Page 125 of Of Love and Treason
“Goodbye.” She allowed her eyes to connect with his to convey how little she cared. Titus’s expression crushed under the weight of that single clipped word. She almost regretted how harshly the word had come out, but anger refused to let her soften.
He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it and simply nodded. “Goodbye, then.” He turned on his heel and shoved his way into the crowd, heading back the way they’d come, wide shoulders bowed as if laden with a weight he could barely carry.
Iris turned toward the villa, ignoring the twinge of her spirit urging her to go after him, to forgive him while she could. She lifted her chin. Whatever weight Titus carried, he’d heaped it upon his own shoulders.
LVIII
TITUS WOVE THROUGH THE HYPOGEUM,a maze of dimly lit corridors hidden beneath the sand of the Colosseum floor. Above him came the thunderous rumble of fifty thousand spectators and the clash of swords and thud of spears and bodies. The Praetorians had been called to the amphitheatre in force. When word had gotten out that the man known as The Cupid would be executed at noon on the second day of the games, outrage swept through the city. How dare the emperor kill the hero of the people? Riots had broken out. The Urban Guards had been ordered to surround the amphitheatre, while Praetorians were stationed inside, lining the interior halls and the aisles in the stands. The departure of the Ninth Minerva had been postponed until the following morning.
A trickle of fine sand seeped through a crack overhead, and somewhere in the shadows a large cat snarled. Titus followed the sound to a large capstan in the center of the underground maze where animal trainers herded a huge striped tiger into a cage. He paused, watching slaves turn the capstan, raising the cage all the way to a trapdoor in the ceiling. A sweat-slicked slave fumbled with a lever as the rest waited, bodies tense. A square of blinding light and a powdery cloud of sand split the ceiling as the trapdoor dropped into the cage like a ramp. Another slave pressed a red-hot poker into the tiger’s hindquarters, and with a roar, the tiger leaped up onto the arena floor.Wild cheers erupted from the stands. The slave with the lever closed the trapdoor once more.
“Station three, ready!” the foreman directed in a shout and everyone scrambled to a capstan in another location of the floor.
Titus tore his eyes away and moved further down the corridor. The Praetorian prefect had found himself in a tight spot, wedged between loyalty to his emperor and maintaining the favor of the people. If he let Valentine live, the emperor would executehim. If he obeyed the emperor’s directive and executed Valentine, the people would riot and kill him anyway. Titus found himself in a similar spot. If the people found outhewas behind the arrest of their beloved hero, he would be a dead man too. And if the people didn’t kill him, the barbarians waiting at the battlefront would.
He shook his head and focused on the task ahead. Valentine had been moved from the Ludus to the amphitheatre during the prior evening’s gladiator matches. Titus hadn’t been quick enough to intercept him then. Now he kept to the outer corridors of the hypogeum, where cells studded the outside edge. The close air was humid and stank of sweat, fear, and animal feces. He wasn’t sure where the noxii were kept, but he knew an air of pure confidence was key in getting him there.
“You there!” He flagged a lanista with a belt full of keys. “Where are the prisoners for the noon executions?”
The lanista gave a noncommittal wave of his hand. “Around.”
“I’m a speculatore, here on behalf of Tribune Lucius Braccus. I need to see one of the noxii. A man by the name of Valentine Favius Diastema. It’s urgent.”
The lanista studied him a moment, then tipped his head toward an open cell. “Wait here.”
Titus waited, feet apart, arms crossed, as the lanista left. A snake of fear coiled in his gut. He jiggled his leg to mask it. He’d agonized over what to do and couldn’t be sure this last panicked idea would work. Either way, he was a dead man. So what did it matter?
A low growl from somewhere farther down the tunnels raised the hairs on the back of his neck and arms. The animals were starved, heknew—the lions, wild dogs, tigers—then fed pieces of dead prisoners to help them acquire a taste for human flesh. His stomach churned. This was a terrible idea. He should go. Before he could move toward the exit, the clink of chains announced the return of the lanista who prodded a staggering Valentine into the light of a flickering torch. Head down, he walked past Titus with a shuffling stiffness. The lanista chained him to iron rings in the wall of the open cell and stepped back.
“I’ll let you know when I’m through.” Titus dropped a few coins into the lanista’s palm.
The lanista closed his fist over the coins and left. Titus watched him until he stationed himself at the end of the tunnel just before it curved out of sight. When he turned back, Valentine stared at him.
“Are the others safe?” His raw, bleeding wrists dangled at his sides, secured to the wall by short chains. Blood streaked his swollen fingers and dried down one side of his chin.
“Your friends need you.” Titus gritted his teeth. “Irisneeds you. We don’t have much time.” He pulled out a thin metal pick and set to work on the iron clamped around Valentine’s left wrist. “Listen closely. We’ll have to trade places. It—it’s the only way. I’ve received orders to join the fighting at the front with the Ninth Minerva. They leave at dawn. I have the documents with me; they’ll get you out of the city and then you can go wherever you please from there. Burn the uniform and no one will be the wiser.”
Valentine jerked his wrist from Titus’s grasp and clutched it to his chest with a hiss of pain. “They’ll execute you if you let me escape.”
Titus glanced at the door. “I’m not doing it for you.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Iris... lovesyou.” He hated how his throat constricted over the words.
“And I love her.” Valentine shook his head. “But there’s no way I’d make it out of here.”
“With my uniform and hooded cloak, you’ll be fine.” Titus hadn’t expected it to be so difficult to beg a condemned prisoner to go free.
“Why are you doing this? Wasn’t sending me to the executioners your plan all along?”
“Yes.” Titus wrestled Valentine’s wrist back and concentrated onthe lock. “But if I leave you here, Iris will never forgive me.” He thought of her angry goodbye yesterday. The pain of it stinging still. “It’s the only way out now. We can’t both leave. There are armored lanistae everywhere on the lookout for gladiators trying to escape during the chaos. If you take my uniform and pull the hood over your face, no one should stop you.”
“What about you?” Valentine squeezed his eyes shut. “You think Iris and I could live happily together knowing you’d been executed for letting me go free? How could she forgiveme?”
“I would do anything for her—give anything.” The locking mechanism clicked but didn’t give. Valentine kept trying to pull his arm away. “Stop fighting me. She wantsyou... and I can’t live with the way she looks at me.”
Valentine studied him a long moment before his lips tipped in a sad smile, some realization crossing his face. “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
“Trust me,” Titus growled, “you arenotmy friend.”
They didn’t have much time. The fighting in the arena above had gone quiet. The floor grated with the sound of pushcarts and the scraping of bodies being cleared from the sand. The noon show would begin soon. Already the stands hummed with boredom. The noon show was neither exciting nor competitive. It was a bloodbath of unarmed noxii against gladiators armed to the teeth. Sometimes the noxii were pitted against beasts. Criminals though they were, and deserving of death, Titus could never quite stomach the noon show. Now he’d be part of it.
