Blood of a Gladiator - Ashley Gardner Page 0,18

my place. I will wait.” She glanced out the door at the benches, where the door slave had retreated.

“I need you with me.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I won’t know what to say.”

Cassia’s brow furrowed. “You’ve guarded such men before, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but Aemil negotiated the post for me. I turned up where he told me to go.”

“I see.” Cassia’s expression didn’t change, but I couldn’t help feeling I’d sunk in her estimation. “Very well. But only if you order me to.”

“Do I have to order it?” I truly didn’t know.

“Yes. If they ask. Better hurry.”

“All right, then. I order it.”

I strode off after the majordomo, relieved to hear her pattering behind me.

Celnus waited rather impatiently for us at a double door at the end of the hall. When I caught up to him, he gave me a disapproving look then opened one of the doors and led us into a green space.

This was the garden of the home, a private area. I was surprised the majordomo brought us here, not to the tablinium where the dominus usually met his supplicants. A walkway lined with columns formed a rectangle around green shrubbery and trees, with a long fountain burbling in the exact center of the garden. The walkway was marble, the fountain’s floor covered in mosaics of fish and strange sea creatures.

A man in a knee-length tunic belted with a rope at the waist leaned over a dark green plant with shining leaves, and carefully snipped a twig. He dropped the twig into a finely woven basket resting on a bench beside him. While his tunic was plain, it was made of finely woven linen, and his belt held the sheen of silk. I knew this wasn’t the gardener.

The majordomo cleared his throat, and the man glanced up.

He stood a head shorter than me, about Cassia’s height, and unlike his majordomo, he didn’t try to conceal his baldness. Gray hair, neatly trimmed, framed his ears and was cut short on the back of his neck. A former military man, I guessed, considering the wall paintings I’d observed. He had the bearing and the simplicity of dress of a general who’d spent a lifetime on campaign.

His nose was large and beaked in a face that was thin but not pinched, his slenderness from strength, not hunger. Here was a man who’d survived wars and the even more dangerous world of politics under Nero.

“I enjoy tending the gardens.” The man’s apologetic tone was genuine, as though he was ashamed we’d found him thus. “Plants like a bit of care. Like children.”

I stood without speaking, Cassia slightly behind me. The majordomo radiated disapproval that she’d joined us, but I had no intention of speaking to my potential employer without her.

“Decimus Laelius Priscus,” the majordomo announced in a strident voice. “Leonidas the Gladiator.” His tone turned disdainful, and he didn’t bother to mention Cassia.

“Thank you for attending me.” Priscus gestured for Celnus to depart. Celnus clearly didn’t want to, but he walked away, very slowly. He’d probably lurk in the shadows inside the house, waiting for me to bring out a sword to strike his master down.

“I have watched you in the games.” Priscus ran a gaze over me that held keen assessment. “You fight with great skill but never throw away a move. You do not strike before you are certain. Tell me—I am curious. Why did you not kill Regulus in your final match?”

I did not even have to think about the answer. “He is my friend.”

“I see. But with him gone, your reputation would have been that of the gods.”

I shrugged, the new tunic pulling on my shoulders.

“You had another friend, I recall. Name of Xerxes.”

I stiffened. Xerxes had been far closer to me than Regulus. Xerxes would have understood me sparing him and not hated me for it, no matter how much he’d wanted to die.

Xerxes had very much wanted to live. He’d spoken of what he and I would do once we achieved our freedom, the roads we’d travel, the wonders we’d see.

He’d been struck down in a match against another gladiator. I’d killed the man who’d slain him in the next round and was laid low with grief for a long while. Aemil had threatened to sell me for wasting his time.

“Yes.” My answer was simple. “I burned offerings for him.”

Priscus studied me as I faced him. I didn’t look him directly in the eye but kept my gaze on an Egyptian marble pillar to