SYNOPSIS: A tired gladiator receives an unexpected visitor the night before he is to be set free following a decade of indentured service.

The moon rode high in the summer sky when the undefeated champion of Carthage twisted the overhead spigot for his final rinse. Rainwater that had collected in his dedicated trough made the journey through the slick stone channel and poured down over his aching shoulders. He sighed heavily, both hands flat against the wall, and hung his head.

For ten summers the one they called the Mad Saracen, whose given name was Afadala, known casually as Dala, fought and bled and killed for the pleasure of the riotous, insatiable crowds, and for the profit and prestige of the emperor. For himself? He fought only to see the sunrise, one after another, until the day his contract would be fulfilled and he would at last be free. That day was nigh.

Water began to penetrate the oil and dust embedded in Dala's thick black mane, cut ragged over his brow. He buried his weathered hands in it and slowly worked his blunt fingers along his scalp. The water thickened and darkened as it trailed down his back and through the matted hair of his broad chest and muscled thighs. As always, Dala was streaked with the blood and gore of his slain opponents, layered in sweat and coated in the ancient dust of the arena, tamped down then kicked up by a hundred times a hundred leather soles. But it was the last time.

He finished bathing and closed the spigot. The last few drops of water echoed on the stone as he returned to his holding pen for one more night.

As the emperor's prized gladiator, Dala received favored treatment. The other fighters were grouped far down the winding corridor. Their beds were thinner, they had smaller windows, shared water and latrines, and were treated as cattle before the slaughter - which was close enough to the truth.

Dala paced the floor, drying himself in the foetid underground air. Flames flickered from half a dozen torches set into the walls, casting a warm and not unwelcome orange glow about his sanctuary. Despite it all, he knew he would miss the place.

Dala took one more step and paused, listening. There was a quality to the silence that made him wary. The hairs on his nape lifted. Down the corridor, in the other direction from his compatriots, he heard the sound of the tumblers in the lock. The door leading up to the ground level - the door to his freedom - was being opened.

He stepped to the center of his cell and waited, back straight, head up, arms at his sides. He could imagine no one but the emperor at this hour, likely deep in his cups, accompanied by his stiff-legged guards. But the emperor had already said his goodbyes, such as they were, immediately following Dala's final match. For a brief moment, he was gripped by a panicked thought that his contract was about to be nullified in order to keep him under thumb. It would have come as no surprise.

But it was not the emperor, nor were there any guards. The figure that appeared on the other side of the iron bars belonged to a woman. She doffed the hood of her cloak and revealed herself to be the emperor's wife, Althea.

Dala's eyes widened before he could check himself. He dropped to one knee, aware of his nakedness but unable to do anything about it, given protocol. He bowed his head; his wet hair dangled limply around his ears and over his knee.

In his thick, foreign accent - foreign at least to his captors - Dala said, "My lady." It was among only a handful of short, required phrases the gladiator was able to say in this other language, so difficult for him to speak and to comprehend. He had made do all these years with very few words, relying more on cries and screams and grunts and groans and the kind of deep, primal utterances that struck fear in his opponents - right before he split them in half, or worse.

Whatever Althea said to him in her whispered voice, Dala did not understand. He did not dare lift his head. Instead, he waited. Althea repeated herself. Dala did not move. He said again, "My lady."

He heard keys rattling and the lock turning. The door swung on rusted hinges, then clicked closed with an ominous echo. The woman approached.

Her feet were bare beneath her cloak. Dala stared from deep set eyes under his thick, broad brow. He saw tiny painted toes and narrow ankles, flaring out where her calves ended (or began). He heard the musical tinkle of gold bangles as her arms moved above him.

Dala had seen the emperor's wife many times over the seasons, but only from a great distance - the distance from the center of the arena to the palace observatory. She had been present for all of his champion matches, which was more than could be said even of her husband. Dala had learned well what it felt like to have the lady Althea's cool green eyes on him as he performed countless feats of strength, agility, speed, stamina, and skill. He was called champion for a reason.

There had been one other occasion when Dala and the lady Althea had stood face to face in relatively close quarters; though, on that day, Dala could hardly see at all, and only through one badly bruised eye. The other had been swollen shut.

He had barely survived his first match, not twelve days after he had been contracted to the emperor. His keepers carried him through the Grand Hall by the arms as his legs hung limp, dragging behind him on the cool marble floor. His hair had been shorn to bristles on account of bugs. He was propped before the emperor Cassius, whose wife of just three months stood back. Now, as he knelt naked before her, Dala remembered clearly what had transpired that day...

The emperor had made an impatient gesture, snorting and fuming as he ranted. The senior keeper translated his meaning, speaking low into Dala's bloody, ringing ear. He had been deemed unworthy, despite his win. Soft, and of limited appeal to the slavering masses, his lust for blood and pain too tame. He would be disposed of.

As the keepers began to turn him away, Althea stepped forth, her hand raised. The members of the inner circle who had gathered along the length of the Great Hall quieted. Dala's head was gripped at the back and lifted, and for the first and only time in a decade, Althea stood within arm's reach of the Mad Saracen, soon-to-be champion, as he looked into her eyes.

She spoke to him. He knew not what her words meant. When the keeper opened his mouth to translate, the emperor silenced him with a high-pitched exclamation. All present waited in silence for whatever was to happen next. The emperor gave a curt nod. Dala was taken away but not, thankfully, disposed of as first ordered. Now here he was, thanks, he presumed, to the woman in his cell. Had she been waiting all this time? Had he...?

Althea's fingertips settled lightly under Dala's scarred chin. He understood he was being commanded to rise. He stood to his full height and resumed his stance of formal readiness, chin up, eyes straight ahead. The waves of Althea's burnished copper hair were piled onto her head, whereupon sat a discrete, unadorned arc of hammered gold. Firelight flickered along it.

Afadala had been visited in the night by many women. They were brought to him by his keepers, without ceremony, to offer him company in the small hours of the night, during which he gave them great pleasure. Often they were reluctant, initially, with frightened eyes and quivering limbs. Many were virgins. But Dala was gentle. He took his time. They always came to appreciate his strong, calloused hands, the intensity of his hooded gaze and the warmth of his bronzed body, his experienced mouth, and the rhythmic thrusting of his powerful hips when he buried himself deep inside.

Althea touched Dala's cheek and turned his face toward her. He met her piercing eyes at close range, again. She had aged, naturally, as had he. The corners of her eyes were marked with lines and the pale flesh beneath her high cheekbones held a faint shadow. She studied him, and he her.

Dala did not know of Althea's conjugal relationship with her husband. He had seen on more than one occasion evidence that suggested the emperor's preferences lay in directions other than his wife. Dala did not bother with such matters. He was fed, housed, unleashed at the proper times, and highly respected for his effort. Adored, in fact. That was enough.

Althea spoke to him in a low voice. He watched her painted ruby lips move, glistening wetly in the dim torchlight. He comprehended nothing, but as he searched her eyes, the intention behind her midnight visit became clear in a way that no words - whether he knew them or not - could have embellished. She finished speaking and her forefinger trailed his jaw, shaved smooth that very morning by his keepers.

"My lady," he whispered, giving a long, slow nod.

Althea stepped back from Dala, three small paces. She put her delicate fingers to a golden brooch at her throat, popped the clasp, and opened her cloak. It fell to the floor with a sigh, revealing her naked body, white as the moon and just as bright. Dala saw a shiver run down from her chin to her toes, vibrating her limbs and hitching the muscles of her soft, smooth belly. Her bangles tinkled.

Althea's gaze traveled Dala's own naked form, hard as iron but colored like the dunes at sunset. She took in the contours of his arms and the breath of his chest, the width of his hips, his rippled legs and his wide, flat feet. The scars along the way were too many to count.

After, she looked at his phallus dangling long and thick between his legs. Dala caught sight of her tongue darting to the corner of her mouth; his cock twitched in response, and in response to that, Althea's hand went again to her throat, as if in defense. Dala smiled a crooked smile and took a step forward. Just one.

Althea took a matching step back. Their eyes locked.

Dala stepped again, and again she stepped back. Her breath had quickened. Dala felt blood pulsing in his nethers. He was coming to life.

He stepped forward a third time, but Althea had nowhere to go. Her back was pressed against the bars. She broke eye contact with him and turned her head sideways, closing her eyes. Dala saw her throat move as she swallowed heavily. Her breasts lifted with her intake of air.

He reached a hand up, fingers curled, and stroked her cheek with the backs of them. His hand drifted lower, along her neck, shoulder, down her chest, rising with the swell of her heavy breast, and on down to her belly. He watched her skin respond as he caressed and grazed it. His phallus had gained enough size by now that it brushed her hip. The prodding elicited a tiny gasp from her lips and her eyes squeezed shut with more urgency.

"Shhhhh. My lady..."

Dala took her trembling hand in his and led her away from the cold iron bars of his cell to the soft, wool sheets of his comfortable straw bed, tucked neatly in a darkened corner. He sat her upon it, then knelt behind her and spent a few careful moments removing her simple crown and taking down her hair. His cock rubbed against her upper back, twitching and pulsing. She leaned into it. When he was finished he helped her lay down, then laid himself beside her.

Dala knew much about the bodies of men and women. He brought all of his experience to bear on the lady Althea that night. He knew how and where to touch, and how to make responsive modifications based on any number of her reactions: quivering flesh, goosepimples, sighs and whimpers and moans, restless legs, clenched fingers, an arched back, upthrust hips, peaked nipples, a swollen mound, flushed skin, strained muscles, and more. He could bend a body the right way, lift it, fold it, twist it. He could handle it gently or firmly or roughly, according to preference. According to need.

And Althea needed all of it.

Dala led their coupling from one position to the next. Their entwined limbs gleamed with sweat. They rocked against each other. Dala put his face between Althea's legs until she lurched up and her juice ran hot and thick. He pressed her into the mattress and entered her fully from behind. He rolled her over and set her atop his hips, legs spreading wider and wider as she slipped down the length of his cock, sheathing it deep inside. She leaned over his chest, both hands on it for support, her breasts and hair swinging. She cried out and her mouth twisted in pleasurable agony. They kissed and licked everywhere.

In time, Dala enjoyed a sweet, shuddering release, emptying himself inside the emperor's wife from behind as she lay on her side and he held her leg high above. She welcomed his gift. After, they slept.

As dawn broke and the cock crowed outside the rough-cut window high in the wall, Afadala quietly dressed. He wore a plain tunic belted with a hempen rope and simple sandals. He would carry nothing in his hands, leaving exactly as he had arrived - save for the chains.

Althea stirred languidly under the bedsheet and Dala knelt beside her. He put his lips to her pearlescent ear and whispered words of poetry in his own language, undulating and smooth, eliciting a sleepy smile and a satisfied sigh.

All doors were open to Dala as he made his way outside. His keepers were at the well, drinking and washing their bearded faces. They stopped and looked at him.

Dala asked, in his language, what words had been spoken to him by the lady Althea all those years ago after the emperor had ordered his execution. The keepers' eyes widened. They exchanged a glance with one another and burst out laughing, shaking their heads as if at the folly of a child, offering no other response to Dala's question.

He raised his hand to them in honor, and they straightened up and returned the gesture. He turned from them and left.

Among the people of Carthage, Afadala was neither seen nor heard of again. Yet he was well remembered.