responsibility for this young charge.

After a moment of thought, Valens walked toward the kitchen. It seemed reasonable that Baro sought respite in the darkened quiet of the dining hall. Valens had done so himself when he first had arrived at the ludus. Baro was already singled out to be Rome’s new champion. Who better than Valens knew how lonely was the journey to the apex of greatness?

It was then that the men laughed again. Without thought, Valens turned. Standing in the middle of the group was Baro. He held the bowl of water shared by the gladiators during training, a sure sign that he had been accepted by the troupe. He apparently had just said something that everyone found hilarious.

Like a candle quickly snuffed, Valens’s feelings of kindness disappeared. They were replaced by an emotion he felt much more comfortable with. Rage.

Valens had never been a member of the brotherhood of gladiators. Oh, yes, he had been a gladiator for over eight years, but he had never been one of them. At first, none of the others had taken notice of Valens because he was so young and inexperienced. He hid in obscurity, eating alone and training hard. When Paullus rewarded the men with wine and female company, Valens avoided the party. So clear was his vision of greatness that he saw it all as a distraction. When he stepped onto the sands for the first time, he showed himself to be a champion in the making.

Everyone saw it. Everyone knew.

Now, without thinking, Valens grabbed a dulled metal sword from the rack of training weapons. Moving quickly, he came upon the group of men. He struck Baro’s shoulder from behind. The others, so jovial a moment before, backed up with eyes wide as the equestrian crumpled to the ground. Although the blade was not sharp enough to slice flesh, it was heavy enough to crush bone. Valens focused on the knobby ridge of backbone at the base of the neck. He lifted his sword high, ready to strike.

“Halt.”

The one word pierced his fury, and the blade stopped a hairsbreadth away from making contact.

Upon the balcony of the house, overlooking the entire training ground, stood the lanista. How long had Paullus been watching? Had he witnessed all the events, or just stepped out at the right moment? The sword dropped to the ground as Valens’s hand trembled with shame.

“Both of you,” said Paullus, “come to my tablinum. The rest of you get back to work.”

The trainer organized men into rows to practice drills as a guard led Valens and Baro through the villa. Paullus was already seated at his desk when they arrived. He did not, Valens noticed, offer either of them a chair. Baro held his injured shoulder and glowered, while Valens did his best to ignore him.

“You attacked Baro,” said Paullus. “Why?”

Valens shook his head. He knew that saying,
He has made friends
, was not a worthy excuse, even if it was the reason.

“Do you know why he attacked you?” Paullus asked of Baro.

“You saw it all yourself,” Baro said. “I did nothing to provoke him. I demand severe punishment.”

Paullus held up his hand and Baro stopped speaking. “You are no longer a freeman, Equestrian. You cannot a demand a thing. This is a ludus. Do you understand?”

“I do not think that I do,” Baro said.

“If I feel the men need to be entertained, I will hire actors,” said Paullus. “You do not need to amuse them with stories.”

“It is my nature to make people laugh and make friends.”

“There can be only one champion in the arena. Men fear the champion. He inspires them. If you want to make people laugh, learn to juggle. You are dismissed.”

Both Valens and Baro turned to leave the room.

“Not you, Valens,” said Paullus. “Just the equestrian.”

Valens stood before the desk as Baro and the guards left the room.

“That man is my property and I will not see him destroyed by your whims,” said Paullus. His nostrils flared, and Valens thought of a horse, too angry to be ridden or controlled. “I have always gone easy on you, Valens. You are the champion and therefore treated differently than the rest of the men. Never have you given me reason to punish you. But this”—he pointed to the door of his tablinum—“I will not tolerate. Tell me now. Why did you attack?”

He could not lie to Paullus. The sickening feeling of guilt began again and set his arm trembling. Valens clasped both hands behind his back. “I did not attack the equestrian to teach him a lesson, but because I was jealous of his easy way with the men.”

“Listen to yourself. You were jealous. Are you an old woman?”

“I’m not sure of what I am. Not anymore.”

“You are a gladiator and still Rome’s champion. You can only be champion a little longer. If you continue to fight, someone will eventually beat you. Or you can retire from the arena in your own time, become a trainer, and always remain undefeated.”