The Barbarian's Mistress Read Free Page B

around you or the master. It’s better that he’s sent away, Anni, you’re falling in love with him and …’
    ‘I am not!’
    ‘You are too. You think I don’t watch you mooning over him when he’s not looking. He’s big and strong and handsome, but he’d never be interested in you. He sees you as a child.’
    ‘You’re just being mean. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’m going to play my lyre.’
    And with that Anniana flounced off, her brown hair, shot with warm chestnut highlights, flowing loose behind her.
    ‘Your kind heart will destroy you one day…’ Ninia said softly to her beloved friend, knowing she couldn’t hear her.
    She packed up her sewing with a heavy heart, and prepared to follow her mistress. By the time Ninia settled in at her side again, Anniana would have forgotten her momentary annoyance with her. She could never stay angry with anyone, no matter how much they might deserve it.
    It was her best quality, and her greatest curse.

 
    Chapter Two
     
    20 August 79 CE, Rome, LATIUM
     
    Va li spat out a mouthful of blood as he carefully eyed his opponent – a gladiator armoured and equipped as a thraex warrior. The brawny male before him was scarred on every uncovered surface of his body, and his dark skin was tanned even darker by long hours of practice in the sun-scorched arena of the ludus, the school for gladiators. Bloodshot eyes studied him coldly, weighing up his strengths and possible weaknesses.
    The thraex’s last blow to Vali’s head, with the side of his wooden sword, had driven Vali’s teeth into the soft flesh of his mouth, cutting him. Hence the blood. The metallic taste was not new to him. Years of fighting, as a youth in his homeland, and then in the last six months in the ludus, had made the taste as familiar to him as food.
    He motioned for the thraex to approach him, staying light on his bare feet. The man lunged forward, preparing to heft his sword into Vali’s right arm, to make it useless for manipulating a sword. But Vali twisted to the side, blocking the thrust with his shield. The thud was hard and punishing, and he fell back a step under the pressure.
    Letting his shield fall away to his side, he spun around until his opponent lost his balance. Then he came at him from the opposite direction, striking the other male a sharp blow to his spleen. The man doubled over from the pain.
    A sharp shout had him looking over at the doctores, the teacher in charge of the day’s practice. With a gesture, the man indicated Vali was to come to him. For some reason, his practise was to be curtailed. He didn’t like it. He needed all the practise he could get. An inexperienced gladiator was a dead gladiator. He may have been sold into the gladiatorial theatre by a bitter dowager he couldn’t service, but he wasn’t planning on dying for his lack of libido.
    ‘The Lanista wants you in his office,’ the doctores told him as soon as he reached him.
    Vali broke into a jog to cover the length of the arena as quickly as possible. Whatever this was about, needed to be dealt with fast, so he could get back to training. Although his first match wasn’t yet scheduled, he knew it wouldn’t be long. He might have size and muscle on his side, and half remembered skills from his youth, but that meant little in this world of expert, stylised killers.
    How he killed was as important as the kill itself. If he didn’t give the audience a show, he wouldn’t gain the popularity he needed to win favour. In three years, if he was well supported and won dramatically, he could gain his manumission papers that granted him freedom. He could become a free man for the first time in eight years. Or eleven, by the time he won his freedom. If he survived that long.
    At the end of the arena, he ducked into the cool darkness of the walkway that surrounded the dusty oval. The doors of each gladiator’s cell were left open to let in fresh air. The musty stench of sweat, blood and urine wafted