Tiberius didn’t miss his beer so when the week was up, he was ready to challenge Marcus again. This time he wouldn’t fall for such an obvious feint. But surprisingly enough Marcus found him first. “Boy, come walk with me.” Tibi was hesitant at first, he didn’t understand what the man was up to, but in the end he acquiesced.
“What’s on your mind old man?” Tibi asked as he fell beside Marcus. Marcus gave him a scathing look. “For starters I’m in my prime. Secondly I wanted to ask why you’re interested in learning another fighting style. Most people struggle with one and are happy if they can just master that.”
Tibi paused for a moment in thought, this wasn’t a question he had expected. “Truly, I feel like I learn fast. I could practice the basics for a lifetime and not greatly improve. The lady has already said it would at least be another cycle or two of training before she allows me on the sand. So where will I get that experience you guys have?” Tibi stroked his smooth chin. “I read a book once,” Tibi didn’t notice the glance Marcus gave him at that. “and the author suggested that if you know your enemy, you can know yourself. So I thought what better way to practice than to know how you guys fight?”
Marcus took a moment to register everything said. He had been surprised to learn that the boy was literate, but he was also surprised at how much his thoughts made sense. Marcus himself had fought with the other gladiators a hundred times, but he would never know them as deeply as he would if he had the time to learn their actual fighting style.
The Lanista had a policy that it was better to be a master in one form of combat than mediocre in two. Marcus seconded that opinion, but he was open to the boy’s idea. “Alright, here’s the deal, kid. I’ll give you one turn of the hourglass every evening after supper, but I get your beer going forward.” To Marcus this was win-win, after only a week, he had grown accustomed to the additional beer.
It wasn’t like they had much to do with their free time regardless. Spending it giving the kid some pointers for extra beer sounded swell. “Deal.” Tibi nodded and put out his hand. This wasn’t exactly how he had expected it to happen, but the result was what he intended. “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Tibi smilled. Marcus just guffawed. “Don’t get ahead of yourself kid. Now go grab some practice swords.” Tibi ran to get their equipment while Marcus just shook his head at the audacity of youth.
………………………
Mistress Cinder lay face down on a table with a plush towel barely covering her posterior. The pale delicate skin of her shoulders was being kneaded by a eunuch. Deckard stood to the side, his eyes staring directly ahead as he tried not to sneak a peek at the pillowy flesh squeezing out to the side of his mistress’s chest.
“Marcus has begun training the boy on the side. It seems they made a deal with the boy giving up his nightly beer.” Deckard spoke. He had been keeping an eye on TIbi as the boy represented a substantial investment. The mistress was happy to hear that his training was going well, but they intended to keep him segregated. A true warrior walked a lonely path and they couldn’t have him getting sidetracked with small matters such as friendship.
“If he doesn’t want it, then remove his beer ration.” She paused and let out a moan as the eunuch moved to her lower back, sliding her towel down to reveal the top of her buttocks. “What do you think of him learning other combat forms?”
Deckard swallowed, trying to hide his arousal. “My policy has always been to focus on one course and master it. It is too difficult to learn multiple combat forms.”
The lady opened her eyes and rolled to her side looking at him. It took every ounce of his will power to focus on her eyes and not look down to her hard pink nipples. He knew she was bating him and would be more than happy to turn him into a eunuch should he crack. “I’m interested to see where he goes with this. Have all the masters give him lessons, and let me know how he performs.
In a few years once he’s grown some more he had better be worth what I’ve spent on him.” The mistress stood from the table and one of the scantily clad servants ran quickly to cover her with a robe, just not before Deckard got a glance at her illustrious long legs and her neatly trimmed red bush.
After being dismissed he headed quickly towards the doctore’s apartments. He would need to quickly arrange the boy Tibi’s training, because as soon as he finished. He intended to head into the city to find himself a nice whore to relieve some of his tension. He would head to one of the cheap brothels that didn’t care so much how their products were treated. Deckard’s lips turned up into and awful smile. Perhaps he could find one with pale skin and fiery red hair.
……………..
Tibi had only had three evening training sessions with Marcus when he was notified that he had lost his beer ration. Even if Marcus might have continued working with him, he found he would have no time. He was given a new training schedule where he would train directly with each of the doctores. If he was stunned, so was everyone else.
This was the treatment of silvers, no, better than silvers. No slave got direct training with not just one, but all the doctores. He even saw that he had a weekly training session with the lanista. Tibi hadn’t seen the Lanista fight, but he was aware that the man was a legend on the sands. Anyone that could rise to be a lanista had to be incredibly skilled.
Tibi made his way toward Samnis. He would be the first teacher in his new training. It was fortunate that he had trained a bit with Marcus. Hopefully he would look completely incompetent. It was rare for private training to begin without having trained the basics with the other coppers. He was skipping way ahead of the curve and it appeared mistress Cinder had decided to go all in on this bet. He had no doubt that he would either have to become the best or his punishment would make the seventh circle of hell seem like a picnic.
They hadn’t told him specifically, but he knew the way of lords. Segregating him forced him to focus on training. He considered it like weight training, sometimes you needed to isolate a muscle to have it stand out. If you worked all the muscles they would all get strong together, but you were always at the mercy of the weakest link.
Tibi had arrived at the private training area a bit early, so he began to do some stretching. He hadn’t heard any complaints about Samnis from Marcus, so he could only hope he was a solid trainer. He was in the middle of a calf stretch when someone struck him on the back. He arched his back in pain trying to dodge to the side from his seated position.
The second strike hit his lower back sending him sprawling face first into the sand. “I don’t want to be here. My time is certainly more valuable than a copper’s. So you will be ready and waiting like a good dog the moment my feet touch this sand. Is that clear?” The man’s voice reminded Tibi of a snake, but he didn’t dare mouth off. He saw the thumb thick switch that the man carriard and grimaced. He could only quickly get to his feet and nod. Another crack struck bicep and he winced in pain.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The man struck faster than an adder, leaving Tibi no time to dodge. “You will answer with yes, doctore, am I clear?” “Yes, doctore.” Tibi said threw grit teeth. “Pick up your sword.” Tibi quickly walked over and grabbed two swords. A sharp pain in his wrist from another switch caused him to drop the sword from his right hand. “I said sword, not sword. Is common not your first language?” “Yes, doctore.” “So it’s not your first language, well that isn’t my problem.” Tibi’s jaw worked for a moment with no sound coming out. Was he being made fun of?
He saw no trace of humor on Samnis face, so he could only assume the man was serious. Tibi was about to switch his wooden sword to his right hand when he stopped himself, sure that Samnis hadn’t made a mistake on which sword Tibi had dropped. “Ah, so you do have one or two brain cells in that pretty little head of yours.” Tibi didn’t know if he should respond, so he just stayed silent.
Samnis nodded. “We will begin training you left hand in the sword, going forward you will only wield a sword in your left, are we clear?” “Yes, Doctore '' Samnis smiled wickedly. “Good, let’s begin.” What followed was an exercise in futility on Tibi’s part. Even though Samnis only used his switch, it was more than enough for Tibi’s clumsy left hand. As they nearly finished Samnis had him practicing a new weird exercise.
“Now rub your stomach and wave at me.” Tibi paused. “What?” he regretted the words the moment they left his mouth, but the smack of the switch left a new red welt on his body before he could follow through. “yes, doctore.” He mumbled through grit teeth.
Then Samnis had him draw a circle with his left hand and a square with his right. A few more of these strange activities finished out the lesson. “You will practice these exercises whenever you have time. While you bath, while you shit, I care not. I expect you to have made progress by weeks end.” With that the man turned and walked away, taking his evil switch with him.
Myrmillo’s was much the same as he always was, but now their lesson was solo. Fortunately he had already built up some repore with the Doctore so the lesson was smooth, and he was now able to progress faster without the other coppers holding him back. A strange thought crossed his mind after the lesson. While he didn’t agree with them, perhaps the Lanista and lady Cinder knew their business.
Retiarius was a consummate professional. He was firm, he was unflinching, and he knew his business. A trident was not like the spear and halberd that Tibi had previously practiced with. His basic experience truly helped him little The Doctore wielded the trident like a man born to it, and it actually impressed Tibi quite a bit, making him want to work hard to be able to reach the man’s level of excellence.
Using a net was also substantially trickier than he had expected. There was a certain amount of finesse needed to get a net to cover your enemy with one hand. By the end of the training session, Tibi hadn’t managed to do it even once, and Retiarius grunted in disappointment.
By the time Tibi made it to Thraxx, he was already beat. He had been nearly nonstop all day, with a few small breaks and food his only respite. Thraxx was a beast of a man who immediately had Tibi begin lifting heavy weights. While Tibi was used to the lower weight higher repetition workouts that most did, Thrax preferred heavy weight with low repetition.
When Tibi’s arms felt like wet noodles, the Doctore handed him a tower shield and a war chain. A war chain was effectively a chunk of spiky metal on a chain, attached to a wooden handle with a leather grip. The tower shield was slightly taller than Tibi, but Thrax just grunted and said “you’ll grow into it.” A man of many words was Thrax.
When Tibi was finished for the day he was so mentally and physically exhausted he felt it in his bones. Even Second Wind didn’t help him finish out his day. He made his way to the medico tent and spent some time with Charlie, the medici was kind enough to give them some space. Tibi was so tired he fell asleep in her lap while she stroked his hair. This day was only the beginning.
……………….
“Thank you for meeting with me Bishop John.” Glori sat in a plush chair that had been delicately carved in the Bishop's study. The chair was beautiful, but Glori thought the man’s taste was a little gauche. “My dear princess, how can I be of service.” A servant brought tea and passed it out. The servant briefly asked Mordo if he would like some, but with no response but a glare, the servant quickly left. “I’m interested in knowing a bit more about the church and the churches in the area. Other than our monthly tithe, I’ll remise that I haven’t been most devout follower of the church.” The bishow gave a low laugh.
The man was old and fat, with jowls hanging down and he kept licking his lips in a disgusting way, but Glori had a mission to accomplish. “Not a worry, your highness. Most nobles lose their way, I’m so very happy you have found your way back to the goddess. What specifically can I help you with.” His eyes had a gross leer in them, and his robes looked more expensive than her own, but she soldiered on. “Why don’t we start with a general overview, if that’s alright.”
The bishop nodded. “Sure, sure, normally you could find this out from any priest, but I have all day for your highness.” The bishop took a sip of tea and let out a sigh. “As you know the religion of the seven goddesses goes back to the great cataclysm. We don’t know much from before that time, but Syna, the goddess of Darkness and Magic, the mother of all, brought her daughters to our plane and saved us from destruction. What caused the cataclysm is lost to time, but now we have magic, and the great goddess Syna guards the void, protecting us.”
The bishop looked over at Glori and she just nodded to show she was listening. “Her eldest daughter is Tysis, the goddess of knowledge and the hunt, then there is Rae, the goddess of sun and the harvest.” He nodded to the picture of Rae on the wall as it was her church that GLori had come that day. Rae could be seen riding a chariot with a golden halo above her head, and her deadly scythe in her hand. “I forgot that she was also the goddess of sun.” Glori muttered.
The bishops eyes lit up at this. “Ah yes, we call it the duality of the gods. She brings light, which brings life to us all, but she is also the harvester, the reaper. While some petty few fear Rae, her true believers know that death and life are two sides of the same coin. Then we have the goddess Hermaia, the goddess of nature and time. Avena The goddess of war and crafting. Neptia, the goddess of treasure and seas. And Syna’s youngest daughter, Zenut.
The goddess of children and chaos.” Glori nodded. “And what about the organization of the church.” The bishop paused a moment to give her a considering look. “As you know we have a small branch of every church here in Valeria, but the headquarters is in Gadalfa’Va. The church has the hand of night which is our branch of inquisitors, all paladins of Syna.
Then we have the hand of light, the branch of reapers, all paladins of Rae. Then we have the Shikari, paladins of Tysis who search out religious artifacts. We have the Merchant Marines, who are paladins of Neptia. And finally the Eyes of Hermia, who’s prophecies help guide our church.” “What about Zenut?” Glori was actually curious, she hadn’t realized Zenut was the only goddess with no paladins. “Zenut has many clerics.
They run orphanages and help all around the world. Our churches are separate but united. We have a council of seven Pope’s who lead our order. The council of the goddess is on the mainland. The highest ranking priest here is the archbishop in Gadalfa’Va.” Glori just nodded. “How about other churches, I know we have some here in Valeria.” The bishop gave a grunt. “There are many small religions in the world for the many small minded people, but we don’t have time to keep abreast of all of them.
The goddess power covers the heavens, but she is not a jealous god. She need not worry about ant.” Glori decided to overlook the obvious irony of the man’s dismissal of other religions. “There is a church nearby, they talk about the one true god or goddess?” at this the bishop frowned. “The church of the one true god. What a joke. They hand out food to the poor and the peasant’s flock to them as if their goddess hasn’t granted them the succor of life.
They are nothing.” Glori did her best not to take a long look at the wealth compiled in this room, thinking about how many mouths it could feed. Because the truth was, the same could be said for the palace in which she lived. “I’m sorry princess, I’m feeling tired. Perhaps if you have more questions…” “Thank you for your time, Bishop John.” “Of course., any time.” She was hustling out of the room with much less courtesy than she expected, but she didn’t care.
As she had said before, her family and the church had a hands off relationship. As she walked out of the church of Rae she glanced down the street. She could see the church of the one true god from here. She had brushed up on some general knowledge, but it looked like she had no choice but to go to the church in person if she wished to learn more. As she was having that thought, she saw her cousin Caligula walk by with someone recognized.
It was the paladin that her brother had introduced her to. A cold weight settled on her shoulder. Why was her cousin talking to the Paladin of the one true god? The simplest answer was that the church was trying to ingratiate itself into her family. She thought about Tibi’s disappearance and that cold weight became a foreboding feeling.