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doubted they felt as he did, sore and with a head trying to eat itself whole. They were younger than him and more moderate besides.
    Outside, he heard the day’s training begin. Gladiators clacked wooden swords against tall poles in the sand to practice technique. The voice of Murus, the doctore, could be heard even deep in the cell blocks.
    To train gladiators, one had to establish authority from somewhere. Murus derived his from years of experience in the arena and a loud, loud voice. Lucius joked sometimes that Jupiter had trouble issuing decrees during the training hours of House Varinius because it meant he would have to out-shout Murus.
    As with most humor, Murus did not appreciate the jest.
    He stood up from bed slow, trying to shake some feeling back in his withered, mangled arm. Slowly, he felt the blood sweep back into it. He opened and closed his hand, grunting at the effort.
    There was a bowl of water at the front of his cell and he splashed his face with it. Lucius tugged on a fresh loin cloth and grabbed the long stick he kept hooked on the wall. Going right out, no exercises or preparation.
    Nyx would be angry with him. The medicae had spent hours trying to teach him rehab techniques for his arm. The best time for them, though, was in the morning or the night. In the night, he drank and forgot. And in the morning, he was always late, and had no time to dally around and press his arm in strange positions against the wall.
    The arm would heal or it wouldn’t. Lucius had resigned himself more and more to the idea that it never would; that he would always be a lesser man than he had been.
    Just before stepping out into the sun, Lucius took a moment to compose his face. All too often when he woke, he had that freshly hungover scrawl in his expressions, disappointed and angry at everything that wasn’t a drink in his face.
    But he was to start training the women in proper today, wasn’t that right? Might as well try and make an effort. Give them a little authority to dance around.
    Outside, it was cloudy. It looked like rain was on the way. That was fine by Lucius. He particularly despised the heat of the summer months, and more rain always meant a break from the heat, at least for a while. Sometimes it turned muggy afterward—in fact, most of the time it turned muggy afterward—but that was just the price paid for a moment’s relief.
    Lucius was well-accustomed to being on the poor end of deals with mother nature.
    The women were at the sands already, striking at their posts. Their forms were wrong.
    Better than yesterday?
    He had no idea.
    Gwenn was there, and of course his heart caught as he glanced upon her. She, like all the other female novices, wore a loin cloth, a tight sleeveless tunic, and hard sandals strapped to her feet. The sheen of sweat on her skin only made her beauty all the more evident. His want shifted in his belly, aching for release. Lucius thought very hard for a moment trying to ignore all the useless feelings his body sent out.
    He stepped up to the sands and relieved Murus, earning a long glare from the lead doctore for his lateness, and started in.
    “Thrust!” he commanded the line of women.
    They obeyed. All of their footing was nonsense. Like bad dancing.
    “Keep your weight on your heels. Otherwise, your toes will go numb and you will lose your balance and you will die. Thrust!”
    Again, they obeyed. The smarter ones, or the more body-capable ones, kept more of their weight on their heels. None of them were particularly good.
    “Dying in the arena is an honor,” said Lucius, knowing he mimed Murus from his own early days in training, “so long as it is honorably done. But first you must have good form. Thrust!”
    He watched them try again, with none of them performing up to task. His frown felt permanent.
    A woman raised her hand. “May I ask a question?”
    “What is your name?”
    “Ros, Doctore.”
    “No questions, Ros.” He made a circle in the air with a finger.