Chapter 11: Chapter 11

Joren didn’t initially believe me when I said I could access the kitchens whenever I wanted. He stormed off to talk with Titus, and when he returned, he was mollified. He gave me a menacing warning, “Don’t wander into the larder of the kitchens upstairs, but whatever is down here, you are free to access. Don’t touch the rising bread, and if you leave a mess, I will grab you by the neck and have you clean it with your tongue.” The scary part was that he sounded completely serious with his threat. I now wasn’t sure if the one-armed man was a friend or not.

I happily gorged myself after the staff left the kitchens, and when I returned to my small room, I paused. The door was open, and the few possessions I had were strewn about. My sleeping mat had been tossed in the corner, and my piss and shit bucket was overturned on it. I had emptied it in the morning, so the piss and shit on the mat had to be fresh.

They hadn’t found my hiding spot for the ointment, as the ground wasn’t disturbed, but my blood burned at the cruelty of it. It made no sense why the others would do this. I could see searching my room, but this… Maybe it was frustration at my special treatment or spurning their group. After barring the door, I slept on the hard earth.

I was woken up by Varka announcing herself as she walked down the hall. “Get out here, you lazy goblins. We have work to do if you want to survive your first fight in the arena!” She paused at my door, and I thought she would bang on it, but after a second, she continued two doors down to Postumus’s door and banged on his door. It looked like my rest day was still intact.

Just to be safe, I stayed in my room until my cohort left the building. After they passed, I sneaked into Postumus’s room and swapped sleeping mats with him. I then went to the kitchens to eat with the guards and the top gladiators. Joren glanced at me and then at the door before allowing me in to eat. The others paid me no attention, focused on the meal.

The food was much better: dense, fresh bread with a rich, buttery spread, blood sausage, and the same heavy porridge we usually ate with nuts. Joren sat with me after everyone was served.

“Got yourself a day off, did you?” he asked. I nodded with my mouth full. “What do you plan to do with it?”

I looked around the kitchens, thinking of working here for the day and eating until I burst. “Don’t be a fool,” he scolded me, reading my mind. “You want to survive, exercise your mind while your body rests. Go watch the other lanistas train the gladiators. Watch, listen, and learn.” He stood, not saying anything else and went back to work. Maybe he was a friend.

I shoved two loaves into my pants and approached the walls. There were only five guards on watch, and they gave me a curious look before looking down at Varka, who was watching Vetter train the others with the iron clubs. When Varka didn’t respond to seeing me, the guards shrugged off my presence and continued their duty.

I circled atop walls to see the pit where a lanista had two of his charges choreographing a fight. At least that is what I assumed I was seeing as they repeated the same attack sequence over and over, and the lanista added a bit of flair here and there. “When he kicks sand in your face, make sure your eyes are closed, for Pluto’s sake, Remus!” I didn’t quite understand what was happening, so I moved further down the wall to watch the most experienced gladiators at the ludus. A blond lanista with nearly black irises watched as two gladiators went through intense exchanges. They only separated when one had gained a clear advantage. The speed and power of the blows sent chills through me. I wouldn’t last more than a few seconds against either, and only that long if I ran away.

I settled in, eating my bread and watched this pair as they worked. I quickly learned they each had two styles: one was their showmanship, where they made their attacks ring as loudly as possible on the other man’s shield and appeared to be seeking an advantage. The other was when they were truly fighting, with the arcs of their blades minimized and each attack followed by establishing a defense. I could only see a hint of the movements we had been taught so far by Vetter.

When Vetter noticed me, he called up to me. “Boy! You don’t have to take the day off if you don’t want to!” I didn’t even turn to acknowledge him. I had earned a day off and would utilize it. My focus was on the experienced gladiators below, and Vetter gave up trying to convince me when the other lanistas chided him for obsessing over me. Chapters fırst released on novel⁂fire.net

The larger man below was Aferius, the only gladiator in at the ludus taller than me. He shaved his head; he looked pudgy and slow from a distance, but was lightning quick and powerful.

The shorter man was Tullus, if I remembered correctly, but he rarely talked. He had darker skin and had a long black mane of hair that he tied into a ponytail when he practiced. It whipped around as he fought, but it was more of a distraction for his opponent than for him. He was lean and made of wiry muscle. Even with Aferius’s speed, he struggled to lock down the man as he danced away whenever Aferius gained an advantage. That was right, there was a rumor that Tullus had been a dancer before Titus bought his debt. These were the top two gladiators at the ludus. Faustus was never too far away to come and heal either one, allowing them to push each other, but it always seemed it was Aferius being healed.

I watched them till the midday meal bell rang. Varka had my cohort outside the walls running, so I went to the kitchens to catch the first meal. I sat with Tullus and Aferius, and they ignored me as they ate and spoke quietly to each other. The two clearly had a friendship, or at least mutual respect. I finally got the courage to speak. “You usually have the afternoons off. Can you help me with my footwork?” I asked Tullus. His eyes drifted to me as he studied me.

“You are the new favored novicius?” he asked in a thick accent.

“Yes. I have a spell form that helps my endurance,” I replied.

He grunted. “Endurance doesn’t mean dragon shit in the arena. A real battle is over in two blinks of an eye.” Aferius grunted in agreement. I was about to stand when Tullus called to his lanista, “What are we doing this afternoon, Dravo?”

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The lanista looked up from his bowl. “Two rounds of movements and then some wrist work,” he replied.

Tullus asked, gesturing toward me, “Can I give this boy a try?” That sounded more ominous than I had hoped for.

The blond lanista looked up. “As long as you get in the wrist work,” he compromised. These top gladiators had more leeway than us lowly novices. From my understanding, they would earn more than the rest of us combined.

I walked out to the training ground with Tullus and got a lot of curious stares. “Where you from?” he asked as he went to the bin of practice swords. Not the dull rods we used, but actual swords. He tossed a blade at me, and my instinct was to dodge, but it was so perfectly thrown that the hilt seemed to hover in the air for a moment, and I caught it smoothly. He nodded. It was feather-light compared to the weighted rods we were training with. My elation evaporated as I realized I was facing a far superior opponent who could kill me easily. “Where are you from?” he repeated as he selected his own blade.

“Minnesota,” I replied. Who really cared I was from another reality?

“Never heard of it. I watched you train. Your progress is impressive, but you move like an ogre. Your focus is too much on what your arms and hands are doing, while you drag your feet through the sand. Watch,” he commanded. His feet blurred in four rapid steps as he moved back and then forward and then cut the air with his blade. The blade passed just under my chin and I didn’t have a chance to react.

I gaped as that was faster than anything he had done this morning with Aferius. He seemed pleased at my astonishment. My only thought was how? He answered my unspoken question. “This movement has its foundation in a courtship dance of my people. The male must mirror the woman perfectly in order to woo her. Go too slow and she is free to break away—if she is too slow, you are free to catch her as long as your steps are perfect,” he smiled wistfully at a memory. “Now you.”

Even though it looked to be four steps, there were actually eight when you included pivots and shifting your weight on your foot. I was absolutely terrible, and after fifteen minutes, I was sweating profusely and drawing stamina from my aether core. I was a little shocked when Titus asked a question from behind me, causing me to jump. I didn’t even know he was there. “Can he be made into a blade dancer?”

Tullus laughed at Titus. “Centurion, you ask for miracles I can’t provide. Pray to your false gods—Fortuna, isn’t it? He grew up learning to walk the wrong way. His left hand is almost useless, and I doubt he could jerk himself off without help from the right. His mind is too focused on what he can see and isn’t aware of what his body is doing most of the time. I am surprised the boy can shit without hitting his feet.”

“He is wasting his time then?” Titus asked, his voice offering annoyance.

Tullus swayed slightly as he gave the impression of thinking on it. “Perhaps not. Five years and I can teach him not to cut off his nose as a blade dancer.”

“You have six weeks. Teach him one of your courtship dances you are so fond of.” He looked at me, “Train with Tullus before dinner every night to learn the steps. I have a mage coming who will help you learn an impressive spell form.”

Tullus frowned as Titus returned to his manor. “Fools, the lot of them,” Tullus spat on the ground behind Titus. He turned to me, frowned, and muttered something about cursing his life choices, clearly regretting that he had agreed to train me for an afternoon that now seemed to inclined to do so every day. He chewed his cheek before grinning. “You need to learn to be lighter on your feet. We need ankle weights for you—heavy ankle weights.”

It wasn’t long before I was wearing a pair of iron shackles on both feet. As I moved through the steps, they dug and tore into my flesh. “If you can move reasonably well with those on, you might be passable in six weeks.”

After hours of training, he finally allowed me to stop. I had planned to make use of my rest day and somehow had been pushed harder than any day prior. Dried blood and dirt covered my feet, and everything hurt. “Your stamina is remarkable, but you lack the flexibility, confidence, and instinct of a blade dancer. All can be trained, and Titus has shortcuts for flexibility.” My body trembled involuntarily as I thought I was done with the stretching rack.

Vetter took this moment to walk over to us. “Are you trying to steal my most promising student?”

“He is Varka’s, but I will fight you for him,” Tullus replied instantly, cracking a smile, and Vetter stepped back. “You can still have him in the morning. I am only teaching him to dance,” Tullus said snidely. Vetter, a lanista, still backed away from the gladiator, and I was getting an idea of where Tullus stood in the hierarchy around here.

Surprisingly, Varka didn't object to my one-on-one training with Tullus. She even exempted me from some of the conditioning that the others had to endure. After my second day with Tullus, I found myself the one cursing my life choices. With him, everything needed to be faster, and if it couldn’t be faster, I was allowed to go slow—but he would add more weight to my body.

I admit, Tullus was a good teacher compared to Varka and Vetter. Even though he was harsher on me, when I did something right, I actually got a compliment, which made me try that much harder to earn another. It also made my training with Varka and the others that much easier. I don’t think Postumus even realized I switched sleeping mats with him.

On my third afternoon with Tullus, Titus approached us with a middle-aged woman at his side. She rode in a few hours ago, but I had thought nothing of it as the ludus frequently had visitors and deliveries. The woman had plain clothes but wore heavy gold chains with large silver pendants lined with runes. She moved gingerly, and her hair appeared slightly frizzy with strands of gray visible. When they reached us, Titus was showing rare happiness, and the woman was studying me.

“This is the man you want me to assist in learning the flame tongue spell form?” the woman asked. “You sure he is capable?” doubt laced her words as heavy shackles hung from my ankles and wrists. I looked more like a tortured prisoner than a gladiator.

I started to unlock the shackles when Tullus stopped me. “He is mine till dinner bell, mage. You can have him after he eats.” I thought Titus would object to the gladiator dictating terms but he quickly agreed with them.

“Mage Calida, I will have my servants fulfill your every desire while you are my guest. Are evening lessons acceptable terms?” Titus said placatingly to the woman.

“As long as the dinner is satisfactory every night and he washes himself,” she said imperiously. “Show me to my room until the boy is ready to study under my guidance.”

I watched the unimposing mage go. A thrill deep down told me I was going to learn more magic. What was the flame tongue spell form? I couldn’t eat fast enough, give myself a wash, and head up to the second level. Learning magic couldn’t be as hard as learning to dance with a sword…

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