A Gladiator's Tale

by Ashley Gardner

  I spread my fingers. “I am a trained fighter. If a wealthy man suddenly springs hired thugs on me, I will be able to defend myself. What could you do?”

  Cassia had helped me in a fight once, smacking my attacker with her bag of scrolls. It had almost been her end.

  “I can scream for help, or run for a cohort,” Cassia declared. “I would also be a witness.”

  “A witness who could end up dead. Silenced forever.” I came to my feet, anger and worry roiling together. “You will stay here, and I will question. I command it.”

  Cassia only ever gave me blank stares on the rare occasion I gave her a direct order. I’d been a slave a long time, and before that, a lowly apprentice, more used to receiving commands than giving them. I had not learned the skill of authority.

  “Very well.” Her answer was meek, suspiciously so.

  I did not wait for her to argue. Cassia was excellent at arguing, talking me into her way of thinking before I realized it. Had she been a man and free-born, she’d have found a fine career as an orator and advocate. She’d have talked rings around the great Cicero, and it was only because of Cassia that I knew who the man had been.

  I left her before I could ruin the moment and thumped my way downstairs and out into the rainy street.

  Once on the Aventine, I asked the way to the house of the vigiles and arrived to find the captain had gone to bed when his shift ended hours ago.

  When I inquired after Chryseis, the vigile who’d admitted me to the house shuddered. “That woman Captain Vatia brought in last night? Beautiful as a goddess, heart of a basilisk?”

  “Is she still here?” I demanded.

  “Word came not long ago that we had to release her. Thank all the gods.” The vigile shrugged. “She lit out without a farewell, though we gave her the best bed and fed her dinner. Ungrateful bitch. She went home, I’d guess.”

  I thanked the young man for his information and departed the house.

  Chryseis’s insula was noisy with neighbors shouting to one another, or families arguing behind closed doors, and children shrieking or laughing. The basketmaker, his wife, and daughter sat in their places, eyes on their tasks. The coppersmith hammered away, bent over his anvil. Nothing at all might have happened here last night.

  The basketmaker’s family did not glance up as I peered in. Either they did not notice me or they wanted nothing further to do with me.

  I climbed the staircase I’d gone up and down so many times last night until I reached the landing on the fifth floor. The door to the apartment where the girl had lived was firmly shut, and I heard nothing from above.

  Chryseis’s door was open. I paused on the threshold.

  Open crates filled the front room, piled with Chryseis’s belongings. She charged out from the back room followed by a thin young man with overly long curling hair, his arms full of fabric.

  “I told you to put them in there,” Chryseis snapped at him. She caught sight of me and came to an abrupt halt. “What do you want? Haven’t you caused me enough trouble already?”

  “Who is he, love?” The young man scrutinized me curiously. He had a narrow face, long limbs, and dark eyes that held no guile.

  “Another gladiator,” Chryseis snarled. “I’m done with gladiators. Go away, Leonidas.”

  “Leonidas, eh?” The young man dumped his load of cloth into an open crate and good-naturedly took me in. “I’ve heard of you. I’m Daphnus. Chryseis’s husband.”

  Chapter 12

  “Husband?” I stared, dumbfounded, then turned to Chryseis. “I thought Rufus was your husband.”

  “Was,” Chryseis said decidedly. “He’s dead now. After today, my husband will be Daphnus.”

  Daphnus sent me a grin. “Fortuna smiles upon me.”

  Chryseis stamped past him for the bedroom. I stepped closer to Daphnus and asked in a quiet voice, “Are you certain you want to marry her?”

  His grin widened. “Why not? She’s rich, she’s beautiful … My father thinks I’m good for nothing, but now I’ll be worth more than he is.” He let out a happy cackle.

  “How long have you known her?”

  “Six months,” Daphnus answered without hesitation. “Met her at a chariot race, like any good student of the Ars Amatoria.” He beamed at me as though I understood what he meant. “She kept telling me she’d divorce old Rufus someday but that she liked having a handsome gladiator on her arm. Served as a bodyguard for her too. But now he’s gone, poor fellow.”

  “Did you kill him?” I remained solidly in front of the door so he could not run, but the question amused him.

  “I? Strike down a large gladiator? I am more apt to write an elegy for the man than fight him. If I’d tried to engage him, I’d be a pool of nothing on the bottom floor of this building.” He chortled.

  “Where were you yesterday?” I persisted.

  “While the foul deed was being done? It was rather awful, Chryseis told me. Scared her senseless.” Daphnus touched his lower lip. “Let me think. I spent the morning quarreling with my father, as per usual. He has a fine house on the Viminal, where he pretends he is a patrician. He is not, of course. He’s a freedman, but he has much money, courtesy of the man for whom he used to be a slave. Ran the man’s silk cloth import business for him, and now my dear pater has his own. I am a useless blot on his life, apparently, and have been cut from my inheritance. We argue about this regularly. My mother, bless her, has been gone these last dozen years, or she’d have something to say about how my father treats me. She had something to say about everything. After my father and I decided we’d never speak to each other again—as we do every day—I went to the baths. Later, I met Chryseis in the hole that I call my home, and we … well, you know. She ran off when she was finished with me, which was at sunset. Then I hear, via my one servant, who is a useless blot on my life, that Chryseis had been arrested—for the murder of Rufus. But happily released, and now we can be together forever.”

  Daphnus wound down from this speech with a contented sigh.

  If he told the truth, then Chryseis had gone to him late in the afternoon, after she’d spoken to me. She’d been returning from his flat, wherever it was, when she’d walked in and seen Rufus dead.

  “Not if you don’t get in here and help me,” Chryseis yelled from the bedroom. She appeared in the doorway, having heard every word. “Begone from my insula, Leonidas, before I summon the cohorts to drag you out.”

  “Did you kill Rufus?” I asked her abruptly.

  Her scowl deepened. “Of course I didn’t. I wanted to be rid of the lout, yes, but I had simpler ways to dispose of him. He was only a gladiator. Easy to have the marriage legally ended in the courts. I can afford it.”

  I believed her. She had no need to commit a gruesome murder to end her marriage, and no reason at all to kill Ajax in the bargain. She did not strike me as a crazed woman murdering gladiators for sport. Angry and cold, yes, certain that everyone she spoke to was far less intelligent than she was, yes, but not a madwoman.

  I turned from her and addressed Daphnus, “I wish you the best on your marriage.”

  “Thank you.” Daphnus’s grin returned. “The wedding feast will be one of great decadence. Perhaps, love, we should invite Leonidas to give an exhibition bout at the supper. The guests would enjoy it.”

  “No.” Her one word cut off any possibility. “Good day, Leonidas.”

  Daphnus sent me a helpless shrug but turned his gaze admiringly to Chryseis. I silently fished out the key I’d taken from this apartment the night before and dropped it into the glaring Chryseis’s hand. I wondered if she’d had a spare key to enter today, and if she’d left that key with Daphnus. Or perhaps the basketmaker, a man she might trust more.

  I silently wished Daphnus and Chryseis well in their marriage and departed.

  I called in to see Marcianus before I left the Aventine. He was more subdued than usual. He’d examined Rufus and found that he too had been fed a luxurious meal, including gold leaf, b
efore he’d been felled from behind. Marcianus was on his way to the ludus now to tell Aemil he could come fetch the body.

  I left him in disquiet and moved on with my next errand.

  The Subura was a different place by day. More businesses were open, including a few entire buildings dedicated to shops. The lupinari were quieter, but it was late enough in the morning that several were open.

  I entered the one Ajax had last visited before he went off to his fate.

  The lady in charge was even less happy to see me today than she had been two nights ago. This time, however, the lupinarius was less busy, and I persuaded her to let me speak to the young woman who had been with Ajax.

  I had to pay twice the going rate, because, the madam snapped, I was not a customer, just a nosy man. Thankful that Cassia kept my coin pouch full these days, I handed over the price.

  The young woman yawned on a bunk in her cubicle, as I’d interrupted her sleep. A tunic slid down her arm, baring a grubby shoulder. She’d been to a hairdresser recently, but the black curls of her coiffure were greasy and drooping.

  “Poor Ajax,” the young woman said mournfully. “He wasn’t the gentlest of men, but he didn’t deserve that. Gives me chills, it does, thinking about it. And me with him just before.”

  Her pity was genuine. “Did he say where he was going when he left here?” I asked, keeping the urgency from my voice.

  The young woman shook her head, curls that had been pinned into a tight cone atop her head dancing. “Only that he was off to have a splendid meal in a place far better than this hovel. That could mean anywhere.”

  “Did he mention a name? Or whether he went to see a man or woman?” I recalled Marcia telling me that Ajax enjoyed the company of highborn men, preferably senator’s sons, when he wasn’t with ladies in the Subura.

  “A woman, I think, though I’m not sure why I say that.” She drew her knees to her chest, her short tunic baring her legs to her hip. “No, wait, I do. He said that it was worth the annoyance to lie on her dining couch. I imagine he expected a large reward for his trouble.”

  “He did not like the woman he was going to visit?”

  “Not a matter of liking or not liking. Ajax was no different from me, I suppose—or you. He did what he had to in order to put a few sestertii in his coin purse. Except, in this case, it would more likely be denarii. Ajax was saving to buy his freedom. He wanted to go back to Pannonia, to see if any of his family were still alive. I don’t know where Pannonia is, but a long way from here I think.”

  “A very long way.” Not as far as some of the regions in Germania, or where Cassia’s father had lived in Smyrna, but it was in the wild part of the empire, with plenty of crazed barbarians ready to swoop down and murder those Romans who had been posted there.

  “Ajax didn’t mind being a gladiator,” the young woman went on. “Liked his fame. But really, he wanted to go home.”

  I thought about the man I’d known only slightly, full of bravado, a fighter who always won. Ruthless, with a killing instinct. Aemil had to constantly tell Ajax to put on a show and not simply go for the throat. Ajax had reined himself in with difficulty.

  Now he was dead, struck down without a chance to defend himself.

  I wondered if the food and wine he’d been given had been poisoned. A concoction that would weaken him or make him sleepy would give the murderer a great advantage.

  I couldn’t imagine Ajax being unaware of an attacker coming up behind him no matter how drunk he might be. Rufus even less so. The helmets we wore blocked our view except straight ahead, so we were trained to sense where our enemy was at all times. The whisper of breath, the scrape of a foot on sand, even the creak of a joint as a man bent his knee, betrayed his position. I’d been aware of the brush of air as my opponent moved or the warmth of his body as he neared me.

  Ajax, trained by Aemil, and one of the better gladiators in the ludus, would never have let himself be hit from behind if he weren’t dosed with something to make him insensible.

  The young woman looked sad for Ajax. I handed her a sestertii, whispered to her to keep it for herself, and left the house.

  I returned to our rooms to find Cassia laying out a meal, complete with fresh bread.

  “I did not take your command to remain indoors to mean we should not eat,” Cassia said as she serenely ladled stew into bowls. “I went only to the baker’s and the popina.”

  I hung up my cloak without a word and plunked myself down on my stool, reaching for a hunk of bread. I had known Cassia wouldn’t cower here obediently, but I also knew she was—usually—sensible.

  I tore off a hunk of bread and chewed, enjoying the airy texture and slightly sour taste. Cassia always managed to procure fine loaves, mostly because the baker was afraid of her. He was afraid of me too, but mostly of Cassia.

  As I chewed, I told her what Marcianus had found from examining Rufus’s body. While Cassia duly noted this down, I added, “Chryseis is married. Or is getting married. Today.”

  “What?” Cassia blinked wide eyes, her stylus halting. “To whom?”

  “A witless man called Daphnus. Father is a wealthy freedman.” I related the conversation I’d had with him.

  “Did he tell you the name of his father?” Cassia asked when I’d finished. “I wonder how wealthy he truly is. Though I imagine Chryseis knows exactly how much the young man is worth.”

  “He said his father has cut him off.” I slurped stew, sopping it with bread. Rushing around Rome and interviewing people, coupled with the sadness of the reason, had made me hungry.

  “Marrying a wealthy and comely wife might restore him to his father’s graces,” Cassia said. “Chryseis no doubt hopes for this—or maybe she knows that she can talk his father around. From how you describe her, she does not strike me as a woman who would marry for the sentiment of it.”

  “No affection in her,” I agreed. “Daphnus is dazzled by her, and I imagine Rufus was too.”

  “Rufus was a freedman, is that correct?”

  I nodded as I stuffed stew and bread into my mouth. My stomach kept growling, even as I filled it. “He came to Aemil voluntarily. He was in much debt and sold himself to Aemil to pay off his creditors. Then he earned enough in prize money to buy back his freedom but negotiated with Aemil to stay on even after that. He liked being famous.”

  “That fame attracted Chryseis to him, no doubt. Not to mention the prize money.”

  I shrugged. “Rufus could never have made as much as a freedman’s son whose father owns a large silk importing business.”

  Silk was costly. It was brought in from lands far to the east that no one had ever seen, as pale, rather thick cloth. Importers had the cloth unwoven into silk threads, then rewoven and dyed into colors Romans preferred—red, gold, deep blues, and greens. Only the very wealthy, like Domitiana, could afford to wear silk.

  “Chryseis must have discovered too late that Rufus didn’t have as much as she believed,” Cassia said. “He probably exaggerated his worth.” Rufus had been a braggart, so that was entirely possible. “Even if she didn’t need his money, having much herself, she likely wanted to add to her coffers. Perhaps she simply craves wealth.”

  “She is a cold-hearted woman,” I said when my mouth was finally clear again.

  “But very beautiful.” Cassia watched me, her eyes still.

  I considered this. “She is like a statue, perfectly sculpted and painted. I enjoy looking at statuary in gardens, but once I walk away from them, I forget all about them. Chryseis is like that, except with a sharp tongue. The young woman I spoke with in the lupinarius was not pretty at all, but I was far happier talking to her than Chryseis. She felt sorry for Ajax—did even before he died. He was homesick, she said.”

  Having stated my views, I returned to my stew.

  After a moment, I realized that Cassia had gone very silent. I glanced up to find her regarding me with soft eyes, a smile on her lips.

  “You are a good man, Leonidas.”


  So she’d said before. I did not find much remarkable in myself, so I continued my meal without comment.

  When we were finished, Cassia cleared the plates, taking them to the balcony to wash them. I never saw the point in this as we’d just use them again, but I did not argue.

  She brought the plates inside and stacked them on the cabinet. “Perhaps we should have a peep at Chryseis’s warehouse,” she said. “A warehouse would be an excellent place to hide a corpse.”

  “But Chryseis did not murder Rufus, we agreed.”

  “Yes, but what if she killed Ajax?” Cassia traced the cover of one of her tablets in thought. “Or had him killed by men she hired? Suppose she didn’t pay the men, or she angered them. She’s a demanding and unpleasant woman. What if they decided to take their revenge by killing her husband in the same fashion as they killed her first victim? As a warning? It would explain why she was so horrified, as all facts show she never cared for Rufus.”

  “A cruel thing for Rufus,” I said feelingly. “We still have the same problem—how did the killers strike him down? Rufus was an even better fighter than Ajax.”

  Cassia’s gaze went remote as she thought. “Suppose Rufus took part in the murder of Ajax. The ruffians would not only use Rufus’s death to terrify Chryseis but also to rid themselves of a witness.”

  “Possible. But then we come back to why Chryseis should want to kill Ajax.”

  Cassia heaved a sigh. “I know we do. These murders make no sense. A madman, I conclude, as Nero has, but one very calculating and precise. I can think of no compelling reason for a person to kill either Ajax or Rufus.”

  “We can’t know why,” I said. “We should concentrate on finding out who. Why doesn’t matter.”

  “But knowing the why can lead us to the who. Is he—or she—finished? Or are all gladiators in danger? Is the killer enraged at gladiators? Or fascinated by them? Is he trying to show power over fighting men who could easily kill anyone they face, and yet are killed themselves?”