Bookworm Gladiator

I stood there for the longest second, hung in time and with my overturned heart, which had been falling continuously since I’d seen Layla’s shriveled body hanging upside down in the cave below. The moon was at its highest outside, the light from the doorway reaching the tips of my toes. I felt my stomach twisted into a ball. I couldn’t move.

For someone who was a longtime advocate of knowledge, I wanted nothing more than to run back into the comfortable arms of ignorance. Humbled beyond measure, and confused even more-so. The previous weeks took on a nightmarish aura knowing what lay beneath the palace. Every bright morning, every cheerful thought and chatter around the palace, had been accompanied by the muffled drops of blood from the carcass of Atia's fellow priestess—a woman of grace and dignity. Layla had been tough on me sure, but I was just a pawn of Atia’s after all. She’d rebelled against power for her sake and Baba Haza’s, and had been slaughtered and carved up like a pig. How could Atia get away with something like this?

She can’t. The words rung and bounced around in my head, my senses finally clearing from the shock. She can’t get away with this.

In fact, this might just be her downfall. Knowledge was never a disadvantage, and in this case, it was damning. This was Atia’s chink in the armor, something I could use against her. It could ruin her reputation, mire her in political issues, even get her in front of a legal magistrate. One can dream.

I shuffled along towards the atrium hall filling my head with ideas and whatever plans and machinations my half-asleep brain could muster. The hall was quiet. Eerily so.

The atrium had a ceiling window that allowed the moonlight to shine bright on the marbled floor. The palace gates must have been unbarred then, as the nobles were gone and the temple guard as well, no doubt escorting the patricians back to their own houses. A fire still burned in the pit, and beside it sat Atia, with a tired servant-woman massaging her calves and feet.

Before my instinct of flight kicked in, Atia saw me. “Old man, you’re still awake,” Atia slurred. She was drunk, but despite that her next words were still commanding, “Come here.”

Fight, it is. I walked over to her, Layla’s leathery remains flashing before me for a second, and then I stared down into Atia’s cold, dead eyes. “Where have you been?” she asked.

I ignored her question, and instead pointed to the poor woman who was clearly half-asleep and her hand moved uselessly across Atia’s foot. “Is that even helping? Let the woman sleep.”

“Would you like to take her place?” Atia snapped.

“She’ll be of no use come breakfast,” I said, and that seemed to have done the trick, as Atia kicked away the woman’s hand and waved her away. I recognized her from this afternoon, the one who’d been running barefoot across the field attending to Atia and her friends. She had raven black hair, a petite frame and worn hands from years of washing and scrubbing. With a faint bow, she scurried off and disappeared around the corner, towards the servant quarter.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“How about a game of chess?” Atia said, and my eyes fell to the table beside her, to the wooden board with pieces of glass and dark marble. It had been played already, with one clear, dominant winner.

“You were playing with someone?” I asked.

“My uncle loves it,” Atia said, “come, grab that stool.”

“I really must sleep, I can’t even keep—”

“Come now, biographer. I’ll go easy on you.”

I feigned a sigh, and shrugged my shoulders casually. Meanwhile, my heart was beating out of my chest, loud enough that I feared she could hear in the silence of the atrium. Why do I fear her so?

I finally had a semblance of an upper-hand. And it wasn’t even just Layla’s body, but also Suetonius’— I could blame that on her too.

Atia was already arranging the pieces, her hand moving lithely and with practice despite the occasional drunken hiccup. “Clear or dark?”

“What?” I said, watching her fingers come to rest on the corners of the board. “Uh, sorry, black.”

Slowly, she brought the dark, marbled pieces in front of me as she turned the board. “My turn,” she whispered and with a swift move that I missed, a white pawn materialized in front of my line, dead center.

I expected her to be eyeing my Rex or taking another sip of the wine, but she only watched me. Eyes level and dead of any emotion or thought. She licked a drop of wine from her rosy lips and blinked lazily, only a hint of her tiredness or drunkenness showing.

Staring intensely at my pieces, I tried to make the safest move possible. I didn’t remember much of the game, except its basics. It was a popular past time of statesmen and centurions alike, but I never cared for it. It was an eastern game that men played to overcome each other in the mental realm. I thought I’d like it, and indeed in my youth I’d grown competitive, but my heart had always returned to gladiatorial matches and fighting circles. I’d gambled away much of my father’s money back then on gladiators. I could trace my current fighting system to writing physical biographies of those brawlers, trying to learn every facet of their life and physical state so I could choose the winner properly. I wondered if I would have had more success back then if I’d used the current skill system I’d drawn up with Baku’s help. After all, it’d helped both Hurek and Baba Haza find success. I was onto something there, and a game of chess seemed lackluster compared to a game of blood and brawn.

“Honestly, Cicero, you are over-thinking,” Atia said, finally taking a sip of her cup and relieving me of her hawkish gaze.

Our pawns were tied into a struggle in the center, with some openings for our eques and elephants to enter the fray. Atia knew the system better than I did, that was clear. I had to use surprise and unpredictability to my advantage. My next move had to be unorthodox, something she would not have considered. Like my knowledge of Layla’s body.

I forced an exchange of pawns, a bloody attack that left only one of Atia’s pawns in the center, and I expected her to be surprised or shocked or even frustrated by the sudden bloodthirst, but she only blinked. A tiny sip from the goblet, which she set down quietly and her cold, dead eyes fell back on me. At least watch the board, you witch!

The following exchanges were chaotic, but only for me. There was nothing behind her eyes, a black hole of calculation and action and reaction. She was not human, she couldn’t be. As much as her mouth curved in a knowing smile, or she let out a soft chuckle or sigh, she immediately fell back into a quiet stare and for a moment, it seemed I was playing with an entity. An inhuman, soulless husk that only pretended to be engaged.

No number of attacks or chaotic maneuvers made her react emotionally. She played efficiently, every single piece, taking position and cornering my Rex methodically as I emptied my roster. “Quite the day you’ve had, no?” I said, my mouth dry and throat clenching tight.

Atia ignored me, and returned to her cup after a quick move of her eques. I tried to poke at her some more, hoping to elicit an emotional response, or anything that would ease my nerves. “That Persian almost had you.”

Atia froze, her eyes narrowing sharply and I thought I could see a flash of anger or something on the border, but Atia put on an act of a pouting princess. “Such a barbarian,” she slurred, “my uncle assured me there will be a rebuttal.”

She sighed, returning a small smile that never touched her eyes. “What about you, Cicero. How did it feel being so close to death?”

“I’ve always been close to death, Atia,” I replied. My eques moved to intercept hers but she successfully trampled it with her elephant and forced my Rex into the corner, unprotected.

“I believe that’s a stale mate,” Atia said, as if she hasn’t planned on it exactly the way it had come about. This was her way—to make a person feel helpless as she closed the walls around him or maneuvered him into a coffin where he could suffocate slowly and die without a strike. A stale-mate instead of a check-mate.

All my lofty ambitions of cleverly using Layla’s body to expose Atia melted away. How foolish could I be to think I’d out-maneuver her in a town where she held all the pawns and every powerful aristocrat was under her spell or her uncle’s? She’d gotten rid of the bloody governor somehow, driven my predecessor mad, and publicly executed a Priestess of Yarhibol, and done it all without appearing the villain or being exposed of her intentions. Every single action a planned maneuver with zero emotion.

“I see,” I whispered, staring at my lone Rex, surrounded by her pieces who were not threatening him in anyway, and yet I could not make a move. Just die in the corner without any rebuttal.

I could punch her. A chuckle rumbled in my throat, the humor in my helplessness only making it worse as I snorted to Atia’s confusion. What would happen, if I just stood up, flipped the board and knocked her teeth out? She’d knife me, sure, have me executed the moment a guard showed up. But I’d still bloody her face. She is human and she bleeds.

I didn’t have to out-maneuver her. I just had to place myself in a position where I could flip the board and punch her in the face.

“What is so funny?” she asked.

Before I could answer, yelling erupted in the foyer beyond the large doors. It grew louder and louder until the heavy doors were thrown open and an enraged Flamma strode into the hall, the moon shedding light on his dirt-covered frame and bloodied sword. He’s killed someone.

“I want him, Atia!” Flamma cried, “I want that Persian’s head!”

Captain Yaresh, the young man in charge of the Temple guard rushed into the hall after the Syrian gladiator, looking between him and Atia for any sign of danger.

“Calm down,” Atia said, “what’s going on? What happened?”

“They have him holed up in that Tariff man’s compound,” Flamma flailed his sword around, “the entire alley was barricaded.”

“Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid,” Atia slurred.

“I want him, Atia,” Flamma said, spittle flying from his mouth.

“My uncle will have the senate—”

“I don’t give a fuck about your fucking senate,” Flamma shouted back, “I don’t want a trial, I want his bloody head on a spike outside your palace, you hear?”

“Who are you to make demands of me?” Atia yelled suddenly and her goblet flew, smacking the gladiator in the chest.

Ah, shit. I stood up and backed away quickly. Captain Yaresh attempted to intercept but Atia was quicker, she jumped on Flamma and managed to scratch his face and the Syrian, to his credit, dropped his sword and fought her hands.

“Calm down, woman!” he said, and they slammed into the wall with Flamma’s hands firmly on her wrists, his torso pushing up against her. Both of them breathed heavily, staring intensely at each other as Yaresh prepped his spear but wasn’t sure whether to attack or not. He looked towards me for direction for some reason.

Before I could try to de-escalate, though, Atia rose on her toes and clamped her mouth on Flamma’s, her tongue lashing viciously. The figures melted into each other as the gladiator let go and instead roamed her body and lifted her skirt.

“Mm,” Atia moaned, and the hall was suddenly filled with their slurping. Yaresh lowered his spear, mouth agape.

“Of course,” I managed to say and collected my thoughts. “Exactly where this day was headed, I suppose.”