“Watch out!” Publius Sulpicius shouted at my side, forgetting all about me for once as the Athenian galley heeled over, but Arius regained his balance on the mast and rode the topmost spar down, ropes doubled around one fist and his sword ready in the other. “That’s it! That’s it!”

He was good. Gods, he was good. I went to the circus now more than I went to the games, not liking to see a man cheered who had once sheared me bald and walked away living. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” I said loudly as the Barbarian dived headfirst off the sinking mast into the manmade sea, but no one was listening to me and anyway I did see what all the fuss was about.

Arius surfaced on the opposite side of the Athenian war galley with his sword between his teeth like a pirate. He grabbed for an oar and hoisted himself up onto the deck, spitting his blade into his hand and wading in. Long before his fellow gladiators stroked up in their galley for a share in the glory, the Athenians were running in panicked circles and the red sails were burning. I caught my breath as Arius emerged from the carnage. He had an arrow stub protruding from one shoulder and half his hair was burned off, but set against the background of flaming sails and heaped corpses he could have been Mars come to earth. He never looked back at his fellow gladiators, moving in to finish off his victory. He just took a shallow dive into the water, resurfacing with an energetic splash as he unlaced his mail sleeve and let it sink, then scrubbed the ash and blood off his face. Ignoring the screams, the shouts, the crash of sparks and burning timber, he turned on his back like a boy paddling in a swimming hole and floated, eyes closed against the blue sky.

I felt my eyes sting, and realized I wanted to weep. My stomach was clenched into a knot and my hands trembled. The applause, the screams, the falls of silver coins and the showers of rose petals lasted a full hour as the Barbarian drifted on his back in the middle of a sea battle, with his eyes peacefully shut—and I had never wanted anyone more. Why had he not wanted me? Why had he picked Thea with her rough hands and her sunburned face? Why not me? Someday I’d have the answer from him, along with his guts coiled and steaming from his belly.

“The rudius,” one of the Sulpicii pageboys whispered, and suddenly everyone was saying it, the whispers mounting through the tiers of the Colosseum.

“The rudius—he’ll get the rudius now—the Emperor will give him the rudius—!”

The Barbarian opened one eye and shook the water out of his ears, squinting up at the Imperial box where the Emperor had risen and was stepping forward.

ARIUS heard his sandals squelch as the Praetorian escorted him up the marble steps. Squealing women rushed to soak their handkerchiefs in the puddles. He heard the word rudius. The wooden sword? It had been years since he’d dreamt of a rudius.