“No!” I roared.
Cassia took a step back, but she was in no way submissive. “I will watch and report to someone respected, such as Sextus Livius. Vestalis himself can help—he’d not be happy to learn he has a crazed murderer for a wife.”
“Now I must ask if you are mad. If Severina or her bodyguards discover you, you will be dead on the spot. I can at least defend myself. You cannot.” I pushed myself from the wall to tower over her. “You already nearly died once when you got in the way of a killer.”
“Does that matter?” Cassia asked in a reasonable tone. “Hesiodos can always find you another slave.”
“I don’t want another slave,” I shouted. “I want you.”
Cassia went still, her voice falling a notch. “Hesiodos will make certain someone else can do your accounts.”
“Accounts? I don’t give a dog’s ass about my accounts.” I leaned to her, menace in every line of me. Seasoned gladiators had scrambled hastily away whenever I did this, but Cassia only gazed up at me, her eyes round. “I can’t do without you, Cassia. I need you.”
She continued to stare, as though what I said confounded her. I straightened, trying and failing to stem my rage.
“You will not go to Severina’s, and you will not spy on her,” I said in a harsh voice. “You will go nowhere until this killer is found, even if I have to lock you in here. I will go, and you will stay.”
Cassia did not respond, not to argue or weep or rant. She stood very still, fingertips on the table, the folds of her tunic unmoving.
I swung away from her, but I could not go tamely to bed as I’d planned. I slammed open the door and charged down the stairs and out into the darkness.
I had the presence of mind to lock the door behind me, then I strode away into the Roman night.
Cassia and I did not discuss the invitation to Severina’s over the next day and a half. She had been asleep when I’d returned the night I’d stormed out, and I hadn’t awakened her. In the morning, she’d tidied the already tidy rooms without a word and departed to bring home water and breakfast.
We didn’t speak about anything at all. Cassia busied herself with her tablets, and I went to the baths, then returned to Chryseis’s insula and warehouse in the hopes that I would find something—anything—to confirm who the killer was, but I was unlucky. I found nothing but the scraped-clean floor where I suspected the bodies had been cut up, and perhaps where Ajax and Rufus had been killed in the first place, carted here while stupefied or unconscious.
I questioned those who rented part of Chryseis’s warehouse from her, but they’d claimed to never have seen anyone suspicious.
Likewise, the family who’d lived across the hall from Chryseis, who had taken my advice and moved to the next building over, could tell me little. The father, after much persuasion, admitted that a big man had paid him well to vacate the rooms and move upstairs the day Cassia and I had found Rufus. His description matched what Albus, the armorer’s apprentice, had given me—large nose and thick dark hair.
This did not help much, though I scoured the streets every time I was on them for a man matching such a description.
The basketmaker had suddenly taken his family to visit his mother in Ostia. This from the coppersmith in the next shop, who also had no information for me.
The Subura revealed even less, and I returned home, discouraged.
The day of Lupercalia dawned.
This festival for the purification of the city was so old few remembered how it began, but the populace, as usual, turned out to celebrate. In front of the cave where tradition had it that Romulus and Remus had been raised in infancy, two young men were anointed with blood from animals sacrificed there. Armed with strips of these animals’ flesh, they then began a sprint around the lower slopes of the Palatine, merrily striking out at those they passed.
I had walked to the Palatine to join the crowd for the festivities, but Cassia had declined to accompany me, saying she had things to put in order. I’d simply departed—we’d been stiff with each other since our argument.
Women thrust out hands and arms as the young men ran past, eager to be struck by the bloody strips, which conveyed fertility. The youths happily obliged.
One of the young men came at me. His eyes were wide under a forehead smeared with drying blood, his red mouth open in laughter. I tried to dodge, but he ran resolutely into me, stinging me on the forearm with his makeshift whip.
The woman next to me flung herself at him as the whip came down, managing to catch the end of it on her hand. She spun away, smiling.
I studied the tiny spatter of blood on my arm from the strip of animal flesh. I’d never thought about my own fertility—my focus in life thus far had been surviving to live another day.
As my skin tingled from the brief slap, I wondered if I would ever have children. A boy, perhaps, to dog my footsteps and listen to me drone on about building walls or traveling around Roman lands in exhibition bouts to cheering crowds. Or a daughter, one to buy pretty trinkets for and to hoist on my shoulders so she could watch the chariot races.
I shut down the thoughts. Children lived perilous lives—accidents and fevers took away so many, not to mention people ready to steal a child for the price he or she would bring. Parents grieved for children all the time, as Marcianus, who tried to save many of them, attested. Small stones erected up and down the Appian Way and other roads outside the walls were sad testaments to short lives.
A man’s hope for a child to carry on his name could quickly end in tragedy. Having a family was a frightening business.
And yet. I recalled the boy I’d found not long ago and taken to stay with Xerxes’ widow. I’d grown fond of him in the brief time I’d known him and had wanted to protect him. Marcella had children of her own, mites who were so like Xerxes, smiling and laughing as they tumbled about the place.
I told myself it was futile to contemplate having a boy or girl of my own when I was obligated to a benefactor I didn’t even know. What would this man or woman do if I suddenly decided to walk away and start a family?
Still, the phantom boy and girl I’d never have rose before me. The boy looked like I had as a youth, and the girl resembled Cassia …
Abruptly I tore myself from the crowd on the Palatine and went back down the hill, my thoughts tangled.
Once darkness had fallen that evening, I pulled on a clean tunic and trudged from our home to the Caelian Hill. Cassia made note of the time I left—the second hour of night—but she said nothing at all to me as I went, her lips tight.
I did not like Cassia angry at me, but I did not want to argue about this mission again. We needed to learn anything about Severina we could, and Severina had handed me a perfect opportunity.
I crossed the Forum Romanum and headed along the Sacra Via, past the Palatine on my right, and a marshy valley on my left. On the other side of the Palatine, I followed Severina’s bodyguard’s instructions and found the Clivus Scauri winding upward toward the small shrine of Minerva near the top of the Caelian.
The domii grew more opulent as I snaked up the hill, the homes wider and taller. Finally, they became true villas, surrounded by walls to keep out intruders.
I hesitated before the gate that led to Severina’s domus. Would she want her neighbors to see a gladiator knocking at the front door? I saw no other entrance, however, so I bashed at the gate with my fist.
The door quickly opened, Severina’s large guard with the shaved head peering out at me. He silently beckoned me inside, then marched me at a quick pace past the atrium and along a wide hall that ran the length of the right side of the house.
This was only one wing of the villa, I realized. The place was large enough to have several of those on both floors, probably divided into public and private quarters. As only Severina and her husband lived here, that meant plenty of unused rooms, rooms in which a gladiator could be secretly killed before being hauled off to the warehouse for butchering.
The body
guard took me to a triclinium that was several times the size of the one at Domitiana’s. Low tables, empty now, stood before three dining couches, which were strewn with cushions and silk throws.
I was the only person in the empty room, no sign of Severina. The bodyguard indicated I should take a place on the middle couch, where the most honored guests were seated.
He walked away before I settled myself to wait, his sandals making almost no noise on the polished mosaic floor.
I lounged on my side, my feet sticking out over the end of the sofa, my legs too long for it. I hoped Severina and any other guests would arrive soon because the comfortable couch made my tired eyes droop. My body seized upon any excuse to sleep.
Servants pattered quietly in, setting dishes of food and cups of wine on the tables. I didn’t touch them, remembering my promise to Cassia.
Severina kept me waiting for a long time. Oil lamps burned in holders shaped like flowers or fruit—one was a naked nymph who held the flame between her breasts. Another, I observed idly, was in the shape of a phallus, the flame coming out the business end.
I eyed the food—plain apricots, fried dough cases with unknown content, a salad with torn bread soaked in vinegar among cheese, nuts, and cooked eggs, all drizzled with honey.
My stomach rumbled with hunger, but I smelled garum in the salad, which kept my appetite at bay. I was an unusual Roman who didn’t like garum, the salty fish paste the highborn and lowborn alike smeared on everything.
Just as I contemplated taking an apricot away with me to test for poison, Severina glided into the room.
I had expected her to dress provocatively for this tryst, but she wore a modest stola belted under the breasts and at the waist, clasped at her shoulders with silver fibulae. The fabric was silk, full enough to drape over her in many folds. I imagined her maid had spent much time setting every pleat exactly. The tunic beneath bunched over the top of the stola, hiding her breasts.
A wig of tall dark curls arched up from Severina’s forehead, her own hair pulled sleekly back behind it, a few curls of it drooping to her neck. No different from what any Roman matron would wear to a formal dinner.
Severina waved away the two maids who’d followed her and faced me alone.
“You,” she said archly. Either she’d forgotten my name or did not think I deserved to be addressed by it. “Why have you eaten nothing? Do you believe my food tainted?”
I could not tell what was in her eyes. Did she taunt me? Or was she wary?
I rose from the couch and made a low bow to her. “I thought it rude to eat before you did, lady.”
“Oh.” She sounded pleased. “Sit. Do. You’re too tall for me to look up at. And eat.” Once I had reclined once more on the couch, she took up an apricot and held it to my lips.
There wasn’t much I could do but open my mouth. I saw the gleam of a lamp on the shaved head of her bodyguard and wondered if she’d have him beat me if I refused. I had confidence I could fight him, but then I’d be thrown out of the house and learn nothing.
I parted my lips. Severina slid the apricot into my mouth, brushing my tongue with her finger. She withdrew, and I chewed and swallowed.
I tasted nothing but apricot, a fine, ripe one. If it held poison, I couldn’t discern it.
Severina decided that feeding me was enjoyable. She seated herself next to me, her silk stola brushing my bare thigh with warmth. Morsels came at me: the pastry cases that enclosed spiced meat; almonds covered in honey; the vinegar-soaked bread. All of it was savory, the sweet nuts and cool bread a good match for the warm well-seasoned meat. Fortunately, she didn’t feed me the garum-soaked greens.
“I want you to be full and happy.” Severina shoved another almond into my mouth and licked honey from her fingers. “A sated man is a gentle man. You are so strong.” She ran a sticky palm over my upper arm, pressing at the muscle there.
Women liked to trace the arcs of my arms, finding the firmness of them pleasing. Usually, I didn’t mind, but I wondered if Severina concealed a pin in her hand to scratch the poison into me that way.
I felt nothing but the smoothness of her fingertips. The food all tasted as it should, nothing odd. I recognized that Severina had a talented cook.
The servants slid in to remove the empty dishes and serve the second course. They brought platters of meats with or without sauces; a dish that contained pork, spices, and mint; and pastry cases of all shapes and sizes including one of a phallus stuffed with ground nuts and cream. Severina laughed with excitement when she had me bite the top from that one. To me, it was nothing but fried dough and nuts, but her eyes flared with longing as I ate it.
Eventually, Severina grew tired of feeding me and began to drop food into her own mouth. She lifted the morsels high, parting her lips and lacing her tongue around them to pull them inside. I suppose she meant to entice me. When she obviously wanted me to feed her, I obliged, she licking my fingers at every chance she could.
Severina ate exactly the same food I did. None of it tasted wrong, and none was gilded.
Next came wine. More servants carried in jugs to pour wine without dilution into a series of cups. It was very good wine, and Severina drank plenty.
If Severina imbibed the same wine from the same jugs as I did, then any poison would be in the cup itself, put there before the servants brought it into the room. Instead of drinking from the fine gold vessel offered me, I seized Severina’s half-drunk cup and drained it myself.
She started, rage flickering across her face, then the anger cleared, and she laughed in delight. She called for more wine, which she poured across her neck and expected me to lick it clean.
As I did so, ignoring her pawing hands, jingling bells and the soft but steady beat of a drum announced that entertainment had arrived. A very familiar beating of a drum.
Once Severina finally released me—shoving me impatiently away—I sat up again and swiveled to survey the dancers.
I stilled for one heartbeat before I arranged my face in neutral lines. The musician was Gaius, tapping a wide drum tucked under his arm, and the dancer, clad in thin linen, bells on her wrists and ankles, was Merope.
Chapter 19
Gaius never looked at me, only watched Merope, keeping his beat steady. Merope had her eyes half-closed, dreamily following the music.
What were the chances that Gaius and Merope had managed to have themselves hired in this very house this very night? I had the feeling I knew exactly how Merope and Gaius had come by their invitation.
Cassia had been wise, I decided as I imbibed another cup of wine. If Severina sent in her men to kill me as I lay in a drunken stupor, Merope and Gaius could run for help. No one paid attention to dancers when they weren’t performing—they could slip out unnoticed.
Very wise.
“Pardon?” Severina was against me, her face near mine. Her breath smelled of garum.
I realized I’d mumbled the words out loud. “Fine,” I amended. “The meal is very fine.”
“Of course it is. What did you expect?” She sat up and clapped her hands, very loudly, next to my ear. “Clear it off. We’re tired of it. Bring the sweets.”
Severina collapsed against me as the servants scuttled in to remove the dishes as quickly as possible. The moment they disappeared, another set of lackeys scurried in with platters heaped with fruit and dates, more pastries coated with honey, and nuts broken and whole.
Severina drizzled honey from a pot onto my shoulder. “Let me feast on you.”
I held myself still while she cleaned my skin with her tongue. Gaius glanced swiftly at me then away.
Severina did this several more times. In between she pressed more wine on me, the rich taste making my head lighter and lighter.
After a time, Severina swung on Gaius and Merope, bringing her hands together in another loud clap.
“Enough,” she shouted. “Go. The noise is making my head ache.”
The drumming instantly ceased. Merope spun to a halt, gracefu
lly bowing low. Severina took no notice of her. Merope ran out to the passageway, jingling softly. Gaius, with another surreptitious glance at me, followed her.
The room quieted. The servants had gone, except for the bodyguard in deep shadow, his eyes glittering.
Was he waiting for a signal from his mistress? Ready to beat down the drunken gladiator and add him to the dead?
Severina took my cup of wine from me and swallowed the last dregs in it. Her lack of worry about drinking it made me conclude that perhaps Ajax and Rufus hadn’t been poisoned after all, only made so drunk on potent wine they’d been unable to fight.
My hostess threw her leg over mine and slid herself onto my body. Her stola hoisted itself to her hips, but her tunic beneath shielded her bare skin from me.
She began to kiss me, then to slither back and forth on my torso, as though she knew the theory of what to do with a man but hadn’t had much practice. I realized, as Severina went on, that she was simply drunk. She’d imbibed even more wine than I had.
I clutched her as she started to slide from me, fearing she’d smack her head on the table or the floor if she fell. Severina laughed, believing me amorous.
She covered my face and my neck with honey-sticky kisses, then she laid her head on my shoulder, stilling.
The bodyguard stared from the darkness, unmoving. I tensed under my intoxication, eying the table for any knife I might use for defense. We’d eaten with fingers only, however, the food cut into bite-sized portions in the kitchen, as was done in polite households.
After a moment, Severina began to snore.
I glanced down to find her eyes tightly closed and her mouth half-open, her breathing sonorous. A minute line of spittle trickled from the corner of her lips.
Footsteps sounded in the dark doorway. The bodyguard came to attention, then stepped back, fading from sight.
Severina’s husband, Tertius Vestalis Felix, entered the dining room. He approached the tables in a slow shuffle, as though he didn’t notice his wife draped over a huge gladiator on the dining couch. A shaky hand, skin almost transparent, reached for the almonds and scooped up a few.
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