Blood Debts

by Ashley Gardner

  A board broke off with a loud snap. Cassia stepped back from the sudden draft that poured into the tunnel, holding her hand around the lamp’s flame so it would not die.

  I kept my body behind the door while I peered through the opening I’d made. The room beyond was dim, light coming through the cracks in boards over the stall window and around the ill-fitting outer door. But I recognized the cube of the room, the mosaic on the counter, the wall against which Selenius had been lolling.

  My shoulders slumped in some relief. We’d reached our destination, but on the other hand, we’d found nothing in the tunnel to tell us who else had been there.

  Cassia stumbled as she came to me, her bag swinging. I reached out to steady her, but she regained her feet quickly, peering down at what had made her trip.

  “A loose stone,” she said.

  “Kick it aside,” I said, wondering why she sounded so happy.

  “No, no—don’t you see? A loose stone in the floor.” Cassia put her feet together and rocked back and forth on a block that moved.

  “There must be many loose stones. It’s an old tunnel.”

  “But one just here.” Cassia waved the lamp dramatically at the floor, splashing oil. “Very convenient.”

  I understood her excitement, but I did not want to hope. Hope could be deadly. I crouched down and applied the pry bar to the stone.

  It came up after only a few tries to reveal a cavity beneath. Cassia dropped to her knees and peered inside with interest, then set down the lamp and started to reach into the hole.

  “Wait!” I stopped her—who knew what would crawl out of such a place? I thrust the iron bar into the space and lifted out a bundle of cloth, which clattered when I dropped it to the tunnel floor.

  Cassia tore open the knots that held the bundle closed and spread out the cloth.

  We stared down at a garment that had been splashed heavily with blood, now dried and brown. A thin-bladed knife rested in the middle of the linen, blackened with the same gore.

  Chapter 11

  Neither of us spoke as we gazed at the bloodstained clothes and knife.

  The man had stood in front of his victim, I decided. The tunic was splashed from neck to hem in a spray that would have come from the throat when it was cut. If the killer had stood behind Selenius, Selenius’s body would have blocked most of the blood.

  Cassia put her hand to her mouth and made a soft gagging sound.

  “Selenius knew his killer,” I said calmly. “Trusted him.”

  “How do you know that?” Cassia asked through her fingers.

  “He didn’t fight,” I said, remembering the body slumped under the counter. “His hands were unmarred.” They’d held no bruises or abrasions from Selenius trying to hit his killer.

  “You mean he did not expect the person to attack him.” Cassia swallowed as she looked back down at the cloth. “This tunic is far too big to fit Sergius.” Her words held relief, and the same relief coursed through me.

  “But not Balbus.” I calculated the garment’s dimensions. “This was made for a thin man.”

  I’d be sorry if Balbus had done this. He hadn’t struck me as being evil, in spite of his attack on me. He was desperate and terrified, as any runaway slave would be. If he’d killed Selenius it would have been to save himself.

  “Balbus was carrying a knife when he tried to stab you,” Cassia reminded me. “The killer discarded this one. And Balbus never wore this tunic.” She gingerly lifted an unstained part of the hem. “This is expensive linen, finely woven, the stitches precise and strong. This was made by a good tailor, and not long ago. It’s not worn enough to have been bought secondhand, though I grant it might have been stolen.”

  Tunics and other clothing were stolen from laundries all the time, the thieves then selling the garments for a nice sum.

  “The killer brought a change of clothing with him?” I asked doubtfully. “Meaning he knew the murder could get messy?” I shook my head. “No. This wasn’t planned. The two men began to argue, one caught up a knife—”

  “And already had a change of clothing ready,” Cassia said. “Because he comes to this shop often.”

  We looked at each other. I read sadness in her expression, pity, and regret.

  “We don’t have to tell anyone,” I pointed out. “We can put the tunic and knife back. No one has found it but us—who else would look?”

  “But the magistrates will go on hunting Balbus,” Cassia returned. “If he’s found, he’ll be thrown to the lions. Or they’ll come for you. No, Leonidas, we have to report this. We have laws for a reason.”

  I tasted bitterness. “Your same law would see Balbus torn apart, or me sent to the games for a crime I didn’t commit. It saw you taken from the home you’d known all your life and sent to serve a gladiator who was supposed to have broken you.”

  Cassia swallowed. “I know. But …”

  I grabbed the tunic and knife, rolled the cloth into a ball, and stuffed it into the canvas bag Cassia had let slide to the floor. I took up the pry bar and climbed to my feet.

  “We’ll take these out,” I said. “Burn them, throw them into the river, I don’t care. Maybe you can talk me around by the time we get out of the tunnels, and I’ll take them to a praetor instead—but I don’t know.”

  The fact that Cassia didn’t argue with me but only rose, took up the lamp, and followed told me much. She didn’t want to cause Selenius’s family more tragedy either.

  I had to concede she was correct in part—a killer couldn’t simply cut down men whenever he was angry with them. If he did it once and got away with it, there was nothing to stop him doing it again.

  But I’d have the entire journey through the tunnels to think about it. I would put off the decision until we emerged into the light of day—or dusk, which it must be by now.

  My mistake was in letting Cassia walk behind me. Not until she cried out did I understand how foolish I’d been to think us in no danger.

  I turned. He held Cassia around the waist, a knife pressed to her throat. The hilt of the knife glittered softly in the light of the dropped lamp flickering at Cassia’s feet, her dark curls sliding free of her palla to frame her terrified face.

  My numbness fled. Rage like molten iron burned through my blood, clashing with the freezing dread at the image of Cassia falling, her throat slit, my Cassia dead before me.

  I dropped the bag but hefted the pry bar, the fighting man in me ready to strike at my enemy.

  “I like her,” young Gaius Selenius said, tears in his voice. “She was so kind to my mother. I don’t want to hurt her.”

  I wasn’t certain whether he meant Cassia or his mother in his last declaration, but it didn’t matter.

  A few moments ago, I’d been ready to hide the crime and let Gaius go. He’d rid himself of an uncle who’d been a fraud and beaten him whenever he’d liked, and I suspected worse besides.

  But if Gaius harmed Cassia I would kill him. He’d die, and then I would. It would be a tragedy worthy of any dramatist.

  “Let her go,” I snapped. “You can flee Rome—your mother can too. I’ll destroy the clothes and knife. We’ll let the magistrates think a passing madman killed your uncle.”

  Gaius shook his head, but the knife didn’t waver from Cassia’s throat. “I heard you talking. She wants to have me arrested.” His arm tightened on Cassia’s waist.

  Cassia spoke rapidly, her voice shaking. “Leonidas is a trained killer, Gaius. You’ll never escape him.”

  “I don’t care.” Gaius’s words were petulant. “I’ll fight him—he can kill me. I’ll die honorably, in a battle with you as witness.”

  “No,” I said in hard tones. If I killed a man of the merchant class, though he was a murderer himself, I’d likely not be granted the dignity of dying in the games. They might crucify me instead, just to set an example.

  But if he didn’t let go of Cassia, I’d break his neck and dump his body into the Tiber.

  “He must have
been awful,” Cassia said to Gaius. “We heard that he ill-used you. And if his fraud were discovered, it would go badly for you and your mother.”

  “I care nothing for that!” Gaius cried, his voice rising again. “I could take his beatings. His dishonesty at least made us money. I killed him because he touched her. He is supposed to protect her, and he did the worst thing a man could do to a woman—especially his sister. And still she loved him.”

  Cassia’s brief intake of breath sounded loud in the stillness. “Oh, Gaius, no. I’m so sorry.”

  He had a knife to her throat, nothing to keep him from slicing her as he had his uncle, and Cassia felt sorry for him.

  Gaius had just confirmed my suspicions that Selenius had been more than simply a brute and a trickster. I remembered how the young man in the baths had told me Selenius’s sister had been violated by one of Selenius’s friends. That was likely what the rumor had become when the gossip spread from the house. The truth, I realized now, was more terrible than that.

  I recalled Cassia’s mention of her visit to Gaius and his mother Selenia, how upset Selenia had been at her brother’s death. Perhaps not because she’d loved her brother and he’d been murdered, but because she’d realized her son killed him, and she knew why.

  Gaius had nearly broken into tears when he’d told us Selenius been a father to him. A father who had done such a horrible thing to his mother.

  “He raped her,” I said, the blatant word ugly. “You couldn’t stop him.”

  Tears ran down Gaius’s face. “He said it was her duty to be with him. He dishonored her and violated her—his own sister. She wouldn’t let me accuse him, wouldn’t let me make him pay for what he’d done. Wouldn’t let me bring shame on the family.” Gaius hiccupped air. “That day … that morning … I was doing his bidding as usual. He and my mother had argued before we’d come, and he’d beaten her to the floor. While we were here, he began to taunt me. Said he’d had whores far better than my mother, that she was weak and stupid and had born a weak and stupid son. He’d laid his knife on the counter. No one was outside. I grabbed it—I don’t know what I meant to do. But then I was swinging it at his throat. It went right through.” Gaius gulped and the knife came too close to nicking Cassia’s skin. “I had to do it. I had to avenge her.”

  “I know,” I said, feeling sick. “I would have done the same. But Cassia has not harmed you. Let her go, or you will die. Painfully. I won’t let you fight back, and so you’ll have no honor, and I’ll throw away your body. Your mother will always wonder what happened to you.”

  Cassia’s alarm grew, not for herself but for me. But I couldn’t halt my tongue. If young Gaius hurt Cassia, I’d pull off his arms and roll his torso along to an opening of the sewers, flushing him away with the rest of Rome’s refuse.

  Gaius sobbed now, clinging to Cassia as though loath to release her. His eyes closed tightly with his tears, and he turned his head.

  Two steps took me to him. One squeeze of my fist broke the hand that held the knife. Gaius screamed, trying to fight, but too late.

  I had him on the ground, his arm twisted behind him, my foot on his skinny thighs. I held the iron pry bar to his throat.

  “A gladiator stabs, he doesn’t slice,” I said in a harsh voice. “More likely to make a hit, and death is quicker.”

  Gaius continued to wail and sob. Cassia picked up the knife, holding it loosely in one hand, as I’d taught her, but she had to brace herself on the wall with the other, her breath ragged.

  I lifted the pry bar, drew back my foot, and kicked Gaius in the head. He went limp, and mercifully, the sounds pouring from his mouth ceased.

  I waited in Selenius’s closed shop, Gaius slumped under the counter where his uncle had died, while Cassia went to fetch his mother.

  At Cassia’s insistence, I relinquished the bloody clothes and knife to her. What she’d do with them, I didn’t know, and I did not ask.

  I knew she was canny enough not to walk into Selenia’s house and announce we’d captured her son, so I did not worry about her going by herself on her errand. She’d persuade Gaius’s mother to come, and come alone.

  I sat on the floor, though a perfectly good stool reposed near the cupboard. I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to let the silence of the place calm me.

  Gaius was tied with strips torn from his bloody tunic—even if he woke, he’d not be attacking me. We’d searched him for more weapons, but he’d had none.

  He’d likely been returning at this quiet hour, as we had, to retrieve the tunic and knife from under the stone. Yesterday, this shop had been alive with cohorts, the other shopkeepers, and gawpers. Today would have been his first chance to return unnoticed. We’d been right to search the tunnels as soon as we could.

  Gaius had likely kept a change of clothing here, in the cupboard perhaps, in case his uncle had him work through the night, or perhaps he simply didn’t like wearing anything dirty.

  I didn’t know what would become of Gaius and his mother, and I was no longer interested. I could prove now that I didn’t kill Selenius, and that Balbus hadn’t either, but that wasn’t what relieved me.

  I’d been imagining, awake and asleep, the child Sergius, having been frightened by Selenius, slashing out with the knife and killing the man. Or creeping up on him and doing the same.

  Sergius was the small, innocent boy I’d been before life had made me otherwise. I’d later been labeled a killer, and sent to the games where I could murder for other people’s entertainment.

  No more killing, I’d vowed the day I’d gained my freedom and the rudis, the wooden sword that symbolized it. And yet, murder followed me.

  I couldn’t keep myself from death. But I could save Sergius from it, and Cassia.

  Cassia arrived with Selenia in tow. Only Cassia and Selenia entered the shop, so Cassia must have persuaded her to leave the litter bearers and maids outside in the street. She couldn’t have stopped Selenia from bringing servants altogether—a Roman matron did not hurry through the streets on foot and alone.

  I kept my eyes closed and the cold wall behind me as Selenia cried out upon seeing her son. Cassia explained to Selenia what had happened, and Selenia broke down, Cassia comforting her.

  They could leave Rome, Cassia said. “No one will question that you wanted to go far from the place of your brother’s death,” she went on, her voice soothing. “Take your son and go. We will say nothing.”

  “He didn’t mean to be cruel,” Selenia replied brokenly. I wondered whether she meant her son or her brother. “Yes, I’ll take Gaius far away.” She drew a sobbing breath. “I have your word?”

  “You have our word,” Cassia reassured her.

  The word of a slave and a gladiator should count for nothing. We weren’t people to most. I was marginally a person now that I’d been freed, but only just.

  But Cassia had a way with her. I opened my eyes a crack to see the matron swathed in her silks from the East hugging Cassia and crying.

  I rose at long last, lifted the unconscious Gaius over my shoulder, and trudged through the deserted shops to the dark street. I loaded him into Selenia’s litter then helped her in behind him. It was Cassia who gave the order for the litter bearers to start down the street, the maids trotting along after it.

  I took Cassia’s hand and led her home.

  Two days later, we left Rome and went along the Via Appia to the Via Latina. Cassia was perched on a donkey, Sergius’s precious cup wrapped in a bundle before her.

  I led the donkey—the beast had been my idea, although Cassia had insisted she’d be able to walk the five miles to Marcella’s farm. I knew she couldn’t and pointed out that she’d pay for her pride by having to travel the last part of the distance slung over my shoulder. That argument had convinced Cassia to pay the few coins for the donkey.

  We shared a loaf of Quintus’s bread as we went along, Cassia chattering to me. She could find enough to talk about to fill a five-mile journey and have
plenty left over.

  She told me that Selenia and Gaius had left the city early this morning, heading for a house Selenia had inherited in the north, near Tuscana. Cassia had heard this from servants of Selenia’s household—the family would sell the business and turn to growing wine or some such thing.

  Cassia hadn’t left our apartment since we’d returned from sending Gaius and Selenia home, but Cassia, through the vast number of acquaintances she’d made since coming to me, could discover what happened at the far end of town without stirring a step.

  Cassia had found out—through these same connections—how I’d had to pay for my dinner at the tavern in the Pallacinae. She’d not said so directly, but she’d made a show of putting extra coins in my purse, saying I’d not be caught without them again. Other than that, she never mentioned the matter.

  Now Cassia turned her face to the sun, what bit of it she let show from behind her draped wrap. “How lovely to be in the open air again.” She let out a happy breath. “There’s no place more beautiful than Campania, Leonidas. We’ll go there sometime.”

  I only made a neutral noise. Traveling cost money, and who knew how far our benefactor would let us out of his sight?

  For now, it was enough that we could breathe air that held none of the smoke and stenches of the city, that the sun shone warm and the breeze was cool. The men in Rome would hunt a foreign slave for a murder and then give up when they couldn’t find Balbus, safe in his disguise in the ludus. Selenius’s shop would be taken over by another money-changer, and the man’s death would be forgotten.

  We’d give Sergius back his cup with my name on it, eat Marcella’s hearty food, and curl up for the night in the warmth of her barn. Then back to Rome to exist a while longer.

  “You’ll have to take another job when we return,” Cassia said around a bite of bread. “A loaf a day is all very well, but that will end in time, and our coffers are fearsomely low.”

  “They always are,” I muttered.