I sweep my tongue across my dry lips. Every familia gladiatori is already rife with dangerous rivalries. To spy on my brothers within the ludus? Especially when I am the newest blood? I should cut my own throat now and be done with it.

“As an auctoratus,” he says, still walking around me, “you will be able to leave the ludus of your own free will, so long as you return and you don’t leave the city. When I wish to speak to you, I will contact you. Understood?”

“I . . . yes,” I say. “What am I looking for, Dominus? Er, Calvus?”

“You’re a gladiator, Saevius,” he says. “Surely you know how women feel about men like you?”

I nod again. Women were no strangers to the ludus where I trained before. Many of them married, plenty of them noble; my lanista took their money, the women cavorted with gladiators, and the husbands were never the wiser.

“A man of my stature cannot afford the embarrassment of a wife’s . . .” He pauses in both speech and step, wrinkling his nose. “Of a wife’s unsavory indiscretions. Especially with creatures so far below my station.” Calvus resumes his slow, unsettling walk around me. “And when word begins to spread of a woman doing these things, a husband, particularly a husband of my political and social stature, has little choice but to put a stop to it.” He steps into my sight and halts, looking me in the eye. “Which is where you come in, Saevius.”

Oh, dear sweet gods, help me . . .

“You will listen, and you will watch.” Calvus comes closer, eyes narrowing. “Learn the name of the man who keeps drawing my lady Verina into his bed. Am I clear, gladiator?”

In all my years in the arena, my heart has never pounded this hard. What woman doesn’t have slaves as lovers? Gladiators fuck married women as often as we fight amongst ourselves.

Unless Calvus thinks his wife isn’t involved with a slave. One of the freedmen working as trainers? Perhaps the lanista himself? Or one of the munerators renting fighters for some upcoming games? No citizen, especially not a public figure such as Calvus, tolerates that kind of insult from his wife, and for some, divorce isn’t nearly punishment enough.

Regardless of Calvus’s reasoning or what he plans to do once he knows the name of his wife’s lover, is there any place more dangerous for a man than the middle of games played between a wife and the husband she’s scorned?

“Am I clear, gladiator?”

I swallow hard. “Yes, Calvus.”

“Good.” He steps away and lifts his wine again. “I will have your papers drawn up tonight. Tomorrow morning, you will be taken to the ludus owned by the lanista Drusus.”

Drusus. Gods, any lanista but him. I silently beg the ground to open up beneath me. Drusus’s reputation extends beyond any reach Master Calvus could dream of his own doing. No gladiator who’s heard the stories about Drusus would ever volunteer to fight for him.

Calvus looks me up and down, his brow furrowing as he inspects my arms, one then the other. “These scars are . . .” He meets my eyes. “You’re left-handed, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

He grins. “Excellent. I’m sure Drusus will be doubly pleased with you.” The grin widens. “Perhaps I should have chosen you in the first place over that Phoenician. After all, a left-handed fighter like you belongs in the arena where he can make his lanista rich, yes?”

I resist the urge to avoid his eyes.

“You’ll be his left-handed moneymaker, and you’ll—” Calvus gives a quiet, bone-chilling laugh. “Well, I suppose in a way you’ll be my left hand, won’t you?”

“I suppose I will, Dominus,” I whisper.

Calvus puts his hand on my shoulder. The amusement leaves his expression. “Listen closely, gladiator. This is very important. The money you’re giving Drusus, the five hundred sestertii, is from the magistrate called Cassius. The same one who will be providing your auctoratus documents. Is that clear?”

My mouth goes dry as I nod.

“You will not mention me or our arrangement,” he says. “Not to anyone within the ludus under any circumstances. Understood?”

“Yes, Dominus.” I hesitate. “Calvus.”

“Be warned, Saevius. I do not tolerate treachery or dishonesty.” He leans in, lowering his voice so I’m certain no one but me and the gods can hear him, and he presses down hard on my shoulder. “Give me a single reason to believe you’re not doing precisely as I’ve ordered, or that you’ve breathed my name within the walls of the ludus, and I will see to it the magistrate asks Drusus if he received the full seven hundred sestertii. Am I understood?”

With much effort, I swallow. With even more, I nod. “Yes, Calvus.”

And silently, I beg the gods to send me back to Rome to fight in its Colosseum.

All the way through the streets of Pompeii, every scuff of my weathered sandals on the road sounds like the name of my new lanista.

Drusus. Drusus. Any lanista but Drusus.

There isn’t a gladiator in the Empire who hasn’t heard his name. The man’s ill reputation is as widespread as his history is mysterious. Most lanistae begin as fighters themselves, but no one, not even the men who’ve been in the arena for years, can remember seeing him in combat. Some say he must have fought under another name, as many of us do, but no one knows for certain. All that’s known is that he came out of nowhere—seven years ago, people say—and apprenticed under the equally notorious lanista Crispinus for two years. After Crispinus was killed, Drusus took over the ludus. His first order of business? Executing half the men in the familia—by his own hand, most agree—just to flaunt his newfound power. Even more of a madman than most lanistae.

He comes to Rome once or twice a year to buy and sell fighters, and over the years, my old lanista has bought a few of Drusus’s men.

“Scum, that man,” a young fighter had told us. “Even the other lanistae stay away from him. They’d rather wear a curse than be ’round Drusus.”

“The Furies have got nothin’ on Drusus,” another had told us after he’d been with us half a season. “Every man in the familia knew: just look at ’im wrong, and your ass is in the pit and beaten within an inch of your life.” With a shudder, he’d added, “Assuming the bastard didn’t get bored one day and kill you for sport before you even had a chance to make a mistake.”

A scar-covered Egyptian came to us from Drusus and never said a word about the man. But then, that Egyptian never said a word at all. He just stared blankly at his food, his opponent, the wall. Didn’t even bat an eye when the medicus sewed up his arm after the Ludi Florales. About the time he started making some noise and we might’ve gotten some stories out of him, a fighter from Gaul put a sword through him during the Ludi Appollinares. Sometimes I think Fortune was smiling on him that day.

Where are you on this day, Fortune? I silently plead as Ataiun leads me past Pompeii’s immense amphitheatre, the place where fights are held in this city.

Just beyond the amphitheatre, there’s a building I can only assume is Pompeii’s State-run ludus and barracks. I’ve heard the State is swallowing up all the ludi now. In Rome, there’s talk of the State-run ludi being the only ones left in a few years’ time. Maybe this means politicians will one day replace the lanistae as the men who buy, sell, and rent us out. I don’t suppose anyone would notice if they did. Shit replacing shit, after all. Then again, I don’t suppose anyone but men like me will notice when the State takes over the ludus and familia owned by Drusus, anyway.

And may that day come swiftly.

As I walk between two guards, people eyeing us warily and shielding their children, the presence of the scrolls tucked into my belt threatens to burn right through my clothes. These are the documents that will grant me entrance into the ludus. One proclaims I was reinstated as a citizen by Master Blasius after completion of a previous stint as an auctoratus. Another states I was inspected by a medicus I’ve never seen and approved by Cassius, the city magistrate whose monetary gift I carry, to volunteer—again—as an auctoratus. Fake permission all based on a false declaration of freedom.