“They?”
“It must be more than one person, don’t you think? Quite a task to kill a man and saw up a body and then carry it to another part of the city.” Cassia shivered and drew her cloak closer about her. “It’s horrible. How can they?”
“If the murderer has paid men to help him or her, those men will be hardened brigands or mercenaries. Used to anything, I imagine.” I glanced down the empty street. “Let’s get indoors.”
The walk home was disquieting. I didn’t like moving around dark Rome at the best of times, but tonight I felt additional unease. The open spaces of the city were treacherous at night, but the inky-dark lanes behind them were worse, so I pulled Cassia through wide streets, keeping well away from the pillars and dark doorways.
We reached the Quirinal in safety. The wine shop was shut up and our door was bolted, courtesy of the wine merchant.
Upstairs, we divested ourselves of cloaks, and Cassia laid out a cold meal, which we ate in silence. I knew I should be out scouring the streets for Regulus, but at the same time, I realized such a search would be futile. Either he was holed up in a lupinarius or with a lover and relatively safe, or he was already dead.
Sleep usually crashed upon me easily, as though my mind drew a cloak between myself and the world. Tonight, however, as I lay on my pallet, I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Rufus’s blank stare behind the grated holes of the helmet.
Again, the question haunted me—why dress him as a Thracian instead of a myrmillo? Did the killer truly not know the difference? Or had he dressed the body in what he had on hand?
Cassia’s clear thinking could help me, but I heard her soft, even breathing from her pallet across the room and knew she slept. As we’d eaten, she’d written down everything that had happened tonight, continuing to write even as she yawned uncontrollably. She was exhausted, and I didn’t have the heart to wake her now.
At last, I drifted to sleep. In my dreams, I saw Regulus, his body in pieces like the others, but his eyes full of life as he snarled at me.
“I once told you to kill me,” he sneered. “And now you can’t save me.”
I jumped awake to dim morning light and a banging on the outer door. Cassia stirred under the covers across the room, sunlight trickling through cracks in the shutters.
I dragged on a tunic and shuffled down the stairs. I opened the door at the bottom to find a very annoyed Hesiodos on the threshold.
He stared up at me, his dark hair perfectly combed, his tunic straight and unsoiled, elegant shoes of fine leather on his feet.
“You’ve been sent for,” he said sharply.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “By our benefactor?”
Hesiodos managed to exude scorn and keep his face straight at the same time. “By the princeps. He is furious. You are to come at once.”
Chapter 11
We were out the door and on our way across Rome in a remarkably short time. The clouds that had darkened the horizon yesterday afternoon had moved in during the night, and now rain spattered down, wetting the streets. A faint mist rose, smelling of refuse.
Hesiodos, who had made it clear that Cassia was to accompany me—no argument—led us along the Sacra Via past the temple of the deified Julius Caesar and the temple of Vesta before we turned up the road that took us to the top of the Palatine Hill.
I could see that more work was being done on the Domus Transitoria that would unite the homes of Augustus, Tiberius, and Nero into one rambling building. Barrel vaults with beautiful friezes and marble floors would take Nero and his guests from one domus to the other, each being refurbished on a lavish scale.
The lauded Augustus had lived simply, I’d been told, his home large enough for his family and retainers but modestly sized and not much decorated. His successors had found his domus small and inadequate. Tiberius had built a grand structure, which Gaius and Claudius had used and Nero now restlessly enlarged.
I longed to break from Hesiodos and wander to the work site where I could speak to the builders and learn exactly how they’d finish the colonnaded walkway. Far more peaceful than facing an unpredictable princeps and trying to guess how he wanted me to answer his questions.
We were met by a functionary, who silently gestured us to follow him. The last time we’d entered Nero’s home, we’d been escorted to an elegant anteroom and given wine. This time, we were marched straight across courtyards and through halls pierced by arched openings, deeper and deeper into the domus.
Hesiodos had vanished as soon as the functionary took charge of us, as he had on other occasions. I wondered whether Hesiodos worked for Nero’s household, or if Nero’s majordomo or head guard simply found Hesiodos a handy person to send on errands. I’d never learn this from Hesiodos himself, I knew, who was close-mouthed and held himself high above Cassia and me.
We were ushered into a small room with a floor tiled in a geometric pattern. The design made it appear as though we stood atop a maze of walls with staircases that sloped out of sight. An illusion in mosaic.
The chamber ended in an open balcony with columns of pink marble and a view toward the west and the Circus Maximus. Nero himself stood on the balcony, dressed in a simple linen tunic with a purple toga over it.
He turned abruptly as we entered the space, glaring so hard that Cassia immediately dropped to her hands and knees on the floor. I lowered myself as well, my palms landing on an image of steps that looked real.
Sandals whispered as the functionary who’d brought us here beat a hasty retreat. I noted other shoes in the corners, sandals and boots of attendants and guards for the leader of Rome.
“What did I wake to this morning, Leonidas the Spartan?” Nero flung the name at me in derision. “Gladiators murdered, their bodies mutilated, left in a heap to make a mockery of them. Of me. In my city.” Nero swept a hand toward the open balcony. “It is all over Rome, this tale. The ordinary man is horrified, and the jaded are placing bets on which gladiator will be next.”
The princeps approached me. I quickly bowed my head, and a pair of large feet in supple leather sandals halted before my nose. I expected one of those feet to kick me at any moment.
“Gladiators live or die at my whim,” Nero snapped. “Do you understand this?”
I said nothing—if he wanted my answer, he’d demand it. My truthful tongue might point out that gladiators died in the arena all the time without Nero’s permission, and then I definitely would be kicked.
“Who is doing this, Leonidas? Answer.”
I didn’t lift my head. “I do not know, lord.”
The left foot twitched. I noted that Nero had someone to trim and buff his nails, which were even and neat.
The sandals then moved to Cassia. “You. Slave. You are far more intelligent than your master. Who is bent on defying me?”
Cassia remained a huddle of cloth, but her voice came forth clearly. “I do not believe the deaths are aimed at you, sir. Someone is angry at gladiators. Perhaps someone they loved died in the games.”
“Hmm.” The icy anger ebbed from Nero’s voice. “And this is their vengeance?”
“Possibly,” Cassia said.
Nero pivoted on the ball of one foot and stamped to the window. I did not dare turn my head and gaze directly at Cassia, lest one of the guards did the kicking on Nero’s behalf.
Nero’s voice drifted to us. “They leave one body in the Subura, another on the Aventine. Are they mocking the plebs who love the games?”
“All attend the games, from plebeians to senators,” Cassia was brave enough to say.
I wished she would not speak. I wasn’t certain what I’d do if a guard struck her down for her boldness. I’d likely seize his sword and kill him, and then I’d be thrown from the balcony, down, down, toward the circus where I’d fought in bouts that had made me a champion.
My mind dredged up the memory of the day I’d been pitted against Xerxes in the Circus Maximus. I’d gone easy on him and had been wounded by the gleeful Xerxe
s, who’d then taken me out drinking all night afterward. Aemil had shouted at me long and hard as Marcianus had stitched up my wounds, for letting Xerxes get past my guard. Xerxes and I had never been opponents again, but I still remembered staggering home with him after drinking off the bout, holding each other up. He’d met his wife that night.
Nero walked back toward us, his steps less abrupt. “You are perhaps right. This has been done by someone who wants to disrupt the games, maybe to rid himself of those gladiators who might kill his champion.” Nero let out a breath, now sounding more like an ordinary person having a conversation than a ruler demanding answers. “Or it is a madman, conducting executions himself for his own crazed reasons. Well, it must stop.” Some steel returned to him. “Do rise, Leonidas. I cannot talk to you with your head on the floor.”
I slowly pushed myself up but remained kneeling, my backside on my heels, not wanting to anger Nero by towering over him. Cassia adopted a similar posture.
“You uncovered an assassin after me before.” Nero rested one hand on his hip, his wrist encased in a jeweled armband. “Did what all my Praetorian guards and my personal servants could not.” He flashed a derisive glance around the room, and I heard feet shift uncomfortably. “I command you to do so again.”
I decided not to argue that there was no evidence this killer targeted Nero, but then again, we did not know for certain. It might be, as Nero said, an attempt to make the princeps look incompetent and in a roundabout way, rid Rome of him.
Nero wanted an answer, so I inclined my head. “I will do my best, sir.”
“You will do more than your best. You will find this killer and bring him to me. The courts will decide his fate, which will not be pleasant. Shall I assign a man to assist you?”
I hesitated. I did not want an agent of Nero’s breathing over my shoulder, arresting any person I spoke to or had already spoken to. That meant Chryseis, Merope and her family, and possibly Herakles’s lover Domitiana, the basketmaker, and the impoverished family at the top of Chryseis’s insula.
“No need.” I tried to sound humble and deferential. “But it might help to let me talk to Rufus’s wife. She was arrested last night, but she did not commit this crime. She might have seen who did, even without realizing it.”
“Rufus was a good swordsman,” Nero said nostalgically. “Didn’t have the form you did, but he was spirited and fought with all his heart.” He trailed off in sorrow. Many patrician Romans disdained Nero for his vast enjoyment of the gladiatorial games, chariot races, the theatre, and musical entertainment, but the lower orders liked a ruler who shared their enthusiasm.
Nero snapped back to the present. “I will have her released. But question her closely. Better still, have Cassia question her.”
Nero had been taken with Cassia upon their first meeting, when she’d admired his musical selections. He’d recognized immediately that Cassia had a quicker mind than I did.
I bowed my head in acquiescence, as did Cassia. Nero returned to me, feet close together in a perfect line.
“If I am waspish today, Leonidas, it is because I do not like disorder in my city. To discover that a killer has been wiping out gladiators—strong men and trained fighters—does not please me. That you did not tell me of this right away does not please me either.” His toes curled in the sandals, tight sinews of irritation. “Find this man, and tell me immediately who he is. Find him before he kills again. He might even target you.”
Nero barked a laugh, and I ventured to glance up at him. He wasn’t looking at me but at the far wall, his lips twisted in ironic mirth.
“I shouldn’t like to lose you, Leonidas. I might have need of you …”
He trailed off, then took a smart step back. “Leave me now.” His tone returned to brisk annoyance. “Do not return until you bring me the killer.”
Nero marched out between Cassia and me as we returned our faces to the tile. The hem of his toga brushed my shoulder, bathing me in the scent of sweat-touched wool.
Cassia and I remained abased while the guards marched out around us, followed by the scurrying attendants. We didn’t raise our heads until Hesiodos’s voice told us dryly that everyone had gone and it was time to leave.
Before we descended the Palatine, I took Hesiodos aside and asked him what I had thought about regarding Cassia. Hesiodos frowned at me but I made him promise to inquire.
Cassia eyed me curiously once we rejoined her, but I waved her off, telling her it was not important. Hesiodos deserted us at the bottom of the hill, and Cassia and I returned home.
Once there, Cassia glumly hung up her cloak. “If we do not find this killer we might have to flee Rome.” She paused reflectively. “I suppose life in exile wouldn’t be so bad, depending on where we go.”
I tried to feel mirth at her statement, but Cassia watched me in all seriousness. She did not joke. The princeps might well punish us if we did not do what he wished.
“How do we find him?” I dragged my stool to the wall, plunked myself onto it, and stretched out my legs. My sandals were coated with mud from our walk, nowhere near as pristine as Nero’s, which had probably been made to be worn only indoors. “He flits through the Subura unseen and lurks in a crowded insula with no one the wiser.”
“The family that moved upstairs …” Cassia pulled out her tablets and read through them until she found her notes on what we’d discovered last night. “They must have been told to vacate the apartment. They’ve seen the killer or at least whoever transported the body.”
“They might tell me about him, if they are frightened enough.” I curled my toes, unable to imagine sitting still while someone buffed my feet. “I hope they took my advice and sought Avitus and another home.”
“They have children—I imagine they’ll do what they must to protect them.”
“Maybe.” I did not explain to Cassia about poor and wretched parents who sold their children into slavery or to lupinari in order to pay paralyzing debts.
“Chryseis too might have met this killer,” Cassia said. “Perhaps some of her fright at finding Rufus is because of such knowledge. We should question her, as the princeps commanded.”
“True,” I conceded. “I also must find Regulus.”
I worried very much for the idiot. Regulus believed himself indestructible, but I did not want to find his lifeless eyes peering at me through a provacatur’s helmet.
Too many things to think about and to do. I wasn’t sure where to start.
“We should visit Chryseis first,” Cassia said as though understanding my befuddlement. “Find out what she did all of yesterday. She might have seen something or someone without understanding that person’s actions.” A crease appeared between her brows. “I must wonder why the killer chose to leave Rufus’s body in her apartment. To terrify her specifically? There was no love between the two if Rufus constantly sought solace with Merope and her sister. There was real affection for Rufus in Merope’s house, even love. I could see that when I was with them last night.”
“Maybe the killer didn’t know Rufus strayed. Or he wanted to upset Chryseis personally.” I touched a callus on the palm of my hand, finding dust from the floor of Nero’s domus on it. “She is not a kind woman.”
“That would mean he did not know much about Rufus and Chryseis at all,” Cassia said. “Apparently it was common gossip that he had other lovers. Which brings me back to the question—why take his body to her?”
“As Nero stated, he’s a madman killing gladiators for sport.” I finished dusting off my hands and pressed them together.
Cassia perused her notes once more. “Merope and Martolia are dancers,” she said. “Gaius plays the drum for them. They’re hired for suppers and other celebrations.”
I hadn’t known this. “They said Gaius worked in the popina below their rooms.”
“He does. But he takes the night off when the girls are hired, and gives the popina owner a small amount of what they earn as compensation.”
Ric
h men—and women—could afford to employ dancers at a supper. “Whenever I was commanded to appear at a villa or domus, there would often be musicians and dancers there as well.”
Cassia raised her head. “I wonder if this person who fed Ajax his last meal had dancers at the supper.”
“If so, those dancers might be in danger,” I said in concern.
“Perhaps not. I doubt the killing happened before an audience, or we’d have heard about that by now. I wonder if Merope or Martolia could discover if any dancers were present at the supper, which would lead us to the exact house.” Her stylus moved again, quick marks on the wax. “We should also inquire around the Subura. Ajax might have boasted about where he was heading to on his last night.”
“Not we,” I said in a mild tone. “I will ask around the Subura and talk to Chryseis when she is released. You will stay here and bolt the door behind me.”
Cassia’s head came up, the stubborn flash I’d already come to recognize in her eyes. “You heard Nero. He told me to question Chryseis and for us to find this killer—quickly. I cannot help you if I am confined indoors. I would be right beside you, in any case, not racing off to inquire in brothels or the homes of murderers by myself.”
“You were eager to rush alone to Domitiana’s villa,” I said.
“Only because I know Helvius and other of her servants. I hadn’t intended to confront the lady herself. You did that.” She sent me a pointed glance. “And besides, Nonus Marcianus went with me.”
“Because he believed you foolish for going alone.” My statement ended in a growl.
Cassia laid down her stylus. “You going alone to all these places is a bad idea as well. This killer is after gladiators, remember? And you are the most famous one in Rome.”
“Used to be.” I looked up at the wooden rudis on the shelf. “Now I am only Leonidas.” And I wasn’t truly Leonidas but had another name that had faded into dust.
“The murderer might not make that distinction.”
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