After another fortnight of unseasonal storms, sun burned through the clouds with vengeance, eager to dry the fields and the muddy road to the Healers' Hill. I trudged it daily, sweating, slipping and sliding, while Fidelium celebrated Flora's* favor. Violets dotted every hollow overnight, and just like these wee flowers, Victor rose from his sickbed with the first hint of sunshine.

I came into the temple's yard, and there he was, sweeping the storm-blown pine needles. After three or four strokes of the mop, he stopped, leaning on its handle to rest, but, Senators, he was basically dead a few days ago. He shouldn't have been able to stand upright yet, let alone move without help.

Victor didn't see me, so I stayed by the gatepost to marvel at the sight of a tall man leaning on his makeshift walking stick. Barbarians healed faster than Fidelis sometimes, but I'd seen anything like that in my eleven years at the arena. After a moment, Victor bit his lip, sighed and swept left and right. He operated his mop more like a scythe, as if he had never swept floors in his life. So yup, I definitely have seen nothing like that.

The familiar young priest passed Victor and I could have sworn wonder flickered in his eyes too. He even cracked a smile, making my stomach churn. Here was Victor serving sick Fidelis after the temple of Asclepius refused to help him because he was a heathen.

"Ave," I called the priest. "Victor is a gladiator and our owner sent me to see that he stays in shape before going back to Fidelium. It's better if he rests more, rather than wasting his energy on menial tasks. I paid you already for his healing."

Don't take me wrong, Senators, I would have paid again, paid any price for this miracle, but... why did it have to happen in the first place? It wasn't right.

"This is not payment," the priest replied with another smile. "We couldn't keep him in bed, if we tried. Just look at the size of him."

Victor turned to the sound of my voice and nodded to confirm the priest's words. "Ave, Maximus. I was bored."

His wide brows lifted in surprise. He probably didn't expect to see me so soon or at all. Or he didn't think about me. I couldn't tell him I couldn't stay away, just as I couldn't tell him what I had to do to save his life.

"Ave, Victor. I'll make sure you're not bored." I separated myself from the gates and crossed the yard, sidestepping the priest, who slipped away right afterward.

"What do you have in mind, taskmaster?" Victor softened the last word with a chuckle. Had someone blabbed to him about my deal with the Empress and the temple? Otherwise, how could I explain this pensive glance? He would find out eventually, of course, once he returned to Fidelium, but while he lived at the hilltop, away from the arena, I didn't want him to know. I outgrew my youthful neediness, so I didn't expect admiration like the first time I sold myself.

"There is Apollo's shrine on the bluff, over there. Let's see how many days it would take you to gain enough strength to climb all the way."

"Today," he said.

With his recovery going so fast, I couldn't be sure if he was bragging. He looked thinner from his ordeal. His hair started growing out. While too short to fall into his eyes yet, they curled into ringlets at the base of his neck. He would look as shaggy as Quintus, if they didn't make him shave soon. Unlike Quintus, Victor's stubble covered his cheeks, evenly, a man's beard, not an adolescent's tufts. 'Just enough to tickle', I thought and cleared my throat. "Oh?"

He tossed his head. The curls bounced forward over his ear. He tacked it back. "I can do it if you can, lanista. I understand it's a hard climb up the hill and you look winded."

I didn't tell him to knock it off and led the way.

Victor kept the pace at first, but after a hundred yards, his breath shortened to huffs. He kept twisting his head away from me, pretending to admire the apple trees. I made conversation to cover his labored breathing, something that didn't require him to answer. Smatterings of philosophy I picked up in my wayward youth served nicely. One could go on and on about ethics and rhetoric without ever asking your interlocutor for his opinion—my first lover had taught me this and many other valuable lessons.

At the teal edge of pine boughs, Victor finally stopped. He no longer had to pretend to hide the movements of his chest as he heaved in his breath. Anyone would gulp this dizzying, pine-scented air, even me.

"I love it here." Victor leaned his back against a pine without care that its gray sap was staining his tunic. Yes, he acted like someone who had servants to launder his garments.

Who are you? I wondered, studying his proud profile and hooded eyes. What's your real name?

I didn't dare ask, too afraid to ruin the peaceful moment by stirring divisive memories. Better erase every trace of racial enmity off of them, as if memory was a tablet with a waxed surface you could edit any time.

The forest made conversation unnecessary, anyway. The needles rustled with every breath of wind, and the invisible birds chirped somewhere in the thickets hoping to attract a mate with the best spring song.

Victor smiled at me with an insuppressible smile of a young man on the mend. A responding smile curved my lips before I could check myself, just as carefree. Perhaps, the fresh wind in the hills carried away years and worries.

"Tomorrow," Victor promised with a new spark in his eyes. "We'll gaze upon the shrine you want to see so badly tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Victor promised. "We'll gaze upon the shrine you want to see so badly tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he promised. "We'll gaze upon the shrine you want to see so badly tomorrow."

"Technically, it's Apollo's shrine, not mine, but it's a deal."

"Deal."

Victor was as good as his word: the next day he hiked all the way to the shrine. While we rested there in silence, gazing over the Apennine Peaks, I decided I wouldn't tell anyone how magically fast Victor was healing. Not Rufius Fulgentius, not Quintus, not my other students. Nobody. They wouldn't believe it, and it wasn't their damn business.

So, when the apple blossoms opened in the temple's orchard, I kept mum. Then their petals rained whiter than snow, and I still kept my secret. Even when the flowers thickened into tiny fruit, and it became me who slowed us down on our walks, I still didn't tell anyone.

My return to the arena proceeded akin to a wagon wheel finding the rut, when it screeches on its axis, but rolls on anyway. I paid my dues there, like I had paid for a long summer for Victor. 

I paid for our walks in the pine forest and for him teaching me barbarian songs and the names of violets and trees in his language, for conversations that flowed around anything contentious like a stream flows around the rocks in its path.

I had every right to keep my spring secrets to myself. Every. Damn. Right. And if I didn't, I was too happy to understand it. We were happy hiding away from the truth.  

***

* Flora is the Goddess of Spring