Michelle Styles - The Gladiator's Honor

'Yes, you are always right and hate being proved wrong.' The bitter words poured from Valens's mouth before he could stop them. 'You never change, just as you always were. The pride of the Gracchi before everything. Remember you misplaced your speech on Sulla and you blamed your son for it, beating him to teach him a lesson. Later you discovered the speech in a pile of scrolls you had put away. You were wrong then and you are now.'

His father's dark eyes met Valens. The look in them was terrible, but Valens returned it, never flinching. This was it— the moment of truth. He had never intended it to be this way. He had planned on confronting his father after he had regained his honour through winning the rudius . And it was never to be in anger. But the gods had decreed otherwise.

His father had to know who he was. He had to put the bonds of blood and love before the ties of family honour.

His father took a half-step towards him and Valens felt a great welling up of emotion. All these years, these five long wasted years, had he misjudged his father? His father's hand reached out and toppled the Valens figurine. It rolled across the floor and came to rest at Valens's feet.

'My son would have died before he was captured, I know that in my heart of hearts,' he said with each word ringing out through the room. 'My son would have never become a slave. He would never ever have fallen so low as to become a gladiator. He would have preferred death. He would never have disgraced the family's honour. He would never have risen to the heights of that profession.'

'As you wish, Senator Gracchus, but we both know the truth,' Valens said and gave a bow.

He had his answer. His father had put honour before death. And despite the evidence of his eyes, Gracchus would continue to insist on his version of the events.

Valens stumbled to his room, a mixture of rage, anger and despair filling his body. Any last doubt about his father vanished. There was no turning time back. His father had denied him.

Waves of silent spasms racked his body and for the first time since he was a child and his dog had died, Valens cried.

Julia sat quietly on her stool after Gracchus and his entourage left, watching the little figurine on the floor. The image of Valens's face when the senator had said that no son of his would become a gladiator warred with the image of the senator when he had first glimpsed Valens's face.

When Sabina came back and made some remark about the senator leaving in a temper, Julia answered her, but refused to say more. Sabina had swept away to prepare for the dinner party she was attending. The servants came in, cleared the tea things, lit the lamps and still Julia sat, hands motionless-, spindle lying at her side. Bato came over and laid his head on her knee and her hand automatically stroked him.

A noise made her open her eyes and she stared at Valens who was dressed in his travelling cloak. Despite his ravaged features, his face seemed as remote and cold as the statuette she had held in her hands. All warmth had vanished. Whatever growing feeling there had been between them, she knew she had inadvertently destroyed it. She had wanted to save him, to give him back his life.

'You are Gaius Gracchus,' she said in the silence before her nerve gave way.

'I should know who I am.' The words were said in a low voice, but one that was intended to quash all dissent. 'Who I was is not important.'

Julia stood up and hugged her arms about her waist. "Then who are you?'

'Valens the gladiator,' came the swift reply. 'I told you so when we met. Nothing has changed to alter that fact. The arena is my whole life. My past has no meaning.'

'But who were you before? You had to have been somebody. Were you Gaius Gracchus?'

'You seem determined to think I am.'

'That is not an answer, and you know it. You cannot pretend you never had a past. Every Roman has a family and you deserve to have yours back.' He had to see she had acted out of the best motives. She wanted a reconciliation between father and son. Gracchus mourned for his son and Valens needed a father, or at least need to make peace with his father. He deserved to have his family and his past back.

Valens continued to stare at her with eyes made out of cold black ice.

'Tell me what sort of man you were,' she pleaded. There had to be a way of going back, of undoing the harm she had unwittingly caused. If she had explained about the augur's prediction in the first place, before she contacted Senator Gracchus, would none of this have happened?

'A Roman and not a very good one, according to my father. Certainly not worth paying a ransom for.'

'There are many types of Romans. You were a patrician.' Her arms trembled as if she had been in a long race. 'People grow. They change for the better. You were his only son.'

'Don't you think I know that? I know what my father wanted from me. How I could never live up to the glittering future he desired for me. And when it was taken from me, rather than dying honourably, I chose to live dishonourably.' Valens stared at her, stony-faced, his arms crossed and his feet planted firmly. She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. Julia wanted to shrink, but her feet refused to listen to any command. She stood rooted to the spot.

He bowed his head and she saw his shoulders shake. 'Julia…'

'Please tell me I wasn't wrong,' she whispered.

He raked his hand through his hair and his eyes fastened on the middle distance. 'You must understand, Julia, when you become a gladiator, you are reborn. There is no past, no future only the arena and the spectacle. The man I was perished back in the pirate's hold. I am Valens the Thracian. I have no wish to revisit the past. It is not where my future lies.'

'And what about me?'

'I trusted you, Julia, to keep my secrets, not to go prying into my past.'

Julia hugged her arms about her waist, longing to run into his arms and longing to do anything to turn back time.

'I was only trying to help,' she said in a small voice. 'I wanted to reunite you with your family.'

'When I need your help, I will ask for it. My family now is the Strabo's gladiatorial school. And will be until I retire honourably from the sport. Then I will take a name of my own choosing and live my life the way I have chosen as the honourable man I know I now am.'

He turned towards the door, and Julia knew he was about to walk out of her life. The memories of the long hours she had spent at Gracchus's, listening to him talk about his son, assaulted her. She felt she had to try again, even if it meant losing Valens. She felt he had to understand that his father did love him, that it had all been a terrible mistake. She kept thinking about how she'd feel if her father behaved in that fashion.

'Senator Gracchus makes offerings to the gods every day in his son's name…in your name.'

Valens turned back towards her, his face savage.

'Not in my name. I can never be the son he wants. You heard him. His son died fighting in North Africa. He has the brooch to prove it. I have this.' Valens tore back his cloak and shoved his forearm towards her, the tattooed lion gleaming up at her. 'My only value to him was to carry on the glory of the family name—in the Senate. I am an infamis , Julia. I can never hold public office. I am tainted. My being alive will not bring back his dreams.'

'He wants his son, Valens, the child he held in his arms. I know he does. He is a proud man and won't beg, but I was there. I saw his face. He hungered to see you.'

Valens slammed his fist into the wall.

'He wants someone to carry on the family name. Day after day when I was growing up, I had to look at the busts of my ancestors and listen to how great they once were. How I had to match up to their ideals…"