She fell into step behind me as I moved on. I couldn’t turn in this narrow passageway and demand to know what Herakles meant unless I wanted us to be amusement for the street. I clamped my mouth closed and led the way home.
We went over the bridge to the Insula in the middle of the Tiber, shuffling along with those crossing back into Rome. From there we skirted the Theatre of Marcellus, passed the temples to Fortuna and Mater Matuta, and moved under the towering Temple of Saturn toward the Basilica Julia and the forums.
The crowds had dispersed from the Forum Romanum, as most men headed for the baths in the afternoon, informally continuing business they’d begun in the Curia or the basilicas. The roads became relatively quiet as we left the flat areas around the forums of Julius and Augustus and wound our way to our apartment.
The wine merchant raised a hand in greeting as I unlocked the door—I’d managed to install a new bolt not long ago—and we went inside and up the stairs.
Cassia disentangled herself from her cloak in the dim coolness of our rooms, then reached for a jug of wine and one of water to mix a refreshing drink for us.
“Who was the man you were speaking to at the villa?” I asked as Cassia set the water jug next to the wine. “Was he your lover?”
Cassia jolted, nearly spilling the water. “Gracious, no. Why would you believe that?”
“Herakles told me this.” I could never be anything but blunt.
“I see.” Cassia arranged the jugs neatly on their shelf and handed me a cup. “Herakles is wrong. I have several acquaintances in Domitiana Sabinus’s home. One is called Helvius, and I know him fairly well. He is also a scribe—Domitiana’s secretary.”
I conceded that Herakles had exaggerated to stir up trouble, but a small knot formed in my stomach. Cassia had a quick mind and a talent with numbers and writing. It would be natural for her to be drawn to another scribe, a person who shared her interest in literature and languages.
Why this should cause me to flinch, I did not know. I had no such annoyance when she spoke with Marcianus about the same subjects.
She could not go to another man without permission in any case. Unless she was freed, she could not marry or form any relationship against our benefactor’s will.
She might, of course, save to buy her freedom, but I’d never seen any evidence of that. Perhaps, as I had when I’d been a gladiator, she’d concluded that her price would be unreachable.
I would inquire of Hesiodos, the slave who was our go-between for our benefactor, exactly what her price was. An idea was forming in my head, so new it made me rub my temple with callused fingers. But I could do nothing until I spoke with Hesiodos.
I gulped the watered wine, letting the liquid wet my parched throat. “This Helvius would be in a good place to know what goes on inside the villa.”
“Exactly my thinking.” Cassia took a delicate sip and set the cup aside. I’d noticed that ever since she’d been poisoned by a draught of wine, she’d been very careful not to drink too much at one time.
She was waiting for me to take a seat, so I scraped out a stool and thumped to it. Cassia brought out leftover bread from breakfast and placed it in the exact center of the table.
“Helvius knows quite a lot.” Cassia smoothed her tunic as she sat. She did not reach for the bread, but I knew she expected me to. I broke a chunk from the wedge and dunked it in my wine, and only then did Cassia set a smaller morsel on her own plate. “Domitiana Sabinus was married to a consul called Severinus who left her very well off. She also inherited money from her own family. Domitiana is a very wealthy lady.”
“Perhaps that is why Livius was there,” I offered. “The wealthy befriend each other.”
“He is a freedman, no matter how much he is worth. But handsome, and that might be Domitiana’s interest. She apparently likes young and comely men.”
“Is Herakles comely?” I asked skeptically. He was hard-faced and ungainly to me.
“To many, yes, I suppose he is. Herakles is strong, and though not as pleasing of countenance as you are, he is unusual. The barbarian coloring fascinates some women. Notice she wore a wig to resemble a woman of the north. I know of one domina who will only have red-haired slaves or freedmen working in her house. She enjoys looking at them, she says.”
“Like pet birds,” I said in distaste.
“Yes, though hardly as pampered. She’s not a kind mistress.”
I said a silent prayer bidding the ancestors of these servants, whoever they were, to watch over them.
I realized in the next instant, that Cassia had said not as pleasing of countenance as you are. She spoke of me only in comparison to Herakles but for some reason, her observation trickled a tiny bit of warmth through me.
I took another large bite of bread. “Livius might tell me why he’d visited her, if I ask. Or he might not.”
“If it was private business, he most certainly will not.” Cassia returned to her wine for another minute sip. “Helvius explained to me more about the household. I knew a little from my previous stays in the villa, but he filled in the gaps. Domitiana’s son is a praetor in a small city in Hispania where he enjoys his power. He rarely comes home as he doesn’t like his mother, so he leaves her to her own devices. Domitiana also has a daughter.”
The way Cassia’s mouth tightened signaled to me that this fact was significant.
“Does the daughter live at the house?” I asked. “Perhaps Livius’s visit had something to do with her.”
“Helvius did not think so. The daughter, Severina, is married to a man called Tertius Vestalis Felix and has her own villa on the Caelian Hill. She met her husband, a retired proconsul, when she and her mother visited her brother in Hispania a few years ago. Severina is also horribly spoiled. According to Helvius, she’s found fault with everyone since the day she was born. I’ve never met her myself.” Cassia set aside her wine cup. “She’d been sent off with governesses to her father’s relatives from a young age—her mother had little to do with her.”
I’d known patrician parents who were very close to their children—a man named Priscus, for example, loved his adopted son without shame. Others couldn’t be bothered with them. As one who’d never known his father and barely remembered his mother, I didn’t much understand either situation.
“If her husband is a retired proconsul, he must be much older than she is,” I said. A man with a political career went from aedile to praetor to senator, and usually was not elected consul or given a proconsulship until later in his life.
“Oh, yes. Quite a bit older. Helvius said Severina loves to host banquets, the more lavish, the better. Usually when her husband is away.”
I stilled. “Does she invite gladiators?”
“Gladiators, charioteers, actors, musicians …” Cassia chewed a tiny portion of her bread. “Severina enjoys being entertained as much as her mother does.”
I turned my wine cup on the table. “I have known one or two women—gladiators—who’d be able to kill Ajax and saw up his body. But I am guessing the pampered wife of a proconsul could not.”
“Helvius says Severina is a rather small woman. I asked.”
“But she could hire men to do it for her.”
“She also might coerce some of her lovers to do such a thing. Severina is apparently quite beautiful.”
Ajax had been vain and pompous. It was not difficult to imagine a beautiful, rich woman enticing him to her side and stuffing him with a sumptuous meal before signaling her hired men to kill him—but for what reason? Was it simply another form of entertainment for her?
“We must find out if Ajax visited her,” I stated.
Cassia reached for her tablets, which were never far from her hands. “It will not be easy. I do not know any servants in Severina’s house, though perhaps Helvius could sneak me inside.”
“No,” I said immediately.
Cassia didn’t bother to look up. “I thought you would object.”
“If this Severina likes g
ladiators, then I could somehow gain an invitation to her home.”
Now Cassia pinned me with her stare. “I believe that a dangerous idea. She might like to kill gladiators.”
“Or perhaps she wished only to kill Ajax,” I argued. “He might have angered her. Maybe Severina grew annoyed with him for going to lupinari in the Subura. For betraying her, in her eyes. She punished him, and left him in the Subura to humiliate him. If she simply enjoyed murdering gladiators, I’m certain we would have heard of it before this.”
“That is true,” Cassia conceded.
I finished off my bread and washed it down with more wine as I pondered. “What if her husband killed him out of jealousy? Came home too soon and found Ajax there?”
Cassia tapped her stylus to her cheek. “Helvius told me that her husband doesn’t pay much attention to Severina. She’s his second wife—he married her for her money and her family connections, as he didn’t have much wealth of his own. As long as Severina stays close to home, the husband gives her free rein. Or so it seems.”
“Still, a man walking into his wife’s chamber and finding her in bed with Ajax would make even the most indifferent husband angry,” I said. “He could have struck Ajax down in fury, realized he was dead, and decided to leave him in the back street like discarded trash.”
“Except the husband is small and elderly,” Cassia said as she bent her head to write.
“He probably has a large bodyguard to do such deeds for him.”
Cassia’s stylus moved decidedly. “That is certainly something to inquire about. But you have no need to rush into danger. I can tell Helvius to find out whether Ajax went to Severina, and if the husband discovered them and has a strong bodyguard.”
I reflected that I’d heard Helvius’s name too many times in this conversation. “And if he is caught and the truth beaten out of him? Wrath will fall on you, and I might not be able to protect you. Patrician families are dangerous.”
The stylus paused, and Cassia glanced up. “I know. I grew up in a patrician household.”
“And now you are here.”
Cassia’s cheeks pinkened. “Yes, I take your point.”
“Inquiring is dangerous for both of us, but less so for me.”
Cassia studied her tablet again, but her hand did not move. “Very well, we will think on how best to gain her household.”
I growled. “No rushing out when I’m at the baths and having Helvius smuggle you into her house in a rolled-up carpet.”
This drew a laugh. “Like Cleopatra with Julius Caesar? I am dubious about that story, though it does make a good tale.”
“Promise me, Cassia.”
Cassia lost her smile and heaved a small sigh. “Very well, I promise. Neither of us will enter what might be a killer’s household without a good plan in place.”
Neither of us, she said. Trying to bind my word with hers. I wasn’t certain whether to be amused or exasperated.
“What about the brother?” I asked to move us past the sticky question. “Are you certain he is in Hispania? A husband can grow furious at a wife’s wantonness, but so can a brother.”
“Helvius is certain, but yes, we ought to—”
The door banging open downstairs cut off her words. I was on my feet in a flash, my hand reaching for my knife.
The wine merchant must have admitted whoever it was. If it had been anyone dangerous, the wine merchant would have tried to stop them, but if they were truly dangerous, he could not have.
Several pairs of feet rushed up the stairs, and I wrenched open the inner door.
“Leonidas—good, we found the right place.”
The speaker was Merope, out of breath from her scramble up the steps. She wore a threadbare woolen sheath, her hair pulled into a knot that half escaped its bonds. Behind her came her cousin Gaius, a tunic over his thin body, sandals on his overly large feet.
Cassia rose, lips parting at the abrupt intrusion, but I relaxed, lowering my knife.
“This is Merope and Gaius,” I told her. “They are …”
“Rufus’s bit on the side.” Merope laughed as she delivered these words, and Gaius rolled his eyes.
“Ah,” Cassia said. She made a note and closed her tablet. “May I offer you wine?”
Gaius flashed a grin. “Wouldn’t say no.”
Cassia drew two more cups from the cabinet and mixed wine and water.
“Thank you kindly,” Merope said as she accepted the beverage. “Searching for Rufus is thirsty work.” She took a slurp from the cup, and Gaius swallowed his wine in one go.
“We haven’t found him,” Merope continued sorrowfully. “Martolia is still out looking, but we’ve seen no sign of Rufus, and we’ve searched everyplace we could think of.” All smiles gone, Merope’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m very much afraid, Leonidas, that he has ended up in the river or been buried in a deep hole by that wretched woman.”
Chapter 8
That wretched woman, must be Chryseis, Rufus’s wife.
“Do you believe Chryseis killed Ajax too?” I asked.
Merope nodded vigorously. “Of course. To make it look as though someone is killing gladiators so she could rid herself of Rufus.”
“She could simply divorce Rufus,” Cassia pointed out gently. “From what you tell Leonidas, Chryseis has much money and property. If she was tired of her husband, she could easily eject him.”
“Chryseis is a vindictive harpy.” Merope turned to Cassia without compunction. “If she wanted to be rid of Rufus, she’d murder him. She’d do it so he couldn’t come to us. Vengeance on all of us at the same time.”
Gaius sighed sorrowfully in agreement.
“You truly believe she would kill Rufus?” Cassia asked.
Merope nodded vigorously. “Yes. She’s awful. You met her, Leonidas. Don’t you think she’d kill a man simply because he peeved her?”
I thought of the beautiful woman with cold eyes and luxuriant hair who’d curled her lip at me from the doorway of her apartment.
“Only if she’d gain by it,” I said slowly. “I think she’s a woman who wouldn’t make an effort unless it was well worth her time.”
“She’d gain by being a bitch for the fun of it.” Merope scowled, unconvinced.
“Where did you look for Rufus?” Cassia asked them.
“Everywhere.” Merope threw open her arms, a graceful movement. “Didn’t we, Gaius?”
“All over the Transtiberim,” Gaius agreed. “Every popina in every street, every lupinarius we could find. Up to the temple of Jupiter and back to the Naumachia. Crossed over to the Aventine and scoured it as well. Merope said we’d better tell you what we did—or rather didn’t—find, so we came here. We searched in many more popinae along the way.”
Cassia quickly wrote down every word. “I am growing very concerned for Rufus. Perhaps we’d better discover if he’s returned to the ludus or to Chryseis.”
“We’ll check with Chryseis.” Merope beamed us a wide smile, her eyes lighting with mischief.
“Better not,” Cassia advised. “If he is hiding with her, or if she has him trapped, she will never let you see him. You could ask at the ludus, and Leonidas and I will speak to Chryseis. She knows Leonidas now.”
“She did not warm to me,” I warned.
“She couldn’t warm to anyone,” Merope said decidedly. “Oil hardens in her hand.”
“Then it’s settled,” Cassia said. “Merope and Gaius will journey to the ludus and inquire about Rufus while we seek Chryseis.”
She spoke as though there was no more argument to be made. Such was the firm power of her reasoning that Merope and Gaius nodded, if reluctantly.
“Talk to Septimius, the gate guard,” I said. “Tell him I sent you.”
“And let us know what you discover,” Cassia said. “Leonidas and I will seek you in your rooms after we speak to Chryseis.”
Merope wasn’t happy that she couldn’t confront Chryseis, but Gaius appeared to think it wise. An
encounter between the two women would only lead to shouting or even violence, and we’d be no closer to locating Rufus.
We left the apartment together and parted at the bottom of the stairs. Gaius steered Merope toward the river and the Transtiberim, and Cassia and I descended the Quirinal and started our trek toward the Aventine.
“I understand why Rufus likes Merope,” Cassia said as we walked. “She has fire. Most Roman women are raised to be subdued and obedient, no matter what class they come from. I can see him responding to that.”
“You are not subdued and obedient,” I said.
Cassia blinked up at me from under her cloak. “How can I not be? I was born into servitude.”
“You are soft-spoken and duck your head, but you also do exactly as you please. Including accompanying me to a dangerous part of town to confront a dangerous woman.”
Her stare was perplexed. “Not exactly as I please. I do what makes the most logical sense. My father taught me that.”
“What makes the most logical sense to you,” I countered. “Even when you’re ordered not to.”
“You did not order me to stay behind today.”
“No.” I took a few strides, turning sideways to move through a knot of men with baskets of produce hoisted on their backs. “It made the most logical sense for you to accompany me.”
Cassia pulled a fold of cloth over her mouth to hide her expression and bent her head to study the large stones at her feet, still hesitant on the uneven streets of Rome.
I led us across an increasingly deserted city and around the Forum Bovarium—the cattle market—past a shrine to Ceres near the Circus Maximus and onto the Aventine. I wondered if Marcianus had returned home. We could call on him after we met with Chryseis, if the woman even proved to be in. It wouldn’t take much longer to speak to Marcianus before we met up with Merope and Gaius again.
The lower streets of the Aventine were more crowded than the heart of Rome, as people sought home in the late afternoon sunlight. Clouds formed on the horizon, and I tasted a bite of chill in the air—it would rain tonight.
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