Chapter 3
I rose abruptly from my stool, barely stopping myself from pushing Lucius out the door to entrust his life to Fortuna. I did not want whoever was hunting him to follow him here, endangering Cassia, not to mention everyone else in this lane.
“How much did Herminius believe you stole?” I asked sternly.
“Oh, about a hundred aurei. Not all in coins. In goods as well.”
Cassia gaped, and my chest constricted. A hundred aurei was twenty-five hundred denarii, which could rent a man a fine domus with slaves to run it, or keep him in sumptuous cloaks, gold armbands, and the best wine for years.
Lucius watched us with hope in his eyes. He’d come to Rome certain Xerxes would solve his problems, only to find his brother dead and no one to aid him. He tried to mask his desperation behind his swagger, but the worry was there.
If Lucius couldn’t prove his innocence, well he knew, he’d die either by a hired killer’s knife or by sentence of execution.
We might face that execution with him, depending on how angry his former master was. The wisest course of action would be to send Lucius off and wish him well.
But he looked at me with Xerxes’s eyes, with Xerxes’s certainty that all would come out right.
There is nothing that can stand up to Leonidas and Xerxes. I heard my friend’s voice from the past, felt his hard slap on my shoulder.
Then Xerxes would turn and face the bullies who’d challenged us in the streets, raising his arms and bellowing like an enraged bear. I’d stand quietly, arms folded, until the bullies, thinking better of their bravado, sidled away and fled.
Xerxes would laugh until he doubled over, fists pressed into his belly. Did you see their faces? I’m for the popina. Let’s drink until we can’t walk home.
Until the sword thrust that killed him, Xerxes’s optimism had never wavered.
His words and laughter faded, and our apartment came back into focus.
“How many people know Xerxes was your brother?” I asked.
Lucius shrugged. “A good many. I boasted of him all the time. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my puny little brother Manius had become a famous gladiator. I know one is not supposed to associate with gladiators if one wishes to get on in the world, but I couldn’t help myself. People were impressed.”
“If Herminius’s toughs followed you to Rome, they will guess you went to find him,” I said. “Septimius or Plinius, whichever guard at the ludus sent you to me, will tell anyone I was Xerxes’s friend, and see no reason not to. They told you.”
“It was Septimius,” Lucius answered. “He was as flummoxed to see me as you were, until I explained. Do you think he’ll send the ruffians here?” He rose, peering out of the windows in alarm.
The ledge beyond, which was the roof of the shop below, blocked the view of the street, but Lucius didn’t venture out for a closer look.
“Septimius won’t give up information without good reason,” I said. “But if you didn’t tell him you were in danger or ask him not to mention where you’d gone, he might not know to keep his mouth shut.”
People sometimes sought me when they had a problem to solve, and the guards at the ludus would send them to me without worry.
Lucius withdrew into the shadows. “I apologize, Leonidas. I never meant danger to follow me here. I’ll go.” He sucked in a breath. “Not certain where, but I’ll find something. I’ve navigated remote caravan towns without mishap, and surely, I can navigate Rome. I’m resourceful.”
“There is one place he might hide,” Cassia said.
I sent her a quizzical glance. “The ludus? Aemil might not let him stay. He told me last time he was tired of taking in my strays. Besides, him looking so much like Xerxes won’t remain quiet for long.”
“Not the ludus.” Cassia spoke directly to me, bypassing Lucius. “Somewhere further afield.”
A place, in fact, we’d been discussing before Lucius blundered into our lives.
“Will it be safer?” I asked. “What about for Marcella?”
“Would the gate guards have mentioned her? Did they know about her?”
“No,” I answered. “They knew Xerxes had taken a wife, but not who she was or where she lived. Xerxes told only Aemil and me. And Marcianus.”
“Very few then.” Cassia gave me a nod. “We may trust Aemil and Marcianus.”
The medicus Nonus Marcianus was the cleverest man I knew and also the wisest. Only Cassia could match him in both areas, and I was beginning to believe Cassia could best him.
Aemil was close-mouthed about anything concerning his gladiators, glaring those asking questions to silence. He’d been the champion of his day and now kept his band of unruly gladiators together with a firm hand. He would give Marcella’s name to no one.
Lucius regarded us in amazement. “Xerxes had a wife? Who the devil is she?”
“A kind woman,” Cassia said. “Though I do not believe she will shield you only for your brother’s sake. She will expect you to pay your way.”
Marcella, who’d ruled Xerxes with her good humor and gentle authority, could always use money and wasn’t shy about asking a fair price.
“Of course,” Lucius said readily. “Where is this creature? I must meet her.”
“Not far,” Cassia said. “We should leave now, before the gates are shut for the night.”
Cassia made Lucius surrender his cloak. The red would shine like a beacon, attracting not only those who hunted him, but every thief on the road.
She folded it neatly into a bundle that she stuffed into a cloth bag before handing him my old woolen cloak. It was too warm for cloaks at all, but Lucius readily exchanged his light one for my heavier garb.
“Should have done it sooner,” he said as he shouldered the bag.
He’d brought little else with him, he told us, using the coins in his pouch to buy food and drink each day, as well as places to sleep for the night.
How he hadn’t been robbed before this, I didn’t know. A man who wore gold and silk and could buy anything he needed should have brigands surrounding him. I wondered why he hadn’t.
Lucius was good with a story, a raconteur, like his brother, and I sensed he wasn’t giving us the entire truth. I would have to watch him.
We left the apartment, me locking up behind us, and made our way down the Quirinal. The forums at the base of the hill were quieter now, most businesses shut for the day. My banker at the Basilica Julia had gone, the arcade where he’d set his bench, silent.
I led the way along the Sacra Via, skirting the base of the Palatine.
I thought I felt the eyes of Nero upon us from the hill, though I knew he was probably bathing, dining, practicing his lyre, or whatever he did in the afternoons.
We could only see the tops of his domus walls from the road, in any case.
We turned at a crossroads into the valley between the Palatine and Caelian hills and moved onward to the Porta Capena, east of the Circus Maximus.
I usually hired a donkey for Cassia to ride when we visited Marcella, but she insisted we didn’t have time to seek one.
I recalled how, when Cassia had first arrived in Rome, she’d been unsteady walking across its uneven and rutted pavements.
She’d been raised in a villa in Campania, where walks meant rambles along carefully curated paths or along an ambulatory, a colonnaded walkway where residents of large houses could take their strolls protected from the weather.
I wasn’t certain Cassia’s sandals were sturdy enough for a five-mile journey out of the city and back, but she trudged along, wrapped in her cloak, her squared shoulders daring me to say a word.
The days were longer this close to the Ides of May, and I calculated we’d have three or so hours of light left to reach Marcella’s farm. We departed through the open Porta Capena against the stream of people coming in, they happy to reach the relative safety of Rome before dark.
The city had long since spilled beyond its oldest walls, and plenty of shops and dwellings hugged the road beyond them, along with tombs of prominent families, as no one was allowed to be buried inside Rome itself.
These buildings thinned before we branched away from the Via Appia to the Via Latina, which led us south and east.
Lucius walked next to me, swiveling his head this way and that to take in the views across fields.
He could not be a more obvious tourist, with sturdy boots and a fine tunic, barbered hair and trimmed nails.
Even wearing my old cloak, none could mistake him for anyone but a wealthy man off his patch.
I stayed close to him and kept a wary eye out for any thieves who might lurk behind every bush, tree, and boulder.
Unlike the Via Appia, which was arrow-straight, the Via Latina wound over hills and under aqueducts, following river valleys. Mount Algidus rose before us, a sharp ridge against blue sky, shadowed by puffs of clouds.
Just before we reached the road that led up its slopes, we turned down a narrower track and moved between hills bearing the lush green of spring.
“Not used to all this vegetation,” Lucius told us. “I’ve spent the last few years in the eastern provinces, much of which is dusty desert. Though the mountains can be beautiful and the oases bursts of astonishing color.”
He tilted his head back to enjoy it all, seeming oblivious of any danger.
By the way Cassia slowed her pace as we neared our destination, I knew that her feet ached. When we reached the track that dipped to Marcella’s farm, Cassia rested on a fallen boulder, dislodging pebbles from one sandal.
“We should warn her.” Cassia nodded toward the farmhouse below. “Go on ahead, Leonidas. I will stay with Lucius until you signal.”
While I didn’t want to leave her with a man I’d just met and didn’t trust, I saw sense in her suggestion. To spring Lucius, who looked exactly like her deceased husband, upon Marcella, would be little short of cruel.
I agreed and tramped down the hill.
“What a peaceful place,” I heard Lucius say behind me. “No fear of barbarians popping over the ridge to invade the trading station while you wonder where the protecting legions are.”