THREE YEARS LATER

His lips were cracked, split, and bleeding. The drought had shown none of them much mercy but it had taken much more from the poor and unfortunate. Scars lined every limb of his body; his arms, his legs, his torso, all littered with tiny nicks and much deeper cuts. Bruises formed across what little could be seen of his face, the rest covered in a wild beard and long, untamed hair. He looked savage, deranged. More beast than man.

At the sound of footsteps he broke into a frenzy, lunging for the dark mass that had invaded his cell but coming up painfully short when his chains reached their limit. The figure flinched back and away, its hand gripping one of the iron bars that kept him contained. It could not be Glaber returned again; the man had not and would not show such fear in his presence.

A long moment passed before the figure seemed ready to venture another attempt into his cell. Curious to see who had come for him, he waited patiently, confusion falling heavy on his brow as a young girl came into view. He thought her a house slave at first but as torches illuminated more of her, he knew her dress to be too fine of quality for a slave. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Still eyeing him warily, she gave no response as she hesitated on the edge of his cell, looking tempted to run back out and never look back. The man had been at their ludus for little more than a week and had caused more chaos and destruction than all of his predecessors combined. He refused Oenomaus's command, he made attempt on their champion's life, drew the ire of a legatus from Rome … it was no wonder her father seemed content to leave him for dead now. Two days he had been in that cell with no food and no water. The girl offered him no answer, at least not one he could hear, but produced a large, round loaf of bread and extended it closer to him. "Take it," she urged, after a long moment passed without him doing so.

"At what cost?" he demanded. "What is your price?"

"My price is that you do not die. Do you find such terms agreeable?"

Stomach made decision for him and he all but lunged for the bread, tearing it out of her hand and sending her skittering backwards in fear once more. He gave her a weary look, wondering if she would run now, but she remained within sight, watching as he struggled to get the bread to his mouth with such short chains around his wrists. He managed, with great difficulty, and in little time at all the bread was gone and so was the aching in his stomach.


"You should be training." Spartacus looked up to see the blonde, Varro, he remembered. "Unless you are so easily welcoming death's embrace?" Spartacus squinted up at him, the real sun burning his eyes and he rejected it for the woman above. "Cast your gaze downward, the daughter of Batiatus is not one whose attention you will want to attract absent a sword in your hand and blood on the ground."

"Daughter?" asked Spartacus, glancing between the girl and her alleged father now. Where the father stood fair, the girl was darker than Barca. Though Batiatus's hair had long turned grey and his woman wore too many wigs to discern natural color, her hair was too thick and too dark to have only Roman blood in her. She appeared to have Egyptian influences in her, or perhaps those of Hispania. "That is not his daughter," he concluded. "She does not have his look."

"I would not broach subject with the man," muttered Varro, though he had held the same opinions of the girl's widely varying appearance. Perhaps his wife had snuck beneath the ludus and fucked one of the gladiators to produce the girl. Barca, by the looks of her, perhaps Oenomaus.

Ashur ambled past the pair of new recruits, both oddly focused on the balcony above. He followed their gaze and landed somewhere not entirely unexpected. "Ah, Octavia," he murmured, calling both sets of eyes to himself now. "A girl who has dragged many an unsuspecting champion to his ruin."

All three men shifted their eyes to Crixus, if only briefly. It was unwise to be caught staring at the Undefeated Gaul. "I had heard of her affections for one of the slaves but I had not expected Crixus," muttered Varro, his disdain for the man apparent.

A smile spread across Ashur's face. "Ah, he but wishes. Not Crixus but the one who came before," said Ashur. "Gannicus, he was called."

"The man who won his freedom?"

Spartacus looked truly interested now. He had never heard of any slave winning their freedom, but it presented golden opportunity. He would not have to fight countless battles to earn the coin to buy his freedom if he could simply win it. "The only man to do so in the arena," the Syrian confirmed.

"Where is the man now?" asked Spartacus.

"Never seen again," said Ashur, his eyes finding Octavia on the balcony again. "She was too soft for the ludus then. Always a smile on her lips and a kind word for every slave. She smiles less often now."


"Doctore." The voice was gentle, but cracked like the whip Oenomaus carried. "I have need of the Thracian."

Then a real whip cracked as Oenomaus stepped forward. "Spartacus!" he shouted, his voice too fearsome for any man to consider disobeying him.

Spartacus followed obediently behind the girl, too curious about the visit to protest to it in any way. He expected the girl, Octavia, Ashur had said, to speak to him, as her father often did. She kept her back to him as she led him through the villa until they arrived at their destination. Spartacus wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly hadn't been a bath bigger than his entire home in Thrace had been, surrounded by naked women. Confused, Spartacus rounded on the girl who stood beside him. "What is this?"

"A bath," she answered with a laugh. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by your confusion, given your current state." While her laughter had subsided, she still smiled up at him. "A state to be remedied presently."

"You offer bath?" he demanded. "At what price?"

"Always this talk of price with you. I do not offer it at any price, I command it," she corrected, the smile still firmly in place as she nodded toward the water. "I would not submit the men to your stench any longer."

In a room filled with small, naked women, Spartacus thought it in his power to refuse. However, he knew the naked women could be easily replaced with armed guards or, even worse, trained gladiators. He removed the last of his clothes, glancing curiously at the girl as she quickly shifted her gaze from him, before stepping into the scalding water.

As soon as his foot had been fully submerged, three women descended upon him, each armed with soap. He waved them away dismissively, and when refused, he resorted to a more forceful approach. Wide eyes searched for their Domina's guidance in dealing with his brutish ways, and soon they dispersed. "I can wash myself," he informed her when he noticed the irritated look on her face.

The irritation made way for the smile again as she stepped closer to the edge of the bath and squatted in front of him. He flinched when she reached her hand toward him, but quickly decided she herself could do little harm to him. "I am certain you are quite capable of many things," she told him agreeably, her grip on his chin was light. "But you do not lead here, Spartacus. You follow. Now you will let these women attend you, or I will see them replaced by guards."

She barely had to raise a hand before three of the women came down upon him again, each with sponge or soap, reaching for him. It took much willpower for him to let them touch him, to clean him of the layers of dirt, sweat and blood. His gaze did not leave the girl as she paced the bath, around she walked, taking wine from another slave and sipping it as she watched him with amusement in her eyes.

He shoved one of the slaves away firmly when her hands traveled beneath the surface of the water. The others backed away with unnerved expression, "Now what ails you?" she demanded, standing before him, forcing him to crane his neck to meet her gaze. "Do you fear for your cock? I can assure you they won't harm it, though I'm certain you could do with a good fuck. Perhaps that would ease the tightness in your brow." He thought it passing odd that he only now began to believe her to be Batiatus's daughter. What she lacked in his look she amended with decent imitation.

"No," he said gruffly.

"Do their faces displease you?" she asked, leaning towards him again. "My attempt was to do the opposite. Tell me your type and I'll round them up. What did she look like?"

"Who?"

"Your wife," she answered.

"Her beauty is not easily replicated," he informed her curtly.

Octavia kicked off her sandals and approached the bath again, hiking up her dress as she sat at its side, allowing her legs to fall in beside the man. "Loyalty is an admirable trait," she stated, and she meant it. If only all men in her father's ludus held women in such esteem. "I mean only to balm wounds with gentle touch."

"I do not wish for it," he said, hoping it would be the last he'd have to refuse the women. He knew they only did as commanded but he was growing more vexed by their presence by the moment.

"As you say," Octavia answered with a shrug. Her father hadn't been wrong about the man having no interest in women. It hardly mattered. She'd brought him to the baths to make him look a man, instead of the animal that currently stood before her. With a flick of Octavia's wrist, one of the slave girls procured the knife she had been given and made to approach Spartacus.

Spartacus seemed even less fond of a naked woman with a knife. He grabbed the girl by the wrist and ripped the blade from her grasp before her shoving her away again. The girl let out a yelp at the assault and guards rushed the room in an instant. Feeling threatened and vulnerable, Spartacus wielded the knife with deadly purpose, backing away from the armed men but keeping his eyes on them. "Octavia," one of the guards grunted, rushing toward his master's daughter, desperate to pull her from the bath and the reach of the madman wielding a dagger.

"Stop," she commanded, raising a hand to still him and the other guards. When none of the men seemed likely to act out of turn, she shifted her attention to Spartacus. "The blade is for cutting your hair," she informed him calmly. "Place it in my hand or see yourself struck from this world."

Spartacus contemplated disobeying her for a brief moment. He could likely kill every man in the room and escape unscathed. But there were more guards stationed throughout the villa, and there was an army of well trained gladiators below. He wasn't certain how far he would get naked and with nothing but a tiny dagger. "Domina," he muttered, keeping his eyes on the men around them as he slowly placed the dagger into her outstretched hands.

Octavia breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she could clutch her fingers around the blade. How long had she been holding her breath? "Leave us," she told the guards, who hesitated before she turned a sharp gaze on them. When the guards had exited, she jerked her head for the women to leave, as well. Only when they were the only two to remain in the room did Octavia turn her attention back to Spartacus. "It is a fucking wonder you've survived two days in this ludus."

"Any man would react the same when being advanced on with a blade!"

Octavia rubbed her eyes wearily, looking Spartacus over with tired eyes. Was the man truly worth the effort her father had asked she put into him? Thracians were notoriously hard to train and this man was proving the legends true. "Come here," she murmured, flicking her wrist lazily.

Spartacus took a slow, hesitant step toward her, not wanting to push the girl he had already shown great disobedience to. He knew she was not far from calling the guards back in to slit his throat while he was unarmed. Perhaps, he thought, she meant to slit his throat herself. Regardless of intention, he knew he had no choice but to approach.

When he was within reach, Octavia grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him closer. "If you raise your hand against me, I will let them tear you apart," she warned, before slowly bringing the dagger to his cheek. He flinched from the cool steel, but made no other movement against her. "My father would see you look a man." She hesitated another moment, fearful of the reaction of a man who seemed prone to violent outbursts, before pressing the blade closer and dragging it down his cheek. She breathed another sigh of relief when the skin of his cheek revealed itself from beneath the thick hair and Spartacus made no attempt to stop her from continuing.

It took only a few moments before he was closing his eyes. Her gentle hands on his face, touching where the knife cut away hair from skin, small fingers dancing across his chin and cheek for what seemed like decades. He lost himself in it, much against his will, and opened his eyes again to feel her running her fingers against his scalp, through his hair, tugging here and there as he felt it all become suddenly lighter. Hair fell gently against his shoulders and still her fingers ran through.

He swallowed, feeling a stirring beneath the water as his hands gripped the edge of the bath on either side of her. He could feel her leaning ever closer, feel her warm breath against his skin. How long had it been since he'd felt his wife's hands on his skin, run through his hair? How much time had passed, even now, since she'd lured him into these waters?

But questions began to form in his mind as he tried to ignore the yearnings of his body. Why had her father sent her for such a task? It was a dangerous thing to tempt a man in the way she did and another man would not have hesitated in taking what he wanted. "Your father sent you to do this?" She smiled again, contrary to Ashur's words, but it seemed a sad one. "Why?"

"You cost him an exceeding amount of coin," she said. A fact well known. "And yet your performance within the ludus falls shy of expectation set by the games."

"Shorter hair will not make me a more obedient slave." The girl offered no response. "You're meant to make me more obedient."

He expected the charade to end at the accusation, but her hands continue to work, soft and gentle against his whiskered jaw. "To have me within reach and yet just out of it …" she murmured, her eyes shifting from her work to finally meet his own. "It's meant to cause a stirring within your breast." Her fingers trailed from his jaw down his neck until she grazed her knuckles against his chest. "Can you not feel it?"

Her smile told him she was teasing, but the truth was he could. It had been months since he'd last held his wife, felt her touch, her lips, her gentle gaze. Batiatus knew that. In the haze and steam of the bath, with his eyes closed, the woman made a fair attempt at replacement. Every inch of him wanted to pull her closer, to take what had been offered. "Could Gannicus feel it?"

The smile was gone now.