A Gladiator's Tale

by Ashley Gardner

  Did he know more than he was saying? Had he sent gladiators to the house where they were given opulent meals and then slain? Was I looking into the eyes of a merciless killer?

  I had no idea. Cassia read people far better than I could. Praxus was very likely exactly what he appeared to be, a young man ready to take on the world, using the fact that people dismissed him as a barbarian to his advantage.

  Praxus’s face split with a grin. “How about you give me that bauble as a reward?”

  I closed my hand around it. “Regulus would kill you to get it back. I’ll keep it safe.”

  Praxus brayed with laughter. “Of course, the great Leonidas will keep it safe for his friend. He is honored among men.”

  The other gladiators laughed with him. They liked Praxus, I could see, even if they underestimated him.

  “If you’re right about where Regulus is, Praxus, I’ll give you a better reward,” I said.

  Praxus made some very lewd suggestions for this reward to the glee of the men as I left them and headed for the gate.

  Aemil strode beside me. “Want me to go with you to pull him out?”

  Aemil would be a formidable ally if I had to storm Severina’s fortress, but the two of us could be arrested for bursting into the home of a well-respected former consul and his wife.

  “I’ll look first,” I said. “Regulus might just be rutting her and in no danger. I was at that house last night, and no harm came to me.”

  Aemil poked a blunt finger into my chest. “If he’s there, you drag him out and bring him home. Understand?”

  “I do.”

  Aemil held me with his gaze, then he growled and jerked his hand away. “I’ll be ready to help if you need it. They will be as well.” He waved at the men, who’d taken the opportunity to have a rest, talking in clumps or stretching out on the ground to enjoy the sunshine.

  Even a killer of gladiators would be no match for all of them together. However, if I led an army of gladiators to storm a patrician’s home on the Caelian, we’d be the ones gutted. I needed to alert the cohorts and vigiles, not bring in a horde of Aemil’s fighters. Spartacus’s revolt had occurred more than a hundred years ago now, but the fear he’d engendered still lingered in Roman imaginations.

  Clutching the earring in my fist, I left the ludus, striding past the pillar of Septimius, back at his post. Plinius, the other guard, had taken advantage of my arrival to disappear, away from Aemil’s beatings.

  I turned my steps not toward the Aventine to find Cassia, or to the Caelian, but to the workshop of Volteius the armorer.

  “Will you lend me Albus for a time?” I had to raise my voice over the sounds of hammers on metal in the courtyard when I entered the shop.

  Volteius ceased scowling at a bronze helmet with a large crack on its crest and stared at me incredulously. “Albus? What for? He can’t pound out a nutshell. I’ll be reduced to using him to keep accounts.”

  “I’d like him to help me,” I said. “He has an eye for detail and a good memory.”

  Volteius grunted. “I’ll give him that. Yes, take him away for an hour or two. I might have a little peace and quiet.”

  The hammering around us increased, the clang, clang, clang deafening.

  Albus joined me with the energy of youth. He was probably sixteen summers, ungainly and thin with tangled brown hair, but he was old enough to begin a profession. Maybe he would end up being Volteius’s accountant.

  “Where are we off to? A bout? Do you want me to fix a sword? An arm guard?” He exuded eagerness.

  “We’re going to the Caelian Hill,” I said.

  I couldn’t tell him more than that as we made our way through the crowded Transtiberim and across the river to the Aventine, where I fetched Cassia from Marcianus’s. I told Marcianus to keep an eye out for Regulus, then I led Albus and Cassia around the end of the Circus Maximus and up the Caelian Hill.

  About twenty paces from Severina’s large home I found a popina that was cleaner and less crumbling than those on the lower streets. I ushered in Albus and Cassia for a cup of wine and fetched pastries from the shop across the street.

  “Very nice.” Albus munched a fried sheet of dough folded around walnuts and honey, gazing with interest around the wine shop.

  The walls were painted with bright depictions of overflowing fruit baskets and tall amphorae of wine. Patrons ate and discussed business, family, friends, and the latest races without compunction. In deference to Parentalia, plates on an empty table contained bread soaked in vinegar, a handful of almonds, and a glass of wine, should anyone’s ancestor decide to drop in to refresh himself.

  Cassia removed a wax tablet from the bag at her side and began to make notes in it.

  “Is she writing down the price of the meal?” Albus asked in curiosity. “I wish I had a scribe. I’d not spend so much money without realizing it, I think.”

  Cassia gave him a wise smile and continued to mark her tablet. I knew she was noting the time we had entered the popina, the fact that Albus was with us, where exactly we were, and what we waited for. I hadn’t told her, but she’d likely guessed.

  “The man who ordered the gladiator helmets.” I shoved my wine cup aside, though the wine was quite good. “Would you recognize him again?”

  “Absolutely.” Albus spoke with confidence.

  “Even if he shaved off his hair? Or wore different clothes?”

  “Of course. A man can’t change his nose, can he? Or the shape of his face, or his ears.”

  “Even though you only saw him once?”

  “Once when he made the order, once when he came to collect it.” Albus tapped the side of his head. “I remember everything, me. But I’m not as good at bronze work. So Volteius tells me, every day.”

  “Perhaps your master will realize your true skills,” Cassia said kindly. “You said the man made the order and then collected it. How many helmets did he ask for?”

  “Four. Four helmets, four sets of leg greaves, three arm guards, a couple of swords, a spear.” Albus rattled this off without having to think about it. “Said Aemilianus needed to outfit new gladiators and replace some broken equipment.”

  Four. A knot tightened in my stomach, and Cassia and I exchanged an uneasy glance.

  I feared Regulus would be the third gladiator the man meant to kill. The fourth—any of them. Praxus, Herakles, me.

  “Why are we here?” Albus asked, noting our tension. “If you wanted to give me a cup of wine, we didn’t have to walk all the way up the Caelian.”

  “The man who ordered the gear might be in that house over there.” I gestured with my wine cup, keeping my voice quiet. “When he comes out, I want you to tell me if it’s him.”

  Albus’s eyes rounded. “You brought me here to identify the killer?” Alarm warred with excitement in his voice.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I had no evidence but the hardness I’d seen in the large bodyguard’s eyes, coupled with the fact that he protected Severina without the disgust or apprehension I’d observed in the rest of her servants.

  We waited for several hours. The proprietor of the popina didn’t mind as long as we continued to order wine and bread. His luncheon customers had long gone, and the popina quieted. Cassia glided to the pastry shop and returned with more crushed, sweetened walnuts in a pastry shell stamped to look like a whole walnut.

  Albus grew restless by the afternoon and worriedly said he should get back to Volteius before he was dismissed. I was about to relent and send him off when the gate of Severina’s domus opened, and a litter emerged.

  Two muscular men with the blank faces of those assigned the heaviest tasks bore the litter, and Severina’s head bodyguard walked closely beside it, his gaze watchful.

  I moved into the deepest shadows of the popina and gestured with my chin. “Him. Is that your man?”

  Albus leaned forward to peer at him, almost falling from his stool. His wine cup teetered, but Cassia caught it before it tumbled over. Albus d
id manage to sweep an empty plate to the floor, where it shattered, earning him the glare of the proprietor.

  The bodyguard paused a step and gazed straight at Albus. His eyes flicked past the young man without recognition and then landed on me, and stopped.

  Chapter 22

  I tried to conceal myself, but a large champion gladiator could only be so hidden. I decided to brazen it out, met the bodyguard’s gaze, and gave him a nod.

  He stared at me in grave suspicion for a few heartbeats, then he decided, like me, to pretend there was nothing unusual in me sitting in a popina a few strides from his mistress’ gate. He returned the nod and walked on.

  Cassia let out a long breath. The bodyguard had not noticed her, but Cassia was excellent at effacing herself.

  Albus turned to me in disappointment. “I thought you said he was the one killing gladiators.”

  It took me a few moments to understand what he meant. “He didn’t order the armor?” I asked.

  “No.” Albus drained his wine cup. “Not the same man.”

  Cassia craned to watch the litter and bodyguards disappear around a corner. “Are you certain?” she asked Albus. “Imagine him with a full mop of hair.”

  Albus was already shaking his head in negation. “He’s big, yes, and has a large nose, but otherwise not at all like the man who came to Volteius. This one’s face is wide, but our man’s was long and narrow. Like a horse’s. And his forehead stuck out, even through all his hair. This bodyguard has a smaller head with a more pleasing shape. And his eyes didn’t make me shiver and want to clutch a charm.”

  I leaned against the wall and tried to stem my disappointment. I’d been so certain that Severina’s bodyguard and the man Albus and the basketmaker had seen were one and the same.

  Now I’d have to start hunting for him one street at a time, just as Vatia the vigile captain mourned he’d have to do.

  I also had to find Regulus. Maybe Praxus was wrong, and Regulus had gone to Domitiana after all, or to some other woman on the Caelian.

  I scowled in frustration. I was no closer to discovering answers than when I’d started.

  Albus, restless, leaped to his large feet. “Thank you for the wine, Leonidas. And the holiday. If I see the man again, I will lock him in Volteius’s shed and run to fetch you.”

  “If you see him, you will stay far from him,” I said sternly. This murderer would have no trouble felling an untrained apprentice. “But send word to me if he returns to make another order.”

  Albus grinned at me without promising anything, then he loped off into the street, heading back down the hill to drudgery. The afternoon out had cheered him considerably.

  “Return home,” I said to Cassia.

  She regarded me in surprise. “Where will you go?”

  “To discover if Regulus truly is in that house. Severina is the sort of woman who’d leave him to sleep while she went off to visit her mother. If he is not there, I’ll see if he’s in any of the other domii.” I hesitated. “Can you ask Helvius if Regulus is a regular guest of Severina? Or of any of her friends?” I dug into my pouch and produced the earring I’d found in Regulus’s cell. “This might be one of Severina’s. She either gave it to Regulus, or he managed to filch it.”

  Cassia studied the earring with interest. “Severina has no friends, from what I hear. I’ll enter her house with you, and maybe talk to the servants. They’d know if the earring was truly hers. I can say I found it and am returning it …”

  I was already shaking my head. “I haven’t yet dismissed Severina as the one ordering the deaths. The head bodyguard might not be the man doing her fetching and carrying, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t hired another to help her.”

  “Exactly.” Cassia closed her tablet and slipped it into her bag. “The servants can tell me if the man Albus describes has ever been there. I know how to be discreet.”

  “No.” Fear made me short-tempered. “If you poke around in a patrician’s house without their permission, you can be flogged, or arrested, or killed. You will go home and send word to Helvius.”

  We spoke in low, rapid tones, keeping our argument from the curious proprietor.

  “But you will be safe? You’re a freedman, not the son of a rich senator. You could also be arrested, flogged, or killed.”

  “Not as easily as you,” I returned stubbornly. “Gladiators are welcomed for exhibitions. I can say I was summoned to perform and got the house wrong, or the day wrong. We’re expected to be stupid too.”

  Cassia took in my rigid stance, my clenched fists, my adamance. She usually did exactly as she pleased, no matter what kind of orders I gave her, but this time at least, she seemed to recognize the danger.

  “Very well,” she said with the air of one conceding with great reluctance. “I will speak to Helvius and try to locate Regulus. Helvius and I between us likely know every servant on this hill, and we will encourage them to gossip. Have your peek in Severina’s house, but be careful. Her husband was courteous to you, but he might object to you bullying your way inside.”

  “Asking politely to go inside,” I countered. “To pay my respects to the paterfamilias and his ancestors. It is Parentalia.”

  “I know it is.” Cassia’s insistence died away, and the sadness I’d observed earlier again entered her eyes.

  I gentled my tone. “We will light candles to your father on Feralia. And Xerxes.”

  Cassia lifted her bag over her shoulder. “Hurry home, Leonidas,” she said softly.

  She turned to go, every line of her sorrowful. I hated when she was dejected, but I’d buy some trinket or sweetmeat that we could lay on the altar for her father.

  I waited until Cassia had trudged her way down the hill, out of sight, before I turned to Severina’s home.

  The domus was quiet as I approached. No Regulus lounging on a balcony above or peering from a window, annoyed to see me coming for him.

  No one lingered near the domus. This late in the afternoon, most people on the hill would be at the baths, including many of Severina’s servants. I might not be able to gain entry at all.

  As I squared my shoulders, rehearsing my speech about paying my respects to Vestalis, Severina’s door slave appeared in the vestibule and sleepily inquired my business.

  I asked to see the master of the house. I hoped I could poke around the atrium and the rooms off it for signs of Regulus while the doorman trotted away to inquire, but he immediately admitted me and waved for me to follow him.

  The great house was silent and empty. My footsteps echoed, ringing against beams high above me. The walls held paintings of domestic scenes or garden vistas enclosed in borders of red and yellow, and tapered Egyptian marble columns supported the gallery on the second floor.

  I saw no one as the doorman quietly led me through the wide space. A soft trickle of water sounded from a distant fountain, but there was no other noise.

  The doorman took me to the tablinium, which opened from the far side of the atrium. Vestalis dozed on a chair there, but he snorted awake when the doorman announced me.

  Vestalis rubbed his watery eyes and peered at me in puzzlement before rising in apparent delight.

  “It is the gladiator who has honor. Welcome. Bring us wine,” he ordered the doorman, and the young man scurried off. “Why have you come, Leonidas? My wife is out.”

  “To see you.” I kept to my planned excuse. “To thank you for your hospitality and your courtesy. To see if I can do anything for you, perhaps say a prayer for your ancestors on this day of Parentalia.” This was the sort of thing clients said to a patrician.

  “How very kind.” Vestalis appeared to be flattered, which had been my intent.

  Another servant brought wine in elegant bronze cups. The wine was not as strong as what Severina had served me but still very good.

  “I import it from Campania,” Vestalis said when I praised the drink. “I have a share of a vineyard there, though I let my partner do all the raising and growing. I know very
little about viticulture. Hispania has decent vintages as well, and even in far-off Pannonia, they grow good grapes. Not Britannia.” Vestalis shuddered. “Never go there, Leonidas.” So he’d warned me before.

  It was not likely I’d travel to Britannia, so I nodded.

  Vestalis bade me sit on a stool while he reclined on his comfortable chair and stretched out his legs. “Glad to return to Rome after my many years of travel. I can at least live out my days in ease.”

  I wasn’t certain what else to say to him, but Vestalis was happy to talk about inconsequential things, asking me about my life in the ludus. He found the tedious rounds of training, exhibitions or bodyguard work, eating and sleeping to wake to more training interesting.

  “And then you were freed,” he said. “Quite a coup.”

  “Yes.” I did not mention my secret benefactor, not knowing whether he or she wanted that information to be spread.

  “So what will you do now? Become a trainer yourself?”

  “No,” I said abruptly, then softened my tone. “I might start working for an architectus.” The one planning Vestalis’s own warehouse, but I kept that detail to myself.

  Vestalis’s gray brows rose. “An architectus? How extraordinary. I suppose a strong man like yourself would be good at hauling blocks about. Or whatever it is he’d have you do.”

  “I apprenticed to a master builder before I became a gladiator,” I said. “I miss that work.”

  “You are an interesting young man, Leonidas. I must ask, why have you succumbed to the charms of my wife?”

  Vestalis watched me, eyes alight, truly wanting to know.

  I shrugged, as though I’d had no hidden reason for visiting her. “It was a meal, and I’d hoped for some money. I no longer win prizes in the games.”

  Vestalis chuckled. “I suppose you hoped for some coin today as well. I do not blame you—it is difficult to be poor. Do not look surprised. My family never had much money, and I was required to spend much of it traveling and keeping up a home in the provinces. It’s why I married Severina. She has more money than any woman ought.” He broke off and unlocked a box that reposed beside his chair, extracting a few denarii from it. “There you are, my boy.”