Previously, I wasn't the guy who received invitations to the holy of holies. Fighting rings, barracks and bedrooms were more of my scene. I didn't expect to be immediately admitted inside the Sanctuary in the Asclepius' temple either, but when the priest took me by my elbow to leave Victor, I twisted in his grip. Four acolytes were carrying the stretcher in another direction. I should have been relieved that the healers took over from me, but I felt absurdly rattled by our separation.

"Where... Where are you taking him?"

The priest eyed me while I fought to control my shaking hands. I couldn't, so I just clenched them behind my back, out of sight. "Right... the Sanctuary. You're taking Victor to the Sanctuary. Right?" I paid Asclepius' price, didn't I? His clergy better uphold their end of the deal.

"Your vigil will start later," the priest said with a small nod to confirm my deduction. "For now, let's apply your strength where it's the most beneficial."

"My name is Maximus."

His glance drifted over the long, uneven rows of his patients. "I know."

I couldn't tell from this response if he caught my name, or if he knew who I was. No, you don't get it. I'm Maximus, the Champion of Champions... yeah, that would help me to no end. They weren't big on names in this place, save for the name of their god. Below Asclepius, the hilltop community cascaded down to healers, acolytes, patients, slaves. In this stark hierarchy, I became a slave for real.

I spent the rest of the day carrying amphorae of cold water from the fountain at the end of the aqueduct to the kitchens; hot water to the healing commons; jars of refuse to the sanitary trench. The monotony set in so fast, I didn't realize I was carrying a corpse, not a bundle of dirty rugs at some point. The body in its pitiful shroud was light enough at least to spare me from an irrational fear that it was Victor. Whoever they were, I dug their grave in the stony soil. Then I carried a full amphora from the fountain to fill up a trophy for the goats...

By sunset, the mind-numbing toil left my body with more aches than the hardest day in the arena, but I learned the layout of the temple well.

The main building, a long rectangle with an impressive colonnade, occupied the flattest piece of land in the center. Normally, the pilgrims would walk from the gates of the temple enclosure through the impressive yard, now occupied by the sick. Multiple buildings of unadorned wood or mudbricks stretched to the east of the temple, down the less steep side of the hill. The temple reserved those for the patients who needed shelter.

Beyond the walls was the graveyard, surrounded by an orchard of hardy almonds and apples, in its turn encircled by pines that did a double duty as a source of nuts and the wind barrier. The gusts of it launched from the east, shaking brunches, tugging clothes and whistling in the tight spaces. Then it blew dust and pine needles down the western side of the hill. That slope was steeper, and had to be terraced for planting medicinal herbs and kitchen vegetables.

The natural forest was permitted to linger outside the cultivated areas, but not wildly. Trails run through it, wide, covered in shavings, for those seeking to strengthen their bodies during convalescence. They twisted, but eventually ended at the sheer cliff with a shrine to Apollo at its edge. As Asclepius' godly father, he must have provided either oversight or medicine for the soul.

As a rookie, I spent more time by the sanitary trenches than under the boughs. I'd just returned from dumping yet another bucket of slop, when the familiar priest flagged me. The expression in his eyes told me that his curt, 'come', wouldn't end in another errand perfect for my brute strength.

I set down the bucket, wiping my hands on the no-longer-white tunic.

By the time I straightened, the priest was already walking away. I followed at a trot, despite blisters I earned walking the uneven grounds.

My gut feeling didn't fail me: the priest led us to the marble heart of the place. Alas, we didn't go straight in as my heart demanded. He circled the stairs instead of climbing them to the colonnade, breaking twigs from the herbs growing in large boxes. Sage, mint, rosemary and something I never used in cooking filled his hands. After examining his green bounty with a critical eye, sort of like Rufius Fulgentius counting his coins, he extended it to me.

I accepted his harvest with a bow. "Praise Asclepius." The blessing tasted foreign in my mouth, after praying to Mithras for a decade.

The priest stood there, waiting for something more... from me? Who else? I hung my head.

This was a temple, and I was a supplicant. Talent propelled me to fame so fast, the farm boy who gawked at the Senator's villa, craving the forbidden luxuries, seemed a stranger. Humble wasn't natural to me any more; or maybe even back then... I didn't know, and it wasn't important. Victor was hidden within the marble walls, somewhere inside the temple, dead or alive, and not knowing—

Ignoring the dull ache in my empty gut, I bent my stiff shoulders, then my waist, lower and lower, until the palm of my hand touched the dirt between my bare feet.

"Praise Asclepius," I repeated, without lifting my gaze off the ground.

The priest shifted, setting the folds of his tunic to rustle. "Follow me."

I did, in silence, eyes on the ground, biting my lip. Again, we didn't climb the staircase to the main entrance, but went to a smaller service building to the right. It had an only room, windowless, heated with burning pine logs, choke-full of washing benches, scrubbing brushes and women doing laundry.

A large tub of steaming water sat in the only corner free of constant jostling. I squinted at it through the curling steam curling. Yeah, I definitely lugged it inside this place at some point, though I blocked out the women's chatter and the warmth from my memory, because I was in no mood for comfort. Not that I would blame them for finding it in cleaning something previously soiled, setting it right.

The priest said, "Add the purifying plants."

I crushed the herbs and tossed them into the water by a handful. As they steeped, the scent of spring overpowered that of urine used for bleaching tunics.

Not one to waste words, the priest pointed me to the tub, and I stripped to the waist. Something new flickered in his gaze while I scrubbed my arms, shoulders and chest, and he cataloged the scars on me. Professional interest?

I finished by cleansing my face and hands in a separate bowl. The brew was only tepid and stung my skin with the pungent freshness of mint. I didn't mind.

Cleansed above the belt, I combed back wet hair, then glanced at the priest for further instructions. He pointed me to the exit. I obeyed, trying to rub the mud off my feet as we walked to the main temple. It wouldn't help Victor's case if I tracked mud on their marble floors.

Luckily, below the steps of the temple was a shallow pool with a mosaic on its bottom. It advised the healers to heal themselves in a square script. Blue irises grew in each corner of the pool, far more intricate than the artwork we waddled over.

Leaving dryer and dryer footprints on the steps, I entered the temple of Asclepius as the daylight faded. The first of the three nights I bought for Victor was falling.

I expected the statue of the patron god to greet me in the temple since there was none outside, but no. However, the images of Asclepius' serpents covered the walls. The columns' capitals were carved with more of those in marble, and the plaster knock-offs coiled round the models of healed body parts in the offerings' alcoves.

As we crossed the common prayer area, a snake slithered toward the courtyard, probably wanting to take advantage of the day's last warmth retained by the stones. Before it moved, its white body was indistinguishable from marble.

The priest didn't give the living reptile more attention than he had paid the (probably) sculpted ones. Whenever one of them coiled in his path, he stepped around it. Some lifted their heads to stare at us with purple eyes, hiss or shake their rattles, others didn't react. I didn't poke the immobile snakes to find out if they were alive or decorative, because killing them would surely be a no-no. I imitated my guide, stepping gingerly, and they left me alone.

The Sanctuary occupied the westernmost end of the temple. A triptych cedar screen with carved figures of Chiron teaching Asclpius, Asclpius with his serpent-entwined caduceus, and Asclepius instructing his children, shielded the entrance.

Behind it, the sacred room was fifty-six paces across—I had an ample occasion to count them during my vigil—and it was furnished with even more braziers than the public areas, making it almost too hot. A tile roof over cedar beams covered the space, so the smell of cedar wood overpowered that of incense, so strong, I felt lightheaded and nearly slumped on an empty pallet by the entrance.

The priest walked past it and all the way to the western wall, where another pallet lay side by side with an actual bed.

"Praise Asclepius," a man sitting on the pallet said. He was bruised, scraped, and had his arm hung in a sling around his neck. His ingratiating smile showed old and fresh gaps in his teeth. He smiled, so he couldn't be that badly off... With what I had to do to get Victor in here—

"Albus and his brother were injured while rescuing their neighbors in a collapsed tenement; he's paying for the healing with labor," the priest said.

I pinched my lips together, embarrassed by my suspicions. Also, strangely relieved that this Albus was like me, a debtor, not a patient.

"How's he doing today?" The priest studied the man in the bed. Perhaps, his years of experience helped him glean something useful. All I could see were bandages and one leg in a splint along its entire length, stretched upward at an angle, held by a weighted belt thrown over a beam.

The Toothy shook his head, the smile melting away. "Didn't come awake once."

Given the splint job, his brother had a broken hip bone. By rights, he should be screaming, not sleeping, but he slept. It couldn't be natural. As if to confirm my guess, the priest extracted a glass vial from his belt, full of light-blue liquid.

"He has to sleep, Albus. If we can keep the pain down, with Asclepius help, his body will do the work, and he will walk again. Keep faith."

I was startled, because I had never seen a man walk after injuries like that. Then again, I had never seen a contraption like that either.

Albus' eyes gleamed with more than tears. "I do!"

The priest dripped a single drop from his vial into a cup of wine. "You know the drill."

Albus bobbed his head, taking the cup awkwardly, with his non-dominant hand. He then sat just as awkwardly on the side of his brother's bed, afraid to bump into him. Before feeding the medicine to his brother, he twisted to look at me.

"Are you... No. Couldn't be." His natural bubbly temperament won over our sad situation, and he chuckled. "Friend, believe it or not, I took you for that gladiator-fellow, the one who won the Great Games last time."

"Uh-huh." I signed to him that I had to trail the priest, and he turned back to his brother. A fan, duh. I would do well to keep my distance, since I didn't need speculative glances on my back all day long.

The woman by the northern wall had her eyes opened, but she didn't see me or the priest or anything else. She looked at something only she could see and whimpered. I couldn't see any obvious injuries, but the state in which she was in... I shouldn't care for what brought her here... I should go sit on Victor's pallet, not follow the priest on his rounds...

"She miscarried twins after her husband beat her," the priest said, measuring out the precious blue drop into a cup of wine.

Rhea, I thought, tasting vomit at the back of my throat. Rhea... My sister was small, swarthy and curly-haired; this woman was fair, with a long russet braid. But her belly still protruded under the blanket, despite her emptied womb. I just... I turned away, chewing my lips. Gerontius isn't a man like that. Rhea will deliver another healthy baby.

My glance stopped on Victor, and I took another deep breath before going to his pallet. He lay across the sanctuary, at the southern wall. They probably picked this location for him, because he was cold and clammy to touch, and this wall was the warmest. For that reason, the snakes preferred it as well.

The priest finished administering the medicine to the woman I couldn't stop calling Rhea in my mind and came to join Victor and me. I extended the cup of wine to him without a word. A shadow of a smile touched the priest's lips when he unstoppered the vial of blue stuff.

One drop... No. Two.

"What's in it?" I asked.

Third drop fell into Victor's cup, and the priest handed it back to me. "A mix of common tonics and the extracts from two roots. One comes from beyond the eastern border, and another from the western border. One is a painkiller, another one helps the wounds to close faster."

I gaped. "Asclepius heals with barbarian medicines?"

"Yes and no," the priest replied. "It also has a secret ingredient, only this temple knows, that makes the Bite-of-Life so potent, the only thing I know of that can bring the souls back to the realm of living from the brink of death."

My eyes glued to the vial, noticing an outline of a fang on it I had missed before. The Bite-of-Life... it wasn't hard to deduce what the secret ingredient was, though how the priests harvested it was a mystery to me. They should have plenty of it on hand though. "Can you give Victor more? I'll pay anything."

Disturbed by my movement, the sound of my raised voice, the closest snake lifted its pale head and hissed at me.

"Calm, calm now," the priest said to both of us. A corner of the priest's mouth sunk deeper into his cheek, neither a scoff, nor a smile, but something in between the two. "You've already paid. And, like all medicines, the dose must be right. More will send your friend straight to Hades."

After my priest left, I swept the floor (dodging my fan), carried refuse out, purified myself to re-enter and carried the water in... anything the priests asked of me. My reward was that when none of them needed anything done, I could lower myself to the floor between the snakes, take Victor's hand into mine and talk to him.

"Wake up," I whispered, "wake up... you can't die."

Once I repeated it enough times, my inflamed eyes finally closed. 'Rhea's' sobs faded out. Pulse fluttered in my fingertips, and I hoped it was Victor's, not mine. I dozed off a few times and woke up each time to find that nothing had changed.

When the red of the dawn outlined the triptych in the doorway, four priests entered, carrying a child. I stirred from my spot to help, but was told to stay put.

"No water for her," a priest instructed me, since it was one of my duties to dole out herb-infused water whenever the patients needed it. "She suffers agony of the stomach."

They said 'her', but it was hard to tell the girl from a boy by the bird's neck and shorn hair. Her extreme thinness didn't seem to come from privation, for her skin and nails were spotless. In one hand, she clutched a wooden horse with wheels, very fine. The collar of her tunic was embroidered with red, a sign of wealth and rank. Her noble parents didn't have to stay and perform a penance of labor. The temple charged them gold instead, for the priesthood of Asclepius was doggedly practical and a terrible year of fevers and poor harvest was coming.

Frankly, I was grateful, because the sanctuary was getting crowded and there was only so much fear and grief I wanted to brush shoulders with.

The second day slipped away much like the first, but in the middle of my second night at the Sanctuary I awoke. Victor lay still on his palet. It was blissfully quiet.

Silence.

That's what woke me up.

Silence and the sensation of cold. I neglected to snuggle in a blanket, dozing off next to Victor. The braziers burned lower—and whose job was it to keep them stocked?. Most of the night must have gone.

'Rhea' wasn't crying, but when I perked my ears up, I caught a fitful movement from her direction and a whimper.

"Praise Asclepius," I whispered with dry lips.

The girl to my right wasn't noisy, but now—

I pushed to my feet. They were so numb, that I nearly stumbled over a snake. Something gleamed at me from the rich girl's bed in the dim light of the expiring braziers: her teeth. The girl's mouth was hanging open. I stashed away my silver medallion with the rest of my belongings, but I didn't need it to know she was dead.

I got up, replenished charcoal in the braziers and went outside, looking for a priest on duty.

The morning was chilly, but I was sweating. Sweating, shaking and chattering my teeth. The Asclepius sanctuary was miraculous, but people died there. They died, despite being admitted by calling in favors, paying a mountain of gold, or because the priests respected their good deeds. They still died.

I bought three days for Victor, and he hadn't stirred yet. We had one more day and two more nights, and that was it. I had to do something to speed up his recovery, but what? I fell to my knees where I stood, indifferent to the later need to wash and purify anything soiled.

"Praise Asclepius. Praise Asclepius. Praise Asclepius." I clutched at the breast of my tunic and tugged at it with every repetition.

My prayer had no impact on the daylight. It spread above the treeline as usual, dappling the indigo shadow under the pine tree boughs with gray. There was no stopping time.

I had to do more, and I had no idea what it was. Just more.