Arius snarled, scooping her up with one hand and disappearing into his room. He banged the door but could still hear the voices outside.

“We’ll never be rid of him now.” Gallus, hoarse from the choking Arius had given him for chuckling at the predicament. “If it weren’t for the fees he brings in . . . Well, may all the gods bless the Emperor. I’m rich for life.”

“Get away from my door, Gallus!” Arius roared through the keyhole. “Or I’ll rip your head off!”

“Always knew all that fatalism was a sham,” Hercules remarked.

Months of hair-raising battles followed. Arius’s fights had long been formalized, set far in advance, and not since the early days had he ever been scheduled for more than four fights a year. Now all the rules had been swept away, leaving only one: he fought in whatever way would amuse the Emperor. He fought with his left arm lashed behind his back, fought on a bed of hot coals with only a pair of sandals to keep him from burning, fought when bloodied and dizzy from wounds. He’d been pitted naked and unarmored against a chariot full of archers, pitted with only a short knife against a black-maned lion, pitted on horseback against two maddened bulls.

He survived.

How many times did the crowd freeze in place, inhaling a common breath as he dragged himself out from under a lion’s carcass or a wrecked chariot? How many times did he lock eyes with the Emperor in a duel that ended, over and over, in a draw?

Arius lost count.

“Are you trying to get killed?” Hercules rasped. “The Emperor’s little innovations are bad enough, but you don’t have to glare at him afterward. Have a thought for me! As long as you’re alive I’m immune, just like the dog. You die, and we’ll both be begging for scraps and getting kicked when we don’t move fast enough.”

“It’s not up to me whether I live or die.” Arius shrugged. But sometimes he wondered if it was.

“Is it magic?” Gallus asked, oh so casually as Arius sat with his eyes shut against the wall bench in the barracks courtyard after a savage fight against a Cretan. “Did you swallow some Druid potion back in Britannia to make yourself invincible? One hears of such things.”

“Nothing like that,” Hercules returned before Arius could speak. “It’s immortality. He’s been made immortal.”

“By who?”

“By you. By the crowd. By the Emperor. You’ve all made him immortal. A god among men.”

Arius rolled his eyes, taking a swallow of wine. “Rubbish,” snapped Gallus.

“’Tisn’t rubbish. You’ve only yourselves to blame. Don’t come crying to me when he finally decides to turn his wrath on you.” The dwarf grinned manically. “He won’t come for you first, though. He’ll go for the Emperor first. ‘Lord and God,’ hah. Domitian’s only a god because he calls himself one. Won’t he be shocked out of his Imperial purple sandals when he realizes he’s been playing cat and mouse with the real thing? Oh yes, our Barbarian here will take care of the Emperor first. Then he’ll come for you. He’ll come for you in the dead of night—”