After what feels like days, the medicus gives a curt nod and a terse “very well,” and summons someone to collect me. Moments later, a burly, bald man carrying a club lumbers into the infirmary to take me to the training yard.

“Hey, Titus,” the bald man barks, and shoves me forward. “New auctoratus. The master wants to know if he’s worth keeping.” Another shove. “He’s all yours.”

A trainer steps away from a sparring match, sets his sword and shield on the ground, and approaches. He’s my height, probably about the same width in the shoulders, with black hair pulled back in a cord behind his neck. Reminds me a great deal of a fighter who warmed my bed for a winter in Rome.

He extends his hand. “Titus. And you are?”

“Saevius.” I clasp his forearm.

“You’ve got him from here,” my escort says. “He gives you any trouble, let—”

“I know the routine,” Titus growls, releasing my hand. My escort gives a grunt and a sharp nod, then leaves us. Titus’s brow furrows slightly. “Have you fought before?”

“I have.”

“Well.” He picks up a pair of short, dulled swords and tosses one to me. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Saevius.” He starts toward the circle drawn on the ground for sparring, but pauses. His gaze drifts down my arm to the sword in my hand, and when he raises his eyes, they echo the grin on his lips. “A left-handed fighter, eh? Drusus has been after one of you for some time now. You could make the master a rich man, you know.”

I chuckle. “Then I hope I’m accepted into the familia.”

Titus laughs. “Long as you know which end of the sword is the sharp one, I’d say you’re in.”

How fortunate.

“None of the other men fight left-handed,” he says. “If you are accepted, you’ll have to spar with right-handed fighters.”

I shrug. “I wouldn’t expect any different. I’ve always trained against right-handed men.”

“Good. Can’t say I’ve ever fought with a left-hander.”

“Then you ought to make me look good, won’t you?”

He laughs. “We’ll see about that, gladiator.”

Swords and shields in hand, we step into the circle.

All around us, other men spar and shout, weapons clanging against weapons and feet shuffling across sand. Though they concentrate on their bouts, my presence hasn’t gone unnoticed. I know this game. The men will size me up now, observe me, determine my place in the hierarchy of the familia.

A blade flashes in the sunlight, and I’m drawn back to my own match just in time to divert Titus’s sword before it bites in above my hip. It’s dull and non-lethal, but I’m not about to let anyone see me making novice mistakes while the men are still deciding how far above me they believe themselves to be.

I retaliate, using my shield to block Titus’s weapon again, and since he’s accustomed to shielding his left side, his right is fully exposed and vulnerable to the blow I deliver. He grunts and retreats a step, then comes back again, but the moment he’s off balance, I go in for a second strike to his right side. That hit doubles him over. I’m about to go in for a third, but he puts up his index finger.

I stop, lowering my weapon and shield.

He puts a hand on his side and, as we catch our breath, says wryly, “Glad I won’t be facing you in the arena. Damn left-handers.”

I laugh. “Practice with me enough, and you’ll be prepared if you face another fighter like me.”

“I’ll remember that. Now let’s get some water, and we’ll give it another go.” Titus takes me to one of the two water troughs in the yard. No doubt deliberately, he’s chosen the one that doesn’t have three fighters and a trainer standing beside it, throwing narrow-eyed glances in our direction.

Titus fills a ladle and drinks from it. As I do the same with the other ladle, the hairs on the back of my neck prickle to attention. I look over my shoulder.

Drusus. I shouldn’t be surprised.

The man’s a strange presence in the training yard. He has power and he radiates it, from the set of his shoulders to the piercing look in his eyes, and though I’ve never seen him fight, I’m certain from his presence alone that he could take down any opponent he faced. Myself included.

He keeps his bodyguards close, as any wise lanista does around a yard full of violent fighters, but he walks as if his safety is ensured regardless of the giants behind him. As if the guards are little more than figureheads, and any man who tries to cross him will be dead or crippled before the bodyguards lift a finger.

Strange, the stories I’ve heard about him. In the same breath that men describe him as a ruthless tyrant who kills for pleasure and doesn’t believe in mercy, they also whisper that he’s effeminate and weak because of his size and fine stature. Near as I can see, any weakness stops at his stature and perhaps the voice that isn’t as low as that of most Roman men. That, and he carries himself with a nobleman’s dignity, almost an elegance that no fighting man could ever possess. Before today, I never would have believed a man his size could survive as a lanista, but I’m starting to understand the legends about the man who can wither gladiators twice his size with nothing more than a look.

I’m not the only one who notices him out here, either. The other men concentrate on their bouts, fight good and hard, but they keep one eye on the lanista.

I pull the ladle from the water and take a drink. Then, keeping my voice as low as I can, I ask, “So is it true what I’ve heard about Drusus?”

Titus takes a long drink from the other ladle, then lowers it. “Depends. What’ve you heard?”

“That even other lanistae keep their distance. Don’t want to be associated with someone as violent and unscrupulous as him.”

Titus laughs. “What lanista isn’t violent and unscrupulous?”

“Do the other lanistae really avoid him?” I bring the water up to my lips. “Or should I say, do they have reason to?”

“Oh, he’s not so bad,” Titus says with a shrug. “Just don’t let his size fool you. The man is small, but cross him and then put a flagellum in his hand?” His eyes drift toward the lanista, and he shudders before he quietly adds, “He could make any man in the Empire beg for mercy. Most men don’t cross him twice, and those that do don’t live long enough to do it a third time.”

Which begs the question, how would it sit with Drusus to know that a gladiator with false papers joined his familia to spy on behalf of another master?

I take a long drink. “So is it true what they say? That Drusus killed half the men in the ludus when the old master died?”

Titus shrugs. “Who knows?” He raises the ladle almost to his lips, but lowers it instead of taking a drink. Eyes focused on our lanista, who’s watching fighters spar on the other side of the yard, he speaks quietly, “They don’t call him the Caligula of lanistae for nothing.”

“What’s he done, then?”

“Beaten more than a few men senseless,” Titus says into his water. “Usually takes ’em down to the pit where nobody can see or hear what’s going on.”

“Doesn’t punish them out in the open?”

The trainer shakes his head. “Worse. He takes ’em away so no one knows what’s happening to them. Most of the time, you don’t even know if a man’s going to come back alive. Plenty of them haven’t come back at all. Sometimes he’ll have the body dragged through the yard before it’s taken outside the walls and burned. Others, they’ll go to the infirmary and we never see them again. Gods know if they lived and then he sold them, or if they died before dawn.”

“And those that do come back?”

Titus’s eyes shift toward me. “Usually they come out so bloody and battered, they can’t stand for days, let alone fight.” He shakes his head and again looks toward Drusus. “Mark my words, Saevius. Stay out of his way and don’t make him angry.”

I nod. “Duly noted.”

“By the way, if you surrender in a match?” Titus grimaces. “You’d better have fought with everything you have and not just done something foolish to give your opponent the upper hand.” He nods at Drusus. “He’ll accept a loss, but the man doesn’t take ‘the sun was in my eyes’ as an excuse.”