“Sir.” I gently untangled myself from Severina and laid her on the cushions as I rose from them.
Vestalis munched his almonds and plunked heavily down on the couch as far from Severina as possible. He peered at me in indifference.
“Never mind, boy.” His eyes sharpened as he studied me. “If you get a son on her, though, I will claim it as mine. I need an heir.”
I shot a glance at Severina, now curled up on the pillows, sleeping the sleep of the guiltless.
“I do not believe that will happen tonight,” I said.
Vestalis slid his gaze to his wife. “She reminds me of a wild animal, like a monkey one brings back from Africa as a pet. She runs about and plays then falls asleep.”
Watching Severina now and recalling how she’d behaved at her mother’s house, I considered it a very good description.
I bowed, my legs unsteady. “I will go.”
Vestalis waved a hand filled with almonds at me. “No, no. Sit down and partake. All this food shouldn’t go to waste. She’ll simply throw it out.”
When a patrician commanded me, I was obliged to obey. I sat next to him and lifted a few grapes from their basket. My belly was full, but I could have a few morsels if he insisted.
We didn’t recline, simply sat with our feet on the ground, as we would at an informal meal at a popina. Vestalis’s teeth ground the almonds to bits, the crunching sound nearly drowning out Severina’s snores.
“You’re a gladiator no longer, I hear.” Vestalis reached for the dates. “Given the rudis. Felicitations on surviving the games. They are brutal. But you were a champion.”
“I fought to survive,” I said without rancor. “I was glad to leave the life behind.”
Vestalis chuckled, his face softening. “Modest too. A gladiator is the very picture of virtus, is he not? Strong, powerful, lauded, courageous. Everything the soft-bellied senators want to be.”
Virtus—the elusive word meaning honor, courage, fortitude. The highest achievement a Roman man could obtain was to be known for his virtus.
“I fought because I had no choice.”
“Of course you didn’t. But old consuls who haven’t led men in battle in these peaceful days envy those in the arena. Wouldn’t want to actually find themselves there, you know.” More thin laughter.
“No, sir.”
“I found my glory in the provinces.” Vestalis ate dates with a sucking sound, then returned to almonds. He lifted a jug of wine, shook it to see if any remained, then trickled it into a spare cup.
He ate and drank without worry, from which I decided that our idea of Severina’s food being tainted was far off the mark.
“You were a proconsul,” I prompted, as Vestalis seemed to want to talk.
He swallowed his wine. “Went to several places. Spent a few years in Britannia.” He shuddered. “Never go to Britannia, Leonidas. It’s cold, damp, and full of howling savages. I preferred Hispania, but only just.”
I wasn’t certain how he wanted me to respond, so I gave him a polite nod.
“Hispania is where I met her.” Vestalis gestured with his cup to the sleeping Severina. “Came across her brother there—he’s a praetor in a small town among the olive groves. Severina and her mother were visiting him, just after Domitiana’s husband died. The brother, Severinus, wanted to get young Severina married off. She was trouble, though he tried to hide that fact. She chased after legionnaires and gladiators like a tart. The family hushed it up, but she was a worry. I sought a fortune, and Severinus sought a husband for his wayward sister. So I married her.”
Again, I had no idea how he wanted me to respond. I ate a few more grapes in silence.
“You wonder why, eh?” Vestalis’s humor faded. “I never had much money, though I could not complain about my career, or my lineage. But it was empty, in the end.”
Helvius had said that Vestalis had lost his first wife and daughter during his years as proconsul. I saw the grief in him still. If his affection lay strongly with that wife, he’d not have expected to form any attachment to Severina. He’d walked into the marriage knowing exactly what Severina was, and did not care.
“I wanted the comfort of a large house and plenty of money to take me into old age,” Vestalis went on. “The family is respectable enough, no matter how the women of it try to ruin that. I have great respectability. That is what I gave young Severinus in exchange for his sister’s wealth.”
The gaze Vestalis sent to Severina was one a man might give to an unruly child that he had no intention of looking after. There was unconcern, even detachment.
Vestalis inhaled one more handful of almonds. “Go home, gladiator. She won’t wake until morning.”
I rose, swaying a little. I moved one step to Severina, intending to straighten her stola over her exposed legs, but Vestalis shooed me off.
“Her maids will attend her. Good night, Leonidas the Spartan. Thank you for speaking with me.”
I inclined my head. Out of nowhere, Severina’s bodyguard appeared, ready to usher me from the room.
Vestalis snatched the last of the grapes and stepped out to the peristyle, brushing past me as though he’d already forgotten about me. The bodyguard motioned for me to follow him.
I left the massive, quiet house. Gaius and Merope were nowhere in sight—I assumed they’d been escorted out a servants’ entrance. The bodyguard said nothing at all, only opened the front door at the vestibule and stood aside so I could depart into the night.
As soon as I was on the street, the door shut with a bang, and I heard the bolt being dragged across it.
I was alone at the top of the Caelian Hill, having learned absolutely nothing from the one person I’d most suspected of the crimes. No one had tried to poison me, strike me, kill me, or butcher me.
I drew in lungsful of the cool night air, preparing for the long and unsteady walk home.
I was nearly robbed several times as I stumbled to the Quirinal. I carried little money, but this did not stop a burly, smelly man trying to push me into a wall and another from attempting to garrote me. My body came alive to elbow the garotte man hard in the gut until he retched in pain and for the burly man to be smashed face-forward into the wall for his trouble. In the darkness of the Vicus Compiti Acili, a third man came at me with a knife, only to stop short a few paces away.
“Aren’t you Leonidas the Spartan?” His tone held admiration. “I’ve seen many of your bouts. Won coin on you.”
I supposed he wanted me to congratulate him. I growled like the fierce fighting man I had been, and he chortled in delight. “Good night to you then.”
Before I left him, I grabbed his knife and threw it across the stones, where it skittered into a sewer. He’d not be able to rob another with it tonight.
He tottered away, laughing. “Bested by Leonidas the Spartan. No one will believe me.”
I kept a wary eye out the rest of the way home.
The aftermath of the fights was crashing me toward sleep on top of all the wine and food. I had to hold on to the walls as I climbed the stairs to our apartment, and this after fumbling with the outer door’s key for a very long time.
I found Cassia still awake. She hummed to herself as she bent over her scrolls, a lone oil lamp flickering in the darkness. The point of light stabbed into my eyes, my head aching.
I shut the door after I nearly fell into the apartment and leaned against it, wondering how I would reach the far side of the room and my bed.
“You.” I pointed a wobbling finger at Cassia. “You found a way to go after all.”
Cassia rose, setting aside her pen, and regarded me in all innocence. “I never left the apartment, I promise you. You were wise to tell me to remain out of danger.”
I kept jabbing with my finger. “You sent spies to watch over me.”
“You mean Merope and Gaius?” She flushed. “I might have mentioned their names to Helvius and suggested they be hired for Severina’s dinner tonight. Did they perform well?”
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br /> “Spies,” I said this with conviction as I stumbled on the uneven floor.
Cassia was beside me in an instant, her cool touch balancing me. I reflected that her gentle fingers were far more pleasant on my skin than Severina’s groping, honey-sticky ones.
“Guards,” Cassia contradicted softly. “They were to run for help at the first sign of trouble. But as you are home, and safe, then we must be wrong about Severina.”
I tried to tell Cassia what had happened—about the feast and wine, Severina’s flirtation and attempted seduction ending with her falling asleep, and my conversation with Vestalis. Banal events that were nothing like the intrigue and danger I’d expected.
My words came out slurred and garbled. Cassia towed me to the bed and nudged me down to it. I didn’t need any coaxing—my body fell onto the reed mattress in an ungainly heap.
I kept trying to explain my story, but Cassia only straightened my limbs and removed my sandals.
“Hush,” she said, her voice tranquil. “Sleep now. We’ll speak in the morning.”
I saw the sense in this and closed my mouth and my eyes. I felt a blanket ease over me and Cassia’s touch on my shoulder.
“Thank all the gods you are well, Leonidas.” The words were a low murmur, but I heard them as I slid into a deep and numbing sleep.
When I swam awake the next morning, the sun was well up, the apartment warm. Cassia sat at the table, writing as usual. The street outside was very quiet, which meant I’d slept through the time when nearby residents lined up to buy their daily supply of wine.
I raised my head and immediately regretted it. The rich food and drink I’d taken at Severina’s table roiled in my stomach and pounded through my skull.
Cassia glanced up. “Good morning,” she said brightly.
“Is it morning?” I mumbled, or thought I did.
“Nearly afternoon. I’ve mixed something for you to drink.” She pointed with her stylus to the copper cup that usually held my wine.
I never wanted to eat or drink anything ever again. With great effort, I heaved myself to a sitting position, realizing I smelled of old sweat and Severina’s cloying perfume.
Standing came next. That took a while. Finally, I was on my feet, staggering toward the table.
How I reached it without bringing up everything that was in my stomach, I never knew. I held on to the thick boards of the table and lowered myself gingerly to my stool while Cassia watched me without expression.
She slid the cup to me, and I peered down into gray-green sludge. “What is it?” I croaked.
“A mixture to make you feel better. Nonus Marcianus taught me how to prepare it.”
Marcianus’s concoctions usually resembled something an animal had spat up. But I trusted him and trusted Cassia, so I lifted the cup to my mouth, closed my eyes, and swallowed what was inside it.
The mixture tasted as foul as it appeared. The liquid oozed down into my stomach where it settled like lead.
“When you are up to it, I have bread and eggs for you to eat,” Cassia said.
“I don’t want any food.”
Ignoring me, Cassia rummaged in one of her boxes and pulled out what looked like a small, flat board. “I bought something for you yesterday.”
She set the wooden board in front of me, which had a polished surface with letters carved into it. I recognized a few as the letters in my name, but they were in random order, and I could not put them together. Cassia laid a stylus next to the board.
I lifted a puzzled gaze to see Cassia beaming at me, as though she expected me to know what to do.
“What is this?” I asked, touching the smooth wood.
“It is a writing board.” Cassia lifted the stylus and fitted it between my fingers. “A tutor at a street school sold it to me. You will use it to learn your letters.”
Chapter 20
I stared at the board in perplexity. The marks on it ran from side to side, top to bottom, neatly inscribed in straight lines.
I’d seen a tutor near the ludus the day Aemil had first asked me to find his gladiators, the man admonishing the half dozen children around him while they hunched over boards like these, small faces screwed up in frustration. It was a common sight on Roman streets.
I clutched the stylus in my fist. “How will this teach me letters?”
“Like so.” Cassia pried the stylus out of my hand and ran its point through the first letter on the board, then the second. “You trace the letters, again and again, so your hand gets used to forming the shapes. Similar to training with your sword and the posts, except now you are using a pen and letter board.”
She handed the stylus back to me as though she’d explained everything. Bemused, I studied the stylus—about as long as my hand, the thin bronze stick had a point on one end, the other flattened. I’d watched Cassia rub out letters on the wax with the flat end.
I held the stylus between my thick fingers and drew it down the angled straight side of the first letter on the board.
The stylus caught on the wood and started to bend. Cassia quickly put her hand over mine. “Not so exuberantly. A light touch.”
I gazed at our fingers, hers slim and elegant, nails trimmed and clean, mine blunt, scarred, unwashed. Her touch was cool, like silk, yet her hand was warm.
I did not realize how long I stared at her hand on mine until she lifted it away.
“Try again,” she said, as though nothing remarkable had happened.
I carefully traced the first letter, two angles and a crosspiece. I tried to start with the crosspiece, but Cassia directed me to trace the two angled lines first. I had no idea why.
“That is the letter A,” she explained. “It begins all kinds of words. Aqueduct, architectus, amicus …”
I glanced up at Cassia, she composed, with a small smile on her face. How she expected me to remember all this I didn’t know, and I had traced only one letter.
The next had a long stem and two humps.
“The letter B,” Cassia told me. “Bene, Britannia.”
“Vestalis—Severina’s husband—had been in Britannia,” I said as I went on to the next letter, a continuous curve. “So he told me. Also Hispania.”
“Did he? That is interesting.”
I raised my head again. “Why is it interesting? We already knew he met Severina in Hispania.”
Cassia regarded me thoughtfully. “That he told you his history at all.”
“I think he needed someone to talk to. He only has Severina and all his servants. The house is large. Echoing. Full of furniture and nothing else.”
“A cold place, yes. So Merope told me.” Cassia leaned her folded arms on the table. “That is the letter C. Many words begin with it—canis, carus … Cassia.”
An important letter. I would not forget it.
We continued along the board. Cassia gave me words for each letter that promptly dissolved in my head. After a time, I drank a cup of wine she passed me and nibbled on a chunk of bread.
“How long did it take you to learn to read?” I asked when we’d reached the middle of the board. The letter M—medicus, mitte, Marcianus.
“I don’t remember. I was a tiny child. A few weeks, I suppose.”
“A few weeks?” I stared at the board and the letters I still didn’t comprehend, except L for Leonidas and the powerful C. “I’ll be a few years at it.”
“That doesn’t matter. As long as it’s clear in the end.”
She was humoring me. I also realized that while I’d labored, my stomach had settled, and I was eating and drinking without discomfort. Marcianus’s tinctures worked miracles.
I’d begun the next letter when a banging on the door gave me the excuse to toss down the stylus. I rubbed my hand, which hadn’t cramped like this since the days I’d first begun to use a sword, and went down the stairs to open the door at the bottom.
Merope pushed past me without greeting, scampering up the stairs to find Cassia. She had been out almost as late as I had,
and dancing, yet she raced upward on light feet while I plodded heavily behind her.
“The vigiles arrested the basketmaker,” Merope said breathlessly when she reached the apartment. “The one who lives downstairs from Chryseis. They were waiting for him when he returned home last night and nabbed him. Martolia saw it happen.” Merope’s usual smiles were gone, her brows drawn in anger. “That woman killed Rufus, I know it, even if she didn’t strike the blow herself. We can’t let someone else pay for her crimes.”
I wasn’t certain the basketmaker was innocent and Chryseis guilty—the man was hiding something—but I agreed he shouldn’t be condemned out of hand.
Cassia was already on her feet, reaching for her cloak. “Yes, we must go. The poor man.”
“Wait.” I stepped in front of the doorway as the two women rushed for it. “Merope, go home. Cassia and I will find the basketmaker.” I pictured Merope in her grief and anger trying to drag the basketmaker to freedom and only being arrested with him.
Merope scowled, but Cassia said, “It is best. Do you know where they took him?”
“Watch house on the Aventine, Martolia told me. She danced at a house nearby last night and when she was walking home, she saw the vigile captain take the basketmaker away.”
I’d wondered why Merope had come alone with Gaius the night before. Likely the sisters each took different jobs so they could make more money in one night.
Cassia clasped her shoulder. “We will find him and help him,” she promised.
Merope quieted, but only a trifle. “I don’t understand why Chryseis isn’t locked in the Tullianum.”
She’d been released on my conviction that she hadn’t murdered Rufus. “Because she had no reason to kill him,” I said.
Merope turned her frown on me. “Of course she did. Spite and vengeance on me and Martolia. She did it, mark my words, not that silly idiot you were trying to seduce last night. Severina fell asleep,” Merope told Cassia with a snort of laughter. “Such were the charms of Leonidas the Spartan.”
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