“A single tournament win and suddenly the celebrity of it all has turned me into whore,” the gladiator limping complained to him. “I am a mere man, Arryn. I cannot train to fight all day and perform for countless women all night.”
“Soon you’ll buy your freedom, brother.” Arryn tapped on the man’s shoulders as gently as he could, still making him wince despitehis care. “Then you’ll have full control over how many rich women you are forced to bed, should you choose to stay.”
The rest of the morning was uneventful as Arryn moved through the food hall with his first serving of wheat and barley. The food might have been the most tortuous part of this whole ordeal. Otherwise, he found he quite liked most of the constant company. It had been hundreds of years since the entire clan was together and he yearned for that time back.
When he was good and punished, he would leave his chosen enslavement and convince Allienna, Reign, and the others to all live in the temple again. The last passage through the portal had become a distant memory—five hundred, maybe six hundred years overdue.
The gladiators were all ushered outside after their morning meal, Arryn towering over every single one of them. He was a few inches shy of seven feet tall, looking like a mixture of a Viking warrior and a Roman deity. To avoid shedding his immortal blood, he often gave victory to whoever he trained with. Today, a small seventeen-year-old boy, nothing more than skin and bones, ran up to him to claim him as the day's training partner.
Arryn smiled at the boy, taking in the heat of the training grounds. The rock-hard pale earth seemed to only reflect the sun up towards itself. Without a living plant in the vicinity, the smaller arena seemed like nothing more than a larger cell, holding all forty or fifty of their bodies at once.
“What do you want to train with today?” Fabius, the scrawny seventeen-year-old, asked Arryn. The men all walked over to the racks of training weapons, made up of wooden swords, spears, nets, and shields.
“I’ll take a net and a shield; you take a shield and a sword.” Arryn grinned broadly back at Fabius.
“Arryn,” shouted the Magistri, “when will we make use of your body mass? It seems all you have to do is sit on your opponent, and yet you can’t even be bothered to pick up and wield a sword. There are no gentle giants here; someone paid good money for you.”
The Magistri was an older mortal man with short, graying hair,once a glorious fighter himself. Now he had been promoted to head trainer. Arryn thought of him as a drunken, corrupt man. A true product of his life circumstances, yet an ass nevertheless.
“All due respect, Magistri, I’m a farmer and not a fighter. I prefer to create life rather than take it.” Arryn took the net that Fabius skipped towards him, holding out a shield. He ran back over to the weaponry racks, avoiding other gladiators already engaging in combat to procure his weapons.
“Look at that,” the Magistri laughed, “never have won a battle, yet you seem to have a servant boy here at your disposal.” He took a swig from a leather pocket flask before hiding it back under his tunic.
Arryn nodded at Fabius, signaling to move into a starting position. Fabius had to give his all to hold up the wooden sword and shield.
The boy had been captured alongside Arryn in the fields by slave traders who needed new stock. Arryn had chosen to place himself there, on that farm, just the day prior. He had to get away from the sobbing, from Allienna's broken heart. He was there to work away his guilt, to return to their temple and continue a mundane life without fights, without apologies.
It was his fault, her pain; it was always his fault. This was the best way he knew how to repent.
Fabius, on the other hand, had been violently torn from his home. His father traded him for a handful of coins, callously disregarding Fabius's status as the eldest son, likely due to his small frame.
The boy's gaze remained fixed on the ground, concealing the torrent of emotions that bubbled beneath the surface. For thirty long hours, Fabius withheld any outward display of sorrow, standing resolute in the cramped confines of the barred cart. That cart had then inexorably carried them back to the heart-wrenching spectacle of the slave auction, and now, here they were.
Arryn had made a small internal promise that Fabius would have nothing to fear from him. He would instead find a friend and true support. Public rejection from one’s family was the worst kind ofbanishment that Arryn could have ever imagined and yet, the boy stood there and endured.
Fabius launched himself towards Arryn, having the power to raise his sword above his head before thrusting it diagonally towards him. Arryn put up his shield to block the blow, and the boy flashed him a goofy smile.
“That’s getting better,” Arryn said as Fabius jumped back. Arryn held out his net and flung it sideways, cutting through the air as it narrowly missed hitting another gladiator’s arm. It boomeranged around almost supernaturally until it hit Fabius, wrapping itself around him like a tangled rope.
Shit, Arryn thought.That was too good.
The Magistra jumped up out of his relaxed position, scratching his head.
“What in Hades?” He cursed under his breath. “Where were you hiding that talent?”
“Beginner’s luck.” Arryn tried to shrug it off and made sure to trip over his feet a few times before letting Fabius clumsily smack him with the sword. The Magistri grew bored and moved on to some more aggressive fighters, letting Arryn relax. Fabius grinned from ear to ear, thankful the attention was off him as well, and the two continued their practice over the next few hours. Once weapons were hung back on the racks and most of the men were covered in fresh scrapes and bruises, the group, collectively sore, marched back into the mess hall for their evening meal.
The heavy aroma of sweat and anticipation hung thick in the dimly lit mess hall. As the massive wooden doors creaked open, the rhythmic clinking of sandals against stones filled the hall. A dusting of the arena sand clung to Arryn’s body while the flickering torches lining the hall flickered along the scars across his companions’s faces.
Arryn sat at a small communal table not yet occupied, but was soon followed by Fabius and other fighters. The clatter of wooden utensils against pottery resumed, accompanied by conversations and warmth. Halfway through the meal, the doors banged wide open, drawing everyone’s attention.
There stood the Magistri, the Lanista, a few guards brandishing their swords, and, to everyone's surprise, a woman. A woman who was not being snuck through the servant's corridors for coin, a woman who was proudly presented in front of the entire camp.
Arryn rolled his eyes, already guessing what this was about. The woman was hidden behind a dark green, hooded cloak, a modern color for this period, which gave her away immediately. He had only been here a few months. Why pull him out of his glutinous punishment so early? He wasn't ready to look into Allienna's eyes, to see the sadness that they held.
The woman lowered her hood as the room fell silent. Her beauty was ethereal, goddess-like. Her plump lips and oval face, framed by dark hair pulled into a knot, indicated that she was not a city resident. Her eyes scanned the room, looking for Arryn.
“There, I want him,” she said into the Lanista’s ear.