The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(93)
Well.
I’d thought that my tribe back home—that the Celts in general—were the most hopeless of all romantics. But the way to the heart of the Roman mob, it seemed, wasn’t just violence and mayhem. It was equal parts blood and roses.
The spectators howled, “Victrix! Victrix!” at the top of their lungs. They hugged and kissed each other and rained flowers down upon us. Cai spun me around until I was so dizzy I almost toppled over. When I turned to salute Gaius Julius Caesar, he beckoned me with a languid wave of his hand. I stepped forward and bowed deeply, fist over the place where my heart would have been—if it hadn’t already been in my throat. His expression was inscrutable. The games certainly hadn’t gone the way he’d meant for them to. Not that it was my fault—not exactly—but I didn’t know how he would see it.
Was my improvisation clever in his eyes?
Or wildly impertinent?
Off to one side, I saw Cleopatra grinning with sly amusement, and I could have sworn I saw her wink at me. Not far from the Aegyptian queen, I saw my sister sitting with the other lanistas and ludus owners, and her eyes shone fiercely. She didn’t even seem to mind that I’d very passionately—and very publicly—just kissed Caius Varro. After all, it had helped me win the crowd.
I squeezed Cai’s hand, and he smiled down at me.
Not just the plebs but all of the spectators beneath the awnings—the men dressed in purple-striped togas, the women in butterfly-brilliant stolas, glittering with jewels—were on their feet. The crowd was giddy with anticipation, waiting to see what judgment the mighty Caesar would render on the performance. Even Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, bore a tiny smile.
None of that loosened the knot in my guts.
Caesar’s opinion was the only one that mattered now.
“Gladiatrix Victrix!” Caesar called out, and the arena went silent as a tomb. “Come forth.”
I held my breath and paced slowly forward until I was standing almost right below him. Caesar raised the hand that had been hidden in the folds of his toga . . . and I saw that he held the rudis—a ceremonial wooden sword—in his fist. The symbol of freedom for every gladiator and gladiatrix. In his other hand, he held a scroll, a declaration of the monies I’d just won.
Elka whooped for joy and pounded me on the back so hard I staggered forward a pace. And Cai was grinning ear to ear, even though—I saw it in his eyes—he thought he might be about to lose me to my home.
But he didn’t have to worry about that. I was home.
“Most mighty Caesar”—I bowed deeply, still playing to the crowd—“I humbly beseech you to gift my winnings to my noble Lanista of the Ludus Achillea. My honor is her honor—hers and my sister warriors.”
Caesar’s eyes glittered with delight. I knew my part in our bargain, and I had my script well-learned. In the stands, I saw that my sister was on her feet, her mouth open in a silent cry of surprise. There were tears of joy streaming down her face, and it made my heart swell.
The look on Pontius Aquila’s face, though, made my stomach clench.
His black eyes were fixed over my shoulder, on the wreckage of Nyx’s chariot, and there was murder in his gaze. I glanced over to see Nyx climbing unsteadily to her feet, bruised, bleeding, her left arm hanging awkwardly from her shoulder socket. Aquila would rain down wrath on my former ludus-mate for her failure, I knew.
I thought of Sorcha’s tampered-with chariot. Of the roster-fixing that had paired me with the Fury. There were a thousand ways that a man like Aquila could arrange for a spectacular arena death for his disgraced gladiatrix—or worse. An image flashed in my mind of Nyx on a marble altar in an underground vault. As much as she hated me, I wasn’t about to let that happen.
I turned back to Caesar.
“For myself,” I continued, before he could make any further pronouncement, “I beseech you to let me stay a gladiatrix. Your gladiatrix. To fight another day on your behalf and to continue to earn the love that the good people of Rome have shown me. I would ask instead that you grant the rudis and the freedom that goes with it to my noble rival, the gladiatrix Nyx.”
Again, the crowd went wild with cheering.
Aquila’s face flushed purple with rage.
The glittering in Caesar’s gaze warmed to a gleam, and an approving smile lit his face from within. Not only had I bested my nemesis, but with that gesture, I’d bested his. He made a show of considering my request. Then he called forth Nyx, and she limped stiffly forward. Caesar presented her with the rudis, and she took it, her dark hair sweeping forward to obscure her face.
Granted release from her contract by Caesar’s own hand, it would be unthinkable for her ever to enter into gladiatorial combat again—it would be an affront to his generosity. I fervently hoped his favor would protect her from the munera too. But when Nyx turned around, I saw just what I had done to her. She looked gutted. Hollowed out and horrified at the prospect of life beyond the walls of a ludus.
My very first opponent, Uathach—the Fury—had thirsted for that life so desperately that she’d been willing to die for it. But I’d come to realize that freedom—real freedom—was something that could be found in the most unexpected places, even on the sands of the arena. Nyx would have to find hers elsewhere. At least she might survive long enough to look, even if she wasn’t about to thank me for that chance. Our eyes locked, and I knew in that moment that I had made an enemy out of an adversary, and I would most likely live to regret it.