Peering in through the door, she saw Dona Leona emerging from a deep, steaming pool, water running in rivulets down her bare body. Her hair was damp, her face bereft of paint. It occurred to Mia that she was a beauty; full hips and fuller lips. Her eyes roamed Leona’s curves, wreathed in steam, and she wondered at the thrill of it. Why, downstairs in the barracks, seeing naked bodies meant nothing, but here, her skin was prickling. Heart beating faster. Thinking, perhaps, of another beauty on Aurelius’s bed, her taste on the young don’s mouth, her golden kisses sinking ever lower.
She thought of Ashlinn, then. The kiss they’d shared when Mia left the Church. That kiss that lasted a moment too long. Maybe not long enough?
Mia shook her head. Cursing herself for a novice. Ashlinn J?rnheim killed Tric. Ashlinn J?rnheim betrayed the Church and her sacred vows to avenge her father …
She looked across the hall, caught her reflection in a small mirror on the wall.
Remind you of anyone else you know?
Magistrae was waiting faithfully beside Leona’s bath, slipping a long robe about her mistress. Leona seemed pensive, chewing her fingernail and staring at the small statue of Trelene that also served as the water spout. She sighed as Magistrae tried to rub the tension from her shoulders.
“What troubles, love?” the older woman asked.
Leona smiled. “How do you know I’m troubled?”
“These were the hands that delivered you into the world,” Magistrae smiled in return. “This was the bosom that nursed you. Though I’ll not claim to always know your mind, I know when dark thoughts fill it, sure and true.”
Leona closed her eyes as Magistrae worked a knot in her neck.
“… I’m having dreams again, Anthea. About Mother.”
“O, love,” Magistrae cooed. “Long years have passed since then.”
“I know that, as I sit here now. But I’m always a child in the dreams. A little girl, small and afraid. Just as I was when…”
Leona chewed a fingernail and shook her head, silence ringing in the bathhouse.
“It’s an awful thing,” she finally sighed. “To live in fear.”
“Then do not, love. Look how far you’ve come. Look at all you’ve built.”
“I do. But all I’ve built stands at the edge of ruin, Anthea.” The dona breathed deep, clenched her jaw. “I need coin. Marcus left me with little beyond these walls and the funds I spent reshaping them. He was not a careful man with his money.”
“You two were well suited, then.”
Leona smiled sadly. “I deserve that, I suppose.”
“Do you miss him, love?” Magistrae asked, swiftly changing subjects.
“… No,” Leona sighed. “Marcus was fair enough, but I never loved him. And … I hated needing him. Does that make me awful?”
“It makes you honest,” the older woman smiled.
Silence fell again, Leona gnawing at her fingertips and staring at the wall. The dona seemed younger in here than she did in the yard, her armor cast aside with none but trusted eyes to see. Almost like the little girl she spoke of being in her dreams. Magistrae kept kneading her shoulders, occasionally chewing her lip. When the woman spoke again, it was with obvious trepidation.
“Leona, I know you and your father—”
“No, Anthea.”
“But he has coin aplenty, surely if you—”
“No!” She turned on her nurse, blue eyes flashing. “You forget your place. And I’ll not hear another word of it. I will die before I accept a single copper beggar from that man, do you understand me?”
The magistrae’s eyes found the floor.
“Aye, Domina,” she said.
Watching from the shadows, Mia found herself saddened. She could sense Anthea was truly concerned for Leona, could see the barrier between them had been worn thin over decades. But as much as Anthea cared for her mistress, she’d always be a servant. Though she’d fed Leona at her breast, Anthea would never be her mother.
Still, it was one thing to listen in on a conversation that might decide her fate, entirely another intrude on such a private moment. Information was power, and power was advantage. But Mia had learned enough here.
Stealing down the corridor behind Mister Kindly, she found the broad dining hall. All the old furniture was still here—the long dining table where her parents had entertained, the wooden chairs she’d crawled and hid among as a little girl. Some of the same tapestries hung on the walls—Goddess Tsana wreathed in flame, Goddess Trelene cloaked in rolling waves.
Footsteps. Approaching. Clink thump. Clink thump.
Mia and Mister Kindly slipped behind one of the long, heavy drapes. She could have just cloaked herself in shadows and listened to Executus and Leona talk, but in truth she wanted to see their faces. See if the armor Leona wore outside these walls was the same armor she wore for this legend of the arena, who served her instead of the man who’d raised him up a champion.
Arkades limped into the room, found it empty. Jaw clenched, he sat at the long table to wait. Mia saw he’d bathed, brushed his beard and his long salt-and-pepper hair. The scar at his face and his weathered skin made it hard to tell, but she supposed him in his mid-thirties. Life on the sand hadn’t been kind, but his physique, the sheer magnetism from a life spent winning victories before the adoring crowd …
He’d put aside the leather armor he wore in the yard, dressed in finery instead. His dark doublet was embroidered with the Falcons of Remus and the Lions of Leonides. His walking stick was also set with a lion’s head. Mia again wondered at his loyalties. Here he was, serving Leona. And yet he still wore her father’s lion on his chest.
Looking about, Arkades lifted a flask from inside his doublet like a thief, took a long, deep pull.
“We have goblets if you prefer, Executus.”
Arkades startled, rising to his feet as Leona appeared in the doorway behind, carrying a bottle of wine and two goblets. His eyes widened a touch at the sight of her, and Mia couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow herself. Leona’s hair was wet, she was barefoot and still clad in her bathrobe, which was tied only loosely. If one looked hard enough from the right angle, very little was being left to the imagination.
“Mi Dona,” Arkades said, bowing with his eyes to the floor and studiously avoiding looking hard from any kind of angle at all.
Mia noted the small smirk on Leona’s face as she walked to the head of the table, flopped into a chair. She poured herself a glass, putting her foot up on the wood. Her robe slipped up, exposing her leg all the way to the thigh.
“Help yourself,” she smiled.
“… Mi Dona?”
Leona motioned to the second goblet, the bottle.
“It’s awful, I’m afraid. But it cleaves to the task. Here.” Leona leaned forward, poured a glass and pushed it across the table. Arkades kept his eyes fixed anywhere but on her chest, practically writhing as he returned to his chair.
She keeps him off-balance with it, Mia noted. He’s ten years her senior. Twice her size. A warrior of a hundred battles, champion of the magni, and the poor bastard doesn’t even know which way to look when she walks into the room.
“So,” Leona said, leaning back and sipping from her cup. “You have thoughts. Ones most pressing that simply must be shared.”
Arkades nodded, his embarrassment evaporating as talk turned to the collegium.
“Matilius, Mi Dona.”
“What of him?”
“His sale to Caito—”
“Was a necessity,” she interrupted. “The purse at Blackbridge was not enough to cover expenses this month. Our creditors press, and they will have their coin.”