Madoc focused on Elias’s voice through the roar of the crowd above them. They were still in one of the exit tunnels, only a short walk from the outside of the small arena. Lesser matches were held here during the week along with plays and livestock auctions, which left the corridor crowded with stage planking and tattered curtains, and smelling vaguely of sheep dung.
“He won’t.” He couldn’t take the edge out of his voice. The crowd was screaming, their stomping feet a stampede one rock layer abovehis head. Whatever fight had gone on in place of his must have ended quickly, and in a bloody mess.
The crowds always loved those the best.
“Then go back to Geoxus,” Elias said. “You’ve won now. Maybe he’ll front you the rest of the money, or grant you a favor.” Elias’s hands were circling as he talked. “He might free Cassia if you ask.”
“And what will I say?” Madoc steered them toward the exit so they could get back into the carriage that would bring them to Lucius’s villa.Hello, Geoxus. I know half of my wins since becoming a champion are by forfeit, but can you do me a favor and set our sister free?He only chose me in the first place because he trusts Petros.”
Elias groaned and pulled at his dark hair, making it stick forward like a wave reaching for shore. The smudges beneath his eyes said that he’d slept about as much as Madoc had last night. Every minute they stayed at Headless Hill was another they risked exposure, and Lucius’s training had been particularly brutal that morning following the meeting with Geoxus. Convinced that Madoc had deliberately lied about his lineage, the sponsor had promised to take Madoc’s fingers, one by one, should he step out of line. On top of that, rumors had already begun to circulate about Madoc’s father, and judging by the heated glares he and Elias had gotten at breakfast, his relationship with Petros wasn’t making them popular.
Fifteen hundred gold coins, and then this would be over.
“Madoc! There he is...Madoc!” A burst of screams had Madoc bracing in defense.
A crowd had gathered near the exit of the arena. Deiman women and men, even a few children, all held back by an arc of centurions.Madoc’s immediate response was to run—these people knew he was a fraud. They were angry at him for his appointment to the Honored Eight, or bitter that he hadn’t put on a good show. But their smiles had him hesitating.
“Are you truly a stonemason?” a man called, drawing Madoc’s eyes to the mortar stains on his tunic, and his sun-bronzed shoulder, where Madoc’s name was etched in black ink.
Madoc opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Madoc!” came a woman’s voice. “Over here!”
He spun in her direction, finding a horde of girls in pale blue-and-gold gowns pressing against a centurion’s horizontal spear. They were cheering, cheeks flushed, a mass of bare arms and plunging necklines and laughter, and Madoc found himself completely at a loss about how to respond.
“Was Stavos scared of you, Brave Madoc?” one cooed.
“How many fights have you won?”
“Have you a lover waiting for you in the stonemasons’ quarter?”
“You’re my pick for champion!”
Madoc’s breath lodged in his throat. His blood moved too fast through his veins. A lover waiting for him? How did they know where he lived?
“Why couldn’t I be the champion?” muttered Elias.
Madoc tried to smile but only managed a tight grimace. He clutched the bag of gold against his side. He didn’t even realize he was backing away until the stone edge of the exit’s archway was pressed between his shoulder blades.
“Madoc.Elias!” One woman’s voice cut through the rest like apointed knife plunged straight into Madoc’s chest.
Pushing to the edge of the crowd was a thin woman with a wrap around her dark hair and a hard stare set to punish. Her tightly cinched dress was made of the plain, worn muslin of the working class. Her skirt was splattered with mud. Madoc suspected this meant she had walked all the way from the stonemasons’ quarter.
“Oh no,” said Elias.
Ilena waited expectantly, fists on her narrow hips.
Since it was clear he and Elias weren’t making it out of here anytime soon, Madoc motioned her through the barricade.
“It’s all right,” he said when the centurion shot a wary glance his way. “She’s my mother.”
Ilena pressed between the armored shoulders of the centurions, dragging a frail, hobbling woman behind.Seneca.Madoc couldn’t think of why she was here, or how she had managed the trip, but it didn’t matter, because Ilena was rolling toward them like storm clouds on the sea, and he was not about to get a beating in front of all these people.
He and Elias retreated into the tunnel and were just out of sight before Ilena grabbed both their ears.
“Ow!” Elias howled.
“You’re gladiators now? You’re fighting in awar?” Her voice reverberated off the ceiling, high enough to shatter eardrums.
