Michelle Styles - The Gladiator's Honor

'I'm Valens.' The man gave a slight bow. 'In the flesh— and you are?'

'Julia Antonia. Should I know your name?' Julia forced her lips to curve upwards and arched an eyebrow. 'Perhaps you could give me more of a clue to your identity. After all, Rome is the largest city in the world and there are very few who can go by one name.'

'I'm Valens the Thracian,' he said and shifted somewhat uncomfortably as if he were a child caught in the act of stealing honey cakes, instead of a hardened survivor of more than a dozen gladiatorial combats. This was not how the conversation was supposed to go, how he planned on it going when he heard her ask the porter the question. He had noticed her earlier and thought from her reaction that she had guessed who he was. His interest had been stirred when he thought that she had followed him after flirting with him with her eyes.

'If you are a gladiator, why are you here?' Julia Antonia crossed her arms. 'Why is no one crowding around you? Maybe you are one of the untried gladiators.'

Valens rubbed the back of his neck. Having his identity as a gladiator questioned was a novelty. 'I had business to conduct for the owner of my gladiatorial troop, arrangements about using the bathing facilities.'

'And so…'

Valens looked at the young woman standing before him with her face half-covered by a russet shawl and attempted to think of an answer, an explanation for his behaviour. Normally women were quivering puddles at his feet once they realised who he was, begging for some token for their husbands and sons or, worse, offering him their bed.

'Some say I'm one of the best gladiators in a generation or more,' Valens said, choosing his words. He hated to brag, preferring to let the skill of his sword in the arena speak for itself, but this woman left him little choice. 'Surely you've seen the posters. They are plastered all over Rome—from the Forum to the Circus Maximus. Figurines of me and the other gladiators are on sale from any street corner vendor.'

He watched for the inevitable swoon. Nothing but a slight curve to her full lips. He waited. A tiny frown appeared between her eyebrows.

'Oh, that explains it. I had begun to wonder.' Her voice held a note of relief. 'I must have noticed the figurines. It all makes sense now. We have never met. How silly of me. I thought…it doesn't matter what I had thought. Of course not. It had to have been the figurines. Funny, though, I never really look at them. It just goes to show that one notices more than one thinks.'

Valens stared at her in disbelief. Who was this Julia Antonia? Why was it such a relief that she had noticed him from a figurine, rather than having actually met him? He should walk away, should never have engaged her in conversation. Yet, there was something about her, the tone of voice, the way she held her head. With her clear eyes and heart-shaped face, she possessed a classic beauty, not one derived from pots of paint and the skills of her make-up artist. And her figure, from what he could see of it through the layers she wore, had the curves of a woman. Layers his fingers itched to unwrap, to free her like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon for his eyes only, to see the beauty he felt positive was hidden underneath.

As she gave a slight tap to her sandalled foot, he realised there was something more, a challenge to her eyes. She was treating him as a person. It had been a long time since anyone, let alone a woman of her social standing, had dared speak to him like a human being.

For the past four and a half years, since winning his first bout as a gladiator, he had either been treated as a god worthy of simpering worship, or a slave beneath contempt. He was neither. He was a man, doing a job. And she was the first to treat him as such, to remind him that there was more to life than the arena.

Another cruel twist of the Fates' thread, just as he had reached the pinnacle of his career—to remind him of what he had lost, what had been torn from his grip.

'I thought you'd recognised the badge on my cloak, there in the portico.' Valens tried again. He held out the insignia, emblazoned gold against the deep blue wool, for her inspection.

She examined the badge. 'A lion with a spear. I'm sorry, it doesn't mean anything to me.'

'It is the symbol for the School of Strabo. One of the foremost gladiator schools in Italy.'

Still that amused tolerant expression, but this time with a liquid laugh, a laugh that made him feel bathed in sunshine. Valens relaxed a little. Maybe now they could begin to break the impasse. He could retire from this battle with his honour intact. She would think he was more than a man beset by demons, given to accosting women. She'd understand him to be what he was—a gladiator who'd made an honest mistake. He was surprised that it mattered, but it did.

'Now I begin to understand. It starts to make some sort of strange sense.' Julia forced her smile to brighten as her mind raced. It would have to happen to her. A gladiator, the nearest thing in Rome to a living god, thought she had flirted with him. For the time the gladiators fought, their names were on everyone's lips, their pictures emblazoned on plates and cups and their images moulded into small statuettes that were avidly collected by the games' many supporters.

Without having to think hard, she knew a dozen women who would offer their best stola to be in her sandals right now. But they weren't here, she was. And she intended to teach this gladiator a lesson. Not every woman he locked eyes with wanted to arrange an illicit meeting. She felt rather foolish for not having realised where she knew his features from earlier. All this could have been avoided. Juno's gown, what it must have looked like to him?

'What makes strange sense?' he asked, crossing his arms, making the material strain even more across his chest.

'Why you might think women would arrange assignations with their eyes. I understand many women are mad about gladiators. But I have to disappoint you again. For the entire twenty-one years of my existence I have found it possible to restrain myself from such behaviour and have chosen to remain in ignorance about gladiatorial games and the merits of gladiators in general.'

He lifted an eyebrow as if he did not believe her.

'Not everybody does, you know.' Julia gave a pointed cough. 'I merely came out to discover where my stepmother's litter was.'

'You don't follow the games?' Valens's eyes widened and he put a hand to his forehead. 'I refuse to believe it.'

'Is that some sort of crime?' Julia asked, beginning to enjoy herself. It was liberating to be frank. His face showed his absolute amazement. He appeared to have shrunk slightly, to have become a man. 'Where is it written that everyone must be passionate about the games?'

'Not a crime,' he said, running his hand through his thick dark hair. 'By the gods, no, just a surprise. Rome is such a gladiatorial-mad city. It seems all the conversation revolves around the games.'

'Does it, indeed? I had rather thought conversation in Rome revolved around the Senate or perchance the army and its recent victories over the pirates. There is life beyond the games. I, for one, have lived all my life in Rome and have never seen any need to visit the games.'

A silence. Julia resisted the urge to clap her hands together in triumph. She had done it. She had emerged from the long shadows of her marriage and had answered back. He had no ready quip to shoot back at her. She had won. She had proven to herself that she was indeed the new Julia Antonia.

'They were light-hearted remarks. I meant no harm by them.' His smile turned beguiling and her heart contracted. He touched her right elbow with feather-light fingers. 'Forgive me?'

'Apology accepted.' She'd end the conversation here. On a high note. Before she melted from the heat of his charm. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see about getting home. Another conversation that will not involve gladiators.'