Chapter 2
Wine flowed around me like blood, the amphora’s shards cutting into my arms and back. The wine merchant cursed. The merchant’s wife began shouting, not at me, but at the merchant for leaving the amphora in the way of my large body.
A broad hand came toward me, offering to help me stand.
I stared up into the face of my closest friend, dead almost three years.
His features blurred. When they settled again, I noted that this man’s skin was browner than Xerxes’s had been, as though he habitually baked himself in the sun. His lip bore a scar on the left side, an old one I’d never remembered Xerxes having.
The scar made his grin slightly lopsided, but I noted a watchfulness in his eyes that his smile couldn’t conceal.
I grasped the hand, which was strong but lacked the fighting power I remembered. Xerxes might reach to help a man to his feet and then toss him across the room, just to prove he could.
This man did not have that skill. It was his grip, more than anything else, that told me he was not Xerxes.
I released him as soon as I was steadily upright. The cool brush of his cloak across my arm revealed that the garment was indeed lined with silk, as the wine merchant had said.
“Who are you?” I croaked.
Before he could reply, a gasp sounded behind me. “What happened?” Cassia strode into the shop, taking in the shattered amphora and the wine-covered floor in dismay.
“Entirely my fault,” the man who was not Xerxes said cheerfully. “I came upon Leonidas too suddenly, and he must have thought he’d seen a dead man. Who are you, fair lady?”
No one answered him. I stepped in front of Cassia, shielding her from his sudden interest.
“How do you know me?” I asked, my voice hardening. “And know to seek me here?”
“Gate guard at the ludus across the river sent me. I discovered, Mercury defend us, that my brother was dead, and that Leonidas the Spartan would know all.” The man looked me up and down. “You’re no Spartan. I’d swear you are part Gaul.”
“Xerxes had no brothers,” I said stubbornly.
The man gave me a nod. “He did. Hurtful that he never spoke of me, but we’ve been separated for a decade and more. Hard to recall I had a brother myself, to be honest. His name wasn’t Xerxes then.”
Cassia spoke behind me. “What is yours?”
“Lucius Aelius,” the man proclaimed. “My brother was called Manius.”
Manius Aelius. I’d never known that. I’d met him only after he’d become Xerxes, and he’d never told me his original name.
“Why have you come?” Cassia asked as I stared mutely at Lucius. “If you haven’t seen your brother in many years, why seek him now?”
“Ah.” Lucius glanced about uncomfortably. “As to that, perhaps I can speak to Leonidas directly. I passed a tavern on my way up the hill …”
“Upstairs.” I jabbed my finger at the ceiling then turned and marched out of the wine shop, herding Cassia before me.
“There is the matter of the wine,” the merchant’s wife informed me loudly. “Five denarii of it.”
“I will pay you, good woman,” Lucius said as he followed me. “Let me speak with Leonidas, then I will come down and settle up.”
The merchant’s wife did not appear happy to be addressed as good woman, but she only scowled as I ducked past her and into the street.
Cassia climbed the stairs ahead of me to our apartment, and I came directly behind her, putting myself between her and the newcomer. Once we entered, I stood aside to admit him then closed the door and planted myself in front of it.
Lucius glanced over our small space, taking in the bunk filling the back wall, where Cassia had neatly folded my blankets. Her pallet was tucked away on a shelf behind a curtain. The shutters were still open, admitting a warm breeze and the noise of the street below.
The table, flanked by two stools, a third in the corner for visitors, was covered with tablets, papyrus, ink bottles, and styluses. Cassia had apparently abandoned whatever she’d been studying to see what had caused the commotion in the shop.
Lucius regarded the accouterments in some surprise, but whether because he hadn’t thought either of us could write or because everything was stacked tidily, I couldn’t decide.
He switched his gaze to the shelf above our altar, which held the rudis, the wooden sword I’d been given the day I’d been freed. A flat bronze hand studded with semiprecious stones reposed next to it.
“This is exquisite,” Lucius said with respect, reaching up to touch the flat hand, its bronze green with time. “Who did you trick it out of?”
He flicked his attention over the rest of the apartment again, as though comparing our poor lodgings to the obviously expensive trinket.
“It was a gift,” I said stiffly. A man called Priscus had rewarded Cassia and me with it for saving his son, a fact this stranger didn’t need to know.
Cassia busied herself setting cups on the table and filling them with rich white wine from the shop below. She diluted the wine with water then slid one cup toward Lucius.
“Please, sir. Drink.” Cassia seated herself behind the table. She opened an unused tablet, took up a stylus, and began to write rapidly.
“Who are you?” Lucius asked her, diverted from the bronze hand. “A lovely lady who can read and write, who shares rooms with a gladiator?”
His voice was like Xerxes’s, as was the quirk of his brows and the hint of speculating smile. I’d laughed whenever Xerxes teased me about my conquests, but for some reason I wanted to punch Lucius’s smug face.
“This is Cassia.” My lips were so tight I could barely speak. “She is a scribe.”
Lucius’s brows climbed. A scribe? he mouthed then shrugged as though he’d allow me to explain her any way I wished.
“Why are you here?” I asked him. “Xerxes is dead.” My chest burned as I spoke the words, but this man was too glib, not grieving enough, in my opinion.
“I came to seek his help.” Lucius lifted the cup Cassia had offered and sank down to my stool. His cloak fluttered, revealing the blaring-red lining. “I had no idea he’d gone to Elysium. Or to Hades. I’m not sure where he believed he’d end up.”
“He was killed in the games,” I stated. “He lost focus on his opponent and paid the price.”
I was never certain exactly what had happened, because I didn’t witness the fight. I’d been having an injury tended to after my own bouts in the Circus Gai when I’d seen the men drag Xerxes past me.
I don’t remember exactly what I did after that. I recalled Aemil pulling me away from Xerxes’s body and shoving me toward the arena to fight my next match. After the games were over, he’d poured foul drink down my throat until I’d been insensible and then locked me into my cell.
“Ah, poor Manius.” Lucius swallowed wine then studied the liquid appreciatively. “A good vintage. Is it Falernian?”
“Alban,” Cassia answered. She kept her eyes demurely downcast, but she wrote firmly, betraying her disapproval.
She’d not given him the Caecuban, the exquisite vintage our wealthy friend Sextus Livius supplied us with. I could always tell what Cassia thought of whoever came through our door by which wine jug she reached for.
“Expensive wine, rare trinkets, your own scribe.” Lucius drained the cup and grinned at me. “How do you manage it, Leonidas? Maybe I ought to turn gladiator.”
“You would be cut down in your first bout.” This assessment did not come from my anger at him, but from experience. He didn’t have the temperament or natural skill of Xerxes and would be useless in regulated combat.
“Probably.” Lucius shrugged good-naturedly. “Didn’t do Manius any good, did it, poor fellow? And made things worse for me. I counted on his help.”
Darkness at last crept into his eyes, driving away his sunny expression.
“Help with what?” I asked with caution.
Lucius let out a sigh. “That is a long tale.”
I scraped the extra stool from the wall and sat firmly on it. “There is time. It is only the seventh hour.”
Lucius assessed me, then placed his now-empty wine cup on the table. “If you wet my throat a little more, Cassia, I will tell you.”
“Manius and I were born in a little village in Etruria, near Florentia.” Lucius had moved his stool so he could lean against the wall near the window, legs stretched out as he began.
“Nobody’s ever heard of the village, and I’ve forgotten its name, myself.
A track with a few pigs wandering through.
Manius and I were slave born, and we worked for a farmer there, as far back as I remember.
Our parents were sold, or died—we were never told which—so we never knew them. ”
He paused for a sip of wine, his lips trembling slightly. The faint scratch of Cassia’s stylus filled the silence.
“When we grew older and sturdier, we were sold,” Lucius continued.
“Manius, who was always very strong, went to another farmer with a larger landholding south of Florentia. Since I’d proved to be clever with counting and numbers, I was purchased by a silk merchant in Florentia called Julius Herminius. ”
Lucius lifted a fold of his cloak, displaying the sumptuous fabric under the serviceable wool.
“In the beginning, I helped with what you’d expect a slave to do—carrying bundles about the warehouse, loading wagons, keeping the weavers supplied with fibers or whatever they needed. Eventually, I learned how to mend and then build the weaving frames.
“Herminius began taking me on his journeys to where he acquired his silk, at first across the sea to Illyricum, then further, to Athens and Pergamum, and as I proved my worth, all the way to Antioch. There, he’d meet with men who came from a long way east and exchange money and goods for the cloth.
When he realized I was good at bargaining, he let me help him with that, too.
Herminius would play the solemn merchant, while I’d be the clever slave, making the other merchants laugh to soften the mood. I gained the man quite a bit of money.”
Lucius paused once more, this time to look smug. Cassia exchanged a glance with me but said nothing, bending to her writing again.
“As years passed my master sent me to these exchanges on my own, trusting me to deliver the goods. I made certain to never fail him. I brought him exactly what he’d ordered, and a few extra trinkets besides, which I could convince the cloth traders to throw in from time to time.
Herminius then wished to send me further east, on my own, to see what riches I might bring him. ”
“Why on your own?” I asked. Men who dealt with money and goods were very careful, I’d observed.
“Herminius didn’t like to travel. The moaning I put up with all the way to Antioch was excruciating.
” Lucius rolled his eyes. “He hated the dust of the roads and sleeping in a tent in foul weather and longed for his plush villa outside Florentia. As I seemed to revel in the journeys, he decided he’d send me in his stead.
I went first to Palmyra and then into Parthia, along the Euphrates, all the way to Ctesiphon.
“Because he needed me to go far without him, he decided to free me. A slave traveling alone could be arrested, stolen, killed—all number of things—and Herminius would be out the price of me. So, I became a freedman and head merchant of his eastern branch of the business. As you see me.”
Lucius spread his hands, light flashing on a thin gold armlet that his cloak had hidden.
“What went wrong?” I asked.
A flash of anger lit Lucius’s eyes before he tried to hide it. “Why do you suppose something went wrong?”
“Because you are here in Rome searching for Xerxes instead of in Ctesiphon becoming richer,” I pointed out.
“The very perceptive Leonidas. Of course it went wrong. The gods become annoyed when a cocksure slave becomes a cocksure freedman and begins to reap rewards. I sent every sestertius I made for Herminius back to him, keeping only my commission and fees. But oh, Leonidas, Cassia, what joys I’ve experienced!
A well-respected merchant in my own right, traveling the roads of the eastern realms. What sights I’ve seen. ”
He pressed his hand to his chest, like an overweening actor. Cassia and I exchanged another glance, this one exasperated.
Lucius exhaled sharply. “But, of course, when a slave is freed and made a trusted partner in a lucrative business, jealousies will abound. Herminius had a manager for his eastern business, one Drusus Fulvius, but the man had grown lazy and hedonistic, enjoying his luxuries instead of working to make Herminius richer still. I made more connections, more trades, more money than Fulvius, and so displaced him. Resentment built.”
All traces of cheerfulness deserted him, and Lucius’s expression became haunted.
“Fulvius and his cronies decided to form a conspiracy against me. They accused me of methodically stealing from Herminius over the years, and Hades take them, they compiled all sorts of evidence. Faked, of course, but I was useless to prove it.
“Herminius believed the reports and told his guards—vicious ruffians—to find me. The pack of them tried very hard to kill me, and I knew I’d better take to my heels.
I can move quickly when I’m alone, and I came here to Rome, to find Xerxes to help me.
How fortunate, I thought, when one is beset by enemies, to have a gladiator for a brother. But then …”
Lucius trailed off, becoming an ordinary person who’d been met with the stunning news of his brother’s death.
“Why not return to Herminius and explain?” Cassia asked, her quiet voice breaking the silence. “If you have been sending Herminius all the money he is owed, you can show him your records.”
Lucius grimaced. “As to that, Fulvius had been skimming money from Herminius himself, and he fiddled with accounts to make it look as though I’d done it.
I didn’t keep books of my own, trusting Herminius’s scribe to do that.
Unluckily for me, the scribe was in the pay of Fulvius and was happy to throw me to the wolves. ”
Cassia raised her head in shock, which I knew was at the fact that Lucius hadn’t kept records.
“What did you expect Xerxes to do?” I asked. “He was a good fighter but committed to the ludus and owned by Aemil.”
Lucius regarded me in bewilderment. “Truly? The gladiators I knew in the provinces were allowed to go where they pleased, as long as they fought in the games. Some had their own homes and families. I imagined I’d have Xerxes to look after me while I figured a way out of my conundrum.”
I’d witnessed the relative freedom of well-known gladiators in my youth as I’d followed my builder from town to town in the rural areas north of Rome.
Aemil, on the other hand, kept close guard on us because we were expensive and would cost him much if we were injured, killed, or arrested.
He’d been somewhat less restrictive with Xerxes, allowing him to spend nights at Marcella’s farm, but Xerxes had never missed training or bouts.
“In any case, Xerxes is gone,” Lucius said mournfully. “Herminius’s henchmen have followed me to Rome. I don’t know if they mean to give me to the magistrates or simply kill me.” He turned a fearful gaze on the pair of us. “What are we going to do?”