“Quiet, aren’t you?” The Thracian jogged his elbow. “So where you from? I came over from Greece last year—”

“Shut up,” said Arius in his flat grating Latin.

“What?”

Brushing past the Thracian into the hall, he ignored the trestle tables and the platters of bread and meat. He leaned over and grabbed the first wine jug he saw, then headed off down another small ill-lit hallway. “Don’t mind him,” he heard another fighter growl to the Thracian. “He’s a sour bastard.”

Arius’s room in the gladiator barracks was a tiny bare cell. Stone walls, a chair, a straw pallet, a guttering tallow candle. He sank down on the floor, setting his back against the wall and draining half the jug in a few methodical gulps. The cheap grapes left a sour taste in his mouth. No matter. Roman wine was quick, and all he wanted was quick.

“Knock knock!” a voice trilled at the door. “I hope you aren’t asleep yet, dear boy.”

“Piss off, Gallus.”

“Tut, tut. Is that any way to treat your lanista? Not to mention your friend?” Gallus swept in, vast and pink-fleshed in his immaculate toga, gold gleaming on every finger, magnolia oil shining on every curled hair, a little silk-decked slave boy at his side. Owner of the Mars Street gladiator school.

Arius spat out a toneless obscenity. Gallus laughed. “Now, now, none of that. I came to congratulate you. Such a splendid debut. When you sent the head flying clean off that African . . . so dramatic! I was a little surprised, of course. Such dedication, such savagery, from one who swore not an hour before that he wouldn’t fight at all . . .”

Arius took another deep swallow of wine.

“Well, how nice it is to be right. The first time I saw you, I knew you had potential. A little old for the arena, of course—how old are you, anyway? Twenty-five, thirty? No youngster, but you’ve certainly got something.” Gallus waved his silver pomander languidly.

Arius looked at him.

“You’ll get another fight in the next games, of course. Something a little bigger and grander, if I can persuade Quintus Pollio. A solo bout, perhaps. And this time”—a glass-sharp glance—“I won’t have to worry that you’ll deliver, will I.”

Arius aligned the wine jug against the wall. “What’s a rudius?” The words surprised him, and he kept his eyes on the jug.

“A rudius?” Gallus blinked. “Dear boy, wherever did you hear about that?”

Arius shrugged. They had all been waiting in the dark under the Colosseum before their bout, nervous and excited, fingering their weapons. Here’s to a rudius for all of us, one of the others had muttered. A man who had died five minutes later under a trident before Arius could ask him what it meant.

“A rudius is a myth,” Gallus said airily. “A wooden sword given from the Emperor to a gladiator, signaling his freedom. I suppose it’s happened once or twice for the stars of the arena, but that hardly includes you, does it? One bout, and not even a solo bout—you’ve got a long way to go before you can call yourself a success, much less a star.”