The fight was still very much on, and the arena bubbled with excitement. Breath hitched in my throat as every hand in the stadium extended forward, thumbs pointing. They knew and liked Junius. They wouldn't surrender him to this provincial behemoth.

Upward, upward, upward! I yelled inwardly, lifting my thumb.

"I'm fucking ‌disappointed!" Brutus hollered. Junius' blood splattered his cheek. He wiped his face, smearing the splotches into lines that ran across his nose and snarling mouth. "Disappointed Maximus wasn't here! This is some‌ bullshit!"

"Boo! Boo! Boo!" arena bleated like sheep. Our schools promised them a showdown between Brutus and me, and they didn't get it. As the mood started to turn sullen, Brutus wouldn't let the jeers die down, wouldn't let them forget that they were unsatisfied.

"Boo!" He swirled his sword until it pointed downward. "Boo!"

Repeating his gesture, a wave rolled along my row, thumbs flipping one after another, only stopping at me.

I squared my shoulders, as if I could break this tide, then twisted my head to look at the upper rows. Maybe common sense and compassion prevailed in the cheap seats... but no. No. Of course not.

Downward thumbs waved at me from everywhere. A sea of them. An ocean! Even the man who had gossiped about Brutus succumbed to the mass bloodlust—this surprised me more than it should have had.

Junius fought bravely, and Brutus cheated. Anyone who knew anything, anyone with a shred of sense, should have seen it, even if they didn't know that Brutus was a monster. Yet the sheep demanded that the wolf ate the dog. 

How? Why?

I squirmed, as if I could escape this crowd and its wisdom. Kill the barbarian! They're poor man's gladiators. They promised us two Fidelis boys, not this bullcrap.

I gritted my teeth and kept my eyes open, because I owed Junius more than that. In the end, this was all I could give.

Brutus lifted his shield up, then brought it savagely down on my best student's neck. The edge wasn't sharp enough to decapitate him, but the blow crushed his windpipe. Brutus laughed uproariously, and the heralds echoed him.

"Rufius Fulgentius' school loses! Come see the rematch in two weeks' time," the bastards chorused, then their voices fell out of synch, each tempting the crowd in his own way.

"Will Maximus fight? Find out in two weeks!"

"Who do you want to win? Make your wagers!"

"Collect your winnings! Collect your winnings!"

I walked out of the arena like a drunk man.

Despite the pain in my leg, I yearned to keep walking and get out of Fidelium. Then I would climb the Healers' Hill. I would traverse the Appian Peaks if I had to and cross the border of the Fidus Empire... Then... Then I would walk into the sea at the far end of the continent. My first lover told me it was deep and cold. It sounded perfect.

I didn't get farther than the tunnel before I had to sober up.

Laurentius sat by the entrance to Fulvia's surgery, shaking his fists, repeating, "We'd almost had the mother-fuckers!"

I squeezed his shoulder, fighting sickness. Quintus crouched in the corner. Didius stood next to him and Valentine hovered further down the tunnel, his head drooping. Rufius Fulgentius was either smart enough to make himself scarce, or he was too busy collecting the kickbacks from his agents. Let him... then let him choke on his winnings.

Junius' body lay on Fulvia's table already, ready to be washed and anointed for the funeral. I stroked his face, thinking to close his eyes, but this was Junius, so he'd already done it before he died. Death hadn't contorted his features yet, so the ruin of his mouth seemed to fold into the last cynical smile. Was it a response to the smirks of those who pointed their fingers downward on him? To Brutus' snarl?

"Do right by him, sunshine," I told Fulvia. "Call on Hecate, if you have to. Call on Hades... I don't care." She probably needed magic to put his face back together to look human.

"I will," the crone promised. "But living first, handsome. Come here, and I'll put a proper bandage on your ribs, not this hedge-healing."

I opened my mouth to refuse.

"Free of charge," Fulvia said.

"You shouldn't say things like that." I half-sat, half-stood against the table, taking weight off my cursed right side. "Particularly when you know I can't afford to turn you down. The rematch is in two weeks."

"When you're my age, you say whatever you damn want." She clicked her tongue and this stupid sound nearly broke my resolve not to cry. Junius made it when he had slathered me with medicine.

"Go home. Prepare for the funeral... and get angry," I told Laurentius, Didius, Quintus, and Valentine. "Get good and angry, and tell everyone else to get good and angry. Tell them, I won't rest until I cleave Brutus in two and rip his heart out."

"We'll go," Quintus spoke for the bereaved trio. "But what about you? Can you return home on your own?"

"The litter is the full day's rental, remember? I'll be fine."

I was nowhere near fine when I set out of the Colosseum with a fresh bandage. How was it possible that a crone with gouty fingers did a better job than a strapping lad? How was it possible that the lad lay dead on the crone's table, dead, while she bustled around it?

How? How? How?

My head pounded so much from not finding an answer to this question that it overshadowed all other pain. I still rode back in the litter, because it had curtains to shut off the world.

The smell of garlic and mutton wafted from Allia's kitchen to the dormitory, but the sounds of the training swords and shouts from the yard didn't slow down. This was the first time in my career as a lanista that my guys stayed out this late without me yelling at them. On any other day, my heart would sing for joy... Today, I limped to my cot and dropped my head into my hands.

The gladiators showed up at the shop in their teens and rarely lived to see their twentieth year. I was twenty-eight, and would turn twenty-nine if I survived till the end of this summer. An old dog, as Rufius Fulgentius had called me. They were barbarians. I was Fidelis. I wasn't supposed to get attached, to pick favorites, which made me a perfect lanista, tough and fair.

But how could I not grow close to them? Closer than to my heroic brother I hadn't seen since I was fifteen? Definitely closer than I ever had been to my father, or my brothers-in-law. These barbarians had become my comrades, my friends... My brothers, if I wanted to quote Victor, though he would scoff if I said that.

Quiet footfalls approached, then stopped indecisively. I massaged my eyeballs without lifting my head. "Go away, Quintus. Train. Or eat."

He crouched in front of me, because he was going through this stubborn phase, as frustrating as a pebble in your sandal.

"Maximus?" he said in a reedy voice, before his hands cupped mine. "Do you need anything? Anything."

Did Junius' death kick him back into adolescence? It made it harder for me to chase him away. I almost wished he had said something stupid, like it wasn't my fault. Then I would have a reason to yell. I couldn't do it when he shook and spoke in dulcet tones.

"No," I said.

"Anything, Maximus." He squeezed my fingers lightly.

I twitched, freeing myself as gently as I could. I had to lift my head too, to look into his face. It wasn't easy. He had expressive eyes, and I hated the shades of suffering shifting behind them.

"I don't need anything."

Tears glistened between his eyelashes. "And if I ask you why, you'll call me a child, right? How can you be so blind?"

"No, not this time. This time I'll tell you, 'there's someone else'."

He breathed into the pause. Pity tugged at my gut, but I braced myself.

"We're gladiators, Quintus. Slaves. We can't choose who to fight and who to love when we're paid, but outside that... When we have a choice, we have to choose even more deliberately than anyone else. Even when they don't return our feelings."

Quintus chewed his lower lip. "You... you don't have to explain that to me."

I expected him to get up and leave after that and maybe drunk himself into a stupor for the first time in his life, but he didn't move from his spot by my feet.

"You should go see him," he said.

I slowly inventoried my aches. Quintus was too young to understand how sadness eroded a man drop by drop. Even a promise of hope, joy, or love could replenish him in an instant. I remembered how it used to be; how I could fight, drink, run to a lover and sleep for an hour before doing it all over again. I used to, but not anymore. "I'm exhausted."

"I told the litter to wait," he said.

Sweat gathered on my neck, sticky and hot. See Victor tonight? My body had failed me yesterday, denying me the luxury of visiting with him. Today I failed everyone. Junius lay on the table in Fulvia's room, the last stop on his journey to the gladiators' cemetery.

If I came today and told Victor about his death, what would he think of me? Nothing good... just as things improved between us, and the glimmer of hope teased me that maybe one day... no. I failed that too.

"Thank you, Quintus, but it's not proper. Tell the litter-bearers that their services are no longer required." I dropped my head into my hands again.

Quintus dashed toward the doorway swifter than Mercury*, eager to do anything for me, no matter how menial. So fast he went, that my heart rebelled against my mind. 

"Wait, Quintus. Wait!"

***

*Mercury—a Roman god of thieves, translators and travelers, as well as a swift messenger for all the other gods