Darolus does his best to protect Carola; Merlonius wheels and deals and Legatus Neganus arrives, complicating matters even further.
"What's this?" Carol asked when Darolus pressed a silver dagger with an unusual handle into her open hand as she tested the dryness of their garments hanging on the branches.
"I want you to know how to defend yourself." he told her, his handsome face cold now, and serious.
"Against your brother?" she asked warily.
"Against him or anyone else who would seek to harm you." Darolus nodded.
"I'm too small... too weak..." she protested, tears coming to her eyes as she remembered how Merlonius had pressed her against the wall of his chambers, how Edgelus had tormented her under the noses of her own family.
"Am I not smaller and weaker than Tyresius?" Darol challenged, "Did I not defeat him in open battle?"
"I am a woman." she scoffed.
"Does Doctore Micha have cock and balls?" He reminded her. "The only difference between you and gladiator Micha is that she had to learn to fight or die." he loomed over her, his eyes glittering menacingly, grabbing the wrist of the hand that held the knife, "I cannot be with you every minute of every day. Neither can your Custos. Will you not fight for your life? Fight to stay alive for us? For our future?"
Carola stared up at him, the truth of his words frightening her. She thought of the stories that Andrea, Tara and Rosa had told her. If she couldn't stop them, men would take what they wanted from her and leave her nothing. Could she learn to be more like Micha, like Daryl, fight through her fear and learn to be strong? All her life she had pushed against the restraints Roman society sought to impose upon her, asserting her independence whenever possible, but she realized she had bought into the worst lie, that as a woman she was helpless without a man. Father, uncle, and husband-to-be all wanted to control her and use her for their own ends.
Yet here was the man who loved her best trying to help her survive without him. A wave of love for him almost brought her to her knees. She could do this.
"I will do this. Teach me." Carola said, holding her chin up high, "I wish to be a gladiator too."
Darolus' eyes shone with pride and moved his hands to show her how to properly hold her new lethal little weapon.
"You will not announce it until I return." Merlonius requested, giving Callicus a squinting serious look as he made his mark on the contract scroll with his heavy signet ring.
"And why not? My daughter has given her consent, has she not?" Callicus asked, sounding puzzled.
"You are guests in the home of another suitor; it would not be proper."
"I would not expect you to hew so closely to Code of Hospitality, Merlonius Dixus." the older man now sounded a bit suspicious, "Nor be so generous in settlement you are giving your—"
"I have my reasons." Merlonius interrupted. "You will not breathe a word of this while I am gone. Do I have your promise?"
"Yes, of course." Callicus nodded, bowing. "May I say that I welcome news that our Houses will finally be joined in this way?"
"We shall see if rest of Carola's family feels as you do when I return in three days." Merlonius said, his mouth twisting into a strained smile.
"What is task which takes you away so suddenly?"
"Livestock... for my latifundia... an important acquisition that cannot be postponed." Merlonius said, all business.
"I see." Carola's father nodded, though he really did not. Was that not what a farm manager was for? Perhaps Merlonius did not yet trust the staff left behind by Edgelus.
"I will wish you good journey, then." Callicus said, bowing again. "May you be blessed by Mercury himself in your travels."
"Gratitude." Merlonius returned the formal bow and then swept out of the room, hoping the old fool could keep his mouth shut as promised.
Merlonius was waiting for them in the stables when she and Darolus returned from their ride and impromptu knife training session along the beach. They rode double on Ajax and led the mare, Artemis, with the Custos far behind. The stallion had tried to attack the geldings that the guards rode to keep them away from his mate when they had left the beach cove.
After explaining to Doctore Viride what had happened, the trainer just shook his head, told them "the heart wants what the heart wants" and had two grooms take the pair to be untacked, bathed and turned out into one of the paddocks together.
"Dominus Merlonius of House Dixus waits to speak to you both inside." Viride told them when Dixus wondered why his usual tasks in caring for his horse were being denied him. Doctore didn't look thrilled about having his space invaded by Roman nobles, nor by the fact that his star pupil had taken the entire morning off from training to share pleasures with one, but there wasn't much he could do about it.
"So, have you come to a decision?" Merlonius asked.
"We will take your bargain." Darolus said, nodding, his arm around Carola's shoulders.
"I need to hear it from her."
"To spare the man I love, I will marry one I loathe." Carola said disdainfully, her lip curling in distaste.
Instead of being angry as she expected, Merlonius laughed uproariously, obviously amused by her defiant spirit.
"Know this: you hurt Darolus?" Carola said, her voice deceptively calm, her hand moving to the hilt of her silver dagger in a sheath at her belt drawing his eyes to it, "I will cut your throat in your sleep."
"I do not doubt it, my lady." he nodded, bowing to her. "Now you will hear my stipulations: I must away for three days. In that time you must not yet reveal that you have chosen to marry."
"I don't understand..." Darolus said, frowning hard. He'd have thought his brother would want to shout it to the heavens that Carol had chosen him over any other suitor. He would.
"If Ezekias makes offer, you will refuse." Merlonius instructed Carola.
"And tell him what? If I may not tell him I have chosen you, what do I tell him?"
"Tell him the truth." Merlonius shrugged. "That you love another."
"Knowing that, how can you wish to take me as your bride?" she asked with a plaintive sigh.
"I do what I must to return honor to my House –to our House." Merlonius said, his mouth tight and eyes hard. Then he turned and took a step closer to his brother.
Darolus stood straighter, his hold on Carola's free hand tightening. She leaned into his side, almost as if she was trying to protect him; stop him from attacking the man to whom she had just pledged herself.
"When the Legate arrives..." Merlonius began, his shrewd eyes darting back and forth between them, "As much as possible, stay away from each other. Do not give him any hint that there is something between you. If he sees... how you... are with each other, he will use it against us all."
"Why?" Carola asked, unsure why such a grand personage as a Legate would care about a minor noble's daughter and a gladiator.
"He is the cruelest of men, one who enjoys nothing more than inflicting every kind of pain imaginable on anyone unlucky enough to be in his presence." Merlonius told them, his face stony, "It isn't enough for him to break body; he breaks mind... heart... soul..." his eyes clouded with remembrance and anger.
"He hurt you." Carola said with sudden understanding, "When he made you kill your men." she reached out and touched his forearm in sympathy, but he flinched back and glared at her and then gestured to Darolus.
"Save your simpering looks for this one should Neganus decide he wants him for pleasures." Merlonius said cynically, "He has insatiable taste for prime gladiator ass as much as he does for pussy."
That made Carola gasp and look up at Darolus in fear. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her in closer, kissing the top of her head. He wished he could say something to reassure her, but they both knew if the Legate demanded him, he had no right to refuse a guest of his Dominus.
"I will try not to draw notice." was all Darolus could say, his jaw tight.
Merlonius snorted in disbelief.
"At each gathering we attended in Rome you always drew every eye, brother. Men and women fought for the chance to fuck you—I almost hated you for that—except I got to enjoy the overflow." he chuckled lasciviously.
Carola's eyes went wide and she stiffened. She knew he had lived in Rome for a few years after completing his schooling; how many lovers had he taken there? Could he really be happy with a sexually inexperienced girl like her?
"Does she even know?" Merlonius asked in a smug wheedling tone, "Who you were—how popular you were at orgy there—before father summoned you to this backwater?"
"None of that matters now." Darolus said, a flush of anger and embarrassment tightening his throat, pushing guilty thoughts of the ludus baths away.
"You're a one women man now." Merlonius said skeptically, his eyes narrowing.
"I love her." Darolus replied firmly, his thumb rubbing soothingly over Carola's knuckles, sensing her agitation, "I am hers."
"Once purchase is made, quite literally." his brother chuckled, rubbing his hands together and smirking at Carola. "After the nuptials, you'll have him all to yourself."
At the reminder of their bargain and the reality of her betrothal to the brother of the man she loved, Carol slumped against him, turning to rest the side of her face against his strong warm bicep.
"You look weary, Carola." Merlonius observed, "As much as you hate to be parted from him, my dear, you must leave your gladiator now and return to the villa lest anyone grow suspicious you have dallied in the stables pleasuring both brothers Dixus."
Carola raised her head to glare at him but Darolus forestalled whatever she was going to say by moving her behind him protectively as he advanced on Merlonius, ready to punish him for the implied insult.
The trumpet sounded, announcing the arrival of visitors and Merlonius swore.
"Futuo—I wanted to be gone before they arrived."
"There is a second gate through the olive groves at the rear of the property—we bring the horses through there returning from the high pastures." Darolus said. There was rich grazing land on the foothills of Vesuvius.
"Gratitude." Merlonius nodded, "I will return in three days—remember what I said—the legate is one of the most dangerous men in the Republic. If you draw his attention he will take from you anything—everything—you treasure."
"Go quickly to the villa—our secret path—hurry." Darolus begged Carola, holding her close and giving her a brief but tender kiss.
"I love you." she whispered and paused, reluctant to leave him, but the deadly serious look on both men's faces forced her to do as he asked.
"You're going to kill him?" Darolus asked after she left, following Merlonius to his horse's stall and watching as he tacked up the big blood red stallion. The other man didn't speak until he was done and took the horse out of the large box stall.
"I'm going to do worse." Merlonius pledged, "I'm going to take away who he is."
With that cryptic promise he led the horse to the doors at the far end of the walkway between the two rows of stalls and mounted, riding swiftly for the gate through the groves.
"I welcome you to my House, Legate Neganus." Ezekias said, bowing graciously to the tall imposing man dressed in light battle armor who had just dismounted from a magnificent coal black stallion.
From his vantage point in the hay mow of the stable block Darolus looked out through an opening in the shuttered windows, able to hear everything that was being said in the yard. Doctore Viride and his staff stood waiting in the stable doorway ready to offer assistance when summoned.
The Legate handed the reins off to his Steward and the huge horse danced back, blowing out a heavy breath and rolling its eyes so that the whites showed. It was covered in sweat and white lather, indicating that it had been ridden extremely hard for a prolonged period. The other horses, both the ones ridden by his Centurions and the ones pulling his wagons looked equally done in.
Ezekias, Viride and Darolus' eyes all narrowed in immediate dislike. A man who sacrificed the needs of his beasts to his own selfish desire for speed when there was no need for it was not one to be respected.
"Doctore Viride, see to it that the Legate's animals are cared for." Ezekias said, a little more sharply than he intended. The trainer and House groom slaves immediately came forward.
"Gratitude, Dominus Ezekias." Neganus flashed him a bored smile, removing his helmet and unwinding his neck scarf to use it to wipe the sweat from his face before glancing back at the people and horses behind them as if he'd forgotten they were there. "I hope to purchase better stock from you than these lazy beasts; I had expected to make arrival from Alexandria before sun was at mid-day, but Myrmidon and I had to temper our pace." He took a step back and patted the stallion's sweaty neck, the loud slap of his hand making the Steward holding the horse flinch. He turned his head away revealing that the left half of his face had been burned severely sometime in the past and was covered in pinkish red scar tissue.
Darolus thought about what his brother had told them and wondered what horror the Steward had suffered at his master's hands.
"He is a fine animal, Legatus." Ezekias said diplomatically when the horse laid its ears back and tried to bite the thin scarred man who was struggling to keep him still. The horse had excellent confirmation, but its temperament left a lot to be desired.
"He is finest horse flesh in Rome." the Legate said as if that was a foregone conclusion. "And I hear you breed finest in this region, just as Lanista Regulus Monroviatus has finest gladiators in his ludus."
"I am gratified, as will be Regulus that you found it so." Ezekias said. The other Lanista waited inside with the rest of the household and guests. They would have a formal welcome for the Legate in the triclinium at evening meal. Proper decorum insisted that he be given a chance to bathe, rest and receive any other hospitality desired before his official reception.
"I made good use of my time there." the Legate said, pursing his lips in remembrance and giving a throaty chuckle, "I quite enjoyed my negotiations with his unusual and exotic Doctore."
Ezekias nodded stiffly and clamped his jaws shut, fighting the urge to bristle at the mention of Micha. Though she was technically an employee, not a slave, having received her rudius and freedom after her glorious days in the Arena, she was still a woman and not a Roman citizen. If Neganus wanted her, she could not refuse him without consequences.
"She guided me in my perusal of his stock quite well; helped me put them through their paces." Neganus smirked, his all too obvious double entendre grating. And just in case anyone missed his meaning he added, "Why buy a gladiator who cannot fuck as well as he fights, don't you agree, Dominus Ezekias?"
"A wise policy, Legatus." Ezekias nodded, his face carefully blanked.
"I wish to keep my new favorite with me in my chambers—will that be a problem?" Neganus asked before turning and waving a summoning hand to the Centurions guarding the large barred wagon at the back.
"Not at all. You have the east wing of the villa at your disposal. There are rooms for your entire travelling party of you so wish. There are open cells in the ludus and room in the Custos barracks as well, should you choose to use them." Ezekias told him. If the arrogant ass wanted to keep a dangerous gladiator in his chambers as a fuck toy, it wasn't his problem. The doors to that wing locked from both sides.
"Excellent! I can see that hospitality has not fallen by the wayside here in hinterlands as I had been warned by my friends in Rome. You do me honor, Dominus Ezekias, gratitude." he said and bowed slightly at the waist, just enough not to be insulting, but barely.
Two Centurions came forward, each holding one of the arms of a man in chains, his head down, bruises evident on his well muscled but lean body, his gladiator clout his only clothing. One of the soldiers handed the Legate a long club and Ezekias eyes widened, realizing that it was the same implement as was used in a fustuarium, the instrument of death in Decimation, made even worse by the addition of small metal spikes pounded into the surface of the thicker end and the brown crusted blood on its surface.
"Fucking sick bastard." Dixus murmured to himself when he saw the club. What kind of a monster carried around a reminder of the cold blooded murder of his own men? The same kind who would order it done, he sighed, answering his own question.
"Meet Lucilla—my darling girl—she's been with me since Pontus." Neganus said with good humor, swinging the malign club in an arc above his head before lowering it rest on his shoulder.
Ezekias stared, unsure of what to do at first, but then he bowed to the club as if meeting a lady.
"Stay out of his way, my love and keep knife near." Darolus sent the whispered words aloft, sickened at the thought that she would be sleeping in the same villa as the Legate. It was too dangerous now for her to come to him at night.
"I would have him bathed and seen to by your Medicus before he is brought to my chambers." Neganus ordered, "Get the stink of the road off of him."
Ezekias nodded in silent agreement, sending Noa to begin preparations.
Crossing to the man in chains the Legate, with surprising gentleness, took hold of his short curls and lifted his head so his face was visible. There was a bruise on his jaw and his lower lip was swollen, but he was instantly recognizable to the man watching from the stables.
"They called him Aaronus, but I have renamed him Hylas: "We are not the first mortals to see beauty in what is beautiful. No, even Hercules loved a boy—charming Hylas, whose hair hung down in curls." he quoted, leaning close and kissing his new slave's forehead tenderly and winding his fingers through his curls.
"Oh, my old friend..." Dixus sighed painfully.
AN: I had a question about the character's ages. Though the average life span in ancient Rome is usually given as 35, (making 17 middle age!) if you were wealthy and lived past the dangerous childhood period from birth to ten, you could live to be in your 50s. Like Romeo & Juliet, the truest portrayal of Carola & Darolus would be that they were teens, but I've aged them up to make more sense to modern readers.
This version of Daryl is 23, having spent four years in Rome after school, age 18-21, before returning to Alexandria, spending a year leaning the business and meeting Carola before becoming a gladiator in training.
This version of Carol is a sheltered Roman maiden, about 18 years old, over protected as the virgin daughter of a wealthy House. She is not the kick ass mature woman who has been through an abusive marriage and the walker apocalypse to harden her shell. Her first true defiance to the paternalistic dominance of her father is acting on her love for Darolus. In this chapter we see him encourage her to learn self defense and start to embrace the woman we know she can become, even threatening Merlonius in my version of the deleted scene from S3.
Of course nothing good can come of Neganus choosing Aaronus/Hylas as his new lover and then showing up on this particular House's doorstep. He likes having power over other strong men. Taking a gladiator as his catamite is a power trip as much as it is anything sexually gratifying for him. I see hints of this in the things he does and says to both Rick (the infamous "I just slid my dick down your throat" line) and Daryl's torture. He also loves to play mind games. Treating Aaronus with both gentleness and brutality—never letting him know which he will get—is a tried and true way to break someone down.
Source of Neganus' quotation: In Greek mythology After Heracles killed Theiodamas in battle, he took on his son Hylas as arms bearer and taught him to be a warrior. The poet Theocritus (about 300 BCE) wrote about the love between Heracles and Hylas: "We are not the first mortals to see beauty in what is beautiful. No, even Amphitryon's bronze-hearted son, who defeated the savage Nemean lion, loved a boy—charming Hylas, whose hair hung down in curls. And like a father with a dear son he taught him all the things which had made him a mighty man, and famous." Source:The World History of Male Love: Greek Mythology.