Gurges steepled his fingers on the desk and studied the son of the legate in silence. ‘Hermes, eh?’ he said after a long pause. ‘That won’t be easy to arrange. Hermes is officially retired now. He only comes out into the arena for a hefty fee. We’re talking a hundred thousand sestertii.’

‘I don’t care,’ Pavo said. ‘I’ll find a way.’

Gurges picked at a morsel of food lodged in his teeth. Pulling his finger out of his mouth he rubbed the morsel between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Arrogant lad, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ Pavo said. ‘Just wronged.’

A chill gripped Pavo as an image flashed across his mind of Hermes lying prostrate on the arena floor, blood spilling from his slit throat. He burned with rage. His father had been humiliated in the arena. His family’s wealth had been seized by Claudius and pumped into the imperial coffers. Pavo’s infant son, Appius, had vanished and he feared the worst. The child could have been sold into slavery or butchered in some dark alley, joining his mother Sabina – who had died during childbirth – in the afterlife. Pavo had been stripped of his position as tribune and condemned to a barbaric death. He had nothing left to live for, except the prospect of killing Hermes.

‘Perhaps we can come to an arrangement,’ Gurges said. Calamus arrived and waited patiently by the study door. ‘If you earn me some good victories, I may be able to help you in your quest to fight Hermes.’

Pavo said nothing.

‘Give it some thought.’ Gurges continued, ‘In the meantime, watch your back. Some of the gladiators in this ludus are prisoners of war. One or two might have even been captured by your old man. As for the rest, well,’ he swept his arms across his desk as if clearing away imaginary clutter. ‘Let’s just say they don’t like high-born brats like you intruding on their ludus.’

Gurges reached for his wine cup and raised it to his lips, forgetting that he’d already emptied it. Frowning, he rose abruptly from his seat as Calamus brushed past Pavo. The doctore watched the recruit depart down the passageway. Once he was out of earshot he turned to the lanista.

‘He’s trouble, that one,’ Calamus grumbled. ‘We should just be rid of him.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Gurges replied, flattening out a slight crease in his tunic. ‘Times are hard. We haven’t had a champion since the great Proculus, seven bloody long years ago.’