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Women were screaming at him from above, since the holding area was down below, sunk into the same hillside that the arena had been carved out of. Titus looked up at the throng, blowing kisses, flexing his biceps, and he had women fainting at the sight.

Behind him, Cam and Brody and Galan followed, watching the spectacle with the greatest amusement. Titus was great. He knew he was great. He wanted to make sure everyone else knew that he was great, so the man never did anything subtly or secretively.

It was part of his charm.

And then came the garments.

It was usual every time Titus pranced around after a bout. Women started throwing pieces of clothing over the iron fence that separated them from the holding area. Scarves would come raining down in a flutter of perfumed material. They almost always smelled heavily of perfume.

Next came the hose – fine silk hose would hit the floor of the holding area with a thud because women had stuffed coins into them. Titus pointed to some of the warriors standing around to pick up the hose, snapping at them when they wanted to keep the money. He would snatch the hose and the money away from them.

Holding his booty of coin-filled hose, Titus looked up at the women lining the fence to see that half were screaming and half were crying. That was usual. He paused, blowing more kisses up to the crowd, and one young woman was so overcome that she vomited. Chunks of the stuff fell through the fence and landed near Titus, who eyed it with disgust and decided to end his cavalcade of worship. If the crowd was beginning to spew in excitement, it was time for him to exit.

Until the next time.

He decided to take the private stairs, after all.

Leaving his friends down in the holding area, Titus took the steps two at a time. He was sweaty and dirty from his bouts in the arena, but he knew that Clegg’s private apartment had a bathing area. He’d seen it. The viewing rooms had floor to ceiling doors that opened up to a private balcony, the same balcony that the stairs led up to. As he hit the balcony, he was quite curious to see the woman his friends had chosen.

Beautiful, they’d said.

He might even permit her to bathe him.

When he reached the top of the steps, the door into the private rooms was open. He stepped in, his dirty sandals against the tile floor that Clegg had brought all the way from Rome. In fact, everything at the Ludus Caledonia reflected the Romans and their architecture, all the way down to the beautiful robes that Clegg wore, like a great patriarch.

Even the chamber itself reflected that love of ancient Rome – beautiful columns, tile, glass. It was lovely. There were tapestries on the walls, silks on the cushioned couches, and great bowls of incense that burned all day and all night. Titus expected that the woman would be waiting for him, but he didn’t see anyone as he entered. He was halfway into the chamber when he saw movement on one of the couches.

“Come to me, darling.”

Titus froze. The voice was low and raspy, and he dared to turn his head to see a pile of silk moving on one of the couches. A gnarled hand came up, removing the veil from a head that was covered in bristly, white hair.

Titus knew instantly that he’d been fooled.

He turned to the woman as she revealed herself fully. She wasn’t simply old, she was ancient. Her fingers were like distorted twigs. The skin on her face was the consistency of tree bark. In fact, she resembled a tree – bumpy, gray, and gnarled.

And Titus’ friends knew it all along.

“So ye’re tae be my companion this evening?” he asked evenly. “Ye must have paid a high price.”

The woman nodded as she sat up and her clothing fell away. Titus realized that she was nearly nude from the waist up.

“I did,” she said. “I paid the ianista handsomely. I can see it was worth every penny.”

God, it was so horrific that it was laughable. He’d glimpsed at the old woman’s saggy chest for a split second, and now he was certain he was going to be permanently blind as a result. Worse still, he realized that not only were his friends in on the joke, but so was the manager of the Ludus Caledonia, Axel von Rossau.

He was certain they’d done it to teach him a lesson in humility he’d not soon forget.

But he was going to have the last laugh.

Titus was, if nothing else, greedy and adaptable.

“Of course I’m worth every penny,” he said, moving in her direction. “Let us come tae know one another, sweetheart. What’s yer name?”

“Mary,” the woman said, her old features lighting up with joy. “Lady MacMerry of Whitekirk Castle. My dead husband was Lord Whitekirk. Surely ye’ve heard of Merry Whitekirk.”

Titus had. He may have presented the image of a man only interested in money and victory, but the truth was that he was much deeper than that. It was something he kept well-hidden. His father, Hugh Stewart, Duke of Kintyre and Lorne, was the king’s youngest brother. Titus had been born out of wedlock to a lady-in-waiting to the duke’s wife.

But being a royal bastard wasn’t something Titus spread around.