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potential. Fewer still were the freeborn who fought of their own free will: debtors, gambling their lives to release themselves from some financial millstone, or men addicted to the thrill of combat and seeking the eternal fame that was a gladiator’s greatest prize. The odds were against them. Most would never find it, only a painful death squirming in their own blood and guts on the sand.
    He saw Marcus, his trainer, working with two fighters in the centre of the practice ground and walked through the gate and into the shade of the barrack building to do the loosening-up exercises the old gladiator insisted upon. Most of the gladiators trained naked, but Valerius preferred to cover his modesty with a short kilt. He removed his tunic and carefully folded it on a bench by the doorway. A few of the men glanced at him, but none acknowledged him. He would never be truly welcome here among the living dead. He felt the tension rising inside him. He was ready. First, short runs to simulate attack and retreat. Then stretches and muscle movements. More runs. More stretches. Only when a man had broken sweat and could feel his breath searing his lungs and his heart ramming against his ribs was he ready for the fight. As he took a drink from the fountain a shadow loomed over him.
    ‘Not too much,’ Marcus warned. ‘I have a treat for you today.’
    Valerius eyed him suspiciously. Every time he’d heard those words they had been followed by pain and humiliation. The trainer grinned, turning the scar that split his right cheek into a crevasse. Stocky and darkly handsome, despite the missing left ear which was a permanent memento of his career, he was the fastest man Valerius had ever met, with hands that could blind you with their speed.
    He introduced the figure who walked up to join them. ‘Serpentius of Amaya.’ Valerius looked into eyes that hated you in an instant and a face that said its owner liked to hurt people. The narrow white seams that marked the shaven skull told of past battles won and lost. The man was thin and dark as a stockman’s whip and looked just as tough.
    ‘Serpentius,’ Valerius acknowledged, but the other only stared at him.
    ‘We call him Serpentius because he’s so fast. The snake, right?’ Marcus explained cheerfully. ‘A Spaniard. Even faster than me.’
    Valerius picked up his wooden practice sword. ‘I might as well go home then.’ He spun round to bring his blade down on Serpentius’s upper arm, only to feel the point of the Spaniard’s own sword touching his throat.
    Marcus howled with laughter. ‘Quick, eh?’
    Valerius nodded, his eyes never leaving his opponent’s. ‘Quick.’
    It looked like being a very long two hours.
    The men around him practised with sword against net and trident, sword against sword and sword against spear. Valerius only ever used the short legionary gladius or the spatha , the longer cavalry blade. With the gladius , a man killed with the point; quick, brutally effective jabbing strokes and a twisting withdrawal that tore a hole in an opponent’s guts the size of a shield boss. With the spatha it was a combination of the razor edge and brute strength that could bludgeon a man to death or chop him to pieces. But today wasn’t about killing. They would use wooden practice swords and it was about speed and endurance, building strength and discovering weaknesses, his opponent’s and his own. Unless, of course, Serpentius decided differently.
    They took their places in the centre of the training ground and Valerius shuffled his feet into the dusty earth to get a feel for its grip. His opponent carried only a sword, in his right hand. Valerius always trained with sword and shield; sword in the left, shield attached firmly to the carved wooden fist that served for his right. No point in strengthening his left arm by constant practice if he allowed his right to wither away. He would not be a cripple.
    He felt Serpentius’s eyes on him. When he looked up the