Blood of a Gladiator

by Ashley Gardner

  “How can I prove who killed Floriana?” I asked. “I wasn’t here. Lucia knows, but she has fled.” I remembered how afraid she’d been, fearing the killer would be after her too.

  “She might know.” Cassia had taken up her basket and now wrapped her cloak around her shoulders, preparing to fetch our breakfast. “She could have given Floriana the poison herself, for whatever reason. You sleep soundly, Leonidas. You would not have heard her rise.” Her cheeks reddened as she said this, shy about that aspect of life.

  I made myself return the rudis to its shelf. “I agree she could have poisoned Floriana, but I don’t know why she’d want to. Floriana divided the spoils among her women, and protected them.”

  “There is perhaps no obvious reason,” Cassia said. “So we must discover another possible explanation—if one exists. We will find out who killed Floriana and put the information into the hands of someone who can help. Priscus, or Nonus Marcianus, the medicus. He seems trustworthy and intelligent.”

  I agreed. Marcianus was a respected citizen, even if he’d descended so far as to treat gladiators. He did so not only because Aemil paid well, but he said he learned much about the body and its ills by so frequently stitching up injured men.

  Cassia departed after that, leaving me to stew, and soon brought home bread and cheese, dried grapes and figs. The weather had grown colder with the year’s end, and now there was rain. Drops began to patter on the balcony as Cassia returned, and became a deluge as we ate. Cold wind flowed past the shutters to our unheated room.

  I finished my meal quickly and prepared to go out, my worry and the cold making me want to move.

  “How I can possibly learn what happened on a day I wasn’t in Rome?” I asked. I had pulled on a clean tunic while Cassia was shopping, and now I put on boots she had brought home the day before against the rain. I tucked a knife into my belt, one I hadn’t been able to reach when Regulus stormed in. That had been a miscalculation.

  Cassia was already tidying. “Visit Floriana’s house. Ask her neighbors about any odd visitors, or any person who might have threatened her. Find out exactly where she was killed and look for eye witnesses.”

  “In Rome?” I let out a laugh. “Any who watched the entire thing beginning to end will suddenly turn blind and deaf. They don’t want to go to court or be marked for murder themselves.”

  “Then we must ask subtly.”

  “I’m a gladiator, not a trained man of law. I don’t know how to be subtle.”

  Cassia gave me one of her assessing looks. “I believe you better at it than you believe. You have to make many decisions in a fight, don’t you? I’ve seen you battle a few times now, even if only brawls, but you don’t lash out. You calculate, and attack to win.”

  Of course I did—that was my training.

  “Men of law do the same thing,” Cassia said. “Except with words.”

  “I don’t know these words. Unless you mean I should shake witnesses until they tell me what I want to learn.”

  I half-joked, but Cassia considered my suggestion before dismissing it. “I suppose not—a person would say anything until you ceased. Make conversation with people, as though you are merely gossiping. Remember everything anyone says and tell me exactly.”

  She had to be mad, but she regarded me in all seriousness.

  I refused the cloak Cassia suggested I take. It would hamper me, and the rain would wash my body until I was able to go to the baths.

  I left Cassia sorting through her tablets and clumped down the stairs into the street. I’d do as she said and visit Floriana’s and then check on Priscus again. I hoped his house had better door bolts than mine.

  The rain had lessened, but it came down hard enough to keep most people inside or scurrying from building to building. The roads flowed like rivers, the curved pavement encouraging the water along to gutters that would drain into the sewers beneath our feet.

  I walked across the streets on stones that stuck up for this purpose, having to join a line of pedestrians to do so. There weren’t many crossings, and we all had to file along one behind the other.

  The Subura was as busy as ever, those who lived here not having the luxury of waiting out the rain. They worked or they starved.

  The door to Floriana’s lupinarius was open. I ducked inside, glad for the rain to cease drumming on my head, and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dimness.

  The air held mustiness. The shutters had been closed, retaining an odor of burned oil and unemptied slops.

  I heard a noise in the back of the house. Not from an animal or trapped bird—a person had made that sound, a thump of a fist on a wall.

  Cautiously I made my way down the hall, my fingers around the knife I’d tucked into the pouch on my belt. I sprang silently into the end room, Floriana’s, knife ready to strike.

  A man inside, small with dark curling hair touched with gray, a toga wrapped carelessly around his frame, turned with a jerk, and then screamed.

  Chapter 12

  I lowered the knife and stared at the man without recognition.

  He adjusted his toga and peered past me, as though calculating whether he could get around me and out the door. In his left hand, the one half-tangled in the toga, he held a string with a lead weight tied to it. A tiny thing, nothing one could use as a weapon.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “I could say, who are you, young man?” He looked me up and down with no recognition in return. “You are the intruder, sir.”

  “I am Leonidas.” I saw no reason to lie. “I was a … friend to Floriana.”

  “One of her customers, you mean.” In spite of his fear, his eyes took on a knowing twinkle. “Former customer, that is. The poor woman was brutally murdered.”

  “I know. I am trying to discover who struck her down.”

  I could imagine Cassia’s disappointment at my frankness, but I’d warned her I was not subtle.

  The man raised thick brows that seemed to perch on the edge of his forehead. “Are you? Well, good luck to you. Probably a robbery. No one is safe on the streets at night, or in a morning fog.”

  I gestured at the lead weight in his hand. “That is a plumb bob.”

  His surprise grew. “It is indeed. Are you a builder? You look more like a gladiator.”

  “You don’t attend the games?”

  He shuddered. “Too gruesome for me. I know it shows my lack of courage, but I invent excuses when my friends press me to go. I prefer buildings. Dangerous in their own way, but when handled correctly, perfectly peaceful.”

  I agreed. “Are you measuring these walls?”

  “I am. I’m an architectus. Gnaeus Gallus. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?” He watched me hopefully.

  “No.”

  Gallus’s face fell. “Ah, well. I try for fame, but I am no Vitruvius. Maybe if I worked on great public buildings instead of former lupinari in the Subura, I might make my name. But it is the brickwork and concrete beneath the marble that render the buildings sound.”

  “I know.” I ran my hand along the bricks that showed under the flaking wall paintings. “I once worked for a master builder.”

  Gallus eyed me doubtfully. “As a quarryman? You appear to be strong enough.”

  “As an apprentice.” So long ago, the days almost forgotten in the blur of training, sleeping, fighting, staying alive.

  I recalled my master’s sonorous voice as he explained about lifting bolts and the precise fitting of blocks, how the Greeks had built the Parthenon steps in a slight curve so that the entire edifice appeared straight to the eye. How to design walls with a lip on top to hold a wooden ceiling mold so the corridor could be used even while the concrete was being poured to form the barrel vault above.

  Memories long suppressed returned to me in a flash. I’d done all I could to blot them out after my arrest. To remember days of contentment had made my time in the dark prison even more horrific.

  “Intriguing,” Gallus said, scattering my thoughts.
“Then you’ll appreciate what a mess this house is.” He lifted the plumb line to a corner and grimaced as the bob swung out crookedly. “I am inspecting the place to see what can be done with it.”

  “Why?” I asked, perplexed.

  “Because I was hired to, that’s why. If you are going to stand in my way, will you put away your knife and hold a few things? The boy who assists me was ill today.”

  Gallus bent to a corner and lifted a box that contained tools, a straight edge, and tablets like those Cassia used, and thrust it at me.

  “I mean, why are you here?” I persisted without moving. “Not your apprentices or workers?” An architectus was usually too grand to do the menial work himself.

  “Because I like to study a building for myself. See how it hums.” Gallus pressed his hand to the wall, his thumb landing next to a lurid painting of two women giving a man fellatio. Gallus didn’t appear to notice. “This wall is whimpering a bit. We will have to shore it up if we don’t knock it down entirely.”

  I tucked away my knife and took the box, heavy for its size. “Someone has inherited the house?” I wasn’t certain whether Floriana, or her husband in Etruria, had owned the building or if Floriana had rented it, or worked for whoever owned or rented it. So many things I didn’t know.

  “Purchased it. He’s had his eye on the place a long time. A prime area for shops, I suppose. One day I’ll be lucky and land a commission for a decent temple. My masterpiece in carved marble.”

  “I thought you said the brickwork and concrete were more important.”

  “Ha. Cheeky, aren’t you? A man can still wish to make his name, and temples and public buildings are how that is accomplished.” He sighed. “I suppose Gnaeus Gallus, designer of shops, will have to do.”

  “Who purchased the building?” I asked. This was the sort of information Cassia would want.

  “Haven’t met the fellow, only seen letters brought by his scribe. Chap called Sextus Livius.”

  I’d never heard of him, but I noted the name in my head.

  I followed Gallus as he wandered from room to room, looking over walls, studying cracks in the ceiling, clicking his tongue in disapproval. The silence of the place unnerved me. I was used to the laughter of men and women, squeals of pleasure real or feigned, voices arguing, joking, or simply conversing.

  The house was empty, bedding gone, no possessions left behind. Someone had cleared it out quickly. I thought of Lucia, terrified, fleeing the city, carrying little. What had happened to Floriana’s things, and her money?

  These questions flitted through my head as I followed Gallus about. Toting the box, watching Gallus test the solidness of a door frame or examine cracks in the ceiling, brought back a long-forgotten time. I was a youth again, listening to my master growl, “Hand me that leveler, and be quick about it.”

  He’d been impatient, brusque, hard, and brilliant. Dead now, buried under one of his own creations, and I’d been sentenced to the games for it.

  Gallus finished his tour of Floriana’s domain and gazed down the hall from the front door. “Much work to be done, but it can be managed. Livius might want the whole thing pulled down, but I think the walls are sound.”

  I agreed. If the beams were reinforced, the roof could be saved as well.

  “Thank you for your assistance, Leonidas.” Gallus retrieved the box from my big hands. “Was I right that you are a gladiator?”

  “Was.”

  “Ah. What will you do now that you no longer bash other gladiators?”

  “Bodyguard,” I said at once.

  “Pity. If you’ve been trained by a master builder, I might have a place for you, depending on what you learned from him. You’ve helped me well today, and you know about the business. Consider it.”

  I could only stare at him. Gallus had no duplicity in his eyes, and he threw out the suggestion offhand. Very few talked to me as he’d done today, about ordinary things, builder’s things. We’d fallen easily into conversation when he’d asked my opinion on the straightness of a wall, or cracks in the floor.

  He might only want me to fetch and carry for him, but the thought of working once more on a builder’s site was mixed. On the one hand, I longed for it. On the other, it terrified me.

  Gallus waited for my answer, so I nodded. “I will consider.”

  “Excellent. Good day, Leonidas. You’ll find my shop on the Clivus Pullius.”

  He waved and breezed out, leaving me alone and troubled.

  I pondered what to do next. I’d instructed Celnus not to let Priscus or his son leave his house without summoning me. Celnus did not like me, it was apparent, but he did see that I was useful in protecting his master.

  I’d not be protecting him, however, if Regulus whipped up the rumor that I’d murdered Floriana. I needed a way to prove without doubt I did not.

  Thoughts spun in my head, and no solutions put themselves forward. Regulus had derided my new life—So this is freedom? he’d said.

  At the ludus, things had been simple. I trained, ate, slept, did what I was told, and was allowed out on a limited basis, and then only after I’d proved my reliability.

  Now I had to worry about too many things at once—who had murdered Floriana, and would I be blamed? Who’d endangered Priscus, and would they try again? How could I, one man, keep him safe? If Nero was so worried, why not send a contingent of Praetorians to watch his every move?

  Cassia had told me to ask questions, but ask them of whom? I wanted to hunt up the vigile who’d invaded our house and demand he tell me what he knew—he must have hovered near Floriana’s that morning for a reason.

  I also remembered the Praetorian Guard I’d spoken to on the Palatine—Severus Tullius. He’d been friendly, and he might know details about Floriana’s murder, or be able to find out. The Praetorians closely watched all that happened in Rome in order to keep the imperial family safe.

  After this inner debate, which came to no conclusion, I decided to walk through the rain to the Aventine, taking streets that skirted the Oppian and Caelian hills, past the great valley of the Circus Maximus, and to the narrow streets at the bottom of the Aventine Hill. I regretted not bringing the cloak now as I constantly wiped rain out of my eyes.

  When I reached a fountain where three bronze fish shot water into a broad pool, I turned to a tiny lane and found the sign of twining snakes, indicating Nonus Marcianus, physician.

  Marcianus had turned his back on a soft life to treat gladiators, which he said was much more interesting, and set up a small office on the Aventine, where most of his patients couldn’t give him coin for his help. Aemil paid him, but not as much as Marcianus would have made treating the ailments and digestive complaints of people in his own class.

  I had no way of knowing whether Marcianus was home or at Aemil’s ludus but the shop was open so I walked inside, ducking under an awning.

  Marcia, carrying a basin of water, dropped it when she saw me, and the basin shattered, sending a wave of water over my boots.

  “Look what you made me do.” Marcia, who’d always been timid, planted fists on hips and glared up at me. “You’re a lout, Leonidas.”

  “Never mind.” Nonus emerged from a cubbyhole in the back, his expression welcoming. “I have another basin … somewhere.”

  “I know where it is.” Marcia shot me a scowl and started up a narrow staircase in the corner.

  “She’s been a great help to me,” Marcianus said. I wasn’t certain if he meant the words as an apology or a defense of her.

  “I came to see Marcia, in fact,” I said.

  Marcianus’s good humor faded. “Why? She’s my assistant now, not a bed slave.”

  “Not for that.” Not since I’d woken the day of Floriana’s illness had I taken much interest in sating my needs. Even in my dreams I’d not found use for it. “To ask her about Floriana.”

  “Oh.” Marcianus contemplated me with less belligerence. “Why?”

  “So I won’t be accused of her death.”


  “I see.” Marcianus rubbed his thin hair. “But you fetched me when Floriana was ill.”

  “I could have timed it so you would have arrived too late. I was unlucky that I calculated wrong.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “Cassia thought of that, did she?”

  Regulus had said it, but I didn’t want to talk about Regulus. I offered him a little shrug.

  “Cassia has much intelligence, especially for one so young,” Marcianus said. “Treat her gently, Leonidas.”

  I had no reason not to, but I was too unnerved to argue. “If others believe this, or try to prove I killed Floriana before I left for Ostia …” I firmed my mouth. “I’m not going back to the games.”

  Marcianus gave me a conceding nod. “I understand. You are a good fighter, my friend, but I know your heart wasn’t in it.”

  Aemil had expected me to kill men I’d helped train, fighters I’d grown to like and respect. Occasionally I’d faced a hated rival, but mostly my opponents were men I’d drunk with in companionship only days before.

  I was unable to put such thoughts into words. “I won’t go back.”

  Marcianus called up the stairs. “Marcia!”

  She clattered back down after a moment, clean basin in hand. I’d never taken Marcia to bed, as my tastes did not run to women who were barely more than girls. The stolla she wore today covered her more than the gauzy piece hanging from one shoulder she’d donned when she’d worked at the lupinarius. This stolla was thick linen and covered her from neck to ankles.

  She’d caught her thick brown hair in a tail at the back of her neck, exposing a fine-boned, pretty face, devoid of cosmetics. Marcia now looked like the daughter of a lower-class but respectable household instead of the youngest offering in a brothel.

  “Leonidas wishes to speak to you,” Marcianus said.

  Marcia set the basin on a table, her earlier hostility gone. She’d taken her change of circumstance easily, I could see, and regarded me serenely.

  “Did anyone come to Floriana the day she was killed?” I asked her. “Why did she go out? Did you go with her?”