Blood and Sand Page 22

  “He’s not my friend, and you don’t care.”

  Fido put a hand to his chest in mock indignation. “Why, champion—of course I care about your friends. Especially your old friend, Spartacus, whom I hear the two of you are searching for. It would be a mistake, I think, for you to continue on your little quest.”

  Kanut quirked his dark brows. “And why is that?”

  “Because I’m going to find him first,” Fido said. “You see, I was there. I know what Spartacus looks like.”

  “So do we,” Kanut said. “It should be easy enough, finding a giant.”

  Fido laughed loudly. “A giant? Someone has lied to you, freeman. Spartacus was half the size of the champion, small like a boy with short legs and—”

  Xanthus sighed. “Since no one can seem to remember the same man, perhaps we should all save ourselves the trouble and simply stop looking.”

  “We searched the entire city after you left,” Fido said. “Every alley, every house, every insula. Nothing. Spartacus was already gone. That could mean he left the city alone after the match, as you claim. Or it could mean that Spartacus left with you.”

  “Intriguing,” Kanut said. “What else have you heard?”

  Fido scowled.

  “I only ask because I know the Ardeans still speak of Xanthus and Spartacus,” Kanut said. “With fear, too. And no small amount of disgust. But I can see that you are all rather fearful, disgusting men, so I am not at all surprised.”

  Fido turned red in the face, and the Ardeans reached for their weapons.

  Kanut wiggled his brows at Xanthus and grinned. “This is getting fun.”

  “Gods, please strike me down now,” Xanthus muttered.

  “Anyway, I think a household caravan would have noticed a stranger amongst them,” Kanut continued.

  “Unless Spartacus is one of them!” Fido said. “A member of the auxilia, perhaps—a soldier turned gladiator.”

  “A giant who is also a soldier but looks like a young boy? Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” Kanut said.

  “It’s a miracle, Fido—you’ve discovered something that Kanut didn’t already know,” Xanthus said. “You ought to try your luck at walking on water.”

  Kanut turned to Xanthus with a straight face. “You are very humorous, gladiator, I must say. Unexpectedly so.”

  “Thank you,” Xanthus replied with an equally impassive expression. He turned back to Fido. “You’re wasting your time. If Spartacus was a member of the household, why would Timeus bother hiring mercenaries to look for him? I think you’re both wasting your time. You can’t hunt down a ghost, not with rumors.”

  Fido scoffed. “You won’t shake me off so easily, gladiator. I want Spartacus.”

  Kanut nodded in agreement. “As do we. Besides, we’re all still gathering information. There are rumors and then there are rumors.”

  Xanthus sighed heavily. “Well, I wish you all luck with your rumors.”

  “Spartacus would make me a fortune,” Fido said. He cocked his head. “But if you expect me to stop looking, you’ll have to make it worth my while, champion.”

  “Not that I care, but how would you expect me to do that, Fido? With all of the land and gold I have at my disposal?”

  Fido shrugged. “You could fight for me here, in Capua. Then return with me to Ardea—as a free man.”

  “No,” Xanthus said.

  “That was fast,” Kanut commented.

  Fido looked incredulous. “No? You wish to remain a slave? Are you really so happy being Timeus’s pet? I can give you matches you’ve never had before. I can give you greater rewards than Timeus has even thought to give you!”

  Xanthus straightened his back, using his height and his size to stare down at Fido. He wanted his next words to be very clear. “Fido, there is not a single thing in this whole damn world that you could ever offer me.”

  Fido seemed genuinely surprised by his response. “I don’t understand you,” he said, shaking his head.

  Kanut turned to Xanthus with a slight smile. “Oh, I think I understand you perfectly, gladiator.”

  “If you won’t leave with me, then you won’t leave at all,” Fido said. “I certainly won’t set you free to keep searching for Spartacus.”

  “Oh. Now that is a pity,” Kanut said. Then he whistled.

  Xanthus would have sworn the mercenaries melted from the walls. They made quick work of Fido’s men. Their movements were sure, silent. Bodies dropped around Xanthus like stones. He realized that their surrender and capture had all been a ruse to get to Fido.

  Number Two cut through their bonds, glared at Xanthus, then turned and gutted a man who tried to run past them. The mercenaries turned on Fido as one.

  Kanut massaged his wrists before accepting a spear that Number Two held out to him. “Last words?” he asked.

  Fido started to scream. Kanut raised the spear and threw it with such power that fat Fido was launched backward and pinned against the brick wall. But even though the man was dead, the scream didn’t end. It just came from somewhere else.

  Xanthus turned quickly to see a young boy watching from a break in the wall. Before he could run, one of the mercenaries caught him by the collar of his tunic.

  “And who the hell are you?” Kanut asked over the boy’s shouts of protest. A quickly stuffed piece of linen muffled his cries.

  Xanthus guessed the boy couldn’t be more than eight or nine. His knees were scraped raw, and dirt covered every inch of his scrawny frame. From the way his skin hung on his bones, it didn’t look like he’d eaten a proper meal in weeks. The mercenary who held him pulled a dagger from his belt and poised it at the boy’s throat.

  “Not happening,” Xanthus said. He smashed his fist into the man’s face and caught the boy with his free arm. “We’re not going to start killing children now.”

  “Who says this is the start?” Kanut asked. “We don’t need witnesses, gladiator. He can’t live.”

  “No one touches him,” Xanthus said.

  The mercenaries watched him with blank expressions. No one moved.

  “Bring the boy with us,” Number Two finally said. “We’ll free him once we’re out of Capua.”

  The echo of men’s voices began to drift toward them.

  “Vigiles,” Kanut said. He turned to Xanthus. “You want to save him? You can carry him.”

  Xanthus looked at the men lying dead on the ground, at Fido’s bleeding body pinned to the wall. The mercenaries were already hurrying away.

  Damn it all.

  He tossed the boy over his shoulder and ran after them.

  CHAPTER 20

  If Attia got through the day without murdering someone, she would consider it a good day. Or she might just be sorely disappointed.

  She found Lucretia in the early morning, stumbling up the steps to the upper level of the villa and clutching her tattered tunic to her body. Even in the darkness before sunrise, Attia could see the way Lucretia glanced nervously over her shoulder, as though she thought some monster lurked there.

  Attia whispered her name, called to her as quietly as she could. But Lucretia either didn’t hear her or didn’t want to hear her. It wasn’t until Attia stood right beside her that Lucretia even lifted her eyes.

  She refused to let Attia touch her, shrinking away when Attia reached for her hand. It was like another morning in another city. It was happening all over again, just when Lucretia was beginning to heal. Just as she said it would. She winced with every movement. One eye was completely swollen shut. New bruises covered her wrists. Her neck was ringed with red. Spots of blood on her tunic told Attia that her nose had probably bled at some point, too.

  Attia’s first instinct was fury. More than ever she wanted to slit Timeus’s throat and tear the old man apart. It was only the waning light in Lucretia’s eyes that stayed her hand. Lucretia needed Attia’s comfort, not her vengeance. She needed solace and warmth. And Attia wasn’t good at any of that. So she simply took Lucretia to their litt
le garden, and rested the woman’s head in her lap as dawn lightened the sky.

  “It’s getting worse,” Lucretia whispered. “He’s been angry before, but ever since Ardea…” Tears slipped slowly down her cheeks. A few minutes later, she fell into a fitful sleep, her hand curled around Attia’s.

  Sabina found them soon after, ready with her basket of salves and ointments. She sent Attia to fetch Rory’s morning meal, promising she would tend to Lucretia as she had done so often before.

  Attia did what she was told. It seemed she had become a good, domesticated little pet, after all. But her thoughts were still in the garden where Lucretia’s battered body curled in the grass, and her blood screamed with anger and guilt.

  Lucretia said things had gotten worse since Ardea, and the only explanation for that was the sudden disappearance of Spartacus. Timeus’s rage would only escalate the longer he went without finding his prize, and Attia knew that Lucretia couldn’t survive his wrath for much longer. The next time Timeus took his anger out on Lucretia, she could very well die.

  And it will be my fault.

  * * *

  That night, Attia lit Xanthus’s candles by the window but curled herself on the corner of the bed, far from the candles’ light. She’d never minded the shadows. They’d been her friends long before the Maedi had bowed before her. She was a child of the dark, after all—born on the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. Darkness had always nipped at her heels.

  Still, it took hours for her to fall into a fitful sleep. It was long past midnight when her eyes snapped open again, and every hair on her body stood on end.

  Someone was in the room.

  Someone was watching her.

  Without moving, she squinted at the figure leaning against the closed door and prepared herself.

  “I’m impressed, Thracian. You’re a hard one to sneak up on.”

  Albinus.

  “You walk like an elephant,” Attia said. “What are you doing here?”

  “With Xanthus away, I could ask you the same thing.”

  “And yet I asked first.”

  “And yet I don’t care,” he said.

  They stared at each other in the darkness.

  “Truce?” he said after a while.

  “For now.” She sat up on the edge of the bed and hugged Xanthus’s pillow to her chest.

  Albinus took a seat on the chair by the door. “So what are you doing here?”

  “This is where I sleep. Didn’t you know?”

  “Even when Xanthus is absent?”

  “I can’t stay in that house.”

  “Because of the concubine.” It wasn’t a question.

  Attia bristled. “What do you know about Lucretia?”

  “I know that Timeus likes to hurt her just as much as he likes to bed her. The man has a twisted idea of a good time.”

  “How long has she been here?”

  “I’m not really sure. She might have come before us or after.” Albinus shrugged. “I didn’t notice much in the early days.”

  “Timeus deserves to die,” Attia said.

  “Careful, Thracian. It’s one thing to take down Ennius, another to speak of assassinating your master.” Despite his words, Attia heard a note of amusement in his voice.

  “You never answered my question,” Attia said. “What are you doing here?”

  Albinus chuckled. “Gareth—well, Xanthus—asked me to watch over you.”

  “I’m surprised you call him that. I’m surprised he lets you. I’ve wondered if that name is more of a curse than anything.”

  “Memories often are,” Albinus said. “For some of us, at least.”

  “I once knew a man who said his loved ones’ names every night like a prayer, and I knew another who said the names of his enemies. I suppose remembering makes us who we are.”

  “Hmm. Perhaps.” Albinus stood up and nodded to Attia. “Good night, little Thracian. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  * * *

  The rain came down in sheets, beating an unforgiving cadence against the walls of the villa. In the past, Attia had found downpours like this soothing. Winters in Thrace were wet, and it had rained like this on the night she was born. But it had also rained like this the morning the Romans invaded.

  It was the sound of the rain more than anything else that called her to the upper level of the villa. The sky wept, and she wanted to see it. It was really only by chance that when she looked out of one of the windows, she turned and saw Lucretia.

  At the easternmost balcony, Lucretia leaned over a narrow railing, hands braced on either side, black hair dripping heavy around her face. Below, the frothy waves swirled and tumbled, wrestling with each other and the current. Attia could only imagine the sharp rocks and boulders that waited beneath the surface. She called out, but her voice was swallowed by the wind.

  One of Lucretia’s hands slipped, and she pitched forward suddenly, her torso crushing against the balcony. Her face pinched with pain, but her eyes never strayed from the waves.

  Attia ran as fast as she could down the hall, her feet skidding across the marble floor. She burst into the room and shouted Lucretia’s name again.

  The other woman finally turned around and looked over her shoulder.

  “Lucretia, come back,” Attia said, trying to sound calm. “You … you’re too close to the edge.”

  Lucretia slowly swung one leg over the stone balcony. “Am I?”

  “Come back.” Attia extended her hand. “Please.”

  Lucretia smiled painfully. “What for?”

  Attia didn’t have an answer for her. Really, what did Lucretia have to live for? A household that scorned her? Fellow slaves who resented her? A ruthless, violent master who would inevitably kill her?

  Ennius told Attia that Xanthus loved her, but maybe she’d already forgotten what that word meant. She’d loved her mother, her father, her unborn brother, and her people. She’d loved them in a way that meant she would kill or die for any one of them. Was that what love was? The willingness to step before a blade and bleed?

  Then what would she call this? What do you call the willingness to step over a ledge and jump?

  “Lucretia,” she said again, her throat tight and achy. “Please. Come back.” Attia closed the distance between them and gently pulled Lucretia’s shivering body into her arms. The other woman felt as cold and brittle as ice.

  “Almost,” Lucretia said through chattering teeth. “I was almost able to do it.”

  “Let’s get you warm.” Attia half carried her to Sabina’s small room. This time, she didn’t leave her side.

  * * *

  “It was intentional, wasn’t it?” Xanthus asked Kanut. “Letting Fido’s men take us. That’s what you were scouting for, not a clear road. You wanted to find them.”

  “Yes,” Kanut said. “And now we know what he knows. Well. Knew.”

  “You could have told me.”

  “It was more amusing this way. Besides, you’re not a particularly convincing liar.”

  Xanthus knelt down in the middle of the road. It had rained earlier that morning, softening the dirt and showing telltale signs of a caravan—horses, men, wagons.

  “A group of fifty, at least,” Kanut said. He looked up and down the road, squinting his eyes. “They couldn’t have passed more than a few hours ago.”

  “They’re going south,” Xanthus said.

  “To Pompeii.”

  “Do you have any idea who they are?”

  “Well, they could be men, women, children, old, young, sick, healthy, soldiers, merchants—”

  “Thank you, Kanut,” Xanthus said. “Your insights are illuminating as ever.”

  “It’s a caravan, gladiator. Probably one of the patricians moving to a warm villa for the winter. Why does it matter?”

  “We should know who’s on the road with us.”

  “Ah, but we are not on the road,” Kanut said with a chuckle. “We’re over there in the trees, remember?”


  “Do you know who the patrician might be?” Xanthus asked.

  “From the size of the caravan, perhaps a magistrate or a senator. Perhaps it is Tycho Flavius.”

  Xanthus turned sharply. “Timeus said he wasn’t expected for another two weeks, at least.”

  “Oh, of course,” Kanut said. “Silly of me to think that the House of Flavius would ever show disrespect for the schedules of others.”

  Xanthus stood. At his full height, he towered over Kanut so that the other man was forced to crane his neck and look up. “What do you know?”

  Kanut shielded his deep gray eyes from the sun and smiled. “I know that Naples is less than a day’s ride away. We should continue our mission, gladiator. Unless, of course, you don’t think Spartacus is actually in Naples. Are you ready to share your secrets?”

  “I said that I don’t know anything about the man. Not everyone has secrets, Kanut.”

  “Then you won’t mind going on to Naples. Just to be sure.” Kanut turned and vaulted up onto his horse. “Shall we?”

  Xanthus glanced back down the road, looking in the direction of the caravan, in the direction of Pompeii and Attia. He wanted to go back. If Kanut was right and that caravan carried Tycho Flavius, then Xanthus wanted to be there to protect Attia. And to make sure she didn’t do something reckless. But he worried that if he insisted on going back to Pompeii, Kanut—and inevitably Timeus—would have quite a few questions. Questions that Xanthus knew he could never answer.

  However much Xanthus disliked it, he realized that he stood the best chance of protecting Attia by making sure her identity was kept secret, even if he had to do it from afar. So he climbed onto his horse and nodded to Kanut.

  “Naples,” he said.

  CHAPTER 21

  The household went into a massive panic just after dawn.

  Attia watched them from her vantage point on the second-floor balcony. Slaves and servants and guards and Valeria—all running around the courtyard of the villa like ants. All frantically trying to put the house in order before the guests arrived.

  Tycho Flavius was two weeks early. He would be at the villa by nightfall.

  The whole charade of welcoming a person who was obviously not welcomed tired Attia. She was witnessing firsthand the Romans’ greatest skills: the fake smiles, the cold, open arms. The dagger in the back. It was exactly what Timeus deserved.