The crowd’s muffled chant of “iugula, iugula,” demanding a fallen man’s death, chilled her. The gladiator games were a pillar of the Empire, but she’d never been allowed this close to the carnage before. Nausea swirled in the pit of her stomach. “How many men do you expect to lose today?” she asked Darius when he sat down beside her.
The edges of his mouth turned downward as he mentally took a head count. “Ten. Maybe twenty,” he answered prosaically. “The sponsor arranged battle re-enactments instead of a single man-against-man. The group fights are more expensive in lives and coin, but priceless in terms of buying the mob’s goodwill.”
Cringing, Tibi nodded. Everyone knew authority in the capital depended on keeping the public amused and satisfied. The emperor and other rich men who wished to influence or keep power did so by providing food and sponsoring an endless array of entertainments. The chariot races and gladiator games—the bloodier the better—were by far Rome’s favorite sports.
“What drew you to this life, Darius? Why did you volunteer?”
His dark eyes questioned her sanity. “The money’s good. So is the acclaim. Where else can slaves, foreigners, the condemned or poverty-stricken men like me go to earn freedom or fortune if not in the arena? We gladiators embody Romans’ worst fears. Because of that fear, most people look on us with a mix of repugnance and awe. But train a man with weapons, teach him how to entertain the crowd and in return the mob will give him a godlike reverence few men can ever hope to attain.”
“I know, but—” Another loud cheer signaled that the fallen gladiator was dead. She swallowed and wiped the sheen of perspiration from her upper lip with a shaky hand. “Some of you have wives and children. What good is fame and fortune if you’re dead? Why not be farmers or blacksmiths or—”
“It takes coin to set up a farm or a shop, mistress. Except for a few men like the master who fight their own rage in the arena, a volunteer does so because his plans require funds to prosper.”
Tibi frowned. She’d always sensed an underlying danger in Alexius and assumed his hardened life was the cause, but his charming smiles and easy humor made it difficult to imagine he possessed true menace in his heart. Now, she saw that her instincts had been correct. She’d been right to keep her distance from a man filled with anger.
“What are your plans, Darius?” she said, realizing she’d allowed the conversation to dwindle.
The hard angles of his narrow face softened. “My son is two years old and my wife is with child again. We want to leave Rome, to give our children a better life.”
“Where do you plan to go?” she asked, touched by the gladiator’s affection for his family.
“The master has a farm in Umbria.”
“Umbria? My cousins and their friends live there also.”
He nodded. “When Alexius speaks of the place with its green hills and rich soil, it’s as though he’s gone to Elysium. We want our children to grow up in such a place.”
She fiddled with the muddied edge of her cloak, unable to imagine a battle-hardened killer like Alexius enraptured by any type of earth except the sand of the arena. “I can’t see your lanista as a farmer,” she admitted. “The image of him trailing a beast of burden with a plow is too foreign to contemplate.”
“He does like his comforts.” Darius chuckled. “I’m certain he’ll have plenty of slaves to do his bidding, but you might be surprised. He’s the son of a farmer and I believe Alexius is still a farmer at heart.”
Intrigued by the idea of Alexius as a farmer, his chiseled features softened by talk of his land, she suddenly regretted the differences between them that made it impossible for her to know him better.
Without warning, Darius launched to his feet. “Wait here, my lady. I see the editor. I have to speak with him about today’s roster.”
Tibi watched the young trainer go, uncomfortably aware of the eyes of the other men upon her. Trying to appear nonchalant, she turned on the bench to watch the mock fights in the staging area. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a huge gladiator stoop and rummage through a small pile of hay near an empty cage. The giant laughed as he straightened and lifted something small, black and squirming in one hand above his head. He pitched the bundle to one of his practice partners who then tossed it to a third man close enough to her position for her to see it was a tiny panther cub.
“Toss the runt over here,” the first man ordered in a thick accent as he lifted his sword. “I’ll wager five sesterii I can skewer it in one go.”
Tibi surged from the bench. Thanks to the violence going on above them, she’d had her fill of brutality for one afternoon. Unable to digest their cruel play, she dashed to the low dividing wall and planted her palms on the rough concrete. “No!” she shouted. “Wait!”
The outburst silenced the talk within the small area encircling her, but worked to draw the trio’s attention. Three sets of fearsome eyes locked on her like arrows seeking a target. She froze, her mind registering the long, jagged scar that ran across the leader’s blunt nose and weathered left cheek.
Clearly undaunted by her command, the gladiator swaggered toward her, inciting her entire body to tremble from fear. He swiped the cub from his comrade and stopped a sword’s length away from Tibi. Too proud to do the intelligent thing and turn coward, she lifted her chin and met his sharp gaze.
“Who’s going to stop me, little girl?” He dangled the frightened cub by the scruff of the neck, its tiny paws clawing the air. “You? I think not.”
Chapter Three
His blood pumping, Alexius raced down the steps of the Coliseum, his sole concern to find Tibi. The frantic ride from the ludus had been a torment. The potential dangers of the arena were legion. Imagining all the ways Tibi might be harmed—wild animal attack, rogue gladiators, an accident with any number of weapons—had his mind playing tricks on him. Memories of his last weeks in Greece a decade ago merged with the present, pitching up images of the beloved sister who’d died because he’d failed to protect her.
If it took his last breath to keep her from harm, he refused to allow Tibi to suffer the same fate.
Used to the noise and stench in the staging area, Alexius stormed past stacked cages and gladiators from the other ludi donning helmets in preparation for battle. He looked forward to his own fight later in the afternoon when he’d have the chance to release some of the pent-up aggression churning in his gut.
His relief began to rise once he located the familiar faces of his men beyond the central system of lifts, then quickly plummeted when he saw Tibi’s trim, cloaked figure engaged in what appeared to be a disagreement with his champion, Gerlach, an ill-tempered Germanian who loved nothing more than to wager and brawl.
He picked up his pace.
Gerlach cast a small object to one of his cohorts, Kester. He leaned over Tibi and placed his thick hands on her slim shoulders. The way he leered at her and his mistaken belief that he was allowed to touch the girl in any way infuriated Alexius. The fear shining in Tibi’s face before she was able to hide it filled his vision with a red haze. The monster inside him rattled its cage. Hay crunched under his sandals just as he imagined how Gerlach’s jaw would do beneath the force of his fist.
The cheers and greetings of his men faded to murmurs and questions of concern the closer he drew near. Ignoring them all, he swept past the game pen that housed the