The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(41)

I looked away from her to the other girls. Beneath one of the awnings sat Vorya, a girl from a neighbor tribe of Elka’s own Varini, who’d been with us since those first days traveling in a slave caravan, but who I couldn’t remember having had a lengthy conversation with. At the same fire were Kore and Thalassa, both of them from the isle of Crete; and a Germanic girl named Devana. Tending the rabbits was a North African girl whose given name I’d never known. She’d called herself Anat—after her tribe’s war goddess—upon arrival at the ludus and refused to be referred to as anything else.

I didn’t know any of them nearly as well as I wanted to. As I should have.

I promised myself that would change.

“Damya and Tanis and some of the others might not have made it out, Fallon, but we did,” Ajani said firmly. “And we wouldn’t have, if not for you.”

“Right.” Elka nodded. “So. Seeing as how you’ve stopped babbling and sweating, let’s get on with it. What do we do now?”

I’d rather been hoping I’d have a few more moments upright before that question reared its head. Of course Elka’s cheerfully dire pragmatism would allow for no such thing. Move on, don’t look back. There’s always something in front of you that needs fighting . . . And there was one thing in front of me I definitely needed to fight. Pontius Aquila.

“I’m going back,” I said.

“Back?” Ajani tilted her head as she looked at me. “Back where? Home?”

“Yes,” I said and felt my hands knotting into fists. “Home.”

“To Britannia?”

“No.” I looked around at the gaps in our company that should have been filled with the girls we’d left behind. “I’m going back to the Ludus Achillea.”

“Didn’t we just leave that party?” Gratia snorted.

Elka’s eyes narrowed. “When you said ‘tactical retreat,’ I didn’t think you really meant it.”

“Of course I meant it,” I said. “Sorcha gave everything—even her life—to secure the ludus as a safe haven for us. I intend to find a way to take that haven back.”

“Might be helpful if you find out how it was taken so easily in the first place,” Aeddan said, from where he sat apart from the others. Just loudly enough so that we all turned to look at him as he sheathed his blade and put aside the whetstone.

“What are you saying, Aeddan?” I asked.

He looked at me. “Pontius Aquila had to have had someone inside the ludus working with him.”

“You mean someone other than you?” Elka cast a laden glare at the black feather-crested helmet that sat beside him on the bench.

“I mean,” Aeddan said, ignoring the glare, “someone he could plan an attack with. Well before any of the Amazona gladiatrices, or their guards—including me—ever set foot inside the gates of your compound.”

As he spoke, he reached beneath the helmet and pulled out a red leather pouch. He hefted it in one hand, and it made a muted jingling sound. Coins. A lot of coins. Elka frowned and everyone else went very still.

Everyone except Leander.

He’d been crouched by one of the cooking fires, turning the spit on the roasting fowl. But he took that moment to shuffle awkwardly away from the fire, as if he would get up and leave. But to go where, I didn’t know. There was nowhere to go.

“What do you think, slave?” Aeddan called out in a casual tone. “Is there anything you’d like to share with this gathering?”

Elka snorted in derision. “You can’t be serious.”

I was tempted to agree with her. “Are you actually saying Leander is some kind of . . . what? Conspirator?”

“No.” Aeddan shook his head. “He doesn’t have the wits. But I’m fairly certain he knows who does. And he’s so far chosen to keep his mouth shut about it.”

Aeddan tossed me the leather pouch. It was heavy in my hand as I caught it.

“I found that in the bottom of his traveling pack,” he said.

Gratia scowled at Aeddan. “You searched through his things?”

“I searched through all your things.”

“You don’t trust us,” Neferet said, shaking her head in disgust.

“I don’t trust anyone,” Aeddan snapped. “Neither should you. But he was the only one who had a pouch full of money stowed in his gear.”

Cai turned from me to Leander. “Where does a slave get that much coin?”

“The . . . men. The men on the—the boat . . .” Leander stammered, wide-eyed. “The ones who paid me to chop down the mast—”

I upended the pouch and poured out a stream of gleaming coins onto the ground. There was a small fortune in sestersii. More than a top gladiatrix would make winning a prime festival bout in the Circus Maximus.

Ajani turned to Leander, a dangerous snarl curling her lip. “Liar,” she said. “Those curs wouldn’t have paid you half that much.”

A sheen of sweat had broken out on Leander’s brow, and his eyes darted wildly, as if seeking any means of escape. “The Lanista . . .”—he tried again—“she also rewarded me for—”

“Don’t.” I took a step toward him.

“Domina . . .” he said, and swallowed nervously. “Please . . .”