Free The Gladiator's Mistress (Champions of Rome) by Jennifer D. Bokal

sword. “Come at me again.”
    The equestrian gripped the hilt and let the sword hang down. He crouched and held the wooden blade at the ready. With the other hand he motioned to Valens. “You come at me.”
    Valens smiled. Maybe this new man showed some promise after all. “Attack only when necessary. You learned this lesson quickly. Have you a name?”
    “Spurius Mummius Baro. Most people call me Baro.”
    “Baro, you need to know much, much more.” Valens picked up a broken spear and drew a square in the sand. “Establish a space. Defend your space. Study your opponents, learn their limitations. Know your own limitations. Then you can attack. Always remember, our job is to entertain.”
    He surprised Valens by nodding. “I will think on what you have said.”
    Valens held out his arm. Baro took it and the two grasped each other’s wrists. “Welcome to the brotherhood of gladiators. I would have a word with you about something else.” Valens scratched the side of his ear. Sometimes, he decided, one had to leave the safety of the known and directly assault a problem. “I desire to read and write. Paullus said if I trained you then you would tutor me.”
    “A fair trade.” Baro took the broken spear from Valens and traced symbols in the dirt. “This is your name,” he said and pointed to each figure. “V-A-L-E-N-S.”
    Valens studied the letters and nodded his head. “Go and break your fast. We will continue after we have eaten.”
    After Baro left, Valens traced the letters until his arm knew the feel of them and his mind would forever know what each one meant.

Chapter 9
    Valens
    The sun reached its zenith, and all the gladiators went indoors to eat and escape the midday heat. Having trained since before dawn, Valens decided to leave the ludus and explore Rome alone. He walked to the front gate and stood before a guard.
    The guard knocked on the heavy wooden door, and it opened. Without a word, Valens slipped into the crowd that moved through the Capitoline Market. For the first time since his adolescence, he was unencumbered by the orders of another. Expectantly he held his breath, hoping the world was somehow different now that he was no longer surrounded by guards. Breathing in, he found that the air smelled the same. The bright white sun shone down on the forum just as it had in the ludus. He trod on the exact same gray paving stones as always, slightly uneven in height, but perfectly fitted together.
    Like a snake, the responsibility that came with freedom coiled around his heart and constricted. He looked back at the gate, eight feet tall, with steel beams reinforcing the wood. He thought of going back to the ludus, making a joke that even without guards, Rome still smelled like dung.
    Valens could not return, not yet. He faced men in the arena. Men with swords who meant to do him ill. That never bothered him. Since when did walking on the streets become frightening? He supposed it was because the last time he had been free, he had been coming to the ludus.
    No. He would not be a coward, even if only he knew of his cowardice. But where should he go?
    To his right stood the Palatine Hill and the villa in which Phaedra resided. That was where he wanted to go, but he should not. He knew that he should never see her again. Perhaps one day a litter would pass by and he would catch a glimpse of her profile. Just then, two litters approached. He craned his neck to see inside of each one. She rode in neither. Valens struggled to quell his craving for the woman. It did not work.
    His mother and sister lived close by, and he decided to visit them. He turned left, away from Phaedra and her villa and its high walls that kept her hidden within, and him alone and without.
    After two years as a gladiator, Valens had earned enough money to buy his mother and sister a home in any part of the city he chose. His mother, born and raised in the Suburra, cried at the thought of leaving her friends. Valens suspected she