Valens detached himself as unobtrusively as he could. Julia looked as if she was about ready to explode. At him? At her stepmother? Valens gave a slight nod in her direction, but Julia looked away, chin very firmly in the air.

'He's not my gladiator, Stepmother. I explained to you already that we had barely met.' Her voice dripped ice.

'A figure of speech, my dear,' her stepmother replied airily. 'At least you had the good sense to run into a gladiator who is well connected.'

'I…' Julia said and then turned on her heel and limped off.

Valens watched her go, the skirt of her gown swishing at her heels. He admired the way she kept her head held high and did not stoop to dignify her stepmother's remark with an answer. She reminded him of the sort of woman he had dreamt of marrying years ago. The sort of woman who had helped make Rome great and who was for ever beyond his reach. One who did embody the ideals of Rome.

'I had no idea Julia Antonia was betrothed to Senator Mettalius,' he said, turning once again to Sabina, his anger growing at the stupidity of the woman, at his folly for wanting something he could not have and at his desire to remember the past.

'Of course, nothing is settled yet, but we are very hopeful. The senator appears to be willing.' Sabina's voice dropped to a hushed whisper. 'All things considered, Julia can not be choosy.'

'Indeed?'

'I am sure you will hear anyway, seeing as you will be staying here. The servants will talk.' Sabina gave a large mock sigh. 'Julia left her husband. She divorced him, claiming he had beaten her. She even took his dog. Her father was most upset. He had to take her back in, of course. She couldn't be left out in the street and she is his responsibility. I did tell him when they married that she is a flighty over-indulged child and might do this. Would he listen and marry her with confarreatio, giving her to her husband for ever, relinquishing all authority over her? No, he gave into fashion. Now he is faced with an unmarried twenty-one-year-old with the wisp of scandal clinging to her stolla. All the best alliances have gone. What sort of man wants a wife that will argue back?'

Mettalius, obviously, Valens thought but resisted the temptation to say it aloud.

'Now, if you'll have a servant show me to my quarters and to your bathing suite, I'll trouble you no further. I've had a long day.' He gave a slight bow.

'But you will join us for dinner.' Sabina gave a coquettish smile. 'We're having sow's udder. It is a speciality of mine, a recipe handed down from generation to generation. The senator always compliments me on it.'

'Regrettably, no, I follow a very strict diet in the weeks before a bout, eating mainly barley and beans.' Valens bowed and forced his tone to hold a note of regret. Sow's udder had never been a favourite, even in the days before he'd been a gladiator. 'I tend to take my meals on my own. Or with the others from the gladiatorial school. Caesar has no wish to trouble you any more than he has to.'

'Some other time.'

'Perhaps, but I will give you longer notice as I don't wish to put you to any trouble,' Valens said smoothly, making sure nothing betrayed his disquiet.

He had no idea how he'd react if he had to confront Mettalius over the dinner table. Already the memories of those last days in North Africa were crowding again into his mind, driving other thoughts away. Valens frowned, and concentrated on turning his thoughts towards the games. His future depended on forgetting his past.


Chapter Three


Julia woke in the silver-grey half-light before dawn. The sounds of the servants beginning to stir and the rumble of the carts in the narrow road outside the house filled her tiny room. She stared up at the rough-hewn plaster ceiling, reliving the events of yesterday evening.

Her father had arrived shortly after Valens, red-faced from his exertions at the gymnasium. Far from being unwelcoming and upset at having to house a gladiator, he had gone to the gym to get some sword practice in before their guest arrived.

Julia chuckled, remembering Sabina's face as her father went on and on about the honour Caesar had given him by letting him house one of the top gladiators in the Republic.

Her luck had held. After the first course, her father had accepted her excuse of a painful ankle and allowed her to retire. She avoided both the sow's udder and a prolonged exposure to Mettalius. Surely, the heated argument about the merits of the former dictator, Sulla, that wafted through her window meant the wedding was less likely. Venus, the special protectoress of the Julian family, had at last begun to listen to her prayers.

'It was a good day after all, Bato,' Julia said, sitting up and hugging her knees through the thin wool blanket.

No answering whine or lick to her face. Julia stretched a foot out, but failed to encounter the usual lump at the end of , the bed, weighing the bedclothes down.

'Bato?' she called. Nothing.

Julia swung her feet over the side of the bed and checked the small room. No dog. She frowned and tried to think how he could have escaped. Surely, the window was too high and narrow to escape that way, even if he had smelt food.

The door creaked on its hinges.

She passed a hand over her eyes and tugged her hair in frustration. The means of escape was all too clear. Her heart sank further as she thought of the kitchens. If he was caught stealing again…

Julia belted her undertunic with a narrow cord. There wasn't time to get fully dressed, not with the clanking she already heard. Hopefully, she'd find him before he got into any major mischief. |

'Bato? Here, boy,' she called as loudly as she dared.

She ran down the stairs and peeped into the large underground kitchen. Several rabbits hung on the far wall and a large piece of meat sat alongside an array of cakes and buns on the counter, waiting for the oven to get hot enough. No sign of the dog, just the back of the kitchen boy as he relit the stove. Julia let out a sigh of relief. Bato was safe from the cook.

Within a heartbeat, relief turned to panic. What if the dog had gone into the wrong bedroom? And licked Sabina's hand? Julia raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Her hand twitched on her stepmother's door handle. Bato would never go in there. He had more sense than that, surely. Her stomach knotted.

She opened the door a crack.

All was peace with only the faint sounds of snores. She closed the door with a click, and tried to puzzle out where Bato could be.

The door to the guest bedroom lay slightly ajar. Julia's breath caught as she thought of the man lying asleep in there. What did he wear in bed—his tunic or nothing? Her fists clenched as she tried to rid her mind of the thought.

She placed her ear against the door, hesitating with her hand on the doorknob until she heard the telltale thump of Bato's tail.

She peered in and whispered. 'Bato. come here, boy.'

Bato looked at her from his place on the bottom of the bed, but refused to move.

Julia opened the door wider and snapped her fingers.

'Bato, now, come before the household wakes up.'

Bato stretched, leapt off the bed and started to move towards her, slowly.

Julia released her breath. Minerva was with her. She'd get Bato back to her room before anyone noticed…and provide an apology to Valens when she saw him later that day, should he mention it.

She screwed up her face. No doubt, he'd mention it in some sort of joke. Not content with leaving her flask behind, she had sent her dog as an excuse to get to know him better. Her cheeks burned.

'Come on, Bato,' she whispered as the dog stopped in the middle of an ornate bedside mat, sitting down to scratch his left ear.

He had to get out of there now!

Julia crouched low and started to crawl across the floor towards the dog, making soft encouraging sounds in the back of her throat as the skirt of her undertunic bunched up around her knees.

'Is there a problem?' Valens's low rumble resounded in her ears. 'I hope I haven't disturbed you.'

Julia froze, hand outstretched, knee on top of the central tiger motif on the mosaic-tiled floor. She glanced to her right and saw Valens standing, arms lifted as if he had been in the middle of an exercise session. If she had thought his tunic short yesterday, this one left little to the imagination.

And his feet were bare.

Her eyes traced the outline of his leg. The full length, from ankle to calf to thigh, was exposed. Her mouth went dry. Her heart started to thump in her ears as she realised her night-time imaginings had not been vivid enough. Reality was much more…

'No, no, you didn't disturb me,' she gasped out, thinking what a lie that was. Of course, he disturbed her. Even his scent— sandalwood and something else—this morning did strange things to her insides. 'My dog somehow seems to have ended up in your bed…I mean your room. I was trying to get him out.'

She scrambled to her feet, wishing she had more covering her body than her thin linen undertunic that she should have replaced a year ago and tried to smooth it lower. She should have thought about their guest, taken the time to get properly dressed, to do her hair and put her face on. There was nothing for it except to pretend she wasn't embarrassed. She lifted her chin.

'He came in during the night,' Valens said with a shrug, 'and went straight to sleep on the bed. I assumed it was where he always slept. The thought crossed my mind that this might be your room.'