Free Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn Page A

Why?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You idiot, you’ve ruined everything!” Lepida hauled back and slapped me across the cheek. “I should have known you’d mess it up somehow! How dare you!”
    She whirled away from me, storming up and down the room in her bright silks. “And how dare he ! He’s nothing; he’s just a gladiator. Doesn’t he know who I am? I’ll tell Father to throw him to the lions, I’ll—” Her eyes shot back to me. “He has someone, doesn’t he? Who is she? Some patrician whore? Some boy tribune?”
    “No. He just—doesn’t like people.”
    “Oh.” She paused a moment in her pacing. “Perhaps he’s just—shy?”
    “Well . . .”
    “Who would have thought it? The Barbarian is shy. I suppose it stands to reason. I mean, he can’t have had anyone like me before. Maybe something can still be done.” She flung herself down elegantly on the couch, piercing me with a needle-sharp glance. “Not that I’ll be asking you to run any more messages, the way you’ve botched things.”
    As soon as I bowed out I sent up a prayer of thanksgiving. The God of the Jews is hard, merciless, a joker—but occasionally He relents. Yes, Lepida Pollia was back and there would be no more singing for me in taverns—but I wouldn’t have to see Arius anymore. And surely when I didn’t have to see him—swinging a sword two-handed across the training courtyard, with his gray eyes meeting mine over the blade as he saluted me . . .
    Fighters. A bad choice for—well, for anything. I knew all about investments after living in the Pollio house. Gladiators are bad investments. They die too quickly.
    “Thea!” A large, moist hand plastered over my elbow, and I looked up into Quintus Pollio’s jovial eyes. “Thea. Just the thing I need.”
     
     
     
    WRAPPED in a coarse cloak with a deep hood, he got as far as the Aurelian Gate.
    “Hey, you.” A clerk frowned at him peremptorily. “No skulking out like a criminal; let’s see your papers all right and proper—wait, I know you!” A double take. Too late, Arius covered the gladiator tattoo on his arm. “Saw you in the arena. You’re the Barbarian! What are you—”
    Arius hammered both fists into the clerk’s middle, and ran. Six guards brought him down in the middle of the dusty road.
    I should’ve had a sword , he thought disjointedly as they dragged him back to Mars Street by the elbows. They’d never have gotten me if I’d had a sword.
    “Yes, thank you,” Gallus said coolly, passing money out among the guards with a liberal hand. “He’ll be chained during training next time . . . hamstrung a guard? With his teeth? Perhaps this will ease the pain.” More money changed hands, and four of Gallus’s thugs locked manacles onto his wrists and ankles. Arius knew, hearing the sickeningly familiar rattle of the chains, that there weren’t going to be any strokes or smiles this time.
    As soon as the gate shut behind the grumbling guards, Gallus turned and smashed him twice across the face with a heavy jeweled hand. So there really was muscle under all that pendulous pink flesh.
    “Stupid boy!” the lanista hissed, and he launched a string of gutter invective straight from the slums.
    “Your origins are showing, Gallus,” Arius commented, and another blow rocked his head back against the wall.
    “So you made your grand bid for escape, eh?” Gallus spat. “And where did it land me? Out of pocket, that’s where it landed me! Stupid boy!” Another massive blow.
    Arius tasted blood in his mouth, and felt a surge of macabre cheer. Beatings and chains and curses; here was a coin he could deal in. “Go to hell, Gallus.” He bared his bloody teeth in a grin.
    This time one of the lanista ’s huge thugs came and did the punching. “Damaging your investment, aren’t you?” Arius inquired dizzily.
    “Oh, I’m beyond protecting my investment.” Gallus’s eyes were kohl-rimmed slits. “My investment’s already disappeared down the drain.