Michelle Styles - The Gladiator's Honor

How dare Aquilia start in on Julia! Gladiators protected defenceless women.

With one movement, he fit his helmet to his head, closing the visor with a click and unsheathed his sword. He readied his stance, every nerve on fire, every muscle waiting to move. A red mist filtered over his eyes.

He heard Julia gasp and paused, his sword raised. He needed to meet the aggression with controlled violence, not with a headlong charge.

The crowd around them made a ring. He heard someone shouting out the betting. Valens's eye flicked over Aquilia, searching for an opening, a way to knock him on the ground.

'Move away, make way.' Strabo squeezed through two bystanders to appear on Valens's right. 'What in the name of Hercules is going on here?'

Strabo's words broke the spell. Valens straightened and removed his helmet. The red mist receded. He looked at Aquilia, whose net dangled on the ground. The sneer of the pirate captain was more pronounced than ever.

'It appears Aquilia objects to being a messenger boy,' Valens drawled. 'He has just now delivered the message you gave him yesterday evening for me.'

Strabo scowled. 'Is this true?'

Aquilia shrugged, lifting both hands into the air.

'I am a gladiator of the first hall, not a messenger boy. If I see the man, I deliver the message. I did not see him until just now. Then I give him the message.'

Valens crossed his arms and started counting. He reached two when Strabo exploded, his face contorting as the words sank in.

'You are a slave, boy. And you and your trident belong to me for the duration,' Strabo growled and grabbed Aquilia's breastplate, shaking him. Then he released him and took a step towards Valens, but stopped short. His hand curled around empty air. 'Neither of you forget that. You fight when I say you fight.'

'Understood, my lanista ,' Valens said calling Strabo by his official title of trainer-manager as he placed his sword in its sheath.

Aquilia merely bowed.

'Shake hands,' Strabo commanded. 'You are outside the arena now. Save it until you meet inside.'

Valens grasped Aquilia's hand briefly, promising himself, should the Fates declare they meet in the ring, that it would be a fight with only one victor. The crowd cheered and then started to disperse.

'Aquilia, forty denarü for insubordination. Valens, your fine is commuted to ten.' Strabo clapped his hands and two of the trainers appeared. He motioned to Aquilia, who had flecks of spittle around his mouth. 'Take him somewhere to calm his temper. Valens, I think I can trust you.'

Without waiting for an answer, Strabo strode off. Valens turned towards Julia, who was standing with her back against the statue of Venus. She looked white-lipped as her hands clutched Bato. The dog gave a slight whine of protest.

'He said such horrible things about me,' she said. "Lies everyone could hear! Lies that will fly around Rome within the hour. Rome loves scandal.'

'He was trying to goad me,' Valens said and didn't need to elaborate on how close he had come to succeeding.

'Were you about to fight him?'

Valens took Bato from her and set the dog down. He resisted the temptation to draw her into his arms and contented himself with brushing some tendrils of hair behind her ear. She gave a tremulous smile, one that made his heart skip a beat.

'If I had to, I would have. No doubt this little encounter has sealed my fate for the games,' he said to draw his attention from her lips, which were now back to their normal rose colour.

The words were easier to say aloud than to think them. Before him danced the tantalising image of beating Aquilia and being awarded the radius for it. Victory would be all the sweeter for avenging the death of his comrades. He could almost hear the roar of the crowd. And what would he do afterwards? Valens jerked his mind away from the thoughts. Nothing must exist outside the arena. To do that would be tempting the Fates.

The other possibility he refused to consider. He would win because he had to win.

'How so? How is your fate sealed?' Julia crossed her arms and looked up at him with narrowed eyes. 'Even knowing as little as I do about the games, I thought the matches were decided on the day. A great play is made of stones being drawn out. Vestal Virgins are used.'

Valens decided to give her an edited version of gladiator procedure, rather than the truth. He refused to believe that the Fates would place Aquilia in his path and not allow him to fight, to avenge his capture.

'I believe Aquilia and I will meet in the ring. Strabo saw the crowd, and heard the shouts. He might be annoyed now, but when he calms down, he'll see it as a commercial opportunity. Despite the nonsense of picking fighters from a hat on the day of the match, I believe the Fates have already decreed or at least been given a helping hand.'

Julia made an annoyed pushing-away motion with her hand.

'You make it sound like it was some sort of children's game. You could have been hurt. That man is frightening. I was quaking in my sandals.'

'Julia, that's my job, my profession.' Valens looked at her in dismay. 'Every time I enter the ring, I could get hurt or killed. Men like Aquilia don't frighten me—now.'

He looked into her face and realised it was a lie. What unnerved him was that Aquilia had instinctively found something that made him lose control—Julia.

Chapter Six

Julia tried to stop the trembling of her arms, her entire body as she stared at Valens. Now he seemed to have shrunk back to normal size, but when he had been arguing with that other gladiator he had seemed a giant consumed with anger. How could she explain to Valens that the entire confrontation terrified her? His reaction to Aquilia frightened her, as well as being so close to two such large men who seemed to be out of control.

As she had watched the two square off and Valens's angry retorts echoed in her ears, she had had flashbacks to her marriage when Lucius had gone into rages. Sometimes Bato's low growl had prevented Lucius from striking her and sometimes he hit her anyway. She swallowed hard and tried to rid her stomach of the empty hollow feeling. She had sworn to Venus, when she left Lucius, she would not have anything to do with men who lost their tempers easily.

Her eyes traced the line of Valens's jaw where shadowy stubble had appeared. She looked at the silver armour and tried once again to reconcile it with the man who had held her in his arms this morning.

'The arena is a foreign place to me. That sort of behaviour shocked me,' she said, taking care with her words.

Valens's face broke into a wary smile. 'It shocked me. But it was worth it to see his face when Bato tried to get the net, absolutely priceless.'

'You did that on purpose?' Julia stared at him in disbelief. 'How did you know that Bato would be here?'

'I didn't. The opportunity presented itself and I figured I could handle the consequences.' His eyes sobered. 'I had not intended to put you in danger, merely to teach Aquilia a lesson.'

'You picked a fight with that brute?' Julia asked, still unable to believe it. Her heart still thumped in her ears from the confrontation. What she was feeling wasn't exhilarating, it was something far more complicated. As for Valens, he seemed to treat it lightly. 'Why did you do that?'

Valens's face showed myriad emotions. His lips parted before pressing very firmly together. His face became a bland mask.

'Why, Valens?' she asked again.

'I've fought worse.' He laid a warm hand on her shoulder, but she twisted away. 'The brutish ones are generally easier to deal with. It is the sly ones, the ones who use trickery, who are more troublesome.'

'I suppose you get used to it,' she said doubtfully. 'Perhaps it is in men's blood to fight. Women don't behave like that.'