A Gladiator's Tale

by Ashley Gardner

  Chapter 17

  “Cassia.” The word jerked out of me, and I heard the snarl that came with it.

  Cassia turned without starting, her smile fading in concern, but concern for me, not herself. “Leonidas. Why are you here?”

  The young man dropped Cassia’s hands and stared at me in stark terror. He had very thin limbs that held wiry strength, and a prominent lump that moved up and down his stick of a throat as he swallowed hard.

  “I’m not wanted,” I said, “but I can’t leave without Herakles.” I fixed my gaze on the man. He swallowed again and backed a step from Cassia.

  “This is Helvius,” Cassia told me.

  As I’d guessed. The young man possessed the slightly protruding eyes and hunched back of someone who stared at scrolls all day.

  “Why are you in the storeroom?” I asked abruptly.

  Helvius spluttered, but Cassia replied smoothly, “No servant except a bedroom attendant is allowed in the family’s rooms at night. The household staff either gathers here or outside in the kitchen garden behind the house.” She peered at me. “Won’t they miss you in the dining room?”

  “I doubt it.” Herakles and Domitiana had been melding ever closer as I’d gone and would never notice my absence. “What do you know of Severina Casellius and her household?” I directed this question at Helvius.

  Helvius glanced quickly at Cassia, but she nodded at him to answer. He cleared his throat. “She’s married to a retired proconsul.”

  “I know that. I met him. He joined us for dinner.”

  Cassia’s brows went up, and even Helvius was startled. “Unusual for Vestalis,” he said. “He mostly ignores Severina. Perhaps he didn’t want her too involved with gladiators, especially when they are being killed.”

  “You mean he ordered her home to protect her?” I asked. “Seems unlikely. He fell asleep while Herakles and I fought an exhibition match.”

  “He is nearly seventy years old,” Helvius said, his voice tinged with awe. “Most men aren’t alive at that age, let alone awake.”

  Cassia chuckled in appreciation of his humor.

  I wanted more than anything at that moment to grab Cassia by the hand and pull her home with me. The feeling startled me—it should make no difference to me if she laughed at a young man’s jokes, especially those of a scrawny specimen like Helvius. But the impulse persisted.

  Helvius continued speaking, oblivious to my tension. “Severina is Vestalis’s second wife. His first died when they lived in the provinces, as did his daughter. Very sad. He never had sons.”

  Sons were what every highborn Roman man desired. Someone to carry on his name, his business, his honor. Today had begun the nine-day long festival of Parentalia, a tribute to deceased parents and ancestors, sons venerating fathers. Family and heritage were very important, the celebration taken seriously.

  Tertius Vestalis Felix must hope to achieve sons with Severina. Perhaps that was why he’d dragged her away from gladiators tonight, to ensure that any child she carried would be his. But if that were the case, then why had Severina dared to extend an invitation to me?

  I caught Cassia and Helvius exchanging a glance, as though they shared secrets I was not to know. My irritation rose.

  “Where is this kitchen garden?” I asked curtly. “Where the servants gather? I will wait for Herakles there.”

  Helvius moved to a small door in the back of the room and pulled it open. “Just down the path. Veer to the left, or else you’ll go to the main garden, and that is forbidden to all but the family.”

  Without a word, I strode past him into the night. Cassia stepped out after me, but I turned on her.

  “No,” I said harshly. “It’s too cold.”

  I marched toward the thin line of trees Helvius had pointed out. From the house, floating loudly over the peristyle to the open air, came a shriek of feminine ecstasy, then another, and another. It might be a while before Herakles was ready to leave.

  A cold wind was blowing, and a half-moon hung in a sky tattered with clouds when Herakles emerged. I’d returned to the peristyle after wandering the kitchen gardens for a time and lounged on a bench under the colonnade, shutting my ears to Herakles’s animal-like grunts.

  The majordomo of the house ushered us out, and the doorman quickly shut the gate, bolting it behind us.

  We were both still alive, our senses not fuddled, and free to go.

  “You didn’t have to wait for me.” Herakles let the thick accent he’d favored during dinner fade. “I know my way back to the ludus.”

  “I promised Aemil I’d return you whole.”

  “Domitiana has nothing to do with killing Ajax or Rufus. I could have told you that.”

  “Best to be sure.” I tramped along the road that led to the Transtiberim, fully aware of the light footsteps that followed close behind.

  Herakles didn’t notice Cassia in our wake, but he was bathing in the aftermath of sating his appetites. To show me they hadn’t been quite sated, Herakles suggested we go to the Subura to finish the night.

  “No,” I said in a hard voice. “Aemil will have my head if I don’t bring you home.”

  Herakles turned surly. “You could have gone down in that fight. You had no need to prove you are and always will be primus palus.”

  “Your lady liked you as a fallen warrior,” I reminded him.

  “True. She smells like vinegar, but she has endurance. And much money.” Herakles wasn’t foolish enough to clink a pouch of gold on the dark street, but his satisfied grin told me she’d paid him well. I’d received nothing.

  I maintained stony silence as Herakles tried to persuade me to visit a lupinarius with him, but finally he gave up. I waited until Septimius locked the gate firmly behind Herakles before I turned for my own way home.

  I paused to wait for the shadow that soon caught up to me. I walked close to her, my hand protectively on her arm.

  Our rapid pace through the streets to the lane on the lower slopes of the Quirinal kept us from speaking. The Forum Romanum was silent, the columns of the Basilica Julia and the temple to the divine Julius gleaming in the moonlight.

  Only when we reached our lodgings, and I’d shut and bolted the outer and inner doors, did I breathe more easily. Our apartment was dark—the only noise the rumble of delivery carts through the streets.

  Cassia immediately divested herself of her cloak, lit an oil lamp, seated herself at the table, and opened her tablets. “What did you learn from Domitiana?” she asked.

  She was already writing, the stylus moving rapidly. I sat down heavily and poured myself the last of the wine from the jug.

  “I learned that she is a vain, selfish woman interested in her own pleasure. Not much different from many highborn women who invite gladiators into their homes.” I turned the cup in my hands. “The difference was that she did not care who knew it. Believes herself too rich and important to worry about scandal.”

  Cassia wrote for a moment, the stylus making only a whisper of sound. “From what Helvius tells me, Domitiana’s husband—Severinus Casellius—expected her to be the perfect Roman matron, in the style of Octavia. Rarely leaving the house, spending all day weaving, and taking care of the home and children, never raising her voice in argument. Humble, chaste, and obedient. An old-fashioned sentiment these days, but some patricians expect their wives to adhere to it.”

  I’d seen none of these traits in Domitiana. “So once he died, Domitiana decided to be exactly the opposite?”

  “It seems so. Helvius said that once Severinus was in the family tomb, she bought new clothes, opened the villa for substantial banquets, and began affairs with anyone her husband would have disapproved of.”

  “Her son did not object?” Once a son became paterfamilias in his own right, he could condemn his mother or even have her executed for her behavior.

  “Her son left Rome as quickly as he could. He also revels in his freedom, having been under his father’s thumb as well. He stays in Hispania and
rarely visits Rome.”

  “Leaving his mother and sister to do as they like.”

  “It seems so.” Cassia took on a thoughtful expression. “Severina hides behind the respectability of her husband, pretending to be chaste in public, but at home, she does as she likes. Tertius Vestalis Felix was a very popular consul during his year in office, considered to be a wise senator, and also a just ruler the short time he was in the provinces. People talk about Severina’s behavior, of course. Shake their heads and declare that Vestalis is a poor, sad old man, but no one dares rebuke him for his choice in wives. They understand he married her to bolster his fortune, and they ignore her excesses, so he won’t be shamed.”

  I raised my brows as I sipped wine. The vintage we could afford was nowhere near as smooth as what I’d been served at Domitiana’s, but it was familiar and comforting.

  “Vestalis must be held in very high regard then.”

  “He is. Helvius tells me he loved his first wife deeply and grieved when she died. Still is grieving, which is why he pays no attention to Severina. She’s a means to an end, nothing more.”

  I recalled my speculations about him this evening. “Is he trying to have a son with her?”

  “Presumably. Once she gives him an heir, Helvius is certain Vestalis will lock Severina away to keep her from their offspring. So far, though, she has not shown any sign of being with child.”

  I studied the surface of my watery wine. “How does Helvius know all this?”

  “He talks to Severina’s servants whenever she comes to visit her mother. He also transcribes Domitiana’s letters to Severina and reads all the documents pertaining to Domitiana’s household, some of which involve Severina. Mother and daughter tell each other everything.”

  And the two shared an interest in gladiators.

  I took a noisy sip of wine. “Why does Helvius tell you the secrets of his mistress’ household? Not very discreet of him.”

  “Because he knows I would not ask if it were not important,” Cassia answered readily. “Helvius would not chatter about all this to just anyone—he takes his post seriously.”

  “He tells you, because he is in love with you.”

  Cassia gaped at me in the ensuing silence, the flame from our single oil lamp flickering in her dark eyes.

  “That is nonsense,” she said faintly.

  I shook my head. “I saw how he looked at you. When you laughed, he became … intoxicated.”

  As had I. When Cassia had laughed without inhibition at whatever Helvius had said, she’d been beautiful. Likewise, when she’d danced with Merope, her face bright, her sorrows fallen away, a beauty had shone from her.

  Cassia’s expression became troubled. “Oh, dear. What a muddle.”

  “Why do you say this?” My voice had grown gruff, commanding.

  “Because I have no wish to cause him pain. Helvius is a friend. Has been for a long time.”

  “Why would you cause him pain?” I set the wine cup on the table, hard, and liquid splashed over its rim. “He seemed perfectly happy with you.”

  Cassia’s brow furrowed. “I am fond of him, of course, and can speak to him of things only another scribe would understand, but I have no intention of becoming his lover. Neither of us could do so without permission anyway.”

  “And if you had permission?”

  I didn’t understand why I asked the question. All I had to say was that she was forbidden from seeing the man again, and that would be the end of it. Her feelings about it shouldn’t matter to me.

  “It would make no difference. Are you certain Helvius feels this way?” She peered at me. “I should hate to lose his friendship, but I also do not wish to give him false hope.”

  “Very certain.”

  Cassia sighed. She began to make a note, then her hand faltered, and she laid down her stylus. “I claim to be so very observant, but I never realized that Helvius cared for me. I am too close to him, I suppose. It is easier to see the true shapes of things from a distance.”

  Knots unwound from my stomach. Cassia was a truthful person—except when she was haggling to negotiate a better fee for my work—and I believed her. She’d had no idea Helvius was fond of her, and she didn’t return the affection.

  I ran my hand over my scalp, the short hair prickling my palm. “Do not break his heart just yet. He might have more useful information about Severina.”

  “I cannot use his admiration for my own gain,” Cassia said with conviction. “I must be honest with him.”

  “I know you do, but do not make him hate you. There is a killer living freely in Rome still, and Helvius might be able to help find him.”

  She cocked her head. “You say information about Severina, not Domitiana. Do you think Severina is the one hiring men to kill for her?”

  “Possibly.” I lifted the cup again but did not drink. “Domitiana is selfish, but I think she is no more than that. She enjoys herself indulging in gladiators and parties and her gardens, yes, but I saw no cruelty in her. She had Herakles fight me with blunted weapons and little possibility for either of us to be hurt. She fussed all over Herakles when he lost—she’d have done the same if he’d won.”

  “And Severina?” Cassia asked.

  “She has a ruthless streak, I think.” I shrugged, not knowing how to put my speculations into words. “I’ve known many gladiators. Some fight only because they are forced to. They do their best to stay alive, but they kill to survive, and regret those they slay. Then there are those who relish the kill. They go out of their way to win, and they gloat in their victory. You see it in their eyes, their need to gut you, to feel your blood on their skin.”

  Cassia watched me, her face tight. “Have you fought many such men?”

  “A few. Most gladiators want to win, yes, but they prefer an honorable fight. They want the glory and to be known for their skill, even if they lose. I have also battled those who would do anything to make the kill.” I ran my thumb over the uneven ceramic of the cup. “I won those bouts.”

  “I am glad.”

  Her words were quiet, but the sincerity of them warmed something inside me that had been cold a long time.

  “They make mistakes, those men,” I continued. “They are so certain they will vanquish that they grow overconfident and underestimate their enemy. Too many wins, and they become careless.” My speech grew slower. I was tired, and I disliked thinking back on my life in the arena. “I never believed I was destined to win whenever I stepped out onto the sand. Every fight was different. All the training helped my body make decisions for me when the blows began, but I had to let the fight itself tell me what to do. I didn’t think about conquest, or death. It was one move at a time. One blow was never the same as the next. I took what the other fighter gave me and gave back what I learned from him.”

  Cassia’s lips had parted as she listened. “I am vain enough to believe myself wise,” she said when I finished. “But I believe your wisdom surpasses any I’ve ever known.”

  I shook myself out of my remembrances and gazed at her in perplexity. “You have known some very stupid people then.”

  Her faint smile returned. She always gave me that particular smile after my jokes, as though humoring an elderly relative.

  “You should retire,” Cassia said. “It has been a long night.”

  I rose. “Severina has invited me to her home for dinner,” I told her. “After the Lupercalia.”

  All amusement drained from Cassia’s face. “No,” she said sharply. “You must not go.”

  Chapter 18

  I had started to turn for my bed, but I halted. “Why?” I asked sharply. “What did Helvius tell you?”

  Cassia rose from her stool. “Nothing that I haven’t already relayed. But you just said that she has the cruelty that could have led to the deaths of Ajax and Rufus.”

  “Yes, she is predatory. Evil even. But what better way to catch her than let her try to kill me?”

  “Are you mad?” Cassia balled her fis
ts but kept them rigidly at her sides. “Think. If she is the one, she lures the gladiator to her home with promises of fine food, wine, and amorousness. Once there, she adds something to his food or drink to put him in a stupor or at least lull him to be incautious. Severina has several large bodyguards—they could do the killing for her, for whatever her perverse reason. She will make certain her husband is out—or perhaps she sedates him too. He’d be no help to you even if he was present.”

  “I don’t plan to eat or drink anything she serves me. I’ll spit out the food and wine when she isn’t looking.”

  “If the bodyguards are there watching you?” she argued. “You will likely have to swallow something. Some poisons work very quickly, even if only a drop gets into your mouth.” Cassia, who had been poisoned herself once, shuddered as she spoke.

  “I can think of no other way.” My voice grew harsh. “Unless we are there to catch her in the act, who would believe us? A former gladiator and a slave sold in the Forum?”

  “Nero might.”

  “Might. He will want proof. If Vestalis is as lauded as Helvius claims, the magistrates will be careful about arresting and condemning his wife. She is not a whore in a lupinarius, but the daughter of a very wealthy man and the wife of a former proconsul.”

  Nero could always override the senate if he wanted a man executed, and he often did, but he would not do so on the speculations of nobodies like us. Yes, he wanted a culprit for the killings, but even he would be careful.

  “What if the magistrates refuse to believe you even if you do catch her in the act?” Cassia asked. “In that case, you could be very dead, all for nothing.”

  I put my hand on the wall to keep myself from stomping back and forth in frustration. “What do you suggest, then?”

  “As I suggested once before, I can gain entry to Severina’s house and observe what she does. Helvius knows their servants. He can sneak me inside.”