“Gladiatrix.” Cai inclined his head, giving no indication whatsoever that he and I had almost kissed only a handful of days earlier. Or had we? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure.
In the bright light of day, Cai seemed a very different creature than the one I’d strolled through a moonlit garden with. Even dressed in a simple soldier’s tunic and leather sandals and not in a decurion’s armor, there was an air of command about him. And something else—something I couldn’t put my finger on. It almost seemed for a moment as if he was angry.
Focus, I chastised myself. You’re imagining things.
“I’m afraid I don’t know how satisfying a seasoned soldier like yourself will find such a bout, my lord.” I grinned as I tightened the leather thong on the bracer wrapped around my forearm, trying to lighten his mood. “I am, after all, only a woman. With weak wrists.”
He didn’t smile. Instead, he stalked past me and plucked two wooden practice blades off the weapons rack and tossed me one.
“There’s only one shield left.” He gestured to the parma, one of the small round shields favored by many of the gladiatrices.
I considered it briefly. But it was just a practice spar. Neither of us wore any armor. There was no real danger in the exercise, and so I declined.
“I’ll do without,” I said. “Thank you. I wouldn’t want an unfair advantage.”
Cai shrugged and strapped the shield onto his own arm. I blinked at him in surprise, but he ignored my reaction and picked up his wooden gladius, sinking into a ready stance. I remembered the first time I’d encountered him, how arrogant he’d seemed. And I wondered if the other night I hadn’t been imagining things, and if this was the true Decurion.
I bent my knees and rocked forward on the balls of my feet, waiting for him to come at me. Cai didn’t even blink as he stared me down. There was no indication of where his attack would come from . . .
And suddenly, I was ducking for my life!
Cai’s blade—even blunted and wooden as it was—would have made a pretty dent in the side of my head if my instinct to move—now!—had come a fraction of an instant later. But, before I was even aware of it, I was now crouched in front of the Decurion, having narrowly avoided his blow.
He followed up with a second diagonal slash, and I went from a crouch to a diving roll to evade it. When I sprang back up to my feet, I swept my sword in a vertical block over my right shoulder and prayed to the Morrigan I’d anticipated his next move correctly. I had—for all the good it did me. The force of his next slash knocked the wooden blade from my suddenly numb fingers and sent it tumbling across the yard. I glanced up at his face, startled. I was even more surprised by what I saw there.
Cai wasn’t Cai anymore. Not in that moment.
He was Caius Antonius Varro, soldier of the legions of Rome.
He was my enemy.
Wordlessly, he stepped back and pointed to my sword with his, indicating that I should go pick it up so that we could continue. I flexed my hand and shook it out, wincing as the blood flowed back into my prickling fingers.
I felt anger flare in my chest as I picked up my sword and turned to face him again, circling warily to my left this time as Cai advanced. Facing him as warrior to warrior, with the harsh sun carving the angles of his face into sharp relief, I saw nothing of the young man who’d seemed so very concerned for my well-being only a few nights earlier.
If it was, indeed, Cai’s intent to demonstrate to the ludus at large that I was no more than . . . well, no more than target practice to him, he was certainly going about it enthusiastically. And with an intensity that left my sword-side shoulder and arm burning as blow after blow from his blade rained down on mine. Meanwhile, my own blows fell harmlessly on his shield.
“Don’t think, gladiatrix!” he admonished me. “Don’t hesitate. There is breath and there is movement, and that is all. Now, fight! Move!”
He was relentless, he was humorless. And while I didn’t think he was trying to hurt me, he was definitely trying to beat me. After a quarter hour or so, I no longer cared that I’d almost kissed him. Furious, I realized that a part of me had been holding back, and I gave myself over to the fight. I was a warrior. I was a gladiatrix. And if Caius Varro had come to me that day looking for a fight, by the goddess, he was going to get exactly that.
“Are you so sure you don’t want that shield now?” he asked through gritted teeth. Our blades had locked up and we were nose to nose, grunting and thrusting, trying to outbalance each other.
“I don’t like hiding behind things,” I grunted back. “It feels like cheating.”
Except I was about to do just that. Cheat. As we strained against one another, leaning heavily on our swords, I let my focus drift off to one side of the courtyard . . . and let out a little gasp.