The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 12: Freemen: Section IV: Kirin

Kirin: The Arena Venaris: Lorar

It was a perfect day to watch men die.

From the vantage of Marianus's senate box, the arena sands were a field of pale gold. Sunlight ravaged the metal helmets of the soldiers stationed between the crowded rows of spectators, drying what remained of the spring flooding from blanched steps. If Kirin hadn't known better, he'd have assumed Marianus had made a sacrifice to Fulgis to ensure the good weather.

It smelled of heat and humidity—the promise of summer, and the threat of more rain.

Beneath the painted plaster arches of the tunnels the gladiators would be waiting to fight. The scratch of sandal and boot against the sand as men shuffled restlessly on the benches, and stink of sweat and hot piss clogging the air were as vivid as if Kirin were waiting with them.

Marianus's wife, Nuna, sat to Kirin's left, straining her neck, and pointing each time a face poked from the shadowed bars across the arena.

Nuna nudged Kirin with her elbow and leaned in so that her bare shoulder brushed his upper arm. "That one—he must be Chadras. Is he as handsome as they say?"

A stray curl of black hair popped free of Nuna's towering hair. She twirled the strand around her finger. Tiny pink flowers still attached to their vines and leaves formed a living cage around her locks, a rogue leaf tickling her ear.

Kirin snorted at Nuna's comment about Chadras. If he were handsome, Kirin had never noticed. From this distance, he couldn't even tell if the smudge of skin past the bars was a face, let alone Chadras's specifically. "He's a Masseni fighter," was all Kirin said in reply.

Nuna smiled in amusement. Her pale cheeks were flush, or perhaps that was only her heavy facepaint. "Now don't be jealous. You're even more handsome than your portraits."

Kirin tried not to look at her—she was very pretty and at least twenty years Marianus's junior. Too beautiful to be easily ignored. Kirin had never been quite this close to her before, and Ydelka's warning about her echoed in his head. "I'm surprised you've seen any of my portraits, Hera. They've mostly been painted over by now."

After Kirin had become Marianus's bodyguard, the faces of new fighters had started to decorate the walls of the buildings around the Arena Venaris. The fidelia had weak memories and fickle loins.

"My husband will commission new ones. Won't you, Mari?" Nuna leaned forward so that her loose strand of hair dangled onto Marianus's shoulder.

Marianus was hemmed in by Tarkis Murinus on one side and the new head of Yellow Faction—Longnose, to nobody's surprise—on the other. He barely faced his beautiful wife. "The Pater in waiting must do better than that, don't you think? Kirin isn't a gladiator anymore. He's a hero thrice over."

The air was hot and dry, but Kirin felt a chill. He might be a hero for saving Yakov, but for saving Marianus? They ought to crucify him and throw the body in one of the canals. One of the sewagey ones.

"How do you like that, Kirin?" Marianus continued. "A hero."

His words were words of praise, but Kirin didn't miss the thorn beneath them. Marianus wasn't pleased about what had happened in the curia, no matter the public face he wore before his fellow senators. It would have been better for him had Yakov died.

"Thank you, Heron. Your praise gives me courage." Kirin didn't have proof that murder had been Marianus's intent, but he barely needed it. The man Kirin had seen wielding the sword that had snapped that rope had conveniently disappeared, and someone had certainly arranged for Basimus Drenda to be lured away.