Michelle Styles - The Gladiator's Honor

'Caesar's request, Stepmother.' Julia waved the tablet under the older woman's nose. Threaten to put Bato down, would she? 'I'm sure anything less would be looked on as a slight by Caesar. And I would hate to tell my father we slighted his greatest patron. But if those are your orders…'

'You are right. Of course you're right' Sabina wrung her hands and looked distracted. 'I know you're right. What am I to tell Mettalius Scipio? I had rather hoped he would stay the night…'

Mettalius Scipio. Valens froze. The name opened cracks in his memory, sent his mind along forgotten paths. Images of forts and the tribune issuing orders, of the dark night and the breath of his men as they waited, of the ambush and then finally of the hook-nose pirate who had captured him and then spat in his face, crowded into his brain. Images he thought he had buried years ago when he first wielded the gladiator's sword.

'Mettalius Scipio, son of Mettalius Agrippa?' Valens asked, making an effort to keep his voice steady.

'Why, yes,' Julia's stepmother simpered. 'Do you know the senator? Julia is about to become betrothed to him.'

'We've met…several times.' He knew instinctively his words would be interpreted as meaning recently when in fact it was five years since they had last spoken. Valens closed the door to his memory with a bang. He refused to remember anything about the time before.

'That puts a rather different complexion on the whole thing, doesn't it? I mean, if you are a friend of senators…' She held out her hand, batting her false eyelashes. 'I'm Sabina Claudia, the wife of Julius Antonius. Julia is my stepdaughter, in case you didn't guess. I must apologise for her—Julia can be too cautious at times, too apt to judge people by their standing, if you know what I mean. Too proud for her own good.'

'Not at all like you,' Valens said and made an effort not to wince as he said the words.

Sabina Claudia was one of those dyed blondes with paint so thick on her face her very features were obscured, one of those women whose sole purpose was to grasp the next rung of the social ladder, kicking anyone and everyone as they scrambled over them.

'I am positive you are the soul of tact,' Valens added pointedly. 'A reflection of the true Roman-matron ideal.'

Bato the dog gave him a strange look, and Valens bowed back. He ignored Julia's questioning glance.

'Julia, why didn't you tell me your gladiator was so perceptive in addition to having such a fine Italian accent? He could almost pass as someone other than a gladiator,' Sabina cooed, hooking her arm through Valens's. 'Now you must try our bath suite. It has the latest word in luxury—a hot plunge bath. I made certain of that, and that is undoubtedly why Caesar chose us for your lodgings. He knew we could provide the facilities you needed, unlike others I could mention.'

Valens detached himself as unobtrusively as he could. Julia looked as if she was about ready to explode. At him? At her stepmother? Valens gave a slight nod in her direction, but Julia looked away, chin very firmly in the air.

'He's not my gladiator, Stepmother. I explained to you already that we had barely met.' Her voice dripped ice.

'A figure of speech, my dear,' her stepmother replied airily. 'At least you had the good sense to run into a gladiator who is well connected.'

'I…' Julia said and then turned on her heel and limped off.

Valens watched her go, the skirt of her gown swishing at her heels. He admired the way she kept her head held high and did not stoop to dignify her stepmother's remark with an answer. She reminded him of the sort of woman he had dreamt of marrying years ago. The sort of woman who had helped make Rome great and who was for ever beyond his reach. One who did embody the ideals of Rome.

'I had no idea Julia Antonia was betrothed to Senator Mettalius,' he said, turning once again to Sabina, his anger growing at the stupidity of the woman, at his folly for wanting something he could not have and at his desire to remember the past.

'Of course, nothing is settled yet, but we are very hopeful. The senator appears to be willing.' Sabina's voice dropped to a hushed whisper. 'All things considered, Julia can not be choosy.'

'Indeed?'

'I am sure you will hear anyway, seeing as you will be staying here. The servants will talk.' Sabina gave a large mock sigh. 'Julia left her husband. She divorced him, claiming he had beaten her. She even took his dog. Her father was most upset. He had to take her back in, of course. She couldn't be left out in the street and she is his responsibility. I did tell him when they married that she is a flighty over-indulged child and might do this. Would he listen and marry her with confarreatio , giving her to her husband for ever, relinquishing all authority over her? No, he gave into fashion. Now he is faced with an unmarried twenty-one-year-old with the wisp of scandal clinging to her stolla . All the best alliances have gone. What sort of man wants a wife that will argue back?'

Mettalius, obviously , Valens thought but resisted the temptation to say it aloud.

'Now, if you'll have a servant show me to my quarters and to your bathing suite, I'll trouble you no further. I've had a long day.' He gave a slight bow.

'But you will join us for dinner.' Sabina gave a coquettish smile. 'We're having sow's udder. It is a speciality of mine, a recipe handed down from generation to generation. The senator always compliments me on it.'

'Regrettably, no, I follow a very strict diet in the weeks before a bout, eating mainly barley and beans.' Valens bowed and forced his tone to hold a note of regret. Sow's udder had never been a favourite, even in the days before he'd been a gladiator. 'I tend to take my meals on my own. Or with the others from the gladiatorial school. Caesar has no wish to trouble you any more than he has to.'

'Some other time.'

'Perhaps, but I will give you longer notice as I don't wish to put you to any trouble,' Valens said smoothly, making sure nothing betrayed his disquiet.

He had no idea how he'd react if he had to confront Mettalius over the dinner table. Already the memories of those last days in North Africa were crowding again into his mind, driving other thoughts away. Valens frowned, and concentrated on turning his thoughts towards the games. His future depended on forgetting his past.

Chapter Three

Julia woke in the silver-grey half-light before dawn. The sounds of the servants beginning to stir and the rumble of the carts in the narrow road outside the house filled her tiny room. She stared up at the rough-hewn plaster ceiling, reliving the events of yesterday evening.

Her father had arrived shortly after Valens, red-faced from his exertions at the gymnasium. Far from being unwelcoming and upset at having to house a gladiator, he had gone to the gym to get some sword practice in before their guest arrived.

Julia chuckled, remembering Sabina's face as her father went on and on about the honour Caesar had given him by letting him house one of the top gladiators in the Republic.

Her luck had held. After the first course, her father had accepted her excuse of a painful ankle and allowed her to retire. She avoided both the sow's udder and a prolonged exposure to Mettalius. Surely, the heated argument about the merits of the former dictator, Sulla, that wafted through her window meant the wedding was less likely. Venus, the special protectoress of the Julian family, had at last begun to listen to her prayers.

'It was a good day after all, Bato,' Julia said, sitting up and hugging her knees through the thin wool blanket.

No answering whine or lick to her face. Julia stretched a foot out, but failed to encounter the usual lump at the end of , the bed, weighing the bedclothes down.