The taste of salt on her skin tells you whether her visit on any given day falls before or after her training session.
"Could I come and watch?" you ask, one day, as she's belting her gladius back to her hip.
She smiles brilliantly at you. "Of course."
You follow her through the corridors of the ludus and turn the corner into the armory. For the first time, you're in the presence of gladiators – a room full of them, stripping off their armor after their day's training, and dropping their sweaty padding into the large basket that Leena will pick up later to wash.
You keep an appropriate, subservient step behind Myka, who receives a string of muttered "Good afternoon, Domina"s from the men as she passes them.
One of them—a behemoth of a man, with dark hair and fair skin—stumbles as he unbuckles one of his leg guards, and falls into you. You catch him, more out of instinct than anything else, and steady him as he rights himself. As he turns his head to thank you, a crooked leer spreads across his face.
"You're new around here, aren't you, pretty thing," he says, trailing a finger up your shoulder. Without thinking you grab his hand, bend it downward at the wrist and shove him back by the leverage of his thumb.
"Do not. Touch me," you growl, with all the menace you can muster.
"Marcus!" Myka shouts. She had gotten a few steps ahead of you but now she grabs you by the arm and shoves you behind her, protectively. "My father will not take kindly to your untoward advances upon his slaves."
"Treat the ladies with respect, Diamond." This voice, which speaks perfect, unaccented Latin, comes from another man who stands by the doorway between the armory and the corridor which, you assume, leads to the training yard. Your aggressor reluctantly steps back.
You follow Myka to the doorway. She smiles at the man standing there.
"Time for today's session, then?" he asks her, smiling.
"If it's a good time for you," she says. With a nod of her head, she invites you to stand beside her. "This is Helena. She's new here, and wanted to watch the training."
You smile and duck your head. "If that's not a problem for you or for Lady Myka, of course."
"If it doesn't bother you, Domina, it doesn't bother me," he says, offering you a large, square hand to shake. "I'm Pete."
You follow Pete and Myka down the corridor.
"Do you know anything about weapons use?" Pete asks you.
"A little," you reply. "I was good with a bow, a long time ago."
"Helena!" Myka exclaims, grinning broadly, "You never told me that."
"You knew I was a soldier before I was captured, Lady Myka."
"We have some bows if you'd like to try your hand again," Pete offers, "If our Domina permits, of course."
Myka groans a little. "Pete, Helena. Neither of you use titles with me. My name is fine."
Pete grins, and leans toward you conspiratorially. "Romans losing their sense of decorum," he stage-whispers, "It'll be the end of the empire!" His energy is endlessly jovial, and you can't help but smile back at him.
Myka smirks and shakes her head. "I'd love to see you shoot a bow, Helena."
The bow fingers of your right hand tingle. You imagine the pleasant pinch of the bowstring, the snap of release, the wet thud of the arrow hitting its target. But what you say is, "Thank you, but I think my days of shooting arrows are behind me."
\\
Myka's grace with a sword is remarkable to behold. She keeps her weight forward, calves flexed, like a wild cat ready to pounce. The sword operates as an extension of her arm, of her body, as she parries Pete's offenses to duck under them and launch an attack of her own.
"Good!" Pete exclaims, "But you're still dropping your guard on your left side when you make that turn. Get lower, bend your knees more, and angle your shield like—yes, like that. Good!"
The sword is too big for her, but she handles it deftly as a lover, or a well-strung kite, and she moves like a leaf on the wind. Captivating.
\\
You watch her almost every day, after that, eyes drawn to the firm flex of her bicep, to the precise flutter and drift of her feet over the sand.
With every passing day, you wonder how much longer you have before this, like everything else, is taken from you.
\\
She is picking up the pieces of your just-finished game of Latrunculi when she says, "I've been thinking… maybe I should marry MacPherson."
Your eyes flit up from where they've been watching your fingers gather the pieces from your side of the board.
She glances up at you through her lashes, and then looks back down at the pieces on the floor. "I thought maybe—maybe I could marry him and bring you with me. You could work in the house and be out of this—this cell. And I could keep you close to me that way." She tightens the string on the sack of pieces. "That's what I want, really. To be able to keep you close."
Silence sits for a few moments. You both breathe through it.
"If you marry him," you murmur, "I will ask you not to bring me with you."
Her eyes widen and immediately begin to glisten as her fingers dart forward to cup your jaw. "Why not, Helena?"
Because he would kill me on sight, you think. But you don't say that, because she has no idea that you know who he is, or that he knows you.
"He owns a brothel," you say, as if that were explanation enough.
She blinks at you, her fingers pushing your hair back behind your ear. "You've been in a brothel, haven't you."
It isn't a question. Not really.
When you nod, she winces and looks away, her chin pressing against her own shoulder. Her grip tightens on the side of your face. It echoes you of the way you used to hug your daughter after a visit from a particularly unpleasant client, because she was so beautiful and perfect surrounded by so much ugliness.
Myka's wet eyes turn to find yours. "You know I despise what he does."
You do. And she does. Just the previous week, she had come swirling into your space, ranting about her father's friends and their stories of visiting slave brothels, wondering in her rage why they wouldn't choose instead to visit the many free women who sold the same services voluntarily.
She continues: "MacPherson, I know he… partakes… of the services of his own business. And I despise that, too. But you would be upstairs, in the house. And we could… we could be…"
You look down. "Maybe we could," you say, "but if you married him, and I went with you to his house, I would belong to him, not to you. If I spilled a glass of wine on a day when he felt short-tempered, he could send me downstairs on a whim. Surely you know that." (You know it. You saw it happen more than once.)
Her eyes fall closed. "Yes," she says. "Yes, I know. I just… I keep trying to think of ways to keep you near me."
You lean toward her. "Come be near me now," you say, as you pull her body to yours.
She smiles softly into your kiss, but stills your hands when they reach for the knots of her clothing. Her lips part from yours and she rests her forehead against your hairline.
"Could I just hold you for a little while?" she asks, quietly.
"Of course," you say.
She lays back on the blanket and pulls you gently with her, warming you between her arm and her side.
\\
You won't get to keep her. Each passing day brings you closer to the day when she'll have to leave you. And the day when you will eventually have to confront your destiny—the reality of why you were left in this ludus—comes closer, too.
You can't live, anymore, with the not-knowing.
When Myka arrives one day, she leans in to kiss you the moment you duck into your cell together, but you turn your head away.
"Domina—"
"Helena, how many times do I have to ask you not to call—"
"No," you cut in. She looks at you, surprised. She is enlightened enough to circumvent titles, apparently, but she's still slightly scandalized when a slave interrupts a noble. "I'm sorry. I need to ask you something."
Your eyes are cast down and to the side, and she brings her hands to cup your cheeks. "Of course. Anything. Helena, what's wrong?"
"I need to know why I'm here," you say.
She cocks her head at you. "Isn't your purpose here to do what you're doing? To help Leena with the chores around the ludus?"
"I… surely not."
"Why do you say that?"
You tighten your lips. For a moment, the whole story wants to spill out into the warm space created by her soft face and her gentle hands. You could tell her, truthfully, that you were whipped and dropped here as penalty for having killed a Roman, and you're pretty sure that your current lifestyle doesn't qualify as punishment. It would be such relief, to share that burden.
But MacPherson is beating down her father's door for her hand. Sharing your story would be a dangerous idea for both of you.
"I just… I'm almost certain there's more to it," you say, instead.
Her thumbs press soft circles over the points of your cheekbones.
"Okay," she says. "I'll talk to my father and see what I can find out."
\\
Later that evening, during the hour before dark when you are usually alone, her footsteps come bolting down the corridor. She appears in your cell with a torch in one hand and her skirts gathered in the other.
"Helena," she says, her eyes wide and panicked. She drops to her knees in front of you as you sit up from where you had just laid down to sleep. "Helena, what did you do?"
"Your father didn't tell you?" you ask. Surely he must know.
"No," Myka says, reaching one hand up to cup your shoulder, your neck, your jaw. "He told me that—" she shakes her head and glances down, then back up again—"that some stories are too tawdry for the ears of dignified women."
"Myka," you murmur, voice shaking, even as your head tilts itself into her palm, "what's to become of me?"
"He almost refused to tell me." Even in the dim light, you can see her eyes shining with tears. "He said—he said you were given to him for free, from a friend, on the condition that you be given to his gladiators once you were healed."
"Given to the gladiators. In the arena?" That might not be so terrible. You can fight, after all, and force them to kill you quickly. Maybe take a few of them with you.
Myka swallows audibly. "No. By small blessing, it seems that you've been… sentenced… to live, however miserably."
Ah. Back to your old profession, then, but for even less money and without the protection of guards or a space to escape to rest.
Your heart doesn't stop. Neither does your breath. None of the reactions that would indicate surprise or fear strike you. This isn't the first time you've heard of this as punishment for female criminals of low status, so when you wound up in a ludus—well, the pieces fit.
Your knees tuck themselves up against your chest and you wrap your arms around them. "All right," you say. There are parts of you, switches and wheels deep in your chest, that had gone dormant, shortly before all this began, before the beating that landed you here. You had allowed them to awaken again, in Myka's company, until now, until this very moment, as your mind instinctively finds them and tamps them down, shutting them all off.
"When?" you ask. "Did he say?"
She moves to sit beside you, so that your bodies are touching from hip to shoulder. "He said that Artie, the facility manager, was to tell him when you were healed, and he would issue the order."
You let out a huff. "I never see Artie."
"I expect he's getting his information from Leena. And I would guess that Leena is withholding how well you're doing."
"Leena knows about my sentence?" you ask. Does everyone know, but you?
"I doubt it," the Roman says, "But she's supernaturally intuitive. She knows the condition you were in when you arrived here, and she knows my father is not a merciful man by nature. She had to know you were here for a reason."
You sit in silence for a long moment. The Roman shifts and places her hand on your lower back. "Helena, I wish you'd tell me what happened. I'm going to do everything in my power to keep you safe, but it would help if I knew."
"I'm sorry, Domina," you say. "Some stories are too tawdry for the ears of dignified women."
She stiffens against you. A moment later she forcibly relaxes, her arm tightening around your shoulders. "Okay," she says. "Would you like me to stay with you? I can sneak back to the house before dawn."
"No, thank you, Domina. I think I'd like to be alone for awhile."
She runs her hand twice along the length of your spine, then leans in and kisses your temple. "Okay."
\\
You had almost forgotten your self-appointed mission for the beautiful Lady Myka.
The urge to destroy, so nearly quelled, flares up in you tenfold.
\\
The next day, you go to watch her training, as has become your ritual. Myka and Pete smile fully at one another, trading verbal barbs in equal pace with blows.
You wander to the rack of weapons at the edge of the yard. The spears on one end catch your eye, but when you pick one up, it feels over-long and top-heavy, its weight and balance are quite different from the ones you used to carry
Alongside the spears rest a stack of tridents. You pick one up and measure its heft, balancing it carefully over your hands.
Yes, you think, this fits you better. This trident will do perfectly.
a/n: I know that gladiators didn't have access to real weapons in training spaces, but hey. Storytelling over realism. I do not, however, know a thing about swordfighting so I apologize if I framed that part badly.
Hoping people aren't getting too peeved with me for withholding info about what Helena did to land herself in all this trouble. My plan has always been for the backstory to be revealed to the readers and to Myka at the same time, but I didn't initially plan for this thing to turn out quite this long, so now it feels a bit like I'm keeping secrets. But, hey, too late to turn back now. All will be revealed in time. :)
