Fighters. A bad choice for—well, for anything. I knew all about investments after living in the Pollio house. Gladiators are bad investments. They die too quickly.

“Thea!” A large, moist hand plastered over my elbow, and I looked up into Quintus Pollio’s jovial eyes. “Thea. Just the thing I need.”

WRAPPED in a coarse cloak with a deep hood, he got as far as the Aurelian Gate.

“Hey, you.” A clerk frowned at him peremptorily. “No skulking out like a criminal; let’s see your papers all right and proper—wait, I know you!” A double take. Too late, Arius covered the gladiator tattoo on his arm. “Saw you in the arena. You’re the Barbarian! What are you—”

Arius hammered both fists into the clerk’s middle, and ran. Six guards brought him down in the middle of the dusty road.

I should’ve had a sword, he thought disjointedly as they dragged him back to Mars Street by the elbows. They’d never have gotten me if I’d had a sword.

“Yes, thank you,” Gallus said coolly, passing money out among the guards with a liberal hand. “He’ll be chained during training next time . . . hamstrung a guard? With his teeth? Perhaps this will ease the pain.” More money changed hands, and four of Gallus’s thugs locked manacles onto his wrists and ankles. Arius knew, hearing the sickeningly familiar rattle of the chains, that there weren’t going to be any strokes or smiles this time.

As soon as the gate shut behind the grumbling guards, Gallus turned and smashed him twice across the face with a heavy jeweled hand. So there really was muscle under all that pendulous pink flesh.

“Stupid boy!” the lanista hissed, and he launched a string of gutter invective straight from the slums.

“Your origins are showing, Gallus,” Arius commented, and another blow rocked his head back against the wall.

“So you made your grand bid for escape, eh?” Gallus spat. “And where did it land me? Out of pocket, that’s where it landed me! Stupid boy!” Another massive blow.

Arius tasted blood in his mouth, and felt a surge of macabre cheer. Beatings and chains and curses; here was a coin he could deal in. “Go to hell, Gallus.” He bared his bloody teeth in a grin.

This time one of the lanista’s huge thugs came and did the punching. “Damaging your investment, aren’t you?” Arius inquired dizzily.

“Oh, I’m beyond protecting my investment.” Gallus’s eyes were kohl-rimmed slits. “My investment’s already disappeared down the drain. Care to know why, Barbarian? Because the Emperor’s decided to make war on the Chatti. He’s leaving for Germania to join his legions, so who do you think will sponsor any games in September when he’s not here to see them? I doubt there will be any games at all. And that means that all through this summer when you drank yourself senseless, I lost money!”

“Too bad,” Arius commiserated, and a hard palm split his lip.

“You’ll still fight, boy. Maybe not in the Colosseum, maybe not with rose petals and silver coins showering down on your head, but believe me, you’ll fight. At every two-bit arena with mangy lions and old gladiators, at every molding row of stands where people will pack in to watch you die, you’ll fight. You’ll recoup all the money I lost on you. And outside the Colosseum where there’s no one to keep track of the rules, they don’t bother with rules at all, so when you die with your guts hanging down around your knees and a sword punched through your back, I’ll be there to watch. And I’ll smile, dear boy, because you’re a bloody waste of good air.”