In the first days of autumn, Fidelium celebrated the good fortune of our ancestors with the Miraculous Harvest Festival. Messalina Augusta outdid herself. She opened Imperial granaries to the city's poor to make up for the decidedly pauper harvest. She spent generously on the annual festivities and extended the Great Games to thirty days from two weeks.

I sensed something sinister behind the Empress' relentless drive to immerse the city into fake jollity, beyond calming the populus ahead of Claudius Caesar's return from the frontier. Knowing her, Messalina Augusta could have been eager to seize her last chance for fun, but I just couldn't shake the feeling of dread. It clung to me like a mantle.

Unlike me, Fidelium didn't worry about Messalina Augusta's reasons to treat them. The citizens responded with enthusiasm, unaware that merriment wouldn't stop the winter from coming. They just didn't want to think of it yet.

Our school was profiting and Rufius Fulgentius shone like a freshly minted sestertius. We qualified both main quads for the Great Games, twice as many men as I had hoped. To my secret relief, and his chagrin, Quintus lost an early qualifier, so that left us with seven, which was plenty.

As Victor had promised me, he won everything. He shone in quads, in doubles and in personal combat. His fame spread like a wildfire through the partying city. He was powerfully built, young, and, after his about-face, insatiably hungry for fame. The crowd couldn't get enough of him.

He also kept his other promise, avoiding me like I was a curse. If he thought I would ignore him as well, he was drinking his wine undiluted.

I watched him train; I watched him from the stands whenever I could, to make sure he didn't slip up. The pride I took in his triumphs was almost enough to stave away my apprehension. Almost. I still didn't understand what his plan was, but his zeal, his devil-may-care attitude, this sudden change in him... I lay at night thinking about it, my fears chasing Morpheus from my side.

Messalina Augusta planned the grand final of the Games to celebrate Claudius' return, but Victor beat my winning streak from the year I had become the Champion of Champions well before that. Don't let the fact that this year's Games were larger, so to make up the numbers, Messalina Augusta had recruited many more gladiators, not all of them elite fighters, take away from Victor's achievement. He was magnificent.

Still, a suspicion gnawed on me with a renewed force on the day Victor beat my record.

The matches weren't done, and the jester was doing his best to shorten the mid-day break, when a gray-veiled bodyguard appeared next to me at the Colosseum, in the stands. Was it the same woman who scorned me on the day I had surrendered my rudis? I thought she was, although I had already mistaken a beggar for her on the night we had avenged Junius.

"Ave," I said to Augusta's bodyguard.

She only crooked her finger at me. With a shrug, I followed her to the Imperial box.

Rufius Fulgentius was already in attendance, brimming with cheer. His gut exposed it as a fake, however. Once protruding happily, his belly sagged into a prune, barely masked by his toga. I took my place behind him, after a quick prayer that the weight he'd lost came primarily from cutting out beans from his diet.

We didn't have to wait long for Victor to be brought in before the Empress, before he had time to wipe off the arena's dust and blood. I couldn't disagree with that presentation. Fresh from the fight, glistening with sweat over pumped muscles, Victor looked breathtaking.

Naturally, the Praetorian guards had confiscated his twin swords before admitting him to the Empress' presence. I couldn't ask if he fought in my favorite style to spite me or to show off his perfect body, that didn't just ooze danger and sex. Victor's body was a honed weapon. One word from me, and the Praetorians would open his marble-worthy midriff with his own blades... but I kept my peace.

Messalina Augusta clapped her hands. "Impressive display of valor, Victor."

The noblemen overflowing the box sprung into action.

"A Hercules!" someone exclaimed. A round-faced matron assured her neighbors that Victor's prowess was worthy of his name. While she said it, one of her eyes slanted at the Empress to check if the words were loud enough to reach Messalina Augusta's ears, while not so loud as to give the impression of aiming to be overheard. So, it was common knowledge that the Empress gave Victor his stage name.

I thought she would be more discreet, but she flaunted her interest, ogling Victor without shame. Then, without a warning, she turned to me. "Truly, we witnessed the case of a student surpassing his master. Isn't that so, Maximus Secundus?"

It seemed improbable that the Empress of the Fidus Empire planned something so elaborate to humiliate me. Who was I to warrant such an extravagant expense? A nobody! But the mocking smile I knew so well was back, judging me, finding me lacking, taunting me... what in Hades' name... The etiquette frowned at laughing into royal faces, so I bowed low, hiding a sardonic grin.

Rufius Fulgentius must have decided it wasn't nearly enough. "Messalina Augusta speaks the truth," he hummed in the monotone of a bumblebee, "absolute truth. Surpassed, that's the word! Obliterated his lanista's record. Our new champion."

"Victor is not a champion yet." The Empress pouted. I almost felt for her, since the reprobate had the same effect on me.

"There is, of course, only one way to be sure," she said and her pout refolded into a devious, thirsty grimace, "but, alas, it's impossible according to the rules."

Rufius Fulgentius swayed on his feet. The Empress wished to see Victor fight me, that much was clear. Fortunately, it was forbidden by a rare protective measure still written into the Great Games' rules. We belonged to the same school, so we couldn't be pitched against one-another in a one-on-one deathmatch.

Just as Rufius Fulgentius was about to pass out from the dilemma of defying the Empress versus ruining his livelihood by defying the custom, Messalina Augusta's manicured fingernail came to rest at the corner of her lips. She tapped it. "Alas, alas, I would never break the rules of the arena. I respect it too much."

"Of course, of course," Rufius Fulgentius mumbled, but Messalina Augusta didn't give him time to even exhale in relief.

"Unless you want to sell Maximus?" she asked playfully. "Maybe to Arsenius? He needs to replace Brutus."

And his gladiators wanted to flay me alive. I glared at the Empress, but her demeanor flipped around like a weathervane on a stormy day.

"I'm kidding, I'm only kidding!" Her laughter was laced with silver bells' ringing and mania. "I'm sure the old hound has a fight or two left in him. But it's such a pity that he'd handed in his rudis only to be immediately eclipsed by a younger gladiator!"

The lackeys passed her words to one another with giggles, whispers and meaningful glances. My stomach glued to my spine. I counted to ten, wishing for the whipping to be over already.

She either took pity on me or got tired of playing with her food. At any rate, she exclaimed as if a new idea had only just occurred to her.

"I know! I know!" She clapped, her green eyes shining brighter than emeralds swinging against her white neck.

"Why don't we give Maximus a chance to save face during the last week of the Great Games?"

The court gasped, but the tiniest hint of pout silenced them right after. Their Empress wasn't done, so it wasn't time to praise her wisdom and wit yet.

"I will engage Victor as my bodyguard to compensate for losing revenue, and my husband the Emperor will decide who should challenge for the title of the Champion of Champions from your school in the Grand Final."

The lackeys finally had their chance to abase themselves, but my eyes snapped wide-open, expecting some idiocy from Victor. For once, he said nothing, standing at attention, a wicked smile flickering on his lips. It was worse than a tantrum, because maybe, things went according to his plan, his actual plan.

Any loyal citizen in my place should have shouted, "Seize him! He's Inimicus!" and I didn't. Who cares if another slave's smile spooked a slave? Plus, my moment to act was gone. My betters were talking among themselves.

"What say you, noble Rufius Fulgentius? Is this fair?" Messalina Augusta asked, as if my owner could offer any other reply than an enthusiastic 'yes'?

Messalina Augusta didn't even look at him.

Her green gaze swept between Victor's figure, straight as an arrow, and me. At the arena, the jester could have been the greatest ever, and she wouldn't care. She was already having more fun at my expense than she had in years; it seemed. Why, why couldn't she just leave me alone? It had been years!

Victor knelt with his signature grace and thanked the Empress for the privilege to serve her as a bodyguard. The privilege that let him come as close to the Empress of the hated Fidus Empire as a man of our station could hope.

I followed his example with a heavy heart. This was another chance to denounce him. Again, I didn't take it. Every man may choose his doom, even the Enemy, my beloved. As I was escorted out of the Imperial box, I met Victor's glance. His eyes shone with so much gratitude, it hurt. I saluted in farewell, too numb to make a sign for good luck.

***

Just before the moonrise, the vigils found me in the training yard, beating the last of the straw out of Victor's favorite dummy.

Bone-weary, I barely braced when their Captain punched me in the gut. His fist still connected solidly enough for air to expel out of my mouth with a puff. I grunted and dropped my rudii to the sand.

"Come with us!" the vigil growled and took another swing.

The minion closest to the Captain grabbed him by the shoulder. "Illustrious Captain, maybe ease off? That's Maximus, and they say our Empress and him, they used to..." he finished his speech with a two-tonal whistle.

Either the Captain didn't credit rumors besmirching his Augusta's virtue or what he dished out was considered mild by his standards, but he roughed me up pretty good before dragging me off to the palace.

I didn't care, because dread that hung over my head for weeks thickened to something far more tortuous than any physical pain. Whatever shape Victor's doom took, it fell tonight. The vigils took me to see it, just like I was in the stands for his triumphs in the arena. Mithra's bull, how was my heart supposed to remain whole?