The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(53)

XX



IF THALESTRIS, with her spear, hadn’t been watching me like a hawk as I headed back toward the ludus gates, I might have made a break for freedom. In the wake of the oath taking, and coming face to face with Sorcha, I was a roil of emotions. The lake’s beach, stretching out in a gentle curve to the north, beckoned. I could run. I could even swim. But to what? To where? And to whom?

Even if I could forgive my father—and as the days and days had taken me ever farther away from him, I started to think that maybe I already had—I wasn’t foolish enough to think that I could make it all the way back to the Island of the Mighty on my own, without even the swords my sister had gifted me.

And then there was my sister herself.

Try as I might, I couldn’t just leave this place that Sorcha seemed to have made her own. Not before I truly understood what had made her choose this life over the one she’d once shared with me. Now it seemed I shared my life with her—and with the other girls and women of the Ludus Achillea.

I’d spoken an oath to it.

And, if Sorcha was to be believed, I was the reason their freedom was in jeopardy.

I turned and retraced my steps back up the strand and through the gates into the compound. Halfway back to my cell, I was surprised to discover that I wasn’t the only one wandering the ludus grounds that night.

“Good evening, Decurion Varro.”

Cai didn’t exactly jump out of his skin at the sound of my voice, but he spun around smartly. I thought for a moment that I might have heard the rattle of his sword in its sheath—a soldier’s training—but then he saw it was only me. Unarmed, for once.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

His shadow merged with mine on the path as he said, “It’s Cai, remember?”

Cai. I tested it out in my head. For the first time, it seemed to suit him. Probably because there was nothing of the Decurion about him in that moment. He’d shed the dress armor he’d worn for the ceremony and was dressed simply in a tunic and toga. His head was bare of helmet, and there were matching silver cuffs circling his wrists instead of bronze arm guards. The legionnaire’s uprightness was gone from his stance, and he moved with a kind of easy grace. But, I noticed with a smile, he still wore a sword strapped to his waist.

“What are you doing out in the darkness alone?” he asked.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered truthfully.

He studied my face for a moment. Then he offered me an elbow. “In that case, will you honor me with your company, fair gladiatrix?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.

I hesitated. That’s really what I was now: a gladiatrix. For a moment, it felt as if the collar around my neck were growing tighter, choking me.

“Fallon?” Cai looked at me. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

I took a deep breath as I slipped my hand into the crook of his arm. If the world insisted that I was now a gladiatrix, worthy of Roman attention that went beyond mere curiosity, then I would play the part.

Cai wrapped his hand over mine, and his fingers were warm and strong as we walked in the gardens that stretched between the ludus compound and the high, thick walls that surrounded it. I would catch proper hell if any of the guards found me alone in the night with a man. But right now, I didn’t care. I could feel the tension leave my shoulders and arms the longer we walked in silence. Cai’s presence was a steady, calming one.

“I didn’t think to see you tonight at the oath swearing,” I said finally.

He shrugged. “I was simply here in my official capacity.”

“And that is?”

He smiled tightly. “As Caesar’s errand boy, of course.”

“You’re hardly an errand boy.”

“Oh, yes I am,” he said. “My father saw to it that I would find myself in a position that was both useful to him and, to his way of thinking, useful to me.”

“And have you found it useful?” I asked.

“I serve.” He shrugged again. “As far as useful . . . well, occasions such as this afford me the opportunity to brush elbows with my patrician betters, even if it means I have to stomach the company of the likes of Pontius Aquila for the evening.”

“The Tribune of the Plebs?” I asked. “The one people call the Collector?”

“Not to his face.” Cai grimaced.

“He and Caesar don’t seem overly fond of each other.”

Cai laughed softly. “You have a gift for understatement, Fallon. The Tribune is here tonight at Caesar’s invitation—an invitation he could hardly refuse—and it’s positively killing him to have to stand there making polite conversation all night. Which, I think, was Caesar’s intention. That and to flaunt his newest acquisitions.”

“Like Elka and me. Aquila tried to buy us,” I said, remembering. “That day in the Forum.”

Cai nodded, thoughtful. “Until the Lady Achillea swooped in with her sizable purse, yes. He has an insatiable thirst for the games, and his stables of fighters are almost as impressive as Caesar’s. Aquila is far from rich, but politically, at least, he’s a power to be reckoned with. Personally, I find the man—and his appetite for death in the arena—repugnant. But I’m required to be cordial because my father is an investor in several of Aquila’s ludi. One of which is the House Amazona.”