Complete Gladiator Series by Nhys Glover

Author:Nhys Glover [Glover, Nhys]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Belisama Press
Published: 2020-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

ACCALIA

When I returned to my uncle’s domus everything was just as I had left it. No one seemed in the least concerned about what was going on down in the valley. It was as if the people within believed they dwelled in a different world from that of the people below. And maybe they did. Yet we were all people, no matter which world we occupied.

Disgusted, I hastened to my quarters where I knew Minerva would be waiting. Sure enough, my overweight and sweaty nurse-turned-handmaiden was busying herself with some unnecessary mending. I did not do enough to require my clothes to be mended!

“Minerva, I want you to find me as many old garments as you can. Clean, old garments. I am making bandages for burn victims,” I told her hurriedly, going to my chest to find my store of medicines.

“I can’t do that, Mistress. They won’t give me things like that. Not when they find out what you’re going to do with them,” Minerva argued.

“They will if I insist. I will pay for them if necessary. Now go! There is no time to waste. People are in dire straits down there. I have to do all I can for them.”

Minerva looked about to argue further, but I turned away, dismissing her. I heard her grumbling under her breath as she waddled away.

For the next few hours as the temperature rose, I cut up old clothing into bandages and soaked them in a watery herbal solution that would go a small way toward alleviating the immediate pain of the burns and protect the wounds from the dirt, at least for a while. Every moment I worked, I felt the insignificance of my tasks. It was not enough. I was not going to be able to do nearly enough!

It was well past the midday meal by the time I had all the damp bandages packed into waterproof skins and stored in a pack I could carry on my back. Although I could use help, I wasn’t prepared to put my slaves in danger. This was likely a fool’s errand that might lose me my life. I would not force others to join me in death.

Without a word, I headed for the front door, dressed in my boy’s clothes and without my wig. My hair had started to grow longer over the months since Pater returned, but it was still short enough for me to pass as a boy. What I didn’t bother with was the binding for my breasts. I knew I would be struggling to breathe in the smoky air I was going into, I did not need to add further restrictions to my breathing. And no one would notice if a boy had breasts when the world was ablaze around them.

I made it as far as the front door before Ramus and Janus came running from the back of the house.

“You can’t go out alone!” Ramus said gruffly, his aging face seeming more lined than it had been earlier in the day.

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