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care,’ Pavo said. ‘I’ll find a way.’
    Gurges picked at a morsel of food lodged in his teeth. Pulling his finger out of his mouth, he rubbed the morsel between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Arrogant lad, aren’t you?’
    ‘No,’ Pavo said. ‘Just wronged.’
    A chill gripped Pavo as an image flashed across his mind of Hermes lying prostrate on the arena floor, blood spilling from his slit throat. He burned with rage. His father had been humiliated in the arena. His family’s wealth had been seized by Claudius and pumped into the imperial coffers. Pavo’s son, Appius, had vanished and he feared the worst. The child could have been sold into slavery or butchered in some dark alley, joining his mother Sabina – who had died during childbirth – in the afterlife. Pavo had been stripped of his position as tribune and condemned to a barbaric death. He had nothing left to live for, except the prospect of killing Hermes.
    ‘Perhaps we can come to an arrangement,’ Gurges said. Calamus arrived and waited patiently by the study door. ‘If you earn me some good victories, I may be able to help you in your quest to fight Hermes.’
    Pavo said nothing.
    ‘Give it some thought,’ Gurges continued. ‘In the meantime, watch your back. Some of the gladiators in this ludus are prisoners of war. One or two might even have been captured by your old man. As for the rest, well …’ He swept his arms across his desk as if clearing away imaginary clutter. ‘Let’s just say they don’t like high-born brats like you intruding on their ludus.’
    He reached for his wine cup and raised it to his lips, forgetting that he’d already emptied it. Frowning, he rose abruptly from his seat as Calamus brushed past Pavo. The doctore watched the recruit depart down the passageway. Once he was out of earshot, he turned to the lanista.
    ‘He’s trouble, that one,’ Calamus grumbled. ‘We should just be rid of him.’
    ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Gurges replied, flattening out a slight crease in his tunic. ‘Times are hard. We haven’t had a champion since the great Proculus, seven bloody long years ago.’
    Calamus made to reply, but Gurges levelled his eyes with the doctore and cut in before he could speak. ‘With his raw talent and the fame of his family name, crowds will flock to see Pavo. We’ll fill the arena ten times over.’ He looked back down the passageway at Pavo’s shrinking figure. ‘He could save us. And gods know, we need a new champion. Either that, or we go out of business. Now, tell me how the injured gladiators in the infirmary are faring. The useless bastards …’
     
    Calamus stabbed at the sky, as if drawing blood from the bellies of the clouds.
    ‘This is a sword,’ the doctore said. ‘Look at it. Admire the blade. Consider the craftsmanship that has gone into making such a fine weapon.’ He smiled for a moment before making a thrusting motion at the recruits. ‘Now imagine the point puncturing your ribcage,’ he said. ‘Cutting through your flesh.’ He twisted the sword in his hand. ‘Carving up your vitals.’
    He held the weapon outstretched and pointed the tip at Pavo, who stood at the end of the line. Pavo felt the other recruits’ eyes burning holes in him. In the shadows beneath the balcony he could see the veteran fighters occasionally throwing angry stares at him between training exercises. Word of his privileged upbringing had spread quickly, Pavo realised. Since arriving in the ludus, he had learned that most of the men in the gladiator school were prisoners of war, slaves or criminals. There was a sprinkling of freedmen volunteers, men of lowly status and desperate circumstances willing to accept the stain on their characters inflicted by becoming a gladiator in exchange for a chance of glory and money. But all the men were of a much lower social status than Pavo. He knew from long experience in the Sixth that nothing bred resentment like an upper-class accent. Still, he had