by Martha Marks
“Is there any chance I could have writing materials while I practice?” she asked when he glanced up.
“What for?”
“To make notes when I do something I like.”
Scopan provided what she wanted, then pointed to a cubicle whose only door opened directly into his office.
“Practice in there. I want to hear what you can do.”
And practice she did, all morning and well into the afternoon... so steadily that Scopan had to tell her to get something to eat. She obeyed, but then—instead of returning after lunch—she wandered around the service halls, looking for an inconspicuous route out of the palace.
In the center of a labyrinth of corridors—separated from an immense banquet hall by a bank of purple curtains—she came to a storage room where men were hauling in wine from a rear alley through a stone-arched doorway.
Falernian.
The aroma generated memories that Theodosia quickly shrugged off.
I will drink Falernian again, and at home. But for now... too many other things to think about.
She slipped into the alley, carrying Scopan’s reed-pen, a vial of ink, and a folded sheet of papyrus tied securely to her belt.
From the top of the Palatine Hill, the city glowed as the afternoon sun lit up its multi-colored walls. Theodosia gazed at the flowery masses of crimson and violet in the imperial gardens that surrounded her.
How beautiful my villa must be right now.
“Juno, hear me,” she said aloud. “By this time next year, I’ll be living at home again. Nothing else matters to me. No one will stop me. Hear me, blessed Juno, for I swear it!”
<><><>
So much was different in the Subura that Theodosia lost time finding her street, and once she did, she hardly recognized it. Scores of new tenements had gone up, bringing the slums even closer to her old house. Where perhaps a handful of children had played in the street, now there were dozens. Entire corners were blocked with piles of garbage. Dogs roamed in packs. The taverns had always been there, but now it seemed the entire male population of the Subura was soggy with cheap wine. She had never seen so many drunken men in the streets.
At this hour, respectable women were home preparing dinner or—if they were lucky—supervising the slave or two at their disposal. Theodosia had always made sure she was safely inside by midafternoon.
It was dangerous then... but nothing compared to now.
Dodging drunks who urinated on the walls and muttered obscenities, she picked her way through the garbage, the dogs, and the offal, grateful to make it without incident to the block where she had lived.
At the last street corner before her destination, two men stepped up and blocked her path.
“Wha’s’is?” said a stout fellow as he wiped the back of a dirty hand across his mouth. His tongue lolled outside his lips for a moment. “Lil’ duckie fall outta th’ nest?”
“Co’mon in, gal,” said the other, reaching out to snag Theodosia’s shawl. He was taller and even heavier, and he smelled of cheap wine and old grease. “Buy ya a drink!”
Theodosia retreated a step as his fingers closed on her shawl. It slipped away from her face.
“Puny lil’ thing, ain’t she? Gotta funny walk, too,” said the first man, clamping his fingers around her wrist. “What’sa matter, honey? Whad’cha do t’get so hurt?”
Theodosia tried to pull away, but the taller man threw his arms around her from behind.
“Bet’cha some ol’ master beat ‘er!” he chortled as his left hand crossed her chest and grabbed her right breast. Theodosia gagged at the smell of his armpit. “Caught ‘er in the stable wi’ one of th’ hands!”
“Bet’cha she ain’t had a goo’ man since!” said the first as he pinned her between himself and his smelly companion. “Ain’t that right, honey?”
Jerkily, he bent and pressed a rancid kiss on her lips.
Theodosia heard the man behind her laugh. Wide-eyed and squirming, she was trying to free herself when she saw a third pair of hands encircle the forehead of the man who was kissing her. An instant later, her assailant’s head flew back; he released her wrists. The hand at her breast eased its grip, and Theodosia stumbled free of the drunken pair.
Chest heaving, she rubbed her mouth, straightened her tunic, and pulled the shawl over her head.
“Go back to your wine,” a quiet voice said. “I know this lady.”
“Lady? This here’s a slave duckie. Don’cha know nothin’?”
“More’n you. Get away from her.”
Theodosia stared at the tall, stooped figure who had rescued her, then she gasped in recognition and relief. It was Rubol, the sandal maker’s slave.
“Come with me, lady.”
For a few moments, she hesitated... smelling wine on his breath, too.
Since when does stingy old Dinos let him visit a tavern?
Then she looked at the crowd of men gathered on the corner, all of them leering at her. Rubol didn’t seem nearly so threatening as the rest.
He opened the door to the shop attached to her old house.
“What’re you doing here at this hour, lady? Those men would’ve raped you right in the street.”
Theodosia nodded and stepped into the shop. She caught her breath for a few moments, then looked around and shook her head in wonder.
“Even this place is different. I feel like I’ve been gone a century.” She lifted some of the sandals on display near the door. “These are wonderful, Rubol. Much nicer than what you two made before.”
“My master refused to do the newer styles. Always said the old ones was good enough.”
“Refused? Said? Past tense?”
“He died two years ago.”
“Oh, how sad!” But as Theodosia spoke, she saw a rare smile cross Rubol’s gaunt face and knew he was anything but sad. “So, you’re... That’s why you were in the tavern.”
“Freed by his will. And now the owner of the shop.”
“I’m happy for you, Rubol,” she said as he offered her a stool.
“You don’t look too good, lady. What happened to your leg?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you some other time.”
She spotted a boy about twelve coming in from the rear.
“Gotta couple slaves of my own now.” There was pride in Rubol’s voice. “Doing better than my master ever did.”
Another man came out to gape beside the boy. Rubol ordered them both to return to the room behind the curtain.
“You deserve to be successful,” Theodosia said, thinking of his life spent hunched over a workbench in that sunless back room.
“I owe you a lot, and I haven’t forgotten it. Like to know how I can repay you.”
Theodosia cocked her head, puzzled.
“All those months,” Rubol explained, “you let Dinos stay on without paying rent. Otherwise—hard as times was—he might have had to sell me to pay it. All the days you slipped food to me, remember? And when you came for a visit that summer... those hundred sesterces you gave Dinos to buy us a good meal. Well, he didn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. He buried them under his bed with a few coins he’d hoarded over the years. Your money more than quadrupled his savings, so when he died and left this place to me, I soon had enough to buy an experienced man and a boy to train.”
“Do you pay rent to the new owner of the house?” Theodosia asked. “A crude fellow called Nizzo?”
“Yes. You know him?”
“He was my father’s freedman. The bailiff on my farm.”
“How’d he get your house?”
“That’s something I plan to find out.” She drew her shawl over her head once more and made ready to leave.
Rubol was rearranging the sandals on the table.
“What makes you think he’ll want to talk to you?”
“I don’t expect he will.” She moved to the door. “You’ve repaid any debt you owe me by saving me from those drunks. Thank you.”
Theodosia was c
rossing the threshold when Rubol caught her arm.
“When you’re ready to leave, knock on my door. I’ll see you safely out of the Subura.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
The plump, pale-skinned, red-haired woman Theodosia remembered as Persa opened the door and stared at the skeletal figure in the street.
“I’ve come to see Nizzo.”
“He’s eating.”
“Tell him Theodosia Varro wants to see him.”
Persa looked stunned. She glanced toward the kitchen as Theodosia pushed past her into the low-ceilinged atrium.
“Tell him!”
As Persa scurried off, Theodosia entered the tiny peristyle. Weeds choked the garden and smothered the bench. There were no flowers.
Nizzo emerged, looking cleaner than she remembered but otherwise unchanged. As usual, his face revealed no emotion.
“You’re supposed to be in prison.”
“I was released yesterday. Does that worry you?”
“How’d you get out?”
Theodosia took a deep breath and prepared to tell the lie of her life.
“I have a powerful friend, Nizzo.”
She paused for effect... and then a new thought occurred to her.
That might actually be true. Nero was Gaius’ friend, so shouldn’t he be glad to see the real murderer exposed at last?
“A very powerful friend,” she repeated.
“You got no friends. They all turned their backs on you years ago.”
“Then what am I doing here? Why am I not still in the Carcer Tullianus?”
“If you’ve come to play guessing games, I got better things to do.”
He returned to the kitchen. Theodosia followed.
Nothing there had changed. The same pot hung over the fire pit; the same poker stood against the wall.
Nizzo sat down to his bowl of half-eaten pottage and loaf of bread.
Theodosia dropped to a stool as Persa stood by... eyes wide, fingers fidgeting with her thread-bare tunic.
“Tell her to leave,” Theodosia said.
Nizzo appeared to think it over, then jerked his head at Persa.
“Go to the bedroom and close the door.”
Persa glanced suspiciously at Theodosia as she hurried out. Soon a door banged. Theodosia hoped the woman had obeyed and wouldn’t double back to eavesdrop.
Nizzo took a chunk of bread, sopped it in the pottage, and finished it in several large bites.
“This ain’t a social call, I bet. What’re you here for?”
“The truth.”
Theodosia’s eyes explored the brick wall behind his chair.
Nothing is changed.
“I want to know what you told the emperor’s freedmen before I was arrested.”
“What I told the emperor’s freedmen?” Nizzo shoved the bowl aside and laughed. “How would I know the emperor’s freedmen?”
“Marcus Salvius Otho told me years ago that some of them were friends of yours.”
“You should know better than to believe anything Otho says.”
“I want to know what lies you told them about me.”
“I told no lies about you.”
“You did... and you’re lying still.”
“What would I hope to gain by telling lies about you?”
The calm in his voice was infuriating.
“My farm. You wanted it more than anything else in the world. Tried to intimidate me into selling it. You even threatened to kill me.”
“When did I threaten to kill you?”
“That summer after I refused to sell the farm to you. You left a note in my library... that pathetic excuse for a poem I found in the scroll I was reading. ‘The sad fate of the brother will soon come to the sister.’ You wanted me to think Alexander wrote it, but it didn’t deceive me. I knew it was your doing.”
“I don’t know nothing ‘bout no poem.” Another laugh. “I don’t write poetry, lady.”
“Well, it wasn’t much of a poem.” Theodosia pushed herself to her feet. “So, when that trick didn’t work, you started lying about me.”
“When did I do that?”
“Before they arrested me, and afterwards, too. You spread malicious rumors about my mother. You destroyed me with lies, because you thought that would encourage the emperor to sell you my farm.”
“I didn’t have to lie to do that. They had plenty of other evidence against you. But I did almost buy the farm straight out, same way Lucius Sergius Silus bought your villa.”
“Sergius Silus conspired against me. So did you.”
“Didn’t have to conspire. I could’ve paid for what I wanted... just like he did.”
“Sergius Silus is rich. You’re not.”
“I had backers.”
“Who?”
“That ain’t your business. Don’t matter now anyway.”
Theodosia turned toward the fire pit, took the poker, and jabbed the fire until it began to crackle. Nizzo was watching her. When she dropped the poker into its niche, he relaxed and went back to his bread.
She let her tone soften as she strolled behind Nizzo’s bench. He was chewing steadily, talking with his mouth full.
“Otho was one of your backers, wasn’t he?” she asked.
“He tell you that?”
“What was he asking in return?”
“Just a small share of the profits.”
“I don’t believe that. A man as rich as Otho doesn’t need a small share of anything.”
“He said he’d do it as a favor.”
“Otho never did anyone a favor in his life.”
Nizzo shrugged and continued chewing his crusty bread, as the fire popped loudly behind him. Casting her eyes back and forth from Nizzo to the wall beside her, Theodosia slipped the loose brick out with her left hand and removed Phoebe’s long-hidden knife with her right.
“I can’t imagine,” Nizzo was saying through a mouthful, “what you think someone like Otho would want from someone like me.”
“Lies.” Holding the brick behind her and the knife in a fold of her tunic, Theodosia stepped to Nizzo’s side. “He wanted lies about me.”
In the next moment, she flashed the knife up and pressed its keen edge above the ring of tough skin on the freedman’s throat.
“Flatten your hands on the table!”
Nizzo obeyed instantly. Through the blade, Theodosia felt him swallow. She tossed the brick into a corner.
“Now, you are going to tell me everything you told the investigators.”
“I only said what Otho wanted me to say.”
“And that was...?”
“He’ll kill me if I tell you.”
“And I’ll kill you if you don’t. So... let’s take it step by step. You murdered my brother, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“You took a slave from the farm. Then—after you killed Gaius—you killed the slave, too.” She leaned on the knife. “Confess.”
Sweat was glistening on Nizzo’s forehead.
“I can’t confess to what ain’t true.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Ain’t lying! I swear it!”
“Then tell me who did kill Gaius.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Now who’s playing games?” She pressed the knife deeper into his throat. “You ruined my life. I lost everything because of your greed. So... I think it’d be a real pleasure to watch you die.”
“I’ll die anyway if I tell you.”
“Who killed my brother?”
Nizzo muttered something that Theodosia couldn’t understand.
“Speak up!”
“It was Marcus Salvius Otho that murdered Gaius Terentius Varro.” Nizzo sounded as if he were testifying before an official investigator.
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
Marcipor was right!
“Why would Otho say something like that to you?”
“I dunno, but he
invited me to his house one night, gave me lots of good wine, and told me that. Must have been trying to convince me he was serious. Said he knew I hated Gaius as much as he did... and that I’d never tell on him if he helped me get what I wanted.”
“Our farm?”
Nizzo nodded gingerly and drew a thin breath.
“Said he’d make sure I got it if I did one thing for him.”
“And that was...?”
No answer.
“Come on, Nizzo. You’ve been doing so well. I was beginning to think you might actually survive this.” She kept her voice soft. “What did Otho want you to do?”
“Swear your mother was a slave.”
“Why would something that absurd even occur to him?”
“I guess your brother said something when Otho told him he wanted to marry you. Something about how you was a bastard, since the old man never married that whore he brung with him from Greece.”
“So... the only thing Gaius thought was that I was Father’s bastard child?”
“I guess. It was Otho’s idea to prove your mother was a slave. He said there’d been some talk about her in Greece, but it was just some Greek clerk saying it. But if a Roman citizen like me would swear it was true...”
Of course. Since there were no documents to prove it.
“And did you swear it?”
Silence.
Pleased by the sweat running down Nizzo’s temples, Theodosia increased the pressure on his throat to the point where she thought she might actually cut him. After another moment, he nodded.
“What lies did you invent to convince the investigators that my mother was a slave?”
“I said your father bragged about the duckie he’d bought cheap at a country market in Greece.”
Theodosia laughed at that.
“Didn’t it occur to anybody that my father would never refer to any woman—slave or free—as a ‘duckie’? That’s how a slave talks... or a coarse freedman. Not the grandson of one of Rome’s most learned men. Not someone who had such a fine way with words and enjoyed language and literature. Besides... how could they think a patrician like my father would even get into a conversation about personal matters with the bailiff on his farm?”
“Well, they believed it.”