Champion in Love (bxb)

CHAPTER 4. Moving Stones

"Quintus will show you the kitchen and help you settle in," I told Victor.

He shrugged. "It appears your trickster has other plans."

I followed the direction of his gaze.

In the quarter of the training yard where I had my marble rubble obstacle course, Quintus was dragging a stone arm away from the pile of marble parts. Sand stained his arm from shoulder to elbow in a gray streak; I suspected a decent scrape underneath, probably raw. Yet, the stubborn idiot was rebuilding the course solo.

He was doing it despite my leniency, for I didn't confirm his punishment at the day's end. It wasn't that I had forgotten my threats. The guys threw a lot at him, and I didn't need a trickster fighting like a cooked snail tomorrow.

"Mithras' bull!" I scowled to cover a what-I-am-going-to-do-with-you smile and angled for Quintus, but Victor remained standing, alone, in the empty yard.

"Just follow your nose to the kitchens. Allia, our cook, loves garlic as much as her name implies." I turned my back on him resolutely. Victor was the bigger boy of my two troublemakers; hence, he was more likely to eat tonight if he chose to. I was his lanista, not a wet nurse.

Once I made my way to the obstacle course, I sat on a chunk of stone that didn't fulfill its destiny as a column, and watched Quintus labor.

His body basically rounded into C-shape, with legs set into the sand, skinny butt up in the air, and arms strained to pull the heavy stone against the sand's traction. His fingers were entwined underneath that of the statue's and the grapes the stone hand was clutching. Local grapes, I thought. When the sculptors wanted to represent the Earth's bounty, they chiseled out long, plump berries, rather than the tight clusters that grew in this world.

Anyway, from where I was sitting, it looked like Quintus was trying to wrestle those stupid grapes from the marble arm. Or to plow with the broken-off marble end. He wasn't getting those grapes anytime soon, but the furrow he was making was already half-a-foot deep.

Five backwards, torturous steps later, Quintus was still pulling. Veins popped on his temples. His nostrils flared... Mithras' bull!

I jumped to my feet.

His lips curled back, even though he was not looking at me.

I caught up to him in two strides, grabbed the free end of the marble arm and hefted it. The heavy weight straightened my elbows for me with an unpleasant click. I cursed Bacchus and his gift to humanity under my breath, but held it aloft.

"Where do you want this?" I asked Quintus, as if nothing stupid was going on here.

"By the wall," he panted. "Wanted to build a ramp."

It was a reasonable idea. "We'll get it started, then you go eat. I'll put everyone to finish the job first thing tomorrow." The wheezing barely spoiled my confident tone.

Thankfully, Quintus wasn't up for a debate either. With some grunting, we got the thing into position and stood there, admiring the result. More precisely, I stood. Quintus bent over, with hands on his knees. Sweat rolled to both sides of his protruding spine, like it was a mountain range.

His sorry state wasn't my fault. I didn't order him to work to exhaustion. I didn't pick an artwork for him to move. And yet my chest clenched. "I forbid you from missing a single meal. Understood?"

He drew in his next breath with a whistle rather than a rasp. "Why do you always want people to think the worst of you?"

Was I supposed to answer that being mean was in my job description? Bah! I patted his shoulder. "Get moving. It's getting late."