The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(34)

“Away with you!” the lanista shouted back. “Seek shelter elsewhere. This is no place to—”

“I know exactly what this place is.” Quint stalked up to him and gestured back at me, saying, “and I suggest you let this lady in through your gates. We’ve business with one of your gladiators. You’d best let us conduct it in peace, and then we’ll be on our way.”

The lanista’s gaze narrowed, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Quint. I pushed the hood of my cloak back off my face. I saw a spark of recognition flare and knew the ludus master remembered me. Of course he did. I was Victrix, and I was Caesar’s. At least, I had been . . .

“Why should I do any such thing?” the lanista asked Quint mulishly.

“Because if you don’t,” I answered, stepping forward and mustering a shrug that I hoped was half as glacial as one of Elka’s, “then we might be inclined to spread word that Caesar’s assassins are holed up right here in your ludus. Let’s see how well you handle a bloodthirsty mob when they’re pounding on your gates instead of sitting in the arena stands.”

The lanista’s angular features went ash pale, and in only moments, the gates of the ludus were groaning back open just enough to let the three of us squeeze through. Once inside, I stepped up to him and held out my hand.

“Give me the key that will open Caius Varro’s cell,” I said.

“I can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because that man is the property of—”

“Of Caesar?” I tilted my head and waited for him to work that one through.

“I . . . uh.”

“The key.”

When he hesitated still, I grabbed a fistful of his tunic, ignoring his men, who seemed utterly at a loss as to what to do. Without another word, the lanista reached into the scrip hanging from his belt and withdrew a ring of keys, handing them to me by the one that would open the doors in Cai’s barracks block. I nodded and, together with Quint and Elka, started off in that direction. Before we reached the stone archway that led down into those dreadful catacombs, I turned and called to the lanista.

“None of these men belong to anyone anymore,” I said. “Not even you, lanista. If I were you, I’d consider a career change. And soon. You won’t have much time before the carrion crows come circling to pick over Caesar’s leavings.”

As I said those words, I could feel them echoing in my own bones. What was true for the gladiators of the Ludus Flaminius was just as true for me. I had been the only gladiatrix left that Caesar had still owned. Now Caesar was dead. I was truly free. And the weight of my freedom hung from my shoulders like a cloak of lead feathers.

Three steps inside the mouth of the tunnel that led down to the slave quarters and it may as well have been middle night. The darkness and dank air pressed against my skin, and the torches set in iron sconces on the wall gave off more smoke and pitch stink than actual light.

“Jupiter’s beard,” Quint swore as we descended. “If I’d known it was this bad in this place, I would have petitioned Caesar myself to let Cai out. What a rat hole.”

“I think it’s cozy,” Elka muttered, her lip curling as an actual rat scurried out of the darkness and disappeared into more darkness.

It didn’t take me long to locate the corridor where Cai’s cell was, and I was almost running by the time I found it, the sound of my boot soles slapping on the damp stone floors echoing off the seeping walls.

“Here!” I called to Quint and Elka. “He’s down this way—”

“Fallon?” I heard Cai’s voice call out and saw a hand reaching between the bars of one of the cell doors.

“Cai!” I sprinted the rest of the way. When I reached him, I clutched at his fingers before letting go to fumble with the lanista’s key ring.

“What in Hades are you doing here?” he asked me, his eyes wide. Obviously the news of Caesar’s demise hadn’t yet filtered down into the lower depths of the ludus. In the uncertain light from the torches, the deep shadows carved on his face beneath cheek and brow gave him a haunted look. “Fallon—what’s happened?”

For a moment, I could only stare at him, unable to utter the stark, horrible truth. Finally, I managed to stammer, “C-Caesar . . .”

Cai drew back from the bars of his cell, dread in his eyes, as if he knew what I was about to say. He shook his head, echoing back the name. “Caesar.”

“He’d dead, Cai,” I said. “Murdered.”

“Who was it?” he asked, his voice like cold iron.

“Who wasn’t it?” Quint answered for me as he and Elka caught up.

“Senators,” I said, suddenly remembering the keys I held in my hand and grasping for the one that would open the door to Cai’s cell. “Dozens of them—all with daggers—a conspiracy . . . they cut him to pieces on the steps of the theater, in plain sight and bright daylight.”

Cai looked back and forth from me to Quint and then, after a long moment, turned his back on us and walked toward the deeper darkness at the back of his cell, fists clenched like stones.

His father, I thought. He’s thinking of his father and the hatred he bore for Caesar. It was a hatred the elder Varro and men like him—men like Pontius Aquila—had sown and nurtured and carefully cultivated among their peers for years.